Tonight in Unpacks:
Other headlines:
In this morning’s Buzzcast, SBJ’s David Albright offers a touching eulogy for legendary NCAA basketball analyst Billy Packer, who worked for 34 straight Final Four men’s tournaments, and then gets back to business with another exec change at Warner Bros. Discovery, Verizon’s big NFL postseason spending and key moves at the Michael Jordan-backed 23XI Racing.
This rending shows the “Minnie and Paul” shaking hands on the Twins’ enhanced signs.
February will mark one year since OneTeam partnered with Fanatics to launch a college jersey program that would rival the model and structure that has been commonly used by the pro players associations for the past 50 years. During the past year, OneTeam Partner has signed more than 8,000 college athletes to group licensing agreements, including 4,500 football players, 1,000 women’s soccer athletes and 700 women’s volleyball athletes across 80 schools.
Fanatics for the first time is offering Nike, Adidas and Under Armour football jerseys with actual player names and numbers. Previously, consumers had to use their own names. The football players in the program represent 42 schools — essentially the 42 best-selling schools in the Fanatics portfolio of partnerships.
In the coming months, it will grow even more. OneTeam and Fanatics will expand their program to include jerseys from the spring season sports, including baseball, softball and lacrosse.
“It’s important to point out that this program is not just benefiting football and basketball players,” said Malaika Underwood, OneTeam’s interim CEO. “This has really opened the doors for us to provide an inclusive program across a bunch of sports, men and women. And we’re just getting started.”
That expansion will drive growth in the jersey program to tens of thousands of athletes with licensed product on Fanatics and Barnes & Noble College e-commerce sites. OneTeam has already signed up 550 women’s basketball players and 540 men’s basketball participants from 94 schools this winter.
SBJ’s Michael Smith in Monday’s magazine takes a closer look at the group licensing business being grown by OneTeam and Fanatics. Get an Early Access look at the piece here.
Football jerseys with names on them have been one of Fanatics’ NIL-era offerings
OpTic Gaming, the parent company of Call of Duty League franchise OpTic Texas, has tapped Wingstop as its presenting sponsor for the CDL’s Major III, which the company will host, reports SBJ’s Hunter Cooke.
According to a LinkedIn post from Shay Butler, VP of sales and marketing at OpTic, Wingstop will be the “Official Wing of OpTic Texas,” and the brand’s logo will be featured on OpTic jerseys. According to a Wingstop spokesperson, the deal was negotiated directly with OpTic Texas.
The Wingstop spokesperson said, “There are undeniable synergies between Wingstop’s loyal fanbase and OpTic Texas’ fervent followers,” noting how the brands will work together to bring “content and activations” to Major III. Despite several sponsors pulling out of esports deals, Wingstop noted that it is “playing the long game.”
OpTic Gaming hasn’t announced a site for Major III yet, but the organization does operate the Esports Stadium Arlington, so that could be the venue.
NFL sponsor Verizon has ramped up its postseason TV ad spend, and it now occupies the top spot among all brands after the Divisional and Wild Card games. SBJ’s David Broughton and Austin Karp dug through iSpot.tv data and found that Verizon, which has sponsored the league since 2010, has spent $50.7 million on national TV ads through the first two rounds of the playoffs, up 68% from what it spent during the same time frame last season (went it ranked No. 4).
Looking at each of the top 10 brands in spend thus far, only TurboTax (whose parent company Intuit is a league sponsor), has announced plans to advertise during the Super Bowl next month.
In other Super Bowl news in this week’s SBJ Football newsletter, SBJ’s Jason Wilson reports that Guy Fieri is joining Medium Rare’s lineup of parties the weekend of the big game.
For the first time, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) will bring esports to one of its marquee events by running an esports championship alongside its men’s and women’s conference basketball tournament, reports SBJ’s Kevin Hitt. While the basketball events take place at the Norfolk Scope Arena in Virginia from March 8-11, the esports championships, featuring play in Smash Bros. Ultimate, Mario Kart 8, Overwatch 2 and Rocket League, will run March 8-9.
The idea here is to build esports through the reach of its conference basketball programs. The MEAC has been sanctioning esports for just over two years now and has seen the program grow tremendously throughout its membership of HBCU schools.
Also in this week’s SBJ Esports newsletter, SBJ’s Hunter Cooke reports on how Oni Studios, the brainchild of Fortnite content creator Ali “SypherPK” Hassan and CEO Daniela Ali, and how it’s targeting “the creator economy” as esports organizations lay off staff in a changing economic landscape.
- Over $100,000 was bet across Simplebet partners on the touchdown selection for Chiefs QB Chad Henne’s 98-yard drive (the drive started at TD +600), notes SBJ’s Bill King. Simplebet had over $4 million in handle bet on this past weekend’s four Divisional games come from the state of Ohio.
- ESPN is getting into business with Jake Paul, announcing that it will air his long-anticipated fight versus Tommy Fury in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, Feb. 26, reports SBJ’s Adam Stern.
- The U.S. will host the 2024 edition of CONMEBOL’s Copa América tournament under a new strategic agreement between the South American soccer confederation and Concacaf, the confederation representing North America, Central America and the Caribbean, writes SBJ’s Alex Silverman.
- Gipper Media, a digital media platform helping amateur sports organizations create professional social content, raised an $8.6 million Series A round led by Telescope Partners, writes SBJ’s Joe Lemire.
- Iowa freshmen wrestler Bella Mir is the UFC’s first NIL ambassador. Mir is the daughter of two-time UFC heavyweight champ Frank Mir and won four state high school wrestling titles in Nevada.
- Twix has agreed to a sponsorship deal with U.S. snowboarder and X Games competitor Maddie Mastro. As part of the deal, a Twix-themed “Doughboard” (splitboard) will be half-designed by Mastro, with Twix leaving the second half for fans to design (Twix will choose a winner next month).
