SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcast: August 14, 2024
(upbeat music) We are just about a month out from SBJ's drive conference September 16th through 19th at the Omni at the Star. If you have never been to the Star in Frisco, you have to see it. There'll be more than 50 speakers diving into topics such as new revenue, ticketing, and driving the business through data and analytics. We will tour the Cowboys incredible star facility, also the new PGA of America headquarters, cosm, and take in a game at Globe Life Field. Hope you'll join me next month in Frisco. Go to www.spj-drive.com/2024 or just email me and I can give you more information about drive. And this is your morning buscast for Wednesday, August 14th, good morning. I'm Ape Matt Corps. Let's put a bow on the summer games. And the big lesson for me is all this talk about big and legacy media and the sky is falling. Well, Paris showed that big media can still deliver a big audience and can gather the masses. No question. And the other lesson, viewers are very comfortable finding sports throughout the day. SBJ's Austin Carp details the numbers from Paris. Viewers really sought out the Olympic coverage during the afternoon US hours more than ever before. That two to five Eastern time window delivered nearly 40% of this year's overall audience for NBC sports. That's right, nearly 40% of the total audience watched during the afternoon. In SBJ's offices here in Charlotte, we had four different TVs turned on to the Olympics for two weeks all afternoons. And in total, an average of nearly 31 million viewers watched the Olympics per day. That combines the afternoon with the prime time window over 17 nights. That is up 82% from Tokyo in 2021. When just comparing the prime time average, Paris was up 21% over the same prime time window for Tokyo. NBC has totally immersed itself and its company around the Olympics and you can see why. Think about this fact, the summer Olympics have delivered 152 straight prime time wins for NBC. On cable, USA Network was the number one channel for total viewership over the 17 days of the Olympics, the USA Network. So you see how NBC and NBC Universal dominated viewership. Meanwhile, guess which markets led in viewership? How about this? New Orleans led all markets during the Paris Games, rounding out the top five, West Palm Beach, Tulsa, Dayton, and Minneapolis, St. Paul. Among the 10 biggest US media markets, Dallas Fort Worth was the only one to rank in the top 20 for the Paris Games. So what does this show? It shows the wide appeal of the Olympics as it's not just a major market draw, it draws a wide audience across the United States. So the bottom line, NBC really tried new approaches and they deserve great credit because they worked and NBC deserves every victory lap it is taking. A report out of Canada has that the Tampa Bay Lightning are beginning a multi-stage sale process that would value the Lightning at close to $2 billion. That would be a record for an NHL team. Now, a deal is not done. There would be no immediate change of ownership and no change in the day-to-day operations of the team. So the team will continue to be run by the well-regarded Jeff Finnick. But there is a deal out there and the buyer is believed to be Doug Ostrover, who is CEO of Blue Owl Capital, which is a successful investment firm. As part of the deal, Jeff Finnick, who is again, incredibly popular in NHL circles and in that Tampa marketplace will retain full control of the organization for the next several years. And he will continue to have a significant ownership state as part of any new group. So again, this is in process, a multi-stage sale process. Jeff Finnick bought the Lightning for around $170 million in 2010. The team is one of the model organizations in all of sports. Remember, they won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020, 2021. They are very strong on the business side. And this deal now values the Lightning at close to $2 billion. That would again be a record for an NHL team. The previous high was about $950 million for the senators. That was sold to Michael and Lauer, and that was the largest previous deal in NHL history. So that $2 billion figure, again, a record for the NHL that would surpass Ottawa's $950 million sale to Michael and Lauer as the largest in NHL history. You know, after a month-long Olympic break, the WNBA season reopens later this week. And again, all eyes will be on Caitlin Clark and the Indiana fever. And let's look at some of the numbers around her and that team. Home attendance for the fever is up 265% with an average of just under 17,000 per game for the fever. Transactions in the team store are up 700%. That's at the Indiana fever team store. And the number of video views on Caitlin Clark and the fever are up nearly 1300%. That's unbelievable. So that's video engagement around Clark and the fever. All the metrics around this organization are sky high. The team says that every home game is like a holiday game in the NBA and the fevers say they are setting new records at every home game around merchandise sales. So we'll continue to monitor all the business metrics around Caitlin Clark and the fever during the second half of the WNBA season. Earlier this week, we talked about a field naming rights partnership around Northwestern University and Northwestern Medicine. They reached a two year naming rights deal that brands the school's temporary stadium as Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. This is all in a pursuit for new revenue on college campuses. Now we can add Neeland Stadium to that list as the University of Tennessee is adding a naming rights sponsorship for this coming football season. As Tennessee and the convenience store Pilot Flying J agreed to a multi-year deal that will make pilot the presenting partner of the Neeland Stadium renovation project. And that is a big deal. Now financial details were not disclosed, but you will see the pilot logo on the field and discussions around this deal went on for close to a year. Now we know that there is a major renovation going on at the University of Tennessee, almost a $340 million renovation at Neeland Stadium. It's expected to be completed by 2026. Now Pilot Flying J owned by Jimmy Haslam and the Haslam family, big supporters of Tennessee, big supporters to the university and headquartered just a few miles from campus. And they currently employ more than 2,500 people in that greater Knoxville area. So for Pilot, it's a good deal to be aligned with the University of Tennessee. And again, for the University of Tennessee Athletic Department, this is a way to generate more revenue because we know the pressures on college athletic departments in this new world around college athletics. And let's end with this, a name in the news. We know that Wasserman is getting more involved in property sales. That is a space that the agency wasn't playing in. But when Wasserman acquired CSM sports and entertainment, the agency entered the property sales business. So the agency Wasserman needed a top salesperson. And the agency went out and hired Chris Foyt as executive vice president and managing director of right sales in North America. He comes from legends and now he will lead the team that will sell inventory for Wasserman really around the world. Their clients include the Los Angeles Lakers. They sell for some Formula One teams. They sell for some premier league club teams as well. So Chris Foyt will work to bring on new clients. And he's well positioned to handle this role. He has a long, long track record in sports sales. He was at legends. He had his own agency, impression sports and entertainment. And that was eventually purchased by Fox Sports. And now Chris Foyt joins Wasserman to lead their property right sales division. And that's a big role for that agency. And so that is your morning buzz gas for Wednesday, August 14th. I'm Ape Madcore. Thanks for listening to the buzz gas. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Thursday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)