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The NBA helped dish out some more gaming news this week, with Take-Two Interactive announcing the return of the 2K League. This is the esports effort focused on the NBA 2K series. 2K Sports and the NBA pulled the plug on the league in 2024, putting it on hiatus until bringing it back Monday. The revived league is starting with six teams: the Raptors, Celtics, Jazz, Grizzlies, Pistons and Wizards (we’ll get back to Washington later). Other NBA teams will field squads later on. Each squad consists of two content creators and an NBA player (such as the Raptors’ Gradey Dick and the Pistons’ Duncan Robinson), along with fans, competing in challenges and games. It’s going to add more social media elements to the standard esports formula, though it will still have matchups, tournaments and a championship, with teams earning points akin to a PGA Tour ranking. NBA Take-Two Media CEO Andrew Perlmutter showed me an example of a competition based off a TikTok trend with the loser, the Magic’s Wendell Carter Jr., calling an NBA teammate and offering them a compliment (I suggested it would be funnier with insults, but I doubt they’ll take me up on that consultation).
Curry is a self-proclaimed “golf junkie.” He plays 40 rounds a year, carries a reported +1.3 handicap index and has flirted with the idea of going pro after basketball. He has played with President Barack Obama and at Augusta National. With that privilege, Curry said, comes a responsibility to assist others who need obstacles removed to have success in golf — and life. Those obstacles were supposed to be eased by the arrival of Tiger Woods. But Woods’s success never translated into an influx of people of color reaching the PGA or LPGA tours. That left an opening for Curry to take a shot at changing the complexion of another game through Underrated Golf. “It’s a solvable issue, if that makes sense,” he said. “Get kids into the game earlier and get clubs in their hands, make sure there’s no financial burden on, or a barrier to, them being able to play the game. The game needs it. I would almost be doing myself a disservice” to not invest.
PGA Tour: Derrick White has arrived @BMWChamps … And he brought along an old friend 🏆
Derrick White has arrived @BMWChamps …
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 22, 2024
And he brought along an old friend 🏆 pic.twitter.com/7UMwXvw6BX
Pitaro has built a sports rights moat by doling out nearly $80 billion – that’s a b for billions – in new deals with the NFL, college football playoff, MLB, SEC, NCAA, NHL, PGA, Wimbledon, La Liga and now the NBA. One rival executive called ESPN’s suite of rights, “the greatest in the history of sports television.”
Just over a month ago, a group of financiers and sports team owners, led by Fenway Sports Group, said it would invest up to $3 billion in the PGA Tour, a watershed deal that gave players equity in the league as it fends off competition from the Saudi-backed LIV Golf. What wasn’t reported then was that several powerful people in sports, music and entertainment had also invested personally. Two names are likely to draw attention: LeBron James, the superstar basketball player, and Drake, the rapper. The investors are bringing more than money. F.S.G. and fellow backers, including the billionaires Steve Cohen, Arthur Blank and Marc Lasry, believe they can help reinvigorate the sport, particularly as the value of media rights soars. James and Drake are committing additional capital as “strategic investors,” and are expected to use their marketing power to help the tour broaden its audience. James and the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, were at the home of Tom Werner, F.S.G.’s chairman, recently discussing just that, DealBook hears.
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This year, almost all of the major sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NASCAR, PGA Tour and more, plan to run content deals on Twitter around regular season games and tentpole events, like March Madness, NBA Playoffs and the Super Bowl, according to the schedule seen by Axios.
The tanned, stubbled face behind the dark sunglasses and a black T-shirt underneath a white bib made Ryan Smith look the part of a PGA Tour caddie in the Hero World Challenge. Looping for Tony Finau is a break from his day job, and Smith only missed his regular routine briefly when he considered the calendar. The Utah Jazz owner would be missing a home game Friday night against the Boston Celtics. Even so, he couldn't pass up the opportunity. Finau's regular caddie, Mark Urbanek, is home as his wife prepares to have a child. Finau and Smith have been friends in Salt Lake City longer than either can remember. "He called me and he's like, 'Bro, I need you to caddie for me.' I had to answer the bell, right?" Smith said after his boss for the week rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt for a 6-under 66 to sit one shot off the lead going into the weekend. "When Tony calls, you go. He doesn't ask for a lot."
Ryan Smith said the NBA is like a 24/7 job, but he still finds time to calendar golf, playing in events like the Utah Open, the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach, and the famous Dunhill Pro-Am in Scotland. In both those events, Smith partnered with longtime friend Tony Finau, who recently won the Northern Trust, the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Las Vegas’ upcoming National Lacrosse League team features an all-star ownership lineup. The 15th franchise in the NLL is owned by Brooklyn Nets owner Joseph Tsai, NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, former NBA MVP and current Nets head coach Steve Nash and PGA Tour star Dustin Johnson, the team announced Monday.
The better news for the NBA is that the 2021 opening week is comparable with opening weekend of 2019, edging its average by 5,000 viewers, according to Sports Media Watch. Now, I could get into an arcane explanation of out-of-home counting and why that actually means fewer people watched in 2021 than in 2019. I could also point out that the 2019 opening weekend was totally sideswiped by Tiger Woods winning the Masters, a far bigger national happening than Phil Mickelson winning the PGA last weekend. I could add this context, but it’s sort of besides the point. The NBA’s first order of business was to stop the uncontrolled dive — and on this front, they did it.
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PGA Tour player Jimmy Walker is either a member at The Grove XXIII, the ultra-exclusive golf club Jordan built in South Florida for him and his friends, or was lucky enough to get invited to play there recently. Either way, Walker posted a photo of the ice cubes served at The Grove XXIII and they are perfectly Jordan. So at Michael Jordan's club when you order a drink with ice in it you're reminded of who the boss is through the ice cubes. That's about the most egotistical move imaginable, and it fits Jordan's personality perfectly.
Sanford Health will conduct on-site COVID-19 testing of players, coaches and staff for this weekend’s NBA All-Star 2021 events in Atlanta. The event features players from the NBA competing in the Skills Competition, 3-Point Contest, Slam Dunk Contest and All-Star Game. Sanford Health lab techs will travel to Atlanta in one of the mobile testing units that was used for PGA TOUR testing. Sanford Health estimates it will run between 500-750 tests for the event. The time it takes to collect and process the tests is generally 90 minutes.
