Closing Bell

The 2024-25 bowl season is projected to generate approximately 1.5 million fans, down more than 11% from what the games drew annually 2006-19, according to an SBJ analysis of attendance data. The non-playoff games drew 1.05 million fans, down 0.4% from the average of the previous two years.

ReliaQuest, Lockheed Martin, Wasabi and Snoop Dogg are among the biggest bowl season winners as each of their respective title-sponsored games saw an increase of more than 11,000 fans compared to the past two years. ReliaQuest, in its third year as the title sponsor after replacing longtime sponsor Outback, saw Michigan beat Alabama in front of 51,439 fans. That was nearly 18,000 better than the average of the 2022 and 2023 games at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium.  Two other bowls saw increases of more than 12,000 fans compared to the average of the previous two games: Defense contractor Lockheed Martin has title sponsored the Armed Forces Bowl (a Navy-Oklahoma matchup) since 2014 and re-upped the night before the game through 2031; and cloud storage company Wasabi (UConn-North Carolina at Fenway Park). 

The Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin and Juice by Dre and Snoop in Tucson area drew a game-record crowd of 40,076, which gave the entertainers the chance to promote the release of their second spirit after the debut of their successful canned gin and juice cocktails in early 2024.

NFL teams and local sponsors are in high gear for activation behind the six opening-round playoff games coming this Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The playoffs open Saturday at 4:30pm ET in Houston, where the Texans host the Chargers. Houston Methodist Hospital is the game sponsor and will have its brand on rally towels. The halftime show with Latin artist Bobby Pulido is sponsored by Bud Light.

The Ravens host the Steelers in the Saturday night game. Stadium entitlement holder M&T Bank is the game sponsor. As part of its playoff activation, the Ravens were offering logo stenciling on cars at the stadium this week , as a drive-up promo, sponsored by Safeway, which was also offering Ravens shopping bags, with the drive-in accompaniment by the team’s mascot, marching band and cheerleaders. The Ravens are eschewing rally towels, in favor of light-up wrist bands, synched to music at the game. Team rallies at various bars will be sponsored by Miller Lite on Thursday, while “a Purple Friday” promo at taverns and other locations is backed by AB/I. Larger buildings will be lit up in purple again after dark.

“We’ve got a plan well set for playoffs by now,” said Chief Sales Officer Kevin Rochlitz. “And if anyone asks, all of our hospitality is gone.”

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Learfield is set to announce a multiyear renewal with Mississippi State, sources told SBJ.  An official announcement is expected on Thursday.

Learfield, which has worked with MSU for 16 years, will be the exclusive rights holder managing multimedia and sponsorships for the school. The deal also includes a renewal with Sidearm Sports -- the provider for MSU's website, mobile app and streaming platform.

The partnership, too, will allow MSU Bulldog Sports Properties -- Learfield's on-campus arm -- to explore assets such as on-field and on-court logos at Davis Wade Stadium and Humphrey Coliseum.

The Raiders fired GM Tom Telesco today after just one season in which the team went 4-13. The moves follows the team also firing coach Antonio Pierce on Tuesday after his first full season. Telesco "deserves credit for his first and only draft with the team," but he "didn’t solve the team’s quarterback issues" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 1/9). Firing Telesco "wasn't a surprise, despite the Raiders having a good draft in 2024, but the timing was odd." When Telesco survived the first few days of the week, it "seemed he would survive for another season." But Raiders owner Mark Davis, after "taking a couple more days to decide, got rid of his GM too." Starting over at GM might make the opening "more attractive" to some coaching candidates who "would like either personnel power themselves or to work with a general manager they're comfortable with" (YAHOO SPORTS, 1/9).

CAA Icon and CAA Evolution served as strategic and financial advisor for Denver’s successful NWSL expansion bid. The league’s 16th team was awarded last week to the city’s bid led by IMA Financial Group CEO Robert Cohen, which paid a $110M expansion fee, news first reported by Sportico and later confirmed by SBJ.

CAA Icon and Evolution (which is CAA’s merchant banking and investment consultancy arm) prepared the expansion bid’s business plan and financials, the ownership group’s application to the league, and presented Denver’s case to the NWSL expansion committee. Dan Barrett (Icon) and Kirill Savitski(Evolution) led CAA’s contributions. 

The CAA teams also led efforts to identify and negotiate potential public-private partnerships for the club’s future training facility, temporary stadium, and eventual permanent stadium. The sites of those facilities haven’t yet been disclosed, though emails obtained by the Denver Business Journal in November showed that the Denver NWSL group was interested in the Denver Coliseum site as well as a potential combo equestrian arena/soccer venue near a Denver light rail stop at the nearby National Western Center (NWC). The city owns both the Coliseum and the NWC.

CAA Icon, headquartered in Denver, worked with the Metro Nashville Sports Authority in 2021 on a women’s soccer fact-finding, market assessment effort but that never resulted in a formal NWSL expansion bid. Denver beat out Cincinnati and Cleveland for the NWSL expansion spot.

The Lakers-Hornets game scheduled for Thursday at Crypto.com Arena "has been postponed due to the continuing wildfire crisis" in L.A. County. The game was scheduled to tip off at 7:30pm PT. The NBA "has not yet announced a new date for the contest or how tickets for the postponed game will be handled." The Lakers' next scheduled game is Saturday at Crypto.com Arena against the Spurs. The decision to postpone comes as members of the Lakers' organization "try to sort through the devastation of the fires that affected people inside the Lakers, their friends and their families" (L.A. TIMES, 1/9).

