MLB nears $11B in revenue; World Series now up against NFL; and what's next for the Pac-12?
Here's one overlooked detail that I missed from last weekend. I was recently with two top sports business executives who live in London, and they stressed to me the growing relevance and popularity of the NFL in that market. They kept saying there is real interest in the sport.
Well, after seeing this week's attendance figures for the NFL, I sense they may be on point as the Broncos and Jaguars played in front of more than 86,000 fans Sunday at Wembley Stadium and that was the largest attendance for a game in the United Kingdom since the NFL began playing there in 2007. So the NFL making some real gains in the UK.
And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, November 1st. Hard to believe it's November 1st. Good morning, I'm Abe Madkour, thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Let's start with baseball, because Monday night's World Series game three was postponed to tonight, Tuesday, and that pushes back the series by a day, and it sets up a lot of unique situations.
First, on Thursday night, for Fox in Philadelphia and Houston, they will have a full plate. That's because the Game 3 delay now means Astros-Phillies game five is scheduled for Thursday night, which is the same night that Fox had planned to carry the Eagles-Texans Thursday night football game in those respective markets, Houston and Philadelphia. Other US markets will of course see the game on Amazon. So what does Fox do? Well, in Houston, Fox does have two stations, so it can carry the World Series on its main station and move Thursday night football to its secondary station. But the plans in Philadelphia are not clear yet, but that is one very unique situation by the rainout.
Now, we also know that Major League Baseball had looked to avoid going head to head up against the NFL, but it has no choice now as it will go up against, like I said, Eagles-Texans on Thursday and any game seven would compete with Titans-Chiefs on Sunday night football, so not ideal. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said the league had little choice in going up against the NFL, but he believes that the league really has a great product in the World Series that fans will want to see and he said they have to put the games on when it makes the most sense, and they just hope to deliver a good audience. So far they did, Fox had a good start to its World Series as the audience from game one was up over the last two years with the Phillies win in game one drawing 11.5 billion viewers. Again, those are strong numbers to start the series. We'll see how it plays out as the series continues.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Manfred said that Major League baseball revenue this year will be closed to a record of $11 billion. We talked about this yesterday on the Buzzcast. The business of baseball is quite healthy.
Let's move on. I heard from a lot of listeners about the Big 12 deal and what that means for the Pac-12, which we know right now is on the open market as it's no longer in any exclusive negotiating window with ESPN and Fox. Our SBJ's John Ourand broke down the options for the Pac-12 well in his SPJ Media newsletter Monday night, and here's how he sees it. First, he believes ESPN and Amazon remain the front runners to pick up Pac-12 rights. He anticipates agreements potentially coming by the end of this year. He also reports that Pac-12 leaders and Pac-12 officials are very optimistic after they saw the Big 12 media rights numbers as they believe they, or the Pac-12, will get more revenue per school than the Big 12's $31 million per school. Pac-12 officials believe that if the schools are happy with their media rights' distribution number, it's far less likely they will be persuaded to jump or leave the conference.
Again, Pac-12 officials believe they can reach a higher number per school than the Big 12 deal. One reason for that optimism is the fact that the Pac-12 has its rights on the open market like we discussed. Amazon and ESPN are the front runners according to John Iran. But the Pac-12 has held talks with Apple, with Fox, with Warner Brothers Discovery, and of course, as we all know, the theory of multiple bidders will drive the price up. Again, all that remains to be seen, but the Pac-12, feeling optimistic about its position in the media marketplace.
Get ready now for the new XFL. The XFL unveiled its team names and brands. Now, some are holdovers from the 2020 launch under Vince McMahon and some are new identities, so let's break them down. You have some of the same names with updated brands like the St. Louis BattleHawks, the DC Defenders, and the Houston Roughnecks. The Seattle Dragons are now the Seattle Sea Dragons. The old Dallas Renegades are now the Arlington Renegades, but there are three brand new kind of brands and teams, the San Antonio Brahmas, the Vegas Vipers, and the Orlando Guardians. The Brahmas are the only new team without a clear tie to the 2020 league. Remember the 2020 league under former owner Vince McMahon folded after five games amid the pandemic. The new version was acquired out of bankruptcy by the Rock, Dwayne Johnson, Danny Garcia, and Redbird Capital Partners. As part of that deal, the league's intellectual property was included in the transaction and that's why the names are so familiar.
The new XFL will begin play February 18th, 2020. They'll actually hold the draft next month. We've talked about this on the Buzzcast, but in order to kind of centralize operations and efficiencies, all the teams will practice in and around the Arlington, Texas area, but they will play games in their local markets. The league, of course, has a media deal to have its games seen on ESPN. The XFL taking another step forward towards its launch in February of next year.
We'll end with this. A lot of talk about Amazon on this Buzzcast. Well, they will introduce a daily full slate of talk shows around sports as it continues to build out its sports portfolio. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports today, on Tuesday, that Amazon Prime will introduce that daily slate of talk shows. They'll run from 8:00 AM till 8:00 PM and they'll feature some well known names like Carrie Champion, but also a number of new faces as the host. The shows will be apparently strictly talk shows and talk show format, they will not feature any game highlights, but it's another step by Amazon to get deeper into sports. Look for the sports shows to launch later this week.
That is your morning Buzzcast for Tuesday, November 1st, I made Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Spread the word if you enjoy the buzz cast. Until I speak to you again, stay healthy, be good to each other, and I'll speak to you on Wednesday.