IT training sportsbusiness journal TruePDF 18 march 2019

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Celebrating 20 Years of the Best
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Will You Be There?
Are you a SBJ Forty Under 40 winner
and want to attend the 20th anniversary festivities?
Please contact Lorianne Lamonica at
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TURNKEY
S E A R C H


MARCH 18-24, 2019
VOLUME 21 ISSUE 47 • $7.95

Derek
Jeter,
Act 2
After a trying
rookie year, how
the Marlins CEO is
executing his plan
to make Miami
matter again.
Page 26
Debt for Seattle NHL
team, arena upgrades
totals $825 million.

The nominees for the
12th annual Sports
Business Awards.

Champion Buffy
Filippell helped seed
the sports industry.

Rachel Nichols has
built a career asking
tough questions.

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S E A R C H

TURNKEY & THE M AMI DOLPHINS
TEAM UP TO RECRUIT
VP, CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS
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2019

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AN “EVENING AT THE BALLPARK”
TRADITION CONTINUES IN THE WINDY CITY
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SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

67$7(2)3/$<
MONEY TALKS

“

Always believe in yourself. Fight
for what you’re worth. And never
accept anything less. Never.

”

— USWNT star MEGAN RAPINOE after members of the team sued the sport’s
governing body over pay inequity and other issues.

CASH ONLY

$

400M

The full amount of investment returned
by Endeavor, owner of UFC, to the Saudi
royal family in the wake of the murder

last October of Saudi journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, who had written for The
Washington Post.

2))(16,9( )28/
The Jazz banned for life a fan who
engaged Thunder star Russell
Westbrook in a verbal altercation by
making comments Westbrook called
“completely disrespectful,” causing
NBA players to rally to his defense.

THE METER

Island Living
The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla., teed off in March for the first time since
2007 after having been a fixture in May on the PGA Tour calendar. The change kicks off a condensed fivemonth schedule designed to have all of golf ’s biggest events take place before football season starts. And
while the earlier date affected how golfers approached the course, one aspect that hasn’t changed is the
famous island green at the 17th hole, the most distinctive location in golf.

RATINGS GAME



Getty Images (5)

2))(1'(' )28/
The Knicks banned for life a fan who
told controversial owner James Dolan
at a game, “Sell the team,” an extreme

reaction to a harmless comment.
owl,
up from 30/1, after the team acquired Pro Bowl wid
de
receiver Odell Beckham Jr. from the Giants last wee
ek.
The Browns have never reached the Super Bowl an
nd
have not won a playoff game since being reborn in 1999.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Rating on NBC Sports
Philadelphia for the Phillies’
March 9 spring training
game that marked the debut
of Bryce Harper, a 311
percent increase on their
average for this year and the
team’s highest-rated spring
training game since 2012.

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

|

3


)2580

Inside our thinking on
SBA nominee selections
WANTED to offer some insight into our decisions on the nominees for this year’s Sports
Business Awards, which will be presented on May 22 in New York City. We have been
doing this for 12 years, but the decisions become only more difficult and challenging,
a testament to the growing sophistication of the business. Our editorial committees debated hundreds of companies and submissions to come up with the list of 86 nominees
across the 17 categories. Here’s a glimpse into the thinking behind the decisions in a few
popular categories and other thoughts on the process.

I

f LEAGUE OF THE YEAR: The committee surprisingly put forward only four nominees. These
were the leagues that stood out for business growth, innovation and accomplishment. For
the NFL, this is its first nomination in this category in six years, as the committee recognized a more positive narrative around the league, commercial and sponsorship gains, a
ratings resurgence and increased interest in the on-field product. For last year’s League
of the Year winner, the NBA, it was another stellar year, becoming the first league to do
a gambling deal with MGM Resorts International. There also were significant digital innovations and plans for a basketball league in Africa. MLS just keeps building, brick by
brick, planning new teams in Cincinnati, Nashville, Miami and Austin and new efforts at
stability in Columbus. Finally, there was a lot to like about what PGA Tour Commissioner
Jay Monahan did in his second full year, in changing the tour schedule, bringing on Discovery as a key international partner and fortifying its media strategy.

$%5$+$0 0$'.285
EXECUTIVE EDITOR

THIS WEEK
21 7+( &29(5
26 MIAMI HEAT
Amid another makeover,
Marlins executives have
a plan in place to turn

the franchise around.
By Eric Fisher

0$5.(7,1*
 PUSH TO 100
The licensing program
around the NFL’s centennial year has companies
lined up to cash in.
By Terry Lefton

0(',$
 LAUNCHING
FROM STRENGTH
The long list of distribution deals adds pressure
on cable systems to carry
the ACC Network.
By John Ourand

/$%25
 SWEAT EQUITY
United Sports Group
makes a sweet find with
speedy Mississippi State
defensive end.
By Liz Mullen

)$&,/,7,(6
 COLD CASH
The rush to go cashless
raises questions and

concerns from sports
facility experts.
By Mike Sunnucks

OPINION . . . . . . . . . 
CAREERS . . . . . . . . . 
FACES & PLACES . 

“

f TEAM OF THE YEAR: There will be some raised eyebrows in one of the most competitive categories. Yes, I’m sure there is Golden State Warriors fatigue. The team has been nominated five
out of the past six years and won twice. But there is a reason they win so many of the business
awards presented during the NBA’s sales meetings — they are that good. There will be questions of whether we had influential committee members from Milwaukee (we had none), but if
you look into the business stories of both the Brewers and the Bucks, you will see a 12-month
period of excellence and achievement. For the Brewers, there was nearly record season-ticket
sales, an impressive new spring training complex and a lucrative new naming-rights deal all
while the team had a great story on the field. For the Bucks, you can’t ignore how much new
ownership, President Peter Feigin and others have transformed this once sleepy franchise.
Atlanta United continued an incredibly impressive run in year two, and the Washington Capitals
were able to lift an entire region with their activations and brand
extensions around their long-awaited Stanley Cup championship.
Finally, the NWSL Portland Thorns’ business excellence is noteworthy in a world where selling and marketing women’s sports is
a significant challenge. Overall, this category will be an interesting
debate among the judges.

We have been doing
this for 12 years, but
the decisions become
only more challenging,
a testament to the

growing sophistication
of the business.

”

f OTHER THOUGHTS: There was lengthy consideration of the new
media players, but the committee still was drawn to the business
innovations of the five “traditional” media companies. … Staying
on media, there was appreciation for what Turner Sports does
with Bleacher Report and B/R Live (two nominations) as well as
ESPN around ESPN+ and a newly launched mobile experiences (two nominations). … The
nomination for Gritty may be surprising, but give the Philadelphia Flyers credit for creating a mascot that became a pop culture hit. … The new gambling environment was evident
in both Breakthrough (MGM Resorts) and Mobile Fan Experience (DraftKings Sportsbook)
and could have been nominated in more categories but was seen as still too new. … Toughest omissions: Team Penske and Minnesota Vikings for Team of the Year, The Athletic for
Breakthrough and the MLS All-Star Game for Event of the Year.

The entire contents
of this magazine are
copyrighted by Street &
Smith’s Sports Business
Journal 2019 with all rights
reserved. Street & Smith’s
is a registered trademark
of American City Business
Journals, Inc. Reproduction
or use, without permission,
of editorial or graphic
content in any manner
is prohibited. Street &
Smith’s Sports Business

Journal (ISSN-1098-5972)
is published weekly, with
the exception of the first
week of January, the first
week of July and the last
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Smith’s Sports Business
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The decisions now become even harder, and a group of independent judges will select
the winners in all but two of the categories. The winners will be announced as part of the
12th annual Sports Business Awards on May 22, where we will also honor Tim Finchem
as our Lifetime Achievement Award winner. You won’t want to miss it!
Abraham Madkour can be reached at

CLOSING SHOT . . . 
Cover image by Jock Fistick

SBJ/SBD

PODCASTS

4

|

M A R C H 18 - 2 4 , 2 0 1 9

FIRST LOOK & BUZZCAST
Check out our First Look podcast every Monday where we discuss the week’s top stories. Also, check out
Buzzcast in SportsBusiness Daily’s Morning Buzz, our daily two-minute look at the stories of the day.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM


LIFETIME
ACHIEVEMENT
AWARD RECIPIENT

Tim
Finchem

MAY 22, 2019 I MARRIOTT MARQUIS TIMES SQUARE I NEW YORK CITY
TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT FOR THIS SPECIAL NIGHT, VISIT
WWW.SPORTS-BUSINESS-AWARDS.COM
632576%86,1(66$:$5'63$571(56


XSIURQW

Lending Support
Banks line up as Oak View Group, Seattle NHL team borrow
record debt amount. %<'$1,(/.$3/$1$1',$17+20$6

D

EBT TO finance the Seattle NHL expansion team and

the renovations of the former KeyArena has totaled
$825 million after a pair of loans led by SunTrust
Bank recently closed. It is believed to be the most
amount of debt ever connected to an NHL franchise.
Developer Oak View Group is borrowing $500 million to finance
its renovation of the arena, while the yet-to-be-named expansion
team is borrowing $325 million to help finance a $650 million
expansion fee.
That isn’t the only major NHL-related debt in the market. OVG
also is looking to borrow another healthy nine-figure sum to
finance the New York Islanders’ proposed arena in Belmont, N.Y.
That facility is not expected to open until the 2021-22 season.
The Seattle loan, in addition to SunTrust, has Citizens Bank,
MUFG and City National in the syndicate. Some finance sources
questioned the amount of debt for a single NHL team and arena
but conceded that at a time when lenders are hungry to extend
credit in sports, it’s not a surprise the Seattle deal closed.

6

|

M A R C H 1 8 - 24 , 2 0 19

Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke said that the company is
“extremely comfortable with our debt service,” noting that the
project required “a debt package to overcome the fact that we
don’t have subsidies — this is a complicated and expensive
project.”

