Opening Ceremony in Paris, NBC/Peacock Olympic coverage plans, more milestones for WNBA franchises.
SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcast: July 26, 2024
(upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language) - Great school French and a healthy dose of Google Translate prepared that introduction on this monumental day as the 2024 Summer Olympics officially opened on the River Sen. Our racial accent will be providing daily dispatches for Paris throughout the Olympian wrote a terrific story in this week's magazine about the logistics of today's opening ceremony, which is not only the first to be held outside a stadium, but also truly on the Sen rather than alongside it. It's a parade that will be using literal floats. In total, about 180 boats will bring every country's delegation along nearly four miles through the center of Paris, past a nearly rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral and ending at the Eiffel Tower. A route where 300,000 fans will be watching. Christophe Duby, the IOC's Olympic Games executive director, said, "Everybody from security, transportation, "down to the hospitality agency on location, "everybody is thinking down to the one meter "and the one minute. "Who needs to beware?" One plan, the mapping and event planning software honored by SBJ Tech as its venue operations technology of the year has built digital twins of the venues for operations and security purposes down to the millimeter. One disruption, however, outside their control and outside the city limits, overnight vandals targeted several of France's high-speed train lines, which is disrupting travel in and out of the capital. The opening ceremony will proceed as planned. And among the expected entertainment during the ceremony, which organizers themselves described to the Guardian as revolutionary and irreverent, are dance, music, acrobatics, and light shows, intended to tell Paris's history, diversity, and tradition of rebellion. Celine Dion and Lady Gaga are both expected to perform as well. NBC Olympics executive producer Molly Solomon has called it "a moveable feast." And I think it's the most complex television event ever staged, which is quite a statement, for sure. The first hour of coverage will be presented commercial-free. For NBC, this is the culmination of a three-year planning effort with about 3,000 staff covering the games with sizable teams both on the ground in Paris and working under the network production facility in Stanford, Connecticut. The six-hour time difference for live coverage is certainly much more favorable than the time zones with the Tokyo Games. It'll be interesting to see how the ratings for the opening ceremonies are and what this does for Peacock subscriptions, as the streaming service is carrying a huge amount of content, more than 5,000 hours, in fact. SBJ's Austin Carp noted that Wednesday's viewership on USA and Peacock was up 30% against a comparable day prior to the Tokyo Olympics with preliminary action on what was then NBC Sports Network. The high watermark that day was an average of 1.1 million viewers tuning in for the France-USA men's soccer match. Starting a year from now, NBC would be able to rely on NBA coverage to help prevent streaming churn in the fall. It's worth watching whether primarily in the car roster of fall sports and retain viewers' repeat car. Some preliminary competitions in rugby and soccer got underway earlier this week, but we already have our first Olympic gold medals to present this summer, albeit from the Winter Olympics two years ago. The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday rejected a final appeal from Russia's Olympic Committee surrounding the team figure skating competition at the Beijing 2022 Games, in which Russian teenager Camila Valleva competed despite a positive test for a performance-enhancing drug from a few months prior. This ruling from CAS officially eliminated Russia from the gold, moving the Americans from silver to gold, and the Japanese from rods to silver. The IOC announced that it would honor those athletes and special medals ceremony in Paris. The action in Paris wastes little time heating up. Novak Djokovic, Raphael Nadal, and Carlos Afkarez all play on Saturday. Men's basketball gets going then too. And the first 2024 medals will be handed out in road cycling, diving, fencing, judo, rugby sevens, shooting, skateboarding, and swimming, including Katie Ledecky's first chance at a medal in the 400 free. Associated Press reported that a record 8.7 million tickets have been distributed for these Olympics, eclipsing the record of 8.3 million for the 1996 Atlanta Games. Roughly 10 million tickets had been made available for these Parisian Games, so it's still possible to purchase face-valued mission to some events. And it's worth noting that against a backdrop of criticism for the high price of many of the tickets, about 1 million were either donated or purchased by government groups to be given away for free to people with disabilities, those who are economically challenged, to students, those participating in sports, and residents in areas directly affected by events. We'll certainly have plenty more Olympics coverage over the next fortnight. In other news, the WNBA Golden State Valkyries have eclipsed 15,000 season ticket deposits, becoming the first team in women's sports history to reach that milestone. That is a bold start for an expansion franchise you have to play a single game. It is the first WNBA expansion club since 2008 in a strong indication of the demand for women's hoops in the market, as well as women's sports generally. The NWSL counterpart in the area of Bay FC began its debut season earlier this year, and has been drawing strong attendance numbers at PayPal Park in San Jose. The Valkyries, meanwhile, will play at Chase Center in downtown San Francisco. More W news out of Chicago, the sky announced plans on a $38 million training facility that will be built next to the Wind Trust Sports Complex, which sits just south of Midway Airport. And about a 25-minute drive to the home venue, Wind Trust Arena. Construction will take almost a year and a half, which puts it on schedule to be operational in time for the 2026 WNBA season. The Denver Broncos, meanwhile, placed its stadium district master plan, which would have turned the area to the south of El Power field into a mixed-use development on an indefinite hold. The Walton Penner family that owns the franchise footed the $100 million renovation bill for work completed on the venue prior to the 2023 season. And now there are no current plans to renew the stadium district master plan for now. Congratulations to San Diego, Padre's pitcher, Dylan Sees, who no hit the Washington Nationals yesterday, two years after losing a bid won out from completion. It is only the second no-pitter in Padre's history and also the second no-pitter of the MLB season, following Renelle Blanco of the Astros back on April 1st. Welcome back to the Dodgers ace, Clayton Kershaw, who made his first start of the season following Lopsies and Shoulder surgery. If you haven't already picked up a copy, I highly recommend reading The Last of His Kind, a Kershaw biography written by my good friend, Amy McCollum, the athletic. It's a great read. I'm heading to Manchester City AC Milan at Yankee Stadium tomorrow evening, my seven-year-old son's first professional soccer game. It's also quite the soccer weekend in the Bronx with NYC FC playing its first league's cup match and night later, while the Yankees themselves face the rival Red Sox up at Fenway. Enjoy the summer weekend and the start of the Olympics. This is Joel Amir signing off. A man corps will be back on Monday for a walk. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)