SBJ Unpacks: D.C. United ups its premium seat game

D.C. United increased its premium offerings by 25% with three new field-level seating areas at Audi Field, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick. Existing seating was replaced on the stadium's south end and the west sideline, while a new area behind the north goal fills unused space. The increased options should lead to a roughly 15% bump in premium revenue, said D.C. United President/Business Operations Danita Johnson.

“We wanted to figure out a way to create more offerings for smaller, mid-sized premium [seating] -- groups of four, eight, 12 and even up to 20,” she told SBJ on Friday. "Premium offerings for smaller-based groups, as opposed to just the 20-person suite."

The three new sections add 144 premium seats to the nearly five-year-old stadium (which also hosts the NWSL’s Spirit and XFL’s Defenders). Four new loge boxes, starting at $48,000 annually, replaced between 50 and 75 seats behind the south goal and offer space for eight. They include in-seat waitstaff service as well as access to the stadium’s FanDuel Sportsbook. The eight sideline tables replace what was essentially a front porch for field-level suites beneath the stand on that side and have room for four at each table, starting at $20,000 per year. And four cabana suites -- which include 20 tickets per match -- make better use of what was otherwise an open space tucked partly beneath the stand on the north end of the venue. They start at $100,000 per year.

Johnson said the club would like to sell the new premium on full-season terms, but some of them will be reserved for sale on a per-game basis. The spaces offer all-inclusive food and beverage packages of varying levels, something that D.C. United features for its other premium seating areas, too.

“Once you start to move into premium, food and beverage is an important part of the experience, so we definitely wanted to add that in,” said Johnson. “Gives you less to have to think about.”

DirecTV’s top execs -- including CEO Bill Morrow and Chief Content Officer Rob Thun -- visited MLB HQ Thursday afternoon for a high-level meeting with the league’s top brass, including Commissioner Rob Manfred and CRO Noah Garden, reports SBJ's John Ourand. The meeting mirrored similar ones that MLB has set up with the country’s biggest distributors recently, like Comcast, Charter and YouTube.

The issue: What to do with local team rights if some start reverting back to MLB in the wake of Diamond Sports Group’s recent Chapter 11 filing.

These meetings took on a greater sense of urgency last week, as MLB believes it’s a week away from reclaiming the rights to the Padres, whose games are carried on the Diamond-owned Bally Sports San Diego. Diamond missed its most recent rights fee payment to the Padres earlier this month. The company has a cure period that lasts until 11:59pm on Wednesday, when it can make the payment without penalty.

Diamond Sports’ independent board will vote by the middle of next week on whether it will allow the grace period to lapse without making a payment. Part of the holdup is that Diamond has been trying to obtain other rights, such as streaming rights, that the Padres have been unwilling to part with. Even without those rights, Diamond may decide that the team is too popular and too good to risk losing.

Ourand looked deeper into the RSN situation ahead of Opening Day for MLB next week. Get an Early Access look at the piece in next week's magazine here.

NFL owners will face a vote at next week’s league meetings to approve a flex scheduling plan for late-season “Thursday Night Football” games, sources tell SBJ’s Ben Fischer and John Ourand. The vote also would relax limits on the number of games each team can play on short rest each season.

Both measures would give schedule-makers more flexibility to avoid meaningless games with sub-.500 teams for Prime’s “TNF” window. Historically, the NFL’s Thursday night package has struggled with these types of low-interest games.

NFL resolutions rarely are sent to the full ownership for a vote without a high degree of confidence they will pass, and the two media committees have been supportive, sources said.

FaZe Clan, the esports and gaming outfit that went public in July, may already be looking to reverse course, with the group considering a restructure that would take it private, sources tell SBJ’s Kevin Hitt. However, sources indicate that FaZe is struggling in such efforts.

In its most recent quarterly filing, FaZe reported that it had only $43.9 million in cash assets, which would be enough to fund itself until November. Sources tell SBJ that FaZe would need between $40 million and $60 million to restructure the group. That's a tough ask in today's esports ecosystem.

This week’s SBJ Esports newsletter also covers:

• Teams eye vertical integration for growth

• Hosting interest swells for NBA 2K League

Genius Sports-owned Second Spectrum revealed the first visuals of its new Dragon tracking system as part of a presentation to analysts. While most of the showcase involved products on the market, the management team gave its first glimpse of the new technology first publicized as part of a recently announced partnership with the NBA, reports SBJ’s Joe Lemire.

Dragon is the engine behind the next-generation solution, with so-called “mesh tracking” as its visible output. Current pose and limb tracking captures two- or three-dozen points on each athlete’s body, but the example shown in the presentation collected about 7,000 data points -- essentially, the entire surface area of the human body, empowering more fluidity of movement and increased realism.

The NBA has signed on to help research and develop Dragon and its mesh tracking. No one is ready to project a timetable for implementation, but when it’s ready, Second Spectrum CCO Mike D’Auria said he believes it will be “a paradigm shift in tracking,” expanding from millions to billions of data points per game.

Nike is committing to its newest Gen-Z athlete, Liberty G Sabrina Ionescu, with a unisex apparel collection and her first signature shoe, the Nike Sabrina 1s, reports SBJ’s Na’Andre Emerson.

Ionescu’s first signature shoe draws inspiration from her Romanian background and pays homage to its traditional art and architecture. The collection is also debuting an all-new performance sock, the Nike Unicorn Sock, which is the first sock to use the brand’s Dri-FIT ADV material.

This coming Wednesday, the latest edition of SBJ Live will feature a panel with key MLB executives looking at new tech initiatives ahead of Opening Day on Thursday. Kicking off at 12:30 pm ET, SBJ’s Joe Lemire hosts Braves VP/Business Strategy Justin Watkins; MLB Chief Product Officer and Exec VP Vasanth Williams and MLB SVP/Product, Ballpark Experience & Ticketing Karri Zaremba.

They’ll dive into innovations teams have in store for 2023 and examine enhancements to digital content delivery, venue operations, maximizing sponsorships, marketing the sport more effectively and personalizing the fan experience. The panel will also examine how vendors and team operators are adjusting to MLB’s 2023 rule changes.

Sign up for the free session here.

• The MotoGP season got underway on CNBC this afternoon with the Portuguese Grand Prix. SBJ’s Austin Karp notes races on NBC and CNBC last season averaged 162,000 viewers, down from 194,000 in 2021 (NBC/NBCSN), but above the 159,000 in 2020 (NBC/NBCSN). NBC Sports’ top MotoGP audience since acquiring rights three years ago was the 2021 Dutch GP on NBC (617,000). At No. 2 is last season’s Valencia GP on NBC (603,000).

• The NWSL is launching its own international streaming service in partnership with Endeavor Streaming that will make every match available for free viewing outside the U.S., with DAZN and Tigo as broadcast partners, writes SBJ’s Joe Lemire.

• Heineken 0.0 has signed a sponsorship with the Valorant Champions Tour Americas League, expanding its presence from Riot Games’ Brazilian League of Legends circuit into North America, reports SBJ’s Hunter Cooke.

• NIL marketplace and operations software MOGL raised an additional $2.6 million in seed funding led by Magarac Venture Partners, notes SBJ’s Lemire.

• SBJ asked readers to chime in with their theories on the final season of “Succession,” and you responded. SBJ's Na’Andre Emerson rounds up the answers.