May 8, 2024

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The selection order for a historic NHL draft is finally set. … The NFL’s regular-season schedule is getting released later than expected this year. … Rory McIlroy is doing another about-face when it comes to PGA Tour leadership. … Plus: More on one NFL team’s stadium developments, a two-time WNBA MVP, player trades in LIV Golf, and questionable recruitment tactics within MLB.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]] and Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]

The NHL Draft Will Have a Whole New Look. Plus: Sharks Are on the Clock [[link removed]]

NHL

The 2024 NHL draft is shaping up to be a monumental event for the league and at least one team in particular.

After finishing with the worst record in the NHL, the Sharks won Tuesday night’s lottery, earning the No. 1 selection in next month’s draft and the right to choose consensus top pick Macklin Celebrini, a 17-year-old center from Boston University. “I would think so,” San Jose general manager Mike Grier said [[link removed]] when asked whether his mind is already made up about choosing Celebrini. “When you put it all together, we think he’s in a good spot [to be NHL-ready].” This is the first No. 1 pick in franchise history, and the Sharks also have the No. 14 pick in the first round.

San Jose was 30th out of the NHL’s 32 teams in total attendance during the regular season, so the franchise will no doubt be hoping for a Connor Bedard–like impact that the Blackhawks saw with last year’s No. 1 pick. After winning the 2023 draft lottery and the right to select what many dubbed the best prospect in years, Chicago sold [[link removed]] $5.2 million worth of season tickets in less than 24 hours. And despite finishing the season with the NHL’s second-worst record (and eventually the No. 2 pick in this year’s draft), the Blackhawks drew the fifth-most fans in the league, up from a ranking of 20th during the ’22–23 season.

Sports Meet the Sphere

Celebrini’s eventual selection by the Sharks will make history as it begins the draft, which will be the first sporting event at the Sphere in Las Vegas on June 28–29. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman officially confirmed the draft’s location Tuesday night on ESPN, although the move had been seen as a done deal [[link removed]] for months. “Not a very well-kept secret,” Bettman admitted.

The draft will also mark the first event televised live from the $2.8 billion venue that seats 18,600 people. After the NHL’s festivities, sports will return to the Sphere in September, when the UFC will host [[link removed]] a fight.

NFL’s Christmas Games Could Be Holding Up Schedule-Release Bonanza [[link removed]]

Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Each of the past three years [[link removed]], the NFL has announced its schedule on May 12, which this year falls on a Sunday; teams were broadly expecting the schedule to drop this week. But this year will be different.

An internal league memo Tuesday from NFL’s EVP of media distribution, Hans Schroeder [[link removed]], confirmed that schedules will come out May 15 at 8 p.m. ET, according to Sports Business Journal [[link removed]].

Schroeder didn’t give a reason for the delay, SBJ reported, but the most obvious explanation is that the league is adding two [[link removed]] Christmas games (after long maintaining that it wouldn’t schedule Christmas games [[link removed]] if the holiday fell on a Tuesday or Wednesday, as it does this year). Working out those details—including which teams will play, putting them in a doubleheader [[link removed]] the Saturday beforehand; deciding the next week’s schedule; and sorting out which media partners will broadcast the games—likely required significant coordination on a short time crunch, considering news of the additions broke in late March.

Another explanation could be that the NFL wants to turn the schedule release into a much bigger, multiday affair, ProFootballTalk suggests [[link removed]]. Imagine something akin to Selection Sunday, but carried out over several days, with each game time slot presented on a different day. The NFL is adept at creating tentpoles and generating interest throughout the offseason, as best exemplified by the draft [[link removed]], and this could be another iteration of that goal.

Teams already know their matchups [[link removed]], but they still don’t know the order in which they’ll play those games, on which dates, or at what times. In recent years, team social media accounts have gotten creative with their schedule release announcements [[link removed]], including by jokingly telling rival fans to get a job [[link removed]]. Last year, teams created a viral release format wherein players’ young children [[link removed]] (or people on Broadway [[link removed]], in Nashville) unveiled opponents by trying to guess team identities based on their logo.

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LOUD AND CLEAR Let Bygones Be Bygones

Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

“It got pretty complicated and pretty messy.”

—Rory McIlroy, on recent conversations about his potentially rejoining the PGA Tour policy board [[link removed]], which he stepped away from in November. Speaking ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte on Wednesday, McIlroy confirmed he was interested in taking a spot on the board that Webb Simpson was going to give up, but there was resistance to the move so he will not be returning to his former position.

“There was a subset of people on the board that were maybe uncomfortable with me coming back on for some reason,” said McIlroy. The board consists of five independent directors and six PGA Tour players: Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Peter Malnati, Adam Scott, and Simpson. “I think it opened up some old wounds and scar tissue from things that have happened before,” McIlroy said of the talks.

STATUS REPORT Three Up, One Down

Florida Times-Union

Jaguars ⬆ Jacksonville mayor Donna Deegan confirmed [[link removed]] city officials have reached an agreement on the framework of a deal for renovations to EverBank Stadium (above). Last year, the Jaguars unveiled their vision [[link removed]] for a “Stadium of the Future” that could cost $2 billion split between the NFL franchise and city. Since those initial plans were released last summer, team officials had suggested [[link removed]] that a move out of Jacksonville would have been considered if the city wasn’t able to provide proper funding.

A’ja Wilson ⬆ The Las Vegas Aces star has signed a multiyear sponsorship deal with Gatorade, joining Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark as one of the only other WNBA players to have a deal with the leading sports drink brand. Wilson, a two-time league MVP, also has partnerships with the likes of Nike and Ruffles.

LIV Golf ⬆ The league announced teams are now allowed to trade players in-season, during a window that began Wednesday and runs through June 9. In April, three-time LIV tournament winner Dustin Johnson suggested [[link removed]] the idea on Front Office Sports Today. Meanwhile, LIV also announced that players with expiring contracts can begin negotiations for new deals during the same window.

MLB draft ⬇ The league sent out a memo warning clubs to stop some seemingly shady techniques around young players, according to ESPN [[link removed]]. In short: Teams were encouraging amateur players to forgo high school baseball and try to establish residency in a foreign country. That would make them eligible for MLB’s international talent pool, where teams can negotiate with players, as opposed to the draft, where teams select players in a set order.

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Conversation Starters Just 10 days after announcing her retirement, Candace Parker has been appointed [[link removed]] the new president of Adidas women’s basketball. She made history in 2010 as the first woman to receive a signature shoe from Adidas. Dreams come true: Chris Roycroft balanced playing Division III basketball and baseball while working at Jimmy John’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods to support himself. Despite going undrafted and spending two years in independent baseball leagues, he was signed by the Cardinals. On Tuesday night, he made his MLB debut. Watch here [[link removed]]. Boomer Esiason recently suggested [[link removed]] on New York’s WFAN sports radio that he wouldn’t be surprised if the NFL sells its Christmas Day games to Netflix in the future and noted, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.” Editors’ Picks ESPN Narrowly Avoids Disaster on Hurricanes-Rangers Broadcast [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]The network briefly switched playoff games in crunch time of Canes-Rangers. WNBA Commissioner Says League Will Finally Get Charter Flights This Season [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]Until now, the WNBA has mainly flown commercial. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO’s About-Face on Rights: ‘We Love the NBA’ [[link removed]]by Eric Fisher [[link removed]]After saying WBD doesn’t ‘have to have the NBA,’ Zaslav now calls the league ‘great.’ Careers in Sports

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