SBJ Unpacks: Bob Iger on ESPN’s ‘biggest move’ since landing the NFL

Tonight in Unpacks: Onstage during Day 1 of the CAA World Congress of Sports, Disney CEO Bob Iger in a chat with ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro stresses the importance of the launch of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer product.

• SEC’s Greg Sankey sounds off on changing college sports landscape
• Sports industry confident in the face of growing uncertainty
• McLaren to bring umbrella campaign to Indy
• Op-ed: A student-athlete’s take on the House settlement

Scenes from the CAA World Congress of Sports: Some of the biggest names in sports are in Nashville for one of the most important business events on the 2025 calendar. It’s also where SBJ’s Champions: Pioneers & Innovators Class of 2025 gathered together for the first time. Click here for photos from Day 1.

“This might be the biggest move since getting the full season of the NFL.”

That’s the importance Disney CEO Bob Iger is assigning to the launch of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer product in the fall.

Iger was interviewed on Day 1 of the CAA World Congress of Sports by ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro. Both execs confirmed that a launch date has been picked, a price has been determined and a name has been chosen -- but they weren’t ready to divulge the state secrets just yet (Pitaro would only say that the service would not be called Flagship, as many in the industry have been calling it).

“It’s probably the biggest transition in our history,” Pitaro said of the DTC launch. He also noted that Disney/ESPN almost always lead their list of priorities with “audience expansion,” and Iger dug into what why the DTC product will help achieve that.

“One of the things I love about the product to come, that you’re developing, is that we will build into that elements that will be tailormade for young generations of sports fans,” Iger said. “They like multiscreen experiences.”

Iger spoke about the power of those younger audiences as they have gravitated to newer platforms like YouTube and TikTok. “They like bite-size entertainment,” Iger said “… It’s a reality and it’s something that we have to address.”

Sports still big for Disney

Iger hit on how sports remains incredibly important to Disney as part of the overall portfolio, and why sports properties continue to want to be in business with ESPN.

“I know how important exposure, distribution and access to consumers is, and that doesn’t come cheaply, and it doesn’t come easily,” Iger said. “It’s not always about if you build it, they will come. You have to build it, and you have to figure out a means of delivering it to consumers that are both very pro-consumer and pro-sports, meaning the organization, and obviously pro the business that is covering those sports. And I think we offer -- in part because of the range of product that we offer -- the resources that we have, because we are a company that is on very solid footing from an economic perspective, the energy that we create just in terms of our support of and our excitement about being in the entertainment/sports business.”

He also gave credit to Walt Disney himself for creating a company that has always sat at the intersection of entertainment and tech.

“Technology is a sports fan’s heaven in many respects,” he said. “We’re now entering a new age where the technology side of our business has actually risen to a level that is almost equal to the entertainment side -- but probably an unbelievable partner to entertainment -- more so than ever before. And to me, that’s very exciting. And also, the ability to package, which we’ve done with our entertainment offerings with our sports offerings, whether we were dealing with multichannel operators or whether we’re dealing with consumers that want to buy streaming services, I think has real value both for us as distributors and also for consumers.”

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has seen plenty over the last five years.

COVID. Conference realignment. NIL. Lawsuits.

But as the proposed House settlement could receive approval in the coming days, the college sports world faces a new reality that will see schools paying players directly.

“It’s not the end of the story,” Sankey told the audience at the CAA World Congress of Sports on Tuesday in Nashville. “It is a chapter. It’s a necessary chapter. And one of the realities around other ideas related to college sports is they have started at a point ignoring what we have to deal with from the past.

“... The coping that you hear is we’re trying to figure out what we have to deal with from our past. That’s the chapter we’re in right now.”

That schools will pay athletes directly is a 180-degree switch for an enterprise that has long operated under the pretenses that paying athletes compromised their supposed status as “amateurs.”

More pressing, however, is whether there can actually be control over an enterprise in college sports that has operated sans real regulation for the better part of five years.

The House settlement would create myriad guardrails, including a clearinghouse for NIL deals, a $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap that schools can divide however they deem fit and an enforcement arm to penalize those who attempt to circumvent the cap.

Sankey and his fellow Power Four conference commissioners have been intimately involved in helping create the aforementioned enforcement mechanism and continue to vet candidates for the leadership role atop that governance organization.

“That’s sensible. That’s not taking away opportunities. That’s supporting healthy opportunities,” Sankey said of the proposed clearinghouse. “... Part of the challenge is there’s really not a model that exists for that in the professional world, because I can walk down the grocery store aisle in Skaneateles, New York, at Top Supermarket and Josh Allen has a breakfast cereal for sale. That’s pretty cool. Doesn’t have any logos. Doesn’t have any marks, but that’s name, image and likeness activity.

