Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletics weekly sports business cheat sheet. (Want to get this emailed to you? Subscribe here.)
Name-dropped today: Napheesa Collier, Cathy Engelbert, Jurgen Klopp, Chad Powers, Paul Finebaum, Matthew Ball, Bad Bunny, USA Network, Cody Campbell, FC Kairat, Tony Reali, Aspercreme, Uncle Dennis, Steve Cohen, Snoop Dogg and more. Lets go:
Worst leadership in the world
With a blistering opprobrium from one of its biggest superstars, the WNBA is about to head into its 2025 finals and most important offseason ever engulfed in controversy.
Two years of unmatched league momentum the arrival of Caitlin Clark, consistently high TV ratings (including big new deals), quarter-billion-dollar expansion fees, skyrocketing team valuations, enthusiastic sponsor interest were abruptly disrupted by Napheesa Collier, one of the leagues biggest stars (and co-founder of Unrivaled, one of its biggest, well, rivals). At her Minnesota Lynx exit interview with the media Tuesday, she blasted commissioner Cathy Engelbert and earned kudos of solidarity from her peers on social media.
Forget the fact we are on the eve of the WNBA Finals; more critically, we are on the eve of a labor battle between the league and its players over the way the two entities should split the spoils of newfound financial power.
Why now? A combination of simmering tension spiked by the past weeks league issues with playoff officiating, player injuries (including Collier) and punitive actions for rhetoric (including Colliers coach being suspended during the playoffs) along with the media spotlight of a stars exit interview.
With October here, the WNBAs tenuous labor situation reaches a crisis point on Halloween, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires. Few think the league and union will figure it out by then; plenty worry they wont have it figured out by the start of next season, either.
Its a tough spot when the biggest storyline heading into the 2025 WNBA Finals is: Might there not be a 2026 WNBA Finals?
MLBs resurgence and Finebaums political turn
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
MLB: Reaching new popularity? Just in time for the start of the playoffs, the leading indicators of MLBs health are robust:
Attendance? 71,409,421 fans. Up for the third straight year.
TV viewership? Up across the board (despite that midseason snafu with ESPN).
Average game time? A brisk 2 hours and 38 minutes, the third straight year under 2:40.
Average age of a single-game ticket buyer? Forty-three (down from 46 two years ago), and if you dip into the secondary market, the average age falls below 40. Millennials FTW!
(And 2026 is already off to a promising start, with Opening Day now being aired exclusively on Netflix, per Andrew Marchand, part of the streamers strategy of eventized sports.)
NBC vs. YouTube TV: Extension reached to keep negotiating.
EA Sports goes private in record $55B buyout. Interesting. EA is such a powerful brand in sports culture (see: Madden, the FIFA brand, College Football 26) but has struggled in recent years. Does a huge new debt load make things better?
Bad Bunny headlining Super Bowl LX halftime. The league gets to keep its Taylor Swift halo effect AND bring in one of the worlds other most popular entertainers to headline the Super Bowl.
Paramount keeps making deals: In the same quarter it did a billion-dollar deal for UFC, the film giant teamed up with TKO Holdings to bring TKOs Zuffa Boxing to Paramount+.
Paul Finebaum, U.S. senator? Stephen A. Smith isnt the only ESPN personality with at least some political ambitions. The legendary college football yakker, 70, sounds like he is willing to be tapped to run for U.S. Senate in Alabama. (And hed probably win!)
Other current obsessions: Field storming by college kids Real Madrid playing in Kazakhstan Snoop Dogg back at the Olympics Islanders management being cool with facial hair and weird jersey numbers Indiana football as a classic management turnaround story TAs ranking of Fanatics wild soccer-style NFL jerseys
Does the latest Lasso wannabe hold up?
