Morning Buzz

The Sabres have agreed to a 10-year extension of their arena naming-rights agreement with KeyBank that begins with the 2026-27 season and runs through 2035-36. The Cleveland-based regional bank will also become the team’s away helmet sponsor beginning this season and the namesake of a new community program called “HocKey Assists.”

Industry sources said KeyBank will pay the Sabres between $5M and $7M annually. The team retained Excel Sports Management to assist in the sale process, but Sabres COO Pete Guelli said the team did not shop the rights to other potential partners.

“We’ve built so much equity in the relationship with KeyBank, and the partnership was operating at such a high level, that our first priority was to figure something out for the long term,” Guelli said. “They were incredibly receptive to that conversation from day one. There was a lot of focus on what the future of the area might look like and how it was tied into the future of downtown Buffalo, and the details came together relatively quickly.”

KeyBank inherited naming rights to the arena as part of its 2016 acquisition of Buffalo-based First Niagara Bank, which signed a 15-year deal with the Sabres in 2011. Terms of that deal weren’t disclosed, but the new deal represents a significant annual increase for the club.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in an email to all NFL employees wrote that those based in the league’s N.Y. office should “plan to work remotely at least through the end of next week (August 8),” as the office will “remain closed during this time” following the shooting at the building that houses the NFL’s N.Y. office. Goodell wrote, “We ask that you do not attempt to enter the building until we confirm that it is ready for us to return.” Goodell noted the league will be “holding a virtual town hall” for employees on Wednesday. Goodell on the NFL employee who was injured in the attack wrote, “He is currently surrounded by his family and members of the NFL community, and we are all continuing to hope for and support his full recovery” (SBJ).

As ESPN marches toward the launch of its new direct-to-consumer app and a “significantly enhanced app” (as Jimmy Pitaro put it), the company continues to hold a large lead in sports among mobile sports app fans, unique fans across digital and social media feeds and engagements on social media platforms, per new June data from ComScore.

While June can be a slower month overall for sports in the U.S., ESPN actually saw a lift over May in terms of its digital and social presence, getting to 193.6 million unique fans in the U.S. That’s a level on par with what ESPN got in March during the height of college basketball. It’s up from 175.1 million in May.

The increase is also interesting when juxtaposed with lower month-over-month users for the ESPN app and ESPN Fantasy app, as well as a decline in unique visitors to ESPN.com and fewer engagements for ESPN Social feeds. While app use was down from May, it was still more than 7x its nearest competitor and the next nine non-ESPN apps combined. The Fantasy app also remains No. 1 in that category, and up 8% from the same time last year.

In terms of digital/social reach, ESPN continues to reach 69.1% of U.S. adults. Also, for the 48th consecutive month, ESPN Social was No. 1 among sports properties, hitting 555 million engagements last month (which comes to more than 18.5 million per day).

Las Vegas “will host the 2026 World Cup draw” on Dec. 5, according to sources. Vegas was chosen “after venues in Canada and Mexico were ruled out” for the newly expanded tournament. The Sphere in Las Vegas -- which features a 54,000-square-meter screen and has capacity for 17,500 people -- was “reportedly a potential venue for the draw,” but sources close to the Sphere “confirmed it would not happen there” (ESPN.com, 7/29).

The Dolphins have launched a new premium experience for young adults, packaging post-game transportation away from Hard Rock Stadium with newly renovated bar-style clubs in the upper deck.

The 954 Social Club and the 305 Social Club will both target 20-somethings in Fort Lauderdale and the Brickell neighborhood of Miami, respectively. The twin 160-person capacity clubs are currently under construction in the end zone corners on the north side, with an open-seating design placing socializing on equal footing with field views.

But the transportation is in the most notable feature. Social club tickets, which start at $120, include bus transportation after the game to party hotspots in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The idea came out of surveys of the Dolphins’ junior sales staff, Chief Revenue Officer Jason Green said.

“The idea is having a space where you can congregate and not just be in a fixed seat, but have a place to mingle, and hang out,” said Green. “Then after the game you go straight down, get on a bus with all the people you just met and hung with, and the bus goes straight to Las Olas [in Fort Lauderdale] and drops you off at the bars, and same thing with Brickell.”

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Beginning with the 2025-26 season, DAZN will be the global home of NHL.TV. The service will migrate to DAZN’s platform and be available as a standalone subscription or add-on package to users in almost 200 countries. Existing NHL.TV subscribers will receive more information later. Financial terms and the length of the deal were not disclosed.

NHL.TV is not available in the U.S., Canada or the Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). ESPN and TNT Sports hold the rights to the NHL in the U.S., and in Canada the rights belong to Sportsnet and Prime Video. DAZN and NHL.TV will stream every NHL game, including the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Final, on any device. Certain live games in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be blacked out, but available on demand when the game is over.

The league previously worked with Sportradar from a tech perspective for NHL.TV, but handled certain aspects such as marketing of it themselves.

DAZN also holds international rights to NFL Game Pass, PGA Tour Pass and FIBA’s Courtside 1981. Hockey had not been a major focus for DAZN, though it has held rights to Austria’s pro hockey league and the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and China.

Fox Sports is leaning into the auto racing setting for the MLB Speedway Classic and will have cameras mounted on several motorized four-wheelers. Among the 40 cameras in use for the broadcast will be a pair affixed to the bullpen cars driving in relief pitchers to the mound, and the same rover that featured at the Indy 500 will speed around the track.

