Biggest winner in the business of sport was Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy

Article content

Bulls of the week

With all players, coaches and managers wearing the iconic No. 42 on April 15 each year, Major League Baseball is rock-solid in its continued commemoration of Jackie Robinson Day, the anniversary of the day that a Black player made his major league debut in 1947. It’s about a game-changer for baseball and society at large.

Meanwhile, the Savannah Bananas — baseball’s answer to the Harlem Globetrotters of basketball — continue to operate in a bull market of their own.

The latest feather in the Bananas’ cap is a 10-game deal with Disney, one that will see the minor league team on ESPN twice, ESPN2 eight times and all 10 times streaming on ESPN+ and Disney+. That new TV exposure comes one month after the Bananas drew 65,000 fans to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, breaking their own attendance record at the home of the NFL Buccaneers.

It’s also been yet another bull market for women’s sports.

In the span of less than a week, the WNBA Draft drew 1.25 million viewers on ESPN (the second biggest American audience in league history); former Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng was named commissioner of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League that is expanding this summer; and Diana Matheson’s Northern Super League made its debut before more than 14,000 fans at B.C. Place in a 1-0 win by Vancouver Rise FC over the Calgary Wild (two of the six teams in the nascent women’s pro soccer league).

To round out the buzz around women’s sports in Canada and North America, Postmedia News reported that the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) has plans to announce an expansion franchise for Vancouver on April 23. Seattle is reportedly next-in-line to become the eighth franchise in the league that began in 2023.

Yet there’s no question that the bull of the week as the biggest winner in the business of sport was Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy. He won his fifth major and first Masters to become only the sixth player in men’s golf history to complete the career Grand Slam.

McIlroy and the first major of the year were TV magnets in both the U.S. (averaging 12.7 million viewers and peaking at 19.5 million on CBS) and the U.K. (peaking at 1.85 million at midnight on Sky Sports, with a cumulative audience of 7.5 million). It was the biggest TV audience in Sky Sports network history.

McIlroy’s  career earnings now total US$104 million, joining Tiger Woods as the only two players to cross the US$100 million threshold in lifetime prize money.

Bears of the week

The presence of five of the seven Canadian-based teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs — the Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers, Ottawa Senators and the Original Six heritage brands, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens — represents a big opportunity for Canadian TV rights-holders Rogers Sportsnet and TVA Sports in French. It should translate into some monster TV numbers and merchandising sales in Canada.

Yet it’s also a big concern for the NHL with respect to its TV ratings south of the border, where the league typically performs best on TV, radio and social when U.S.-based Original Six franchises go on deep playoff runs.

The problem this year? The Leafs and Habs are, for the first time in league history, the only two Original Six clubs to make the playoffs. The Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers are all on the outside looking in, depriving the NHL of the multi-generational national followings and storylines that accompany Original Six teams.

Tom Mayenknecht is the host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at: x.com/TheSportMarket.