Latest news with #RichardJefferson
New York Times
2 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
Is NiJaree Canady's $1M deal the best return on investment in sports history?: MoneyCall
Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic's weekly sports business cheat sheet. (Want to get MoneyCall conveniently delivered to your email every Wednesday morning? Easy sign-up here.) 🚨📺 Hot off the presses this morning: Andrew Marchand on ESPN's muddled NBA Finals TV commentator situation, including exclusive new reporting on the future of Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson. Advertisement Name-dropped elsewhere today: NiJaree Canady, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Presti, Saquon Barkley, Sha'Carri Richardson, Peyton Manning, Austin Ainge, Pablo Torre, Manute Bol and more. Let's go: Let's talk about return on investment About a year ago, Texas Tech boosters offered (and paid!) $1 million to the best pitcher in college softball, NiJaree Canady, to leave Stanford and come to Lubbock. The payoff? Canady has thrown every Red Raiders pitch during the program's first Women's College World Series appearance — which includes leading them past juggernaut and four-time defending champ Oklahoma on Monday to advance to the WCWS championship. (And, yes, one costly intentional walk gone wrong against Texas tonight.) In a time with plenty of open spending on college players, that feels like the best $1 million invested in college sports this year, whether your metric is exposure for the school and program, setting a new bar of earning power for women's college athletes or simply a wealthy booster getting to feel better than if they'd spent on, like, a bathroom reno. That got me thinking about a couple of other pretty good ROIs in sports over the past few weeks: The OKC Thunder: Before they play in the 2025 NBA Finals tomorrow night, let's rewind to 2007. Thunder GM Sam Presti took on $8 million of the Phoenix Suns' undesired player salary in exchange for two future first-round picks. Here we go … One of those became Serge Ibaka … who eventually was in a deal that got OKC a draft pick that turned into Domantas Sabonis … who eventually was traded for Paul George … who was eventually the key piece of the trade with the Clippers … that yielded the Thunder its NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, along with a draft pick … that turned into SGA's All-Star teammate Jalen Williams. OKC went from being valued at less than $300 million in 2007 to more than $3.6 billion as of 2024, with this season's trip to the finals assuredly tacking on substantially more. Not a bad ROI for eating $8 million. Advertisement Wrexham: Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the team for $2.5 million in 2021. Three promotions later, it's now worth more than $100 million and ready to spend bigger — with the chance to earn promotion to the Premier League. (Naturally, the popular TV show 'Welcome to Wrexham' will be back for Season 5 to capture the effort.) Relax about the NBA Finals. Plus, a beloved show's next chapter Big talkers from the sports business industry: Other current obsessions: MLB investing in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League … the Big Ten's obsession with four auto-bids to the College Football Playoff … annoying ads shown incessantly on TV in Canada during the Stanley Cup … the $20,000 Manute Bol basketball card … Saquon Barkley on the Madden 26 cover doing this (with some help) … Saquon hit his iconic reverse hurdle for the Madden cover 🤯 (via @saquon, @NFL, @EAMaddenNFL, @ari_fararooy) — Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 2, 2025 Could anyone challenge the Premier League? While we're on the topic of 'return on investment,' earlier this week The Athletic published a thought-provoking dive by my colleague Dan Sheldon into this fascinating question: Why has there never been a challenger to the Premier League like LIV Golf to the PGA Tour or the USFL/XFL/etc. to the NFL? The answer turns out to be a combination of the Premier League's 'sheer popularity,' the 'well-established history of its biggest clubs' and some significant structural barriers, including membership rules and massive broadcast revenues. Part of it is that the Premier League itself was originally less of a challenger brand than simply a new organizing principle. Former league CEO Richard Scudamore noted: 'Nothing changed, right? It's not like LIV Golf, the IPL (cricket's Indian Premier League) or the proposed European Super League. The Premier League didn't come along and say they were going to compete head-to-head with the existing structure of English football. The smartest thing about it was that it was all change, but nothing changed. It was really just a marketing arrangement. … so it disrupted only in a governance sense — it didn't disrupt in a footballing sense.' But could it happen? What would it take? Advertisement Charlie Stillitano, football's 'Mr. Fixer,' told Sheldon this about how a Premier League rival might emerge: 'Let's be honest, there are enough billionaires in the world, and they might say, 'Let's scrap this relegation and promotion thing in England.' 'You need to have a country that is really robust. One country that you could do it in is the United States. Players would come here, you can pay them the money and they will have a good life, and it's the biggest media market and commercial market in the world. 