I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This, But...

Fanatics Markets stops accepting trades in Utah on Wednesday, November 4, pulling its entire prediction-market offering from the state. DraftKings and FanDuel have pulled their sports contracts there too but kept financial event contracts live. The retreat follows Utah Attorney General Derek Brown's criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders: 13 felony gambling counts plus one count of profiting from illegal activity. Also: Fox's advertising revenue jumps 47% on the World Cup, while Lachlan Murdoch promises a "disciplined" approach to future rights; Fanatics and the NHL launch Hometown Remix jerseys for all 32 teams; Generali buys the naming rights to AC Milan and Inter's new 71,500-seat stadium in a reported €650M deal; Underdog's Jeremy Levine says prediction markets would have out-earned fantasy 40 to 1; Wisła Kraków's "Lucky Fan Index" takes the Creative Commerce Grand Prix at Cannes Lions; and the Premier Jumping League's $300M plan for show jumping. The thread: the rules and the money are pulling in different directions, and every company has to pick one.

Music by Cheerry Red

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The NFL and EA have launched the Madden NFL Virtual Stadium Sponsorship Program. Starting this season, official sponsors of all 32 clubs and league partners can carry their real-world stadium signage into the matching Madden stadiums on console and mobile, a game EA says fans play more than 2 billion times a year. Eagles partner Pond Lehocky is the first brand in. Also: ESPN is said to be committed to Inside the NBA beyond this season, even without Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley; college football runs its last weekend of political ads before Tuesday's election; Eli Lilly's logo goes on the floors at Indiana's Assembly Hall and Purdue's Mackey Arena; Serie A USA's Polymarket deal and Lazio's exit from its Polymarket shirt deal show two rulebooks in one league; Jean Eric Salata buys 2.1% of the Dolphins at a valuation above $12.5B; Pitchwise Holdings takes 42% of Valencia at a €1.25B enterprise value; Sting's F1 campaign takes Gold for Sonic Branding at the Clios; and SailGP team prices climb by half in four years. The thread: sports keeps finding new buyers for the assets it already owns.

Music by Cheerry Red

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The Brewers–Rays World Series finished far stronger than it started. Game 3 landed at 8.33 million, the second-smallest World Series audience on record, but Tuesday's 12-inning Game 4 drew 13.48 million and Fox projects Wednesday's clinching Game 5 at 14.22 million. On that projection the series averages 12 million, the most-watched Fall Classic since 2019 outside the last two years. Also: MLS simulcasts two final-day matches on Fox's free streamer Tubi as Fox's deal ends; LeBron James formalizes an 11-year relationship with Whoop ($10.1B valuation) as it eyes an IPO; Visa nears a high-eight-figure PGA Tour deal as Mastercard's partnership expires; Recapp raises $11M led by Joe Montana's Liquid2 Ventures; RedBird and Sound Ventures form a $1B partnership; GEICO signs with Unrivaled; Sting's F1 campaign wins at the Clios; and Gecko Robotics buys the front of Pitt's basketball jerseys. In this week's Deep Dive: should the World Series be treated as a legacy brand rather than a top media vehicle? We compare it with the Oscars, the NBA Finals, the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl, look at which sports are growing and shrinking, and ask whether the pitch clock and the ABS Challenge System have made baseball a better media property.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Monday's 10–1 Brewers win in World Series Game 3 averaged about 8.3 million viewers across Fox and Fox Deportes. The record low is 8.29 million, so Game 3 will rank no better than second-least watched. It was down 27% from the Nielsen-rated portion of last year's 18-inning Game 3, after Games 1 and 2 were down only 8% and 7%. It aired opposite Monday Night Football and was the first World Series game ever to go head to head with the WNBA Finals. Early numbers put Game 4 at 13.5 million, a series high. Also: CAF hands AFCON 2027 free-to-air sales in sub-Saharan Africa to Media Experts Limited and MBS while Canal+ keeps pay TV; Aryna Sabalenka tops SportsPro's 50 Most Marketable Athletes; Borussia Dortmund extends its Sportradar deal to background-check prospective sponsors; Rezzil raises $10M from investors including Jobe Bellingham; a KKR co-founders consortium buys 42% of Valencia at a €1.25B valuation; adidas and Gamefam win Digiday's Best Partnership for the adidas Football Festival on Roblox; and Mercury Marine and Lowrance re-up with Major League Fishing after 15 years in every show. The thread: the difference between attention you hope for and attention you can count on.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Final numbers are in for the Rays–Brewers World Series. Game 1 averaged 12.26 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Univision, and Game 2 averaged 10.85 million across Fox and Fox Deportes, down 8% and 7% from last year's Dodgers–Blue Jays openers but about 30% ahead of 2023's Rangers–Diamondbacks games. The two home markets total 3.2 million TV homes, the fewest for a Fall Classic in 20 years, and Milwaukee is MLB's smallest market. "Down 7% is better than most were predicting," said Fox Sports' Mike Mulvihill. Also today: a WWE court filing shows Netflix had the first right to negotiate for UFC's domestic rights before Paramount won them; Aramex ends six years on the front of the Cronulla Sharks jersey; adidas becomes the Melbourne Storm's apparel partner, debuting in Las Vegas in 2027; EA and the NFL launch virtual stadium sponsorships in Madden; Mark Walter reportedly asks more than $700 million for the Sparks; Miami Beach's "Wake Up to a New March" takes another Sports ETA award; and Visit Tallahassee wins for selling cross-country running to the world. The throughline: the size of the market isn't the size of the audience.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Game 1 of the Rays–Brewers World Series averaged 12.2 million viewers across Fox and Univision, according to preliminary numbers reported by Sports Business Journal's Austin Karp, peaking at just over 13 million. That trails the Dodgers-led openers of 2025 (13.3 million) and 2024 (15.2 million) but beats 2023's record-low 9.4 million, and outside the two Dodgers years it's the most-watched Game 1 since 2019. Final Nielsen figures with Big Data are due this afternoon, after a bogus 15.2 million figure, traced to an AI answer, spread over the weekend. Also today: DAZN's five exclusive NBA teams add DirecTV through a sublicence a week into the season; Youi signs on with the BBL and WBBL, branding five club kits and every umpire; the NBA names Kalshi and Polymarket its "preferred prediction market partners," leaving the NFL as the biggest holdout; Rezzil's $10 million round adds Jobe Bellingham and Phil Kenyon; Juice Reel raises $2.5 million; the Buccaneers' "Döner Kebucs" wins a Hashie; and Korea's player of the year signs with a defense contractor. The throughline: trust, and how hard it is to earn.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Madison Square Garden Sports' tax-free spin-off of the Rangers from the Knicks is scheduled to complete today, with MSGK and MSGR starting regular-way trading on the NYSE on Tuesday. MSG Knickerbockers keeps the Knicks and the Westchester Knicks; MSG Rangers takes the Rangers, the Hartford Wolf Pack and the MSG Training Center. Shareholders get one MSG Rangers share for every two MSG Sports shares, James Dolan runs both, and the two teams brought in $1.15 billion of revenue over the latest 12 months, with the Knicks more than twice the Rangers. Also today: Netflix will stream all 104 matches of the 2030 World Cup in Spain and Andorra, with one free game per matchday; Sanofi becomes the first company to sponsor the white jersey at both the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes; Capital.com makes its tennis debut with the Davis Cup; Reading's head of AI, Stuart Fenton, on cutting transfer shortlists from 1,000 names to three; Bold Fit raises a $41.8 million Series B; Uber Eats' "Football Is for Food" took a Grand at the Clio Sports Awards; and hummel and Bartercard sign a seven-figure deal with the Bradford Bulls. The throughline: the value is in the specific piece.

