Week in Review

TV and Streaming

  • ESPN agreed to a roughly $40 million media rights deal with the Big 12 that’ll see each football championship carried on the network or on ABC through 2024, including three title games in 2019, 2021 and 2023 that Fox declined to buy, along with hundreds of events from all conference sports offered on ESPN+, among other programming. Sources said that when the new agreement is added to the current media rights package that has six remaining years, the Big 12 will earn $22 million annually.
  • Disney announced that Disney+ will launch in the U.S. in November at $6.99 a month or $69.99 annually, marking the company’s first entry into streaming with a library featuring all of the “Star Wars” films, “The Simpsons” and movies and television shows from Marvel and Pixar, among other content. As part of the announcement, a senior Disney executive said that there will also “likely” be a discounted bundle combining Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN+, which is expected to have 8 million to 12 million subscribers by fiscal year 2024.

Football

  • Vince McMahon, WWE chairman and XFL founder, rejected an offer from Alliance of American Football co-founder Charlie Ebersol to merge the two leagues in December, according to a source. One insurance consultant who declined to work with the AAF, which has since suspended operations several games into its inaugural season, said the league had failed to secure “five percent of what they needed” before the season began.

  • Two class-action lawsuits were filed in California against the Alliance of American Football since the upstart league suspended operations several games into its inaugural season amid funding troubles. One lawsuit — filed by James Earnest Roberson Jr., the former director of community relations for the AAF’s Birmingham Iron — alleges violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988, and another, brought by two former players, Colton Schmidt and Reggie Northrup, lists a series of allegations, including breach of contract by the league and fraud and false promises.
  • Talent representation and entertainment agency Endeavor is nearing a purchase of hospitality firm On Location Experiences, LLC, sources said, for an agreed upon price over $650 million. The NFL, which has a 20 percent stake in the business, will reportedly be the only company retaining its ownership in On Location, which also had interest from Live Nation.

College Sports

  • Baylor defeated Notre Dame 82-81 to claim its third NCAA women’s basketball championship in school history. Fighting Irish senior Arike Ogunbowale, who scored 31 points in the loss, failed to knock down two late free throws to send the game into overtime, a year after she hit a pair of game-winning buzzer beaters at the Final Four as Notre Dame clinched a national title.
  • Virginia defeated Texas Tech 85-77 in overtime to win the NCAA Championship, becoming the first first-time title winner in men’s college basketball in 13 seasons. The victory came one year after the Cavaliers were on the wrong side of tournament history as the first top seed to lose to a 16-seed.

  • The men’s final, broadcasted on CBS, suffered a 14 percent ratings drop from the last time the network aired the final in 2017 between North Carolina and Gonzaga. The game drew a 12.4 overnight rating and was up 20 percent from last year’s title game, which was broadcast on TBS.
  • The University of Louisville confirmed it had received a verbal notice of inquiry from the NCAA, the first step in its investigation of the men’s college basketball program as part of a wider ongoing FBI case into corruption in college hoops. The school, which allegedly paid two prospects and their families, already dismissed or fired four individuals, including coach Rick Pitino, after they were named in federal documents, and it’s currently under probation until 2021 from another case that saw the program negate its 2013 national title.

Baseball

  • Amid concerns over “anticompetitive conduct,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, requested documents from MLB pertaining to the league’s reported interest in purchasing the 21 regional sports networks from The Walt Disney Co. The chairmen asked the league to provide information on its plans and strategies for the RSNs and to brief committee staff by April 25.
  • The Trump administration nullified a historic deal that the MLB signed with Cuba’s baseball federation in December, blocking the league from signing players to play in the United States. Officials said it was reversing a position previously held by the Obama administration that determined the baseball federation — which received a fee each time a player was signed — was separate from the Cuban government and in turn, made it possible for MLB to negotiate with it.

Basketball

  • The NBA announced that it sold out a record 760 regular season games this season, surpassing the previous high of 741 last year. Arena capacity reached 95 percent for the second straight year while overall attendance numbers slightly dropped from new or renovated venues cutting over 141,000 seats from 2017-18.

  • Dallas Mavericks’ forward Dirk Nowitzki officially announced his retirement during his last home game at American Airlines Center, where he suited up for 21 seasons and won one NBA title in 2011. The 40-year-old, who was drafted ninth overall in 1998, ranks sixth all-time in points and is third in games and minutes played.
  • The WNBA and AT&T Inc. signed a new top-level deal that will put the telecommunication company’s logo on the front of all 12 team jerseys beginning this season and follows an NBA-AT&T league-level sponsorship signed earlier this year. In a bid to attract a younger and more diverse audience, the WNBA also plans to roll out a new jersey brand and color scheme that’ll be unveiled around this week’s draft.
  • Magic Johnson abruptly stepped down as president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers in a makeshift press conference without any warning to media, LeBron James or team executives and officials. In his explanation for his departure from the role he assumed in February 2017, Johnson said he was tired of the “backstabbing and the whispering” and not being able to communicate with players from other teams and that he did not want to ask controlling owner Jeanie Buss to fire team coach Luke Walton.

 

What’s Ahead

  • The 2019 NFL Draft will be held April 25-27 live from Nashville.
  • The annual Kentucky Derby is on May 2 in Louisville.
  • The PGA Championship is May 13-19 in Farmingdale, N.Y. at Bethpage State Park.
  • The Indianapolis 500 is on May 25 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
  • The NCAA Lacrosse Championships are May 25-27 at Lincoln Financial Stadium in Philadelphia.

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

04/14/2019
3rd Annual NACDA Spring Symposium
04/15/2019
3rd Annual NACDA Spring Symposium
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
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.

Morning Consult Sports Top Reads

Morning Consult