Baseball's 'new' day; The Haslam's eye downtown Cleveland makeover and Ford Field becomes a hot ticket for Lions games
I've said it a few times, but please don't forget the CAA World Congress of Sports coming to LA Live April 18th and 19th. You can register for the event at WorldCongressofsports.com. I certainly look forward to seeing you there. And this is your morning Buzzcast for Thursday, March 30th. Good morning, I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the BuzzCast. It is Opening Day and for Major League Baseball. Today marks a really important and exciting opening day for baseball. It's the first time in three seasons that it will look to have an uninterrupted season. Remember, there were two covid seasons that were impacted, and then last year there was the owners lockout that delayed the start of the season. So this year they're looking for a very fresh start.
So there is a real sense of energy and enthusiasm with this year's opening, which begins today, Thursday with all 30 teams looking to play pending weather, and there is a lot to look forward to. Today will mark the regular season debut of Baseball's new Rules and Revamp Schedule. First on the rules. We've heard so much about the pitch clock and the other rule changes in spring training. And make no mistake they are working, but will they work as cleanly in the regular season? We'll see if there is a crisper, faster game, but there is also the balanced schedule that will be in effect for the first time. So fans will see more players and more teams during the season. The balanced schedule has every team playing each other at least once, and division foes will play 13 times instead of 19 times. So those are some of the changes you'll see on the field. And trust me when I say baseball officials feel more bullish about their game than ever before.
On the business front SBJ's, David Broughton reported that baseball opens the season with a healthy number of 35 sponsors, and that number should increase over the next few weeks as a number of new deals are pending. New brands that you'll see around baseball this year are booking.com, Casamigos, Charlotte's Web, FanDuel, Sage, SeatGeek, SoRare and Zoom. All are entering their first full season as a sponsor of Major League Baseball and most of those brands gained rights to categories that baseball had not previously sold, including CBD, vodka, sleep wellness, and even tequila. MLB projects that this season's total sponsorship revenue will top last year as the average value of the sponsorships has certainly increased. But of course all this comes for baseball as the leagues and the team's media model is under great duress. We've talked about the challenges of the regional sports networks and that could lead to significant change in the way baseball is presented locally. But the bottom line is I believe there's a lot to look forward to as baseball begins its season today. The sport and its leaders have enacted some of the most dramatic change in its history, all to improve the product for the fan. And that's what I find so encouraging. So I'm interested to hear from you, what are you looking forward to the most from this year's baseball season?
We'll stay with baseball because one of the first teams to test the market for a sale last year was the Washington Nationals. And remember then came talk about a possible sale of Liverpool, Manchester United, the Commanders, the Phoenix Suns, the Ottawa Senators, all those teams floated that they could be for sale. Well, some transactions have taken place such as the Suns, but SBJ's Chris Smith reported that the Nationals are now putting the sale process on hold. The Lerner Family remains intent on a sale of the team, but the process has been halted to not distract management and ownership from operating the franchise for this upcoming season. The expectation is that the sale process will resume in earnest after the end of the season. The Nats were first announced to be for sale in April of 22. Sources have said that the core reason for this long sale process is the team's ongoing legal dispute with the Orioles over MASN, and that is the regional sports network they both share ownership in and the teams have disagreed over the value of a rights fee owed to the Nationals. So it seems that the Nats will play out this season, they hope free of distraction and then take up the sale process in the fall. But the nationals represent one more team that is now quietly off the market in terms of a sale.
Let's move on from baseball. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is optimistic the league and the Players Association will reach a new collective bargaining agreement and it's possible a new deal could be agreed to before Friday night's deadline. Silver did say that if a deal is not reached by this weekend, the NBA will opt out of the current CBA that ends at the end of June. And he did hint that would allow three more months to negotiate the new agreement with the Players' Association. But overall, Adam Silver sounds very encouraged and that is a good sign. We all know there are no major pressing issues in the NBA that should result in any labor stalemate and the NBA and the players need to lock up a long-term CBA before taking their media rights to the marketplace. And all signs indicate that they will do just that, and that is certainly good news for basketball.
