iSportConnect Sports Business Index – March 2
March 2, 2023
Welcome to the iSportConnect Sports Business Index, after a couple of difficult weeks for our index we are back on a more positive front this time around, 11 of our 30 companies have had a positive week.
The glaring story around all of sport is of course still the sale of Manchester United, but we will get to them later.
It was announced yesterday afternoon (sadly after I had crunched the numbers for this week’s index) that James Dolan’s Madison Square Garden Group is launching its own OTT streaming service MSG+.
Set to launch in the summer MSG+ will provide subscribers with live streams of New York Knicks, New York Rangers, Buffalo Sabres and the New Jersey Devils. This all comes for $29.99 a month and viewers wouldn’t have to pay for a cable service as well. This is going to appeal to a lot of younger audiences who now have more of an ability to pick and choose what they want and just pay for that.
Is this something we are likely to see in other regional sports centres across the US?
David Beckham’s Guild Esports are up 9.988% this week after announcing the launch of a new in-house production and creative studio this week. This will enable them to provide bespoke content for their sponsors as well as other independent brands and media owners. Potentially a game changer for them if they can realise the potential.
Ok, let’s talk about the big red elephant in the room, Manchester United, whose share price has fallen 9.743%. It has been reported that the bids placed by Ineos owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, Chairman of the Qatar Islamic Bank have fallen short of the $6 bn that the Glazer family are looking for. The fall in share price is basically saying that the market doesn’t believe that a sale will go through and that they don’t see increases in the bids. You wouldn’t put it past Sheikh Al Thani upping his bid would you?
Let’s take a look at the rest of the Index:
