November 3, 2023

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I was surprised to see that Jon Rahm decided to back out of competing in the first season of Tiger Woods’ new virtual golf league, which debuts in January. TGL still has co-founder Rory McIlroy, but is now without No. 3-ranked Rahm and top-ranked Scottie Scheffler. I’ll certainly be watching its debut in January, but will it have enough stars to thrive?

— David Rumsey [[link removed]]

The NBA In-Season Tournament Is Here. Will It Deliver? [[link removed]]

Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA’s move to take a page from European soccer’s book will take full flight on Friday.

The long-awaited and much-discussed NBA In-Season Tournament begins [[link removed]] with seven games, commencing a five-week tournament that will conclude with a Final Four-style event set [[link removed]] for Las Vegas. Teams will compete for the new NBA Cup and a prize pool of about $18 million. Games will be concentrated on Tuesdays (except Election Day) and Fridays.

As growing hype [[link removed]] for the event has even included Las Vegas’ $2.3 billion Sphere venue [[link removed]], the league’s aspirations [[link removed]] for the tournament were clear from the jump: to inject more excitement into the regular season and deploy a competition model more closely matching the NBA’s global profile.

Questions remain on how the tournament will stand alongside the regular season, but even some of the league’s most outspoken figures and toughest critics have sensed a palpable excitement.

“All these guys are very competitive. It doesn’t matter which team,” said San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. “They’ve been competitive all their lives to reach this level of basketball. If you put something out there like this, it just adds to that competitiveness and really signals what might happen toward the end of the season.”

Media Matters

The league has unveiled [[link removed]] a unified set of court designs for the NBA In-Season Tournament games, a deliberate move to distinguish these games from other regular-season ones. The effort marks the first time the league has implemented an alternate court for all 30 teams, even overhauling the famed parquet floor of Boston’s TD Garden.

Tournament games will be shown on a mix of national and local carriers, including ESPN, TNT, NBA TV, Bally Sports, and team-based, over-the-air carriers [[link removed]].

“Look, if it doesn’t work, I’ll probably talk about it, but I’m a fan of what’s happening right now,” said ESPN analyst and former NBA player J.J. Redick. “The [postseason] Play-In Tournament has been, I think, one of the best things that has happened in recent years to the NBA, and I would expect this to be a success, as well.”

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“If you want funding to do what you’re going to do, then you have to figure out what value you bring to a company … how you can work for them and do something to benefit them, because you need the funding to benefit you.”

— Former race car driver Lyn St. James on how she went about getting sponsorships. To hear more about Lyn’s groundbreaking racing career, check out the latest episode of FOS Today.

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NASCAR And F1 Are Competing For US Racing Fans. Is There Room For Both? [[link removed]]

David Yeazell-USA TODAY Sports

NASCAR is taking over Phoenix on Friday for its championship weekend, which will crown season-long winners across its Cup, Xfinity, and truck series.

But the 75-year-old American racing circuit is dealing with new competition on home soil as it looks ahead to 2024 and beyond.

Sunday’s Cup final is sandwiched in between two Formula 1 races — Austin in October and this month’s Las Vegas Grand Prix debut. Moving forward, F1 will have three annual races in the U.S., including the Miami Grand Prix.

“F1 putting a spotlight on the sport as a whole, I think, helps all forms of motorsports,” NASCAR chief operating officer Steve O’Donnell told Front Office Sports. “And we continue to be optimistic about our growth.”

Like F1, NASCAR is partnering with Netflix to film a docuseries [[link removed]] around this season’s Cup Series playoffs. The latter previously produced its own docuseries, “Race for the Championship,” which aired on USA Network in the wake of the rousing success of F1’s “Drive to Survive.”

On American television, NASCAR is the clear winner, even though its season-long viewership is trending slightly down, averaging 2.87 million viewers through last week’s race compared to just over 3 million last season. Halfway through this season, F1 had been outpacing [[link removed]] last year’s record average of 1.21 up to 1.24 million — still less than half what NASCAR draws.

Next up for NASCAR is completing its next set of media rights deals for 2025. The CW has already signed [[link removed]] on to take over its Xfinity Series rights, and Fox and NBC are believed to be close to extending their partnerships. O’Donnell did tell FOS that he sees room for NASCAR to exist on network/cable television and streaming.

F1 has two years remaining on ESPN.

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Maintaining Momentum in Women's College Sports

Women’s sports in the U.S. have never been as popular as they are today. At the college level in particular, there has been a tremendous increase in attendance and viewership for sports like volleyball, softball, and basketball.

In the modern age, capturing viewers [[link removed]] and growing a fanbase begins with the ability to create engaging content and distribute it to the masses. After that comes the campus superstars, local heroes, groundbreaking NIL deals, and historic media contracts.

Tune in for our next webinar, The New Era of Women’s College Sports [[link removed]], presented by Magnifi, for a discussion about how women’s college sports have gained momentum in recent years and how content and marketing can impact its growth in the future.