Music by Cheerry Red

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FIFA opened its tender on Thursday for U.S. and Puerto Rico media rights to the 2030 men's World Cup, with an option on 2034. Bids are due November 19, and FIFA wants a winner by year-end, ideally one partner for both English and Spanish rather than the Fox/Telemundo split. Fox is estimated to have paid $425 million for 2026, a tournament that averaged 13.5 million viewers a match, up 166% on 2022, and media executives have predicted $1.5–2 billion this time. Also today: CBS signs JJ Watt as its lead NFL analyst on a multi-year deal; Nike becomes the Mumbai Indians' kit partner from 2027; AbbVie joins a McLaren sponsor list that's grown fast this year; Rezzil raises $10 million, with the Premier League backing it again, to expand into the U.S.; gym-software rounds for Huppa and 1club; Uber Eats' "Build Your Own Super Bowl Commercial" wins the Media Grand Prix at Cannes Lions; and a Lisbon fund buys into Os Belenenses with a price that rises only if the club climbs back to the top flight. In the Deep Dive: how FIFA handed Fox and Telemundo the 2026 rights without a bid, what 2026 proved, who's lining up for 2030, and why the time zones complicate everything. The throughline: the price of a sure thing just went up.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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Utah Attorney General Derek Brown is suing Kalshi, alleging its contracts are illegal gambling in one of two states whose constitutions ban gambling. The complaint estimates Kalshi took $30.6 million to $61.2 million in fees on more than $3 billion wagered from Utah accounts, and asks the court to stop its sports, election, politics, culture and mentions contracts in the state, enforced by a geolocation provider. Kalshi says it answers to the CFTC. Also today: NFL and college football push Kalshi and Polymarket to a record $22.2 billion week; nearly a quarter of MLB teams signed prediction-market deals this summer, and fans are pushing back; the NBA kept Kalshi, Polymarket and Novig spots off NBC's season openers; Just Women's Sports buys Victra Sports and launches an app; Kalshi is in talks at a $40 billion valuation and Polymarket at more than $20 billion; Sting Energy's "The Unofficial Official Sound of F1" wins a Grand Clio; and Everton launches its own mobile network. The throughline: the prediction-market money is moving faster than anyone's permission.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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NFL owners approved Arctos's 7.5% stake in the Atlanta Falcons at their meetings in New York on Tuesday. Arctos, now a business of KKR, has also committed to buy a further 2.5% later, subject to a separate vote, with the full 10% previously reported at a $10.6 billion valuation. It's the only firm approved for multiteam ownership across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS, and Arthur Blank says the proceeds will go to his family's philanthropic focus areas. Also today: Ampere Analysis values MLB's regional rights at $1.6 billion, 43% of the league's broadcast revenue, as it targets 2028 to centralize local rights; Fage becomes title partner of the WTA Finals through 2029 after the Riyadh deal ended early; AbbVie turns McLaren's Constructors' points into donations to patient groups; AT&T builds the NBA's fourth-generation High-Speed Arena Network; 1936 takes a minority stake in Trackhouse's MotoGP team; Miami Beach's "Wake Up to a New March" wins Sports ETA's Destination Marketing Campaign of the Year with a 49-to-1 return; and Capacity Sports Group buys a 78-acre travel-baseball campus near Atlanta. The throughline: the big money in sports is moving into what sits underneath the game.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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After more than a week away, a special midweek edition with a Deep Dive. ESPN and the College Football Playoff have a handshake agreement for a 24-team field from 2027: ESPN's Pete Thamel reports the network will pay an average of $345 million more a year for five years, on top of the $1.3 billion a year it already pays. With the Power 4 conference title games expected to disappear, ESPN gets back about $140 million a year, putting its net cost near $205 million, and Fox gets back an estimated $50 million. Also today: Netflix lands exclusive rights to the 2030 World Cup in Spain and Andorra, with free games built in; the PNG Chiefs sign Nambawan Super two years before their NRL debut; Adweek's Sports Marketing MVPs favor content over signage; Rezzil raises $10 million to expand into North America; Jean Eric Salata buys 2.1% of the Dolphins at a $12.5 billion valuation; and Nike's "So Win" is named an Adweek Media Plan of the Year. In the Deep Dive: what DAZN is actually launching in the U.S., from 19 directly carried teams and ViewLift-powered apps to free over-the-air games and a promise not to buy rights "for billions of dollars or to lose money." The throughline: the price of getting in early, and the price of staying in.