SBJ Dealmakers is underway in D.C., John Henry may be eyeing the Commanders and Conference USA signs with new media partners.
SBJ Dealmakers is underway in D.C., John Henry may be eyeing the Commanders and Conference USA signs with new media partners.
Scaling for any startup is a monumental task. Three sports entrepreneurs laid out their past to success during day one. Session of S BJ's Deal Makers event in Washington DC. On Wednesday, Zach Weiner, co co-founder and president of Overtime discussed his company's revolution from social media outlet to IP owner with its basketball and college leagues. Teamwork's, co-founder and ceo, Zach Marus, whose organizational and communications platform is used by more than 1000 college teams. Talked about the importance of selecting the right investors for growth and evolution is also important to key up with the Times Huddle. Co-founder and chief product officer John Wortz helps run a performance analysis company that now works with a few hundred thousand teams and he feels there's still room to grow. Day two of S BJ's deal Makers is today and includes sit down interviews with Dallas Mavericks, owner Mark Cuban and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
Go to sports business journal.com for highlights from the two day event in Washington. Good morning. It's Thursday, November 10th. This is your SJ Morning Buzz cast. I'm David Albright, filling in for a Mad Corps Red Sox owner, John Henry is seen as a possible bidder for the Washington Commanders. According to sources, Henry's Fenway Sports Group has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to unload Premier League Club. Liverpool in the deal that it's expected to land between four to 5 billion. That in turn would provide the bulk of a war chest to spend the 4 billion or so in equity needed to buy control of the commanders. Henry would be pitted against a prospective bidding block that's reportedly being formed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Jay-Z, and actor Matthew McConaughey in an auction that could go north of 5.6 billion. Sources speculate that Henry's sense of urgency increased. Last week after Commander's owner Dan Snyder announced he had hired Bank of America to consider potential transactions related to the team.
Speculation about the commanders comes as Henry is also pursuing an NBA expansion team. CBS is off to its best viewership start in an NFL season since 2015 as the network is averaging 17.8 million viewers per window through week nine. CBS has the most watched game of the season for the week two Bengals Cowboys game, and also three of the top five most watched games of the year. With Fox having the other two, NBC said Sunday night football was averaging 20.4 million viewers through week nine. A slight uptick from this point last year as a whole. It currently ranks as the second highest season of SNF since 2015 when it's set an all time mark. Overall, the NFL said it was averaging 16.2 million viewers per game. That's TV and digital and League contests made up 48 of the top 50 most watch shows on TV since the start of the season.
The average is down from 16.4 million through week nine last year, which was a high mark for the league also dating back to 2015. One possible reason for the slight dip is the move of Thursday night football from Fox and the NFL network to Amazon Prime video. This season, Newcastle United's ownership group, which includes Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, PCP Capital Partners and RB Sports and Media has committed to invest a further 80.4 million of equity into the club. An official statement confirmed this amount will bring the group's total investment to more than 514 million since the takeover in October of last year. The new capital injection comes in the wake of several investments that have seen an upgrade in training facilities at St. James Park. The recruitment of senior executives to boost the commercial operations of the club in additions to the club on the field. The New Look Conference USA will shift its entire slate of October football games to midweek evenings, starting with the 2023 season as part of a five year media rights contract.
It signed with CBS Sports Network and ESPN reports. Our Michael Smith and John Iran Octagon served as the media advisor for Conference USA with five new members for the 20 23 24 academic year conference. USA will play most of its October league games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights with a handful of games also planned for Thursday and Friday evenings. The conference prioritized two aspects of the new arrangement. It wanted the type of exposure that two national TV networks can provide and it also wanted to make it easier for its fans to find the games which were spread out over four partners in its old deal Maximizing Exposure, especially critical to Conference USA because it has four new members joining the league in 2023. Liberty, Jacksonville State, New Mexico State, and Sam Houston State, a fifth Kennesaw State joins in 2024. They'll combine with C usa, Holdovers, Florida International, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee, State, Western Kentucky, and UTEP to form the 10 team league.
The deal includes a one year option held by the networks and while representatives for both Conference USA and the networks wouldn't comment on the deals, value sources said that each school would be making around $750,000 per year. We'll close on a quick programming note as Kyrie Irving hasn't just created problems for the Brooklyn, that's the NBA and its sponsors, it's affecting Amazon too. Andrew Marcian and John Iran break down the fallout it's having on every stakeholder. In this week's edition of the Marsh Shannon, Iran Sports Media podcast, the duo also analyzes the 2022 MLB seasons media performance on platforms like Apple TV plus Peacock and Amazon. Since streaming's already on their minds, they look at Netflix's future in sports and the next Apple MLS deal, this week's big get is sideline reporter Erin Andrews. She goes over her career and how working at Fox differs from espn. You can listen to the Marsh Shannon Iran Sports Media podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And that's your SJ morning buzz cast for Thursday. I hope everyone has a great day and we'll see you back here tomorrow morning.