SBJ Unpacks: Requiem for the Pac

Tonight in Unpacks: The Pac-12 is in dire straits as Arizona, Arizona State and Utah have formally applied to join Colorado in the Big 12 and the Big 10 has officially accepted Oregon and Washington, who join USC and UCLA in the conference. This is all in the wake of the Pac-12's failure to secure a competitive media rights deal, leaving just Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State (for now) in the conference for the 2024 season. Other headlines:

In this morning's Buzzcast, SBJ’s David Albright caps off the week with:

Arizona, Arizona State and Utah have submitted formal applications to join the Big 12 in 2024, reported The Athletic, and the Big 10 said it accepted Oregon and Washington, leaving the Pac-12 with just Cal, Oregon State, Stanford and Washington State for the 2024 academic season -- losing eight members in less than a year after failing to make a media-rights agreement.

The Athletic said that the Big 12 is meeting tonight and is “expected to accept the three new members.” If accepted, the three universities would join Colorado as schools that have left the Pac-12 for the Big 12.

The addition of Oregon and Washington gives Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti a big win after the conference hired him in late April. The Big 10 said the two schools would compete in all sports in the 2024-25 academic year.

While Oregon’s announcement said that “in coming years, [Oregon] will prioritize the long-held traditions, including competition across all sports with Oregon State,” preserving the traditional Civil War between the state’s top football schools, Beavers AD Scott Barnes was “furious” about the move.

“The best interest of the student athlete hasn't been served,” he told the Oregonian’s Nick Daschel.

The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach tweeted that Washington President Ana Mari said, “Even with this move, we remain committed to the Apple Cup and to competing with [Washington State] across all of our sports."

In a joint statement posted to Twitter, Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and AD Bernard Muir said that their “primary focus at this time is analyzing the best available options and making the best decisions for Stanford and our student-athletes.”

During earnings calls this week, the CEOs of MGM Resorts and Caesars both pointed to boosts they’re expecting from the upcoming F1 race in Las Vegas, scheduled to take over The Strip on the weekend before Thanksgiving, notes SBJ’s Bill King, who reviewed the week’s financial reports in the SBJ Betting newsletter today.

MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle said occupancy at his company's properties already is double what it was for that weekend last year, at four times the average room rate. More than 70% of MGM’s ticket inventory already is “committed,” he said.

“A portion of these tickets will go to our gaming customers,” Hornbuckle said, “and early front money and credit data suggest that Formula 1 is shaping up to be an all-time record casino event for the company.”

Caesars CEO Tom Reeg said F1 demand, “particularly at the high end, has been very, very strong” for Caesars, and that Super Bowl demand has been “exceedingly strong.”

“We are dramatically ahead of, and at higher rates than, (is typical) at this time ahead of the Super Bowl,” Reeg said. “And if you just anecdotally look at who's going to be getting our tickets, the average customer that will come to the game with us is substantially more valuable than prior Super Bowls.”

TV biggest advertising platform -- the Super Bowl -- will have a different look for Nickelodeon’s alternate kids-focused telecast in February. Viewers will see the large majority of ads that run on CBS during the game. Advertisers generally are enthused by the addition of Nickelodeon’s audience, which will expand its reach.

But every Super Bowl has a healthy share of beer, alcohol and sportsbook ads. Nickelodeon is a channel that caters to kids and doesn’t run any advertisement pitching adult products. That means Nickelodeon viewers will not see any Bud Light, Crown Royal or DraftKings ads during its Super Bowl telecast, even as those ads run on CBS. Instead of seeing, for instance, a Corona ad, Nickelodeon viewers will either get a completely different advertisement sold to another company, a promo from one of Paramount’s businesses or programming will head back to the game telecast.

In this week's Early Access look from the magazine, SBJ's John Ourand does a deep dive on how Nickelodeon and CBS will deal with programming featuring ads for products targeting grownups on a network focused on children.

Texas Motor Speedway’s Big Hoss TV videoboard is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation led by GoVision, which first installed the board a decade ago, reports SBJ’s Bret McCormick.

The new state-of-the-art Big Hoss TV will be a DigiLED Vision Ultra screen measuring 10% larger (22,692 square feet to 20,660 square feet) and 16% brighter, with 22% more pixels and 20% higher resolution. The revamped board will debut at the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 weekend, Sept. 23-24.

Big Hoss TV was unveiled on March 19, 2014, and it received certification from the Guinness World Records on April 6, 2014, as the World’s Largest HD LED videoboard. Founded in 2002, Texas-based GoVision is an independent entity once again after six years under Learfield’s umbrella.

The Big Hoss TV videoboard at Texas Motor Speedway is getting a bigger, sharper screen

“SportsCenter” continued to see viewership gains in July, building off increases seen during first half of the year, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp. Every window for the program showed year-over-year gains compared to July 2022.

The midnight shows helmed by Scott Van Pelt continue to lead the way, with those airings in July averaging 477,000 viewers, up 79%. Even the 12am ET “SportsCenter” airings without SVP were up 22% last month. The 6pm show ranked No. 2 in July with 335,000 viewers (+1%), and 11pm was No. 3 at 322,000 (+5%). On July 27, that 11pm window featured the first all-female show (anchors and control room), with the airing averaging 239,000.

Additionally, July marked the 12th straight month that “First Take” on ESPN has shown year-over-year growth. The Stephen A. Smith-led show averaged 363,000 last month, up 26%.

Alternative investment firm Ares Management has made its second big bet on Inter Miami CF in the form of an incremental $75 million preferred equity investment in the MLS club, reports SBJ's Alex Silverman and Chris Smith.

The capital infusion for the South Florida soccer club comes in the wake of its historic signing of superstar F Lionel Messi.

As a preferred equity investor, which counts Hawks owner Tony Ressler among its founders, Ares is not involved with day-to-day management of the club, though the firm is expected to provide strategic advice as the team moves forward on plans to build Miami Freedom Park & Soccer Village, a $1 billion mixed-use development that includes a new 25,000-seat stadium. Ares has now invested a total of $225 million in Inter Miami.

New rules prohibiting team equity for employees were promulgated to get ahead of an emerging issue -- not to necessarily address any specific situation -- several well-placed sources told SBJ's Ben Fischer. However, Raiders owner Mark Davis believed it was at least somewhat personal, objecting to the rule at the owners-only meeting in Minneapolis because it frustrated his vision for Tom Brady coming on board as a limited partner whom he also planned to hire, sources said.

This week's SBJ Football newsletter also covers:

Fighting games are not huge in the world of big-time franchised esports leagues, but a smaller, extremely loyal player base helps Evo, the annual championship around fighting games, land major sponsors, reports SBJ's Kevin Hitt. Chipotle is aboard as presenting sponsor for this weekend's event at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and fans can also expect to see branding and activations from AT&T, PlayStation, Sony and its Inzone gaming gear, Red Bull, and Kizik (shoes), among others.

Also in this week's SBJ Esports newsletter, Counter-Strike's global esports scene faces a substantive shift, and SBJ's Hitt and Hunter Cooke dish on what this means for teams, third-party tournament organizers and other interested parties.

The Pistons will be the first NBA team with its marks on a NASCAR entry