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Every Disney+ subscriber in the U.S. will be able to stream Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027, ESPN and the NFL said on Wednesday. It's the first Super Bowl ESPN will produce, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the ESPN and ABC telecast and a Spanish-language feed on ESPN Deportes. Disney+ will also carry the game in more than 55 international markets, and it gets two Monday Night Football simulcasts first, starting with Cowboys-Eagles on October 26. Also today: ESPN's 30-day exclusive window to negotiate a 24-team College Football Playoff closes Friday, opening the door to CBS, Fox, NBC and Prime Video; Bomani Jones moves "The Right Time" to Playmaker and hints at a subscription; Kalshi, Polymarket and Novig sign-up codes run under the CBS Sports and Fox Sports brands; Kalshi offers to cap its trading desk at 5% of exchange volume; Rogers closes its C$4.35 billion purchase of the rest of MLSE; Tommy Hilfiger and "F1 The Movie" win at the European Sponsorship Association awards; and Hyrox sells majority control at about €600 million. The throughline: sports is reaching people in places that used to belong to someone else.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Paramount completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, and the combined company is now Skydance, with CBS Sports and TNT Sports under one roof. Former CBS Sports CEO David Berson will lead Skydance Sports, while TNT Sports' Luis Silberwasser is leaving. RedBird Capital added $4 billion at closing, for about $6 billion in total, and the company starts life with about $80 billion in debt and a Fitch rating cut to BB from BB+. Also today: Iowa-Ohio State averages 5.966 million viewers on CBS, the network's first most-watched game of a college football weekend since 2023; buy now, pay later company Zip adds the 76ers to a sponsorship push built around Philadelphia; Ferrero will run Nutella and Kinder Bueno spots in Super Bowl LXI as part of a $50 million sports push, after its first Super Bowl ad drove a 140% lift in volume sales; NHL Productions and GameDay Creative roll out a shared graphics package for the Ducks, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Stars, Wild and Blues; the NFL and 72andSunny's "Champion" wins an Emmy; and Uganda's tourism board sponsors the Champions Hockey League to reach Swiss travelers. The throughline: the difference between getting bigger and getting more precise.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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CBS Sports and Tony Romo have "mutually agreed to part ways," ending his nine seasons as the network's lead NFL analyst. Romo had been on leave since July, and JJ Watt stays alongside Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson for the rest of the season. Variety notes Romo's 2020 extension was valued at around $17 million a year, and that the opening comes as CBS's parent heads into its merger with Warner Bros. carrying billions in debt. Also today: Australia's Nine Network signs a seven-year free-to-air deal with Australian Athletics running through the Brisbane 2032 Olympics; Westfield moves onto the front of the Western Sydney Wanderers' shirt, tying in five centres with more than 92 million visits a year; the NHL pulls its "Hot for Hockey" romance audio series after it averaged 2.4 stars; Sofascore gets the NHL's puck and player tracking data; Maple Leaf Foods and Michelob ULTRA win Best in Show at the Sponsorship Excellence Awards; and a federal judge rules a rooftop business can't sell the view of a Cubs game without paying the Cubs. The throughline: who gets to profit from the game, and who decides.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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YouTube is still an interested buyer for almost every major U.S. league, CNBC's Alex Sherman reports, but only for whole packages: all of a team's local games, or every game in a tournament. That fits its decision to walk away from a five-game NFL package that Netflix bought. Sports Business Journal has reported YouTube is in advanced talks for 20 to 25 NBA teams' regional rights, and it wants the FIFA Men's World Cup, with games anchoring YouTube Premium at $15.99 a month. Also today: Sports Entertainment Group closes its NZ$130 million purchase of MediaWorks, New Zealand's biggest radio group; an independent commission finds Manchester City guilty over sponsorship "schemes" the Premier League says were worth more than £900 million, with City set to appeal; DAZN Media Plus adds stadium signage, a creator platform, an AI sales agent and a Sports Audience Graph; NBCUniversal cuts several hundred streaming technology jobs months after Peacock's first adjusted profit; Sting and Columbia Sportswear win Grands at the Clio Awards; and Nigeria's Kano Pillars swap a broadcaster for a detergent on the front of the shirt. The throughline: the companies in sports media no longer want one piece, they want the whole thing, and the bigger the package, the more there is to pay for and to answer for.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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ESPN's exclusive talks to keep the College Football Playoff are "tough sledding," per Sports Business Journal, with a week left before the October 9 deadline. The sticking point is replacing the conference championship games a 24-team playoff would eliminate: the SEC title game alone is worth about $100 million, and all FBS title games together about $250 million. If no deal is reached, the rights go to market, where Fox, NBC and Prime Video could bid. Also today: India's ISL splits its rights between Sony and YouTube and gives clubs viewing data for the first time; Bridgestone becomes Formula E's sole tire supplier and takes four race title sponsorships; U.S. Bank extends its NFL deal to youth flag football; ESPN renews TGL; and Bulgaria's 1club raises €2.2 million. This week's Friday Deep Dive goes back to the NHL naming Adobe its official creative, marketing and AI partner: what all 32 clubs get, how it follows Adobe's deals with the NFL, the Premier League and MLB, and why the fan-facing AI tools are the riskier half of the bet. The throughline: everyone is trying to reach the fan they don't have yet, without losing the money they already have.