CAA becomes T-Mobile’s agency of record

Tonight in Unpackings: CAA wins prized assignment as SBJ’s Terry Lefton reports it is now T-Mobile’s agency of record.

• Neutral site not in play for immediate future of World Series
• The architect of Globe Life Field sees his goal come to fruition
• LPGA to host New England event in 2024
• More International Games Coming for NFL, Insiders Predict

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcastwhere Abe Madkour ends the week with the improbable World Series game, the strategy behind Peacock and why you should pay attention to women’s basketball’s rising stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.

CAA Consulting won a coveted assignment as T-Mobile’s agency of record, reports SBJ’s Terry Lefton, as the mobile operator consolidated its marketing stores. This is a highly scrutinized study, since the wireless category represents the highest spending on marketing in itself – and in all sports.

CAA has been serving T-Mobile golf properties for several years. The company has also used Genesco and 160over90 for much of its sports activation, which includes a 10-year-old MLB rights dealas well as numerous contracts with MLB teams, an SEC/SEC Network sponsorship and its Las Vegas sponsorships (the upcoming F1 race and naming rights in the Golden Knights arena).

The Rangers are making their first World Series appearance since 2011. But their home stadium of four years is hosting its second Fall Classic.

Indeed, in 2020, MLB opted for a neutral site model for the pandemic postseason, including the World Series, then selecting the all-new Globe Life Field in its first season. This led some, including agent Scott Boras, to suggest that MLB should regularly hold its largest event at a neutral site, and at the time, commissioner Rob Manfred seemed open to the idea. With the Fall Classic returning to Globe Life, the league maintains it is not actively considering a neutral site for future World Series.

Read Erik Bacharach’s full story on the intriguing question of the neutral-site World Series as part of a an early access preview of next week’s magazine.

The first time Fred Ortiz watched a World Series game in the ballpark he helped design, the building held only a fraction of its full capacity. Neither team was the home team, but they were thousands of miles away. His parents, Mexican immigrants, were there, saving the otherwise surreal experience as Globe Life Field hosted a neutral-site World Series amid the pandemic in 2020.

This strange experience made it even more special when the Rangers hosted the D-backs in Games 1 and 2 of the 2023 World Series at the three-year-old stadium in Arlington, Texas. Ortiz planned to be there again, this time with about 40,000 Rangers fans cheering the team’s improbable run to the World Series.

The venue’s moment in the national spotlight has led Ortiz, global director of sports and entertainment practices at architecture firm HKS, to several moments of reflection on his life story — an immigration fairy tale American.

Read Bret McCormick’s full story on Ortiz’s relationship with Globe Life Field in this Early access to next week’s magazine.

The LPGA is heading to New England with a new event, the FM Global Championship, next year at TPC Boston, offering one of the highest purses on the tour, reports SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.

The LPGA will host the event, which will have a $3.5 million purse, the largest for a non-major or tour championship on the schedule. FM Global, a Rhode Island-based commercial insurance company, has committed to increasing the scholarship by $300,000 each of the five years of the contract. Industry sources say LPGA title sponsors typically pay between $3 million and $4 million annually, although those numbers have increased slightly as purse sizes have grown.

Last week, NFL Executive Vice President Peter O’Reilly gave team owners and executives a briefing on the league’s international strategy, which is shaping up to be the dominant theme of the next term by Commissioner Roger Goodell. O’Reilly didn’t say this in so many words, but sources who spoke to SBJ’s Ben Fischer I feel like the league is striving to play overseas a lot more often than the current five-game slate.

This week’s SBJ Football newsletter also covers:

• Gatorade’s Fast Twitch, with NFL push, still finds its place
• Ohio University addresses American football at conference in Germany

As the esports industry continues to face a significant correction, some attendees at the Esports Business Summit in Las Vegas spoke of positive indicators, reports SBJ’s Kevin Hitt. EBS director Robbie Caploe highlighted the fact that some companies are still looking to make acquisitions or merge.

In this week’s SBJ Esports newsletter, Hitt reports on some of the positives executives see in competitive gaming as it emerges from the cold business climate of the esports winter.

• Nielsen abandoned its plan to include Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” data in the ratings after facing criticism from network TV executives, but a Friday afternoon report from Variety suggests that the company “appears to be trying to move forward with new audience measurement technology that many TV networks say is not yet ready for prime time.”

• More than a dozen NHL corporate partners are busy Saturday around the 20th anniversary edition of the Heritage Classic at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton between the Oilers and the Flames, with Tim Hortons as title sponsor for the sixth times, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.

• Flatrock Motorsports Park, a new road course under construction two hours from Nashville, has begun discussions with MotoGP to host the World Motorcycle Racing Series there when it opens next year, writes SBJ’s Adam Stern.

• The Bills have partnered with Rival to launch their own interactive gaming community, Bills Mafia Gaming, notes Kevin Hitt of SBJ. Rival also works with the Cowboys, Browns, Lions and Seahawks.

• In this episode of SBJ Spotlight from SBJ’s Game Changers Conference, Lisa Murray, retired executive vice president of Octagon, shares the wisdom she’s accumulated during her 34 years with the agency.