August 15, 2023

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It’s Aug. 15, and the NBA is hoping to keep basketball on your mind by revealing more information about its upcoming In-Season Tournament — all while the WNBA concludes its Commissioner’s Cup and gets serious about finding expansion cities.

In other news, the Big Ten is the latest league to flirt with the lure of Las Vegas, and one of the biggest investors in sports is exploring an IPO.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]]

NBA Hopes To Stoke Summer Interest With In-Season Tourney Reveal [[link removed]]

Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA is hoping to capitalize on an August lull in the sports calendar by releasing the schedule for the 2023 In-Season Tournament.

Although the basic formatting [[link removed]] is already known, ESPN will air a special NBA In-Season Tournament schedule release show on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET. Games will begin on Nov. 3 and conclude in Las Vegas on Dec. 9.

Fans will get a first look at the groupings and potential paths to the final. Teams will compete [[link removed]] for $18 million.

The extra push is designed to fuel TV and social media conversations to keep basketball in the spotlight two months before the season begins, filling the space behind other efforts to create [[link removed]] year-round interest, including the Las Vegas NBA Summer League, NBA Con, and the always dramatic free-agency season.

Must-Watch Television?

This fall, ESPN will broadcast the inaugural In-Season Tournament with fellow NBA media rights partner Turner — but the tournament could end up as a broadcast package of its own [[link removed]] when the league sorts out its next media deals, which will start in 2025.

Viewership could determine how lucrative an In-Season Tournament package would be worth to interested parties. This past season, a doubleheader of games from the NBA Play-In Tournament averaged [[link removed]] 2.6 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 — up 14% from the comparable play-in games in 2022.

PODCAST

🎙️ They Said What?

“When you’re working in the most competitive sports market on Earth, you have to do everything that you can to get out of your own ecosystem and make new fans.”

— Nic Benson, CEO and commissioner of Major League Rugby, on having DJ Diesel (Shaquille O’Neal) and the Dropkick Murphys play at the MLR Championship Final. To hear more from Benson on Major League Rugby, check out the latest episode of Front Office Sports Today.

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

WNBA Commissioner Explores Denver Expansion, Broader Markets [[link removed]]

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

The WNBA will take its next steps toward expansion this week when commissioner Cathy Engelbert visits [[link removed]] Denver to meet with a group pushing for a new team in Colorado.

Denver was among the cities Engelbert mentioned [[link removed]] to Front Office Sports earlier this year as potential targets.

On Wednesday, the group — which includes Denver-based IMA Financial Group chief executive Robert Cohen — will show the WNBA potential venues for play and practice, according to the Denver Post.

Along with Denver, other markets the WNBA is considering are the Bay Area, Nashville, Toronto, Charlotte, Philadelphia, Portland, and Austin — the latter of which is currently seeking [[link removed]] investors for a potential ownership group.

Not So Fast?

Expansion could come as soon as 2025, but Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, the WNBA’s reigning MVP and Defensive Player of the Year, recently told [[link removed]] FOS she thinks the treatment of the league’s current 144 players should be prioritized before adding new teams or expanding roster sizes.

The Aces will host the New York Liberty on Tuesday night in the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup final at 9 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video. Now in its third year, the in-season tournament awards $30,000 to each player on the winning team, while the runners up will get $10,000 each.

Aces-Liberty also represents a possible WNBA Finals preview, as the teams have the two best records in the league with about a month left in the regular season.

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Potential Big Ten Title Game in Vegas Highlights Industry Shift [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The biggest entity in college football is potentially headed to the biggest boom town in sports, another sign of fast-changing conditions across the business of sports — but one that comes with some challenging optics.

The Big Ten Conference is considering shifting [[link removed]] its football title game from its traditional Indianapolis setting to Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders, with a bidding process still in its early stages.

