SBJ Unpacks: WNBA tips off with record number of sponsors – Sports Business Journal

Today in Unpacks: The WNBA’s 26th season begins tomorrow night with a record 38 sponsors. SBJ’s David Broughton has the full breakdown.

• AC Milan receives bid interest from RedBird Capital
• Broncos deny report that ownership competition is down to 2 finalists
• Crypto brands making waves in Miami as F1’s inaugural race nears
• Famous Group debuts new enhancements at NFL Draft
• Popular Jomboy Media raises $5 million in new funding
• ESPN+, OU reach multiyear SoonerVision deal
• The next trend in the growing retail and mobile sports industry

Miss this morning’s Buzzcast? SBJ’s David Albright on college commissioners heading to D.C. for NIL help.

The WNBA’s 26th season begins tomorrow night with a record 38 sponsors, according to SBJ’s David Broughton. The roster is made up of 10 partners who have been with the league for at least a decade, including Gatorade and Nike, who have supported the league since its 1997 inaugural season.

U.S. Bank is the rookie in the lineup after signing a deal in March to become the league’s official bank. The company also added its name to the growing Changemaker platform, described as “a collection of companies that shares the WNBA’s mission to bring positive change for women in sports/society and provide support to the league’s ongoing business transformation, all to the empowerment of players.” Launched in January of 2020, AT&T, Deloitte, Nike and Google are also part of the program.

Twitter has reached a multiyear partnership extension with the WNBA that will see the league debut audio Spaces throughout this season and offseason, reports SportTechie’s Andrew Cohen. This WNBA season marks the league’s sixth year working with Twitter, which will livestream 12 games this season. In addition to hosting regular audio Spaces throughout the season and at WNBA tentpole events, Twitter’s WNBA content will include polls and player interviews.

Meanwhile, Storm G Sue Bird this morning on ESPN Daily said “we have a long way to go” in terms of the player pay and the economics of the WNBA. Where does she see opportunity? Bird said the “next big thing is going to be our TV deal” because that “negotiation is going to put us over this mountain we’ve been climbing up for a long time.” Bird: “We really haven’t been able to test our market value the way we needed to, and now it’s undeniable.” 

Finally, Zoomph ranked the top active WNBA players by social media score, with Brittney Griner — still currently detained in Russia — topping the list.

RedBird Capital Partners Founder & Managing Partner Gerry Cardinale is in talks to acquire AC Milan, challenging Bahrain-based asset manager Investcorp in a takeover battle for the Serie A club, reports the Financial Times.

RedBird and Cardinale, who features large in the growing presence of Fenway Sports Group, is “looking to buy AC Milan from U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management,” according to sources.

Investcorp had been in “exclusive talks” to acquire the Italian club “or take a minority stake.” That period of exclusivity has lapsed, allowing Elliott to engage other buyers.

Read more in SBJ Global.

The Broncos’ future ownership competition has been “reduced to two finalists,” according to sources cited by the Colorado Springs Gazette’s Woody Paige.

The pair of front-running candidates are Rob Walton, and family and minority partners, and a group headed by 76ers co-owner Josh Harris. Harris, advisors and others “toured the Broncos’ complex at Dove Valley Thursday and met with retiring CEO Joe Ellis and other top officials of the franchise.”

However, Broncos CCO Patrick Smyth strongly pushed back against the report to SBJ’s Ben Fischer. “In the strongest terms, this is false regarding any ‘finalists.’ Numerous groups scheduled to visit in the coming weeks,” Smyth wrote.

Crypto brands have been busy closing deals in Miami, with FTX the first to bring seismic waves to South Beach shores with last year’s 19-year, $195 million naming rights deal for the Heat’s arena, writes SBJ Atlas’ Michael Cupello.

Before FTX’s deal, the Dolphins made history in 2019 when they announced a partnership with Litecoin, designating the digital coin the official cryptocurrency of the team, one of the first NFL teams to sign a partner in the category. The Dolphins announced a multiplatform marketing partnership with Socios on April 13 this year.