“If some young college person wants to market a breakfast cereal, knock yourself out. That’s what it was supposed to be, and we’ve lost sight of that reality.”

The ramifications of these changes, however, are likely to be felt far beyond just money-making sports like football and men’s basketball.

Olympic sports are unlikely to receive much, if any, cut of the cap spelled out in the House settlement. The shifting economics toward massively supporting football and men’s basketball may also force athletic departments to seriously consider how and if they can fund such programs.

“Not that anyone listens to my football media days speeches, but in 2019, the line was, ‘When you change the economics of college sports, you alter the Olympic development program in this country,’” Sankey recounted. “Part of the Congressional conversation [around a standardized NIL legislation] is that recognition.”

There’s also lingering questions as to how a new governance structure might apply -- if at all -- to player movement and the persistent nature of the transfer portal.

Tennessee’s recent split with QB Nico Iamaleava over a deal dispute marked a watershed moment in the ongoing issues surrounding athlete compensation and the limited regulation that exists.

On Tuesday, Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek also released a statement related to enforcing the terms of contracts by its NIL collective -- a seemingly direct nod to the transfer of Iamaleava’s brother, Madden, who spent the spring semester in Fayetteville and is now also headed to UCLA.

“Anybody with a law degree and a Twitter account is like an expert,” Sankey deadpanned. “They put something out, and I’ll have a university president send it to me. It doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s an opinion.”

As the Trump administration’s rapid-fire, flip-flopping approach to economic policy raises fears of an oncoming recession, sports finance experts say team owners don’t yet have cause for significant concern. In justifying their bullishness, many pointed to how the industry weathered the 2008 financial crisis.

There may be no better example than Stephen Ross’ control acquisition of the Miami Dolphins in January 2009, a deal that valued the team and its stadium at $1.1 billion. That marked a record value for a team transaction, despite the deal getting done amid the country’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

What kind of impact did the recession have on negotiations?

“Not a word of it ever came up,” recalled John A. Moag Jr., a sports banker who advised Ross on the transaction.

It wasn’t just that deal, either. Moag noted that it was business as usual for his firm, Moag & Company, which worked on four team transactions during and immediately after the recession, including the sale of the San Diego Padres by John Moores.

Elsewhere in 2009, the Ricketts family acquired the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and a 25% stake in the team’s RSN for $845 million, while the following year Ted Leonsis completed his takeover of the Washington Wizards and the then-named Verizon Center, which were valued at $551 million. Both deals were completed at league-record values.

Should the nation enter another prolonged recessionary period, Moag predicted the fallout will look similar: Team owners may face some short-term cash-flow hiccups, but they ultimately have little to fear in terms of their assets shedding value.

“What you’re going to see is attendance drop. You’re going to see sponsorship drop. You’re going to see payroll stay the same. You’re going to see cutbacks by teams in areas where they can cut back,” Moag said. “But then you’re going to see broadcast hold things up, and you’re going to see tickets already purchased stand up. So you know where your revenue is coming from. … But none of that really has an impact on what’s going to happen with values.”

Moag and other sports finance pros pointed specifically to the insulation provided by long-term, contractual revenue streams such as sponsorship agreements, media rights deals and season-ticket plans. A lengthy economic slowdown may chip away at consumer spending on single-game tickets or marketing budgets for sponsors, but owners are ultimately looking beyond the next year or two.

“Most sports owners take a long-term view on their team assets,” said Bob Stanley, CEO and managing partner of advisory firm CAA Evolution. “The typical investor or owner of a sports team, they’re not getting distributions on an annual basis. This isn’t a cash-flow play. They’re looking for the asset value of the team to continue to grow over time, and that’s the real economic win.”

That exact dynamic is why private equity investors have poured into the sports industry, deploying billions across passive, minority team stakes in the NFL, NBA and other leagues with an eye on long-term value accretion.

Another factor protecting team values: Owners simply won’t sell at a discount.

“On the team sales side, these things can get pulled off the market pretty easily, so I don’t see too many owners selling into a challenging market,” said Tipping Point Sports CEO Mitchell Ziets. “Is it possible somebody really needs capital immediately? Sure. But generally speaking … an owner can decide not to sell.”

That said, none of the sources who spoke with Sports Business Journal expect a meaningful slowdown in activity or deal volume in the months and years ahead.