Director Matt Gangl indicated that the rover -- officially known as the RC Car Camera -- will be used to capture footage of a pregame players parade around the track, for pregame introductions and possibly for in-game reporter hits and fan shots during the pregame concert.

“Rover Cam offers perspective of what it’s like to be on the track at Bristol Motor Speedway, coming into the ends and experiencing the visual of the third-steepest banked NASCAR track at 30 degrees,” Gangl told SBJ, noting that it’ll provide “unique angles and perspectives of an MLB game set in the infield of a racetrack with 85,000-plus fans.”

“We hope to capture fun interactions with players on the field before the game: Walking to the field for the first time, hanging out along the baseline during batting practice,” he added. “Players are like big ‘kids’ and like to have fun with what looks like an oversized ‘toy.’”

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The Rutgers Board of Governors is expected on Wednesday to “approve a five-year contract for Keli Zinn that would make the longtime college administrator the highest-paid athletic director in school history.” according to a source. The source said that Zinn, who is currently the Exec Deputy AD & COO at LSU, is “set to make a base salary” of $1.35M that can “rise if the athletic department hits any of the multiple incentives in the deal.” It is “unclear what the incentive structure is or whether there is a buyout clause or any retention bonuses in the deal.” The proposed deal would link Zinn -- a 2019 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree -- to Rutgers “through 2030.” Rutgers’ last permanent AD Pat Hobbs earned roughly $1.1M in the 2023-24 academic year. Zinn’s proposed salary “lags behind a majority of her Big Ten colleagues, particularly those who joined the league during this offseason.” Jim Smith, who took over at Maryland, is set to make $1.5M, while J Batt will earn $1.85M at Michigan State (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 7/29).

Investment firm Shamrock Capital has promoted Andy Howard and Mike LaSalle to the titles of co-president and partner, effective immediately. Both were already partners and members of the L.A.-based firm’s executive committee. Former President Stephen Royer has assumed the title of chair and partner.

Howard and LaSalle, who last year were named to SBJ’s “Power Players: Institutional Investors” list, have long overseen Shamrock’s sports, media and entertainment investment strategy. Howard has been with the firm since 2006, while LaSalle joined in 2001. Their promotions “will add more depth to leadership and more structure around decision making,” Royer said in a statement.

Shamrock has stakes in production company Religion of Sports, for which it led a $50M Series B in 2022, as well as Excel Sports Management, Boardwalk Pictures and Pixellot, the AI-powered sports camera manufacturer that Shamrock led a funding round for in 2018. Shamrock has exited prior investments in FanDuel, Learfield and the Harlem Globetrotters. Howard is a director for Pixellot and Religion of Sports, while LaSalle is a director for Boardwalk and Excel, among their other board seats.

Last year, Shamrock raised $1.6B for its flagship growth fund and a new small cap fund. As of this past March, the firm was managing some $6.5B in assets. Shamrock was founded in 1978, initially as part of Disney heir Roy E. Disney’s family office, prior to being spun out in 2010.

TGL has added a fourth founding partner ahead of its second season, with Shriners Children’s coming aboard as part of a multiyear deal. Shriners, which dropped its long-running title sponsorship of the annual PGA Tour event in Las Vegas last year, joins Best Buy, Genesis and Businessolver as TGL’s other founding partners.

Financials weren’t disclosed, though prior estimates pegged TGL founding partner deals in the $5M-8M range annually. Crown Properties Collection, the partnerships division of Oak View Group, helped negotiate the deal. OVG also oversees food and beverage at TGL’s venue, the SoFi Center. The deal with Shriners marks TGL’s first new partnership of the offseason.

RELATED: TMRW Sports utilizing SoFi Center during TGL offseason

Shriners will be a presenting sponsor of a Children’s Day and will have national ad spots, along with other integrations. Patients from the hospital will be able to interact with TGL players during matches, the company said.

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Shares of Adidas “fell” Wednesday after the German sportswear giant flagged a double-digit million-dollar “hit from U.S. tariffs in the second quarter and warned that current import levies will push up the cost of its U.S. goods.” The retailer said that “added costs associated with tariffs could total” $231M in the second half of this year. Shares “shed as much as 9% in early trade before recovering losses slightly” (CNBC.com, 7/30). In Q2, Adidas “increased net sales” by 2.2% year on year to nearly $6.9B, “despite negative currency effects and the absence of revenues from the defunct Yeezy line.” Revenues “grew across all regions and product categories,” led by a 17% “jump in clothing sales and continued momentum in its retro lines.” Operating profit “surged” 57.7% to $630M, “supported by higher prices and lower freight and product costs” (FINANCIAL TIMES, 7/30).

Fever C Aliyah Boston and former WNBAer Candace Parker are releasing the first episode of their new podcast, “Post Moves,” today. The idea to have a podcast “following in the footsteps of current and former WNBA players” was “intriguing for them to show glimpses into their daily lives.” They’ll “still talk a lot of basketball,” and the duo will “share stories about the WNBA of old, and the WNBA of new.” But they’ll “also talk about how basketball has affected them outside of the game.” The duo taped their preview episode “live in Indianapolis during All-Star weekend in front of friends, family and media” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 7/30).

In Episode 6 of Inside the Industry, we dive deep into the evolving world of sports franchise ownership. From billion-dollar valuations to private equity’s growing influence, this episode explores how increasing team valuations is changing the shape of ownership. Hear from industry leaders about the rise of global ownership groups, the importance of corporate partnerships to drive revenue, and the innovative ownership models shaping minor league baseball.

“This 7-digit date saw the premiere of Handel’s ‘Water Music.’”