Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.
Name-dropped today: Mike Tirico, Molly Solomon, Bad Bunny, Cadillac, Josh D’Amaro, Bob Kraft, Bill Belichick, Gary Bettman, Bronny James, Olivia Dean, Lindsey Vonn, Ilia Malinin, Jordan Stolz, Claude and more. Let’s go:
Driving the Conversation
The Week/Month/Year of NBC
Despite the fact that I — and maybe about 130 million others — will be tuned in to NBC on Sunday night for the Super Bowl and then two weeks of the Olympics, the network’s plans for perpetual Sunday night sports dominance snuck up on me.
Hat-tip to Jon Lewis at Sports Media Watch for mapping out that last Sunday night began a stretch of NBC airing major U.S. pro sports on at least 48 of 51 Sunday nights.
The proof of concept, of course, was “Sunday Night Football,” the most-watched weekly show in the country.
As NBC bought up more league rights — first the NBA, then MLB — the plan was simple, yet strategic: turn Sunday nights on NBC into Sports Night in America.
Sprinkle in the Olympics, perhaps some WNBA games featuring “NBA on NBC” on-air talent Caitlin Clark and Notre Dame football on the Sunday night before Labor Day … all of a sudden, it’s a year-round programming plan.
In an era of “Ugh, how do I watch the game?”, NBC is keeping it old-school: a broadcast network in prime time, same day each week.
Scheduling for Super Bowl Sunday? Easy. Scheduling for all of the year’s other Sundays? Inspired.
(Speaking of NBC: Don’t miss Andrew Marchand on Mike Tirico’s decade-in-the-making path to calling the Super Bowl and hosting the Olympics, plus Marchand’s profile of NBC’s lead Olympic “visionary,” Molly Solomon, cementing her spot among the all-time greats in sports TV production.)
Get Caught Up
Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post is eliminating its legendary sports section, including layoffs of dozens of journalists. Having grown up in the DMV, the Post Sports section of the 1980s was a key inspiration for my career in sports media, and I cannot fathom it not existing.
Bad Bunny halftime show: From the minute the NFL announced Bad Bunny — quite arguably the most popular musical artist in the world — would be the Super Bowl LX halftime show, there has been an open question of “What if things get … political?” So far, the league has backed Bad Bunny. The star’s “ICE out” at the Grammys on Sunday assuredly raised eyebrows and blood pressure within the NFL, though. (But I’m anticipating an amazing show.)
Super Bowl ad watch: Cadillac is unlikely to top Jake Ciely’s commercial rankings (which have already launched, thanks to pre-releases), but I am fascinated that the brand is using its Super Bowl spot to promote its new F1 team, including introducing its car’s design. Madeline Coleman got the inside story.
Disney names new CEO: Josh D’Amaro previously led the lucrative and growing parks division, indicating that the company sees experiences, not content, as the core engine of future growth. Just something for ESPN-ologists to file away.
Bob Kraft joins Bill Belichick in Hall snub: I personally think the coach has a stronger case than the owner, but it feels fitting that if one doesn’t go in on his first try, neither will. Once again, my colleague (and Hall voter) Mike Sando is essential for clocking the voting dynamics.
(The only point I felt compelled to make in a full column late last week? The whole voting process needs way more transparency.)
MLB regional sports network mess: A slew of teams have abandoned the failing FanDuel Sports Network as their regional sports network partner, either going it alone or letting MLB do the heavy lifting.
The key question is this: How will teams backfill the revenue loss? My prediction, no pun intended: MLB and its teams dive headlong into deals with prediction markets.
WNBA labor battle, cont’d: The Monday meeting between the league and the players yielded no meaningful progress. Understanding that these things tend to get settled at the 11th hour (if not 11:59), there’s still plenty of time.
Latest World Cup pricing snafu: $300 (!) parking.
Other current obsessions: “F1 The Movie” winning the rare sports-movie Grammy Award … Fox’s massive World Cup TV schedule … Bronny James has a logo … Olivia Dean, best new artist and West Ham fan … the Costco-Nike Dunk collaboration …
What I’m Wondering
Storylines to follow at the Winter Games
Events start tonight. We have a huge, talented team there. The opening ceremony is Friday, and I’m legitimately wondering: Given the state of geopolitical relations with Europe, will the U.S. get booed?
