Friday Dump 🥟 - Saudi PIF & CONCACAF, FuboTV vs. Venu, Indiana Fever booming business

Author

Michael Sheinfeld
August 16, 2024

And the gold medal goes to…Friday Dump 🥟

Each Friday, we’ll breakdown 3 sports business stories that have caught our eye throughout the week. They will be 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.

Tbh we can’t say we’re surprised, we trained hard for this.

Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

🔴 North American soccer joining the Saudi money train. My goodness, the Saudi’s just can’t get enough when it comes to sports can they? On Thursday, it was announced the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, made its first investment into soccer in North America through a new multiyear partnership with CONCACAF. The agreement was announced with both sides promising to help grow the game in North America, the Caribbean, and Central America — all of this is extremely timely as North America prepares to host the 2026 Men’s World Cup and potentially the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

  • This comes only 4-5 months after the Association of Tennis Players (ATP) and PIF unveiled a multi-year strategic partnership for PIF to become the official naming partner of ATP Rankings

    • This, after PIF offered to purchase the ATP and WTA outright for $2B.

  • PIF has estimated assets worth ~$700B and has committed nearly $10B in multiple sports, music, and entertainment ventures.

    • PIF now adds even more investment to their soccer category in their sports portfolio which also includes: tennis, golf (LIV Tour), Formula 1, WWE, boxing, esports, motorsports, and more.

  • According to Sports Business Journal, PIF and its new airline Riyadh Air will also be promoted heavily at CONCACAF events.

In a dumpshell…it’s not like this is PIF’s first time dipping their toes into the soccer waters. PIF purchased four of Saudi Arabia’s top clubs, including Al-Nassr, which signed superstar Cristiano Ronaldo in 2023 to the richest contract in sports ($215M per year). The fund is also part of a consortium that owns the English Premier League team Newcastle United. So, yes, they know a thing or two about the sport 😉.

But PIF continues to slowly creep into sports relevance. They love throwing money at leagues that might have stabilized in growth or are desperate for cash-rich partners. However, in this case, it might look like they’re using their money to prop up the North American soccer federation by increasing the number of official youth competitions and getting a front row seat to learn from the host nation prior to the biggest soccer event in the world.

Though still controversial, PIF seems to be doing what they can to understand the intricacies of soccer leagues and federations as their own Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup in 2034.

Pictured: U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett

🟡 FuboTV & Venu Sports both shaking in their boots. The new sports-only direct-to-consumer streaming service, Venu Sports, looking to launch this fall through the joint venture of Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox is getting hammered from all angles. Not only is the DOJ and FCC in the midst of investigating them due to potentially exercising monopoly power over televised sports, FuboTV also hasn’t been too happy with the new streaming service and sued them right after their announcement on February 6th.

  • Fubo’s main gripe is that the 3 media companies refuse to license out their sports channels to distributors like Fubo, but instead are starting a new service, Venu.

    • Fubo argues this will spark a wave of cord-cutting at pay-TV distributors by sports fans in favor of the lower-priced model.

  • So what could happen? 

    • Well…Fubo says Disney, WBD, and Fox “intend to create a monopoly in the skinny sports bundle market,” and without the imposing of an injunction, Fubo will run out of cash by Q1 2025.

      • They also presented data in court, from ESPN, which shows most of the projected Venu customers are current subscribers to pay-TV distributors (like Fubo).

      • This means Fubo could lose up to 400K customers to Venu by the end of 2024.

    • However…if Fubo can convince U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett that granting an injunction is the move, Venu Sports might cease to exist.

In a dumpshell…companies lives are literally in the hands of Judge Garnett! In the meantime, Disney, Fox, and WBD continue to argue Venu is actually pro-competitive by introducing another player into the pay-TV market, and ultimately it wouldn’t make sense for Venu to cannibalize pay-TV distributors because the three companies would earn more from distributor subscribers than from Venu subs.

It’ll be interesting to see what side Garnett lands on. Because one thing that might make it harder for Fubo to argue is the fact that customers have been able to create their own sports streaming bundles by using various services like Paramount+ and Peacock. And with Disney working on new ESPN streaming options and WBD including the Bleacher Report Sports add-on to Max, it’s hard to identify a true monopoly.

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Pictured: Caitlin Clark

🟢 Fever’s #1 pick paying dividends. Who was that #1 overall pick again? We thought her initials were CC, but ugh it’s so hard to remember. Oh, that’s why we forgot! After that 2-week Olympic midseason break, the Caitlin Clark numbers have been released and my goodness gracious are the Indiana Fever looking more golden than the US Women’s Basketball team medals! According to a report released Wednesday by the Fever, the team is #1 in the league in social media engagement, video views, followers gained, and total followers. But wait, let’s dive in a little deeper…

  • Ticket Sales

    • Sold out 100% of season ticket inventory.

    • 186K fans have attended a Fever home game (+265% from last season).

    • 230K fans have attended a Fever road game.

  • Merchandise Sales

    • 1,193% increase in jersey sales from last year.

    • Team store transactions are up 700% from 2023.

    • Broke the franchise single-game merchandise sales record four times.

  • Concession Sales

    • Hot dog sales are up 300% so far this year (we had to give love to the glizzies).

    • 2,826 gallons of draft beer have been sold in 2024 (+740%).

  • Social Media Metrics

    • Over 800M views in the last four months.

    • Added 1.3M followers across all mediums since April 15th +266%).

    • The team has more social media views than any other WNBA, NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB team over the last 4+ months.

  • TV Viewership

    • 38 games on national TV this year (most in the WNBA).

    • Set records for most-viewed WNBA games on ABC, ION, ESPN, and NBA TV.

  • Corporate Partnerships

    • 225% increase in partnerships.

    • Largest number of team sponsors in the WNBA.

In a dumpshell…is it too early to state that the Caitlin Clark Effect proved to be right, even for WNBA standards? We think not.

The funny part is, this is the midseason report! There are still 14 games left in the Indiana Fever’s regular season. Since the top 8 teams in the league make the playoffs, and the Fever currently in 7th place overall — this final stretch is setting up to be a WNBA/national TV dream!

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