December 28, 2023

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With 2023 nearly over, we’re making one final call to find out what FOS’s readers think will happen in 2024 in the business of sports. Send us your predictions on any number of topics, including pro leagues, ownership, media rights, venues, college athletics, and the rest. Respond to this email and your answer may be featured in Friday’s PM newsletter.

As for today, Mark Cuban is opening up about why he sold majority control of his Dallas Mavericks. … The NBA’s Christmas Day viewership numbers are in, and they aren’t pretty. … And we remember one of Milwaukee’s most influential sports figures.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]]

Cuban on Mavs Sale: ‘Nothing’s Really Changed Except My Bank Account’ [[link removed]]

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

“Nothing’s really changed except my bank account,” Mark Cuban said [[link removed]] to reporters after the NBA approved his sale of a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families on Wednesday.

The outspoken team owner isn’t being shy about what’s ahead—from a brand-new arena to the transformation of the Dallas Metroplex into the Las Vegas of Texas.

For this season, though, everything is status quo. The 65-year-old Cuban retains a 27% minority stake in the team, and the sale reportedly [[link removed]] valued the franchise between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. Cuban will continue overseeing basketball operations while the new owners focus on the business side of things.

“Financially, we’re in a far better position,” Cuban said of the Mavericks. That security comes from the financial heft of Miriam Adelson and her son-in-law Patrick Dumont (now the Mavs’ governor), who control the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, a publicly-traded casino and resort company with a $37 billion market cap. That group previously owned Vegas staples like the Venetian, which Cuban would love to replicate in Dallas.

“I don’t care so much about sports betting,” Cuban said. “If you look at destination resorts and casinos, the casino part of it is tiny, relative to the whole bigger destination aspect of it. Could you imagine building the Venetian in Dallas, Texas? That would just change everything.”

But sports betting would still be a key element of bringing a Vegas element to Texas, and the state likely won’t revisit any sports gambling legislation until 2025 at the earliest. The Mavs’ lease at American Airlines Center expires in 2031.

Timberwolves Sale on Track

Elsewhere in pro basketball: Alex Rodriguez and entrepreneur Marc Lore are expected to exercise their option to acquire a controlling ownership interest of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, ahead of their Dec. 31 deadline to act, according to ESPN [[link removed]].

In 2021, A-Rod and Lore agreed to eventually take over the teams in a deal valuing the Minnesota basketball franchises at $1.5 billion. The two currently own 40% of the teams and are set to end up with an 80% majority stake in 2024 while current Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor keeps 20%. Taylor previously said [[link removed]] he expected Rodriguez and Lore to push back the Dec. 31 deadline.

On a Crowded Christmas, the NBA Got Coal—So Say Their Dismal Ratings [[link removed]]

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA knew the NFL was coming to steal its Christmas viewers. The ratings show that its strategy is working.

Not only did the NFL see viewership increases for all three of its broadcast windows in the league’s second year of offering a Christmas Day tripleheader, but those numbers seemingly came at the expense of the NBA’s traditional slate of games. Among the NFL’s wins: That day’s Las Vegas Raiders-Kansas City Chiefs game on CBS scored 29.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched Christmas Day game in 34 years.

The NBA, meanwhile, saw viewership decline in each of its five games compared to the same broadcast windows in 2022. The steepest drop came from the Philadelphia 76ers-Miami Heat matchup, which drew 1.3 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2, down 73% from last year’s 8 p.m. ET matchup between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Golden State Warriors. The 2022 game was simulcast on ABC, but this year the NFL’s nightcap (Baltimore Ravens-San Francisco 49ers) got the main network slot.

Three of the NBA’s other four games were down significantly—42%, 39%, and 18%—from comparable broadcasts on Christmas Day in 2022, according to Sports Media Watch [[link removed]]. The Denver Nuggets’ 120-114 victory over Golden State at 2:30 p.m. ET garnered 4.1 million viewers, per the New York Post [[link removed]], which would be down 5% from Dallas Mavericks-Los Angeles Lakers in that time slot in 2022.

