The Las Vegas Grand Prix delivered "one of the best races of the F1 season" on Saturday. Max Verstappen continued his F1 dominance with his 18th win of the season in front of 315,000 fans at the Las Vegas Street Circuit, which was "illuminated by the neon lights of Las Vegas Boulevard with the iconic Strip serving as the backdrop." The race also "delivered on all the glamour it promised," as actors, athletes, musicians and other celebrities "filled the pit building, and a red carpet was placed along the southern entrance." However, it was “far from a perfect race weekend" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 11/19).

The “much-maligned” Las Vegas GP “crossed the finish line in style” on Saturday. On a "crisp and clear Nevada night," even the race's biggest critic -- Verstappen -- “had to admit that it was a success.” Verstappen raised eyebrows last week when he was "critical of the spectacle surrounding the race and even the crowds themselves." But he "pulled a U-turn after Saturday’s triumph." Verstappen while standing in the winner’s circle as the Bellagio fountains danced in the background said, “A great crowd. I hope everyone enjoyed it, we definitely did. Excited to come back here next year and try to do something similar” (REUTERS, 11/19).

Driver Charles Leclerc said that the first Las Vegas GP is "exactly what Formula One needed from its glitzy new event" after it attracted criticism earlier in the week. Leclerc: "I really enjoyed it. I think we needed it. Of course, the weekend didn't start the way it had to start, but I'm so happy that it ended that way. It's such an incredible sport. I think today, there was no better race than our first race in Vegas” (ESPN.com, 11/19). Driver Lewis Hamilton said, “I really wasn't expecting the track to be so great but the more and more laps you did I just really loved racing it. Lots of great overtaking opportunities and I think for all those who were so negative about the weekend, saying it was all about show blah blah blah, I think Vegas proved them wrong” (SKY SPORTS, 11/19).

The Sphere was one of the Las Vegas landmarks that featured on the Las Vegas Grand Prix circuitGetty Images

A class action lawsuit has been filed against the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix after fans were ”forced to leave Thursday’s practice session following an hour-long delay.” The suit filed Friday in Nevada District Court was on behalf of “35,000 fans who purchased tickets to Thursday’s practice run.” Five individuals were named as plaintiffs in the suit, which is “seeking over $15,000 in compensatory and general damages.” Just nine minutes after Thursday’s practice session began, a water valve cover came loose and damaged multiple F1 drivers’ vehicles. That led to a 2½-hour delay, with a 90-minute second practice session beginning at 2:30am PT Friday. Fans were “forced by police and security officers to leave at 1:30 a.m. Friday” and “weren’t able to watch the session” (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 11/18).

The Las Vegas GP website said that ticket sales “may be refunded if admission is revoked or refused without cause, venues reach capacity limits that result in ticket cancellations or the event is cancelled and not rescheduled.” Dimopoulos Law Firm's press release “targets that amongst other issues,” saying that even if ticket prices are refunded, “no offer has been made to reimburse them for other expenses such as transportation, lodging and food” (LAS VEGAS SUN, 11/18).

F1 issued an “unapologetic statement to fans and offered those with single-day tickets a $200 voucher to spend on race merchandise” in an attempt to "explain the events of the chaotic opening night” of the event. F1 went on to “brush off the disastrous opening day by comparing it to other failed sport and entertainment events,” stating that "it happens." In another statement posted on Friday night, “again which did not include an apology,” F1 confirmed anyone who had a one-day ticket for Friday “would receive a voucher for race merchandise.” There has been “no refund or discount announced for anyone who purchased a three-day ticket” (ESPN.com, 11/17).

LAS VEGAS -- While there have been concerns over whether demand has met supply for the inaugural F1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix, Sports Illustrated says it has no such problem for its Club SI hospitality. Authentic Brands Group, the owner of SI, has been leveraging F1’s growing U.S. popularity in recent seasons to enhance the journalism brand’s reputation and, in turn eventually, its revenue and relevancy.

For Vegas, Authentic expected about 700 a people a day to attend Club SI at the race track and a couple thousand more to attend some of its various events around the city, like a concert by the Chainsmokers at the Wynn on Thursday. A three-day ticket for Club SI cost $7,000 and included trackside views, two VIP areas, premium F&B, and appearances by celebrities and SI swimsuit models. Previously, Club SI has been set up at Circuit of the Americas in Austin and the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

Authentic Brands Group Exec Vice Chair Dan Dienst said the company spent over $1M to set up the Club SI chalet in Vegas, more than it typically spends on Club SI buildouts. The company has found that “our loyal readers, followers and friends of Authentic across all of our pillars really like the (Club SI) product, so it brings a bit of heat to the brand and it’s been a lot of fun to the various constituents in and around SI. When we bought SI about 4 ½ years ago, we didn’t do it just because there was a skinny kid waiting at the mailbox for an issue to arrive every week. We bought it because we knew it was the most trusted brand in sports.”

