The future of IOC leadership, the success of "Crossover at Kinnick", Las Vegas' Super Bowl rotation potential and the NFL's impact on YouTube TV.
Well, it's a big week for Sports Business Journal as we will be in Las Vegas for our New Voices Under 30 and 40 Under 40 later this week at the ARIA. I hope I will be able to see you there. And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, October 16th. Good morning, I'm Abe Madkour. Hope you're all doing well. Hope you're all ready for the start of a new week. Last week I was sitting with our Olympic reporter, Rachel Axon, and she was talking about the need to do a story about the legacy of outgoing IOC President, Thomas Bach. Well, little did we know the story may change as the most noteworthy piece of news to come out of the IOCs annual meeting being held this week in Mumbai so far is that Bach is being urged by several members to seek 4 more years as president through 2029.
Now, why is this so interesting? Well, the biggest reason is that such a move would change the Olympic statutes on term limits, and some IOC members want to change term limit rules to keep Bach in office. So this is quite significant. Bach's tenure as President is due to end in 2025, which would be the 12-year maximum agreed to as President by IOC bylaws. But Thomas Bach remains a very popular leader, and IOC members are looking for growth and they're looking for steady leadership out of the IOC.
As we all know, the Olympics have struggled through the last two games in Japan and China, and many want Thomas Bach to remain through this run of what they believe will be a more successful run of Olympic Games. We're talking of course, through Paris, through Italy, through LA and then who knows? But extending Bach's term would need a proposal submitted ahead of an annual meeting known as the Olympic Session. That is scheduled for July in Paris before the 2024 summer games. So to be clear, Thomas Bach has never publicly sought extending his leadership past 2025, but the IOC members certainly want him to stay, and I would not be surprised if Thomas Bock ends up extending his tenure or agreeing to extend his tenure as President of the IOC. Let's move on.
Wow. I don't know if you saw the visuals from the crossover at Kinnick that took place at the University of Iowa's football stadium on Sunday, playing in a football stadium on Sunday, helped Iowa to set the women's college basketball attendance record with more than 55,000 fans. Yes, you heard that correctly. More than 55,000 fans for a women's exhibition basketball game between Iowa and DePaul. That nearly doubled the previous record of just over 29,000 fans that was set at the 2002 Women's Final Four. Amazing.
Again, amazing visuals, another huge hit for women's sports, women's basketball, Iowa and Caitlin Clark. The weather cooperated, guess it was a bit cloudy and cool, but amazing to see the support for the women's team. Like I said, a new record for an NCAA women's basketball game, and it comes during a scrimmage, really. The previous record was nearly 30,000. That was set by Connecticut, Oklahoma in the 2002 NCAA championship game at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio. So a record 21 years later gets broken at a women's basketball scrimmage. Just think about that and the appeal of Caitlin Clark and Iowa right now. This upcoming season is going to be quite the story to watch.
We have talked about on the Buzzcast how Las Vegas is having a year for the record books. Yes, they'll host the Formula One race in November, they will host the Super Bowl in February and well, we said it at the top of the Buzzcast, they'll even host 40 Under 40 on Friday night. Not surprisingly, here comes news that even before the first Super Bowl has been played in Las Vegas, officials say that the city will be on the list to be considered to hosts future Super Bowls. And this marks the first time that Las Vegas has been mentioned in that rotation of cities to be considered. We know the rotation, Miami, Phoenix, New Orleans, obviously now Las Vegas is in that mix.
Meanwhile, the NFL reportedly has considered the possibility of a Super Bowl in London, though NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, likely not happening anytime soon. He said a Super Bowl in London is not out of the question, but right now they're focused on playing in North America in cities that have franchises. But even for the NFL to float that trial balloon of a Super Bowl in London shows that they are considering it quite seriously. Let's move on.
