Betting projections for the Super Bowl, NHL viewership sees uptick and MLB has a new Play Ball initiative partner.
David Albright:
It was a highlight filled overnight at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, and it will be interesting to find out how many people were watching in the United States. Nathan Chen recorded a 113.97, the highest short program score in figure skating history to take a commanding lead after the first day of that competition. American born Eileen Gu, who is representing China at these games, landed the first 1620 of her career, en route to a gold medal in freestyle big air. In women's hockey with center stage, as Canada earned the top sit with a four to two win over team USA and a preliminary round final, both teams qualified for the medal round which begins on Friday.
Good morning, it's Tuesday, February 8th and this is your SBJ Morning Buzzcast, I'm David Albright filling in for Abe Madkour. We're five days away from Super Bowl LVI. And the American gaming association projects that 18.2 million US adults will bet on this year's game online at a retail sports book or with a bookie, an increase of 78% from last year. The gambling trade group also estimates that a record 31.4 million Americans will bet 7.6 billion on the game when including those betting with friends, in pools or through squares. Projections were generated from a morning consult online survey of more than 2000 adults collected last week. The NHLs moved to ESPN and Turner has resulted in a small viewership uptick through the first half of the season. And our Austin Cart projects that the league could see its best numbers in years. Here are the stats so far 28 games across ABC, ESPN and TNT average 506,000 viewers, which is up 3% from last year's number. One caveat though, this year's figure includes the winter classic, which wasn't played last year. Take that one game out and the viewer average is down.
ABC and ESPN are averaging 701,000 viewers through eight games. TNT is averaging 426,000 viewers through 20 telecasts. The NBA announced that the inaugural NBA HBCU Classic, between Howard and Morgan State will be televised nationally as part of All-Star weekend festivities. The February 19th game will be broadcast on TNT and ESPN2 from the Wolstein Center, Cleveland State's home arena. The schools also will receive $100,000 donations from the NBA and AT&T with the gifts intended to support Howard and Morgan State student athletes with academic and wellness resources and more. The league expects some of its All-Stars and members of the 75th anniversary team to attend the game. Renovations at Bank of America stadium, they began in March of 2021, are near in completion ahead of Charlotte FC's inaugural MLS campaign. The $50 million worth of improvements were shown to Charlotte Media on Monday, including a 211 foot LED screen atop the stadium's Lowe's East Gate and The Vault, a new premium club space with field level event seating.
Populous designed and renovated the areas for Tepper Sports and Entertainment, rogers Builders served as the general contractor. As part of the continued expansion of its Play Ball Initiative, MLB has partnered with Mojo, a free app that features video content and allows coaches to quickly plan practices with activities that are customizable for the age, skill level and preferences of each team and player. The partnership dubs Mojo, the trusted grassroots coaching app of Major League Baseball. The Mojo app started by former ABC Television Group and ABC News president Ben Sherwood also features a premium offering, Mojo+, that offers more opportunities for youth athletes to grow and have fun outside of practice. Mojo plans to develop content tailored for MLB's official youth skilled competitions, the Jr. Home Run Derby and Pitch, Hit & Run. Videos on the app, which is available on iOS and Android were designed in close consultation with MLB's Baseball and Softball Development Group. They were produced at MLB's Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Florida.
As part of their partnership, Mojo and MLB will provide up to 50,000 premium subscriptions for coaches, mentors and staff of Boys & Girls Clubs of America organizations, in an effort to grow the sport within that network. Mass participation, race organizer, Rock 'n' Roll Running Series is debuting a new half-marathon series for elite runners. It will take place at eight Rock 'n' Roll events across North America, beginning with the race weekend in Las Vegas at the end of February. Elite runners, as determined by time criteria, will be provided complimentary entry, and a total season prize pass of $100,000 will be paid out to the top three male and female elite finishers at each race. Competitors will also each earn ranking points at elite-level events, with a bonus pool of $30,000 available to the five highest ranked runners after the final race in Las Vegas in early 2023. The Rock 'n' Roll Running Series is owned by Ironman Group, which is in turn owned by SBJ parent company Advance.
Sponsorship consultancy IEG releases its Market Meter today, a new rating system to help buyers and sellers of sports sponsorship, benchmark their value potential across categories and major sports leagues. IEG's proprietary metrics utilize 13 key performance indicators to rate more than 8,000 partnerships in 65 plus sponsorship categories across the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. IEG will use Market Meter in strategic sponsorship consulting engagements with Big-4 pro sports teams and current or perspective teams sponsors. We'll end with a quick programming tease, this week's edition of the Marchand and Ourand Podcast will feature NBC Sports as Al Michaels is the guest. You can listen to the Marchand and Ourand Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. That's your SBJ Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, I hope everybody has a great day and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.