Big Ten and ACC set to make moves on commissioners and NBA cautious over economic uncertainty
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This is your Morning Buzzcast for Wednesday, April 12th. Good morning, I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Big news on Tuesday around college commissioners as ESPN's Pete Thamel had two big reports that everyone was talking about. Early on Tuesday, he reported that a ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips is close to finalizing a three-year extension with the conference. Jim Phillips has been the league's commissioner since being named in December of 2020. He took over in February of '21. He is on a five-year contract, and he's about halfway into that deal.
Now, we know that Phillips was athletic director at Northwestern. He was rumored to be a leading candidate for the Big Ten job when it went to Kevin Warren instead. Now, there was a perceived threat that Phillips may be in line for the open Big Ten job, and that reportedly caused the ACC to move quickly to lock Phillips in for the long-term deal. Now, stability in college sports right now is key.
While I had not heard Jim Phillips' name come up much in the Big Ten search, it was clear that ACC presidents and chancellors didn't want to risk losing him to a rival conference, and there was a lot on Jim Phillips' plate left to do, including driving more revenue for the conference and relocating the ACC from Greensboro to Charlotte, so Jim Phillips in the fold with the ACC with a three-year extension coming soon.
Later on Tuesday, Pete Thamel reported that the Big Ten is set to hire former major league baseball and media executive Tony Petitti as the conference's next commissioner with an announcement coming soon. Now, Petitti reportedly emerged from a group of finalists who interviewed this week and was the leading candidate voted on by presidents and chancellors. Now, this one surprised me a bit because I had certainly not heard his name in the mix, but they kept this search very under wraps. Few names emerged as possible candidates.
Now, Tony Petitti has a long history of media experience and worked at baseball. He was a 40-under-40 honoree by SBJ in 2000. He is the former chief operating officer of MLB, but like I said, a deep background in media. He worked for ABC Sports. He worked for CBS and the MLB Network. Most recently, he was at Activision Blizzard, and then he joined the 33rd Team, which is a football analysis company founded by former NFL team executive Joe Banner and Mike Tannenbaum. Tony Petitti going to the Big Ten does continue a trend of recent hires from outside of college sports. Remember, you had Kevin Warren, who came from the Vikings. Brett Yormark went from Roc Nation to the Big 12. George Kliavkoff went from MGM Resorts to the Pac-12.
What does Tony Petitti have on his plate? Well, outside of the major issues surrounding college sports, his main Big Ten effort will revolve around absorbing both USC and UCLA into the conference over the next few years, but the media deal is done and he really now can operate a conference with much of the heavy-lifting accomplished, but he does need to integrate two big institutions. For now, it seems the conference commissioner landscape is set with Jim Phillips staying at the ACC, Tony Petitti to join the Big 10.
When I talk to brands and properties and agencies these days, they are all wrestling with trying to understand the business climate. First, there is this desire for a clear reality post-COVID. Are the shifts in strategy and approach, especially on the corporate brand side, are they long-term alterations or are they still temporary realignments due to the long tail of COVID? Also, the uncertainty of today's macroeconomic situation continues to impact decision-making. There remains a quiet confidence that the financial environment won't end up as dire as some early predictions of a long-term recession, but brands especially are still taking a conservative approach to marketing and reassessing spending when any return on investment is too difficult to prove.
Add the NBA into that conservative mix, because the NBA citing economic headwinds is being incredibly cautious as well. The New York Times is reporting today, on Wednesday, that the league has instructed staff to reduce expenses and significantly limit hiring for the rest of the year. A memo from the league's financial executives told managers and staff to pause on any new hires with limited exceptions and cancel some offsite meetings or hold them virtually. Travel, entertainment and other expense lines will be cut through the end of this year. The memo said that the NBA was facing a very different economic reality than the one it faced even just last year, and there are significant challenges for the league to meet its budget amid the economic risk that it's facing for the rest of the year.
The NBA acknowledged in a statement that it did send out this memo and that it's not immune to macroeconomic pressures and that it's taking steps to reduce expenses. I'll just say, once this memo becomes more amplified across the sports business, I think every industry and every business will reassess its budgeting for the rest of the year, so the NBA, showing great concern about the economic forecast, reducing expenses.
Let's move on to some viewership news as we have a bunch of items from SBJ's Austin Karp. First, if you watched the final round of the Masters on Sunday, you certainly weren't alone. The Masters drew its best final-round audience since 2018 as an average of 12.1 million viewers tuned in to watch Jon Rahm's impressive win. That is the best final round since Patrick Reed's one-stroke win in 2018. This year's final round is up nearly 20% from 10.2 million viewers for Scottie Scheffler's win last year, so the Masters with a big, big final round on Easter Sunday.
Austin Karp also reports that the NBA viewership this season was flat compared to last year across all its networks and any league will take flat viewership in this fragmented media environment. Karp also notes that the NCAA has a good viewership story to tell, and it's not just around the Women's Basketball tournament. The NCAA is seeing surprising strength around its Frozen Four Men's Hockey Championship as this past weekend its final averaged just over 800,000 viewers on ESPN2. That is up a hundred percent from last year. That's also the best hockey finals viewership since 2011, so very strong numbers for the Frozen four.
Next up, keep your eyes on the numbers for the NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship that'll take place this weekend, and they look to break last year's record-setting viewership when ABC averaged over 900,000 viewers. As the NCAA's package of media rights goes to the market, those bundled sports altogether, they're going to pull out the Women's Basketball Championship, but, still, the association seems to have a very good story to tell to media companies, and that story is that its broad range of events draws consistent and healthy viewership.
One other final no on ratings, do you think there is interest in this new talent entering the WNBA? Well, Monday night's WNBA draft was the most viewed draft since 2004. It drew over 570,000 viewers on ESPN. That is up 42% over last year, and it marks the second most watched WNBA draft on record, so very good numbers there, and it shows that people are familiar with these players and, if they keep watching these players in the WNBA, it will surely be a boost for that league.
I want to end on some news on the IndyCar Series as the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix is moving back to downtown Detroit for the first time since 1991. The race has been held for nearly 30 years on Belle Isle, which is outside of Detroit. They're bringing the race to downtown Detroit and, in order to build up enthusiasm and to showcase the efforts around the revitalized city of Detroit, Penske Corp. and Roger Penske, which operate the race will make more than half of the race's viewing areas free for fans.
Yes, that's right. More than half of the areas accessible to watch the race will be free. This is a street course race held from June 2nd to the 4th. The expected attendance for the race weekend is not clear, though officials hope to top a hundred thousand spectators for the weekend street course race. Ticket sales are tracking ahead so far of last year, but, again, more than half of its viewing areas for this race will be free for fans, so you'd like to see that, and it'll be very interesting to see how many fans take advantage of this offer.
That is your Morning Buzzcast for Wednesday, April 12th. I'm Abe Madkour. Thank you for listening to the Buzzcast. Stay healthy. Be good to each other. I hope to see you in California next week, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.