“We have a few deals in market, and everything is moving forward as if the markets are stable and where they should be,” Stanley said. “I’m not anticipating a change in that, and there’s still a large institutional demand for sports ownership, so that will continue to help facilitate these transactions.”

Stanley added that his clients’ continued confidence extends to overseas investments in European soccer teams.

Sources also said there’s no pullback yet from investors backing emerging leagues and properties or other ancillary sports businesses.

Merchant bank LionTree recently made a strategic investment in mixed-use real estate developer SEREGH, in addition to advising on PlayOn’s acquisition of MaxPreps and a funding round for FloSports. LionTree Managing Director Alex Michael said his firm remains bullish on the broader sports landscape, pointing specifically to youth sports and developing markets overseas, among other areas.

“It’s certainly going from what was very concentrated in the major core sports to emerging properties and other pieces of IP, let alone a greater tech ecosystem [supported] by connected fitness and the sports betting boom,” Michael said. “You have these other trends alongside the core sports media rights growth that have created a really strong foundation for growth that we see continuing.”

In 2011, Moag’s firm compiled an industry analysis that examined the recession’s impact on the sports industry. It ultimately found attendance declines were mitigated by pricing increases, sponsorships quickly bounced back to pre-recession levels, sports viewership surged and valuation multiples remained steady.

In his note to clients then, Moag admitted some surprise at the findings, ultimately concluding sports may represent “the bluer-than-blue chip stock.”

While that resilience may have been unexpected some 14 years ago, it’s now the expectation that’s made sports one of the most appealing asset classes for investors today.

Chris Smith can be reached at crsmith@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

McLaren Racing is taking a marketing campaign that it launched this year and applying it to next month’s Indy 500, with related patterns and branding set to show up on everything from race cars to hospitality units. In February, McLaren’s F1 team started posting on social media around a campaign called “Never Stop Racing,” meant to underscore the themes of the need for speed and competitive mentalities that permeate the culture of the English sports car maker and racing organization. Now, McLaren will have its three full-time cars in the NTT IndyCar Series with thematically similar paint schemes that tie back to the campaign for the 109th running of the 500 on May 26.

The campaign, which is set to run for multiple seasons, will also show up in Indianapolis in a spate of other ways during the month of May. The three cars will all have accents of white and camouflage, with the white meant to underscore the blank space in McLaren’s history that the next driver to win the Indy 500 would fill. The historic racing team has won the 500 three times, but not since 1974 despite coming close multiple times in recent seasons. The F1 team won the Constructors’ Championship last year and is contention to win the drivers’ and constructors’ titles this year.

Other plans for the campaign include using similar branding on road cars that the McLaren Automotive division will provide and drive around Downtown Indianapolis during May, along with putting it on the team’s hospitality unit and golf karts at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and at the Conrad Indianapolis hotel, where team guests will be staying.

Referencing the papaya orange that is the team’s primary color, McLaren Racing CMO Louise McEwen told SBJ: “One of our biggest strengths is actually our global reach across different markets … so having that coherence and joint messaging across our race series is a really powerful piece to unite our fans and race series as a brand and spread the papaya love.” McLaren also competes in Formula E and has announced plans to get back into endurance racing at Le Mans. The IndyCar team, called Arrow McLaren, will have four cars at this year’s 500 as NASCAR star Kyle Larson will return for a one-off appearance.

Expect ESPN to remain a media partner of the NFL Draft for years to come.

While no deal is signed yet, internally the company is “optimistic” and is not treating this week’s draft like it will be the last one on ESPN properties, a source close to the matter told SBJ.

The NFL invited bids for the property, whose agreement with ESPN expires this year. Other contenders include Amazon, Fox and Google/YouTube, according to reports.

ESPN has broadcast the draft since 1980, and it “would be a shocker” if 2025 was the final year with the property, per the souce. The company has been in talks with the NFL since last summer, and things have, according to the source, “progressed nicely.”

It remains to be seen what the future of NFL Network is regarding the draft. The cable network, part of NFL Media, has had coverage of the event since 2006. There’s also the potential sale of NFL Media, possibly to ESPN.

While NBC hasn’t publicly entered the conversation, former quarterback and current NBC analyst Chris Simms told SBJ last week he would enjoy hosting it.

“I would love that. It’s right up my alley,” Simms said during last week’s Sports Media Podcast. “... It’s all I do is eat, live, breathe football. ... I have a big mouth, and I’m not afraid to share unpopular opinions at times, right?”

Thursday’s coverage will be separate telecasts on ESPN and ABC. Friday’s broadcasts will be in the same format on ESPN2 and ABC, and the final day will Air the ESPN simulcast.

