January 10, 2024

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The NFL is still king, as its banner 2023 regular-season viewership shows. … D.C. is already moving on from Ted Leonsis as he prepares to move the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Virginia. … And MLB could get some much-needed answers Wednesday regarding Diamond Sports Group’s broadcasting plans for the 2024 season.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]]

NFL Caps Dominant Regular Season (Again), This Time up 7% in Ratings [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The NFL concluded its 2023 regular season in much the same fashion as it began: with the league in a dominant position and only getting stronger.

The league averaged 17.9 million viewers per game across all networks for the regular season, up by 7% from a year ago and the NFL’s best figure since 2015. In addition to the aggregate viewership bump, each of the league’s domestic rights-holders showed growth from 2022:

Amazon: [[link removed]] Up [[link removed]] 24% to an average of 11.86 million for Thursday Night Football. CBS: Up 5% to an average of 19.35 million for overall coverage and an average of 24.64 million for late Sunday afternoon games. CBS also had the season’s most-watched game with an average of 41.76 million for the Washington-Dallas game on Thanksgiving. ESPN: Up 29% to an average of 17.4 million for Monday Night Football. Fox: Up 2% to an average of 24.62 million for its America’s Game of the Week national broadcasts. NBC: Up 8% to an average of 21.4 million for Sunday Night Football.

The league’s viewership improvement is the result of several factors, including weaker overall broadcast primetime performance due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes, better scheduling that allowed for top contests in national windows, a heightened emphasis on Christmas Day, and additional exposure of ESPN’s Monday Night Football on sister broadcast network ABC.

The NFL’s rating growth contrasts sharply with a comparable 16% drop in overall broadcast primetime viewership to a record-low figure of 2.8 million, with that figure owing heavily to a decrease in original entertainment programming due to the strikes. So while the rest of the broadcast landscape is shrinking, the NFL continues to build its audience.

The NFL also showed improvement in several, more-specific measures including female viewership, which rose 9% to its highest level since that record keeping began in 2000, as well as the best levels of viewership in the under-35 demographic since 2019. The league further flexed [[link removed]] its television prowess by claiming 93 of Nielsen’s top 100 broadcasts in 2023.

#️⃣ ONE BIG FIG

Next: NFL Playoffs and … Layoffs? 🧳

200

The number of NFL employees who were recently emailed a voluntary buyout package by the league. An accompanying memo, according to CNBC [[link removed]], was sent to employees who qualified, based on their age and the number of years they worked in the league office. The apparent deadline to accept the buyout, which includes three weeks’ salary for every year served, plus bonuses, is in late February.

MLB Nears Clarity With DSG for 2024, but After That—Who Knows? [[link removed]]

USATSI

MLB is poised to finalize a local broadcasting deal with Diamond Sports Group for the 2024 season during an upcoming and highly anticipated bankruptcy court hearing in Houston. But the future beyond that remains decidedly murky.

The league is nearing an agreement with the Bally Sports parent that could lower some rights fees for the upcoming season but return a broad swath of rights back to MLB after the 2024 World Series, similar to recent deals DSG has struck with the NBA [[link removed]] and NHL [[link removed]]. That MLB regional sports network agreement has been in development [[link removed]] for more than three weeks and would provide some certainty months after the league repeatedly pressed [[link removed]] DSG to make known its plans for the upcoming season.

But MLB remains opposed to a separate equity deal DSG is developing [[link removed]] with Amazon in which the streaming and online retail giant would invest in the company. That investment— pegged [[link removed]] at about $150 million by the New York Post but described by Front Office Sports sources as a smaller figure—is reportedly predicated on DSG acquiring MLB digital rights for multiple years. The league would prefer to keep such broader negotiations out of bankruptcy court, and deal directly and separately with Amazon if a rights deal is to be struck.

“That [larger rights conversation] is making a complicated situation more complicated,” a league source tells FOS.

Tuesday night, a bankruptcy court hearing originally set for Wednesday was rescheduled to Jan. 19 as negotiations continue between MLB and DSG.

Eleven MLB teams are directly affected by the ongoing DSG situation, including the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers, the high-powered Atlanta Braves, and the perennially popular St. Louis Cardinals. Within that group, DSG currently has the digital rights to five MLB teams—the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, and Tampa Bay Rays—and has unsuccessfully sought a larger set of streaming rights in baseball.

In addition to those teams, the Minnesota Twins are talking [[link removed]] to DSG about a potential reunion after a prior rights deal expired with the end of the 2023 season.

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TEDx: The Benefits of Sports Fandom

From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it. TEDxChicago’s How Sports Can Tackle the Loneliness Crisis encapsulates the inexplicable nature of sports fandom, highlighting the potential it offers to help us face the growing loneliness epidemic.

Over the last 30 years, the percentage of Americans who report having no close friends has quadrupled. It’s clear that we’re struggling to find community.

Don’t miss AJ Maestas, founder of Navigate [[link removed]], a data-driven consulting firm specializing in sports and entertainment, as he shares how the sports industry plays a critical role in alleviating this crisis.

Watch his talk from TEDxChicago here [[link removed]].

As Leonsis Eyes Virginia, D.C. Weighs Arena Neighborhood Transformation [[link removed]]

Monumental

Washington, D.C., officials are still talking with Ted Leonsis and his Monumental Sports and Entertainment about staying at Capital One Arena. But D.C. officials already are developing a backup plan, acting with a speed often unseen in the slow-moving world of stadium and arena negotiations.

Less than four weeks after Leonsis announced plans [[link removed]] to build a $2 billion arena and mixed-use development in Alexandria, Va., for the Washington Wizards and Capitals, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has formed the Gallery Place/Chinatown Task Force to create a new vision for the area surrounding Capital One Arena. The task force will consider a variety of potential moves for the neighborhood, including potentially tearing down the 26-year-old venue to open the land for other uses.

“We have to have a vibrant space here,” Bowser said. “We can’t have it underused, and there will be people who it would serve their purposes [sic] if we had an underutilized arena in downtown D.C. That will not serve the purposes for the D.C. taxpayer. So I want to be clear about that: We will not allow an underused arena.”

The task force includes both current government officials and private business leaders and is led in part by two of Bowser’s mayoral predecessors, Anthony Williams and Adrian Fenty. Even before Leonsis announced his plans, the Capital One Arena area was the subject of rising concerns about crime and business growth.

Local Politics

Bowser did not detail the current state of D.C.’s talks with Leonsis, but an offer of $500 million in public money to upgrade Capital One Arena remains on the table. The Leonsis plan to move the Wizards and Capitals to the new Alexandria arena also potentially involves his Washington Mystics shifting its home games from the 4,200-seat Entertainment and Sports Arena in southeast D.C. to Capital One Arena.

The prospect of moving the WNBA team from D.C.’s poorest ward to downtown has already angered [[link removed]] local officials, even as the Mystics regularly sell out at the smaller venue and have arguably outgrown it as the league soars in popularity. D.C. officials, meanwhile, are thinking about other—and potentially very different—options for the Capital One Arena neighborhood.

“If the teams do move—and we have to anticipate that they will—we have an opportunity to reposition almost two city blocks, five acres, right in downtown D.C. for a new use,” said Nina Albert, D.C.’s acting deputy mayor for planning and economic development.

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🎙️ They Said What?

“I think this could come down to a situation where Jimmy Pitaro is going to have to make a choice. Do they protect their new fair-haired hire, or do they stick up for management?”

—Senior writer Michael McCarthy on the rising tensions between Pat McAfee and ESPN executives. To hear more about the ongoing feud between some of Disney’s biggest names, check out the latest episode of Front Office Sports Today.

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

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