Women’s sport, fitness, and strategy
Rights deals, valuations, brands, and the business of sport.
Last year’s caviar-topped chicken nuggets went viral. Grounds passes that cost $65 at face value were trading above $300 on resale. The tournament has always drawn a crowd — but the product is different now.
Expansion teams usually spend years looking like a tryout. Golden State sold out Chase Center, won early, and made the building feel like theirs.
Preliminary talks with the R&A sit beside a ~$750 million Formula One bet and an MLS partnership shortened by years. The real question is how long tech platforms will wait for sports audiences to arrive.
Two Top End Tests are a small UK rights buy — and a real test of whether cricket belongs on a football-and-combat platform while Cricket Australia’s bigger packages stay in play.
From the 2026/27 Gen4 season, every race weekend streams on Disney+ worldwide — and on ESPN+ in the U.S. The open question is whether Disney can turn electric racing into younger-audience programming.
Asia-Pacific sports M&A hit a record $3.69 billion through mid-July. IPL sales near $1.8 billion show why families and funds want ownership, not another logo deal.
Boston Common Golf now has a women’s team in the LPGA’s indoor league. Matches start this fall in a Florida studio. A TV partner has not been named.
A temporary glass court goes up on the Northern Broadwalk for a weekend invitational. The presenting partner is a wealth manager — and that says as much about padel’s commercial pitch as it does about the view.
The LAFC co-owner becomes the third commissioner in league history on Jan. 1 — calendar flip, CBA, and the next media deal, not another round of expansion fees.
Seventy Orix wins, thirty Dodgers wins, and a Japan MLB Shop drop that paints the career math in Buffaloes gold and Dodgers blue — V-commerce doing what posting fees already proved: Japanese aces sell both sides of the Pacific.
From a 2016 Nippon-Ham image deal to global Seiko ambassador — and a one-of-one Star Time built around his question about how much career he has left.
Owners want MLB stars at Dodger Stadium in July 2028. The union wants NHL-style tickets and rooms. MLB’s May proposal would put opt-outs on the restricted list without pay. The showcase is not locked.
SoftBank Hawks posted ¥50.9 billion (~$340M) in the fiscal year through February — enough to rank 19th in MLB’s 2025 revenue table. The mix tells the real story: gate, sponsors, and a owned dome, not national TV.
Suryakumar Yadav as India ambassador, a renewed JioStar rights deal, and Reliance’s RISE Worldwide — baseball’s India strategy now runs through cricket’s distribution machine.
Endorsements, equity deals, and the agency economics behind marketable athletes.
Franchise values track media multiples — until distribution changes.
How broadcast markets fragment across regions — and why a North American World Cup resets the price of football’s biggest product.
Which sponsor segments align with sports audiences — and which are noise.
The fee structure, negotiation window, and economics of moving NPB talent to North America.