Like Ted Lasso, Chad Powers started as a small bit, then got green-lit into a TV series. Hulus Powers wont match the zeitgeist-defining success of Apples Lasso, but my colleague Hannah Vanbiber has a must-read feature this week talking with star Glen Powell, co-creator Eli Manning and explaining what its all about. I asked Hannah:
Powell is a likable actor. The premise of the older QBs college comeback seems a little thin, but Im willing to give it a try. Youve watched the entire series. Got a mini-review for MoneyCall readers?
Hannah: Watching Chad Powers had me like that Kombucha Girl meme: One second Im like, This is terrible?? The next Im like, Glen Powell (as Russ Holliday) is delicious!? It veers so deeply into the cartoonishly ludicrous that it wont be to everyones taste, but brief flashes of thorny emotional resonance made it linger longer than I expected.
Name to Know: Uncle DennisRead the definitive profile of Kawhi Leonards uncle and an intriguing personality near the center of the NBAs (and Pablo Torres!) ongoing investigation into the Clippers situation with Aspiration.
Related: Really interesting reporting from my colleague Joe Vardon about how the rest of the league handles the intersection of team sponsorships and side deals with players.
Three more: Zayu, Maple and Clutch.Those are the new 2026 World Cup mascots. Lets overanalyze them, obviously.
What next: Tony RealiWhen we last checked in, Reali was hosting the finale of the long-running Around The Horn. After a few months off, he recently launched a new daily newsletter called I Love Everything About This! with more programming to come.
After subscribing, I texted him to ask why he started with this. He replied: I think we need more spaces that aspire to be joyful, human and real.
Quote of the Week: Steve CohenWe didnt do our part.
As bad as Mets fans feel about the teams epic collapse to miss the MLB playoffs, imagine having paid $340 million for that experience. To be sure: Mets fans deserved an apology, so lets credit Cohen for offering one.
Executive Q&A: Jurgen KloppNow managing Red Bulls soccer operations, the former Liverpool manager talked with my colleague Adam Crafton about the new experience:
He jokes about the realities of everyday corporate existence, going through five million different people to get things done.
I come from a world where I say I *need that* and it happens. Now I may hear, I heard you say that, and it doesnt mean anything.
He seems charmed, rather than exasperated, by such occurrences.
Elevator Pitch: 64-team World CupAs my colleague Martin Rogers smartly puts it: Its still way better than 48.
Peak of the Week: Pick it up!In my long career as a youth-sports coach, I would argue that the single most important life lesson we can teach kids is to clean up their bench area after their game. Loved this Rustin Dodd piece about how Vandys football program is leading by example.
Endorsement Deal: AspercremeKudos to Aspercreme, a pain relief product, for signing 58-year-old college football player Tom Cillo to the most clever NIL deal of the season. (Previous No. 1: Deion Sanders/Depend after his bladder cancer surgery.)
Expansion WatchWe talk a lot about the excitement of cities getting expansion franchises from pro leagues. Thats why I found Julian McKenzies reporting about Quebec Citys fizzling hopes of regaining an NHL team to be so interesting.
Investor of the Week: Chris PaulThe NBA veteran took a stake in Angel City FC, joining their all-star investor roster. Once the Clippers are through the awkward Aspiration stuff, well try to sit down with CP3 to talk about his enthusiasm for womens soccer.
Question the Week: Best IRL sport?Inspired by MLBs surging attendance numbers, Im curious what you think the best major U.S. pro sports league is for attending a game in real life. Take 10 seconds to fill out this one-question poll?
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports EditionToday: 01:12Tricky!Try the game here.
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
Luke Smith had me at 3,000 lobsters. Thats just the start of this tour through Formula 1s catering setup for its VIPs in a typical race weekend.
Two more:
Whats it like on a cross-country NWSL road trip? Tamerra Griffin went behind the scenes with Bay FC (right after their coach announced he would step down at the end of the season and just before Bay FC parted ways with their CEO yikes?).
We launch the Victor Wembanyama beat with Jared Weiss diving into the Constraints-Led Approach, a coaching method that a lot of successful orgs have adopted to improve individual performance, like the training being used by Wemby.
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