SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcast: July 17, 2024
(upbeat music) We've talked about Fox's Summer of Soccer, and it seemed to pay off for the network. This summer was the most watched English language, COPA and Euro overall tournaments ever in the United States. The COPA final on Sunday averaged six million viewers on Fox, while earlier in the day Spain, England's Euro finals averaged 6.4 million viewers. Both are now the most watched COPA and Euro finals ever in the United States. So a big soccer number for Fox this summer. And this is your morning buzzcast for Wednesday, July 17th. Good morning, I made mad core. Thanks for listening to the buzzcast. So how would you like to set your budget if you were an NFL team? How about knowing that every year before you sell one ticket, you get a check from the NFL for over $400 million. Not a bad way to start every fiscal year, is it? That's what happens. And we saw that in the latest Green Bay Packer Financial Report on Tuesday. We know, league wide revenue is split. Media and sponsorship revenue generated by the league last year, total $12.8 billion. So you split that evenly among 32 teams. Each team gets a check for north of $402 million. That's before they sell one local ticket or sell one local ad or any local commercial inventory. Not bad at all. And that national revenue figure from the NFL has grown nearly 36% since the 2019 season. How did it grow that much? Well, of course, it was largely by the $111 billion media deals that were signed in 2021. Again, if you ever wanna get inside the financials of an NFL team, you can look at the Packer's detailed report. It was released on Tuesday during their shareholder meeting. They reported that the Packer's posted a $60 million operating profit on total revenue, total revenue of $654 million. So not bad. Here's how it breaks down. The Packer's got $402 million from the league. They generated $251 million in local revenue. Top line revenue for the franchise, $654 million, resulting in a profit of $60.1 million. So again, that even was slightly down from 2023, but this gives a very good glimpse into the finances of an NFL team and it shows, I'm sorry to say this, how easy it is to make an operating profit in the NFL. Let's move on. The NBA's Board of Governors overwhelmingly ratified the league's 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal on Tuesday, the only team that likely voted no according to SBJ's Tom Friend, the New York Knicks. And we talked about the reasons why yesterday on the buzz cast. Now, all eyes look to see if Warner Bros. Discovery intends to match Amazon's package in a matter of days. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Tuesday night, the Board of Governors did approve this stage of the media proposals, but also acknowledged there was more work to be done with existing partners. I.e., that's an easy reference to the fact that as soon as today, the NBA will turn over written contracts to Warner Bros. Discovery, at which point Warner Bros. Discovery will have five days to match one of the three offers. So we'll see how this shakes out. I will say it's not an ideal time for David Zazloff and Warner Bros. to make these types of decisions. As yesterday, a new round of layoffs hit the company as nearly 1,000 employees will reportedly be laid off across the company in a cost-cutting move at the company that includes finance, business affairs, production. So again, optically hard to have more than 1,000 people laid off, meanwhile, try to match a billion-dollar media rights deal. But, but, but, we've seen that before. Could we see it again? In another NBA note, Adam Silver said the league will now seriously consider expansion this fall after finalizing the media rights deals. And the media rights deals also impact the WNBA. The New York Times reported on Tuesday night, the next national media rights package for the W, could see the league bring in roughly $2.2 billion over the next 11 years. That would average out to be about $200 million per year. That's pretty good increase. Right now, they are averaging roughly $50 million per year for the WNBA. That deal is set to expire at the end of the 2025 season. So again, that would mean ESPN, NBC and Amazon will all have their own WNBA package in addition to their NBA package. And the W will have other inventory still to sell. So that media rights figure can actually increase over time. But the bottom line, the W should see a very healthy increase in its media rights fee. Also sticking with the W, another brand looking to attach itself to the league. That's New Balance. It signed a multi-year deal with the WNBA and it will market its brand around LA Sparks forward, Cameron Brink. So New Balance joins Adidas, Nike, Puma and Under Armour as a WNBA partner. So with all those brands as partners, it's clear that W does not have an exclusive footwear partner but has a number of brands all promoting the league. Let's shift to baseball. Major League Baseball is leaving Arlington, Texas after its mid-summer classic. And the league certainly showed off its next generation of stars over the past few days. You had it during the futures game. You had it during the home run derby. You had Paul Skeens starting and pitching a scoreless inning with a strikeout last night. You had Shohei Otani hitting a massive three run home run and you had 27 year old Jared Duran who was emerging as a real star in Boston hit a two run home run, take MVP honors and lead the American League over the National League in a comeback win at Global Life Field in Arlington. So it was a feel good weekend around Major League Baseball. Now the news around Monday's home run derby, not entirely positive. It drew its lowest audience since 2014 but have to be fair here. It was up against the Republican National Convention and that convention is certainly taking a lot of viewership and market share away from Baseball's All-Star Week. We'll have to see how it impacted Tuesday's All-Star game as well. But let's stay with baseball because Commissioner Rob Manford made news this week. First, he said that Major League Baseball hopes to test robot umpires as part of a challenge system during spring training next year and they hope to make it part of Major League Baseball permanently as early as 2026. Now he said the league still needs to work out some things. They'll take baby steps. They have some issues to resolve specifically around the strike zone. But again, they hope to test this technology which would be a game changer, spring training of 25 and hope to implement it in 26. Remember, they've been experimenting with this at Minor League AAA Ballparks since 2023. And here's how it's worked at the Minor Leagues. Half the games use the automated ball strike component for every call. The other half of the games use a challenge system and baseball will go exclusively to a challenge system at the Major League where balls and strikes could be challenged a limited number of times. But again, bottom line, this system is getting closer and closer to being used at the Major League level. And finally, Rob Manfred said he is also considering a return to where players at the All-Star game where their team-based uniforms. This would come after four years of having players where league-designed uniforms, mostly by Nike. Let's face it, these league uniforms are met with very poor reviews. And it's always been a hallmark of the All-Star game for players to wear their team uniforms. And with so many variations of team uniforms now, you would think there could be a nice mix of jerseys. Let's hope the league does that next year when the game goes to Atlanta. Finally, in our celebratory ownership part of the buzzcast, Tim Howard, the longtime goalie in the Premier League and Major League Soccer has joined the ownership group of the Houston Dynamo and Houston Dash. He will join the group led by Ted Siegel. And to close the loop on a story we talked about last week, Fenway Sports Group is no longer pursuing a deal to purchase the French League team Bordeaux. So maybe John Henry was on point when he said Fenway Sports Group would pause its deal-making for some time because it had so many investments, sports investments on its plate. So we'll see, but right now it looks like FSD, no longer interested in buying a French soccer club. And so that is your morning buzzcast for Wednesday, July 17th. I made Mad Corps, thanks for listening to the buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Thursday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)