Leiweke said the entire redevelopment is expected to cost between $850 million and $900 million, which not only will include
refurbishing the arena but a more than $75 million investment
in an underground parking garage below the arena. Oak View
also will have control of a piece of land next to the arena that it
could develop, as well as sponsorship and advertising rights to
the overall arena campus, things that Leiweke said, “when you
take all of that together, the leverage on this project from a percentage standpoint is less than any other project that I’ve done.”
There was a strong appetite in the loan markets for the debt,
and no questions about the amount of leverage, or borrowing
for an arena with an NHL team, said Jeff Dunn, executive vice
president of sports and entertainment for SunTrust.
“Everyone felt having the NHL expansion team committed to
the arena project was a key component,” Dunn said. “But also,
confidence in the strategic partnership with Oak View.”
Leiweke said projections for contractually obligated income
for the arena, as well as its early success on that front, also made
it attractive for lenders.
Oak View Group has already secured four of the eight found-

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

Oak View Group CEO
Tim Leiweke estimated
that the total cost of
redevelopment at
KeyArena will be $850
million to $900 million.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

ing partners and sold two presenting partner
deals for the arena; has sold the majority of the
suites in the building; and is currently in negotiations with four different companies regarding naming rights, Leiweke said, though he
declined to offer specifics. He said he expects
all of that inventory will be sold by the end of
the calendar year, nearly two years in advance
of the arena’s opening.
“We believe that when you put all of this together, the revenue that we’re going to generate
will make this arena a top-five-grossing arena
in the world,” Leiweke said.
Oak View Group, founded in 2015 by Leiweke
and Irving Azoff, will own the arena, with Live
Nation having a smaller equity stake. Last year,
private equity firm Silver Lake invested more
than $100 million in Oak View Group in exchange
for an equity stake in OVG, which recently struck
a deal to develop a new arena for the University of Texas in Austin.
Mitchell Ziets, who advises on stadium and
arena finance, agreed that the debt levels for
Seattle and under consideration for the OVGIslanders project are not out of line.
“Based on the NHL arena projects that I have
been involved in recently and what I know about
the NHL, it is clear that franchise values and
team and arena revenues are growing rapidly,”
he said. “And when you combine a new arena
with a vibrant real estate development, which
as we have all seen is the current trend, this

turbocharges the overall economics and value.
Thus, while I have not seen the operating projections for either the Seattle or Islanders projects, I can certainly
understand how the
teams and lenders are
both comfortable at
the levels of arena financing you have described.”
NHL rules allow
teams to borrow up to
half of their value, according to sources,
hence Seattle being
able to borrow $325
million after an ownership group led by
David Bonderman and
Jerry Bruckheimer
agreed to pay a $650
million expansion fee to enter the league. The
team has more than 33,000 season-ticket-holder
deposits and will launch in the 2021-22 season.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly declined
to comment.
“What is important to note is how Oak View
views these projects,” said Keegan McDonald,
OVG’s director of business development and
finance, when asked if buildings with only NHL
teams as tenants could support the amount of
debt in question. “This is a bet on live, this is
a bet on content outside of professional sports.”
By live, McDonald primarily means concerts,
a sector he referred to as a “tenant” in and of
itself. “It’s not only the NHL,” he said. “Music

is our other tenant.”

Getty Images

“We believe
that when you
put all of this
together, the
revenue that
we’re going
to generate
will make this
arena a topfive-grossing
arena in the
world.”

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

The Red Bulls, based in New Jersey and one of two teams in the league to play in a state
that has already legalized sports betting, are positioned to take advantage of the deal.

MLS strikes deal with MGM
%<,$17+20$6
MLS HAS signed a four-year partner-

ship with MGM Resorts International to be the league’s first official sports
betting partner.
The deal, which does not provide
exclusivity in the category, will give
MGM Resorts access to enhanced MLS

data for fans and sports betting customers. MLS and MGM will also
jointly develop a free-to-play game that
is expected to be released later this
year.
In addition to receiving the standard tenants of a league-level sponsorship with MLS such as activation at
major events and integration into
league digital and social channels, as
well as field-level signage in nationally televised matches, MLS and MGM
Resorts will work to bring soccer
events and other activations to Las
Vegas. MLS Deputy Commissioner
and MLS Business Ventures President
Gary Stevenson said those events
could range anywhere from league
business meetings and the draft to
esports or other special soccer competitions. It could also include events
or matches that involve other Soccer
United Marketing partners. Stevenson
declined to comment on the financial
terms of the deal.
“Sports betting has the ability to
engage new fans in the sport, and
provide existing fans with deeper engagement,” Stevenson said, noting
how intertwined sports betting and
soccer is around the world outside of
the U.S.
Scott Butera, MGM Resorts International president of interactive gaming, said that compared to betting
around other professional sports in

the U.S., “the base is clearly smaller

than the other sports, but we see the
potential for growth as much higher.
No one has really promoted soccer in
the betting world here yet.”
Butera said the company will work
closely with MLS to build that out.
Beyond the free-to-play game they will
create, MGM Resorts will promote
MLS in its Play MGM mobile sports
betting app, and will utilize MLS
branding across a range of its offerings in the U.S.
The new national partnership will
likely also have an impact on local
sponsorship. Stevenson said the
league’s commercial committee is
discussing alterations to league guidelines that could open the door for
teams to sign partnerships with sports
betting companies and allow them to
be jersey sponsors. MLS rules have
barred that sort of advertising.
“Our clubs are looking to be very
aggressive in this space, so we want
to give them an opportunity to grow
their fan bases and realize revenues
around it,” Stevenson said. He characterized those discussions as “happening as we speak; this isn’t a
next-year kind of thing.”
Two MLS teams play in states where
sports betting is legal: the New York
Red Bulls, who play in New Jersey,
and the Philadelphia Union. The Red

Bulls have been in discussions with
sports betting companies regarding
naming rights to their stadium as well
as other team-level partnerships, industry sources said. Philadelphia has
also had discussions with sports betting companies regarding its stadium
naming-rights deal, which is with
Talen Energy but expires after the
2020 season.

TIMELINE
OF MAJOR
SPORTS
LEAGUE
GAMBLING
SPONSORSHIPS

NBA

July 31, 2018
MGM
RESORTS
INTERNATIONAL

NHL

Oct. 29, 2018
MGM
RESORTS
INTERNATIONAL

MLB

Nov. 27, 2018
MGM
RESORTS
INTERNATIONAL

NFL

Jan. 3, 2019
CAESARS
ENTERTAINMENT

MLS

March 2019
MGM
RESORTS
INTERNATIONAL

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

|

7


83)5217

ESPN adds three years

to ICC tourney deal
ESPN HAS signed a three-year extension with Relev-

ent Sports Group for media rights to the International Champions Cup, a deal that also will see the
network’s platforms offer expanded coverage of the
ICC’s recently launched women’s and youth team
tournaments.
The ICC, the summer tournament
%<,$1
for top European soccer clubs found7+20$6
ed in 2013 by Stephen Ross, Matt
Higgins and Charlie Stillitano, previously had a three-year deal with
ESPN that it signed in 2016. Prior to that, the tournament aired on Fox Sports in the U.S.
The deal, which gives ESPN English- and Spanishlanguage rights in the U.S., Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, will see the network televise
at least 15 to 25 of the tournament’s matches, with
the remainder appearing on ESPN+. The knockout
and final rounds of both the women’s and youth
team tournaments also will appear on ESPN linear
platforms, with the group stages streaming on
digital. In 2018, the first year for both of those tournaments, only the women’s final match was broadcast on ESPN2.

That will also come with a larger rights fee — RSG
CEO Danny Sillman said the new deal increased
four times in value compared to the previous one
with ESPN, declining to comment further. RSG’s
last deal with ESPN had increased from its previous
deal with Fox, which was valued at more than $2.2
million over the three years, according to sources.
Sillman noted the changed media landscape and
desire for soccer media rights that has evolved from

2016, saying there was “interest from all the key
players this time.”
ESPN also will provide expanded coverage of all
three tournaments, which will include additional
shoulder programming and content produced about
the players and the teams. Sillman noted the success that ESPN and ABC have had in broadcasting
the Little League World Series, which is serving as
a model for the ICC’s youth tournament, known as
ICC Futures and which brings together the best
under-14 youth squads from teams around the world.
RSG currently does not have any additional international broadcast deals done, and Sillman said the
company will begin to shift its focus to that area. He
said his expectation is that several deals will get done,

The 7-year-old event features top European clubs,
such as 2018 men’s winner Tottenham Hotspur FC.

considering the tournament’s field will again include
several top-flight European clubs and their men’s,
women’s and youth teams, as well as youth teams
from Asia and South America.
Relevent Sports Group will announce its full slate
of participating teams and programming across
the three tournaments next week.

%<-2+1285$1'
BUD SELIG fielded the same question

almost daily as he wound down his
23-year tenure as MLB commissioner:

When are you writing a book?
Usually Selig would laugh off the
inquiries. This self-described history
buff had little desire to write about
his life.
Selig’s stance changed as he
prepared to step down from his
commissioner role in 2015, and he
eventually embraced the idea. Now
several years in the making, his
autobiography is almost ready for
print.
“For the Good of the Game: The
Inside Story of the Surprising,
Dramatic Transformation of Major
League Baseball” will be published by
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, on July 9, the same day as
MLB’s All-Star Game.
“Gradually, over a period of time, I
came to the conclusion that I ought to
write a book,” Selig said. “Sometimes
when you’re away from things, you
get a little bit different perspective.”
The book is not completely
finished, but Selig expects it to be
published at about 350 pages.
“It’s about my own career, it’s about

8

|

M A R C H 1 8 - 24 , 2 0 19

“For the Good of the Game” details MLB’s changes under the former commissioner.

baseball, it’s about sports, it’s about
life,” he said. “There are some
interesting political stories. There’s
my own analysis of events, like the
steroid issue.”
Selig said his book will not shy from
addressing controversies, specifically
referencing the steroid scandal that
rocked MLB through the 1990s and
early 2000s.

