Sunday Forum: What we’re seeing and hearing

Good morning. I hope you’re having a nice weekend. A few things to start your week, and I continue to appreciate all your support...

• What we know about the Big East and its search for a commissioner
• The Big 12’s “business development deal” with RedBird and Weatherford Capital
• The drumbeat for the 24-team College Football Playoff gets louder, and here is why
• A lesson for every team: How Sam Presti made the Thunder part of Oklahoma City
• Forum: Understanding John Henry

Monday’s issue of SBJ features an extensive look at the journey of Fenway Sports Group founder and principal owner John Henry, who is SBJ’s 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. My colleague Bill King spent weeks talking to Henry and people around him to chronicle how he has methodically built a $14 billion global empire, yet remains one of the more mysterious leaders in sports. As Henry’s longtime colleague Theo Epstein told us, “Just because he carries himself in a gentle way doesn’t mean he’s not doggedly competitive.” He’s a fascinating character, so you’ll want to read the full package of stories, and he will be honored May 20 in New York City. I share more on Henry in this week’s Forum below.

→ I received more emails and text messages about the Big 12’s deal with RedBird Capital and Weatherford Capital than any other story this week, and the questions centered around “why” — why take this deal when schools can get capital at a cheaper interest rate in the market? This isn’t just about access to capital; it’s about access to relationships, networks, connections and experts. Don’t look at this as an “equity” deal, but a business development deal to drive revenue by tapping into the networks of RedBird and Weatherford. Don’t be surprised to see the Big 12 use this capital to invest in new businesses, especially around event/in-venue technology that it could scale across events and schools. You only benefit having RedBird and Gerry Cardinale on your bench, as Cardinale’s matchmaking ability is among the best in the business. And I’m sure Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark and school presidents don’t mind being in the RedBird/Paramount/CBS/WBD family when the conference’s media rights are up in 2031.

→ As Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman prepares to move on at the end of August, the conference has issued an RFP to search firms. Interviews with those firms are expected next week, with a decision by Memorial Day weekend. This position, and search, has a lot of interest, and many people are — not surprisingly — asking for their names to be floated for consideration.

What I’m hearing: Don’t overlook the cohesive group of presidents the conference has, and how that helps them be aligned on what they are looking for. Let’s face it; they are values-based and focused on basketball. People have pushed me — “They need a commercial mindset, a revenue generator,” or “They need a basketball diplomat to lead realignment.” Many wonder how brave the board will be in this choice. I’d expect them to conduct a broad, wide search, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they target attributes that Ackerman has: a thoughtful, deliberate thinker who understands legal, legislative and sporting issues. They’ll need to keep COO Vince Nicastro in the fold, as he’s a very well-regarded operator. I’d expect some names to be floated in early July.

→ If you’re hearing the drum of support for the 24-team CFP banging louder, you’re not alone. Months ago, it seemed the Big Ten and Fox were on an island, but there is significantly more energy and support for the concept, and here is why: money and access.

Insiders now believe the economics will make it worthwhile, and it would have to be a significant increase from the $1.3 billion a year ESPN is currently paying for the 12-team playoff rights.

• You have to factor in conferences giving up their profitable championship games, as they will have to be made whole.

• Too many good teams feel they aren’t getting into a very tight 12-team playoff, and a two- or three-loss season is a “failure” if you don’t make the postseason.

• Too many ADs feel they are already paying so much for their football roster, and not making the playoff would only result in more pressure to spend.

• More teams in the playoffs would result in fewer coaches being fired and fewer expensive buyouts.

• The biggest question is whether having more slots would increase or decrease interest in the regular season. Another concern is the seeding and format of a 24-team playoff, as many currently bemoan the lackluster and lopsided games of the first round.

This won’t be an easy debate. Just look at the different points of view this week expressed from two SEC leaders:

• Tennessee AD Danny White supports the concept and feels it will boost interest in the regular season: “A bigger percentage of SEC teams, and a bigger percentage of just FBS teams in general, should qualify for the postseason if we’re going to crown a national champion that way, and we clearly are.”

