Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business of Sports. Business of Sports can
Speaker 1: be intimidating for hard for starting to break into.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate where our owners are actually there, you know,
Speaker 2: with us through the journey.
Speaker 3: Teams ours especially been very intentional to diversify at all
Speaker 3: levels of the Companyshybe. We're in the golden years for
Speaker 3: the NFL and college football.
Speaker 2: Our demographic reach has continued to expande.
Speaker 3: This is going to be really unlocking the streaming platform
Speaker 3: for sports fans.
Speaker 4: Sports evaluations arising.
Speaker 1: We'll see when they peak.
Speaker 4: You don't have to be the best in your sports
Speaker 4: and make a whole ton of money.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. Hello world, This
Speaker 1: is the Bloomberg Business of Sports show where we explore
Speaker 1: the big money issues in the world of sports.
Speaker 3: Sound like well, I'm.
Speaker 2: Scarlett Foo and Tidi Meansas hour on the lineup.
Speaker 1: Today, it's official w NBA team is coming to the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. The Golden State Valkyries were announced as the
Speaker 1: latest sticks team for the increasingly popular league, the WNBA's
Speaker 1: first expansion team since two thousand and eight, with more
Speaker 1: teams on the horizon.
Speaker 2: And so joining us later in the program to discuss
Speaker 2: what this means for women's basketball, for the city of
Speaker 2: San Francisco, and for the team itself. Is Jess Smith,
Speaker 2: president of the newest WNBA franchise, the Golden State Falkyraz.
Speaker 5: Being the thirteenth expansion team is a big deal and
Speaker 5: we take it with a great responsibility. And the fact
Speaker 5: that it is the Bay Area for us is something
Speaker 5: that we wanted to lean into. When you think of
Speaker 5: the Bay Area inside and outside of it, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the place where being progressive and innovative, you know,
Speaker 5: is part of the everyday culture there and often leading
Speaker 5: the world.
Speaker 3: Plus, we can't talk about the WNBA without mentioning their
Speaker 3: biggest newest star, Kaitlyn Clark. Bloomberg's Ira Budewagh joins us
Speaker 3: later to explain how the Caitlin Clark effect comes at
Speaker 3: a critical moment for the league.
Speaker 1: That is straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports Show.
Speaker 1: But first, the NFL release they're much anticipated schedule for
Speaker 1: the upcoming season this past Wednesday, and there are two
Speaker 1: games that is generating headlines. Can you hear right now
Speaker 1: Damien rubbing his hands. That's him being.
Speaker 2: Excited, but.
Speaker 1: Not for the reasons you may think streaming giant Netflix
Speaker 1: is continuing its major strides into live sports programming, announcing
Speaker 1: it will stream two football games on Christmas Day this year,
Speaker 1: with the defending Super Bowl champs Kansas City Chiefs taking
Speaker 1: on the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Houston Texans taking on
Speaker 1: the Baltimore Ravens. With more on that major streaming deal,
Speaker 1: we are joined by Bloomberg Entertainment reporter Lucas Shaw. Lucas,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.
Speaker 4: Great to be here in person.
Speaker 1: Well, there's gonna be a lot of fights this Christmas.
Speaker 1: Think about it. I mean, is one thing for Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: You know, when the Lions play Thanksgiving and the Cowboys
Speaker 1: play Thanksgiving and the Packers play on Thanksgiving, it's accepted.
Speaker 1: We're just easing into this Christmas thing. And now this
Speaker 1: big deal has been announced.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm someone who looks forward to basketball on Christmas
Speaker 4: every year. Yeah, So, I'm sure the NBA is livid
Speaker 4: that the NFL is once again trying to claim another
Speaker 4: night because I think that as NFL claims more days
Speaker 4: of the week and more times of the year, they're
Speaker 4: just stealing inventory from other sports. Because it's the most
Speaker 4: powerful sport in the US and they can. And this
Speaker 4: is another case where you know, they've added another partner.
Speaker 4: And I think if you were to ask, say Amazon,
Speaker 4: which thought they were the sort of streaming partner for
Speaker 4: the NFL, they'd be pretty frustrated that suddenly Netflix has
Speaker 4: a couple of games.
Speaker 3: So the lesson here is there are no exclusive partnerships
Speaker 3: with the NFL. The NFL does whatever it wants.
Speaker 4: That I think the last thing you said is the
Speaker 4: key part. Yes, the NFL does whatever the heck it
Speaker 4: wants at all times, and there's nothing that anyone can
Speaker 4: do about it.
Speaker 3: What happened to Netflix saying, oh, no, we're not interested
Speaker 3: in live sports, Well.
Speaker 4: They've been softening on that. They ever since they introduced
Speaker 4: their advertising business a couple of years ago, they've started
Speaker 4: to also invest in live events. You know, they had
Speaker 4: a live comedy special from Chris Rock. They had a
Speaker 4: live reunion of the hit show Love Is Blind. They've
Speaker 4: just did some live comedy out of this comedy festival
Speaker 4: in LA and that has done. You know, they had
Speaker 4: a celebrity golf event, they had a one off tennis
Speaker 4: It's obvious to anyone looking at it that if you're
Speaker 4: trying to build an advertising business, and that means you
Speaker 4: want to have live programming. The most valuable live programming
Speaker 4: in the world is sports, and I think they're just
Speaker 4: trying to slow walk it because they don't want to
Speaker 4: make it sound like they're going to start bidding billions
Speaker 4: of dollars for live sports rights, because they don't think
Speaker 4: Wall Street wants to hear them say that, and they
Speaker 4: don't believe that that's the most efficient use of their capital.
