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Sports Business
Sports Biz: FOX Friday Night Football
NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Fox will broadcast a Friday college football game every week of the 2024 season, The Athletic and Sports Business Journal reported.
College football’s TV schedule will not be ironed out until May, but the games eligible for the Friday night treatment will feature teams from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences.
Once reserved for high schools, Friday night football is not new to the Big Ten, which started putting select games on Friday nights in 2017. The Big Ten Network and Fox Sports 1 (FS1) have carried those games in the past.
Now, games will be carried on Fox each week in the run-up to the network’s “Big Noon Saturday,” its weekly show that competes with ESPN’s “College GameDay” and highlights its best game of the week.
The college football games will fill an empty window after Fox did not renew its agreement for WWE’s “Friday Night Smackdown.”
–Field Level Media
SUPER LVIII: Most Watched in History
LAS VEGAS – (Wire Service Report) – The Kansas City Chiefs’ overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII on Sunday was the most-watched television program in U.S. history, according to preliminary data released by Nielsen and CBS on Monday.
According to CBS, which broadcast the game, the Super Bowl averaged 123.4 million viewers across all platforms, breaking the mark of 115.1 million set during last year’s Super Bowl between the Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
CBS added that 202.4 million viewers watched at least part of the game, breaking the record of 184 million (also set last Super Bowl).
Though Nielsen’s final data will be released Tuesday, Monday’s figures made it clear the game was smash hit for CBS and the NFL. The 120 million viewers who watched the game on CBS was a single-network record. The Paramount+ audience made it the most-streamed Super Bowl, as well, CBS claimed.
The total of 123.4 million also includes viewers of simulcasts on Nickelodeon, Univision, Paramount+, NFL+ and other NFL digital properties.
While the game going to overtime played a role in audience retention, several storylines had much of the country buzzing long before kickoff.
The win was the Chiefs’ third in five seasons, placing quarterback Patrick Mahomes and coach Andy Reid among rare NFL royalty. Mahomes joined Tom Brady and Joe Montana as the only players with at least three Super Bowl MVPs, and Reid became the fifth coach with at least three Super Bowl wins as a head coach.
Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl for the first time, with Usher performing at halftime. And the game marked the season’s culmination of the Taylor Swift-NFL juggernaut, as the superstar was in attendance to watch her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, catch nine passes for 93 yards for his third Super Bowl win.
Up next is Super Bowl LIX, scheduled for Feb. 9, 2025, at the Superdome in New Orleans. Fox will broadcast that game.
–Field Level Media
Caps’ and Wizards’ Move Met with Resistance from Virginia Reps
ALEXANDRIA – (Wire Service Report) – A Virginia state senator does not want Washington Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis to use taxpayer money to build a new entertainment district in the suburb of Alexandria, Va.
Sen. Louise Lucas, a Democrat who is the chairwoman of Virginia’s senate finance committee, told reporters Monday a bill that would pave the way to move the NBA and NHL franchises from Washington to Alexandria is dead in her eyes.
“I will not allow a billionaire to build his company’s wealth on a taxpayer’s dime,” Lucas said, saying Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s “refusal to negotiate” left her to block the bill.
While Lucas declared the Senate bill dead after rejecting discussion of it at a meeting Monday, there is also a version of the legislation in the House of Delegates that passed through the house appropriations committee last week.
In December, Youngkin and Leonsis announced an agreement to move the Wizards and Capitals to a new $2 billion sports complex in Alexandria by 2028. The teams currently play in downtown Washington at Capital One Arena.
Underpinning the proposed move is legislation that would issue more than $1 billion in moral obligation bonds to build the complex. Virginia taxpayers would be on the hook if the site did not meet its revenue projections.
A spokeswoman for Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the Wizards’ and Capitals’ parent company, told reporters Monday that moving the teams to Virginia remains their “only” plan even after the District of Columbia offered $500 million for renovations at Capital One Arena.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday that D.C. plans to require the Wizards and Capitals to play at the arena through 2047, per the terms of their lease. December’s announcement was also met with outrage from local sports fans who want the teams to stay put.
–Field Level Media
Goodell Welcomed Swiftie Effect
LAS VEGAS – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has attended two Taylor Swift concerts with his two daughters and his wife, but chances are, he never thought his status as a “Swiftie” would bleed over into the workplace.
But it has.
Swift has taken the NFL world by storm due to her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and Goodell had nothing but good things to say on Monday about the couple’s impact on football.
“Having the ‘Taylor Swift effect’ is also a positive,” Goodell told reporters. “Both Travis and Taylor are wonderful young people, and they seem very happy. She knows great entertainment, and I think that’s why she loves NFL football.
“Obviously, it creates a buzz. It creates another group of young fans, particularly young women, that are interested in seeing why she is going to this game, why she is interested in this game. Besides (her relationship with) Travis, she is a football fan, and I think that’s great for us.”
