John Kosner Spoke with Mike McCarthy of Front Office Sports About The Media Value of NFL Christmas Games

Original Article: Front Office Sports, by Mike McCarthy, March 28th, 2024

The NFL is planning a lucrative Christmas present—to itself.

The league is poised to auction off TV rights to its two new Christmas Day games for the 2024 season, say sources with direct knowledge of the strategy, with bidding likely to start in the $50 million range.

The league plans to open the bidding to all of its media partners, say sources, including CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN-ABC, and Amazon Prime Video. Collectively, these media giants will pay the NFL $110 billion through 2033.

The games are more likely to appear on linear TV networks than streaming platforms, the sources say.

The NFL declined to comment.

There’s no league better than the NFL at slicing and dicing up rights to find new revenue streams. Prime paid the league $100 million for exclusive streaming rights to the league’s first Black Friday game between the Jets and Dolphins last fall. The tech giant will now pay an estimated $120 million for the rights to its first playoff game this season. NBCUniversal’s Peacock, meanwhile, paid $110 million for streaming rights to the Chiefs-Dolphins wildcard playoff win last season.

Andrew Brandt, the former Packers executive turned consultant, estimates the Christmas Day games could end up selling for a 20% to 25% increase over the Black Friday game, which averaged 9.61 million viewers.

The NFL typically “exceeds expectations” when it comes to media deals, notes John Kosner, the former ESPN executive. He thinks the new Christmas Day games could sell for $75 million to $100 million apiece.

“The premium prices have come for exclusive streaming rights to NFL playoff games,” Kosner says. “NFL Christmas Day/night games have huge and growing audiences—but they are regular-season games scheduled seven months in advance. And traditionally the ad market for Christmas Day is not as robust.”

The NFL’s Christmas Day tripleheader in 2023 generated record TV audiences last season. CBS drew an average of 29.6 million viewers for an early-afternoon game between the Chiefs and Raiders. Fox drew 29 million for its lateafternoon broadcast of Giants-Eagles, and ESPN pulled 27.1 million for a prime-time Ravens-49ers game. Those figures dwarfed the average audience of 2.86 million for the NBA’s five competing Christmas Day games.

The NFL previously said its teams would not be in action this Christmas due to the holiday falling on a Wednesday. But the nation’s richest, most powerful sports league doesn’t like to leave money on the table. Besides generating more media-rights revenue, the NFL’s Christmas Day doubleheader will serve as another shot across the bow of the NBA, which dominated TV sports on the holiday for decades.

On his podcast, Colin Cowherd said the NFL is trying to effectively take Christmas Day away from the NBA as a tentpole TV event. “The gloves are off. It feels to me like the NFL has said, ‘We’re going to squeeze you,’” said Cowherd. “I do believe that’s a tipping point. That Christmas Day mattered a lot to the NBA. Those NFL games put a blanket over it.”

On Tuesday, NFL reporter Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated’s MMQB noted that the league would put the new Christmas games up for bid among the networks.

John Kosner Spoke with Adam Grossman of Revenue Above Replacement & JohnWallStreet About How AI Video Creation will Drive Sports Media Rights

Original Article: JohnWallStreet, by JohnWallStreet, March 26th, 2024

Savvy sports executives are trying to figure out how to monetize the content and data powering generative AI large language models (LLMs). Industry insiders believe succeeding on that initiative can help keep media-related revenues tracking up and to the right.

But OpenAI’s recent launch of Sora, a text-to-video AI model, has the potential to have an even greater impact on the industry by increasing the universe of ad buyers. If there are more companies willing to market themselves during live sporting events, then those broadcast rights should become more valuable.

Sora, currently available to just product testers and creative professionals, is not the first AI platform to enable users to turn text-based prompts into production-grade videos. Meta is among those with (or working on) a similar offering.

However, OpenAI’s ability to take a technically complex process and make it easy for everyday consumers to use (like it did with ChatGPT-3) has business leaders inside and outside of sports paying attention to the product before it has even been fully released. 

Inside sports, the focus has been on how Sora can help to democratize commercial production, and how that will influence ongoing and future media rights negotiations. 

Rights holders generate most of their revenues from carriage/affiliate fees and advertising. But because the process of creating commercials has historically been both costly and time-consuming (think: creative ideation, securing talent, production shoots, post-production editing), the pool willing and able to invest in them was limited. Only large-scale corporations with multi-million-dollar budgets could afford to produce spots for international, national, or regional broadcast. 

“The leading media companies generally serve the top 100 sports TV advertisers,” John Kosner (president, Kosner Media) said.

Of course, those are not the only businesses that could benefit from –and would have interest in– advertising during sporting events. There is little else on television that enables a marketer to reach as many viewers at once, and “diehard” sports fans tend be younger, more educated, and have higher-incomes than the median population.

“Sora could make [sports broadcasters] bigger players for the 4,000 or so [other businesses] that power Meta,” Kosner said.

Coincidentally, no company has done a better job of demonstrating that a broader market of advertisers likely exists for sports properties than Meta. Several times in recent years large sports advertisers have suspended ad buys across Facebook or Instagram (see: Coca-Cola, Diageo, Mars, HP, and CVS Health’s ad pause in 2020), and none of those protests made a substantial dent in its business. 

That is because the tech giant generates the bulk of its advertising revenue selling to smaller companies.

Meta generates billions in advertising dollars enabling rights owners to monetize content of all lengths and audience sizes, and by making it easy for niche brands to reach their target audiences. Remember, Meta has extensive data on the billions of people who use its platforms daily (think: specific interests, behaviors).

Sora can help companies, of any size, create video campaigns befitting all types of sports content. 

That includes the tech giants, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix, who have all started to dip their toes into the sports broadcasting space. 

“Having trained SVOD entertainment audiences to watch and binge their favorite shows with no commercials, leading streamers [now] need sports to establish robust ad businesses,” Kosner said. “That's why many of us expect the leading digital companies to become bigger and bigger ad buyers.”

And like Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix all have billions of data points on their customers. These companies should be able to leverage their sports content and insights to help brand partners, regardless of size and budget, reach their target demo. 

Legacy rights holders should be able to benefit from platforms like Sora too. In addition to having their own streaming services that need to be marketed, the broadcast networks are gradually obtaining data from connected televisions and able to provide granular details on viewers to advertisers. 

But it takes more than just reaching the target audience to run a successful campaign. Brands also need to develop commercials that can drive their desired outcomes and objectives. 

And that’s where Sora can really help resource constrained companies. Its platform allows them (and content creators) to quickly –and cost effectively– develop and test creative concepts. 

Media experts believe text-to-video platforms will be particularly beneficial for emerging sports properties that have traditionally struggled to sell larger corporations on advertising due to their audience sizes. 

Removing the creative bottleneck should enable rights owners and holders up and down the value chain to generate more money from live sports rights. But there are headwinds that could slow adoption of the tech. Sora, like many other AI offerings, will still needs to address intellectual property concerns. 

“While [these models] may ultimately enable near-instant production of videos for a creative concept, if the reference content that underlies that creative isn’t in the Public Domain, then the derivative creator –the broadcaster, advertiser– will still need to license the necessary IP rights to use it for commercial purposes,” William Mao (SVP, global media rights, Octagon) said.

However, the emergence of text-to-video AI should be viewed as a net positive for the industry. Growing the number of potential companies capable of creating and leveraging advertising during live sporting events will result in short-term revenue gains for rights holders and make those rights more valuable over the long-haul.

John Kosner Spoke with Mike McCarthy of Front Office Sports About Caitlin Clark’s Potential Impact on WNBA Media Negotiations

Original Article: Front Office Sports, by Mike McCarthy, March 19th, 2024

A wild card has emerged in the multibillion-dollar negotiations for NBA media rights: the WNBA.

The NBA and WNBA are jointly negotiating an extension of their current media-rights deals with the Walt Disney Co.’s ABC and ESPN. But the WNBA’s media rights are rising in value as Iowa’s Caitlin Clark prepares to join the league—and women’s sports reach new levels of popularity. 

The WNBA believes its media rights are undervalued. If the league doesn’t get what it wants jointly from ABC and ESPN, it’s quite likely to negotiate its own separate deal, say sources close to the negotiations—either with Disney or a competitor. Possible packages and proposals are flying back and forth between the two sides, sources tell Front Office Sports, and the WNBA is open to anything. The goal is to maximize the league’s reach and market value. 

The WNBA declined to comment for this story.

The WNBA currently earns about $60 million annually from its TV and streaming deals with ABC-ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, CBS, and ION. With excitement building around Clark and women’s March Madness, the league will try to push its annual media-rights payout to between $80 million and $100 million, predicts former ESPN executive John Kosner. ABC-ESPN generates about two-thirds of the WNBA’s annual rights revenue on a deal that will, like the NBA’s, expire after the 2024–’25 season. 

“You can’t miss all of the attention the 2024 [NCAA] women’s championship is receiving and ESPN’s strong ad sales efforts against it. All of this inures to the benefit of the WNBA’s media rights,” says the former ESPN executive turned founder of Kosner Media. “Caitlin Clark is that most unusual athlete who brings fans to the sport for the first time. Far more people will tune in to the WNBA this summer, and they’ll discover the wealth of talent in the women’s game.”

The WNBA just posted its most-watched season in 21 years, averaging 462,000 viewers per game across national TV partners ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS—up 21% over last year. On ABC alone, regular-season games averaged 627,000 viewers. The league also had its most-watched WNBA Finals in 20 years, averaging 728,000 viewers per game—a 36% year-over-year increase. As far as the live gate, the league’s average attendance rose 16% to 6,615 fans per game, the highest figure since 2018.

The rising tide of women’s sports is lifting all boats—or at least many. For the first time, Fox Sports averaged more viewers this season for women’s college basketball than men’s college hoops. Iowa’s stirring comeback OT victory over Nebraska grabbed more than 3 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game on CBS in 25 years. So-called “women’s elite sports” are projected to generate more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2024, according to Deloitte.

Donna Orender, the former WNBA commissioner, expects a “significant increase” in WNBA rights as Clark enters the league—almost certainly as the No. 1 pick of the Indiana Fever at the league’s draft in New York City on April 15. 

“The No. 1 driver of [TV] ratings points right now happens to be Caitlin Clark,” Orender tells FOS. “And her first game in the WNBA will be this spring. Her fans are going to follow. The WNBA’s fans continue to grow. It’s that convergence point that’s really moving things forward.”

The National Women’s Soccer League just set the record for the largest media-rights deal in women’s sports history via its $240 million deal with ESPN, CBS, Amazon, and Scripps Sports. The four-year deal will pay NWSL about $60 million a year—or 40 times what the previous deal did. That landmark pact bodes well for the WNBA as it nears tip-off of its 2024–’25 season May 14, according to Orender.

“These rights have been depressed, or suppressed, for quite a long time. But it’s always a question of buyer and seller. Everyone’s always trying to get their best price,” she says. “But I think there is a recognized increase in value across the board for women’s sports. And I think that’s going to be represented in the new rights fees that will be paid.”

Orender has a point. There’s an argument that the WNBA’s media rights are undervalued vis-a-vis men’s sports leagues. Take the NHL, which is in the second season of twin seven-year deals with ESPN and TNT. The NHL pockets a combined $625 million annually from ESPN and TNT—more than 10 times that of the WNBA’s current payout. But the WNBA’s average national viewership of 462,000 across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS last season nearly equaled the 474,000 for the league’s regular season on ESPN on TNT last season. WNBA fans also tend to be younger and more diverse, making them more attractive to advertisers.

The NBA is currently in a 45-day exclusive negotiating period with ABC-ESPN and TNT for new long-term agreements. The league will seek up to $75 billion for its next long-term media rights, according to CNBC. That would more than double the combined $24 billion from its twin nine-year deals through the 2025 season.

Here’s the problem for ESPN and TNT. Once ESPN’s exclusive negotiating period ends April 22, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is expected to throw open the bidding to Amazon, Apple, and former TV partner NBC Sports. Amazon is looking to replicate its success with the NFL’s Thursday Night Football by devoting a night to the NBA. The NBA, meanwhile, is looking to bring back the magic of the Michael Jordan/Chicago Bulls glory days in the 1990s. Losing the NBA would be a serious blow for ESPN and TNT as they try to launch their as-yet-unnamed streaming service, nicknamed “Spulu,” with partner Fox this fall.

John Kosner Spoke with Eric Prisbell of On3 About NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship TV Ratings

Original Article: On3, by Eric Prisbell, March 18th, 2024

Examine the NCAA men’s and women’s tournament brackets, envision dream matchups in the Final Four and consider something that has never before been remotely in play:

The women’s NCAA Tournament is the main attraction.

From South Carolina’s undefeated season and LSU’s quest to repeat as national champion to Caitlin Clark’s irrepressible offensive repertoire, the women’s bracket has monopolized the most compelling storylines. From Angel Reese and JuJu Watkins to Clark, it features a bevy of recognizable faces much like the men’s game did a generation ago.

This is Clark’s last dance. But now that the game is super-charged by more promotion across more platforms, this popularity surge could be more than a mere “One Shining Moment” for women’s hoops. The women’s game isn’t just having its moment.

“I think it is sustainable,” Neal Pilson, who served two stints as CBS Sports president in the 1980s and 90s as its coveted NCAA men’s tournament surged in popularity, told On3. “Women’s sports and the TV networks have finally seized on the promotion value of the athletes similar to how the NBA features its stars when promoting key games – ‘Lebron v. Steph,’ for example.

“Such promotion is very effective with the viewers.”

Ahead for the men’s tournament could well be an enticing buffet of captivating early upsets – likely more than in the women’s bracket – unexpected heroes and thrilling buzzer-beaters. But at least for this season, there’s no denying that the dearth of familiar men’s faces – other than Purdue’s Zach Edey – means the connective tissue between fans and the game is weaker.

Caitlin Clark is transcendent star in rare air

Meantime, the women’s event has a once-in-a-generation talent in Clark, the undisputed face of all of college hoops.

Amid the women’s tournament’s rise in appeal over the last several years, it has “broken through to a new level because of the phenomenon” of Clark, John Kosner, who led digital media at ESPN from 2003-2017 and is president of media consulting firm Kosner Media, told On3. 

