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4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NCAA settles: Big payday for college athletes
From Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) corporate shake-up to the high-stakes US Open Golf Championship and even actor Ryan Reynolds' continued big bets on global sports, the financial plays shaping the sports business are ones to watch. This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. Plus, Sportico Legal Analyst and Senior Sports Legal Reporter Michael McCann stops by the show to break down everything you need to know about the House vs. NCAA settlement. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines and analyzes all the need-to-know news—the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals—so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I'm your host, Joe Pompeiano, and I'm here to coach you through the financial game. Today, we've got Sportico legal analyst and senior sports legal reporter Michael McCann joining us to break down the House NCAA settlement and so much more. Let's huddle up and get right into are kicking off this week with Pop's Playbook. Why take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know. First up, Warner Brothers Discovery announced earlier this week that it will split into two separate public companies by 2026. 1 company will be a streaming and studios business that will house WBD's film and TV properties and its streaming service HBO Max, and the other be a global networks brand that will include TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, and multiple other networks. Now, this book will impact the distribution of WBD sports rights in the US as TNT Sports major events are often available to stream on HBO Max. In a call with Wall Street analysts on Monday, WBD CFO said, quote, The US sports rights will reside at global networks, and itManagement team will determine the streaming and digital rights over time, end quote. But WWE's statement still leaves a few questions. Will TNT sports events continue streaming on HBO Max once WBD splits, or will the new global networks company look to sell the streaming rights for TNT sports events to a different partner? We'll see how the details shake out when WBD completes its split next up, the 125th US Open takes place this weekend at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and will have significant economic implications. Founded in 1903, Oakmont Country Club is one of the most historic venues in golf and will host the US Open for a record weekend. However, Oakmont is also one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, with a reported $200,000 initiation fee and $10,000 annual dues for its members. Big money will also be on the line for the 156 golfers competing at this year's US Open. The prize pool for the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst number 2 was worth $21.5 million with champion Bryson DeShambe earning $4.3 million for his second major the event will be a major economic driver for the Pittsburgh area. 200,000 people are expected to attend the US Open at Oakmont, and the United States Golf Association estimates that the event will have a $200 million economic impact on the local economy through direct and indirect spending. To finish out, Wrexham AFC, the Welsh soccer club owned by actors Rob McElaney and Ryan Reynolds, is looking to sell a minority stake in the team at a $475 according to Bloomberg. Wrexham, which was recently promoted to the EFL championship, is reportedly seeking to raise funds so it can upgrade its roster and be a real competitor in its new league, which sits just one tier below the top flight English Premier League. Bloomberg also noted that Wrexham seeks additional capital to fund the construction of a new 7000 seat stand, which will increase the capacity of its home stadium to over 18,000 talks to sell a minority stake in the club are reportedly still in the early stages, and Wrexham hasn't yet found a new investor. But if the club can sell a stake at a $475 million valuation, the sale would represent a 19,000% increase in value from the $2.5 million that McElaney and Reynolds paid for Wrexham in 2021. I'll also have an update on another sports investment from Ryan Reynolds here in a few week for the deeper dive, where I give you a play by play analysis of news in the sports world and its significance to your bottom line, we're talking about the rise of Sail GP. Now, last weekend I was in New York City watching 12 50-foot catamarans race each other in front of the Statue of Liberty for Sail GP, the fastest growing sports league you've never heard of. Sail GP was founded by billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and America' legend Sir Russell Coots in 2018 to bring sailing out of the yacht club and into the mainstream. And even though the league is in just its fifth season, Sail GP has already built a thriving business model. Now think of Sail GP as the Formula One of sailing. There are 12 nation-based teams that compete in 13 Grand Prix events around the world, featuring several 15 minute sprint style races each weekend. TheseTeams compete for millions of dollars in prize money, with the season-long champion taking home a $2 million prize alone. However, unlike Formula One, where teams with the most resources regularly win races by building the fastest courses, every sail GB team uses the same 50-foot catamaran. These sailboats reach top speeds of 60 MPH and are powered by 78-foot wing sails, turning each race into an even GP is also one of the most innovative TV products in sports, with augmented reality overlays that track the speed and distance of each boat, and drones and chase boats supplying incredible footage with 4K stabilized cameras. The league is broadcast in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, has a broadcast agreement with CBS Sports in the US, and drew 1.78 million viewers for last year's race in Spain on CBS. Now, while Sal GP's TV and in-person products are outstanding, its is even more fascinating. In just 7 years, CellGB has expanded from 6 teams completely owned by the league to 12 teams and has gone from 5 races to 13 races today. 10 of the league's 12 teams are now privately owned, with teams selling for $50 million or more to investor groups that include celebrity owners like soccer superstar Kean Mbappe, actress Anne Hathaway, and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. And just last week, actors Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds became co-owners of the Australian LGB Sale GP is expected to generate more than $100 million in revenue for 2025 through a diverse set of revenue streams. The league commands six-figure host fees from cities to host Sale GP events, with Auckland, New Zealand paying over $1 million to host the Grand Prix in January of this past year. And Sale millions each year from sponsors, including high-end luxury brands like Rolex, Emirates, and Accora Hotels. Now, Sale GP still has a long way to go if it wants to match Formula One's global appeal and commercial success, but don't count them out and keep an eye on their growth in the coming years because this once niche sport might just be the next big made it to the one on one, a conversation where I get to break down news and sports with the key player in the industry. This week, we're talking to Sportico's senior sports legal reporter, Michael McCann, about the recent NCAA versus House settlement, which will pave the way for universities and colleges to directly pay their student athletes starting this year. Michael, thank you so much for joining the show today. I want to start right there. I mean, there's plenty that we could talk about with the settlement, but if you could just do a quick explainer for people who may not know exactly what happened. Yeah, so last Friday, Judge Wilkin, the judge in the case, approved the settlement. The settlement is a game changer. It will have a couple big pieces to it. One is that athletes who played over the last eight years, Division One athletes will be paid over 10 years, about $2.8 billion. Now, most of that money is gonna go to football, it's not equally distributed, but it basically compensates athletes for NIL deals they could have gotten money for broadcast, video games that were never there's a remedy portion to the settlement in terms of damages. That's not as controversial as the other piece. The other piece that's really gonna change college sports noticeably will be the injunctive relief, and specifically,Colleges going forward can opt into a system where they can share revenue with athletes. This is totally new, right? All the years of amateurism, that's gone. Colleges and those in the power conferences will do it, others probably will not, but they can pay players a share of revenue up to what amounts to $20.5 million total. Now, schools that give most of that money to men could run afoul of Title IX, wouldn't surprise me to IX litigation. The other piece to this is that there are no more limits on scholarships, so every athlete could conceivably get a full ride, which is great for the athletes, and there are now a roster limits, so the roster sizes in some cases will be a little bit smaller. College football teams are traditionally about 120, now they're going to be 105, so some walk on athletes are gonna lose the spot that they would have other piece is NIL review. So deals that are in excess of $600 will be subject to neutral review. NILO will be a new service that will basically try to figure out if the deals are in fact reflecting fair