June 12, 2024

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The English Premier League is off for the summer, but its financial issues continue to mount. … The lone cricket broadcaster in the U.S. is trying to capitalize on the World Cup frenzy. … Front Office Sports Today speaks with a USA Cricket star. … And the Yankees and Dodgers gave MLB a viewership boost.

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

Legal Battles, Infighting Threaten Premier League’s Economic Recovery [[link removed]]

Manchester City FC

The Premier League, by many accounts, should be enjoying its offseason, preparing for the next campaign, and working on ways to expand a post-pandemic economic recovery [[link removed]]. Instead, the most dominant [[link removed]] league in the world’s most popular sport is ensconced in infighting—in turn threatening that market-leading position.

Manchester City, winners of the last four and six of the last seven EPL titles, are in the midst of two separate but interrelated issues that could upend the current league framework. The club is appearing before an arbitration tribunal this week, part of a larger effort to challenge [[link removed]] existing EPL sponsorship rules. Those provisions—designed in part to discourage improper inflating of the value of clubs’ commercial agreements—are aimed at promoting competitive and economic fairness.

But Man City has described that as a “tyranny of the majority” holding back its business and, as a result, is directly attacking the Founders Agreement of 1991 that serves as the EPL’s charter document.

The club, meanwhile, will also face this fall 115 charges of financial impropriety and failing to cooperate in a subsequent investigation. Some of the alleged breaches involved sponsorship deals tied to Man City’s owners in Abu Dhabi, and should the club successfully argue its case this month, it will be much harder for the league to win its offensive in the fall.

Some of this is slightly similar to challenges made in the 1990s by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to the NFL’s economic model, a situation resulting in dueling lawsuits that ultimately were settled [[link removed]]. But the Cowboys—even at their height in the era of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin—never achieved the level of on-field dominance that Man City has, and much more money is now at stake in the EPL matter.

More Problems

There are even more signs of stress within the top level of English pro soccer. Among them:

Everton is again searching [[link removed]] for a new owner after the collapse of a proposed deal with U.S.-based investor 777 Partners, and had two points deductions this past season for breaches of financial rules. Nottingham Forest openly questioned [[link removed]] the integrity of referees in a late-season loss, prompting an investigation from the U.K.’s Football Association. The Wolverhampton Wanderers failed [[link removed]] to garner any support for its bid to scrap video assistant referee (VAR) technology, but unease remains over the much-debated system. Economic imbalance also continues to be heavy as the 2023–24 player payroll [[link removed]] for Man City of $278.5 million was more than nine times the $30.3 million outlay for Luton Town. By comparison, the Mets’ payroll of $308.6 million that leads [[link removed]] MLB is less than five times Oakland’s $63 million.

Speaking recently with official club media, Man City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak acknowledged an unease with the rush to judgment regarding his club in some circles.

“Of course, it’s frustrating,” he said. “I think the referencing is always frustrating, having it being talked about the way it’s being talked about.”

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USA Cricket Is on the Cusp of a Historic Win. But Who Can Watch? [[link removed]]

USA Cricket

Americans love to get behind Team USA in pretty much every sport. From soccer to basketball to swimming, gymnastics, figure skating, and more, supporting the red, white, and blue is always a favorite pastime.

This month, well before the Olympics are set to begin in Paris, another Team USA is gaining steam—this time in cricket, at the International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup taking place Stateside [[link removed]] and in the West Indies. The U.S. beat Canada in its opening match last week and then pulled off a stunning upset [[link removed]?] of global cricket powerhouse Pakistan. On Wednesday, the U.S. will face the pre-tournament favorite, India, before its final group-stage match against Ireland on Friday.

It’s on … What?

The U.S., playing in its first T20 World Cup ever, needs a victory in one of those two matches to advance to the next round, which is called the Super 8s stage. Sounds like must-see TV, right? The only problem is you’ve probably never heard of the channel showing the game. If you thought truTV was obscure when it got some March Madness rights, buckle up.

Willow by Cricbuzz, a niche cricket-focused broadcaster, has ICC rights in the U.S. and Canada. Willow has said it is accessible in more than 70 million households, but typically only as part of premium-tier sports packages or South Asian packages, and sometimes only with a separate monthly subscription fee of at least $10 or more. Willow chief operating officer Todd Myers tells Front Office Sports the service is currently in four million homes.

Expanding Reach

To remedy that problem, Willow has worked out a deal with several of its provider partners to offer a free TV viewing of the U.S.-India match. Subscribers of Fubo TV, DirecTV, and Optimum will be able to watch the game without buying a subscription or more premium tier. That will boost Willow’s reach to 15 million households for Wednesday’s match.

Willow ran a similar promotion during the first week of the T20 World Cup. However, the two largest providers in the U.S., Charter and Comcast, are not included. “We reached out to a number of our other partners, and some of them really wanted to do it; they just couldn’t, operationally,” says Myers. “In all disclosure, this is a last-minute request that came from us.” He says this will likely be the last free preview of the tournament, even if the U.S. advances.

