SBJ Media: Jomboy making most of its MLB deal

I finally got around to starting “Pluribus” on Apple TV, and it’s awesome. With Vince Gilligan as showrunner, I shouldn’t be surprised. On the sports documentary side, I’m looking forward to watching a couple of films on Amazon Prime Video in “Jerry West: The Logo” and “Meal Ticket,” which covers the history of the McDonald’s All-American Game.

Driving down the average age of baseball fans isn’t going to come just from shortening the length of games on TV. One of the newer ways MLB is tackling that issue through a partnership with Jomboy Media. The deal is in its first full season and includes an equity stake in Jomboy for MLB.

As Jomboy Media CEO Courtney Hirsch describes it, the company, which produces podcasts and YouTube shows, is a “creator-led sports media company” — and one MLB hopes will create new fans.

“We don’t target anyone,” Hirsch said, when asked what demos the company goes after. “It’s anyone that loves baseball or is interested in learning baseball that wants to have fun with us. Who resonates with our content the most is men 18-34. That’s our sweet spot.”

But there are a ton of content creators tied to the baseball ecosystem, so how does Jomboy Media stand out? “What makes us different is how we do it,” said Hirsch, whose brother Jimmy O’Brien is also a co-founder of Jomboy. “We’re a place for everyone. We are not Disney. We’re not PG-13, but where you wouldn’t describe us as hot takes and controversial and going for the joke for the sake of the joke. It’s a place where everyone can have fun while watching sports.”

Jomboy Media came out of the gate firing on Wednesday night, seeing its best “Opening Day” yet (and the first time it had an “Opening Night” effort). This includes the company’s first Opening Day pregame special, with Corona sponsoring a show using all 12 company creators (as well as some of Corona’s baseball ambassadors).

MLB’s help as an equity partner

Access to footage, new camera angles and archival footage is one way that the league has delivered on its side of the deal. “We are able to create content faster and also create content that does not exist in the marketplace today,” Hirsch said of the official partnership. “MLB does their thing. Their broadcasters do their thing with the content. What we’re doing is totally different.”

Access to jewel events is also part of the deal, and that included the WBC, where the 12 Jomboy Media creators created 11 shows. The company’s “Talkin’ Baseball,” its most popular show, also filmed a live episode from LoanDepot Park in Miami right after WBC games.

The tie to baseball has clearly helped the roster of sponsors as well, including a new one in Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Markets (Jomboy Media was previously with DraftKings). Under Armour does apparel, with other sponsors being Corona, T-Mobile, Amazon and Apple (Jomboy Media is helping to promote “Friday Night Baseball” on Apple TV).

“My favorite thing about our brand partners is they understand us and want to be part of the community and the conversation, not just a very standard kind of commercial or logo slap,” Hirsch said. “A lot of it is very integrated placements.”

MLB had, well, a few “Opening Day” events this season, but fans were finding telecasts across a number of outlets. As Fox Sports’ Mike Mulvihill noted, the total viewing story for MLB’s opening week is going to be “incredibly strong” after three national broadcast TV windows and a Netflix game vs. just one broadcast window last year. “Momentum behind MLB right now is the best it’s been in a very long time,” he wrote.

Netflix is still trying to figure out its numbers with Nielsen, so nothing to report there yet.

But traditional Opening Day on Thursday was a success for baseball’s return to NBC. D-backs-Dodgers in prime time on the broadcast network drew 3.2 million viewers, which is the best Opening Day prime-time game since 2020, when MLB started on ESPN in late July due to the pandemic, drawing a record 4 million viewers for a Yankees-Nationals game. Netflix may go higher than that, so stay tuned. Earlier in the day, NBC drew 2.3 million for Pirates-Mets, which is the best Opening Day afternoon game on record.

Over on MLB Network on Thursday, the combo of games and studio shows helped the league-owned channel to its second-best Opening Day in its 18-season history. Tigers-Padres drew 354,000 viewers, which was the network’s best Opening Day game yet (the game was blacked out in San Diego and Detroit).

This is also the first season with Big Data as a part of numbers, and the studio shows — like with football season — benefitted early on. “MLB Now,” the analytics-based show hosted by Brian Kenny, averaged 131,000 viewers in the 12pm ET window, marking its best Opening Day episode since launching in 2013. “MLB Central” drew 81,000 viewers, which is its best Opening Day show since launching in 2015. The late night “Quick Pitch” highlights show Thursday was up to 81,000 viewers, and that’s the best figure for the program since 2023.

