SBJ Unpacks: Fanatics Pulls "Redskins" Merch

We have 34 days until the NFL season is scheduled to start. Under normal times, that might feel like it’s right around the corner.

But think of it this way -- counting backward on the calendar, 34 days ago was July 4. A lot can happen in five weeks, and probably will.

In the meantime, my colleague Liz Mullen has the story on a big shakeup at CAA Sports. That, and much more, below.

-- Ben Fischer

FANATICS PULLS ALL "REDSKINS"  MERCH

• Fanatics has officially pulled all of the "Redskins" merchandise from two of the NFL e-commerce sites it administers: NFLshop.com and washingtonfootball.com, the team’s own site; as well as fanatics.com, its omnibus site for licensed sports products, reports SBJ's Terry Lefton.
  
  
• All those sites are as of now offering “Washington Football Team” products, but many listings caution delayed availability, ranging up to more than a month away. Fanatics.com is now offering 223 “Washington Football Team” items, most in the team's old burgundy and gold colors; a month ago it was offering more than 2,600 items under the former name.
  
  
• Nike, Dick’s, Target, Amazon and Wal-Mart ceased selling the team's former merchandise around a month ago. A Fanatics spokesperson confirmed the change and said it was made in late July, under direction of the NFL. As of 2017, the league had a 3% equity investment in Fanatics.
  
   
   

TODD FRANCE PARTS WAYS WITH CAA SPORTS

• CAA Sports and powerful NFL agent Todd France have mutually agreed to part ways, the agency and France both confirmed to SBJ's Liz Mullen.
  
  
• France, who was co-head of CAA Football with Jimmy Sexton and Tom Condon,  joined the agency in 2015. He co-represents many high profile NFL players, including Bengals QB Joe Burrow, the No. 1 pick in this April's NFL Draft.
  
  
• France has represented multiple first round draft picks for 13 years in a row, the current longest streak for any NFL agent. 
  
   

DISNEY RAISING PRICE FOR ESPN+

• Disney is raising the price for ESPN+ by 20% as of next Wednesday, per SBJ's John Ourand. New monthly customers will be charged $5.99 per month for the streaming service, up from $4.99 per month. 
  
  
• Existing monthly subscribers will continue to pay $4.99 per month for at least a year, the company said. ESPN+ annual subscriptions will remain at $49.99 per year, and the Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu bundle will remain at $12.99 per month. 
  
  
• This marks the first price increase since ESPN+ launched in April 2018. ESPN+ reported 8.5 million subscribers as of June, up from 2.4 million in August 2019. Sports on ESPN+ this fall include MLB, boxing, UFC, soccer (Bundesliga, Serie A, FA Cup, MLS), PGA Tour, US Open tennis and college sports.
  
   

SOURCES: TICKETMASTER FURLOUGHS MORE WORKERS

• Ticketmaster furloughed more workers last week ahead of parent company Live Nation’s Q2 earnings, sources told SBJ's Karn Dhingra. 
  
  
• Sources said this latest round affects less workers than the hundreds across multiple offices in North America who were furloughed in April, though SBJ could not confirm the exact number. 
  
  
• During Live Nation’s earnings call earlier this week -- where the company saw a 98% drop in Q2 revenue compared to 2019 -- executives said they did not expect a significant amount of live events to return to the U.S. until summer 2021. Live Nation in a statement acknowledged it has launched a number of initiatives to reduce fixed costs and conserve cash amid the pandemic.

XFL DEAL SAILS THROUGH AFTER CREDITORS WIN CONCESSIONS

• The XFL acquisition sailed to approval this morning after the parties agreed to let creditors retain the right to pursue legal action against founder Vince McMahon, former Commissioner Oliver Luck, the WWE and Raine Advisors even after the sale, reports SBJ's Ben Fischer.
  
  
• The group of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital Partners will pay $15 million for the XFL’s assets. Creditors had objected to the original deal, because the right to claw back past payments to those individuals and entities would have transferred to the new buyers. The sale was renegotiated to remove those potential claims from the deal, no one objected and Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein blessed the transaction today. 
  
  
• The deal is expected to be closed by Aug. 21, but it remains an uphill battle for the XFL to be reconstituted in time for a 2021 season, insiders believe. 
  
  
• The first step is securing media rights deals -- ESPN and Fox have both said their deals with the McMahon-owned XFL would not survive under a new owner -- not to mention reconstituting team rosters, coaching staffs and league employees.

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP DRAWS BEST FIRST-ROUND AUDIENCE SINCE 2015

• ESPN drew the best opening-round viewership for the PGA Championship in five years on Thursday from Harding Park, per SBJ's Austin Karp. 
  
  
• The network, which is in the first year of a new 11-year pact to air the opening rounds, averaged 1.25 million viewers from 4:00-10:30pm ET, the best Thursday figure since TNT drew 1.396 million in 2015 from Whistling Straits in mid-August. That also marks the second-best first round in the last decade. ESPN was up 24% from last year, when TNT averaged 990,000 viewers in mid-May for a telecast from 1:00-6:00pm.
  
  
• Tampa-St. Petersburg led all local markets on Thursday, followed by West Palm Beach and host market S.F.-Oakland-San Jose. The last time the PGA Championship was held on the West Coast was in 1998 at Sahalee Country Club in Washington.

