Set aside some time today to read our breakdown on women’s sports sponsorship from my colleague Rachel Axon, which shows the boom of support experienced since 2020.
As far as I’m concerned, it might be one of SBJ’s best deep dives of the year. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
Big takeaways from TGL’s schedule releaseNBCU almost sold out for NBA ads this seasonReport: App issues at NFL London
Tiger Woods’ and Rory McIlroy’s TGL teams won’t face off for the first time until March 1. TGL Golf via Getty Images
TGL released its official Season 2 schedule on Monday, and there are a handful of key takeaways.
TGL will make its debut on a broadcast network with its season-opening match on Dec. 28 airing on ABC. The match between New York Golf Club and Atlanta Drive GC will begin at 3pm ET — right in the middle of the Week 17 NFL window. However, there are only five games in the 1pm window that Sunday, and only two of those 10 teams competing (Buccaneers, Steelers) were in the playoffs last year. While TGL will have to compete with Bills-Eagles at 4:25pm, its opening window should give the league a solid chance at crossing 1 million viewers.TGL will compete on the same day as the PGA Tour for the first time. On March 1, Tiger Woods’ Jupiter Links GC will play Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf at 9pm, the same day the tour wraps up its Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches. PGA National and SoFi Center are less than five miles from each other, but it begs the question if the TGL players might skip the tour event because of the TGL commitment. However, of the eight players that make up the two teams, only Kevin Kisner of Jupiter Links competed at the Cognizant Classic in 2025. Woods and McIlroy last played there in 2018. Woods and McIlroy, the league’s two biggest stars, aren’t scheduled to compete head to head until that March 1 matchup. That’s more than a month later than when they first squared off in Season 1, which came on Jan. 27 in Week 4 of the season.TGL has 15 regular season TV windows in the upcoming season, with one coming on broadcast TV and nine on ESPN. That means five will air on ESPN2. That’s a similar breakdown to TGL’s inaugural season, which had 10 windows air on ESPN and five on ESPN2. So while TGL loses one ESPN window, it gains one on broadcast TV with ABC. TGL will once again have five match windows that begin before 7pm ET in 2026, but those match times will start later in the day in Season 2. Season 1 had matches that began at 1pm, 4pm and 3pm. Season 2 will only have one match begin at 3pm (its season opener), with four more that tee off at 5pm. The league’s earlier windows typically are scheduled so its European media partners can get primetime windows. TGL will again have six 7pm windows and four 9pm windows. Meanwhile, TGL will not have a Presidents Day triple-header in 2026, with that day actually falling during a bye week for the league. 
TGL will have nine regular season match windows on ESPN in Season 2 in addition to making its broadcast TV debut on ABC TGL
RELATED: Full Swing returns as official TGL tech partner
NBCU is close to a sellout of its ad inventory for the return of the NBA. Getty Images
Ahead of its return to NBA coverage in a couple of weeks, NBC and Peacock are exceeding advertiser expectations and almost all of the ad inventory for the season is sold out. There are somewhere in the vicinity of 170 sponsors for NBA coverage, with 20% of those being new to NBCU. Around 10% of the sponsor deals are new for the NBA. Among the sponsors, around 70% have bought space cross-platform, with 30% of deals going directly to NBA programming on digital. Still, sponsor investment on linear TV — a key portion of the NBC-NBA deal — has exceeded expectations by 20%.
Among the categories sold out already include auto, finance, QSR, entertainment and retail. AmEx will sponsor the NBA halftime shows across NBCU programming, with DraftKings aboard as betting partner. Kia is presenting sponsor of Tuesday night NBC games, and McDonald’s is sponsoring “Basketball Night in America” and “NBA Showtime” on NBC on Sunday nights (those games begin once NFL programming is done in February). State Farm is sponsoring the Tuesday studio show, Wingstop is sponsoring the Monday studio and Xfinity will be presenting sponsor of Peacock NBA Monday. NBCU also will be making its NBA inventory available programmatically on Peacock.
Fan were delayed entering Tottenham Hotspur stadium for the NFL London game amid ticketing app issues. PA Images via Getty Images
Fans for the NFL London game between the Vikings and Browns at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had to “battle through enormous queues and face severe delays” following an issue with their OnePass ticketing app. It was reported there were “problems with the apps needed to store tickets for the game.” Pictures from outside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium showed the approach “clogged up with fans not moving” as they sought to find a way in before kick-off. There were also “queues at the box office as supporters looked to get to the bottom of the chaos.” Pictures of the app’s malfunction were also “widely shared on social media,” with some “showing that not only the OnePass app, but Ticketmaster itself were also failing to display for users” (DAILY MAIL, 10/5).