Next year could bring some reprieve [[link removed]] for the NBA as Christmas falls on a Wednesday, a day the NFL typically doesn’t play. But in the long term, it’s clear that the NBA will continue facing competition most years, now that the NFL has decided to embrace the holiday.

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Major rights holders are running this exact playbook in-house, using the WSC Sports [[link removed]] in-app stories to offer fans personalized content featuring users’ favorite players, teams, and highlight types, directly within their own platforms.

Learn more [[link removed]].

Herb Kohl, Who Kept Milwaukee on the Sports Map, Dies at 88 [[link removed]]

MICHAEL SEARS/[email protected]

The sports world lost one of its most impactful team owners on Wednesday when Herb Kohl, who owned the Milwaukee Bucks from 1985 to 2014, died at the age of 88.

Kohl, a native of Milwaukee’s north side, was also a U.S. senator, representing Wisconsin in office from 1989 to 2013, and his family founded a chain of Kohl’s department stores and supermarkets. (Kohl’s, at one point this century, was the largest department store chain in the U.S.) But while his impact across American society is widespread, his influence on pro sports in his hometown cannot be understated.

Kohl purchased the Bucks for $18 million in 1985 and his tenure was mired mostly in mediocrity, reaching the Eastern Conference Finals twice and never advancing further. But he sealed his legacy in the Midwest upon his departure: When he sold the team to hedge fund managers Marc Lasry and Wes Edens in 2014 for $550 million, it was on the condition that they stay put, in one of the smallest pro sports markets. “His goal was to make sure … that the team stayed in Milwaukee,” Lasry told The Athletic. “That was the requisite for us owning the team.” Almost a decade later, the Bucks have a long-term lease at the $524 million Fiserv Forum, which Kohl helped fund, and which opened in 2018—and they’ve since delivered Milwaukee its second NBA championship (after a Lew Alcindor-led win in 1972).

Kohl’s life was otherwise filled with crazy could-have-beens and hard-to-believe happenstances around the business of sports. Among them:

In college, Kohl roomed [[link removed]] with Bud Selig, who would go on to become MLB commissioner. Kohl helped bring [[link removed]] the Brewers, formerly the Seattle Pilots, to Milwaukee in 1970, along with Selig. Almost 20 years before he bought into the Bucks, Kohl turned down a chance to buy the expansion team for $2 million, in 1968. In 2003, he nearly sold [[link removed]] the Bucks to Michael Jordan for $170 million.

Kohl never married and had no children. He remained a Bucks season-ticket holder after selling the team, and he received a championship ring from their 2021 title. He also donated $25 million to the University of Wisconsin in 1995 for construction of the 15,000-seat Kohl Center, which houses Badgers basketball, among other sports.

Conversation Starters How did Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, transform into a football field for Thursday’s Fenway Bowl? Take a look [[link removed]]. West Virginia, picked in the preseason to finish last in the Big 12, beat North Carolina 30-10 in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl for its ninth win of the season. WVU head coach Neal Brown’s postgame reward? A mayo bath, of course. Watch it here [[link removed]]. A pair of Kansas City Chiefs players lead the list of celebrities with the most ads during NFL games this season. Here [[link removed]] is a list of the top 10.

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Editor’s Picks 2023 In Review: Layoffs Reshaped the Sports Media Landscape [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]In a tough year, financial pressures led to layoffs across the sports media industry. 2023 In Review: How the Washington Commanders Franchise Finally Changed Hands [[link removed]]by A.J. Perez [[link removed]]The NFL franchise ushered in a new era when Josh Harris and an investor group acquired the franchise for a record-breaking $6.05 billion. 2023 In Review: How the Pac-12 Conference Crumbled [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]Power 5 administrators’ own decisions were the ones that caused the implosion of college sports’ richest conferences. Seminole Moment: FSU Wants to Leave ACC, Will Take it to Court [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]The school has explored how to get out of a "draconian" contract. Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Sports Careers [[link removed]] Written by David Rumsey [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Adam Duerson [[link removed]]

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