“There’s been a lot of mythology
about that from a lot of people who
either don’t understand or don’t have
the facts,” he said. “People accused
us of being slow to react. It’s just not
true. It’s one of these historical myths.
We go into great detail on that.”
He also addresses other decisions
that were unpopular at the time he
made them, from expanding the

playoffs to allowing interleague play.
“You come to find in life that

nobody likes change,” he said.
“Remember when we did the Wild
Card? There was a huge uproar about
how we were going to ruin the game.
I guess it worked out pretty well,
didn’t it?”
A significant part of the book will
address Selig’s role in changing
baseball’s economic structure, which
included his introduction of revenue
sharing.
The Montag Group’s Sandy
Montag, who works with Selig on
speaking engagements, helped the
MLB commissioner emeritus find a
publisher for his book.
“We felt that HarperCollins — their
interest and their specific love of
baseball put them over the top,”
Montag said.
Doris Kearns Goodwin, a longtime
friend of Selig’s, wrote a foreword for
the book.
Ultimately, the book took more than
four years to report and write. Phil
Rogers did most of the heavy lifting.
Sports journalist Richard Justice
started out writing the book before
eventually passing it over to Rogers.
Baseball executive Charles Steinberg

also helped.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images (2)

Selig says time is right to tell his story in upcoming book


SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

A video by The Chemical Brothers,
complete with a dog behind the
wheel, highlights F1’s work with
the music group.

last year saw celebrities such as
Will Smith and Millie Bobby
Brown show up to races and produce content for the series. F1 last
year produced a fictional viral
video during the season finale
weekend in Abu Dhabi where
Smith kidnapped Mercedes star
Lewis Hamilton.
The series, which is working on
adding a second U.S. race in Miami
or Las Vegas as soon as 2020, will
hold two new fan festivals this year

F1 adds some

marketing muscle
for new season

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

2019

SLA 45

TH

ANNUAL CONFERENCE

May 16-18, 2019 | Phoenix, Arizona | JW Marriott Desert Ridge

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:
⊲ Want to Bet? The Post PASPA Sports
Wagering Landscape
⊲ Athletics Issues Through the Lens
of College and University Counsel
⊲ NFLPA Contract Advisors Session
⊲ How to Stop Bad Conduct in
Sport Without Going Too Far
⊲ eSports the Next Big Thing
⊲ Athlete Abuse: The Human
and Legal Issues
⊲ When a Sports Client’s Problems
Go Public: Managing the Public
Relations and Litigation Crisis

19

Liberty Media continues to increase its investment in the sport.
The global open-wheel series, which started its 2019 season last weekend
in Australia, has been working in recent years to build out its overall corporate structure. F1 effectively had no marketing department under the
former regime of Bernie Ecclestone, who ran the series almost unilaterally from the late 1970s until 2017. The series is now trying to grow its presence digitally and socially as well as in key markets around
the world, including the U.S. and Asia.
%<$'$0
To that end, Ellie Norman, F1’s director of marketing and
67(51
communications, said the series’ leadership group — a triumvirate of Chase Carey, Sean Bratches and Ross Brawn
— have signed off on increasing her budget this year as
they ramp up initiatives that include promoting F1’s OTT product, improving TV production and holding more live fan festivals. She did not disclose
the size of either the budget or the increase to it.
Norman said F1’s marketing and communications group has grown to 20
people. “From the three of them, there’s a real recognition in terms of the
power of marketing,” said Norman, who joined F1 in mid-2017, shortly after
Liberty bought the series. “I have had an increase in my budget [for this
year] — and within the marketplace, that isn’t necessarily common, so that
is a great indication to have that.”
Given how little was being done by F1 in terms of marketing, sponsorship, analytics and digital media before Liberty came aboard, the American
media company has spent the last couple of years hiring and putting a new
structure in place. Norman said now that Liberty has been doing that for
two years, “2019 is 100 percent about how we really drive the sort of focus
with the foundations in place.”
Near the top of her to-do list is growing F1 TV, the OTT product that had
a challenging debut in 2018 but has been refined and appears ready for a
better second season. Norman said F1 experimented with marketing around
the product on social media and with search engines last year and will
broaden that this year, using video to explain why the service is different

than a usual linear TV broadcast. For example, F1 TV Pro, which is produced
in six languages across 65 countries, has exclusive camera views and data
channels, which are features that F1 will highlight in its marketing.
The series also is expanding on its “Engineered Insanity” marketing
campaign that it debuted last year by homing in on sound this year. F1
worked with English electronic music group The Chemical Brothers to
remix and speed up one of its songs to a three-second sound that will be the
series’ new sonic identity.
In terms of the U.S., Norman said the series is eyeing new media partnerships and continuing to grow its influencer marketing platform, which

#SL AC

Formula One

FORMULA ONE is pouring more money into marketing this year as owner

in Chicago and Los Angeles.
F1 also is working on improving its TV production. For example, Norman
said its engineering team created a microphone that can be placed in the
exhaust system of an F1 car, giving viewers a more visceral engine sound. In
addition, F1 is experimenting with 360-degree on-car cameras and using drones
to help cover fan festivals.
Other areas of focus include growing the series’ relatively limited corporate
partnership portfolio and its presence in esports.
“It’s been the most rewarding experience of my career to date — one of the
things I have thoroughly loved and appreciated is essentially coming into a 69-yearold startup,” Norman said. “The ability to come into a business and essentially
have a blank piece of paper but with some really clear objectives of what we have
to achieve has been phenomenal and a challenge I’ve really relished.”

⊲ Law of Sports Products

⊲ Teaching Sports Law
⊲ Legal Issues for Start-Up Leagues
⊲ Commercialization of Athlete Names
and Images
⊲ Tactics and Strategies for Negotiating
Venue, Event and Team Sponsorships
⊲ League General Counsel and Players
Association Executive Director Forums
⊲ Workers’ Compensation Update

FOR MORE INFORMATION,
CONTACT SLA:

PRESENTED BY:

PHONE: 703.437.4377
(x4085, 4071, or 4070)

FAX: 703.435.4390


Sports Lawyers Association
11130 Sunrise Valley Drive | Suite 350
Reston, Virginia 20191

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

|

9

83)5217

The
Market

Team owner Clay
Bennett’s hesitation
with putting an ad
on the Thunder’s
jersey played a role
in them being late
to the jersey patch
party.

A M E AS U R E D LO O K
AT T H I S W E E K ’ S
HOLDINGS

BUY

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

SSELL
ELL

UNFAIR CATCH
USC water polo coach Jovan Vavic
and UCLA men’s soccer coach Jorge

Salcedo were among the coaches
at elite schools — also including
Georgetown, Stanford, Texas, Wake
Forest and Yale — accused by federal
prosecutors of taking bribes from
parents to get their children into those
colleges whether or not the students
qualified athletically or academically.

HOLD

ROOM FOR TWO?
Fox Sports is making a push to boost
its college football pregame show by
hiring former Ohio State coach Urban
Meyer and USC legend Reggie Bush,
and planning more live shows from
various campuses, but taking on ESPN’s
hugely popular and long-running
“College GameDay” is a tall task.

10

|

M A R C H 1 8 - 24 , 2 01 9

All in: Thunder final NBA team
to land jersey patch deal
TWO SEASONS into the NBA’s jersey sponsorship program,

all 30 teams now have patch deals after the Oklahoma City
Thunder signed a deal with Love’s Travel Stops & Country
Stores in one of the most unusual deals in the league.
“The category as we define it is the travel stop convenience
store, and what makes it unique is it is the only patch partner that is selling products from other brands,” said Matt
Wolf, senior vice president of the NBA’s team marketing and
business operations division. “This is a
brand that attaches customers to a host of
%<-2+1
other brands, and that is different. It is more
/20%$5'2
of a daily customer segment.”
The unique category was one of the driving forces behind the team’s decision to align
with Love’s, team officials said.
“It’s a point of differentiation,” said Brian Byrnes, senior
vice president of sales and marketing for the Thunder. “We
had a number of opportunities to sell the platform to a number of national brands. Love’s provides the best platform.
It’s a national company with high growth and innovation,
and it is very progressive.”
The league approved the three-year pilot jersey ad program
beginning with the 2017-18 season, and the Philadelphia 76ers
were the first team to sign a jersey partner in May 2016. So
why did it take the Thunder, a prominent franchise that ranks
in the top 10 in nearly every NBA business metric, so long
to sign a deal?
Part of the reason was because Thunder owner Clay Bennett was among the most hesitant of owners to put an ad on
the team’s uniform.
“We are very deliberate and very measured,” Byrnes said.
“It’s part of our core value from Clay Bennett to [general

manager] Sam Presti. Being in a small market, every decision is magnified. We have been very deliberate in order to
ensure success.”
Byrnes refused to disclose the value of the deal, which was
announced March 15, but said it ranks in the top 10 of league
jersey patch deals that range from $5 million to $20 million
per year. Headquartered in Oklahoma City, Love’s has been
a Thunder sponsor since 2008 when the team began play there.
The company counts nearly 500 retail locations in 41 states.

NBA JERSEY PATCH DEALS
TEAM

SPONSOR

Atlanta Hawks

Sharecare

Boston Celtics

GE

Brooklyn Nets

Infor

Charlotte Hornets

LendingTree

Chicago Bulls

Zenni Optical

Cleveland Cavaliers

Goodyear

Dallas Mavericks

5miles

Denver Nuggets

Western Union

Detroit Pistons

Flagstar Bank

Golden State Warriors

Rakuten

Houston Rockets

Rokit

Indiana Pacers

Motorola

Los Angeles Clippers

Bumble

Los Angeles Lakers

Wish

Memphis Grizzlies

FedEx

Miami Heat

Ultimate Software

Milwaukee Bucks

Harley-Davidson

Minnesota Timberwolves

Fitbit

New Orleans Pelicans

Zatarain’s

New York Knicks

Squarespace

Oklahoma City Thunder

Love’s Travel Stops & Country
Stores

Orlando Magic

Walt Disney World

Philadelphia 76ers

StubHub

Phoenix Suns

PayPal

Portland Trail Blazers

Biofreeze

Sacramento Kings

Blue Diamond

San Antonio Spurs

Frost Bank

Toronto Raptors

Sun Life Financial

Utah Jazz

Qualtrics

Washington Wizards

Geico

Source: SBJ research

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images (5); ESPN Images

The current CBA expires in 2021, but
Major League Baseball and the
MLBPA have agreed on a series of
modifications — including a $1M
bonus for winning the Home Run Derby,
eliminating the August trade deadline
and reducing the time between innings
— that suggest they might be able to
reach a deal without a work stoppage.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

WinCraft’s display at
the Consumer Products
Summit included a big
nod to the NFL’s 100th
season.

— 70 percent of whom are those
always-elusive millennial males.
“The size of the fan base, the
revenue opportunity and the sizable
crossover make this a really interesting
tactic for us to drive fan engagement,”
she said. “If you’re in the business of
trying to attract that group [millennial
males], as we are here at the NFL, esports is a big
opportunity.”
We await the first esports/NFL cross-licensed
apparel.

