July 26, 2024

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The Paris Olympics begin Friday, with organizers, media executives, and many others hoping for a resurgence of the Olympic movement. … There are still plenty of tickets available in Paris for the Games. … The WNBA is making more history, this time with its new set of media-rights deals. … Front Office Sports Today talks with track and field medalist Fitzroy Dunkley. … We look back at a meaningful change in the Baseball Hall of Fame voting rules.

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

Olympics: Despite Concerns, Star Athletes and Paris Spark Hope [[link removed]]

Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Despite months of concerns surrounding the Paris Olympics that have run the gamut from polluted water and security threats to unsold tickets, budget worries, and corruption allegations, optimism is now building for the event—amplifying hopes of it being a major turnaround for the Olympic movement.

Friday’s start of the Olympics contains the largest and most ambitious opening ceremony ever, including the long-planned parade [[link removed]] of more than 90 boats and 10,500 athletes down the Seine river. It will be soon followed by a high-profile set of competitions involving some of the world’s greatest athletes, and in one of the most picturesque cities on the planet.

The hopeful situation contrasts strongly with the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and Summer Games the year before in Tokyo, both of which were marred by the COVID-19 pandemic and suffered from minimal buzz, spectator restrictions, and record-low U.S. television viewership.

“For as long as the closing ceremony hasn’t finished, we need to remain vigilant,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee. “But we are exactly where we would have dreamed of being a few years ago.”

Still, there are a variety of issues impacting the Games, even if they likely won’t fundamentally derail the event. Among them:

Tickets: More than 600,000 tickets remain unsold, with initial buying restrictions and secondary-market rules contributing to a glut of inventory. Seine water quality: Levels of E. coli (bacteria found in fecal matter) have been a constant concern in the Seine, where it has been illegal to swim for more than a century, and continue to threaten the status of open-water swimming events. Politicians have gone swimming there in recent days to herald extensive clean-up efforts. But changes to water quality, stemming primarily from area rain runoff, could still force changes [[link removed]] to upcoming competitions. Politics: In a particularly fraught political environment around the world, there is no bigger stage for protestors to make their point than the Olympics. Because of that, organizers and law-enforcement personnel remain on high alert, and even as athlete protests on the field and at the podium are prohibited, competitor statements also remain possible [[link removed]]. Doping: Earlier this week, the International Olympic Committee forced [[link removed]] Salt Lake City officials to yield to the “supreme authority” of the World Anti-Doping Agency in awarding the 2034 Winter Olympics. But back in Paris, sharp ideological division between WADA and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is escalating [[link removed]]. U.S. Star Power

Helping fuel further hope among NBC Sports, broadcaster of the Olympics for U.S. audiences, and parent company Comcast is the extended cast of star athletes who are spotlighting the Games, and are seen as strong lures to draw viewers. They include swimmer Katie Ledecky, gymnast Simone Biles, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, and basketball player LeBron James, a group very much in the conversation as some of the best-ever athletes to compete in their respective sports.

That stellar lineup is joined by the array of celebrities [[link removed]] the network has leaned on to help promote the Paris Olympics.

Further adding to that are the visuals of Paris, which will play a critical role in the network’s coverage, and represent one of the most visually distinctive settings for an Olympics in recent memory.

“Paris is just a massive costar in these games,” said NBC Sports anchor Mike Tirico. “Nothing is bigger than the athletes and the competition, but Paris is pretty darn close second to that, I’ll tell you. It’s going to add to it, and I think the athletes will feel it.”

ONE BIG FIG Plenty of Seats Available

Andrew Nelles-USA TODAY Sports

600,000

Approximate number of Paris Olympics tickets still available for general sale as the Games start Friday. Earlier this week, Paris organizers boasted a record-setting total of 8.8 million tickets sold. But as the event has approached, a glut of available inventory has remained and is joined by more than a quarter-million tickets on resale platforms. A combination of factors has contributed to the situation, including initial buying requirements and secondary-market restrictions.

During the opening phases of ticket sales, purchasers were mandated to buy tickets for at least three different events, regardless of what they planned to attend. Meanwhile, the official Olympics platform—the only authorized resale market—does not allow for pricing below face value, even if real-time demand factors would warrant that, and additional fees on both buyers and sellers can make that option more expensive than the primary market.

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Enter Into Connor’s Athlete Archive

Front Office Sports and Upper Deck have joined forces to celebrate the nostalgia of sports, shining a spotlight on the childhood inspirations, career influences, and life milestones of the world’s most notable athletes.

In this episode of Athlete Archives [[link removed]], Connor Bedard shares captivating stories about the key figures—both past and present—who have shaped his journey, from his early playing days to the mentors who continue to inspire him.

Connor’s athletic perseverance, coupled with his cherished memories of hockey and its legendary players, beautifully illustrates the rich history of the game and hints at its future.

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Streaming’s Next Step: Amazon Acquires Rights to WNBA Finals [[link removed]]

Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports

One of the notable details within the WNBA’s $200 million–per-year media-rights deal [[link removed]] with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon is that the Finals will alternate among the three networks.

