Having lunch with a sports source yesterday, a person who loves college sports, they expressed their biggest frustration today about the state of college sports. And they bemoaned how all anyone talks about is money and eligibility. And put me in the camp, especially when it comes to players who signed professional contracts or who were on a pro team roster returning to play college sports. These are the issues. And these are where the courts and judges haven't helped that really cause many sports fans to roll their eyes, scratch their head, and almost give up their fandom.
Just think about it. This is your Morning Buzzcast for Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Abe Matkor. Let's start with today. Wednesday, NFL owners will meet briefly in Atlanta, and they have a few things on the agenda. They will formally approve the $9.6 billion sale of the Seahawks from the Paul Allen Trust to a group led by venture capital executive Vinod Khosla. They could also vote on a plan to financially support modernizing the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Owners will also be briefed on other key matters.
including the state of play with media rights and prediction markets. They'll have an update on flag football and officiating, but the meeting is only expected to last a few hours today in Atlanta. I am sure one of the topics will be the results of a new medical journal published Tuesday that concluded at least a quarter of NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had CTE, a neurodegenerative disease that has been diagnosed in individuals with high exposure to repetitive head trauma. And this is not the storyline the NFL wants before its season starts. especially when the league has worked very hard to make the game safer, and the league feels the most recent results bear that out. But this study still shows long-term ramifications from playing football. Let's move on. Many ask me how these sports valuations continue to build, and it just shows the bullish nature of the marketplace and the scarcity of really quality sports product. The latest example is Unrivaled. That is the Women's 3-on-3 Basketball League. Now, it has gone to the market and raised more than $100 million in a Series C funding, and that values Unrivaled.
at $650 million. That is up from the $340 million valuation from last September when Unrivaled completed its latest capital raise. So yes, you see a major increase in the valuation of this basketball league. This funding round was led by UC Investments. They manage assets on behalf of the University of California. Now, Unrivaled was founded in just 2023. And in its most recent season, the league said it generated $45 million in revenue. And so this valuation, if you think about it.
is a very healthy 13x or more of top line revenue it's a surprise to many that these sports assets are trading at such high multiples but that's the marketplace right now there's a lot of belief in unrivaled among those joining the latest funding carmelo anthony gino oriema ashton kuchar alex morgan and trey young so a lot of interest around the three-on-three women's basketball league unrivaled and what a valuation for that league You know, earlier this week, we talked about the IndyCar Freedom 250 Grand Prix. That was from Washington, D.C. And we talked about what a spectacle it was and how it earned widespread media coverage and attention. Well, it also delivered an audience. It delivered the best non-Indy 500 TV audience for open wheel racing since 2008. That's when IRL and Champ Car merged into one series. So think about that. Fox drew 3.2 million viewers for the race on Sunday.
It started at 1 o'clock Eastern time, and that number is about half the audience that it gets for its marquee event, the Indy 500, a very good number for IndyCar. It made IndyCar the number three sports event in terms of viewership on Sunday after a Seahawks-Titans NFL preseason game on Fox and CBS's coverage of the final round of the BMW Championship. So what does this speak to? It speaks to a trend we continue to see. So many sports shifting to big events and a big event strategy and creating these marquee tentpoles that will get a lot of attention.
And that's what IndyCar did, all about a big event capturing a moment in time. Others will do that. And another example, NASCAR, which announced it's returning to the naval base in San Diego. Remember, they had a sold-out race there this year. They'll return there in 2027. And next year, they'll go in late July, early August. And they plan to build on this event. And why? Because there are a number of important, I would say, attributes that these big events bring. They bring in new fans. For example, NASCAR said that 67% of attendees...
that attended the San Diego race on Coronado Island, they had never attended a NASCAR event before. So the goal is to draw them in and yes, hope, hope you make them a return fan and a return visitor. They had fans coming from all 50 states and 17 countries. So again, these big events, they draw new fans. They also are very appealing for sponsors who can activate and really leverage the big event strategy. You're gonna see more of that coming down the road. Let's shift to the PGA Tour. There are major changes coming to the PGA Tour. We keep talking about it. Our Josh Carpenter has it covered all the way through.
The PGA Tour is overhauling its Tour Championship model in 2028 to go along with other changes it's implementing throughout the year. 28 will be just a huge year for the Tour. There's so much to it. But I'll just say so much of it is focused on making the end of the year more dramatic. So a future postseason for the PGA Tour will see top golfers competing in match play. It'll bring more, I would think, energy, more big event feel, more intense competition, and more, I would say, understanding of casual fans of what the end of the year competition looks like.
You got to give credit to Brian Rolap and others at the PGA Tour. They didn't feel the current system felt big enough or that it was a fitting postseason rewarding or awarding the best golfer of the year. So they're trying to create something more intense, more tense, more competitive. Brian Rolap called it one of the most difficult tournaments to qualify for and win. So that's what they're trying to set up as they try to create a more natural postseason. Remember, the tour will also go to a couple of different formats. They'll have its championship series and its challenger series.
And right now, the sponsorship market for title sponsorships of its championship series, very strong. As Rolab said, the Tour has only four remaining open sponsorships for its championship series. They have a number of different partners who are interested in these title sponsorships, and these are going for $30 million a year. That's a big price tag for a sponsor, and it's very impressive for the PGA Tour to get these types of deals and the size of these deals. So this championship series will be about the best players playing more frequently at bigger events.
And the Challenger Series will be another series for other players on the PGA Tour. Very ambitious, what the PGA Tour is attempting to do in 2028. It can be a little complicated, but if you dig into it, you can really see the strategy and the mission. In addition, the PGA Tour is linking up with LeBron James. This is very interesting because they will do a new charitable event in James' hometown of Akron, Ohio. That'll be next year. Now, LeBron James, he is really leaning into golf. He created his own YouTube channel with videos documenting a golf trip he took to Scotland with former teammates. So again, the Tour believes that LeBron is a very...
beneficial, I would say, spokesperson for the game of golf, they will lean in and attach themselves to LeBron James as he obviously is showing his interest in the game of golf. So I'll just say a lot going on around the PGA Tour right now. They, of course, have their tour championship this week in Atlanta. Certainly more news to come. And we talk about the Buffalo Mafia a lot. We know how popular the Buffalo Sabres are in the NHL. We know they had a great year and they have a great following. Here's some more proof. The Sabres have sold out of season tickets after breaking their 15-year playoff drought last year.
So the team says it has capped this upcoming season's tickets at around 14,000 full season equivalents. And they've actually started a season ticket waiting list. To put it in perspective, the Sabres had around 9,000 season ticket holders last season. They had a great year. They made the playoffs. Now they've got 14,000. They've capped it. That's a big, big boost to the top line and the bottom line. This year is the first time since 2016 that the team has sold out inventory of season tickets. And to get on a wait list, you pay $100 deposit. But this is the first.
active waitlist since over a decade ago. So again, the Buffalo Sabres, pretty hot right now. A lot of interest in the marketplace. It goes as well with the interest in the Buffalo Bills. These are pretty healthy days for Pagula Sports, which of course owns the Bills and the Sabres. So two takeaways from today's Buzzcast. Number one, a big event strategy. You're going to see more and more of this as these big events draw media coverage, media attention, social attention, eyeballs, and new fans. Takeaway number two, there is no question the PGA Tour is making dramatic changes to its schedules, its format.
They want their best players to play on bigger stages at bigger events, and they want more postseason intensity and a more postseason feel to its final events of the year. And you're going to see all of that starting in 2028. Like I said, pretty ambitious. You want to keep your eye on what they're doing in Ponte Vedra. And so that is your Morning Buzzcast for Wednesday, August 26th. I'm Abe Madcore. Thanks for listening. Stay healthy. Be good to each other. I'll speak to you tomorrow.