Jessica Berman attended the inaugural event more than two decades ago as a student intern; this time she participated as a commissioner of the NWSL.Marc Bryan-Brown
The 378-seat Times Center in Manhattan was packed last Tuesday with industry leaders and innovators in fashionable business attire, but there were a few guys with backbones who set the tone for two days of nuanced discourse.
The five members of Dude Perfect recorded a welcome video for the CAA World Congress of Sports. With their signature enthusiasm, the entertainers – a staple of the Gen Z digital diet, they started in 2009 and quickly exploded in popularity through their YouTube videos – have a message for the people. “The world of sports is always evolving,” said Tyler Toney, one of the members. “I mean, look at us!”
Just as no one could have predicted that a group that rose to prominence through a series of trick-shot videos would one day host an alternative show on Prime Video to “Thursday Night Football,” much of the conversation at the 21st Disruption and Innovation and today’s sports business landscape, from alternative broadcasts and the transitional media landscape to the continued rise of women’s sports. It made for two stimulating days at The Times Center, which saw around 750 attendees for the event, which included panel sessions with four league commissioners among a host of other top executives in and around sports.
“What I love about our industry,” said Oak View Group co-founder and CEO Tim Leiweke during a panel discussion that also included his brother, Seattle Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke, “is we’re an industry that talks to each other. Do you think other industries will come together and do a Kumbaya? No way. That’s an amazing trait and a wonderful trait about our industry.
SBJ’s Abe Madkour moderated the first panel, which included (L-R) Marie Donoghue, Constance Schwartz-Morini, Max Siegel, Ferran Soriano and Mark Tatum.Marc Bryan-Brown
Women’s sports on the rise
This year’s World Congress represents a full-circle moment for Jessica Berman, who participated in the first iteration of the event 21 years ago as a student volunteer. To see also : California bans state-funded travel to Indiana over transgender sports law. Her primary responsibility for that event: shepherding Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
“I was responsible for getting him from the green room to the stage,” said Berman, now the commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League. “I was so nervous — definitely more nervous for that than I am for today.”
It was also something of a full circle moment for women’s sports. World Congress, after all, saw Berman rise from student volunteer to commissioner in just over two decades.
Berman, who went one-on-one with moderator Joe Leccese of Proskauer, first addressed the Yates report, the U.S. Football investigation into past misconduct and abuse against players in the league. Berman called it “a reminder that we have to get this right and we will get this right.”
The conversation then shifted to the continued growth of the NWSL, as Berman pointed to a substantial increase in club ratings over the past year. Key factors, she said, included a low supply of teams relative to demand, the gender equality movement and an increased interest in cause-driven consumerism.
On a separate panel moderated by SBJ media writer John Ourand, Kraft Analytics Group CEO Jessica Gelman said “it’s still hard to find women’s sports on TV a lot of the time. … I think we’re not really talking about the new Fans who are also created and captured [through women’s sports] and how digital will create more opportunities to see these other sports.
Buzzer founder and CEO Bo Han, who was also on Gelman’s panel, said that the digital-first approach of female athletes “is an untapped opportunity where the transition, for women’s sports, becomes less networked and more individual. How do you use Alex Morgan’s his channel to actually promote upcoming NWSL games?
For his part, UFC president Dana White emphasized the success that his company has seen from its female fighters and the benefits that can have. “It’s very empowering for women to see women who are so bad, especially for little girls to see what’s possible,” he said.
Tod Leiweke summed it up by saying, “Women’s sports are the next big thing.”
The Leiweke brothers – Oak View Group CEO Tim and Seattle Kraken President and CEO Tod – discuss their hopes for NBA expansion in Las Vegas and Seattle respectively.Marc Bryan-Brown
Wither RSNs?
Irwin Kishner, executive chairman at Herrick, said: “It’s not dead. See the article : US soccer women and men formally sign new collective bargaining agreements. It’s just in a very significant evolution.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said, “We have to evolve.”
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said, “I’m concerned.”
In short, a similar sense of urgency emerged no matter who was asked at the World Congress about the future of the regional sports network model during the ongoing shutdown.
“The biggest problem [about the RSN business] from my perspective is the reach issue,” Manfred said.
While the NHL has signed deals with RSN owners such as Sinclair’s Diamond Sports Group to allow the launch of direct-to-consumer offerings, MLB has resisted handing over those rights. However, both league commissioners recognized the need for cord cutters and cords to never meet where they are. “That can be part of the regional sports network ecosystem or it can be free,” Bettman said during a one-on-one session with ESPN reporter Emily Kaplan. “It depends on the health of the regional sports channels.”
Meanwhile, a panel featuring MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, focused almost entirely on their 10-year, $2.5 billion partnership, which launches next season and centers around a subscription service with every MLS match without Restrictions.
“It’s gotten so much harder to watch sports,” Cue said. “On the one hand, every game is somewhere, and on the other hand, there are all these packages and rules and blackouts. … So one of the things we wanted to do is eliminate all of that and try to make it really easy for an MLS Fan finding and watching every game. It’s not rocket science, but it feels like it now as a fan.
Expansion and disruption
Manfred’s appearance at the event came at the start of MLB’s newly expanded postseason — 12 clubs, up from 10 — as part of his new five-year collective bargaining agreement. But Manfred already has his eyes on expanding further – to 14 clubs – a possibility that will arise during negotiations for the next CBA. Read also : The LGBTQ+ organization Varsity Gay League creates inclusive sports leagues. Manfred also reiterated his desire to grow MLB to 32 teams in total, a development he said could prompt a realignment, including adjusting the divisions from five teams to four.
Manfred is not the only one considering expansion. Both Leiweke brothers, for example, hope to bring NBA teams to their arenas. Tim is building a new $4 billion entertainment complex in Las Vegas that isn’t being developed with a team in mind but has the potential to be another tourist attraction, and Tod’s Climate Pledge Arena just hosted more than 18,000 fans for an NBA preseason game. Seattle, which has been without a team since the SuperSonics left for Oklahoma City in 2007. “As time has gone on, the pain is almost greater than it was in 2007,” Tod said.
During a NASCAR-focused panel, president Steve Phelps said the company’s 2024 schedule will “probably be the most aggressive schedule we’ve ever had” in terms of new markets and venues.
College sports, of course, have also been shocked by changes, with Pac-12 stalwarts UCLA and USC announcing a move to the Big Ten starting in 2024, which has discussion of more massive conference realignment. Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s vice president of global sports video, said it was the biggest story in sports that she had followed. “It’s a game changer,” she said. “It affects student athletes, it affects the fans, it affects the media landscape. And I think it’s just the beginning. We have no idea where this is going to end up in the next few years.”
Related, USA Track & Field CEO Max Siegel said the story of the year was the Big Ten’s media rights contracts with CBS, Fox and NBC, which are worth more than $8 billion over seven years, a development that comes on the heels of the decision by the two LA schools came. “You have to balance both business innovation with the spirit of what college athletics is all about,” he said. “So it’s fascinating to look at the conference reformation that serves the student-athlete and then maximizes an income opportunity with that.”
The biggest disruptor in the sports landscape in 2022, of course, was LIV Golf. Panelists pointed to the Saudi-funded upstart tour as a lesson for sports leagues.
“You want to bother yourself,” Donoghue said. “You don’t want to be subject to someone else coming in and disrupting your sport.”
