Playfly Makes Key Acquisition

Sport & Story Daily March 11, 2025: Playfly Sports acquires Paragon Marketing, gaining consulting, content and production expertise.

March 11, 2025

The move combines Paragon’s corporate consulting expertise, elite high school sports connectivity, content, event and production capabilities with Playfly’s media sales expertise, consulting practice and research/data insights capabilities

March 11, 2025

Playfly Acquires Paragon Marketing, Gains Consulting, Content and Production Expertise
SBJ’s Terry Lefton reports: “The move combines Paragon’s corporate consulting expertise, elite high school sports connectivity, content, event and production capabilities with Playfly’s media sales expertise, consulting practice and research/data insights capabilities.

“Longtime Paragon brand-consulting clients include Chipotle, Gatorade, PNC Bank, ESPN and UC Health. Playfly’s consulting roster includes Fiserv and Fiji Airways.

“Playfly Sports CEO Craig Sloan said there are no immediate client conflicts. However, the separate ‘agency-within-an agency’ structure ‘allows us to start from Day 1 with an ability to handle multiple accounts in the same categories.’”
Sports Business Journal

Illustration by Lorenzo Gordon; Photo by Getty Images

WNBA Expansion Cuts Into Owners’ Share, Not NBA or 2022 Investors
“The WNBA’s distribution model, which includes expansion proceeds, was intentionally designed to provide for an appropriate distribution of league economics to the WNBA’s various stakeholders,” a WNBA spokesperson said. “Those running WNBA teams and covering player costs and operating expenses receive a greater portion of league distributions.”
Sportico

Penn State Football to Play on 'West Shore Home Field' at Beaver Stadium
Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted to name the field at Beaver Stadium the West Shore Home Field, it was announced Monday. The approval came off a 22-8 vote. The university will make $50 million over 15 years as part of the naming rights agreement, which came via a gift from the Werzyn family. 

The stadium is in the midst of a $700 million renovation project, which is scheduled to be completed before the 2027 season.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PGA Tour Brings on Delta as Global Airline Sponsor
The PGA Tour’s momentum on the corporate side is continuing this week, as it’s added another Official Marketing Partner through a deal with Delta Air Lines. Under the deal, which has been termed as multiyear in length, Delta becomes the official global airline of both the tour and PGA Tour Champions. Financials weren’t disclosed.
Sports Business Journal

Carlos Alcaraz’s Netflix Documentary Release Date is Confirmed – By a Tattoo
The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare and James Hansen write, “Carlos Alcaraz’s Netflix docuseries, ‘Carlos Alcaraz: My Way’, will be released April 23. The production, which follows Alcaraz’s 2024 season — in which the 21-year-old Spaniard won the French Open, Wimbledon and an Olympic silver medal — confirmed the release through Netflix, but Alcaraz had already done it via a very different medium.”
The Athletic

X Users Experience Multiple Outages: How is it Impacting NFL Free Agency News Cycle?
The Athletic’s Jayna Bardahl reports: “X is commonly used as a news-breaking platform, and Monday’s outages coincided with the beginning of the NFL’s free agency negotiation period — one of the busiest days on the NFL calendar in terms of player movement and roster acquisition. Within the first hour of the negotiation period, 17 of The Athletic’s Top 150 free agents were reported to have agreed to new contract terms.”
The Athletic

AP Photo/Chris Seward

NC State Fires Coach Kevin Keatts a Year After Improbable ACC Title and Final Four Run
AP News’ Aaron Beard writes, “N.C. State fired Keatts on Sunday, an abrupt end to an eight-year tenure that saw the program’s fall this year prove too much to overcome even when framed against last season’s remarkable finish. The announcement came a day after the Wolfpack closed a 12-19 season and failed to even qualify for the ACC Tournament as the reigning champion.”
AP News

Stephen Curry Joins Alma Mater Davidson as Assistant GM for Basketball
AP News’ Steve Reed reports: “The four-time NBA champion and two-time league MVP will be the first active player in U.S. major professional sports to take an administrative job with a college team.

“Curry and his wife, Ayesha, and longtime Davidson supporters Don, Matt and Erica Berman, are creating an eight-figure fund to support the college’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. The college asked them to serve in these advisory roles, investing their time and sharing their experience with both men’s and women’s basketball, according to a news release on Monday.”
AP News

Sports Business Daily: Issue
MLB Deputy Commissioner of Business & Media Noah Garden likened the upcoming Tokyo Series to the Midsummer Classic with all the pomp and circumstance surrounding it. The Dodgers and Cubs will open the 2025 season with a pair of games March 18-19 at the Tokyo Dome. It is yet another significant opportunity for the league in Japan.

Last year, after P/DH Shohei Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, the team beat all its internal financial projections. Ohtani had the top selling jersey in the majors. And, despite being on in the morning, Game 2 of the 2024 World Series received 15.9 million viewers in Japan, a postseason viewership record for the country.
Sports Business Journal

Group Interested in Buying Rays, Staying in St. Pete
Tampa businessman Joe Molloy is “leading a Tampa-based group seeking to buy the Rays and pursue” the planned St. Petersburg ballpark deal. Molloy’s group “includes a member of the Tampa-based DeBartolo family,” which has roots in pro sports and commercial development.
Tampa Bay Times via Sports Business Journal

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Los Angeles Sparks. Director of Marketing
The 3-time WNBA Champions Los Angeles Sparks are seeking a Director of Marketing to manage and implement day-to-day marketing efforts for the franchise. This position is critical to building and retaining the fan base and is responsible for driving ticket sales and game attendance, working with the social media team to develop and implement social media strategies that drive business objectives, managing digital assets working in collaboration with leaders across the organization to ensure brand consistency and development. Apply Now.

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Getty Images

Dunkin’ For Dollars: In a Football-Focused World, Can March Madness Drive Even More Revenue for the NCAA and Member Schools?
“We’re looking into additional opportunities for NCAA championships in sponsor categories,” Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s senior vice president of basketball, said. “I think you know we have pretty strict [advertising] guidelines and prohibition in some of those industries, such as alcohol or pharma, that our membership, frankly, in the last several years — certainly, most recently, schools, conferences and [College Football Playoff] — have embraced that we’ve not embraced yet.”

SBJ’s Ben Portnoy writes, “The proposed settlement in the House, Hubbard and Carter antitrust cases has college sports leaders shaking couch cushions around campuses to find added value and incremental revenue.”
Sports Business Journal

USF AD Michael Kelly on New Revenue Streams in the "Era of Permissiveness"
USF has raised "about 50 million" dollars towards their new stadium that is set to open in 2027, AD Michael Kelly shared on the On The Fly podcast. " It's all coming from revenue streams that we don't have now", Kelly continued, "and then obviously it becomes a new injection of revenue streams for us, which are gonna be crucial, not only for right now, but for the future longevity of USF athletics."  On the importance of facility upgrades, "...not only to make it great for our respective student athletes, but all realizing that in this new, I'll call it the era of permissiveness and the changes in college sports, the revenue streams are more important than ever and you've got to find them." Listen here.
On the Fly Podcast

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