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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Madison Square Garden Sports' board has approved spinning off the New York Rangers from the Knicks, with completion scheduled for October 26. The parent becomes MSG Knickerbockers Corporation and keeps the Knicks; the new MSG Rangers Corporation takes the Rangers, the Hartford Wolf Pack and the MSG Training Center. Shareholders get one MSG Rangers share for every two MSG Sports shares, trading under MSGK and MSGR is set to begin October 27, and James Dolan will run the Rangers company while keeping his roles at the Knicks. Also today: the NHRA splits its season between Fox and The CW from 2027, with FloSports streaming qualifying and a reach of more than 125 million households; Verizon's Visible signs with Learfield across USC, Oregon, Minnesota and Rutgers, including one of college football's first corporate helmet bumpers; the CFTC prepares a crackdown on prediction-market promotions; Novig raises at up to a $2 billion valuation, four times its February price; Nike's "So Win" and Novartis' "Relax, It's a Blood Test" win ADWEEK Media Plan of the Year honors; and Sports Entertainment Group completes its NZ$130 million purchase of MediaWorks. The throughline: how you package something can change what it's worth, from stocks and TV seasons to sponsorships and bets.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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The New York Islanders have agreed to sell roughly 15% of the franchise at a $3 billion valuation, Sportico reports, pending NHL approval, with Scott Malkin keeping control. That slice is worth about $450 million, almost exactly the $485 million Malkin and Jon Ledecky paid for the entire club in 2014, and the price is more than 50% above Sportico's own $1.93 billion valuation from last year. Also today: NBC's first Sunday Night Baseball season averaged 2.7 million viewers, the package's best since 2007; Paze replaces PayPal on the Phoenix Suns' jerseys; Fox was the only network to air taxpayer-funded ads featuring President Trump during football; Alibaba becomes the Brooklyn Nets' technology, cloud and jersey patch partner; Clearlake buys out Todd Boehly to take full control of Chelsea; football clubs sweep three Grand Prix at Cannes Lions; and the Big Bash League's franchises go up for sale. The throughline: everything in sport is being sold in pieces, from stakes and TV rights to jersey patches, and every piece now carries a price of its own.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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The Steinbrenner family is selling at least 4% of Yankee Global Enterprises as part of Apollo Sports Capital's $2.6 billion investment, at a valuation above $10 billion per Sportico, and the money arrives in tranches: an initial payment, future share purchases and a $1 billion loan. The New York Post reports Apollo would end up with 16%, roughly half of it in preferred stock that converts after four years, while Hal Steinbrenner keeps control. Before this deal, 18 of MLB's 30 teams already had private equity owners. Also today: Charles Barkley doubles down on retiring from Inside the NBA; Kylian Mbappé's move from Nike to On becomes official; Accredited Debt Relief hires TCA as its first media agency, with Bill Cowher in a new ad as US household debt hits a record high; the NHL names Adobe its official creative, marketing and AI partner for all 32 teams; KFC Canada, Uber Eats and Nike's winning Clio Sports work; and Superstat raises $3.5 million to automate stats for amateur sport. The throughline: money keeps pouring into sport, but it arrives in very different forms, as loans for the owners, marketing tools for the leagues, and ads aimed at the fans.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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Manchester United drew £120 million from its revolving credit facility across three summer tranches, repaid £30 million, and ended up with total debt of £1.15 billion, still above a billion despite two years of cost cutting under Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Summer spending on new players came to £191.7 million, and only £153 million of that can be traced to announced fees. Also today: several of MLB's national TV deals would add a free 2029 season if a lockout wipes out 60 games per team; Premier League front-of-shirt revenue is up 8% to £444 million in the first season without gambling sponsors on the front, though the betting money has moved to sleeves and training kits; Indeed hires Little Dot Studios to activate its Brentford shirt deal; New York sues Polymarket for at least $4.6 billion; Guinness and Three/Chelsea FC Women win at the ESA Awards; the Hawks move to local broadcast TV; and the LTA hands British tennis's social channels to Two Circles. The throughline: risk in sports business rarely goes away. It just gets moved somewhere else.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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