Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.
Name-dropped today: Danny McBride, Keegan-Michael Key, Donald Trump, Bad Bunny, Green Day, Tom Brady, Tony Romo, Coco Gauff, “Heated Rivalry,” Darian Mensah, the “Wienie 500,” Trinity Rodman, Michele Kang, “Landman” and more. Let’s go:
Driving the Conversation
Biggest Super Bowl business storylines
Two weeks of build-up left, so let’s get right to a few on the radar:
• The “Super Bowlympics”: It’s not just an awkward portmanteau; it’s the convergence of the two biggest forces in TV in one wild weekend: the NFL and the Olympics, which officially begin two days before the Big Game. As the broadcast partner of both, NBC is winning big on cross-promo.
• The ads: The battle unofficially started Sunday during the conference championship games, as brands such as State Farm (feat. Danny McBride and Keegan-Michael Key), Uber Eats and even stalwart Budweiser aired teasers for their big efforts on Super Bowl Sunday.
“Pre-release” of ads — and the commensurate extra attention — has long been a favorite strategy to generate buzz among the chronically online (guilty!), knowing that most fans watching the game will still be seeing them for the first time. For years, brands have posted their Super Bowl ads on YouTube ahead of time.
• The politics: Donald Trump says he won’t be in Santa Clara for the game. But Bad Bunny will be. (So will Bay Area natives Green Day, playing pregame.) The NFL has had the Puerto Rican superstar’s back since the announcement he would perform at halftime, but that feels like a long time ago, with plenty of time for the unexpected.
• The media day hijinks: It has been decades since Super Bowl media day wasn’t overrun by attention-seekers and proto-influencers asking absurd questions. By now, that is simply the norm. All we can hope for is new forms of creativity from the TikTok set.
• The prediction markets: This is the first Super Bowl since prediction-market mania hit the mainstream. Here is my top prediction: There will be “insider trading” scandals about the “How long does it take to sing the national anthem?” and “What color is the Gatorade when they dump it on the winning coach?” propositions.
Next week, we’ll have updates from the Bay Area by Andrew Marchand and others in our massive group of reporters and editors on location, along with a Super Bowl ads preview.
Get Caught Up
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
Tom Brady vs. Tony Romo: Two really interesting stories from Marchand over the past week, covering the full spectrum of top-paid NFL TV talent:
1) Last week’s in-depth feature about how Brady got much better on TV from Year 1 to Year 2 (and was excellent in his season finale last Sunday), featuring candid insights from the former QB himself. (Brady’s “cackle” on plays he finds delightfully surprising is the most endearing thing about him … h/t my colleague Ben Burrows.)
2) In the other conference championship game, Tony Romo and his partner Jim Nantz were … well, Marchand described them as “unremarkable,” and at this point, that was a *good* thing. CBS is in a tough spot, given Romo’s $18 million-a-year deal.
Australian Open: The now-eliminated Coco Gauff makes a fair point about the value of having a smidgen of privacy to express frustration, perhaps by smashing a racket from time to time. (Coaches that act demonstratively in the box while coaching their players? More lenient decorum standards.)
“Heated Rivalry” mania, cont’d: The Ottawa Senators are all in on the zeitgeist, with a sold-out jersey release. (And note the 6x surge in ticket interest for Canadiens-Bruins last weekend.)
Coming to college uniforms: Sponsor patches on jerseys (and that’s on top of the apparel logos or conference branding you normally see). UNLV was ahead of it.
Duke and QB Darian Mensah: The parties may have settled their litigious situation, but this will hardly be the last time a top player wants to walk away from a seemingly air-tight contract with a school.
Related: The NCAA as an org takes plenty of iffy positions, but requesting a legal ruling on an Alabama player’s eligibility to come from a judge who isn’t an Alabama booster isn’t asking too much.
Two more really interesting columns about the current eligibility quasi-crisis in college sports: 1) how we’re probably not even close to rock-bottom in hoops, and 2) how it might pass through to the football side.
