Jacob Turner’s Post

With the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star break last week, we were thrilled to share data and insights from a record-breaking first half. 📈 Over 100% increases in bets and handle from the same timeframe last season ⚾️ Players such as Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Juan Soto drove the most engagement for bettors 🗣Our CEO Chris Bevilacqua, had this to add: The growth we've seen in the first half of the MLB season is a testament to the unparalleled engagement and stickiness our micro-betting products offer. As we saw last season with the NFL and NBA, MLB TV ratings and engagement across their media partners, FOX (+18%) and ESPN (+10%) were up significantly year-over-year, there is no question that when fans engage during the game with an interactive, live in-play betting experience, the overall consumption of the sport increases”. Learn more about this from SBC Americas👇 https://lnkd.in/e8DhX2kP #MLB #FanEngagement #InPlay

⚾ Bottom 9th down 2 runs. "WITH THE MGM GOLDEN AT BAT: JUAN SOTO" New York Mets new $0.75Billion player. I'm delighted to see MLB backing away from the Golden At Bat 🙏 While it was intriguing to drive excitement, it was too gimmicky IMO. It could have amplified much needed stars in MLB, but these star players would potentially get 162 additional at bats. How would this affect the records, and stats. Of course when NFL expands to 17 Games, Seqon Barkey breaking a 40 yrs record by Eric Dickerson who did it in 16 games isnt fair, but ED broke a record that was in 14 games by Payton. Or when NBA added a 3pt shot or eliminated zone D records cant be compared. The bigger picture is how much revenue MLB could have made with selling the rights to Golden at Bat, but also how to address nuisances. If Dodgers down 2 runs and Ohtani hits a solo HR, could he come back up to bat again😱 Could Soto hit a double and come from 2nd base to bat again🤔. Its too messy. I do see the intrigue of best player on top pitcher. We saw this in WBC when Ohtani struck out Trout to give Japan the victory. It was riveting pitch by pitch of 2 stars, and exactly what MLB would hope for to end games, but again its too complicated and while Im all about innovation in this case I prefer old school.

The Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game will be at Globe Life Field this weekend! The game has special significance to me, as one of my first published research articles for the Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University looked into whether the best outfield players in each season historically played at the MLB All-Star Game. The project compared All-Stars and the best non-All-Stars at each position based on several offensive metrics. Three years ago today, the project was published in the Center's Sports Blog. If you are interested in the findings, the blog post can be found here: https://lnkd.in/dgrYT3X Once the season ends, do you think the best players will be actual All-Stars, or will the best players not in Arlington rise to the top?

I know this really isn't a LinkedIn post, but as a baseball fan, I needed to get it off my chest. If baseball is going to continue with this joke of a playoff format with barely above .500 teams making it and playing one of the division winners off the bat, then we should: 1. Go back to two divisions in each league. This way, there is an actual reward for winning the division. And you don't have teams like Milwaukee and Houston this year, being eliminated by a lucky team, or a team with only one good pitcher. Second year in a row something like this has happened. And: 2. Let the wild cards duke it and have the two winners play the division winners. Or: 1. Keep the current three division format, and 2. Make the wildcards duke it out in one game elimination playoffs, played back to back with no travel days, till one stands in each league, and that team plays in the division series.

🏒 The puck drops on the 2024-25 NHL season tonight, as ESPN broadcasts a triple-header of games that include the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and newly re-branded Utah Hokey Club. 🏒 Since the pandemic, the NHL has been rebounding off the ice, and is slowly but surely growing its salary cap again. This year, teams have $88 million they can spend on player contracts—a $4.5 million bump from last season. 🏒 While the NHL's salary limit is far lower than other capped leagues like the NFL and NBA, the expectation is that professional hockey revenue, and therefore money in players' pockets, will keep going up in the coming years, too. (Shoutout to Colin Salao for the chart from our recent NHL-themed Front Office Sports newsletter). 🏒 Beyond the $625 million annual media rights deals with ESPN and TNT, the NHL is also considering further expansion to grow beyond the current 32 franchises.

All Star Snubs??? Over the weekend, the reserves and pitchers were named for the 2024 MLB All-Star Game, which will be held July 16 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. The starters were named last week.  As is the case every year, it’s disheartening to see deserving players left off the All-Star team, often referred to as ‘snubs.' One snub that stood out to me was the Arizona Diamondbacks First Baseman, Christian Walker, who left off the team. Walker is having an impressive season with 22 home runs and more than 60 RBIs and helped lead the DBacks to the World Series in 2023. Last week, the D-Backs were in LA to play the Dodgers, and Walker put on a clinic, much like he did in the ’23 playoffs, hitting five home runs in the three-game series. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called him “Babe Ruth against us.” But apparently, the Babe wasn’t good enough. Part of the problem is that every team must have at least one all-star representative, a rule designed to ensure every team is represented, but which can sometimes leave one less slot for other deserving players. Ironically, this year’s NL All-Star manager is the D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo, Walker’s manager. But Lovullo clearly couldn’t pull the strings for one of his guys. As we mentioned earlier, this year’s team includes 19 players under the age of 27, but what about older players like Walker, now 33 and in his 10th MLB season?  A shame. John Boxley Box-seats.com