Kansas City beat the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 in the AFC Championship Game on Jan. 28, leading some fans to believe that the outcome was pre-planned in order to have Swift draw more viewers for the Super Bowl. The 14-time Grammy Award winner is expected to be in attendance when the Chiefs take on the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, but Goodell made it clear that he is far from capable of cooking up such a storyline.
“I don’t think I’m that good of a scripter — or anybody on our staff,” Goodell said. “Listen, there is no way I could have scripted that one, let’s put it that way.”
Swift has been spotted at 12 of Kelce’s games this season, with Kansas City coming out on top in nine of them. She first attended the Chiefs’ 41-10 victory over the Chicago Bears back on Sept. 24.
Of course, there has been some backlash from the NFL’s focus on Swift over the past five months, but Goodell is hoping that she sticks around.
“I think anybody in this society, when they’re in a public position, (is) going to be subject to criticism,” Goodell said. “Taylor is obviously a dynamo. Everything she touches, there are people following. So we count ourselves fortunate and we welcome it.”
–Field Level Media
Sports Law: Porter Reaches Plea Deal
NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Former Houston Rockets guard Kevin Porter Jr. reached a plea deal Tuesday in his New York assault case involving former girlfriend and WNBA guard Kysre Gondrezick.
Porter, 23, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to charges of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment in the second degree.
According to his attorneys, he will be able to withdraw the plea following the completion of a 26-week counseling program.
Porter was arrested at a New York City hotel on Sept. 11 after police initially said he fractured one of Gondrezick’s neck vertebrae in an alleged attack. Prosecutors later dropped one of his assault charges after finding insufficient evidence that Porter injured her neck.
Gondrezick told the New York Post in October that Porter “didn’t hit me.”
“The resolution will allow Mr. Porter to put this incident, which involved false felony allegations and false facts, behind him with no criminal record and move forward,” Porter’s lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Rockets traded Porter to Oklahoma City on Oct. 17 and the Thunder waived him the next day.
Porter averaged 19.2 points, 5.7 assists and 5.3 rebounds in 59 games (all starts) for the Rockets in 2022-23.
The 2019 first-round draft pick has career averages of 15.3 points, 5.0 assists and 4.3 rebounds in 196 games (146 starts) with the Cleveland Cavaliers (2019-20) and Rockets.
–Field Level Media
TL’s Sunday Sports Notes | Jan 21
While We’re Young (Ideas) | On Midyear in the NBA
By TERRY LYONS, Editor of Digital Sports Desk
BOSTON – Twenty and one. The Boston Celtics are no longer undefeated at home where 17 NBA Championship banners hang in the rafters of TD (Boston) Garden, high above a parquet floor that many of us remember from viewing on a Black and White television set when the Celtics were positioning nine of those 17 banners during the 1960s. Only the 1967 Philadelphia 76ers (once voted the NBA’s Greatest Team of All-Time) broke the streak for the full decade.
At the halfway mark of the NBA season, the Celtics are atop the league-wide ladder, and they’ll face the Houston Rockets who will be coming off a game against the Utah Jazz – a back-to-back the Rockets could live without. Boston’s 32-10 (.762) record was blemished when the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets earned a had-fought victory on the parquet and under Boston’s revered 17 banners.
Denver (29-14) is two games behind Midwest Division leader, the Minnesota Timberwolves, surprise leaders in the NBA’s Western Conference. At the Half, the West is full of surprises as the Los Angeles Clippers lead the Pacific and New Orleans Pelicans lead the Southwest Division.
If the NBA Playoffs were to start this weekend, Sacramento, Utah, Phoenix and the Los Angeles Lakers would all be competing as “Play-In” teams, ranked No. 7-10 out West. All four of those clubs were preseason favorites. In the East, the standings have proven-out as many predicted with the Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers leading the pack. Only the Cleveland Cavaliers, winners of a league-leading six straight as they faced the (18-23) Atlanta Hawks, can be considered a surprise contender.
The midyear layout of the NBA standings call-out one question at this point of the season: Why?
In the EAST:
BOSTON: The deepest and most talented of the NBA’s 30 teams. The Celtics boast a starting five who could all be considered NBA All-Stars. Jayson Tatum (27, 8 and 4) leads the team, but is backed-up by Jaylen Brown (23, 5 and 4), newly acquired center Kristaps Porzingis (19, 7 and 2) while the backcourt of Derrick White (16, 4 and 5) and Jrue Holiday (13, 6 and 5) round out the talented starters. Depth and defense remain plentiful and the Celtics’ main concern to to start the month of May healthy, especially at the center (“bigs”) position with Porzingis and 37-year old Al Horford needing to guard rivals such as Philly’s Joel Embiid and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
MILWAUKEE AND PHILADELPHIA: There are no big surprises with the fact both Milwaukee (Central) and Philly (Four games behind the Celtics in the Atlantic) will all strive for the top spot and home court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference Playoffs. If Boston holds on to the No. 1 spot, it will force a very difficult and physical Eastern Conference Semifinal match-up between the Bucks and 76ers.