If completed, the move would extend the ongoing sports expansion [[link removed]] in Las Vegas and perhaps more directly represent the conference’s new coast-to-coast footprint [[link removed]]. It also follows several other NCAA events now regularly held in Sin City or scheduled [[link removed]] for there, including several Pac-12 Conference football title games, college basketball’s Final Four, and college hockey’s Frozen Four.

The conference’s contract with Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts, expires after the 2024 game, but any future decisions beyond that haven’t [[link removed]] been made.

Despite the widespread availability of online sports betting, the move would also bring another major college football event to an epicenter of gambling — just as college football is grappling with the negative [[link removed]] effects [[link removed]] like never before.

Not All That Glitters Is Gold

Amid the ongoing sports growth in Las Vegas and the robust local fan support enjoyed by the champion Vegas Golden Knights and the Las Vegas Aces, the Raiders are still working to find their footing in Nevada.

A Saturday preseason game at Allegiant Stadium against San Francisco was heavily overrun [[link removed]] with 49ers fans, repeating a situation that occurred [[link removed]] at the facility late in the 2022 regular season.

CVC Capital Partners Explores IPO Amid Expanding Ambitions [[link removed]]

Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

One of the most influential private equity investors in sports and entertainment is reviving a long-discussed move to go public, further escalating its already lofty ambitions.

The Luxembourg-based CVC Capital Partners — which owned Formula 1 prior to Liberty Media’s takeover — had previously looked at initial public offerings at multiple points over the last two years, but backed off due to what were seen as unfavorable market conditions, including last year’s market plunge following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But after raising more than $28 billion for its ninth private equity fund targeting Europe and the Americas, CVC Capital Partners’ current strength has reportedly sparked renewed [[link removed]] consideration for a potential stock listing in the Netherlands before the end of the year.

A final decision hasn’t been made.

CVC Capital Partners’ varied sports-related interests include equity stakes in:

• Bruin Capital

• France’s soccer governing body

• Indian Premier League’s Gujarat Titans

• La Liga

• Premiership Rugby

• Six Nations Rugby

• Sports Illustrated and Reebok parent Authentic Brands Group

• United Rugby Championship

• Volleyball World

• WTA

The IPO would help CVC Capital Partners expand the scope of its operations beyond an initial focus on buyouts. It is one of the largest private equity firms in the world with about $153 billion of assets under management.

Conversation Starters Iowa Women’s Basketball has sold out [[link removed]] season tickets for the 2023-24 season — the first time the program has ever sold out Carver-Hawkeye Arena. This fall, Peyton Manning will return to the University of Tennessee to teach classes [[link removed]] as a professor in UT’s College of Communication & Information. Texas State is raising funds for $37 million in renovations to Bobcat Stadium, including a weight room and premium fan spaces. Check out [[link removed]] the renderings.

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The new platform works by giving teams, artists and venues the ability to build custom apps using Ticketmaster’s technology with the freedom to tailor the experience from start to finish. Clients can choose from pre-built features and leverage the industry’s most flexible option to build custom solutions.

The result is a custom app that natively supports fans’ ticketing experience – a service unmatched by other ticketing partners.

D.C. United [[link removed]] is the first Ticketmaster partner to debut an enhanced fan app powered by Ignite.

Discover [[link removed]] how D.C United, alongside Ticketmaster, has elevated its app with custom-built modules to create a one-stop shop for its fans.

Editor's Picks New Balance Inks Stanford’s Brink As First Women’s Hoops Ambassador [[link removed]]by Andrew Cohen [[link removed]]Brink is New Balance's first women's basketball athlete endorser. Could The Mountain West Become A Power 5 Conference? [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]The Mountain West could become the fifth Power 5 conference. What Will It Take For ESPN To Break Into Sports Betting? [[link removed]]by A.J. Perez [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]] and David Rumsey [[link removed]]ESPN and PENN's massive partnership isn't without risk for either company. Question Of The Day

Are you in the market to purchase jewelry for someone or for yourself in the next 12 months?

Yes [[link removed]] No [[link removed]]

Monday’s Answer

41% of respondents are a member of a gym and 31% have been or want to be.

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