A low-profile NBA Draft still delivered a healthy audience Wednesday night. The opening round of the NBA Draft averaged 4.41 million viewers, up 18% from last year’s full, single-night draft (3.74m). Looking solely at first round viewership, this year’s audience declined 11% from 4.93 million last year but increased 11% from 3.99 million in 2022. The NBA for the first time this season has split the draft across two days, with the second round taking place Thursday afternoon. Viewership peaked at 5.5 million, down 10% from last year’s peak of 6.1 million. The opening round delivered the third-largest draft audience of the year, trailing only the first two nights of the NFL Draft in April (11.63 and 5.05 million respectively). The WNBA Draft, which surged to a record audience this year with Caitlin Clark picked first overall, averaged 2.45 million. No other sports draft over the past year has cracked the million viewer mark. Airing on a separate night, the second round of the NBA Draft took a hit. Thursday’s second round averaged 895,000 viewers, down 25% from 1.19 million for last year’s second round and 20% from the second round in 2022 (1.12m), both of which aired in the late night hours following the first round. Viewership peaked at 1.23 million when the Lakers selected LeBron’s son Bronny with the 55th pick. Even in an afternoon time slot, the second round of the draft outpaced the opening rounds of last year’s MLB and NHL drafts (744k and 681k respectively). #DrexelSBIZ #SportBusiness #NBA #NBADraft #ESPN #Basketball #NCAAB #LeBronJames #CaitlinClark

Ticket Sales Tip of the Week- #64 (Use promotion not price to offset less desired games) The verified secondary market based on scarcity or abundance, often depicts inflated and deflated values which aren't true reflections of the ticket value. Ex: If 2 seats remain in a 100 seat premium section for the lone Laker weekend visit, the scarce pair might exchange at 4x face value. On the other end, if a less desired team is visiting on a midweek fall night, the 60 seats for sale from the same 100 seat premium area, due to limited buyers will reflect an exaggerated deflated value. The stars below thru meaningful promotion have turned less desired games into features. Major League Star- John Beaven CRO at the Golden State Warriors By attaching a Steph Curry Bobble Head doll to the Warriors 1st pre-season game, the game not only sold out, the cheapest ticket to enter was $68.00 on the secondary. Comparison, many pre-season venues are half full with secondary rate as low as $2.00 Minor League Star- Derek Sharrer GM of the St Paul Saints AAA Baseball By creating a meet and greet with "Bluey", the Saints 4th biggest gate of the season was in 49 Degree weather on Sunday April 21st. To put in context, it more than doubled the Saturday gate that same weekend. To learn more: [email protected] or 416-770-0917 Footnote for hockey fans: 16 NHL games last night was the most ever on one date.

This week Prep Baseball showcased 45 of the best players in the country. Many will be future first-round picks and MLB stars. Here are 5 takeaways every player should read: - 1) Outlier Tools Win In Little League, you hear a lot about becoming a complete player. Look, I get it we all want to (and should) improve our weaknesses but in today's game teams want outlier tools. You need to know what makes you elite and never lose that. - 2) Competing vs Showcasing In today's amateur environment, it is easy to become a "showcase guy". Big velocities, jaw-dropping BP rounds, and smooth pre-game defense stand out. Yet to me, the guy who competes at another level between the lines stands out. - 3) It Only Gets Harder The truth is the guys that played in this game have big-league talent. Yet when I look at the All-American Games I played in, more than 50% of my teammates never played one day in the Show. You can't lose sight of the ultimate goal, the Big Leagues. - 4) Do You The players that stand out to me are uniquely them. They might have a funky delivery or a weird pre-pitch routine. Yet their uniqueness is what makes them great, never lose that. - 5) Humble Swagger The single biggest separator in sports is confidence. You have to believe in you more than anyone else does. Yet the best players find a way to balance that confidence with the humbleness that they don't have it all figured out (and never will). - I was reminded at this event that the future of baseball is brighter than ever. It is easy to see the guys' talent on the field but what stood out to me was their desire to improve. Something tells me this game will produce many future household names.

The fan interference rule has been in place since the 1997 season following what happened in the 1996 AL playoffs between the Yankees and Orioles at real Yankee Stadium. I sympathize with fans, but the rule is almost 30 years old and should be understood by anyone who sits close to the field. This means both those close to the field of play in position to catch fly balls in foul territory or those who are sitting by the fence who are able to reach over and potentially get balls that would be caught on the warning track and thus, be called outs as opposed to home runs. This is what happened in 1996 when a fan, Jeffrey Mayer reached over the right field fence and took what would have been an out against the Yankees and turned it into a home run, thus the creation of the rule. Replays of the game particularly on the Yankees' Yes Network make light of the incident calling the game Angel In The Outfield, but had fan interference been a rule in 1996, the kid would have been ejected as these two fans were. In Mayer's defense, he was just trying to catch the ball and no rule existed at the time even though under the rule, he would have been ejected because of reaching over the fence and thus being in the field of play hence fan interference. What these two fans did last night was more deliberate and frankly a stupid thing to do not only because it was in foul territory, but more specifically, due to what people pay for World Series tickets especially back home in New York. I agree with the ejection and MLB/the Yankees are justified in banning these fans for this game tonight. I will always sympathize with fans. What people pay to go to games is insane, which is why though I love baseball, actually going to games is rare for me, but even though the costs are not fan friendly usually, fans need to follow the rules. Two Yankees fans who were ejected from Game 4 for fan interference have been banned for Game 5 - Jesse Rogers https://lnkd.in/e4EFUhai #MLB #WorldSeries #FanInterference