SBJ Unpacks: NFLPA names JC Tretter as executive director

Tonight in Unpacks: The NFL players voted Tuesday to name JC Tretter as the next union executive director, capping off a whirlwind eight months in which Lloyd Howell resigned in scandal and Tretter himself had walked away from his chief strategy officer role inside the organization, reports SBJ’s Ben Fischer.

Also tonight:

• Sports Business Awards nominees revealed
• WBC likely hit record 7 million viewers for U.S.-Dominican Republic
• WNBA, union down to about 4% difference on revenue sharing
• Op-ed: WNBA must share its success with its players

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour discusses the bumps in men’s and women’s college basketball viewership heading into March Madness, the World Baseball Classic becoming a major hit, the Sports Business Awards’ nominations for Executive of the Year and more.

There were some consistent themes as Sports Business Journal selected the nominees for the 19th annual Sports Business Awards to be presented on May 20.

The process, which started in January, saw the decisions become harder than ever as more and more new ideas and new players excel in sports, and the influence and impact of women’s sports defined a number of the categories and nominees.

What started in 2008 was much simpler than today, as the dynamic growth and investment in sports has clearly made the industry far more sophisticated and advanced. In addition, the growth of women’s sports is seen in categories such as Sponsor of the Year, in which brands have significantly leaned into female athletes and IP. In Team of the Year, two women’s sports leagues were represented among the nominees for the first time — the Golden State Valkyries and Washington Spirit. Sports Media of the Year nominees also leaned heavily into media rights acquisition and coverage of women’s sports.

The awards recognize excellence during the judging period from March 1, 2025, through Feb. 28, 2026.

The winners in 13 categories will be determined by a group of industry executives. Award winners in two categories — Athletic Director of the Year and Executive of the Year — will be selected solely by SBJ. Award recipients will be announced during a live event at the New York Marriott Marquis Times Square.

John Henry, principal owner of Fenway Sports Group, also will be presented with SBJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Celebration of Service Award recipient is Soccer Without Borders.

Agency of the Year: Brand Consulting

160over90

Excel Sports Management

Genesco Sports Enterprises

GMR Marketing

MKTG Sports + Entertainment

Octagon

Optimum

The Team

Best in Property Consulting, Sales and Client Services

CAA Sports

Elevate

Learfield

Legends Global

OVG Global Partnerships

Playfly Sports

Best in Sports Media

CBS Sports

ESPN

Fox Sports

NBC Sports

Prime Video

Rogers Sports & Media

Best in Sports Social Media

B/R W: Always on Coverage of Unrivaled

Indiana Pacers: Road to the Finals

Inter Miami CF “Dial-In”

LIV Golf: The Duels

MLB on Fox: A Seven-Game Classic, Captured in Real Time

WWE: John Cena Farewell Tour

Best in Talent Representation

CAA Sports

Excel Sports Management

Klutch Sports Group

Octagon

The Team

WME Basketball

Brand Activation of the Year

Aramark Sports + Entertainment’s Banana Dog

Bud Light Blizzard Brew: Bills’ final season at Highmark

Dude Wipes x Eagles Tush Push

Lego at Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix

Pop-Tarts Bowl

Whirlpool x Premier Lacrosse League: Lacrosse on the River

Deal of the Year

Aramark Sports + Entertainment invests in Athletics, Las Vegas ballpark

ESPN acquires NFL Media assets in exchange for equity

Mark Walter acquires majority stake in Los Angeles Lakers

Rogers Communications acquires majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment

UFC and Paramount agree to media rights deal

Washington Commanders secure stadium deal for return to D.C.