'But we also have sports fans who like football. You could get billionaires here together to do it, but you need the courage to do it.' The entire story is well worth your time. Name to Know: Pablo Torre The former ESPN talent, occasional 'Morning Joe' co-host and full-time podcaster has made headlines in 2025 for his reporting on the Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson story, along with plenty of more esoteric topics on his eponymous pod. My colleague Zak Keefer has a phenomenal profile of one of sports media's most unique talents. Investor of the Week: Sha'Carri Richardson The Olympic track mega-star was announced as an 'adviser-owner' of Athlos, a startup women's pro track league co-founded by prolific women's sports investor Alexis Ohanian. Runner-up: Peyton Manning, who became a part-owner of NWSL Denver. Data Point: $9.55M What LAFC earned last weekend from a play-in victory to send the club to the FIFA Club World Cup. (Open question: How much will qualifying U.S. teams' players actually see of that bag? Answer: $1M per team, total, and the players are, rightfully, not happy.) Branding of the Week: Orlando Magic A- for bringing back the '90s-era pinstripes. introducing a new generation of Magic basketball — Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) June 3, 2025 Date to Know: June 1 When the calendar flipped last Sunday, Bill Belichick's buyout to leave UNC football dropped from $10 million to $1 million. To clarify: That's the number Belichick — who hasn't yet coached a game — would have to pay to walk away, not what UNC would have to pay to fire him, which comes in around $30 million, a guarantee he gets the first three years of his contract. Advertisement Filed under 'two things can be true' Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle #254 🔵🔵🔵🔵 🟡🟡🟡🟡 🟢🟢🟢🟢 🟣🟣🟣🟣 ⏱️ 00:31 Hint: Fun, timely hockey theme! Try the game here! Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute: Longtime friend of MoneyCall Joe Drape of The New York Times had an incredible feature this past weekend profiling an eighth-grade football star, his NIL opportunities and the moment we are living in when deals are coming for not just high school athletes, but even younger ones. Read it here. Two more reads worth your time: Back next Wednesday! Meanwhile, do you know what has a phenomenal ROI? Forwarding MoneyCall to a couple of friends or colleagues, with your personal recommendation to subscribe to receive it every Wednesday morning (totally free, as are all The Athletic's other newsletters).
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Top ESPN basketball analyst Doris Burke 'at risk of losing her job'
ESPN's top NBA broadcast booth could be reshuffled after just one season, according to The Athletic's Andrew Marchand. Hall-of-Fame analyst Doris Burke is not guaranteed to be back with ESPN's top trio of announcers, while Richard Jefferson has drawn some interest from Amazon Prime as the streaming giant gains domestic NBA media rights next season. Daily Mail has reached out to ESPN spokespeople for comment. Another change atop the ESPN depth chart would result in the third different grouping in as many seasons. Until 2024, the cable giant had featured the popular trio of play-by-play announcer Mike Breen, ex-coach Jeff Van Gundy and former player and coach Mark Jackson. But while Marchand reports that ESPN didn't order Van Gundy and Jackson's firings, he does say it was 'well known' the league was upset about the former's frequent criticism. ESPN replaced the two with Doc Rivers and JJ Redick, who went on to take coaching positions with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, respectively. Enter Jefferson, a popular former player, and Burke, who had been on ESPN's No. 2 pairing with long-time play-by-play announcer Mark Jones. The NBA's Nielsen ratings bounced back over the course of the 2024-25 season after a slow start, but really jumped in the postseason. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in April that television ratings from the opening weekend of the playoffs were the best the league has seen in about a quarter century. Speaking at the CAA World Congress of Sports presented by the Sports Business Journal on an array of topics, Silver seemed particularly pleased with the ratings from the first eight games -- four on Saturday, four more on Sunday. 'Highest-rated opening weekend in 25 years ... so the numbers are fantastic,' Silver told the CAA World Congress of Sports presented by the Sports Business Journal. The league said the eight games over the weekend averaged 4.4 million viewers, the highest average in 25 years and a 17-percent increase over the opening weekend of last season's playoffs. Now the league is hoping to have similar success in the NBA Finals, where the country's 25th- and 47th-ranked media markets will take stage when the Indiana Pacers square off with the Oklahoma City Thunder. People are watching; they just may not be watching on television. The social media tracking site Videocites says NBA content is getting consumed at a 64 percent higher clip than last season — 32 billion views and counting so far in these playoffs. Gilgeous-Alexander is the most viewed player, Haliburton is No. 3 and playoff clips of those two have about 1.5 billion views between them to this point. That's billion, with a B. And speaking of that, there are 76 billion reasons the NBA won't be bothered by whatever the ratings are over the next couple of weeks. The new media rights deals — an 11-year, $76 billion pact between the NBA and broadcast partners Disney (ABC/ESPN), Peacock (NBC) and Amazon (Prime Video) that kicks in at the start of next season — show that clearly somebody is watching NBA games or consuming NBA content. T he days of straight relying on Nielsen ratings seem to be long gone, with more and more people ditching cable for streaming and more and more young fans just watching everything on their phones and often in condensed versions.
