Bulls & Bears
Tom Mayenknecht hosts The Sport Market on TSN 1040 and TSN Radio, where he regularly rates and debates the Bulls & Bears of sports business. He reviews the major winners and losers of the past week every Saturday.
Bulls of the Week In a month of October that is a wall-to-wall bull market for Major League Baseball as it ramps up toward the World Series, baseball fever took hold this week with record-setting North American television audiences for the one-and-done wild card play-in games Tuesday on ESPN and Wednesday on TBS, terrific Canadian TV numbers for the first post-season appearance of the Toronto Blue Jays in 22 years on Thursday, and the year’s biggest baseball television marathon to date in yesterday’s quadrupleheader of games. Friday’s four games and 12-plus hours of live television are notable for more than the sheer volume of air time they delivered for MLB. Baseball is off to a bullish start this postseason on the strength of having the continent’s five largest television markets engaged: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto and Houston. The Blue Jays-Texas Rangers ALDS will not make U.S. audiences shake — one American market will never do the job of two — but it will see more Canadians watching baseball than at any time since 1993. Despite late starts on the West Coast, the Mets-L.A. Dodgers series has all the ingredients to be one of the highest-rated divisional series in years and, along with the presence of the Chicago Cubs, it should set the stage for a strong and bullish month of television, radio, social media engagement, merchandise sales and fantasy sports buy-in.
Bears of the Week Talking about fantasy sports, a case of “insider trading” made it a bearish week for the sector. The controversy around employee access to competitive advantage exposed the need for regulation in one of the fastest-growing industries in North America. It had tongues wagging about the right and wrong of fantasy sports, sports betting and online poker. I’m among those who prefers legalized, regulated and informed sports betting to the underground variety. In a world only getting smaller through technology, I think it’s ridiculous that Europe, Asia and North America can be so far apart on their laws around sports betting. When it comes to fantasy sports, it’s clearly big business and a huge driver of fan engagement and television viewing. Bottom line: I believe it’s good for the business of sport. That’s why — full disclosure — I’ve accepted an invitation to join the board of directors of the new Canadian fantasy sports platform, Vancouver-based Fantasy 6. I’m looking forward to being an advocate for the founding principles of Fantasy 6, which include simple games opening the genre up to everyday fans, high-tech best practices and something unique — applying the forum of fantasy sports to community fundraising and philanthropy, as in this month’s Thanks for Giving food bank free contest at fantasy6.net. Having said all of that, it’s incumbent on the big players, Draft-Kings and Fan-Duel, to do better and do so fast. Why? Because without trust, there’s nothing.