Tonight in Unpackings: The premier stock car racing circuit has seen a decline in viewership this season, but races at Chicago and Pocono provided some bright spots, SBJ’s Austin Karp reports.
- WWE’s Vince McMahon to Sell $700 Million in TKO Group Stock
- NWSL to receive $60 million per year for national media rights
- USATF grants CEO Max Siegel five-year extension
- Opinion article: The NIL financial program is considerable
Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcastwhere Abe Madkour discusses ESPN’s strong earnings report, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark headlining the first Ally Tipoff, college football’s growing viewership and much more.
Publication alert: SBJ Unpacks will be off on Friday November 10th for the holidays. He will return on Monday November 13.
NASCAR has seen a 5% viewership decline this season for the Cup Series, SBJ’s Austin Karp reports. The stock car racing circuit averaged 2.86 million viewers on NBC, Fox, FS1 and USA this season, compared to 3.03 million last year (from the Daytona 500 in February through the final in Phoenix last weekend).
These figures exclude The Clash and All-Star Race. The Cup Series has had four Monday finishes this year due to weather (these are factored into the numbers).
Sunday’s Phoenix championship race averaged 3 million viewers, which is the best of any playoff race this season, but it’s also probably the least-watched Cup final since the system began playoffs in 2004. Last season, the championship race in Phoenix averaged 3.4 million. NBC’s audience peaked at 3.8 million viewers on Sunday as Ryan Blaney won the title.
NBC Sports (NBC and USA) averaged 2.47 million viewers for its 20 late-season races, up about 1% from last year’s 2.45 million. The first Cup race on the streets of Chicago attracted 4.79 million people, marking NBC’s best Cup race in six years (and the second best of the year after Fox’s Daytona 500).
The July 23 race at Pocono averaged 2.83 million viewers, which marked the most-watched Cup Series race on cable in 2023 and the best Cup race on any cable network since 2021.
Beyond the high-level circuit, NASCAR averaged just over 1 million viewers for the Xfinity Series (stable compared to 2022) and 594,000 viewers for the Craftsman Truck Series (down 5%). .
On the heels of TKO’s announcement of results this week which showed bringing WWE and UFC together was a good ideaWWE founder Vince McMahon is “selling much of his stake in TKO Group, the Endeavour-controlled owner” of the wrestling company, reports the Hollywood Reporter late Thursday afternoon.
Reporting in a securities filing Thursday, THR noted that “McMahon plans to sell 8.4 million shares of TKO” which have “a market value of just over $700 million,” or “nearly of 25%” of McMahon’s stake in TKO. The filing reports that “TKO intends to repurchase $100 million” of stock, and that “Endeavor and TKO CEO Ari Emanuel and Chairman Mark Shapiro are expected to purchase $1 million each.”
Earlier this week, SBJ’s John Ourand reported that WWE sold the media rights to “NXT” to The CW, with sources telling him they were worth “between $30 million and $50 million a year.”
The NWSL announced a series of four-year national media rights agreements with CBS Sports, ESPN, Amazon and Scripps Sports, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman. The four rights packages include a total of 118 regular season and postseason games per season.
Sources put the combined value of the deals at $60 million per year, which includes customs duties, production cost and marketing commitments. That’s forty times the $1.5 million the women’s soccer league earned under its previous domestic rights deal with incumbent CBS Sports, under which the league also covered production costs.
USA Track & Field has awarded CEO Max Siegel a five-year contract extension that would take him through 2028, reports SBJ’s Rachel Axon. The national governing body did not disclose the terms of the agreement or compensation.
Siegel has served as CEO since 2012. In granting him this extension, the board took into account a budget that reached a record $40 million per year and the fact that NGB signed 19 new partners over the course of its mandate. The USATF Board of Directors also hired executive compensation firm FW COOK to conduct an assessment.
In an era where the supply of high-end sponsorship inventory exceeds demand by an unhealthy amount, the Magic appear to be defying those odds. Alex Martins, CEO of Magic said Terry Lefton of SBJ last week it was expecting a new naming rights sponsor — before the end of the year — for what is Amway Center since it opened in 2010replacing the old Amway Arena.
This week’s SBJ Marketing newsletter also covers:
- Atomic Brands extends and spends its liquor deal with UFC
- The New York marathon in search of telecoms and spirits sponsors
- Aaron Judge Hires Integrity 9 for Exclusive Marketing Representation
Robin Eletto of TMRW Sports, a Honored SBJ Game Changers this year, is responsible for the staff and facilities of the TGL supported by Tiger Woods/Rory McIlroy. In this week’s SBJ Tech newsletter, Eletto addressed to Ethan Joyce how she finds the right people to improve a company and its technology and the work she does with TMRW Sports.
As an example, his opinion on workplace flexibility: “So much changed when COVID hit, especially in technology. I’m going to use Fanatics as a great example. Living in California (Fanatics has an innovation center in San Mateo) isn’t the best. “It’s a place in the world, from my point of view, to live on many fronts. It’s expensive to live there. The cost of buying a house there and moving there with a family is really tough. I think from a tech worker’s perspective it gave people the freedom to meet their lifestyle needs in a place that made sense to them. Any company looking for today Now that tech talent gives people the ability to choose where they do their work, I think that’s extremely important.
Tonight’s opinion piece is written by Gene Todd, head of regional markets, and Richard Pianoforte, managing director/tax specialist at financial firm Fiduciary Trust International, on what college athletes should learn about money management NILE.
“Whatever opportunities college athletes seek to earn zero income, they must remember that they are subject to the NCAA’s pay-to-play and prohibited inducements rules, which prevent payments and other inducements from schools In exchange for recruiting in specific states, conferences and schools may also apply.
Read full submission here.
- Astros owner Jim Crane is among the investors in a recent $12 million Series A fundraising round for Dotwork, a software platform that “leverages AI to bring together unstructured data, stacks software development and key metrics to give leaders and employees a complete view of their development projects and how they align with business goals. rating Austin Inno.
- CBS had the best college football viewership in all three Saturday windows in Week 10, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp in this week’s audience analysis. Primetime LSU-Alabama led the way with 8.8 million viewers, which also dominated all CFB Week 10 games.
- The Cubs were ranked No. 1 for overall guest experience in MLB’s Voice of the Consumer program, earning high marks for their game day staff, mobile ordering, contactless entry, family programming and their approximate renovations. notes Erik Bacharach from SBJ.
- The first full season of NASCAR’s Fan Rewards program saw more than 140,000 users, of which 30% (approximately 42,000) were new users, writes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
- Bandai Namco Entertainment America teamed up with Scuderia AlphaTauri F1 racing team to showcase the Japanese video game developer’s Gundam franchise at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, notes Kevin Hitt of SBJ.
- OL Groupe, owner of French soccer club Olympique Lyonnais and OL Reign of the NWSL, is refinancing approximately $342 million in debt, reports SBJ’s Chris Smith.
- Google’s CarMax and Chromebook Plus are among the sponsors of the documentary “Candace Parker: Unapologetic” from ESPN Films, writes SBJ’s Na’Andre Emerson. It will air November 12 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.