NFL eyes big plans for
100th season celebration
‘NFL 100,’ the licensing program tied to the league’s centennial
year, has more than 20 companies lined up to promote — and
cash in on — the marketing push.

Terry Lefton (2)

NFL OFFICIALS are optimistically projecting that

“NFL 100,” the licensing program behind a yearlong
marketing push for the league’s 100th season, will
be as big as the Super Bowl golden anniversary
from 2016.
“NFL 100 will be threaded through everything we
do next season,” said
Michelle Micone, senior
)5207+(
vice president of
1)/&21680(5
consumer products.
352'8&76 6800,7
To date, there are
NEW ORLEANS
more than 20 licensees
supporting the program
7(55</()721
with generic and
co-branded products,
including Fanatics, Northwest, Tervis, Vineyard
Vines and WinCraft, which was displaying huge NFL
100th banners at the show.
“It’s got a good chance to perform well, because
the league really wants it to be a significant historical marker, like Super Bowl 50,” said WinCraft CEO
John Killen.
Most of the products will begin appearing in the
months before next season, but the 100th season

logo will start to get familiar at the April 25-27 NFL
draft, when it will appear on the New Era caps made
for that event. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl ad that
kicked off the NFL’s 100th season, winning USA
Today’s Ad Meter, has been viewed 30 million times,
according to NFL Chief Marketing Officer Tim Ellis.
“One of our biggest missions is recruiting the next
generation of NFL fans without losing our core,” Ellis
said. “We have to find ways to bridge those generations.”
Since the potential top draft pick, Oklahoma

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

quarterback Kyler Murray, plays both football and
baseball, like Seattle QB Russell Wilson, a spot
supporting the draft will show Wilson encouraging
Murray in a “legends helping create the next
legends” scenario.
As for growth areas in the markedly mature
sports-licensed business?
“There’s still opportunity,”
Micone said. “It’s about being on
trend quickly and finding the white
space.”
Micone offered FOCO’s licensed
floral shirts and Sports Licensing
Solutions’ football-shaped step
stools as examples.
“If we can be sharp, take
advantage of things like data and

analytics to give fans the right
messages at the right time, I see no
reason why we can’t grow apparel
also,” she said.

■ AWARD WINNING: As always, the NFL handed
out awards honoring its community of licensees and
retailers. The Dallas Cowboys won Club Retailer of
the year; Lids won Retailer of the Year; and in just its
third year as a licensee, Pegasus Sports was named
to the Million-Dollar Club, meaning it sold enough to
generate $1 million in royalties to the league.
Pegasus started with licenses for furniture covers,
pillows and other domestic products but scored a
huge hit with its Hover Helmet, a replica NFL helmet
that levitates and spins, with the help of electromagnets — enough of a breakthrough that it made the
cover of the Sharper Image holiday catalog.
■ STEADY STATE: Time doesn’t heal every
wound. Almost two months after the Los Angeles
Rams beat New Orleans in the NFC Championship
Game, Saints fans all the way up to the team
president are still unhappy about the non-call that
they feel decided the game.
“We won the Super Bowl, except for the call that
wasn’t made right over there,” Saints President Dennis
Lauscha said during an address at the summit, held on
the floor of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
■ COMINGS & GOINGS: Former MLB licensing
chief Steve Armus has resurfaced as vice president
of licensing and business ventures for VF Corp.’s

Kontoor Brands spinoff. Based in Greensboro, N.C.,

■ GAME WITHIN THE GAME:
The popular Hover Helmets, a replica NFL helmet that hovers between
More NFL licensees, including
two magnets, helped Pegasus Sports crack the Million-Dollar Club.
Nike, WinCraft and Fabrique
Innovations, are starting to sell
Kontoor includes the Wrangler and Lee jeans
products based on esports intellectual property.
brands, along with 70-plus VF Outlet stores. … Lids
Rachel Hoagland, who joined the league in June
President David Baxter has departed after three
as head of gaming and esports, told the Consumer
years, following the licensed retail chain’s sale in
Products Summit audience that the opportunity to
December to Ames Watson Capital, the owner of
engage NFL fans with esports is enormous. Stats
licensed sports apparel retailer Fanzz. … Adam
she cited supporting that contention: The esports
Blinderman, vice president of consumer products
industry will surpass $1 billion in revenue for the
and retail marketing, has been fired by MLB after 18
first time in 2019, and by the end of the year the
years with the league.
global audience of esports fans will total 454 million

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

|

11


83)5217

StubHub expands pool
of MLB clubs with full
mobile integration
%<(5,&),6+(5

STUBHUB TOP 2019 MLB GAMES

THE 2019 Major League Baseball season will

see longtime ticket resale partner StubHub
make several new integrations with individual clubs, including a sharp increase in
mobile-based activity and sales beyond firstpitch times in several markets.
The eBay-owned StubHub this year will
expand the number of MLB clubs with full
mobile integration for ticket resale and fulfillment from nine in 2018 to 25 this year. The
ongoing conversion occurs as the entire ticketing industry continues to embrace mobile
ticketing and PDF-based paper tickets have
been banned in several team markets.
StubHub executives said they intend to
also integrate the remaining five clubs — the
Los Angeles Dodgers, Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals — for mobile-based resales
by next year as various technical and logistical issues are resolved.
The company, meanwhile, this year also
will support resales up to one hour after game

starts for seven teams: the Astros, Angels,
Athletics, Dodgers, Giants, Mets and Rangers.
The third five-year contract term between
MLB and StubHub, agreed to in late 2017, created a new “zero-hour” rule allowing resales
up to first-pitch times for all 30 clubs. But sales
beyond game starts also were tested in several markets last year, and are now being expanded as last-minute ticket buying continues

Padres
take
swing at
new beer
%< '$9,' %528*+721
SAN DIEGO Padres fans will

Matchup

Location

Date

1. Yankees
vs. Red Sox

London

June 29

2. Blue Jays
at Red Sox

Boston*

April 9

3. Yankees
at Red Sox

London

June 30

4. Padres at
Cardinals

St. Louis*

April 4

5. Nationals
at Mets

New York*

April 4

* Home opener

to grow sharply across the industry. One of
StubHub’s competitors, Gametime, has based
much of its business on exactly that concept.

“We’re obviously seeing a big shift toward
last-minute activity and want to support that
as much as we can,” said Jill Krimmel, StubHub general manager of MLB, NCAA and other
sports. “This is a significant growth opportunity for us.”
Meanwhile, MLB’s upcoming two-game
London Series between Boston and the New
York Yankees — the league’s first games in
Europe — represent StubHub’s currently most
sought-after MLB games for the 2019 season.
The June 29 opener at London Stadium is StubHub’s No. 1 best-selling baseball game, with
the June 30 game ranking at No. 3 (see chart).

soon have their own beer to
help celebrate the team’s
50th anniversary and all
those Manny Machado
home runs they hope to see.
San Diego-based craft
brewer Ballast Point is
scheduled to announce today
that Swingin’ Friar Ale will be
available at Petco Park and
throughout San Diego
beginning Opening Day. The
co-branded beer will feature
packaging that highlights the
club’s historical
brown and gold
colors and the
Padres’ 50th

anniversary logo.
“Ballast Point is
one of the most
in-demand beer
brands in the
ballpark,” said
Erik Greupner, the
Padres’ president
of business
operations.
Petco Park
boasts two Ballast
Point-sponsored

bars, while brands from
Anheuser-Busch InBev
adorn the Estrella Jalisco
Landing, Pacifico Porch,
Budweiser Patio and
Budweiser Beer Loft.
Constellation Brands
bought Ballast Point for $1
billion in 2015. It’s the first
time the brewer has cobranded a beer with anyone,
according to Hilary Cocalis,
Ballast Point’s vice president
of marketing. She said it will
be brewing 100 barrels for
the Opening Day batch.
Ballast Point shipped a total

of 275,000 barrels of beer last
year, according to an estimate
provided to SBJ by Beer
Marketer’s Insights. Although
that was 12 percent lower
than its 2017 production, it is
10 times as much as it brewed
in 2011, the company’s first
year as a team partner.

MiLB doubles up on Copa de la Diversión invitees
MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL today will

unveil the second iteration of its Copa
de la Diversión (Fun Cup) Hispanic
marketing initiative, with the 2019
rollout more than doubling last year’s
inaugural effort.
A key component of the affiliated
minors’ ongoing “It’s Fun to be a Fan”
marketing campaign, the Copa initiative will see 72 clubs today announce
temporary Hispanic-themed nicknames and visual identities that will
be used during the 2019 season, up
from 33 teams last year. This year’s
Copa effort will encompass 397 total
games, also up sharply from 163 in
2019.
The marked increase in the program’s scale stems heavily from initial
results that saw Copa games in 2018
generate a 12.6 percent attendance

jump compared to their calendar

12

|

M A R C H 1 8 - 24 , 2 0 1 9

equivalents in 2017, and 24 percent
higher average attendance compared
to non-Copa games during the season.
Retail sales of Copa-themed merchandise also beat preseason goals by more
than 700 percent
as caps from the
program in particular became
some of the hottest merchandise
in all of Minor
League Baseball
licensed gear.
The Copa campaign is also a key
element in Minor League Baseball’s
broader goal to expand its current
annual attendance of more than 40
million to 50 million by 2026.
“We’re going both deeper and
broader this year,” said Kurt Hunzeker, Minor League Baseball vice

president of marketing strategy and
research. “The data we’ve seen so far
shows this is resonating extraordinarily well.”

Hunzeker said several steps have
been crucial to
achieving that
resonance.
Among them
have been requiring clubs to
each stage multiple games in
the program and
not doing a single Hispanic Heritage
theme night; choosing more authentic temporary nicknames and not just
placing “Los” in front of their existing moniker; and working closely
with local schools, community groups
and Hispanic chambers of commerce.
That latter point will be particu-

larly highlighted during today’s daylong, social media-heavy rollout of the
2019 Copa team names, many of which
will involve clubs making local announcements at elementary schools,
Little League complexes and Hispanic business sites.
The Copa campaign, meanwhile,
has generated its own sponsorship
activity. Echo Inc., the brand controlled by Japanese manufacturer
Yamabiko Corp., signed on last fall as
the official outdoor power tool of both
Minor League Baseball and the Copa
program. The Lupus Foundation of
America is aligned as Copa’s first
philanthropic partner.
While the 2019 Copa program unfolds, Minor League Baseball also is
well underway on planning for the

2020 version, with further expansions
already in the works. — E.F.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM


SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

632576%86,1(66$:$5'6

The Nominees Are …
We are pleased to present the nominees for the 12th annual Sports Business Awards, which recognize excellence
over the past year. Please join us for the awards gala on May 22 at the New York Marriott Marquis at Times Square.