“She is that most unusual of athletes who brings fans who might not care about the sport to watch,” Kosner said. “In my lifetime, that’s a short, short list – including Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.”

With the possibility of Clark starring in the national championship game on ABC, with the men’s game broadcast on TBS, could the women’s final rival the men’s in viewership?

If Clark reaches the championship, Kosner expects that rating to match that of the NCAA men’s championship on TBS, adding, “I believe it would exceed the men’s if ABC was carrying the game in prime time – like the men’s – and not at 3 p.m. ET.”

Last year’s LSU-Iowa women’s championship garnered 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s game ever. The UConn–San Diego State men’s final attracted 14.69 million, making it the least-watched men’s championship in recorded history. 

Because of the perpetual promotional build-up for the men’s final throughout the tournament, Pilson still believes the men’s final will outrate the women’s by a “substantial margin.” But he noted we could still see a record rating for the women’s final with Clark or LSU matched against unbeaten South Carolina in the championship.

Brands well aware of Caitlin Clark’s broad appeal

Clark is a jaw-dropping sensation. Former NBA player Tim Legler said last week on “The Tony Kornheiser Show” that Clark is one of the five most entertaining basketball players he has ever watched at any level.

“She is must-see TV,” Legler said. “I never thought we’d ever see a women’s player shoot the basketball from the shooting distances she’s shooting it. And you can make an argument that her range, relative to her game, her sport, is better than even Steph Curry’s range.”

Brands are well aware that her appeal transcends the traditional sports audience. 

The Iowa star has the top-ranked women’s basketball On3 NIL Valuation at $3.1 million. The valuation trails just Bronny James, Shedeur Sanders and Livvy Dunne. With 1.4 million social media followers, Clark has endorsement deals with State Farm, Nike and Gatorade among others. 

According to a recent report, Clark’s State Farm ads are 46% more likely to generate engagement than other State Farm ads.

More broadly, Brand marketing expert Kyle Christensen – the chief marketing officer at Splash – said the difference in brand interest in the women’s tournament five years ago to now is like the difference between “midnight and noon on a sunny day.”

How high is that interest this March?

“As an advertiser,” Christensen said, “you’d be a fool if you plan to show up on the men’s side and not show up on the women’s side.”

Christensen said some male-targeted brands should absolutely explore spending in women’s college basketball. And he believes Pepsi and DraftKings missed an opportunity with its recent announcement on a creative “Zero Right Bracket Challenge.”

Why not take the idea and leverage it on the women’s side, rather than only the men’s side?

Women’s game deprived of ‘spotlight’ it has deserved

As Christensen and others stress, we don’t yet know the ceiling on the popularity of the NCAA women’s tournament. It is only now that it is being showcased and promoted and super-charged with the resources necessary to see it thrive.

It was only three years ago several athletes – led by former Oregon women’s basketball player Sedona Prince – took to social media to demonstrate the inequality between weight rooms, food and other amenities provided by the NCAA to athletes during the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. 

A report prepared by Roberta A. Kaplan and her law firm found that the organization’s “broadcast agreements, corporate sponsorship contracts, distribution of revenue, organizational structure and culture all prioritize Division I men’s basketball over everything else in ways that create, normalize and perpetuate gender inequities.” Kosner and fellow media consultant Ed Desser provided analysis for the Kaplan report.

The NCAA has since addressed many of the inequities with branding and resources. It also recently secured an eight-year, $920 million rights deal with ESPN for 40 championships, including the women’s tournament. And it is engaged in discussions, albeit belatedly, regarding awarding financial units to schools in the women’s tournament.

Now the event is thriving. Its stars and storylines are promoted, highlighted and showcased. At least for this year, the women’s tournament takes center stage.

“It hasn’t been given the spotlight it has deserved over time,” Christensen said. “It’s the dawning of a new day.”

John Kosner Spoke to Jessica Toonkel of The Wall Street Journal About LeBron James’ Production Company SpringHill

Original Article: The Wall Street Journal, by Jessica Toonkel, February 15th, 2024

LeBron James is particular about his facial hygiene. He favors a Neutrogena pink-grapefruit wash.

“I love it, I love it, I love it,” the NBA superstar says.

James, 39 years old, also loves the business potential. His company, SpringHill, is launching its own rival face wash in a men’s grooming line—part of a major expansion of his burgeoning business empire in the twilight of his career.

“I told them I want this face wash to resemble that,” James said, “because I love how the crystals make your face feel super-washed.”

Almost a decade ago, James helped create a new kind of company: one built around the personality of a sports superstar who can talk directly to millions of fans on social media. Entertainment was the primary focus. SpringHill has made movies like Adam Sandler’s “Hustle” and “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” and TV series like NBC’s game show “The Wall” and the barbershop talk show “The Shop.”

Now James and his longtime business partner, Maverick Carter, have a dizzying list of expansion ideas. Beyond the grooming line, SpringHill is making plans to expand internationally, with an eye on Western Europe, the U.K. and possibly Japan and Africa. The company is planning to bring a version of “The Shop” to the U.K., hosted and executive-produced by British actor Idris Elba. SpringHill is discussing launching a free, ad-supported streaming channel, and is hunting for acquisitions, with a particular focus on videogames and animation.

Success isn’t a slam dunk. Building a consumer-product brand is notoriously difficult, and in entertainment, SpringHill is competing with a crowd of companies that have similar ambitions, while a new era of austerity in Hollywood is clouding the prospects for production deals.

James, sitting in an airport hangar one December afternoon and awaiting a Los Angeles Lakers team flight, said he’s always wanted to excel in more than one area—basketball fans know him as not just a dominant scorer, but an elite passer, rebounder and defender. “I have always felt like I was a Swiss Army knife,” says James.

He extends the analogy to the expansion of SpringHill into new lines of business. “We couldn’t just be a wine opener,” he says, “We wanted also to be a pair of scissors and a fingernail clipper.”

In its production business, SpringHill is trying its hand at a new format: a reality series following five National Basketball Association players, including James, through the season. The show is destined for Netflix.

SpringHill is looking to expand at a time when many streamers and advertisers are pulling back on spending, posing potential challenges for the company. The corporate owners of streaming services like Disney+, Peacock and Paramount+ are looking to burnish their balance sheets by culling their output and being more selective about which projects to pursue. SpringHill, like any creator in show business, could feel that pressure as it tries to sell programming in the coming years

“Many of the potential buyers for content and acquirers for their company are themselves in financial distress,” said John Kosner, a former ESPN executive who now runs his own media-consulting company.

SpringHill is competing with a number of production companies that are pitching sports content to the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Apple. Skydance Media, the company behind such hit movies as “Top Gun: Maverick,” and several “Mission: Impossible” titles, teamed up with the National Football League in 2022 to create sports-related content. “When you dig into leagues, athletes and the history of games themselves, it has been an untapped treasure trove with stories that haven’t been told,” said Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison in an interview last fall.

SpringHill is trying to distinguish itself with scripted content but hasn’t had many breakthroughs. It is in early development with Brad Pitt’s production company on a new show about sports agents that will be similar to Netflix’s popular show “Call My Agent,” according to people familiar with the situation. Some media investors who have looked at SpringHill question whether it is worth the $725 million valuation it was given when it raised money in late 2021—at the peak of the streaming-video boom.

Investors who did put money into SpringHill are optimistic, in part because it is stretching beyond the uncertain business of producing hits in Hollywood.

“Hits can be consumer products, a touring live show, partnerships with Fortune 100 brands, as well as TV and film projects,” said Jason Stein, founder and managing partner of SC Holdings, an investor in SpringHill and adviser to the company. “By design, SpringHill is not focused exclusively on hits in the traditional sense.”

‘Company Builders’

James ignited a movement in the sports world. Kevin Durant, Megan Rapinoe and Naomi Osaka are among the many other athletes that have launched media companies, hoping to control their own narrative, make a cultural impact and build a real business.

The list of such outfits keeps growing. The NBA’s Giannis Antetokounmpo in January announced a new production company, Improbable Media, whose first offering is a documentary about his rise for Amazon’s Prime Video.

It’s not only superstars: JJ Redick, a successful NBA role player, has launched his own firm built around podcasts like “The Old Man and the Three.” Pat McAfee parlayed a career as an NFL punter—not exactly the most glamorous of positions—into a successful YouTube show, building a company that now licenses its programming to Disney’s ESPN.

“There are a lot of people saying ‘Why am I not doing it if LeBron is?’ ” said Paul Wachter, CEO of Main Street Advisors, a SpringHill investor who has been an adviser to James since 2005.

Omaha Productions, the entertainment company started by former NFL star Peyton Manning, has gained significant traction—not just because its series “Quarterback” became a Netflix hit last year, but because it is intent on developing a robust pipeline.

“You don’t want to be a one-trick pony in this business,” said David Nevins, a former head of Paramount’s Showtime, who is now CEO of North Road, which has a stake in Omaha. Having your company attached to a famous athlete only gets you so far, he said. “It’s the smart company builders that will win,” Nevins said, adding that Manning is one of those executives.

SpringHill is the most mature, and the most diversified of the bunch—with lines of business that include advising brands on strategy and creating content for advertisers like Nike. The majority of SpringHill’s roughly $200 million in revenue comes from its studio business and advertisers hiring the company to create sponsored short videos meant to be shared on social media. For example, Toyota hired the company to create a short video about the importance of historically Black colleges and universities, starring former NBA player J.R. Smith.

When visitors enter SpringHill offices in Los Angeles, they are greeted with a neon sign saying, “I Am More Than an Athlete.” It’s dawning on more companies—from media to sportswear to luxury goods—that athletes can have a much bigger footprint in the business world than just starring in ads and movies, Carter said.

There’s a long history of athletes forging lucrative careers in business: Magic Johnson became a billionaire not as a former Lakers star, but through investments in an insurance company, movie theaters and sports franchises, among other areas. Now social media has allowed athletes to develop a deeper connection with consumers, giving them even greater opportunities, Carter said.

“Talent and creators—and I am putting athletes in that bucket—mean more to consumers now because they have the technology to speak directly to them,” Carter said.

SpringHill invests in and helps to grow other athletes’ production companies, including tennis star Osaka’s Hana Kuma, which recently spun off from SpringHill, and Miniature Géant Studio, started by NBA superstar Joel Embiid.

‘The Decision’

James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and the league’s oldest player, was in a playful mood last year on the morning after a Lakers win. As he waited for his flight in December, he was icing his knees and joking with teammates barely half his age about videogames and their attire. “You look like you are going to Bermuda,” he said to Anthony Davis, who was sporting tropical shorts.

James saw a need for athletes to tell their own stories before many of his current teammates were in the NBA.

The turning point came when James and Carter got panned by the press and fans for “The Decision,” a live ESPN broadcast in 2010 in which James announced he was leaving his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, to join the Miami Heat.

That was one of the reasons that led to James and Carter to launch “Uninterrupted,” a website designed to enable athletes to speak directly to fans that was one of several companies that were combined to make up SpringHill.

Carter, who has known James since they were kids in Akron, Ohio, was working in marketing at Nike before going to work with his longtime friend in 2005. His office at SpringHill’s headquarters reflects his eclectic interests, with books ranging from “The Pininfarina Book,” filled with photography from the Italian design firm, to “A Time Before Crack,” another photography book about New York City in the 1980s.

Carter studied Disney’s business plan when launching SpringHill. His mentors include Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg and former American Express CEO Ken Chenault.

Many of SpringHIll’s early projects have origins in James’s upbringing. For example, he was a big fan of game shows growing up, and was at the 9 a.m. pitch meeting with NBCUniversal for “The Wall,” in which contestants have the opportunity to win millions of dollars. NBCUniversal just renewed the show for a sixth season.

“The Shop,” a talk show that takes place in a barbershop, was inspired by James’s and Carter’s youth. “I didn’t grow up reading newspapers. I wasn’t fortunate enough to be in a library so you gained a lot of your information and intel of things in the world of the barbershop,” James said. “You can be unfiltered.”

The show, which has featured such guests as former President Barack Obama, football legend Tom Brady and singer Drake, is now on YouTube after airing for the first five seasons on HBO.

SpringHill’s upcoming men’s grooming line is named for his show “The Shop,” which spawned the idea, Carter said. James recalls that when he used to visit the neighborhood barbershop as a kid, you could get everything from incense to beard oil to hair gel, and envisioned something similar with the grooming line.

James has been involved in product development—he participated in focus groups of male employees at SpringHill discussing their grooming routines. When it came to face wash, he wanted his beloved Neutrogena product to be a model.

The challenges for the grooming line, which is to be sold exclusively through Walmart, will include competing against consumer-product giants with deeper pockets and longtime connections to large retailers, and persuading more men to use such products in the first place.

Basketball’s ‘Hard Knocks’

Every summer for years, James and Carter have gone on vacation together with their families on a yacht in the Mediterranean Sea. A question would pop up: Why aren’t we doing our own version of HBO’s “Hard Knocks”? It was a frequent conversation.

James, a lover of all things football, is a huge fan of the HBO show, which each year follows a different NFL team’s preseason training camp. When “Quarterback” became a big hit for Netflix, James saw an opportunity to press forward with a similar basketball show.

Getting the NBA to sign on was step 1. SpringHill had been cultivating its ties with the league for years. It cast a number of NBA players in “Hustle,” which helped build trust between the two sides. After the NBA and Netflix signed up for the idea of an NBA reality series, it was time to find the players.

James was interested in participating, but he had one key question: How would this affect a documentary of his life if he decides to do that someday? “It’s the only question he cares about,” Carter said.

Carter told him not to worry—the show wouldn’t preclude a documentary spanning his career. The NBA series, which will also feature Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Domantas Sabonis and Anthony Edwards, is being made in partnership with Omaha Productions and the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions.

James has been featured in TV shows and films including Judd Apatow’s “Trainwreck,” with Amy Schumer. He surprised many on that movie’s set with his deadpan delivery of lyrics from the song “Gold Digger,” offered as relationship advice for a pal played by Bill Hader.

James hopes to be more involved in the creative side of SpringHill when he retires. He says he would love to do a docuseries with his son Bronny, who plays for University of Southern California.

He also would like to do more acting.

“The next movie I want to do is a rom-com,” he said.

John Kosner Spoke with Mike McCarthy of Front Office Sports About Sports Rightsholder Streaming Concerns

Original Article: Front Office Sports, by Mike McCarthy, February 9th, 2024

LAS VEGAS — ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp. may have overlooked some key stakeholders with their ambitious plans for a combined streaming service. Namely: the powerful sports leagues to whom they pay billions in media rights fees.

In Vegas for the Super Bowl, where seemingly all of the media world is amassed, I’m hearing that the leagues went on red alert as soon as the three media conglomerates announced the multisport streaming service Tuesday. The notion: They’re suspicious that the members of the unnamed streamer collective will eventually try to bid for live-game rights as a combined entity, likely reducing the total media rights fees paid out to the leagues.

The new math in sports media is that the more media partners leagues have, the higher the total rights payouts they reap. The NFL, for example, will pull in $110 billion in media rights fees through 2033 across its deals with ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video. Throw in the league’s seven-year deal with YouTube for Sunday Ticket and that’s another $14 billion in the NFL’s pockets. 

And other pro leagues are closely following the NFL playbook. That’s why the NHL switched to two national media partners, ESPN and TNT, receiving a combined $625 million per year. With one media partner, NBC—albeit years earlier, in 2011—they collected $200 million per year.

With the NBA’s media rights expiring after the 2024–’25 season, look for The Association to double its media partnership from two to four, say my sources. Incumbents ESPN and TNT could be joined by Amazon Prime Video and NBC, a former media partner. The goal, as always, is to maximize rights fee by signing multiple partners.

For their part, the three companies involved in the joint-venture agreement maintain that they will continue to negotiate and acquire their respective sports rights independently. Let’s take them at their word. But things could change down the road. It’s still a legit concern for rights holders, warns John Kosner, a former NBA and ESPN executive turned media consultant. “Anything that potentially cuts down on the number of competitors bidding on sports rights is going to be, by definition, a significant concern to sports rights holders. It has to be,” Kosner tells Front Office Sports.

Adding to the suspicion: The leagues were “blindsided” by Tuesday’s blockbuster morning announcement, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sports leagues like to be briefed in advance about any shifts in business strategy. Apparently that didn’t happen this week.

“An effort to notify the leagues wasn’t made until Tuesday, before a planned announcement. Many learned of it when The Wall Street Journal broke the news,” the Journal reported. “The reason for the cone of silence was to keep the plans from leaking prematurely during the months the companies were settling the details, people involved in the partnership said.”

With the dust settling, two days later, leagues are still looking for answers on what this thing is, when it will launch, who will run it, and, most importantly, how it will impact them. Until then, they’re playing catchup.

“While we look forward to learning more about this new venture,” an NBA spokeswoman tells FOS, “we’re encouraged by the opportunity to make premier sports content more accessible to fans who are not subscribers to the traditional cable or satellite bundle.”

John Kosner Spoke with Rachelle Akuffo & Akiko Fujita of Yahoo Finance About Sports Streaming

Original Article: Yahoo Finance, by Rachelle Akuffo and Akiko Fujita, February 8th, 2024

The Walt Disney Company's (DIS) recent announcement of joint venture sports streaming service with Fox (FOX, FOXA) and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) dominated the company's latest earnings call. Kosner Media President John Kosner — who was also the former EVP of Digital & Print Media at ESPN — joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss why this move benefits Disney and satisfies sports fans who "really want a bundle."

Kosner notes this push away from the traditional linear TV packages is "part of the evolution of the business." Although threatening cable, Kosner argues "there are a lot of people who still want to get their channels in a traditional way."

However, Disney now has to persuade consumers why they should "want this" bundle over cable since offerings like news channels are not included.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.

Editor's note: This article was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, the word sports was mentioned in Disney's first quarter earnings call 50 times. As the company managed to trim its losses in its streaming division, it now looks to solidify its place in the sports world. Announcing that its full suite of standalone ESPN channels will be available in the fall of 2025.

Now this comes after revealing a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox for a sports streaming platform. Joining us now on this is John Kosner, Kosner Media President and former ESPN Executive Vice President of digital and print media. Thank you for joining us this morning.

So let's start by talking about the landscape that Disney is setting up here, because with this streaming deal, this will be the first time that you have your cord cutters and those who are loyal to cable will now have an alternative that really bridges both of them outside of the traditional cable bundle.

JOHN KOSNER: Yes, and the fans really want a bundle. I have a friend who's a big fan of the Arsenal Football Club who told me that he has to subscribe to seven different services to see every game. So the movement-- Disney announced two things yesterday. The movement to do the JV with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery really addresses a consumer demand for better bundling.

They also announced, Rachelle, as you said, that they're going to launch their flagship service, a standalone ESPN streaming service in fall of 2025. So these moves reflect sports fan demand. And it's just part of the evolution of the business away from the traditional pay television bundle.

AKIKO FUJITA: John, how significant is the risk for cannibalization? I mean, the argument for very long has been that the only reason cable has gone this long or has been able to survive this long is because of sports. If you've got alternatives out there like the bundle, like ESPN streaming service that allow you to view that, what is the case for keeping cable around?

JOHN KOSNER: Well, there are lots of people who still want to get their channels in a traditional way, combining entertainment and news. The challenges for the new JV is going to be explaining to fans why they want this versus what they could get as a combination of channels.

As we know, at least today, NBC is not part of this. CBS is not part of this. We don't know yet who's running the JV. We don't really have any details yet about the product around the JV. So there are a lot of questions there. And clearly, Lachlan Murdoch said this, they want to target those who are outside the system. So, there is risk to cannibalization of existing pay-TV subscribers. But the promise that this could be better and more focused for fans has the probability of bringing other people into the mix.

John Kosner Spoke with Mike Gunzelman of OutKick About the Kelce Brothers’ Media Appeal

Original Article: OutKick, by Mike Gunzelman, January 25th, 2024

Move over, Mannings, you’re about to have competition.

The star NFL brothers are prime to take over the sports and entertainment world and you can be sure that the suits are noticing it – in fact, I predict that it may even lead to Travis retiring from the Chiefs sooner than later knowing full well that he would have a career in media the very next day.

“I don’t know if and when either or both will formally retire but once both do, they are a natural TV and media attraction,” former EVP of digital and print media for ESPN John Kosner told OutKick.   “They are All-Pro performers who are smart, fun and authentic, appealing to everyone, just like the Mannings and Charles Barkley.  That is super hard to find and extremely valuable in our polarized country.”

Which networks are the frontrunners?

“I really like Amazon as a target [for the brothers] including some sort of shopping angle and maybe also featuring their mom,” Kosner added.

ENTER: THE ALT-CAST

A year ago, I wrote that television executives were going to oversaturate and run with the alt-casts until there were too many and it would eventually ruin their uniqueness. I likened it to the rise of podcasts where anyone and everyone seems to have one. It’s already happening; now we have people like Kevin Hart having a weekly ESPN2 NBA alt-cast that nobody whatsoever cares about.

“But, unless you’re Pat McAfee, Charles Barkley – or as I’ve advocated for: Travis and Jason Kelce, there are few personalities that can make the alt cast work [as well as the ManningCast and KayRodCast featuring Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez.],” I wrote back in April of 2023.

I was right.

Alt-casts only work if the PEOPLE ON THEM mesh and there are no two better candidates than Travis and Jason Kelce. They are absolutely buzzing and are a TV exec’s wet dream for the dollar signs and ratings that they would bring in.

Hell, they already are a proven concept.

The Kelce “New Heights” podcast is frequently the most downloaded sports podcast in the world.

You add the Taylor Swift aspect as well as Jason Kelce “conveniently” ripping his shirt off and being a DUDE while crushing beers when every sports fan was watching during that Chiefs-Bills game?

Jason alone just guaranteed himself a career in sports media for years from his antics at Sunday’s game.

With Netflix now entering the live sports broadcast business with a wild $5 billion purchase of the WWE’s Monday Night Raw rights, the competition is only growing for who can snag the Kelce brothers.

Eric Bischoff, who later went to the WWE and became a WWE Hall of Famer knows a thing or two about developing and selling characters on television. He created and was part of the famous nWo wrestling stable led by Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash which single-handedly transformed television ratings and the sports entertainment industry still to this day.

He believes the Kelce brothers have all the intangibles to become superstars in front of the camera.

“They are the Mannings with character version 2.0. My bet is their agents are already in negotiations,” Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of World Championship Wrestling (WCW) Eric Bischoff told me.

Former ESPN executive John Kosner, who helped develop the talents of Bill Simmons, Adrian Wojnarowski, and Darren Rovell while at ESPN, agrees with Bischoff.

“I bet the Kelce combo is atop the draft boards at every network and sports media company including the streaming companies.  I could see TV networks pitching them for both NFL and morning show work as well.”

WHERE DO YOU THINK THE KELCE BROTHERS END UP?

John Kosner Spoke with Chris Bumbaca of USA Today about Peacock’s Exclusive NFL Playoff Game

Original Article: USA Today, by Chris Bumbaca, January 13th, 2024

On multiple occasions during the final game of the 2023 NFL regular season, NBC play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico offered viewers a variation of the same promotion over and over.

“And don’t miss the first-ever exclusively streamed playoff game Saturday night,” Tirico said as the Buffalo Bills battled the Miami Dolphins with the AFC East on the line. “Available only on Peacock.”

Downloading a streaming app to watch an NFL playoff game? For some, the idea seems ludicrous. For another type of media consumer, it’s normal. For the NFL and NBCUniversal, it’s a forward-thinking way to stay ahead of the curve – and make more money.  

“We know and we see the continued evolution in the media landscape, and we want to be where our fans are,” NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder said on a conference call. “We know they’re increasingly, especially younger fans, on different screens.”

Why did an NFL playoff game end up on Peacock?

The addition of a seventh playoff team in each conference – and the elimination of a bye for the No. 2 seed – added two extra games to the wild-card slate. With that increased inventory, the NFL saw an opportunity to diversify its media presence on one of the biggest weekends of the football calendar.

“Considering cord-cutting and the soft TV ad-sales market, I think they have no choice but to pursue streaming because that’s where the growth is gonna be," John Kosner, the president of digital media and sports consultancy Kosner Media, told USA TODAY Sports. "That’s where media companies are investing.”

NBC Sports president Rick Cordella said the window was presented as a streaming-only game as part of the new media rights deal that went into effect prior to this season. NBCUniversal put together a pitch for the Saturday night game to air on Peacock. That, plus a reported $110 million, was all it took for Peacock to score rights to a matchup that resulted in the No. 3 Kansas City Chiefs — "Swifties," meet "The Office" — and No. 6 Dolphins.

“It’s not as if we shifted any games from linear to stream,” Cordella said. “This was an additional game that was available to us.”

In the past two years, an extra game was given to another broadcast partner, such as CBS or FOX, while the other went to ESPN on Monday.

The Chiefs-Dolphins game will still be available on the local NBC channel in the teams’ respective television markets.

“It’s historic, right?” Kosner said. “(NBC) also got a terrific game."

NFL fans becoming familiar with streaming

The NFL had 93 of the top 100 broadcasts in 2023, according to Nielsen ratings. That’s in large part due to their reach over cable, Kosner said. The league is able to offer a greater percentage of games available for free on TV than any other league.

In its second year of exclusively streaming “Thursday Night Football,” Amazon saw a 24% increase among total viewers (11.86 million) compared to the previous season (9.58 million). Kosner could see Amazon entering the postseason mix as early as 2025.

An international game was exclusively available on ESPN+ this year for the second straight season. And the NFL introduced NFL+, which allows fans to watch local and prime-time games for a monthly or yearly subscription rate.

All “Sunday Night Football” games on NBC are streamed simultaneously on Peacock (CBS does something similar with its NFL package and Paramount+). Peacock currently has 30 million subscribers, according to NBCUniversal. Comcast president Mike Cavanagh said in December the platform took on $2.8 billion in losses in 2023.

"It’s going to be fascinating to see," Kosner said. "I would be surprised if there wasn’t a lot of consternation among NFL fans as to they don’t know where the game is, they’re annoyed they have to pay $5.99 to see it. But this is how you seed new markets and new platforms."

The deal between NBCUniversal and the NFL for the streaming-exclusive playoff game is for this season only. Schroeder said future postseason games available digitally will be evaluated during the offseason.

"That really was at the top of our list as we thought about the major media partnerships we did a couple years ago," Schroeder said, "making sure all our partnerships had broad digital distribution and that we are growing in that important place for our fans."

What will ratings look like?

NBC did a version of a dry run by airing the Dec. 23 Bills-Los Angeles Chargers game exclusively on Peacock. According to Nielsen data, the game averaged 7.3 million viewers, peaking at 8.4 million from the 10:45-11 p.m. ET.

The expectation is that the first wild-card game Saturday between the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns, which starts at 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, will draw in excess of 20 million viewers. NBC is betting on the lead-in to drive viewers toward Peacock and that first broadcast will be filled with self-promotion and reminders of how to watch Chiefs-Dolphins during that Browns-Texans matchup.

“We’re going to take a lot of learnings from it,” Schroeder said. “Certainly, viewership will be one of them. That will be just one of the criteria we think about and look at the opportunities we have going forward.”

Why NBC wanted to put an NFL playoff game on Peacock

Simply put: subscribers. Paying customers.

Cordella said that success won’t be judged Sunday morning or by the ratings. The long-term behavior by customers who signed up for the game – and can cancel at anytime – will be the lasting impact.

“We did this for a reason. It’s not just to get people to watch on Saturday night,” Cordella said. “It’s to get people to watch and experience all this various content that we have across the Peacock service.

“It’s down the road – did people behave how we thought they would behave once they get inside the platform?”

Additionally, Cordella pushed back on the idea that the game amounted to a $6 pay-per-view (the cost of a monthly subscription – with ads). He cited the growing men’s and women’s college basketball presence on the platform, with the top-ranked Purdue men losing Tuesday night followed by Iowa star Caitlin Clark playing the next. WWE, Premier League, MLB and other sports leagues have presences on Peacock. The Paris Summer Olympics later this year will also be featured on Peacock.

