Good afternoon, here’s what we’re following at SBJ today:
- WNBA and union reach verbal CBA deal, season to start on time
- How March Madness payouts are tabulated
- NBC, Players Championship hit five-year Sunday high
- Plus Panini and Coca-Cola’s FIFA World Cup sticker activation, Japanese brands dominate the World Baseball Classic, and other industry news from the day.
Start your morning with Buzzcast with Austin Karp: The WNBA and its players get a verbal deal on a new CBA; the WBC wraps with a thriller; Big TV numbers for college conference title games; Kalshi gets sued in Arizona; and Sprite lands back with the NBA. Listen >>
THE BIG STORY
Opens in new windowWNBA and union reach verbal CBA deal, season to start on time
After 17 months of both terse and cryptic negotiations -- including over 100 hours of dusk-to-nearly-dawn discussions the past eight days -- the WNBA and WNBPA reached a verbal agreement early Wednesday on a CBA, SBJ’s Tom Friend reports.
Although terms were not immediately available, sources told SBJ earlier that the league and the union had whittled their crucial revenue share divide to only a 4% difference, and a compromise was reached approximately two hours after midnight.
Not long after, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stood alongside WNBPA Executive Director Terri Jackson, union president Nneka Ogwumike and VPs Brianna Turner, Alysha Clark and Breanna Stewart to publicly announce the tentative deal, with Jackson gripping a glass of champagne.
5 STORIES WE’RE WATCHING
1. Explaining March Madness money payouts: March Madness is back, which means we get to brush off the annual tradition of explaining how payouts for the postseason work.
2. NBC, Players Championship hit five-year Sunday high: Viewership for the Players Championship reached a five-year high on Sunday, with Cameron Young’s one-shot win over Matthew Fitzpatrick earning 4.4 million viewers on NBC.
3. Panini, Coca-Cola to collab on World Cup sticker promotion: The longstanding FIFA World Cup corporate sponsors are teaming for an on-pack sticker promotion on more than 300 million bottles of Coke and Coke Zero Sugar in Canada and the U.S.
4. Japanese brands seize opportunity for reach through WBC: Logos spanning the outfield wall at LoanDepot park offered a clear reminder of the sponsorship spend that followed Japan on its ill-fated WBC run. Ten of 11 brands that bought space on the wall were from Japan-based companies.
5. NFL signs Kraft Heinz as official condiment partner: The NFL and Kraft Heinz have inked a five-year deal that will put the food conglomerate’s biggest brands into the NFL business, including overseas as the league exports the sport.
ON THE MOVE
- The NFLPA board of player representatives elected former union president and senior executive JC Tretter to become its next executive director. Tretter will start April 1 (Ben Fischer, SBJ).
- On Location has hired former NFL exec Katie Keenan as EVP/Olympics and Paralympics Hospitality and will be based in N.Y. before relocating to L.A. this summer (Rachel Axon, SBJ).
- The Braves have hired Brandon Howell to be VP/Media Sales for the team’s channel BravesVision. Howell had spent the last 25 years working in different iterations of the FanDuel Sports Network (Tom Friend, SBJ).
NAMES IN THE NEWS
- Late Packers President Bob Harlan’s name will be added to the Lambeau Field façade during the 2026 season. Harlan died on March 5 and was with the team for 37 years and led them for over 18 years. (Green Bay Press-Gazette).
- The PGA Tour unveiled the Deane Beman Den, dedicating the previously known den space inside Tour Headquarters in honor of former Commissioner Deane Beman (Golfweek).
- Former NFLer Mark Gastineau’s $25-million lawsuit against ESPN centering on the viral clip in a “30 for 30” episode of him confronting Pro Football HOFer Brett Favre has “been dismissed with prejudice” (N.Y. Post).
HOT READS
USA TODAY went with the header, “Dick Vitale, before calling First Four game, says return to TV ‘a miracle.’” At a time “where so much is changing in college basketball,” a “familiar voice has returned to the sport.” After a yearslong battle with several types of cancer, resulting in a long hiatus, Vitale has “returned to the headset for the 2025-26 season, getting back to a typical frequency of calling games.”
Also:
- Michael Kay reflects on getting the call to be Yankees’ play-by-play man for YES Network.
- TAMPA BAY TIMES’ John Hill writes that there are 3 dark clouds over any Rays deal in Tampa.
- San Jose MERCURY NEWS’ Dieter Kurtenbach writes that the Warriors might have the right pieces to be respectable next year. The NBA won’t let that happen.