The ESPN, Fox, WBD streaming partnership's potential legal battle; Inter Miami CF's Chase Stadium naming rights deal examined and an MLS season preview; NBA All-Star game viewership and MLB players voice concerns with new NIKE uniforms.
Twas the night before the MLS season, but I was feeling maudlin. Not a player was stirring. Not even DeAndre Yedlin. The banners were hung on DRV PNK Stadium with care, in hopes that Lionel Messi soon would be there. When in Fort Lauderdale there arose such a clatter, fans turned on Apple TV to see what was the matter, when what to our wondering eyes did appear? New Chase Stadium signage as Beckham did cheer.
I could go on, but I imagine you'd rather I didn't. Good morning on this Wednesday, February 21st. It's the start of the MLS season and barely 24 hours before kickoff, we had a venue change, same building, new name, as JPMorgan Chase has taken over the stadium naming rights for the home of Inter Miami. This, of course, is the first full season of Messi in South Florida, again, joined by Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, and now also Luis Suarez. This is easily the most anticipated season for any MLS club since at least David Beckham, and honestly, that probably doesn't compare given the cast of star teammates around Messi right now. The success that Inter Miami had in the second half, highlighted by its first major trophy in winning the Leagues Cup, as well as the overall higher profile of the league.
Yesterday, Abe shared with you many of the league-wide KPI gains, but I'll add a few specifically about Inter Miami, courtesy of Alex Silverman's magazine story on the franchise this week. The team's projecting more than $200 million in revenue, according to Inter Miami Chief Business Officer Xavier Asensi, a 60% increase year-over-year and 4x its earnings in 2022. It's not clear if that includes this new Chase Stadium deal. Royal Caribbean joined as a major corporate sponsor in a value said to be eight figures annually, the largest ever for any MLS club.
The league is hoping the draw of Messi will aid other clubs in the league too, both in terms of ticket sales when Inter Miami visits and the new MLS Club Performance Group is advising on that, but also in terms of rethinking global business strategies. Obviously Messi is a one-of-one, but surely other international stars can also lead to overseas sponsorships, albeit on a smaller scale. The league wasn't ready to capitalize in the same way when Beckham joined LA Galaxy in 2007, but his presence in the Inter Miami owner's box is undoubtedly making a major positive impact now. The arrival of Beckham's expansion franchise, many years in the making, was supposed to open opportunities such as this, even if Messi himself was originally only a dream. There were certainly great fanfare for Inter Miami's debut season of 2020, though through no fault of their own, that first year was a great challenge in trying to launch a new club and attract a new fanbase amid a global pandemic.
Quick anecdote, that was also the 25th anniversary for MLS, so it threw a large season opening media event at a swanky New York City hotel. At one point, the affable Beckham was held up in a crowded hallway, so he reached out for the closest hand, it was mine, and offered up a, "How you doing, mate?" That was late February 2020 and for the better part of a year, the very last hand I shook was David Beckham's.
Back to the topic at hand, the 2024 MLS season. This morning, Apple announced the first unique MLS experience in the Apple Vision Pro, the new headset everyone's been talking about. Fans will be able to relive the 2023 MLS Cup playoffs in 3D, with 8K resolution, a 180 degree field of view and spatial audio. This is the first sports production captured in Apple Immersive Video, that certainly has great potential and undoubtedly won't be the only bespoke MLS activation in the Apple Vision Pro headset.
On launch day, Apple announced that MLS Season Pass would be compatible with the Vision Pro, but not a truly unique product. Though MLS Executive Vice President of Media, Seth Bacon, told me recently that those plans were in development. He hinted at this Immersive Video announcement, for example. Bacon also made sure to say that having every live match available in Vision Pro this season was the baseline. He said, quote, "We're not going to sit back and assume that's the best we can do, or the most we want to do with the product. The type of thing that we want to explore is how does this immersive video, this volumetric video, give you the ability to take a fan and our consumer to a place they've never been before? Certainly with Vision Pro, there's the ability to do it in a way that really blurs that reality," virtual reality in an unbelievable way. Please be sure to check out next week's edition of SBJ, which will include a feature on the sporting implications of Apple Vision Pro, in which I share a byline with my fellow tech writers, Ethan Joyce and Rob Schaefer.
