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Week in Review
Baseball
- MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league’s 30 teams combined for $3 billion in operating losses this season due to the coronavirus pandemic, which forced the league to reduce its regular-season schedule to 60 games, none of which were played with fans in attendance. Manfred also said he hopes to permanently allow more than 10 teams to qualify for the postseason beyond, but he does not expect the league to adopt the 16-team format employed for the shortened season and stressed a desire to “preserve the importance of our regular season.”
- The office of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) informed MLB and the New York Mets that it is looking into whether the franchise could be sold to hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, and while there is reportedly no indication that de Blasio plans to block the pending sale, the city has the right to determine under the terms of its lease of Citi Field to the Mets whether Cohen, whose former company was found to have been involved in insider trading, is fit to be the new owner of the club.
- Earlier in the week, the MLB Ownership Committee approved Cohen’s bid to purchase the Mets after reviewing a vetting of Cohen and details of the proposed transaction, according to people familiar with the matter. Cohen, who would own a 95 percent stake in the team once the deal closes, still needs to undergo a review by the commissioner’s eight-member Executive Council before the sale is put to a final vote among the full slate of owners.
- Fenway Sports Group LLC revealed a plan to partner with the D’Angelo family, which owns sports apparel company ‘47 Brand, and WS Development on a five-acre development project in the neighborhood outside Fenway Park that would feature office space, apartments, retail stores, public art, green space and possibly a hotel. The developers have begun extensive planning on the project, which the principals have batted around for more than a decade, but have yet to determine the project cost or the mix of retail, residential and commercial space.
Media
- Legendary hockey broadcaster Mike “Doc” Emrick announced his retirement at the age of 74, leaving NBC Sports without its top play-by-play voice for its NHL coverage as it nears the expiration of its exclusive media rights deal with the league. Emrick rose from calling college and minor league hockey on the radio to become one of the most venerated on-air personalities in sports media during a career that included stops at ESPN, CBS and NBC.
- ESPN announced that it is moving much of its online feature writing and analysis behind the paywall of its direct-to-consumer service, ESPN+. While the company’s breaking news and investigative journalism would continue to be free, insight and analysis will now primarily be available to ESPN+ subscribers, an effort designed to boost the platform that is in line with Walt Disney Co.’s recently announced pivot toward direct-to-consumer products.
Basketball
- The NBA was slated to meet with its national broadcast partners, ESPN and Turner Sports, to determine when to begin its upcoming season, and decision-makers are inclined to start back up “sooner than later,” according to sources cited by Bill Simmons on his podcast. Simmons said the league is not optimistic about the possibility of hosting fans in the near future and therefore is not inclined to wait to start the season, which he projected could begin “somewhere between Christmas and Martin Luther King weekend.”
- The NBA spent $180 million to facilitate its return to play in a bubble at Walt Disney World Resort in Kissimmee, Fla., an effort that sources familiar with the league’s finances said enabled the preservation of $1.5 billion in potential lost revenue tied primarily to media rights and league-level sponsorships. The league is currently in the process of reviewing the finances of all 30 teams to determine the extent of the revenue shortfall for the 2019-20 season, which will establish the amount of basketball-related income that will serve as the basis for next season’s salary cap.
Football
- All 12 NFL games scheduled today are expected to be played after the Las Vegas Raiders, Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints each reported no new positive coronavirus test results yesterday. Earlier in the week, the NFL moved the Raiders’ game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers out of prime time due to concerns that the Raiders’ coronavirus outbreak would prevent the game from being played, instead shifting a game between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals to “Sunday Night Football.”
- Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV will significantly reduce its usually robust Super Bowl presence at the upcoming NFL title game — scheduled to be held this February in Tampa, Fla. — amid uncertainty about the event amid the coronavirus pandemic, including by eliminating large-scale hospitality efforts, according to two people familiar with the decision. The beer and beverage giant, which has reportedly been paring its sports and entertainment sponsorship portfolio in recent months, is still expected to engage in signed advertising and product distribution, but will not host the roughly 600 people it typically brings to the festivities each year.
Sponsorship
- Colorado-based packaging company Ball Corp. signed a multisport, multinational sponsorship deal with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment that includes naming rights for the Denver arena that has been known as Pepsi Center since 1999, as well as marketing rights with the Los Angeles Rams and their new SoFi Stadium, plus English Premier League club Arsenal. The long-term deal, through which Ball intends to promote aluminum as the best choice in sustainable beverage packaging, took about a year to complete and is the first spanning KSE’s entire portfolio of sports properties.
Olympics
- The UK National Cyber Security Centre and U.S. authorities found in a joint investigation that Russian military intelligence services were planning a cyberattack aimed at disrupting the Tokyo Olympic Games prior to their postponement and confirmed that Russia was behind an attack on the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Games in 2018 that prevented spectators from printing out tickets and crashed wifi in the stadium. The Russians, who were said to be motivated by their athletes’ exclusion from the Games due to state-sponsored doping offenses, allegedly targeted Olympic organizers, logistics services and sponsors in their reconnaissance work ahead of the Tokyo Games.
Research
- In a Morning Consult poll, 50 percent of U.S. adults who attend at least several sporting events in a typical year said they would be “very” or “somewhat” comfortable attending an indoor sporting event right now. While 59 percent of regular event-goers said they’d be comfortable visiting an indoor venue filled to 25 percent capacity, only 34 percent said they’d consider going to an arena filled to 100 percent capacity.
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What’s Ahead
- Nov. 7: The Pac-12 begins its 2020 football season with its first 9 a.m. PT game between Arizona State University and the University of Southern California.
- Nov. 12: The Masters begins at Augusta National Golf Club.
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Events Calendar (All Times Local)
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Morning Consult Sports Top Reads
1) Joe Buck will survive his grueling October with a private plane and lots of coronavirus tests
Ben Strauss, The Washington Post
2) As Venues Focus on Air Quality, Many Sports Fans Are Ready to Return to Indoor Events
Alex Silverman, Morning Consult
3) ESPN moving high-profile features and analysis behind ESPN+ paywall
Andrew Marchand, New York Post
4) NBA Leaning Toward Starting 20-21 Season ‘Sooner Rather Than Later’
RealGM
5) Creditors Brace for Possible Debt Restructuring at Sinclair Sports Unit
Alexander Gladstone and Lillian Rizzo, The Wall Street Journal
6) NFL Turns to Digital Influencers in Fight to Win Over Young Fans
Jacob Feldman, Sportico
7) Manfred likes larger playoff, runner in extras
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
8) The Cubs are a decimated organization after laying off 100-plus employees
Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma, The Athletic
9) Clause in Citi Field Lease Could Impede Steve Cohen’s Mets Purchase
Dana Rubinstein and David Waldstein, The New York Times
10) NBA preserved $1.5B in revenue at Disney, but losses are steep
John Lombardo, Sports Business Journal
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