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3/27/2024 |  Caitlin Clark expected to influence the WNBA the way Tiger Woods changed golf (Gist Sports, The)

The GIST: Caitlin Clark is leading Iowa through March Madness as she broke another scoring record on her way to this weekend’s Sweet 16. As she draws GOAT comparisons, people are also recognizing her potential to transform the business of women’s basketball — WNBA CMO Phil Cook recently told SportsPro that she’s the next Tiger Woods. Just prodigy things.

The Clark Effect: In the interview, Cook noted how Clark’s decision to go pro is more akin to Woods’ decision than LeBron James joining the NBA. He said Tiger’s ascension transformed the PGA ecosystem, with golf undergoing a “renaissance” that will likely be replicated when Clark joins the WNBA. She already has affected the Indiana Fever, the W team expected to draft her No. 1 in April.

The Woods comparison: Simply put, Woods made golf cool and accessible to a new generation of fans, and his status as a golf prodigy brought a new celebrity atmosphere to the sport. Woods’ 27-year Nike partnership earned him about $660M, but it likely gave Nike much more. The company saw at least $22.5M in brand exposure during just the final round of his 2019 Masters victory.

  • It’s well-documented that Clark is having a similar effect on women’s basketball by appealing to all demographics, especially young kids inspired by her game. And like Woods’ endless Nike sales, Clark has been tapped to help transform the collectibles market for WNBA athletes.

Zooming out: Tiger Woods is an example of how one generational athlete can transform a sport…but only if they have the proper infrastructure to thrive. Nike signed Woods before his pro debut, and many brands have already done the same with Clark, including Fever sponsor Gainbridge and State Farm, which has featured her in several commercials. Fever dream high.

3/27/2024 |  NBA’s Global Plans: League Taking a Conservative Approach. Here Is Why (Front Office Sports)

The NBA is just a few weeks away from the playoffs, marching toward the conclusion of a season that began with a record 125 international players on opening-night rosters and included games in Mexico City and Paris. Those cities will host regular-season games again during the 2024–25 campaign, and they’re not the only foreign locales looking for a piece of the league.

“The good news is there’s no shortage of interest from cities and countries wanting to host our NBA games,” deputy commissioner Mark Tatum tells Front Office Sports. But as U.S. leagues evaluate how to expand their global footprint—the NFL, for example, will make its regular-season debut in Brazil this fall and plans to play up to eight international games per season in 2025 and beyond—the NBA is taking a measured approach on adding foreign countries to its slate. “The challenge for us on regular-season games is just one of a calendar and of the window,” Tatum says. (The NBA has also previously hosted regular-season games in Japan and the U.K.) “Our schedule is a pretty condensed schedule to play 82 games. Plus, now we have the Emirates NBA Cup that we have to squeeze into a season.”

That all means cities like Abu Dhabi, which “would love” to host a regular-season game, Tatum says, will have to keep settling for preseason matchups. (The Celtics and Nuggets will play two exhibition games there in October.) “It really does put a lot of pressure on the schedule,” Tatum says of taking the league abroad. “And I think that’s why we have to focus on regular-season games in places that don’t put an unnecessary tax on the travel of a team.”

Around the World

If and when the NBA decides to take more regular-season games abroad, the world’s second-most populous continent will be on the league’s wish list. 

Already, the NBA-backed Basketball Africa League is finding success in its fourth season, with nearly 25,000 fans having attended games in Pretoria, South Africa, earlier this month. The BAL will visit a record four countries this season, but ultimately the NBA would like to move from a ​​caravan model to a home and away system, with teams traveling to each other’s home markets.

“The challenge right now is that we don’t have the facilities [and] the arenas in enough countries in Africa to do that,” Tatum explains. “But our long-term goal, and I think [we] will get there over time, is that all 54 countries in Africa would have a world-class basketball arena that could host a BAL game—and NBA games at some point in the future as well.”

3/27/2024 |  ‘An Expensive Game’: March Madness and NIL Collectives Are Intertwined (Front Office Sports)

Last season, after Northwestern reached the second round of the NCAA men’s tournament in its second-ever appearance, the school’s name, image, and likeness collective knew other programs would be interested in star point guard Boo Buie.

Luckily for the collective’s executive director, Jacob Schmidt, and the rest of the Northwestern fanbase, Buie stayed for his COVID-19 year of eligibility rather than turning pro or hitting the transfer portal. He had plenty of reasons to stay in Evanston (his brother is an assistant coach for the Wildcats), but a handsome check from TrueNU was a part of that decision. 

Now that Buie led the school to its first back-to-back tournament appearances, the collective can’t help but feel a tad responsible. Buie is its success story.

“If TrueNU did not exist, there’s a high likelihood Boo Buie would not wear purple and white this year,” says Schmidt, a former Wildcat running back.

In the current era of college basketball, collectives and March Madness are intertwined. They make each other more powerful and raise the stakes of a system that some doubt is sustainable because it relies on enormous donations from fans and is governed by no one, not even the NCAA. Collectives fuel NCAA tournament runs by financially backing rosters that can compete at the highest level. March Madness fuels collectives in return, providing the perfect stage for operators to attract donors.

The best point guards in the college basketball transfer portal usually cost around $200,000 to $400,000, per Pete Nakos of On3. According to Schmidt, a top basketball program spends between $1.5 million and $3 million on its roster, with the stars getting the biggest cut, but figuring out the market rate is “not a perfect science.” Schmidt describes the collective world as quasi-professional sports, where the biggest checks lead to the best results—and the people writing those checks feel validated when their teams win.

“It’s very much about riding the wave of momentum to remind people of the importance of investing in these guys,” Schmidt says. “Hey, that was fun, want to do it again next year? We need some help.”

