Go to Source Author: David Rumsey The WNBA’s quest to expand beyond the league’s current 12 teams appears to be off and running.Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob is reportedly leading a group that’s set to bring a new team to the Bay Area. The WNBA franchise would play at the Warriors’ Chase Center and have headquarters at the NBA team’s practice facility in Oakland. An announcement is expected in October.WNBA expansion has been anticipated for some time now. Earlier this year, commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the league was eyeing a short list of 10 cities for new teams and hoping to add multiple franchises by 2025.In addition to the Bay Area, other cities likely still under consideration include Nashville, Toronto, Austin, Charlotte,

Go to Source Author: Andrew Cohen Amazon has opened the NFL season with its two highest audiences for Thursday Night Football since Prime Video started streaming NFL games in 2017.Thursday’s Week 3 matchup between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers averaged a 6.5 rating and 13.92 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, making it the second-most watched NFL game ever on Prime Video, per SportsMedia Watch. It trails only the prior week’s Minnesota Vikings-Philadelphia Eagles game on TNF, which drew 15.05 million viewers as the most-streamed game in NFL history.Thursday Night Football is now averaging 14.48 million viewers through two games, a 21% increase over last year’s first two games (11.95M), and 71% more than the viewership for 2021’s

Go to Source Author: Eric Fisher The tentative deal to end the Hollywood writers’ strike after nearly five months will be welcome news for several sports-related companies and networks. TBS and TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery previously projected a $300 million to $500 million hit in annual adjusted earnings due to the Hollywood strikes. French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault recently completed his $7 billion acquisition of Creative Artists Agency — one of the largest agencies representing both athletes and Hollywood personnel — and can now begin to approach full operations.Late-night talk shows, which for decades have been an active promotional spot for sports figures, could return to new episodes in a matter of days and be among the first affected programs back on the

Go to Source Author: David Rumsey For Texas and Oklahoma, the price of leaving the Big 12 in 2024 and joining the SEC a year early could’ve been much higher.In 2021, when the two schools announced their decisions to leave the Big 12 in 2025, reports pointed to $160 million in forfeited TV revenue if the Longhorns and Sooners joined the SEC any earlier. However, earlier this year, when the Big 12 announced Texas and Oklahoma would depart in 2024, the cost was stated as $100 million combined.Now, new details of the buyout reported by USA Today are showing the convoluted nature of the agreement — and frustration from remaining Big 12 members.Texas and Oklahoma have continued to receive full revenue shares,

Go to Source Author: Michael McCarthy ESPN and Fox Sports went head-to-head with the so-called Deion Sanders Bowl last weekend with the former scoring a television win.Sanders and Colorado are the hottest story in sports, as evidenced by CBS News’ storied “60 Minutes” sending a crew to profile “Coach Prime” in Boulder, Colorado.On Saturday, ESPN and Fox — the ruling TV duopoly of college sports — both sent their pregame studio shows to Boulder to hype the Rocky Mountain grudge match between Colorado and Colorado State.But “College GameDay” more than doubled the audience of Fox’s rival “Big Noon Kickoff,” according to sources.With analyst Lee Corso making his 400th headgear pick, “College GameDay” averaged 2,267,000 viewers, peaking at 2,994,000 during its final hour

Go to Source Author: Doug Greenberg For just the third time in their combined histories — and the last time for the foreseeable future — the Solheim Cup and the Ryder Cup will be played in the same year, with the former teeing off Friday in Spain and the latter a week later from Italy.However, there’s still very little cross-promotion between the two team golf competitions — something a leader in the women’s game believes is a “missed opportunity.”“I thought this could have been marketed together as two weeks in Europe, two Cups [to play for],” said U.S. Solheim Cup team captain Stacy Lewis. “I wish that people could get the sponsorship things out of their head and let’s figure out how

Go to Source Author: Eric Fisher As the controversy surrounding the Spanish women’s national team that won the 2023 Women’s World Cup continues, the runner-up England squad has resolved its own dispute with the country’s Football Association over compensation.Prior to the World Cup, FIFA disclosed plans to make direct payments to players ranging from $30,000 to $270,000 depending on where teams finished. English players, however, were frustrated about the lack of additional payments from the FA, as well as limitations on individual players’ ability to earn money from sponsorships.That frustration, which dates back to last year, led English players to issue a joint statement before the tournament that they were “disappointed that a resolution has still not been achieved.” Structural ChangesNow, a month

Go to Source Author: Andrew Cohen Coach Prime’s impact on college football stretches beyond Boulder as ticket demand surges to see the Deion Sanders-coached Colorado Buffaloes play Oregon in Eugene this Saturday.Before this season began, TickPick’s average purchase price for Colorado-Oregon was $93. Since Colorado has started 3-0 with wins over TCU, Nebraska, and Colorado State, the average purchase price for the Buffs’ upcoming matchup in Oregon has shot up 131% to $215. The average purchase price of the Oregon-Colorado game is also 115% more expensive than Oregon’s home average purchase price ($100).TickPick notes that Oregon-Colorado’s average ticket price is more expensive than 14 of 16 upcoming Week 3 NFL games. Only Bears-Chiefs and Raiders-Steelers are more expensive. For Oregon, their game

Go to Source Author: David Rumsey The news that two spring football leagues, the XFL and USFL, are close to merging operations is just the latest instance of competing sports organizations opting to work together rather than battle separately.This particular deal would bring together the most recent iterations of the XFL — which was founded in 2001, rebooted in 2020, and then sold to a group including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — and the USFL, which is owned by Fox Sports and uses trademarks from the original league that played in the 1980s.One of the most interesting aspects of the merger: Fox will join forces with ESPN, which has the XFL’s media rights. NBC Sports also shows USFL games with Fox.The Year

Go to Source Author: Michael McCarthy With the actors/writer’s strike in Hollywood slowing new entertainment inventory to a trickle, legacy networks are turning to an old standby: live sports. The Walt Disney Company’s ABC will simulcast 15 regular season game telecasts of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” this season. Before the season, the strategy was to simulcast five regular season games. If you count the two playoff games, the sister Disney networks will share 17-game telecasts.The goal is to provide viewers with as much original programming as possible during the ongoing work stoppage. Tonight, ESPN will release its new Monday Night Football anthem.Chris Stapleton, Snoop Dogg, and Cindy Blackman Santana reimagine "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins: pic.twitter.com/qbVj4EzK1j— Front Office Sports (@FOS) September 18,