As an NCAA student athlete and someone who wants to pursue a career in the international sports industry, I am concerned about the future of sports that are sponsored by the NCAA, the Olympics, and the Paralympics after the NCAA vs. House settlement agreement. The proposed roster caps eliminate the possibility of walk-ons joining programs. Combined with upcoming financial changes for athletic departments, non-revenue sports like swimming and diving, track and field, tennis, wrestling and lacrosse are at risk of being cut from varsity status. We have already started to see teams being removed, with recent cuts happening at California Polytechnic State University (men’s and women’s swimming and diving) and the University of Virginia (men’s and women’s diving). Saint Francis University of Pennsylvania is going to be moving from Division I to Division III because of financing and NIL deals through first-party agreements that are proposed in the settlement.

Now is the time to invest in and grow non-revenue Olympic and Paralympic sports within the NCAA. The reason I think that the NCAA should continue investing and growing is that the majority of non-revenue sports are in the Olympics and Paralympics. Three years from now, L.A. will host the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics for the third time in the modern Olympics era, the first time a city within the Americas has achieved this feat. Intercollegiate athletics will play a vital role in Los Angeles 2028, as UCLA’s and USC’s athletic facilities will host sporting events, and their campuses will serve as the athlete villages. L.A. 2028 will be sponsoring baseball/softball, flag football and lacrosse for their Games. Women’s flag football, considered an emerging sport within the NCAA, is growing. Meanwhile, lacrosse, baseball and softball have been treasured NCAA sports for more than forty years. By elevating the game onto the Olympic stage, the NCAA has the opportunity to elevate and produce Olympic sport programs across all three divisions so that athletes have the opportunity to shine on the international stage.

By creating new sports programs and investing in existing ones, colleges and universities provide student athletes from the U.S. and around the world with opportunities to train, compete and earn a degree. Collegiate athletics also provide student athletes leadership opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom, their communities and the athletic facilities. An example of how student athletes achieve leadership positions is Kirsty Coventry, who was elected as the first woman and first person from Africa to be president of the IOC. Coventry was a standout swimmer at Auburn University, leading the Tigers to back-to-back championships in 2003 and 2004. While competing for Auburn, she also represented Zimbabwe, winning seven of the nation’s eight Olympic medals, including two gold medals.

As this op-ed was written, 27 swimmers and divers from Auburn have entered the transfer portal, according to Springboard Creative. Auburn, along with other Power Four schools, has numerous athletes competing in non-revenue sports in the portal due to the proposed roster limits. By limiting roster sizes and funding for non-revenue sports, the NCAA is also restricting student athletes’ academic, career and athletic potential. Additionally, these cuts could affect Title IX compliance, reducing opportunities for female athletes and challenging schools to maintain gender equity. Ensuring fair access to collegiate athletics reinforces the need to protect and invest in non-revenue Olympic and Paralympic sports.

As the future president of the IOC once said to Auburn swimming and diving: “Keep pushing our program forward.” We have to keep pushing all non-revenue Olympic and Paralympic sports programs forward.

Patrick Rankin is a graduate student athlete at Marist University in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He is obtaining his masters in business administration with a focus on ethical leadership while representing Marist on the men’s swimming and diving team.

• The Sabres hired T’Wolves Chief Sales Officer Jake Vernon to serve as their new CCO, a role in which he will oversee ticketing, sponsorship and business intelligence for the NHL team, reports SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• Bandai Namco renewed its sponsorship deal with the Angels for four years, which includes an arcade with a Pac-Man theme in the right-field pavilion at Angel Stadium, writes SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo.
• USL sold naming rights for its professional women’s soccer league, the USL Super League, to Indiana-based insurance technology company Gainbridge under a multiyear sponsorship deal, notes Silverman.
• Country star Tim McGraw will headline a pregame concert at the MLB Speedway Classic (a Braves-Reds game at Bristol Motor Speedway) on Aug. 2, reports Mazzeo.
• Bay FC could set a NWSL single-game attendance record when it hosts the Washington Spirit on Aug. 23 at Oracle Park, home of the Giants, notes Silverman.
• The Hawks and State Farm Arena diverted more than 10 million pounds of waste from landfills since beginning their zero-waste efforts in May 2021, writes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• Relo Metrics added the NWSL to its Relo Census product, enabling sponsorship to be tracked via multiple channels for the rapidly growing top-flight women’s league in North America, reports SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
• As the NBA playoffs begin and the WNBA season arrives, The Athletic is bringing official highlights from the leagues directly to the publication’s editorial ecosystem, notes SBJ’s Mollie Cahillane.