Last September saw Inter Miami sign a multiyear jersey sponsorship deal with cryptofinance firm XBTO. The latest premier crypto deal came in February, when the Miami Grand Prix announced a nine-year partnership with Crypto.com, awarding the brand title sponsorship of the F1 race set to run this weekend.

To see a breakdown of major deals within a multitude of categories across sports, visit SBJ Atlas. Want more F1 coverage? SBJ’s Adam Stern is on the ground in Miami this week.

Famous Group utilized all four of its primary offerings for the first time during last week’s NFL Draft, including a display projected onto the Bellagio Fountains, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick.

Famous Group’s Vixi product allows fans to scan QR codes, which then project their image onto a screen. Vixi Live was used 14 times on the draft’s main and Bellagio stages, producing thousands of engagements including an unplanned appearance by the Blue Man Group, who scanned the QR code and then appeared on the draft stage screen. The draft was the first time Vixi Live was used outside of an arena.

ESPN+ and Oklahoma have agreed to the most expansive media-rights deal for an individual athletic program on the streaming service, reports SBJ’s Michael Smith.

ESPN+ will carry more than 100 live Oklahoma events, including one football game each season, some men’s and women’s basketball, studio shows and archived content. ESPN+ for the first time will create a landing page that directs viewers to “SoonerVision on ESPN+.” SoonerVision is Oklahoma’s in-house production arm.

The new multiyear agreement will launch in August, in time for the start of fall events, and will carry live OU home events that are not picked up by linear channels. This content previously ran as part of Sooner Sports TV on Bally Sports Oklahoma and Bally Sports Southwest.

For many teams, sports betting has become a way to increase fan engagement and “counteract the declining share of in-stadium revenue in recent years,” write Zack Flagel and Vincent Pulignano, members of the Sports Gambling Task Force at law firm Foley & Lardner. As such, dozens of professional sports teams across the country have partnered with sports betting operators to integrate mobile and retail sports betting into the game-day experience.

Stadium betting deals “generally involve a sponsorship partnership with sports betting operators, such as DraftKings or BetMGM, to transform a particular area of the stadium into a comfortable and upscale lounge for fans to watch sports on television. The structure of these deals — and the betting opportunities the lounges provide fans — has taken several forms.”

Click here for the full op-ed contribution.

• Jomboy Media has raised a $5 million funding round led by Connect Ventures — the investment partnership between CAA and New Enterprise Associates — and including investments from WWE, Seven Seven Six founder Alexis Ohanian, actors Billy Crystal and Gabrielle Union, and pro athletes Dwyane Wade, Trea Turner, C.C. Sabathia, Noah Syndergaard, Josh Hader, Quinn Cook and Karl-Anthony Towns. 

• Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. reported strong financials this morning for Q3, including revenue of $337.8 million (an 85% increase on the pandemic-hit Q3 2021) and operating income of $61.4 million. SBJ’s Bret McCormick has more.

• The White Sox have entered into a new multiyear sponsorship with Caesars, marking the club’s first foray into non-daily sports betting, writes SBJ’s Erik Bacharach.

• SBJ’s Kevin Hitt and Tobias Seck in the latest SBJ Spotlight break down the details on North American esports and lifestyle brand FaZe Clan’s struggles to be the first $1 billion public esports company. Click here to view the full video.

• The fast TV ratings start to the NBA playoffs and the NHL’s streaming-focused regular season are two of the topics the N.Y. Post’s Andrew Marchand and our John Ourand tackle on this week’s episode of the “Sports Media Podcast.” Click here to listen to the full episode.

• ESPN+ will stream a “time machine’’ tennis match later this month between John McEnroe and a younger version of himself, reports SportTechie’s Tom Friend. Using augmented reality, unreal engines and motion control connectivity, developers have merged three disparate technologies to create five made-for-TV matches with the former tennis star.

McEnroe during filming donned a motion capture suit that would morph him into an avatar