market value. If not, the athlete can dispute that in there's a lot going on. If you're a college athlete, here's the thing, you now can get NIL deals plus a full ride plus a share of revenue. So, so for this is why we're seeing athletes now sue to stay in school, right? Traditionally people want to leave school and go to turn pro. Now people want to stick around. Yeah, so Michael, my first question off of that, and I have plenty, is how do collectives fit into this, right? Because I think people over the last number of years have heard a lot about collectives, and the traditional college football fan especially probably views collectives as this organization that is essentially funneling money from boosters to athletes their school. Now some of these collectives are a little bit more legitimate where they're actually sourcing and sort of acting as an agency, but now that the school can pay you directly and those collective kind of like boosters deals are taken out of it because they have to be legitimate NIL deals, where does that leave the collective industry today? Yeah, you hit it, Joe. So the work that collectives were doing is now essentially shifting to the schools and athletic departments. Some of these collectives will be folded into athletic departments. Some of the people might be brought into the athletic departments, we'll we'll have to see on that. So the collectives now, as you say, could still do NIL deals, but they'll be subject to this review process. They can't be paid for play, so that's now what they could do is marketing, they could do, uh, perhaps brand development. I mean, there are a lot of folks with in collectives that are really talented at business dealings, they may be able to provide some assistance, but their role will probably shrink being honest about it. Now, there may be some collectives that still do what you said, that they still try to funnel money in, and, you know, this will, this will be a good test of how the enforcement process we could certainly see a scenario where NIL collectors, even if they're not operating as a collective, they're just operating more in the traditional what we grew up with sort of money going to athletes uh under the table. I, I don't know if that's gonna happen, but we'll have to see. So how are schools actually gonna be paying this money, right? Where is it gonna be coming from? Because if you think about the big conferences, the SEC, Big 10, whatever, ACC, those schools can afford it based on the money that they're getting from the conferences every year from media rights, but there's a bunch of smaller conferences sort of on the longer tail, that maybe can't afford $20.5 million especially just for a football team. How are schools thinking about funding this and how many schools do you think will actually reach that limit? Yeah, I, I think many will opt in but not go to 20.5 million, and Joe, you're hitting at a real set of problems for colleges right now, cause it's not just this, it's not just coming up with 20.5 million or whatever fraction of that. It's also the fact thatThe population pool is going down for colleges over the next several years, there's the enrollment cliff hitting universities where there will be fewer US aged kids that will be applying to college, so there's going to be more competition for students, meaning more uh scholarships and other ways of trying to entice students to go. And then there's the fact that grants are being cut off, right? We know the federal government uh disposition is now to be more scrutinizing of grants or just cutting them also, if it's a more difficult entry point for international students who tend to be full tuition payers, they're having more difficulty now under the current administration. So there's a lot of pressure points hitting schools. What are they gonna do to come up with this money? They're gonna, I, I, you know, we'll see what it would be raising student activity fees. I know that's unpopular, but colleges sometimes do that as a way of making money. They may have to, what does that exactly mean? What, what, what do you mean by student activity fee? It means if you and I are classmates at a college and we're paying $38,000 now we get a fee tacked on that used to be $600 and is now $1200 and our parents complained to us saying, why are we spending all this money, you better be studying, right? So it's that fee, it's that, it's that fee that goes on the student, that's one possibility and restructuring.I mean, this is gonna happen regardless of 20.5 million. We're gonna see with lower enrollment, colleges, I think, go into serious restructuring where they need to maybe cut some departments, maybe even cut schools. I, we don't want to see that happen, but there there are certain realities kicking in. Yeah, it's sort of a difficult situation because if you look at the schools that are successful, like really successful in football, even schools that just have a lot of attention around them, like in Colorado or in Alabama, of course, or schools like that, the football program, uh, drives a lot of money for the school from enrollment and all that kind of thing, especially with out of state students that are charged more money. All right, everyone, we've got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more of my conversation with Michael McCann after back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I'm your host Joe Pompriano. I'm here with Sportico legal analysts and senior sports legal reporter, Michael McCann. I'm curious how you think about new revenue opportunities, right? Like, uh, I think it was last year, or maybe even 2 years ago at this point, we saw Tennessee implement the, uh, the tax on tickets, basically saying that this money was going to be used to fund NIL a lot of the fans actually seemed quite OK with it, right? Like if you're paying a tax, at least you know what it's going for. A lot of them are probably donating to NIL collectives anyways, at least in a smaller amount. So a 5% tax or whatever it ends up being on the ticket, uh, wasn't a deal breaker for them. But I'm curious if you think we'll see either more schools implement that or any other ideas that you've heard that they might be be implementing as well. Yeah, I mean, you're right, the tax was surprisingly not, I didn't receive a hostile reaction, at least from what we could tell. I, I do worry that that that model may be unpopular, or if we see it play out at other schools, the idea of paying a tax, I could see some objections to now, maybe it doesn't matter, maybe the sports are so popular thatThey can just raise fees. Uh, you know, other ideas, I think better media rights deals is part of it, right? How, how is college sports being monetized in terms of not just TV but streaming? Are there avenues left unturned? Are there opportunities for really better negotiations and, you know, we're seeing now general managers hired by schools. Part of that, part of their job is gonna be coming up with ways of expanding the revenue we're gonna see some business folks brought in, uh, as you know, athletic departments have traditionally been run by, uh, you know, people like me, lawyers or compliance folks, and now I think we're seeing some more business people brought in that may have creative ideas, particularly with licensing, particularly with with monetizing intellectual property rights, there's all sorts of ways, stones that maybe there's low hanging fruit as well, but there are certainly stones that haven't been all turned. Yeah, we may be getting the NFL model where there's select games on Netflix and Peacock for the SEC and other conferences like that. Um, but Michael, I would love to hear just your thoughts on how sustainable the $20.5 million dollar number is, right? Like, are we gonna go substantially higher than that, or do you think it'll stay sort of there for a while? It's projected to grow gradually about 10 to $12 million over the next 10 years, and it's based on a formula. It's based on a formula that the settlement has. So, I mean it could grow, right? It could grow if revenues go way up. And if, and if it turns out that college sports is worth a lot more than it's generating, which some people believe, some people believe that that college sports should know, if, if they had the, the insights of the NFL, they would be able to generate more revenue. Maybe that's true. But I think the expectation is that it will be a fairly slow growth of that figure, which is also interesting because think about it, that's 20.5 million for everyone in the athletic department, right? I mean, there are a lot of, a lot of athletes in that department. Does the quarterback say, I, I want 5 million andYou know, or does a school say, let's put all of our eggs in the best running back. Let's go all out for a running game. Or maybe a school says, we want, we want basketball to be our focus. We think we can put together a great team, forget the football team. We know we're not great at that. We're gonna put together the best basketball team, and we're gonna use that 20.5 million on that. There are all these really interesting permutations that it that it seems like pro sports, right? This sort of sounds like uh pro sports. Yeah, it's sort of an interesting look at it because it's almost like Moneyball, right, where you're trying to find where you get the best return on your investment, whether that's specific players or whether that to your point with the basketball, uh, analogy there, whether that's an entirely different team where you're competing kind of as a bigger fish and smaller pond. It'll be really interesting