Sport & Story Daily April 16, 2024

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April 16, 2024

Good morning! WNBA’s New Dawn

The Caitlin Clark Effect: A New Dawn for the WNBA?
With Clark the top pick in the WNBA draft and a $75 million investment boosting the league, the WNBA aims for a transformative growth phase.
^USAToday

Disrupting The Market With Playfly’s Christy Hedgpeth
Playfly Sports Properties President Christy Hedgpeth joins ADU’s Tai M. Brown to share the unique value proposition for Playfly Sports within the intercollegiate athletics landscape and reflect on how her team is disrupting the status quo among multimedia rights holders in the industry.
^{AthleticDirectorU}

A new group is buying up minor league baseball teams at a feverish pace. What’s the end game?
Diamond Baseball Holdings, a private-equity backed group, now owns 32 of the 120 minor league clubs across the country just three years after its creation. “We are agnostic to geography. We are agnostic to club affiliation,” executive chairman Pat Battle said. “If you’re one of the 120, we are interested.”
^{The Athletic}

Report: PGA Tour, LIV Golf Far From Final Agreement
A final agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf “isn’t imminent after a series of deadlines have come and gone," though players, who have “become more powerful than ever, want an agreement,” according to sources cited by Hirsch, Kessler & Warner of the N.Y. TIMES. Talks are “intermittent and a lot of obstacles need to be navigated.” 
^{Sports Business Journal}

Knicks’ Resurgence Marks Peak in Dolan’s Sports Domain
The on-court success of the Knicks, the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, has led to a jump in attendance at Madison Square Garden and per-game revenues for parent company Madison Square Garden Sports.
^{Front Office Sports}

ESPN+ to Feature Exclusive Feature Group Streaming Coverage of LPGA's First Major
“There’s nothing wrong with [a traditional broadcast],” LPGA Chief Marketing, Communications & Brand Officer Matt Chmura said. “But there’s a whole new segment of fan that we can start to reach and involve different personalities from the golf media world and that’s critically important for us to grow our fan base.”
^{Sports Business Journal}

Scott Van Pelt’s Podcast Reboot Latest in Peyton Manning’s Budding ESPN/Omaha Fiefdom
Van Pelt, the well-known SportsCenter anchor, will relaunch his SVPod podcast on Manning’s Omaha Audio Network, with a video version of the show also planned for ESPN’s YouTube page.
^{Front Office Sports}

Oakland A’s relocation to bring economic boom to Sacramento
Oakland team owner John Fisher recently announced the team will spend the next three seasons playing at the Triple A Sacramento River Cats’ Sutter Health Park, a move that could bring $4.5 million in lodging revenue and taxes.
^{Sports Business Journal}

Horizon Sports & Experiences Hires Kerry Bradley As SVP Of Strategy
The company, which partners with the NBA, PayPal, Paramount+, Top Rank Boxing and more, focuses on IP creation and monetization as well as media consulting. Bradley will bring a background in data and analytics to the role.
^Sportico

Exclusive Interview: Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek on Hiring Coach Calipari
Arkansas Director of Athletics, Hunter Yurachek, joined Bo Mattingly for a Hogs+ exclusive interview to take fans behind-the-scenes of the last week in Arkansas basketball — From Eric Musselman departing for USC to Coach Cal's introductory presser. Yurachek dives deep into every detail about the search for the next Razorback basketball coach in this extremely candid conversation.
^Hogs+

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