May 15, 2024

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Good morning. The WNBA season is officially in full swing and rookie Caitlin Clark made her highly anticipated debut [[link removed]] Tuesday night. Despite a slow start and eventual loss to the Sun, the Indiana Fever rookie scored 20 points in front of a sold-out crowd in Connecticut.

The growing number of streaming bundles continues to cause headaches for sports viewers. … The NFL will finally reveal its 2024 schedule Wednesday night. … The PWHL looks to sustain momentum as its debut season winds down. … Front Office Sports Today explores the future of Paramount and how its sale could impact sports fans. … And today marks a quarter century of major soccer-specific stadiums in the U.S.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]] and Eric Fisher [[link removed]]

Want to Stream Live Sports? Better Know Your Bundle Options First [[link removed]]

Miguel Legoas / USA TODAY NETWORK

Another day, another new streaming bundle.

The pace of repackaging of services isn’t actually quite that fast, but it’s also not that far off, leaving a growing amount of confusion for fans and subscribers.

Comcast said it will now package its Peacock with rival services Netflix and Apple TV+ in a single bundle, called StreamSaver, to be offered to its customers starting later this month, and at a discounted price compared to the combined cost of purchasing the three separately. The offering arrives just days after Warner Bros. Discovery unveiled [[link removed]] plans to package its Max along with Disney+ and Hulu in a single bundle set to debut this summer.

Those packages, meanwhile, follow the previously announced sports-oriented bundle [[link removed]], widely called “Spulu,” (or “Hulu for sports”), that involves WBD, ESPN, and Fox; the separate Disney-specific combination that includes Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu, and debuted in 2019; and a discounted combination of Max and Netflix for Verizon subscribers.

“We’ve been bundling video successfully and creatively for 60 years,” Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said at the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet & Communications Conference. “And so this is the latest iteration of that, and I think will be a pretty compelling package.”

Pitfalls Abound

Roberts’s remarks are not that surprising. But in each of these instances, the bundles fail to get a fan much closer to getting a truly comprehensive amount of sports content—something that’s already a challenging task as many leagues continue to splinter their rights into smaller chunks in a pursuit to reach consumers in additional places. Among the shortcomings of the various bundles:

StreamSaver: It offers the Premier League, Olympics, an extensive amount of college sports, MLS, Sunday Night Football, and perhaps even more NFL [[link removed]] in the future. But it leaves out anything held by ESPN, CBS Sports, Amazon, Fox Sports, WBD, and many smaller outlets. Max-Disney+-Hulu: This package is among the weaker ones on the market as it relates to sports, and could see even more winnowing in that area if TNT Sports fails to retain its NBA rights. “Spulu”: It omits about half of the NFL and significant amounts of college sports and soccer, golf, tennis, and horse racing, among other sports, leading to widespread criticism [[link removed]] of its perceived utility. Disney: Not surprisingly, this bundle is by far the most integrated and mature offering, and will be expanded [[link removed]] later this year with the development of an ESPN tile within Disney+. But it all remains the work of just one company.

And regional sports networks—still a meaningful part of overall sports consumption whether it be on cable or over-the-air platforms, and despite the challenges [[link removed]] in that sector—are essentially nowhere to be found in any of the new streaming bundles.

The bulked-up offering around Peacock, however, could represent a boost for that service. Its current subscriber total [[link removed]] of 34 million—far less than most of its primary rivals—still makes it arguably something of an underperformer [[link removed]] given the breadth of sports it offers by itself.

With the start of football season—a key driver of sports consumption—a little more than three months away, many of these services will need to finalize pricing and availability details in the coming weeks.

ONE BIG FIG Happy NFL Schedule Release Day!

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

6

Number of high-profile early-season NFL matchups already released before the league reveals its entire 2024 schedule Wednesday night. NFL Network and ESPN2 are dedicating prime-time shows to the unveiling. But here’s a peek at what football fans can look forward to this fall.

Sept. 5: Ravens-Chiefs (NBC) Sept. 6: Packers-Eagles (Peacock) Sept. 8: Cowboys-Browns (Fox) Sept. 9: Packers-49ers (ESPN) Sept. 12: Bills-Dolphins (Amazon Prime Video) Sept. 15: Bengals-Chiefs (CBS)

More leaks of various team schedules are expected throughout the day, and make sure to get your popcorn ready for the annual onslaught of creative videos detailing clubs’ slates of opponents.

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PWHL Playoffs Experience Surge in Attendance. Is Expansion Up Next? [[link removed]]

John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

The Professional Women’s Hockey League is seeing more success at its ticket gates during the playoffs after a landmark debut regular season, which drew more than 392,000 fans across 72 games. The first five games of the postseason drew nearly 40,000—almost a 32% increase on the regular season per game average.

