July 23, 2024

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The unpredictable nature of the upcoming U.S. presidential election is set to have big impacts on the sports industry. … The recent struggle by Formula One star Max Verstappen could reshape viewership in the U.S. … Front Office Sports Today breaks down TNT Sports’ move to match Amazon’s NBA rights deal. … And we look back at a recent team rebrand that is still searching for further entrenchment.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]] and Colin Salao [[link removed]]

Election Could Shake Up Sports, Force TV Networks to Move Events [[link removed]]

Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports

Many in the sports industry were already bracing for a likely fourth-quarter ratings hit due to the upcoming U.S. presidential election. But the ongoing reformation of the all-important political race now threatens to amplify that expectation and reshape the landscape for multiple sports leagues and television networks.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to not accept the Democratic Party nomination and withdraw his bid for reelection, announced Sunday afternoon, quickly led to networks shifting several sports events from broadcast channels to cable and online platforms—including NASCAR’s Brickyard 400, the NFL’s Flag Championships, the LPGA’s Dana Open, and The Basketball Tournament—to allow for breaking news coverage.

But the still-volatile nature of the presidential election and sharply divided nature of the U.S. electorate suggests more sports programming shifts and ratings hits to come. The Democrats, though rapidly lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris, have yet to make a formal nomination, and the party’s convention isn’t until Aug. 19–22 in Chicago.

Lessons From the Past

The 2016 election, the last presidential contest not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is instructive. NFL ratings that season fell 8% from the prior year, with the decrease particularly concentrated in the first half of the regular season and before the election that year.

“It’s an encouraging rebound,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said that December as ratings bounced back somewhat post-election. “I think it proves that the election was certainly a factor.”

MLB’s two League Championship Series that year were also down [[link removed]] by double-digit percentages before the league ultimately hit the jackpot with a World Series win for the Cubs that was the team’s first since 1908. The Cubs’ seven-game victory over Cleveland marked the best World Series viewership in more than a decade, and hasn’t been approached since, further serving as an outlier.

The NFL has a particularly lofty perch from which to fall, as its 2023 season delivered [[link removed]]across-the-board viewership increases [[link removed]], including a 7% boost [[link removed]] in the regular season to an average of 17.9 million viewers per game. That was the league’s best mark since ’15—the year before that ’16 election.

Big Dollars

Despite the potential viewership attrition to not only football and postseason baseball but early-season basketball and hockey and postseason soccer, the political race also promises to be a sales boon for many networks with sports content.

Harris and the Democratic Party raised [[link removed]] $100 million in online donations in the 24 hours after Biden’s decision to withdraw, marking the single-largest fundraising day of this election cycle for the ActBlue organization. That adds to the $96 million that Biden previously raised and banked. Republican nominee Donald Trump has $128 million in cash on hand.

A meaningful portion of that money is set to be spent on TV advertising in sports, as the genre has no equal in reaching mass audiences. In 2023, 93 of the top 100 programs in U.S. television, regardless of genre, were NFL game broadcasts [[link removed]].

Verstappen’s Slump Sparks F1 Ratings: Will More U.S. Fans Watch? [[link removed]]

Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

Max Verstappen (above) is in a bit of a slump. The three-time world champion has failed to win each of the last three races, and he showed his frustrations with his Red Bull team on the team radio [[link removed]] over its strategy that led to a fifth-place finish in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

He’s still in pole position to win the drivers’ championship for the fourth year in a row—the gap between Verstappen and second-place Lando Norris is 76 points, which is larger than Norris’s lead over eighth-place George Russell—but his safety net is getting smaller. Verstappen won an F1 record 19 of 22 races last season, and he carried over his dominance into this year by winning four of the first five races. But since the Miami GP in May, Verstappen has won only three of eight.

Verstappen’s precarious perch could actually be a positive sign for F1 viewership in the U.S., which has plateaued over the last year. The racing series averaged 554,000 viewers on ESPN networks in 2018, the year before Netflix dropped the docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive. By ’22, F1 doubled its viewership, averaging a record 1.21 million viewers across ESPN networks while debuting the Miami GP on ABC that same year.

