Wimbledon Heat: Record Ratings and Semifinal Showdowns

Football fans are counting down the weeks until kickoff Saturday for college football and kickoff Sunday in the NFL.

Now summer is the prime season for baseball fans, being one of the four major sports in full swing, but there's still plenty of action to dive into.

Joining me this morning from Vegas with more is Rick Carro, CEO of Horror Sports Ventures.

Rick, good morning and thank you so much for waking up so early to join us.

First and foremost, I know there's a heat wave going on in Vegas, but there's also one taking place as Wimbledon continues.

The prestigious Wimbledon tournament has been taking place, and Alka Ariz, Djokovic, and Cina are in the semifinals tomorrow.

ESPN saw its best day one ratings this year on opening day.

So what can we expect from the world's oldest championship tennis tournament?

Clearly, good morning.

CCO, the sports Entertainment Innovation Conference here.

Amazing thought leaders.

We talk about all of these issues, including Wimbledon.

The ESPN people were happy because it's a 37% increase in day one ratings, and a lot of the top seeds got blown out early.

Yet a lot of the guys, girls who are normally expected to deal with the end of the tournament are in it.

Sabbilenka is an Tight match as we speak.

We've got the semis you described on the men's side.

Tomorrow.

Wimbledon 85 degrees.

You think it's hot in Vegas.

They've already had two major heat stroke oriented breaks for the fans here there.

And the bottom line is ESPN made a major bet on Wimbledon long term, and it seems to be paying off as we get into the summer of major tennis.

And moving back to stateside, we know that Trump is good friends with USC Chief Dana White, and Trump said the White House will host a fight on its grounds for America's 250th birthday next year.

So what does this all mean?

Couldn't have come at a better time.

I hosted a panel yesterday with two of the top guys at UFC, and they're talking about going to international destinations like Azerbaijan and all of the European and Asian places.

It's a major sport renegotiating a major television deal that they're going to announce at the end of this year, but nobody expects.

Did the White House deal to come together so quickly, I guess with Dana White and Donald Trump, you don't wait till until tomorrow talking about up to 25,000 people on the White House grounds next to Independence Day.

We don't know what the venue is like, what the logistics are.

I suggested they fight it out in the Oval Office, but I didn't have any takers when I talked to those people yesterday.

Well, Rick, I guess we'll have to just wait and see how all of this unfolds, and I do want to ask you, Angel Rees will grace the cover of WNBA 2K video game, but the big WNBA news is the planned league expansion over the next few years.

So Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia all want teams.

So what's going on there?

Another major topic here, women's sports, the top ranked sponsorship activation of anything.

So what is women's soccer, women's tennis, women's golf, and obviously the WNBA do expand, talk about it as much as they could.

North Philly, Cleveland, Detroit, and other candidates, they will play off.

Each other because scarcity increases value, increases leverage.

Values of franchises may be north of $200 million when the NBA owners made an initial investment years ago.

They just thought about it as summer fodder slash content for their arenas that weren't be used otherwise.

Boy has it changed.

And Rick NYSE listed company Lowe's has been hit by tariff uncertainty and is lower year to date, but it is seeing positive results from its marketing campaign with soccer superstar Lionel Messi ahead of next year's World Cup.

So tell us more about this. uncertainty maybe not messy uncertainty.

The Club World Cup and FIFA does not have an official relationship with Lowe's, but they do with Messi, and now they have unveiled a commercial with him in every role.

You see him, you hear him, you talk about him.

He's wearing different stuff at Lowe's facilities.

I don't know how they got him to do this.

It was longer than a normal day shoot for an advertising executive, but the bottom line is they're seeing tremendous numbers.

And by the way, we're heading to the World Cup next year as the club World Cup ends.

Got to be excited about that.

We'll cover that wall to wall next year.

It's not only the US, as you know, Remy, but it's Canada, Mexico as well.

That's all everybody is talking about here at CCOM.

And the countdown is on.

So finally, I do want to leave you with the PGA.

So the PGA has revamped its FedEx Cup payout structure.

Meanwhile, LIV Golf has made MGM its title sponsor for next year's preseason week.

So what's going on with golf?

A tale, a tale of two competitive leagues and entities.

So it's a $100 million prize purse for the FedEx Cup, the end of the playoffs, and the top heavy folks get the dollars, the bottom heavy not finishing in the top 10, say we want more.

So they've redistributed the dollars.

It used to be a $25 million first prize.

That's a lot of money.

Don't hold a big sale for that winter, but they're reducing that to 10, and they're spreading that $100 million out more players, more.

Excitement, more sharing in the revenue.

So that's for them.

And meanwhile right here in Vegas across the street, MGM, a major sponsor of the Live kick off next year.

So dueling entities we thought many thought the industry would come together and combine like they did in racing and in other places, especially with Donald Trump wanting that merger.

It hasn't happened yet.

Well, Rick, thank you so much for joining us this morning, as always, we appreciate your time and stay cool in Vegas.

You stay cool as well.

Have a good weekend.

See you next week.