NASCAR is on the cusp of announcing $7.7B worth of media rights deals with Fox Sports, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon. The average annual value of the deals, including the previously announced CW deal, is $1.1B per year, which represents about a 40% increase over NASCAR’s current deals.

NASCAR plans to make a formal announcement in Nashville later this afternoon as part of its end-of-season banquet. The deals start in 2025 and run through the 2031 season.

The 40% increase represents a big win for the racing circuit, especially given the tightening of the marketplace around sports media rights caused by cord-cutting and cord shaving.

NASCAR execs said the drawn-out negotiations, which started earlier this year, took longer than expected. But NASCAR President Steve Phelps said the deals will position the racing circuit well amid the upheaval in the media business.

Read More >>>

PARIS -- France first, then the U.S. The IOC returned to a proven path to ensure the future of the Winter Olympics. Now, it’s Salt Lake City that will benefit, with the Games set to return to Utah.

The IOC’s executive board today approved a recommendation of its future host commission to move Salt Lake into targeted dialogue for 2034 and a bid from the French Alps ahead for 2030. The decision kicks off months of work for each to finalize their bid file, secure guarantees and host a visit. The IOC expects to vote on hosts for 2030 and 2034 at its session before the Olympics open here in July.

“What has been submitted and the demonstration of support is outstanding,” said Christophe Dubi, the IOC’s Olympic Games Exec Dir. “They have brought all the guarantees needed already at this point in time. It is extremely strong. In Salt Lake City, we’ve had a partner for three years now, and they’ve been incredibly patient, incredibly thorough and were able to rally everyone behind what is a superb project.”

The IOC expects to finalize its future host reports in May and present them to the executive board in June. While returning the Games to Salt Lake City isn’t a done deal until the IOC’s July vote, it’s a strong indicator of the likely outcome -- the Winter Olympics will return to the U.S. for the first time since Salt Lake City hosted in 2002.It was met with celebrations in Utah. Salt Lake City-Utah Committee for the Games officials joined Mayor Erin Mendenhall for a watch party. Following the committee’s board meeting on Friday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox will join Salt Lake and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee officials for a cauldron lighting. Utah medalists from 2002 through 2022 will join the celebration, as well as prospective 2034 athletes.

Read More >>>

Penn Entertainment has signed a deal with the NHL making its ESPN Bet and theScore Bet platforms "official sports betting partners" of the league in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada, respectively. Penn secured the "first partnership with a major professional sports league" for its new ESPN Bet platform just "two weeks after the online sportsbook's launch." Through the partnership, the company's two online sportsbooks will have "access to intellectual property rights and media and marketing integrations in the NHL's programming and activations," including "marquee NHL events such as the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Winter Classic, the Stadium Series and All-Star Weekend." ESPN Bet launched in 17 states across the U.S. on Nov. 14 (PHILADELPHIA BUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/29).

The Hornets have signed a multiyear extension with Lowe’s, retaining one of its "largest sponsors." The home-improvement retailer will "continue to have marketing and advertising at Spectrum Center and throughout the Hornets’ social and broadcast media." Lowe’s and the Hornets also unveiled their "latest community project, a renovated amphitheater at Grier Heights Park," marking the "third consecutive year the organizations have collaborated on a community project." Terms of the sponsorship were "not disclosed by either the team or the company" (CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/29).

SBJ Dealmakers opened up in D.C. this afternoon, with a number of panels featuring some of the biggest senior execs in sports, finance, media and technology for discussion centered around the high-stakes financial ecosystem within the sports industry. The conference, which runs through tomorrow, kicked off with a series of panels, including "Accelerating Change through Intentional Investing" with Billie Jean King Enterprises CEO Ilana Kloss and Elysian Park Ventures founder Cole Van Nice; "The Next Chapter: From Super Bowl Champion to CEO & Investor" with former NFLer and Players Coalition founder Malcolm Jenkins; and "Politics, Sports & Society: Chuck Todd Unplugged" with NBC's Chuck Todd.

Women’s soccer is "falling short in key areas including medical support and pay," according to a survey of players involved in this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. The survey, conducted by players' union FIFPRO and released today, found that "60% of respondents said they lacked mental health support," while "one in three earned less than $30,000 a year from soccer." The survey highlighted "further areas of concern relating to the conditions players were expected to operate under." It said 10% "did not undergo a medical examination before the tournament." In what the union described as a "worrying statistic," it said 22% "did not have an electrocardiogram." FIFPRO said two-thirds of players "claimed they were not in peak condition by the time the tournament started" and 53% believed they’d had "insufficient rest before their opening game at the World Cup." FIFPRO said it surveyed 260 players from 26 of the 32 national teams in the tournament (AP, 11/29).