Last season saw F1 take a slight step back [[link removed]] in viewership, with ESPN reporting an average of 1.11 million viewers, a 9% decline versus 2022, despite the addition of the Las Vegas GP [[link removed]], a third race in the U.S. Viewership waned toward the latter half of the season as Verstappen’s dominance made races predictable, especially as he clinched the drivers’ championship with five races left on the calendar, including two in the U.S.

Verstappen’s dominance may not be the only culprit for the declining audience. Netflix reported a double-digit drop in viewership for Drive to Survive, a possible sign of viewership fatigue. The second half of the F1 season, when most of the viewership dip occurred, also coincides with the return of major U.S. sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, and NHL.

In 2024, the average viewership for F1 races is at 1.34 million, down slightly from 1.36 million at this point last year (not including the Hungarian GP). But races that Verstappen did not win, such as the Miami GP, the first career win of Norris, and the British GP, the first win of legendary driver Lewis Hamilton since ’21, both set viewership records [[link removed]].

There are still 11 races in the 2024 F1 calendar, and with McLaren coming off an impressive 1–2 finish in Hungary to trim Verstappen and Red Bull’s lead in the constructors’ championship, the back half of the season is set to be a lot more competitive than last year. It will be fascinating to see whether the competition will drive fans back to Formula One.

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FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY TNT Matches Amazon’s Offer: What Happens Now?

Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

TNT Sports is trying to hang on [[link removed]] to NBA media rights. Front Office Sports newsletter writer Eric Fisher joins the show to explain what happens next in the complicated, high-stakes negotiations that pit a media giant against Amazon.

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

TIME CAPSULE July 23, 2021: Guarding a New Identity

The Enquirer

On this day three years ago: MLB’s Cleveland franchise renamed itself as the Guardians, taking effect at the end of the 2021 season. The shift marked the culmination of several years of escalating debate around the name—a centerpiece of a broader controversy around Native American sports-team identities and mascots—and followed the prior retirement of the team’s Chief Wahoo logo. The Guardians moniker seeks to lean more [[link removed]] into local culture, and in particular, the Hope Memorial Bridge near Progressive Field has large stone edifices at each end known as guardians of traffic.

Similar to the NFL’s Commanders—who rebranded less than seven months after the Guardians did and to this day haven’t strayed far [[link removed]] from debate about their name—the Guardians name has since been met with mixed fan reaction at best. The Guardians have been a nonfactor in league rankings of MLB player jersey sales in recent years. Only 37% of U.S. adults surveyed [[link removed]] soon after the switch was announced supported the move. But currently boasting one of MLB’s best records, the top overall draft pick [[link removed]] in heralded infielder Travis Bazzana, and poised for a third playoff appearance since 2020, the Guardians could make significant progress in entrenching the new name in the coming months.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS AWARDS

2024 Best Venues Award Winners Revealed

Congratulations to this year’s Most Sustainable Award [[link removed]] Winners: UBS Arena, WM, Moda Center, World Surf League, GOAL, NC State Athletics, Sail GP, Spectrum Center, Liverpool FC, and Gillette Stadium.

This year’s winners were determined by Sports Innovation Lab through their data-driven methodology. Organizations across the industry submitted applications and responded to questions ranging from utilization of renewable energy, to recycling programs and more.

Learn more about the winners here [[link removed]].

Conversation Starters The Intuit Dome, home of the Clippers, opens next month. Take a look [[link removed]] at the view from inside. Raiders season-ticket holders receive their tickets in a chest that includes a glowing treasure map. Check it out [[link removed]]. LeBron James will carry [[link removed]] the flag for Team USA during the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony. He’s the first men’s basketball player to be named the U.S. flag bearer. Editors’ Picks ACC Commissioner: FSU, Clemson Lawsuits ‘Incredibly Harmful’ [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]Jim Phillips laid into FSU and Clemson during football media days. History Shows Leagues Should Worry About Losing Studio Hits Like ‘Inside the NBA’ [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]Both networks and fans stand to suffer. Cheryl Miller Joins WNBA Union in Blasting $2.2 Billion ‘Lowball’ Deal [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]‘Not enough. Not even close,’ Cheryl Miller said. Question of the Day

Are you more interested in watching F1 races now that Max Verstappen isn’t winning them all?

Yes [[link removed]] No [[link removed]]

Monday’s result: 54% of respondents said they have watched a sports-themed show or live event on Netflix.

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