SBJ Unpacks: Analyzing the media landscape

This week’s Sports Media Podcast takes a moment to look over the sector's landscape, with Bank of America’s lead media analyst, Jessica Reif Ehrlich, one of Wall Street’s top media analysts. She lends her analysis chops to co-hosts Austin Karp and Mollie Cahillane to look at recent moves in media, such as Netflix’s expansion into sports. This excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity.

On Netflix’s strategy around sports: “They created the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson event. It was just a totally made-up event that they put together, but the viewership was insane. ... So that says a lot about Netflix's platform. The two NFL games on Christmas were such a huge hit. Having Beyoncé doing the halftime, two really good games, having amazing global viewership, really sets the stage for Netflix to do more in sports. And the WWE numbers, which are actually Q1 of '25, also more than doubled linear. So the stage is set, and they've obviously had a really good experience, but they're pretty clear they're not in the rental of sports business without a profit, and so we expect them to take a somewhat different approach than traditional media, but we do expect them to get bigger in sports.”

On the prospects for ESPN’s “Flagship”: “It's interesting. Look, none of us have seen it, but the way Disney talks about what it will be, it will be ESPN on steroids. There'll be some personalization and sports betting and all kinds of other add-ons for a sports fanatic. How many sports fanatics are there? I am not sure that we know the answer to that. Twenty-five percent of the audience maybe is really, or 20-25% is the number. We've always heard of diehard sports fans who'll pay extreme prices. But I like Disney's hybrid approach. They're not taking ESPN off of pay TV, out of the bundle. So you're not forcing people to go into ESPN Flagship, and ESPN will be in a lot of these bundles, too. So it's unclear. There's no way you could say without having seen it, knowing the exact price, and knowing what all these other bundles will be, how successful will they be. We’ll consider it a success if they can get a meaningful number, millions, of incremental subs, cord-cutters, or cord-nevers that are not in the bundle.” 

Red Bull is partnering with Trackhouse Entertainment Group to officially get back into NASCAR, bringing a major consumer-facing brand back into the sport after it exited in 2011. The deal was announced this morning ahead of this weekend’s IMSA Rolex 24 race at Daytona, where Trackhouse will be part of an entry. The Austrian energy drink company will serve as Trackhouse's official energy drink and primary sponsor of Shane van Gisbergen for five Cup Series races in 2025 plus the Cup Series debut of Connor Zilisch at COTA this March. Red Bull announced last fall that it had signed Zilisch, the 18-year-old NASCAR prodigy, to an endorsement deal, and it has a long-standing endorsement with van Gisbergen dating back to his time racing in Australia, all of which signaled in recent months that its re-entry into the sport was a possibility.

Trackhouse is also a team in MotoGP, which Red Bull is a major sponsor in. However, today’s announcement made no mention of MotoGP and was focused on the four-wheel side of racing. Team founder Justin Marks had long made it a goal to land the company as a sponsor, and he said in a statement: "It’s an incredible chapter in the history of Trackhouse Racing to welcome Red Bull back to NASCAR. Red Bull is one of the most powerful brands in the world and it’s an honor for us to embark on a partnership with such an iconic company." The races at which Red Bull will serve as primary sponsor of van Gisbergen are Las Vegas in March, Sonoma in July, Iowa and Daytona in in August and Kansas in September. Among those involved in the negotiations with Red Bull Director of 4-Wheel Motorsports Parker Smith.

The TGL is averaging 869,000 viewers after three matches, a figure 50% better than the comparable college hoops programming on ESPN in the same windows in 2024. Tuesday’s Atlanta Drive-N.Y. GC match on Tuesday night averaged 682,000 viewers, which is easily its lowest figure yet, but well above the 456,000 for a Texas-Oklahoma men’s hoops game in that window last year (the TGL match peaked at 728,000 from 8:15-8:30pm ET). Perhaps just as important though is that TGL is bringing in young viewers, with a median age of 51 years old after three matches (much younger than the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, both at 63). Here is how the league compares to some other properties in median age on linear TV:

• NBA: 50

• TGL: 51

• NHL: 52

• EPL: 52

• F1: 53

• NFL: 54

• D-I men's hoops: 57

• NWSL: 57

• MLB: 60

• WNBA: 61

• PGA Tour: 63

• LIV Golf: 63

TGL is also scoring better with the coveted advertiser demo (adults 18-49) in terms of that segment comprising the overall audience on linear TV:

• TGL: 43% (percentage of audience in 18-49 demo)

• NBA: 42%

• NHL: 40%

• EPL: 40%

• F1: 38%

• NFL: 35%

• D-I men's hoops: 33%

• MLB: 30%

• NWSL: 28%

• WNBA: 25%

Given the state-funded $455M cost of Belmont Park’s new grandstand and clubhouse building, it will need to generate much more revenue for the New York Racing Association (NYRA), which operates the 430-acre horse racing and training facility, and not only during the week of the Triple Crown’s third leg, the Belmont Stakes. The new building — strikingly designed by Populous— will feature at least 10 differentiated premium hospitality spaces, driving more revenue and creating a non-horse racing event-hosting business at Belmont Park for the first time, said NYRA CEO Dave O’Rourke. “Much smaller building but every seat inside is of high value,” he said. 

