MoneyCall: Can the Masters calm a disrupted golf industry? Plus: LeBron's Barbie crossover

New York Times

09-04-2025

Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic's weekly sports business cheat sheet. Name-dropped today: Jim Nantz, Scottie Scheffler, Judge Claudia Wilken, Stewart Mandel, Azzi Fudd, Alex Ovechkin, Billie Jean King, David Letterman, Ludvig Aberg and more. Let's go:
Golf is changing dramatically, but the Masters remains the Masters.
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Dulcet tones of Jim Nantz. No cell phones allowed! Scottie Scheffler the odds-on favorite to win. Azaleas. Cheap eats. The green jacket. (And … gnomes?)
The rest of the golf business? Kind of in a weird liminal state!
As for the Masters …
'The combination of prowess and uncertainty at the top of the men's game makes the anticipation around this Masters feel particularly palpable,' my colleague Gabby Herzig wrote in our team's Masters preview. 'It's a familiar phenomenon, but this year, more than others, I'm feeling the anything-could-happen vibe.'
And yet! It is precisely that wider familiarity — that 'tradition unlike any other' — that fans reach for during a week when things at large are anything but.
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
👀 LeBron is a Ken doll: If Mattel thought the Barbie movie discourse was highly charged, wait until this latest twist in the LeBron saga hits the First Take-NBA pods-X-TNT outrage cycle.
📉 Sports-related stocks pummeled: You don't say.
📺 Big ratings for women's NCAA championship: 8.5M, up 75 percent from the UConn-South Carolina title game in 2022. Did it top the two title games from the Caitlin Clark era? No. (But that wasn't an expectation anyway.)On the other hand, crushing the most recent non-CC title game audience numbers establishes an exciting new ratings level for women's college basketball. (Now, imagine how much higher it would be if ABC actually put the title game in prime time.)
As for the men's: Biggest audience since 2019 watched Florida-Houston on Monday night (18.9M). It is reasonable to say bumping up the tip-off by 30 minutes from historical norms could only have helped. Let's stick with that.
Related: Speaking of LIV vs. PGA, the ratings from Sunday's dueling TV events are in, and it's a 'yikes' for LIV: 484K for LIV Miami on Fox vs. 1.75M for the PGA on NBC.
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⚖️ House vs. NCAA, cont'd: 'Basically, I think it is a good settlement. I think it's worth pursuing.' — U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken, presiding over Monday's latest NCAA settlement hearing.My colleague Stewart Mandel was in the courtroom and filed a great dispatch: 'All indications are she will ultimately approve it, whether this week, next week or later this spring. I remain skeptical that it will solve much of anything.'
🏀 What Who next for women's college basketball? Paige is gone, and JuJu is recovering. The next first-name-only sensation? I'll take Azzi. ('Fudd around and find out,' indeed!)
🏒 Ovi 895: As a lifelong Caps fan, I was glued to the TV on Sunday to catch Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record. Fascinating spin-off: The market for 895 collectibles.
7️⃣7️⃣ Luka returns to Dallas tonight: Puts a glaring spotlight on Mavs management, so take a few minutes to read this in-depth report on the situation inside the organization that led to the still-inexplicable Dončić trade to the Lakers. (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Other current obsessions: Ludvig Aberg … Saquon Barkley on 'Hot Ones' … Billie Jean King with a star on the Walk of Fame … the Bears' Ben Johnson hiring backstory … Caitlin Clark on the new episode of David Letterman's 'My Next Guest Needs No Introduction' …
A few months ago, my colleague Gabby Herzig weighed in here and in a great feature about the impact of YouTube on golf.
She is at Augusta National all week to cover the Masters, so I had to take advantage of her presence and expertise to ask this question:
Are there any indications the YouTube-ization of golf has reached the Masters? Or is the Masters a — perhaps THE — rare institution that is impervious to the shifting dynamics?
I don't think the Masters will be hosting a Creator Classic anytime in the foreseeable future, but Augusta National is definitely on the forefront of the content game in the professional golf realm. The Masters YouTube channel and social handles blow the other tournaments out of the water with their output.
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They're also stepping it up when it comes to shot-tracking and accessibility for fans. Not only can you track every shot that your favorite player hits on the course this week, you will also be able to see the statistics for every ball they hit on the driving range — that's a new feature this year on Masters.com
On the men's side, I finished tied for first … but lost the tiebreaker to 'Tommy2tones' and 'Spray the Board' by a single point!
On the women's side, congrats to '2Tones' (any relation to Tommy above?) on their title. Excited to bring this back next year.
(Hilarious industry side note: I came in first in Sportico's 'Club Sportico' bracket group — shout-out to the fine folks at Sportico!)
What happens to a Premier League team after you're relegated? (Spoiler: Not much good!)
The producer behind 'Last Chance U' spent a season with the Red Sox, and the resulting behind-the-scenes, eight-episode series launched yesterday on Netflix. Not unlike HBO's recent docuseries on the Celtics, if you're a Boston sports fan, you'll enjoy it. If you're not, you won't miss anything if you skip it.
(Although you should know the backstory of why Jarren Duran will get an ovation in his next Red Sox at-bat.)
Do you ever wish you worked in an NFL front office? Maybe you simply like to play GM for your favorite team in your spare time. Either way, can't recommend enough Dane Brugler's 2025 edition of 'The Beast,' the single best resource of NFL Draft player evaluations you will find: 2,500 players, rankings and an interactive site. Get it all here.
Puzzle #198
Dan's :23
You can do this!
Try the game here.
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
Phenomenal piece by Gabby Herzig (with a MoneyCall hat-trick of mentions today!) on golfers dealing with the psychological after-effects of almost winning the Masters, but falling short. Incredible reporting, nuance and detail.
Plus: What it's like to be fired sacked as a Premier League manager?
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