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PGA Tour, LIV Extend Negotiations

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH –  (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Claiming negotiations were “active and productive,” commissioner Jay Monahan told his PGA Tour members in a memo Sunday that the tour was working to extend the deadline to finalize a merger with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

The PGA Tour revealed a so-called framework agreement to merge interests with the PIF, which finances LIV Golf, in a surprise announcement on June 6. Sunday marked the deadline the two sides originally set for a final agreement.

Monahan previously called New Year’s Eve a “firm target” to complete the deal, but The Telegraph reported this week that the target had been moved to early April before the Masters is played.

A news release posted to the PGA Tour’s website said the tour’s goal was to bring on the PIF, Strategic Sports Group and the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) as minority co-investors in PGA Tour Enterprises — the tour’s new for-profit organization — in 2024.

“These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of the players, fans and sponsors,” Monahan said in the memo.

Monahan told members that the tour had made “meaningful progress” in negotiating with Strategic Sports Group (SSG), a consortium of U.S.-based professional sports owners led by Fenway Sports Group and including figures like the New York Mets’ Steve Cohen and the Atlanta Falcons’ Arthur Blank.

“As we move forward in our discussions (with SSG), we are focused on the finalization of terms and drafts of necessary documents,” Monahan said in the memo, according to ESPN and the Associated Press, as both media outlets obtained a full copy.

–Field Level Media

Krasnoff: The Ties between Bay State and France’s Basketball Empire

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Although one of the NBA’s most awe-inspiring rookies is playing some 2,043 miles away from Boston this season, Victor Wembanyama’s story would be vastly different without the role of Massachusetts in France’s basketball fortunes.

By Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff – SPECIAL TO DIGITAL SPORTS DESK

PARIS – The Boston Celtics are primed for the long season ahead, buoyed by reinforcements who bring an international accent to the Bay State. Meanwhile, the league’s buzziest rookie, 19-year-old French unicorn Victor Wembanyama, is already lighting up courts with the San Antonio Spurs. While more than 2,000 miles separate the two, Texans owe Massachusetts for helping to pave the way for Wembanyama and his homeland to emerge as this season’s most spectacular basketball sensation.

It’s a history more than a century old, built on the foundations of informal sports diplomacy, the citizen-to-citizen exchanges that can collectively foster a slam dunk for global understanding. As illuminated in Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA (Bloomsbury), this evolution is the result of French-American admiration that superseded some of the cyclical, stereotypical transatlantic disdain that can mark popular memory. Instead, this amitié sportive ignited a basketball evolution that’s made the United States’ oldest ally a basketball breeding ground.

And it began 130 years ago on December 27.

Basketball’s first destination once it left American shores was France. Paris, to be exact, where the first basketball game on European soil was played at the newly custom-built YMCA building at 14, rue de Trévise. Today the Paris Y his home to the world’s oldest existing basketball court.

Yet, none of this would be possible without the role played by Melvin Rideout, one of the first young men to play the game that his teacher, James Naismith, invented in 1891. Upon graduation from the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College), 22-year-old Rideout was dispatched to Paris to serve as the YMCA’s first-ever City of Light-based physical education director. He brought the game’s original 13 rules, but was also a symbolic ambassador, amongst the earliest, of the sporting ties between Massachusetts, the United States, and its oldest ally.

Perhaps even more consequential were the ways that Boston Celtics legends of the 1950s and 1960s imprinted parts of French basketball’s DNA. The story of Bob Cousy is perhaps more well known. His parents immigrated from France in the 1920s, and Cousy grew up speaking his parents’ mother tongue. But Spring 1959, Cousy and Red Auerbach stopped in Paris to run a clinic with the French national men’s team. Then known as Les Tricolors (today they’re called Les Bleus), the team absorbed some of the tactics, techniques, and advice that the Celtic imparted, one post-war link to powering up their style of play.

Far less known until unearthed in the process of researching Basketball Empire are the ways that Bill Russell left a significant mark on the French game. Its one he likely was never fully aware of, for there are no records of Russell doing sports exchanges in country. But it’s one that’s left an indelible mark.