Among the guests at Club SI on Saturday were Authentic Brand Group business partners David Beckham and Shaquille O’Neal, while an SI Swimsuit event there on Friday included appearances by former NFLer Emmitt Smith, WNBA player Sabrina Ionescu and several SI swimsuit models.

The PGA Tour will make a significant shift in how its tournament purses are funded in the 2025 season as prize money pools continue to rise, sources told SBJ last week. The Tour held a call with more than 50 tournament officials on Tuesday, and on it discussed a new funding model that would see the tournaments put up an additional fee that would go toward event purses, sources said.

Tournaments and title sponsors already pay money that goes toward purses, in varying degrees depending on the event, but now the Tour is asking for more. No specific figures were given; sources on the call said the Tour would be contacting each event to talk through details on how and why the changes are being made in the coming weeks.

The fee sought from each event is expected to change based on each market, with larger markets commanding bigger fees, sources said. The Tour is working on a three-year plan starting in 2025. In the first year, events will be asked to pay 50% of the fee. That number will increase in 2026, with a plan for events to be paying the full fee by 2027.

The Tour also is seeking a piece of revenue from events, again depending on market and event size, to boost purses. The Tour is holding in-person meetings with tournament directors in the first week of December in California, where the new plan is expected to be a focal point.

The PGA Tour will begin asking tournaments for an additional purse fee starting in the 2025 seasongetty images

Lead NBC golf analyst Paul Azinger is "no longer" with the network, ending his five years there. Azinger chose "not to discuss specifics as to why another contract wasn’t done." But he said that it was a "mixture of disappointment and surprise." He added he was "supposed to do" the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas the first week of December. It is "not know who would be working alongside NBC host Dan Hicks" for the event. With Azinger's departure, NBC has "parted ways with three of its more notable voices in the last calendar year," with the contracts of Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch also not renewed (AP, 11/19).

Celtics F Jaylen Brown "took aim at the quality of the special In-Season Tournament courts” after he "slipped and hurt his groin with eight seconds left" in the team's win over the Raptors on Friday. Brown: “The court was just slippery all game. I think, as players, we’re all here for the In-Season Tournament because it’s going to generate revenue, excitement, competition, but we’ve got to make sure the floor is safe to play on. We can’t put our players out there and risk their health.” Brown added he thought the floor on Friday was “unacceptable” as players were “slipping all over the place.” Brown said he had "heard some of the other guys mention they were slipping around, other teams in different places in the league." He added the NBA needs to “make sure that’s the emphasis before somebody gets seriously hurt” (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/18).

Brown and Raptors F Precious Achiuwa “joined a chorus of players who have raised concerns” about the in-season tournament courts. On Tuesday, Mavericks G Luka Doncic said that the Pelicans purple-and-green court at the Smoothie King Center was “really bad.” Pacers G Tyrese Haliburton said that Gainbridge Fieldhouse’s blue-and-yellow court was “definitely slick to start” during the teams Nov. 3 victory over the Cavaliers. While slipperiness has “been the most common complaint,” the rollout of the 30 new courts has “led to other problems.” The Mavericks’ greyscale tournament court “wasn’t available for the team’s first home in-season tournament game because of a 'manufacturing issue,'” and the Nuggets’ blue-and-yellow court had to be fixed because the three-point line was “initially painted at the wrong distance” (WASHINGTON POST, 11/18). 

The NBA is requiring Hornets G LaMelo Ball to "cover a tattoo below his left ear" that the league "insists violates rules against exposing commercial logos on players’ bodies." Ball's tattoo features the initials “LF,” which is "short for LaFrance -- his middle name, and now, his clothing brand." Sources said that Ball began "covering it up prior to Tuesday’s loss to Miami to avoid league fines." He also had it "covered for Friday nights in-season tournament game" against the Bucks. The sides are "expected to keep discussing short- and long-term resolutions to the issue." Ball has had a similar tattoo on his left hand, although it was "far less conspicuous than the new impression under his left ear that caught the league's attention in the preseason" (ESPN.com, 11/18).

Notre Dame and NBC Sports signed a multiyear extension to "air Notre Dame football home games through the 2029 season." Along with games on NBC, one home game per year will "stream exclusively on Peacock,” which has been the case since the 2021 season. A new, annual documentary series on the ND football program will "stream on Peacock as well, beginning with the 2024 campaign." Peacock also streams all ND hockey games (SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE, 11/18).