Speaker 4: But if they can find some of these one off
Speaker 4: events to do to try to kind of build up
Speaker 4: their portfolio, they seem happy to test it out.
Speaker 2: Lucas, I'm a Jeff fan, and I'm going to be
Speaker 2: We're all sorry. I've got six primetime games that I
Speaker 2: have to find on television this shield and I have Amazon, ESPN, Netflix, Peacock.
Speaker 2: I mean there's prime Time, there's ABC. How do I
Speaker 2: figure all this out? First of all? And secondly, you know,
Speaker 2: for you know you Cowboy and forty nine er fans
Speaker 2: who also have six primetime games, we're the only three.
Speaker 2: Talk to me a little bit about what this means
Speaker 2: going forward. Is there going to be any sort of
Speaker 2: directive from the NFL itself to kind of guide us
Speaker 2: on our Sundays, on our Thursday nights. So I mean,
Speaker 2: how do we know where to go? I mean, I
Speaker 2: just don't know where to go anymore. There's so many
Speaker 2: options out there.
Speaker 4: Did you really struggle to figure out where to watch
Speaker 4: the Jets last year?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I didn't really, but I mean most Thursday nights Thursday
Speaker 2: nights between the NFL network, and some of these got
Speaker 2: a little.
Speaker 4: Skylight for it. I take the question because there is
Speaker 4: some frustration that the NFL keeps slicing and dicing the
Speaker 4: schedule and bringing in new partners, and so it feels
Speaker 4: a little bit like.
Speaker 2: But transparency, Just show us where to go, like you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, like you know, give us the slate, you know,
Speaker 2: or give us a pack. Is there any way they
Speaker 2: can provide their audience with a package?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I think I guess football to me feels somewhat straightforward,
Speaker 4: only in that they are the main packages. You know
Speaker 4: where to go? Right? Okay, So if you look at
Speaker 4: the regular season schedule, Fox and CBS have the still
Speaker 4: the lion's share of the games. Between the two of them,
Speaker 4: they have the vast majority of the games on Sunday
Speaker 4: morning Sunday afternoon, depending on what part of the country
Speaker 4: that you live in. Sure, if you want to do
Speaker 4: Red Zone Sunday ticket, you go to YouTube. That was
Speaker 4: always a separate package. I think that's fine because that's
Speaker 4: just a separate experience. Monday Night football has been around forever.
Speaker 4: The newer ones are Thursday, the occasional Saturday, and then
Speaker 4: this Netflix thing is just Christmas. I think the one
Speaker 4: that really freaked people out was Peacock with the playoffs,
Speaker 4: because suddenly you had to sign up for another service
Speaker 4: to access it. It seems like it was a big success.
Speaker 3: The playoffs are different from the regular season. That just
Speaker 3: becomes an added wrinkle here for Damian, I mean, I
Speaker 3: know it's not an issue for you with the Jets.
Speaker 4: Lucas, I'm glad you said it because thanks Carlett, you
Speaker 4: know that dagger in the side of it.
Speaker 2: But Lucas, I mean here the thing you know, I
Speaker 2: mean for me? You know you just said success and
Speaker 2: how do you define success? Yes, successful from the perspective
Speaker 2: of the NFL, But I mean pet of Peacock, okay,
Speaker 2: but how can exactly but how long can they continue
Speaker 2: this with this audience? I mean, look, I know NFL's
Speaker 2: the greatest sport on Earth, but you know, content is king.
Speaker 2: I mean, but if you can't find it and people
Speaker 2: are just not happy with the way you're presenting it,
Speaker 2: doesn't that count for something.
Speaker 4: Look, the NFL had I think the best ratings it's
Speaker 4: ever had last year, so it doesn't seem like it's
Speaker 4: hurting interest in the sport all that much, which is
Speaker 4: why the league feels comfortable doing whatever it wants to do.
Speaker 4: There may come a point at which people get frustrated
Speaker 4: by it, and you've seen in less popular sports the
Speaker 4: effort to create these other packages, right like Baseball created
Speaker 4: like Friday Evening with Apple and Sunday Morning, which it
Speaker 4: was initially with Peacock. Now it's on Roku, Like nobody's
Speaker 4: watching that package. Nobody cares. But football, the fandom is
Speaker 4: such that I think they feel they can keep carving
Speaker 4: out these games. There may come a point at which
Speaker 4: people get frustrated by it, but I would argue that
Speaker 4: their media partners are probably going to get frustrated before
Speaker 4: the fans, because the issue becomes if they have a
Speaker 4: bunch of games on services that people don't want to
Speaker 4: sign up for right, But Netflix doesn't feel like that.
Speaker 4: It presents that issue to me because Netflix is a
Speaker 4: service that basically everybody has, and you're gonna have plenty
Speaker 4: of people who open that service on Christmas Day and
Speaker 4: are happy to find football. And it's worth noting. I
Speaker 4: guess we are not hitting the peak in interest right.
Speaker 4: This is creating a new day to watch football, which
Speaker 4: I think for football fans is great. Maybe not for
Speaker 4: other people in their lives.
Speaker 1: Well, see that brings up a problem another. As I said,
Speaker 1: we're going to go back to a lot of fights
Speaker 1: on Christmas because Christmas this year falls on a Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and if you are an out of your mind fantasy
Speaker 1: football nut, you're going to be watching both of those games.
Speaker 1: I can just see Grandma right now, turn that TV
Speaker 1: off and come and eat your dinner. I can see
Speaker 1: this happening. But hey, they're the NFL.