SPORTS TEAM OF THE YEAR
f Atlanta United FC
f Golden State Warriors
f Milwaukee Brewers
f Milwaukee Bucks
f Portland Thorns FC
f Washington Capitals
SPORTS LEAGUE OF THE YEAR
f Major League Soccer
f National Basketball Association
f National Football League
f PGA Tour

BEST IN DIGITAL SPORTS MEDIA
f B/R Live
f DAZN

f ESPN+
f NBA League Pass
f NBC Sports Gold

SPORTS EVENT OF THE YEAR
f 100th PGA Championship
f 2019 NHL All-Star Game
f Bank of America Roval 400
f Super Bowl LIII
f U.S. Open Tennis Championships

BEST IN SPORTS SOCIAL MEDIA
f Adidas/Twitter: “Friday Night
Stripes”
f Gritty
f JuJu Smith-Schuster
f WWE

SPORTS SPONSOR OF THE YEAR
f Anheuser-Busch InBev
f Capital One
f Geico
f Pizza Hut
f State Farm

Marc Bryan-Brown

BEST IN SPORTS MEDIA
f CBS Sports
f ESPN

f Fox Sports
f NBC Sports Group
f Turner Sports

SPORTS FACILITY OF THE YEAR
f Banc of California Stadium
f Fiserv Forum
f Mercedes-Benz Stadium
f State Farm Arena
f USTA Billie Jean King National
Tennis Center

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

BEST IN MOBILE FAN EXPERIENCE
f Bleacher Report
f DraftKings Sportsbook
f ESPN
f NASCAR
f Twitter
BEST TALENT REPRESENTATION
OF THE YEAR
f Boras Corporation
f CAA Sports
f Endeavor
f Excel Sports Management
f Octagon
f Wasserman

BEST IN SPORTS EVENT AND

EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
f CSM LeadDog
f Endeavor Global Marketing
f Engine Shop
f GMR Marketing
f Intersport
f Wasserman
BEST IN CORPORATE CONSULTING,
MARKETING AND CLIENT SERVICES
f CAA Sports
f Endeavor Global Marketing
f Momentum Worldwide
f Octagon
f Scout Sports and Entertainment
f Wasserman
BEST IN PROPERTY CONSULTING,
SALES AND CLIENT SERVICES
f AEG Global Partnerships
f CAA Sports
f Endeavor
f Excel Sports Management
f Legends
f Oak View Group
BEST IN SPORTS TECHNOLOGY
f Clear
f Greenfly
f Second Spectrum: Clippers
CourtVision
f SportsCastr

SPORTS BREAKTHROUGH
OF THE YEAR
f BodyArmor
f Los Angeles Football Club
f MGM Resorts
f Minor League Baseball:
Copa de la Diversión
ATHLETIC DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
f Ray Anderson,
Arizona State University
f Mitch Barnhart,
University of Kentucky
f Jennifer Cohen,
University of Washington
f Blake James,
University of Miami
f Jamie Pollard,
Iowa State University
SPORTS EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
f Don Garber, Major League Soccer
f Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN
f Michael Rubin, Fanatics
f Eric Shanks, Fox Sports
f Adam Silver, National
Basketball Association
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
f Tim Finchem

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

|

13


7+(,16,'(56
The strength
and tradition of
ACC basketball
gives the
conference’s
network yearround leverage
in its pursuit of
carriage deals.

632576 0 ( ' , $

Litany of distribution deals
puts added pressure on big cable
systems to carry ACC Network
that big distributors such as
Comcast, Charter and Dish
Network will have a lot of pressure
to carry the ACC Network when it
launches this August.
The reason: National distributors
DirecTV, Hulu and PlayStation Vue
already have committed to carry the
channel. That is on top of regional
commitments from Altice One’s Op%<-2+1

timum and Verizon’s Fios.
No matter what happens with Comcast and Charter, ACC fans in their
markets will have other distribution options if they
want to subscribe to the new conference network.
“I’m not suggesting that absolutely everybody
will be fully launched on the date of the network’s
launch,” said Justin Connolly, executive vice
president of affiliate sales and marketing at
Disney & ESPN Media Networks. “But we certainly like where we sit in terms of our recent
conversations. We like the way the programming
is lining up from a scheduling perspective. Each
distributor is going to have to make their own
choice and decision here, but we really like where
we sit with them.”
To underscore the amount of pressure that will
be on Comcast and Charter, the first ACC football
game on the network’s schedule will pit Georgia
Tech against Clemson. Georgia Tech is in a Comcast market; Clemson is in a Charter market. It’s
possible that only DirecTV, Hulu and PlayStation
Vue subscribers in those markets will be able to
see that game.
ESPN used the same strategy when it launched the
SEC Network, whose first game was Texas A&M at
South Carolina. Columbia, S.C., was a Time Warner
Cable market, and ESPN set up a bevy of fan events
around the game to exert extra pressure on Time
Warner, one of the last distributors to cut a deal.

14

|

MARCH 18-24, 2019

Comcast, Charter and Dish Network
are known as particularly tough negotiators. Comcast went a full year
without the Big Ten Network when
it launched in 2007 and engaged in a
rancorous public fight with the conference and Fox Sports, which owns
part of the channel. Dish Network has
not been shy about dropping sports
channels, particularly regional sports
networks.
285$1'
The question these distributors have
is: How many subscribers can they
afford to lose before they are forced
to cut a deal? Comcast ultimately decided to carry
the Big Ten Network. DirecTV, though, still has not
cut a deal for the Pac-12 Networks.
Given the number of ACC Network carriage
deals already announced, ESPN believes it has a
deal template for winning carriage for the new network. Disney’s affiliate deals with
Comcast, Charter
and Dish Network don’t come
up before August,
which means that
they will have to
work out a deal in
the middle of an

existing contract
— something that is not the norm but does happen
on occasion.
“There’s an opportunity to have demand to do
deals outside of a broader conversation,” Connolly
said. “We also have some broader conversations
that are well-timed against the launch. We look at
it as a combo.”
ESPN has a good history with launching college
sports networks. It owns all of the SEC Network,
which launched with virtually full distribution in

“Each distributor is going to have
to make their own choice and
decision here, but we really like
where we sit with them.”
listic basis, in the way that we think about programming the live event content and the matchups in any
particular season,” Connolly said. “That helps us
in distribution conversations. It helps us in making
the network appealing to certain customer groups
from a regional and seasonal perspective.”
John Ourand can be reached at Follow him on Twitter
@Ourand_SBJ.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Getty Images

E

SPN EXECUTIVES are expecting

2014. It also owns the Longhorn Network, which
has carriage throughout Texas.
Other college conference networks have been more
hit-or-miss in terms of carriage. Big Ten Network
went through a year of bruising carriage battles
when it launched, but it now has carriage deals
with all of the big distributors.
The independent Pac-12 Networks is on the other
side of the coin. It has been hamstrung by distribution challenges since its 2012 launch. Most notably, the Pac-12 has been unable to cut a deal with
DirecTV.
DirecTV actually committed to carry the ACC
Network as part of a bigger deal three years ago. But
neither ESPN nor DirecTV made the news public
until last week, when DirecTV was part of an ACC
Network marketing push.
“From our perspective, it is incredibly significant
if you think about where some of the other conference networks have been with DirecTV specifically,”
Connolly said. “It’s encouraging for us that when
we launch the third week of August, it’s going to
be available in the DirecTV footprint.”
Plus, Altice was the last holdout for the SEC Network but signed an early deal for the ACC Network.
“Sometimes these things take a little bit longer
than we would like,” Connolly said. “Ultimately in
the context of a broad conversation we figure out
a way to make it work.”
Connolly, who ran the SEC Network when it
launched, remarked about the similarities in the
look and feel of the networks. While there will be

a lot of focus on the upcoming Clemson-Georgia
Tech game, Connolly pointed out the year-round
programming to keep pressure on distributors that
don’t cut an ACC Network deal.
“We feel really good in terms of what the ACC
brings from a regional footprint with a really strong
basketball schedule, and obviously a really strong
basketball legacy,” Connolly said. “Over time, that
actually works quite well for us from a distribution
perspective.”
The main difference: Whereas CBS has the first
choice of SEC football games every week, ESPN
holds all of the media rights for the ACC. That means
it can be more creative in determining which games
to put on the ACC Network.
“We have the ability to think about the schedule
and the programming in an even deeper, more ho-


SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

7+(,16,'(56
/$%25$1'$*(176

Don’t Sweat it: USG makes sweet find with quick DE

T

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HE ARROWS on the draft status of

Mississippi State defensive end
Montez Sweat are going up since
he stunned NFL scouts at the combine by
running the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds,
a record for a defensive lineman.
“When we first signed him, we thought
he was a top-50, top-40 player,” said Brian
Overstreet, NFL agent at United Sports
Group, who represents Sweat with his
partner, Rodney Williams. “But certainly
his draft status has improved.”
Sweat, who is 6-foot-6 and 260 pounds,
impressed observers at this year’s Reese’s
Senior Bowl, as well.
NFL Draft Scout analyst Rob Rang called
Sweat “the most gifted player at the Senior
Bowl” and said he “wowed scouts” with a
wide receiver-like 40 time. “Possessing a
similar degree of vertical explosiveness
as former No. 1 overall pick Jadeveon
Clowney, Sweat is among a handful of
Pro Bowl-caliber edge rushers available
in the 2019 draft warranting top-10 consideration,” Rang said.
Overstreet didn’t actually see Sweat break
the record live, as agents are not allowed in
the stadium in Indianapolis where the combine is held. He and Williams were watching
it on television, he said. “And they went to
a commercial right when Montez was supposed to run,” Overstreet said. “When we

were watching the commercial I got a text
from one of the scouts I know.”
According to Overstreet, the text was
one word: “Wow.”
United Sports Group also has signed
another potential first-round pick, Ohio
State cornerback Kendall Sheffield. Additionally, the agency has signed Texas
A&M running back Trayveon Williams,
SMU cornerback Jordan Wyatt, Iowa
State cornerback Brian Peavy, Baylor
defensive end/linebacker Greg Roberts,
Houston safety Garrett Davis, Arkansas
safety Santos Ramirez, Prairie View A&M

being timed at 4.37 seconds
in the 40-yard dash,” Rang
said. “Along with his top-end
speed and height, Williams
is remarkably fluid changing directions and possesses
terrific ball skills, making
him not only a cover corner
but a turnover-generating
one, at that.”
Williams had to cut his
combine workout short after
running one of the fastest
40s at the event, but will hold
workouts he missed at his
pro day, Stanley said.
First Picks had five other

