I Don't Know Who Needs to Hear This, But...

The average Formula 1 team is now worth $4.55 billion, triple its 2023 value, according to Sportico's new valuations. Ferrari leads at $8.2 billion, ahead of Mercedes ($7.75 billion), McLaren ($6.3 billion) and Red Bull ($5.6 billion), and the 33% average gain beats the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.Also today: ESPN signs a two-year deal for MotoGP's U.S. and Latin America rights from Liberty Media; Pepsi takes "Holidays Deserve Pepsi" into the Christmas Day NBA and NFL games; Panathinaikos signs a record seven-year, €50 million stadium naming deal with Novibet; and New York's "Ban the Scan" bill takes aim at Madison Square Garden's facial recognition.Plus the deals sheet (Hotels.com and Real Madrid, Cadillac's F1 team up for sale), new Clio Sports Golds for Stella Artois, Gatorade and Google Gemini, the $2 billion digital pack rip business, and a Friday Deep Dive on why F1 team values tripled and what could slow them down. The thread: in sports business, what you can't easily get more of keeps going up in price.Music by Cheerry Red

Otro Capital has hired BDT & MSD Partners to explore selling its minority stake in the Alpine F1 team, three years after its group, including Ryan Reynolds's Maximum Effort and later Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Rory McIlroy, bought 24% at a $900 million valuation.Also today: NFL Network's Europe games average a record 6.9 million viewers in its first season under ESPN; Ja'Marr Chase stars in a mock PSA for Fabletics; Ant Group extends its UEFA deal through Euro 2028; and Bodø/Glimt names AWS its strategic cloud provider for data and AI.Plus the deals sheet (USA Sports and the Horse Racing League, Playfly and Texas A&M), new 2026 Clio Sports Gold winners including Wisła Kraków's "Lucky Fan Index," and why Texas A&M's $515 million Playfly contract still isn't public. The thread: in sports business right now, what's public is the pitch, and what's private is the price.Music by Cheerry Red

NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum told Sportico's Invest New York conference he's confident the top franchise fees for NBA Europe will land around $1 billion, as the league plans to enter markets the EuroLeague doesn't serve, including the U.K., ahead of a target launch in October 2027.Also today: Skydance holds more than three dozen premium sports deals and has promised $6 billion in savings by 2029, and letting MLB and the NHL go in 2028 would save about $1 billion a year; Mars names Cheez-It, Pringles, Club, Town House and Combos the official salty snacks of LA28 and Team USA; Coterie runs a diaper ad with Max Homa on the back cover of Golf Digest; and Catapult launches a $15-a-month All-22 film service with more than 100 college football programs.Plus the deals sheet (CF Montréal for sale, Sky Sports and WTGL), the first 2026 Clio Sports Gold winners, and a Kentucky player's claim that Neyland Stadium's noise was piped in. The thread: the value in sports increasingly comes from what you own around the game, not just the game itself.Music by Cheerry Red

The College Football Playoff will grow from 12 to 24 teams starting in 2027, and ESPN has signed a five-year deal worth nearly $1.7 billion for the extra games, on top of its existing $7.8 billion package through 2032, per an ESPN report cited by Front Office Sports. The SEC, Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 say this year's conference title games will be their last. Also: Skydance will bundle Paramount+ and HBO Max in early 2027 and says "every right has to earn its place"; LeBron James's team sends a cease-and-desist to the Bron AI betting app; Julius Baer becomes the ATP's first wealth management partner; Fox closes its $22 billion Roku acquisition months early; beIN Sports wins back ATP rights in France from 2028; Lewis Hamilton and Erling Haaland top the first Meta x SportsPro Athlete Honours; and French police are asked to probe Polymarket bets that called the Ballon d'Or top five. The thread: in sport, the value is in who controls the moment people are watching.Music by Cheerry Red

