Week in Review

Soccer

  • The NWSL Challenge Cup kicked off in Herriman, Utah, making the women’s soccer league the first U.S. team sport to return to play following the suspension of its season due to the coronavirus pandemic. The opening match of the tournament on CBS, a 2-1 victory for the North Carolina Courage over the Portland Thorns, marked the first time a women’s club soccer match aired nationally on U.S. network television.
  • Prior to the start of the event, the Orlando Pride withdrew from the NWSL Challenge Cup after six players and four staff members tested positive for COVID-19. The club could not field a team to compete due to the number of players and staff that had to be quarantined as a result of the positive tests, which a league source said stemmed from multiple players visiting a bar in Orlando, and the league adjusted the format of the tournament to account for change from nine participating teams to eight.

Racing

  • The Department of Justice said the placement of a noose in the Talladega Superspeedway garage stall of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, the Cup Series’ only Black competitor, was not a hate crime, as the rope had been in place since at least last year and long before Wallace was assigned to the stall ahead of the Geico 500. Wallace in a CNN interview emphatically denied any role in placing the noose there and said he had never previously seen a rope fashioned into a noose at a race track before.

Baseball

  • MLB announced it will begin a 60-game season on either July 23 or July 24 after its players’ union agreed on health and safety protocols for a return amid the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 regular season, which is slated to run through Sept. 27, will see teams play each of their divisional opponents 10 times to minimize travel, extra innings begin with a runner on second base and the universal implementation of the designated hitter, and will be followed by the league’s regular 10-team playoffs.

Apparel

  • Nike Inc. reported an unexpected quarterly net loss of $790 million and a year-over-year sales decline of 38 percent, as a 75 percent increase in online revenue was not enough to offset the losses related to extended closures of retail stores due to the pandemic. The Jordan Brand was a bright spot, with CEO John Donahoe pointing to the resonance of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary about the brand’s namesake, Michael Jordan, as a driving force.

Facilities

  • Amazon.com Inc. acquired the naming rights for the reconstructed version of Seattle’s old KeyArena, which it will call Climate Pledge Arena in a nod to the sustainability initiative the e-commerce giant launched in 2019 aimed at pushing corporate America to become carbon neutral by 2040. Sources said the deal is worth between $300 million and $400 million over an unspecified number of years, and arena officials are striving to make the facility the first zero-carbon arena certified by the Living Future Institute.

College sports

  • John Swofford, longtime commissioner of the ACC, announced he will retire following the 2020-2021 college sports season after a record 24-year tenure in the conference’s top leadership role. Swofford, whose successor has not yet been named, will leave a lasting legacy that includes leading the conference through multiple rounds of expansion and realignment and facilitated a grant-of-media rights by all league members that led to long-term stability and the creation of the ACC Network with ESPN.

Media

  • Turner Sports reportedly informed UEFA that it is opting out of its Champions League media rights agreement, meaning the AT&T Inc.-owned programmer likely will not carry matches from the top European club soccer competition when it resumes this summer or for the 2020-2021 season, which was set to be Turner’s final year as the governing body’s English-language U.S. media partner alongside Univision. UEFA will now look to sell the rights for what’s left of this season and the next, with CBS as the most logical suitor given that it is scheduled to take over the Champions League rights at the start of the 2021-2022 season.
  • LeBron James and business partner Maverick Carter raised $100 million to build Springhill Co., a media company that consolidates marketing agency Robot Co. with content production entities SpringHill Entertainment and Uninterrupted LLC. The investors are financial services company Guggenheim Partners LLC, UC Investments, News Corp. heir Elisabeth Murdoch and private equity firm SC.Holdings.

Golf

  • The Ryder Cup is reportedly scheduled to be postponed until 2021 as talks between local government officials in Wisconsin, home to host course Whistling Straits, and joint organizers PGA of America and the European Tour, near completion. Following the coronavirus-related delay, the biennial competition will reportedly continue to take place in odd years, meaning Italy will host the European team’s next home Ryder Cup in 2023, and U.S. broadcasters are said to be comfortable moving the event out of traditional Olympic years, though 2021 would be an exception due to the postponement of the Tokyo Games.
  • The PGA Tour implemented new measures to strengthen its COVID-19 testing protocols following a series of positive tests among golfers and caddies, including increased testing for those who plan to travel to events on the Tour’s charter flight and the loss of a $100,000 stipend for players who are determined to have violated protocols. Five players withdrew from this week’s Travelers Championship, including Cameron Champ, who tested positive for the virus, and Graeme McDowell and Brooks Koepka, who backed out when their caddies tested positive.

Football

  • The NFL reportedly plans to allow its clubs to set their own attendance capacity limits for home games during the upcoming season, instructing teams to follow local guidance from health authorities regarding mass gatherings amid the pandemic. The policy could help the league mitigate an estimated $3 billion in losses that would occur if all of its regular-season and playoff games are played without fans in attendance, but raises questions about competitive fairness given the wide range of regulations in place across the country.

Basketball

  • The surging number of coronavirus cases in Florida is said to have raised concerns among players, team executives and the league office about the NBA’s planned season restart at Walt Disney World Resort outside Orlando. Sources said Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the viral spike in Florida on a recent call with high-level team executives, expressing determination to move forward with the plan and confidence in the league’s health and safety protocols while acknowledging the severity of the coronavirus situation.

What’s Ahead

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

06/29/2020
SportTechie Pro – Tracking Athletes: Quanitfying & Monetizing Performance – Virtual
06/30/2020
Sports Business Journal – The Road Ahead Part I – Virtual
SFIA – Monitoring the Impact of COVID-19 and the Road to Recovery – Virtual
SMU Sports Management – Leveraging Technology for Revenue and Value Creation – Virtual
View full calendar

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