Sports' big weekend; NASCAR's closely watched season formally begins; It's back....XFL 3.0 and another government official moves into sports business
If you've been watching Full Swing on Netflix, let me know what you think. I have not caught it yet, but I've been reading the reviews. Mostly pretty good on it, but it's certainly popular. As of yesterday, it was the number three most watched show on the Netflix platform. That is pretty, pretty good.
The President's Day sports weekend, we have it all. NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, the Daytona 500, the relaunch of the XFL, and yes, the start of the sixth season of Major League Rugby. A lot going on. And that leads your Morning Buzzcast for Friday, February 17th.
Good morning, I'm Abe Madkour. Thank you for listening to the Buzzcast. The NBA's All-Star weekend really begins today, Friday, as it hosts one of my favorite events of the year, it's annual Tech Summit. The invite-only event is always a very hot ticket and a great room of industry leaders. This year is no different as you'll have appearances by Disney's Bob Iger, Fanatics' Michael Rubin. You have Casey Wasserman. You have Chris Paul. You'll have owners speaking like Steve Ballmer, Mark Cuban, Ted Leonsis and Vivek Ranadive.
It's a big weekend for Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith in the city of Salt Lake and the state of Utah. Interestingly, the 45 year old Ryan Smith attended the last time the NBA All-Star Game was in Utah in 1993, so it's been 30 years. Smith says he's excited to show off to the world a new city and a new state. Salt Lake City is always listed as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, and Smith said people will see a different type of city that is being fueled by a tech boom in the region. So he is really seeing this weekend as the coming out party of his ownership of the organization and all the changes they are making with the jazz.
About 120,000 people are expected to attend this year's All-Star Game festivities. That would be in line with the 121,000 that visited Cleveland for last year's All-Star Game. So a big weekend for the NBA in Utah. I'm heading to Daytona, Florida later today to take in the 500 and it's the start of a big year for NASCAR as it celebrates its 75th anniversary season. Now, the sport has seen nice growth and momentum over the past couple of years. We've talked about that on the Buzzcast, and there certainly seems to be more interest and energy around NASCAR. The leadership keeps trying new things which their partners commend them for. So we will see NASCAR take a race to Chicago, for example, for the Cup Series first Street Race in July. And NASCAR executives are even looking at talking to people in the New York region about a race there, a move that would take it into the largest media market in the US.
NASCAR would love a great kickoff to its season this weekend and jumpstart its ratings, as the NASCAR series or the Cup Series, despite all the attention paid to Formula One, is easily the most watched Motorsports property in the US. Average race viewership of about 3 million for the Cup Series. NASCAR is slowly beginning talks with Fox and NBC as well as other companies about its next media rights deal, which we were all watching and we'll talk a lot about on the Buzzcast. But throughout this season, I'm anticipating plenty of mentions and activations and celebrations of NASCAR's 75th anniversary, and why not? The sport has a great history, so why not amplify it? Bottom line, NASCAR drops the flag on an important season this weekend. And look who is back. Yes, it's the XFL Version 3.0 kicks off Saturday, a 10-week regular season schedule.
There hasn't been as much pre-season hype of this XFL as in the past, but that could be a good thing. Remember, the XFL was purchased out of bankruptcy in 2020 by Danny Garcia, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, RedBird Capital Partners and Gerry Cardinale. Here's what you'll see. You'll see eight teams play a 10-week regular season, the championship game on May 13th. This season, you'll see all eight teams practice in the XFL central location of Arlington, Texas, and then teams will travel to home markets for their games. Yes, they'll actually travel out of Texas to their home markets to play the games. The games will be seen on ESPN's family of networks and you'll see a few things. You'll see a lot of attention to player and coach access. You'll see heavy emphasis on audio and sound, and you'll see a focus on innovation and using technology.
What else am I looking for? I'll be looking at the quality of play because the XFL does have a good relationship with the NFL and I'm sure they would love to be a formal feeder system. I'll be looking for in-venue innovation and energy and attendance. And of course I'll be looking at viewership. On the viewership front, it's tough to speculate because the XFL averaged almost 2 million viewers. That's a very healthy number. That was during its shortened, heavily hyped five weeks in 2020 before it shut down due to COVID. I mean the XFL would absolutely love that number now, but I'm not expecting it to be that high. I think anything close to a million viewers on average would be proof that there is a real market for spring football. But this continues a trend we're seeing across sports.
Create intellectual property, aggregate an audience, monetize the audience in various ways. You could monetize it via media rights, data, ticketing, sponsorship, merchandise, social, content, and that could lead to franchises, swelling in value, and probably being sold at a premium in the future. There's no doubt the XFL would love to sell these eight franchises at a healthy price tag, but it's early, very early. And remember you have the USFL launching in April and there's only so much mind-share to go around for consumers, but the playbook remains the same. So we'll see how they do. And the XFL starting at season on Saturday will be a fun story to watch. Let's move on. You had former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker as the new NCAA president, and now you see former mayor of Boston and former US Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh being named as the executive director of the NHLPA.
That search was handled by Russell Reynolds and Walsh will start in mid-March. He of course succeeds Don Fehr, who of course spent years at baseball representing the players and has been at the NHLPA since 2010. But what I find noteworthy is that two of the most recent big executive searches in sports went totally outside of sports to former government officials, and we will have to dig into why and what they bring and will they be successful and will they ultimately lead to others coming to sports from public service? Because I find it fascinating that Charlie Baker, Marty Walsh, two backgrounds entirely in public service now taking leadership positions in sports. I've mentioned it a few times. We're just a couple of weeks away from SBJ's Tech Week, March 7th to 9th. I would love to see you there. Visit the event section of sportsbusinessjournal.com to register, and yes, I want to thank those who took my suggestion and have subscribed to Sports Business Journal.
We have a special offer for you loyal Buzzcast listeners who listen to the Buzzcast but aren't reading SBJ. Go to our subscribe page, use the code INSIDER19, insider and the number 19, and you'll receive your first month of SBJ Insider for only $19. You'll immediately become incredibly well-informed with our daily newsletters and our weekly coverage. That is INSIDER19 on our subscribe page at sportsbusinessjournal.com. Thanks for your support. This offer ends February 19th, so that is your Morning Buzzcast for Friday, February 17th. I'm Abe Madkour. David Albright will bring you the Buzzcast on Monday. I'll return on Tuesday. Until I speak to you again, stay healthy and be good to each other. Have a great weekend everybody.