Playfly helped NYRA with pricing and valuation studies during the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga last year — the race will be held there again this year during the renovation, and likely again in 2026, though that’s not been finalized yet. The assessment helped inform design and pricing for the new building at Belmont Park, as well as determine how best to utilize new assets of the facility like the infield (which is now reachable for the first time through two massive tunnels) and The Backyard, which sits between the new building and UBS Arena. Additionally, the renovations should put Belmont Park back in the Breeder’s Cup hosting rotation; the Breeder’s Cup hasn’t run at Belmont since 2005. 

“If you were to start completely over, we helped them understand what kind of guardrails there could be,” said A.J. Machosky, Head of Business Development at Playfly. 

RELATED:  Makeovers at Belmont and Pimlico aim to connect tracks to surrounding communities and to visitors outside of race days 

Playfly is also selling sponsorships and entitlements and naming rights for NYRA. That could potentially include naming rights to Belmont Park, “a unique opportunity to do that in this industry,” which doesn’t feature many naming rights deals beyond a few casino-related ones. Machosky estimated that there will probably be eight figures-worth of sponsorship potential at the new Belmont Park compared to pre-renovation. 

A separate, NYRA-funded $100M project that completely rebuilt the racing surfaces, including the Triple Crown’s mile-and-a-half “Big Sandy” dirt course, and added the two new tunnels that unlock the infield’s major potential for the first time. That includes having fans in the infield (and increasing capacity) during the Belmont Stakes, but also hosting other events, like concerts, or, as Populous Principal, Senior Architect, Meg McWilliam, who is leading the Belmont Park project’s design effort, posited, an outdoor NHL game in partnership with the neighboring Islanders?

“How cool would it be to have one at Big Sandy?” she said. “I think the Islanders would support that idea incredibly well.”

LG Electronics and ANC are now quietly operating under what the two companies are terming a marketing “alliance,” where the electronic giant’s scoreboards, ribbon boards and other venue hardware systems will be sold and serviced by ANC in what the two parties termed a "long-term deal.”

The two companies have been working on the “alliance” for a few years, and among their early joint projects, both sides said, were large pending installations in two NFL and MLB venues (deals done within the last six months). They would not yet specify those facilities, since they are under NDAs.

“We’ve got a lot of mutual targeted customers, and the combination of our products and ANC’s marketing and sales is a collaboration that will allow us to engage with some sports conglomerates we’ve both been pursuing for quite some time,” said Tom Bingham, LG's director/vertical market sales. “There are just huge tech requirements now for a connected [venue] experience -- everything from live ordering and sports betting to cashless environments and just providing bandwidth for all those watching on site. One of the most exciting things for us is that we’re now incorporating things beyond digital. We can also include HVAC and energy offerings across a venue for different solutions. ... There are lots of competitors, but very few who can put together and run a unified building.”

ANC President and CEO Jerry Cifarelli also noted, "Our thesis all along has been to transform venue technology upgrades from just capital expenses to revenue generators. Now we can combine their display installations with our industry expertise, marketing servicing and sales, which solidifies our mutual position in a market when there’s so much building going on or planned. It changes us both.”

Both sides also said they are targeting incremental business in minor-league sports facilities as well as non-sports, out-of-home advertising. Along with its hardware, LG’s various sports tie-ups -- even non-tech ones -- will also be serviced by ANC. "We’re charged with getting their brand and their technology out there," Cifarelli added.

Evan Derr, the director/event services for Ohio State athletics, can easily explain the long lines for Buckeyes home games in the fall.  

“It’s just the sheer number of people,” Derr said of the venue with a capacity of 102,780. “What makes Ohio Stadium unique in being [in the] top-five largest stadiums in the world with capacity is that we got a lot of people to put through a bathroom and to feed and hydrate.”

To better combat the service stagnation, the school has worked with crowd intelligence provider WaitTime for the last two seasons. Founded in 2014, WaitTime uses AI and a host of cameras to analyze lines around concessions and bathrooms in real-time. By producing color-coded indicators via a dashboard of the venue's food and bathroom options, fans can avoid long lines and hit the less-busy spots with a quick glance at their phone.

