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Afternoon Edition

December 10, 2024

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The Rays’ plan to stay in Tampa hinged on public funding for a new stadium. Newly elected officials and damage caused by Hurricane Milton have thrown that into doubt, and the franchise’s long-term home has become more tenuous in recent weeks. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, however, still believes in the Tampa area and appears to be doing everything in his power to keep the Rays there.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]], and Colin Salao [[link removed]]

Manfred Reinforces MLB Interest in Tampa Remaining Rays Home [[link removed]]

Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has repeatedly insisted that the league is fully committed to the Tampa market. Now Manfred himself has made a direct, in-person appeal to show how much that’s still the case.

The commissioner has met in recent days with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Pinellas County Commission chair Kathleen Peters, and county administrator Barry Burton to advance the effort to build a $1.3 billion ballpark for the Rays in St. Petersburg.

That initiative, though seemingly settled last summer [[link removed]], has hit a series of resurgent problems following the devastation in October to the Tampa area, and particularly Tropicana Field [[link removed]], from Hurricane Milton. The county has delayed approval of $312.5 million in public-sector bonds [[link removed]] for the new stadium, and so did the St. Petersburg City Council before finally green-lighting its $287.5 million part of the project last week [[link removed]]. The county is due to revisit the stadium bond issue on Dec. 17.

None of the principals involved have made a substantive statement on the tenor of those meetings, though Peters did say Manfred spoke of MLB’s support of the stadium deal. The county approval is a critical component of the ballpark project, but even if it’s approved, the Rays have said the stadium is now heading toward a 2029 opening—a year later than first projected and introducing additional costs that the club claims it cannot afford.

The presence of Manfred, however, provides another affirmative statement on the intention of MLB to stay in the Tampa media market that has now grown to a No. 11 ranking in the U.S.

Last month, the commissioner made a similarly unequivocal statement during owners meetings [[link removed]], contrasting somewhat from the more mixed messages that many Tampa officials say the Rays have provided.

“Given the devastation in that area [from the hurricane], it’s only fair to give the local governments an opportunity to figure out where they are, what they have available in terms of resources, and what’s doable,” Manfred said.

Changes for Next Year

The Rays, meanwhile, have made a series of tweaks to their existing plan to play next season’s home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field [[link removed]] in Tampa, normally the spring training home of the Yankees. The 2025 home schedule for the Rays will now start March 28, a day later than first planned, to provide additional time to ready the facility. The new date is still just four days after the Yankees break camp. Even with the change, the Rays still have a heavily front-loaded home schedule [[link removed]], playing 47 of their first 59 games in Tampa to avoid the worst of the area’s extreme heat and rain.

Plans are also beginning to come into focus on what the Rays will be able to do at Steinbrenner Field to monetize their games there. The Yankees said the Rays will have “limited permission to sell regular-season advertising inventory throughout the seating bowl, including stadium concourse walls, the scoreboard, and the outfield walls.”

SPONSORED BY EMIRATES NBA CUP

Who Will Capture the Emirates NBA Cup?

[[link removed]]

Knockout rounds begin tonight [[link removed]] on TNT! The stage is set for single-elimination games. At 7 p.m. ET, the Milwaukee Bucks will host the Orlando Magic, while the Dallas Mavericks will face the Oklahoma City Thunder’s top-ranked defense at 9:30 p.m. ET.

The Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard each averaged 29.3 points in Cup gameplay, while Orlando’s Franz Wagner stepped up to score 29 points in each Cup game when the injured Paolo Banchero sat out.

Ranking third in Cup scoring at 31.3, the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Dončić is slightly above the Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Winners will advance to the semifinals [[link removed]] on Saturday, Dec. 14 at 4:30 p.m. ET on TNT and 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

The championship game [[link removed]] is on Tuesday, Dec. 17 at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.

Transfer Portal Chaos: Record Moves, Star QBs, and NIL Deals Reshape CFB [[link removed]]

James Guillory-Imagn Images

College football’s transfer portal saw record movement on its opening day, highlighted by several big-time quarterbacks looking to potentially cash in on major NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals—and maybe some new hardware—with new schools.