Speaker 4: I think they can get away with doing it. To
Speaker 4: me that the losers in this or the NBA and
Speaker 4: some of the other networks, some of the other networks
Speaker 4: that are mad that they didn't get it. But to
Speaker 4: your point, they picked a couple of good games. The
Speaker 4: audience f it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: Huge that was Grandma falling over? Right?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah right, you know, Lucas, you know, we keep
Speaker 2: saying this, Scarlett said that, you said it, even Michael's
Speaker 2: alluding to it. You know, the NFL can do anything
Speaker 2: it wants, right, And you know, I'm wondering when we
Speaker 2: say the NFL can do anything at wants, who are
Speaker 2: we really talking about? Because I look at for you know,
Speaker 2: the schedule is just released, and who is the odd
Speaker 2: man out is the NFL and by the NFL is
Speaker 2: at Roger Goodell? Is it?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: Wayne?
Speaker 2: I mean who are the ownerses of matters? Who who
Speaker 2: makes the decisions here? Who is running the NFL these days?
Speaker 4: Well, Goodell is the commissioner, so he's running the NFL.
Speaker 2: So he picks that Carolina and David Tepper od man at.
Speaker 4: Well that you know, Brian Rolap runs the media business
Speaker 4: and so he's having a lot of those negotiations. And
Speaker 4: then you have obviously they Goodell ultimately serves at the
Speaker 4: whims of the owners, and you have certain owners who
Speaker 4: are more influential and powerful than others, of course, but
Speaker 4: it's a good question. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 4: who makes the decision to David Tepper's.
Speaker 3: Poor David Tepper. I don't think anyone's ever said those
Speaker 3: words together.
Speaker 4: It would be helpful for him if the team were good, which.
Speaker 2: It's not so exactly.
Speaker 3: So, Lucas, what does this mean for MLB? You mentioned
Speaker 3: that they're working on a partnership with Roku and they
Speaker 3: already had one with another streamer that you know, you
Speaker 3: said nobody cares. Do the other leagues look at this
Speaker 3: and say, this opens up new opportunities for us or
Speaker 3: do they look at this and say, great now the
Speaker 3: NFL is just hgging up everything for itself.
Speaker 4: Well, look, the NFL opening up Netflix as a buyer
Speaker 4: is good news for all the other leagues.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: The NBA tried to get Netflix in and its its
Speaker 4: current negotiations, and they had some meetings but it didn't go.
Speaker 3: Very so that's not happening then.
Speaker 4: No, No, the NBA is going to do has a
Speaker 4: deal in place basically with Disney and Amazon. They're negotiating
Speaker 4: with between Comcasts and Warner Brothers Discovery for a third package.
Speaker 4: It's a little fluid, but Netflix is almost certainly not
Speaker 4: gonna have any NBA rights, But the NFL prying that
Speaker 4: open as an option is certainly good for other sports.
Speaker 4: The issue that other sports have relative to the NFL
Speaker 4: is just the NFL has has this scarcity where there
Speaker 4: are only a certain number of games a year and
Speaker 4: they only get played once a week. Baseball. I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously they are multiple games during the week, but each
Speaker 4: team only plays once a week.
Speaker 3: Any given Sunday.
Speaker 4: Idea Baseball's problem. And look, I'm a big baseball fan.
Speaker 4: I care about baseball more than I care about football.
Speaker 4: But they people people play, they're too many games. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm a diehard baseball fan, but I don't
Speaker 4: I'm not watching every game this week or when I'm
Speaker 4: when I'm in New York. You know, I follow it
Speaker 4: on my phone. I know the Dodgers lost last night,
Speaker 4: but I'm not needing to walk every game. And so
Speaker 4: the media rights and the value that each game has
Speaker 4: is last I mean, the NFL sold these games to
Speaker 4: Netflix for about seventy five million per regular season game.
Speaker 4: I mean, what would a one baseball game go for?
Speaker 4: Maybe a million dollar, I don't know what the number is.
Speaker 4: But these packages that they've done with the company like Roku,
Speaker 4: they're not huge packages.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Luca Shall for joining us here
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg Business of Sports. We really do appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Hey Up. Next on the show, Bloomberg's Ira Boodway joins
Speaker 1: us to tell us how the star power of Caitlin
Speaker 1: Clark has become the business boom for the WNBA had
Speaker 1: a straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business of Sports Show.
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Barr along with Scarlett Food and Damian Safsawerg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business of Sports from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Welcome back to the Bloomberg Business of Sports Show,
Speaker 1: where we explore the big money issues in the world
Speaker 1: of sports. I'm Michael Barr along with Scarlettfuo and Damian Sasaur.
Speaker 6: The twenty twenty four WNBA drafts number one overall pick
Speaker 6: here to Indianapolis.
Speaker 2: Please welcome Caitland Clark.
Speaker 1: Unless you've been living under a rock, you have certainly
Speaker 1: heard the name. Caitlyn Clark, the all time college basketball
Speaker 1: leading scorer for both men and women's college hoops and
Speaker 1: number one overall pick in this year's draft, is already
Speaker 1: making her mark in the WNBA on and off the court.
Speaker 1: Ticket sales way up, viewership, way up. She was on
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Live. Celebrities are talking about her, and players
Speaker 1: are traveling on chartered flights. As our Ira Budway puts it,
Speaker 1: the Caitland Clark effect is real. So joining us now
Speaker 1: to discuss the Caitland Clark effect is Bloomberg News Business
Speaker 1: of Sports reporter Ira Budway. Iirah, thank you, sir for
Speaker 1: joining us on the bl Business and Sports.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: She's the one that they are always going to after
Speaker 1: the game for right now, but as time progresses and
Speaker 1: the WNBA season is young, we're going to see more
Speaker 1: of her and she's going to be back in her
Speaker 1: group when she was back in college.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 6: I think everyone says that she's the real deal, that
Speaker 6: it's not just hype. And I don't think you, you know,
Speaker 6: are the all time leading scorer in college and the
Speaker 6: all time leading three point shooter in college if you
Speaker 6: don't have some real talent, So, you know, I think
Speaker 6: where the ceiling is remains to be seen, but the
Speaker 6: floor is high.
