SBJ Media: Decision Time For Champions League Rights

I’m traveling to Los Angeles next week for our annual Sports Media & Technology conference, where I will conduct on-stage interviews with Jeff Zucker and Pete Bevacqua. Feel free to email me if there are any topics you think I should ask about.

Tonight’s newsletter is open for all! Like you what you see? We’ve got plenty more from SBJ.

PLENTY OF COMPETITION EXPECTED FOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE RIGHTS

• TV networks and tech companies have until Friday to submit bids for UEFA Champions League (UCL) media rights that current belong to Turner and Univision. Media execs expect to hear a decision within two weeks, sources said. UEFA will accept sealed bids in two days for English- and Spanish-language rights. Media companies also can bid for linear TV, digital and OTT rights. Turner currently pays more than $60 million per year as part of a three-year deal that ends in the spring of 2021. Univision pays $35 million per year for Spanish-language rights.
  
  
• Media execs tell me that they are looking at this bidding process as a bellwether for media rights that come up in the new direct-to-consumer world. Almost all media companies have showed an interest in this package, leading to more questions than answers right now.
  
  
  • Turner used UCL rights as a linchpin for the launch of its OTT service, B/R Live, back in 2018. The architect of that deal, David Levy, now is with the Nets. This is Turner’s first big sports rights decision in its post-Levy world.
    
    
  • Fox Sports held the UCL package for nine years before Turner swooped in with its deal. Fox also holds FIFA World Cup rights and has an interest in this package.
    
    
  • ESPN has been building out its own direct-to-consumer service and is viewing the UCL weekday afternoon schedule as perfect for its streaming service.
    
    
  • NBC Sports could view the UCL as a nice complement to its English Premier League package.
    
    
  • Then you have the tech companies -- Amazon, Google, et al. Could this be the package that they decide to pick off?
    
    
  • DAZN is always lurking. Could John Skipper, a big soccer fan, use the UCL to expand DAZN’s programming beyond combat sports?

Sources expect to hear a decision on the rights package within two weeks

EARNINGS CALLS: FOX TALKS UP SUPER BOWL; SINCLAIR UPDATES DISH TALKS

• It should come as little surprise that Super Bowl ad sales efforts are doing well for Fox Sports, given the increased interest in the NFL on TV this season. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch told an earnings call this afternoon that ad sales for the Feb. 2 telecast are pacing well ahead of where the network was at three years ago, the last time Fox carried the game. In response to a question from BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research’s Jessica Reif Ehrlich, Murdoch added that Fox has sold out of its "A" positions and will set a pricing record on this year’s ads. Last year, CBS sold some of its 30-second ads at a record rate of $5.3 million and sold its last Super Bowl ad just hours before kickoff.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said his company still is talking with Dish Network about reinstating carriage of its 20-plus RSNs, which the satellite distributor dropped in July. But from the sound of Ripley’s remarks, it doesn’t sound like a deal is imminent. During an earnings call, Ripley said the RSNs would be part of Sinclair’s broadcast negotiations. I’m told Sinclair’s broadcast channel deals expire early next year. Ripley: “Either we come to a deal with Dish, or their relevance to the industry will be reduced over time. Dish forgoing the RSNs is the equivalent, from a viewership perspective, of forgoing the top 10 entertainment programs combined.”

DAZN COMFORTABLE WITH DECISION TO DELAY VEGAS BOUT

• I received some grief after I appeared on Richard Deitsch’s podcast yesterday defending DAZN’s decision to delay Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev fight until after UFC 244 ended. The decision, which resulted in a boxing match that started at 1:18am ET, was widely panned in the consumer and boxing press. A good source of mine laughed at my suggestion that the decision helped increase DAZN’s subscriber count. “Do you really think the subscribers they gained was worth all that negative press?” My source is right. The bad press isn’t worth it. I’d be surprised if DAZN ever starts a boxing match so late -- or has such a long delay in between matches -- again.
  
  
• I called a source at DAZN today to get the company's thinking. The source said DAZN execs are not second guessing the decision. “We will always make the decision that best serves the fan. That is what this was,” the source said. DAZN would not say how many subscribers the streaming service gained on Saturday, but said it was a significant number. “We saw that it worked,” my DAZN source said. “Nate Diaz fans came right over after the fight. It was instant feedback that it clearly was the right decision.”
  
  
• Believing that a lot of fight fans wanted to see both matches in full, DAZN execs reached out to Endeavor’s Mark Shapiro and UFC's Dana White earlier in the week to see if UFC wanted to cooperate in staggering the start times to their main events. They both liked the idea. Because the Diaz-Jorge Masvidal fight was in Madison Square Garden and the Alvarez-Kovalev fight was in MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, DAZN decided its boxing match would follow the UFC one.
  
  
• The plan hit a snag when Ryan Garcia knocked out Romero Duno in the first round, leading to the hour-and-a-half delay between boxing matches. DAZN execs maintain that if the Garcia fight had gone the distance, it would have ended around 12:30 am ET, in the middle of the Diaz-Masvidal UFC fight. Because the fight ended so early, boxing fans had to wait more than 90 minutes between matches. DAZN felt like it could not move the Alvarez fight up to precede the Diaz one because it had spent Friday and Saturday marketing the fact that it would start after the Diaz fight. Canelo wound up walking into the ring at 12:50am ET, five minutes after the Diaz fight ended.
  

SPEED READS

• How happy was ESPN to have Cowboys-Giants on "Monday Night Football" for the first time since 2010? Despite a lopsided score, the matchup delivered 14.1 million viewers, easily the network's best broadcast of the season. It's the third-best "MNF" audience since the start of the 2016 season.
   
• Some numbers that stood out from Digiday's look at The Players' Tribune amid its possible sale: The company this year "published an average of 47 posts per month on Facebook and 18 posts per month on Instagram." On YouTube, it has "published an average of fewer than 10 posts per month." IMG Tennis Social Media Manager Kami Mattioli: "No brand is immune from an ineffective social media strategy -- 18 posts a month on IG for a large media company is … not great."
  
  
• Buried in today’s ESPN press release announcing its XFL broadcast teams are a couple of cool nuggets. ESPN will use coordinating producer Bill Bonnell to oversee XFL productions. Eighteen years ago, Bonnell was a senior coordinating producer at NBC where he was in charge of production for, you guessed it, the original XFL. ESPN also deserves some credit for picking Mandy Cohen to produce XFL games on Sundays. It’s exceedingly rare to have a woman in that position.
  
  
• Longtime media agent Sandy Montag tonight will receive the Marty Glickman Award for Leadership in Sports Media on the Syracuse campus. Longtime CBS Sports announcer Ian Eagle, last year's recipient, will present.

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of college sports. Also check out SBJ Football with Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the Media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).