MLB looks to continue momentum in postseason; Jim Dolan's successful Sphere opening; Astros and Rockets get into the RSN business
Well, Jim Dolan's dream and vision came to fruition on Friday with the opening of the Sphere in Las Vegas. By all accounts, the $2.3 billion facility with unbelievable visual effects and capacity of 18,000 will become a must-see attraction in Vegas. It opens with a 25 show run by U2. The Sphere, of course, is the vision of MSG's Jim Dolan, owner of the Knicks and Rangers, as is well-documented. He sketched the first drawing of the Sphere on notebook paper, and saw it come to fruition on Friday. And yes, the NFL continued to be the place where all the cool kids want to be, as Taylor Swift led a number of boldface names to MetLife Stadium to watch the Chiefs play the Jets. She was joined by Sophie Turner, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, among others, and yes, there were nonstop references to Taylor Swift. I thought they were going to show her suite after every play. For me, it was a bit much, but this will continue to drive business and interest around the NFL.
And this is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, October 2nd, good morning, I'm Abe Madkour, hope everybody had a great weekend and are ready for this week. First, the MLB playoffs start Tuesday with the wild card round, you'll have four games on the Disney Network. You'll have Texas at Tampa Bay, you'll have Toronto at Minnesota, you'll have Arizona at Milwaukee, Miami at Philadelphia, again, on either ABC, ESPN or ESPN2. I'm hoping baseball can continue its strong season with a successful playoffs. They have had a good story to tell around attendance, as more than 70 million fans attended baseball games this year, that's the league's best number in six years. For the season, attendance was up more than 9%, and the average was just over 29,000 fans per game.
That 9% increase was the biggest year-over-year jump in attendance since at least 1998. So yes, they had a very good year at the gate. 24 teams were up, six clubs saw slight decreases, and the biggest drop were the White Sox and the Nationals. And yes, the changes to the game on the field really helped. Overall, game times were down 24 minutes to two hours and 40 minutes for a nine inning game. The expanded playoffs to 12 teams meant more teams in contention throughout the season, so now baseball has its standard. Commissioner Rob Manfred says its goal is that the league is a 70 plus million fan business year after year. They hit it this year, they know they can do it in the future.
Let's take a look at the most popular player jerseys for baseball this season. Topping the list for the first time is the Angel's Shohei Ohtani. And this list is based on MLBshop.com sales of jerseys since opening day. Ohtani also topped the list of the most followed players on the mlb.com app. So, the most popular baseball player jerseys, top 10, Shohei Ohtani. Number two, Ronald Acuña. Number three, Aaron Judge. Number four, Fernando Tatís. Number five, Mookie Betts. Number six, José Altuve. Number seven, Julio Rodriguez. Number eight, Matt Olson. Number nine, Alex Bregman. And number 10, Mike Trout. Now, when they list the top 20, four Braves players made the top 20 lists, I just gave you the top 10, but again, baseball, with a diverse range of young stars and this bodes for the future of the game.
Let's move on. The Astros and Rockets are now in the regional sports network business, as they acquired AT&T's SportsNet Southwest from Warner Brothers Discovery over the weekend. They will relaunch the channel this week with a new name, it'll be called Space City Home Network. No changes are really expected with the move, the programming and the broadcasters are expected to remain the same. But it shows that as media networks get out of the regional sports network business, teams, when they can, have to step up, incur some initial costs, for sure, but have greater control of their broadcast future going forward. Astros/Rockets now partners in the regional sports network business by relaunching Space City Home Network on Tuesday.
SBJ's Michael Smith broke this story on Friday afternoon, the NCAA is bringing back Endeavor to consult and advise on its next round of media negotiations, which will include, the Women's Basketball Championship, either as a standalone property or as part of a package of media rights. This will be Endeavor's second tour with the NCAA, they initially served as an advisor working with the NCAA from February 1st through early August. When that contract ended, the NCAA sought a media advisor through a competitive bid process, but Endeavor was chosen again because of its familiarity with the NCAA. So this round of media rights includes all of the NCAA championships, except for the men's basketball and men's and women's golf championship. ESPN has had these championship rights since 2011, and its deal runs through August of 2024, so a new deal would begin with the fall championships in '24.
The decision on whether to bundle or unbundle all of the championship rights, such as women's basketball, will be determined by bids from the media companies. So rather than determine that in advance, which many people thought the NCAA would, the NCAA will see what the bids are from the networks, and that'll determine whether they keep the bundle of championship rights or pull out specific championships, such as the Women's Basketball Championship. So this is a story, ongoing, has a lot of people's interests, and we'll continue to see how it develops. And finally, two very sad passings. I felt a gut punch Sunday afternoon when I received a text that Tim Wakefield had died at 57. A class act. Everyone I have known who worked at the Boston Red Sox raved about Wakefield.
So many of us know what he did on the field as a knuckle baller, but he handled himself with such grace and was a pillar in the Boston community for years. A brutal loss of the 57-year-old Tim Wakefield from a seizure related to brain cancer. And Calgary Flames, Vice President of Data and Analytics Chris Snow, has died at 42, following a four-year fight with ALS. Snow was an inspiration to so many. He was a baseball writer before being hired by the Minnesota Wild in 2006, as director of hockey operations, he joined the Flames as an analyst in 2010. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2019, and he and his family have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for research efforts. So a sad, sad day in sports with the passing of both Tim Wakefield and Chris Snow. And so that is your Morning Buzzcast for Monday, October 2nd. I'm Abe Madkour, thanks for listening to the Buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other, I'll speak to you on Tuesday.