WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert climbed on a flight from N.Y. to L.A. yesterday morning -- Monday night's draft still a gleam in her eye -- when she was handed the draft's TV ratings upon arrival: 3.1 million viewers at its peak.

"Dawn of a new day," she said, jet lag promptly erased.

Speaking at the CAA World Congress of Sports, Engelbert and her league were among the focal points of the conference yesterday, whether it was media rights or expansion or the perception that it has become the CBA: the Caitlin Basketball Association.

Reality is, the WNBA -- coming off its most watched Finals in two decades -- was ascending before Caitlin Clark. But considering Fanatics CEO & Chairman Michael Rubin said here that his company sold more Clark jerseys than any other athlete in history of a draft night, Engelbert could not ignore the so-called "Caitlin Effect."

For one, she said the WNBA's next media rights deal, a hybrid linear and streaming package that becomes available after the 2025 season, "will set this league up not just for three to five years ... but probably for three decades." When negotiating the deal -- perhaps as part of a hybrid men's media deal, which would give some willing broadcast partner a 12-month NBA-WNBA product -- she said a priority will be placed on "broadcast windows," such as ensuring WNBA games are played in prime time.

She said league data shows the league's audience is 55% male, so the challenge is actually attracting more females. And elaborating further after the conference, she said, by claiming the media rights deal would "set the league up for three decades," she meant the impact on player salaries, charter plane funding, expanding the 12-team league, marketing, all of it.

While Gen Xers represent the largest number of sports fans, partly because they have the most free time, sports executives also have their eyes on the unique consumption habits and wants of the members of Gen Z. 

Bryan Perez, CEO of ticketing company AXS, and Jason Robins, the co-founder & Chair of DraftKings, addressed the topic during a forward-thinking panel, “Sports Consumption and Fan Engagement Patterns We Need to be Watching” on Day 1 of the CAA World Congress of Sports in L.A. ESPN personality Mina Kimes moderated the panel. 

Perez noted that 40% of all Gen Z ticket purchases occur in the seven days before an event, double the percentage for Gen X. 

Perez said, ”If all of our marketing is geared towards a much earlier purchase timeframe, and the fan of tomorrow is last minute, they have options, they're always deciding, ‘What do I want to do tonight?’ not What do I want to do two months from now?’ we're going to have to completely retool the way we market to them, where we reach them, and how we speak to them.”

Robins said the average age of a DraftKings bettor is early 30s with the biggest concentration more in Gen X and Gen Y.  “I think that, as time goes on, you're going to see that age a little bit,” Robins said. “I think that naturally people, especially if you've been betting with a bookie for many years, who are maybe on the older side, maybe less inclined to use mobile devices, aren't adopting as quickly as some of the younger generation, the 30, 40-somethings.”

Cosm CEO and President Jeb Terry announced Tuesday onstage at CAA World Congress of Sports that Cosm’s Hollywood Park venue will open June 29. The venue will debut with an airing of UFC 303, which is set to feature the return of former featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor after nearly three years away from MMA competition.

Ahead of his WSOC segment, called “Shared Reality Set to Transform the Sports Industry,” Terry, a former college football and NFL player, likened the venue’s upcoming debut to the first game of a regular season after training camp and preseason.

“You’ve already accomplished a great deal, but you know there’s so much more ahead,” Terry told SBJ of the work since Cosm’s ideation in 2019. “And that’s really where we are. We’ve been building this business ... so now we can really go out and deliver that shared reality moment to the world and showcase what we’ve been working on.”

The venue -- a neighbor to the likes of SoFi Stadium and the soon-to-open Intuit Dome -- is 65,000 square feet and features an LED dome that is 87 feet in diameter. The space pairs 8K+ video resolution and spatial audio for an immersive front-row-seat experience from afar. UFC 303, for example, is taking place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

TEST FLIGHT: Before the broadcast of UFC 303, the venue will host some private events around the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final. Terry said those series will enable Cosm to gauge components of the fan experience before the public reveal, such as fan traffic flow and the F&B service experience.

Cosm has recently added several major partnerships, with broadcast rights holders NBC and ESPN joining its list of collaborators on multiyear agreements. The NBA and UFC, respectively, were Cosm’s first two partners. After adding the pair in early 2023, the company also picked up TNT Sports later that year.

Cosm partners provide access to games such as the NHL, the English Premier League, college football, men’s and women’s college basketball and U.S. Open tennis.

Terry said the Cosm venue in Dallas is still on course for opening in the summer ahead of football season, adding “we hope to announce that soon.”

 

The CAA World Congress of Sports concludes today with a series of panel discussions and speakers, including NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman, WWE’s Nick Khan and Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Qualcomm SVP & CMO Don McGuire. 

Among the panels is a focus on the growth of soccer with MLS Commissioner Don Garber, U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone and CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani; and sessions on how teams and league adjust in a new era of content, storytelling and innovation; and how organizations can remain competitive in an ever-changing industry.