Out WEST:
The West is much more complicated and volatile. Only 3.5 games separate the Timberewolves from the Clippers (No. 1-4) and the fact the Nuggets and Finals MVP Nicola Jovic are ranked third, poses potential Playoff match-up nightmares for every round. Add to the turmoil, the NBA’s first “In-Season Tournament” champion LA Lakers hover in the dangerous No. 10 slot, only a half game ahead of the Rockets.
Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Sacramento New Orleans, Dallas and Phoenix are all formidable opponents and will all meet one or the other in the early rounds come April and May.
Good luck predicting the Western Conference bracket.
MVP: The logical recipients of the 2023-24 NBA Most Valuable Player are (possible repeat) Joel Embiid (who has only played in 30 of the club’s 40 games thus far); Giannis Antetokounmpo; and Nikola Jovic.
Coach of the Year: The media always seeks out the underdog, rather than the league leader, so that bodes well for Minnesota’s Chis Finch or Oklahoma City’s Mark Daigneault ahead of Denver’s Michael Malone, Boston’s Joe Mazzulla or Philly’s Nick Nurse.
Rookie of the Year: With all the very well deserved hype and praise for San Antonio’s amazing center Victor Wembanyama (team-leading 19, 10 and 3.1 blocks), the midyear favorite for RofY is Chet Holmgren of Oklahoma City. Holmgren who is averaging 17 points and a team-leading 7.2 rebounds per game while averaging 30 minutes in all 41 of OKC’s games. The Thunder are 28-13 and in serious contention in the West while Wembanyama’s Spurs are in the West basement with only seven wins and 34 losses. With two viable candidates, usually the one on the winningest team gets the vote. Holmgren is also considered an elite defender.
Most Improved: Houston’s Alperen Sengun, who has raised his scoring averages from a rookie year of 2021-22 (9.6 ppg), to 2022-23 (14.8) to this season at (21.5), seems to be the most deserving candidate. That noted, sometimes voters go for players drafted in the NBA Lottery positions instead of someone like Sengun who was picked 16th and only played 20 minutes a game as a rookie.
Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey is considered the favorite for Most Improved, and again, he’s playing for a real contender. Since being drafted in R-1, No. 21 in 2020, Maxey has steadily increased his PT and scoring averages (8.0, 17.5, 20.3 and this season, 26.2 ppg).
Defense Wins Championships: If you are one to focus on defense rather than any offensive statistics or current place in the standings, the Minnesota Timberwolves (with Defensive Player of the Year favorite C Rudy Gobert) are the league-leaders. Minnesota has the league-leading defensive rating of 108.6. Here are the Top 10:
- Minnesota 108.6
- Boston 110.6
- Cleveland 111.2
- Orlando 111.5
- Philadelphia 111.6
- Oklahoma City 112.0
- Houston 112.5
- New Orleans 112.6
- New York 112.8
- Miami 113.0
BOLD PREDICTION: It’s January 21 and the Super Bowl has yet to be played, never mind the NBA All-Star Game. In the second half of the NBA regular season, a team’s fortunes can turn upside down with one season-ending injury to a key player. That can happen to any team, any night.
Forsaking any major injury to any NBA All-Star or key rotation player, there’s absolutely nothing going on in the Association that makes me think the Denver Nuggets can not repeat as NBA champions. Miracle worker, center and 2023 NBA Finals MVP Nikola Jokic is the best player in the game and Michael Malone just might be the best head coach in the NBA. The deep, experienced Nuggets roster – starters and reserves – can play with the best of ‘em. The Nuggets have a tremendous home-court advantage, even when they don’t have the extra home game in a seven game series. Playing at altitude in the Mile High City is worth a game. On Friday night, the Nuggets proved they could win at TD Boston Garden, albeit a slim 102-100 victory with Jamal Murray scoring 35 points while Jokic had a 34, 12 and nine performance against the defensive-minded Celtics.
No matter which team comes out of the East, they’ll have played a very demanding Eastern Conference Finals.
Yes, a Minnesota, Oklahoma City, LA Clippers, Sacramento or New Orleans are capable of upsetting the defending champions, but it’s not likely. Take Denver as your 2024 NBA Champion.
STRAT-O-MATIC: The folks at Strat-0-Matic frequently use their software to predict the results of “real-life” sports. Before the 2023-24 NBA season played a game, Strat-O-Matic predicted the Boston Celtics would take home the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy as winners of the NBA Finals. The Celtics were tapped to finish with a 64-18 record, and they were named as winners over the Minnesota Timberwolves (nice pick, eh?).
