February 10, 2023

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Texas and Oklahoma are taking the express lane to the SEC. The Longhorns and Sooners will begin competing in their new conference in 2024 — and not 2025 — after the Big 12 negotiated [[link removed]] an early exit fee of $100 million. The schools’ early arrival into the SEC comes at an ideal time, too, as the College Football Playoff will also expand to 12 teams.

Media NFL Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over ‘Sunday Ticket’ Prices [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The NFL will face a $6 billion class action lawsuit over claims it limited televised games and hiked the cost of “NFL Sunday Ticket.”

DirecTV has rights to “Sunday Ticket” until the end of the 2022-23 season, and the plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking [[link removed]] damages for those who purchased “Sunday Ticket” from the provider since 2011.

The case will have two plaintiffs classes — individual “Sunday Ticket” residential subscribers and commercial establishments.

There are reportedly at least 2.4 million members in the residential class. The commercial class has around 48,000 members.

Lawyers for the NFL and its teams claim the plaintiffs’ lawyers failed to meet the legal requirements needed to form classes.

“We are reviewing the judge’s order,” an NFL spokesperson said. “We continue to believe that the plaintiffs’ claims have no merit and will vigorously defend our position in this matter.”

A trial is set to begin in February 2024.

Sunday Switch

In December, the NFL confirmed [[link removed]] Google as the next distributor of “Sunday Ticket” in a deal reportedly worth an annual average of $2 billion. YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels will have exclusive rights to the packs in the U.S. starting with the 2023 season.

Despite the “new home for Sunday Ticket, the entire class is likely to continue to be subjected to defendants’ anticompetitive restraints on telecasts,” the judge’s ruling said.

College Athletics SEC’s 14 Schools Divvy Up $721.8M in Revenue [[link removed]]

Joshua L. Jones / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Southeastern Conference announced that it distributed $721.8 million to its 14 schools in 2021-22 from a pot of $802 million in total revenue.

Despite the flashy figures, it’s a slight decrease from the previous years’ distributions: In 2020-21, the conference allocated $764.4 million, for an average of $54.6 million per school.

The conference office dispersed $698.5 million, which included not only media rights and CFP revenue but also championship earnings. Of this revenue, each school received an average of $49.9 million. Roughly $23.3 million was sent as a reimbursement for bowl game and College Football Playoff travel expenses.

The revenue decline isn’t cause for alarm, as it’s related to a signing bonus from the SEC’s new $3 billion TV contract with ESPN, which awarded each school $4 million directly, according [[link removed]] to USA Today.

Loan repayments, higher event costs, and funding held in escrow for Ole Miss also contributed.

Battle With the Big Ten

The SEC is one of the richest and most successful conferences in all of college sports — and, only the Big Ten can compete with it from a revenue standpoint.

In 2022, the Big Ten signed the biggest conference-wide media deal in history: a mid-$7 billion contract with NBC, CBS, and Fox that will significantly increase its revenue.

The Big Ten already ranked second last year with an average distribution in the mid-$40 million range.

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Deals Billionaire Lines Up Big Banks for Manchester United Bid [[link removed]]

MUFC

British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe is tapping some of the world’s largest banks to back his bid for Manchester United.

Bloomberg reports [[link removed]] that Ratcliffe is working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as he prepares for some exceptionally well-heeled competition. Ratcliffe has a net worth of around $16.1 billion.

The banks are ready to issue bonds and loans to back Ratcliffe’s bid. They would cover Manchester United’s debt of around $800 million. The team’s owners, the Glazer family, were initially seeking [[link removed]] around $7.3 billion for the Premier League club. A price of $5.5 billion is believed to be more realistic.

Bids are due by Feb. 17. The sale is being handled by merchant bank Raine, which also managed last year’s sale of Chelsea.

Qatar Cuts In

A group of investors from 2022 World Cup host Qatar are reportedly preparing a bid intended to top all others by a wide margin.

The group is separate from the state-owned Qatar Sports Investments, which owns Paris Saint-Germain. QSI has looked into [[link removed]] making a play for Manchester United, Liverpool, or Tottenham Hotspur, according to Bloomberg.

Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group had been exploring a sale, but may opt instead to sell a stake in FSG to raise more than $1 billion.

Leagues European Super League Plans 80-Club Tournament [[link removed]]

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The proposed European Super League has presented a completely new vision in its latest attempt at a comeback.

A22 Sports Management — the company leading the charge to revive the offshoot soccer league, which was announced and then quickly abandoned in April 2021 — has released [[link removed]] its plans to rival the UEFA Champions League.

The competition [[link removed]] would feature no permanent members and would have open qualification based on domestic performance. “Feedback suggests a European football league that is open, based solely on sporting merit, multidivisional with 60-80 clubs and a minimum of 14 guaranteed European matches per club,” A22 said in a statement. A22 reportedly spoke with nearly 50 European clubs in establishing its new guidelines.

“The vast majority of them share the assessment that the very foundation of European football is under threat [[link removed]],” A22 CEO Bernd Reichart said [[link removed]] in a video on Twitter. “It is time for change.”

Stern Opposition

Reichart’s video alludes to an upcoming decision from the European Court of Justice regarding FIFA and UEFA’s alleged monopoly on European soccer.

However, in December, a CJEU advocate general published [[link removed]] an opinion siding with FIFA and UEFA — indicating the rest of the court may follow suit when the decision comes down sometime this year.

Many European soccer entities still heavily oppose the ESL in any form — including La Liga president Javier Tebas, who posted [[link removed]] a scathing rebuke on Twitter.

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Since the NCAA passed its landmark ruling in July 2021 allowing college athletes to profit off their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) the impact has been great and far reaching.

One area within this new frontier that has not been widely discussed, however, is how universities are creating opportunities within the classroom to learn more about NIL.

In our latest webinar, Owen Poindexter (Front Office Sports) sits down with professors Thilo Kunkel and Amy Giddings (Temple University), along with recent graduate and current NIL agent Matt Lupi, to discuss The NIL Effect: Inside & Outside the Classroom [[link removed]].

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Conversation Starters The NFL’s transition [[link removed]] to all-digital tickets at last year’s Super Bowl effectively hampered some scammers from creating fake tickets. That practice will continue on Sunday, when fans heading to State Farm Stadium can only use tickets purchased through the NFL’s OnePass app. Future baseball Hall of Famer Albert Pujols has put two properties on the market [[link removed]] months after retiring from the sport. On his first day as the Phoenix Suns owner, Mat Ishbia finalized [[link removed]] a trade for Kevin Durant. Watch [[link removed]] the staff at State Farm Stadium roll out the Super Bowl LVII field for some sun. Front Office Sports Today They Said What?

Michael Chow / USA TODAY NETWORK

“For us, when you look at officiating, I don’t think it’s ever been better in the league.”

— NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who defended the performance of the league’s officials during his annual Super Bowl week news conference. For more on the NFL and the buzz surrounding Sunday’s game, check out the latest episode of Front Office Sports Today.

Listen and subscribe on Apple [[link removed]], Google [[link removed]], and Spotify [[link removed]].

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Question Of The Day

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Thursday’s Answer

71% of respondents plan on making a bracket for this year’s March Madness college basketball tournament.

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