2026-04-02
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Finance & Investments
The deal values Sports Endeavors, the holding company behind popular gear retailer Soccer.com, between $300M and $400M.
The purchases help sports equipment maker Varsity Brands, owned by private equity firm KKR, expand deeper into the booming youth sports market.
Soccer.com generated $117.6M in sales last year, while Lax.com provides a strategic new foothold in the rapidly growing youth lacrosse sector.
The basketball legend earned $275M in 2025, beating active stars like soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo to push his lifetime inflation-adjusted wealth to $4.5B.
His wealth stems primarily from a historic 1984 deal with apparel giant Nike, whose dedicated Jordan Brand generated an unparalleled $7.3B last year.
Jordan leads a lucrative trend of retired sports stars maintaining immense earning power, ranking far above global icons like golfer Tiger Woods.
The global sportswear brand reported $11.3B in quarterly sales, which slightly beat financial expectations but declined from the previous quarter.
Investment bank JPMorgan warned investors that fixing the struggling business and returning to normal profit levels might take until 2029.
To speed up its slow recovery, the company cut 775 jobs and is heavily discounting older products to clear out inventory.
The club reported a £34.7M profit in 2025, but would have posted a major loss without the one-off £133M sale of stadium improvements.
The sale was a related-party deal with a sister company in the ownership group, a strategy also used by Chelsea and Aston Villa.
UEFA may not recognize the transaction under its stricter financial rules, and the club says discussions with the governing body are ongoing.
The popular English Premier League team lost $359M during the 2024-25 season, marking the largest financial deficit in the league's history.
Despite the massive loss, overall team revenue actually grew to $653M thanks to higher television broadcast payouts and successful tournament victories.
The club's ownership group, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, previously met league financial rules by selling the women's squad to themselves for $257M.
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Media, Broadcasting & Sponsorships
Streaming giant Netflix previously announced the September 19 bout between 49-year-old Mayweather and 47-year-old Pacquiao.
The event will be the first boxing match hosted at the Sphere, a popular Las Vegas entertainment venue.
Sources confirm this is an official professional fight, correcting recent claims by Mayweather that it is a casual exhibition.
UK network Sky Sports will exclusively air two annual all-female events from Most Valuable Promotions, a company co-founded by influencer Jake Paul.
The multi-year television partnership officially launches on April 5th with a live broadcast of a major women's boxing event in London.
Sky is partnering with non-traditional sports promotions to stay relevant after rival streaming service DAZN acquired the rights to most established boxing leagues.
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Teams & Leagues
Over 120 investment groups and wealthy individuals submitted initial bids of up to $1B to buy teams for a targeted 2027 launch.
The league plans to launch 16 teams across major European cities, but some investors worry about the NBA keeping a 50% ownership stake.
The US basketball organization will evaluate these offers while attempting to negotiate a unified growth strategy with existing European competitor EuroLeague.
The baseball players union grew its assets by 47% to $519.3M by saving commercial income to survive a potential strike.
The union faces tough contract negotiations this spring against team owners, who have built their own massive $2B reserve fund.
The main dispute centers on team owners demanding a salary cap, a strict limit on player earnings that the union strongly opposes.
US ownership group Fenway Sports Group recently parked plans to buy a second football club, frustrating CEO of football Michael Edwards.
Edwards and sporting director Richard Hughes have contracts expiring in 2027 and are attracting recruitment interest from wealthy Saudi Arabian teams.
The executives also face mounting fan pressure after a massive £440M transfer spend failed to fix glaring holes in the struggling squad.
The final direct ticket sale by FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, frustrated fans with hours-long digital wait times and broken website links.
Dynamic pricing pushed premium tickets for the final match to nearly $11K, almost double the original cost when initial sales began last October.
While FIFA defends the surging costs as standard for North America, frustrated fan groups have filed a formal pricing complaint with European regulators.
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Miscellaneous
Emails released by the Justice Department revealed that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein connected Tisch with multiple women.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell stated that a review of the facts showed no evidence that Tisch violated the league's personal conduct policy.
Although Tisch recently transferred his 23.1% ownership stake to family trusts, he remains actively involved as the team's chairman.
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