Speaker 3: A lot has been made about how much money she's
Speaker 3: potentially giving up by moving from college sports college basketball
Speaker 3: to the professional league's the WNBA, because of the rookie salary,
Speaker 3: the first year salary for players. Why is this a
Speaker 3: red herring? Why is this not the real story?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's interesting because of course pay in
Speaker 6: college doesn't come from your school, at least not technically, right.
Speaker 6: Any money you're going to get in college is basically
Speaker 6: a marketing agreement of sponsorship deal. They call it nil
Speaker 6: name image likeness at the college level, but it's really
Speaker 6: the same thing at the professional level. So Caitlin Clark
Speaker 6: was making millions as a player with the Iowhawkeyes. She's
Speaker 6: going to continue to make millions as a player in
Speaker 6: the WNBA. It's just that most of that money will
Speaker 6: come from her marketing partners, Nike, Gatorade, and so forth.
Speaker 6: State Farm. She's not taking a pay cut as some suggested,
Speaker 6: But it is true that her salary with the Indiana
Speaker 6: Fever is really small. It's about seventy six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So all right, let's talk a little bit about Caitlin
Speaker 2: Clark's impact on sports gambling, because when she was with
Speaker 2: the Hawkeyes, if I'm not mistaken, one of the statistics
Speaker 2: in front of me, the amount of gambling that went
Speaker 2: on on the Iowahawkeyes on Caitlin Clark on their team
Speaker 2: to win, etc. Was through the roof. Are we seeing
Speaker 2: some similarities now that she's moved to the WNBA into
Speaker 2: the Indiana Fever.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I got a pitch from a gambling
Speaker 6: house to handle the amount bet on her first game
Speaker 6: was the most ever for WNBA wo they'd seen, And
Speaker 6: I think that's just one more indicator of the interest
Speaker 6: that she drives. So you see it in ticket sales,
Speaker 6: you know, for the Indiana Fever, they're going from about
Speaker 6: four thousand people attending per game to they think capacity
Speaker 6: crowds probably about seventeen thousand for most games. And you
Speaker 6: see it in ratings, you know, she drew millions to
Speaker 6: watch Hawkeyes games, way above what the records had been before.
Speaker 6: You see it in merchandise. Dick's Sporting Goods is selling
Speaker 6: her gear nationwide, which they've never done for WNBA player before.
Speaker 6: So betting is just one more way in which people
Speaker 6: follow her more than they ever have a women's basketball player.
Speaker 2: Well, right, let's just crystallize this for the sharps out there.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the odds to win the WNBA MVP
Speaker 2: this year, right, and obviously I Wilson of the Las
Speaker 2: Vegas Aces, she's the chance up bringing champion. The Libby's
Speaker 2: Brianna Stewart is second, but then Caitlyn Clark number is
Speaker 2: third at plus nine hundred. Are we seeing maybe the
Speaker 2: fact that people are getting a little too hyped up
Speaker 2: with Caitlyn Clark for her to be in third for
Speaker 2: the MVP running in this year's I mean, is is
Speaker 2: that realistic? Is that logical? Does that make any sense
Speaker 2: in the world we live in?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think it's you know, you would see this with
Speaker 6: Tiger Woods whenever you see a sort of transcendent figure
Speaker 6: in sports, and she's been compared to Tiger Woods. Michael
Speaker 6: Jordan's so great for the books, Yeah, yeah, great for
Speaker 6: the great interest in betting on her. You know people
Speaker 6: are gonna probably yeah squares are going to take that bet,
Speaker 6: but who knows. I mean, her talent is pretty pretty.
Speaker 3: Amazing, and her arrival on the scene at the WNBA
Speaker 3: is perfect timing because this is a league that has
Speaker 3: done better, but let's face it is still kind of struggling.
Speaker 3: They get to renegotiate their media rights fairly soon after
Speaker 3: Caitlin Clark's arrival. But and it's not clear what's going
Speaker 3: to happen with player salaries either, but they definitely needed
Speaker 3: a shot in the arm and they got it with
Speaker 3: Kaitlin Clark. Tell us a little bit about the economics
Speaker 3: of the WNBA.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, she comes along at a really critical
Speaker 6: moment and I think arguably a perfect moment for the league,
Speaker 6: which has been trying to sort of raise its profile
Speaker 6: over the last few years. They raised money, took in
Speaker 6: outside investors for seventy five million worth of investment to
Speaker 6: kind of increase their marketing presence, and they are in
Speaker 6: the process now of negotiating some of their major media
Speaker 6: rights deals, which is the main source of revenue. The
Speaker 6: rest they'll do over the next eighteen months or so.
Speaker 6: At the same time, they will in all likelihood be
Speaker 6: at the table with their players for the next collective
Speaker 6: bargaining agreement sometime over the next eighteen months. So it's
Speaker 6: all happening in the context of Caitlin Clark's arrival, which
Speaker 6: you know, should raise the price for the media rates
Speaker 6: and provide leverage to the players to get a better
Speaker 6: pay package this time around.
Speaker 2: Well, Rick, can you talk a little bit more about
Speaker 2: the CBA, because I thought that they struck a new
Speaker 2: CBA in jen of twenty twenty with an eight year deal,
Speaker 2: So is that up in the next is that being changed?
