Facebook getting into the baseball business
Will stream 20 MLB games this season
Sorting out the major winners and losers of this week — with a bottom-line twist — in the world of sports:’
BULLS OF THE WEEK
The shifting media landscape was exemplified again this week by a new livestreaming deal between Major League Baseball and Facebook, which will use its Live platform to stream 20 Friday night games this season.
Fast- forward five years and it’ ll be interesting to see how and where Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and others stack up against conventional sports broadcast rights holders such as all- sports ESPN and networks like NBC, CBS and Fox.
The only thing constant: Change. Meanwhile, it ’s been another good week for the New York Yankees, who at US$ 3.7 billion are the highest- valued franchise in MLB according to the latest Forbes rankings of enterprise values.
The pinstripes continue their surprising run at the top of the AL East and maintain the second- best record in all of MLB.
In the NBA, the countdown continues unabated to a third-consecutive Finals f eaturing t he Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors.
Yet there’s nothing this spring like overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Going into play this weekend, 26 NHL post- season games have gone to OT.
That includes a particularly satisfying first round, in which a new Stanley Cup record was set for most overtimes in a single round ( 17). The NHL is having the kind of competitive playoffs the NBA can only dream of, with 47 one-goal games to date.
That’s just four south of the Stanley Cup record of 51 one- goal games set in 2007, ironically enough the last time the Ottawa Senators advanced to the conference finals.
As you would expect, the overtimes and close games are translating into strong television ratings for the NHL on both sides of the border, where audiences are up more than 10 per cent in the U. S. and more than twice that in Canada. Compare that to the NBA, where most fans have pencilled in a predictable Cleveland- Golden State championship showdown for weeks, if not months.
Lonzo Ball — and his father — may want to pursue his NBA career in Los Angeles with his hometown Lakers, who will pick second in the upcoming NBA draft, but rhetorically freezing out the No. 1- selecting Boston Celtics will leave significant money on the table.
In the ongoing sport business soap opera known as the Big Baller Brand, ESPN sport business reporter Darren Rovell noted Thursday that LaVar Ball’s insistence that his son Lonzo play for the Lakers in Los Angeles rather than the Boston Celtics could cost him US$ 2.2 million, according to the three- year contract differential in the rookie salary grid between going first overall and second.
Chartered professional accountant Robert Raiola chimed in on the significant tax difference between playing professional sport in California ( 13.3 per cent top state tax rate) and Massachusetts (5.1 per cent).
It’s also been a bad week for Kevin Pillar of the Toronto Blue Jays (suspended two games for uttering an antigay slur in action Wednesday night in Atlanta) and the San Francisco 49ers, who are being fined for a U2 concert that broke the Santa Clara municipal curfew of 10 p. m. set for Levi’s Stadium.
Yet no one has had a more bearish week than the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers of the NFL.
Record winter ra i nfall in L. A. will delay the c ompletion of t he new US$ 2.6- billion Inglewood stadium by a full year.
That means the Chargers are likely stuck in the 27,000- seat StubHub Center for a third year. Serves them right?
STRONG TV RATINGS FOR NHL ON BOTH SIDES OF BORDER.