Yankees/Rays join on social messaging; Pickleball's big weekend in Queens and Cindy Parlow Cone's victory lap
Memorial Day weekend, a big sports weekend. Of course, you're expected to have a crowd of over 300,000 for the Indy 500. You should have close to 90,000 expected for the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte. You have the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday morning. On Saturday, it's the Champions League Finals from Paris, all with NHL and NBA playoffs continuing. So a big Memorial Day weekend. Hope you enjoy it.
This is your Morning Buzzcast for Friday, May 27th. I'm Abe Madkour. Hard to believe, the first five months of 2022 are almost in the books. It's a light day in sports business, but let's get right to it.
In a rare form of unity and social activism, the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays used their social platforms on Thursday night to provide information about gun violence in America, instead of providing any commentary or highlights from their game on Thursday evening. The Rays posted on their platform, quote, "We all deserve to be safe. This cannot become normal. We cannot become numb. We cannot look the other way," end quote.
Throughout the game, the Yankees and the Rays posted the same facts and same data points on their respective Twitter feeds. And one post noted quote, "Firearms were the leading cause of death for American children and teens in 2020," end quote. The Rays changed their Twitter header to an image reading End Gun Violence.
I commend the organizations for working together and trying to make an impact. I'm sure there'll be some criticism of the teams. There were some criticism of the heat for what they did on Wednesday evening, but again, these organizations trying to make a difference.
Let's move on. A big weekend for pickleball. Yes, as the association of pickleball professionals will hold the Franklin New York City Open this weekend at the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. They have a full field on the men's and women's side.
On the men's side, the tournament features the world's number one player, JW Johnson, along with 13 other top ranked male professionals. On the women's side, world number one player, Simone Jardim is competing along with 12 other top ranked female professionals. So it is a crowded great field. That's one of the best fields in pickleball.
This event has been identified as a major event. It is sanctioned by USA Pickleball and interestingly, 42 pickleball courts have been installed at the National Tennis Center for the five-day tournament. Now, this is the first major event for the Association of Pickleball Professionals since Intersport, the Chicago-based agency joined the tour as an equity partner.
On Thursday, Sketchers made a big investment in pickleball with a deal that makes Sketchers the official footwear company of the Association of Pickleball Professionals, USA Pickleball, and Major League Pickleball. This deal was handled and brokered by Intersport. So there's been a lot of buzz on pickleball. It was the subject of a cover story in SPJ recently and now it has one of its biggest events in New York City this weekend.
We've talked about a possible sale of AC Milan on the Buzzcast. And right now the U.S fund Elliot is in talks with Gerry Cardinale's Redbird Capital Partners, which is seen as the front runner to buy the team. Redbird Capital is an investor in Fenway Sports Group and will certainly try to drive revenue around AC Milan and significantly monetize the TV rights and the stadium revenue around the Serie A club. So look for those negotiations to continue. Redbird Capital Partners has been rumored to be close to taking over AC Milan for some time. We'll keep an eye on when that deal goes down.
This is a story I didn't get a chance to comment on last week when I was in New York, but a real hat tip to U.S. Soccer Federation, President Cindy Parlow Cone. She deserves a victory lap. We know that the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation came into her role unexpectedly in 2020, when she suddenly took over for Carlos Cordeiro, who resigned under pressure, but in just over two years, Cindy Parlow Cone has emerged as one of the most effective leaders in sports.
And what she did recently, the degree of difficulty for a new leader in pulling off a settlement with the woman's national team, and then two collective bargaining agreements securing long-term labor peace and pay equity cannot be overstated. I think it's one of the most impressive achievements in sports so far this year. The two CBAs were announced last week, shows how steadfast Cindy Parlow Cone has been since taking the job. She has stated from day one, she was focused on equal prize money, the money in the end had to be equal between the men and the women and she did all this while being a newcomer to CBA negotiations.
The Women's National Team players also deserve great credit as well. Sources close to the negotiations told me the players' dedication to this process was superb. They used the past few years to study up and learn the intricacies of labor law and labor negotiations and they were always at the bargaining table. They deserve tremendous credit.
Meanwhile, the Men's National Team also deserves credit as they saw the benefit of maybe some short-term pain for long-term gains in this new deal. But Cindy Parlow Cone, the president, has a big win in the books. And now she has a new four-year term as president, she can look ahead to make some big decisions.
And there are some big decisions for U.S. Soccer coming up. One, how do you capitalize on the 2026 World Cup? That is a big, big strategic decision. Two, should the U.S. bid for the Woman's World Cup in 2027 or 2031. And finally, what kind of leader does she want to be? How much of a high profile does she want to have? I think that's going to be interesting to watch.
Cindy Parlow Cone is smart, she's affable, she's connected. She has a lot of fans in the business, but we'll have to see the public role she holds going forward, but she has a four-year window to set her strategy to capitalize on a rare growth opportunity for soccer in America and we'll certainly be watching.
So that is your Morning Buzzcast for Friday, May 27th. I'm Abe Madkour. I do hope everyone has a great restful, peaceful and safe Memorial Day weekend. Stay healthy. Be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Tuesday.