NFL prospect clients invited to the combine: N.C.
Montez Sweat turned heads and moved up draft boards with
his 4.41 in the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine.
State wide receiver Kelvin
Harmon, Nebraska wide redefensive end/linebacker Quinton Bell
ceiver Stanley Morgan, Colorado safety
and University of the Incarnate Word
Evan Worthington, Washington linebacklinebacker Silas Stewart.
er Ben Burr-Kirven and Washington running back Myles Gaskin. The players are
■ FIRST PICKS GETS ‘GREEDY’: First Picks
represented by NFL agents Christopher
Sports Management has signed several
Ellison, Erik Schmella and Stanley, who
top prospects for this year’s NFL draft,
formed First Picks about four years ago.
including Louisiana State cornerback
■ CAA SPORTS PROMOTIONS: Creative
Andraez “Greedy” Williams, a projectArtists Agency announced earlier this
ed first-round pick.
month that it had promoted 21 trainees to
Veteran NFL agent Jerome Stanley is
agent, including four who work in the Holrepresenting Williams, who led the Southlywood agency’s sports business. Sam Rose
eastern Conference in interceptions and
has been elevated to agent in CAA Sports’
passes defended as a freshman and is a
basketball department, and Cavan Walsh
two-time first-team All-SEC player. Draft
has been promoted to agent in CAA Sports’
analyst Rang had Williams ranked No. 14
coaches division. Additionally, Maddi Moon his mock draft last week, behind Washbley has been promoted to executive in CAA

ington cornerback Byron Murphy, but
Brand Consulting, and Alexandra Wakesaid Williams could be the first player
field has been elevated to executive in CAA
taken at the position, based on his perSports’ golf consulting group.
formance at the NFL combine.
“Williams strengthened his hold as the
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@
likely first cornerback off the board in the
sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow her on
2019 draft simply by living up to expectaTwitter @SBJLizMullen.
tions, measuring in just under 6-foot-2 and

The Playbook For
Sports Bus iness

NOVEMBER 5-11, 2018
VOLUME 21 ISSUE 29 • $7.95

Rea d What the Lea ders in Sports Rea d
Getty Images

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WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

The impact of sports gambling
has already led to some unexpected results —

and lots of people want a piece of the action.
PwC Sports Outlook:
Bright forecast, record
revenue ahead.

Lefton: CMOs ponder
‘Does marketing
still matter?’

Atlanta’s State Farm
Arena gives Hawks
fans room to roam.

College basketball:
Glacial pace greets
calls for reform.

3$*(

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M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

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15

7+(,16,'(56

)$ & , / , 7 , ( 6  &  )$ 1 ( ; 3 ( 5 , ( 1 & (

Rush to go cashless causes concern,
raises questions from facility experts
PORTS VENUES are racing to go

ample, just passed an ordinance restricting
cashless to cater to younger and
cashless restaurants. And some states, such
tech-oriented fans with promises
as Massachusetts, prohibit companies from
of quicker service and fewer hassles dealbeing 100 percent cash-free, Bernal said.
ing with cash. An added benefit for the
Bigelow expects to see more political waves
venues is increased consumer analytics.
against cash-free venues, with critics arguing
But some industry veterans and team
that the policies discriminate against fans
executives see speed bumps in the rush
who don’t have credit or debit cards.
to go cash-free.
Lee Zeidman, president of the Staples
“Why is it in the fans’ interest to do it?”
Center and adjacent Microsoft Theater
asked Chris Bigelow, president of The
and L.A. Live development, said going cash%<0,.(68118&.6

Bigelow Companies, a food service confree is more of a challenge in his arena
sulting firm.
because the Lakers, Kings, Clippers and
Bigelow expects to see pushback from fans worried
Sparks all have different owners and Southern Califorabout personal data collection via their debit or credit
nia residents and international tourists have shown a
cards, as well as an aversion to the cashless model being
proclivity to use cash.
forced upon them.
“We found more of the patrons going to the cash side,”
“I think you are also going to have the problem of people
Zeidman said of tests done last year that tried out going
are very hesitant on giving up any information and [have
cashless.
the question], ‘Why are they tracking me?’” he said.
Testing is key, according to Jaime Faulkner, CEO
The idea of losing a sale — any sale — gives pause to
of E15, Levy Restaurants’ analytics arm. Going even
some venues going completely cashless.
further, Faulkner said that testing needs to drill down
“I think everything is moving that way,” said Brooks
into the different parts of a venue.
Boyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing for
“Concourses behave very differently within the same
the Chicago White Sox. “We are just not ready to jump
venue,” she said. “We absolutely will do testing all
in head first. If people want to pay cash for something,
around the venue.”
I think it’s in our best interest to take it.”
Levy is the concessionaire at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz

Venues also have to make sure their cash-free pushes
Stadium, which went cashless earlier this month, and
aren’t running afoul of state and local laws related to
Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field, which will do the same
accepting currency, said Carlos Bernal, president of
on MLB’s Opening Day.
Delaware North Sportservice. Philadelphia, for exVenue managers and team executives often try to be

S

Jury’s out: Industry vet Sonya
Jury launches own business
VETERAN ARCHITECT SONYA JURY is starting a new

chapter in her career, launching her own consulting and entrepreneurial coaching business after
exiting design firm Generator Studio.
“I have started my own business to help
business leaders run a successful business

16

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M A R C H 1 8 - 24 , 2 01 9

instead of the business running them,” said Jury,
who currently is working under the umbrella of
management consulting firm Wunderground LLC
but plans to establish her own firm.
Jury’s sports architecture résumé includes stints

at HOK and Generator. Her design work includes
improvements at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium,
including a $24 million locker room remodel; a $10
million indoor sports performance center at the

Mike Sunnucks can be reached at


University of Arizona; and a $45 million remodel of
Indiana State’s basketball arena.
Jury said her consulting business will include
helping sports-related startups, entrepreneurs
and companies.
“I just learned I really like helping people,” she
said, “and this new opportunity allows me to work
with businesses small and large to help them run
their business better.” — M.S.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

TD Garden / Delaware North

TD Garden’s
card transactions
account for 85.8
percent of total
concessions sales.

out in front of the industry, especially
when it comes to technology, Zeidman

said, and that can turn into a problem.
Thinking through all possible scenarios is
crucial, such as when kids come to games
or events on a field trip or as part of a
group. Most of the time their parents
hand them money to spend, not a credit
or debit card.
“What we don’t want to do is tell a
12-year-old that he has to walk halfway
across the stadium to go buy whatever he
needs to buy,” said Faulkner, who added
that buildings need to have protocols in
place for such situations.
The most broad of those is how to deal
with fans who still want to pay cash.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is deploying
reverse ATMs for people without credit
or debit cards to exchange cash for a Visa
debit card. Fans won’t pay ATM fees on
those transactions. At Tampa Bay Rays
games, fans can exchange cash for a gift
card at team stores, and staffers will be
in concourses to help with questions and
exchanges, according to Bill Walsh, vice
president of strategy and development
for the Rays.
Despite pushback and potential barriers, consumer trends are hard to ignore.
Delaware North has seen card transactions at Boston’s TD Garden go from 47.5
percent of total sales during the 2016-17
season to 85.8 percent this season as it

deployed more credit card points of sale
and accepted Apple, Google and Samsung
mobile payments.
Jay Satenspiel, regional vice president
for concessionaire Spectra, said the cashfree experience has to be simple and easy,
especially for older, reluctant, sometimes
fearful fans. That includes something as
simple as menu boards with larger fonts
and images. Spectra is testing out a new
self-serve, cash-free concessions area at
the Chicago Cubs’ spring training facility in Arizona.
But in the end, Satenspiel pointed out,
cash-free stadiums and arenas are simply
following a larger societal trend.
“I look at my kids coming up and my
grandkids coming up and so forth — their
whole world is technology,” he said. “They
don’t understand what cash is anymore.”


18TH ANNUAL

APRIL 3-4, 2019 I MONARCH BEACH RESORT I DANA POINT, CA
GOLD SPONSORS

OFFICIAL TICKETING
PARTNER

ALL-ACCESS
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OFFICIAL APPAREL
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OFFICIAL SPORTS ADVERTISING
ONLINE MARKETPLACE

To view the PROGRAM AGENDA and SPEAKER LINEUP and to REGISTER, please visit

www.WorldCongressofSports.com.
WHERE THE LEADERS IN SPORTS BUSINESS CONVENE


Janet Century Photography

&+$03,216%8))< ),/,33(//

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WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM


SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

‘Some gutsy
broad out of
Cleveland’
With an irrepressible drive and a laugh like no other, BUFFY
FILIPPELL has spent a lifetime shattering stereotypes and
helping seed the executive ranks of the sports industry.
%<7(55</()721

T

HOUGH MORE THAN three decades ago,

Buffy Filippell vividly remembers her
first encounter with former NBA Commissioner David Stern.
Early in her recruiting career, she
convinced Don Sterling to leave NBA Properties
for a job with the LPGA. In thanks, Sterling (not to
be confused with the deposed NBA owner) advised
Filippell to call Stern and secure the search for his
replacement. Anyone who knows Filippell — and
that’s most everyone on the business side of sports
— will tell you that her fearlessness far exceeds

her slight stature. So, not surprisingly, she managed
to get the NBA commissioner on the phone. Sandwiched between some choice expletives, Stern informed her that the NBA would conduct its own
searches.
Long before going out on her own, Filippell was
convinced she’d made a big mistake.
“I’d blown it with the NBA commissioner,” she said.
Later, when Filippell
started TeamWork ConExecutive search piosulting in 1987, her first
neer Buffy Filippell
search was for the presihas been a godmother
dent of the Professional
of sorts for many
Rodeo Cowboys Associasports executives.