Speaker 6: There's an option for the players at the end of
Speaker 6: this season to opt out and make next season the
Speaker 6: final season, so they would basically spend next.
Speaker 2: Year they're definitely going to do.
Speaker 6: They will do, Yeah, I mean, I think that's every
Speaker 6: indication is that they will. I think, especially with the
Speaker 6: interest that we're seeing now and with the fact that
Speaker 6: these new media rights deals will be in large part
Speaker 6: known quantities by then, and I think the players feel
Speaker 6: that they didn't really get the best deal last time around.
Speaker 6: There were some incentives baked into that CBA that were
Speaker 6: revenue sharing targets, and they never hit them, so they
Speaker 6: never saw penny of that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, these players clearly weren't happy because they're
Speaker 2: playing in places like Italy, Russia, Britney Griner, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: they still have to go abroad in order to get
Speaker 2: compensated fairly.
Speaker 3: Or do they? Or do they? Because there's something in
Speaker 3: the WNBA's twenty twenty Collective Bargaining Agreement that kind of
Speaker 3: addresses that yeah, So they created.
Speaker 6: These what they call marketing agreements or league marketing program
Speaker 6: where some players can stick around. The league kind of
Speaker 6: picks a few stars basically, and what you have to
Speaker 6: do to get this extra money is don't go overseas
Speaker 6: to play. You stick around and train during the offseason,
Speaker 6: and you make appearances for league sponsors, Google, Carmas, so forth,
Speaker 6: and you can make on top of your salary, you
Speaker 6: can make another two hundred and fifty thousand. So there's
Speaker 6: a few different incentives they've baked in to try to
Speaker 6: get players to help grow the league. So the league
Speaker 6: will tell you, like if the top top players can
Speaker 6: make like half a million a year all in, so,
Speaker 6: it's not as bad as the seventy six thousand rookie
Speaker 6: salary for Kaitlin Clark makes it look, but it's still
Speaker 6: not millions, which you might expect for elite professional athletes.
Speaker 2: Now, Hira, let me ask you this. I know that
Speaker 2: the NBA's package their TV rights are coming up, as
Speaker 2: we know what's the deal with the WNBA. Do they
Speaker 2: piggyback off the NBA's efforts there, Do they have their
Speaker 2: own negotiations that take place, and when do those come
Speaker 2: come up.
Speaker 4: It's a hybrid.
Speaker 6: So the biggest partner that the WNBA has is ESPN
Speaker 6: and that was bundled in with ESPN's big deal with
Speaker 6: the NBA, which kicked in in twenty sixteen. That is
Speaker 6: on the table right now. Every indications are ESPN's going
Speaker 6: to renew and that the WNBA will be included in that.
Speaker 6: And then there's also reporting by US and others that
Speaker 6: Amazon is going to get an NBA package this time
Speaker 6: around for Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime already has WNBA games,
Speaker 6: they're separate package, so it looks like they're going to
Speaker 6: add to their WNBA inventory in this bigger deal with
Speaker 6: the NBA. And then there are a couple other deals
Speaker 6: that the WNBA will do on their own over you know,
Speaker 6: that expire in twenty twenty five, so they'll have the
Speaker 6: chance to redo those as well. So it's a mix
Speaker 6: of both. They have four partners. At the moment, they
Speaker 6: bring in about sixty million a year in media rights,
Speaker 6: and Kathy Engelbert, the WNBA commissioner, has said she wants
Speaker 6: to double that number.
Speaker 3: And of course inventory is only going to increase because
Speaker 3: the league just added a new team, the Golden State,
Speaker 3: newly named Valkyries, and the talk is that Toronto will
Speaker 3: get a team in the coming years as well. The
Speaker 3: WNBA at one point did expand, but it expanded too
Speaker 3: rapidly and that proved to be well, it was kind
Speaker 3: of painful and it led to a shrinking of the league.
Speaker 3: So walk us through how the WNBA is going to
Speaker 3: move forward with this expansion now, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean the goal, according to Engelbert, is twenty four.
Speaker 6: So they're at twelve teams now that they're peak they
Speaker 6: were sixteen. They want to get to twenty four teams
Speaker 6: over the next decade, which I think makes sense. I mean,
Speaker 6: the way Engelbert puts it is, we've got a country
Speaker 6: of three hundred million people. Twelve teams is just not enough.
Speaker 6: And you're right, it adds inventory of all sorts, and
Speaker 6: those teams not all of them are owned by NBA owners.
Speaker 6: Some of them are independently owned. So I think they
Speaker 6: can get there. I mean, with Toronto and Golden State
Speaker 6: coming on. If you see momentum continue from where we
Speaker 6: are now, which is certainly the level starting this season
Speaker 6: is higher than it's ever been. I don't think twenty
Speaker 6: four is an unreasonable target.
Speaker 2: So got the Angelbert. Her role right as the head
Speaker 2: of the NBA is not necessarily to do what's in
Speaker 2: the best interest of the players. She represents the owners right,
Speaker 2: and so she represents you know, the business building of
Speaker 2: the WNBA, building franchise value, you know, dealing with these
Speaker 2: media companies. With all of that. Talk to us about
Speaker 2: the job she's doing. I mean, what's the sense from
Speaker 2: ownership and that, for that matter, from the players. I mean,
Speaker 2: did they respect her? Is she doing a good job
Speaker 2: in that seat? Has she fulfilled her obligation? Is she
Speaker 2: increasing not only the awareness but the franchise value of
Speaker 2: these teams era?