New York Times
20 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
How ESPN messed up its NBA Finals TV trio, now weighs future of Doris Burke, Richard Jefferson
Back in the day, ESPN would begin The NBA Finals in triple-threat position. Play-by-player Mike Breen was ready to exclaim, 'Bang!' on the biggest baskets of the game. Jeff Van Gundy rode shotgun as perhaps the best analyst in sports with his coach's perspective. Mark Jackson would assist from the player's point of view with some catchphrases. Advertisement It was comfortable, informative and fun. Then, in a Booger Mobile-level bad decision, ESPN said 'Nah, we're good' and dumped Van Gundy and Jackson in the summer budget cuts of 2023. It didn't make sense then, and doesn't make sense now. It is relevant again, as for the second post-Van Gundy and Jackson Finals, all eyes and ears will be on another ESPN newbie team. Breen, now joined by Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson, will call their first Finals together as a trio. It may also be their only Finals together. Since ESPN fired Van Gundy and Jackson, it promoted the trailblazing Burke to the No. 1 team and hired Doc Rivers. Rivers, after promising he wouldn't return to coaching, quickly did exactly that by taking the Milwaukee Bucks' job last season, inspiring Breen, with his trademark slight chuckle, to thank Rivers 'for his many weeks of service.' ESPN next turned to JJ Redick to join Breen and Burke. The trio were not exactly scintillating, but only had months, not years, to jell. Redick then fled to coach the Lakers. Now, for these Finals, pitting the Oklahoma City Thunder against the Indiana Pacers, it is Breen, Burke and Jefferson. Next year, at this time, it very well could be a different team. While ESPN intends on re-signing Jefferson, it has not yet locked him up with his contract expiring, according to sources briefed on the talks. Amazon Prime Video has expressed some interest in Jefferson, according to the same sources. Meanwhile, Burke's spot is not guaranteed for next season, according to sources familiar with ESPN's preliminary plans. While Breen, the Basketball Hall of Famer under a long-term deal, is not going anywhere, ESPN will evaluate its entire roster. ESPN executives will debate what is next, according to sources, with one discussion likely centering around if they feel Burke is better on a two-person team as opposed to the three-person team. Advertisement ESPN's other NBA game analysts this season were Tim Legler, Jay Bilas and Cory Alexander. This new team puts Breen in the middle of trying to find the magic that he had with Van Gundy and Jackson. Breen is one of the best NBA play-by-players ever and has called the most Finals on TV, but there has been a hole in his game for two seasons. He has not made his analysts better, seemingly trying to carry more of the load, while failing to lift up his partners. While he still sounds good, he can come across like a star player wanting to run his usual half-court offense with players built to run. Breen is dominating the ball more compared to the Van Gundy and Jackson prime. It's a team game, and Breen, Burke and Jefferson lack flow. ESPN's decision-making has been odd for two years, starting with the Van Gundy and Jackson firings. The NBA never ordered a Code Red on Van Gundy, though it was well-known that the league didn't like his criticism of officials. That certainly didn't help Van Gundy, especially on the precipice of the NBA's long-term TV rights negotiations, at the end of which ESPN secured The Finals for its entire new 11-year deal. ESPN sources at the time said that part of their calculus in letting Van Gundy go was his desire to return to coaching. While Van Gundy did show interest in coming back to the sidelines again, he was back on TV next to Breen and Jackson, year after year. Following the firing of Van Gundy and Jackson, Rivers and Redick took off for coaching without even spending a full season as the network's No. 1 analyst. (After being fired by ESPN, Van Gundy did become a top assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers.) While Jefferson has shown potential and is committed to being a game analyst, ESPN passed him over for Redick last year. ESPN did not name Redick's replacement in the offseason. This year, ESPN waited and waited before finally naming Jefferson to be Breen and Burke's partner. Advertisement ESPN got this backwards. Last season, after Rivers departed around New Year's, ESPN should have done a bake-off between Redick and Jefferson to see who sounded better with Breen and Burke. Jefferson's humor actually adds another ingredient, compared to the drier Redick. Plus, Jefferson does not seem to have any desire to coach. Either way, there was no need to rush. This season, post-Redick, ESPN should have committed to Jefferson earlier, since the new trio could have done more games together to get as many reps as possible before The Finals. Burke is in the Basketball Hall of Fame, rightfully so. She was handed nothing, coming from obscurity, first working New York Liberty games on MSG Network before her rise through the ESPN ranks. She was sharp and informative. But in the three-person booth the last two years, she hasn't seemed to mesh as well with Breen. He doesn't outright ignore what she says, but they rarely build on each other's comments. ESPN has failed to create a deep game analyst bench, even resorting to college basketball expert Bilas on playoff games this season. Some top decision-makers like Legler a lot, and he could become a Finals option, according to sources briefed on the network decision-makers' thinking. Before ESPN bought Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in for 'Monday Night Football,' Breen, Van Gundy and Jackson was probably the best major game booth ESPN had. The network broke it up — and is still trying to put something even close to it together. ESPN will go into the NBA Finals with Breen, Burke and Jefferson. The trio is in their first season together, and it can take time. They are still figuring out when is the best time for each to shoot or pass or dribble. But the Finals are not the best time for learning. (Top illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images)
