April 25, 2023

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ESPN parent company Disney just hit the iconic sports network with a wave of layoffs. FOS Senior Reporter Michael McCarthy joins Front Office Sports Today to explain the cuts — and what’s coming next. Plus, Yahoo Sports’ Senior VP Jon Shaw discusses the company’s purchase of Wagr, and why peer-to-peer could be the future of sports betting.

Listen and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Google [[link removed]], and Spotify [[link removed]].

UFC Owner Endeavor Sells IMG Academy for $1.25B to PE Firm [[link removed]]

Endeavor

UFC owner Endeavor has agreed to sell its world-renowned IMG Academy to Hong Kong-based private equity group BPEA EQT on Tuesday in an all-cash deal valued at $1.25 billion.

The news comes three weeks after UFC said it would merge [[link removed]] with WWE to unite the biggest names in entertainment and wrestling. The two entities “have signed a definitive agreement” to create a new publicly traded company valued at $21 billion.

IMG Academy’s campus in Bradenton, Florida, is known as a college preparatory school catering to top youth athletes nationwide. The school is now set to partner with BPEA EQT’s portfolio company Nord Anglia Education, which runs more than 80 private schools across the U.S., Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

The combined private education system will serve more than 175,000 students. IMG Academy placed more than 30,000 students on college sports rosters in 2022.

The IMG Academy famously produced tennis stars such as Andre Agassi, Venus and Serena Williams, and Pete Sampras. Their coach Nick Bollettieri, who founded the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in 1978 before IMG bought it in 1987 to form IMG Academy, died in December 2022 at the age of 91.

Endeavor originally acquired sports and entertainment giant IMG for $2.4 billion in 2014.

AWARDS

Rising 25 is back, and it’s time to nominate an up-and-coming young professional changing the game in the business of sports!

The Front Office Sports Rising 25 Award [[link removed]], presented by Anheuser-Busch, celebrates the careers of the brightest young stars in the business of sports. To date, we’ve honored 150 individuals and we’re looking for our next group of young stars.

Nominations are open NOW through May 2. Winners will be announced in June.

Nominate [[link removed]] today!

Orioles Dealt Another Loss in TV Rights Dispute [[link removed]]

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

The Baltimore Orioles suffered another setback in a dispute with the Washington Nationals that goes back more than a decade.

The New York Court of Appeals issued an opinion [[link removed]] Tuesday confirming an MLB committee’s ruling that the Orioles and the franchise’s majority-owned regional sports network owe the Nationals more than $100 million in rights fees.

“While it is unfortunate that our decision may send this protracted litigation into extra innings, that result is necessitated by the settlement agreement’s terms,” Judge Madeline Singas wrote in the 6-0 majority opinion.

The ruling didn’t call on the Orioles or Mid-Atlantic Sports Network to pay up immediately, but rather to continue negotiations under the terms laid out in the settlement agreement created in 2005 — the first season the Montreal Expos were rebranded to the Nationals and began play in Washington, D.C.

At the center of the dispute, first challenged by the Nats in 2012, is the amount due for their broadcast rights.

The MLB panel ruled that rights fees from 2012-2016 were worth $105 million more than the Orioles and MASN argued was the fair market value to broadcast Nats games on the RSN.

Impact on Nats Sale

Ted Leonsis, who already owns the Capitals, Wizards, and Mystics, leads a group bidding $2 billion [[link removed]] for the Nats, though that process [[link removed]] is put on hold as this litigation plays out.

Last August, Leonsis took full ownership of the area’s other RSN, NBC Sports Net Washington. He will want the Nats on the network, which will be rebranded as Monumental.

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Oakland A’s Could Share Stadium with Triple-A Team [[link removed]]

D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

With their roster depleted by trades and minimal free-agent signings, the Oakland A’s are sometimes likened to a Triple-A team — and may soon be downsized to playing in a minor league stadium.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said [[link removed]] that the team could share Las Vegas Ballpark — capacity 10,000 — with their Triple-A affiliate, the Las Vegas Aviators, while they wait for a new stadium to be built in Las Vegas.

The team’s current lease at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum ends after the 2024 season. A’s president Dave Kaval has said that a new stadium in Las Vegas likely wouldn’t be open until 2027, leaving a two-year gap where the A’s might need a place to play.

Negotiations in Oakland were made more challenging by A’s owner John Fisher’s desire to build housing, retail, and restaurants simultaneously — not sequentially — alongside a new stadium to help the development pay for itself, per [[link removed]] The Athletic.

It doesn’t seem the two sides ever discussed a scaled-back version of the $12 billion development.

In addition to potentially needing a new tenant, the Oakland A’s home park will also need a new name.

RingCentral, which has held naming rights to the coliseum since 2019 in a deal worth $1 million annually, ended its pact early on April 1.

The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority is looking [[link removed]] into whether the company had the right to end the deal, which had nine months remaining. The termination could cost the managing organization $750,000 through the end of the year.

Conversation Starters Nike co-founder Phil Knight pledged [[link removed]] $400 million to support Portland’s Black community through his newly launched 1803 Fund, which will focus on investment in education services, art programs, and other business projects in the city’s Albina neighborhood. Netflix is launching its Conor McGregor docuseries [[link removed]], “McGregor Forever,” on May 17. The project is the “only place to hear his true story.” The SEC is considering stronger sanctions [[link removed]] against schools that storm the field, but they’re “unlikely to gain traction,” per Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde. Potential punishments include loss of future home games and forfeiture of the game in which the field storming occurred.

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The four-lesson course includes a lesson on Building Expressions and Connections, where Meta’s Angel Gonzalez sits down with Sportsmanias CEO Vicente Fernandez and House of V CCO Justin Allen to discuss how augmented reality can unlock new immersive experiences [[link removed]] for athletes and fans alike.

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What To Watch

The Los Angeles Clippers will take on the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night at Footprint Center in Phoenix in Game 5 of their first-round NBA Playoff series.

How to watch: 10 p.m. ET, TNT

Betting odds: Clippers +12.5 || ML Clippers +560 || O/U 224

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