The great defender’s defensive plays and aerodynamic stylings were studiously emulated by some of France’s most legendary players as they cut their teeth one hoop at a time. One was Henry “Gentleman” Fields, one of the earliest U.S. players to mark French hardcourts in the 1960s thanks to the defensive moves he introduced  after laboriously seeking to play like Russell. Another was 1970s shot king Jacques Cachemire, who as a boy in Guadeloupe discovered Russell through books and films at an American cultural institute near his house; throughout his career on the French mainland, Cachemire sported a beard in hommage to his Celtics idol. A third was hoops heroine Élisabeth Riffiod, who similarly studied game tape of Russell’s plays in order to amp-up her defense and land the one-handed jump shot (the first Frenchwoman to do so); Riffiod finally met the Boston great when her son, Boris Diaw, competed in NBA Summer League. “Speaking of Bill Russell, for me, it’s something very strong emotionally because he’s always been my idol,” Riffiod said for Basketball Empire.

These are all examples of technical and cultural exchange through sports diplomacy. As part of French basketball’s DNA, they highlight the role and importance of individual citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, and how in a globalizing sports world, one person can have far-ranging, long-reaching impacts.

France has quietly developed and exported a never-ending stream of defensive specialists to North American hardcourts, from Tariq Abdul-Wahad (the first French in the NBA, 1997) to three-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert and most recently Wembanyama. Today it is a basketball breeding ground, a pipeline for talent, a lineage that includes the Celtics’ Jérome Moiso (2000-01), Guerschon Yabusele (2016-19), and Evan Fournier (2021).

No other country outside of North America has sent more players to the NBA than France, according to the NBA. They’ve also sent a strong string of talents to the WNBA, too, including the thrilling “wow” factor of French wizard Marine Johannès with the New York Liberty. And, if you’re a fan of college basketball, you witnessed South Carolina’s 100-71 defeat of Notre Dame to tip off the 2023-24 regular season in Paris, a historic first ever for an NCAA opening night on foreign soil.

And hidden amidst this history is the surprising role played by Massachusetts in helping build France’s 21st century hoops haven–one that will be on display at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff is a historian and consultant, author of Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA, Adjunct Instructor at New York University’s Tisch Institute for Global Sport, and director of the FranceAndUS sports diplomacy project.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

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NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Officials from the NBA, the players association, the Golden State Warriors and Draymond Green are meeting virtually as a way of assessing the veteran forward’s progress toward returning from an indefinite suspension, ESPN reported Monday.

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Green was suspended after punching Phoenix’s Jusuf Nurkic on Dec. 12, the latest incident in Green’s sometimes tempestuous career.

The conditions for his eventual reinstatement include individual counseling sessions as well as his participation in the meetings over Zoom. So far, Green has been “open and engaged” in the process, per the report.

The NBA will determine the length of the suspension, though ESPN said there’s a “general belief” that it likely will run for 11 to 13 games. He is allowed to practice with the team and use facilities for conditioning.

So far, Green has missed six games, and the Warriors have won the past five. They play at Denver on Monday.

The incident with Nurkic resulted in Green’s third ejection of the season. He also made headlines on Nov. 14 when he was ejected for putting Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a headlock during an on-court scrum.

That led to a five-game suspension for Green, who was first thrown out of a game this season on Nov. 11 after being tagged with two technical fouls against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

He has been suspended six times in his career.

In 15 games this season, the 33-year-old Green has averaged 9.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.8 assists. He is in his 12th season with Golden State and has won four NBA titles with the Warriors. He’s also a four-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection.

–Field Level Media

Security! Security! – Not

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The Philadelphia Eagles apparently will have to do without security chief Dom DiSandro on the sidelines for the rest of the regular season.

Multiple outlets reported Friday that the NFL denied the Eagles’ appeal of the league’s suspension of DiSandro for his involvement in a sideline incident with an opposing player in Week 13.

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The NFL reportedly also denied the Eagles’ appeal of the $100,000 fine to the team.

The suspension and fine stem from an incident in the Eagles’ 42-19 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Dec. 3.