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Ex-NBA Champion Recalls How 40-Year-Old Michael Jordan Torched His Team Single-Handedly
Former NBA champion Richard Jefferson recently recalled a game during his rookie season with the New Jersey Nets when Michael Jordan torched the team for 45 points by himself. While reacting to a highlight reel of Jordan from that game on X, Jefferson said: Advertisement "We had the #1 defense and went to the finals that year… Got cooked." The video showcased the NBA legend's skill, even late in his career. At 40 years old, Michael Jordan still looked nimble and capable enough of dismantling defenses on his own. The game took place on New Year's Eve during the 2001-02 season. The Washington Wizards emerged victorious after a 98-76 scoreline, dominating the Nets, who would make an appearance in the NBA Finals that season. Jordan notched a game-high 45 points, to go with 10 rebounds and seven assists, adding three steals to the tally. The second highest scorer on the Wizards for the game was Christ Whitney with 14 points. Advertisement Meanwhile, the Nets saw Kenyon Martin and Keith Van Horn lead the scoring effort with 16 points each. Jason Kidd was their key player for the game with 10 points and 11 assists. A young Richard Jefferson put up a disappointing five points in 20 minutes of game time off the bench. The 2001-02 season also marked the second time Jordan came out of retirement to play in the NBA. Seeing the Wizards' performances for the season, the then 38-year-old Jordan decided to step in and take matters into his own hands. After playing in 60 games for the team, the former Bulls legend put up a respectable average of 22.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game. He also earned himself an All-Star nod and ended 13th in the MVP race that season. Unfortunately, Jordan's addition didn't see the Wizards improve by a whole lot. Washington ended the season with a disappointing 37-45 record and finished 10th in the Eastern Conference. Advertisement Jordan's time with the Wizards was short. He went on to play another season with the team after deciding to eventually retire in the 2002-03 season. The superstar had already sold his stake in the team before joining them for the season, as league rules prohibited him from being an owner and a player at the same time. After retiring, the Bulls legend went on to buy a stake in the Charlotte Bobcats in 2006 and eventually purchased controlling rights by 2010. His ownership of the team ended after he decided to sell the franchise in 2023 to a group of investors Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall. Related: Michael Jordan Revealed That Coming Out Of Retirement And Playing For The Wizards Was One Of The Biggest Mistakes He Made In Washington
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Doris Burke Refuses To Apologize For Where She Stands Politically
ESPN's lead NBA announcing team of Mike Breen, Doris Burke, and Richard Jefferson is on the call of the Eastern Conference Finals, starting on Wednesday night. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals is underway live from New York City. The Knicks are hosting the Pacers in Game 1 on Wednesday night. Both the Knicks and the Pacers are coming off huge second round wins, taking down the Celtics and Cavs, respectively. Advertisement Burke, 60, has become one of the faces of ESPN's NBA coverage. She worked her way up from analyst to sideline reporter to lead in-game analyst on ESPN's No. 1 team. She'll be on the call of the NBA Finals this year. While Burke is known for her basketball takes, she's made it pretty clear where she stands politically over the years, too. LAS VEGAS, NV - OCTOBER 08: ESPN reporter and analyst Doris Burke broadcasts after a preseason game between the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers at T-Mobile Arena on October 8, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Los Angeles won 75-69. (Photo by) Burke, a New York native, made it clear that she was no fan of President Trump. The prominent ESPN NBA analyst shared a negative article about Trump on X, formerly known as Twitter, titled "Trump babbles in the face of tragedy." Burke doesn't speak about politics very often, but clearly, she felt it was important to let people know where she stands on an important issue like President Trump. The article shared by Burke did not hold back, either. Advertisement "What do we do with a president who is incapable or unwilling to perform his basic duties? What do we do when he is incapable of outrage at outrageous things? What do we do with a president who provides barely veiled cover for the darkest instincts of the human heart? These questions lead to the dead end of political realism — a hopeless recognition of limited options. But the questions intensify," it read. TORONTO, ON - DECEMBER 05: ESPN television analyst Doris Burke does a TV spot as she sets up the Toronto Raptors NBA game against the Philadelphia 76ers at Scotiabank Arena on December 5, 2018 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by)Burke sticks mostly to basketball these days - as do most of ESPN's top announcers - but every now and then, they'll let people know where they stand politically. Burke did just that with her tweet about President Trump - one that she'll refuse to apologize for. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals is underway on ESPN.