Wisconsin didn’t make the tournament last season (they settled for the NIT semifinals), but The Varsity Collective and coach Greg Gard retained the five leading scorers and high hopes for this year. They made it this season, and leading up to tip-off, the collective announced a fundraising campaignwhere anonymous supporters would match donations up to $250,000. Barstool Sports’ Dan “Big Cat” Katz, a Badger alum, even promoted the effort to nearly two million followers on X.

Once in Brooklyn, the No. 5–seeded Badgers were upset by the No. 12–seeded JMU, and the collective’s campaign lost steam. As of Wednesday, The Varsity Collective had raised only $61,610 from 87 donors.

Still, getting face time with donors and fundraising around tentpole events like March Madness is a huge advantage compared to not making the tournament at all, the collective’s executive chair Rob Master tells Front Office Sports.

College sports move quickly. Vanderbilt announced the hire of JMU head coach Mark Byington roughly 18 hours after his team lost to Duke on Sunday evening. Meanwhile, the transfer portal opened the day after Selection Sunday, and hundreds of men’s and women’s players declared and entered almost immediately.

In 2024, you can’t assume a player is likely to return, even if they go on the record to say that they will. Two nights after Wisconsin’s season ended, Badger guard Connor Essegian announced his decision to enter the transfer portal, shortly followed by two of his teammates. Not even two weeks prior, Essegian told BadgerBlitz.com: “There’s no reason [to enter the portal] … I love this place.” 

Now, Northwestern is going back to the drawing board to maintain a roster that can return to the tournament without Buie and grad transfer Ryan Langborg. Some fans are already anxious after seeing sophomore Nick Martinelli’s vague end-of-season post. Junior Brooks Barnhizer will no doubt attract coaches (and collectives) who want him on their team next March. Like Buie, Barnhizer and Martinelli have plenty of reasons to stay, but TrueNU will need to offer the players a sizable deal, or somebody else will.

“We’re proud that we’re allowing our coaches to compete in this crazy new world,” Schmidt says. But, he contests, “This is not sustainable for anyone in the country.”

In the past, fans might’ve supported an athletic department fundraising campaign for a new facility. Now, they’re being asked to open their wallets for NIL year after year, which is no guarantee if their dollars aren’t producing wins. 

This year, donors paying Buie hundreds of thousands of dollars through NIL is the closest thing to directly compensating him. But, by next March, college sports could establish a new pay-for-play model given ongoing pushes for athlete unionization, for deeming athletes employees, for establishing a revenue share of media rights, and for bringing collectives in-house. At least for this tournament and upcoming offseason, collectives still own the checkbook.

“It’s an expensive game to play, but again, we didn’t make these rules, and we don’t want to be the reason why Chris [Collins] or David Braun can’t compete,” Schmidt says, referring to the school’s men’s basketball and football coaches. “If you don’t compete in the NIL world, your best players will not stay at your place.”

3/26/2024 |  Racism Mars March Madness For Utah Utes Women’s Basketball (First and Pen)

Unfortunately for the Utah Utes women’s basketball team, their March Madness experience was marred upon arrival by a racist incident.

According to head coach Lynne Roberts, her team experienced a number of “racial hate crimes” after they arrived at their hotel in Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, which is roughly 30 miles away from Gonzaga, the host school in Spokane, Washington.

Coach Roberts, after the team lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the tournament on Monday night, said the incidents took place on Thursday night when they arrived. It was so bad that they were concerned about the team’s safety and were eventually relocated to a different hotel the next day. 

She didn’t go into detail about the incidents, but she appeared shaken up while revealing what happened.

“We had several instances of some kind of racial hate crimes toward our program and it was incredibly upsetting for all of us,” Roberts said. “In our world, in athletics and in university settings, it’s shocking. There’s so much diversity on a college campus and so you’re just not exposed to that very often.”

According to KSL.com, players, team members, cheerleaders and the school band were called the N-word as they walked around the town.

ESPN.com writes, “Utah deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com that the first incident occurred while the team was walking from the hotel to the restaurant. An unidentified person in a white truck revved the vehicle’s engine near the team before yelling the N-word in their direction and speeding off.”

“We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that? … Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen,” Green told KSL.com. “We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”

The school filed a police report on the incidents. 

Utah, along with South Dakota State and UC Irvine, were staying at hotels in Idaho as Spokane was also hosting the first and second rounds of the men’s tournament and a large regional youth volleyball tournament. Due to the crunch put on hotels, the NCAA granted Gonzaga a waiver to allow teams to be hosted in Coeur d’Alene.

“Racism is real and it happens and it’s awful,” Roberts said. “So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting. For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up.”

The Utes have 3 Black players, 2 Spanish players, one Samoan player and a Black assistant coach.

Fortunately for these team members, the NCAA and Gonzaga wasted no time in helping to relocate the Utes after the incidents.

“It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate,” Roberts said. “This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate.”

Gonzaga issued a statement on X/Twitter about the incident.

“Hate speech in any form is repugnant, shameful and must never be tolerated,” wrote Gonzaga. “We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know what should always be an amazing visitor and championship experience was in any way compromised by this situation for it in no way reflects the values, standards and beliefs to which we at Gonzaga University hold ourselves accountable.”

Hopefully, those involved are punished. We’ll keep you updated on this story as more news becomes available.

3/25/2024 |  2024 March Madness betting recap: 'Saturday was our worst day of the year' (Fox Sports) Most of the first two days of the NCAA Tournament went well for the sportsbooks and not quite so well for the public betting masses.
But once James Madison — a very popular underdog — notched its 72-61 upset of Wisconsin on Friday night, the tide began to turn in the March Madness odds market.
"Saturday was our worst day of the year," said Zachary Lucas, TwinSpires Sportsbook director of retail sports.

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