Around 1,000 FBS players entered the portal Monday, which is nearly double the total from Day 1 a year ago, and it caused an analytics database that many schools use to track movement to temporarily crash [[link removed]], according to 247 Sports.

The biggest headline was Maalik Murphy’s surprise decision to leave Duke after he threw a school-record 26 touchdown passes this season while leading the Blue Devils to a 9–3 record. He won’t play for Duke in the Gator Bowl against Ole Miss on Jan. 2. Murphy, who has at least one major NIL deal with Postmates, transferred from Texas last year and has two years of eligibility remaining.

The Grass Is Always Greener?

Five teams in the College Football Playoff have starting quarterbacks they acquired in last year’s transfer portal:

Oregon: Dillon Gabriel (from Oklahoma) Arizona State: Sam Leavitt (from Michigan State) Ohio State: Will Howard (from Kansas State) Notre Dame: Riley Leonard (from Duke) Indiana: Kurtis Rourke (from Ohio)

Each of those signal-callers has multiple big-money NIL deals, like the one Leonard signed with Dick’s Sporting Goods [[link removed]] after joining the Fighting Irish, following three seasons at Duke.

Heisman finalist Cam Ward, whose Miami Hurricanes narrowly missed out on an ACC championship game appearance and the CFP, was also a major NIL success story this season after transferring from Washington State. Ward, who is now projected to be a top pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, signed a deal with Miami apparel provider Adidas [[link removed]] this fall, adding to deals he already had with Bose and energy drink brand C4.

So, who could cash in next?

As of Tuesday morning, one ranking from ESPN [[link removed]] listed Tulane’s Darian Mensah, USC’s Miller Moss, Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold, Liberty’s Kaidon Salter, and Texas A&M’s Conner Weigman as the top five quarterbacks currently available in the transfer portal. Murphy was sixth.

Another interesting transfer to watch will be Matthew Sluka, who decided to redshirt after leading UNLV to a 3–0 start, due to a dispute over NIL money [[link removed]]. The Rebels finished the regular season 10–2 and ended up in the Mountain West championship game but lost to Boise State, which earned an automatic CFP bid and a bye as the No. 3 seed.

NBA Cup TV Ratings Down 10% Through Group Play [[link removed]]

Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The NBA’s downward viewership trend to start the 2024–2025 season has seeped into the Emirates NBA Cup.

Viewership of the NBA Cup’s group play averaged 1.33 million viewers on ESPN and TNT, a 10% dip versus last year, the tournament’s inaugural season. The networks split 14 nationally televised games, with TNT averaging 1.5 million viewers for its eight games and ESPN drawing 1.16 million viewers for its six.

There are several hypotheses [[link removed]] regarding the NBA’s early-season viewership decline—including TNT analyst Shaquille O’Neal positing that the volume of three-pointers has made the game repetitive [[link removed]]. The NBA has also dealt with additional competition this season: A battle of powerhouses in the World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees that drove a seven-year viewership high [[link removed]], the presidential election [[link removed]], and the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul fight— which set historic streaming numbers [[link removed]].

The NBA has also dealt with a slew of injuries to its stars. Luka Dončić, Victor Wembanyama, and Paolo Banchero are some of the key names who have missed nationally televised NBA Cup games.

With the quarterfinals starting Tuesday night, seven more NBA Cup games remain during which the NBA can try to catch up to the 1.49 million viewers the tournament averaged last season. Of the eight teams left, only one is missing its biggest stars—the Magic, who are without both Banchero and Franz Wagner.

The NBA Cup semifinals begin Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. A 4:30 p.m. ET game will air on TNT, truTV, and Max. An 8:30 p.m. matchup will be broadcast on ABC, which will also air the NBA Cup championship game on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Amazon Prime Video will own the rights to the tournament once the league’s $77 billion media-rights deal kicks in [[link removed]].

EVENT

Front Office Sports and Excel Sports Management are partnering to gather the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and media for an unforgettable day out on the golf course ahead of the Big Game.

Learn more [[link removed]] about partnership opportunities or how to get involved with The Breakfast Ball—an ultra-high-end Celebrity Pro-Am golf tournament that will be a can’t-miss event for companies and brands looking to entertain in the lead-up to the game.