OSU started using WaitTime’s operation-side offering in 2023 for internal monitoring, and it decided this season to incorporate the fan-facing version of the platform into the official Buckeyes app. Outside a brief messaging earlier this season, Derr said that fans discovered the feature either through word-of-mouth or with the assistance of ushers or event staff. Still, the dashboard registered thousands of visits, and postgame fan surveys yielded satisfied marks with those who used WaitTime.

Zack Klima, the CEO and founder of WaitTime, says that Ohio Stadium is the company's largest rollout. Roughly 100 cameras are positioned around the venue's various options. WaitTime is powered by Intel and distributed worldwide by Wesco. Ohio Electric Services handled the installation at Ohio Stadium in 2023. The rollout in total, Klima estimated, took four-to-six weeks from analysis to setup.

“If you can hang a camera, you can install WaitTime,” Klima said.

Stall tactics

The company has about 30 sports clients worldwide, such as the Heat, Pistons and 49ers. Jim Null, OSU's senior associate AD and CIO, said that WaitTime’s camera-agnostic approach made it easier for the state-funded school to find cameras through their government purchasing contracts. 

After considering WaitTime for years, Null shared that the venue became better set up to support the tech in 2019, when the stadium received a Wi-Fi upgrade. The project created nearly 1,700 access points, resulting in more networking wiring closets that help run power via ethernet to the cameras. “That was kind of a barrier prior to that,” Null added.

Klima said that OSU has been measured in the deployment, using 2023 as a first phase to learn from the data. Derr said OSU found a need for more point-of-sale options at some concessions locations after observing long pickup times for food. He also joked about the development of a “people-per-potty" metric, which helped calculate bathroom activity to bolster housekeeping response for cleaner restrooms.

OSU is hopeful that WaitTime capabilities can connect to other parts of their tech operations going forward. A vision of the future, which Derr described as a still-budding idea, is integrating WaitTime into OSU's facility management tool from 24/7 Software. That way, when bathrooms receive 1,000 visitors, it could ping for a housekeeping dispatch.

For next season, Derr said the game plan will focus on educating fans about WaitTime. He also hopes to put it in front of fans more frequently, empowering the larger collective’s decision-making around concession and bathroom trips for Ohio Stadium, which opened in 1922.

“Most college stadiums are old -- very old -- and we’re lucky if they’ve gone through a couple major renovations even in 100 years' time,” Derr said. “That’s kind of how we approached the idea of using WaitTime. How can we improve that experience for fans and educate them a little bit more?”

College athletics is on the  precipice of a major shift from a system of amateurism that restricts athletes’ compensation to a framework more akin to professional sports. For years, the NCAA, the nonprofit that regulates college athletics, has been subject to numerous antitrust lawsuits seeking to dismantle amateurism. College athletes have already won the right to profit off their name, image, and likeness, and, in October 2024, a federal judge granted preliminary approval of a  settlement that would allow revenue-sharing with athletes. While the terms of the settlement will need to be fleshed out, the lack of detail around how the new model will be governed is one of the most glaring omissions.

The governance by the NCAA of more than 1,200 schools across three distinct competitive divisions of college sports has proven to have limitations on the ability to effectively manage a multibillion-dollar  industry. As argued in the Wall Street Journal, “having dozens of sports trying to live under the same recruiting, eligibility and financial-aid standards is impractical and inefficient” and revenue-generating sports like football and men’s basketball “should be governed by a separate association ... breaking up the NCAA monopoly into several nimble and efficient governing bodies.”

While the NCAA may have a role to retain in certain aspects of college sports, it should not be responsible for managing revenue sharing and NIL. Rather, it should be a new entity separate from the NCAA with a governance framework based on the concept of steward-ownership, which is an ownership structure that centers an organization’s purpose and empowers its stakeholders (i.e., college athletes). Examples of steward-ownership are becoming more prevalent and can be seen across the spectrum from private equity powerhouse KKR  promoting employee ownership to small businesses  organizing around purpose and not just profit.

There are a variety of legal tools to implement steward-ownership, but a guiding principle is to embed and protect an organization’s mission through the control of key governance rights. Assuming final approval of the NCAA settlement, the parties should strongly consider the use of a purpose trust to be the steward of this new model to ensure that protecting the rights of college athletes is the primary purpose and to also provide athletes a seat at the table for decision making. 

A purpose trust is a non-charitable trust established for the benefit of a purpose rather than an individual beneficiary under a traditional trust. These trusts can operate indefinitely and, specifically under Delaware law, have significant drafting flexibility to permit the pursuit of unique, non-charitable purposes. In the case of college athletes, the purpose trust would control decision making for regulating revenue sharing, NIL, and other aspects of college athletics in lieu of the NCAA.