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

tion. Turns out, she had made an impression at the
More recently, Stern has been lobbying for FilipNBA offices after all. She got the assignment because
pell’s son, Davis, with prospective employers, and
of the recommendation by one David Stern, who
singing her praises — which has become another
described her to the PRCA as “some gutsy broad
industry standard.
out of Cleveland.”
“Buffy gives me all kinds
When Filippell phoned to
of credit I don’t deserve,”
THE CHAMPIONS
offer thanks, he jokingly
Stern said with a chuckle.

threatened bodily har m
“Teams depend upon her
This is the final installment in the series
of profiles for the 2019 class of The Chamshould she poach anyone
and she rarely fails to meet
pions:
Pioneers
&
Innovators
in
Sports
else from the NBA.
their expectations. She has
Business.
This
year’s
honorees
and
the
Stern doesn’t remember
an intuitive and historical
issues
in
which
they
were
featured
are:
that initial conversation,
understanding of what

but their relationship has
makes a good employee —
DATE
CHAMPION
blossomed since then, as has
and what teams are looking
Feb.
11
Kevin
Warren
Filippell’s business. Teamfor.”
Work Consulting/TeamFeb. 18
Earl Santee
■ ■ ■ ■
Wo rk O n l i n e a re n ow
Feb. 25
Bob Kain
industry standards. They
March 4
Debbie Yow
Filippell credits a 1980s
regularly stage job fairs for
Time magazine story as the
NBA teams and have placed
March 11 Ron Semiao
inspiration for starting
a handful of NBA team
March 18 Buffy Filippell
TeamWork. It was a time
presidents. A custom book

when no firm specialized in
commissioned by Filippell
sports and there were alto commemorate Teammost no women in the industry — outside of secWork’s 100,000th placement is dedicated to Stern
CONTINUED ON PAGE 20
“without whom none of this would be possible.”

M A R C H 18 -24 , 2 019

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

BUFFY FILIPPELL
Founder & President
TeamWork Consulting/TeamWork Online

Education:
■ B.S., science, Indiana University, 1976
Career:
■ Manager of racquet sports and golf
promotion, Wilson Sporting Goods,
1976-78
■ Account executive, IMG, 1978-82
■ Senior associate, Korn Ferry, 1985-87
■ Founder and president, TeamWork
Consulting, 1987-present

Executive Placements:
Some of the sports business industry
stars whom Buffy Filippell has placed in
jobs during their careers.
■ Andy Dolich
■ Chad Estis
■ Len Komoroski
■ Tim Leiweke
■ Daryl Morey
■ Scott O’Neil
■ Jamey Rootes
■ Brett Yormark

20

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M A R C H 1 8 -2 4, 2 0 1 9

An early exchange with former NBA
Commissioner David Stern (inset) led to
Filippell getting her business off the ground.

for a few different reasons, including one
that’s indisputable. “I could get into the
women’s locker room; they couldn’t,” she
said with a lilting laugh that has become a
trademark.
“You’ve got the NFL, and then there’s the
BFL, which is Buffy’s laugh,” said industry

veteran Andy Dolich, a longtime friend whom Filippell placed in jobs and who also has used TeamWork’s recruiting services. “Everyone knows it
immediately.”
Filippell was at IMG for just a few years before
following her husband Mark to Italy, where he was
transferred. But during that time, she helped bring
tennis star Andrea Jaeger into the IMG fold.
It’s one of the most requisite qualities in a recruiter: Filippell will rarely accept “no” as an answer. Rejected by Wilson Sporting Goods out of
college, she found
a way back in and
elicited two job
offers. When she
was rebuffed by a
form letter after
contacting Korn
Ferry about starting a sports practice in the mid’80s, she called founder Richard Ferry’s office, insisting that if she was going to get “dinged, it had
to be from Ferry himself.” Naturally, she ended up
working there as well.
“Buffy’s just tenacious; she can get anyone on the
phone,” said Chad Estis, Legends and Dallas Cowboys
executive vice president. “When she wants something, don’t get in her way. She can get things done
just by sheer will. … I’d call 30 candidates to get five
good ones; she’d call 300 — most after 6 p.m.”
Estis worked for TeamWork early in his career
and took the job with some trepidation. Now he
calls his two years in a Shaker Heights, Ohio, basement office with Filippell and an intern, “my Ph.D.”

An early placement of Tom Chestnut as president
of the Cleveland Cavaliers was a landmark, followed
by a number of top executive recruitments for NHL
teams. Forget about gender bias, for a non-Canadian to be having that much success with top NHL

job placements was even more impressive.
It was high-volume employment opportunities
that sent Filippell to the internet, where TeamWork
Online is now a fixture, sending millions of emails
daily to job candidates. In 1999, Steve Patterson was
executive vice president of the new and at that point

“She’s the biggest provider of employees
to the sports industry — period.”
still nameless Houston NFL franchise. He was looking to hire around 200 employees.
“That was when I knew it was time to get on the
internet train,” Filippell said, “but I knew we had
to connect to the team and league sites, because
building our own network would take too long.”
Soon after that, Basil DeVito called, looking to
hire new employees for the first iteration of the
XFL. When 150 people applied during the first hour
the jobs were posted, Filippell was impressed.
Eventually, 56,000 people applied online over four
months for 122 available positions. “We were operating mostly by fax then, so I was sold,” Filippell
said.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

Janet Century Photography (2)

retaries. She was wallowing a bit after the death
of her father, and the article advised that the period after a traumatic experience can be a fertile
time in which to start a business, referencing Mothers Against Drunk Driving as the model.

From the beginning, it was Filippell’s irrepressible nature, combined with a willingness to break
convention and establish new tenets, which set
TeamWork apart. At that time, the sports business
career path was more circumscribed. If you started in a particular sport, that’s where you remained.
Filippell started cross-pollinating and was able to
convince both employers and employees to think
differently.
“I’d try to stretch the position or at least stretch
their thinking about who was qualified,” she said,
offering her recruitment of Tim Leiweke from the
MISL to the NBA in the late 1980s as an early example.
It’s been a lifetime of shattering stereotypes for
Filippell.
IMG hired her in 1978 as the seminal sports
agency’s first female agent. After working with
women tennis players at Wilson Sporting Goods,
Filippell was sure she was hired so IMG could add
Tracy Austin to a client roster that already included Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean
King.
Bud Stanner, an IMG employee for 33 years, was
the executive who hired Filippell.
“There weren’t many women at all in sports then,”
Stanner said. “Buffy was what I would call pleasantly aggressive, which was appropriate for those
times, and we were growing so fast, I just wanted
someone who knew women’s tennis cold.”
However, there were other agendas in play. Bob
Kain, a fellow 2019 SBJ Champion, was running
IMG Tennis at the time, and as the division grew,
“Billie Jean King started looking at me sideways
and saying, ‘You’re a pretty male-dominated gang,’”

Kain said.
So Filippell was hired as IMG’s first female agent


SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

BUFFY’S BEST
A COLLECTION OF HER FAVORITES
■ Athlete: Billie Jean King is my favorite, by far. I’ve tried to mimic her tennis
shot forever, with very little success.
■ Movie: “The Sound of
Music.” I love Julie Andrews and
when I think about it, the story’s
about a progressive, working
woman. My wedding march was
the same one they used in “The
Sound of Music.”
■ Vacation spot: We have a
place in Naples (Fla.), so…
■ Niche sport with the most
potential: People are going to say
esports, and we do have a few clients
there, but I’m hopeful sports and fitness
will always be important. I’d also say soccer, because it’s global.

Filippell holds a letter from Billie Jean King, who pushed IMG to
hire her as the firm’s first female agent in the late 1970s.

Janet Century Photography

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

The internet’s ability to build community pushed TeamWork to the proverbial next level, establishing it as
the de facto answer to team employment vacancies. These days, TeamWork Online has thousands of job
listings and the company stages more
than 50 job fairs annually.
“She made the digital transition
well ahead of her competitors,” Stern
said. “Now she’s the biggest provider
of employees to the sports industry
— period.”
The success of TeamWork Online
and its adoption across the industry
led to some unusual situations. Chase
Langdon, New Orleans Saints partnership strategy manager, got his first,
second and current sports job through
TeamWork Online. Filippell laughs
after citing him, since they’ve yet to
meet. TeamWork also has enough of
a history now that it’s placed both
parents and their kids, like Dolich at
the San Francisco 49ers and his daughter Caryn with the NBA.
Filippell, who now counts the total
placements for TeamWork Consulting
and TeamWork Online at more than
120,000, also has witnessed the number
of colleges offering sports management degrees grow from perhaps a
dozen to hundreds.
“Clearly, there’s a lot more graduates now than there are jobs, espe-

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

■ Story about balancing parenting
and running a business: We were always
late for my son’s swim practice and the

rule was if you were late, the kid had to do
pushups. One day when we got there late,
I got down on the pool deck and did the
pushups because it was my fault. The
other parents were furious.
■ Advice for those going on job interviews: I tell people they have to brag.
When they do, their face lights up, and
both sides get excited.
■ Earliest you met a job
candidate and knew he or
she was going places: Brett
Yormark, early in his career,
when he was selling TV for
Katz. I was astonished at how
organized and driven he was,
even then. You just knew he
was going to get there.
■ Most unusual candidate fit you
placed: Ali Towle, now with the Patriots (as
senior director of brand and fan experience
at Kraft Sports & Entertainment). I placed
her as vice president of marketing for the
49ers from IBM. She’s very talented, but
one of her big ins for the 49ers job was that

she was an expert in fantasy football.
— T.L.

cially at teams,” she said. “If they
teach more about being entrepreneurial, that’s the key.”