Football podcasts have seen a 270% increase in female listeners this NFL season, according to data provided by Spotify, another indicator of the way Taylor Swift is broadening the league’s reach. Swift, who Spotify today revealed as its most-streamed artist of 2023, is dating Chiefs TE Travis Kelce, whose podcast was the No. 1 sports podcast on the streaming platform this year. “New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce,” which Kelce co-hosts with his brother Jason, a center for the Eagles, had Spotify’s top three sports podcast episodes in 2023.

The male audience for football podcasts grew 50% compared to the same period last year (Aug. 1 - Nov. 14), while sports podcasts overall saw a 30% increase in consumption year over year. Both male and female audiences have grown more than 20% for basketball podcasts so far this NBA season.

Spotify’s Top Sports Podcasts Globally

1. New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (US)
2. Pardon My Take (US)
3. The Bill Simmons Podcast (US)
4. Fozcast - The Ben Foster Podcast (UK) 
5. Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast (US)
6. Copa TS (Germany)
7. NEW: That Peter Crouch Podcast (UK)
8. The Rest is Football (UK)
9. Spittin' Chiclets (Canada)
10. The Pat McAfee Show (US)

Read More >>>

This week’s offering of “Podcast Picks” looks back at the Black Friday game on Amazon and the strategy behind that initiative for the NFL, followed by how FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried tried to launder some of the billions in fraud money he acquired into sports naming rights, celebrity endorsers and sponsorships to give his company some degree of legitimacy. Finally, UFC President Dana White in some colorful language discusses a variety of topics, including why he decided to sign a sponsorship deal with Bud Light despite the company’s “wokeness.”

NFL EVP Hans Schroeder sat down on “The Season with Peter Schrager” to discuss the league’s new streaming strategy, playing on Black Friday this season and its relationship with its broadcast partners. Schroeder noted the league “allows a lot more flexibility in the scheduling process because those games can go to a number of outlets.” In addition, Schroeder said with the Black Friday game “we’ve got the biggest commerce platform” in Amazon and Black Friday is “their biggest day of the entire year. These things seem like they fit pretty well together.” Schroeder: “This is something that could be really transformational for both sides.”

[Placeholder] 

NAME GAME : Authors Michael Lewis and Zeke Faux spoke with “Pablo Torre Finds Out” about how Bankman-Fried “sportswashed” billions of dollars in a huge crypto currency fraud that ensnared some of the biggest names in sports. Lewis said Bankman-Fried “started to look at what people cared about and he saw that in Europe when you put the names of companies on the jerseys of players everybody noticed the name of the company and no one cared about the names that were on the stadiums,” but in the U.S. the “announcers every time they talked about a stadium they mention” the naming rights name and stadium name. Lewis noted the Miami-Dade County government had to approve the Heat naming rights and FTX “thought that was really valuable because it would just create trust.”

Read More >>>

Bayern Munich has relocated its N.Y. office to Rockefeller Center from its prior location at 40th St. and Madison Ave. The Bundesliga club’s N.Y. office was its first outside Germany when it was established in 2014 and is led by Managing Director for the Americas Dee Kundra. Bayern has since opened offices in Shanghai (2017) and Bangkok (2022) (Alex Silverman, SBJ).

New Balance has signed Cavaliers G Darius Garland as the newest member of the New Balance basketball roster (New Balance).

Sportsnet is parting ways with Blue Jays' radio broadcaster Ben Wagner after "declining to renew his contract" with the network. Wagner served as the lead broadcaster for the Blue Jays for six seasons (THE ATHLETIC, 11/29).

The Southland Conference has inked a new partnership with vivenu, making it the primary ticketing platform for a myriad of the Southland's high-profile championships (Southland Conference).

Read More >>>

Soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo is facing a "class action lawsuit in the US over his promotion of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world." The plaintiffs claim his endorsement "led them to make loss-making investments" and are seeking damages of "a sum exceeding" $1B (BBC.com, 11/29).

Everton are expected to "submit their appeal against the deduction of 10 Premier League points, handed down by an independent commission, on Friday." Once it has been submitted, the case will then be "considered by an independent appeals commission, which will include a different set of people from the original commission panel" (SKYSPORTS.com, 11/29).

The Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, will return to the WTA Tour in 2024, with the WTA 250 tournament taking place during the week of February 5 (WTA).

Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund won a 2023 Clio Sports award for its creative campaign raising awareness of testicular cancer detection. Hamburg, Germany-based Accenture Song helped develop and execute the "A hand ball that could save your life" campaign.

$38.1M  -- Amount that the U.K. government and the FA will invest in "creating football pitches for the use of women and girls" throughout the U.K. A total of $31.7M of government investment and $6.4M from the FA "will be committed in the next 18 months to the Football Foundation, which will select sites for 30 new state-of-the-art artificial grass pitches and accompanying facilities" (London TIMES, 11/29).