Week in Review

Racing

  • NASCAR announced it will prohibit fans at all of its races and venues from displaying the Confederate flag, a common sight at the sanctioning body’s events for more than 70 years. The decision came in response to calls for its banishment by Bubba Wallace, the Cup Series’ lone black driver, and amid a renewed wave of momentum for a broader removal of Confederate symbols and monuments across the country in the wake of the alleged murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. A Morning Consult poll shows the lion’s share of self-identified NASCAR fans disagree with the decision, but the sport’s younger fans are considerably more receptive to the ban, with supporters ages 18-44 nearly split on whether or not the flag should be allowed.
  • NASCAR will allow a limited number of fans to attend two Cup Series races this month, including 1,000 Florida service members at Homestead-Miami Speedway and up to 5,000 members of the general public at Talladega Superspeedway. The sanctioning body, which will become the largest North American sports entity to host fans since the coronavirus outbreak in early March, said all guests will be required to undergo temperature screenings before entering, wear face masks and obey social distancing guidelines.
  • Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Series owner Roger Penske said the Indianapolis 500 will only run this year if the track is able to host fans for the race, either on Aug. 23 as scheduled or in October if it has to be moved back. The track will host both the IndyCar Series and NASCAR on the weekend of July 4-5 without fans in attendance, a decision Penske said was his own and was not influenced by local or federal government officials.

Soccer

  • MLS revealed plans for all 26 of its clubs to return to play in a new event dubbed the MLS is Back Tournament, set to begin on July 8 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney World Resort outside Orlando, Fla. The World Cup-style event, the winner of which will receive a bid to the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League, will consist of a group stage in which each team plays three games that also count toward the MLS regular-season standings, followed by a 16-team knockout stage that culminates in a championship match on Aug. 11.

Golf

  • The PGA Tour resumed its season with the start of the Charles Schwab Challenge  at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, making golf the second major sport in North America after auto racing to return from its coronavirus hiatus. All players, caddies and essential staff members were tested for COVID-19, with all 487 tests coming back negative, and a number of golfers wore microphones to provide audio to fill the void left by the lack of cheering fans on the course.

Baseball

  • MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is expected to unilaterally institute a schedule of at least 50 games for the 2020 season if the league is unable to reach a deal with the players’ union by next week, according to three league executives. There is concern among ownership that if Manfred uses the so-called nuclear option, some star players will opt not to participate this season, determining that it is not worth the health risk associated with playing during the coronavirus pandemic to receive only a third of their annual salary.
  • Coca-Cola opted not to renew the national MLB sponsorship rights it assumed prior to the start of the 2017 season, according to a company source who cited “budgetary concerns” as the primary reason for not continuing as a league’s carbonated soft drink sponsor. The beverage giant still holds the majority of MLB team rights in the category, while rival Pepsi has league-level sponsorship rights with the NBA, NFL and NHL.

Media

  • Snap Inc. reached a spate of multiyear deals expanding its relationships with several of its existing content partners, including the NFL, NBA, Walt Disney Co. and ViacomCBS Inc. The pacts will fuel the launch of several new original series, as well as a new breaking news feature called “Happening Now” built around content from The Washington Post, Bloomberg and ESPN. 

Combat sports

  • The UFC will hold four events, including a UFC 251 pay-per-view card, over the course of two weeks in July on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, a location that the promotion has dubbed Fight Island. The island’s location allows the UFC to promote international fighters who have been unable to travel to the United States due to travel restrictions imposed amid the coronavirus pandemic and includes a “safety zone” of 10 square miles in which only athletes, coaches, UFC staff and limited personnel will be allowed.

Tennis

  • The USTA announced plans to eliminate 110 jobs — about 20 percent of its national staff — and close its current headquarters in White Plains, N.Y., as part of cost-cutting efforts related to the coronavirus pandemic. The national governing body for tennis, which is currently attempting to ensure the U.S. Open is played this summer, started restructuring in 2018, and the financial fallout from the pandemic reportedly sped up the process.

Hockey

  • The Arizona Coyotes hired Xavier Gutierrez as the club’s president and CEO, making the former managing director at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Clearlake Capital Group the first Latino ever to lead business operations for an NHL franchise. Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo said during Gutierrez’s introductory press conference that he expects the club to have a long-term arena solution in the state by the end of 2020 despite coronavirus-related setbacks, adding that though the city of Glendale is interested in keeping the club in Gila River Arena, the team has also received “extremely attractive” offers to relocate to the East Valley area of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

What’s Ahead

  • June 23: LPGA Tour resumes play with Marathon Classic at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio.

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

06/15/2020
Colosseum Sport – Sports Tech Demo Day – Virtual
Beyond Sport Workshop Week Begins – Virtual
06/16/2020
SMU Sports Management – New Thinking in Athletic Department Marketing/External Relations – Virtual
06/18/2020
The Kagan Media Summit 2020 Part I – Virtual
View full calendar

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