to see and, and again, to your point, uh, it's part of the a lot of these schools are hiring GMs and capologists and different things like that. But I, I would love to just double click on one thing you mentioned earlier in this conversation, which was some of the, uh, alternative sports teams, some of the Olympic sports, some of the non-revenue generating sports, and just get your feedback and insight on on how those uh teams might be uh impacted by the settlement. Yeah, I mean may expect that they will be adversely impacted by the settlement, that the settlement will funnel more money towards the revenue generating sports. Now, let's remember, most colleges are not going to opt into the system. So in a lot of schools, the world's not changing. The Ivy League is not changing. They're keeping the same model. They're not paying players. So, you know, in a way at the top schools, it's possible that some sports, particularly the Olympic sports, particularly the sports that are played by Title 9 remains, remains an important law that will ensure that there are equal opportunities for women athletes. Uh, that, that may make it harder to say cut a women's team than, uh, depending upon which men's team we're talking about to bring a number of roster spots. So yeah, I mean, I, I, I think the expectation is that the money will, I mean, it's already mostly for certain sports, but I think that effect will be amplified. Yeah, it's sort of an unfortunate situation because if you're looking at a team that, you know, spends $2 million a year on salaries and expenses and other things like that, that's $2 million that could go towards this for the football team that's bringing in a lot of academics and things like that from a monetary standpoint, it certainly makes sense. Um, the, the last thing I want to touch on there is just the NIL go portion, right? You mentioned earlier that deals that are legitimate NIL deals, the Doctor Peppers of the world and other businesses like have to go through and get approved by NILO. Where do you think the line is drawn on this? So like, first off, who's actually enforcing this? And then second off, like, where is that line gonna be drawn between what's legitimate and what isn't? Because as we know in college sports, there's, you know, car dealerships in the hometown that uh are sort of legitimate, but also sort of not legitimate. Yeah, so Deloitte is the key player in this arrangement. They're gonna be running NILO with the College Sports Commission. They're gonna have authority. So what is, what is fair market value? Some would say fair market value is whatever the market will pay you, right? So if that car dealer wants to offer you, Joe, $2 million you're worth 2 million. I mean that that that's a not illegitimate that, that argument though is not one the NCAA would embrace. The NCAA would say, well, that money is really going to Joe because we want Joe to come to our school. He, his actual value in terms of his image, his likeness, uh, that's not nearly worth that much. What we're really paying him is because Joe's this great football player that we want in our school. So this new entity will look at data points. They'll look at, for instance, what other athletes in the same get an endorsement deal, and that car dealership, well, what have they paid in the past for endorsement deals? If they pay 10,000 bucks and they're on local TV and then suddenly they're offering you $2 million that that's gonna raise some questions about the legitimacy of that transaction. And the smart thing that they did with this settlement is they have that is, that cannot be stressed more. Yeah, it sounds like we're gonna have a lot less legitimate NIL deals whether people aren't just gonna want to file them in time or whether they're gonna get denied, it could be either, but uh certainly seems like there will be less. But thank you so much for joining us today, Michael. I learned a lot and I'm sure everyone else did too. Thanks, Gerald. Appreciate it. The clock is winding down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. So let's talk about the trading card market for Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gillis NBA finals are in full swing, with Game 4 between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers taking place tomorrow night at Game Bridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. And while there has been plenty of action to discuss on the court, one player in the finals is dominating the collectibles market off the court. According to data shared at Yahoo by professional sports authenticator, Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gillis Alexander is the in this year's NBA Finals. Now, it's not necessarily a surprise that the 26-year-old guard is popular among collectors. The Thunder have a chance to win their first ever NBA championship after a historic 68 win season. And SGA won his first NBA MVP award last month with 71 out of 101st place votes. But SGA isn't just PSA's most collected NBA Finals He's the most collected player by a wide margin. PSA's top three most collected 2025 NBA Finals players include SGA at #1, his Thunder teammate Chet Holmgren at #2, and Pacers superstar guard Tyrese Halliburton at #3. However, PSA's data says that SGA has nearly doubled the cards graded than any other 2025 NBA Finals player this what's even crazier is that SGA alone has 2 times the number of cards greater than the entire Indiana Pacers roster combined. Now, this NBA final series is far from over. If Tyrese Halbburn keeps making buzzer beaters and the Pacers pull off a championship upset, Halliburton could skyrocket his value among card collectors. But as of right now, there's a huge gap between SGA and every other NBA Finals player, and that gap could become even bigger if he adds an NBA championship to his resume this all out of time, so it's officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Michael and for all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insights and catch us every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. I'm your host, Joe Pompeliano. See you next time. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Small markets, big payouts: inside the 2025 NBA finals
This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. From the MLB's latest investment in Athletes Unlimited Softball League, to the Masters lottery ticket price increase, to Olympic athlete Sha'Carri Richardson's newest athletic adventure, there are a lot of key money moves shaping the industry. Plus, Yahoo Sports contributing writer Tom Haberstroh drops by the show to discuss the 2025 NBA finals where the Oklahoma City Thunder will face off against the Indiana Pacers. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I'm your host, Joe Pompeiano, and I'm here to coach you through the financial game. We've got Yahoo Sports contributing writer Tom Haberstro joining us today to talk all things NBA Finals and so much more. Let's huddle up and get right into are kicking off this week with POM's Playbo. Why I take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know. First up, Major League Baseball announced last week that it will make a significant investment in the new Athletes Unlimited softball League, or AUSL for short. Financial terms of the deal were not reported that MLB will be investing at least $10 million in AUSL, and as part of the deal, MLB will work with AUSL on joint sales and marketing efforts, promote the league on MLB broadcasts and social media platforms, and select AUSL Games will air on MLB Network and MLB this is Major League Baseball's first major partnership with the women's sports league. The AUSL, which is part of the Athletes Unlimited brand founded by John Patrakoff and Jonathan Soros in 2020, will launch its inaugural season this Saturday. AUSL will feature four teams, a 24 game schedule and an All-Star Cup. AUSL teams will also play games in 12 cities across the US before switching to a city-based team schedule in 2026, and games will air on ESPN Networks for its debut up, sports stocks finally rebounded for their first positive month since January, according to a new report from Sporttico. In May, Sporttico's sports stock index posted a 7% gain to finish the month at 1380. Sporttico credited the index's rebound to ease fears on President Trump's tariff announcements, which was also seen on a broader level across the entire stock market. Now Sporttico's sportstock index is a group of 40 stocks that leverage sports as a major driver for future business growth, including companies one, Sphere Entertainment, and Nike. And to be part of the index, the company's stock has to be traded in the US, offer sufficient daily trade volume, and have a market cap that is over $50 million. All told, 28 of the companies in the index were up in the month of May, with 13 rising over 10% each during that period. And many companies impacted by potential tariffs saw massive gains in May, including on holdings at 24%, Amark at 22%, Under Armour at 17%, and 7%. Last up, lottery ticket prices for the Masters tournament have increased for next year's tournament in 2026. Now, Augusta National Golf Club offers a lottery that gives fans a chance to buy tickets at discounted rates. Anyone can enter the lottery for free through the Masters website from now until June 20, and winners will be notified in July to buy the cheaper tickets. However, you need a lot of luck, as lottery entrants only have a 0.55% chance of winning. And if you are lucky win tickets for the 2026 Masters, you'll be paying a higher price than this year's tournament. Lottery tickets