Tennis, pickleball, and padel are a business. This newsletter covers it.
Racket Business tracks the money behind racket sports: facility economics, court conversions, tour finances, and ticket prices. All you need to know in one place.
2026-10-02
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Finance & Investments
The Toronto Maple Leafs, a historic Canadian club, remain the most valuable team at $4.8B, though southern US teams are rapidly catching up.
A new $7.8B television deal with Rogers Communications, a major telecom, guarantees profits that make these teams highly attractive to investors.
Driven by this financial boom, fees for new expansion teams could reach $2.3B, pushing hockey franchise values to rival professional baseball teams.
The world's largest sportswear maker aims to save $2.5B over four years by reorganizing its global regions and cutting staff.
New chief executive Elliott Hill is shifting focus back to athletic performance gear as classic casual shoes lose popularity.
The company's stock has dropped 45% this year due to falling revenues and fierce competition from newer shoe brands like On and Hoka.
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Media, Broadcasting & Sponsorships
TGL is a primetime team league where top pro golfers, including Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, compete on high-tech golf simulators.
Season two averaged just under 500K viewers, a slight dip and modest for TV, but it fills useful primetime slots for ESPN.
Season three adds a seventh team, Motor City Golf Club with star Brooks Koepka, plus a women's league under a separate ESPN-ION deal.
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Teams & Leagues
Los Angeles officials asked event organizer LA28 to buy a $650M policy to protect the city against a catastrophic event cancellation.
The organizers must also cover any financial losses exceeding this $650M limit, a standard safety measure for host cities since 2001.
City leaders are also demanding the organizers reveal unlisted contracts over $1M to ease growing tensions regarding the group's financial transparency.
Denver Summit FC, a new professional women's soccer team, is building its own stadium to gain full control over its schedule and revenue.
The venue is only the second in the national women's soccer league built specifically to serve female athletes and accommodate all fans.
While private investors pay for the stadium, city funds will develop 4 acres of surrounding public parkland to serve the local community.
An independent panel found soccer club Manchester City largely guilty of inflating revenue through fake sponsor deals secretly funded by its Abu Dhabi owners.
Etihad, a UAE airline and City sponsor since 2009, has paid the club hundreds of millions of pounds for shirt and stadium branding.
The airline, unnamed in the redacted report, denies wrongdoing and says the league damaged its reputation without ever consulting it.
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Miscellaneous
A judge ruled 18 buyers failed to prove Fanatics, the exclusive trading card maker for the NFL, NBA, and MLB, raised their prices.
A second judge tossed two suits against merchandise giant Fanatics and the NFL, finding no proof fans paid more for official NFL gear.
A separate monopoly lawsuit from rival card maker Panini is unaffected and continues, though Fanatics expects no trial before 2030.
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