Media Innovators recap; FSG outbidding PIF in PGA Tour deal?; NBA In-Season Tournament tip off; NFL goes Overtime.
Media Innovators recap; FSG outbidding PIF in PGA Tour deal?; NBA In-Season Tournament tip off; NFL goes Overtime.
Good morning. This is your buzz cast for Friday, November 3rd. I'm SBJ Senior writer Joe Lair once again filling in for a Mad Corps. Our media innovators event, brilliantly programmed by Laura Case was full of great content from start to finish yesterday in New York City. It was not hard to find. Common themes emerge as many teams and media companies are sharing similar pain points as Orlando Magic CEO. Alex Martin said in his panel What's old is new again, as several teams have revived over the air viewing options in the wake of some of the RSN troubles, the magic are served by one of the two ballet sports affiliates. Not involved in the bankruptcy, but they are preparing contingency plans. Sharing the stage with him was Jazz President Jim Olsson, whose team has paired a free over-the-Air option with KJZZ and a premium direct to consumer streaming option. He told the audience, we've surpassed 15,000 subscribers in the state of Utah for our direct to consumer for Jazz Plus, and there is a market for everybody in every type of content and channel and you've got to figure that out and reach those people.
Josh Bartelstein, who is the CEO of the NBA Sons and the wwn B'S Mercury was on stage earlier in the day flanked by the providers of his franchises over the air partner, great TV and sons live streaming company GI Way. They coined the phrase beaming and streaming for that pairing and he shared the directive from owner Madiba who said, of course, money matters. But the most important thing to me is fan experience and reach Boston Bruins and Delaware North CEO Charlie Jacobs, whose franchise zones a stake in its RSN Nessen, which was the first RSN to launch an OTT service last year. Jacob said that their premium streaming app, Nessen 360 had been downloaded more than 300,000 times. That's not a direct comparison to the Jazz Plus figure because Nessen 360 has been around longer. It also includes Red Sock games and it's free for those who already have nested in the cable package.
But it still shows clear and evident interest in popularity in the option that the Bruin set NHL records for wins and points last year only helped matters because at the end of the day, try as any franchise might to market and produce content, nothing works quite so effectively as winning. There was some potentially seismic golf news shared by my former Sports Illustrated colleague Alan Ship, who is now the fire Pit collective's executive editor. He is many think the preeminent golf writer in the US and he has closely followed the dynamic between the PGA tour and live golf where his recently released book Live and Let Die Yesterday Afternoon. He shared on the social site formally known as Twitter, that from talking to folks on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley who were close to the deal, the framework agreement is falling apart. Fenway Sports Group has put in a monster bid to usurp the PIF.
It looks increasingly likely we go back to live versus the tour. In a prior message, he emphasized that the framework agreement previously announced between the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and the PGA tour was non-binding and essentially boiled down to withdrawal of lawsuits and a plan to work out the details of the agreement later. Actually doing that has proved challenging it seems and after months of public backlash, the agreement may be falling apart. This could help the PGA tour avoid the antitrust issues that would accompany its possible merger with Liv, but not without having already alienated a number of fans because it signaled its willingness to join forces. Fenway Sports Group already has its broad sports portfolio, the Red Sox, Liverpool fc, and the Pittsburgh Penguins, which will soon be joined by its first golf investment, Boston Common Golf, one of the six franchises in the upstart TGL Indoor League.
Its Global Sports Marketing Group. Fenway Sports Management also has a commercial relationship with the LPGA. One of the key negotiation points, according to multiple reports is that the PGA tour players who remain loyal are seeking equity in the new venture. Something that will undoubtedly change the fundamental economic model of the sport tonight begins the NBA's Grand Experiment. The in-season Tournament seven games tip off this evening as part of group play for every team before advancing to knockout rounds later on in the month. All on custom courts designed to give the event a look that's distinct from the regular season. Although, to be clear, these games do count in the regular standings, but also a degree of uniformity as the in-season tournament hardwoods all have the NBA cup at Center Court and what's described as a contrasting wash of color from lane to lane, kind of a big stripe from one paint to the other as N-B-A-E-V-P of strategy and analytics.
Evan Walsh told our Tom Friend The League hopes this tournament becomes a new tent pole event in much the same way as all-star or the Christmas slate of games. The Orlando Magics, Alex Martins also said on stage at Media Innovators that this is going to create a whole new media property that we could go to market with as we start these national media deals. That, of course, is in the backdrop of everything that happens this season. He noted to the audience the common belief that the NBA season doesn't really start until Christmas day, but that this could inject some additional enthusiasm into the sometimes sleepy first two months of the season. You can't count on the arrival of prodigies like Weby every year. After all, he did score 38 points and a throwing win over the suns last night. Sports media company over time has agreed to a major content partnership with the NFL reports, our Ben Fisher, through which overtime producers and personalities will have behind the scenes access to marquee events such as the Super Bowl Pro Bowl scouting combine and draft overtime has done an exceptional job capturing the Gen Z audience that every sports league is so ardently pursuing.
This was not part of that original news, but it's easy to see some additional synergy somewhere down the line. Overtime also owns and operates a seven on seven flag football league OT seven. That's a sport flag football that the NFL is very much leaning into. It's something that could serve as a player development pathway, particularly among youth players and a fan cultivation strategy. It's especially notable after the recent announcement that flag football would be an Olympic sport during the LA 28 games. Lastly, if you found a spare $7 million under the sofa cushions and wanted to buy a super
Ad, you appear to be out of luck. Varieties reported that CBS is virtually sold out of its inventory, but if you have that lying around, please feel free to invite me over for a slate of NFL games this Sunday. Happy to park myself on that couch and watch YouTube Global Head of Sports and Media Partnerships. Lori Conklin even pledged that media innovators that the issues causing the buffering and image quality issues for their Sunday ticket package during the nine concurrent 1:00 PM games last Sunday had been fixed. When Ben Fisher followed up to ask if she was confident it wouldn't happen again, her response was unequivocal. We are a will be back buzz casting on Monday, so I'll hand the reins back over to him. Unlike James Harden, I'm comfortable as a system player. Monday is also the official start of MLB free agency when loose sofa change. Certainly won't be enough to get Shhe Tani's attention. Until then, have a great weekend.