Speaker 6: I mean we have seen deals. The Seattle Storm sold
Speaker 6: a chunk of their revenue not too long ago at
Speaker 6: a record price for the WNBA. So from that perspective,
Speaker 6: I think owners can feel like things are going in
Speaker 6: the right direction.
Speaker 4: Players.
Speaker 6: It's really tricky because it's just this question of do
Speaker 6: you invest right. Leagues lose money, startup leagues lose money.
Speaker 6: The NFL lost money for a long time, Major League
Speaker 6: Baseball lost money for a long time, the NBA lost
Speaker 6: money for a long time. There are still teams that
Speaker 6: lose money to this day. So it's not like a
Speaker 6: highly profitable enterprise necessarily at least until you get way
Speaker 6: into developing the long term allegiances that are the lifeblood
Speaker 6: of sports. So the players can argue, look, you have
Speaker 6: to invest in us now right, and then it will
Speaker 6: be what you wanted to be later. And you see
Speaker 6: this played out recently with charter flights. So the league
Speaker 6: did not have the players flew commercial between games until
Speaker 6: this year. And you saw it for Caitlin Clark's first
Speaker 6: preseason game. It was a news story her at the
Speaker 6: baggage carousel, the person who sat in the same row
Speaker 6: with her, talking to local news reporters. And then like
Speaker 6: four days later, Kathy Engelbert came out and said, we're
Speaker 6: going to get charter flights as soon as we can
Speaker 6: get them set up in Delta. They stepped up as
Speaker 6: a partner to fund this. It's like twenty five million
Speaker 6: a year to do. They'd been really hesitant to do
Speaker 6: it because they didn't the owners were like, how can
Speaker 6: we keep stomaching costs if we're not bringing in the revenue.
Speaker 6: So that balancing act of what comes first is what
Speaker 6: she's working with now. And I think what happens is
Speaker 6: Clark accelerates both the revenue the corporate partners and the
Speaker 6: pressure to pay the players.
Speaker 1: Be in Global Business of Sports reporter Ira wood Way,
Speaker 1: thank you again, man, appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Up Next, we stay on the topic of the WNBA
Speaker 1: and speak to the president of the league's newest expansion team,
Speaker 1: the Golden State, al Kyries. Jess Smith joins us on
Speaker 1: the other side. That's straight ahead on the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: of Sports. I'm Michael Barr along with Scarlett Fooh and
Speaker 1: Damian Sassaur. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business of Sports
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio around the world. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: of Sports from Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Business of
Speaker 1: Sports where we explore where the big money issues in
Speaker 1: the world of sports. I'm Michael Barr along with Garlett
Speaker 1: foo and Damian Sasaur. Today I learned what a valkyrie is.
Speaker 1: It's a strong, bold, and fierce female goddess who work
Speaker 1: together to guide fallen warriors. That's according to Nordic folklore.
Speaker 1: But now they have come to the Bay Area as
Speaker 1: the WNBA last Tuesday announced that the league's thirteenth expansion
Speaker 1: team there first since two thousand and eight the Golden
Speaker 1: State Valkyries, with the team's inaugural season tipping off next year.
Speaker 1: So joining us to discuss is the president of the team,
Speaker 1: Jess Smith. Jess, welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports
Speaker 1: and congratulations.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. That intro is pretty epic. I
Speaker 5: need you to do that. Every time I walk.
Speaker 1: Into a room this called me, I'll put it on tape,
Speaker 1: nil War, I'll do it for you. Well, this is,
Speaker 1: first of all, again this is a big, big move,
Speaker 1: and it's like the WNBA expanding. You know, this is
Speaker 1: another sign that the WNBA there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: to be made there.
Speaker 5: That's exactly right, you know, this moment of expansion and
Speaker 5: also an expansion through Golden State, through the Bay Area
Speaker 5: and how we're going to build This is a pivotal
Speaker 5: moment for the WNBA. You know, there's been tremendous growth
Speaker 5: over the years, but what we're seeing right now is
Speaker 5: a trajectory of speed like no one anticipated, and we
Speaker 5: are definitely going to lean into that. I think the
Speaker 5: other really incredible thing is that, yes, we are the
Speaker 5: first expansion team since two thousand and eight, but we're
Speaker 5: not the last the commissioner has come out and shared
Speaker 5: that there will be many more coming, you know, and
Speaker 5: we'll stay tuned to her for those extra details. But
Speaker 5: the reality is there's no slowing down.
Speaker 3: There's no slowing down. The team was announced as the
Speaker 3: thirteenth WIBA franchise back in October, and this week you
Speaker 3: unveiled the team's brand identity. Michael Barr said it it's
Speaker 3: the Golden State Valkyries. Although I can't quite say the
Speaker 3: way that you said at Michael Barr, can you give
Speaker 3: us a little bit of background here on what was
Speaker 3: the thinking behind the Valkyries and this being a Bay
Speaker 3: Area team? Of course, you tapped your fan base for
Speaker 3: suggestions for the team through social media for instance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, being the thirteenth expansion
Speaker 5: team is a big deal and we take it with
Speaker 5: a great responsibility. And the fact that it is the
Speaker 5: Bay Area for us is something that we wanted to
Speaker 5: lean into. When you think of the Bay Area inside
Speaker 5: and outside of it, you know, it's the place where
Speaker 5: being progressive and innovative, you know, is part of the
Speaker 5: everyday culture there and often leading the world in making
Speaker 5: the impossible possible. From what we thought and so that
Speaker 5: culture of the Bay and coupled with making that something
Speaker 5: that's a nod to the Golden State basketball culture really
Speaker 5: came to the top, not only internally as a consideration
Speaker 5: with the Valkyries, but the earliest of days there was
Speaker 5: to what you were saying. We actually went out to
Speaker 5: market and we said, hey, can you write in your
Speaker 5: answers for And we did this through a local newspaper,
Speaker 5: Thisrancisco Chronicle, can you write in what the team should
Speaker 5: be called? Not a multiple choice, not anything, And twenty
Speaker 5: five percent of fans said the Valkyrise. So this name
Speaker 5: has been out there for a while, and I truly
Speaker 5: believe the reason is not only is it an incredibly
Speaker 5: strong female warrior that can fly and swim, but it's
Speaker 5: somebody that travels together. And what we're seeing in women's
Speaker 5: sports right now is the imperative nature of doing this together,
Speaker 5: whether it's fans, sponsors, media, everyone, and you know, as
Speaker 5: that ecosystem continues to spin, that's where you're seeing this
Speaker 5: forward trajectory. You know that's going to get us to
Speaker 5: a more equitable world through sport.
