The Lerners reverse course; Names floated for possible Manfred successor; MLS' KPIs all up heading into season and women on the move in college athletics
Major League Soccer begins at season Wednesday, and that's the focus of this week's Sports Media podcast with Austin Karp, which drops tomorrow. The main storyline is a full season to assess the impact of Lionel Messi. MLS Commissioner, Don Garber has already outlined the business impact this global star has made season ticket sales up 15%, overall league sponsorship revenue up 17%, club revenue up 15%, and merchandise sales up a whopping forty-four percent all over this time last year. MLS excited for what could be a record year that starts on Wednesday. This is your morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, February 20th. Good morning. I'm Abe Madkour.
More big news coming out of the DMV area as the Lerner family said at spring training on Monday that the Washington Nationals are no longer for sale. This ends a search for a new owner after the team was on the market for nearly two years. There was a number of reasons why a deal didn't get done, but this is significant. Because there was interest in this team, it was believed that Ted Leonsis would be certainly interested in the Nationals. You recently had the Orioles sell to executive David Rubenstein. The Lerner family now pulls back. They have owned the team since buying it. In 2006, they began exploring a potential deal in 2022. There was more speculation when Ted Lerner died in February of 2023.
Now, there could be, and there are, various reasons why the team now is off the market. Mark Lerner would only say the family decided that it's not the time or the place for a sale, and they are happy owning the team. Now for fans of the Nationals, this may be a mixed response. Fans will surely hope the family invest more in payroll as the Nationals have finished in last place in the National League East each of the past four seasons. Now, to be fair, they did win the World Series in 2019, but the Lerner family saying The Nationals no longer for sale.
Let's stay with baseball. It's been fun as spring training starts, a lot of storylines. We talked last week about Commissioner Rob Manfred saying he would serve his term through the 2029 season. Yes, a lot of speculation on possible successors. The Athletic's Evan Drellich, who's quite connected to the baseball world, floats out his possible names as successors. They include chief legal officer at MLB, Dan Halem, who of course brings a legal background. Other names floated from the league office include Noah Garden, Chris Maranac, and Morgan Sword. Some also believe they could look at team operators and owners. Some names floated there, Theo Epstein, the Red Sox's Sam Kennedy, also Drellich floats Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, who was well regarded among owners as a possible successor. Now, there is still a long way to go here, but it's always fun to see which names are floated as possible trial balloons to lead Major League Baseball. But like I said, we certainly have some time to sort this out.
One city and state to keep your eye on? Well, the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, we know the Bears are negotiating for a new stadium. Now, White Sox owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, is preparing to ask the state for an estimated $1 billion in public money to build a new ballpark in the South Loop of Chicago. I mean, that is a significant number. You have to wonder how the state will prioritize how much public funding it can give to sports teams, either the Bears or the White Sox, or even both.
Now, this plan is very early and this number may just be floated out there for now. Jerry Reinsdorf has yet to publicly declare what he is seeking. But we know he wants a new ballpark. We know he believes a new ballpark in this part of the city will bring massive investment to that area. You do have to wonder what this ask for public funding could mean for the Bears, as there are certainly limited public dollars. Who goes first? How aggressive are the asks? The timing of these deals are almost in parallel. A very interesting storyline to watch in Chicago and Illinois about possible public funding of sports venues.
Let's move on. More and more docuseries coming from Amazon. The next one will be the first ever doc on Roger Federer. Yes, the great Roger Federer. You may feel there are too many sports documentaries out there right now, and there may be, but you have to admit, Federer is a marquee story and the plan is to release it in July around Wimbledon. Count me in to watch this sports documentary for sure. Meanwhile, Amazon said it is interested to make future documentaries around the sports rights that it has. Look for Amazon to possibly produce a project a month during the NFL season as they have Thursday Night Football rights.
They also may make a documentary around each of the five NASCAR races it will show as part of their new deal with NASCAR. Amazon will continue to produce sports docs and tie them more into the sports that they have live rights to. That's an interesting news nugget there, courtesy of Bloomberg News on Amazon's documentary strategy going forward.
We'll finish up on some quick hitters. FIFA has narrowed the competition for the 2026 Men's World Cup hospitality contract to two companies. SBJ's Alex Silverman and Brett McCormick cite sources confirming the field has been whittled down to On Location and Beyond Hospitality. This would be a big deal, of course, for either one of those companies. Sources said FIFA plans to award the contract in mid-March following another round of negotiations with the two finalists, Beyond Hospitality and On Location. Two big names in college sports, first, the University of Arizona has hired Missouri athletic director, Desiree Reed-Francois as its next athletic director. Now she agreed to a five-year contract. Her annual base salary will be a million dollars in her first year, elevating to 1.2 million in the fifth year. Now, Reed-Francois is well known. She is an SBJ Game Changer honoree in 2021. She's very well regarded. I remember her learning under Whit Babcock at Virginia Tech before going to Missouri, and we have seen how she has built up the Missouri program.
She becomes the first woman in University of Arizona history to serve as athletic director. She starts on March 3rd. This is a big, big job of Arizona. The school is dealing with a pretty public and sizable financial crisis. It certainly impacts athletics, and so she will have a lot on her plate. Desiree Reed-Francois, leaving Missouri for the University of Arizona. Meanwhile, the PAC-12 has named Teresa Gould as its new commissioner. She becomes the first ever female commissioner of a Power Five conference. She begins March 1st. This comes just a few days after the PAC-12 parted Ways with former Commissioner George Kliavkoff. The appointment of Gould is not really a surprise. She's been at the PAC-12 since 2018, well regarded among the presidents. She has served as deputy commissioner for quite some time, and she has a big job too. Her main task is leading Washington State and Oregon State and figuring out their future and how that conference somehow rebuilds itself. Teresa Gould, the new commissioner of the PAC-Twelve, or as many refer to it, the PAC-Two for now.
That is your morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, February 20th. I'm Abe Madkour. Joe Lemire will bring you the BuzzCast tomorrow. I'll return on Thursday. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you later in the week.