for practice rounds are up 25% to $125 each. Prices for the par 3 contests are up 50% to $150 each, and daily passes for each of the four tournament rounds are up 14% to $160 each. But even with these price increases, lottery tickets for the Masters are still a bargain, as daily passes on the secondary market can cost $15 to 20 times more than face week for the deeper dive, where I give you a play by play analysis of news in the sports world and its significance to your bottom line, we're talking about the enhanced games. One of the most fascinating and controversial developments in sports right now is the enhanced games. Imagine the Olympics, but instead of performance enhancing drugs being banned, they're actually encouraged. And if you break a world record, you win a million dollars. Founded by Australian entrepreneur Aaron De Souza, the Enhanced Games is a privately funded competition that has raised millions from including Peter Thiel, and by being privately funded, the event is free from government or Olympic Committee control. Now the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency have condemned the concept, calling it dangerous and irresponsible. But De Souza argues the opposite, claiming that current sports rules place artificial limits on human potential and that researching enhanced performance could lead to medical breakthroughs. Here's how the enhanced games will work athletes can choose to compete with or without they opt to use PEDs, these athletes must pass rigorous medical screening, and only drugs that are legally available in the US via prescription are allowed. Athletes can then choose to manage their own PED regimen or join the enhanced games official clinical trial with a full medical staff. All athletes were monitored by doctors and scientists throughout training and competition. Now, the first official competition is set for Memorial Day weekend 2026 in Las Vegas and will feature swimming, track and field, events. However, the enhanced games are already making some noise. Greek swimmer Christian Goluev broke the 50 m freestyle water record during a closed trial event in April and collected the first million dollars prize from the enhanced games. And former Olympic swimmer James Magnusson looks nearly unrecognizable after just a few weeks of training on PEDs. But the true X factor here is that the enhanced games compensation model is drastically different than the Olympics. Unlike the Olympics, where medals come with little to no enhanced games event will have a $500,000 prize pool with at least $250,000 given to the winner, and some athletes will even get appearance fees just for showing up. Now, competing in the enhanced games could result in a lifetime ban from international events, which is why many of the athletes are expected to be toward the end of their careers or recently retired. But the enhanced games are so controversial because they go against everything we've been taught about the use of PEDs in professional sports. Critics will say that PEDs undermine fair put athletes' health at risk. While supporters will argue that it's better to regulate PEDs openly and that have athletes experiment with drugs on their own. Now I'm not here to tell you which side of the argument you should be on, but I would argue that this situation was self-inflicted, similar to how Liv Goff was able to steal some of the PGA Tour's most popular players with a reduced schedule and guaranteed money. The Olympics' inability to provide proper governance and financial stability for their athletes is why the enhanced games ever came to life in the first made it to the one on one, a conversation where I get to break down news and sports with the key player in the industry. With the NBA Finals coming up this week, I thought there'd be no better person to join the show than Yahoo Sports contributing writer Tom Habershal. Tom, thank you so much for joining the show. There are a lot of different ways we can take but I want to just start with the two teams and more specifically how these two teams got there, right? We have the Thunder and the Pacers, and we've lived in this era for a while now where it feels like super teams have sort of dominated in big markets as a result with teams in California, Boston, Miami, whatever it is over the last decade or now we have the Thunder and the Pacers. You had an interesting tweet earlier this week talking about how this is the first time since since I think 2007, where neither team in the finals played on Christmas Day. Talk to me just a little bit about how we got here with two small market teams in the NBA finals. Well, the game is so much faster now, Joe. When you talk about the pace of the league, it makes it really difficult to build with older veterans. You know, we think about the Miami Heat in 2011, you think about Kevin Durant, James Harden, and, and Kyrie Irving, these kind of super teams with older veterans. Well, the game is about 10 possessions faster, uh, more, 10 more possessions per game than we did in like the late 90s and early 2000s, and soWhat you're seeing is younger teams. This is going to be potentially the youngest NBA champion in the Oklahoma City Thunder that we've seen since 1977. And the Indiana Pacers like to play fast and up tempo led by a young star in Tyrese Halliburton. So the way that the league is trending now, the game is faster. I talked to Steve Kerr about this, who, of course, played with the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan and coached, uh, not just the Golden State Warriors, but alsoTeam USA and he thinks that this pace and space era with 5 shooters on the floor, uh, for each team and playing at a high pace, it lends itself to younger teams. And of course, Stephen Curry getting injured in this postseason, Damian Lillard tearing his Achilles as well as Jason Tatum. We're just seeing the game really translate much better for younger teams that can run up and down the floor, and a lot of that is building through the trading rather than adding in free agency. So teams like OKC and Indiana, small market teams are taking advantage of this pace in space era by building through the draft and building on young teams. There is no player on this Oklahoma City Thunder team that is 31 years or older, and that is just something that is such an outlier of outliers in the NBA, you know, title contention that we've seen over the last two decades. Yeah, and I'm curious if you think other teams or contenders will be built the way the Thunder and Pacers are, right? Because the way I think about it is like there's so many injuries nowadays, and I think part of it is to your point, which is the game is so much faster, there's more possessions, there's obviously a ton of games throughout the year. There's a lot of wear and tear on the bodies. An older player might be able to handle that for half the season or 3 quarters of the season, or maybe even the full season, but their down when it comes to the playoffs and younger players seem to have a better time with that. Now, we've gone through this era of super teams where people were adding superstar players in free agency and even via trade, but now to your point, we've gone to Thunder and Pacers. Is this something that you feel like the rest of the league has caught on to and they're fully bought in on? Or do you think that there's still some kind of divide within the front offices of how these teams should be built? Yeah, there's always gonna be ebbs and flows, but I think going forward, the idea of paying so much money to add to your team, whether it's, you know, the Phoenix Suns, right? They get Kevin Durant, they get Devin Booker, and then they add Bradley Beal, who has a no trade clause and over $50 million of salary going to him for the next couple of years. They didn't even make the playoffs. And one of the big reasons why is cause the way the news bargaining agreement works in today's environment is that it's not just restrictive in terms of luxury tax payments, Joe, it's restrictive in terms of team building. Like you can't add uh to your roster with all the tools if you are that deep into the tax. You, you have your future first round picks frozen, you're not able to add with uh salary exceptions like other teams are. So I thinkYou're gonna see a lot of teams go away from the Phoenix Suns model, what Matt Isa had tried to do with Kevin Durant and going more in the OKC model is building through the draft, and they have such a young infusion of talent, really good on defense. And I think you're gonna see a lot of teams try to copy this, but Sam Presty, the president of basketball operations for OKC is well ahead of the game. They have more forfirst round picks available to them going forward in the next 7 years than any other NBA team. And so even if you try to copy the Oklahoma City Thunder, they are just way, they're lapping the competition in terms of how to build with youth and draft picks, and they're doing this with a 68 win team, and they might run away with this NBA championship with the most draft, um, uh, uh, artillery in their cupboard. Yeah, I saw a, a funny joke. Presley has done such a good job. Someone was saying that if you really wanted parity, you would just make him switch teams every few years because he has really outmaneuvered everyone over the last number of years. But it brings up an interesting point, right? I'm glad you talked about the collective Barney agreement and the salary cap and some of the penalties that are imposed there, because this is something that has changed over the last number of years. And when leagues do things like this, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn' in the NBA's case, it really has created parity. It doesn't always feel like that, but we've had a new NBA champion every year over the last, I think, 7 years. So my question to you is, parity is obviously here, right? Like, I don't think there's any argument against that anymore. But do you think that this is good for the NBA? Or do you think that it was better off from a ratings and interest perspective when there were these super teams that were going to championships 23 years in a row? Yeah, I think there's a real negative externality at play here that I think will backfire, uh, potentially with this Oklahoma City Thunder team specifically because if you want to have these teams really be in front of the national audience and you come to love these players on these teams, well, the way that the collective bargaining agreement is set up is they're trying to break up super teams, but also, it doesn't matter if you're acquired via free agency. Jalen Williams, the all-star for the for the Oklahoma and Chet Holm are do extensions, Max extensions potentially in the next couple years. And for a small market team like Oklahoma City, you might see a really great uh potential dynasty be broken up unless OKC wants to pay deep into the tax. And I really think the new collective bargaining agreement really aird by not having some incentive for teams to retain or exceptions for teams to retain players that they drafted. Homegrown talent. This isof what we want to see the Golden State Warriors is a great example of homegrown Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and, and Stephen Curry built through the draft. Well, in this new CBA it's gonna be really cost prohibitive for the Oklahoma City Thunder to keep this team together. It doesn't mean they will break up Jaylen Williams and Chet Holgren and Shay Gilrius Alexander. It just means that this new collective bargaining agreement is gonna make it really difficult for teams, no matter where they, whether they build through the free agency or in trades, or whetherbuild it through the draft, it's gonna be really hard for them to retain elite talent. And so, for me, I would I would want to see, Joe, if teams draft well and develop their talent, I want to see them be able to retain those players. And unfortunately, if we do see Oklahoma City win the next couple championships and go for a three-peat, it might be that they have to break up this team in ways that the Golden State Warriors didn't, were not forced to years ago when they had their dynasty. Yeah, it's a very good point because it feels like the rule was established to stop some of those big market, you know, high spending teams from being able to go out and just buy people in free agency. And an effect of that rule, a negative effect is now that some of the smaller market teams who did it the right way through drafting and trades and things like that are going to be penalized. But I think most people would probably agree with you on that. All right, we've got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more of my conversation with Tom right after back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano. I'm here with Yahoo Sports contributing writer Tom Haberstro. I'd love to get your opinion on just where the Paul Paul George trade stands sort of in NBA history at this point, right? I think most people realize that this was a, uh, extremely lopsided trade, especially with where the Oklahoma City Thunder are now and where Paul George is too, but like where does this trade rank for you in, uh, in the NBA when it comes to the historical or historically bad trades? Yeah, it's up there. I mean, remember Kawhi Leonard wasn't gonna come to the Clippers in 2019 unless he got Paul George. And so, yes, Sam Presty had the Clippers over a barrel, knowing that in order for the Clippers to get Kawhi and Paul George in a package deal, they had to give up everything uh in the cupboard. And so Shay Gildris Alexander, 21 years old, coming over in the trade, 5 1st round picks. One of them turns into Jaylen Williams, who is an all NBA player for the Thunder this year. It is, it is up there with one of the most lopsided trades of all time. I will also point out that the Indiana Pacers benefited also by trading away Paul George. They got Damontas Sabonis and, uh, and Victor Olatipo from the Oklahoma City Thunder, um, also flipping Damonus Sabonis to get their star player Tyrese Halliburton from the Sacramento Kings. So Paul George, he's not gonna get a championship ring out of he might as well because he is in that butterfly effect, that that's 5 degrees of Kevin Bacon. He has, in effect, uh, you know, basically funneled the championship level talent on both sides of this trade. And I will point out also, Sam Presty, this dates back all the way to 2007 when he was with the Sonics. He absorbed, uh, uh, Kurt Thomas's contract in from the Phoenix Suns, and they gave him two first round picks to do that a GM had ever done it, a 30 year old GM in Sam Presty when he was with the Sonics, and that trade actually gave them Serge Ibaka, and Serge Ibaka gave them Demonus Sabonis. Demas Sabonis gave them Paul George. Paul George gave them Shay Gildrius Alexander. So 2007, a trade between the Sonics and the Phoenix Suns. Steve Kerr got on the phone with Sam Presty, and that trade, 18 years later, is now creating this NBA finals between the Thunder and the Pacers. Everyone watching will now know why I like talking to you so much, because you're like an encyclopedia. I don't think anyone else would have ever thought about that connection from the Sonics to today, but I love it. Tom, are there any other storylines that you're watching in this year's NBA finals that we should be on the lookout for? Yeah, I think really, I think the American audience really needs to understand that this Oklahoma City team is all-time great, and yes, they could lose this series upcoming, but this is the largest point differential between two finals teams, uh, since 1971. Like the, the Thunder were all time good in the regular season. They didn't have their starting center for season, Chet Honger missing half the season, Isaiah Harenstein missing half the season, and still they won 68 games. So this team is gonna be great this year and also for the next potentially decade. And so the NBA made a little bit of a mistake by not putting the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Indiana Pacers on Christmas Day this year. None of the 10 teams that were selected were Indiana, and I do think they'll make up for that next year. These two teams are going to be good for a long time. The youngest NBA finals that we have seen in decades, and I do think that you're going to see a lot more Oklahoma City Thunder going forward because they're stocked in the draft intel and also when it comes to their encore, this is gonna be a team we're going to be watching for a very long time potentially every year in the NBA finals. Yeah, and they're a fun team to watch. And even though the Pacers may not have been one of the likeliest candidates to get here, Indiana is obviously a big basketball area, so I, I think that was probably a mistake too, and my guess is, to your point, we'll see them again next year. But Tom, lastly, I want to get your thoughts on Michael Jordan joining as a special contributor for NBC's NBA broadcast next year. I love it. We need more Michael Jordan on our on our in front of the American audience, like when you're talking about people that will watch an NBA 2025, a lot of them might not tune in because of Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers, but they might tune in if they know that they can see Michael Jordan. I mean, me growing up watching the 90s Bulls and a lot of America associates the Bulls with the peak of the NBA and I think it'll be great for the uh for the NBA product, as long as he is, I think, era. I think it'll be very interesting to see if Michael Jordan will be speaking highly of today's players, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Shay Gildris Alexander, or whether he will try to boost up the 90s bowls and his era. But that's, you know, what we'll all be tuning in to see is what kind of commentator he will be bringing, but at the very least, I think more eyeballs on an amazing NBA product will be a good thing for the NBA. If Michael Jordan starts creating some of these players harshly, it's going to be must-see TV. So, uh, I think NBC is quietly hoping that that's what he does. But Tom, thank you so much for joining the show got it, clock is winding down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. So let's talk about Shakari Richardson's next athletic venture. Last week, Alos, the all-female track competition founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, announced that it will be adding a new team-based league in 2026. The announcement also said that Olympic gold medalists and Team USA superstar Shakari Richardson will be joining the AFLs League along with fellow USA teammates Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis Woodhull. And in addition to participating in the new Alos League, Richardson, Thomas and Davis be adviser owners and receive an ownership stake in the league's business. Now, Alexis Ohanian first launched Athos as a standalone women's track event in 2024. Athos had its first competition at Icon Stadium in New York City with six sprint races, as well as a $60,000 prize and a Tiffany crown for the first place winners. However, unlike traditional track events, Athos features a DJ playing walkout songs for competitors and music in between races to up the entertainment value. Last year's inaugural race also included the concert from Megan the Stallion to cap off the said that the first event generated around 3 million viewers, and the organization hold its second stand-alone race in October back at Icon Stadium. Now Ohanian believes Alos can turn women's track into a mainstream sports product with a season-long schedule featuring individual prize money for each event and a shared team prize for the end of year championship. But the equity component for founding athletes could pay massive athletes when the organization kicked off its new league in 2026, Athos joins a growing trend among sports organizations to gain total buy-in from participating athletes by giving them a financial incentive to promote their league and grow its business. Unrivaled, the new 33 basketball League gave equity in the league to its founding players and generated over $27 million in revenue in its successful debut season. Now Athos is hoping it can jumpstart its own league through a shared athlete ownership model, and locking in a superstar like Shakari Richardson is a great all out of time, so it's officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Tom and for all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insights and catch us every Thursday wherever you get your podcast. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano. See you next time. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Sign in to access your portfolio
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29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
WNBA slam dunk: New York Liberty valued at nearly half a billion
This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. From WrestleMania moving out of New Orleans, to the New York Liberty's WNBA record-breaking $450 million valuation, to Liverpool FC freezing their ticket prices, there are a lot of key money moves shaping the industry. Golden Valkyries Team president Jess Smith drops by the show to discuss the WNBA expansion team's inaugural season in the league. Plus, Liverpool FC chief commercial officer Ben Latty joins Pompliano to break down the team's Premier League title win and what it means for the future of the esteemed football club. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I'm your host, Joe Pompeiano, and I'm here to coach you through the financial game. Today we've got Golden State Valkyries' president Jess Smith joining the show to talk about the team's first season in the WNBA. We'll also be joined by Liverpool's chief commercial officer, Ben Lotte, to discuss the business behind the 2025 Premier League champions. Let's huddle up and get right into are kicking this week off with PO's Playbook. Why take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know? First up, WrestleMania 42 will no longer take place in New Orleans at the Caesar Superdome come 2026. According to a joint statement from the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation and TKO, the parent company of WWE. WrestleMania 42 is being rescheduled to a different host city for 2026, and New Orleans will host the event on a later date in the confirmed last week that New Orleans will host a premium live event, Money in the Bank in August 2026. Now WWE hasn't yet announced which city will replace New Orleans as the host for WrestleMania 42, but given how massive WrestleMania has become, there will be no shortage of suitors looking to host the event. WrestleMania 41, which took place at Las Vegas's Allegiance Stadium earlier this year, had nearly 125,000 fans attend the two-night spectacle with the largest gate in WWE NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently said that the league could eventually hold up to 16 international games each year. Goodell spoke about the idea at CNBC's CEO Council summit last week, saying that the NFL could play 16 regular season games per season within the next 5 years if the league can expand its regular season to 18 NFL began playing the International Series in 2007 with regular season games in London and has since expanded the series to other countries in recent years. In addition to the London games, the 2025 International Series will also feature games in Brazil, Ireland, Germany, and Spain, and.2026, the league will hold a regular season game in Melbourne, Australia. However, there's also a media rights play to the NFL's international strategy. The league is rumored to be preparing a new international series media rights package for future bidding, which could be an ideal product for a streamer like Netflix or Apple up, the WNBA's New York Liberty recently sold a minority stake in the franchise at a record valuation of $450 million. The $450 million valuation for the reigning WNBA champions is not only a WNBA record, but a record for all of women's sports franchises overall. And according to multiple reports, Liberty sold a percentage share in the mid-teens to the franchise to multiple investors. The capital raise is expected to be put toward the team's new $80 in Brooklyn, slated to open in 2027. Now the Liberty's $450 million valuation underscores the skyrocketing investor interest in women's sports. The Liberty were valued at just $130 million last year by Sportico. But what's even crazier is that Clara Wuai and her husband Joe Tsai, who also owned the NBA's Brooklyn Nets, bought the Liberty for just $15 million in 2019 and have seen their investment grow 30 times in value in just 6 week I'm joined by Golden State Valkyries' president Jess Smith to chat about the expansive team's inaugural season in the WNBA. Jess, thank you so much for joining us today. Now, I know the WNBA season kicked off a few weeks ago and you guys were able to sell out your first game, which is a tremendous accomplishment for an expansion team. But if you could just talk me through how the team has been received in the Bay Area so far. It's been unbelievable. The bay was clearly ready for this moment, and we knew that from the merchandise sales that we were receiving, the fellowship that we were receiving, but once we hit the court, it was a new level. Fans were walking in completely decked out in merch. We really weren't sure if folks were going to be checking us out before becoming a fan, but it's clear between the noise inside Chase Center and the merchandise, uh, being worn by our fans that everybody is ready for this moment. There's this interestingownership dynamic here where the Golden State Warriors are obviously one of the NBA's most successful franchises. You guys are able to leverage some of the infrastructure that they have there, but you're also your own team as well. I know you guys have your own individual employees focusing on things like ticket sales and sponsorships and in stadium entertainment and things like that. One of the things that I thought was personally most interesting was the idea that only a small percentage of the season ticket holders actually came from existing Warriors important to me because it shows that you guys are growing the pie rather than taking some fans away from the Warriors. Maybe just talk a little bit about how you guys are targeting those fans, but also the overall picture of women's basketball fandom within the Bay Area too. Absolutely, and it's a great learning and we think we're a great case study for how women's sports is taking place with shared ownership with the men's and women's team that started with our branding when we had identified through data and some of my past experience that it would be a unique audience that was most drawn to build this, be all in, buy season tickets as that core that's the result that we saw, to your point with less than 5% of our over 10,000 season ticket holders crossing over to the same amount of season ticket holders with the Warriors. And so we are as Golden State, one legacy, to your point, like we have a specific way that we like to do things, we like to try toTo be great, the things that we do, we like to be thoughtful in the things that we do, and we certainly feel a part of that ecosystem and have a lot of to your point, infrastructure support in what we do. But to cater to a new fan, to bring in a new fan, we needed to make sure that we also have our own staff, right? So we haveTicket sales, suits, partnership, marketing, community, PR, everyone 100% of their time focused on growing the opportunity that is the Golden State Valkyries, and we're seeing the results from that, whether it is from the tickets purchased, the partnerships that we have. I think one of the interesting thing in the partnership specific space, and that's, you know, where I spent a lot of my background, is we do have a lot of shared partners that were in line that wanted to be part of this moment, but onunderstood that it was an opportunity to reach a unique audience in a market that they were already interested in being in in a big way, like that JPMorgan Chase, Kaiser Permanente, United Airlines, Racketton, and so forth. And now we're unlocking people that are looking to reach this unique audience, right, in the Sephora of the world, Ali vitamins, etc. And so it's really interesting to your point of how this is coming together, but it is a different core we are catering to. So there's really 3 segments of fans that we're seeing come into what we're building, and it's not unlike what you're seeing, drive a lot of the TV ratings that you're seeing continue to increase, drive a lot of the ratings across the country, it's not unique to the Bay first is that women sports fan. They have