Catching up from Memorial Day Weekend; New leagues eye start dates; Facility developments for $100 and Will Ferrell eyes "Madden" film.
Well, the NBA and NHL Finals are all set. Congratulations to the Miami Heat Organization. What a series as the Heat win Game 7 last night in Boston. It will be the Heat-Nuggets in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, tips off Thursday, 8:30 on ABC. The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Stars in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. They return to the Stanley Cup Final and will host the surprising Florida Panthers this Saturday night, June 3rd on TNT. And I know a lot of lacrosse fans out there watched Notre Dame win its first men's lacrosse national title with a win over Duke on Monday in front of 30,000 fans at Lincoln Financial Field. And yes, I am still processing the end of succession. Tell me, what did you think about the finale?
And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, May 30th. I hope everybody had a great Memorial Day weekend. It certainly was a big weekend for the Captain Roger Penske, who won his record, 19th Indianapolis 500. His legacy just continues to grow as his driver Josef Newgarden won on Sunday at the 500 extending Penske's record to 19 victories and Penske's first since he bought Indianapolis Motor Speedway a number of years ago. Newgarden is from Nashville, is the first American to win the Indy 500 since Alexander Rossi in 2016. If you watched the race on Sunday, you could just feel the energy and the visuals were stunning with a crowd estimated at more than 300,000 fans celebrating their Memorial Day weekend at Indianapolis. This is one of the biggest attendance figures for the race in the last 25 years. And it really proves that the Indy 500 is still one of the top draws in sports.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said a vote on the A's relocating to Las Vegas could happen by June if the team has a financing deal in place for a new ballpark and approved. The A's are working with Nevada lawmakers for a public funding element. More on that in a minute. MLB owners would need to approve relocation by a 75% vote. Meanwhile, a plan to bring the A's to Las Vegas had its first chance to be publicly discussed by both lawmakers and the public, Monday night. It was a meeting that lasted more than five hours. A bill was introduced Friday night in the Nevada Senate that would provide the A's with up to $380 million in tax financing for a 1.5 billion, 30,000 seat partially retractable roof ballpark. The ballpark, which the A's are expected to put in no less than $1.1 billion into, would be located on the Tropicana site. So the A's possible relocation to Las Vegas continues to move forward.
A great story out of Minneapolis. The success of the Stadium US Bank probably never gets ample attention. I always felt it should have one Sports Facility of the Year at the Sports Business Awards, but the facility was beat out twice, two successive years. Well, news last week shows just how successful that building has been as the seven-year-old facility, US Bank, which costs $1.1 billion to construct will be fully paid off before the biking start their season in August. That's an incredibly strong financial performance as the state will have retired $377 million in outstanding bonds on the building, and they've saved taxpayers more than $225 million in interest.
This is interesting. The bonds were scheduled to be paid off in 2046, but will be paid off more than 20 years in advance. And most of the revenue to pay off the state and city debt came from pull-tabs. That is a form of a game, kind of like a lottery as in the 2012 bill to build the stadium, the state legalized electronic pull-tabs. Tax revenue from the pull-tabs was so strong it went on to make the annual debt payments on the building of about $30 million. But there was such an excess, it went into the stadium reserves. And as the pull-tabs continued to be more and more popular, more revenue was generated. And the reserve for the stadium ballooned beyond expectations and paid off the stadium earlier than projected. So amazing, as this is a facility and a legacy that really seems to benefit the community, the state, the team, and the fans and there will be no more debt on US Bank Stadium after just seven years. Pretty amazing story there in that city.
I kind of want to stay with the NFL because one of the reasons the NFL won Sports League of the Year last Wednesday at the Sports Business Awards was because of the league's continued global growth. They had a very successful inaugural game in Germany last year and they looked to build on that in the future. Well, don't sleep on Ireland. Yes, after the Pittsburgh Steelers' marketing agreement with Ireland, the franchise said it would like to play a game in Ireland. Ireland is now in play as the NFL granted the Steelers and the Jags marketing rights to that country. Remember, late Steeler's owner, Dan Rooney, was the US ambassador to Ireland from 2009 to 2012. So there's a history there. The Steelers would certainly like to play in Ireland in the future.