■ ■ ■ ■
The more people you ask about how
a woman broke through in sports, the
more you hear about how that wasn’t
an issue for Filippell.
“Her gender never occurred to me,”
Dolich said. “It was just, ‘Here’s Buffy,’
who brought this incredible personality, work ethic and joy to the business.
She was always able to cut to the core
and detect the best qualities in people,
which is what any business is all
about.”
Filippell has placed Cleveland Cavaliers CEO Len Komoroski twice,
including his current position. “For
any woman to break through in a heavily male-dominated industry is remarkable,” he said. “Buffy has this
ability to instantly connect personally with anyone, quickly understand
their motivations and use that knowledge to get everyone to that right place
— that’s even more remarkable.”
So what makes a great recruiter?
Someone who works as hard on both
sides of the deal.
“Whether it’s the employer or the
candidate, Buffy has this skill of burrowing into a person and finding out
CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

what makes them tick,” said Lee Stacey, Monumental Sports vice president of global partnerships, for whom TeamWork once helped
winnow 1,300 résumés down to 10 for a vacant
director of marketing job at the New York Jets.
“That personal touch
i s wh at s e t s h e r
apart.”
After decades in
sports, Filippell is
convinced she would
never have enjoyed
any industry as
much. For those looking to enter the business, she counsels: “I
wish it paid more at
the entry level, but
considering the time commitment required,
it can’t be a passing fancy. You’ve got to want
to be in it for your career. I never thought I
would be working my whole life, but now I
think more women need to think about that.”

When Filippell began as an agent, she had
to enter and exit the IMG meetings held at
Cleveland’s Union Club by the back staircase.
The front stairs were off limits for women. Having worked at a time when the business of sports
progressed from no women in the boardroom
to at least a few, Filippell seems happy with the

progress, if not completely satisfied.
“I love seeing people like Renie Anderson
[NFL senior vice president of sponsorship,
consumer products and partnership management] and others in high-level sales positions,”
said Filippell, a 2017 WISE Woman of the Year

“Teams depend upon her and
she rarely fails to meet their
expectations. She has an intuitive
and historical understanding of
what makes a good employee —
and what teams are looking for.”

Janet Century Photography

Through TeamWork Online and TeamWork Consulting, Filippell
estimates she has helped fill more than 120,000 jobs across sports.

honoree, “but I wish there were some more
women presidents, like Amy Latimer [TD
Garden president] and Gillian Zucker [Los
Angeles Clippers president of business operations].”
The inevitable question for team sports’ most

renowned recruiter is when will she commission a search to replace herself.
“My mom always said, ‘As long as you’re
making a difference, keep doing so,’” said Filippell, who turned 65 in March, “so that’s my
answer, too.”

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SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

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No Fear

Rachel Nichols has built a reputation for asking the tough questions.
Follow her path to ESPN’s ‘The Jump’ and her unrelenting approach to the job.
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ESPN Images

S

HE MAY BE ONE of the most prominent TV

voices on the NBA, but ESPN’s Rachel
Nichols holds on tight to her roots as a
sportswriter.
Consider NBA All-Star weekend in Charlotte,
where she went from emceeing a bold-name retirement-year party on Thursday for Dwyane Wade
— joining, among others, Chris Paul, Carmelo
Anthony and Pat Riley — to hanging out with beat
reporters and columnists the next night.
Nichols, despite spending the last 15 years on
national TV covering and interviewing the likes
of LeBron James, dispenses with any notion of
broadcaster imperturbability. During a live broadcast of her daily NBA show, “The Jump,” from

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Charlotte, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers,
a first-time All-Star, dropped by the set for an interview. Nichols struggled with an unfortunate
urge to cough.
“What was that?” she said after the show. “I can’t
pretend that it’s all glossy. I don’t have 30 years of
TV training to pull that off. I’d rather just have
everyone come in with me. If that coughing fit
with Ben Simmons had continued, I would’ve asked
him to give me the Heimlich maneuver on TV.
Which would have horrified more people.”
That assessment is typical Nichols. Funny.
Blunt. Confident. And never afraid to describe
precisely what she sees, good or bad, about herself
and whoever happens to be in her orbit.

Nichols spoke to Sports Business Journal during All-Star weekend. She sat in a luxury suite at
Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina
Panthers, where “The Jump” broadcast live leading up to the event. Rival network TNT had the
prime location at Spectrum Center several blocks
away as the rights holder to many of the events
over the weekend.
She explained the look of the show’s main studio
set back in Los Angeles and the premise of a hangout-and-talk-basketball show that has moved from
a seasonal offering on ESPN2 since starting in 2016
to a year-round weekday afternoon staple on ESPN.
“You get the look of the show,” Nichols said.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

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How the one
that got away
returned to ESPN

ESPN used “The Jump” to lure
Nichols back to ESPN in 2016.

chel Nichols says she expected to stay much longer

at CNN and Turner Sports than her three-year tenure that ended in 2016.
She hosted a 30-minute interview show, “Unguarded,” on CNN and reported on sports topics
and trends. For sister company Turner Sports, she
was a sideline reporter for TNT’s NBA game broadcasts and was part of TNT and TBS March Madness
coverage.
“It kind of added a dimension to my game, I guess
you could say,” Nichols said. “Being on the game
broadcast is a different thing and having that longinterview format with the CNN show is a different
thing. Another part of my job for those three years
was going on the different CNN programming and
giving depth to sports events that would happen
for the non-sports fan — that’s good reps too because

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23

“We don’t have any big monitors behind us because, in my house, we have
no big monitors. When I sit around
and talk about sports with my friends,
I don’t telestrate. That’s why the set
looks the way it does.”
Nichols wants “The Jump” to be a
no-frills show not driven by highlights
and one that puts her on equal footing
with a rotating cast of former players
led by Tracy McGrady. And one that
doesn’t spoon-feed the audience, instead using nicknames and skipping
backstory on the assumption that you
already know (and can turn to Google
if you don’t).
“Part of the concept for the show was

I never wanted to be asking a question
I already had the answer to — right?”
she said. (Nichols likes to punctuate
her sentences with an interrogatory
“right,” gently carrying her listener
along on assertions of inevitable logic.)

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it kind of hones your ability to say, OK, what is this
story really about?”
Prior to moving to CNN and Turner in 2013, Nichols worked for ESPN as a reporter and correspondent on “SportsCenter” and other prominent shows.
John Skipper, then president of ESPN, had wooed
Nichols to the network in 2004.

“So that was a big driver for how we
scripted and did the show. I know the
league — right?”

■ ■ ■ ■
Nichols started as a sportswriter in
the mid-1990s and migrated to ESPN
for nine years starting in 2004, where
she was a constant presence reporting
on the NBA and NFL for “SportsCenter”
as well as other shows while also doing

sideline reporting on “Monday Night
Football.” She left for a hybrid CNNTurner Sports role in 2013, including
NBA sideline reporting, but then ESPN
brought her back to start “The Jump.”
In three years, the show has expanded,
Nichols is joined on
added
set by Amin Elhassan,
Scottie
Vince Carter and Tracy
Pippen
McGrady during last
and Paul year’s NBA Finals.
Pierce as

rotating analysts, and become the
program that consistently lands bigget interviews. Think Jimmy Butler
after his infamous practice tantrum
in Minnesota that led to his trade or,
more recently, think rapper Meek Mill
and Philadelphia 76ers co-owner Michael Rubin discussing criminal justice reform. Most of all, think Dallas
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who
appeared on-set with Nichols last September after an NBA investigation
found patterns of sexual harassment,
workplace misconduct and a culture
hostile to women in the Mavericks
organization.
Nichols’ straightforward but unyielding questioning of boxer Floyd
Mayweather Jr. and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on separate occasions in 2014 won applause from
fellow reporters. So, too, did the Cuban

interview.
“I’m proud of her, but I’m not surprised in the least,” said ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, who first met Nichols
when he was a lead sports columnist
at The Washington Post and Nichols
was an 18-year-old summer intern.
Wilbon and Nichols are both alums
of Northwestern University’s Medill
School of Journalism.
Wilbon said Nichols’ fearlessness
was evident from the start. “She lit it
up [at The Post] like she owned the
place [as a college intern]. She had
supreme confidence.”
Nichols did Thursday and Friday
editions of “The Jump” while in Charlotte, followed by taping separate sitdown interviews across town with
James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Giannis

Antetokounmpo and Russell Westbrook. On Saturday and Sunday night,
she headed to the Spectrum Center to
provide live reports for “SportsCenter” from the skills competition and
All-Star Game.
On the Friday afternoon of All-Star
weekend, Nichols walked into a stadium club area serving as the stage
for her live
segments,
Rachel Nichols
drawing
CURRENT JOB
whoops from
■ Host of “The

Jump” on ESPN
an audience
(since 2016)
of 125 people.
RÉSUMÉ
“The Jump”
■ Sports reporter,
is, for basketFort Lauderdale
ball fans, beSun-Sentinel, 1995coming the
96
■ Sports reporter,
yin to the
The Washington
more estabPost, 1996-2004
lished, multi■ Reporter and
ple-Emmycorrespondent on
winning
“SportsCenter, “NFL
“Inside the
Countdown,” “OutNBA” on
side the Lines” and
“E:60,” and sideline
TNT. They’re
reporter on “Mondifferent
day Night Football,”
shows; one
ESPN, 2004-13
airs in the af■ Host/sports
ternoon
analyst, CNN, and

while the
sideline reporter
other is tethon Turner Sports’
NBA and NCAA basered to game
ketball coverage,
broadcasts.
2013-16.
“The
Jump” blends
Nichols’ journalism chops with the
former NBA players (McGrady, Pierce,
Pippen, Rasheed Wallace and Stephen
Jackson) and reporters and insiders
CONTINUED ON PAGE 25

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ESPN Images (2)

AS HAPPY AS she is presiding over “The Jump,” Ra-

“I thought we made a mistake
letting Rachel get away because she
was a good reporter and a good colleague,” said Skipper, now executive chairman of Perform Group,
a U.K.-based company that owns
sports streaming site DAZN. “One
of the things she was quite anxious
to do was to be more involved with
the NBA.”
Her return to ESPN in 2016 started when Connor Schell, now ESPN’s

executive vice president of content,
and Skipper were discussing the
network’s NBA coverage. Nichols’
name surfaced as a possibility for a new studio show.
“We started talking about her coming back and
put an offer on the table and put her on ‘The Jump,’
which remains an interesting and fun, provocative
show,” Skipper said. “She knows the league and
she’s a great reporter and journalist and storyteller.” — E.S.