MLS kicks off a potentially monster season; Expansion for $100, please; Apple's sports app play and LA28 lands a ticketing deal
It was great to be part of the Verizon Partners Summit in Irving Plaza in New York City on Wednesday. I moderated a panel with Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon, Roger Goodell of the NFL, Michael Rapino of Live Nation, and Gary Bettman of the NHL. We had a fun discussion about sports, tech, creating fan experiences and leadership. It was a good day all around and this is your Morning Buzzcast for Thursday, February 22nd. I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast.
While Major League Soccer is poised to have a very big year with a full season of Lionel Messi, and it started Wednesday night as a jammed crowd of more than 21,000 saw Inter Miami beat Real Salt Lake to start the MLS season. Don Garber was in the house and so was actor Will Smith. The Messi draw is still strong, and the AP reported that the line of fans to buy Messi's jersey, which was MLS's top seller last year and has a new sponsor design this year, was out the door of the team store on Wednesday night. Also, Apple TV released the first episode of its Messi's World Cup, The Rise of a Legend on Wednesday. So a lot going on around MLS, Messi on Wednesday night and look at the impact he has already had. For example, Inner Miami could bring in more than $200 million in revenue during this upcoming season. That would be more than 60% more than last season, and four times what the club brought in in '22. That's big numbers for MLS. Last year, LAFC topped MLS clubs in revenue with approximately $140 million. Inter Miami was second. But this year, Inter Miami will really separate itself from other clubs.
If you're keeping score at home, Inter Miami's sponsorship revenue will be nearly $60 million this season. That's double the amount the team generated last year, and that's on par with many NFL and NBA teams. The average sponsorship revenue for an MLS club is around $17 million, Inter Miami at $60 million.
All those figures, courtesy of SBJ's Alex Silverman. But the bottom line is, you see the impact that Messi is having on just Inter Miami and now it extends across the league and it's more than revenue. It's much more than revenue. It's about significance. It's about pop culture conversations, and there is a lot that Messi brings to MLS and all of MLS metrics pointing up. If Messi has a full, healthy season, the league could really have a monster year.
Let's move on. We talk a lot about expansion in sports. Major League Baseball is often brought up, as Commissioner Rob Manford has expressed interest in adding teams in the future. But ESPN's Jeff Passan, who of course is very connected in baseball circles, says to slow that train down. That MLB expansion is not imminent and it's unlikely to happen until the early 2030s.
Now, ownership will certainly be interested in sharing revenue from around $4 billion or more in expansion fees for two new franchises. We know there are many markets interested. The strongest markets to me, Nashville, Salt Lake and the Carolinas, North Carolina. Other markets are brought up, Portland, San Jose, Austin, Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City. But as Passan notes, this is all on the back burner as baseball's most pressing need is to finalize long-term solutions for the A's and the Rays, and that must come before considering any expansion at Major League Baseball.
But staying with expansion, Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta, he wants to see the NHL in Houston. Now he's wanted an NHL team in Houston for years, but he told Bloomberg News that discussions have recently turned more serious and that his target is to have a team in the downtown Houston district. Not out in the suburbs, but in the downtown. Again, there has been no inclination or timetable from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on when expansion in the NHL could possibly happen. But like baseball, there are plenty of markets interested.
I always keep my eye on Apple, like many of you do, and Apple is getting deeper into sports as the company, on Wednesday, launched Apple Sports, which is a free app for the iPhone that brings scores, stats and betting odds around most of the big leagues. This is Apple's first dedicated app in the sports space, so that makes it interesting. At launch, it will feature NBA, NHL and MLS stats to start. They'll add other leagues, including the NFL and Major League Baseball. It's interesting they didn't launch with all the leagues on the app, but they will over time. Now, the app will not have advertising at the launch. But why is this interesting? Well, it marks another sports effort by Apple and Eddy Cue. There are no live rights to the app for now, but Apple is certainly looking to draw attention from and take market share away from other sports apps including ESPN. So let me know if you download it and start using it and what you think of the new Apple Sports app.
I was speaking with a top sports executive recently, and they were attributing all of the NFL's gains in ratings and viewership to legalized sports betting. That's a fair comment as you have seen real positive and healthy run of strong and stable ratings across sports. In addition, sports betting continues to be healthy as well. A report from the American Gaming Association shows that betting in the United States hit nearly $11 billion in revenue for 2023. That was up a massive 45% from 2022, so nearly 11 billion in revenue on sports betting for the year, up 45%. Yes, of course, there were five new legal betting states. You had Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Ohio all going online in 2023. So that helped. You'll continue to see more and more states get on board. Where I am in North Carolina, that starts next month. So the numbers should get bigger, but nearly $11 billion. New York was the biggest state on the sports betting board, followed by New Jersey and Illinois. So those were the top three states when it comes to sports betting revenue.
So we'll end with a couple of quick notes. First, big news in the world of ticketing as AXS and CTS EVENTIM will be the official ticketing provider for the LA28 Olympic Games. These two companies formed a joint venture for LA28. They will promote, they'll sell, they'll distribute Olympic tickets on a global basis. Now AXS, of course, is owned by AEG. They have a number of sports accounts. CTS EVENTIM has a track record in Olympic ticketing, as the German based company provided official ticketing services for Turin, Sochi and Rio. They'll also handle it again this summer in Paris. So EVENTIM is regarded as the world's number two ticketing company behind Ticketmaster. But this is a very big deal for both AXS and CTS EVENTIM. There is no official date on when tickets for the LA Summer games in '28 will go on sale, but another big deal for LA28, as the games are getting closer and closer.
Finally, yes, college football playoff leaders are still looking to finalize the details for the 12 team playoff that starts this year. But yet, yes, they are already in discussions about maybe adding more teams for 2026 and beyond. It was reported that the CFP Management Committee discussed the potential of a 14 team playoff at their latest meeting on Wednesday. Now they still need to figure out a 12 team playoff and all the details around that, but this shows the interest already in potentially growing the college football playoff as early as 2026.
So that is your Morning Buzzcast for Thursday, February 22nd. I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Friday.