Apple makes rare sponsorship move with NFL's Halftime Show; Amazon's early numbers surprisingly strong and big changes coming to Univ. of Nebraska.
Apple makes rare sponsorship move with NFL's Halftime Show; Amazon's early numbers surprisingly strong and big changes coming to Univ. of Nebraska.
I had a great experience taking in the president's cup on Thursday, the grounds probably had more than 40,000 spectators at quail hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the hospitality structures, and the clubs are like none I've ever seen before. If you go out at all over the next three days, you will truly enjoy it. And the S BJ all in conference was yesterday in Cleveland and topics touched on diversity, hiring Steelers, chair, art Rooney talked about the league's efforts to hire more black head coaches and all speakers discuss infusing D E and I, within your respective organizational cultures sessions are available on demand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. And this is your morning buzz cast for Friday, September 23rd. Good morning. I a mad Corp. Thanks for listening to the buzz cast. The NFL announced very late Thursday, that apple music has struck a deal to become the next title sponsor of the super bowl halftime show.
Apple will replace Pepsi, which should not renew its rights this spring. After a 10 year run, this deal apple and the NFL runs for five years and sources said it is for 50 million a year on the high end of what the NFL had been seeking. When Pepsi left, according to S BJ's Ben Fisher. Remember this comes as apple remains and talks with the NFL on a possible deal to carry the Sunday ticket out of market package and invest in NFL media properties. But other streaming companies have also bid and a deal doesn't seem imminent, but in looking for a new partner for its halftime show, the NFL had sites on a vision of working with a tech or content company to increase the content and media around the halftime show. You could do shoulder programming, you could do year round programming and some sort of documentary about the making of the halftime show.
So apple seems a great fit there, but becoming the primary sponsor of the halftime show is a departure for apple. My good friend and apple observer trip nickel works for the New York times. Now he used to work for sports business journal. He notes that apple has prided itself on marketing its brand differently than other consumer goods companies and apple seldom sponsors events that it does not control. Now, the NFL will certainly remain in control of the halftime show. Remember Jay-Z and rock nation are expected to continue to take the lead on selecting the artist and choosing the performers for the event and have the shape and feel of the halftime show. But apple will apparently be, be able to weigh in on the direction of the show, according to sources, close to Tripel of the New York times, but all in all, a very big deal between the NFL and apple with a five year deal for apple music to become the next title sponsor of the super bowl halftime show, let's stay with the NFL Thursday night, we saw the Browns beat the Steelers on Amazon.
That was the second Thursday game on prime video. And the good news for prime video are in the numbers. Yes, prime video announced it average 13 million viewers for its debut chargers chief's game. That was in week two of the NFL season. And that number exceeded many expectations that the sports business had for the Amazon platform. Amazon had been going to the marketplace telling media buyers, telling advertisers that it expected an average of about 12.5 million viewers for the season. So this number early number bodes well, but do remember the Nielsen number for Thursday night. Football is not a streaming only number. It does include over Thea broadcast numbers for that one. It was LA and Kansas city markets. If you take out those over the air broadcast numbers, the Amazon figure still is nearly 12 million viewers, which is good news for other leagues because it's still a very healthy number.
And this is like I said, good news for other leagues and other streaming services, looking to partner with sports for a little context, the Amazon number topped what the NFL network would draw when it would exclusively show Thursday night games last year, they would average anywhere between seven to 8 million viewers, but it is below the 16 million viewers that Fox and the NFL network average for Thursday night football last year. Now a couple of things to keep your eye on first. It'll be interesting to see if Amazon can keep up these numbers when it's not such a great game or a great matchup like it was for chargers chiefs. And also begin to see if advertisers take a second, look at this offering and start to spend on Thursday night football, the mainstream advertisers are buying spots on Amazon. And of course you won't see beer ads because Amazon bans ads that promote alcohol in several countries, including the United States.
So will the numbers of viewers stay strong and will other advertisers begin to buy in? Those are the questions to watch going forward. Let's shift to college sports, big changes coming to the university of Nebraska. As the school is set to sign a 15 year, 300 million multimedia rights deal. The school will start serving alcohol at Nebraska's men's and women's basketball games. And third, the school is beginning the first steps to overhaul Memorial stadium. Let's take those in order first, the multimedia deal is with play fly sports, and it will include more than 270 million in guaranteed payments over the life of the deal, which runs through 2038. Yes, this is a long term deal. The average annual value is 18 million with additional incentives that could push the deal even higher. So a very strong deal for Nebraska. Number two, the school will begin testing for a two year period alcohol sales at pinnacle bank arena, which hosts the men's and women's basketball games.
The city will get 90% of those alcohol sales with the school getting the remaining 10%. And finally, Nebraska athletic director, Tre Alberts has commissioned a survey to help sort through what comes next for Memorial stadium. Now the corn Huskers have played in Memorial stadium since 1923, and yes, there have been improvements made over the years. They rolled out luxury suites in 1999. They expanded to more than 85,000 seats in 2013, but this is a stadium pretty much in need of a pretty dramatic overhaul. Remember Nebraska is also scheduled to open a 160 million football facility next year. So then they will look to renovate Memorial stadium after that. And all of this comes while Trev Alberts looks to really fix football as remember they dismissed football coach Scott Frost earlier this month. So a lot going on at the university of Nebraska, it was also a big day for play fly sports, which signed a multimedia rights deal with Florida Atlantic university and a new 11 year agreement with old dominion.
So play fly sports, continuing to make inroads in intercollegiate multimedia rights deals. Let's end on a couple of other things. Primarily club Everton has named elevate sports ventures to develop its commercial strategy for Everton's new stadium. Elevate will work with the club on its overall revenue generation, including selling naming rights to Everton's new home in Liverpool, which is scheduled to be finished before the 2024, 2025 season. So elevate sports, getting a big sales and revenue generation strategy assignment with Everton and two things to finish up. Don't forget S SPJ released our fourth annual class of new voices under 30 presented by Anheiser Bush, MGM resorts and turnkey CR G. These 30 young individuals are positioned as future leaders of the sports business, and more than 200 nominees were considered for the class. Learn more about this year's class on sports business journal.com. And if you're looking to see the best minor league markets in America, S BJs David Broon reveals our list of the best minor league markets in America and Charleston. South Carolina came out as that. Number one minor league market. Read all about the full breakdown of all the various markets also on sports business journal.com. So that is your morning buzz cast for Friday, September 23rd. I made mad gore. Thanks for listening to the buzz cast. Hope you have a great weekend. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Monday.