June 27, 2024

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The NFL Sunday Ticket trial has exposed what might have been a very different reality for the league’s out-of-market games. … The Jaguars have another set of key tasks after winning approval of public funding for a major stadium renovation. … Commanders owner Josh Harris puts a clear point on the NFL’s growing consideration of private equity investment in teams. … Plus: More on tennis in Charlotte, LIV Golf, the Home Run Derby, and the PGA of America.

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

NFL Explored Killing Sunday Ticket in Favor of Mass Cable Distribution [[link removed]]

Melina Myers-USA TODAY Sports

An eight-person jury is deliberating the $21 billion NFL Sunday Ticket trial [[link removed]] after closing arguments were made in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday.

At the heart of the lawsuit, originally filed in 2015, is that the league shouldn’t be allowed to sell all of its out-of-market games as a single package. New revelations from the case show that the league did consider an extreme alternative in ’17: selling those coveted broadcasts to various cable channels, not one single company. At the time, that was DirectTV. Now, YouTube pays $2 billion annually for the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket.

On Wednesday, plaintiffs presented a league memo titled “NFL New Frontier” from April 21, 2017, according to the Associated Press [[link removed]]. In this alternate reality, CBS and Fox still would have broadcast regional games on Sunday afternoons. Instead of everything else going to Sunday Ticket, the remaining games would have been available on a variety of mainstream cable channels like FS1, ESPN, ESPN2, TBS, TNT, NFL Network, and CBS Sports Network.

All of those networks are owned by companies that already had NFL media rights (and still do currently), except for TBS and TNT. In 2017, those channels were owned by Time Warner, which was in the process of being acquired by AT&T, which had recently purchased DirectTV, then NFL Sunday Ticket’s rights holder, in ’15.

The memo stated that payments from Fox and CBS would drop 25% to $10 million per game, while the cable channels would pay $9 million per game. This was during the NFL’s previous media-rights deals, before agreeing to $110 billion deals that began last season.

Journey Isn’t Done

While it’s unknown how seriously the NFL considered its idea to kill Sunday Ticket in favor of multiple cable partners, the fact that the league took enough time and energy to create a proposal like that shows that team owners wanted to be prepared for all scenarios—perhaps in the wake of the lawsuit’s filing in 2015. The revelation follows a previous one from the case that the NFL shot down [[link removed]] ESPN’s proposal to offer Sunday Ticket for $70, a huge drop from $350 YouTube TV subscribers paid in ’23, as it bid to potentially acquire the package’s rights.

For now, if the jury rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the NFL Sunday Ticket case is still likely far from over. The league will have the option of going to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and even the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Hurdles Still Remain After Jaguars Secure $775 Million for Stadium [[link removed]]

Florida Times-Union

The Jaguars have cleared [[link removed]] one major hurdle this week, winning Jacksonville city council approval on $775 million of public money toward a large-scale renovation of EverBank Stadium. But that crucial political win now will lead to several other issues for the team that still need to be settled.

The council’s approval by a 14–1 vote with two abstentions and two absences provided an emphatic signal of the city’s desire to remain a big-league sports town, and mayor Donna Keegan (above, right) called the outcome “generational progress.” The Jaguars will pay $625 million in the project, plus cost overruns, in what is the largest single capital project in the history of Jacksonville.

Challenges and Questions Ahead

Several issues, however, relating to the planned development of what the team is calling [[link removed]] the “Stadium of the Future” are still outstanding. Among them:

Approval by NFL owners: The measure must also go before other NFL team owners, and that is slated to happen at fall meetings scheduled for Oct. 15–16 in Atlanta. The Jacksonville agreement calls for a 55% contribution from the public sector. That figure is lower than the taxpayer funds going into stadium projects in Buffalo [[link removed]] and Tennessee [[link removed]], both in actual amount and percentage of overall development cost. Kansas lawmakers also recently approved [[link removed]] a bonding measure that could cover 70% of a stadium development if the Chiefs move across the border from Missouri. But amid thorny political issues [[link removed]] in other NFL markets such as Chicago, Jaguars executives said they don’t anticipate a problem with other owners and said they “look forward to getting this finalized.” Where to play in 2027? The deal calls for a renovated EverBank Stadium to reopen in 2028. But the year before, the team will need a new home while some of the more substantive construction work is done. After a prior consideration [[link removed]] of Daytona International Speedway, the leading options now are Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla., and Camping World Stadium in Orlando. Both facilities are within two hours of Jacksonville, and Jaguars owner Shad Khan (above, left) said he wants the temporary home to be “close enough for the fans.” What about London? The 30-year lease deal with Jacksonville includes a non-relocation provision, and it limits what the Jaguars can do in London. The team will still play there once a year, except when mandated by the league to play in an additional international game. But a regular presence by the team in London that began in 2013 and included two games last year in a league first will now have clear guardrails. For the ’27 season specifically, the Jaguars also have an option to play up to three games there, again due to the construction. ‘Organizational Failure’