MLB SETS DIGITAL VIEWING RECORDS IN RESTART

• For the two weeks that its teams have returned to the field, MLB has set digital viewing records as users have streamed more games for longer times than any 14-day period on record, reports SBJ's John Ourand.
  
  
• Here are the key stats:
  
  
  • During this season’s first two weeks, MLB games have logged 1.3 million total unique users -- a number that is up 11% from last year’s record pace.
    
    
  • There have been 12.8 million total games watched by users (+12% over 2019; +7% over 2018, which was the previous record).
    
    
  • Users have accounted for 988.5 million total minutes watched, a figure that is up 32% from 2019.

MiLB's NEW PROPOSAL TO MLB VIEWED AS STEP BACKWARD

• Just two days after MiLB replaced its negotiating committee, the new negotiating team has "sent a proposal" to MLB which includes the "preservation of Minor League Baseball's independence with a slimmed-down version of the current league offices in St. Petersburg," according to Baseball America's J.J. Cooper.
  
  
• Supporters of the switch in negotiating teams "saw the new proposal as a way to potentially shake loose what have been slow-moving talks." Instead, the move is "more likely to slow any progress that had been made." Sources said that the new proposal is viewed by MLB as a "major step backward in attempts to complete a deal, as it hearkens back to concepts that had been fleshed out a year ago." 
  
  
• Adding to the complications, a number of MiLB owners have "directly told MLB that the new negotiating team does not represent their interests." The two sides have "not held any formal, face-to-face talks since April 22, but there have been a number of informal discussions since." Before the switch in negotiating committees, progress "appeared to be made on the conceptual framework of a deal."
  
  
• SBJ's Eric Prisbell breaks down what MiLB's latest proposal means for its recently contentious relations with the majors in the latest Instant Insight video.

OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTORS: CLEAN GAME

• Tonight's op-ed contribution is from Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America Executive Director Frank DeSocio, who writes under the header, "Bowling Stares Down Crisis Along With Old Stereotypes."
• "COVID-19 paused the entire world of sports for four months, and while some have returned to action recently, there’s one great American pastime still being held on pause or under severe restrictions: bowling. ... Our industry, as is the case for all location-based entertainment LBE businesses, is faced with an existential threat that can only be addressed by ensuring, first and foremost, the health and well-being of our customers and employees."
• To read the full contribution, click here. 

SPEED READS

• Here is more proof of the effectiveness of the bubble approach in returning to sports: the WNBA reports that of the 139 players tested for COVID-19 since the initial quarantine period in Bradenton, Fla., no player has returned a confirmed positive test. The results mirror the NBA’s testing data at Disney and MLS' bubble that has had 13 consecutive reports of zero positive COVID-19 cases also in Orlando, writes SBJ's John Lombardo. The WNBA’s single site season at the IMG Academy began on July 25 and runs through September.
  
  
• Another Cardinals player has "tested positive for COVID-19," which led MLB to postpone the team's scheduled game tonight against the Cubs, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In the past 48 hours, the team has "flown together from Milwaukee to St. Louis, practiced together twice at Busch Stadium, and returned to their homes." The Athletic's Mark Saxon: "This is problematic for a lot of reasons. Among them: the Cardinals haven't played since July 29 and already were trying to play 55 games in 52 days."
  
  
• The Lions told season-ticket holders today they still hope to provide some kind of multi-game packages to the 2020 season, though capacity at Ford Field is still being determined alongside government authorities in Michigan, writes SBJ's Ben Fischer. The team so far is resisting the step taken by at least ten NFL clubs now of simply eliminating all season tickets and shifting to single-game sales only. Lions season-ticket holders can opt out of the season with no penalty on their status, ticket location or seniority for 2021.

Download the NFL Team Ticket Refund Policies

• The SEC unveiled details of its medical protocols for fall sports, with football, volleyball and soccer players to be "tested for COVID-19 at least twice a week." Also, games "could be canceled or postponed if virus outbreaks in the local community are considered exceptionally high."
  
  
• Panthers OT Russell Okung is "evaluating whether to retire over COVID-19 concerns," per a source cited by ESPN's Jeremy Fowler. The 31-year-old Okung, who "seriously considered opting out at Thursday's deadline, is comfortable walking away from the game if he feels the football environment is not safe." He was also a stalwart opponent of the new CBA who earlier this year filed an unfair labor practices complaint against DeMaurice Smith. 

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:
   
  
  • Source: NFL Open To Using Virtual Fans In Stadiums For Game Days
  • Sharks Layoffs Not Directly Caused, But Accelerated, By Pandemic
  • U.S. Sens Question NBA Again On China Youth Academy
  • Univ. Of Illinois Projects $20M Loss, But Will Pay For Daily Testing

SBJ UNPACKS -- THE ROAD AHEAD

• Check out the most recent editions of our "SBJ Unpacks" podcasts around COVID-19:
  
  
  • NBC Sports analyst and part-time IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe on what to expect from a fan-less Indy 500.
    
    
  • Octagon's Alastair Garland on the inaugural, Top Seed Open WTA event and much more.
    
    
  • Univision/TUDN’s Marco Liceaga on Spanish-language broadcast rights for live soccer and much more.
    
    
    

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.