May 9, 2023
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The Arizona Coyotes may have finally found a new home after taking up temporary residence at Arizona State’s Mullet Arena. With approval for a new arena on the ballot in Tempe this week, Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez joins our podcast to break down their proposal to the city, their plan to win over voters, and how they’d build the first privately funded sports stadium in the history of Arizona.
Listen and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Google [[link removed]], and Spotify [[link removed]].
EFL, Sky Sports Reach Landmark $1.2B Rights Deal [[link removed]]
Plymouth Argyle FC
The British soccer tiers below the Premier League will keep getting some shine on television under a huge new media rights deal.
English Football League clubs have unanimously approved a domestic rights deal with Sky Sports worth $1.2 billion over the five-year period between the 2024-25 and 2028-29 seasons.
That financial figure represents a 50% increase in value from the two entities’ current agreement, which expires after next season. Compensation will be in the form of $1.1 billion in guaranteed payments and the rest in marketing benefits.
Under the new agreement, 1,059 EFL matches are set to be shown exclusively on Sky Sports — a record number for any club soccer deal, per Sky [[link removed]], and four times the number of EFL games it currently offers.
The Championship — the highest tier of EFL — will receive 328 matches, while League One and League Two will get 248 each. Additionally, all Play-Off, Carabao Cup, and EFL Trophy matches will be shown on Sky Sports.
Sky Sports and the EFL have also committed to providing longer notice periods for clubs and fans as to which matches will be selected for TV.
And more fans could tune in after one of those clubs recently won promotion to EFL. Wrexham AFC [[link removed]] — owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney — earned a spot in EFL League Two next season.
Blackhawks Win Draft Lottery, Fans Rush to Buy $5.2M in Season Tickets [[link removed]]
Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports
Connor Bedard is two months from his 18th birthday and doesn’t officially have an NHL team, but he just drove a surge in Chicago Blackhawks’ season-ticket sales.
The Blackhawks secured the No. 1 pick in the upcoming 2023 NHL Draft and are widely expected to use it on Bedard, a generational prospect in Canada’s Western Hockey League who has drawn comparisons to superstars like Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid. Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon said [[link removed]] that Bedard’s shot release “is one of the best in the world now.”
Though the draft is on June 28, Bedard is already changing the Blackhawks’ fortunes.
Within 12 hours of securing the top pick, the team had sold [[link removed]] $5.2 million in season-ticket packages, including 1,200 full-season plans.
The Blackhawks, who tied for the second-worst record in the NHL in the 2022-23 season, filled [[link removed]] the United Center to 83.7% capacity across 41 home games — good for third-worst in the 32-team league.
The team measured a bit better by average attendance, ranking 20th with an average crowd of 17,167.
The Blackhawks’ draft lottery win was announced on the jumbotron at Monday’s Chicago Cubs game to cheers, while a “Let’s Go, Blackhawks!” chant briefly broke out at a Chicago White Sox game that same night.
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What’s Next for Augmented Reality in Sports
AR adoption is booming with 700 million people using AR effects across Meta platforms each month. Sports partners are leading the charge, with fun, interactive effects that engage fans and build community.
That’s why Front Office Sports has partnered with Meta to launch Metaverse Essentials: Building the Future, our latest free course [[link removed]] covering the ins and outs of metaverse-related technologies.
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.
Super Bowl Helps Fuel $4B Revenue Boost for Fox in Q3 [[link removed]]
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Super Bowl LVII’s record-setting broadcast helped Fox Corporation’s third-quarter ad revenues soar 43%.
Quarterly revenues for Fox reached $4.08 billion, an 18% increase from the same period last year, but the network reported a third-quarter net loss of $50 million due to legal costs at Fox News and broadcast production costs for the USFL and World Baseball Classic.
Fox generated $590 million more in TV advertising revenue for the three months ending March 31 compared to the network’s same period last year.
The Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl matchup in February drew 115.1 million viewers across Fox platforms — surpassing NBC’s previous record of 114.4 million for Super Bowl XLIX and making it the most-watched [[link removed]] Super Bowl ever.
The legal costs stem from Fox’s agreement in April to pay $787.5 million [[link removed]] to Dominion Voting Systems, settling a defamation lawsuit over false claims that Dominion’s machines swayed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Japan’s defeat of Team USA in March’s World Baseball Classic Final was the most-watched [[link removed]] WBC game ever in the U.S., scoring 5.2 million viewers across the FS1 cable network, Fox Deportes, and Fox Sports’ streaming platforms.
The USFL is in its second season broadcasting on Fox and NBC, while Fox Corp. is a minority owner in the spring football league. USFL games this spring have aired during the same window as Disney’s coverage of XFL games, allowing the rival leagues to cannibalize [[link removed]] each other’s audiences.
Conversation Starters It’s official: Aliyah Boston, the WNBA’s No. 1 draft pick in 2023, has signed [[link removed]] a multiyear deal with Adidas. The 2023 Miami Grand Prix drew Formula 1’s second-largest [[link removed]] live TV audience in the U.S. on record. The race averaged 1.96 million viewers on ABC — and peaked at 2.2 million. Check out the welcome [[link removed]] Real Madrid got from their fans as the team bus arrived at the Bernabeu for Tuesday’s Champions League semifinal match against Manchester City.
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What to Watch
The Phoenix Suns take on the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of the NBA Western Conference semifinals Tuesday at Ball Arena.
How to watch: 10 p.m. ET, TNT
Gaming odds: Suns + 6 || ML Suns +210 || O/U 227.5
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