Major League Baseball is ready to start fielding sponsorship bids for one of the most popular sports innovations in years: the pitch clock.

Baseball could reap tens of millions in new sponsorship fees by allowing a global marketer such as Timex, Omega, or Rolex to attach its brand to the new “pitch timer,” which is shortening games by a half-hour this season.

“MLB is open for business,” said one source.

An MLB-wide sponsorship with a watchmaker or technology company would be worth $10 million or more a year, estimated Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing analyst at Pinnacle Advertising.

“That’s worth eight figures or more,” he said, especially if the sponsor’s brand is standardized and visible behind the batter. 

MLB’s 30 teams could also sell local pitch clock sponsorship for millions apiece.

“I would think any time-related company would jump on it. Particularly this season. It’s got so much attention. It’s successful, “ Dorfman said. “Everybody seems to be loving it. Any watch- or time-related company would jump all over it. Even TIME magazine.”

MLB started 2023 with 35 corporate sponsors, including Budweiser, Nike, Mastercard, FanDuel, T-Mobile, and Taco Bell.

Global watch brands have long sponsored sports, teams and leagues.

Tissot is currently the official timekeeper of the NBA. Rolex has been an international partner of The Masters tournament since 2008. Rolex also serves as the official timekeeper of the United States Golf Association and championships.

Timex and the UFC announced a global sponsorship/licensing deal in late 2021. The company’s long-running “Takes a Licking and Keeps On Ticking” campaign aired for years on the Super Bowl.

MLB declined to comment.

The Arizona Coyotes are biting back against their former hometown.

The team’s development firm countersued the city of Phoenix for attempting to sabotage a proposed development in neighboring Tempe.

The Coyotes are seeking $2.3 billion in damages — an amount equivalent to what it hopes to spend developing an arena, housing, retail, and restaurants in Tempe.

The dispute centers on the location of that proposed development, which Phoenix says violates an agreement about how close housing may be built to the city-owned Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

The team has agreed to protect the airport from noise-related lawsuits, but Tempe hasn’t signed on to other key demands: that it wouldn’t build more housing in that area or oppose the airport’s future growth.

At an impasse, Phoenix sued last month to stop the project, asking Maricopa County to rescind the land use agreement that legally allows the development to move forward.

The dueling lawsuits could have a political impact as well: Tempe will put the decision of whether the Coyotes’ arena project should move forward in the hands of the voters in a special election on May 16.

The Coyotes are in desperate need of a new arena, as the team currently plays at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena, which seats 4,600 for hockey games.

LIV Golf’s legal setbacks spanned both sides of the Atlantic Ocean this week. 

On Thursday, a U.K. arbitration panel ruling backed the DP World Tour’s ability to sanction players for competing in LIV Golf events. Hours after 18 LIV Golf players and other top pro golfers — minus LIV’s Kevin Na who withdrew after a disastrous start — completed the first round of the Master, U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman issued two key rulings in favor the PGA Tour in LIV’s antitrust case against it. 

Freeman’s ruling was posted Thursday afternoon ahead a Friday hearing:

• Freeman upheld U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen’s ruling that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and its governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan are subject to discovery, and that Al-Rumayyan must sit for a deposition.
• The PGA Tour’s request to conduct the depositions of Al-Rumayyan and other PIF officials in the U.S. was also granted. Freeman overruled van Keulen’s decision that the depositions of PIF officials could be conducted in Saudi Arabia. 

“After reviewing the evidentiary record and the body of case law on the [Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act], the court concludes that the FSIA provides great deference to foreign sovereign states and the diplomatic work of their officials conducted in the United States for the benefit of the sovereign,” Freeman wrote. “However, it does not immunize the expenditure of billions of dollars in the United States to launch a ‘Disruptor’ golf league.”

Later Thursday, PIF sent notice to the court that it would appeal Labson’s decision on discovery to the 9th Circuit — likely blowing up the chance of the January 2024 trial date.

The appeal has possible downsides for LIV’s financial backers.

Saudi Arabia — which has contributed hundreds of millions of dollar as LIV’s near total financial backer — has been able to claim successfully claim sovereign immunity in U.S. courts.

An appeal, however could have implications for its other U.S. investments. Appeals courts decisions set precedent, and if Freeman’s decision is upheld, the the last option is a petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court — which accepts a tiny percentage of writs of certiorari.

“To accept jurisdiction here could set a dangerous precedent allowing PIF to be sued in U.S. courts any time one of its portfolio companies is involved in a dispute,” lawyers for LIV Golf wrote in a November filing.

While an appeal doesn’t necessarily mean the case will grind to a halt, it’s expected to. Freeman could choose to let the LIV-PGA Tour case could move forward if PIF pursues an appeal.

“That will be a close call,” a source with knowledge of the pleadings told Front Office Sports.