Let's move to some news out of the NFL. One deal many sources have talked to me about is what would the Cleveland Browns do when it comes to a stadium? Would they build a brand new one in downtown Cleveland or would they renovate First Energy Stadium, which opened in 1999? There's a lot of interest as this would be a major, major stadium project regardless of which direction the team went in. But the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the team is planning a major renovation of First Energy Stadium before the team's lease is up in 2028. Early, early estimates have that the renovation could cost anywhere between $500 million to a billion dollars and take two to three years to complete. The renovation would not include putting a dome over the building, but it would be a substantial renovation at that price tag. Now, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. The team said it's a few years from moving forward with this, but they do wanna do it all before 2028 and it would be the first major work on the stadium since it was open in 1999.
Now this goes back to something we have talked about on the Buzzcast, the Haslam family's efforts to grow their sports portfolio and the profile of their teams. Remember the Haslams have the Browns, the Columbus crew, they're buying a steak in the Milwaukee Bucks. They wanna see a refurbished Brown stadium in downtown Cleveland and they want that stadium to compete for some of the biggest sporting events in the world. The Haslams are bullish on Cleveland. They believe a renovated stadium and downtown development are keys to that city's future.
Staying with the NFL, the Dan Campbell era in Detroit, it's hot right now. The Lions are riding the momentum of last year's winning record and Ford Field will be a popular place this fall. The team said that it is expecting all of the Lions home games at Ford Field to be sold out this season. There is strong ticket demand in Detroit. There are strong new sales and 97% of season ticket holders have renewed this year. So again, people are feeling very confident in the lions and obviously identifying with Coach Dan Campbell and his leadership, but Ford Field looks to be fully sold out for this upcoming season.
Let's touch on the NCAA tournament. We'll talk more about it on Friday's Buzzcast, but we know that ratings for the women's tournament have been up dramatically, but, but it's also good to see that attendance has seen a nice bump as well. Remember they changed the format this year. They moved from a four regional format to a two regional format and that was an attempt to offer more neutral sites. But while it may offer more neutral sites by spreading things out, it also was a big, big draw because attendance is up. As you recall, this was the first year the event switched from a four regional format to a two regional format. Now they did it to feature more neutral sites, but it also drew more attendance. The women's regionals in Seattle and Greenville, South Carolina set attendance records with a combined attendance of more than 83,000 fans across eight Sweet 16 and four Elite Eight games.
That number more than 83,000 was up 10,000 from the previous regional record of nearly 74,000. But that was as far back as 2003. This year's number of 83,000 was about 20,000 more fans compared to last year's regionals. So a significant increase in regional attendance numbers. And again, yes, the four regional format to the two regional format certainly led to more neutral sites, but it also seemed to draw more fans and that's a change that seemed to work well for the NCAA.
And let's end with a name in the news. A name that many of you know, the Bay Area host committee has hired Zaileen Janmohamed as its CEO and President, a role in which she will lead, uh, the region's preparation to host matches as part of the 26th World Cup at Levi's Stadium, as well as overseeing all bid efforts around major sports event. Now Janmohamed is a 2016 SBJ 40 under 40 honoree. She's a longtime Bay Area resident. She is well known in sports circles. She is currently Senior Vice President and head of Commercial Development and Innovation for LA28. Now her background includes brand work. She worked at Visa, she also worked at an agency GMR Marketing. She's also worked at Properties, MLS and LA28, so she can use that experience as she looks to grow the number of events in the Bay Area. She wants to turn the Bay Area Host Committee into a more permanently active entity, which would make it or should make it stronger and more attractive to bring on more high profile events. Now she had a big role at LA28. I'm sure the appeal of going back to the Bay Area was appealing to her and her family, but also being a CEO and a CEO to a board, a board of people that she's very familiar with, mostly team leaders in the Bay Area, was also an attractive proposition for her as she now becomes CEO and President of the Bay Area Host Committee.
And so that is your morning buzzcast for Thursday, March 30th. I'm Abe Madkour stay healthy, be good to each other. Have a great day. I'll speak to you tomorrow.