May 2, 2023

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Will Green Bay host the 2025 NFL Draft? Is another celebrity joining a bid to buy the Senators? Is MLB digitally erasing criticism of the A’s management from highlights? Front Office Sports Today covers all of it — plus, VaynerBasketball president and CEO Bay Frazier gives us an inside look at the VaynerSports agency’s new basketball division.

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FIFA Threatens Women’s World Cup Blackout in Europe’s ‘Big 5’ [[link removed]]

Dustin Safranek-USA TODAY Sports

FIFA is prepared to kick broadcasts of the Women’s World Cup out of Europe if it doesn’t get its price.

“It is our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in an Instagram post [[link removed]] on Monday, echoing statements he made at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

Infantino described offers from Europe’s “Big 5” countries — England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy — as “very disappointing,” pointing out that while the women’s tournament draws “50-60%” of the viewership garnered by the men’s edition, broadcasters “offer only $1 million to $10 million” for the women’s competition, as opposed to “$100-200 million for the men’s.”

Infantino said that all rights fees would go toward prize money and promoting women’s soccer.

FIFA has signed 156 broadcast deals connected to the tournament, including ones in other European countries such as Hungary, Sweden, and Belgium, according [[link removed]] to Bloomberg.

A recent friendly match between the French and Canadian women’s teams drew a record 1.4 million viewers. The NWSL saw a record [[link removed]] average viewership of 915,000 for its championship game last year.

The prize money [[link removed]] for this year’s Women’s World Cup will be $152 million — triple what it was in 2019 and more than 10 times greater than the purse in 2015 — but still a far cry from the $440 million doled out at the men’s tournament last year.

AWARDS

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. Established in 2017, the Rising 25 Award has become one of the most competitive and prestigious awards in the industry.

Know someone who deserves to be recognized? Today is the last day to nominate [[link removed]] them!

Upon Further Review, Super Bowl LVII Most-Watched of All Time [[link removed]]

Syndication: Arizona Republic

Fox Sports announced that its broadcast of Super Bowl LVII set an all-time record as the most-watched Super Bowl in history.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ comeback 38-35 win over the Philadelphia Eagles averaged 115.1 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes, and digital streaming services, according to updated figures from Nielsen — topping the previous record of 114.4 million viewers for NBC Sports’ 2015 coverage of the New England Patriots’ win [[link removed]] over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX.

Fox previously pegged viewership [[link removed]] for February’s game at 113 million viewers. With the updated figure, Fox’s audience rose 2% over the 112.3 million for NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LVI last year.

Nielsen is issuing the new record number after addressing irregularities in the encoding that enables Nielsen’s measurement of TV viewing and unspecified issues with out-of-home measurement of Super Bowl LVII.

With the change, the top five most-watched Super Bowl of all time are: Super Bowl LVII (Fox,115.1M); Super Bowl XLIX (NBC, 114.4M); Super Bowl LVII (Fox, 113M); Super Bowl XLVIII (Fox, 112.7M); and Super Bowl 50 (CBS, 111.9M).

Ironically, Michael Mulvihill, Fox’s head of strategy analytics, predicted before the big game that Chiefs-Eagles would [[link removed]]set a record [[link removed]] — and even correctly called those 115 million viewers.

Fox’s Cowboys-Giants Thanksgiving Day telecast in 2022 was the most-watched regular-season game ever, averaging 42 million viewers, and NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” finished as the No. 1 show in prime time for a record 12th straight season.

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Comcast Resolves Dispute with NFL, Restores Football Networks [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

NBCUniversal owner Comcast restored its two big football networks after briefly dropping them over a carriage dispute with the NFL.

The customer support Twitter feed of Comcast-owned Xfinity said [[link removed]] on Monday that NFL Network was back on the network.

Sling and Dish dropped [[link removed]] the two stations in 2020, and AT&T U-Verse and DirecTV Now did the same the previous year. While Sling and Dish brought NFL Network and RedZone back three months later, the stations are still unavailable through DirecTV.

Super Bowl-Sized Gap

Comcast saw its first-quarter revenue dip from the same period last year without broadcasting its marquee sports events.

The connectivity and media giant banked [[link removed]] $29.7 billion in Q1 revenue, down 4.3% from $31 billion last year.

The difference was entirely attributable to the fact that in 2022, NBCUniversal held rights to both the Super Bowl, which rotated to Fox this year, and the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Those two events accounted for $1.5 billion in revenue, and their absence drove a 20.7% dip in media revenue to $6.2 billion.

Peacock saw gains and challenges typical of many streaming services: Revenue grew 45.1% year-over-year to $685 million off a 60% climb in paid subscribers to 22 million. However, losses related to the service grew at a similar rate — from $456 million to $704 million.

Conversation Starters German soccer club Fortuna Düsseldorf is planning to offer free tickets [[link removed]] to fans beginning next season. The revolutionary initiative, Fortuna for Everyone, will be paid for by club sponsors. Warriors-Lakers is the most expensive [[link removed]] NBA playoff series on record outside of NBA Finals games, according to TickPick, with the average seat for Games 1-7 going for $726. Last week, the Toronto Raptors secured permission [[link removed]] to interview Becky Hammon for head coach. At the Las Vegas Aces’ new HQ, Hammon responded, “This is all about the Aces, and I won’t take one moment away from these women to talk about them boys.”

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What to Watch

The Los Angeles Lakers will meet the Golden State Warriors of Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals on Tuesday at Chase Center.

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

Gambling odds: Lakers +5 || ML Lakers +156 || O/U 227.5

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