LIV Golf's lawyers told a New Jersey bankruptcy court there will be no "LIV 2.0," a day after BC Partners Credit walked away from its $300 million rescue financing, Front Office Sports reports. Saudi Arabia's PIF, which spent more than $5 billion on LIV since 2022, controls the process as the largest creditor, and the wind-down plan is due today. Also: Ligue 1 brings its domestic rights tender forward and calls the reserve price a "bargain"; Betfred ends its British Classics sponsorship after a UK tax increase; Adidas reportedly agrees a 10-year, €500 million kit deal with AC Milan from 2028-29; Zoox becomes the Las Vegas Grand Prix's official autonomous ride-hail partner; Maple Leaf Foods and Team Canada take Best in Show for sports at the SMA Sponsorship Excellence Awards; and youth golf and tennis participation surges. The thread: the money in sport follows what people can actually use.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One idea, five shows. This crossover episode runs on Bills, Bills, Bills, The Little Daily NFL Podcast, The Little Daily A.I. Podcast, The Little Daily Wellness Podcast and I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This, But. The idea comes from John Kay’s book Obliquity: goals are often best reached indirectly. Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog shows how Nike got its name from a dream and its logo on a deadline. Foresters who planted forests in perfect rows got bigger fires. Jim Leonhard improved the Bills’ defense by leaving the sideline for the booth before the 36-10 win over the Ravens. I also make my case against Joe Marino on why Joe Brady should keep giving Josh the ball first: forget the middle eight and go get more possessions. Then I look at why sports money is buying teams and media rights in slices, why A.I. is only useful once a person has made all the mistakes, how Keon Coleman’s work with Stevie Johnson filled his tool belt, and what Kay says about happiness and about companies that aim straight at profit.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BC Partners Credit is walking away from the $300M financing that was meant to bring LIV Golf out of Chapter 11, Front Office Sports reported, citing the Financial Times. Players would have been the majority owners of “LIV 2.0,” with BC owning nearly half, but the deadlines passed without enough commitments, and the FT reports the league is left seeking to liquidate its remaining assets. Also: the Six Nations and SANZAAR will pool sponsorship from 2028 and media rights from 2029; WNBA Finals Game 7 draws 3.3M viewers as the series sets a record 1.88M average; Dick’s and Foot Locker sign Caitlin Clark as their first-ever athlete brand partner; Lidl becomes title sponsor of La Vuelta and four more races from 2027; Lachlan Murdoch says 97% of new Fox One subscribers don’t have cable; DAZN takes an exclusive option on 2029 Club World Cup streaming rights; Rogers and the Blue Jays win Gold at the SMCC Awards; and the NRL buys an A$115M airport hotel as “an insurance policy” against its TV money. The thread: the money in sport is looking for something solid to stand on.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is seeking outside financing for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Ventures, a new company for Team USA's sponsorship, licensing, content distribution and direct-to-consumer sales. CEO Sarah Hirshland told Sportico the USOPC is looking at "all of our options" on private equity and sovereign wealth, and the Raine Group has reportedly been hired to explore a stake sale or debt raise. Tax filings show why: USOPC revenue fell from $496M in Paris year 2024 to $264M in 2025. Also: the CW eyes TNT Sports' NHL and French Open rights as Skydance carries nearly $80B in debt; TSN and Sportsnet renew NBA rights in Canada for 10 years; Sports Direct and Nike's "Unwrap Potential" Christmas ad runs through Frasers Group's retail media network; BYD takes the front of Hawthorn's guernsey from 2027; Madden NFL starts selling real stadium sponsors in the game, and the WTA signs with TikTok; Mark Walter seeks $3B+ for a Cadillac F1 stake; Tommy Hilfiger's F1 The Movie tie-in wins at the ESA Awards; and Sporta raises £5M for grassroots sport's back office. The thread: everybody is looking for steadier money.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fanatics Markets stops accepting trades in Utah on Wednesday, November 4, pulling its entire prediction-market offering from the state. DraftKings and FanDuel have pulled their sports contracts there too but kept financial event contracts live. The retreat follows Utah Attorney General Derek Brown's criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders: 13 felony gambling counts plus one count of profiting from illegal activity. Also: Fox's advertising revenue jumps 47% on the World Cup, while Lachlan Murdoch promises a "disciplined" approach to future rights; Fanatics and the NHL launch Hometown Remix jerseys for all 32 teams; Generali buys the naming rights to AC Milan and Inter's new 71,500-seat stadium in a reported €650M deal; Underdog's Jeremy Levine says prediction markets would have out-earned fantasy 40 to 1; Wisła Kraków's "Lucky Fan Index" takes the Creative Commerce Grand Prix at Cannes Lions; and the Premier Jumping League's $300M plan for show jumping. The thread: the rules and the money are pulling in different directions, and every company has to pick one.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The NFL and EA have launched the Madden NFL Virtual Stadium Sponsorship Program. Starting this season, official sponsors of all 32 clubs and league partners can carry their real-world stadium signage into the matching Madden stadiums on console and mobile, a game EA says fans play more than 2 billion times a year. Eagles partner Pond Lehocky is the first brand in. Also: ESPN is said to be committed to Inside the NBA beyond this season, even without Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley; college football runs its last weekend of political ads before Tuesday's election; Eli Lilly's logo goes on the floors at Indiana's Assembly Hall and Purdue's Mackey Arena; Serie A USA's Polymarket deal and Lazio's exit from its Polymarket shirt deal show two rulebooks in one league; Jean Eric Salata buys 2.1% of the Dolphins at a valuation above $12.5B; Pitchwise Holdings takes 42% of Valencia at a €1.25B enterprise value; Sting's F1 campaign takes Gold for Sonic Branding at the Clios; and SailGP team prices climb by half in four years. The thread: sports keeps finding new buyers for the assets it already owns.Music by Cheerry Red Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.