SBJ Unpacks: XFL Sale Far From Done Deal

While the effectiveness of "bubbles" as a way to safely bring sports back is becoming increasingly clear, the jury remains out on less extreme methods as MLB deals with two major outbreaks.

In the latest development, the league canceled the inaugural Field of Dreams Game on Aug. 13 in Iowa as it works to successfully get the seasons of the Marlins and Cardinals back on track over the next couple weeks.

Meanwhile, the $15 million purchase of the XFL by partners including RedBird Capital Partners, Dwayne "The Rock'' Johnson and Dany Garcia with hopes for a 2021 season hit a potential snag as creditors say they think they can get more money from insiders and other business partners.

-- Adam Stern

OPPOSITION TO XFL SALE COULD FORCE DELAY, CHANGES

• A creditors’ committee has objected this afternoon to the proposed sale of the XFL announced earlier today, SBJ’s Ben Fischer reports, saying it should not include possible civil actions the league could have pursued but hasn’t yet. If successful, the creditors could force a delay and even substantial changes to the agreed upon price of $15 million plus assumption of liabilities and up to $8.5 million to settle old claims.
  
  
• In short, the creditors claim the league could get money back from insiders or other business partners that exceeds $15 million. They claim to have found “substantial potential causes of actions against insiders,” (including, they claim, Vince McMahon) such as “questionable loan transactions” that "could form a significant source of recovery for the Debtor’s many aggrieved creditors.” Also, they point to earlier financial statements showing $60 million worth of “potentially avoidable and recoverable” transfers before the bankruptcy.
  
  
• Even if this does not ultimately derail the sale, a delay could prove problematic for the new owners, a group that includes RedBird Capital Partners, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Dany Garcia. Garcia told ESPN today they are planning on execution for a 2021 season, for which planning would have to begin soon.

If successful, the creditors could force a delay and even substantial changes to the agreed upon price of $15 million

MLB CANCELS INAUGURAL FIELD OF DREAMS GAME

• As MLB continues to grapple with independent outbreaks within the Marlins and Cardinals organizations, another marquee event has now been impacted: The Field of Dreams Game on Aug. 13 has been canceled, writes SBJ's Eric Prisbell.
  
  
• The inaugural game in Dyersville, Iowa, was slated to match the White Sox against the Cardinals, who have now seen seven players and six staff members test positive in the last week. The cancellation was first reported by The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, and the game is expected to take place in 2021.
  
  
• What's more, the scheduled four-game series (Aug. 4-6) between the Cardinals and the Tigers has been postponed. The earliest the Cardinals, who remain in Milwaukee, will resume their season is Friday at home against the Cubs. The club has not taken the field since last Wednesday against the Twins.  Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak earlier today told MLB Network, "We’re going to do everything we can to try to play (moving forward). The morale up here is good, all things considered. I do think people are tired of sitting in their room, but you’ve got to put safety first.”

JETER ACKNOWLEDGES "FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY" 

• Marlins CEO Derek Jeter this afternoon addressed the outbreak within the organization, which has seen 18 players and two staff members test positive, writes SBJ's Eric Prisbell. Jeter acknowledged that two players had left the team hotel in Atlanta to get coffee or clothes and to have dinner at a teammate's house before the outbreak. He said players did not go to bars or clubs or engage in salacious activity, adding Marlins players "were not running all around town after a game in Atlanta."
  
  
• Calling the outbreak a wake-up call, Jeter also acknowledged some members of the traveling party "had a false sense of security." Of those infected, Jetter said the range in severity is from asymptomatic to mildly symptomatic. 
  
  
• Jeter: "What it boiled down to, guys were around each other, they got relaxed and let their guard down. They were getting together in groups, they weren't wearing masks as much as they should have. They weren't social distancing. The entire traveling party got a little too comfortable. Should they have been doing that? No. And that's been addressed. The entire traveling party is responsible for not following protocols as instructed, that includes coaches, staff and players. Everyone has seen the impact."

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM IN NBA CIRCLES AFTER SMOOTH RESTART

• The NBA successfully completed the first weekend of its season restart, as months of intense planning so far have paid off for the league. Magic CEO Alex Martins, a member of the league’s restart committee, told SBJ’s John Lombardo that he’s been pleased with the early execution at Disney. 
  
