Morning Buzz

A “massive World Cup fan fest that had been planned” for Liberty State Park in Jersey City “was scrapped” Thursday in a surprise move. The fan fest was slated to run from June 11-July 19, but the state of N.J. “canceled the plans and instead announced it was allocating” $5M to “support local community initiatives for soccer fans” across the state. Tickets at the cost of $10 “had gone on sale,” but any fans “who had purchased tickets will receive refunds” (N.Y. POST, 2/19). The new initiatives will include “major fan zone experiences throughout the state for large-scale public viewing” as well as “more targeted support for small and mid-sized community watch parties, festivals and street fairs.” The Liberty State Park event had been the only FIFA-sanctioned fan gathering in N.J., but there are “still plans for a Fan Zone in Queens and a Fan Village at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan” (Bergen RECORD, 2/19).

Back in June at SBJ’s Brand Innovation Summit, FIFA World Cup 26 NYNJ Host Committee CEO Alex Lasry spoke about the plans for the N.J. fan fest (SBJ).

The NBA will redesign its draft lottery system next season to diffuse widespread tanking, ESPN reported Thursday, after Commissioner Adam Silver tasked the league’s competition committee in January with preventing teams from losing on purpose. At Thursday’s GM meetings, Silver reportedly brought as many as seven scenarios to the table:

• Freezing the draft standings at the trade deadline or beyond.
• Having first-round picks be only top-4 protected or top-14 protected or above (avoiding the furor this year where a team like the Jazz has a top-8 protected pick and is being accused of emergent tanking).
• Never allowing a team to slide into consecutive top-4 lottery picks and/or never allowing a team to finish bottom-3 in successive seasons.
• Not allowing teams to pick in the top 4 after reaching conference finals (like probably the Pacers this year).
• Basing a team’s lottery odds on its record over the past two seasons.
• Allowing even play-in teams into the lottery.
• Granting every lottery team the same odds for the No. 1 pick.

At his press conference during All-Star weekend, Silver said, “Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view.” He went on to say, “We’ve got to look at some fresh thinking here,” and ESPN reported Thursday he had conversations with the Board of Governors in December that validated his decision to pursue change.

Multiple high-level team executives, in fact, told SBJ that tanking is now affecting ticket values and game experience across the league. Suns owner Mat Ishbia even posted on X Thursday saying “tanking is losing behavior done by losers. Purposely losing is something nobody should want to be associated with. Embarrassing for the league and for the organizations.”

Ishbia then went on to call tanking “much worse than any prop bet scandal.”

NCAA SVP Dan Gavitt said Thursday that talks about potential expansion of the NCAA Tournament field will be paused, and an answer is not expected until after this year’s tournament, at the earliest. Speaking at the organization’s headquarters, NCAA President Charlie Baker told reporters, “I think there’s some very good reasons to expand the tournament, so I would like to see it expand.” According to Baker, “regardless of what decision is made, the NCAA Tournament will remain with its 32-team automatic-qualifier format (which has never been in jeopardy of changing) in addition to the at-large bids that fill up the field.” When asked about the cost for the NCAA to add 16 schools (eight men’s teams and eight women’s teams), Baker did not provide specifics but said, “I think we can figure out how to pay for it. I’m not worried about that” (CBSSPORTS.com, 2/19).

Among issues for the NCAA to sort out are TV inventory and possible compensation from the addition of games. The NCAA’s deal with CBS/TNT, which runs through 2032, doesn’t stipulate the networks shell out any more money if the tournament were to expand to 72 or 76 teams. Considering the significant audiences those games deliver, it’s unlikely the NCAA will simply give away free inventory. That said, the NCAA is exploring potential changes to its corporate partnership program. Under existing NCAA rules, sponsorship is a one-size-fits-all approach for its 92 championships, instead of one company sponsoring a single event (Ben Portnoy, SBJ).

The NCAA unveiled the payment structure for the $303M Ray settlement. It will be paid over a three-year period beginning this summer, with the NCAA paying $101M annually for three years. Of that, $60.6M (60%) will come from reductions to Division I revenue distributions and $40.4M (40%) will come from the NCAA national office. In November, the Ray settlement was reached to resolve the class action antitrust lawsuit filed by volunteer coaches, (NCAA).

