Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told a story to the 62 minority coaches and front office personnel assembled this week at the NFL owners’ meeting in the latest league effort to improve diversity in hiring. It was about Will McClay, who is African American and the Cowboys’ vice president of player
Tag: Sports Business
Warriors as NBA ratings gold, cricket on TV and more: Sports Media Mailbag, Part I
Welcome to the 31st Media Mailbag for The Athletic. Writing a mailbag — as egocentric as it is — is always a fun exercise. Thanks for sending in your questions via the website and app. There were nearly 200 questions, so this will be a two-parter. Part 2 will appear
What is it like to start a union from scratch? EuroLeague basketball is finding out
In 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, the EuroLeague shelved its still unfinished season. It was one of many cancellations that flooded professional sports around the world, but the circumstances behind this one were atypical for the league. While sports leagues in North America usually discuss big decisions
Sports on TV: PGA viewership declines despite drama; Preakness ratings stumble
Sunday’s wild PGA Championship final round, which saw leader Mito Pereira dramatically stumble with a double bogey on the 18th hole and Justin Thomas rally from seven strokes down to win in a playoff with Will Zalatoris, averaged 5.27 million viewers on CBS. That’s down from the average of 6.5 million
Who are the most innovative teams in sports? Raise your hand if you had the Timberwolves
The word innovation gets tossed around a lot. All businesses, in sports and elsewhere, lay claim to innovation, to innovating, to striving for it; but is that really true? A sports research firm is trying to quantify innovation among top sports leagues and teams, and some of the names on
Smylie Kaufman’s long way back
TULSA, Okla. — Today is the second round of the PGA Championship and Smylie Kaufman, over there in the distance, can see it all. He adjusts his headset, a big ol’ thing muffling his ears with an antenna pointing to the sky, sending his voice to the masses. He looks
Liverpool chairman Werner: ‘Nobody wants to think of day when Jurgen leaves this club”
Follow our live coverage of Liverpool vs. Real Madrid in the Champions League final. “It has exceeded our wildest dreams,” Tom Werner admits. The Liverpool chairman is reflecting on the journey since Fenway Sports Group (FSG) bought the club nearly 12 years ago. The first game of FSG’s tenure was
The NFL sent over 4 billion messages to fans in the past year and knows that’s a problem
The NFL and its teams sent more than 4 billion messages to fans in the past year via outlets like email and text, from marketing appeals, invitations to draft day parties and logistical game-day tips. Fans with bloated inboxes will hardly be surprised by this figure — anyone who has
NFL ownership percentage change aimed at keeping teams in families
NFL owners voted Tuesday to lower the minimum percentage of a team that a longstanding owner must control from 5 percent to 1 percent, a nod to skyrocketing franchise valuations and the difficulty that trend places on keeping teams in families. And in particular, teams whose core holdings are the
How the Champions League was created – told by those who did it
Like so much in European history, the spark for the Champions League was provided by the English doing something to annoy the French. In this case, it was the media reaction to a friendly between Wolves and Honved in December 1954. A year after Ferenc Puskas and his Marvellous Magyars