Top Stories

  • Future first-ballot Hall of Famer Peyton Manning is slated to serve as host and executive producer for a new five-part, 30-episode documentary series called “Peyton’s Places,” which will debut on ESPN+ in July and air on ABC and ESPN for some features. In partnership with NFL Films, ESPN and the league, Manning will celebrate the NFL’s 100th season as he commemorates the sport’s biggest moments of the past century, such as the Immaculate Reception and the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ undefeated season, as well as connections between the league and iconic figures such as Elvis and Jay Leno, among other bits of storytelling. (The Associated Press)
  • Following a strategic review, DAZN Group is now prioritizing its over-the-top streaming business and will invest in live sports rights after the announced sale of Perform Content to venture capital firm Vista Equity Partners in exchange for cash and equity. The Texas-based private equity company will merge Perform and STATS LLC, which it acquired in 2014, into a new entity that’ll use artificial intelligence to accelerate sports innovation and complement its existing portfolio, which includes companies in software, data, technology and ticketing. (SportsPro Media)
  • Duke forward Zion Williamson officially declared for this summer’s NBA Draft after leading the Blue Devils in rebounds, steals and blocks as he helped the team to an Elite Eight appearance. Williamson, who was the third freshman ever to win the John R. Wooden Award as the national men’s player of the year, is expected to be the No. 1 pick in June. (The Washington Post)

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Events Calendar (All Times Local)

04/16/2019
3rd Annual NACDA Spring Symposium
Netflix First Quarter 2019 Earnings 6:00 pm
04/20/2019
San Diego State University 5th Annual Sports Business Summit
04/23/2019
Betting on Sports America
Digiday Future of TV Summit 1:00 pm
View full calendar

The Brands That Define American Culture and Commerce

Morning Consult analyzed over 400,000 survey interviews to determine this year’s rankings. See who made the list.

General

UK publishers turn to women’s sports as untapped growth area
Jessica Davies, Digiday

U.K. media coverage of women’s sports has been neglected for years. But now an increasing number of U.K. publishers are starting to prioritize women’s sports as a major part of their editorial mandates.

Meet the man who won $1.2 million betting on Tiger Woods’ Masters win
Michael Blinn, The Washington Post

If anyone had as good a Sunday as Tiger Woods, it was James Adducci. Who is James Adducci?

Olympics: Tokyo 2020 marathons to start early due to heat fears
Jack Tarrant, Reuters

Next year’s men’s and women’s Olympic marathons will start at 6 a.m. local time to try to avoid the worst of Tokyo’s blazing summer heat, organizers said on Tuesday. The marathons had been scheduled to begin at 7 a.m. but with temperatures reaching over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) last year organizers were under pressure to make changes to ensure the safety of athletes and supporters.

Mike Francesa exploded in WFAN hallways before disputed loss to Michael Kay
Andrew Marchand, New York Post

ESPN New York’s Michael Kay left Mike Francesa screaming in the FAN hallways after the buzz Kay’s show created with his Craig Carton post-sentencing interview, according to sources. Now the two sides will howl about who is really the king of the winter radio book.

PLL touts itself as one-stop shop for brands
Adam Stern, SportsBusiness Daily

The Premier Lacrosse League’s single-entity structure is resulting in early success in selling sponsorships because it’s turned the proposition into something of a one-stop shop for brands, according to league co-founder Paul Rabil. The PLL starts its inaugural season in June and just rolled out its first major sponsorship deal last week with Adidas, which is now the league’s official apparel provider.

NFL

Seahawks QB Wilson sticking around: ‘Seattle, we got a deal’
Tim Booth, The Associated Press

Russell Wilson is sticking around with the Seattle Seahawks. Wilson posted a video to social media early Tuesday saying, “Seattle, we got a deal,” shortly after a reported midnight deadline for the Seahawks and their star quarterback to agree on a contract extension.

Todd Gurley’s left knee still a topic, but Rams back says he’s ‘feeling pretty good’
Gary Klein, Los Angeles Times

He spent the last few months traveling throughout the United States and abroad, working out and hanging out with family and friends. Fielding questions about his left knee was not on Todd Gurley’s to-do list.

NBA

Warriors fearful Cousins tore quad, sources say
Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN

The Golden State Warriors are fearful that All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins has suffered a torn left quad but won’t be certain until an MRI examination on Tuesday, league sources told ESPN. The best-case scenario could be a strained quad, but there was evidence that Cousins’ noncontact injury, which occurred while he was pursuing a loose ball in Monday’s 135-131 Game 2 loss to the LA Clippers, was serious and season-ending, league sources said.

Sacramento Kings hire Luke Walton as coach
Josh Dubow, The Associated Press

About five minutes after hearing Luke Walton had been dismissed as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Sacramento Kings general manager Vlade Divac called Walton’s agent. Finalizing the deal that brought Walton to Sacramento as the Kings new coach didn’t take much longer.

NBA marketing takes the bus to hype playoffs and finals
John Lombardo, SportsBusiness Daily

The NBA is getting on the bus for the playoffs and finals. New marketing and fan engagement efforts include, for the first time, NBA Playoffs buses outfitted with fan interactive elements and sponsor activations inside the double-decker vehicles.

MLB

At 31 with the NFL behind him, Tim Tebow is one final step from MLB. But it’s the biggest.
Matthew Gutierrez, The Washington Post

Tim Tebow was 18 years old, in green shorts and a gray T-shirt, walking from left field toward home plate for an offseason chat. He had come to meet with his high school baseball coach, Greg Mullins, after school. Something’s wrong, Mullins thought as Tebow approached. “Can we talk?” Tebow asked, and they moved to the dugout bench.