Sports Breakthrough of the Year

FIFA Club World Cup

San Diego FC

Sephora

The CW

U.S. Open Mixed Doubles Championship

Sports Event of the Year

2025 World Series

Canelo vs. Crawford

Fanatics Fest NYC

NFL Draft at Titletown

NHL Stadium Series Tampa

Sports Facility of the Year

Crypto.com Arena

Lindner Family Tennis Center

MetLife Stadium

Petco Park

Progressive Field

Spectrum Center

Sports League of the Year

Major League Baseball

National Football League

National Hockey League

National Women’s Soccer League

Ultimate Fighting Championship

United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee

Sports Sponsor of the Year

Amazon Web Services

AT&T

Delta Air Lines

Gainbridge

Home Depot

State Farm

Sports Team of the Year

23XI Racing

Golden State Valkyries

Inter Miami CF

Los Angeles Dodgers

Oklahoma City Thunder

Toronto Blue Jays

Washington Spirit

Athletic Director of the Year

Dan Bartholomae, Western Michigan University

Scott Dolson, Indiana University

Mark Harlan, University of Utah

Kirby Hocutt, Texas Tech University

Candice Storey Lee, Vanderbilt University

Executive of the Year

Rick Cordella, NBC Sports

Michael Jordan, 23XI Racing

Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN

Mark Shapiro, TKO

Mark Walter, TWG Global

Lifetime Achievement Honoree

John Henry, Principal Owner, Fenway Sports Group

Celebration of Service Honoree

Soccer Without Borders

Fox Sports heads into tonight’s U.S.-Venezuela game on the heels of a record-setting World Baseball Classic audience on Sunday night, as the U.S.-Dominican Republic semifinal on FS1 drew 6.9 million viewers.

That figure on Sunday easily passes the prior record of around 5 million for the U.S. win over Mexico in pool play last week, which was on the Fox broadcast network. Sunday night’s game also had stiff competition from The Oscars on ABC. The U.S.-D.R. game is the best baseball game of any kind to air solely on FS1 since Game 6 of the 2019 Yankees-Astros ALCS drew 7.5 million. The record for any audience on FS1 is Game 7 of the 2017 Yankees-Astros ALCS at 9.9 million viewers.

When the Fox Deportes audience is added to Sunday’s game, the number jumps to 7.3 million for U.S.-Dominican Republic.

Tonight’s U.S.-Venezuela game on Fox will look to also top the 4.48 million for the Japan-U.S. final from 2023, which aired on FS1. The WBC has competition tonight from the NCAA Men’s First Four on truTV, including a Texas-N.C. State game that will feature Dick Vitale’s NCAA Tournament debut alongside Charles Barkley and Brian Anderson.

The WNBA and WNBPA are believed to be over 4% apart on their split of revenue share, sources told SBJ Tuesday, a marked gain that the sides will continue to hash out as talks resumed Tuesday.

Early indications were that the sides might take Tuesday off to recalibrate after nearly 100 hours of collective bargaining over the past week. But sources said the negotiations have begun again in earnest.

When the latest face-to-face negotiations began a week ago on March 10, the players had requested 26% of the revenue pie, with the league refusing to budge from a number just under 15%. But, while that divide has been roughly cut in half and there was recent belief leaguewide an agreement was imminent, nothing has finalized.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has twice set soft deadlines for a deal, saying if there was no agreement in place, the season schedule would be impacted. The first deadline was March 10, and the second was a week later this Tuesday. But there is still no term sheet.

Sources said there has been zero indication when or if the WNBA will announce a delay to start the season.

If the state of RSNs were a geopolitical case study, it would likely be akin to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, with each satellite state having to determine its own future. So whether it’s the NHL, MLB or NBA (see my talk last week with the Pelicans), it’s different strokes for different folks.

In attempting to understand what worked for one NHL team in a unique spot, I connected with Jeff Webster, chief commercial officer with the Kraken, whose club — in only its fifth season — made the decision two years ago to depart the Root Sports RSN in favor of a strategy that no other team has in the U.S.

Unleashing the Kraken over the air

Seattle didn’t have the pro hockey history of other major markets, so getting local viewers interested in the sport was among the early challenges.

“We were teaching people about icing and the blue line as much as we were teaching them about a rivalry with the Canucks or other teams in the league,” Webster said. “Having the opportunity for the people, who weren’t able in the early days to come see it in person, to watch it on TV was becoming increasingly difficult with the fracturing of traditional cable subscriptions and where our RSNs were available or where they weren’t.”

That led to the creation of the Kraken Hockey Network, a mix of over-the-air and streaming distribution of games. For linear TV, TEGNA jumped on board as a partner, putting games primarily on its KONG affiliate in the Seattle-Tacoma market (with some KING simulcasts).

“It’s been such a huge blessing,” Webster said. “So much of what we had hoped would happen has come to pass.”

TEGNA must have felt the same way, as the two sides renewed last month. The Kraken’s territory now extends throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska with TEGNA affiliates and other local deals the company has cut.