  
• “The league, with Adam Silver’s leadership and his team, have just done a tremendous job of planning and executing upon this campus community at Disney. Whether it’s the health and safety protocols or all of the practice accommodations, weight rooms, all of the activities for the players to keep them busy during off times, all the logistics have really been tremendous.” 

• Martins said that while it is very early in the restart, there have been no positive tests in the first two weeks of the bubble, giving rise to cautious optimism within the league. “Fortunately, thus far, and we certainly hope it continues, it has been quite successful,” he said, “The games have come off really well. They’ve shown well on television. I think there is great virtual fan interaction. We hope we are able maintain that, but there is a long way to go."
  
  
• For more from Martins on the NBA's return, check out the latest episode of the SBJ Unpacks podcast.

NHL: ZERO POSITIVE CASES SINCE TEAMS ENTERED HUB CITIES

• The NHL today said that it has had zero positive COVID-19 cases since players entered the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton on July 26. Between July 27-Aug. 1, the league revealed it administered 7,013 tests, which included daily tests of players and each team's 52-member party.
  
  
• Other leagues have had similar success inside their own respective bubbles, albeit they’re further along than the NHL or have completed their tournament entirely, writes SBJ's Mark J. Burns. The NWSL had zero positive cases during its month-long Challenge Cup in Utah. That included 2,000-plus tests. Since FC Dallas and Nashville SC left the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando, MLS released 11 consecutive reports of zero positive cases, a time span over three weeks. The NBA also released back-to-back reports of zero players testing positive.

NFL CLUBS DEVELOP SPECIFIC COVID PRECAUTIONS

• NFL clubs are utilizing a wide variety of safety precautions to increase the likelihood of beginning (and completing) the upcoming season. 

• Below is a roundup of what some teams have put into practice.
  
  
  • The Dolphins recently became the first NFL franchise to "install a series of new air purification devices throughout their team headquarters designed to wipe out the coronavirus before it lands on a surface or ends up in their players' lungs," according to the Miami Herald's Adam Beasley. The team is "using one of the safest -- and most natural -- disinfectants on the planet: ultraviolet rays." Over the coming weeks and months, a company called Healthe Lighting -- which includes Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross among its investors -- "will retrofit the team's facility with a series of UV-C lights and filters that the business says can eliminate virtually all of the coronavirus in the environment."
    
    
  • The Cowboys formed a "COVID-19 task force" three months ago, and the group of 10 to 12 employees from various departments has "met at least twice a week, utilizing data analysis and metrics from the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network and consulting with epidemiologists from the Baylor Scott & White Health system," according to the Dallas Morning News' David Moore.
    
    
  • The Tampa Bay Times' Eduardo Encina reported each Buccaneers player, coach and staff member "will wear a radio frequency-based tracking device to warn them when they are too close to each other." The device, "called SafeZone, is made by German-based company Kinexon."
    
    
  • Finally, the Saints beginning Wednesday have "contracted with the Loews Hotel to rent four floors of the fashionable borderline French Quarter hotel, so that most of the team's 100 Tier 1 and 2 employees (all but some of the team doctors, cafeteria workers and security people) and many of the players would be able to quasi-quarantine in the luxe hotel till opening day."

CHASE CENTER LATEST ARENA TO GAIN FACILITY ACCREDITATION

• The Warriors' Chase Center is the third major U.S. sports arena to gain the Global Biorisk Advisory Council's STAR facility accreditation, considered the venue management industry's gold standard for cleaning, disinfection and infectious disease prevention protocols at facilities, writes SBJ's Karn Dhingra. 
  
  
• The accreditation verifies that Chase Center has adopted best practices to prepare for, respond to and recover from outbreaks and pandemics. To receive the rating, the venue had to comply with the program’s 20 core elements, which range from risk assessment strategies to personal protective equipment and emergency preparedness and response measures.  
  
  
• Chase Center joins L.A.'s Staples Center, Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium and 24 other facilities in the U.S. to gain the GBAC’s highest rating, which is a division of ISSA, the worldwide cleaning industry association. Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field has committed to becoming a GBAC STAR accredited venue. Other a facilities pursuing accreditation include Chicago’s McCormick Place and Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif. 

The accreditation verifies that Chase Center has adopted best practices to prepare for, respond to and recover from outbreaks and pandemics

OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTORS: RECONCILING SPONSORSHIP VALUE

• Tonight's op-ed contribution is from Matt Pensinger, managing director & Senior VP at brand experience agency Jack Morton, who writes under the header, "Fixing Sponsorship Disruption Starts With Finding The Floor."
  
