A new multi-sport women’s event is coming this fall; Sports Emmy nominations are unveiled; F1 rights still up for grabs; ION adds a college basketball event.
Sports Illustrated launching women’s multi-sport event
Sports Illustrated announced Wednesday it has created a new women’s multi-sport event called the SI Women’s Games. The biennial event will feature top talent competing in six sports (basketball, gymnastics, tennis, flag football, volleyball, and combat sports), with the first edition set for October 28-November 2 of this year in Oceanside, CA. Television coverage of the six-day event will air exclusively on ION.
The games will be divided into two teams representing the US/western hemisphere, and Europe/eastern hemisphere. Athletes will be paid for their participation and prize money will be distributed to winners.
The Sports Illustrated brand, owned by Authentic Brands Group since 2019, has been licensed to event organizer Minute Media, which also produces the SI.com publication. Authentic Brands has steadily increased its use of the SI trademark, including launching Sports Illustrated Studios for content production and licensing the name to Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey.
ESPN leads Sports Emmy nominations
The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced nominees for the 2024 Sports Emmy awards, with ESPN leading all companies with 63 nominations. NBC followed with 48 (mostly for its coverage of the Summer Olympics), with Fox with 31, Amazon Prime Video and CBS with 21 each, and WBD Sports with 19.
In the play-by-play category, Mike Tirico was the only network’s lead NFL voice to be nominated, joining Mike Breen, Joe Davis, and Ian and Noah Eagle in a field that did not include Joe Buck, Jim Nantz, Kevin Burkhardt or Al Michaels. Nominated game analysts include Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, Greg Olsen, Bill Raftery, and John Smoltz, and in the studio: Charles Barkley, Nate Burleson, and three of ESPN’s football voices in Ryan Clark, Kirk Herbstreit, and Dan Orlovsky.
Despite recent complaints about its coverage, “Inside the NBA” was nominated for its fifteenth-straight year in the Outstanding Weekly Studio Show category, joining other frequent nominees College GameDay, FOX NFL Sunday, FOX MLB, and Thursday Night Football.
Lukewarm reception to F1 rights offerings
Formula One is seeking an annual rights fee between $150 and $180 million for its next US deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, with tempered reception from bidders. WSJ reports Netflix, TNT Sports, Fox, Prime Video, and NBC are all interested in rights but “lukewarm” at the current price, with ESPN, who allowed its exclusive negotiating window to expire, not out of the running either.
ESPN’s rights will expire after this season, the sixth in which it has carried the series. ESPN’s ratings for the series increased steadily in the first three years of coverage, but have leveled off since 2022.
Fort Myers Tip-Off moving to ION
ION will take over televising the women’s Fort Myers Tip-Off college basketball event in 2025, replacing Fox, who had previously aired the event alongside the FAST Women’s Sports Network. The event will be the first NCAA event to air nationally on ION. Teams have not been announced for this year’s event, but previous editions have featured marquee teams like Tennessee and South Carolina. Fox will continue to air the men’s event, which this year will feature North Carolina and Michigan State, among others to be announced.
The move comes during a period of significant transformation in the Thanksgiving week college basketball landscape. CBS Sports reported last month that the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas — which pays out millions in NIL payments to players — is seeking to expand to 32 teams in a multi-week tournament, threatening the future of traditional multi-team events like the Maui Invitational and Battle 4 Atlantis.