Nick Cartan, the head of Playfly Media, praised the team for expanding its footprint. “It’s smart to increase their distribution in that market, especially in the absence of an NBA team right now, for this time of year,” he said.

Leveraging a local icon

For streaming, the Kraken went a route no other NHL team has gone — putting games on Prime Video. Amazon is no stranger to the club, as it has naming rights to the team’s venue (Climate Pledge Arena), and Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy is an investor in the team. For any TEGNA games shown locally, Amazon Prime subscribers in the team’s territory have the ability to stream them.

“From a credibility standpoint for people here in the Pacific Northwest, if they see their team on Prime, it can sort of elevate the brand to a degree,” Webster said.

Webster noted TEGNA sells the primary portion of the TV ad inventory, and the team retains some as well. TEGNA will sell local spots, with Playfly selling national ads. Those commercials then get pulled through for the simulcasts on Prime Video. For measurement purposes, local viewership figures — the public ones, at least — are just for the OTA broadcasts. Any Prime Video audience numbers are additive, but those are generally seen just internally.

Can this Amazon model be used by other teams? “I don’t think that it’s a repeatable model,” noted Cartan. “It’s very backyard. ... And it makes total sense. I think it’s very cool.”

But with the NBA likely headed back to Seattle, and with Kraken owner Samantha Holloway likely leading the charge in acquiring a team, could there be more in-market Amazon opportunities in the future?

“We’re ambitious about what the future of our company here could entail, but we’re not at the stage to be talking about the NBA just yet,” Webster said. “We’re excited about the future, and certainly Amazon, with them stepping into a formal arrangement with the NBA on broadcast rights this season, poses an awesome opportunity for us to learn from them about that landscape if that opportunity ever arises.”

Coexisting with NHL plans?

Much like the NBA and MLB, a national package of local rights likely makes sense for the NHL, but there are no plans in place. However, Webster praised the league for its communication with clubs on the local distribution issues, particularly as they all are trying to figure out a new landscape.

“They have a group at the league that is dedicated to the national broadcast deals and partnerships, and that group supports hugely the local teams in helping us to see the future and helping us to make the best business decisions — not only for our team, but also in conjunction with what the strategy would be for the league as a whole,” Webster said. “They’ve been hugely supportive and major advocates of helping to guide our direction.”

But, as Cartan notes, focusing solely on a national package of local rights could be a slippery slope.

“If you look at national advertisers, brands that are capable of spending across a national platform, you’re talking under 3,000 brands probably,” Cartan said. “When you look at local and regional advertisers, this is the only way that those local and regional advertisers get to communicate with a highly engaged, repeatable, night-to-night community. There are 60,000 advertisers that are interested in that.

“These folks aren’t buying a single-feed network — NBA, NHL, MLB — across the national broadcasters. And so the pool of advertising dollars is tremendous. And I would say 60% to 70%, based on the market of total revenue going in, are coming from regional advertisers, local advertisers — not 50-state national network buyers. And so, if you’re a team, reducing the pool of possible advertisers is a dangerous thing to do.”

The WNBA and the players association (the WNBPA) are negotiating a new agreement. The league has offered players large salary increases and a larger share of revenue. But after months of negotiations and with the season set to tip on May 8, the players continue to reject the league’s offers. For good reason.

Last year, Nobel Prize labor economist Claudia Golden conducted an analysis of the financial value that NBA and WNBA players generate based on media deals and merchandise and ticket sales. Based on the value the players create, she determined that the average WNBA salary should be around one-third to one-fourth of the average NBA salary. Unfortunately, the average WNBA salary (just over $100,000) is less than 1% of the $11.9 million average NBA salary. The league’s current proposal would increase it to a bit under 5% of the average NBA salary, nowhere close to what Golden’s analysis suggests would compensate players for the value they create.

It is fair to ask how the league is doing financially. Recently, the WNBA announced that for the first time, the league generated enough revenue to provide a share to players, based on terms of the 2020 collective-bargaining agreement (CBA). That is great news for owners and players alike, and a strong sign that the league is doing well. The 2020 CBA required revenue to exceed a target that increased every year by 20%, while player pay increased by only 3% annually. Also, the revenue target was cumulative. The 2020 and 2021 seasons were impacted by COVID, which set cumulative revenue back significantly. The fact that earnings have now made up for those seasons is a very strong sign of financial health.