Across the northern border, Rogers Sportsnet drew its best Blue Jays opener ever, as 2.15 million Canadians watched the game against the A’s.

MLS and Apple will end their media-rights pact after the 2028-29 season, but don’t expect local market rights to revert back to teams.

“I don’t see that ever happening again,” Brad Sims, NYCFC’s president and CEO, said at SBJ’s Business of Soccer conference last week in Atlanta.

NYCFC, which the Yankees partially own, had many of its local games aired on YES Network during its first few seasons. These sorts of local deals were not that lucrative for most MLS teams, but for those like NYCFC in major markets, the value was far higher.

For Sims, the calculation now is that while getting such TV rights back in the largest media market might be good for his club, it’s not the best thing for MLS’ media future.

“For our market, yes, it would be better,” he said. “We were better off financially in a model where we could have local rights. I don’t know that that’s best for the league as a whole, as an enterprise. I think that what was done, and how it was built, is probably the best path. We have a ways to go in terms of where the owners and where the league thinks the broadcast rates should be. ... You got to have a product that people want to watch in the U.S. and globally and so that you have broadcasters willing to pay for those rights.”

And it’s not just local TV rights. Sims thinks NYCFC’s bottom line would be greatly improved if it were able to do a number of its own deals in other categories. But the team sport aspect of soccer doesn’t just apply to on-the-pitch elements for Sims -- it applies to business ventures as well. “I agree with the direction that we’ve been headed from a league [standpoint], and I would be surprised if that changed.”

Tiger Woods’ DUI arrest is not coming at a good time for TGL, as the league is out in the market for its next media pact after the ESPN deal concluded (plus a deal for the soon-to-be-launched women’s league). TGL’s two best audiences have both featured Woods, including the Season 2 finale last week at just south of 1 million viewers. TGL on the whole for Season 2 viewership was down 2%, a drop that would have likely been larger were it not for the new Big Data calculations. But Woods’ mishap makes things complicated for his business partners, Mike McCarley and Rory McIlroy, as they look to keep the media momentum going. Beyond TGL, the Masters’ media partners also have to be bummed that Woods won’t be teeing it up in Augusta next week.

Some bad news for diehard horse racing fans over the weekend, as Paulick Report broke news that the FanDuel TV linear network, which started back in 1999 as TVG and has focused on thoroughbred betting, is “being phased out over the next 20 months.” The channel, not to be confused with the FanDuel-branded RSNs, is in around 30 million U.S. homes. The TVG brand will apparently be brought back. My betting-minded colleague Bill King told me the move by FanDuel makes sense, especially with the proliferation of app-based wagering and the decline of cable TV. And the truth is that while most horse bettors are sports bettors, the inverse is not true.

TNT Sports struck another deal for the Savannah Bananas, with truTV and HBO Max grabbing 15 games this summer (there were 19 last summer). Each game (mostly Friday nights) will feature two teams from the Banana Ball Championship League, including the Bananas, Party Animals, Firefighters, Texas Tailgaters, Loco Beach Coconuts and Indianapolis Clowns. It’s not an exclusive deal, but another smaller one to keep populating truTV with sports content.

• YES Network recruited Larry David for its latest ad, reports SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo.
• NFL teams would be permitted to sell preseason game TV rights and original shows to streamers under a plan heading to owners for approval at this week’s league meeting, sources told SBJ’s Ben Fischer.
• SBJ’s Power Players: FIFA World Cup 2026 includes Fox Sports’ Eric Shanks and Brad Zager, Roger Bennett of the Men in Blazers’ Media Network and Dan Miodownik of Host Broadcast Services.
• The WNBA and CBS Sports signed a long-term media rights deal, but the pact is shorter than deals with NBC Sports, ESPN and Prime Video.
• The latest episode of the SBJ Sports Media Podcast features my discussion with Netflix’s Elle Duncan about her move to the platform.
• At last week’s Business of Soccer conference, speakers from Fox Sports, Telemundo and DAZN discussed the challenges of broadcasting an event with the scale and scope of the FIFA World Cup, reports SBJ’s Mary Gaughan.
• Prime Video rolled out its debut coverage plans for next week’s Masters coverage, with Terry Gannon hosting from 1-3pm ET on Thursday and Friday and Jack Nicklaus expected to be featured, reports SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.