• Meanwhile, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has opposed expanding the playoff, telling ESPN’S Paul Finebaum, “We have to do our homework. And when we went from four to 12, I think one of the mistakes was we announced going to 12 and then negotiated with the media. We should understand the media marketplace before we have an increase in … the number of teams.”

The bottom line is there as much support from presidents and ADs for the 24-team playoff as there’s ever been. Now, it’s about making the economics work with media, sponsorship and other revenue lines yet to be monetized.

→ Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund still believes in sports and will continue to put capital behind global sports. The decision to cease funding of LIV Golf at the end of the year was a shift in strategy, and let’s be honest, the Iran war was a significant factor. The well-documented plan was to have investments like LIV Golf help bring more Western capital and fuel tourism to the kingdom. There was also a hope of more third-party capital investing in projects with the PIF. The war has greatly affected that — tourism will be down for years, and third parties are holding off on capital partnerships in the kingdom right now. So, that’s the shift, and it’s significant. If it weren’t for the war, the plans around LIV Golf may have remained. But overall, don’t subscribe to the notion that Saudi Arabia won’t be an active, interested, major player in sports.

→ The WNBA launched two teams this season in Toronto and Portland, and has approved franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia to reach 18 teams by 2030. Bill Simmons recently criticized WNBA expansion, and many owners fear dilution of talent and splitting league revenue with others. But New York Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai embraces it. “Expansion is really good for the league,” she said at the CAA World Congress of Sports. “It’s new markets, more games, more fans, more content and ultimately, it’s going to increase media value and it’s going to allow us to have better media packages. That is really important for this league. We need to grow the fan base, and I don’t really worry about diluting the talent because we know there is a pipeline of talent.”

→ I highly recommend E60 documentary “The Oklahoma Standard,” which I stumbled across last Sunday morning in the office. It’s a 48-minute feature that looks at the connection between the Thunder and the Oklahoma City community around the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It’s a model for how a team can stand for something and connect with its fans — and the hero, to me, is clearly GM Sam Presti, who was just 30 years old when he joined the team and was seeking ways to connect the newly-relocated franchise to the city.

“The first time I ever came in contact with the memorial, I just walked around the grounds. That hit pretty hard for me, just because I remember that event, because I was a senior in high school when it took place,” Presti said. “When we got here in 2008, we were trying to immerse [ourselves] in the community and understand the people, especially in a small market. It’s a small town, and it really takes everybody. You have to understand the origin story. I got more convinced that this was really a part of the story.”

He reached out to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, and a tradition began in September 2008: Upon joining the organization, every Thunder player and staff member is required to tour the memorial to understand its profound affect on the city.

Presti is just so sharp in understanding the importance of connecting. “I don’t think you ever want the relationship with your fans in a small city like this to be purely transactional, you know, based on the scoreboard or the price on a ticket,” he said. “But more relational, based on trying to understand, ‘Why are we here? How did we get to this place?’”

There is much more to this doc, but Presti made it his mission to make sure every player and staffer understands the role that the team and brand plays in the community. It’s no wonder they’ve had such sustainable success; I rarely hear team leaders articulate so effectively what their organization stands for. If you missed it, catch it on the ESPN App.

→ Thanks for all the positive feedback on stories and anecdotes that I ran last week around SBJ’s Champions; I’ll have more to come. Here’s one for this week:

Levy CEO Andy Lansing stressed that organizations have to be consistently aggressively in their thinking. “If the change outside of the company is happening faster than the change inside of the company, the end is in sight,” he said. “It could be five years, could be 10 years. I have a sign outside my office saying, ‘The most exciting thing we’ve worked on hasn’t walked through our door yet.’ We have to be thinking about what’s next!”

→ Photos of the week are below, and if you missed Morning Buzzcast, check out this week’s episodes here.

→ Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

→ The biggest night of the year in sports business, the Sports Business Awards, is May 20 in New York. Learn more and get your ticket here — it’s the best room to be in all year. Also, SBJ’s Tech Week is May 19-20 at the Times Center in New York. Register today and check out the agenda.

Now, read our Early Access stories from the weekly print edition coming out tomorrow, followed by this week’s Forum, which looks at the intriguing, yet soft-spoken, John Henry…

“The biggest misperception is that he doesn’t care.”