The use of purpose trusts have gained prominence in the recent years based on high profile uses by Patagonia (which transferred all governance rights to a purpose trust in order to preserve the brand’s mission in perpetuity) and Meta (which created a purpose trust to oversee content review). A purpose trust would protect the rights of college athletes and allow them to hold certain governance rights, while also providing credibility to the organization, something the NCAA has struggled to maintain. 

The purpose of the trust for the NCAA would be some formulation of “protection of the rights of college athletes” that would include guiding principles such as the following  goals from the National College Players Association:

1. Establishment of health and safety standards
2. Protection of educational opportunities and scholarships
3. Elimination of unnecessary restrictions on ability to earn compensation from NIL
4. Ensure athletes have a share in an equitable portion of the revenue they generate. 

The  key aspects of a purpose trust are:

1. Grantor that contributes assets to the purpose trust
2. The trust purpose, which is the beneficiary that the trust must be operated in furtherance of
3. Trustees (or trust stewardship committee), which must govern the assets held by the purpose trust in accordance with the trust’s purpose
4. A trust enforcer that serves as an arbitrator for complaints by stakeholders against the trust stewardship committee for failure to abide by the terms of the trust. 

The new entity that will oversee revenue sharing and NIL should be governed by a purpose trust to ensure that the rights of college athletes are legally required to be protected and remain as the primary beneficiary of college athletics. As an oversimplified example, a new entity would be created and that entity would serve as the “settlor,” contributing 100% of its equity to the purpose trust. The purpose trust would then have sole control over the entity tasked with overseeing NIL, revenue sharing, etc. The trust enforcer would be a neutral and independent party with a legal obligation to rule on the basis of whether an action was in furtherance of the trust’s purpose. 

A purpose trust would allow for a trust stewardship committee to ensure the organization is operated in accordance with the identified purpose as well as the ability to delegate authority to subcommittees over certain matters, such as a committee specific to oversight of NIL or revenue sharing. Members of the stewardship committee would comprise representatives from the various stakeholders in college athletics — conference commissioners, colleges and universities, the NCAA, and college athletes.  

As college athletics moves away from amateurism, the rights of college athletes should be at the center of the new organization’s purpose to ensure that they are protected. A purpose trust can legally embed this mission, provides athletes with a seat at the table, has a built-in enforcement mechanism and isn’t dependent on whether athletes are or aren’t deemed employees.

Michael Santos is a partner in the San Francisco office of Morrison Foerster and a member of the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group, focusing on alternative ownership structures. Michael was a member of the Santa Clara University men’s basketball team from 2007-2011. Shai Kalansky is a partner in the San Diego office of Morrison Foerster and focuses his practice on corporate and transactional matters, including mergers, acquisitions, venture capital financings  for climate tech and life science companies. Daniel Irvin is an associate in the San Francisco office of Morrison Foerster and a member of the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group.

• Commissioner Adam Silver, in his most sweeping statements about a potential NBA Europe, said Thursday the project could morph into an open league that includes established international franchises such as Real Madrid and "would just be one piece of a larger approach to basketball throughout Europe," reports SBJ's Tom Friend.

• Apparel brand Perry Ellis signed on as a U.S. sponsor of next month’s 4 Nations Face-Off, a new international hockey competition put on by the NHL and NHLPA, and it will feature Panthers LW Matthew Tkachuk in its promotion around the event, writes SBJ's Alex Silverman.

• Comcast's new “Sports & News TV” Xfinity package includes over 50 broadcast, cable news and sports channels, plus streaming service Peacock, notes SBJ's Mollie Cahillane.

• Coca-Cola signed a four-year deal to sponsor the South Africa Rugby Union, including the men’s and women’s Springboks national teams, men’s and women’s Springbok Sevens and the Junior Springboks, reports SBJ's Chris Smith.

• Unrivaled is averaging 204,000 viewers after six games across TNT and truTV in its debut season, writes SBJ's Austin Karp in this week's Audience Analysis.

• The Billie Jean King Cup's Finals will be held in Shenzen, China, from 2025-27, reports SBJ's Rob Schaefer. BJK Cup Ltd. CEO Kerstin Lutz called China’s strength as a tennis market the primary factor in the decision.

• Second-year player Nick Dunlap joined Excel Sports Management with the new PGA Tour season underway, notes SBJ's Josh Carpenter.

• The Twins unveiled their MyTwins Membership ticket program and MyTwins Rewards fan loyalty program, writes SBJ's Mike Mazzeo.