Learfield's financial reboot examined, new player resting rules approved in the NBA and a look at Amazon's year two approach to Thursday Night Football
Good morning. This is your Buzzcast for Thursday, September 14th. I'm SBJ senior writer, Joe Lemire, filling in for Abe Madkour.
My substitution this morning isn't just a case of load management, a hot button issue around the NBA for more than a decade that we may be seeing less of in the new season. The NBA's Board of Governors voted to approve what's being called a player participation policy, effective in the new year, following a recommendation from the league's competition committee. It replaces a fairly soft-toothed player resting policy that had been in place since 2017. The gist of the new policy is simply this: the league wants more of its star players on the court more often. This player participation policy presents clear guidance for all games, with a particular focus on nationally televised games and contests as part of the league's new in-season tournament.
A new twist for the 2023-24 season that commissioned Adam Silver has regularly touted. For the scope of this counter legislation against load management, star players are defined as anyone who's been named to an All-Star team or selected as an All-NBA player in the past three seasons. Breakout players named an All-Star for the first time in February will also be included for the season's second half. This is not to say that players, even the stars, cannot sit out from time to time. The policy simply mandates that the stars are playing for the national TV audiences and that no more than one star can sit out the same game due to load management. There are some additional restrictions barring long-term shutdowns, creating a balance between resting home and road games, and requiring resting players to be in attendance at the game invisible to fans. That's the reality. No pro sports league is led quite so strongly by its stars. And while the physical demands of an 82-game season with continental travel are real, the fans will always [inaudible 00:01:42] first sight in memory of the big stars.
The NBA's national ratings have generally been flat the past two seasons and down a bit from their pre-pandemic levels. The league's attendance set numerous records last year for total fans. Most sellouts in highest capacity at 97% of all arenas last year. Very bullish numbers. But tickets do tend to be bought farther in advance than someone's decision to turn on their smart television just before tip off. NBA League Pass alerts just aren't the same when there's no chance of, say, Stephen Curry or LeBron James taking that final shot.
Many of you may remember when load management first became a league issue. Back on November 29th, 2012, the San Antonio Spurs arrested Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, and Danny Green at the same time in a nationally televised road game against the Miami Heat. That prompted a fine from the league at the time, and that type of resting in Moss won't be seen again. Guys like Duncan, Parker and Ginobili have the accolades to meet league's definition of a star. And so while the merits of load management remain a big debate around the NBA, and I encourage you to listen to an upcoming podcast I recorded with Joe Rogowski, a former team performance coach with the Magic and Rockets who later became the player's association's chief medical officer, who weighed in on this very issue.
But for now, the league hopes it has found a solution to making more nationally televised games truly appointment TV, or I should say appointment viewing. It's not just TV anymore, is it? Because no matter the connected device you use, an Amazon Prime subscription will grant you access to the beginning of its Thursday night football package tonight as the Philadelphia Eagles host the Minnesota Vikings at Lincoln Financial Field.
A year ago, around this time, there was heavy coverage revolving around the very idea of exclusive streaming NFL coverage. Could Amazon handle it? Would fans tune in? The clear verdicts from the 2022 season were a pair of resounding yeses. Nielsen reported that an average of 9.6 million fans streamed last year's Thursday night games, and Amazon said fans tuned in for 85 minutes each, which is about 12% longer than the linear standard. So what's notable for 2023 is that the big questions have been answered and the attention is around how Amazon can improve on what is already a well-regarded broadcast, with Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit on the call, in a series of alternate broadcasts, one in Spanish language, another that is the prime vision with Next Gen Stats Analytics, and a fourth that'll often be hosted by Dude Perfect, or goes to the in The Shop with the Uninterrupted, the LeBron James media vehicle.
I had the opportunity to visit with Thursday night football executives in their Midtown New York City office recently, and here's what viewers should look for: an even sharper image broadcast entirely in HDR, more advanced metrics on the Prime Vision feed, and the use of AI to identify and tag key plays for quick review, or to watch a rapid recap, an auto-generated two-minute highlight reel. What also stood out to me about that visit, the enormous technological undertaking that goes into coverage of these games.
My favorite anecdote was shared by Prime Video director of live events, Eric Orme. He said that when Amazon first prepared to stream English Premier League matches overseas, initially, and I quote, "The internet wasn't big enough in the UK to even do what we needed to do." That's right. The whole country's network bandwidth had to be upgraded. I'll spare the gory tech specs that helped them successfully deliver that package. But suffice to say, Thursday night football is a massive project and it's delivered to the majority of the country, not only with less than 10 seconds of latency, but fully synchronized so that your neighbor doesn't spoil the big play with a premature roar.
The big headline from college athletics yesterday was the breaking news that Learfield had completed a 1.1 billion recapitalization to dramatically reduce its debt, more than having it from a little over a billion down to 500 million, while also injecting 150 million in new equity investment. My colleagues, Chris Smith and Bret McCormick, have all the details on the Sports Business Journal website. Of note is that majority ownership is changing hands. The trio of Endeavor, Silver Lake and Atairos are becoming minority owners, while the new leading triumvirate is Clearlake Capital Group, Charlesbank Capital Partners, and funds managed by Fortress Investment Group. This capital injection will enable Learfield to continue its evolution from college sports marketing firm to media and technology company, among its new areas of growth or divisions dedicated to NIL, data analytics and content.
That was your Buzzcast for Thursday, September 14th. I am SBJ senior writer Joe Lemire signing off. Thanks for listening. We'll do this again tomorrow.