In the collegiate world, the West Coast Conference has also postponed Thursday’s Pepperdine-Portland women’s basketball game and Thursday's Loyola Marymount-San Diego game, both of which were scheduled to be played in L.A. County (WCC). The wildfires also impacted ESPN's airwaves. NBA Today, which typically airs from L.A. at 3pm ET, was "preempted by an edition of SportsCenter" from Bristol, Conn. on Wednesday, as was NBA Countdown at 6:30pm (SI, 1/9).

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) is "drawing up plans to oppose" the Premier League introducing its first spending cap from next season and "has been in touch with the two Manchester clubs," who are "also against the ' anchoring' scheme." The union has "commissioned expert analysis" from management consultants Oliver Wyman and sources said that the findings "include a warning that anchoring risks decreasing the earning potential of players." Sources said a legal challenge by a club is "almost inevitable" if the anchoring system passes the Premier League vote. The union is "also understood to fear" that the English Football League would "look to follow" the Premier League and introduce an anchoring system. The PFA believes that the system would "have to be approved" by the Professional Football Negotiating and Consultative Committee, a body comprised of PFA, FA and leagues representatives (London TIMES, 1/9).

Just eight days before its launch and doubling down on its premise of being a “customized sports league," the 3-on-3 women’s basketball venture Unrivaled has named Samsung its official technology and presenting partner.

As part of the deal, the league’s 36 players will wear Samsung’s Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch to track their training regimens, performance levels and overall health. In addition, coaching staffs will lean on Galaxy tablets for real-time analytics throughout the eight-week season.

One of key tenets of Unrivaled is to widen its audience through social media, and Samsung’s Galaxy S Series and Z Series smartphones and Galaxy Buds earbuds will help the players amplify more than 600 hours of pregame, postgame and in-game broadcast content. The league has built an immersive media studio room for players at its main facility in Medley, Fla., all of which will be powered by Samsung.

The deal -- which was brokered in-house -- also turns the league’s two founders Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart into Samsung ambassadors. Samsung becomes the league’s 10th known partner, joining Ally Financial (official banking and founding partner); TNT Sports (exclusive media rights partner); VistaPrint (official print and design partner); State Farm (official home and auto insurance sponsor); Ticketmaster (official ticketing partner); Wilson (official game ball manufacturer); Under Armour (official uniform partner and performance outfitter); Miller Lite (official beer partner); Mediapro North America (official production and hosting partner); and Sephora (official beauty partner).

The United Football League has signed a multi-year agreement with Google Cloud with the aim of improving its business and football analytics capabilities.

The deal, for which financial terms were not disclosed, will see the UFL integrate Google’s BigQuery (data warehouse), Looker (business intelligence) and Gemini (artificial intelligence) platforms into its processes, ingesting data through BigQuery; generating reports in Looker; and using Gemini’s AI to facilitate queries of those reports.

“We’ve built something that sets us up well for growth into the future,” said Jeroen van den Bergh, the UFL’s SVP/Business Intelligence & Corporate Strategy. “The three questions we have to answer when we look at something like this are: Does it improve the game? Does it improve the fan experience? And does it improve our ability to manage our business? This, over time, will allow us to do all three.”

Initially, the UFL’s focus will be on how they manage their business and fan experience. “We now have what we can honestly say is a golden record for all of our fans,” van den Bergh added. “From ticket purchase, through attendance of games, through engagement with our marketing and merchandise purchases, we can truly understand our fans, so we can service them better.”

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The WTA Tour announced it administered a record $221M in prize money during the 2024 tennis season, a $42M increase from 2023. The Tour also said its total attendance increased 15% year-over-year, to more than 3.5 million, in 2024.

In addition, Pirelli signed a multiyear deal with Tennis Australia making it official tire partner of the Australian Open. The agreement marks Pirelli's entry into tennis, adding to a sports sponsorship roster that includes motorsports, soccer, sailing and skiing. Lululemon has also signed World No. 17 men's player Frances Tiafoe as the brand’s newest ambassador. He will debut the partnership this week at the Australian Open.

MLS' youth player development program, MLS Next, has added a new competition tier that will increase the number of participating clubs beginning in September. The expanded tier will be managed by league operators such as the National Academy League operated by 3Step Soccer, Elite Academy League, Sporting Development League, Cobalt Sports and Cal North Soccer Association (MLS).

USA Lacrosse has partnered with GoLiveSports to deliver live streaming services for a variety of USA Lacrosse national events and select college and high school games from USA Lacrosse headquarters. The partnership kicks off with a livestream of the National Lacrosse HOF Ceremony on Saturday (GoLiveSports).

Sodexo Live! and its subsidiary Sports Travel & Hospitality (STH) have signed a new deal through 2029 with World Rugby to curate and sell premium travel packages for the next three iterations of the Rugby World Cup -- England 2025 (women), Australia 2027 (men), and Australia 2029 (women). Sodexo Live! and STH (which Sodexo Live helped launch in 2005 and has fully owned since 2023) have a similar arrangement with the Australian Open tennis tournament (Bret McCormick, SBJ).

Former Derry manager Rory Gallagher has "called on" GAA President Jarlath Burns to "withdraw his action last weekend in contacting Naas GAA to urge caution" against hiring Gallagher as a coach to the club's senior team. Gallagher called for the email to be "formally withdrawn" and the contents of the email to the club to be "retracted." Gallagher said that without the retraction, he would be left with "no alternative but to pursue legal action" (IRISH INDEPENDENT, 1/9).

Former NFLer Peyton Manning stars in U.S. Bank’s latest commercial, which is starting to air on ESPN digital properties and will launch on traditional TV during the during the College Football Playoff National Championship on January 20.

$153,902,655 -- The amount of revenue MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred can allocate this offseason as revenue sharing on top of the centralized revenue sharing that comes with national TV rights, league sponsorship deals and more (FORBES, 1/9).