Both fastballs and fast cars.
NASCAR's famous Bristol Motor Speedway was busy this weekend as Major League Baseball held its first ever game at a racetrack.
The MLB Speedway Classic set a record attendance of 91,000 spectators Sunday despite being rained out Saturday night.
And elsewhere in the sports world, one of football's best defensive players wants off America's team, and Vegas is transforming into a. sports.
Well, joining me live here at the New York Stock Exchange is Rick Harrow, CEO of Horror Sports Ventures.
Rick, so great to have you here in person.
Thank you for joining me.
Thank you very much.
I've got a Fintech cup I'm going to take as a memento and never give it back.
Thank you very much for having me here.
Well, it's so great to have you here in person to talk about the business of sports.
So first and foremost, tell me about the MLB Speedway Classic and how did it get across the finish line?
The finish line, notwithstanding the weather, because they were able to play on a Sunday, Saturday's game was suspended, but you pegged it.
91,000.
It's the most ever watched regular season game for baseball in Bristol, Tennessee.
So Major League Baseball clearly has an affinity for special events.
They moved 18,000 tons of gravel, moved to the lap areas around, and they turned an amazing racetrack into an amazing baseball field.
It's good for baseball.
Yeah, and we can't have a conversation without the business of sports without talking about social media in particular, Mike and Parsons requesting a trade.
Now we know his Twitter posts got a lot of attention there, but what do you make of what's happening?
Well, first of all, he signed a 5 year rookie deal, 4 year plus 1.
And look, $24 million a year, we're not holding a bake sale for Michael Parsons, but the value on the open market would have been $40 million or more.
Jerry Jones, the owner, says, Hey, I like Michael Parsons, but I don't talk to agents, and there's a game of chicken between the two.
The Dallas Cowboys are worth about a billion dollars more, over $10 billion according to Sportico and others, and clearly they've got to sign this deal up quickly because their playoff record hadn't been really good and he's very important.
Yeah, costing quite the pretty penny there.
Now I do want to move on to Las Vegas.
So we know it as a betting town, in particular, say a sports betting town, but when it comes to a destination for sports in particular college sports as well as conferences, tell us what's happening right now.
What happens in Vegas now stays in Vegas but goes everywhere, you know, pre-gambling, everybody thought that this would corner Vegas.
It's expanded and colleges, for example.
Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac-12 all have media days in Vegas, and Mountain West is moving their headquarters to Vegas.
Steve Hill, the Visitor Convention Authority, CCO Sports Entertainment Innovation Conference along with UNLV, have had some tremendous events there.
We'll continue to do it.
At the end of the day, Mountain West next year, the NCAA, the national championship for football the year after, and the Final Four the year after.
So Vegas is not just gambling and pro sports, but it's college.
Sports as well, yeah, and Rick, you were just in Vegas for CCO, so I know that you'll be back very soon as well.
But when it comes to the NFL, the league added 4 former players to the Hall of Fame over the weekend.
So tell us what's happening when it comes to the preseason game we just saw and why is there so much excitement here?
Well, the Lions and the Chargers, the ultimate snoozer.
I didn't make it through the 4th quarter.
All right, so a Soinex or an NFL preseason game, but you know, the issue is not that.
It was a 16% increase in viewers even as high as 19% depending how you counted and a 14% increase in Nielsen ratings.
And the bottom line is there's a pent up demand for football.
We all count the days, even Giant and Jet fans back here count the days for when the teams really start the camps, and we're in the middle of that preseason last week.
We're going to follow this all the way through the season and preseason guaranteed we can't get enough football, and that's the strength of the Hall of Fame game.
Yeah, and Rick finally sticking to football, the NFL Players Association has a new executive director in David White.
So what does he bring to this role and what issues are they facing?
Well, first of all, he was the executive director of SAG-AFTRA, so he knows a little bit.
Football, but he didn't come up through the football establishment and the head of the association, who's a football player, said this guy fights for collectively bargained rights in his sleep.
He's a big deal.
Well, the deal with the NFL runs through 2030.
And the revenue from the NFL continues to increase.
The labor piece is there, but they've got issues.
They get 47% of the revenue.
They may want more.
Everybody always wants more.
Do you have more players on a roster?
Do you have more games played?
What about international expansion?
So $25 billion in revenue projected. season for the NFL, big deal.
But yet labor peace really important to keep that engine going.
Go Giants, go Jets, right?
Is that what we're going to say here?
Absolutely.
Well, Rick, great to have you here in person at the New York Stock Exchange to talk about the dollar and cents behind sports.
This is awesome.
Thank you so much.
We look forward to having you back soon.