Speaker 4: Jess.
Speaker 2: The inaugural WNBA season tipped off back in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven June of nineteen ninety seven. You mentioned previously that
Speaker 2: you know, this is the first expansion franchise since the
Speaker 2: Atlantic Dream in two two thousand and eight. My question
Speaker 2: for you is what took it so long? Right? Is
Speaker 2: this just a byproduct of the Caitlin Clark fever that's
Speaker 2: gripping you know, women's basketball, or there's something deeper going
Speaker 2: on here.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of things that are deeper going on,
Speaker 5: and that's with no disrespect to the phenom that is
Speaker 5: Caitlin Clark and everything that she brings to the game
Speaker 5: alongside so many But when you really reflect back, this
Speaker 5: starts with title nine. You know, my generation, we thought
Speaker 5: it was normal to see women playing sports in college,
Speaker 5: and prior to that that wasn't the case. You know,
Speaker 5: so exposure to sport, continuation of sport, and so forth
Speaker 5: has been in motion for a long time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: The w it was a pivotal moment. I remember seeing
Speaker 5: that announcement come out. I think I was thirteen years
Speaker 5: old to be like, oh my gosh, like this is incredible.
Speaker 5: There's finally a professional women's basketball league here. And you know,
Speaker 5: there were a lot of learnings that came along the way.
Speaker 5: I think what you're seeing happening in real time and
Speaker 5: why you're seeing a difference in growth now, in visibility now,
Speaker 5: is that there is an understanding from consumers and investors
Speaker 5: as to what that potential is. You know, for so
Speaker 5: long you would hear like, well, if they can sell
Speaker 5: six thousand tickets, you know, that would be great, but
Speaker 5: no one was necescessarily approaching it in this way with
Speaker 5: what if we had had sold out arenas what if
Speaker 5: we built something bigger than just basketball? You know, And
Speaker 5: there's that continuous narrative of you know our NBA fans
Speaker 5: WNBA fans, Well, the NBA fans aren't coming to WNBA games.
Speaker 5: Well it's a different product. Yes, it's the same sport,
Speaker 5: but the audience is different. You know, women's sports is
Speaker 5: in women's basketball specifically, a mix of sport and purpose
Speaker 5: and pop culture. And so the opportunity to lean into
Speaker 5: is building a brand around that, inviting consumers in that
Speaker 5: want that right, and that's not always an NBA fan.
Speaker 5: In fact, we're seeing a lot of folks that aren't
Speaker 5: sports fans join the sports landscape through this lens, and
Speaker 5: that's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1: Franchise valuation for teams recently, like with the Seattle Storm,
Speaker 1: they're valued at one hundred and fifty one million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's compared to last year. That's relatively cheap compared to
Speaker 1: NBA teams. And I'm just wondering how long this is
Speaker 1: going to last before I should, like, you know, get
Speaker 1: my pennies together and get some money in this league.
Speaker 5: I mean, now that we're here, you better hurry up.
Speaker 5: But the real answer is, you know, it's not slowing down.
Speaker 5: You're seeing infrastructure built, you're seeing true investment from a
Speaker 5: broadcast standpoint. You are seeing investment from ownership groups and
Speaker 5: games and building brands like what we launched today, and
Speaker 5: it truly is going nowhere. And so when you look
Speaker 5: at team valuations, they're a compilation of all of those
Speaker 5: factors going into it, of just where they sit in
Speaker 5: the marketplace. And you know, I think I think it's
Speaker 5: the lowest that you're going to see it some time,
Speaker 5: if at all.
Speaker 3: And we should mention as well. Speaking of big numbers,
Speaker 3: the Golden State Warriors paid a record fifty million dollars
Speaker 3: to enter the WNBA. The ownership group in order to
Speaker 3: build out this expansion team. Can you talk to us
Speaker 3: a little bit about what it will mean to be
Speaker 3: partners with the Warriors and how you're going to use
Speaker 3: some of their best practices, how you're going to enhance
Speaker 3: some of their best practices.
Speaker 5: We're going to really fortunate position to have the legacy
Speaker 5: and the trust of Golden State. This ownership group has
Speaker 5: earned that. You know, everything that they do, they really
Speaker 5: do their best to be the best in the community
Speaker 5: and on the core and fans know that, and that's
Speaker 5: the trust that people inherently bring to this brand. We
Speaker 5: are partners in this, and I think that's what is
Speaker 5: going to be fun, you know, in the journey together.