In 2026, the first year of the 11-year deal valued at $2.2 billion, NBC and Peacock will broadcast the Finals, the first time ABC will not air at least one game of the championship series since 1998. In 2028, Amazon will broadcast [[link removed]] the Finals on Prime Video, the first time a championship series of a major U.S. league has been scheduled to air exclusively on a streaming platform.

The NBA, which signed a larger $76 billion deal that includes the WNBA’s package, is keeping its Finals on ESPN networks, as it has since the early 2000s. But Prime Video will broadcast one conference-finals series in six of the 11 years.

This is another step forward in the streaming takeover of live sports, which has accelerated over the last several years, particularly since the NFL moved Thursday Night Football to Prime Video in 2022, followed by the NFL’s much-maligned [[link removed]] wild-card playoff game on Peacock in January.

A Template for Others?

Could the WNBA Finals on Prime Video be a catalyst for other leagues moving their championship series exclusively to streaming?

There’s no definitive answer, according to Tom Richardson, senior vice president for Mercury Intermedia and sports management professor at Columbia University. But he referred to this period in media and sports as a “transitional phase,” in that everything is a test to understand the behavior of sports’ audience.

While Richardson admits that much of the move to streaming is about money—streaming companies like Amazon and Apple have the deepest pockets in the industry—the leagues are also looking to test how to present themselves to the new sports viewer, a Gen Z and Gen Alpha audience whose viewership behavior often involves multiple screens.

“The industry can’t expect the next generation to dutifully watch the way their forebearers watched, which was kind of lean back passively,” Richardson says.

What’s Old Is New Again

Unfortunately for consumers, the multitude of streaming services has made the experience of being a sports fan confusing. According to Front Office Sports senior writer Michael McCarthy, there is a world in which leagues consolidate into one or two platforms—which would just be a new-age version of the cable bundle.

“I think there’s going to be a rebundling of the old bundle, except it won’t be on cable; it’ll be on streaming,” McCarthy says. “If you have too many streaming services, it’s going to get just too expensive to subscribe to all of them.”

Richardson isn’t as bullish about the idea of a consolidated streamer, calling the notion of “The Great Bundle” as “overblown.” But he acknowledges there is potential for history to repeat itself in the digital age—comparing leagues moving to streaming to the NFL’s decision in 1993 to take Fox’s bid over CBS, a move that ultimately launched Fox into the powerhouse it is today.

Another potential callback to the old days would be the return of pay-per-view events.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, the NFL does a pay-per-view Super Bowl,” McCarthy says. “Think about what they can charge for that.”

Richardson agreed that pay-per-view could make a return in the streaming age, though he sees it for made-for-TV events like TNT’s “The Match” or boxing exhibitions rather than championship games.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY Life Before, During, and After the Olympics

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Olympics are fleeting, but some athletes are able to parlay their moment in the sun into something more. Track and field medalist Fitzroy Dunkley joins the show to discuss the experience of being in the Olympics and what it has meant for him in the years since he competed.

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

TIME CAPSULE July 26, 2014: A New Look at Legends

Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

On this day 10 years ago: The Baseball Hall of Fame adjusted its voting rules for Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballots, reducing the period of player eligibility from 15 years to 10. The shrine made the shift—effective with the 2015 election and the most substantive change to the voting rules in a generation—in order to focus voters’ attention on candidates more likely to meet the 75% threshold. But it also reduced the window by which big stars connected to performance-enhancing drugs, such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, were considered by voters.

The reduced window for player consideration by BBWAA voters additionally amplified the role and impact of the Hall of Fame’s Era Committee system, which serves as another key mechanism by which players, managers, executives, and other major figures in baseball can be elected for enshrinement. That system, formerly known as the Veterans Committee, has been modified five times this century, and now operates [[link removed]] in a rotation of three ballots, with two focusing on 1980 to the present and a third on the period before that year. Fred McGriff notably gained induction this way in 2023 after falling off the shortened BBWAA ballot.

All told, the moves have rendered significant impacts on who ultimately receives the sport’s highest honor. Those decisions, in turn, have also helped create sizable swings in the fan turnout for the Hall of Fame’s induction weekend each year, such as the 55,000 who turned out in 2019 for the Mariano Rivera–led class and the 10,000 that came last year for McGriff and Scott Rolen.

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Conversation Starters The Chicago Sky are building a 40,000-square-foot practice facility in Bedford Park with a ton of amenities. Take a look [[link removed]]. The Delta Center in Salt Lake City is undergoing a renovation to welcome the Utah Hockey Club next season. Check out [[link removed]] how it looks inside. Part of ESPN’s deal with the NBA is to create [[link removed]] a whip-around show on game nights, similar to NFL RedZone. Editors’ Picks San Francisco WNBA Team Already Smashing Women’s Ticket Records [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]The WNBA’s newest team has received more than 15,000 deposits. The Line to Hire Charles Barkley Is Already Getting Long [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]Amazon, ESPN, and NBC might pursue the entire cast of ‘Inside the NBA.’ ‘Down to the Wire’: The Window to Charge Brett Favre Is Closing [[link removed]]by A.J. Perez [[link removed]]Prosecutors could have less than three months to charge the quarterback. Question of the Day

Do you plan on watching the Paris Olympics?

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

Thursday’s result: 33% of respondents said they have lost access to game broadcasts due to DSG disputes with cable carriers.

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