The NWSL's new media rights deal, an attendance record in Seattle and the start of the WNBA Finals headline a strong weekend in women's sports; MLB's playoff attendance and how Max Verstappen's win at the Qatar Grand Prix could impact upcoming US races.
Good morning on this Monday, October 9th, a bank holiday in the US but an eventful weekend in the sports world. I'm Joe Lemire, SBJ senior writer, filling in for Abe Madkour. In a weekend full of NFL and college football, as well as the start of the division series in MLB's postseason, ably competing for headlines and attention were the start of the WNBA finals, the Las Vegas Aces beat the New York Liberty in Sunday's game 1, as well as an NWSL record attendance for Megan Rapinoe's final regular season home match, as well as a reported new broadcast deal for the NWSL covering the next four years with ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps, all acquiring rights. LeBron James and Tom Brady were among the A-listers sitting courtside in Vegas for the WNBA finals, which were broadcast on ABC. LeBron recently called Aces star and former league MVP A'ja Wilson his little sister, and it's a clash of the super teams, with Wilson joined by Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, and Jackie Young, while the Liberty featured Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Courtney Vandersloot, and Jonquel Jones.
Out on Seattle on Friday night was Rapinoe's home finale with the OL Reign, where 34,130 fans filled into Lumen Field for the occasion. Many wearing pink wigs in honor of the retiring US National Team star. The Reign have one more road match as they remain in playoff contention, vying for the league's final spot. Also, this weekend came news that the NWSL had reached an agreement to extend its broadcast rights. That report, first shared by Sportico, noted that the exact value of the deal was not yet known, but it was anticipated to be significantly higher than 10 times the $1.5 million, annually, CBS is currently paying. To date, the league has been responsible for the production bill. It's unclear if that will change, but the media rights deal, as projected, would eclipse what England's Women's Super League currently receives.
The momentum of Major League Baseball strong regular season has carried into the postseason, building off a 9.6% attendance bump year over year. MLB has some fresh entrance in this year's division series. Arizona, Minnesota, and Texas each won a game this round for the first time since at least 2015, while the Orioles, who are in an early 0-2 hole, hadn't advanced this far since 2014. With the exception of the Tampa Bay Rays in the wild card round, whose well-documented attendance issues were compounded by weekday 3:00 PM game times, the ballparks this month have been notably full and loud. The absence of typical stalwarts like the Red Sox, Yankees, and Cardinals may impact national TV ratings a bit, but there is real buzz around the game with several of the game's biggest stars, Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna, and Bryce Harper, among them still competing. All it needs now to sustain this is more competition. The Twins, Astros are tied 1-1, which is the first time this month that two teams have each won a game in the same series. Here's hoping there's some more good play going down to the wire.
Indianapolis Colts' running back, Jonathan Taylor, made his return to the game field on Sunday for the first time since undergoing ankle surgery in January. His role was limited, six carries for 18 yards, one catch for 16 yards. But the greater comeback this weekend may have been for the value of running backs. The position suffered mightily in the NFL free agent market, with many clubs stewing rich deals for proven veterans and instead finding success with younger, cheaper talent. It's been hard for ball carriers to maintain a longevity of elite production given the physical workload many have carried, but the Colts rewarded Taylor, who led the NFL in rushing yards in 2021, on Saturday with a three-year $42 million contract extension, of which $26.5 million is guaranteed. A pair of Taylor's peers, the Giants' Saquon Barkley and the Raiders' Josh Jacobs, didn't fare as well in similar circumstances this offseason, although it's worth noting, Barkley is 26 and in his sixth NFL season, and Jacobs is 25 and in his fifth pro season, while Taylor is only 24 and in his fourth year.
Taylor's had nearly 400 fewer touches than either of the others. Of note, Barkley and Jacobs were both former first-round picks, meaning the franchises drafting them had a fifth-year team option as part of their rookie contracts, whereas Taylor was a second-round selection and thus would've been a free agent after this fourth season.
The Red Bull's Max Verstappen claimed his third F1 championship this weekend by virtue of the points he collected in his second-place finish on Saturday's sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix. For good measure, Verstappen won the full-distance race on Sunday. Now you may be thinking, "Wait, isn't the race in Austin two weeks from now and the debut of the F1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix not until mid-November?" That's all correct. Verstappen mathematically clinched his third straight title with six races to go on the calendar, which takes a bit of the luster off the US races still to come.
My colleague, Adam Stern, took a deep look at US interest and viewership in F1 a month ago. His full report is worth a read, but essentially, the expert opinion is divided into two camps. One, that domestic fandom has plateaued, and two, that there's more growth to be had. But for that upward trajectory to exist, some more competitiveness will surely be needed. The inaugural Grand Prix in Las Vegas is likely to be a successful spectacle for its novelty this year, but one wonders what the reception will be for a second late-season race with nothing on the line come 2024 if this pattern repeats.
As pool play concluded over the weekend in the Rugby World Cup being hosted by France and my Kiwi in-laws are hanging on every move the All Blacks make on this uncharacteristically bumpy path into the quarterfinals, the sports governing body world Rugby has made a landmark announcement that all future participants in elite global events will be required to wear an instrumented mouth guard. That means it's packed with sensors to track the volume and magnitude of head impacts. Prevent Biometrics is the technology provider for this deal. It is a spinoff from research done at the Cleveland Clinic years ago and is now headquartered in Minnesota.
Prevent Biometrics and World Rugby have been collaborating for the past three years on extensive research, collecting data from around the world at multiple levels of rugby, from the under-13s on up through the professionals. This new deal will enable a degree of personalization and care as each athlete, man and woman, who have all of their head impacts recorded in training and matches, not just those that cause concussions either. World Rugby wants all sub-concussive impacts noted as well, so they can build profiles of overall impact load, but there will also be real-time alerts built into the system so that if an athlete on the pitch endorses a particularly high impact blow, it signals a medical professional on the sideline, and that athlete will automatically enter the sports head injury assessment protocol.
The World Rugby Chief Medical Officer told me recently that this is a game changer for the sport. It's bringing tech into the space where it never has been. The focus of this is all about individualizing care. SBJ will have more coverage of this on our site tomorrow, and the NFL, it should be noted, has overseen the development of its own instrument and mouth guard through engineering partner Biocore. Those devices have been trialed in both some NFL games and some NCAA Division I games for years. This World Rugby deal makes it universal on the pitch, something global sport has not yet seen before.
In one final note, congratulations to SBJ Tech's senior editor, Catherine Acquavella, who completed the Chicago Marathon this past weekend. A lot of us were cheering for you. Thanks to everybody for listening on this Monday, October 9th. I'm Joe Lemire, signing off. Abe will be back tomorrow.