Sport & Story Daily December 20, 2023

Stay Ahead of the Game

December 20, 2023

Good morning! The next step for college athletes? Becoming employees and forming unions.

College Athletes As Employees: Answering 25 Key Questions
In 2021, the NCAA permitted athletes to use a right they already had, the right of publicity, to sign endorsement, sponsorship, influencing and other name, image and likeness deals without violating any amateurism rules.

The next major change will be the recognition of college athletes as employees of their schools and possibly also their conference and the NCAA. There are several ways this recognition could occur. Once college athletes are deemed employees, some will form unions that negotiate collective bargaining agreements. It will be a new era in college sports.
^sportico.com

Pay for Play Case Filed vs. NCAA and Power Five Reassigned in Court
Lawsuit filed 11 days ago v. NCAA and Power Five conferences that challenges what complaint calls the NCAA's rules prohibiting pay for play has been reassigned to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken. She oversaw O'Bannon and Alston cases, and is overseeing House and Hubbard cases.
^twitter.com

NHL Aims to Resolve ‘Logistical Nightmare’ of Olympic Participation
NHL player participation in the Olympics has been one of Commissioner Gary Bettman’s thorniest issues for more than a generation of talent. A meeting this week between the league, NHL Players Association, IIHF, and IOC could help finally resolve the matter not only for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics but also on a longer-term basis.

“The ultimate goal is to have an Olympics, two years later World Cup, two years later Olympics, two years later World Cup,” Bettman said at a recent NHL Board of Governors meeting. “That’s the cycle we’re trying to get on.”
^{frontofficesports.com}

Best of The Athletic 2023: Top Sports Stories for MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, and More
From the Padres’ disastrous season and ‘institutional failure’ and Northwestern’s Camp Kenosha’s hazing rituals to the troubling Arizona Cardinals’ workplace culture and the sexual abuse scandal involving an NHL doctor, there was no shortage of content for The Athletic to feature in 2023.
^{theathletic.com}

How Yoshinobu Yamamoto Became Baseball's Most Coveted Free Agent
"He knew what he was getting himself into going into the season," said Lars Nootbaar, the St. Louis Cardinals outfielder who befriended Yamamoto when playing for Team Japan during the World Baseball Classic. "Publicly and amongst friends, he is the nicest, most caring person there is. But underneath that, he's a stone-cold killer. When he walks in a room, he's not just walking in. He knows what he's looking for. He takes notes on everything."
^espn.com

The Best Streaming Sports Documentaries Of 2023
Jacob Feldman from Sportico named the best sports documentaries this year, and, not surprisingly, Beckham and Kelce are on the list.
^sportico.com

Super League’s Future May Rest On Decision From EU’s Top Court
The fate of the European Super League could be decided Thursday in the European Court of Justice, as fifteen Grand Chamber judges will decide whether UEFA and FIFA acted lawfully in blocking the formation of the Super League in 2021 and trying to sanction the clubs involved. 

Whichever way the decision goes, it could have broad impacts on club soccer across the world, as the world’s richest teams seek ways to keep more of the revenue they generate.
^sportico

What Will Happen With the Colorado Rockies Television Broadcasts?
When the Colorado Rockies walked off the Minnesota Twins on October 1, it marked the end of an era.

Earlier in the season, AT&T SportsNet, the regional sports network that had broadcast Rockies’ games since 1997, announced it would no longer be airing the team’s games once the season ended. As players walked around Coors Field thanking fans, the Rockies were in need of finding a new broadcast home.
^{purplerow.com}

Tech Baseball Unveils New Team Facility
The Texas Tech Baseball program in conjunction with the Campaign for Fearless Champions, has unveiled the brand-new state-of-the-art baseball team facility.

The over 25,000 square foot facility includes a new team lobby, brand new coaches' offices, a new locker room, a brand-new training room with an underwater treadmill and cryotherapy station as well as new cages, a team lounge and a video analytics room.
^{texastech.com}

Orioles Secure 30-year Lease Extension, But There’s a Catch
The Baltimore Orioles have finally completed a formal lease extension with Maryland officials, ending years of uncertainty surrounding the club. But even now, there’s still a big catch.

Facing a Dec. 31 expiration of the team’s existing lease to the publicly owned Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the team completed a 30-year pact with the Maryland Stadium Authority and Maryland Board of Public Works on Monday, confirming what had been first announced in September. The deal follows several years of back-and-forth talks, keeps the team at the downtown ballpark, and, for now, eliminates what had been several years of steady but unconfirmed rumors of a potential franchise relocation and recent weeks of renewed negotiating chaos.
^{frontofficesports}

Fiesta Bowl Leader Erik Moses Sees Many Opportunities in College Football and in CFP Expansion
Executive Director/CEO Erik Moses Q&As with SBJ’s Ben Portnoy and says that while his first 12 months on the job have been like “drinking through a firehose,” being in this position at this time in the industry is “great for someone like me who wants to think about the big picture and wants to think about the entire enterprise in a way that allows us to figure out how do we make it better?”
^{sportsbusinessjournal.com}

NBC Has Void to Fill With Its Top Golf Analyst. It’s Trying Something Different
NBC Sports will bring a new approach to the world of golf broadcasting as it tries to pick a new No. 1 analyst before its two major championships next summer.

Kevin Kisner, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, will enter the NBC Sports booth for two tournaments in early 2024, including the season-opening event in Maui during the first week of January. Kisner, 39, is still a full-time member of the PGA Tour, but he isn’t eligible for The Sentry and The WM Phoenix Open, the two $20 million signature events he will be calling on Golf Channel and on the main NBC broadcast network.
^{frontofficesports.com}

NCAA Volleyball: 2024 Favorites, Big Changes, Bright Future
"Right now, my goal is to be an influence on the SEC to really promote this sport," University of Texas volleyball coach Jerritt Elliott said. "Obviously, SEC women's basketball is having a lot of success. We need women's basketball to be good. We need women's volleyball to be good. We want to join hands with [basketball] to let people know how great women's sports are."
^espn.com

Ole Miss, Syracuse and Other Weekend Winners in College Football’s Transfer Portal
As The Athletic‘s Max Olson writes, “Two weeks into college football’s winter transfer window, this portal cycle seems wilder than ever.”

More than 1,300 FBS scholarship players are looking for new homes at the same time, and the number of big-name quarterbacks on the move has to be a historical event. 20 percent of the scholarship players who have entered the portal for this window are already taken.
theathletic.com

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