That’s what Linda Pizzuti Henry shared with me about her husband, Fenway Sports Group founder and principal owner John Henry. If there is one theme that I kept coming back to about SBJ’s Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, it’s his level of engagement and passion in his investments, most notably the Boston Red Sox. For Sports Business Journal, the decision to honor John Henry was simple and straightforward. You’ll read in Bill King’s extensive profile that Henry is one of the most successful sports entrepreneurs and owners of the past 25 years: He’s had a significant impact on two of the most storied franchises in all of sports, he has brought a fresh, sophisticated business intelligence to the industry, and he is incredibly respected within industry circles for his acumen and leadership on critical issues.

But all of this comes with an eclectic, mysterious, distant persona, which has led to the public perception of Henry’s dispassionate attitude toward his teams, a viewpoint shared by much of Red Sox Nation. In my over-50 softball league, my buddy Rick loves the Red Sox, but not Henry: “He spends all that money on other sports besides the Red Sox. He doesn’t care!” We have friendly debates, but I can’t change his mind despite urging him to look at Henry’s body of work. Over 25 years, Henry’s ownership of the Red Sox has largely been seen as a gold standard within the industry, bringing both on- and off-the-field excellence. He has four World Series titles and has made the playoffs in 12 of 24 years of ownership.

But Boston is a demanding, educated market, and recent years — and the past month — have been challenging for Henry and his leadership team. Boston is a tough town, especially when you’re losing, and as a frequent listener to Boston sports talk radio, the criticisms of Henry’s ownership are consistent: distracted by other assets; more interested in Liverpool; doesn’t want to spend on payroll; wants a small-market baseball operation for a top-five market; too dependent on data nerds and analytic quants and runs off his baseball leaders.

Henry’s avoidance of the media fuels the discontent, as his frustration over misquotes or comments taken out of context led him to shut down and avoid speaking publicly. I wish he’d speak more, because people want to hear from him, and he’s better at communication than he gives himself credit for. He can be candid, refreshing and unscripted. You hear a person who thinks about baseball constantly. He also fully understands the power of the game.

Before Henry and his group purchased the Red Sox in 2002, the franchise had a cold sense of entitlement; it didn’t give off Friendly Fenway vibes. That changed under his watch — and yes, a ton of people deserve credit for that change. The franchise quickly became known for its business sophistication, community impact and development of top talent. It was a model organization, the team delivered on the field and going to Fenway Park became a cultural touch point for people throughout the world. But Henry realized a team can’t win on the field every year, and the business and portfolio had to grow, whether it was by investing in other teams, making changes to Fenway and developing around Yawkey Way or creating other lines of business. He wasn’t afraid to take big risks.

As the Red Sox brand became fashionable, the diehard fan base soured on the aggressive focus on marketing, sponsorship and perhaps even “Sweet Caroline,” and that was exacerbated when the Red Sox struggled. That only led to more questions about Henry’s passion and interest in the team, but as he told SBJ just last week, he gets it, saying, “You don’t settle for mediocrity. You have to win.”

In spending some brief time with Henry a few months ago, there is no sense of detachment. He shared color on players and on the team; he is incredibly curious, methodically going down rabbit holes to learn as much as possible about a topic of interest; and his curiosity leads him to frequently ask questions. What also struck me is his focus on listening and fully processing everything.

Henry is certainly one of the more intriguing leaders I’ve come across. His path to success in sports hasn’t been a straight line or perfect. He will fully admit mistakes have been made, but the journey also has included fortuitous timing, smart decisions, random encounters and phone calls leading to unexpected business partners and friendships. There’s a sense of inaccessibility, distance and certainly a quiet soft-spokenness to him. But he’s not a bloodless robocon. Few outside his orbit get to see the real person or appreciate his personality and passion. As one of his longtime partners, Mike Gordon, said, “He cares immensely. Day by day.”

Many, like my friend Rick, have their opinions of John Henry. Perhaps with this honor, and Henry’s acceptance of it in a few weeks, people will have a better understanding of the person, one of the more influential sports executives of the past 25 years.

Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.