ONE BIG FIG Hoosier State Hype Driving Prices

Matt Cashore-Imagn Images

$2,996

The average ticket resale list price for the first-round College Football Playoff game between Indiana and Notre Dame, according to ticket aggregator TicketIQ, is by far the highest of the four on-campus games that will open the newly expanded event. The $1,134 low-end, get-in price is nearly 10 times the comparable $149 figure for SMU’s game at Penn State. The heightened demand for the Hoosiers–Fighting Irish game owes to several factors, including the tight geographic clustering of that game, the longtime allure of the Notre Dame program, and the upstart nature of the 11–1 Indiana team already enjoying the winningest season in school history under first-year coach Curt Cignetti.

The CFP final on Jan. 20 at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, meanwhile, currently has an average list ticket resale price of $3,646, the highest such figure for the championship game since the Alabama-Georgia matchup in 2018. The current figure, however, will likely fluctuate significantly based on the outcome of the new, 12-team CFP format.

STATUS REPORT Four Up

Troy Taormina-Imagn Images

Bears ⬆ The NFL team’s options for a new stadium perhaps received another small but notable boost with a move Monday night by the Arlington Heights, Ill., village board to unanimously approve a tax deal for team-owned property at the site of the former Arlington International Racecourse. The Bears say they are still committed to their plan to build a new facility in downtown Chicago [[link removed]]. But this latest suburban move, expected since late last month [[link removed]], provides long-desired tax certainty to the team and perhaps a fallback option should the already-challenged urban proposal [[link removed]] fall short.

Caitlin Clark ⬆ The WNBA star was named Time magazine’s 2024 Athlete of the Year [[link removed]]. Clark led Iowa to its second consecutive NCAA women’s national championship game, which averaged 18.9 million viewers— the first time a women’s title game outdrew the men’s [[link removed]]. A month later, she was the WNBA’s No. 1 pick and a driving force behind the league’s record viewership [[link removed]].

Yuki Tsunoda ⬆ Red Bull assigned the driver of RB, its sister team, to drive its lead car for postseason testing in Abu Dhabi [[link removed]] on Tuesday. This could be an audition for the seat of Sergio Pérez, who will reportedly part ways [[link removed]] with Red Bull before next season. However, the leading candidate to replace Pérez is Liam Lawson, Tsunoda’s teammate at RB.

United Football League ⬆ The spring football league and trading card partner Upper Deck have released the first set of cards from the property’s debut 2024 season. The cards will be available digitally and physically, and the initiative follows a recent move to start an expansion process for the league [[link removed]].

SPONSORED BY WENDY’S

Have No Fear: The Mushrooms Are Here

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A new level of flavor has arrived [[link removed]].

It’s delicious mushrooms, mouthwatering bacon, melted Muenster cheese, and creamy garlic spread. Loaded together on top of that iconic Wendy’s [[link removed]] fresh, never-frozen beef.

Try [[link removed]] the new Mushroom Bacon Cheeseburger with a Dr Pepper today.

Conversation Starters ESPN debuted a Simpsons-themed alt-cast for the Monday Night Football game between the Bengals and Cowboys. Check out [[link removed]] the broadcast crew of Drew Carter, Mina Kimes, and Dan Orlovsky live from Atoms Stadium in Springfield. The broadcast also showed Simpsons characters on the football field. Watch [[link removed]] Homer Simpson throw a touchdown pass to CeeDee Lamb. Homer also joined Peyton and Eli Manning on the ManningCast, ESPN’s other alt-cast. Take a look [[link removed]]. Editors’ Picks Athletes in Landmark House Case Ask for College Players’ Association [[link removed]]by Amanda Christovich [[link removed]]Plaintiffs in the House v. NCAA case want more than just revenue-sharing. Caitlin Clark Is Next Up for Taylor Swift With the Eras Tour Over [[link removed]]by Margaret Fleming [[link removed]]Swift told Clark she and Travis Kelce want to watch the Fever. Capitals, Wizards Owner Monumental Aims to Drive ‘Downtown D.C.’s Comeback’ [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Monumental Sports, which owns the Wizards, is ready to anchor a D.C. comeback. Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Podcast [[link removed]] Written by Eric Fisher [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Or Moyal [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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