In addition, the league is seeing huge revenue increases from both a new media deal that will bring in $2.2 billion over 11 years, and expansion team fees totaling $925 million. These fees have increased from $50 million to $250 million over the past three years, with many cities bidding for an expansion team.

The players want compensation that will catch up, and keep up, with the growth they are fueling. The players want a greater share of revenue and yearly salary caps that increase with revenue growth. They also want a share that is based on revenue before expenses (gross revenue). The league has offered a percentage of revenue after expenses (net revenue), which is how the expired CBA is structured. The league has full control over expenses, so a net-revenue model puts the players at the mercy of the league’s spending. This is problematic for multiple reasons. First, the league has provided no transparency into expenses. The expired CBA allows players to audit only the revenue side of the books. The league claims that what players are asking for, which is currently 26% of gross revenue (NBA players get about 50% of revenue), will result in $460 million in losses over the term of the agreement. But without opening the books, who knows how accurate this is?

Perhaps most importantly, given that 60% of the WNBA is owned by the NBA, the conflicts of interest are significant and demand transparency. Here is an example of what can happen without it. The new $2.2 billion media deal brings in around five times as much as the previous deal. $2.2 billion is a lot of money, but how good is the deal really? The overall $76 billion media deal was negotiated by the NBA, which then determined that the WNBA would get $2.2 billion of that amount. If we compare average TV viewership, number of games played and account for shorter games played in the WNBA (40 minutes versus 48 minutes), the WNBA gets about 13% of the viewership hours the NBA does, but the NBA gave less than 3% to the WNBA. Maybe $2.2 billion isn’t such a good deal after all.

Women’s sports have grown tremendously in audience size, investment, sponsorship, and almost every other category over the past five years. The league is touting the large increases it is offering, using the previous agreement as a baseline. However, this approach would continue to undervalue the players. For example, as the AP reported, the league has proposed a $5.75 million team salary cap in Year 1. While clearly much better than the current $1.5 million cap, it remains quite limiting for a team of twelve players, and is only 4% of the NBA team salary cap. The players have asked for a salary cap starting at $9.5 million that grows as revenue increases.

When organizations have a history of undervaluing women, they often continue doing so as long as they can get away with it. It becomes the way they do business. It is time for this to change in the WNBA. It is time for a fundamental shift in how the success of the league is shared with players. There is a need for greater financial transparency, or a shift to giving players a share of gross revenue. Further, the WNBA should be able to negotiate its own media deals, rather than having to accept whatever portion of an NBA deal is allotted to it. Women’s sports are booming and investment is pouring in. It is time to fairly reward the players who are driving the exponential growth.

Donna Lopiano, Ph.D., is president of Sports Management Resources and former CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation. Pamela Seidenman is founder of Accelerate Equity, which advances equal opportunity for girls and women in high school and college sports.

• Sprite reemerged as the NBA’s official global soft drink sponsor after an 11-year hiatus, with a multiyear deal that replaces PepsiCo’s Starry, reports SBJ’s Tom Friend.
• Augusta National Golf Club on Tuesday rolled out its 2026 “Taste of the Masters” options with the tournament just a little more than three weeks away, writes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• Carpenter also notes that Bryson DeChambeau is adding agency representation, signing with Josh Pyatt and the newly launched WIN Artists, who will co-manage his business alongside his longtime manager, Brett Falkoff of GSE Worldwide.
• TrailRunner International named Alden Mitchell as the new president of TrailRunner Sports, the firm’s global sports advisory business, reports SBJ’s Grace Kut.
• Stellantis’ Ram Trucks brand continues to go all in on projects from UFC President and CEO Dana White with a multiyear sponsorship deal for Power Slap, Street League Skateboarding and Nitro Circus, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• Stern also writes that Buc-ee’s started selling a co-branded T-shirt with NASCAR in its stores, in what is believed to be a first between the two beloved Southern brands.
• Baller League USA, a creator-led soccer competition, signed State Farm as one of its most visible sponsors during its inaugural season, notes SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
• OnDeck Partners, the Double-A Southern League Montgomery Biscuits and DABOS announced a deal today that will rename the Biscuits’ ballpark DABOS Park, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick.