SBJ Unpacks: A Little League tall tale

Tonight in Unpacks: What happens when you end up coaching that “can’t miss” kid, the one with the size and the skills for pro sports? SBJ’s Tom Friend found out with Spencer Jones during the future Yankees outfielder’s Little League days.

Also tonight:

• Tennis world rushes to capitalize on Serena Williams’ return
• MLS teams using World Cup for business development
• U.S. World Cup stadiums losing out on media exposure
• Op-ed: Sports has to solve AI’s trust problem

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Joe Lemire closes out the week with highlights from the opening matches of the World Cup, Fox airing ads during hydration breaks, Wimbledon giving a big boost to its prize purse and more.

Everyone worries about the Little Leaguer who bats last. What about the kid who bats first?

What about the kid who’s 6-foot-2 at the age of 12, who’s an intentional walk waiting to happen? What about the kid who — whenever he steps to the plate — has infielders backing into the outfield and outfielders scooching to the fence? What about the kid who has to witness a celebration every time they accidentally get him out? What about the kid who’s destined for the big leagues if he can somehow survive Little League?

I coached one.

I use the term “coached” loosely. You don’t coach a kid who arrives with a left-handed swing as sweet as a love song or a fastball the equivalent of 105 mph or a grin like every day’s his birthday. You don’t coach a kid who needs only seven strides to sprint from home to second and who, as a first baseman, has a catch radius of infinity. You just throw him BP and duck the hell out of the way. You just write his name at the top of the lineup — like Shohei Ohtani — so he gets as many at-bats as possible. You do your best not to ask for his autograph.

Of course, I do have the kid’s signature. After the one season he batted .937 with 20 home runs for my Encinitas (Calif.) Little League Pirates in 2014, all the boys on the team signed a ball to me as a season-ending gift. And it’s right there by the seams, in faded ink: Spencer #52. That’s all he wrote. Spencer, as in Spencer Jones, current behemoth rookie outfielder for the New York Yankees.

We’ve all seen Little League kids who are “can’t-miss,” who grow sooner, shave sooner and need a big-and-tall uniform when only short and scrawny are available. There’s a million of them out there, but about 999,950 who do miss. Because it’s not easy being the next Bryce Harper or Mike Trout. Because expectations can take the fun out of the game if you let it. But Spencer — he didn’t let it.

I remember this clearly, after he had pummeled another line-drive homer into the YMCA skate park behind the center field fence, probably 100-plus mph off of his composite bat. I looked up and saw the other team’s parents in awe and in fear. And a few days later I heard of an impending league board meeting: What to do with Spencer?

Rumor was they might take the bat out of his hands, literally. That they might make him use a wood bat to slow his exit velocity. Or they’d institute a rule, whenever Spencer hit, to put an L-screen in front of the pitcher. “They’re afraid he might break someone’s leg, or worse,” I was told.

They ran it by Spencer’s dad, Chris, who said, “Wow, maybe if you use an L-screen the entire game. But pausing and bringing one out when Spencer’s at bat — you don’t want him to feel like a freak.”

ELL took the risk and let Spencer be Spencer — whose gentle nickname was actually Bambi. He wound up leading the league in hits, home runs, batting average (yep, .937), RBIs … and four-pitch walks. He carried the all-star team to the West Regional Final, just one game away from the Little League World Series. Teams didn’t pitch much to him there, either.

But time moves on, and you never know. As a high school senior, Spencer fractured his elbow pitching. He ended up at Vanderbilt, ended up a 6-foot-7 first-round pick of the Yankees in 2022, striking out a little too much in the minors as he kept swinging for the skate park. You never know. But then this season the Yanks called up our former Pirate.

I couldn’t watch every game, and one day saw the headline: “Mets’ Clay Holmes Breaks Leg on Mound.” I knew instantly what happened; knew it down to my bones. Spencer had nailed Holmes with a 111-mph comebacker. Using a wood bat.

“My Little League nightmare come true,” former ELL President Todd Sleet texted Chris. Typical of Spencer, he texted Holmes to check on him and told reporters: “I’m sorry.” Then, this past week, he crushed his first home run to dead center, 112.2 mph and 443 feet, just like the ones that used to send skateboarders scrambling.

Don’t even think about an L-screen, MLB.

Serena Williams’ announcement that she would return to pro tennis sent the tennis world into a frenzy earlier this month.

For organizers at the Lawn Tennis Association, which owns and operates the WTA 500 tournament at which she re-debuted on a doubles wild card, the HSBC Championships at London’s Queen’s Club, the remit was simple: Prepare for the arrival of a G.O.A.T.

“A player of the significance of Serena, she obviously comes with her family and quite a big team,” said Chris Pollard, the LTA’s managing director of commercial and operations. “The Queen’s Club is a very tight site, so to try and find additional space for her, and some of the requirements that she had, required us to move at pace.”

Anticipating the demand that would follow the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion after nearly four years away from the game, organizers elevated Williams and doubles partner Victoria Mboko’s first-round match to the Queen’s Club’s primary show court, the nearly 9,000-capacity Andy Murray Arena (the grounds hold a little under 10,000 total).

The HSBC Championships’ WTA component — which it reintroduced in 2025 after a five-decade run as an ATP-only event — went from 88% of an aggregate capacity sellout last year to 95% in 2026, with five of seven days sold out (including Tuesday, when Williams played).

Pollard cautioned that sales were trending toward their current status even before Williams’ announcement, but her first match filled the stadium. An LTA spokesperson said that three days in the tournament’s media center had also been at capacity, and Instagram views and impressions were up about 300% overall for the tournament.

“Serena has drawn significant extra interest, and with that has come an uptick in ticket sales,” Pollard said. “It’s not necessarily easy to isolate that to the Serena effect versus other [wild cards]. But it’s definitely been net positive.”

Covering the chaos

Tennis Channel has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to WTA tournaments, leaving it well-positioned to capitalize on Williams’ return tour. In addition to the HSBC Championships, Williams will play on a doubles wild card at the Vanda Pharmaceuticals Berlin Tennis Open in Germany, another WTA 500, set to begin June 15.

“We’ve been covering this on ‘Tennis Channel Live’ every day since she went into the [anti-doping] protocol [last year], anticipating and hoping that this would happen,” said Tennis Channel Chairman and CEO Jeff Blackburn. “We’re super excited.”

Tennis Channel aired Williams’ first match at the HSBC Championships on its flagship linear channel and app, with its “A” commentary team of Chanda Rubin and Tracy Austin on the call remotely and analyst Chris Eubanks reporting on the ground.

Tennis Channel’s coverage also included advertisements for Ro — the telehealth-based weight loss company for which Williams is an ambassador and her husband Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm, Seven Seven Six, is an investor — DraftKings, Whoop and Thorne, each of which came on specifically to be featured during Williams’ match.

Blackburn said another focus will be driving new and interested viewers to the Tennis Channel app. Upgrades to the app have been a primary task for Blackburn since he started with the network last spring.

“Women’s tennis is already on a tear. Our [viewership] numbers are up 20%-30% on [WTA 1000] tournaments year to year,” Blackburn said. “Adding Serena on top, this could be an incredible moment for women’s sports. If she’s back permanently, if she also plays singles — we’re hoping for all of it.”

Making most of a ‘shooting star’

WTA Chair Valerie Camillo first had “good confidence” that the rumors of Williams’ return were real after speaking with Williams’ team at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells in March. Their envisioned timing was not finalized, but it was enough for the WTA to begin planning.

“We started to work on how will the WTA optimize this moment for our brand, for our fans and, of course, for Serena as well,” Camillo said. “We went through a meaningful planning process on our marketing approach — on how we show up on social media, on broadcast — without knowing the exact tournament, the exact day, who she would partner with.”

During the week of Williams’ return, that manifested in several activations, from spraying tune-in graphics across digital channels, to releasing archival footage of Williams’ matches within the tour’s “WTA Unlocked” membership program, to promoting clips from practice sessions and press conferences on social media. A WTA spokesperson noted that Saturday, June 6 — also the day of the French Open women’s singles final — was the WTA website’s highest-trafficked day of the year so far.

Camillo said the WTA is looking at ways it can work with brands in Williams’ network — think her cosmetics line, Wyn Beauty; dress collection for S by Serena; or recovery brand Will Perform. Williams also has leaned into brand collaborations since the announcement, including a new endorsement deal and creative spot with the meal delivery service Factor.

Only Williams knows her plans from here, but the prevailing theory among industry observers is that she will eventually play singles as well, possibly at Wimbledon. A spokesperson from the All England Lawn Tennis Club responded to a question from SBJ about Williams’ status by saying wild-card deliberations will begin for the tournament the week of June 15.

“Time will tell and the situation will reveal itself — is this for this season, does it go beyond that?” Camillo said. “But for us at the WTA, when a star appears in your sky — and you could argue, in tennis, she’s one of the brightest stars that’s ever been — whether it’s something with permanence or whether it’s a shooting star, you take advantage of it all the same.”

Rob Schaefer can be reached at rschaefer@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

With about a year until the opening of Etihad Park, NYCFC CEO Brad Sims is hard at work selling suites, premium seating and sponsorships for the team’s new soccer-specific stadium in Queens. In many of those conversations, he asks one question that tends to grease the skids: “What are your plans for the World Cup?”

The MLS club has purchased more than $1 million worth of tickets for 2026 FIFA World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium, including ultra-premium hospitality tickets through On Location (the World Cup’s official hospitality provider) and high-end general seating purchased from the New York New Jersey 2026 World Cup Host Committee, to offer prospective Etihad Park suite, premium-seat and sponsorship clients.

“If you’re able to make a commitment — we have an executed contract and a deposit and money down — we’ll host you at a game or games of your choice,” Sims said of his pitch to potential clients.

Sims said the club has used about half of its stash of 300-plus World Cup tickets and has already generated contractually obligated income equal to 17 times its investment, a figure he ultimately expects to reach 30-to-1. The biggest success story so far came when the team secured a 15-year Etihad Park suite commitment worth nearly $5 million from a buyer looking to land four tickets to the World Cup Final on July 19.

“That was someone who wasn’t even on the radar of being a buyer,” Sims said. “He went from being not on the radar to being interested in the entry-level suite to then upgrading the suite and extending our max term length to get access to the final.”

NYCFC is a prime example of how MLS clubs are trying to turn the World Cup into a business development opportunity. Across the league, teams are using access to World Cup tickets as currency with existing and prospective clients, staging watch parties to reach new fans and building data-capture operations designed to convert tournament interest into long-term customers.

Through a joint venture between MLS and On Location, each of the league’s 30 clubs is an authorized sales agent for premium seating at World Cup matches. That access has positioned teams to provide partners and season-ticket holders with a trusted path to high-quality World Cup tickets amid uncertainty about ticket availability in the months leading up to the tournament. Teams’ sales efforts have also created a meaningful revenue opportunity at the league level (financial terms of which remain undisclosed), even as the direct club-level commissions have been relatively modest.

“It was more about getting them the access to get in early versus the commission part,” said Jake Reid, president and CEO of Sporting Kansas City. “I’m not downplaying that we’ve probably made a good amount, but that was not really the key driver. The ability to be the key stakeholder to get them in the door early was really the big benefit.”

Watch parties put on by MLS clubs are also poised to drive incremental sponsorship revenue and fuel unprecedented data capture, as more than two-thirds of teams have announced plans to stage public viewings during the World Cup.

2026 FIFA World Cup Coverage

Explore Sports Business Journal’s World Cup hub, featuring news, analysis, and insights on the business behind the global tournament.

Reid said Sporting Kansas City, which is staging watch parties and concerts at its stadium under the banner Soccer Capital Summer, has both brought on new sponsors specifically for the events and generated additional spend from existing partners. Jared Shawlee, president of the San Jose Earthquakes, similarly characterized the sponsorship revenue opportunity associated with the club’s tournament-long watch party at San Pedro Square Market as significant.

In terms of data capture, teams are expecting to add up to four times as many fan records to their databases this season compared to last year, largely through RSVPs and free tickets to World Cup watch parties. The Houston Dynamo, who are hosting watch parties and other ticketed events at Shell Energy Stadium, are among the clubs with the loftiest projections based on the proximity of their venue to the city’s FIFA Fan Festival.

“We think it’s probably about four times as many new people in our system as there normally are, which is a huge number,” said Jessica O’Neill, president of business operations for the Houston Dynamo and the NWSL’s Houston Dash.

Shawlee said the Earthquakes received more than 10,000 RSVPs for their screening of the opening match featuring Mexico against South Africa, and aim to host 500,000 fans over the course of the 39-day tournament. The team intends to use the influx of fan records to drive ticket sales for two large-venue matches — against the LA Galaxy at Stanford Stadium and against LAFC at Levi’s Stadium — after MLS’s World Cup break.

To convert those new fan records into in-person experiences, many MLS teams are adopting a First Match On Us initiative that offers fans the opportunity to attend their first match for free. The league has encouraged teams to adopt the concept this season following a particularly well-received rollout by the Seattle Sounders in 2025. The Dynamo, NYCFC, Sporting KC, Galaxy, San Diego FC, St. Louis City SC and Nashville SC are among the clubs leaning into the program.

“Not only are they coming back, but they’re buying season tickets,” O’Neill said. “Not all of them, obviously, but enough of them to tell us this is worth continuing. There’s value in every new person that comes into the stadium, but also enough of them are coming back or will come back based on what we know.”

Alex Silverman can be reached at asilverman@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

Brands with naming rights to the U.S. stadiums that are hosting the FIFA World Cup matches stand to lose exposure equal to as much as $53.5M in domestic media value, according to an extensive study conducted by Navigate on behalf of SBJ, and up to $134.8M globally.

At least six of the brands are projected to forgo the equivalent of what their average annual naming-rights payment is.

FIFA has a policy ensuring that all World Cup venues are free and clear of existing commercial branding during the tournament, which has required a de-branding of stadiums.

MetLife Stadium, for example, which will host eight matches, including the final, pays an annual average of $18.5M to the MetLife Stadium Co. (a 50/50 joint venture between the Giants and Jets) for its 25-year naming-rights deal. By having its logo covered during the World Cup, Navigate projects that the insurance company will lose nearly $20M of worldwide media exposure.

“MetLife Stadium could generate slightly more than 100 million U.S. television viewers from its eight World Cup matches,” said Kevin Kane, Navigate’s vice president of international consulting. “While the NFL naming-rights agreement includes many additional assets beyond media exposure — including signage, tickets and other activation rights — we do not think it is unreasonable to view the World Cup inventory as representing roughly one-third [$5.9M to $7.9M] of the annual U.S. value associated with the current naming-rights package.”

Similarly, AT&T, an official U.S. Soccer sponsor since 2013, will forgo approximately $18M, nearly the average annual cost of the company’s stadium naming-rights deal with the Dallas Cowboys.

Stuttgart, Germany-based Mercedes-Benz is the only naming-rights partner whose primary headquarters are not based in the U.S., although the company’s North American operations are 15 miles from the stadium in Atlanta that bears its name.

Navigate focused primarily on earned media, social media (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and YouTube), and broadcast exposure of past World Cups. They found that value during telecasts came primarily from announcers’ verbal mentions. Their analysis also showed that stadium naming-rights signage itself is not typically featured prominently during World Cup match broadcasts, “so the value loss is not driven by visible stadium signs on television,” Kane said.

The majority of the lost value, Kane said, will come from the absence of the naming-rights partner in on-air verbal references, social media posts, digital content, news coverage, highlight packages and other earned media.

Announcers for Fox and Telemundo, the U.S. media rights holders, will refer to the stadiums as their FIFA-designated, city-specific names, such as Dallas Stadium. ESPN.com lists the venues with their branded names.

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Kane, a diehard Fulham F.C. fan who in his nine years at Navigate has worked on data projects for MLS and Liga MX, and spent more than two years in London working with the company’s multiple European soccer clubs, said the projections take into account “the recent Nielsen methodology changes” and are deliberately conservative.

“FIFA data shows that host countries typically see a 50% increase in viewer numbers,” he said. “We project a 30-40% increase from 2022’s almost 26 million viewers, but we could even see finals viewership hit 50 million.”

He said that they separately modeled U.S. and international audiences using “country-level viewership assumptions and market-specific cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) benchmarks based on sponsorship valuations” that the company has conducted across global sports properties.

“The U.S. has the highest CPM of any country,” he said. “Additionally, World Cup social digital numbers are so massive, they’re almost unfathomably large.”

The sports industry has weathered every technological disruption thrown at it. TV didn’t kill stadiums, the internet didn’t kill broadcasts, and streaming didn’t kill linear deals. Each wave instead redistributed value and forced organizations to rethink what they were selling and to whom. Those that adapted unlocked new models: The Premier League’s embrace of satellite TV turned it into a global property worth billions, while Netflix’s move into live sports signaled a future beyond legacy distributors.

AI is the next inflection point, but it is different from everything that came before. For the first time, the technology doesn’t just change how sports are distributed. It changes how fans discover, follow, and experience the games themselves.

Proprietary research from Horizon Sports & Experiences makes the challenge clear: More than 75% of sports fans are aware AI is being used in their sport, but fewer than half say they understand how it works. When adoption outpaces comprehension, skepticism fills the void. That skepticism is not just a communications problem; it’s a commercial one. Organizations that deploy AI without closing that gap risk eroding the fan trust that underpins every sponsorship, media deal and ticket sold.