Willow is owned by The Times Group, an Indian media conglomerate with several English-language outlets. One of the company’s executives, Satyan Gajwani, is an investor [[link removed]] in Major League Cricket, which will play its second season this month and has a five-year media-rights deal with Willow.

A New Frontier

After the U.S. played its first two matches of the T20 World Cup in Texas, Wednesday’s contest will be held in New York, where 34,000 fans watched [[link removed]] India beat Pakistan on Sunday. On Monday, USA Cricket released—and quickly sold out of—an extra allotment of tickets for the India match that were priced at $350 each.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY Cricket Catching On in the U.S.

Argus Leader

International cricket stars are often the most popular athletes in other countries but not in the U.S., which has a team filled with players who often have other full-time jobs. U.S. national team batter Aaron Jones—one of the standout Americans so far of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup—joins the show to discuss his breakout experience during the tournament.

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

AWARD

Does your organization recycle? Utilize renewable-energy sources? Have they eliminated single-use plastics? Encouraged ridesharing or reusable water bottles?

Highlight these sustainable practices by submitting your organization for the 2024 Most Sustainable Award [[link removed]]. Nominations are due by June 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

ONE BIG FIG Exceeding Expectations

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

2.9 million

Average number of viewers [[link removed]] on Fox Sports for Saturday’s Dodgers-Yankees game, representing the most-watched regular-season MLB game on any network since September 2022, and Fox’s best audience for a regular-season Saturday telecast since June ’18. The high-profile meeting of the two marquee teams, as well as top stars Shohei Ohtani (above, right) and Aaron Judge, was projected [[link removed]] to be a big ratings draw heading into the weekend. Those expectations were met, and then some, as the series finale on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball also drew [[link removed]] an average of 2.3 million viewers, the best figure in that slot in two years—despite going up that evening against a solid [[link removed]] turnout on sister network ABC for Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

TIME CAPSULE June 12, 1981: Strike Changes MLB

Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

On this day 43 years ago: MLB players went on strike, beginning what would become the longest work stoppage in baseball history until the 1994 dispute that wiped out that year’s World Series and extended into ’95. The ’81 situation, centered on free-agent compensation, led to the elimination of 713 games and cost management an estimated $72 million in lost revenue. Having just won broader free-agency rights five years before, players were concerned that the attachment of significant compensation for teams to those rights would undermine the value of this new freedom.

Against a national backdrop of rising attacks on labor unions of all types, the MLB Players Association was able to gain a system in which direct player compensation was eliminated in favor of a pooled structure in which teams losing top free agents would be able to draw from a group of unprotected players from all other teams. In the new system, top-end player salaries were able to continue a rapid ascendancy until a separate period of collusion by owners in the late 1980s. Union chief Marvin Miller said years later of the ’81 labor action that “it was the most principled strike I’d ever been associated with. It was the Association’s finest hour.”

There was another major long-term effect of this strange year in baseball: an expansion of the playoffs. Faced with such an unprecedented and punctuated season, owners elected to split the year into two halves, with division leaders when the strike began playing division winners after the resumption of games Aug. 10.

That Division Series, originally designed as a one-off to precede the existing League Championship Series, became a permanent fixture of MLB’s postseason in 1995. It has since gone through multiple refinements, and ultimately has generated far more revenue in media rights than what was lost in ’81. But it would be little comfort to Tom Seaver (above) and the Reds, who finished with the league’s best combined record that year at 66–42 but didn’t qualify for the playoffs by finishing in second place in the NL West in both halves, and by a combined two games.

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Conversation Starters From class project partners at Chaminade College Prep in Missouri to first-round draft picks, Jayson Tatum and Matthew Tkachuk are now superstars chasing championships. They once joked about becoming each other’s agents, and now they each have the chance to win it all [[link removed]] in the NBA and NHL, respectively. Nike’s ad for Jannik Sinner, the new world No. 1 in tennis, is perfectly fitting. Check it out [[link removed]]. Future of Sports is headed to Cannes! Join Front Office Sports, Publicis Sports, and NBC Sports, for an afternoon of networking and creative conversations June 19. Learn more [[link removed]] or request to attend. Editors’ Picks ESPN Extension Could Set Up Shannon Sharpe As Stephen A. Smith’s Successor [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]Sharpe is writing one of the great career comebacks in sports TV history. French Open Deal Marks New Era for TNT Sports. Will It Include the NBA? [[link removed]]by Eric Fisher [[link removed]]A 10-year rights deal for the French Open immediately becomes the longest in Warner Bros. Discovery’s portfolio. How Olympic Contenders Can ‘Lose Money’ in Elite Running [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]‘If you want to make money in this sport, it’s all about shoe deals. It’s all about getting sponsored.’ Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Sports Careers [[link removed]] Written by Eric Fisher [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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