Golf leaders to discuss the sport's future on Capitol Hill, how the Northwestern hazing allegations could impact college leaders' approach, and The NY Times to integrate The Athletic into the overall business.
Well, Seattle is fully embracing it's MLB All-Star Week. Great visuals last night from the Home Run Derby. What tremendous youthful dynamic energy from so many players, including the winner, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., as he and his dad become the first father-son duo to both win the Home Run Derby. The All-Star game is tonight, Tuesday, 8:00 PM on Fox. And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, July 11th.
Good morning. I'm Abe Madkour. Hope you're all doing well. A lot of eyes will be on Capitol Hill today, Tuesday, as two PGA Tour officials will testify before the US Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations. The hearing will air live on Golf Channel beginning at 10:00 AM Eastern. US Senator Richard Blumenthal, who is a Democrat from Connecticut, he is chair of the subcommittee. He initiated this hearing, and Ron Price, the Chief Operating Officer of the PGA Tour, and Jimmy Dunne, a policy board member and a key architect behind the Tour's agreement with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, will testify today in Washington.
Now there are a number of areas the two will be pushed on and yes, they will be pushed. It'll be about antitrust, anti-competitive environment. They'll want more clarity on the PIF's role in this partnership. So to try to get out in front of it all, the PGA Tour's Price wrote an op-ed for the Athletic on Monday and said the new deal marks the quote, "Best path forward for professional golf broadly," end quote. Price will stress today the safeguards in the deal that will ensure the PGA Tour will lead the decisions that shape its future and that the Tour will have total operational and strategic control going forward. The key line that I took yesterday from the op-ed is that when he stated the agreement will allow the Tour to invest in the players, events, venues, and technology, i.e., they needed major capital investment, and that's what they're getting here.
I do expect to hear more today about the new operating company. It was called PGA Tour Enterprises in yesterday's op-ed, and how that will operate and function and the role the Piff will have as an investor. I will say the timing isn't ideal for the PGA Tour, as this comes just days after Randall Stephenson resigned from the Tour policy board over the deal, specifically citing the human rights issues facing Saudi Arabia. Now Randall Stephenson is well known on Capitol Hill, and we all know how big AT&T, the company he used to oversee, was involved in golf. So this won't be an easy day for Price or Dunne. As we know, politicians love to talk tough when the cameras are on, and I bet the PGA Tour's talking points will stress, they are in control. There is little Saudi involvement, and the PGA Tour will be continuing to run the show.
Let's stay with foreign investment in sports. As NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke to the Associated Press Sports Editors on Monday and said, "There is no pathway in the foreseeable future for sovereign wealth funds to become the controlling owners of an NBA team." Now, he didn't rule it out forever, but said the league is not considering this step right now. Remember, under the current rules, the controlling owner of any NBA team has to own at least 15% of the franchise. Any sovereign wealth fund can only have a passive investment, no greater than 5% ownership. And this story came to bear because last month Qatar's sovereign wealth fund purchased a 5% stake, of course, in monumental sports and entertainment, giving it stakes in the Capitals, the Wizards, the Mystics. So while we could see more passive investments from sovereign wealth funds like the Qatar's investment, Adam Silver's stance seems to rule out majority control anytime soon.
You know the story out of Northwestern got more complicated on Monday as the school's president, Michael Shill, reversed course and fired longtime coach Pat Fitzgerald amid allegations of widespread hazing within the college football program. Shill wrote an open letter, calling the head coach responsible for the culture of the team. But the reason I bring up this story is that this issue, this case will cause every university president and every athletic director to stop and look at their approach and policies because Shill's actions will certainly come under scrutiny and his decision-making will certainly be questioned. Remember last Friday, a Friday after the 4th of July in a total news dump, Northwestern said Fitzgerald would be suspended without pay for two weeks over the summer. That was after the school had an investigation into allegations made by a former Northwestern player. The school said the investigation, which was initiated in January and conducted by Aaron Fox, an outside law firm, did not find sufficient evidence that the coaching staff knew about ongoing hazing.
The school though reverse course Saturday after the Daily Northwestern, the school paper, published a story detailing allegations from the former player and these were very specific and detailed. President Shill immediately pressed the brakes, said he might have made a mistake in his initial punishment. And that led to Monday's firing. Shill said over the past three days, he spent more time on the report, and he talked to more people, faculty leadership students, alumni, coach Fitzgerald himself, obviously, the board of trustees, and that led to his decision. So why am I bringing this up again? Well, Michael Shill is not a new president. He was the president of the University of Oregon before taking over at Northwestern in September. And all I'll say is many presidents will look at the events of the last week as a guide on what to do and what not to do in such a similar situation.
Shill also said the report from Aaron Fox will remain confidential, but again, I do believe there'll be more coming from this story in the days and weeks ahead. I played tennis last night with a sports business colleague, and all they wanted to talk about was the story of the New York Times moving its sports department to rely on coverage from the Athletic. So that means nearly 40 journalists and editors in sports at the New York Times will be reassigned to other parts of the company. But this is a very significant and symbolic move. I mean, this is the old gray lady in the New York Times we're talking about. What a history of sports reporting and publishing for years? This is the boldest move yet by the owners of the New York Times to fully integrate the Athletic, which the Times bought in January of 2022 for $550 million, into the larger operation.
So now the Athletic staff will provide the sports coverage, and articles from the Athletic will appear in the New York Times print edition. The moves are expected to be completed by the fall, and the move here is to try and push the Athletic to be a bigger part of the New York Times's business. The Athletic has never turned a profit. It reported a loss of $7.8 million in the first quarter of this year, but the Athletic has helped drive subscriptions to the New York Times, which we all know is a key recurring revenue stream. There's a lot to unpack to this. It shows the daily grind, and the daily challenge, and the daily monetization issues of the media business today. And we know a number of very talented reporters and editors at the New York Times are now going to be reassigned to other departments. This also has a very key union, non-union component, as the New York Times sports staff was part of a union.
It's called The NewsGuild of New York. They plan to contest this move by management, and on the flip side, the Athletic isn't unionized. So I don't believe we've heard the end of this story as well. And finally, I mentioned at the top of the Buzzcast the appealing faces of baseball players, and nowhere is that more evident than on the Jersey sales across the game. You see a wide, diverse mix of young players and some veterans. It's such a strong position for Major League Baseball to be in right now. So here's the breakdown. Braves right fielder, Ronald Acuña and Shohei Ohtani, who were the top two vote-getters for the game in Seattle, had the most popular player jerseys through the season's first half. This is including or this is made up of sales from mlbshop.com. The Braves had the most players appear in the top 20. You also had Mike Trout, who's made the list every year since his rookie season.
Let's go through the top 10 players, Acuña, Ohtani, Fernando Tatis, Aaron Judge, José Altuve, Mookie Betts, Julio Rodríguez, Matt Olson, Alex Bregman, and Mike Trout. Those are the top 10 players in terms of the most popular baseball player, jersey sales. And that is a wide, diverse global mix of talent, both young and veteran, and what shocked me, only one Yankee player in the top 20. That's Aaron Judge and not one member of the Boston Red Sox. That shows how it's not just the big traditional markets that dominate baseball today. Baseball's appeal is very widespread. And that is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, July 11th. I'm Abe Madkour. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Wednesday.