French sports leaders on defense after Champions League chaos; the motorsports weekend that was and WSJ looks at Emmert's exit.
Well, the NBA gets a great finals match up. Congratulations to the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors, as the Warriors will host the Celtics on Thursday night at the Chase Center for game one of the NBA finals. A very good east-west matchup for the league. For the Celtics, it's a chance at an 18th NBA championship. That would break the tie with the Lakers for the most in league history. For the Warriors, it's a chance at a seventh world championship. So a great, great matchup.
In the NHL, you have the final four all set. The New York Rangers won game seven in Raleigh last night. On Monday night against the Hurricanes, they will face the back-to-back Stanley Cup champs, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Starting Wednesday night, you have the Colorado Avalanche hosting the Edmonton Oilers in game one, starting tonight in the west. So if you're the NBA and the NHL, you have to feel really good about your match-ups.
Speaking of match-ups, how about this one? Nadal, Djokovic, two all-time great meeting in probably the most anticipated match of this year's French Open, meeting in the men's quarter finals. The match will be played at 2:45 Tuesday Eastern time. It'll be a night match, of course, at the French Open. It's the 59th career meeting between these two great, great players and their 10th meeting at Roland-Garros. I will be watching every point of that match today.
And today is Tuesday, May 31st. I'm Abe Madkour. I hope everybody had a very restful, safe and healthy Memorial Day weekend.
Let's stay in Paris because Paris and French officials are scrambling after the chaos surrounding the Champions League final on Saturday, which resulted in some Liverpool fans getting tear-gassed and prevented from entering the main stadium during the final Saturday. This was a stadium outside Paris. Now these troubles did raise questions over the weekend about France's ability to host big sports events. Remember they have the '23 Rugby World Cup. They have the '24 Summer Olympic Games.
Now French officials said Monday that any concern over their ability to host these big events was clearly misguided. They clearly placed the blame on Liverpool fans, who they said came with either fake tickets or no tickets at all. One official said as many as 30,000 to 40,000 fans had either fake or no tickets at all.
They also said the situation was made worse by local youth who tried to force their way into the stadium. So it was chaos all around, and remember this finals was supposed to be played in St. Petersburg, but was moved to Paris after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Now, this is the biggest sports event on the European calendar and overall the French didn't show very well and they'll be dealing with this fallout for a while regarding both organization and logistics around major sports events.
Let's move to racing, because we know Memorial Day is a major racing weekend and all the series performed quite well on the business side. You had Jerry Jones at this weekend's 2022 Monaco Grand Prix. He was there with his family.
In Charlotte, you had a crowd of nearly 100,000 for the Coca-Cola 600. One local columnist wrote the race felt like NASCAR of years ago with such a large crowd. Lee Greenwood singing "Proud to be an American" and yes, even a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.
But the big one was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosting the Indy 500 and the Speedway returning to full capacity for the first time since 2020. They had a crowd of 325,000 people on the grounds. It is the second largest crowd in the last 20 years. It's only topped by the 100th running in 2016. That had closer to 350,000 fans.
Now remember in 2020, the Indianapolis 500 was hosted without any spectators. In '21, they had nearly 135,000 fans, but on Sunday 325,000 and for Roger Penske, it was his biggest coming out party since he acquired IndyCar. It must have felt good for him. It speaks to the growing momentum around auto racing.
Remember we've seen a busy month of open wheel racing in the United States. Earlier in May, Formula One had its inaugural Miami Grand Prix, and now you're seeing the growth around IndyCar because IndyCar has some nice momentum. It is close to a new deal for an unscripted docu-series around the sport. They've had strong attendance numbers in St. Petersburg, in Long Beach, in Alabama, and now of course in Indianapolis.
IndyCar and Shell announced late last week that IndyCar will become the first US-based motorsport series to race with 100% renewable fuel starting in 2023, and Shell extended its deal this week to be the official fuel of IndyCar. So IndyCar putting together some nice wins, and certainly must feel good about the Indy 500 and the turnout there.
Let's shift from motor sports. You know, we don't talk lacrosse a ton on the Buzzcast, but in a conversation on Friday, a source told me how excited he was to go to the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Tournament, which was held this weekend at the University of Connecticut. The top seated Maryland Terps completed a perfect season by beating or holding off Cornell, nine to seven. They won the title before an announced crowd of 22,184 at the University of Connecticut.
Meanwhile, a crowd of 8,500 were in Baltimore on Sunday for the NCAA Women's Lacrosse title game. That's how North Carolina beat Boston College, and that marked the six highest crowd in NCAA women's lacrosse championship history. So some pretty good numbers for college lacrosse in the men's and women's finals.
Let's move to golf. We've talked a lot about LIV Golf's efforts to launch their new series, and Friday, last Friday was supposed to be the day that we learned who was heading to London for the LIV Golf series opener, June 9 to 11 at the Centurion Golf Club. But again, the field for LIV Golf was not released, and so most people are looking at the field to be released today or it has to be released this week.
Now LIV Golf has missed a few times in announcing their field, but reportedly a few players have committed to play in the event, including Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson, and Sergio Garcia. We certainly know the PGA Tour denied player's requests to play in the event, and so there's a real uncertainty, there's a real mystery of what will unfold when players play for the first time at the opener next week in London.
But LIV Golf can't delay much longer. They need to announce the field because this is the first of eight $25 million tournaments in that global series, so you want to keep your eye on that.
And let's stay with golf because the PGA Tour has landed a big sponsor for its tour championship. Accenture is now the third major partner of the tour championship, joining Coca-Cola and the Southern Company. Accenture's sponsorship begins with this year's tournament, which will be run in late August and extends through 2027.
Accenture is not new to golf. It was formerly the title sponsor of a world golf championship event from 1999 through 2014, and now becomes a major sponsor of the PGA Tour's tour championship.
And finally, I'll just end with this one story that everyone will be talking about. It's the Wall Street Journal's look at the exit of Mark Emmert from the NCAA. It's online now. It's one you'll want to read. The story outlines how Mark Emmert's departure recently was a surprise, in part because it came a year after the NCAA board of governors actually extended his contract until 2025.
But the story details how Emmert lost support of congressional leaders in Washington and leaders in college sports thought it was the right time to make a move. The story also reports that according to a number of interviews, and this isn't a surprise, Emmert's downfall was years in the making.
The article notes that Mark Emmert's intelligence and his bright mind was well known, but that also turned off college administrators. They always felt that Mark Emmert had to come across as the smartest person in the room, and he acted that he knew better than them in dealing with the reality of college sports.
It's a smart read that syncs up to many of the things that Sports Business Journal has heard over the years about Emmert's style and his leadership. But this is one article that many people will be talking about and you'll want to give a read to because it's well worth the click.
So that is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, May 31st. It's a short week. I'm Abe Madkour. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.