Takeaways from NFL owners meetings; NCAA men's tourney ratings up heading into Final Four; and Overtime's new effort around high school football.
We hinted at it on Monday's Buzzcast. It was formally announced that the NFL is changing its overtime rules to allow for both teams to have a possession, but only in the playoffs. The rules for regular-season game, which allows the team with the first possession to win if it scores a touchdown will remain unchanged.
Meanwhile, soccer stalwarts in the US will keep their eye on the US men's national team, as it looks to qualify for the '22 World Cup tonight in a matchup with Costa Rica. And this is your morning Buzzcast for Wednesday, March 30th. Good morning. I'm Abe Madkour. Hope everybody is doing well. Remember SBJ ALL IN begins today, and hear from leaders around sports, hear their point of view on diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts. The two-day virtual conference is free. Register on sportsbusinessjournal.com. That is today and tomorrow, SS BJ ALL IN.
Let's get right to the news. I'm hearing from a number of sources who are heading down to New Orleans for the Final Four, for the Men's Final Four, at least, and it shows the level of interest in this year's tournament and it's reflected in the viewership numbers. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is averaging 3.84 million viewers per game heading into this weekend's Final Four. That is up 13% from last year's event. It is down just 1% from 2019, and up 7% from 2018. So those are good numbers. All signs point to strong ratings on Saturday. But remember the Final Four games are on TBS and not CBS, which in the past has suppressed the numbers and the viewership a bit. We will see how the numbers hold up for this weekend. But going into the Final Four, a good story around the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
Let's move on to the NFL because we also said on Monday that the owners of the Cleveland Browns, Jimmy and Dee Haslam would not be the most popular people in the room during this week's owners' meetings in Palm Beach because of the massive five-year, fully-guaranteed $230 million contract they gave new quarterback Deshaun Sean Watson, and it's rare to see other owners comment on another team's business, but that's what happened at the meetings in Florida. At least two owners spoke publicly about Watson's deal with the Browns. The Baltimore Raven, Steve Bisciotti acknowledged it altered the quarterback market, and he questioned how it could impact the team's talks with Lamar Jackson. He also questioned if Deshaun Watson should have been the one to get that type of deal.
In addition, Falcons' owner Arthur Blank openly noted that the contract is $80 million more than the highest other contract ever given guaranteed in the history of the league. He added, "Whether or not most teams in the NFL or any other teams in the NFL would've committed that kind of contract, I don't know. It certainly is a huge commitment." And those are only the two owners that were comfortable speaking publicly or on the record. I'm sure there were plenty of conversations behind closed doors about this deal.
To show how much Watson dominated the coverage during Commissioner Roger Goodell's press conference at the close of the meetings yesterday afternoon, seven of the 20 questions were about the new Browns' quarterback, were about his contract, the league's investigation into Deshaun Watson, and possible punishment of Watson. So the bottom line is this story will be part of the NFL's narrative for some time heading into its season and into the regular season for sure, and you've got a sense that other owners weren't really pleased with this massive contract that the Browns gave Deshaun Watson.
Staying with the NFL, Roger Goodell also confirmed that nearly nine months after the NFL punished the Washington Commanders for the organization's workplace culture, owner, Daniel Snyder still does not oversee the team's day-to-day functions or represent the team at league activities. Goodell also said that Dan Snyder won't do any of those things for at least the foreseeable future. Tanya Snyder, the owner's wife and the team's co-chief executive, will continue to lead the Commanders' daily operations and represent the team at league meetings as she did this week in Florida. Roger Goodell said Dan Snyder has not been involved in day-to-day operations or has been at the team facility, and during league meetings, Tanya continues to represent the team. Goodell said at some point, he and Dan Snyder will talk about Dan Snyder possibly returning to his previous leadership role within the organization. Now, Tanya Snyder was joined at the league meetings by team president, Jason Wright, chief operating officer, Greg Rush, Coach Ron Rivera, and general manager Martin Mayhew. So that was the core of the Commanders' leadership group, no Dan Snyder, and that'll be the case for the foreseeable future.
Let's shift to some college conference news because the PAC-12 continues to change under new commissioner, George Kliavkoff as the conference announced it is leaving Downtown San Francisco next year when its office lease expires. The interesting news is that the PAC-12 didn't announce a new home location or headquarters. There will be no conference office, as most will be allowed to work in a fully remote fashion. Now, the conference office has been in San Francisco for a decade, and we know how expensive office space can be in the Bay Area. The conference did announce it'll have a production facility at a to-be-determined location, so there's some more details to come. But overall, this marks a shift from previous commissioner, Larry Scott, who found it very important that the PAC-12 be headquartered in San Francisco in the middle of Silicon Valley. Now that was a move that he was often criticized for because of the expense of having headquarters in San Francisco. New commissioner, George Kliavkoff, obviously here, taking a different tact in moving out of San Francisco when that building lease expires.
Speaking of going in a new direction, we have talked about how Overtime has taken a new way of looking at sports. And we have more evidence of that as Overtime announced it is starting another amateur sports league, this one for high school football players. It will introduce a seven-on-seven football league this June. It's called OT7. Now, it will run for one week, like I said, in June, in Las Vegas. Now Overtime said football players participating in OT7 will not be paid for playing, but Overtime will pay for some expenses, such as hotel rooms, and meals, and some other incidentals. As it announce its plans for OT7, Overtime also said that free agent quarterback Cam Newton will play a role in helping Overtime structure its seven-on-seven format, so a new effort by Overtime. Remember, Overtime launched its Atlanta-based high school basketball league, Overtime Elite last year. Overtime's a pretty interesting brand. Now, they're getting into another sports league around high school football.
And remember, finally, we have SBJ ALL IN presented by UnderDog Venture Team. The virtual conference is complimentary. It'll take place today, Wednesday and Thursday from 1:00 to 4:30 PM. All content will also be available on-demand, so you can really view it at your convenience. You can go to sportsbusinessjournal.com to register for free for our virtual conference SBJ ALL IN presented by UnderDog Venture Team. I'll be there. I hope to see you there.
So that is your morning Buzzcast. It's Wednesday. It's March 30th. I hope everybody has a great day. Stay healthy. Be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.