The Strat-O-Matic technicians thought they’d give it another run at the NBA’s halfway mark, simulating the season thousands of times and guess what? The Celtics finished with the same record of 64-18 and advanced to the NBA Finals once again.
Let’s wait and see if the Strat-O-Matics have properly scouted Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets.
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: On January 11th, the Harrelson family, the New York Mets and Major League Baseball lost one of the great players and ambassadors of the game of baseball in Derrel McKinley “Bud” Harrelson.
Harrelson died at the age of 79 as a result of the complications of Alzheimer’s disease of which he was diagnosed in 2018. Harrelson played shortstop for the Mets from (1965 to 1977) and later managed the club for a portion of the 1990 season. He was the only person to be on the roster for both the 1969 Mets World Championship (as a player) and the 1986 Mets World Championship club (as a coach). Harrelson coached and managed in both the major league and minor league levels, and, in 2000, he settled in as part owner and manager of the Long Island Ducks independent league team. Harrelson made Long Island his home, living in Hauppauge and East Northport.
The outpouring of love and appreciation of Harrelson by nearly all New Yorkers was evident in the week after his death, especially by his Long Island Ducks franchise.
There’s a personal story to be told about Buddy Harrelson and it stems from the tussle he had with Cincinnati Reds all-star Pete Rose in Game 3 of the 1973 National League Championship Series (NLCS).
It was some nine or ten years after that October ‘73 day, and my story took place on an off-day of the NBA Playoffs in Philadelphia. My Hall-of-Fame level boss, Brian, and I finished up our NBA duties for the afternoon and decided to catch a couple innings at the Vet. We walked directly across the street from The Spectrum, and bought two upper level tickets – HIGH – behind the plate – section 503, if I remember. We grabbed a cold beer and a hot dog and settled in alongside a rather sparse crowd.
Minutes later – beers yet to kick in – Pete Rose (playing for the Phillies) – gets up to bat and I stood up and just start screaming at the guy. Keep in mind at that time, there wasn’t any inkling of gambling controversies and he is the all-time hits leader for MLB.
“YOU SUCK Rose. YOU SUCK!”
“You should retire. You’re washed UP.”
Brian looked at me as though I was Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair). His jaw dropped and he had no idea what the hell I was doing, except being quite likely to provoke a fight with the CRAZY Phillies fans.
Rose grounded out, and I lit into Rose all over again. “You see, a weak ground-out, YOU BUM!
“ROSE – YOU SUCK”
All the Phillies fans moved a row or two away from us until the inning ended, and a brave soul walked over and said something like, “You two seem like nice guys,” in that GREAT South Jersey/Philadelphia accent.
“Why did you yell at Pete Rose like that? He’s one of the best players ever.”
I just dead-panned, “Well, this is the first time I’ve seen him since the fight with Buddy Harrelson and I thought I’d give him a piece of my mind.”
Rest in Peace, Bud.
“Seat Club” Joins Ticket Offerings
HERE NOW, THE NOTES: You’ve heard of Sam’s Club, Lions Club, Lending Club, or Boys & Girls Clubs. Get ready for the “Seat Club.” Sports industry veteran and serial entrepreneur Cole Rubin recently launched “Seat Club,” a new marketplace designed to help consumers avoid all hidden fees and markups when purchasing tickets for live events at the lowest possible price on the secondary market. The marketplace, which sells tickets to its members at its cost without any markups or fees, officially launched this week and can be found at https://seatclub.com
“The biggest complaint consumers have in the event space, are fees and markups,” said Rubin. “Fees and markups make the ticket buying process frustrating and more expensive than necessary, so we built Seat Club as the pathway to solve these problems.
“We have spent a great deal of time talking to fans and event producers, and can now deliver this unique value proposition, where our members know they are getting the best pricing, and will save countless hours comparing ticket prices online. The price you see listed on our platform is the price you pay, with no fees added on later in the checkout process.
“There are no hidden markups, unlike other platforms who claim they don’t charge fees, but bake profits into the listed cost of tickets. Seat Club’s pricing may be as much as 35% less than competitors for the same exact tickets, which is significant, especially on high profile events. We believe in transparency, and our sole source of revenue comes from our membership fee,” added Rubin.
Seat Club’s $99/year membership includes:
- Access to the same ticket inventory as the top secondary sites
- No fees or markups, members buy tickets AT OUR COST
- There is no cap of the number of tickets that can be purchased. Subscribers are entitled to unlimited ticket purchases annually.
- Fan Protect Guarantee on tickets purchased (24/7 support staff)
(At this point in time, WWYI is not in position to vouch for Seat Club but we’ll check it out for the Celtics, Bruins, College Hoops, the NY Rangers/Islanders and NY Knicks and let you know in the near future).
PGA Tour, LIV Extend Negotiations
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
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.