  
• "If you’re a brand with a sponsorship portfolio, the confirmation of a return to sports from numerous professional leagues and associations has likely caused two equal and opposite reactions: excitement and anxiety. A spark of joy and excitement comes from major sports properties returning to play. Even if it is without fans or at a neutral site. The surge of anxiety is because it’s finally time to push through the complicated process to reconcile the value and costs associated with sponsorships."
  
  
• To read the full contribution, click here.

SPEED READS

• The NFL held its first series of meetings with CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN two months ago in Foxborough to assess the market for its media rights. The upshot is that all the networks want to stay in business with the league, essentially keeping the packages that they already have. Both NFL and media execs believe the league will get huge increases -- possibly more than 50% on the average annual value of the deals -- in spite of the pandemic. Tonight in SBJ Media, check out John Ourand's three takeaways from those meetings.

• The first golf major in over a year will tee off Thursday morning at San Francisco's Harding Park, but "like the PGA Tour schedule, this PGA Championship is fundamentally diminished by circumstance," writes Golfweek's Eamon Lynch. He writes, "How can it not be? Some players declined to travel to compete given the risks. Media has been largely confined to remote coverage, lowering the typically glaring klieg lights in which some players wilt. Then there’s the absence of galleries that both (Rory) McIlroy and (Brooks) Koepka have lamented." 
  
  
• SBJ's Austin Karp reports Flyers-Bruins on NBC yesterday "averaged 1.45 million viewers (TV+streaming)." That marks the third-best NHL game this season after Canadiens-Penguins on Saturday (1.57 million), and the Winter Classic (1.97 million). Flyers-Bruins was also up 35% compared to NBC's NHL season average to date.
  
  
• The Raiders’ first season in Las Vegas "will be played at an empty Allegiant Stadium." With COVID-19 "dramatically reducing the level of fan attendance across the NFL and sports," Raiders Owner Mark Davis today in an email to fans announced there "will be no fan participation at all this year rather than playing games at a sparsely filled Allegiant Stadium in which thousands of season-ticket holders would be left out in the cold." The Las Vegas Review-Journal's Vincent Bonsignore has more details.
  
  
• NFL Panthers GM Marty Hurney, appearing on Charlotte-based WFNZ-AM, articulated how difficult it is for the team to bring in free agents ahead of training camp. "You can't bring a player in for a workout right now so the only thing you can do is bring a player in for a visit and they can't go into the building. They have to go to a doctor's office and then COVID testing."
  
  

• The Ringer's Rodger Sherman writes under the header, "College Football’s Great Facade Is Cracking -- and the Fracture Could Reshape the Sport." Schools and conferences across the country are "scrambling to figure out how to play a football season during a pandemic." Sherman: "Their decisions will define 2020. They will also reveal how this sport really works."
  
  
• World TeamTennis wrapped up its shortened season yesterday at The Greenbrier resort, and the N.Y. Times' Christopher Clarey noted the league "helped itself this season." Clarey: "Strengthened its niche by taking a chance bringing 9 teams to a single site in midst of a pandemic. With dearth of sports programming, got some consistent TV coverage & got network TV for (yesterday's) final." One more lasting positive for the WTT? There were zero positive COVID tests reported over the league's three-week run this summer.

NEWS YOU NEED FROM SPORTS BUSINESS DAILY

• During this crisis impacting the sports business, we want everyone to be up-to-date on the latest news and information. Select stories from Sports Business Daily are free, outside the paywall, for the foreseeable future. Below are today's headlines:
   
  
  • Pac-12 Player Group Latest Threat To Playing '20 Football Season
  • MLB, Union Close To Agreement On Stricter Safety Protocols
  • Bettman: Format, Protocols Allow NHLers To Feel Safe In Bubbles

SBJ UNPACKS -- THE ROAD AHEAD

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • Magic CEO Alex Martins on playing in the bubble and what could come next for his team and the NBA.
    
    
  • MSG Networks’ Kevin Marotta on the net’s new fan-engagement initiatives.
    
    
  • Snap's Anmol Malhotra on how the sports industry can create more effective content catered to young people.
    
    
    
    

Something related to coronavirus and sports business catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it.