Sessions begin today for the CAA World Congress of Sports at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live. World Congress Connect, a structured networking and information sharing session, starts things off in the morning. Then, after brunch and opening remarks from SBJ Publisher & Executive Editor Abe Madkour, the first panel of the event will discuss key industry issues. Speaking on that panel are Arctos Partners’ TJ Adeshola, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment’s Kevin Demoff, the Mariners’ Catie Griggs, the Pro Tennis Players Association’s Ahmad Nassar and NBC Olympics Productions’ Molly Solomon.

Also speaking Day 1 at World Congress are NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Fanatics Chair Michael Rubin, DraftKings’ Jason Robins and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (fresh off a successful WNBA Draft in Brooklyn). You can see the full agenda by clicking here.

World Congress got started on Monday night with a welcome reception for around 250 attendees at the JW Marriott hosted by Ticketmaster. Just prior to the event, many attendees were glued to the TVs near the bar for the WNBA Draft on ESPN. Among those spotted during the welcome reception were Proskauer’s Brad Ruskin, the PGA of America’s Jeff Price, USA Gymnastics’ Li Li Leung, Elevate’s Ben Gumpert and Lara Toscani Weems, USL’s Court Jeske, the USTA’s Deanne Pownall, GMR Marketing’s Todd Fischer, the Mariners’ Gina Martinez Todd, USA Fencing’s Phil Andrews, the Earthquakes’ Allison Whitson, TurnkeyZRG’s Rick Alessandri, underdog’s Megan Hughes Allison, Playfly’s Michael Neuman and Dan Parise, LHB Sports’ Lee Berke, VetTix’s Steve Weintraub and Rakuten’s Rhea Wadia.

Also holding events on the eve of World Congress were DLA Piper, which had a gathering at Soho Warehouse, and Innovative Partnerships Group, which had cocktails and dinner at San Laurel at the Conrad hotel in downtown.

BodyArmor will debut as the official sports drink partner of the NHL and NHLPA under a new five-and-a-half-year deal when the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Saturday. The Coca-Cola-owned sports nutrition company replaces the league’s previous partner in the category, BioSteel, which went into bankruptcy protection weeks prior to the start of the NHL’s regular season. 

BodyArmor CMO Thomas Gargiulo said the deal is the Coca-Cola-owned sports nutrition brand’s largest sports marketing investment in its 13-year history. It follows the brand’s foray into the Canadian market at the start of the year. The NHL deal is a major splash for the brand in a market in which it has yet to establish significant brand recognition. 

Financial terms of the agreement, which runs through the 2028-29 NHL season, were not disclosed, but a source with knowledge of the deal said BodyArmor’s annual financial commitment is about the same as what BioSteel had been paying. The NHL-NHLPA deal was BioSteel’s largest sponsorship commitment, with parent company Canopy Growth declaring the sports nutrition brand owed NHL Enterprises LP more than $6M in missed payments when it filed for bankruptcy last September.  

In-game exposure is key to the deal, as BodyArmor branding will appear on coolers, squirt bottles and towels used by players and trainers on benches, along with digitally enhanced dasherboard inventory. BodyArmor will also receive exposure around the NHL Draft and related content. It will also be a highly visible supporter of the league’s NHL Street youth hockey initiative and is also considering supplemental deals with NHL teams and players. 

BodyArmor's deal also includes sponsorship of the IIHF World U18 Championships and college hockey’s Hobey Baker Award, which is awarded to the NCAA’s top men’s ice hockey player annually.

BodyArmor and the NHL each negotiated the deal without agency support. 

 

MLB has a new corporate sponsor in perhaps the definitive parity product category: water. 

BlueTriton Brands, which owns six regional spring water brands, including familiar labels Arrowhead, Deer Park, and Poland Spring, has completed a three-year  sponsorship, through which its brands are now  MLB’s official water.

“It’s only a commodity category if people don't care about their brands and consumers tell us they do,” said BlueTriton CMO Kheri Tillman. “Awareness and affinity are going to be big (objectives) and we fully expect our brand perceptions will increase, especially among MLB fans, but potentially even more broadly. This should also help us with (generating) more retail displays and getting our brands into MLB stadiums.”

