SBJ Morning Buzzcast

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: November 14, 2022

Episode Summary

Weil, Levy part of Horizon Sports & Experiences; Munich delivers powerful event around the NFL; and the Big 12's all-star advisory board.

Episode Notes

Weil, Levy part of Horizon Sports & Experiences; Munich delivers powerful event around the NFL; and the Big 12's all-star advisory board.

Episode Transcription

A big week for Sports Business Journal. It's Awards Week in New York City as we have our 40 under 40 gala Tuesday night and our new Voices under 30 party on Wednesday night. Two very fun, entertaining evenings. Hope you can join us. Love to see you there. This is your morning Buzz cast for Monday, November 14th. Good morning. I made Matt Core. Thanks for listening to the Buzz cast. First s BJ's, Terry Lefton is reporting on some big news in the sports marketing agency space as a new player looks to compete with some of the larger shops like Octagon and CAA and one 60 over 90. Horizon Media is bringing on both former Momentum ceo, Chris Wile and longtime sports executive David Levy, and have named them co CEOs of the new Horizon Sports and experiences. And that agency will of course include Horizon Scout Sports and Entertainment Agency Michael Newman, who founded Scout Sports 12 years ago and was managing partner will now report to both while and Levy and be executive vice president of the new agency, which will include approximately 30 employees of scout sports and entertainment.

In addition, Horizon's chapter and verse agency, which is really specialized at the ME verse and launched in June, is also being folded into Horizon sports and experiences. Now, Horizon sports and experiences will be owned by Horizon ceo, Bill Koberg, along with Levy and Wile. Now, Horizon Sports and Experiences will do the traditional consulting, strategy consulting, corporate consulting, experiential marketing consulting. But the biggest new service offering by Horizon Sports and experiences will be property sales. So they'll be out there selling in the marketplace, competing with the likes of CAA, Excel Elevate Oakview group, so many others. But this is a big story because these are big players in Chris Wild and David Levy and Bill Koberg and Michael Newman. And so they are all taking on bigger roles at an agency looking to grab more market share. So a big story there this morning. Let's shift to college sports, more news from the Big 12 with a pretty interesting concept as everybody tries to think differently about things and get help anywhere they can and get advice and counsel and ideas.

While Big 12, Commissioner Brett, your Mark has created an advisory board that will assist the conference in shaping and developing its business strategy. Members of the advisory board come from backgrounds and entertainment finance, consumer brands, as well as technology and media. We know that Brett Jomar has wanted to make the big 12 more relevant in national culture, and he believes this advisory board will help. So some of the names they really speak to Brett Jo Mark's deep Rolodex. There's Garth Brooks, there's Jason Kidd, there's George Pine Endeavors, Mark Shapiro translation, Steve Stout Vanner Media's, Gary Vanderchuck and Vitamin Water and Body Armor co-founder Mike Rapo. So certainly every member here brings a wealth of expertise and experience. They are now on the big 12 advisory board. Each advisory board member will be credentialed with an all access pass to each big 12 conference championship event. So bright, your Mark, establishing an advisory board to assist the big 12.

Wow, what a difference a year makes as FTX was one of the biggest spenders in sports, but now of course it's filed for bankruptcy. And on Friday, the HEAT and Miami Dade County terminated its relationship with ftx and now they can go out to the marketplace and look for a new naming rights partner for the Miami Arena. Now the county owns the arena. Remember it's signed a 19 year, 135 million deal with ftx. In 2021, there was an initial payment of 14 million, and then FTX was scheduled to make a 5.5 million payment This January, the team was to receive $2 million a year, while most of the rest, roughly 90 million over the lifetime of the agreement was to be paid to the county. So both the team and the county are impacted by the FTX bankruptcy. So we'll have to see what happens to Ft. X's. Other sports sponsorships, There are many deals out there.

