Highlight Reel: YouTuber Jake Paul is joining the PFL's fight to challenge the UFC 🥊
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Highlight Reel: YouTuber Jake Paul is joining the PFL's fight to challenge the UFC 🥊
This week's top stories feature Andretti, Cadillac, Formula 1, New Balance, AS Roma, Fanatics, Candy Digital, and the Brazilian Football Confederation.
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It’s Friday!
Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to hoping Sports Pundit’s subscriber growth in 2023 mirrors that of Al Nassr’s Instagram. Looking elsewhere, here are five stories that caught my attention👇
Andretti joins forces with General Motors for Cadillac F1 entry bid
YouTuber Jake Paul is joining the PFL's fight to challenge the UFC
AS Roma sued by New Balance over reportedly agreeing rival kit deal
Fanatics is divesting its 60% stake in NFT company Candy Digital
Two consortiums are vying to create a new Brazilian football league
Andretti joins forces with General Motors for Cadillac F1 entry bid 🏎
New year, new F1 team?
Andretti Racing, one of America's most successful racing teams and America’s biggest car company, General Motors, have announced a collaboration in a bid to enter Formula 1 and to capitalise on the racing championship’s rapid US growth.
According to a report from Sky Sports, team owner Michael Andretti has been lobbying the FIA to expand F1’s 20-car grid and has pushed forward with his plans despite a failed attempt to purchase Sauber in 2021 and resistance from current F1 teams worried about diluting their revenue shares.
YouTuber Jake Paul is joining the PFL's fight to challenge the UFC 🥊
Jake Paul, the YouTube phenomenon turned prizefighter, is making the move from boxing to MMA.
Notorious for his beef with UFC’ chief Dana White over fighter pay, Paul is now teaming up with the Professional Fighters League (PFL) to take on the juggernaut as their ‘Head of Fighter Advocacy’.
Paul and his business partner Nakisa Bidarian have both been given equity stakes in the challenger MMA promotion as part of the deal and, together with the PFL, they have co-created a pay-per-view division called “PFL PPV Super Fight,” a division that guarantees fighters will receive 50% of revenue from its events.
AS Roma sued by New Balance over reportedly agreeing rival kit deal 👕
It’s happening again. US sportswear giant New Balance is suing another European football club after they signed with a rival supplier rather than renewing.
On this occasion, it’s AS Roma that are at the centre of the controversy. New Balance have argued in their filing that they would have matched the terms offered to Roma by Adidas, which would have resulted in a renewal of the sponsorship deal. Roma have argued that this is not the case but are expected to lose the case.
Interestingly, New Balance previously sued (and lost) in a battle to renew with Liverpool FC, with the Merseyside club arguing that New Balance could not match Nike's five-year deal of £30m a year in terms of marketing.
Fanatics is divesting its 60% stake in NFT company Candy Digital 🎟
Fanatics, the retailer specialising in licensed sports merchandise, is divesting 60% of its stake in the NFT company Candy Digital, according to reports. The company is selling its Candy Digital stake to an investor group associated with billionaire Mike Novogratz and his firm, Galaxy Digital.
In an internal email obtained by CNBC, Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, reportedly states that, “Divesting our ownership stake at this time allowed us to ensure investors were able to recoup most of their investment via cash or additional shares in Fanatics – a favorable outcome for investors, especially in an imploding NFT market that has seen precipitous drops in both transaction volumes and prices for standalone NFTs.”
Two consortiums are vying to create a new Brazilian football league ⚽️
A pair of opposing consortiums are vying to professionalise the business of football in Brazil and create a new domestic competition in Brazil, according to a report from the FT.
Codajas Sports Kapital’s Liga do Futebol Brasileiro project, or Libra, has the support of 16 clubs from the existing top two nationwide divisions and proposes a model — inspired by the English Premier League — that will be controlled by clubs, rather than the national federation. This, in theory, should enable collective negotiation of transmission rights, leading to more lucrative deals than those obtained on the current individualised basis.
On the other hand, Liga Forte Futebol, has 26 clubs on board and is being advised by investment firm XP and professional services group Alvarez & Marsal. It is in discussions with an unnamed group of US investors to sell a slice of the league to private shareholders.
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