SBJ Morning Buzzcast: September 11, 2026

0:00The Monster Energy SMX World Championship is where the world's best off-road motorcycle racers battle for victory on custom-built tracks packed with speed, skill and intensity. Join the millions of passionate fans and learn more at supermodocross.com. The US Open Women's Tennis Final will not feature an American as both Jessica Pagula and Coco Gough were defeated in Thursday's semi-final matches. On the men's side, it's a guarantee that a US Mail will play for the championship as either Ben Shelton or Francis Tiafo will play on Sunday. And one of them will look to become the first American Mail to win the US Open since 2003. Should be a big weekend of tennis and football. This is your morning buzzcast for Friday, September 11th. I made Matt Gore with a 49ers rolled in the NFL's first regular season game in Australia.

1:04And you could really feel the energy if you watched on Netflix. What a crowd. A sellout of over 100,000 fans. Which is the seventh highest attendance in the regular season NFL history. Now you could see, fans were a bit far from the field, but they still found ways to enjoy the game. You could hear the fans singing during the game. I thought it looked great on TV. Now I'm sure the sight lines were pretty difficult for the fans in the venue, but it worked and the NFL seemed to be a hit among the Aussie faithful. Now, the approaches by the teams were far different. The 49ers landed in Melbourne on September 4th. So a good six days before the game. Not so with the Rams. They arrived much, much later. Now the 49ers hotel had all the amenities in the meeting rooms and they did all the tourist activities during the week going to group dinners and everything. And as I have said in the past, these international experiences are a positive one at the end of

2:10the day. Tyden George Kiddell said Melbourne was sick. And he said he had a great time. Players loved hanging out in the city for the week. The players also commented on what a great experience it was. And so the NFL loves to hear that because they have struck a multi year agreement to return to Australia with other teams that hold marketing rights in that market such as the Seahawks, the Eagles, the Raiders. They are next in line to potentially play in the country. So they leave there, have to feel good about the regular season game in Australia. And remember the NFL had quite a week, an opener in Seattle. The next night they had a game in Australia. So how did they do it? Well they divided and conquered so to speak among league officials. You had Roger Gidell. You had executive vice president Peter O'Reilly. You had cheap marketing officer Tim Ellis. They all went to Australia.

3:10Meanwhile, chief revenue officer Reenie Anderson and a lot of her staff as well as chief financial officer Christine Dorfler. They were in Seattle for the Seahawks opener on Wednesday. So again, league officials had to be in both places. They divided and conquered. Meanwhile speaking of league officials, the NFL has promoted Han Schroeder to executive vice president and chief media officer. Why do I bring this up? Well this makes him the NFL's critical go to leader when it comes to all things media. He reports directly to Roger Gidell and he is being elevated at a time when broadcasting and media distribution and scheduling are of the utmost importance to the NFL, especially as the NFL considers early renegotiations of its media deals that were signed through 2033. Remember, there is a lot of talk that they want to renegotiate those deals certainly at a

4:11higher value. Now, Han Schroeder has been with the leagues since 2001. He was an SBJ 40 under 40 honoree in 2012 and 2013 and he is essentially filling the role of Brian Rolap who left for the PGA tour in June of 2025. Schroeder spent much of his time working and learning under Brian Rolap and again, I bring this up because all the critical relationships with the media networks and doing any type of media deals across any platform that will start with and run through Han Schroeder. Staying with football a new survey by Gallup shows that football remains America's favorite sport to watch by a wide margin. There are 31% of Americans name it their favorite sport, but I will say that is the lowest number in a generation and the issue is that younger sports fans are less excited about

5:13football than in previous generations. In fact, younger sports fans in this survey, they call them 18 to 34 year olds, really have less affinity for all sports. So that has dragged down the numbers across football and the other sports. But again, overall football number one at 31%, basketball remains America's second most favorite at 11%. Those numbers have dropped from a high of 17% in 1997. Baseball is at 10% and 9% say soccer is their favorite sport. As the highest that Gallup has measured for soccer by 2% points, so you could say that soccer is definitely getting a World Cup bounce. After that, it was ice hockey, volleyball, auto racing and MMA. Whenever Gallup comes out with their favorite sport survey, it is definitely must read by everybody at the league offices to see the latest trends.

6:18Let's move on, no punishment for LSU as a meeting of SEC presidents and chancellors on Thursday ended without any action taken against the school. Now, a statement after the meeting said the leaders discuss matters involving conference expectations and responsibilities and those discussions will continue. Now we talked about the threat of expulsion against LSU. It's kind of subsided recently over the last couple of days as Lane Kiffin backed off his desire to add two former NFL rookies to his football roster. And so right now the tension is, I would say, lowered. And if Lane Kiffin goes in a different direction and makes a different move, this could come up again. And remember SEC rules require at least two thirds of all the presidents have to vote to terminate a school's membership. I think we're far away from that right now, but it's an issue to watch, especially seeing

7:24how Lane Kiffin reacts over the next few weeks. And SBJ's Austin Carp reported that Indy Car completed its season and it was a very good year for the Open Wheel series on television. As Austin Carp noted that Indy Car on Fox in 2026 drew its best viewership since 2008. Yes, I said that correct. 2008. Why did it do so well? Well, it had new races in Washington, DC and Texas. It benefited from being around some of the World Cup matches and drawing on that audience. On 17 races across Fox, they averaged 1.3 million viewers. That is a very healthy number. It was up 23% from last year, two years ago on NBC, it averaged just over a million viewers. So again, seeing a nice bump in viewership, Indianapolis once again led all local markets

8:25and watching Indy Car series. They were followed by Fort Myers Naples, Milwaukee, Louisville and St. Louis. Fox also saw a 10% jump among young adults 18 to 49 this season. And so those numbers across the board were strong for Indy Car and strong for Fox. So my takeaways from today's bus cast number one football remains America's favorite sport to watch by a wide margin. Although the 31% who name it as their favorite sport is the lowest since 2001. Meanwhile, 9% identify soccer as their favorite sport. The highest in Gallup's history in measuring favorite sports and up to percentage points. Soccer is now nearly on par in terms of popularity with basketball and baseball. Take away number two, Indy Car had one of its best seasons in decades as the series added new events and innovated with its format that drew more viewers and has something to build

9:30on in the future. And I hope you will join me at Access Drive September 22nd through the 24th in Indianapolis. Three great days of content, great speakers, great networking will take in a fever game and see Caitlin Clark go to sportsbusinessjournal.com to register today or just reach out to me and let me know if you have any questions. And that is your morning bus cast for Friday September 11th. I made Madcore. Thanks for listening. Stay healthy. I'll speak to you next week. The Monster Energy SMX World Championship is where the world's best off-road motorcycle riders come to race. The sport's biggest stars including jet and hunter lorins, Hayden Deegan, Joe Shimoda and more, battle for victory on custom built tracks packed with speed, skill and intensity. The SMX World Championship delivers high flying action, intense competition, electric crowds

10:32in an unforgettable live motor sports experience. Join the millions of passionate fans and learn more at supermodocross.com