“There’s a wealth of content that people may be unaware it exists,” Cordella said.

And those are all reasons for sports fans to keep paying a monthly bill for Peacock.

“They’re very sports-focused, between EPL and college football," Kosner said. "So they’ll have to tell that story, along with ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and all that content they have. But I think it’s going to be a challenge to keep the many, many fans who really were subscribing just to watch this particular game.”

Still, Kosner predicted "millions" of sign-ups from Saturday alone.

“That’s going to be great for Peacock," the longtime ESPN executive said. "I can’t imagine what other content Peacock could offer that would give them the boom they’re going to get on Saturday night. The test, of course, is how many of the fans are going to stay with the service next month?”

The Taylor Swift effect

Kosner wondered whether the choice of Kansas City was a factor (Schroeder provided a non-answer about a holistic approach to scheduling wild-card weekend).

“You have Taylor Swift, her factor here,” Kosner said. “That’s going to attract women, that’s going to attract younger, tech-savvy fans. Was that a choice made on purpose? Because that’s an audience that Peacock would like to have.”

Who are the announcers for the Chiefs vs. Dolphins on Peacock?

Chiefs vs. Dolphins is one of three games to air on NBC properties this weekend. Tirico will be the play-by-play announcer for two, starting with the Peacock game. He will be joined by Jason Garrett as the game analyst and Kaylee Hartung as the sideline reporter.

Meanwhile, NBC opted to go with its top college football broadcast crew of Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge and Kathryn Tappen to call the early game – leaving Al Michaels, he of “emeritus” NBC status, out of the picture. Tirico will then travel overnight to call the Los Angeles Rams at Detroit Lions on Sunday (8 p.m. ET, NBC).

Kosner expects the early Saturday broadcast to use the lead-in as an advantage and heavily cross-promote Peacock sign-ups.

What will be different about Peacock playoff game?

Like the first Peacock game, the fourth quarter will have no commercials. Cordella said they learned a lot three weeks ago during the first experiment about when to toss to the studio or stay with the break in the action on the field with the broadcast booth.

Chiefs’ Charles Omenihu offers to buy Peacock subscriptions

Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu reacted to the playoff schedule announcement by posting on social media: “Us playing on peacock ONLY is insane I won’t lie.”

For Chiefs (and Dolphins) fans who are considered out-of-market viewers, that’s the reality of Saturday’s game. But Omenihu wanted to help out the members of “Chiefs Kingdom” who were displeased with the situation.

“I saw the comments and want y’all to be able to watch us play," Omenihu wrote on social media. "So, I’m giving away 90 3-month Peacock memberships! To enter to win, reply to this tweet with why you should get picked. Picking winners Friday!”

The winners of the Omenihu sweepstakes will enjoy Peacock beyond Saturday night, which is what NBC wants. Everybody else better pony up that credit card information – if they haven't already.

John Kosner Spoke with Ira Boudway of Bloomberg about The NBA’s Media Negotiations

Original Article: Bloomberg, by Ira Boudway, January 8th, 2024

It’s been almost a decade since the NBA went to market with its national TV rights. In fall 2014, the league agreed to a pair of nine-year deals for a combined $24 billion with Walt Disney Co. (home of ABC and ESPN) and what’s now Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. (owner of TNT). At $2.7 billion per year, almost triple the annual value of the previous agreements, the deals helped the National Basketball Association grow rapidly—pushing player contracts into the hundreds of millions of dollars and franchise values into the billions. With those rights set to expire in 2025, the NBA will announce new landmark TV agreements this year.

Yet it’s been a tumultuous 10 years since the league was last at the table. Legacy media companies are being squeezed between the decline of the traditional cable bundle and the high cost of building subscription streaming services. In 2014, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, more than 100 million US households had a multichannel pay-TV subscription. Now that number is below 75 million. The streaming apps created to recapture those lost viewers, meanwhile, are collectively racking up billions of dollars in losses each year for media giants such as Comcast, Disney, and Paramount.

This time around, industry observers say, the NBA will be hard-pressed to triple its TV money. And the league won’t be able to simply cut and paste from past contracts. “These deals are going to look and feel different,” says John Kosner, a sports media consultant and former ESPN executive.

The process officially begins in March when Disney and Warner enter an exclusive 45-day window to negotiate possible extensions. But the two incumbents aren’t likely to wait until then to submit bids. Possible newcomers, including Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., have already begun positioning themselves to grab a piece of the NBA.

Currently, Disney gets 100 regular-season games, split between ESPN and ABC, plus a piece of the playoffs and all of the NBA Finals. Warner gets 64 regular-season games and a share of the playoffs. Most observers anticipate that both networks will continue carrying NBA games. “I wouldn’t expect either of the incumbents to fumble the opportunity,” says Ed Desser, a sports media consultant and former NBA executive. The shape of those packages is likely to change, however, as the league looks to carve out space for partners that can reach younger audiences and help keep the sport relevant. “The NBA has a younger-skewing fan base that is more liable to be accessed via a streaming platform,” Desser says. “You’ve got to fish where the fish are.”

In the past three years, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer have all done TV deals with the tech giants. The NFL sold Thursday Night Football to Amazon for more than $1 billion per season and its out-of-market Sunday Ticket package to Alphabet’s YouTube TV for $2 billion, while Apple Inc. bought Friday night games from MLB for a reported $85 million and then spent about $250 million to become the streaming home of MLS.

The NBA is almost certain to bring in a nontraditional broadcaster, too. To maximize revenue in a fractured landscape, says Daniel Cohen, a media rights consultant at Octagon Inc., the league will need to expand its partners to three or four. “If they do that with the right packages, then I could see $2.7 billion going to $6 billion,” Cohen says, referring to its annual haul. (Such a setup might look like this: a reduced number of games on ESPN-ABC and TNT; a weekly exclusive game on Apple TV+; and the league’s new In-Season Tournament going to Amazon.)

For fans, that could make following the NBA costlier and more complicated, with additional paywalls to jump over. But such is the life of sports fans these days as the cable bundle unravels.

John Kosner Spoke with Ben Portnoy of The Sports Business Journal About ESPN’s New NCAA Media Agreement

Original Article: Sports Business Journal, by Ben Portnoy, January 5th, 2024

That quaking you feel beneath your feet is coming from Indianapolis.

The NCAA this week announced a landmark eight-year deal with ESPN worth $115 million annually ($920 million total) for the broadcast rights to 40 championships — including women’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics and more.

The move is a major one for NCAA President Charlie Baker, ESPN and those involved with the discussions. What does it all mean?

Here are a few takeaways:

NCAA avoided temptation to split up its TV package

Speculation in college sports circles in recent months centered on whether the NCAA would consider breaking out the women’s basketball tournament or the men’s and/or women’s College World Series into their own media bundle in some capacity.

Baker and his team decided against that. Why? Let him explain:

“What we had always said was we wanted the best deal for all of our championships,” Baker said when asked if the NCAA considered packaging the women’s basketball tournament separately. “If you think about it, it’s [2,300] hours of programming, which over the eight years of the deal will take place in an enormous number of settings with a whole variety of challenges and on the ground circumstances [making] this something where if you can get a production partner who’s willing to bite the whole thing of at a price that we believe is more than market competitive, we thought that was a better way to go.”

The decision to keep things bundled largely as they had been is layered. While there was a public narrative that the women’s basketball package could be healthy on its own, there was at least some fear that breaking of the most lucrative pieces of this package could devalue the remaining sports and leave them out to dry. In many media circles, both consultants and network sources shared that the value of the package was far greater with it being bundled and maintained. There are also the simple complications of having potentially more than one broadcast rights partner on these championships — more cooks in the kitchen, etc.

This isn’t to say there was lack of interest. Hillary Mandel, executive vice president and head of Americas for media at IMG, suggested there would have been plenty of interested parties should the rights have hit the open market (ESPN had an exclusive negotiating window on this deal).

Sources told Sports Business Journal that Fox Sports was among the parties that might have been interested in the rights to NCAA women’s basketball and volleyball if they were broken of, given the network’s investments in both sports in recent years.

“If you were to unbundle, the top of the package would be grabbed by everybody,” said Mandel, who consulted on the deal alongside Karen Brodkin, executive vice president and co-head of WME Sports. “But what would happen to everybody else? That’s not who the NCAA is. They don’t want to leave anybody behind.”

What does it mean for women’s basketball?

It’s a win for a number of women’s college sports, but if there’s a crown jewel in this collection of rights, it’s the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

Baker told SBJ the NCAA valued the women’s basketball tournament at $65 million annually, or roughly 56% of the total value of the media rights included in this package. That’s a big number considering the entire last deal signed with ESPN in 2011 was only worth about $40 million annually.

“The trajectory of this property, in particular women’s sports, over the past few years, is extremely positive,” said Nick Dawson, ESPN’s senior vice president of college sports programming and acquisitions. “To have the entirety for eight more years is, in our view, a great place to be.”

Detractors will say the NCAA didn’t get enough in this deal. Media consultants Ed Desser and John Kosner, who provided analysis for the “Kaplan report” on gender equity published in 2021, estimated the women’s basketball championship could generate between $81 million and $112 million in annual rights fees and suggested it would be best sold as its own entity.

Kosner said ESPN is set up to manage the tonnage of the overall rights package “and although I think both Ed and I would argue that it would be a fascinating opportunity for one of the top digital companies, it’s not clear that any really got deeply involved.”

NCAA women’s basketball viewership has grown exponentially in recent years. The NCAA women’s title game between LSU and Iowa last year drew 9.9 million viewers on ABC, compared to the 14.69 million the men’s title game featuring UConn and San Diego State brought in on CBS. The LSU-Iowa contest was also the first women’s basketball title game to air on broadcast TV under the current media rights agreement with Disney/ESPN, which began prior to the 1996 tournament, and the title game will continue to air on ABC under the terms of the new deal.

The media rights market is a tight one, with a clear bifurcation between top properties getting a rights increase and others weighing not-so-attractive options, but the NCAA still netted a deal worth three times the previous one.

“We’re seeing the fruits of many, many years of labor coming to fruition in women’s sports,” Desser said. “If you go back 25 years, women’s sports was really almost an afterthought. I think it no longer is. It’s now in the mainstream. If you can generate a [almost] 10 rating on a women’s college basketball game, then you’ve really come a long, long way.”

ESPN stays frugal, but keeps its hands in everything

Despite the issues facing Jimmy Pitaro, the leader of ESPN didn’t flinch when it came to maintaining the company’s relationship with the NCAA and its belief in college sports, and ESPN now controls the domestic rights to virtually all of the NCAA’s championships — the massive exception being the men’s basketball tournament.

The deal is set to include 2,300 hours of championship programming, 800 hours of which will be on linear ESPN platforms. That’s certainly helpful in filling air time across its various platforms, but it shows that ESPN is committed to amplifying the coverage across its networks.

“What we bring to the table here, yes it’s the studio, it’s our megaphone, it’s our brand, it’s our production quality,” Pitaro told SBJ. “But it’s first and foremost our multiplatform approach.”

ESPN has been prudent with recent deals. The network passed on the Pac-12 deal, yet it’s currently working to re-up its rights with the College Football Playof, which expire after the 2025 season. ESPN also has upcoming negotiations with the NBA and UFC.

The new deal with the NCAA is set to expire in 2032, the same year the men’s basketball rights are scheduled to hit the market. That should give the NCAA ample flexibility then, but could grant ESPN that same ability.

“Most of the time when you’re involved in a negotiation, there’s what people say at the beginning and then there’s what people say when they come back for the third time,” Baker said. “One of the things that was really impressive to me about this was ESPN, they wanted this and they were willing to work for it.”

A win for Charlie Baker and the NCAA’s forward thinking

Barely nine months into his role, Baker, the former Massachusetts governor, has been resolute in trying to bring the NCAA into the 21st century. The proposal regarding athlete compensation he unveiled at the SBJ Intercollegiate Athletics Forum last month was a monumental moment for college sports and a profound shift in thinking. Helping nab a media rights deal in a tight market is another impressive feat early in his tenure.

“We think this is a terrific opportunity and a great deal,” Baker said, “and a chance to give a ton of additional visibility through some of the elements of the agreement beyond just the money for a variety of our sports.”

The NCAA has plenty of chaos to sift through in the coming months. Myriad lawsuits regarding athlete compensation could result in major settlements and the college athlete employment debate rages on.

Still, Baker is garnering attention in a positive way — that’s significant in its own right.

Parks Associates Names John Kosner One of the Top Leaders in Video and Entertainment

Original Article: Parks Associates, Top 2023 Leaders in Tech - Video and Entertainment, December 28th, 2023

International research firm highlights industry leaders in entertainment and streaming, energy, connected health, multifamily, and connected home and security.

Parks Associates, the research authority on digital lifestyles and technology, today released its 2023 Top Leaders in Technology, an annual list that recognizes leading technology executives who are featured speakers at the firm’s annual executive conferences. Parks Associates recognizes these leaders for their pivotal roles in market growth and their dedication to expanding industry knowledge. The research firm reports that 90% of US internet households now own a smartphone, surpassing the television for the first time to become the most ubiquitous device among US consumers.

John Kosner Spoke with Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic about NASCAR’s New Deal

Original Article: The Athletic, by Jordan Bianchi, November 30th, 2023

NASHVILLE — NASCAR’s media future is now clear.

NASCAR on Wednesday announced its new media rights deal that will take effect beginning with the 2025 season, maintaining an alignment with traditional partners Fox Sports and NBC Sports while bringing in new partners Amazon Prime and Warner Bros. Discovery (via its TNT and B/R Sports platforms) as part of a seven-year deal worth an estimated $7.7 billion dollars, according to industry sources. The deal signals NASCAR’s first foray into streaming its premier Cup Series races and follows other sports like football and baseball onto both traditional TV and streaming services. 

For a sport in a constant quest to build its audience, what does the big picture look like? Let’s take a look.

What is the breakdown in the number of races each of the four partners will cover? Any idea exactly on the specific races they’ll have on their respective platforms?

Both Fox Sports and NBC Sports have rights to 14 races annually, with Amazon and Warner Bros. each having five apiece. How the still-to-be-determined 2025 schedule lays out will determine which races will air on which platform, though a few things are known — or can at least be surmised.

As it has since 2001, Fox’s portion comes at the beginning of the season, starting with the Clash exhibition and then the subsequent 13 races. Amazon’s first race is the 15th on the schedule, which is likely to be the Coca-Cola 600, according to industry sources. TNT/Warner Bros. follows Amazon, and appears likely to get the Chicago Street Race, if it returns in 2025, given its spot on the calendar and NASCAR’s desire to give all partners a signature race.

“I would say both (Amazon and WBD) are interested in embracing major tentpole events, and so we will make sure that we have major tentpole events for all of our partners,” NASCAR president Steve Phelps said Wednesday. “I’m not sure how long we’ll be doing the Chicago street race — I hope we do the Chicago Street Race for seven years — but we’ve got to make sure we have some flexibility today.”

NBC will take the final 14 races, including the entire playoffs.

Phelps also confirmed that the Daytona 500 will continue as the opening points race for the “foreseeable future.” Fox will also retain rights to the All-Star Race, NASCAR’s other exhibition race, which traditionally has been the 15th race on the schedule, meaning that race will move up.

Looking at how the schedule typically is put together, summer races at Gateway, Pocono, New Hampshire, Sonoma, Iowa and Nashville are expected to be among those carried by either Amazon or Warner Bros. NBC retains the regular-season finale, the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend and staple playoff races such as Bristol, Kansas, Talladega and Martinsville.

“What happens in 2025 and beyond, I don’t know, schedule-wise at all other than where we are going to start our regular season,” Phelps said. 

Why did NASCAR emphasize aligning itself with streaming services?

NASCAR is one of the few major professional sports properties that didn’t already have a streaming deal, something industry experts contend factored in the league struggling to adequately market itself toward a younger demographic. 

“Ever since the pandemic hit, people have been leaving video subscriptions on pay TV, and as a result, if you want to reach a growing number of homes that are younger, that are tech savvy, that are your next generation of fans, then you have to have a robust streaming presence for at least some of your content,” said Lee Berke, president and CEO of sports media consulting firm LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media Inc. “You still want the broad reach you get in broadcast, and you still want to be included on pay TV in some respects, but your platforms increasingly need to include a substantial streaming component.”

NASCAR knew it needed to do a better job capturing the attention beyond its older core audience. The hope is that Cup races becoming more accessible beyond television will help introduce the sport to a younger audience. And that point has obviously been made to its new partners.

“We really want to go innovate,” said Jay Marine, Amazon Prime Video vice president and global head of sports. “We look at this as a seven-year-plus partnership, and we’ll talk about the renewal later, but that’s how we want to invest so that we can innovate for the long-term, and we’re excited to do that. We’re excited to reach a younger audience who may have cut the cord and (is) not watching as much, which we’ve been able to do with ‘Thursday Night Football,’ as an example. We’re excited to be part of it and excited to work across this partnership group, as well.”

Both Phelps and RFK Racing president Steve Newmark noted Wednesday they have college-aged children who consume programming primarily through their mobile phones or tablets. 

“My kids in college are consuming more from streaming than they are probably from broadcast, so to me, this gives us that right blend,” Newmark said. “And I don’t think any of us knows what the media landscape is going to look like in 10 years. But what this does is this gives us kind of covering all the bases, and so I actually think our (sponsors) are going to be excited about it.”

What else jumps out about this deal?

The money, of course. Securing a deal that brings in $7.7 billion is nothing to sneeze at, especially in a marketplace that has seen several notable sports properties either recently sign new deals or about to come up for renewals, and all while media companies are scaling back their expenses and becoming more selective on what they bid on.

So, yeah, NASCAR faced plenty of hurdles during this prolonged process that took longer to complete than anticipated.  

“We wanted to make sure that all the innovation we’re doing from a sport perspective that we were getting in front of new demos and that we were setting ourselves up well for the future,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president of media and productions.

That NASCAR navigated the changing landscape and landed a deal worth nearly 40 percent more than its current deals is a success, industry experts note.

“NASCAR had a successful, long-term renewal along the lines that most had predicted,” said John Kosner, president, Kosner Media and former executive vice president of ESPN Digital. “If there were surprises, it’s that the process took longer to finalize and that it required four partners (and two streaming partners) to complete the deal. This is a negotiation trend we are seeing where more broadcast parties are necessary for a league to achieve its revenue and reach goals.”

Said Ed Desser, a longtime media consultant: “NASCAR got a nice raise, but not as large as in prior deals. This has more to do with where NASCAR started (very strong prior deals) and the changing marketplace (streaming, cord-cutting, etc.) than any meaningful change in the underlying product itself. NASCAR has addressed its recent issues like most major professional sports organizations do periodically.”

How will longtime NASCAR fans likely react to this news?

Undoubtedly, some fans are going to be annoyed that they’ll have to subscribe to Amazon and also have another platform that provides access to live programming for the Fox, NBC and WBD components of the deal — an understandable complaint as such expenditures can quickly add up.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that this is now the life of a sports fan. Almost every league is spreading itself among multiple platforms, necessitating multiple subscriptions if you want to watch every game/race. It’s tough to swallow, but it isn’t changing anytime soon. 

If you’re looking for a silver lining, it’s that having a partner like Amazon allows for flexibility in how a race is presented to viewers. In addition to a traditional broadcast, the opportunity is there to bring viewers alternative streams providing an array of options. For example, maybe a stream focused solely on in-car video or offering in-depth technical data geared toward the hardcore, technical-minded fan? 

In a sponsorship-driven sport where companies want as many eyeballs on their brands as possible, is there a risk for NASCAR in shifting races to a streaming service?

The Athletic has asked numerous people within the NASCAR industry and experts in the sports media landscape and, near universally, the answer is: This was something NASCAR needed to do. If the league wanted to grow its fan base, it had little choice but to pursue this avenue.

“The reality is every sport out there, if they’re going to have some long-term perspective on what they need to do, they need to come up with their next generation of fans,” Berke said. “And if you’re not being seen by them growing up, then they don’t know about you. They don’t become fans. You’re not born a NASCAR fan. You have to be exposed to it.”

No wonder team executives, many of whom can be described as “risk averse,” were praising the deal on Wednesday, both publicly and privately, after learning the specifics of the financials and what it means for NASCAR’s future.

“I think the new arrangement is fantastic,” Newmark said. “From our perspective, what we like to see is kind of the might of those four media companies will all be behind promoting our sport. I think the access and the distribution is really going to help us take it to the next level and fits with the vision of our sport of being aggressive, and bold. We’re really excited about what that brings.”

On the subject of the teams, what does this mean for the ongoing negotiations between them and NASCAR over a new charter agreement?

Before extending its charter agreement with teams, which expires at the end of the 2024 season, NASCAR first wanted to secure its next media rights deal so it had a better idea of the financials it had to distribute. 

With this box now checked, all attention turns to the last big, pressing domino facing NASCAR on the business side. Neither NASCAR nor team executives were keen Wednesday to discuss their ongoing negotiations and how to best divide revenue, preferring instead to focus on the completed TV deal.

There is no timeline for when an extension to the charter agreement will be finalized, Phelps said, though he did state that NASCAR was committed to striking a deal. 

Where can fans watch practice and qualifying?

For the most part, practice and qualifying sessions can be found on either Amazon or B/R Sports. Amazon will stream the first half of the 38-race schedule, B/R Sports the second with some airing on TruTV. The only exceptions are the Clash, the Daytona 500 and NASCAR All-Star Race, all of which Fox Sports will televise.

What about the future TV deals for the Xfinity and Truck Series?

Fox announced Wednesday it retained exclusive rights to the entire Truck Series schedule through the 2031 season, though the specific terms weren’t disclosed.

The Xfinity Series will have its entire 33-race schedule broadcast on The CW beginning in 2025. Similar to the Cup deals, NASCAR signed a seven-year contract with the network that is available nationwide via over-the-air television.

John Kosner Spoke with Oliver Barnes of The Financial Times about ESPN Bet

Original Article: The Financial Times, by Oliver Barnes, November 14th, 2023

Over the course of more than two decades with ESPN, anchor Scott Van Pelt has endeared himself to viewers by commentating on the iconic 18th hole at the US Masters golf tournament and delivering breaking news on the broadcaster’s flagship SportsCenter programme.

In an advert released to promote Tuesday’s launch of ESPN Bet, the Disney-owned sport network’s betting venture with casino group Penn Entertainment, Van Pelt, known affectionately by viewers as SVP, pumps his fist as a notification flashes up on his phone declaring him a “winner!”

The 15-second commercial is a glimpse into why Penn agreed to pay ESPN $150mn a year to secure a 10-year licensing deal, wagering that its broadcast stars and 200mn-strong monthly audience will help crack the duopoly of DraftKings and FanDuel, which together control more than two-thirds of the $9bn US online sports betting market.

“People that think this battle has been fought and won are way ahead of where I think the market is,” said Steve Bornstein, ESPN’s former chief executive who runs betting data group Genius Sports’ North America division. “Obviously there are some very dominant players . . . but we’re still in the go-go growth stage, the market is not calcified.”

For ESPN, Penn offers expertise in the gambling sector and the technology to power the new app, which the casino group acquired in its $2bn takeover of Canadian gaming app theScore in 2021. Penn also operates more than 40 bricks-and-mortar casinos.

Penn will pump an additional $150mn a year into marketing ESPN Bet, which is launching in 17 states.

ESPN Bet is not the only latecomer hoping to break into a market that has rapidly consolidated in the five years since the US Supreme Court overturned a 1992 law banning sports betting. In August, sports merchandise company Fanatics launched its betting app in four states, hoping an offer of a free sports jersey after placing $50 worth of bets would attract fans.

But “first-mover advantage”, combined with the fine-tuned technology used by DraftKings and FanDuel, mean “it’s going to be pretty difficult for any other companies to break 10 per cent market share”, predicted Chad Beynon, a gaming industry analyst at Macquarie Group. In the 26 US states, as well as Washington DC, where sports betting is legal, companies that have launched even just months after the legalisation date found it “incredibly difficult to acquire customers”, noted Beynon.

Since the start of the NFL season, Fanatics and its sister app PointsBet, which the sports merchandise group acquired for $150mn earlier this year, have been downloaded 371,000 times by smartphone users, the fourth highest for any sports betting app over the period, according to JMP Securities. But the Fanatics app has so far failed to achieve higher than a 3.5 per cent market share in any state.

“Ultimately, we’re a second mover . . . we embrace that as permission to frankly move more methodically,” acknowledged Matt King, chief executive of the Fanatics betting app, who previously ran FanDuel between 2017 and 2021. He added that “the quest for short-term market share bumps” had historically led betting apps “to light a lot of money on fire”.

By next spring, Fanatics will have migrated all of the PointsBet customers over to its app, enabling customers in as many as 20 states to access the new app. “Our view is let’s take time to get our product right,” added King.

But Penn does not have the luxury of time to make a success of ESPN Bet. Three years into the partnership, ESPN can activate a termination clause on the arrangement if the app fails to gain significant market share. ESPN Bet “needs to come out of the gates firing”, said Bernie McTernan, a senior analyst with Needham & Co. The deal also grants ESPN the ability to eventually become a significant shareholder in Penn.

In investor meetings, Penn and ESPN executives have talked up a Jefferies survey of more than 1,400 casual sports bettors, which showed that 53 per cent were open to trying ESPN Bet and 25 per cent expected to make it their primary betting platform, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Tuesday, Penn will send a prompt to the 2mn customers on its Barstool sportsbook to download the ESPN Bet app. But the bigger hope is that the app will appeal to ESPN users who use the sport networks to check scores but currently “have to leave ESPN’s ecosystem” to place a bet, Jay Snowden, Penn’s chief executive, explained at a launch event this month.

Snowden has previously pointed to the success of the UK’s Sky Bet, which uses broadcaster Sky Sports’ brand identity and now has the same parent company as FanDuel, as a blueprint for ESPN Bet. “There’s only one worldwide leader in sports so this was the opportunity of the century,” said Snowden.

ESPN Bet branding will be rolled out across ESPN’s TV shows in the coming months. On the app, ESPN’s hosts, such as Van Pelt, will recommend bets for users.

Since sports betting was legalised, Disney has toyed with the idea of launching an ESPN betting brand as a means of returning the broadcaster, which generates $2.9bn in annual profits, to growth, but chief executive Bob Iger was initially cautious.

Iger said on an earnings call in 2019 that he doubted ESPN would be “getting into the business of betting” any time soon. But in his second stint as Disney chief executive, that position has changed as ESPN considers selling some of its 80 per cent stake to a strategic partner that can help it prosper in the streaming era as revenues from cable subscriptions fall.

Sports betting was always ESPN’s “manifest destiny”, said John Kosner, a former ESPN executive in charge of its digital products who runs industry consultancy Kosner Media. “What it means to be the worldwide leader in sports is different in 2023 than it was in 2013,” explained Kosner.

ESPN held advanced talks with major sports betting operators, including Caesars Entertainment and DraftKings, with whom it had promotional agreements that did not prove successful, according to a person familiar with matter. “It seemed like we were on the 10-yard line . . . for several years with a bunch of different people,” said an executive close to the talks.

ESPN chief executive Jimmy Pitaro opted for Penn as a partner after first meeting Snowden at the sports network’s headquarters in Connecticut earlier this year. Reflecting on the meeting, Snowden said: “It was very clear to Jimmy that this isn’t something that ESPN wants to do, this is something that ESPN has to do because sports fans are demanding it.”

But the entrance of Disney — the entertainment giant behind Mickey Mouse and Pixar animation studios — into gambling, a product linked to addiction, is not without risks. “I’m not sure we’ve heard the end of people complaining about gambling in the States,” warned a former senior ESPN executive. “There are going to be negatives because there are people dead set against it, there’s certainly problem gambling.”

However, the prize for new entrants is a tantalising one. The US sports betting market is set to grow a further 60 per cent by 2027, achieving annual gross gaming revenues of nearly $18bn, according to industry consultancy Eilers & Krejcik Gaming.

Will the US sports betting industry remain a duopoly in the long term? “Forever is a long time,” said David Katz, an analyst at Jefferies. The two dominant players “cracked the code” of in-game accumulator bets, the most profitable and popular product, added Katz. “But there’s going to be some next big thing and whether FanDuel or DraftKings get there first, or whether it’s somebody else, I think is a fair question,” he said.

For a long time after its launch in 1979, ESPN “was not taken seriously” as a sports network, recalled Kosner, formerly of ESPN, but it flourished into the world’s biggest and “the rest is history”. “I wouldn’t bet against ESPN Bet either.”

John Kosner Spoke with Robert O’Connell of The Wall Street Journal about The NBA’s In-Season Tournament

Original Article: Wall Street Journal, by Robert O’Connell, November 2nd, 2023

The NBA Created Another Championship. Is It a Gimmick or Genius?

There’s a new import to the NBA, and this one, unlike Victor Wembanyama, doesn’t block shots or dunk alley-oops. The inaugural “In-Season Tournament,” which will unfold over the first quarter of the league’s calendar, is a novelty among major U.S. team sports. But it borrows from the way the rest of the world has long done the business of competition.

“Whether it’s international soccer, international basketball, individual sports here in the U. S.—golf, tennis, racing, fighting—the idea that you can raise multiple trophies within a calendar season is incredibly common, and appreciated by fans,” said Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball strategy and analytics.

“There’s an untapped opportunity here,” Wasch said, “a chance to be a pioneer.”

The experiment begins on Friday night. Seven matchups will raise the curtain on the tournament, which will end with a trophy—the NBA Cup—lifted in Las Vegas on Dec. 9. The league’s objective is to enliven an early stretch of its season, to boost ratings and amplify chatter, to grab up a greater share of the sizable audience for live sports.

But the question is: how much will anybody—players and fans, advertisers and prospective media-rights partners—care about a competition manufactured out of thin air?

“We’re looking to create a new tradition here, and as the saying goes, new traditions aren’t created overnight,” commissioner Adam Silver said in September. “It will be the fans and the coverage,” he added, “which will be telling us whether this is working or not.”

This bid for attention comes at a moment when the NBA’s ability to attract eyeballs holds particular significance. The league is negotiating new mediarights deals, which will go into effect after the 2024-25 season. Current partners ESPN and TNT are in renewal talks but aren’t looking to significantly increase the estimated combined $2.6 billion they spend to broadcast NBA games, and streaming providers Apple and Amazon are interested in taking on packages of games.

The specifics of the tournament have more in common with soccer’s World Cup and college basketball’s March Madness than with the NBA playoff format that decides the championship each June. The league’s 30 teams have been sorted into six groups, and the winner of each group—plus two wild-card entrants—will land in a eight-team, single-elimination bracket. The semifinals (airing on ESPN and TNT) and final (airing on ABC) will take place at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena. Schedule maneuvering will let every game but the final swap in for a regular season slot; only the two teams competing for the trophy will play an extra contest past the usual 82.

The league and its partners hope that the single-elimination model will bring enough of a spark to convince two crucial groups—fans and players—to buy in. Most NBA players haven’t appeared in a string of winner-take-all games since their collegiate days; the setup could bring NCAA Tournament-esque chaos and one-night-only star turns that run counter to the more predictable best-of-seven playoff model.

“Seasons are long,” Craig Barry, executive vice president and chief content officer at TNT Sports, said. “Creating a little bit of excitement, finding ways to eventize regular season games and get fans excited is important.”

A successful In-Season Tournament could demonstrate that the NBA isn’t merely a bankable property—a rare, reliable deliverer of live audiences to advertisers—but also an evolving one, willing to break with tradition in pursuit of growth. Wasch and Silver have both acknowledged that some fans feel the league’s regular season has lost some of its intrigue, with teams regularly resting players to keep them healthy for the playoffs. In 2021, the NBA debuted its play-in tournament, a competition for the playoffs’ final spots that has energized the sometimes drowsy period just before the postseason.

“In the current environment,” said John Kosner, a consultant and former ESPN executive, “if you’re not constantly improving your offerings for fans, TV networks, sponsors and advertisers, you’re falling behind.”

Still, the new event has been met by a mix of curiosity and skepticism from basketball fans. Many observers online have cracked jokes about the garish, striped courts teams will lay down for tournament games. Some have also noted that the In-Season Tournament doesn’t quite meet the standard of the contests it takes inspiration from.

In European soccer, the Champions League brings together top teams from across top domestic competitions: the English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and more. Tennis players and golfers compete across surfaces that have much more substantial variations that paint color.

“The reason people like the Champions League is because we get to see Real Madrid against Manchester City, which doesn’t happen all that often,” Tobias Moskowitz, a Yale professor who teaches sports analytics, said. “We’re not getting that in the NBA, right? It’s more, maybe the Bucks end up playing the Suns one more time than we thought.”

The NBA will incentivize its athletes with a monetary reward—the winning team will receive $500,000 per player—and, Wasch said, the possibility of legacy-boosting achievements: All-Tournament team nods and MVPs, the trophy itself. “If we’re seeing early indications of success, you’re going to see a little ratcheted-up intensity than you see during a typical regular-season game,” Silver said.

The league’s current network partners likewise hope that adjustments to their presentations, such as never-before-seen camera angles, bring viewers into the fold. “Differentiation is always of interest to fans,” said David Roberts, ESPN’s head of event and studio production.

Executives at both ESPN and TNT said that the ongoing negotiations around the next media-right deals—and the possibility that the tournament their networks help produce and publicize will fall in the hands of a streamer in a couple seasons—haven’t affected the enthusiasm with which they have worked on the project.

“It’s inevitable that there’s potentially going to be more platforms and companies interested,” Barry said. “That’s a good thing, because that means it’s healthy.”

Silver has emphasized taking the long view of the In-Season Tournament, noting that format changes could come in future iterations. Cachet is impossible to fasttrack. Time will tell whether players’ investment brings about Wasch’s vision of a competition that “comes close” to the traditional playoffs, or whether they treat tournament games as normal contests on flashier floors.

“It will take an identity of its own over time,” Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry said over the summer. “It’s hard to kind of predict what it’s going to feel like or look like from a fan perspective, a player perspective…It’s still 82 games, it’s just under a different narrative.”

John Kosner Spoke with Ben Mullin of The New York Times About The NBA’s Media Negotiations

Original Article: The New York Times, by Ben Mullin, October 29th, 2023

The National Basketball Association’s season tipped off on Tuesday with stars like LeBron James and Nikola Jokic beginning the long quest for a title. But the action that will have longer-term ramifications for the league, and the media and entertainment landscape, is happening off the court.

The companies holding the rights to show N.B.A. games — Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC, and Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of TNT — are collectively paying the league $24 billion over nine years for that privilege. But their contracts expire after next season, and the N.B.A. hopes to more than double the money it receives for rights in the next deal, according to several people familiar with the league’s expectations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.

It won’t get that without a fight. After decades in which sports leagues garnered ever bigger piles of money for the rights to show their games, there are signs that media and technology companies are under increasing pressure to justify the exorbitant amounts they spend on broadcast rights. Interest rates are high, Wall Street is demanding profitability over growth, and streaming has reconfigured the entertainment industry.

The result of the N.B.A.’s negotiations will say a lot about the future of broadcast networks, the cable bundle, streaming services and the sports media ambitions of technology companies.

“I think in this era that we’re coming out of, this is the last of the big deals,” said John Kosner, who advises sports media and tech start-ups after a two-decade career as an executive at ESPN.

The National Football League, the most valuable sports league in the world, did not quite double its rights fees when it signed new agreements in 2021. And that was before the stock market declined, interest rates rose and wars began in Europe and the Middle East.

Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, which have televised N.B.A. games for more than two decades, aren’t necessarily in positions to shell out lots of cash, either.

Disney has carried out extreme cost-cutting and layoffs this year, and its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, has said the company is considering “strategic options” to sell equity in ESPN. Warner Bros. Discovery has also cut costs, and said in August that it had a debt load of nearly $50 billion following the merger of the two companies last year.

The most likely scenario, according to the people familiar with the negotiations, is that Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery will sign new agreements with the N.B.A. to televise fewer games. The N.B.A. declined to comment for this article.

The two companies together show about 160 regular-season games each year, as well as the playoffs and N.B.A. finals. Most games are shown on cable (ESPN and TNT), with a handful on ABC.

For both companies, N.B.A. broadcast rights still represent a valuable bargaining chip in negotiations with their biggest customers: cable and satellite companies. Those distributors pay billions of dollars to Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery for the rights to show their cable channels, including TNT and ESPN, based in part on the expectation that those channels will air sports like N.B.A. basketball.

An N.B.A. package would also help both companies shift to a streaming future. Warner Bros. Discovery recently added a live sports package to its streaming service, Max, while ESPN has been vocal about having a stand-alone streaming offering for its flagship channel in the near future.

Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are not likely to be the only companies showing N.B.A. games, though. If those companies end up showing fewer games in the new deal, the league may create a third rights package, perhaps even a fourth, of the games no longer included in the first two packages, as well as the league’s new in-season tournament.

The most likely buyers for those packages of games are Amazon and NBC, according to the people familiar with the negotiations.

Top executives at Fox, CBS and the Google-owned YouTube have said that they are unlikely to put in serious bids for broadcasting rights. The intentions of Netflix and Apple are less clear, but Netflix has long said it is uninterested in paying the kind of prices the N.B.A. is looking for. Apple has largely committed itself to a sports strategy of buying up all of a league’s domestic and international rights, like in its recent deal with Major League Soccer. That isn’t possible with the N.B.A.

Amazon and NBC are attractive partners to the N.B.A. for very different reasons.

For a generation, most N.B.A. games have been watchable only with a cable package. But the collapse of the cable bundle — from around 100 million households with a cable package a decade ago to around 70 million today — has made old-school broadcast networks, the most widely distributed television channels, more attractive. With CBS and Fox as unlikely bidders, the league could want games to be shown on NBC’s broadcast channel.

As for Amazon, it is seen as highly unlikely that the N.B.A. — a league that is proud of being forward-thinking regarding technology — would sign a new rights agreement with only traditional media companies, according to some of the people familiar with the negotiations. Amazon has long been interested in broadcasting the N.B.A., according to a person familiar with the league’s negotiation history, and it has won plaudits for how it has handled Thursday night N.F.L. games.

The media and technology companies declined to comment for this article. CNBC, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal have all previously reported on parts of the N.B.A.’s media-rights negotiations.

The league has a number of other media assets it could leverage. Most N.B.A. games are not shown nationally. Instead, they are broadcast in their local markets, with individual teams controlling the rights to sell those games. Teams have traditionally sold those rights to regional sports networks, but those are collapsing, leaving teams looking for alternatives.

If Diamond Sports, which is in bankruptcy proceedings, collapses, the N.B.A. could suddenly regain control of the local rights for about half the teams in the league. If that happens, it might sell some of those rights to a national partner. But that would require the league to work with its team owners — as well as current rights holders — for the complicated task of navigating roughly 30 different local agreements.

It would also leave out a number of high-profile teams, like the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers, which have long-term local rights agreements with successful regional sports networks.

The N.B.A. could also sell some international rights. The rights to show N.B.A. games in some basketball-mad countries like China could be extremely valuable, especially as domestic streaming companies seek new markets. But the league — unique in American sports in that it sells all its international rights directly rather than working with third parties — is seen as more likely to sell those rights country by country to the highest bidder.

The real wild card if the N.B.A. looks to do something groundbreaking could be its old stalwart: ESPN.

Disney and ESPN executives have spoken in recent months with private equity firms, tech and mobile companies and sports leagues, and have concluded that if they are to give up equity, it should be to a league, or leagues, as part of a long-term partnership, according to two people familiar with ESPN’s plans.

Analysts have valued ESPN at $25 billion to $50 billion, meaning a potential partner would have to trade billions in value for even a small stake. While a partner could pay Disney for a stake in ESPN, what the company is really looking for is exclusive content, some of those involved in the negotiations said.

Disney executives have spoken with a number of sports leagues, including the N.B.A., about selling them equity in ESPN and what the company would want out of such an arrangement. According to one of the people, the benefits sought by ESPN in a partnership could include more closely integrating a league’s social media operations with the network’s, content like documentary rights and more in-game audio from players, distributing games it does not have the broadcast rights to within its apps and working together on marketing.

John Kosner Spoke with Mike McCarthy of Front Office Sports About Streaming in the Next NBA Media Deals

Original Article: Front Office Sports, by Mike McCarthy, October 22nd, 2023

During an industry conference last year, NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted he was “fascinated” with the job Amazon Prime Video is doing with “Thursday Night Football” — the ratings-challenged NFL package from which longtime broadcast partners like Fox Sports and CBS Sports had walked away. 

With “TNF” averaging a linear TV-like 12.9 million viewers year to date this season, Amazon wants to create an exclusive night of streaming NBA action, sources told Front Office Sports.

According to sources, after agreeing to pay $1 billion yearly for “TNF” through 2033, the eCommerce giant is eying an NBA game package on Tuesday or Thursday nights. 

The goal: create the NBA’s version of “TNF,” said sources. According to sources, the NBA is also intrigued by Amazon’s ability to draw an audience seven years younger than the NFL’s legacy TV partners.

Beginning with the 2025-26 season, the NBA will seek an estimated $50 billion to $75 billion for its next cycle of long-term media rights. 

The league is still negotiating exclusively with incumbent media rights partners: The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports’ TNT.

But both the NBA and Amazon have been dropping hints they’re interested in a billion-dollar NBA streaming partnership. 

“I fully expect the NBA to have a streaming element as part of their next agreement,” predicted Bob Thompson, retired president of Fox Sports Networks turned principal of Thompson Sports Group LLC. 

“Whether it is part of a linear package, say with ESPN/ESPN+ or WBD/Max/Bleacher Report, or a standalone package with a streaming-only outlet such as Amazon, is the bigger question.”

The NBA could negotiate deals with three to five media rights partners, said sources. The goal: maximize rights fees for its next media deal that will likely stretch into the 2030s.

This year, Amazon sports chief Jay Marine coyly signaled the $500 billion giant’s interest, saying they will be “aggressive” yet “rational” in pursuing the NBA and other league rights.

“Sports are unique; they are uniquely valuable. Because of that, they’ve also been uniquely expensive,” he noted. “Having said that, they can do things that other things can’t because it’s a guaranteed audience.”

Plus, Amazon is already in business with the NBA in South America. Last fall, the league and Prime Video announced a deal to stream games in Brazil starting with the 2022-23 season.

Another interesting wrinkle: The NBA has embraced streaming in China. The league boasts a $1.5 billion-a-year deal with Tencent Holdings, reaching over 500 million basketball fans. 

The clock is ticking on ESPN’s and TNT’s exclusive negotiating windows. Their window expires in early 2024. Once that closes, all bets are off.

But it won’t be a piece of cake for Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.

Fresh off their triumph with Major League Soccer and Lionel Messi, Apple is likely to be in the NBA hunt, said sources. 

Then there’s Google/YouTube, expanding via the NFL’s Sunday Ticket out-of-home game package. During a recent NFL meeting in New York, media czar Brian Rolapp said YouTube TV has driven “Sunday Ticket” to its best subscription levels in five years.

Meanwhile, Netflix is suddenly throwing its hat into the ring, as chief executive officer Ted Sarandos just declared: “We are in the sports business.”

Amazon, Apple, Google, and Netflix could simply use their enormous checkbooks to outbid other suitors. The league’s current legacy TV partners will also push their streaming capabilities.

Another package ripe for a potential streaming partner could be the league’s new In-Season Tournament.

On the TV side, ESPN and TNT could face a fierce challenge from NBC Sports, which held the league’s media rights from 1990 to 2002.

As a result, the NBA’s next media partners could feature a hybrid mix of legacy companies and streaming giants, according to John Kosner, the ex-NBA and ESPN executive turned investor and advisor.

“They want to reach their entire fanbase — so they’re unlikely to look ‘either or,’ said Kosner. “If they renew with their existing partners, you’ll undoubtedly see linear and streaming, including ample use of Max, ESPN, and Disney streaming. If the negotiations open up, Amazon and Netflix could be in play — with install bases that will rival and then likely exceed broadcast distribution during the next deal.”

The wild card here is the edgy NBA itself. Unlike the more conservative NFL, the NBA is unafraid to take risks regarding its media rights.  

In 2002, the NBA shocked the sports media industry when the league moved most of its games to pay cable on ESPN and TNT from free broadcast TV on NBC. 

That move changed the face of sports television forever. Is Silver ready to make sports history again 20 years later? Don’t bet against Silver and The Association making more history two decades later.

John Kosner Spoke with Jessica Toonkel of The Wall Street Journal about ESPN’s Big Betting Deal

Original Article: Wall Street Journal, by Jessica Toonkel, October 12th, 2023

Disney Goes All In on Sports Betting

After years of internal debate, the entertainment giant did a deal with a gambling company and will launch an ESPN betting app next month. Can it draw a bigger sports crowd without alienating Mickey’s fans?

In early 2019, an analyst asked Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger if sports betting could coexist with the House of Mouse’s brand. He said he didn’t see the company facilitating gambling in any way.

Just four years later, the world’s most beloved name in family entertainment is going all-in on sports betting.

In August, the company struck a 10-year deal with sports-betting company Penn Entertainment to bring gambling to Disney’s ESPN sports network. Sports fans will be able to wager on games on their phones through a new app called ESPN Bet that accepts bets through Penn’s sportsbook.

The idea of gambling under the same roof as Disney has roiled some company executives and employees who feel it will damage the brand that is synonymous with princesses and talking cartoon ducks. In the last year, at least one large investor warned Disney that it might have to sell some of its Disney stake if the company embraced betting.

But for ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro and Iger, who saw his two adult sons glued to gambling apps on their smartphones, the chance to engage a younger male audience, and the money, were eventually too good to pass up. Penn will pay Disney $1.5 billion in cash while ESPN will receive warrants worth about $500 million to purchase shares in the gambling company. Penn will operate the app and Disney will help market it.

This is how sports in America works. Fans watch and they bet—particularly young men between the ages of 18 and 34—often making multiple complicated bets during a live sporting event. They can wager on how many 3-pointers a basketball player will sink or who will catch the final fly ball in a baseball game. It is huge on college campuses.

Wagering on games ballooned after a 2018 Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for states to adopt it. It is legal in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Last year, online sports gambling generated $7.6 billion in revenue—the amount companies received after paying out winning bets. Next year, revenue is expected to grow to $11.8 billion, according to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, an industry consulting firm.

ESPN, like more traditional TV networks, is struggling with the decline in cable TV subscribers and the rising cost of sports-broadcasting rights. Sports leagues and legions of startups have embraced gambling, while large media companies have homed in on betting as one of the best ways to expand.

But Disney employees, more than most other workers, feel that their company stands for a set of wholesome ideals—something more than making money.

In mid-2022, Jenny Cohen, a Disney veteran who had been promoted to head of corporate social responsibility a year earlier, raised concerns about a potential foray into sports betting to top executives at Disney’s Burbank, Calif., headquarters and leaders at ESPN, urging them to reconsider their plan to strike a deal with a sports-betting operator.

She told her colleagues, and Disney’s CEO at the time, Bob Chapek, that sports betting would tarnish the Disney brand, according to people familiar with the discussions. Consumers could start associating Disney with gambling addiction, she argued. As this discussion brewed, Disney was already managing a crisis with many employees who felt their employer didn’t take enough of a stand against a Florida bill that prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for young students, known by its opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. 

Around the same time, BlackRock, the investment giant which uses socially-conscious environmental, social and governance—or ESG—criteria to guide some of its investing decisions, contacted Disney’s investor relations staff. It warned Disney that if the company did a deal with a sportsbook, ESG rules may require some of its European funds to reduce their Disney stakes, people familiar with the matter said.

Disney is also contending with a fresh push by activist investor Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management to secure multiple board seats, The Journal reported this week. Trian thinks Disney’s stock is undervalued and that Disney needs a board that is more focused and accountable. It is unclear what other changes the hedge fund plans to seek. Peltz and Trian haven’t publicly taken a position on ESPN and gambling.

There are Disney fans, Disney+ subscribers and theme park visitors that likely have no idea that ESPN is part of Disney, but internally, Disney’s businesses are perceived as interconnected parts of one overarching corporate brand: a place where dreams come true. The ESPN+ streaming service is offered as part of Disney’s streaming bundle, and ESPN promotes shows from other Disney-owned networks during its broadcasts, and vice versa. This week, for example, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel appeared on ESPN2’s football show the “Manningcast.”

“My job is to protect the brand at all costs,” said Pitaro, in an interview. “I am the custodian of the ESPN brand, and we needed to make sure that whoever we went with on this journey was someone that we could trust.”

Disney first began flirting with sports betting in March 2019, when it completed its $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox’s major entertainment assets, which included a 6% stake in sports betting company DraftKings.

At the time, some of Iger’s top lieutenants urged him to take a bigger ownership stake in the gambling company, but Iger resisted, arguing that betting wasn’t on-brand for Disney.

Without his blessing, sports-betting discussions stalled until Iger stepped down as CEO in February of 2020, and the board named his veteran head of parks, Chapek, to replace him.

Chapek had a much different view of gambling. He told associates that he was “not that precious about the Disney brand,” compared with his predecessor when it came to sports betting.

He began exploring a potential partnership with a sportsbook, and Disney started up talks with DraftKings, which now has more than 30% share of the sports-betting market. At the time, DraftKings had a marketing arrangement with ESPN, by which it would link ESPN.com readers to make online bets through DraftKings.

Despite Cohen’s objections, Disney signaled that it was seeking a new deal worth around $3 billion over a decade, and Chapek and Pitaro gave news interviews, saying that ESPN customers wanted a “seamless” betting option as part of the sports-viewing experience. ESPN had already embraced sports betting within its programming, including in its “Daily Wager” show, which analyzes odds for sports matchups.

Pitaro intensified his matchmaking efforts with DraftKings, but from the outset, the two companies were far apart. Disney asked for tens of millions of dollars a year more than DraftKings was willing to pay, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Eventually, DraftKings offered around $100 million a year for ESPN to use its sportsbook, but DraftKings wanted its brand included on any app or marketing as part of the deal. That was a nonstarter for Pitaro. He wanted solo ESPN branding.

His team began negotiating with Rush Street Interactive, a smaller, Chicago-based gambling company. RSI offered ESPN more than $100 million a year, but a deal never came together.

Pitaro felt pressure to secure ESPN’s future, particularly among young male fans who increasingly expect betting to be a seamlessly integrated part of the sports-watching experience. By this time, Iger had returned to Disney as its CEO after the board ousted Chapek in November of last year, and the company was hard at work on plans to remake ESPN as a streaming-focused platform. Iger had told interviewers that he had seen the writing on the wall for the traditional TV business, which was showing signs of being on its deathbed.

Overall, Disney was struggling. Its foundering share price had drawn attacks from activist investors including both Peltz and Dan Loeb’s Third Point, its streaming business was bleeding cash and its whole traditional television business, more than just ESPN, was suffering as more people dropped their cable TV subscriptions in favor of streaming. Disney is currently exploring potential strategic partners for ESPN and has had talks with major sports leagues about it.

Iger quickly set about trimming fat, announcing $5.5 billion in budget cuts and the elimination of 7,000 positions, around 3% of Disney’s total global workforce.

Soon, Iger warmed up to sports betting. His adult sons’ use of sports-betting apps opened his eyes to its popularity with a younger audience, he told associates. He said that it is “inevitable” that sports-watching and sports-betting will go hand-in-hand, and he blessed Pitaro’s efforts to find Disney a partner. Getting involved with gambling was the only way to ensure that ESPN is able to continue to attract younger audiences, he reasoned.

Along came Penn, the Wyomissing, Pa.-based casino operator turned sports-betting company that also needed a makeover after it got into regulatory and reputational trouble over its ownership of sports-media company Barstool Sports, founded by Dave Portnoy. Several women have accused Portnoy of sexual misconduct—allegations he has denied.

Penn runs casinos and racetracks in smaller regional markets like Lake Charles, La., Biloxi, Miss., and York, Pa., and its CEO Jay Snowden wanted to remake the company into a digital gambling powerhouse.

Snowden first met Pitaro in his office for about a 90-minute meeting earlier this year. Pitaro left thinking Snowden was “a straight shooter” who knew what he was doing, the ESPN executive said. 

Pitaro quickly deployed teams working on ESPN’s sports-betting, tech, strategy and marketing into parallel talks with Penn to flesh out what a potential partnership could look like. He said Penn’s technology, including the functionality and design of the app, stood out. In addition, Disney views Penn’s tiny market share as an advantage because ESPN can have more control over branding the app and not have to share the spotlight with a better established player, according to people familiar with Disney’s stance.

There was a key requirement to move forward with a Disney deal. Penn had to dump Barstool.

When Penn began acquiring Barstool in a series of transactions starting in 2020, the gambling company hoped it would help it build a young customer base. Barstool runs an extensive sports-content operation that has drawn criticism for sexism and some of its employees’ crude behavior. Gambling regulators ultimately fined Penn for violating rules about marketing to people under the age of 21 and scrutinized advertisements that appeared to promise financial success. Barstool said it was being sarcastic.

Pitaro informed Iger of the talks in an early June meeting, and the CEO liked the idea of a partnership with Penn. Pitaro had long held out hope that Disney could fashion a deal with DraftKings, a market-leading online gambling company that was seen by some inside Disney as a natural fit, but the negotiations had become bogged down.

Pitaro suggested that they end talks with DraftKings. Iger, who felt that the negotiations had gone on too long and DraftKings’ demands weren’t reasonable, agreed. Besides, Penn was offering a better price. It was time to move on.

In June, Pitaro presented the Penn deal to Disney’s board at a meeting in Anaheim, Calif., and in early August, the day before Disney was set to announce third-quarter financial results, Disney announced the $2 billion deal.

Penn needed to rebrand the Barstool Sportsbook app into ESPN Bet under the new deal. To quickly make room for Disney, the company sold Barstool back to Portnoy for $1, just six months after fully acquiring the company. Penn kept the database of 1.5 million online betting customers it has accrued, which the company aims to retain under the ESPN name.

ESPN and Penn have the option to walk away from the partnership in three years if the venture hasn’t captured a minimum market share target. Snowden declined to say the exact target, but said it was around 10%.

“There’s only one ESPN,” Snowden said. “If we were going to make a pivot, there was really one option to do that, and that was with what is the only name that is truly synonymous with sports in the United States.”

ESPN sports programming won’t be pushed into the betting app when it launches in November so as not to slow down the betting experience, Snowden said. Instead, the goal is for ESPN viewers and readers to easily switch back and forth between sports and the betting app.

Pitaro said that many on-air stars are eager to get involved with ESPN Bet, and the company plans to announce an expanded talent lineup to host and promote its gamblingrelated products and shows. ESPN forged a partnership with former NFL punter and foulmouthed YouTube star Pat McAfee, who is known for hosting broadcasts in sleeveless Tshirts and making occasional off-color jokes. He will promote ESPN Bet to his audience.

ESPN is also considering alternative broadcasts of games focused on betting, similar to the popular version of Monday Night Football hosted by former NFL stars and brothers Eli and Peyton Manning that airs on ESPN2 and ESPN+, and plans to promote betting to its growing fantasy-sports audience. Pitaro said its fantasy platform is expected to reach more than 12 million users this year, a 10% increase from the previous year.

“Getting into sports betting is a perceived business necessity for ESPN,” said John Kosner, a former ESPN executive who now runs Kosner Media. “I think this decision has to do more with ESPN’s manifest destiny than Disney’s position on branding.”

John Kosner Spoke with Adam Zagoria of Forbes About the NFL & Taylor Swift

Original Article: Forbes, by Adam Zagoria, October 5th, 2023

How far will the NFL go to milk the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce romance?

The answer, it seems, is pretty far.

The New York Post reported that the NFL pressured its television partners to run free promotional ads for Swift’s upcoming film during recent NFL games, adding that NBC and ESPN “acquiesced” and that the 30-second ads in the “million-dollar neighborhood” during were “paid for.”

