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In the email today:
📺 Little League’s TV Cash Windfall
Penn Live obtained Little League International’s Form 990 — what tax-exempt organizations file with the IRS — from 2023, the most recent available year.
The documents revealed LLI’s broadcast deal with ESPN just jumped roughly 50% annually.
ESPN paid $17.4M to broadcast the Little League World Series, Little League Softball World Series and other events and tournaments in 2023 — about $6M more than it had the previous season.
The current deal runs through 2030 and the payout increases slightly each year, a LLI spokesman told Penn Live.
The deal is in the same ballpark as ESPN’s college broadcast deals for G6 football and mid-major hoops — which makes sense.
The LLSWS title game rating was up 139% YoY this summer and the LLWS U.S. and world title games drew 2.8M and 2.4M, respectively — those figures would be among the top-10 college football games nationally most weeks.
LLI still reported a $1.3M shortfall between expenses and revenues in 2023.
A couple of quick thoughts:
1) ABC has had LLWS broadcast rights since 1963, so the LLI-ESPN relationship is effectively closing in on its 65th anniversary.
Only CBS and The Masters have been together longer, as the report points out.
Augusta National has famously left billions of TV dollars on the table due to its unique priorities.
It seems likely LLI could also command millions more on the open market. But it does not need to chase money as a non-profit, so it can take the Notre Dame football/NBC approach and stay with the best fit.
2) I thought this may have been the most important takeaway from the report:
LLI spends about $7.5M annually to operate the Little League World Series.
We need to keep that figure in mind whenever we speculate about if/when/how Unrivaled Sports and/or Perfect Game could eventually make a run at the LLWS throne.
That is not an insignificant chunk of change. And it’s a baseline to provide the experience LLI gives athletes and their families (and everyone else) in Williamsport — another plus of the ESPN deal.
There is nothing inherently unique about Little League Baseball compared to other youth sports, besides the fact that it essentially gets “Kleenex” treatment as the OG brand of youth baseball.
Plenty of other youth championship events could yield substantial broadcast value. Indeed, flag football is well on its way. Ripken as well.
What sets the LLWS apart is its production quality. ESPN rolls out its A-team and treats it just like an MLB event— in fact, maybe puts even more effort into it.
This is why the juxtaposition between the LLWS on ESPN and the Ripken (the organization) World Series on CNBC - which was just a beefed up NBC SportsEngine stream with broadcasters - was so jarring. The quality of play was likely more or less the same, but the LLWS felt like (and is) an event.
But expect more youth events to get higher production value, and soon.
And to detour off James’ point about the cost of the event: I have no doubt that for-profit rights holders could more efficiently pull off a similarly compelling event.
The LLWS may be The Masters, but something else is just begging to be The Waste Management.
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👨💻 Hudl Continues To Beef Up Portfolio
The youth sports tech giant has purchased Athletic Data Innovations, a New Zealand-based software firm that specializes in movement analysis for tracking systems.
ADI founder Andrew Gray will take on a role at Hudl, according to SBJ— the tech will be folded into the Hudl Signal athlete management platform.
It is Hudl’s 18th acquisition — yet another data point suggesting an IPO is inevitable, and possibly imminent, with live streaming, video analysis, analytics and wearables tracking all under its umbrella.
Hudl COO Matt Mueller addressed those rumors and will be a guest on our podcast this week.
🎰 Casino’s Youth Sports Proposal Hits Hiccup
Last Wednesday’s send included a note about a casino operator’s proposal to catalyze sports tourism in Reno, Nevada.
Jacobs Entertainment said it would establish the Downtown Reno Amateur Sports Association and fund the construction of 12 multi-purpose fields near its J Resort property.
Regarding the latter: Two city council members have come out against Jacobs’ plan to use artificial turf, citing concerns about extreme heat and microplastics/forever chemicals.
The council members asked Jacobs to pivot and use natural grass. It is not clear whether the company would consider that (or if it has to, considering it appears to have enough support from other council members).
FWIW: Plans to build 11 nearby natural grass fields to be used for recreational purposes recently received approval.
Quick Take: We have taken a deep dive into the safety of turf fields and are working on a dedicated send about it. The short version is: There are genuine concerns about PFAS used in turf fields— especially older “ground tire” variants, and even newer cork-based fields. But current research is extremely limited as to whether the mere presence of toxic chemicals, in the open, is enough to present a quantifiable health risk beyond background exposure and if there are any links to health outcomes. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a link, and the turf industry certainly does its best to avoid establishing it. Either way, it’s very hard to prove at this point. Still, it’s interesting to see a city flagging the risks as it considers youth sports facilities. Reno has an existing PFAS problem in its drinking water, so they are specifically sensitive to it. But this sort of pushback could represent a headwind to youth sports facility development if it gains steam elsewhere.
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
A Connecticut man was arrested for allegedly threatening a youth soccer official with an aluminum bat.
Cops said the man got into a fight with his son’s soccer coach, then had a dispute with the Norwich PAL’s soccer president.
Officers arrived on the scene during the latter incident and said the man continued to threaten the president, leading to his arrest after a brief struggle.
The PAL said the man was issued a trespassing order.
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Good game.