The CAA World Congress of Sports is heading to Music City in 2025.

The event will be held April 21-23, 2025, at the Grand Hyatt Nashville, Sports Business Journal Publisher & Executive Editor Abe Madkour announced today during his opening remarks of the 2024 World Congress at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live. 

The Marriott at L.A. Live has hosted the event for the last two years. 

The CAA Word Congress of Sports is the largest and most prestigious sports business conference in North America.

More than 1,000 sports leaders and executives are attending this year’s event. 

“Since we launched the World Congress of Sports in the early 2000s, we’ve always held the event in dynamic and important sports cities,” Madkour said. “We’ve been back in L.A. for the past two years and we’re really excited to announce today, that in conjunction with the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau and our longtime title sponsor, CAA, we will take the World Congress to one of the hottest cities in the U.S. -- Nashville.”

“Nashville’s selection as the host city for this prestigious sports conference underscores our standing as a premier sports destination,” said Deana Ivey, President and CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “Welcoming key figures from the global sports community presents a prime opportunity for Music City to showcase our great live music scene, exceptional venues and passion for sports of all kinds. Hosting the World Congress of Sports will open doors to exciting prospects for the city’s future, and we look forward to showing sports leaders from around the world all that Nashville has to offer.”

Indiana Univ. Athletics has selected Levy as its official food and beverage partner. The school had long handled F&B in-house, but Levy will now oversee every aspect of hospitality on game days and non-event days, including concessions and premium seating at Memorial Stadium, Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall and the rest of the campus’ athletic venues.

Levy will also collaborate with Hoosier Athletics training and nutrition teams on custom dining programs to feed student-athletes. Levy, which recently landed new NFL business at Soldier Field and M&T Bank Stadium, will officially begin operating in Bloomington this summer.

IU fans can expect Midwest-influenced menu items like Smoked Chicken Wings, Hand-Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, and a Smoking Goose Kitchen Sink Sausage Sandwich. Concourse concessions will also be enhanced with new grab-and-go destinations for faster service, and with Levy’s roots as restaurateurs, menus in premium areas will be upgraded. More specific details around menus will follow this summer.

Levy handles F&B for more than 20 college athletics programs. Levy has full athletic campus partnerships with five Big Ten schools, and serves UCLA, too, through the concessionaire’s Rose Bowl deal. Levy’s collegiate portfolio also includes major on-campus venues at Alabama, Notre Dame, Arkansas and other schools in every major conference. Chicago-based Levy has long had a presence in the neighboring Hoosier State; it ran F&B at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a decade until earlier this year and is the current provider at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Global sponsor Toyota has launched the next chapter of its "Start Your Impossible" campaign, debuting a 60-second video showing Olympic and Paralympic athletes as their local communities send them off to the Games.

Toyota, a TOP sponsor since 2017, seeks to shine a light on the team behind the athlete, highlight the families, coaches, teammates and fans who support their journeys. Released with 100 days to go until the opening of the Paris Olympics, the video shows their communities cheering on Team Toyota athletes, including American runner Gabby Thomas. 

The campaign will feature more than 20 athletes in various media, including broadcast commercials that range from 15 seconds to a minute. Toyota will also produce digital videos and content, programmatic advertising, paid social media and out-of-home content for the campaign.

"For us, it was about a mixture. So we want both the tears and the cheers," said Brock Cartlidge, the sports sponsorship marketing manager for Toyota. "And the cheers we really leaned into because of the circumstances of these Games, of people being back together again. So we have some that are really lighthearted, but we have some that are also going to make you cry."

Toyota sponsors more than 200 Olympic and Paralympic athletes globally.

Longtime Bruins TV play-by-play voice Jack Edwards has announced that he will retire "at the end of NESN’s game coverage in the upcoming playoffs." In an on-ice pre-game ceremony before the team's regular-season finale last night, Charlie Jacobs, son of owner Jeremy Jacobs, "presented Edwards with a gold stick," which drew applause from the crowd. Edwards recently detailed his "extensive struggles with speech," which date back to last season. He will call "at least four more games" for the Bruins as the team heads into the playoffs. The Bruins and NESN will conduct "a nationwide search" for the next play-by-play voice to join color commentator Andy Brickley for the 2024-25 season (BOSTON GLOBE, 4/16).

Meanwhile, it was a memorable night in Columbus for TV play-by-play voice Jeff Rimer, who "went into retirement calling a victory" for the Blue Jackets to end his 20-year run in Columbus and almost 50 years covering NHL games. Rimer received "a standing ovation" midway through the third period of the win over the Hurricanes at Nationwide Arena (COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 4/16).

LIV Golf later today is expected to announce a number of personnel moves, including naming former Endeavor executive David Phillipps as its new CFO. Additionally, LIV has named Ross Hallett EVP & Head of Events and Katie O’Reilly EVP & Head of Team Business Operations. LIV also named Tim Taylor to a new EVP role in which he will lead the league’s London office, while Pam Sacree was named Head of HR.