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” concert film will be released in theaters on Oct. 13.

“It just shows how hard [the NFL] is working to turn Swifties into NFL fans,” Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing pundit and Creative Director at Pinnacle Advertising in San Francisco, told me.

“Milking the Swift-Kelce romance may not thrill hardcore football fans, but it’s not going to keep them from watching. It’s all about building the fan base, and keeping Swift close to the game as long as possible—with a future [Super Bowl] halftime show in the cards.”

Usher is scheduled to headline the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show in Las Vegas, and Dorfman pointed out that Swift is scheduled to give a concert the night before, on Feb. 10, in Tokyo, “but maybe Swift drops in for a surprise duet?”

He added that “it’s more likely [Swift] headlines in 2025 or ‘26.”

John Kosner, a veteran of sports media, said he thinks the NFL is targeting Swift for the Super Bowl halftime show in 2026.

“This is where we are today: the NFL is uniquely powerful; Taylor Swift is uniquely powerful,” he said. “Everyone is advantaging themselves. Ultimately Taylor will do the NFL halftime show but only when she is ready. I’ve circled Super Bowl LX in San Francisco in 2026.

“Since Apple Music is now the halftime sponsor, not Pepsi, there is not a (Pepsi/Diet Coke) advertising conflict precluding this from happening. Getting the networks to run a free promo is not unheard of and not necessarily that big a deal (the NFL probably makes the point that Taylor is drawing new attention from female fans and that is good for everyone). I disagree with others who pooh pooh her impact; I think Taylor does make a ratings difference.”

Swift has attended the last two Chiefs games while supporting her beau Kelce, the first one in Kansas City where he scored a touchdown in a 41-10 blowout of the Bears, and the second in Sunday night’s 23-20 win over the Jets at Met Life Stadium.

The romance between the world’s biggest pop star and the NFL’s best tight end has been the story of the league this season — and possibly the biggest story in sports.

Her attendance at the games has also driven interest in the NFL.

Sunday’s game was the most watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl—in part thanks to the 53% increase in viewership among girls 12 to 17—and after the September 24 game she attended in Kansas City, Kelce’s jersey sales increased 400% as Swifties began to support him.

According to a Morning Consult survey from earlier this year, more than half of U.S. adults say they’re Taylor Swift fans. Some 53% of U.S. adults said they were fans of Swift, and 16% identified themselves as “avid” fans of the star.

Still, the backlash has also been evident.

As my Forbes colleague Molly Bohanon pointed out, “Giants fans booed a Taylor Swift ad that came on in the stadium before Monday night’s game, and some on social media have said the focus on Swift is ‘already getting ridiculous’ after NBC cut to her suite after the Chief’s first touchdown Sunday.”

Meantime, in his podcast Wednesday, Kelce said he thinks the NFL is “overdoing it a little bit” in it terms of its coverage of Swift, but he gave the league the benefit of the doubt, adding, “I think they’re just trying to have fun with it.”

The Chiefs next game is Sunday against the Vikings in Minnesota on CBS, and all eyes will be on a) whether Swift attends; and b) whether CBS runs any promo ads for her film.

The Philadelphia Eagles play the Chiefs Nov. 20 in Kansas City and five-time Pro Bowler Darius Slay of the Eagles has already chimed in, saying he doesn’t want Swift at the game.

“She might not miss a game this year,” he said on the “Big Game Slay” podcast. “And it looks like they’re 2-0 with her. If we play her... Taylor, do not come to the game.

“Do. Not. Come. To. The. Game,” he repeated. “Cause you seem to bring the energy of winning. So, do not come to that game.”

John Kosner Spoke with Meg Linehan of The Athletic About the NWSL’s Media Negotiations

Original Article: The Athletic, by Meg Linehan, October 3rd, 2023

NWSL seeking new media rights deal: What the league should expect

The NWSL is at a crossroads. The league’s three-year media rights deal with CBS wraps up at the end of the year, and commissioner Jessica Berman expects a new deal to be in place by the end of 2023 season.

The stakes of that next deal are significant. Get it right, and the league gets a cash influx, greater connection with fans, and a resulting boost in team valuations and expansion fees. Get it wrong, and not only could games be more inaccessible than they are now, but the NWSL will continue to lag behind other leagues in building a solid financial foundation.

There are lots of questions to address. What’s a fair valuation for the NWSL to expect, especially when we’ve seen MLS and U.S. Soccer command large fees? Should the league prioritize the financials over exposure, or the other way around? What’s the long-term play here?

With the clock winding down on the league’s self-imposed deadline, here’s what we know so far about the decisions the NWSL and its board of governors will have to make in selecting the right media partner (or partners), and what the league’s history of media deals and the overall landscape could indicate.

What we know

Potential rightsholders 

CBS, the NWSL’s current English-language partner in the U.S., had an exclusive negotiation period with the league that ended in January, according to NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman. The NWSL has not shared any other rights-holders they may be engaged with.

A deal by the end of the season

Earlier this month Berman said the goal was to “be in a position to finalize our media deal in conjunction with the playoffs and the conclusion of our season.” The hope is that viewership numbers spike again for the NWSL Championship — maybe cracking one million for the first time — which would be the league’s best shot to advertise how to watch next season’s games.

Endeavor is involved 

Berman and the NWSL front office are working with Endeavor (and subsidiary IMG), which distributes the league’s global media rights. Endeavor is a major player in the sports world —  the company has partnerships with the NFL and NHL, owns the professional bullriding league and is the majority owner of WWE and UFC under TKO Group Holdings.

Endeavor also signed a deal earlier this year to become the NWSL’s data and streaming provider, which includes running the streaming platform for the league’s international viewers on the NWSL website.

Media industry issues impacting talks

Before the Challenge Cup final, Berman answered a question about how the current state of the media industry could impact the deal

“It is a tough time for the media industry, it’s extremely fragmented, and there’s cost-cutting measures happening in almost every media property,” Berman said. “That being said, although that dynamic exists and we’re certainly aware of it, we feel really proud of how far we’ve come in the negotiations and we expect to have a great deal that isn’t really inhibited by those external factors.”

Players could benefit 

The league’s collective bargaining agreement with the NWSL Players Association says that, if the league becomes profitable for the final three years of the CBA’s term, 10% of any media rights deals will go to player compensation (detailed more thoroughly in section 8.13). That’s a big “if” right now, but it remains a solid win for the PA from a long-term perspective.

Current numbers

The league has shared some viewership metrics updates throughout the year with the public, but they don’t reveal anything about the actual quantity of regular viewership. The latest one of these came in June, stating that “regular season viewers on CBS have increased 21 percent, total unique viewers on Paramount+ has increased more than 50 percent.”

Without the full context, it’s hard to know if this will be enough to truly vault the NWSL into a more financially lucrative media rights deal moving forward.

What the NWSL should expect

There’s no true standard for a men’s or women’s sports media rights deal — each is structured differently. The split between linear and streaming broadcasts, which entity covers production costs, editorial support, ad sales…all these and more are up for negotiation.

John Kosner, president of Kosner Media, and Ed Desser, president of Desser Media, are two industry veterans — both worked on the review of the NCAA’s media and sponsorship rights as part of the overall gender equity review of women’s college basketball. They spoke with The Athletic about what, in their view, the NWSL can expect from its next deal.

“You have to be a property that can generate, on average, a million people watching a broadcast if you want to be a true rights-fee sport,” Kosner said. “The traditional big-time deal that everybody wants would be a rights fee, with the (media) entity paying for production. For a variety of reasons having nothing to do with the NWSL, there are fewer and fewer of those to go around now.”

Right now, he said, there’s likely no network that considers the NWSL a “need to have,” but closer to a “nice to have,” and that’s entirely related to its audience size.

There is the reality, too, of a media ecosystem that has historically undervalued women’s sports.

“This traditional model relies on spreadsheets, and there’s circular logic in these spreadsheets right now,” said Colie Edison, the WNBA’s chief growth officer. She presented a hypothetical: a potential TV partner says they won’t give a women’s sports league broadcast windows because the league lacks advertisers. The advertisers won’t partner with the league without broadcast windows. Buyers tell the league that without the advertisers, they don’t get the windows. The cycle can be hard to escape (the good news here for the NWSL is that Ally has been a brand partner willing to step in on the league’s behalf with networks).

“We have to break the mold and introduce a new way to value women’s sports,” Edison continued. “That means pulling on levers around non-traditional aspects, such as who our audiences are, the diversity of our women who are playing, the strong stances they take on social justice, the community activism within our diverse audience spaces. That’s just a little bit of how we need to flip this narrative.”

In addition to the potential path the WNBA offers, there’s another sports property that could offer the NWSL a growth model according to Kosner: Formula 1.

When Liberty Media purchased F1 in 2017, the sport wasn’t pulling in a ton of U.S. viewers on a regular basis, and ESPN showed races without a traditional rights fee in their deal in 2018. However, Liberty was able to leverage the success of Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” series to increase viewership. When ESPN re-upped last year, they signed a three-year term that is worth $75-90 million annually.

F1 and the NWSL aren’t a one-to-one comparison by any stretch, but there is certainly a lesson there — namely, that building an audience in creative ways might mean a bigger payday the next time the NWSL shops around.

“I would argue that the dollar number is less important,” Desser said. “I mean, it’s easy for me to say that getting money isn’t important to your business — of course it is.”

For Desser though, the NWSL is still in its infancy, and just putting games on TV doesn’t guarantee viewers.

“It’s a multi-pronged effort,” he said. “Just getting the shelf space alone doesn’t get it done.”

The history of NWSL media rights deals

The NWSL’s current $4.5 million deal with CBS was signed ahead of the pandemic (and extended an extra year after COVID-19 upended the season). The league has lost money on this deal because it bears the costs of production for matches.

The league simultaneously signed an agreement with Twitch for their international rights, though that deal ended as originally scheduled following the 2022 season. Both deals were negotiated with the help of sports marketing behemoth Octagon, via a partnership agreement that included media rights consulting and marketing strategy before the league started working with Endeavor.

The CBS deal calls for six games to air on the main linear channel, including the Challenge Cup final and the championship game in primetime. CBS Sports Network airs another 23, including the playoffs, but CBSSN isn’t Nielsen-rated. By 2019, it was available in about 50 million households, but that number has likely decreased since then following a greater trend of cord-cutting. The rest of the matches are on the CBS-owned Paramount+ streaming service, though some also air on CBS’s Golazo network, which is free to watch online.

With the conclusion of the Twitch deal, the league put together some smaller deals with Tigo Sports for free-to-watch Spanish language broadcasts, TSN for distribution of the league in Canada, and DAZN for “non-exclusive broadcasting rights” for some international markets including the UK, Brazil and Spain. In 2023, Endeavor has run free streams for international viewers on the league’s website.

History will likely judge the Twitch partnership to be a bust, especially when the platform stopped promoting the league on its homepage.

CBS has had its pros and cons, but overall has felt underwhelming. If not for league sponsor Ally stepping in to force the issue, the NWSL never would have swung a primetime slot for the Championship. CBS has collected plenty of soccer rights, and they have built out some programming around the league (such as Attacking Third), but the NWSL has never been its marquee property by any stretch.

Before CBS, the NWSL had only managed a short-term deal with ESPN for the back half of its 2019 season. The league needed that short-term deal after ending its partnership with A+E, which included an equity stake, a year early (disclosure: I worked for A&E and the NWSL’s joint media venture during this partnership).

Before that partnership, which ran from 2017 to 2019, the NWSL had one-year agreements since the inaugural season of the league in 2013, either with FOX Sports or ESPN.

The sports landscape

The MLS deal with Apple is huge ($2.5 billion, for 10 years), but it should not set expectations for the NWSL.

“It gave (MLS) an opportunity to leapfrog on revenues,” Desser said. “But they had to trade off exposure in the process.” Both experts said the NWSL still has to do the opposite in the interest of its long-term trajectory.

The NWSL could look to the WNBA as a benchmark, though Desser notes that “it’s been a long, hard road” for that league. Only after over 25 years has it reached a level where it’s “accepted in the pantheon of significant properties,” as Desser said.

Earlier this year, the WNBA signed a multi-year deal to air games on Ion Network for $13 million a year. Ratings have been up for the WNBA across the ESPN/ABC platforms, but Ion Network allows the league to build appointment viewership with its fans — and it will help the WNBA be in a stronger position to negotiate with ESPN when their current deal ends after the 2025 season.

“We understand that cable models are breaking down from declining subscribers,” Edison said about the Ion deal. “We took a bold move to go back to an over-the-air model with Ion. We’re in over 110 million homes on the fifth-largest network in the country. We’re seeing those numbers in viewership prove the point that you must reach your audience and your fans where they are.”

There are other women’s sports properties currently looking to upgrade or start their media rights deals, too, from the LPGA to the PWHL, the new women’s hockey league. Across the board though, the theme is that women’s sports viewers can be left frustrated by cost-cutting measures.

And above all of this? The NFL still rules all.

“Budgets are shrinking,” Desser said. “You’re trying to get a bigger drink of water out of a slowing flow. This is the reality, and this is at a time when the NFL just got a 40% raise. So talk about taking the water out of the pond.”

The NWSL will have to earn it

Viewership of women’s sports is on the rise across the board. According to Nielsen, the demand is there — the larger challenges are still access and lack of information. “To satisfy this demand, broadcasters need to prioritize women’s sports, make them more discoverable and promote them enthusiastically,” a 2023 report concludes.

“People look at the growth of women’s soccer, the excitement about the World Cup, and say, ‘Okay, it’s just gonna happen now for us.’ Our experience is that’s not the case,” Kosner said. “It doesn’t mean that it can’t be built, that it can’t be successful, but there’s a ton of hard work to do.”

That 915,000 viewer mark for last year’s Championship — up against the World Series and college football, to boot — is a strong data point for the NWSL, but it’s only a single data point. The NWSL does have to make some sort of financial jump in their rights fee, while hopefully keeping the term fairly short so they can go back out to the marketplace again in the next few years with an even stronger audience.

The NWSL is going to have to break through existing biases around women’s sports to show potential partners that there is a waiting, untapped market to watch the NWSL — and that they can be a part of growing that audience.