been waiting for an elite sports experience to invest in for a really, really long time. They've also been understudied, right? Because there hasn't really necessarily been the data systems, the servicing of them, understanding their buying habits when you're putting the right products in front of them. They're a big audience that I think has been devalued for some, some subset of time, and we feelLike in the Bay Area, because that's a strong audience already with the college basketball history and the fandom that you see in the Olympics and other sports, we've been really able to unlock and and bring them in as a part of our community and listen to them as we're building, given they're, they're really, really important to us. The second is what we call that right believer. That's who's really funneling into women's sports in all ways. That's the20 to 35 year old diverse audience that wants to spend their money and their time on products that they believe in and that they believe will create a better tomorrow. And they're having fun while doing it and following women's sports, these incredible athletes, the teams, they like the lifestyle, merchandise, etc. And then a third, like, make no mistake, we would eventually love every Warriors fan to be a Valkyries fan, but that sports fan is also finding their way to us and vice versa, by the way, the Warriors wantThese Valkyries fans to eventually fall in love with the Warriors' products. We talk about that often, but that's our responsibility, right? We like to, you know, one of our things inside Golden State, you know, is that we build for all fans and future fans because we are doing our best to make sure that we are creating opportunities for fans to make their way into our ecosystem, whether it's through buying tickets, merchandise, engaging with us on social, following a specific player, or otherwise. But it's pretty calculated in that audience within that, just to share as well, it is about 50% men and women right now, whether you're looking at our season ticket holder base, followship or database. And I think that's a really important note, uh, given that I think there's been a lot of assumptions in this industry for a long time that it's primarily female sports fans supporting it. There's definitely more female sports fans supporting it and being the buyer than you traditionally see in men's sports, but there's a lot of men also making those buying decisions and being a part of what we're building as well. And quickly, I'd love to just understand what sort of internal benchmarks you guys are tracking. Obviously, wins and losses are important, but on the business side, you've spent time building up Angel City, this property as well. What are you looking at when you're determining success? That's a great question. You know, I think there is something that drives this organization, there's certainly something that drives me to want to be the best, but being the best is such a a specific term. For us, it's not necessarily, you know,A checklist on a, on a list because there's not necessarily something to compare ourselves to. So it's making sure that we are relentless in building this in a way that we know we can build what's possible, that we can cater to fans, that we can keep listening. We're also very, very aware that the Bay Area loves to set the example. They love to be the first adopter, right? We have a really special market that wants to buy in from day one that allows us to test a lot ofThings and make sure that we're getting some things right. But we're also a year one brand. So for us, it's about creating a can't miss experience. It's about getting the world to watch and take note of what we're doing and really thinking about that long term success, whether it's the long term partnership model, how we activate those, what we do differently there, that we think will be really fun, or the ticketed experience and making sure that every game day is a can't miss opportunity. Amazing. Well, you guys are off to a great start. Thanks so much for joining us, for having me. We've made it to the one on one, a conversation where I get to break down news and sports with the key player in the industry. This week, we're talking to Liverpool FC Chief commercial Officer Ben interview was filmed before Liverpool's championship parade, but in light of the events that happened on Monday, our thoughts are with everyone impacted by the tragedy. Here's my conversation with Ben. Ben, thank you so much for joining us. I think the most logical place to start is, what is being a chief commercial officer entail on a day to day basis? What are you focused on when it comes to Liverpool, uh, on the revenue side and driving new business for the club? Yeah, thanks, Joe, thanks for having me. Um, my role is predominantly exactly what it says, right? It's to drive commercial revenue into this football club. We have a business model, which is um.A virtuous circle, which on pitch performance drives commercial success and commercial success drives on pitch success. And so really my job and the team that I, uh, that I manage on a day to day basis is focused on the latter, driving as much commercial revenue as we can to, uh, to make sure our football operations team have, uh, the right funds to, to drive the on-pitch success that we've seen, obviously, this season, and, uh, winning our 20th Premier League. Yeah, and I'd love to talk about that cycle, right? You mentioned how uh revenue can drive on pitch success and vice versa, and they kind of feed off of each other. I'm curious how uh how winning the Premier League, uh, the title has impacted the business of the club over the last few months. Yeah, no look, winning the Premier League obviously has a, a huge impact from everyone connected with the club. I think first and know, congratulations to Arag, the team, the squad, the staff, the fans, and anyone associated with the club partners as well and I thinkI'd be lying if I stood here right now and said that obviously winning the Premier League doesn't have a commercial impact, of course it does. But, you know, what we've managed to do over the last few years, decades since, uh, 15 years since FSG bought the club in 2010, is build a really successful commercial team off the pitch as well. I actually did an interview probably this time last year when uh when Jurgen announced that he was stepping down as manager of of Liverpool Football Club, and one of the questions was, will this impact the club commercially? And my perhaps brave answer at the time was that still stands today, simply because I believe we've built such strong foundations where, as we've said, commercial success drives on pitch success. I think that's reflected in the end of year accounts that you saw, um, that we, that we announced a few months ago.2/3 of our revenue now is what we call controllable revenue, revenue that we can absolutely control, we can impact, we can influence, it's not the media revenue, ultimately which comes and fluctuates based on, on merit in the league. So look, I believe we've got really strong foundations to kick on uh of course, winning the Premier League is gonna have huge uh commercial impact for us, but equally, you know, we've built strong foundations to to make sure we have commercial success anyway. All right, we've got to take a quick break, but we'll be back with more of my conversation with Ben Lotte right after back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I'm your host, Joe Pompeiano. I'm here with Liverpool FC Chief commercial Officer, Ben Latte. You mentioned FSG for those that don't know as Fenway Sports Group. They're sort of a portfolio or holding company for a bunch of different sports assets, both here in the US, butAlso internationally as well. Liverpool is one of them, but so are the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, they own a NASCAR team and some other assets as well. I'm curious just what what the dynamic is like working under that umbrella as opposed to being sort of a more independent club might be. Yeah. I mean that first and foremost, our ownership group have been amazing custodians of of the football club. They're committed to the club, and I think one of the great things about FSG is they do what they uh one of the first things they did in 2010 when they bought the club focus on three main areas. One was obviously football performance, making sure that we've got the right, um, football operations team to drive on pitch was the investment in the infrastructure related to the football uh, thirdly was investing in the, in the team behind the team, the commercial team to drive and, and to continue the, the virtuous cycle that we've talked about. I think clearly you've seen sort of what's happened in the last few weeks in terms of, of lifting the Premier League to the football operations team. Um, you know, we've really driven a hugely successful, uh, football club. The infrastructure, obviously that does impact the, the, the sporting success as well, making sure we've got the right facilities, um, investing in the stadium, we've, or FSG have, uh, invested in the main stand, 2016 that opened to car capacity up to 54,000. recently, the Anfield Road End, taking our capacity up to 61,000. They've invested in the ACSA Training Centre, and you set the art facility for the men's team. And then most recently, the, uh, the AXA Melwood, um, buying back Melwood, uh, for the women's team as well. So, um, look, they've, they've really invested in the right areas. Obviously, sort of behind the scenes as well, the, the business side of, of the football club really