At the end of a play, a scuffle broke out between Eagles receiver DeVonta Smith and 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw, who received an unnecessary roughness penalty on the play. As the scuffle bled into the sidelines where DiSandro was standing, he put himself between the two players and then made contact with Greenlaw in an attempt to move him away from the Eagles’ sideline. Greenlaw responded by swiping at DiSandro’s face, grazing him.

Both Greenlaw and DiSandro were ejected from the game. Greenlaw was fined $10,927 by the league for the unnecessary roughness penalty.

The Eagles received a $100,000 fine, which the team reportedly has paid. DiSandro can still be at the stadium and perform all other game-day security duties but cannot be on the sideline until the postseason.

DiSandro, 45, has been with the Eagles since 1999. He is a senior adviser to Eagles general manager Howie Roseman in addition to a variety of security matters for players, coaches and executives. He is in charge of security related to the team’s travel as well as at the team’s training complex.

–Field Level Media

NCAA: Two-Time Transfers Eligible

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CHARLESTON, W VIRGINIA – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The NCAA has been notifying member schools that two-time transfers will be eligible to participate in their chosen sports, at least temporarily, and bypass the “year in residency” rule.

The change in policy came after a federal judge in Charleston, West Virginia issued a temporary 14-day restraining order against the NCAA, who were denying athletes the chance to compete at their new schools for one year upon second transfer.

The lawsuit was filed by the states of West Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee and stated the requirement of two-time transfers to sit out a year violated antitrust law. The state of Ohio was at the forefront of the suit.

The decision applies to all student athletes under NCAA jurisdiction in the United States.

“As a result of today’s decision impacting Division I student-athletes, the Association will not enforce the year in residency requirement for multiple-time transfers and will begin notifying member schools,” the NCAA said in a statement to The Athletic.

 

 

One athlete immediately impacted is West Virginia men’s basketball player RaeQuan Battle, who transferred from Montana State after playing two seasons for the Big Sky school. Battle began his college career playing two seasons for Washington of the Pac-12.

He had applied for a waiver under the NCAA’s mental-health provision but was denied in late October. Wednesday’s ruling will potentially allow Battle to play Saturday when the Mountaineers play UMass in Springfield, Mass.

West Virginia would be happy to see Battle on the court as he averaged 17.7 points last season while leading Montana State to the NCAA Tournament.

 

 

“Very pleased our state-based coalition was able to achieve a temporary restraining order against the NCAA’s transfer rule,” West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey posted on social media. “Big win for RaeQuan Battle!”

A second hearing will be heard when the restraining order expires in two weeks when a preliminary injunction potentially could be issued. That would keep athletes in question eligible until a potential trial takes place.

According to The Athletic’s report, Ohio attorney general Dave Yost said that at least 99 athletes had been denied a waiver to compete immediately upon a second transfer and that another 44 are awaiting a decision on a waiver.

–Field Level Media

NFL: Rooney Sportsmanship Finalists

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NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report from Official News Release) – The eight finalists for the 2023 Art Rooney Sportsmanship Award, given annually to an NFL player who best demonstrates the qualities of on-field sportsmanship, were announced Thursday by the league.

The finalists are:

AFC:

Defensive end Maxx Crosby (Las Vegas)

Linebacker Khalil Mack (Los Angeles Chargers)

Linebacker C.J. Mosley (New York Jets)

Guard Kevin Zeitler (Baltimore)

NFC:

Safety Budda Baker (Arizona)

Fullback Kyle Juszczyk (San Francisco)

Quarterback Dak Prescott (Dallas)

Linebacker Bobby Wagner (Seattle)

A four-member panel from the NFL Legends Community whittled the list of 32 NFL team nominees to eight. Voting for the winner will be done on the Pro Bowl ballot.

The award was created in 2014 and named for Art Rooney Sr., the late founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Each nominee has displayed the character of Mr. Rooney’s legacy,” said former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, a member of the panel. “The award represents teamwork, competitiveness, hard work and integrity while on the field.”

–Field Level Media

NBC Opts for Eagle Over Michaels

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NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) -NBC plans to use 26-year-old Noah Eagle as the play-by-play voice for its No. 2 NFL playoff broadcast crew in January, passing on venerable voice Al Michaels.