Yankee Stadium is currently the only MLB venue at which BlueTriton brands are sold because of a longstanding sponsorship with Poland Spring. BlueTriton’s other top-shelf sports sponsorships are with the Boston Marathon and the Ducks, whose home rink was entitled as the Arrowhead Pond shortly after opening in 1993.

The WNBA will "once again pay for charter flights for the entire playoffs as well as for back-to-back games during the upcoming season that require air travel," Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said last night. There are more back-to-back sets this season with the WNBA taking a long break for the Olympics in late July and early August. The league spent $4M on charters in 2023 and "will do the same this year." Engelbert also said she "hopes to have 16 teams in the league by 2028," up from the current 12. The WNBA is adding a team next year, when a Golden State franchise in S.F. will join the league. Golden State will get a chance to build its roster "through an expansion draft" (AP, 4/15).

Engelbert did not answer a question about if the league "discussed moving the 2024 All-Star Game" from Phoenix during her pre-draft remarks. Just last week, the Arizona Supreme Court voted to enforce a near-total abortion ban in the state (USA TODAY, 4/15).

A "foregone conclusion became official" last night, as the Indiana Fever picked Iowa G Caitlin Clark No. 1 in the WNBA Draft. Last year’s WNBA draft had 572,000 viewers on ESPN, the most in nearly two decades, but "it’s likely that Monday’s audience will soar past that," with Clark and "a wave of well-known college players" in this year's class, including LSU F Angel Reese, who went No. 7 overall to the Chicago Sky, and South Carolina C Kamilla Cardoso, who went No. 3 to the Sky (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/15).

There were "throngs of fans crowded inside" the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the crowd "leapt to its feet" when WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called Clark’s name as the top pick. The move "may have been devoid of suspense," but "as is the case with most things involving Clark these days, it still inspired plenty of fanfare." The Fever and Clark "may have assumed the role of the evening’s headliner," but the 2024 draft class is also "one of the deepest in recent memory, creating plenty of intrigue through the first round and beyond." Beyond what each team gained, the 2024 draft also "served as a turning point for the league as a whole." In an event that was "littered with household names and splashy fashions," a question "began to emerge: How will this momentum translate to the WNBA?" (SI, 4/15).

Thousands of Fever fans, Iowa fans, Clark fans and basketball fans were gathered at Indianapolis' Gainbridge Fieldhouse, "watching the 2024 WNBA draft from Brooklyn on the arena’s gigantic video board." And when the Fever drafted Clark, the entire arena "erupted" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 4/15).

Salesforce is out as a sponsor of the LA28 Games, ending an agreement signed with the organizing committee less than three years ago. With Salesforce’s departure, LA28 is left with two top-tier sponsors: Delta and Comcast.

Salesforce, the customer relationship software company, had agreed to a seven-year deal with Team USA, LA28 and NBCUniversal in June 2021. It had planned to use its Salesforce Customer 360 platform to help the organizing committee develop digital experiences for fans and athletes, and it had planned to work with NBCUniversal to build fan communities. LA28 and Salesforce confirmed in a statement that they, along with Team USA, “amicably decided” to part ways. It noted that Salesforce will continue its partnership with NBCUniversal on Olympic media.

Financial terms of ending the contract early were not disclosed, but the departure of a top-tier sponsor leaves LA28 with a bigger challenge in trying to hit its $2.5B revenue target for domestic sponsorships.

The flame that is to burn at the Paris Olympics was kindled today at the site of the ancient games in southern Greece. Cloudy skies "prevented the traditional lighting," when an actress dressed as an ancient Greek priestess "uses the sun to ignite a silver torch." Instead, a "backup flame" was used that had been lit on the same spot yesterday, during the final rehearsal. A "relay of torchbearers" will carry the flame more than 3,100 miles through Greece until the handover to Paris Games organizers in Athens on April 26. The first torchbearer was Greek rower Stefanos Douskos, a gold medalist in 2021 at the Tokyo Games (AP, 4/16).

The NFL has signed Applebee’s as its “official grill and bar” sponsor, making it the first casual dining chain to have sponsorship rights since a brief deal with IHOP in 2009. The restaurant chain promises unspecified national broadcast TV and digital media buys to support its rights, and “a presence at NFL tentpole events” to be determined later, according to the league. Applebee’s first activation will be a discount offer during the 2024 NFL Draft April 25-27, during which time customers can get 20 free boneless wings with a $40 purchase.

