Bulls of the week
What a week for Jessica Pegula, the daughter of Terry and Kim Pegula, the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills and the Sabres (Forbes estimates their net worth at US$7 billion).
Ranked sixth in the world, the 30-year-old finds herself in the U.S. Open women’s singles final as part of what appears to be a long overdue resurgence in American tennis.
It’s also been yet another terrific week for Caitlin Clark, whose Indiana Fever have clinched a playoff spot for the first time in eight years; setting TV, attendance and ticket revenue records along the way. Her rivalry matchup against Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky was the 21st WNBA game this year to draw an average viewership of at least one million Americans.
Yet this is the week when the NFL proves it’s the single most powerful sports juggernaut in the world. Coming off a year in which 93 of the 100 most-watched TV shows in the U.S. were NFL games, the Shield seems poised to take an even stronger stranglehold on North American TV audiences.
The one-two punch of the season-opener Thursday on NBC and the “First Friday” game today in Sao Paulo, Brazil — exclusively on NBC streaming channel Peacock in the U.S. — will only drive that much more casual fan interest to this Sunday’s opening week slate on CBS, FOX and NBC.
With that kind of early traction, it’s a good bet that this year’s U.S. presidential election campaign may have little or no effect on NFL TV ratings, as is typically the case every four years.
It’s also a good bet that the NFL will parlay its commitment to international games and global marketing into even wider reach on broadcast TV and streaming. It’s already generating more than US$13 billion per year in media rights, and that will not abate anytime soon.
The NFL is about appointment TV and the powerful social network it forms three times per week, especially on any given Sunday. That’s why all 32 teams sell out every home game and why the average NFL franchise is valued at US$5.7 billion.
Bears of the week
There are two things that drive media attention and, in turn, fan engagement.
The first are record-setting win streaks, especially those that lead to dynasties. The most prominent case in point is the Kansas City Chiefs, in the spotlight this week as they kicked off the new NFL season trying to become the first franchise in league history to “three-peat” the Super Bowl.
The other attention-getters are dumpster fires like the Chicago White Sox, an MLB franchise that is again this week adding new meaning to the term ‘losers.’
The White Sox go into their weekend series against the Boston Red Sox at 32-109 and as winners of one of their last 10. Chicago is playing at a .227 clip, which means they’ve won only two of every nine games this season.
The ChiSox are just so brutally bad that no sports news report is complete without an update on their latest loss. Finishing the year 55 to 60 games out of first place in the AL Central isn’t out of the realm of possibility for the White Sox.
Tom Mayenknecht is the host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at: twitter.com/TheSportMarket.
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