Khan, meanwhile, also is still lamenting the Jaguars’ end to the 2023 season, in which an 8–3 start faded to a 9–8 final record, leaving the team out of the playoffs.

“I think it’s organizational failure that it happened,” he said. “All of these players that I talked to, it’s like, ‘How could this happen? What happened?’ For me, it’s really a cause for self-reflection and then something good to come out of it, because we just can’t have that this year. For us, winning now is the expectation.”

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LOUD AND CLEAR Money Game

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

“Raising $3 billion is a lot of work.”

—Commanders owner Josh Harris (above, left), on the process he went through to get enough minority investors to buy [[link removed]] the NFL franchise for a record $6.05 billion last year. Speaking at the Bloomberg Invest Summit in New York, he detailed his journey to becoming an NFL team owner and how he believes the league’s shifting approach [[link removed]] to allowing private equity investors will help club valuations keep soaring. “The NFL is intelligently saying let’s take a look at that,” Harris said.

CONTEST

Think you can make a dynasty out of a small school? We’re giving away two copies of the highly anticipated EA Sports College Football 25 video game. Enter here [[link removed]] for a chance to win. See rules here [[link removed]].

STATUS REPORT One Up, One Down, Two Push

Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Charlotte ⬆ The city has secured a major tennis event for this December, as top players Carlos Alcaraz, Frances Tiafoe, Madison Keys, and Sloane Stephens will play matches at the Spectrum Center, the home arena of the Hornets. Previously, Charlotte missed out [[link removed]] on luring Cincinnati’s ATP/WTA tournament to town.

LIV Golf ⬇ Caffeine TV, a new streaming partner of the tour this season, announced it is shuttering operations immediately. The company was broadcasting events in addition to regular offerings on The CW and LIV Golf+.

Home Run Derby ⬆⬇ The midseason MLB event could receive a big boost as Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani (above) this week expressed interest in participating. But his manager, Dave Roberts, then threw some cold water on the idea, expressing reservations as the phenom continues his recovery from elbow surgery last year. The eight participants will be announced within the next two weeks. When Ohtani last competed in 2021, he helped drive the Home Run Derby viewership on ESPN to what is still the event’s highest level since ’17, won that year by the Yankees’ Aaron Judge.

PGA of America ⬆⬇ The organization is looking for a new CEO after Seth Waugh announced he is stepping down. After taking over the position in 2018, Waugh helped the PGA of America move its headquarters from South Florida to Texas, where the new PGA Frisco complex is set to host multiple men’s and women’s PGA Championships later this decade.

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Tune In This September

Tuned In [[link removed]], Front Office Sports’ media franchise, led by senior media reporter Mike McCarthy, appears across FOS platforms through editorial coverage, social storytelling, and newsletter segments.

On Sept. 10, Tuned In will come to life as a one-day event in New York City with the biggest newsmakers in sports media.

The daylong event will feature intimate discussions with leaders within the sports media space—ranging from athletes and on-air talent, to media moguls and league executives who are instrumental in shaping the future of how fans view sports.

Check out the full lineup for the event and request to attend here [[link removed]].

Conversation Starters Wimbledon begins Monday, and ESPN has dropped its ad previewing the storied tennis tournament. Watch here [[link removed]]. Wondering how much the newest crop of NBA rookies will make? Here are contract projections [[link removed]] for the top-10 picks from Wednesday’s draft. The NHL draft on Friday will be the first live event [[link removed]] broadcast from the Sphere in Las Vegas, featuring 18,600 seats, 168,000 speakers, custom graphics for all 32 teams, and the world’s highest-resolution LED screen. Editors’ Picks Big East Signs Six-Year Media Deal With Fox, NBC, and TNT [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]The deal is crucial to the long-term health of the league. The Big Winner of the NBA Draft: French Media [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]Wednesday night’s press conferences had a distinctly French flavor. Why Agents Aren’t Fans of the New NBA Draft Format [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Agents thrived in the chaos of the old second-round setup. 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]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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