Sports Business

Happy Friday!

Sign Up

The GIST: FIFA and European broadcasters have called a ceasefire. World soccer’s governing body struck a deal with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on Wednesday, ensuring fans in Western Europe can watch next month’s Women’s World Cup (WWC) and ending talk of a regional blackout.

The details: Free-to-air (FTA) TV channels in the U.K., Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Ukraine were added to FIFA’s existing EBU agreement, but financial terms were not disclosed. The deal also includes digital and radio rights, as well as a commitment from the EBU to air at least one hour of women’s soccer content a week.

• It’s been a busy week for FIFA — the organization also scored a similar deal with 24 FTA broadcasters in the Pacific Islands. BFDs.

The context: Wednesday’s deal ends a long public dispute over rights fees. FIFA threatened a blackout and accused companies of devaluing the WWC after receiving lowball offers, while broadcasters argued the time difference between Europe and tournament co-hosts Australia and New Zealand should drive the price down.

• This year’s WWC rights were unbundled from the men’s tourney for the first time, leaving broadcasters uncertain about how to assign value, but FIFA recently calculated the WWC’s global rights at $300M.

Zooming out: The WWC will earn top-tier visibility in Europe through FTA coverage, which is good news even if FIFA couldn’t collect larger rights fees. It will no doubt try to increase the tourney’s value ahead of the 2027 edition, which begs the question: Will this soap opera impact the battle to host the next WWC?

• In May, FIFA will choose between Brazil, South Africa, a joint bid from the U.S. and Mexico, and a group effort from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. May the odds (and the timezones) be ever in your favor.

The GIST: Golfers on the Epson Tour are about to hit the putting green and the screen. After going years without broadcasts, the LPGA qualifying competition partnered with GameKast yesterday to boost the financial potential of the Epson Tour and fellow feeder leagues.

The broadcaster: GameKast specializes in broadcasting amateur sports on its mobile streaming service GKLive.TV. The company holds the rights to much of the NCAA’s golf slate through its GolfKast Series, including the Division III women’s golf championship.

The details: The Epson Tour’s deal with GameKast tees off at Michigan’s Island Resort Championship on June 23rd. The streamer will also show three more events during the season — August’s French Lick Charity Classic, September’s Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout, and October’s Epson Tour Championship. Fully booked.

The context: Secondary competitions like the Epson Tour are carving out their niches by scoring broadcast agreements. ESPN holds the rights to the NBA G League and the United Soccer League, while the USL W League — a third-division women’s soccer league — has a global streaming deal with Eleven Sports.

Zooming out: GameKast’s deal with the Epson Tour is likely a modest one, but can serve as a building block for the tour to cultivate an audience and sponsors. Both fans and brands are flocking to the LPGA these days, signaling opportunity for everyone in the women’s golf world. If you build it…

In this newsletter, we like to highlight other organizations and their big wins, but allow us to have the spotlight for just a minute.

1M: We have over 1M GISTers across our growing ecosystem of newsletters, socials, and podcasts.

83%: The percentage of GISTers who prefer to support brands that support women’s sports and media.

91%: The ratio of GISTers who are interested in products we choose to share with them.

Assuming you’re a business person or care deeply about women’s sports, we’d love to talk about how we can authentically connect your company with our sought after audience of underserved sports fans.

Average NWSL attendance at the halfway mark of the season is up 48% YoY, while total viewership on CBS rose 21% and unique streaming viewership on Paramount+ jumped 50%. Video views across the NWSL’s social channels are also up 233% (!!!).

• Plus, the soccer league shared that it's reviewing multiple bids to host November’s championship game, which will return to primetime after last year’s finale drew a record 915K viewers. Onwards and upwards, indeed.

The WNBA’s NY Liberty showed off the results of its partnership with Xbox at this week’s Hashtag Sports Awards. Xbox built and sponsored an IRL secondary court for the Liberty last year and launched one in the Roblox Metaverse, which earned 2.4K mentions across mainstream media and reached 1.2B people.

• The partnership also earned 11M social media impressions, 3M video views, and 600K engagements over two days, while 11M visited the Roblox court and 2M related in-game items were redeemed.

England soccer player Alessia Russo scored a multiyear deal with Oakley yesterday, her latest since her viral backheel goal at last year’s Women’s Euro. She now counts Adidas and Beats by Dre as partners, and raked in an estimated $5K in sponsored Instagram posts in Q1 alone. Revenue’s coming home.

Australia-based startup One Future Football (1FF) has raised over $2M from investors, including tennis standouts Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios. The 12-team virtual soccer league will use AI to generate players, matches, and storylines, and then share game footage on social media.

🏀 Chicago-born NBA legend Dwyane Wade is considering investing in the WNBA’s Chicago Sky. No place like home.

🎓 USC will build a new $38M stadium for its women’s soccer and lacrosse teams, and the timing couldn’t be better as women’s lacrosse continues to rise.

⚽ New sportswashing just dropped: Manchester United is in exclusive negotiations with Qatari royal Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani for a $6B takeover.

🚲 Wasserman launched a cycling division to focus on American and European clients, host events, and explore other business opportunities.

⛳ The U.S. Department of Justice will review the PGA–LIV Golf merger for possible antitrust violations, adding to the list of government organizations scrutinizing the union.

💰 Incoming NWSL club Bay FC hired former Levi Strauss SVP Brady Stewart as its first CEO.