With more than 1,500 locations nationally, Dine Brands-owned Applebee’s is one of the largest casual dining chains in the country, but it has kept a relatively low profile in sports sponsorship compared to competitor Buffalo Wild Wings in recent years. Applebee’s has sponsored NBC’s “Football Night in America” pregame show before “Sunday Night Football” since 2019.

The chain does not currently have any team deals; local franchisees would be responsible for most local activation. Plans are in the works for Applebee’s to collaborate with longtime NFL sponsors PepsiCo, Diageo spirits and AB InBev, whose products are already served at its restaurants. However, Uber Eats will not be included because Applebee’s handles delivery in-house. 

Terms were not disclosed, other than a joint statement describing the term as “multi year.” Agencies working with Applebee include Grey (creative), Genesco (consulting) and Current (PR) to activate.

The chain and the NFL negotiated the deal directly. 

Greenfly and the NBA are extending their existing partnership on a multiyear basis, continuing the NBA, WNBA, G League and NBA Africa’s access to the leading AI-powered, short-form content management platform. Financial details were not disclosed, and executives on both sides of the partnership declined to comment on deal terms.

Greenfly’s work under the NBA umbrella began with a pilot with the WNBA six years ago and has since expanded to encompass 11,000 users across the league’s ecosystem. Multimedia content captured within or uploaded to the Greenfly app is automatically tagged and distributed for use by the league’s digital publishers and players, offering fans more exclusive access, streamlining back-end workflows and creating new monetization opportunities, according to Bob Carney, the league’s SVP/Digital & Social Content. 

“If we can acquire content faster and publish it faster, it’s going to help us then grow every destination that we publish to -- whether that’s on X or on Instagram or whether it’s on the NBA app,” Carney told SBJ. “By being first, you get the audience share. By continuing to grow your audience, you then have many more video impressions to sell against.”

N.J.-based business tech company Crestron has signed a sponsorship deal with the N.Y. Giants and has upgraded the team’s draft room as a showcase for its products. Crestron, headquartered about 24 miles north of MetLife Stadium, will be the presenting sponsor of the Giants Draft Room, the Giants Mock Draft Tracker, and the Giants “Sights and Sounds” video feature after wins. The company also will have a presence in the team’s digital marketing and social media, and branding on in-game video boards, pylons and TVs.

As part of this deal, Ty Siam, Giants Dir of Football Data & Innovation, worked with Crestron to digitize the draft room, which had previously run on manual magnets to update the draft. The draft room now includes digital displays and communication tools, and Crestron products are also now in place inside Giants classrooms and auditoriums. The NFL Draft starts April 25; the Giants have the sixth overall pick. Crestron created a virtual tour of the draft room to show off its work.

Terms were not disclosed. No agencies were involved. This is Crestron’s first sports deal since a limited case study the Packers.

Gemini Sports Analytics, an AI firm that does predictive modeling for team and player performance, has raised an additional $3.1M investment round led by Will Ventures. Eberg Capital and Social Leverage, which jointly led Gemini’s $3.25M series seed in 2023, also participated in the new funding. The startup initially raised $1.5M in 2022. 

Founded by sport scientist Jake Schuster, Gemini Sports Analytics has worked with teams in European soccer, the NCAA and the NFL, including the Colts. Nine sports franchise owners had already invested in Gemini prior to the backing of Will Ventures, which includes 18 more as limited partners, bringing the total number of sports owners as investors to 27. It recently partnered with Infinite Athlete for use of its FusionFeed API.  

“Their groundbreaking work with AI fits our mission to fuel innovation in sports technology,” Will Ventures Managing Partner Isaiah Kacyvenski said in a statement. “Together, we expect to see big advances in team strategy, roster management, and the overall landscape of how professional sports teams innovate with people, process, and technology.”  

Premier League club Everton’s prospective buyer, 777 Partners, has "been given more time" to try to repay the majority of a $196.6M loan and proceed with their takeover of the club. Everton owner Farhad Moshiri negotiated the extension with MSP Sports Capital on behalf of 777 before a deadline yesterday. The exact terms of the extension have not been disclosed, but it is "likely to cover weeks rather than months." Moshiri agreed to sell his 94.1% shareholding to 777 Partners last September, but the buyout "has become a drawn-out saga because of concerns over whether the Americans can fund the Goodison Park club in the long-term" (London TIMES, 4/16).