ND AD Jack Swarbrick said that the new agreement "'very much' reinforces Notre Dame’s independence" in football. The agreement was “finalized ahead of schedule by about a year,” due to Big Ten expansion and NBC’s addition of other college football programming from that conference. Those events “triggered an early negotiation window” between the school and the network. Swarbrick, who is set to retire in 2024, will be succeeded by NBC Sports Chair Pete Bevacqua. Swarbrick said that negotiations on the new deal began when Bevacqua was "still there as chairman of NBC Sports,” then he "recused himself after it was announced that he was moving to his alma mater as AD" (SI, 11/18).

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Notre Dame women’s basketball traveled to the nation’s capital for the weekend to take part in the annual Citi Shamrock Classic. This year’s neutral site showcase, held in conjunction with Notre Dame Global Partnerships, was staged at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in D.C., where the Irish battled Illinois. That comes after Notre Dame played Cal last year in the inaugural event in St. Louis’ Enterprise Center. Notre Dame’s 79-68 victory was the opening act for a full afternoon of Fighting Irish athletics being broadcast on NBC, as the Wake Forest-Notre Dame football game followed the hoops matchup.

Notre Dame Global Partnerships GM Sean Wallis credited Citi’s involvement in putting the event on network TV for a second-straight year, adding it “took a total of one conversation” with NBC to have them onboard for another year. Last year’s event marked the first time NBC had ever broadcast a collegiate women’s basketball game on its flagship channel. But Wallis said the neutral-site game is about more than basketball, as the goal was to replicate the football programs Shamrock Series event.

Citi Interim-CMO Tina Davis said Citi has made a “conscious decision” to use their sponsorship of the event as a “platform to build gender equity” in the athletics sphere. Davis noted Notre Dame is the financial institution’s first women’s collegiate sponsorship, adding the “more visible” Citi and others can make women’s athletics, the “more likely other institutions, professional leagues and television networks” will follow suit in creating more equality in sports.

The two teams were treated to a leadership luncheon on Friday at Nationals Park, where Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey and Illinois coach Shauna Green spoke to a packed room. The coaches were also joined by Monumental Sports & Entertainment Vice Chair (and Illinois alum) Shelia Johnson, Citi Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer and Global Head of Talent Erika Irish Brown, Nationals CMO Kimberly Bolt and Atlantic 10 Associate Commissioner for Women’s Basketball Candy Cage. After lunch both teams visited the National Mall, before touring the National Museum of African American History and Culture with D.C. youth groups, as part of a community service initiative presented by Gatorade.

Notre Dame women’s basketball faced Illinois at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in D.C.Fighting Irish Media

Most of ESPN’s accounts were "inactive" on Saturday after Disney announced on Friday that it was "done advertising on X," formerly Twitter. A handful of the accounts "had some activity," but as of this morning, the accounts for the NBA on ESPN, First Take and ESPN Plus have "not posted, replied, or liked anything since at least Friday." The main ESPN account has so far only made one repost since Friday, while NFL on ESPN posted once and made on repost so far today. Other accounts, like  ESPN FC, ESPN College Football and SportsCenter, "each posted or reposted once yesterday," while some, like the ESPN Desportes and ESPN PR accounts, "were active throughout the day." Disney’s X accounts were "similarly silent, as were others the company owns," like the Marvel Entertainment account (THE VERGE, 11/19).

The Pac-12’s two remaining schools, Washington State and Oregon State, won a “small but significant victory” Friday when the Washington Supreme Court granted their request to “expedite the review of a case that will determine control of the conference.” WSU and OSU are facing a “fast-approaching deadline” for resolution of their lawsuit against the conference and the 10 departing schools: the opening of the transfer portal on Dec. 4. With their “futures in doubt and their players coveted by other schools,” WSU and OSU asked the Supreme Court to “move quickly in setting the briefing schedule” for its review of the Univ. of Washington’s emergency motion to stay a lower court’s ruling that gave WSU and OSU control of the conference’ governing board. The new timeline should give WSU and OSU “some clarity on their futures prior to the start of college football’s version of free agency” (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 11/17). 

Before the Kraken released their winter classic jersey design themselves, the Jazz “unveiled photos of their players wearing what looks suspiciously like Seattle’s Winter Classic jerseys” on X. The photos showed C Walter Kessler and F John Collins “wearing them," presumably walking into the Delta Center before Friday’s in-season tournament game against the Suns. Both the Kraken’s and NHL’s accounts “were tagged” in the post, “lending legitimacy to this assumed leak.” The Jazz are an “unlikely source” to leak the jersey, as there are “no obvious ties between the two teams.” The Kraken will host the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Park on Jan. 1 for the annual NHL Winter Classic (SEATTLE TIMES, 11/17). 

