The first plaintiff in the Riverside Church basketball scandal is poised to be heard in court, after years of delay and a half century living with memories of alleged childhood sexual abuse. As Rolling Stone reports, jury selection began on Monday in New York State Supreme Court in the case of Daryl “D.D.” Powell, a […]

How much is a dunk worth? Two points. But what about the video of that slam? Well, more and more every day. Roughly 40% of NBA team revenues this year are coming from national and local TV deals. But the value doesn’t end there. Team-captured content increasingly fuels social media growth, where shortform video is […]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has—for now—denied the A’s applications to register trademarks for Las Vegas Athletics and Vegas Athletics for clothing, footwear, entertainment and other purposes. But the team has more opportunities to stake its claims. On Dec. 29, USPTO examining attorney Janet Lee issued a non-final office action in which Lee described several problems with the […]

Gabelli Funds, the well-known money manager, has introduced its first exchange-traded fund to capitalize on the growing interest in sports and live entertainment. Launched on Jan. 2, Gabelli Opportunities in Live and Sports ETF (GOLS) allows investors to access publicly traded entities like Madison Square Garden, the Atlanta Braves, Formula 1 through Liberty Media and Manchester United. The actively managed […]

As the College Football Playoff nears its tempestuous conclusion, symbolically finishing off calendar year 2025, we wanted to speculate on what lies ahead. If you are an athletic director staring down 2026’s dark barrel, the job scarcely resembles what you trained for five years ago. Budgets are tighter and more scrutinized. Rosters churn faster than […]

If you’re a CMO who’s been taking a wait-and-see approach to a Winter Olympics ad buy, the age-old correlation of snoozing to losing is about to reassert itself with no small show of force. As of Tuesday afternoon, NBCUniversal is officially sold out of its 2026 Milan Cortina inventory. In heralding its sellout, NBCU announced […]

Imagine, if you will, a scenario in which the newly crowned NFL sack king Myles Garrett is tasked with teaching the Muppets about the fundamentals of football, and you’re maybe about a quarter of the way toward appreciating the league’s almost cartoonish dominance over what remains of the American monoculture. Picture the 6’ 4”, 272-pound […]

British investment firm Lindsell Train recently sold a chunk of its holdings of Manchester United, according to a Tuesday SEC filing. Lindsell Train unloaded 780,000 shares, or 18% of its stake, during the 2025 fourth quarter. The firm now owns 6.4% of the Class A shares that trade on the New York Stock Exchange, down […]

Houston Astros owner Jim Crane was less than 20 seconds into his introduction of free agent pitcher Tatsuya Imai on Monday when he turned to the front row to thank a sponsor. “One of the things that made this possible, is with our great partners in the front row,” Crane said. He then asked Takayuki […]

After defeating ESPN’s demand for an injunction to block its one-day “sling passes,” Dish Network has gone on offense by suing Disney, ESPN, ABC, FX and others for alleged antitrust and breach of contract claims. Dish accuses Disney of trying to monopolize the market for “skinny sports bundles,” meaning a group of channels designed for […]

NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps resigned Tuesday, ending a 20-year tenure with the race series. The move came one month after a settlement in the high-profile trial between NASCAR and Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing that painted Phelps in a negative light. “It gives me immense pride to have served as NASCAR’s first commissioner and […]

A month from today, the Olympic cauldron will be lit—twice. For the first time, the games are officially being hosted in two cities, Milano and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. More than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries will populate six different villages across Northern Italy. The Olympics’ ability to spread itself out without diluting its iconic character […]

Objectors to U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s approval of the settlement between the NCAA, its power conferences and current and former Division I athletes represented by the House, Carter and Hubbard antitrust litigations have raised unpersuasive and unsupported arguments, the NCAA and power conferences insist in a brief filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth […]

If 2026 is like recent years, it will feature sports law controversies that test longstanding assumptions and reshape the relationship between leagues, teams, athletes and fans. Here are three major controversies to follow: 1) MLB lockout could freeze the winter hot stove MLB and the MLBPA are no strangers to labor battles, some of which […]

Welcome to Sportico’s transactions wire, a weekly rundown of personnel, partnerships and products across the sports business industry. PERSONNEL Relevent Appoints Boris Gartner as CEO Following Global Expansion Boris Gartner—Relevent’s president and partner who joined the sports marketing and media rights organization in 2018—has been named CEO of Relevent. Gartner’s promotion follows the creation of […]

In 2025, as Patrick Mahomes played on YouTube and the NBA embraced Peacock, with F1 giving Apple TV exclusive rights and MLB handing its Home Run Derby to Netflix, linear TV’s decades-long reign as the go-to place for the biggest sporting events came to an end. Now, fans must watch online. But that means the […]

Curt Cignetti told the world what was coming at his Indiana introductory press conference at the end of 2023: “I win. Google me.” His latest victory, a 38-3 rout of Alabama in the Rose Bowl, means a pay raise for the coach, on top of the cash bonuses for the best season in the history of […]

2025 was a banner year for sports law, so much so that we have a two-part series to review it all. In Part 2, we present scouting reports on five major controversies involving college sports, sports betting and a President Donald Trump pardon. 1) Judge Wilken grants final approval of House settlement to reshape college sports Amateurism […]

The Indiana Hoosiers are favored by more than a touchdown over the Alabama Crimson Tide in their College Football Playoff quarterfinal game on Thursday. Such a scenario would have seemed impossible until recently given the two programs’ historic on-field results and financial profiles. Alabama has won six national championships since 2009, all of them under […]

On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some bold predictions for the biggest sports business stories of the upcoming year. They open with the World Cup, set to be hosted across North America starting in early June. The build-up to the event, by far the the world’s most-watched sporting event, […]

Polymarket failed to fully launch the U.S. version of its prediction market app in 2025 despite signaling as far back as August that a public release was imminent. The product remains invite-only with a waitlist. There are potential business repercussions for the delay. Polymarket’s competition is mounting, with fellow prediction market platform Kalshi setting a […]

When the Los Angeles Clippers opened their $2 billion Intuit Dome in 2024, team chief technology and digital officer George Hanna figured roughly one in three fans would opt into the venue’s facial authentication system, which has fans upload a selfie ahead of time and stroll into the building without pulling out their tickets. “On […]

Women’s sports continued to transform in 2025, as earnings and valuations rose, leagues expanded, and labor negotiations heated up. Meanwhile, prediction markets shook up the sports betting industry, streaming companies invested further in sports rights, and private equity entered college sports. Try your hand at our SportiQuiz below, in which we’ve rounded up 30 of […]

New England Patriots star wide receiver Stefon Diggs is facing a felony strangulation charge in Massachusetts after a recent disagreement with his personal chef about her compensation allegedly escalated into a physical confrontation. Through his attorneys, Diggs denies the allegation. The Patriots issued a statement saying the team supports him as it gathers information, and […]

On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss the topic on the minds of many fans in the U.S. this holiday season: the flu. They also talk about an absurd few days in college sports. Both hosts are under the weather, and they discuss the potential impact that this bad flu […]