Arte Moreno breaks his silence; NWSL returns to Utah with intriguing ownership mix and NCAA solidifies sponsorship roster.
Arte Moreno breaks his silence; NWSL returns to Utah with intriguing ownership mix and NCAA solidifies sponsorship roster.
Well, congratulations to skier Mikaela Shiffrin, who has set the record for most career World Cup skiing victories after winning her 87th World Cup race at a slalom in Sweden. Over the weekend, Shiffrin broke the record of the great Ingemar Stenmark, and what she has done is really amazing. It will be interesting to see if Shiffrin gets more commercial exposure and support from corporate brands. That's one story I'm definitely gonna keep my eye on. And this is your morning Buzz cast for Monday, March 13th. Good morning, I'm Abe Maddkour. Hope you're doing well. Thanks for listening to the Buzz Cast NFL Free Agency 2023 begins this week. Agents and teams can begin speaking formally this afternoon, Monday afternoon with deals becoming official starting on Wednesday. But Peter King reports not to expect a lot of movement this year in terms of major players changing teams.
As he says, the free agent market is pretty thin this year, but again, agents and teams can begin speaking formally Monday afternoon. Let's move to baseball. He is quiet. He stays out of the spotlight. And Angel's owner Arte Moreno has always been a little bit of an enigma. He came into team ownership all those years ago with such promise in terms of reducing concession prices immediately and trying to relate to the common fan. But after that, Moreno hasn't made a very public impact in his team ownership. Yes, he's wanted to win. Yes, he has spent money, but that World Series remains elusive. Now we know he put the Angels up for sale last year and he pulled the team from the market. And in a very rare interview, Moreno spoke to si. It was his first interview In more than two years, Moreno said there was great interest in the Angels and there were three potential buyers vetted by Major League Baseball.
And Moreno said that bids came in for more than what Steve Cohen paid for the Mets. That was 2.42 billion. So Moreno said the bids for the team were strong, but at the end of the day, his heart just wasn't into selling the team. So he's going to remain owner of the Angels. He said that he just couldn't let go of the franchise speaking on some other issues. He also supported MLB's strong Luxury Tax. He believes that is needed to curtail spending and level the playing field. And many believe his strong desire to stay under the salary cap could impact the Angels. Chances of keeping Shohei Ohtani last year, Moreno said that he rejected all trade requests for Ohtani and said The Angels will not trade Ohtani this year as long as they are in contention for the playoffs. He did not say what he would do if the angels are not in contention and people come asking for Ohtani.
There is a lot in this interview in si, and because Moreno speaks so, so rarely, it's certainly worth your time staying with baseball. Last week in New York City, a top baseball executive was raving about how the World Baseball Classic was being received in markets around the world, especially Japan. This executive was confident that the mission of the World Baseball Classic was working that is spreading the game of baseball around the world. I'll certainly be paying attention to that and how it will be received in the us. The US team began its defense of its 2017 World Baseball Classic Championship with a win over Great Britain in front of a crowd of nearly 40,000 at Chase Field in Phoenix on Saturday. It was the second of two World Baseball classic games at Chase Field and the two combined to draw nearly 70,000 for the two games in Phoenix.
That is a good start and the energy in the building was there. We will see how the excitement builds around the event. We know it's playing well globally. Here's an example. In Japan, 46% of all households were watching Japan's victory over South Korea, 46% of all households. The event the World Baseball Classic is clearly resonating in major markets around the world. Let's shift to women's soccer. Big news for the National Women's Soccer League, the N W S L as it has officially expanded to Utah, granting an expansion franchise to the ownership group of ml S'S Real Salt Lake, which is led by Ryan Smith and David Blitzer. The N W S L franchise will begin play in 24. It will be called the Utah Royals fc, which was the name of the former team under previous ownership, which was relocated to Kansas City. Sources. Tell s BJ's Alex Silverman that Ryan Smith and David Blitzer paid around 5 million to the N W S L to bring the team back to the Salt Lake market.
That is more than the amount initially agreed upon in 2020, but still far less than the more than 50 million that groups in the Bay Area and Boston are slated to pay to join the league as expansion franchise in the future. Now interesting. Included in the Smith Blitzer ownership group is kager, C E O Jessica Gelman. Gelman will serve as the team's representative on the N W S L Board of Governors. The ownership group also consists of 76 ERs, president of Basketball operations, Daryl Mory, so Jessica Gelman and Daryl Mory, both part of the Ryan Smith David Blitzer ownership group to bring the N W S L to Utah. And finally, we'll end with College hoops. Good luck on filling out your brackets this week. CBS BS Sports and Warner Brothers Discovery Sports exclusive coverage of the Men's Basketball Championship will tip off Tuesday around 6:30 PM while the Women's Games on S P N begin Wednesday, there's been a nice run by the NCAA sponsorship sales team that is c b Sports and Warner Brothers Discovery.
As they sell the NCAA's Commercial Partner program. They have renewed at and t as an NCAA corporate champion through 2025 that continues the brand support of the NCAA as the at and t deal goes back to 2007 when it took over the sponsorship from singular Wireless. Yes, singular Wireless had been an NCAA sponsor since 2001, so at and t remains in the fold. A longtime sponsor also last week, C BS Sports and Warner Brothers Discovery landed a new deal with Dick's Sporting Goods to become a corporate partner of the ncaa. So at and t renews Dick's Sporting Goods in the fold, all NCAA partners. And of course, the NCAA tournament starts this week. So that is your morning Buzz cast for Monday, March 13th. I made Mad Cor. Tomorrow I'll go through the full list of nominees for the 2023 Sports Business Awards, which will be released today. We introduce two new categories this year, deal of the Year, and best in sports betting. And there are very, very competitive categories. We'll break all that down tomorrow. So thanks for listening to the Buzz Cast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.