Monumental Sports & Entertainment founder & CEO Ted Leonsis and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver “preached the need for constant innovation” during a joint appearance Friday as the Univ. of Maryland’s Merrill School of Journalism held its annual Povich Symposium. Much of the conversation revolved around Leonsis’ “core belief” in the “unifying power of sports in a perpetually divided world.” Both Leonsis and Silver pointed to a “higher calling” and pegged “increased globalization of basketball as core to the game and the business.” Leonsis, who chairs the NBA’s Media Committee, said that there is “no stasis in business -- you are either growing or losing.” Silver said that he considers one of the NBA’s “core strengths” to be the “permanence of its brand, tied with a willingness to welcome change in distribution and improvements in the game itself.” From a business perspective, Leonsis said that the NBA is a “digital-first data company.” He added that the “escalating franchise values” are “recognition of this power” (MEDIUM, 11/18).

D.C. United hired Nashville SC Assistant GM Ally Mackay as its GM & Chief Soccer Officer. Mackay, who served in his role with Nashville the past four seasons, will "essentially replace" United Sporting Dir & President of Soccer Operations Dave Kasper, who has "supervised most roster moves" (WASHINGTON POST, 11/17).

Liga MX club Club América and LaLiga club Barcelona will clash on December 21 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to "benefit the people affected by Hurricane Otis, which caused serious damage to the port of Acapulco" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 11/17).

The Florida Supreme Court on Friday "rejected a request by two pari-mutuel companies to halt online sports betting offered by the Seminole Tribe while a broader legal battle plays out" (NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA, 11/17).

Networking company Extreme Networks is partnering with the Flyers and Jets to deploy its Extreme Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E-ready solutions at Wells Fargo Center and Canada Life Centre to improve fan experiences, streamline arena operations and gain insights to create more personalized fan experiences and sponsorship opportunities (Extreme Networks). 

"We are going to be as helpful as we can be to both schools, and to the other conferences and schools they’re talking to, as they work to put together a structure going forward. ... We will do whatever we can to help these folks figure it out because they’re great institutions" -- NCAA President Charlie Baker, on the future of Washington State and Oregon State as the two remaining Pac-12 members (Spokane SPOKESMAN-REVIEW, 11/17).

“Everyone knows, including [MLB Commissioner] Rob Manfred, that Las Vegas would’ve been a very good expansion city for the MLB. But to rip the hearts out of Oakland’s suffering sports fans was beyond demonic" -- Former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, on the MLB owners’ vote to approve the A's relocation to Las Vegas (San Jose MERCURY NEWS, 11/19).

The N.Y. TIMES goes with, "Swedish Soccer Prioritized Fans Over Finances. Now, Business Is Booming." Over the last 30 years, soccer has become "so financially stratified that many domestic tournaments are little more than monthslong processions for the wealthiest teams." Sweden, though, is "different, a solitary beacon of competitive balance." The game’s dynamic "changed drastically as money rushed into soccer in the 1990s, first from broadcasters, then private investors, and finally oligarchs, corporations and nation states." The riches created a "new class of unassailable domestic powerhouses." For Sweden, as for many countries outside Europe’s major television markets, it was “impossible to keep up.” Instead of "grasping at shadows, Sweden’s response was -- effectively -- to opt out." In 1999, the country "enshrined in law a rule that 51 percent of its sports teams had to be owned by their members: the fans." Now Swedish soccer is a "picture of health." It has had 11 different champions in 20 years. Attendances have "doubled in the last decade; this year brought record crowds." The league’s revenues have "tripled in the same period."

Also:

• Word on the street is that street hockey is making a comeback.
• For the PWHL, waiting a year might have been the smarter play. But there’s a good reason for the mad dash.
• Give the NBA In-Season Tournament a chance before dismissing it as bad idea.

Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will wear these ‘Viva Las Vegas’ race suits in homage to Elvis Presley’s signature Las Vegas jumpsuit during the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix. The suits will later find a new home at Graceland. pic.twitter.com/XQLWrpch7M

— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 18, 2023

I hate to complain about the YouTube TV multiview but its options right now a total disaster.

— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoAP) November 18, 2023

NYE-worthy fireworks display on the Strip after the podium ceremony. pic.twitter.com/EGTvYGZsWT

— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) November 19, 2023

Kirk Herbstreit left Harrisonburg Va. on a flight at 9:44a PT and lands in Corvallis at 2:45p PT.

Long day.

He’ll be on the ABC call at 4:30p w Chris Fowler.

It ain’t his fault. Thinking Herbstreit would have rather walked from GameDay to the UW-OSU game.

— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) November 18, 2023

Update: it’s been 5+ hours since this moment. I rushed straight to the airport after the game for a cross country flight…so my hair is still in a stinky, damp bun and my skin is sticky and smells like purple Gatorade. Quite literally, still in this moment 😅 https://t.co/QijVjaj9o0

— Molly McGrath (@MollyAMcGrath) November 19, 2023