Phillipps was previously the CFO at Equinox Group and prior to that was the SVP/Finance at Endeavor. He will report to LIV CEO and Commissioner Greg Norman. Hallett was an SVP in the golf events division for IMG and will report to COO Lawrence Burian. O’Reilly, whose move to LIV was first reported by Sportico last week, was most recently the CRO of the 76ers. O’Reilly, a 2024 SBJ Forty Under 40 selection, will also report to Burian.

Taylor had been LIV’s CFO for its first two years of existence. All positions will be based in LIV’s N.Y. or London offices and are expected to begin work in the coming weeks.

Adidas "unexpectedly raised its full-year guidance and reported a year-on-year profit increase" for Q1 today, which has caused shares to jump 6.3%. Operating profit for the year is now expected to reach around $745M; it had previously forecast operating profit near $532M. The company also now "expects the sale of the rest of the Yeezy inventory during the remainder of the year to result in additional sales of around" $213M. The company also said its first-quarter operating profit rose to $357M, up from $64M in the same period of last year, according to preliminary figures. The sportswear company is also "seeking a boost from its partnerships" with the Olympics, Paralympics, EURO 24 and Copa events this year (CNBC.com, 4/17).

Elevate’s Cameron Wagner joins Austin Karp to discuss the addition of Fenway Sports Management’s consulting group. Wagner also delves into the unprecedented demand for high-end hospitality and whether there is too much jersey-patch inventory in the market.

On this week’s pod, SBJ’s Austin Karp has two Big Get interviews. The first is with Molly Solomon, who will lead NBC’s production of the Olympics, and she shares what the network is planning for the Paris Games. Later in the show, we hear from ESPN’s P.K. Subban as the Stanley Cup Playoffs get set to start this weekend. SBJ’s Josh Carpenter also joins the show to share his insights from this year’s Masters, while Karp dishes on how the WNBA Draft’s record-breaking viewership is setting the league up for a new stratosphere of numbers.

WNBA Golden State, the WNBA affiliate of the Warriors, announced yesterday that the team has eclipsed 6,000 season ticket deposits since the franchise was announced on October 5 (WNBA Golden State).

"It was the picture that did no justice. I saw one today. They’re beautiful. They’re not like the picture. The cut does look a little bit different on that mannequin" -- U.S. Olympic long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, on her reaction to seeing the recently criticized Nike track uniforms for the Paris Games in person (WASHINGTON POST, 4/16).

As we hit the 100-day mark before the Paris Games, the N.Y. TIMES dives into some of the potential problems under the header, "The Paris Olympics’ One Sure Thing: Cyberattacks." In his office at the Paris Olympic organizing committee's HQ, Franz Regul "has no doubt what is coming," as the man who leads the team responsible for warding off cyberthreats against this year’s Summer Games said, "We will be attacked." In the Paris operations center, "there is even a red light to alert the staff to the most severe danger." So far, Regul said, there have been "no serious disruptions." But as the months until the Olympics tick down to weeks and then days and hours, he knows the "number of hacking attempts and the level of risk will rise exponentially." Worries over security at major events like the Olympics have "usually focused on physical threats," like terrorist attacks. But as technology "plays a growing role in the Games rollout," Olympic organizers "increasingly view cyberattacks as a more constant danger."

Also:

• With minor league team, MLS unveils bold plan to fix diversity problem.
• Future of college football spring games? Ole Miss' blueprint is fun and mostly football-free.
• Harry Edwards continues to honor Jackie Robinson’s legacy in his fight against racial inequality.
• The tao of Joel and A.D.: How Antonio Daniels and Joel Meyers became New Orleans cult heroes.

Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin said that Caitlin Clark had the highest selling jersey on draft night of any athlete in any sport in the company’s history.

— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) April 16, 2024

Oregon State AD Scott Barnes pens an open letter: "I hear you and know that it feels like since August we have been on the receiving end of multiple gut punches. When that happens, you are faced with two options – exit the ring or throw counterpunches. Hear this Beaver Nation,… pic.twitter.com/QBTC41yAED

— John Canzano (@johncanzanobft) April 16, 2024

Gotta hand it to Rubenstein: It’s early, but these new Orioles vibes are pretty good https://t.co/a1s7Qf6Sit

— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) April 16, 2024

More puppies in the booth please 🥹😭🐶

(via @MLB) pic.twitter.com/I4Qqq19wG5

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) April 16, 2024

Brian Flores confirmed he didn't receive any head coach interview requests during this cycle. "And I don't really have control over that situation. I will say that I'm very happy where I am. It's been a great offseason. I haven't spent this much time with my family in a while..."

— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) April 16, 2024

"Churchill gave a word a new meaning when he called for a 'talk with Soviet Russia upon the highest level ... a parley at' this."

"What is the summit?"