Get ready for the Winter Olympics: Other than the weird confluence with the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, all eyes on Italy. Names to know: Vonn, Malinin, Shiffrin, Stolz and the Tkachuks. And, of course, we’ll have an incredible newsletter — sign up here.
The Bill Belichick Hall of Fame snub: The Hall of Fame comes out of this looking way worse than the coach. (Business angle? I dunno! Felt weird not to mention it! I was so intrigued that I wrote a full column about transparency in Hall of Fame voting.)
Other current obsessions: The “One Piece” college basketball “U.S. Voyage” (h/t Learfield) … Man Utd getting “The Crown” treatment … NASCAR smartly abandoning the “Roval” for the oval … the return of the “Wienie 500” … Premier League’s “LinkedIn manager-speak” … our review of Curt Cignetti’s metronomic Chipotle order … adjusting otherwise strict bar/pub operating hours for the World Cup …
What I’m Wondering
How Rodman stayed in the NWSL
As a fan of the Washington Spirit (and ground-breaking sports deals), I was energized to see the unprecedented NWSL deal between the team and team/league/global star Trinity Rodman, netting her a reported $2 million per year over the next three years (compared to her previous four-year deal, worth $1.1 million total). Simply put: The league — not just the team — couldn’t afford to lose her.
How did it come together? The answer, from my colleagues Melanie Anzidei and Meg Linehan, is as riveting as you’d expect:
“The most frightening moment, however, came earlier this month, when U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes unveiled her 26-player roster for January camp. The Olympic gold medalist was in the squad, but listed as ‘unattached.’
“‘I’ve never seen her name without the Spirit name next to it,’ (Washington owner Michele) Kang said. ‘That was when it hit me. I’m like, Oh, my god, this can’t happen. We have to accelerate (and) make sure that we can push it over to the finish line.’
“In the end, a deal got done in large part because all parties involved desperately wanted the player to stay. However, their differences of opinion about how they should have ended up at a resolution remain unsolved.
“Rodman’s signature is not the end, but an inflection point that will change the course of women’s soccer globally.”
Read the entire inside story here.
Grab Bag
Data Point: 4,800-to-1
Those were the preseason odds of the Seahawks and Patriots meeting in Super Bowl LX, making this the least-likely Super Bowl matchup in the odds database going back to 1989, per my colleague Mike Sando.
Ratings Watch: 30 million
Everyone indeed watched to see if Indiana football could complete the greatest turnaround storyline in college sports history. Across the Big Ten Championship Game and multiple Playoff games, IU showed that fans will tune in. Will be very curious if Indiana becomes a must-see draw next season as defending champs, no longer a Cinderella story.
One more: UFC/Paramount+ debut
Following up last week’s top item about UFC debuting on Paramount+ as part of a $9 monthly access fee rather than the traditional event-based $79 pay-per-view, Paramount reported 5 million viewers. Not exactly “Landman,” but a solid start.
For interesting comparison — if admittedly apples and oranges, from a distribution standpoint — the 2018 UFC 229 event featuring Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov was the highest-selling MMA PPV ever, with 2.4 million buys.
League launch: USL Premier
Despite its theoretical popularity with fans, promotion and relegation (“pro-rel”) in U.S. soccer leagues has been anathema to orgs like MLS or the NWSL (for decent reason: What potential investor wants to deal with *that* uncertainty?) But as a differentiator for the challenger USL? The only way to go.
Investment: The Realest
Collectibles remain hot as an investment class. DJ Skee’s memorabilia company, which sources collectibles from athletes, teams and artists, announced a $12 million funding round today, including One Team and PGA of America.
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 492
Dan’s time: 00:31
Give it a try here!
Worth Your Time
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
His family says he came up with the idea for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s iconic gold jacket, but has he been erased from the story?
Three more:
1) F1 teams are testing in secret. So our intrepid reporter Guillermo Rai tried to sneak a peek.
2) The UK feels like an obvious linchpin of the NBA’s European strategy. Why hasn’t pro basketball worked in London yet?
3) If you think that your fandom includes suffering through years (decades?) of mediocrity, these folks can relate.
Back next Wednesday! Text your colleagues this link so they can get MoneyCall every week for free. And check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.