The excuse is gone: From data points to fan profiles

For years, the fragmentation of fan data has offered the industry a convenient alibi. Ticketing data sits with Ticketmaster. Merchandise data with Fanatics. Stadium operations, streaming platforms, fantasy products — each touchpoint has generated its own intelligence, siloed and controlled by a different partner. Even the most sophisticated organizations have been operating with a partial picture of their own fans.

AI removes that alibi. The fan who buys tickets through one platform, streams games through another, and engages with content through a third is no longer measured as three separate data points. For the first time, those signals can generate a single, coherent fan profile. But unifying the data is only the first challenge. Turning it into decisions organizations can act on, in real time, is the harder one. How that capability develops, and who owns it, will be as consequential as the data itself.

That makes transparency the immediate imperative. Our findings show nearly 70% of fans express concern about how AI uses their personal data, and only about 30% believe sports organizations are transparent about their AI practices. The industry is gaining the capability to know its fans more precisely at exactly the moment those fans are most attuned to how that information gets used.

Why sports is the highest-stakes arena

Most industries serve consumers. “Sports’” serves fans, and that distinction matters more than it might appear. A consumer switches products. A fan’s relationship with an athlete, team, league or sport is tied up in identity, community and memory in ways that no other commercial category can claim. An AI blunder in sports isn’t just a product failure. It is something far more personal.

And it’s that same intensity that makes sports the most powerful proving ground for AI in any commercial sector. The data richness is unmatched: viewing behavior, attendance, ticketing, merchandise, betting, fantasy and social engagement. The feedback loops are immediate. Organizations operating in this environment will learn faster than anyone else what AI can and cannot earn permission to do.

Get it right and the commercial upside is significant: deeper engagement, stronger data and more durable sponsorship value. Get it wrong and the backlash will be loud, public and lasting.

What the data says

Fans draw a clear line, and organizations need to know where it is. Support for AI runs 60%-70% when it is used for stats, personalization, and reducing friction. It drops by more than 20 points the moment AI feels autonomous or like it is shaping outcomes. The implication is direct: AI earns acceptance as an assistant, not a decision-maker. The moment it appears to cross that line, it loses people.

There is also a meaningful opportunity in the resistance itself. Fan skepticism toward AI tracks closely with familiarity, not ideology. Fans who understand how AI works are far more likely to view its use in sports positively. That means the fan bases most resistant today are convertible through better communication, not more technology. Organizations that treat transparency and education as a commercial strategy, not just a PR obligation, are expanding their addressable market.

The pattern is familiar

The organizations that leaned into television built national audiences that underwrote decades of growth. Those that embraced digital early built the fan relationships and data infrastructure that now anchor their most valuable sponsorship conversations. The streaming pioneers found not just a new platform, but a new commercial model built on engagement depth rather than raw reach.

AI follows the same logic. The winners will not be the organizations that collect the most data. They will be the ones that build the intelligence to know what it means and the discipline to act on it in ways fans recognize as being in their own interest. Deeper personalization means longer fan relationships and stronger sponsor targeting. Better experiences drive conversion. Transparency drives trust at scale.

Trust is the only asset in sports that cannot be bought. It can only be earned. The organizations that earn it in the AI era will not just survive the disruption. They will define what comes after it.

Kerry Bradley is senior vice president of strategy at Horizon Sports & Experiences.

• UFC execs are going to great lengths to underscore that they view Sunday’s Freedom 250 card as non-political event despite it taking place on the White House’s South Lawn for President Trump’s birthday, writes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• The Texas Rangers Sports Network is trying to acquire the local broadcast rights to the various NBA teams that exited Main Street Sports Group, through a mostly direct-to-distributor model that somewhat mirrors Fubo’s failed attempt to do the same, reports SBJ’s Tom Friend.
• The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was a sea of green on Thursday, as Mexican fans turned out in droves for El Tri’s tournament-opening World Cup match against South Africa during the venue’s official FIFA Fan Festival, writes SBJ’s Chris Smith. He also writes about the festivities at the U.S. Soccer House during the Group Stage.
• The Braves are using their unique footprint to host a country music festival at Truist Park and The Battery on Saturday, notes SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo.
• In this week’s Talent Pool agency roundup, SBJ’s Irving Mejia-Hilario reports that Mystics G Sonia Citron signed with Jason Goldstein of WME Sports.