invested in areas which are going to make an impact to drive the commercial revenue um, you know, long may that continue, sort of that that's not gonna stop from, from our perspective. Uh, for people that are just joining, we're talking to Liverpool's chief commercial officer, Ben Laddy. Ben, one of the things that I'd love to get your perspective on is just the globalization of sports assets over the last number of years that we've seen. I think people have noticed at this point that whether it's the NFL trying to hold more international games and grow their fan base there or form of to the US. This is obviously happening at a team level as well, whether you're the Yankees or Liverpool, Barcelona, AC Milan, all of these clubs and these teams and these leagues are trying to expand to different parts of the globe to grow their revenue streams. Is this something that you guys have decided to focus on over the last number of years? And if you could just explain to me a little bit more of the strategy, but also how that strategy is played out too. Yeah, look, the Liverpool Football Club's a global football club. We've got fans in every corner of the world and, um, you know, for us as a football club, we need to engage with that fan base, we need to service that fan obviously there's only so often we can take the team to different markets and, and play in front of, uh, packed out stadiums as we did in the US last year. Um, we've announced that we're going to Asia this year for, for our tour to Hong Kong and to, uh, Japan, Yokohama. yeah, look for us, you know, making sure that we can um uh service our fans, engage with our fans in every corner of the world's really important. US is a really important market for the football 24 million fans in the US, 70% increase, increase since 2018. Uh, the number one fastest growing US fan base of any Premier League club, so we're really proud of that, that growth and the trajectory that we, we see ourselves on at the some like crazy stats for you to, to just sort of uh um soak up and take mathematical Premier League win against Tottenham Hotspur generated 63.2 million engagements on our social channels, and to put that into perspective, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, that generated 14.5 million nearly 4.5 times the engagement from the Super Bowl, from Liverpool winning mathematically, uh, a few weeks ago against Tottenham. So that just gives you sort of a sense of the reach of this football club. That's obviously only in the US market alone, but, um, you know, we're really proud of sort of what we're doing on an international basis and how we can take this football club further. Yeah, it's amazing. I think in myself included, sometimes we get kind of a cocooned inside the US market and we think that it's so big, but when you expand outside internationally, football is a global sport, the most global sport, and you guys are reaching billions of people all over the world. So those are really impressive numbers. Another thing I want to touch on is just the balance commercial revenue, right? At the end of the day, you guys are judged on the P&L and how you perform financially. The pitch is obviously an important piece of that, but also the fans are an important piece of that, right? So you're, you're probably, I imagine, constantly going back and forth between what's good for the club's balance sheet, but also what's good for the fans. One of the things that I would give as an example is the decision for the club to freeze ticket prices next season.I know this has been done a number of times over the last number of years, uh, but essentially you're freezing the ticket prices. You're saying we're not going to increase them. Fans are obviously happy about that because they're seeing in different leagues and different stadiums across the world, how much tickets have appreciated in value over the last number of years. Talk to me just sort of through that dynamic of keeping fans happy and engaged, while also making sure that the club is growing financially. Yeah, look, it's a fine balancing act, right? And, um, look, I would like to think we've got it right over the years, and certainly since, since FSG bought the club in 2010. Um, yeah, like you, you referenced the, the price freeze. Obviously we're very pleased and proud to be able to once again announce a, a freeze on the general admission tickets for next and I guess just some context, that means that the, the, the price ranges on the cop, our most famous stand within Anfield remain the same as they were when FSG first set ticket prices after taking ownership in 2010. So the cheapest tickets 39 pounds, most expensive, 45 pounds. Exactly the same as 15 years ago. So the, the, I think we're, we're proud that we've been able to do that is a fine balancing act. Costs are increasing, as we know. Football's getting more expensive. Um, but anyone that knows anything about football will know how passionate Liverpool fans are. We want to maintain the atmosphere in the stadium, the atmosphere that they generate, obviously gets behind the team and, and, and drives the team forward for, for footballing success as well. So, look, it's not an easy decision, it's a fine balancing act, but, um, yeah, we're, we're sort of proud after meaningful engagement that we had with our supporters that we came to that conclusion and, um, we will continue to engage with our supporters board on that issue and that topic over, over the next few years as well. Yeah, ticket prices are always a passionate topic, that's for sure. Ben, thank you so much for joining us. It's been awesome to see how much the club has grown financially under your leadership, and I'm sure there will be more to you, clock is running down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. So let's talk about the UEFA Champions League final. The UEFA Champions League final takes place this weekend between Leagues One's Paris Saint Germain and Serie A's Inter Milan. The Champions League is considered the world's greatest competition in professional soccer, pitting Europe's top clubs against each other in a season-long tournament. And the winner of this weekend's final will notbe considered the best team in European soccer, but will win big financially as a result. Now, UEFA, the official governing body of European soccer, changed its Champions League format for the 2024 25 campaign to expand the competition from 32 to 36 teams. UEFA said the format was changed to increase competitive balance and raise the stakes for the tournament to include more of Europe's top clubs. However,This change also upped the ante when it comes to prize money, with the total price pool increasing 24% to $2.7 billion. Now, the UEFA prize money payout system is very complex, with multiple factors contributing to the total money clubs can earn throughout the tournament. However, to put it simply, the Champions League winner earns prize money based on four factors. First, their performance in this year's Champions League the UEFA coefficient ranking from historical performances in UEFA tournaments over the past 10 years. Third, broadcast revenue from shares of the Champions League me rights package. And 4th, the money the Champions League winner earns from automatic qualifiers into future competitions like the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. So when you add up all of those contributing factors, this year's Champions League winner will walk away with over $180 million. This number is a windfall for the winner and can have a huge impact on the club's business, especially when it comes to spending out player contracts and transfers. Winning the Champions League also helps increase the global brand for the tournament's winner, as the champion automatically qualifies for the 2026 Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, the FIFA Intercontinental Cup, and the FIFA Club World Cup. So whether you're a fan of PSG or Inter Milan, remember that your team is aligned for a huge payout this weekend, not just Champions League all out of time, so it's officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Jess, Ben, and for all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insights, and catch us every Thursday wherever you get your podcast. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano. See you next time. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. From WrestleMania moving out of New Orleans, to the New York Liberty's WNBA record-breaking $450 million valuation, to Liverpool FC freezing their ticket prices, there are a lot of key money moves shaping the industry. Golden Valkyries Team president Jess Smith drops by the show to discuss the WNBA expansion team's inaugural season in the league. Plus, Liverpool FC chief commercial officer Ben Latty joins Pompliano to break down the team's Premier League title win and what it means for the future of the esteemed football club. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Sign in to access your portfolio
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This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. From Dick's Sporting Goods' (DKS) $2.4B acquisition of Foot Locker (FL), to Mark Cuban's new $750M sports private equity fund, to the NFL's new Thanksgiving Day strategy that could feature Taylor Swift, there are a ton of big money moves changing the game right now. The Right Stuff owner and FIFA 2026 chief venues and operations manager Bill Squires also stops by the show to talk about all things World Cup. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Sign in to access your portfolio