“The crowd support has been tremendous,” Minnesota captain Kendall Coyne Schofield (above) tells Front Office Sports. “And obviously, that’s not a given. That has to be earned.” Schofield is the president of the PWHL Players Association and a former captain of the U.S. women’s national hockey team. The three-time Olympian [[link removed]] was also a key leader of the PWHPA, which merged [[link removed]] with the Premier Hockey Federation last summer after significant financial backing from Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter.

Schofield led Minnesota in the PWHL’s inaugural campaign shortly after giving birth to her first child—the subject of a new documentary she stars in, Hockey Mom. Her team will look to avoid elimination against Toronto on Wednesday night.

On Expansion, NHL, and Media Rights …

The 31-year-old hockey standout caught up with FOS to weigh in on the league’s growth off the ice and what could be coming up. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

If the PWHL expands, which city should it go to first?

Detroit. We gotta go. Fire up the engines. Let’s go to Detroit, because I have full confidence that that market is wanting, willing, able, and will do an incredible job.

How impactful has support from men’s professional hockey been?

There hasn’t been a financial contribution from the NHL, but at the same time, I don’t think we need it. I think we’ve proven we don’t need it, but I will say the support from the teams in-market, specifically for the teams in-market that we have teams in-market, has been tremendous. The PWHPA would get a donation from the NHLPA every year. And so, I think we’re hopeful that we’ll get another donation from the NHLPA to our new union, the PWHLPA, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

Season 1 of the PWHL was broadcast on a variety of regional sports channels and streaming options. What do you hope to see next?

I see them being able to do a pretty lucrative media-rights deal in years to come. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. The league has done an incredible job of spending where they know they have to spend today to get a return on their investment for tomorrow, which so often we didn’t have that investment to then look at it as a return, just more so to get by, to fight another day kind of mindset.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY A Media Giant for Sale

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Who is buying Paramount and what could that mean for the sports media landscape? CNBC media reporter Alex Sherman joins the show to discuss who is bidding and why shareholders’ preferences may be at odds with those of company president Shari Redstone (above, left). He also examines Disney’s long-term plans for ESPN.

🎧 Watch, listen, and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Google [[link removed]], Spotify [[link removed]], and YouTube [[link removed]].

TIME CAPSULE May 15, 1999: A Venue of Our Own

Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports

On this day 25 years ago: Major League Soccer’s Crew opened Columbus Crew Stadium (above), marking the first soccer-specific stadium built by a team in the league. The early days of MLS were often shaky, with teams frequently playing in college and pro football stadiums far larger than the fan support that existed at the time. At one point, six MLS clubs were held by a single owner. But the opening of this $28.5 million stadium was a critical milestone, and it showed the material difference of presenting the sport in a venue that was actually designed for it.

The impact of the stadium development locally was dramatic, with the facility quickly starting an extensive run of hosting events such as MLS Cup matches, league all-star games, U.S. Open Cup finals, and U.S. national team friendlies. But the true legacy of this venue can be seen across the rest of MLS, where nearly two dozen other venues have since been purpose-built for its teams, including the Crew’s successor venue, the three-year-old Lower.com Field. And more are still arriving in both men’s [[link removed]] and women’s [[link removed]] pro soccer in the U.S. The original Columbus venue now lives on in its current moniker, Historic Crew Stadium, and houses the club’s training operations and developmental squad.

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Conversation Starters After winning back-to-back WNBA Finals, Las Vegas Aces star Kelsey Plum smoked cigars at the championship parade. Now, she is launching [[link removed]] her own exclusive cigar with Kingmakers. Jason Kelce has officially joined [[link removed]] ESPN as an analyst in a multiyear deal. The six-time All-Pro will join the network’s Monday Night Football coverage each week. The Washington Mystics are moving [[link removed]] their June 6 game against the Chicago Sky to Capital One Arena due to high ticket demand. It will be the team’s first back-to-back in the venue, set to play Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever there the next day. With a few smart moves, you could supplement your income and afford that next vacation—without doing much extra “work.” Read more [[link removed]] from FinanceBuzz to find a solution and take control of your finances today.* Editors’ Picks NFL Wins Appeal in Jon Gruden Civil Suit, Case Headed to League Arbitration [[link removed]]by A.J. Perez [[link removed]]The case is now headed to the league’s own arbitration system. Pac-12 Finally Inks Football Media Deal With Just Two Members [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]The two-member ‘conference’ signed one-year deals with Fox Sports and The CW. ‘Full Court Press’ Is ESPN’s Best Sports Doc in Years, and a Sequel Is Coming [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]Sources say Paige Bueckers is already being eyed as one of the stars. DISCLAIMER

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