NFL announces committee to explore league ownership policies, WNBA fan engagement numbers see an uptick, Salt Lake City formally applies to IOC for 2034 Winter Olympics; Mastercard and MLB partner to host fans at virtual ballpark.
Welcome to the SBJ Morning Buzzcast for Friday, September 15th. Once again this is SBJ senior writer, Joe Lemire, substituting for Abe Madkour.
As we enter another football weekend, our news today starts with the NFL. Our own Ben Fischer, broke the news on what could have meaningful repercussions to ownership in the league. Commissioner Roger Goodell has appointed five owners to a committee that will explore changes to the NFL's ownership policies. This of course, comes in the wake of the extensive and arduous process by which Commanders lead owner, Josh Harris, acquired the Washington football team for a little more than six billion in a financial arrangement of great complexity in order to satisfy league rules. Valuations of even average NFL franchises now top $5 billion according to Forbes. So the standing stipulations that the lead investor must control at least 30% equity immediately excludes all but the wealthiest individuals from being prospective buyers. Also, the overall ownership group size is capped at 25 people and no more than $1.1 billion can be borrowed to complete the transaction. Private equity and sovereign wealth funds are barred from participating.
Goodell's new committee will include the Falcons, Arthur Blank, the Patriots, Robert Kraft, the Browns, Jimmy Haslam, and the Broncos, Greg Penner. Fischer notes that raising the debt limit and expanding the size of the ownership group, and increasing the acceptable debt are among the likelier changes under consideration. The NBA notably has made significant changes over the past two years to allow involvement from private equity and sovereign wealth. And probably no league in the world has been more dramatically reshaped by the involvement of such institutional money than the English Premier League. The goal for this committee is to make and enact recommendations prior to the next franchise sale whenever that may be. Always good to be ready.
Going to the hard court, the WNBA playoffs tipped off last night with the Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces both winning handily in what promises to be a closely watched postseason, at least if the regular season numbers are any indication. The league and its broadcast partners shared those attendance viewership and engagement numbers for the regular season, many of which were the best in two decades. Attendance was up 16% year over year with an average gate of 6,615 fans. The WNBA's best mark at the turnstile since 2018 led by the defending champion, Aces, improving its average by more than 66%.
To update the old sports movie saying, "If you build it, they will come, sure. But if you win, they'll keep coming all year long." CBS had its best WNBA ratings for any of its seasons and ESPN had its top viewership in 17 years. All of the Disney owned networks, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC were collectively up 18% year over year, drawing 440,000 viewers on average. Disney pays $25 million annually for these rights that run for two more seasons, but this growth surely means that rights fee will escalate in the next deal.
Other metrics of note, downloads of the newly revamped WNBA app went up 400% and the WNBA League Pass gained 10% more subscribers, with the average visit to the website lasting 21% longer and the number of bets placed on WNBA action on FanDuel more than doubled.
Prior to the season, I spoke to WNBA chief growth officer, Colie Edison, about this. And she noted the priority of the digital transformation of the league is one of its key pillars for that $75 million in investment the W raised last year. The league expanded its in-house digital team and worked with its Changemaker partner, Deloitte, on the tech upgrades, which surely are starting to pay some dividends.
Heading out West, organizers in Salt Lake City have formally applied to the International Olympic Committee for consideration to host another Winter Olympics, after of course doing so for the first time in 2002. Longtime USA Today Olympics reporter, Rachel Axon, who recently joined our staff at SBJ and we're lucky to have her, has the news noting that Salt Lake City is targeting the 2034 games. That would provide some breathing room for marketing and sponsorship reasons from the LA 2028 Summer Olympics. But the committee in Utah said it would be willing to accelerate its preparations for 2030 if needed. The location of the 2030 games will be announced at next summer's 2024 Summer Olympiad in Paris. That already marks a delay from the IOCs original plan, which was to make the decision at a meeting next month. But leading candidate cities support of Japan and Vancouver, Canada both encountered resistance domestically and fell out of the running. Among the other countries who have expressed interest in 2030 are France, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Finding host cities for the Olympics has become an increasing challenge in recent years. The prior largesse and building new venues for a one-time event has been a tough sell in most municipalities. But Utah's advantage is that its Olympic sites from 2002 have been maintained. A report from the University of Utah last year projected only about $23 million in necessary capital expenditure to host another games, compared to the nearly half billion dollars spent on infrastructure prior to the 2002.
A few more headlines to share on this cool Friday morning in the Northeast, the onset of fall coming next week. Dartmouth's men's basketball players have petitioned to be recognized as a union, which if granted would be the first such union in Division I athletics since the 2015 Northwestern football players had their protracted case eventually dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board. Given that precedent, it may be an uphill battle for the Dartmouth basketball players to be classified as employees of the university.
This effort comes in the wake of name, image, and likeness rules that permit athletes to be compensated, although that explicitly prohibits direct payments from the university. Another difference in this Dartmouth case that's worth pointing out, they do not receive athletic scholarships, as is the case throughout the Ivy League. But I have neither a law degree or a mind like Mike Ross on Suits, so I'll decline to speculate on where this goes.
Major League Baseball announced plans to hold its first game watching event at its new virtual ballpark. This game will be September 20th and include the Angels and Rays with the 6:40 Eastern Times first pitch. MLB shied away from using the word metaverse to describe this digital creation, this virtual ballpark, but that's essentially the concept here. Although it's intentionally accessible to everyone, no hardware is required to enter. Fans can enter it through a web-based experience where they'll be able to watch a live stream of the game playing on the virtual ballpark center field video board, while the action will also be rendered on the field using the league's game day three 3D technology. That's the fully immersive experience you can find on the MLB app, and it's powered by the same Sony Hawk-Eye camera tracking system that collects data for Statcast.
You can even walk onto the field as the action's going on because surely you won't be bumping into anybody. MasterCard is sponsoring this event, which is the second time MLB is opening its virtual ballpark. It debuted for the All-Star Celebrity Softball Game. Metaverse technology company, Improbable, helped the league develop the park, and fans who entered the experience can view the action from any angle, as I was saying, as well as speak to other attendees via spatial audio. Just walk up to them in the digital creation, say hello, cheer for your team together. We'll see how this goes. We'll see how fans take to it. Obviously, it's the very beginning of a long-term project.
That concludes the Morning Buzzcast for this Friday, September 15th. We hope you all have a great weekend and that many of you are on your way to St. Louis for our SBJ DRIVE conference next week. Abe Madkour will have the podcast again on Monday. We'll talk soon.