Register now [[link removed]].

WNBA Expansion: Portland Setback Opens Door For Several Cities [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Portland’s on the backburner [[link removed]] as the WNBA looks for its next expansion market, creating an unexpected opportunity for another city to quickly capitalize on the growth of women’s sports.

While Portland could still be considered for a WNBA team down the road, the league in all likelihood needs to find a different city to pair with the incoming Bay Area club as the 13th and 14th WNBA teams in 2025.

“The goal is to add a second one or a 14th team by 2025,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert said ahead of last month’s WNBA Finals. At the time, Portland had been reported [[link removed]] as the league’s choice but not formally announced.

Englebert confirmed she had made a visit to Oregon, along with Denver [[link removed]], in her review of interested markets. She also specifically called out Toronto — which had a sellout crowd [[link removed]] at the Raptors’ 20,000-seat Scotiabank Arena for a preseason game this spring — as well as Philadelphia, Charlotte, Austin and Nashville, in that order.

It’s unclear if the WNBA has made formal visits beyond Portland and Denver, which could make Colorado the new frontrunner for 2025. Englebert has been clear that there would be no more than two additions to the league during this round of expansion, and her top priorities are “the right mix of the ownership group with the arena situation.”

Still, there could be further expansion opportunities later this decade. Atlanta Dream managing partner Larry Gottesdiener recently told Front Office Sports that he would like to see the WNBA double [[link removed]] its current footprint to 24 teams.

Fox Defends Sports Assets, Cable Bundle Amid Industry Challenges [[link removed]]

Fox Sports

Like many media companies, Fox has no shortage of challenges, including accelerating cord-cutting and a weak ad market. The company itself saw its fiscal first-quarter net income fall 32% to $415 million.

But sports stands as an important bright spot for Fox.

Despite traditional TV usage falling [[link removed]] below 50% of all consumption for the first time this summer, newly elevated [[link removed]] Fox Corp. executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch says the cable bundle still stands as the company’s core business driver.

“The cable bundle remains our largest and most important revenue stream,” Murdoch said. “We believe that it will remain our largest for years to come.”

Such is Fox’s belief in the traditional TV ecosystem that it’s not rushing to mirror the rest of the market. Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max has added [[link removed]] a sports tier, Amazon is hitting [[link removed]] new audience thresholds with “Thursday Night Football,” Netflix is moving [[link removed]] into live sports with even bigger aspirations [[link removed]], and other network operators such as Comcast [[link removed]] and Disney [[link removed]] also are fully embracing sports streaming.

“We don’t envisage any kind of significant live sports on Tubi in the near-, medium-, and perhaps even long-term future,” Murdoch said. “We are not interested in moving premium content away from our cable distribution partners. That would be a mistake for us and for them.”

Ad Strength

Sports also continues to stand out for Fox in an otherwise tepid television ad market, Murdoch says, specifically college football, which “has never been more popular. Maybe it was underpriced in past years.”

Gains in that sport, however, are being undercut by a five-game World Series on track [[link removed]] to be that event’s least-watched edition ever.

“Sometimes you get lucky and get a seven-game series with a matchup that excites the imagination of fans, and sometimes you get less lucky,” he said. “We would have liked to have seen more games and more national excitement.”

Conversation Starters SailGP will air the Spain Sail Grand Prix on CBS this Sunday following the NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Carolina Panthers at 4:05 p.m. ET — a must-watch for U.S. racing fans [[link removed]].* Nike has unveiled its 2023-24 NBA City Edition uniforms. Check them out [[link removed]]. Max Scherzer was paid [[link removed]] more than $50 million by three different teams this season, only had to play for two of them, and helped one win a World Series. Kirk Herbstreit is covering football for another 5,000 miles or so this weekend, including “Thursday Night Football,” an Alabama “College GameDay,” and his son’s playoff game in Ohio. Follow [[link removed]] his itinerary. Editor's Picks Texas Rangers’ MiLB Affiliate Breaks Ground on $75M Spartanburg Stadium [[link removed]]by Doug Greenberg [[link removed]]Fifth Third Park will have 3,500 seats and open in 2025. Rangers to Benefit From $100M-Plus MLB Postseason Player Pool [[link removed]]by Doug Greenberg [[link removed]]Rangers players could pocket over $500,000 each in bonuses. A Two-Decade Endeavor Made the NFL a Year-Round Product [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]NFL Network celebrates its 20th anniversary on Nov. 4. YouTube Cuts NFL Sunday Ticket Price in Half at Midseason [[link removed]]by Doug Greenberg [[link removed]]YouTube lowered the base package of Sunday Ticket to $174 from $349. Question Of The Day

How many employees work for your current company?

0-50 [[link removed]] 51-200 [[link removed]] 201-500 [[link removed]] 501+ [[link removed]] N/A [[link removed]]

Thursday’s Answer

92% of respondents typically watch at least some of the Summer Olympics.

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