This would be major news in the mixed martial arts space as the Financial Times is reporting that the Professional Fighters League, the PFL, is in talks to acquire a big company in the MMA space. That would be Bellator. Such a deal would really strengthen the PFL and mark a significant consolidation in mixed martial arts. Remember, the PFL received a $100 million investment in August by a newly created sports company that's owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. So the PIF made a big investment in the PFL. Obviously, this is some of the ideas of how the PFL could spend that investment by buying a competitor. Such a deal, if they do buy Bellator, would certainly make PFL a much stronger competitor to the UFC.
Let's talk about football. We're not even two full months into the NFL season and Bloomberg News reported that YouTube is seeing a benefit from its first year having NFL Sunday Ticket. I watch NFL Sunday Ticket in our office on Sundays. I think it's quite easy to use. I think it's quite intuitive. I think the experience has been quite positive. What do you think? Let me know if you're watching Sunday Ticket on YouTube. But right now, the early results have been promising. Bloomberg has reported that Sunday Ticket has already drawn an estimated 1.3 million signups, which exceeds the 1.2 million customers that Sunday Ticket had under DIRECTV. So amazing that already so early YouTube is already outpacing DIRECTV.
Apparently Sunday Ticket is also bringing new subscribers to YouTube TV. About 40% of Sunday Ticket subscribers who purchased the package as an add-on to their YouTube TV subscriptions are new subscribers. So that's exactly what YouTube wants. They wanted to bring people into their YouTube TV ecosystem. Right now, it seems to be working. Meanwhile, YouTube, CEO, Neal Mohan, who was really instrumental in this deal with the NFL said that the company is really focused on refining NFL Sunday Ticket. It's looking to add a lot more innovations and improve the viewer experience. And Sunday Ticket, he said that they're more interested in nailing out Sunday Ticket than they are in potentially pursuing rights to the NBA. So he didn't rule out a potential bid for the NBA, but said it isn't a long-term priority. So the bottom line right now is that YouTube sees its focus on the NFL and the experience around NFL's Sunday Ticket rather than bidding on additional sports properties. But we'll see. That could change down the road.
Last week we talked about the Arizona media market and the Coyotes and the Suns and the Dbacks and the media changes in that marketplace. Well, here's further proof of how things have changed. Bally Sports Arizona actually shut its doors on Friday. They ceased operations because they no longer have rights to the Suns, the Mercury, the Dbacks, and the Coyotes.
So remember, the Suns and the Mercury are now with Gray TV, the Dbacks were dropped by Bally's and MLB took over their distribution. The Coyotes and Bally Sports parted ways, and the Coyotes signed a deal with Scripps Sports. So this regional sports network that was operating for nearly 30 years in this marketplace under different names is now gone and Phoenix becomes the largest market in the country without a regional sports network. So it'll be interesting as a litmus test to see how the market responds. And this really is an end of an era for regional sports networks as Bally Sports Arizona shutters operations last week.
And finally we'll end the Buzzcast like we do, around names in the news. And this is a name well-known in the sports industry. Chip Bowers is leaving Elevate Sports Ventures after three years as the company's President. He announced this move on Friday. Chip Bowers reported to Elevate CEO Al Guido. He'd been based in Charlotte, he will stay with Elevate through the rest of the year. Now interesting. Bowers was hired in September of 2020. Elevate, I think, had about 40 employees and maybe no offices. But he leaves a company with offices in Charlotte, New York, Nashville, London, Salt Lake City, and the company now has nearly 200 employees. They of course work with the Titans, the USTA, Circuit of the Americas, among many others. So Chip Bowers got a lot accomplished at Elevate. His next move, not clear. We all know his background. He was at the Padres, the Supersonics, the Orlando Magic, the Golden State Warriors, and the Marlins before joining Elevate. So Chip Bowers leaving Elevate after three years as President. His next move undetermined. I doubt he'll be a free agent for very long.
And so that is your morning Buzzcast for Monday, October 16th. I'm Abe Madkour. Thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Tuesday.