Sport & Story Daily April 26, 2024

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April 26, 2024

Good morning! Detroit, NHL…and Football?

NFL Draft: Football's Boomtown is Detroit
“It’s completely different from even 20 years ago, Detroit is transitioning from a basketball town to a football town,” said Terel Patrick, head coach at King High School, which has produced a slew of college and NFL stars, including New York Jets All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner.

As Yahoo! Sports’ Dan Wetzel points out, Detroit has also long been known as “Hockeytown”. As he writes, “If you really want to know why Detroit — long marketed as ‘Hockeytown’ and historically an incubator for churning out elite basketball talent — is currently America’s football boomtown, you need to head out to the neighborhood fields and high school stadiums across this sprawling city.”
^{Yahoo! Sports}

Detroit Ready For its Close-Up as It Hosts the NFL Draft
This year's NFL Draft has “taken over” Detroit’s downtown and the league is ready to showcase the city after “planning the event for over a year,” according to Hannah Mackay of the DETROIT NEWS. This year's event is “expected to attract up to 400,000 people.” The NFL has been “working with local partners to showcase Detroit-inspired art and design, a lineup of Michigan musical performances, and local food and other vendors for fans over three days.”
^{Sports Business Journal}

Women’s Sports—5 Takeaways on Growth Potential and Ad Opportunities
This is a “watershed moment,” and brands shouldn’t just invest in women’s sports because it’s “the right thing” but because they can “make a lot of money … And you should do it now, not tomorrow or the next day,” soccer legend and activist Megan Rapinoe said during a fireside chat with senior writer for The Athletic Meg Linehan at Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment’s Business of Women’s Sports Summit on Tuesday.

Women’s sports has the potential to generate more than $1 billion in revenue in 2024, according to Deloitte—that alone should convince marketers to invest there.
^{Ad Age}

New Missouri Athletic Director Laird Veatch Has Contract Approved. Here Are the Details
Laird Veatch will earn $1.3 million in annual guaranteed compensation at Missouri. His deal is due to end on April 30, 2029.

His deal is broken down into three parts: Base salary ($900,000 per year); Non-Salary compensation ($200,000); and deferred compensation ($200,000). Both his base salary and non-salary compensation will be paid in equal monthly installments. His deferred compensation will be paid annually. Veatch's deal also includes several merit incentives.
^{Columbia Tribune}

NFL Helps Peacock Book $1.1 Billion While Streamer’s Losses Narrow
Per Sportico, Comcast’s streaming platform continues to see downstream effects from its exclusive coverage of a Jan. 13 NFL Wild Card game, as Peacock closed out the first quarter of 2024 with nearly 34 million paying subscribers.

As part of the cable giant’s quarterly earnings report, Comcast revealed that it exited March with around 3 million more Peacock subs than was the case in the year-ago period. Revenue at the streaming segment improved 54% year-over-year to $1.1 billion, while losses narrowed to $639 million on the quarter, 9.2% lower than the $704 million lost during the analogous period in 2023.
^Sportico

Panthers, Blackhawks Lead NHL in 2023-24 Attendance Gains 
The NHL drew a record 22.9 million fans to its 1,312 games during the 2023-24 season, up 1.9% from the 2022-23 season. Twenty of the league’s 32 teams saw average attendance increase year over year for “true” home games (excluding outdoor and overseas games), while five teams saw average attendance stay flat and seven teams saw average attendance decline. Two neutral-site Stadium Series games at the 82,500-seat MetLife Stadium, which drew a combined 150,018 fans, also helped boost overall attendance. 
^{Sports Business Journal}

Dallas OKs Incentives for Wings to Move Downtown
The Dallas City Council yesterday approved a deal to pay the WNBA’s Dallas Wings $19M in incentives "to move to downtown Dallas from Arlington" starting in 2026. Under the 15-year deal, the Wings "will become the feature attraction" at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. The deal is "still pending approval" by the WNBA’s BOG.
^{Sports Business Journal}

Graham Rossini Candidacy for AD Job in Jeopardy in Wake of Backlash Against Michael Crow for Promotion Idea
Arizona State president Michael Crow was preparing to present Graham Rossini to ABOR as his preferred athletic director candidate as soon as Thursday, according to people familiar with the plan. Whether that will still happen now remains unclear in the wake of backlash from prominent people who've privately expressed skepticism about the promotion of any internal candidate, Sun Devil Source has learned. 
^{247 Sports}

Ivy League Asks NLRB to Review and Reverse Dartmouth Union Decision
Sportico’s Michael McCann reports: “In a pending amicus brief filed Wednesday, the Ivy League urged the National Labor Relations Board to grant Dartmouth College’s request for review of NLRB Regional Director Laura Sacks’ Feb. 5 decision to recognize the men’s basketball players as employees and order a union vote. 

“The Ivy League asserts the employment of Dartmouth basketball players would undermine the conference’s academic goals and open the door for ‘students who participate in club sports, play in a school band or participate in any other of many college extracurricular activities’ to also seek employment status.”
^Sportico

Florida Attorney General Files Suit Against ACC to View Full Text of Conference's TV Deal
Ashley Moody’s office filed a suit against the conference in Leon County, Florida, on Thursday. The suit seeks to make the text of the ACC’s TV contract public as Florida State looks for ways to get out of the deal it signed with the ACC without paying a hefty exit fee. The suit claims the ACC’s TV deal is public record in Florida and should be made easily accessible.
^{Yahoo! Sports}

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