Baseball's big deals; NFL's on-air free agency and Sports Business Award nominees announce.
Well, I never bought that Tom Brady was retired. It never felt right, and there are so many fun angles to Tom Brady's unretirement, but Peter King notes, "NFL scheduler, Howard Katz's job just became more complicated, and now look for Tampa Bay to be put back in the mix for the maximum number of primetime games for this upcoming NFL season." Peter King notes that, "Without Brady, Tampa may have been in primetime three times. With Brady, Tampa will max out, it's primetime appearance is six, possibly seven. All I know is the NFL's far more interesting and far more fun with Tom Brady playing in it."
And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, March 14th. Good morning. I'm Abe Madkour, hope you're all doing well. At first, a shout out to my colleague, Josh Carpenter, as he and his wife, Amy welcome their first child into the world over the weekend, Walt carpenter. Both Amy and Walt are doing well, so congratulations to the Carpenter family.
Let's start with the NFL. The NFL free agency period really begins in earnest today, but it's not just about players on the field. There's free agency with on-air talent as well. Joe Buck will leave Fox after almost 30 years and join ESPN's Monday Night Football, and be paired alongside his longtime partner, Troy Aikman starting this season.
Now Joe Buck, boy, he has been the voice of six Super Bowls for Fox since joining the network in 1994. He of course, led all their baseball coverage. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post broke this story first on Friday afternoon. He reported that Fox granted Joe Buck permission to speak with ESPN, with one year and $10 million remaining on his Fox contract. Now Buck is expected to sign a contract in the five-year, $60-75 million range with ESPN.
Marchand reported that Fox did try to keep Joe Buck, but their offer really wasn't enough, and now Joe Buck will join Troy Aikman at ESPN. Look at the star power at ESPN as Marchand noted, Buck, Aikman, and the Mannings, that'll cost ESPN an estimated $50 million per year. So some major changes in the on-air talent booth at the NFL, and certainly more changes to come.
Last week we talked about MLB doing a media deal with Apple for Friday Night Baseball, and now over the weekend, there were more details about baseball's talks with NBC Universal about a package of games for Peacock. So now you'll see Peacock have exclusive rights to stream games in a new Sunday time slot. The deal would involve a package of about 18 baseball games, some beginning as early as 11:30 AM, Eastern time, and some just afternoon on Sundays. So those would obviously be East Coast based games given the early start.
These games will be available exclusively for Peacock subscribers. NBC Sports would produce the pre and post games, as well as the games. And so we said as soon as the CBA deal was done, we'd see a rash of baseball deals and we're seeing it. We saw the Apple deal for Friday night games. Now we're seeing a deal with Peacock for a Sunday package of games. We also talked on the Buzzcast about some changes to the on-field product with the new CBA, and those are starting to become more clear. So let's go through some of the things we learned over the weekend.
First, there are changes to the MLB All-Star Game, where a home run derby could decide that All-Star Game if it goes into extra innings. There will also be regular seasoned baseball games in Mexico City, each May in '23, '24, '25 and '26. Baseball will play regular season games in London in '23, '24 and '26. They'll play a regular season game in Paris in '25. A season-opening series is planned for Asia in 2024 and Tokyo in 2025.
They'll also be major changes in terms of the schedule. Starting in 2023, the schedule will not focus so much on divisional play. And that's very interesting because that's been a hallmark of baseball for years, all those Yankee-Red Sox rivalries, things of that nature. Instead of the focus on divisional play, we'll see teams play at least one series against every team in both leagues. So there'll be a real blurring of the lines between the National League and the American League. And finally, we talked about this before, but teams will now be able to sell advertising on uniforms and helmets. So more changes starting to emerge for baseball in the new collective bargaining agreement.
Let's move on. We talked about the big changes with the NWSL, the National Women's Soccer League getting a new Commissioner last week. Well, now it has a new sponsorship sales agency. New York-based Allied Sports will be the NWSL's sponsorship sales agency. They'll work with the NWSL on trying to, I would say expand the league sponsorship portfolio.
Current NWSL sponsors include the likes of Ally, Budweiser, Deloitte, MasterCard, and Nationwide. So there's some ability to grow that portfolio, for sure. The NWSL will expand to 12 teams in 2022, with the additions of Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC. And of course, Jessica Berman is the new Commissioner of the NWSL. And now they get a new sponsorship sales agency in Allied Sports.
I've been enjoying Winning Time, the series on the Lakers on HBO, really good storytelling, good acting, and we're seeing more and more sports documentaries coming out, and we know there are more around the Lakers. Magic Johnson's Apple TV series, They Call Me Magic debuted Saturday at South by Southwest. The four-part series starts April 22nd on Apple.
One review I read was positive and I found it interesting that Magic Johnson watched the show for the first time when it premiered on Saturday. He said that he knew if he got an early look at the series, the documentary would never see the light of day because he is such a perfectionist, especially about his story. So They Call Me Magic, that launched at South by Southwest on Saturday.
Another new documentary launched at South by Southwest, this one on Nolan Ryan. It's called Facing Nolan, and it is the first documentary ever on Nolan Ryan's life and career. So look for those coming out very shortly.
And today, we unveil the nominees of the 15th annual Sports Business Awards, which will be held May 18th in New York. The winners in 13 categories will be determined by a group of more than 40 industry judges. If you're interested, let me know. We're looking for those that love to debate the sports business, but you have to put some work in because it's a pretty difficult exercise with a lot of thought, a lot of study, and some research.
So if you are interested in being a judge for the Sports Business Awards, let me know. We'll preview some of the categories over the next few weeks. Today, we'll touch on the nominees for Team of The Year. The nominees for Team of The Year announced today are the Atlanta Braves, Austin FC, the Golden State Warriors, the Los Angeles Rams, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Tampa Bay Lightning. So that winner will be announced live, May 18th in New York. We will also present Robert Kraft with our Lifetime Achievement Award in New York on May 18th. Hope you can join us. And again, if you're interested in being a judge, just let me know.
So that is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, March 14th. I made Abe Madkour, hope everybody has a great start to their week. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.