Speaker 5: Mean by that is, for instance, you know, the Warriors
Speaker 5: have an incredible basketball academy. It's the largest and most
Speaker 5: diverse in the NBA. When we're thinking about that together,
Speaker 5: we're thinking about equal exposure within that. So boys and
Speaker 5: girls will have equal exposure to the WNBA with the
Speaker 5: Belkyries and the NBA with Warriors, and they're not going
Speaker 5: to be segmented by gender, right, So young boys are
Speaker 5: going to wear WNBA and young girls NBA and vice versa.
Speaker 5: And the point of that is that you know, the
Speaker 5: opportunity to really idolize all genders through sport will be
Speaker 5: very normal in our ecosystem. They have such a legacy
Speaker 5: and such resource in that nature, through that, building courts
Speaker 5: in the community, et cetera. That equal putting us know,
Speaker 5: right at the top with them is going to make
Speaker 5: a huge societal difference and really set a playbook for
Speaker 5: other DOULO.
Speaker 2: You have the Seattle Storm, you have you know, the
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Sparks. You have plenty of West Coast WNBA
Speaker 2: franchises that are uber successful. But I'm wondering, you know,
Speaker 2: if you go back to a franchise by the name
Speaker 2: of the Sacramento Monarchs, you know that wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: this isn't the first time we've tried to bring women's
Speaker 2: basketball to northern California. Is there anything to take away
Speaker 2: from that experience, anything to learn from the I guess
Speaker 2: failure of the Sacramento franchise to make it in Northern California?
Speaker 5: To be honest, No, it was such a different time,
Speaker 5: It was a different ownership group, and it was a
Speaker 5: different region. You know, there are some incredible ends that
Speaker 5: organization and kennibly, we hope that they find their way
Speaker 5: to us and become a part of the Valkyrie family.
Speaker 5: We want to be representative of not just the region,
Speaker 5: but you know, everyone who's looking for that WNBA team.
Speaker 5: But it's a really non comparable moment to what we're
Speaker 5: building today. I think the important thing to know is
Speaker 5: that we take our foot off the gas with the
Speaker 5: growthing collectively, and the foot off the gas collectively has
Speaker 5: to come from everyone, from broadcast, from fans, from brands,
Speaker 5: right fans now understand that when you buy merchandise and
Speaker 5: you buy a ticket, when you show up to games,
Speaker 5: when you share on social media accunts, when you follow athletes,
Speaker 5: that's what's driving this forward, and that's what their consumer
Speaker 5: power is being rewarded by these other entities, you know.
Speaker 5: So I think the biggest thing is just making sure
Speaker 5: that continued education of consumers, brands, and media come together
Speaker 5: for the output that we have.
Speaker 1: Toronto will be awarded the league's fourteenth franchise and that
Speaker 1: team will start to play on May twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: But this isn't going to stop at fourteen. This is
Speaker 1: going to continue to grow, and the divisions are going
Speaker 1: to grow, and then we're going to have the problems
Speaker 1: where everybody's making the playoffs like the NBA because going
Speaker 1: to have so many teams. How long do you see
Speaker 1: that happening?
Speaker 5: What a great problem to have. Yeah, you have so
Speaker 5: many times making the plays, some people wanting to see
Speaker 5: them play in that competitive landscape. Yeah, Kathy, you know,
Speaker 5: the commissioner of the WNBA has done a great job
Speaker 5: of keeping everyone posted as to the league's growth plans.
Speaker 5: And I think what's happening right now that's really special
Speaker 5: is the collaboration that you're seeing between league and the
Speaker 5: players Association and every stakeholder alongside them. And so it's
Speaker 5: a huge opportunity for growth, you know, both an expansion
Speaker 5: and other details like media.
Speaker 1: I have to ask this one last question. The new
Speaker 1: young guns are coming in and big names in the
Speaker 1: WNBA are now retiring. We're at that point now in
Speaker 1: the WNBA where we're flipping the.
Speaker 5: Page absolutely and what you saw happen at the WNBA
Speaker 5: Draft and what you're seeing through this class, it's not
Speaker 5: just Caitlin. It's numerous names that are now household names,
Speaker 5: you know coming into the WNBA. And when you look
Speaker 5: at the trajector of college basketball, that's not going to
Speaker 5: stop anytime soon, if at all. Right, So, the talent
Speaker 5: that's flooding into the league right now, with this star
Speaker 5: power to complement the incredible veterans that have been a
Speaker 5: part of this league for so long, is a really
Speaker 5: powerful moment in some ways, to your point, does feel
Speaker 5: like a change the guard. And I can't wait to
Speaker 5: see what So many of these athletes you know that
Speaker 5: do move on from the league are a part of,
Speaker 5: you know, moving forward from a commercial part you know too.
Speaker 5: But this talent pool, I mean, how many household names
Speaker 5: are also freshmen right? You hear people talk about Hannah
Speaker 5: Hidalgo and Juju Watkins and so forth. I mean that
Speaker 5: level of just knowing women's basketball and then now waiting
Speaker 5: for them to enter the drift world is bringing a
Speaker 5: lot of that consumer attention.
Speaker 1: Jess Smith, President of the Golden State Valkyries, you can
Speaker 1: have that because I'm going to give that to you
Speaker 1: when you want to like play that and you want
Speaker 1: people to walk in the room. WNBA expansion franchise for
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five season. Jess Smith, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us on the Bloomberg Business of Sports.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. We're just getting started,
Speaker 5: so look forward to keeping in touch.
Speaker 1: Our special thanks to Jess Smith, President of the Golden
Speaker 1: State Dealkyries. This has been the Bloomberg Business of Sports Show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in for my colleague Scarlett Foo
Speaker 1: and Damien Sassour. Tuning again next week for the latest
Speaker 1: on the stories moving big money in the world of sports.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio
Speaker 1: around the world.