SBJ Morning Buzzcast
SBJ Morning Buzzcasts: July 8, 2024
(upbeat music) With the 4th of July behind us, we're entering the second half of summer. And this is your morning buzzcast. For Monday, July 8th, I made mad court. Thanks for listening to the buzzcast. Hope everybody had a great holiday weekend. Let's start with the Dallas Stars, because they are going all in on direct to consumer. Yes, they will become the first major. US pro sports team to take their local broadcast rights entirely, entirely to a digital platform, launching a free ad supported streaming service called Victory Plus Sports Network. That'll be the exclusive home of the Stars in market telecasts. My colleague, SBJ's Alex Silverman has the news this morning and reports that Victory Plus will be jointly owned by the Stars and a parent media co, APMC, which is an over the top streaming and technology company behind Dude Perfect's streaming channel. So obviously they are well versed in this space. Now the two parties signed a seven year deal. It comes after the Stars and Diamond Sports group terminated their local rights deal that saw the Stars games carried by Bally Sports Southwest. So the Stars still had one year remaining on their deal with Diamond, but they wanted to get more stability. They wanted to establish their own media model and secure its media future. The Stars felt they had enough of the uncertainty around the regional sports network model. They wanted to control their own destiny hence their move. So the only Stars games that will air on linear television within the team's local broadcast market, at least for the time being, will be those carried next season by the NHL's national media partners, ESPN, and Warner Brothers Discovery Sports. So here's what you need to know. Stars fans in the Dallas market will not have to pay to stream games. This service, Victory Plus, will be entirely ad supported. Viewers will have to sign in with either an email or their Google or Facebook account. The team will have to launch a massive campaign to educate fans about the change and how to access these games. But the bottom line is this is a significant move and this will be watched all across the team sports landscape. Let's move on. I've been getting a lot of questions about who could purchase the Boston Celtics. And I keep coming back to the fact that co-owner Steve Pagliuca has to be considered the leader in the clubhouse. He knows the operation well. He's well regarded in NBA circles. You've seen him frequently as a guest at the NBA Tech Summit on panels and he has a growing sports portfolio. There was also a sense of wanting continuity and consistency when it comes to ownership. He's been a good partner to Wick Rosebeck who is easily the most well liked and well respected owner right now in Boston sports. And yes, winning a title will make every owner likable. But Wick Rosebeck has played all the right notes and league sources told the Boston Globe that the decision to sell the Celtics was rooted in family estate planning and unrelated to the fact that the Celtics will have the highest combined payroll and luxury tax payments in NBA history starting with the 25-26 season. Also in Boston, the well connected Dan Shaughnessy shows regret that the gross specs are selling calling them good owners, a rare compliment of ownership from Shaughnessy. He also reported that the soon to be 90 year old Irving Rosebeck is the one driving this sale for family planning reasons. And this team will go for a big number. But the discussion on sports talk radio in Boston is of course who will be the owner but also where will the team play in the future as every indication would seem that a new owner would eventually want their own arena. But that is long in the future as the Celtics have a lease at TD Garden which runs through 2036. Remember, TD Garden owned by Delaware North and the Jacobs family, any new owner of the Celtics certainly has a new facility on the horizon. So a lot of moving parts in Boston around the future of the Boston Celtics. You know, NASCAR just can't avoid the rain when it goes to Chicago as Sunday's Grant Park 165 was interrupted time and again by rain and eventually shortened. This is unfortunate because from sources on the ground in Chicago that I was texting with, going into Sunday's race, it was by all means a very successful weekend for NASCAR in the city. The second year for the Chicago street race. The weather was great on Saturday. There were strong crowds on Saturday and the buzz was that the city was really beginning to embrace the event. But Sunday's race was initially delayed, then it kept getting interrupted because of the rain and it certainly put a damper on the weekend because every interview that I watched on NBC Sunday afternoon showed a driver expressing frustration over the rain because they enjoy the Chicago city location and the race experience so much. Now, NASCAR's race organizers made changes this year after the well-reported local resistance in Chicago last year. They cut down the set up and tear down times this year, six fewer days of street closers in Chicago. They also expanded a public NASCAR village with neighborhood restaurants. They reduced prices for children. They added more Chicago local music options to their concert scene. They also agreed to pay Chicago $2 million to cover police overtime and other expenses associated with the event. And this comes in addition to the park permit and the percentage of ticket sales that the city receives. So NASCAR pays a lot to Chicago to host this race. They will lose a lot of money on this race. But NASCAR seems to think this is a important brand building and sports growing exercise and reaching new fans in the Midwest. Let's stay with motor sports because a recent SBJ cover story looked at the number of sports movies and one of the most heavily anticipated movies around sports comes next summer and it's based around Formula One and the first trailer dropped over the July 4th weekend and the film starring Brad Pitt has a name. And yes, it's called simply F1. And this film is brought to you by the team that brought you Top Gun, including Jerry Bruckheimer. And the movie sees Brad Pitt as a former driver who returns to Formula One to race and F1 is opening in North America late June of 25 and all this publicity came as Brad Pitt attended the British Grand Prix for the second year in a row at Silverstone. So again, a lot of anticipation for F1 that will drop late June next year. Let's finish up with some other issues in the news. First, a big change at the Seattle Mariners as the team's president of business operations, Katie Griggs resigned Friday morning leaving the organization just three years into her tenure. Now, Katie Griggs is one of just two women to hold the title of president of business operations for an MLB team. She was the first woman to hold that role ever for the Mariners. So with her moving on, the team's managing partner, John Stanton, will take over her role on an interim basis until they hire a replacement. Now, Katie Griggs was hired with great publicity in July of 2021. She's a former 40 under 40 honoree. She was at Atlanta United as their chief business officer for years. So Katie Griggs has accepted a new job on the East Coast. She said she wanted to be closer to her family and her parents, so she leaves the Mariners after three years as president of business operations. And let's end with this. Over the weekend, I caught the first episode of HBO's Hard Knocks off-season with the New York Giants. And I was frankly impressed. It's unlike any coverage that Hard Knocks has had before. It's entirely focused on the front office and team building of the personnel and the coaching staffs. In episode one, you had the team focus on the future of the now departed Saquan Barkley with a number of pretty frank conversations between general manager Joe Shane and his personnel staff. You even see the role that Giants owner John Mera plays when talking about Barkley's future. Barkley, of course, ended up signing with the rival Philadelphia Eagles. There are also glimpses to how the team assesses their player personnel, what their new defensive coordinator looks for and wants for players to fit their scheme, and other inside scoop. It's certainly different. There's unique footage, and you do wonder if Giants executives will be so forthcoming in future episodes. But check it out and let me know what you think of this latest version of HBO's Hard Knocks. And so that is your morning buzzcast for Monday, July 8th, I made Matt Gore. Thanks for listening to the buzzcast. Stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you on Tuesday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)