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Good Thursday Morning. Here’s the rundown of this week’s Sports Business Playbook:

• 📰 This Week’s Topic: We are recapping the business success of Super Bowl LIX with three key metrics showing how it was the NFL’s biggest event ever.

• 🤯 “Whoa of the Week”: Luka’s actual debut post-trade soap opera does big numbers

• 💪 Weekly Reminders that Sports are Awesome: Josh Allen hears from some of his biggest fans after winning MVP, an NBA sibling rivalry, and a motivated fan does the unthinkable

Hey team,

The 2024 NFL season is now in the books, with the Philadelphia Eagles dominating the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans to spoil a three peat and win their first title since 2017.

While the game was not much of a contest on the field, the NFL, FOX, and its partners delivered yet another big business success in the Big Easy.

Let’s break down this year’s Super Bowl through three key metrics.

127.7 million

Super Bowl-record final viewership numbers across all FOX platforms, including traditional linear, Spanish broadcast (Telemundo, FOX Deportes), and streaming (Tubi, FOX’s free, ad-supported television [FAST] channel), peaking at an incredible 137.7 million viewers.

This is obviously a good number, but it’s important to note there were a few key variables that drove this year’s game to become the most watched on record.

Sure, you had two teams with large, passionate fanbases, a rematch from a nail biter Super Bowl two years ago, and a number of storylines, particularly on the Chiefs side — the first potential “three peat” in major league sports since the early 2000’s Lakers, and yes, Taylor Swift.

But, in addition to the teams, the game benefitted from two technology upgrades.

First, Nielsen, the industry standard in viewership metrics, expanded its out-of-home coverage to (i.e., bars and restaurants) from 65% to all of the contiguous United States. This was bound to grab additional viewers and boost the metrics.

Second, and most importantly, was FOX’s decision to deploy Tubi as the primary streaming option.

FOX is the only major media player to have not entered the standalone streaming service fray the past several years, opting instead for focusing on its traditional channels and using the scrappy FAST channel as its streaming hedge (here is a primer on FAST channels).

It certainly looks like a prescient move, as FOX has avoided much of the sunk costs and programming dilemmas that the other networks have faced, Tubi is projected to earn more than $1 billion in revenue in FY25, and the FAST channel delivered stellar numbers during this year’s Super Bowl:

• 24 million viewers across all game day programming

• 13.6 million average viewership

• 15.5 million peak concurrent viewership

This was likely a trial balloon for FOX streaming given Tubi historically has not featured sports much, and the parent company is reportedly launching a standalone service later this year.

The service delivered, and given FOX’s strong foothold in the last two frontiers of live TV consumption — sports and news — it will likely be able to build on this success when the new streaming service comes online.

$800 million

The total amount of advertising revenue FOX generated from the game.

The network sold a number of 30-second ad spots for more than $8 million each, and its total revenue generated easily surpassed last year’s record $695 million (including more ad time due to the overtime) by CBS.

The commercials are always a highlight of the Super Bowl, and while most of this year’s ads were met with somewhat positive reviews, it was certainly not without controversy.

Two lowlights included an absolutely bananas Hims and Hers ad, and Kanye West, fresh off racist and anti-semitic rants on Twitter, promoting a website that led to a single item — a white t-shirt swastika.

To finish on the a positive note, though, my personal favorites were:

• The Dunkings’ return (with a great tongue-in-cheek nod to Jeremy Strong’s method acting)

• Matt Damon and David Beckham as long lost twins for Stella Artois

• Barry Keoghan channeling his Banshees of Inisherin role for Squarespace

What were your favorites? Let me know!

133.5 million

The number of viewers for Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show performance, a new Super Bowl Halftime Show record.

Given the mixed reactions on social media (and likely from your parents) to one of the more niche choices ever for halftime show, this number is sure to raise some eyebrows, and I want to spend some time unpacking it.

I think much of the record figure can be attributed to the viewership changes mentioned above, particularly Tubi’s appeal amongst Black viewers (almost 50% of all viewership on the platform), but I see two others reasons, too.

First, while Kendrick Lamar does not have the widespread appeal and song recognition of past performers, he’s still considered by most the best rapper in the industry right now, has a catalogue of hits over a decade and a half long, and just won both Song and Record of the Year at this year’s Grammys for “Not Like Us.”

Second, the aforementioned award-winning song was the nail in the coffin diss track that sealed Kendrick’s decisive victory in a rap battle with Drake, one of the other most popular rappers in the world.

To catch you up, the years’ long simmering feud between the two turned into an all-out brawl this past summer, and things got very personal and played out very publicly, with Kendrick accusing Drake of being a pedophile on “Not Like Us” and litigation ensuing on both sides.

So, there was a lot of speculation and anticipation of whether or not this charged hit was going to appear on the halftime show setlist and how Kendrick — long known for his deep pettiness and wicked wit — was going to stage it.

He finished his set with the song, and it delivered. Here are three hilarious easter eggs that came up during it:

1. The “a-minor” chain, referencing one of the darkest, yet most sung lines from the diss track

2. Serena Williams’ cameo, which references her complicated past relationship with Drake

3. The smirk and stare directly into the camera when he gets to the line in the song that says “Say Drake”

He didn’t do this all for one more very public dance on Drake’s grave, though.

As you know from reading SBP’s Super Bowl recap from last year, while Kendrick didn’t get directly paid for the halftime show, he is still getting a financial boost from the performance.

His song streams jumped nearly 200%, he gained more than 1 million Instagram followers overnight, and he announced a new European leg of his upcoming tour that is sure to net him a significant amount of money.

Despite the success, the NFL will likely swing to the other side of the pendulum next year in Santa Clara. My bet is a female pop star — i.e., Dua Lipa — or a popular country singer or two.

One thing is for sure, though, between the halftime numbers and the overall business performance — you do not bet against the NFL.

🤯 “Whoa” of the Week

Insane, mind-blowing things constantly happen in the sports business world. Here was my favorite of the past week.

1. Following all of the drama, emotion, and palace intrigue that took place with the Luka Dončić trade last week, his first actual game in a Lakers uniform delivered strong results for ESPN

💪 Weekly Reminder that Sports are Awesome

This newsletter is, of course, mostly centered on the business side of sports and the things that happen off the field. That being said, it’s important to remember why we fell in love with sports in the first place, though.

This section is meant to highlight the amazing things that happened in sports this week that serve as that reminder.

1. Congrats to Josh Allen on NFL MVP and for his deep relationship with the Buffalo community

2. An NBA sibling rivalry up close and personal

3. “Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome” — Charlie Munger Siena fan who loves free beer

Thanks for reading! Let me know what feedback you have.

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Until next time, sports fans!

-Alex