Friday Dump 🥟 - Peacock's NFL moment, Netflix + NBA docuseries, Goodbye old friends

Welcome to the Friday Dump 🥟!

Each Friday, we’ll breakdown 3 sports business stories that have caught our eye throughout the week and assembled in the following format:

🔴 - Stories that make us stop, think, and question.

🟡 - Stories with a hint of risk and unpredictability.

🟢 - Stories that make us feel good to go and empowered.

Without further ado, enjoy the First Edition of the Friday Dump…

🔴 Peacock flaunting those feathers…and deep pockets. As we briefly mentioned as a Quick Hitter from on Tuesday, Peacock, the NBC streaming service, will exclusively air the wild-card round matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins on Saturday night. Why is this a big deal? Well folks, if you don’t live in the KC or MIA metro areas, you’re going to have to use that credit card to bust down the paywall ($5.99 to be exact).

• According to the Wall Street Journal, Peacock paid the NFL an estimated $110 million to air this game.

• They already experienced a test run on December 23 between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Chargers. That game averaged 7.3 million viewers, peaking at an average of 8.4 million viewers.

• In comparison, Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football” broadcast averaged 11.9 million viewers, which was up ~25% from 2022 (9.6 million).

• For more comparisons, last year’s playoff Wild Card Weekend finished with an average of 28.8 million viewers for the six games (across networks like NBC, Fox, CBS, ESPN, etc.)

Why is the NFL doing this to us?

• The NFL believes with 2 top teams (including the reigning Super Bowl Champs, Kansas City Chiefs) + new NFL viewers (hey Swifties! Love you guys! I come in ☮️) + drama of the playoffs = increased viewership & CA$H money.

• After all, media executives know live sports is sticky and can lead to long term subscriber growth. Case in point: it’s probably why the majority of you still pay for a cable package.

• If this game gets anywhere close to last year’s Wild Card Weekend average viewership numbers, expect streaming services and paywalls to stay 🙄.

🟡 Netflix officially in bed with the NBA. The streaming giant is continuing its successful line of docuseries and now expected to dip their toes into basketball. This is set to be modeled after their recent hits, Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Quarterback. Where the latter series followed around three separate starting quarterbacks from the 2022-2023 season (Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota).

• The NBA players expected to be featured in this upcoming series includes Lebron James (ever heard of him?), Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler, Anthony Edwards, and Domantas Sabonis.

• Oh you guys want to know who the production companies are associated with this series? Well it’s none other than, Lebron James’ SpringHill Company, former President Barack Obama’s Higher Ground Productions, and Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions 🤩.

Why is Netflix getting involved with these high profile leagues?

• Short answer: it’s a great way for Netflix to inspect the waters of these different media businesses without having to pay billions for live rights. This will also let them focus on the type of documentary productions that are near and dear to their heart…for the fraction of the cost.

• As we briefly touched on in our first edition of Unsportsmanlike Boardroom, the NBA’s media rights deal expires in 2025 which means negotiations begin this year. What better way to collect data than by seeing the results of this show and ultimately make a decision if there’s purchasing interest in the future?

🟢 Salute to the Old Guard. This week we said goodbye (no omg relax, they didn’t die) to some incredible coaches: Bill Belichick (New England Patriots - NFL), Nick Saban (Alabama Crimson Tide - NCAAF), and Pete Carroll (Seattle Seahawks - NFL).

• Bill Belichick (age: 71) and the New England Patriots agreed to part ways after 24 years as the head coach, winning 6 Super Bowls and 9 conference championships, and earning over $200 million in total compensation. Even though he’ll be leaving the Pats, he has no plan to retire. He’s still 14 wins behind Don Shula for the most ever career wins.

• Nick Saban (age: 72) has retired from the game after spending 17 seasons with Alabama, winning 7 national championships, 12 conference championships, 19 bowl game wins, and was considered the highest paid coach in college football with an average annual salary of $11.8 million.

  • During his time, Alabama became one of the richest athletics departments in the country. They had a $196 million athletics budget in 2021-22, the third-highest among all public schools, according to Sportico.

  • Not only did the athletic department thrive but the university enrollment saw a gradual increase once Saban stepped on campus (see: Table 1).

• Pete Carroll (age: 72) and the Seattle Seahawks agreed to part ways after 15 seasons as head coach, winning 1 Super Bowl, 2 NFC conference championships, 1 National Championship at USC, 6 BCS Bowls, 7 Pac-10 championships, and was worth an estimated $14 million/year on average (3rd highest in the NFL).