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NBC “Sunday Night Football” tandem Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth have the call of the network’s primary playoff broadcast next month, but NBC declined to bring back Michaels for the second game. Instead, the college football broadcast team of Eagle and Todd Blackledge with sideline reporter Kathryn Tappen was assigned the No. 2 game.

Michaels, 79, reportedly earns $1 million per game in an agreement with Amazon that affords him the opportunity to accept assignments from NBC in his “emeritus” label granted when he left at the end of his last contract in 2022.

Michaels and Tony Dungy called the AFC wild-card game in Jacksonville last year, when the Jaguars rallied from a 27-point deficit to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers.

Eagle is the son of Ian Eagle, an established play-by-play announcer for CBS, TBS and TNT, working college basketball, NBA and NFL games. Noah Eagle replaced Ian Eagle on YES Network NBA broadcasts this season.

Noah Eagle, Blackledge and Tappen are also assigned to the NBC regular-season broadcast of Steelers-Bengals on Dec. 23 and the Nickelodeon kid-focused broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Feb. 11.

Michaels has been the voice of primetime NFL coverage since 1986, first on “Monday Night Football” until he took the “Sunday Night Football” job alongside John Madden in 2006. He worked in the SNF role until the end of the 2021 season.

He currently calls Thursday night games streamed on Amazon Prime Video with analyst Kirk Herbstreit.

–Field Level Media

Castiglione Honored with Frick Award

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COOPERSTOWN – (Staff Report from Official News Release) – Joe Castiglione, who has called Red Sox games on the radio for a record 41 seasons, has been selected as the 2024 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

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Castiglione will be honored during the Hall of Fame Awards Presentation as part of Hall of Fame Weekend, July 19-22, 2024. Castiglione becomes the 48th winner of the Frick Award, as he earned the highest point total in a vote conducted by the Hall of Fame’s 15-member Frick Award Committee.

The final ballot featured broadcasters whose main contributions came as local and national voices and whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card Era. The 10 finalists were: Joe Buck, Gary Cohen, Jacques Doucet, Tom Hamilton, Ernie Johnson Sr., Ken Korach, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dan Shulman and Castiglione.

“Bringing knowledge and passion to the booth every day for more than four decades, Joe Castiglione has given voice to the greatest era of Red Sox success in the broadcast era,” said Josh Rawitch, President of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “Starting with the team in 1983 in Carl Yastrzemski’s final season, Joe has connected generations of Red Sox fans with a delivery that has become part of the New England fabric. His calls of the team’s four World Series wins in the past 20 seasons provided fans with memories that will echo forever throughout Red Sox nation.”

Born March 2, 1947, in Hamden, Conn., Castiglione earned an undergraduate degree at Colgate University and took his master’s degree at Syracuse University – each about an hour from Cooperstown – before beginning his career at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio. After moving to Cleveland to work for WKYC-TV, he began calling Indians games in 1979 before working Brewers games in 1981 and then returning to the Indians’ booth in 1982.

Joining the Red Sox radio team in 1983, Castiglione has shared the microphone with partners including Bob Starr, Dave O’Brien, Jerry Trupiano and Will Flemming while also teaching broadcast journalism at Northeastern University, Franklin Pierce University and Emerson College.

Inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2014, Castiglione is the longest tenured broadcaster in Red Sox history and has called historic moments that have included both of Roger Clemens’ 20-strikeout games and four no-hitters. In 2022, the home Fenway Park radio booth was named in his honor.

The 15-member Frick Award voting electorate, comprised of the 12 living recipients and three broadcast historians/columnists, includes Frick honorees Marty Brennaman, Bob Costas, Ken Harrelson, Pat Hughes, Jaime Jarrín, Tony Kubek, Denny Matthews, Al Michaels, Jon Miller, Eric Nadel, Bob Uecker and Dave Van Horne, and historians/columnists David J. Halberstam (historian), Barry Horn (formerly of the Dallas Morning News) and Curt Smith (historian).