AOC says she’s a diehard fan of a New York baseball team — but not the one in her district
Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez knows how to make waves. And the Democratic congresswoman from New York waded in to yet another hot button issue Sunday: the fierce baseball rivalry between the Yankees and Mets.

NHL

Flyers announce Vigneault as team’s new coach
Emily Kaplan, ESPN

The Philadelphia Flyers have hired Alain Vigneault as head coach. Vigneault, 57, most recently coached the New York Rangers for five seasons before he was dismissed last spring.

Alex Ovechkin says he hopes Andrei Svechnikov is okay after knocking out Carolina rookie
Isabelle Khurshudyan, The Washington Post

In his first fight since 2010, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin landed several hard blows to knock out Carolina Hurricanes rookie Andrei Svechnikov in the first period of Monday’s first-round playoff game. Svechnikov remained down on the ice after the bout and had to be helped to the dressing room. He was later ruled out for the game.

Soccer

Ex-Brazil soccer chief given life ban for bribery: FIFA
Hardik Vyas, Reuters

Jose Maria Marin, the former president of Brazil Football Confederation (CBF), has been banned for life and fined 1 million Swiss francs ($997,000) for taking bribes, the sport’s governing body FIFA said on Monday. Marin is currently serving a four-year sentence in prison a the United States after being convicted on corruption charges related to a bribery scandal at FIFA.

How much would you pay to watch Lionel Messi?
James Masters, CNN

For many football fans, the opportunity to watch their team take on Barcelona at Camp Nou is a bucket list dream. Just don’t expect the dream to come cheap. Whether it be Barcelona, Madrid, London or Paris, the cost of football and ticket prices in particular, is generating more and more criticism.

Pele recovering after kidney stone procedure in Brazil
Melissa Gray, CNN

Soccer legend Pelé is recovering after a procedure in Brazil to remove kidney stones, doctors said Saturday, according to state-run Agencia Brasil. “The procedure was successful and he is already in the room, in good general condition from the clinical point of view, according to his doctors,” the news agency reported.

Racing

MotoGP: The King of COTA is deposed
Jonathan Hawkins, CNN

Austin’s curvaceous Circuit of the Americas played out a MotoGP drama at the weekend with barely an emotional or theatrical stone unturned. The race meeting had begun on a somber note, on Friday, with the official retirement of the late MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden’s race number.

Golf and Tennis

Tiger Effect on Masters ratings was big, but blunted by weather
Daniel Roberts, Yahoo Finance

Tiger Woods won The Masters on Sunday in dramatic fashion, and fans were glued to their televisions—if they got up early enough to see it. CBS Sports says the final round of the 2019 Masters was its “highest-rated morning golf broadcast” in 34 years, with a 7.7 overnight rating and 21 household share (it means 21% of all U.S. households with TVs were tuned in).

Nike shares surged by this much the last time Tiger Woods won the Masters
Keris Lahiff, CNBC

Nike is on the green. Its shares rose to begin the week, putting it closer to all-time highs set last month, after one of its top sponsored athletes, Tiger Woods, won the Masters Tournament on Sunday.

Trump tweets he will give Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Cindy Boren, The Washington Post

A green jacket, a fat paycheck and a restored reputation aren’t the only rewards Tiger Woods will receive after winning his fifth Masters on Sunday, capping one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. He’ll also be receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, according to President Trump.

Tiger Woods’s Masters Win Joins the Ranks of Great Sports Comebacks
Victor Mather, The New York Times

Tiger Woods hadn’t won a major in 11 years. He had struggled through injury and personal crises. He was dismissed as finished, his years of dominance fading into memory. Then on Sunday he won the Masters again, at age 43.

Where Have All the American Tennis Tournaments Gone?
Adam Zagoria, The New York Times

The United States Clay Court Championships, a men’s tennis tournament that ended Sunday in Houston, signaled something beyond the transition from the hardcourt season to clay. It marked the end of the tennis tours’ two-month American swing, which featured six tournaments, including two of the biggest tournaments outside of the four Grand Slam events — the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open.

College Sports

Virginia’s Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter will sign with agents and enter the NBA draft
Scott Allen, The Washington Post

As expected, Virginia guards Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter will forgo their final seasons of eligibility in Charlottesville and enter the NBA draft. Jerome and Hunter, who helped the Cavaliers to their first men’s basketball national title last week, announced Monday on Instagram that they will sign with agents and pursue their lifelong dreams of playing at the highest level.

Esports

Jack Harari on His Journey From the NBA to Activision Blizzard Esports
Seamus Byrne, The Esports Observer

The comparisons between esports and traditional sports are a constant when examining the development of the business of esports. So those who step from one world to the other bring new perspectives that are exciting to explore.

Opinions, Editorials, Perspectives and Research

There’s No Explanation for Why Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel Remain Unsigned
Michael Baumann, The Ringer

The Boston Red Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Washington Nationals, New York Mets, and Chicago Cubs—all clubs with a reasonable expectation of playing into October—have teamwide ERAs of 5.00 or higher. Red Sox ace Chris Sale is pitching like an skinny latter-day Jamie Moyer, the Brewers are out two of their three best relievers, and Washington’s bullpen is leakier than a porcupine’s hot air balloon.

Will Tiger Woods’ Masters win be the spark golf needs to further diversify?
LZ Granderson, Los Angeles Times

If you have 30 minutes or so to spare I encourage you to go on YouTube and watch Charlie Sifford’s 2004 induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. I had not heard of Sifford, the first African American to play on the PGA Tour, until he was award the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

Morning Consult