Aston Martin “plans to raise” $67.3M (all figures U.S.) in cash by selling the naming rights for its F1 team as the U.K. luxury-car maker “warned of a bigger than expected annual loss.” The sale of its branding rights to the F1 team’s holding company, AMR GP Holdings, “in effect marks another cash injection from the carmaker’s chair Lawrence Stroll.” Last year, Aston Martin raised more than $168.4M with additional investment from Stroll and the sale of a minority stake in the F1 team. AMR is majority-owned by a consortium led by Stroll. Despite the sale, Aston Martin has a long-term sponsorship agreement “under which AMR can use the company name in F1 until 2055” (FINANCIAL TIMES, 2/20).

The city of Beverly Hills “admitted Thursday it erred in its prior statements” regarding the events Celtics F Jaylen Brown sought to run during All-Star Weekend, but Brown “bristled at its continued reasoning for disrupting them, again claiming he and his 741 performance team were targeted.” The city recanted its assertion that Brown did not have a permit, noting “no permit application was submitted nor denied for the event and the residence does not have any prior related violations on record.” Beverly Hills City Manager Nancy Hunt-Coffey “apologized to Brown and the Jannard family in a separate statement," but “declared alternate reasoning the event was ended.” Brown later called the apology “half ass,” and said that “enforcement action based on belief alone raises serious due-process concerns” (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/19).

Smart basketball maker SportIQ has completed a $6.2M Series A round over two closings, mostly recently adding $3.2M in new funding from a group including KB Partners, Koppenberg Management and Match Ventures.

SportIQ makes a one-gram sensor that can be placed in the ball’s air valve to track its movement and rotation and other performance metrics. The FIBA-approved ball caught the attention of the NBA for its possible application to automated officiating and graduated from the league’s startup program, NBA Launchpad, last summer.

“NBA Launchpad and the automating officiating product help momentum, certainly,” SportIQ CEO Erik Anderson told SBJ. “Our consumer sales were stronger than expected, so the combined momentum helped a lot.”

SportIQ, which has dual offices in L.A. and Helsinki, is planning a new consumer product in Q2 of this year and has an early prototype for a smart ball in another sport, Anderson added. The new investment will support those efforts and market expansion.

NBA 2K has hired Goodby Silverstein & Partners “as its creative agency of record” following a “competitive pitch as the franchise evolves from a traditional annual release into a continuously marketed gaming ecosystem.” The gaming brand “long kept creative and strategic work largely in-house,” though it “would work with agencies for certain releases” at times. The game “now operates on an always-on cadence driven by in-game updates, live content drops and ongoing monetization loops, including branded integrations such as purchasable in-game apparel and collaborations with marketers.” That shift is “changing the role of the creative.” Rather than a “single campaign, the publisher is seeking a sustained brand platform each year that can flex across launch, live seasons and community engagement.” Goodby’s first NBA 2K work is “expected to launch this summer.” The agency’s work will be “inclusive of all channels, social and influencer work; however, it won’t necessarily manage influencers directly” (AD AGE, 2/20).

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast, SBJ Olympics and women sports reporter Rachel Axon describes how influencers and digital‑first creators are reshaping Olympic coverage. She explains that NBC and other rights holders now actively integrate creators into their on‑site content strategies, treating them as essential bridges to younger audiences.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Thursday “pledged the governing body’s monetary support for rebuilding soccer infrastructure in Gaza.” Speaking during the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, Infantino said that FIFA would “invest tens of millions of dollars into building 50 mini pitches, five full-sized pitches in five different districts, a soccer academy, as well as” a $50M “national stadium with a 20,000- to 25,000-seat capacity” (THE HILL, 2/19). FIFA “did not say where the money would come from” or “how the money would be raised.” It also “did not say whether the Palestine Football Association had been consulted” (THE ATHLETIC, 2/20).

“Like an English-language one, this German first name of a physicist of sound & a 1930s film director means ‘serious.’”