From the newly christened Chase Stadium to the bank's longest tenure naming rights deal of Chase Field, Arizona Diamondbacks Managing General Partner, Ken Kendrick spoke this week sharing his disappointment over the lack of public funding available to renovate the ballpark. Nick Piecoro, the ace D-backs writer at The Arizona Republic, reported that Kendrick went so far as to make overtures that the franchise was not guaranteed to remain in town. On one hand, he explicitly said that he was, quote, "not trying to issue a threat to the state about moving," and repeated that he was not currently engaged in discussions with other markets about leaving town, but he also said, "We may run out of time in Phoenix. We hope that won't happen." Several cities such as Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland and Raleigh are likely suspects, which is more suitors than would be able to receive the two expected MLB expansion franchises in the coming years.
Kendrick noted that such candidate cities would be happy with a brand new franchise, but they would certainly be very happy with frankly a successful, existing franchise. We are, however, a long way from that. The D-backs have a lease through 2027, and this project has an estimated half billion dollars of spending. We'll see where that money comes from and if it comes to fruition. Arizona certainly has about as much leverage as it could coming off a World Series appearance.
The last time I was in this seat recording Buzzcast was the week before the Super Bowl when the news was shared of the Disney, Fox, Warner Brothers, Discovery Sports streaming bundle, what I dubbed Sports Hulu and others have turned into the portmanteau, "Spulu." That proposed endeavor is now facing an antitrust lawsuit served by sports centric streaming company FuboTV, which alleges that those three broadcasters' new joint venture is the latest instance of a years' long campaign to stunt Fubo's growth. David Gandler, Co-Founder and CEO of Fubo, said in a statement, "Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anti-competitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice." As of now, I have not yet seen any public response from the three companies involved. The Wall Street Journal noted that Fubo's shares have fallen 20% since the streaming bundle was announced.
My colleague, Brett McCormick, shared that Delaware North, which managed food and beverage, premium hospitality, catering, and retail for the NHL Stadium Series over the weekend, set a gross sales record for the outdoor games with a $53 per capita spend. Merchandise alone approached a million dollars each day, with one record on Saturday eclipsed again on Sunday, when it racked up $948,000 in merchandise sales. New York Giants and Jets fans glibly noted that MetLife Stadium, which opened in 2010, has now hosted more NHL games, two, than it has NFL playoff games, one.
I attended Saturday evening's game at ESPN's invitation. It was my first outdoor NHL game of any kind, and I thought the League did a terrific job making it feel like a truly differentiated event. Certainly fans sight lines weren't as good as at an arena and it was much colder, but the revelry and atmosphere were tremendous. The Jonas Brothers played an hour before the game and returned between the second and third periods for a short set. Local favorite Gaslight Anthem played at the first intermission and also performed their song Howl, which is the Devils adopted goal song, live after each time, New Jersey scored, that meant six such post-goal renditions on Saturday, including one just 32 seconds into the game.
The New Jersey Devil mascot and Gritty engaged in a series of shenanigans and the crowd ate it all up. One other cool feature of the game, owing to the extra video board, real estate in MetLife, real-time puck and player tracking data was shared from NHL Edge. At times, the display was a 2D rink with circles skating around, but the circles had numbers and the name of the player popped up whenever he had the puck. This at times helped with player identification, especially when folks were sitting a little bit farther back. Even cooler was the in-game leaderboards for fastest shot, fastest skating, jack Hughes was the clear leader on the latter, at least the last time I looked at it, and also running tallies of each player's shift time. This clearly appeals more to the avid fan, but seeing that a defenseman pair got left on the ice for a minute and a half while the forwards were only out there 30 seconds, showed the differing line changes and it generally reinforced the overall analytics driven change in the game of shorter shifts to maximize player speed while out there.
On the opposite end of intense exertion, we switched to the NBA All-Star game, though the defense was lacking in the East's victory by a score of, let me double check my notes, yes, 211 to 186, the fast-national TV ratings calculation indicated a 20% bump in viewership over last year's record low. That still placed this year's game, with its 5.5 million viewers, as the second lowest on the books. The Saturday night contest drew 4.6 million, the best mark since 2020, in a 35% gain year-over-year. I certainly thought the LED floor was a wonderful addition. Also, MLB players continue voicing their displeasure over the new Nike Vapor Premier uniforms, so much so that it has caught the attention of the Union. MLBPA boss, Tony Clark told The Athletic he has been in contact with requisite parties about some changes and it even spurred a segment on NBC's Today Show. The first spring training games begin tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in. This is SBJ Senior Writer Joe Lemire, and be sure to tune back in tomorrow, presumably there'll be a lot less poetry and in the meantime, have a great day.