The short answer is: Yes, probably, at least by some. But will it pop through the TV? It will be awkward, regardless.
I have another, less contentious question: Which U.S. athletes are most likely to break through in the next two weeks and become household names?
Fortunately, Jordy Fee-Platt and Olympics editor Zack Pierce created a list of the 26 names to know. Highly recommended to get familiar!
Athletes including Chloe Kim, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn (🤞) are relatively well-known from previous Winter Games. In Monday’s inaugural edition of our new daily Olympics newsletter, Pierce offered new breakthrough names to know:
“You’re going to want to watch Ilia Malinin and Jordan Stolz. They’re both 21 and perhaps the biggest names you may not know but are about to in a big way.
“Malinin is a U.S. figure skating superstar nicknamed ‘Quad God’ for his ridiculous quadruple-spin jumps. Our Marcus Thompson went deep on him for his arrival on the Olympic stage. Stolz is an American speed skater who will be a favorite to win gold in four events.”
Meanwhile, our Olympics team put together the absolute best single-page view for knowing what’s coming up every day. Bookmark it and refer back often.
Grab Bag
Data Point: 21,490
In Philly on Friday night, fans of the upstart women’s basketball pro league Unrivaled set an attendance record for a regular-season women’s pro basketball game. It topped the WNBA’s most-attended game ever by nearly 800 fans.
Earnings Season: $110 million
Thanks to Disney’s quarterly filings, we finally got a number for how much income Disney lost from the November standoff between ESPN and YouTube TV. (Notably, Disney’s overall streaming revenue for the quarter did go up, which the company says was in part due to ESPN Unlimited reinforcing its bundle.)
Related: As broken by Marchand, government regulators approved the Disney purchase of NFL’s main media assets to be folded into ESPN. (U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren approves The Athletic’s social media team, but not the deal!)
Ratings Point: 127.7 million
Last year’s Super Bowl 59 set a record for SB viewership. The Pats and Seahawks aren’t quite the draw of the Eagles and Chiefs, but Nielsen’s new measurement system has been boosting TV ratings across sports over the past six months, so put me down for a record 128 million (or more), especially considering the global appeal of Bad Bunny.
‘Heated Rivalry’ Mania
Interesting reporting by our NHL team that while commish Gary Bettman had a lot of great things to say about fans’ embrace of the sports-culture topic of the moment, the teams have a more complicated relationship with Pride Nights.
Expansion: TST goes mixed gender
The million-dollar, winner-take-all TST (“The Soccer Tournament”) — itself a spinoff of its groundbreaking basketball version — is doubling down on soccer, launching a new mixed-gender tournament that will feature Hope Solo and Wrexham.
Branding: ‘Ice House’ ➡️ ‘Winter House’
Three U.S. governing bodies (U.S. Figure Skating, USA Hockey and U.S. Speedskating) realized the name of their hospitality suite in Milan was … *whew.* Needless to say: It will save the hosts some avoidable confusion the next few weeks.
Marketing Deal: Williams F1 x Anthropic
Anthropic’s Claude is the “Official Thinking Partner” of the F1 team, a creative use of category exclusivity that opens the door for more sports teams to try to siphon partnership dollars from the AI and AI-adjacent industries, which has already happened with McLaren (Google), IBM (Ferrari) and Mercedes (Microsoft).
Peak of the Week
Organizational culture matters, in sports or otherwise. You saw it with Indiana football. And it has been instrumental to Mike Vrabel’s reset that flipped the Patriots from their brief stint among the NFL’s dregs to participating in its championship game.
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 499
Dan’s time: 00:31
Try the game here!
Worth Your Time
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
While the NHL goes on a break for the Olympics, enjoy this amazing origin story about how NHL broadcasters ended up being set up “between the benches,” the coolest view in sports TV.
Two more:
(1) The Super Bowl halftime show over the years, as told from behind the camera.
(2) How copper thieves are putting Southern California Little League seasons in jeopardy.
Back next Wednesday! Text your colleagues this link so they can get MoneyCall every Wednesday for free. And check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.