777 is also now owed more than $199M in loans "paid to prop up the club" after it agreed to buy out Moshiri for $622M. Pulling the plug on funding that will see Everton through to the end of the month "would need someone else to step up to avert the threat of administration and a nine-point deduction" that could see them relegated after they were docked eight points for breaking financial rules. Everton were already facing a wait until the season ends before any takeover by 777, which is "scrambling" to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the purchase (London TELEGRAPH, 4/16).

The Phillies unveiled the newest addition to their Hall of Fame Club -- the Pioneers in Pinstripes exhibit, which was "created to honor trailblazers of Phillies integration and racial/ethnic diversity." The display featured portraits and murals of the team’s first Black and minority players (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 4/15).

Rocket Mortgage, the official mortgage partner of the 2024 NFL Draft, has launched its “Dreammate” campaign – a multi-media campaign celebrating the NFL Draft that acknowledges the role of mentors, confidants and motivators in bringing aspirations to life (Rocket Mortgage).

"This very well may be the single most important decade in sport in this country, and we see a massive obligation and an incredible opportunity" -- USOPC CEO Sarah Hirschland, on the U.S. hosting a slew of major international sporting events over the next 10 years -- including Copa America this year, the World Cup with Canada and Mexico in 2026, the L.A. Olympics in 2028 and possibly the Winter Olympics in Utah in 2034 (REUTERS, 4/15).

The WASHINGTON POST looks back at a sports betting case in Iowa under the header, "A betting scandal rocked Iowa sports. Then the case went sideways." One day last spring, Iowa State DL Isaiah Lee got a visit from a state police investigator who "wanted to talk about something on a lot of fans' minds: sports betting." Like many young Americans, Lee had begun wagering on games lately. He was old enough to legally gamble in Iowa, but the NCAA bars athletes from sports betting. Mark Ludwick, the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations agent, told Lee he was working on a case focused "solely on gaming operators" such as DraftKings and FanDuel. He even "reassured" Lee he faced "no adverse or criminal consequences." So Lee opened up. The investigation pushed forward, and three months later prosecutors charged Lee and nearly two dozen other athletes from Iowa State and the Univ. of Iowa with "crimes related to their gambling activity." Their sports careers "were all derailed or ended." Some have transferred, "seeking a fresh start." Others "didn’t have that option" -- Lee’s violation of NCAA policy meant he "lost his senior season."

Also:

• Can Caitlin Clark catalyze a spike in WNBA fandom?
• Wes Edens reflects on 10 years of ownership of Bucks and sets sights on another championship.
• The new Premier League culture war: Corporate interests vs 'authentic' fans.

Caitlin Clark is an Indiana Fever. #WNBADraft pic.twitter.com/LBWhnalnZA

— Zion Brown (@z10nbr0wn) April 15, 2024

Erica Wheeler, Maya Caldwell and Lexie Hull react to Caitlin Clark being selected No. 1 overall at our WNBA Draft Party 🥳

they had those @CaitlinClark22 jerseys ready 😂 pic.twitter.com/yoShRe1q8C

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) April 16, 2024

Iowa guard Kate Martin said she came to the WNBA draft to support Caitlin Clark but was hoping to get her name called.

She ended up getting drafted by the Aces 😱

What a moment ❤️

(via @AliyahFun) pic.twitter.com/AHzxm69MLN

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 16, 2024

Little history tonight in Oakland. Cardinals broadcaster Chip Caray, right, will call the game two booths from his son, A’s broadcaster Chris Caray. pic.twitter.com/9JFNBevFRL

— John Shea (@JohnSheaHey) April 15, 2024

The Canes will face the Isles in the first round for the second year in a row.

That means we get another round of Sebastian Aho vs. Sebastian Aho 🔥 pic.twitter.com/HiBXlg3FCi

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 16, 2024

"From 1689 to 1690 and 1701 to 1702, he served as a Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Cambridge Univ."

"Who was Sir Isaac Newton?"