In a conversation last week, a top sports executive told me that one element in the business they are very excited about is the creation of new sports leagues. We are seeing it across sports. We've seen it with football and others, and now volleyball is no different. Last week, San Diego was announced as one of the inaugural teams playing in the Pro Volleyball Federation when that 16 match regular season launches in February. This league is being backed by the likes of Kerri Walsh Jennings, as well as founding partners who include Bengals quarterback, Joe Burrow, and Magic owner, Dan DeVos. So the team's name in San Diego, the logo, and the players will be announced in the coming weeks and the local ownership group still needs to find a home arena.
Now outside of San Diego, league franchises for the Pro Volleyball Federation include Orlando, Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Columbus, Ohio, and Omaha, Nebraska. The league is expected to add as many as two more teams and the Pro Volleyball Federation will launch its inaugural season in February of 2024.
Now, while we're on the topic of new leagues, here is another proposed new league, and this is around a sport that is certainly being challenged right now, horse racing. The Daily Racing Form had a story that a group of investors has raised funding to buy 36 racehorse this summer for the purposes of creating a league structure within the sport. Now the league's founders are attempting to create an event-focused league for thoroughbred race horses that will be modeled around other sports leagues. The early concept has a league office buying the horses, conducting a draft among six team owners. And all those owners are equity investors in the league. The league would fund the purses for a series of races to be held on five weekends in the late summer and fall at five different tracks.
So it's being called the National Thoroughbred League. It would start this fall. The business model is similar to other leagues. They will sell tickets to events and of course, sell sponsorship. Team owners will be free to sell stakes in their team. And the original six teams will represent New York, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Seattle, Nashville, and Philadelphia. Names, logos, and uniforms will be unveiled next month. And again, the league is looking to debut this fall. So another sports league looking to launch, this one, the National Thoroughbred League.
A couple of interesting team developments to note. First, a very big deal for the Columbus Crew as the main entryway in gathering space at Lower.com Field in Columbus will now be known as the Chase Plaza. That's under a new multi-year deal between the Crew and JP Morgan Chase. Terms of the deal were not available. Now, team officials touted that plaza entitlement as one of the club's most significant sponsorship assets as 80% of the fans enter through that space to enter Lower.com Field. So this is a very active space that's active during games and even non-game days. Now, the club will launch a Chase meal deal where you get special pricing on hotdogs, popcorn, and bottled water for customers who use their Chase card. This will also be a big employee engagement asset for JP Morgan Chase, which has a large global office located in Columbus. But the Columbus Crew, JP Morgan Chase signing a big deal to dedicate Chase Plaza at Lower.com Field.
Staying with facility development, if you've been to Petco Park in San Diego, you know it's one of the best ballpark settings in the United States. There are so many interesting elements surrounding it. And now the Padres will enhance that even more by moving forward with a $20 million renovation plan that will transform Gallagher Square at Petco Park. And that will be around the celebration of the ballpark's 20th anniversary. Hard to believe. Now, Gallagher Square is a cool area. It's located outside the outfield walls, but it's inside the Petco Park gates. And now the Padres will invest in a major revitalization of the section of the park by bringing more amenities. There'll be new playgrounds in the play area. There'll be a fenced off-leash dog park. There'll even be pickleball courts here in this new revitalized Gallagher Square. The plan is to have these elements in place by the start of the '24 baseball season.
And as we're on the topic of mixed use developments, certainly check out this week's SBJ as Brett McCormick and others take a deep dive into some of the mixed use projects on the books around sports facilities in the United States. And let's finish up with a couple of quick hitters. First, NHL sources believe the sale of the Ottawa Senators will be completed by Friday with an agreement in principle with the club's new owners. Once that happens, the deal will have to be approved by the NHL's executive committee that is scheduled to meet June 7th. So the deal to sell the Ottawa Senators coming close to completion.
And you know I'm a huge fan of Will Ferrell's and we know how much he loves sports. Well, now comes a report over the weekend that Will Ferrell is set to star as John Madden in a feature called Madden to be directed for Amazon and MGM by the five time Oscar nominee, David O. Russell, a very, very quality filmmaker. So there is no start date or production timeline, but this could be a great, great story. One name attached to it as a producer is New York Giants' co-owner Steve Tisch. Deadline reported that the expectation is that the NFL will support this film on John Madden as of course one of football's most legendary figures. So Will Ferrell connected to an Amazon production about the life of football legend John Madden.
And that is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, May 30th. I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.