They have deals with the Warriors. They have a sponsorship deal with Cal for naming rights at the California Memorial Stadium. It's called FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium. So we'll have to see what happens to these deals and whether they terminate their agreements with FTX and reopen that inventory. But a lot of changes here as FTX was a big, big sponsorship spender in the last 12 to 16 months. Let's move on. There were two really cool events this weekend. Well, more than two, but two that I wanna highlight. As so many sports entities try to do something different, and it's great to see, I love the Gonzaga men's basketball game against Michigan State Friday. It was on the USS Abraham Lincoln at North Island Naval Air Station. It was college basketball's first game on an aircraft carrier since 2011. If you watched it, you saw great visuals at the Armed Forces Classic.

It looked beautiful and I'm sure it was a great experience for the 3,500 fans in attendance that was made up mostly of sailors from the aircraft as well as kind of v i p fans of both teams. The game was played 11 years to the date after North Carolina beat Michigan State on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vincent at North Island Naval Air Station. So again, this looked really great. Of course, those conditions make it difficult for the players shooting in the wind and the lighting is certainly different, but again, on television it looked great. Meanwhile, Wisconsin beat Stanford Friday at the Milwaukee Brewer's Ballpark American family field. That was in front of about 18,000 fans, and it marked the first college basketball game at a baseball facility since 2015 where there was a game at Petco Park. So the ballpark was reconfigured for basketball by removing the pitchers mound and really placing the basketball court on the infield.

And there were about 400 bleacher seats right at Courtside. It was very, very cool to see. If you haven't seen pictures, do try to take a look at it. Two very cool executions of college basketball games in non-traditional settings. And you may see more of this in the future, what you'll see more over the future, the NFL in Germany. Yes. A few years ago, a top NFL executive told me that NFL officials felt Germany was the market with the most growth potential outside of course of North America. And they told me that for years they said it would be much bigger than the uk. And on Sunday, the NFL played its first regular season game in Germany. The box beat the Seahawks at Allan's Arena in Munich. And let's just say the buzz from the event is overwhelmingly positive. In his Monday column, Peter King said Munich put on one of the greatest shows ever for a regular season game.

Tom Brady called it one of the great football experiences he has ever had. Pete Carroll called it Unforgettable announced attendance was a sellout of nearly 70,000, and fans stayed for hours after the game. They didn't leave the arena. The NFL said that Ticketmaster estimated the league had sufficient demand to have sold 3 million tickets to the game. So that shows the level of interest. Now, Roger Goodell said the NFL will stage at least four games in Germany through 2025. There will be an annual game over the next three seasons in either Munich or Frankfurt. So the NFL has now played regular season games in Germany, Canada, Mexico, and the uk. Germany has become the NFL's top market in Europe and Munich certainly delivered in a major, major way. Let's end the buzz cast on a couple of quick hitters. A bummer for hockey fans. As the NHL and N H L P A A have pushed back on the idea of a World Cup of hockey in 2024, they cited the current geopolitical environment and the situation with Russia and Ukraine just seems to be untenable to have an event in 2024.

It now seems that 2025 is the earliest a World Cup of hockey could be played, and the Mountain West Conference has named Gloria Navarez as its second. Commissioner Navarez is an s BJ game changer honoree in 2019. She will officially assume the role on January 1st following the retirement of current Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson. Since 2018, Gloria Navarez has served as the commissioner of the West Coast Conference. She is very, very active in NCAA affairs and on committees. She becomes the second woman to lead a major college football conference. Conference. USA's Julie McLeod oversees that conference. You of course have Val Ackerman overseeing the Big East and Bernadette McLay leading the Atlantic 10. But Gloria Navarez becomes the second woman to lead a major college football conference. So congratulations to Gloria Navarez in becoming the latest commissioner or the second commissioner of the Mountain West Conference. So that is your morning buzz cast for Monday, November 14th. I made Mad Core. Thanks for listening to the Buzz Cast. I'll be in New York Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The Buzz cast will be brought to you by David Albright. I'll be back on Friday, so stay healthy, be good to each other. I'll speak to you later in

The week.