Is Apple close on Sunday Ticket? Yankees tab Legends Global Partnerships to sell jersey patch; NWSL set to move HQs to NYC.
Is Apple close on Sunday Ticket? Yankees tab Legends Global Partnerships to sell jersey patch; NWSL set to move HQs to NYC.
Speaker 1: (00:06)
I'm heading to Colorado Springs next week for S BJ's thought leaders retreat, and then have my first trip ever to Montana visiting a long time friend in Whitefish, Montana. It's something we've been talking about for more than a decade, and it's finally gonna happen. Any tips for me, please let me know. And this is your morning buzz cast for Thursday, July 14th. Good morning. I made mad core hope everybody is doing well. You know, everyone is waiting and watching for the NFL to land a deal for Sunday ticket. An NFL commissioner. Roger Goodell said last week in sun valley, that it would be sold to a streaming service and tech company. Well, puck news is reporting that a deal could be well north of $2 billion and actually come close to 3 billion for Sunday ticket. And those are far higher numbers than I've been hearing. And it would be an absolute huge win for the NFL.
Speaker 1: (01:06)
Puck is reporting that bids for Sunday ticket are likely down to apple and Amazon, and that apple is the most likely winner. If so this would be a major shift in sports rights as apple would've landed both MLS and NFL Sunday ticket over a few months and show themselves to be a very powerful global platform for sports media distribution. The NFL's current deal with direct TV, which has run for nearly 30 years expires at the end of this upcoming season. So again, we are keeping an eye of course, on the NFL's deal. On Sunday ticket let's shift to some baseball. The New York Yankees have landed on an agency to sell its Jersey sleep patch starting for the 2023 season. And not surprisingly, they looked in-house naming legends to sell the four by four inch sleep patch. The MLB players can start wearing next season. Now this will be a high priced high ticket item and a very valuable and visible asset for one of the most popular clubs in sports.
Speaker 1: (02:16)
I mean, we are talking big, big naming rights type of annual payments here for the Yankees. So legends will be out in the market selling this inventory. Legends said it will not sell any other major league baseball team patch while it is selling Yankees inventory. The Yankees of course remained an investor in legends. Remember the Yankees and the Cowboys launched legends back in 2008, sixth street partners bought a majority ownership stake in legends early last year. The competitive landscape for Jersey patch deals in major league baseball is just fun to follow virtually. Every major agency has some inventory to sell. It'll be interesting to know, and to find out the different approaches and styles to positioning and selling. You have, uh, two circles doing the Phillies Excel with the angels, Oakview groups, selling the Mets, elevate sports, selling the Orioles and the tigers. You have sport five selling the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: (03:18)
You have WME sports, uh, selling the giants, and now you have legends selling the Yankees. The Padres landed the first patch deal with Motorola, but they did not use an outside agency to assist. So keep your eye on the Jersey patch sales in major league baseball. We have talked about it before on the buzz cast, but keep watching the attendance trends at the women's Euro championship. It continues to set records. Monday's England Norway match drew a crowd of 28,000. That was the fourth highest attendance ever for a woman's zero game. We've seen healthy numbers like 16,000 for Spain, Finland. We saw 21,000 for the Netherland. Sweden. Remember earlier in the tournament, we saw nearly 70,000 at the opener at old tra these numbers are far higher than previous addition for this event. And it speaks to the growing interest in women's soccer in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: (04:20)
And throughout Europe let's stay with women's soccer because the national women's soccer league completed one of its first board of governor meetings under new commissioner, Jessica Berman, and announced that it will move its headquarters from Chicago to New York city. It will open an official office in New York city in September. Now the NWSL will keep some staff in its existing Chicago office, and the league did not reveal where the New York city central office would be located. Meanwhile, the NWSL also is named investment bank, inner circle sports to manage its expansion process that will be led by CEO, Rob Tillis, and his partner, Steve Horowitz. Now the goal here for expansion is to have two new teams lined up by the end of this year, 2022, the target would be for those teams to begin play in 2024, bringing the league to 14 teams. Now, one of those two spots is believed to be held by RAL salt lake co-owners, David Butzer and Ryan Smith.
Speaker 1: (05:25)
They had landed the right to reestablish the Utah franchise. Now what to watch is what will be the expansion fee for the 14th team, because remember the Washington spirit, they were sold to Michelle Kang for $35 million, will that serve as kind of the baseline, the benchmark for future expansion, we will have to see because of course, expansion fees are the key underpinning here showing the growth and value growth of any sports league. So keep your eye on expansion at the NWSL, staying with women's sports, the w N B a Chicago sky have confirmed that they are engaged with Cubs. Co-owner Laura Ricketts about her becoming an investor in the sky, which would surely be a shot in the arm for that Chicago franchise. Let's move on. Here's one story I love. They are bringing back college basketball on an aircraft carrier. Remember they did it about a decade ago and did it a number of times.
Speaker 1: (06:29)
Sometimes it was awesome, but sometimes they had challenges with the environment or the playing surfaces. Well, look for Michigan state and Gonzaga two great programs playing a men's basketball game, a veterans day matchup on an aircraft carrier, the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is based at Naval air station. North island in San Diego will host the game. It will be on prime time on ESPN on November 11th, it's called the 2022 armed forces classic. Now it will be the first college basketball game on a battleship since 2012, like I said, there were challenges with the four previous aircraft carrier games, but ESPN said it is making contingency plans in the area should weather and element concerns come up, cuz that's what happened before. But again, this is a great, innovative idea. It always shows well on television, the players, the teams love it.
Speaker 1: (07:31)
Michigan state was part of this before, so they'll be part of it again, November 11th, another college basketball game on an aircraft carrier. So look for that. It should be a lot of fun. And finally I mentioned it yesterday, but if you haven't read them yet, I offer my top sports business stories of the year. So far in 2022, check that out on sports business journal.com. I'd welcome your thoughts on what you agree or disagree with and what stories I was missing. And don't miss our S BJ I factor conversation with GMRs Todd Fisher, who is a 40 under 40 honoree in 2016. And Todd Fisher talks life lessons in and outside of the sports business. You can view that also on sports business journal.com. So that is your morning buzz cast for Thursday, July 14th. I made Matt core hope. Everybody has a great day. Stay healthy. Be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.