The list of 10 Frick Award finalists was constructed by a subcommittee of the electorate that included Brennaman, Costas, Hughes, Halberstam and Smith. The Ford C. Frick Award is voted upon annually and is named in memory of the sportswriter, radio broadcaster, National League president and baseball commissioner. Frick was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1970.

For a complete list of Frick Award winners, click here.

As established by the Board of Directors, criteria for selection is as follows: “Commitment to excellence, quality of broadcasting abilities, reverence within the game, popularity with fans, and recognition by peers.”  To be considered, an active or retired broadcaster must have a minimum of 10 years of continuous major league broadcast service with a ball club, network, or a combination of the two.

The Frick Award election cycle rotates between a composite ballot featuring local and national voices whose careers began after, or extended into, the Wild Card Era in four consecutive years, followed by a fifth year featuring a ballot of candidates whose broadcasting careers concluded prior to the advent of the Wild Card Era in 1994. The cycle began with the 2023 Frick Award, with composite ballots of local and national voices continuing with the Awards in 2024, 2025 and 2026 before the pre-Wild Card Era ballot is considered for the 2027 Award.

The Belmont Stakes Moving to The Spa

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NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The third and final leg in horse racing’s Triple Crown will have a new venue in 2024 as the Belmont States is set to move to Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York, one of the oldest most most beloved race tracks in the world.

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Massive renovations at Belmont Park in Elmont, are set to take up to two years at a cost of $455 million, with some speculation that the Belmont could be held at Saratoga in 2025 as well.

“It’s good we have at least an alternative,” New York governor Kathy Hochul said when announcing the move. “Instead of shutting down Belmont (race cards) completely, we can take the races elsewhere in the state.”

The Belmont Stakes will be moving from its regular home for the first time since 1967 when it was held at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens for the last of five consecutive years amid a previous renovation.

The current renovations will include the installation of a synthetic track in place of the dirt track, as well as completely renovating both turf courses.

The 2024 Belmont Stakes at Saratoga will be the 156th running and will see the winner’s purse rise to $2 million from $1.5 million, with the race length reduced to 1 1/4 miles from its grueling 1 1/2 miles.

The 2023 Belmont Stakes winner was Arcangelo, ridden by Javier Castellano. The last time a horse clinched the Triple Crown with a victory in the Belmont Stakes was Justify in 2018, ridden by Mike Smith.

–Field Level Media

Ross Places Dolphins on the Block

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MIAMI – (Staff and Wire Service Report from a News Post by Sportico) – Billionaire Stephen Ross is exploring options to sell a minority stake in the Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium and the F1 Miami Grand Prix, according to a report from sports business site, Sportico.

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Ross reportedly has been talking to multiple investors since earlier this year, according to a Sportico source.

It is possible that Ross could decide not to sell at a later date, according to the source.

The talks are reportedly intended to provide Ross with capital to invest in new sports ventures.

Ross is worth $8.64 billion, according to Bloomberg, but Forbes pegs his net worth at $11.6 billion. He is the principal owner of the Dolphins which, including team-related businesses and real estate holdings, are worth $5.24 billion, per Sportico.

In 2022, the Dolphins had revenue of nearly $600 million and an operating profit of approximately $128 million.

He is also the principal owner of Hard Rock Stadium, which had total revenues of $129.8 million, according to Fitch Ratings.

Ross also owns the Miami International Autodrome, which runs around Hard Rock Stadium and had exclusive rights to host the Miami Grand Prix through the 2032 season. The Formula 1 Grand Prix was held there for the first time in 2022.

In addition to The Related Companies, a real estate development company he founded in 1972, Ross is also the 2012 co-founder of a private investment firm, RSE Ventures, which covers sports and entertainment, media and marketing, food and lifestyle, and technology.

Ross has been active in real estate development and philanthropy for four decades. His other holdings include the Miami Open tennis event as well as investments in the Equinox gym chain and SoulCycle.

Ross is the third NFL owner looking to sell a minority franchise stake. New Washington Commanders owners David Blitzer and Josh Harris need to divest their stakes in the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Los Angeles Chargers have a 24 percent stake available.

–Field Level Media