Sports & Entertainment Spotlight

Welcome back to the Spotlight! I write this week with a heavy heart, as I was not selected by a team in the NBA Draft for the 37th straight year. To the naysayers out there who would try to tear me down by pointing out that those who are drafted are generally taller and better than me at basketball, I say that I never completed the paperwork to be eligible for the NBA Draft. So there! Jokes aside, this happens to be the last Draft taking place before the July 1, 2025 date House settlement comes into effect, allowing colleges to directly pay their athletes a portion of revenue derived from the use of their athletes’ name, image and likeness. In the NIL era, athletes have already performed the calculus of determining whether it would be more lucrative to stay in school and get more experience under their belts rather than playing in the pros under a cut-rate rookie contract. That will only come into sharper focus with more money being available to college athletes and it will be interesting to see how the earning capacity for college athletes affects the talent pool for future professional drafts to come. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that college athletes are finally able to achieve financial independence much earlier in their careers. Speaking of independence, in observance of Independence Day for these United States, the Spotlight will be replaced by fireworks next week but will return the following week. Until then, hopefully this will tide you over.

• • Steve Burns, who played the role of…well…“Steve”  on the original Blue’s Clues children’s television show is debuting a grown-up podcast tailored to adults who grew up watching the show. I have to say, I’m intrigued, though mail time stopped making me wag my tail when bills started rolling in.

• • Kim Kardashian is rumored to be cast in a starring role in a film based on the popular “Bratz” dolls. The working title of the film? You guessed it: “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

• • Following a debut at the X Games, AI-powered sports tech firm The Owl raises $10M as it looks to leverage artificial intelligence to displace human judges and officials in competitive sports. That all sounds very impressive, but I am still waiting for The Owl to give a credible answer as to how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn. 

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Allow me to be among the first to welcome you to the official start of Summer and to ask that you turn up your air conditioning. Like clockwork, the temperatures outside are running up toward the triple digits for much of the country as fast as the sweat is dripping down. The infernal weather is a nice complement to the unrelenting feeling about the world going to H-E-double hockey sticks in a handbasket. Yes (with apologies to Gershwin), it’s summertime and the livin’ is most certainly not easy. But that’s no matter here at the Spotlight, where the tears of a clown flow free, and we make (with apologies to lemons) lemonade.

• • One year removed from having been removed from eligibility for the annual Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Competition at Coney Island for having endorsed plant-based hot dogs, Joey Chestnut is now slated to compete at this year’s competition. See folks?! Maybe the world is healing itself after all…
  • Founder and CEO of TWG Global and Guggenheim Capital and owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mark Walter skipped shopping at Rodeo Drive and decided to buy majority ownership in the Los Angeles Lakers, placing the NBA franchise’s valuation at $10 billion. To recap: Founder, Owner. Dodger. Walter. Laker. Spender.
  • Speaking of the LA Lakers, Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal settled a lawsuit related to his endorsement of the FTX crypto platform for $1.8 million. One big check from one big man.

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn. 

Welcome back to the Spotlight! For time immemorial (since 1906, to be exact), the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) so-called amateurism rules sought to enforce a bright-line distinction between college sports and professional sports.  To the NCAA, the platform of college sports was educational, while professional sports had underpinnings of commercialism.  Under these rules, prospective and current college athletes were, amongst other things, precluded from profiting off their name, image and likeness (NIL) from endorsements without losing their athletic scholarship or eligibility. But, over time, the core assumptions of those dividing lines became blurred as college sports evolved, ballooning into a multibillion-dollar business itself.  Why could coaches and school administrators make millions in revenue from sports, while athletes of those same schools were relegated to being students first?  Well, after years of feet dragging, antitrust litigation, lobbying and intervention of state legislatures across the country, a watershed moment occurred in July 1, 2021, with the NCAA issuing interim guidelines to enable prospective and current collegiate athletes to enter into endorsement, influencer and other revenue-generating deals centering around the commercial exploitation of their NIL. In the nearly four years since that fateful day, we have borne witness to the rise of NIL collectives, prominent use of the NCAA transfer portal and more litigation. Along the way, many high school and college athletes have earned sums of money that would not have otherwise been available to them unless/until they play professional sports. Now, with a federal judge approving the terms of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement in House v. NCAA, schools themselves will be able to pay their athletes directly: a stunning development that seemed impossible just a few years ago. Key questions do remain, however: How will sports less lucrative than football and basketball fare? Will athletes be treated as employees? Will athletes have collective bargaining rights? Is it too late for me to go back to college? What happens from here is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure: there will be lawyers.

• • Online mental health service BetterHelp partners with three WNBA teams in a sponsorship deal, enabling them to reach more fans to assist with pointing them in the right direction particularly when they’re back on the block and on the rebound after someone steals their heart.

• • Viral drinkware company Stanley 1913 partners with Post Malone on his own collection featuring styles evocative of the artist himself including bolo tie accessories. To make it even more evocative, consumers can pay my sons $5 to scribble on it.

• • Tennis great Andre Agassi is among an impressive list of investors in a racquet sports social club concept called “Ballers.” You might say, Agassi is hoping you love it.

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn. 

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Although men’s basketball in New York City is on hiatus with the Knicks falling short of an NBA Finals appearance (I don’t want to talk about it), women’s basketball is picking up the slack, with the defending WNBA champions New York Liberty off to an undefeated start to the season. Indeed, women’s sports continues to be ascendant, garnering investments throughout the sports world. While I have had my unbridled enthusiasm and fandom trampled over the past two weeks or so, there have been notable developments in that regard. For one thing, Major League Baseball got in on the action, making a significant investment in Athletes Unlimited Softball League (equal to a 20% equity stake) before the first pitch was even thrown. Additionally, CBS Sports just acquired US media rights for the UEFA Women’s Champions League – giving viewers access to top-flight soccer matches, and in so doing, yet another way to get their fill of women’s sports. With all the women’s sports, you might want to find somewhere to post up with a lot of screens. Luckily, Oregon-based women’s sports bar, “The Sports Bra” (not a typo) is able to…well…support you in those endeavors, as it received $1 million in funding to franchise the concept far and wide.

• • Eminem’s publishing company Eight Mile Style sues Meta for copyright infringement, alleging $109M in damages stemming from allegedly unlicensed use of Eminem’s songs across Facebook and Instagram. That sum might be enough to make Zuckerberg cough up his mom’s spaghetti. 

• • Restaurant franchise Red Lobster enters into a sponsorship deal with the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, thus serving as an ever present reminder that while the sky may be the limit, your shrimp and cheddar bay biscuits don’t have to have one (Editor’s note: Red Lobster’s Unlimited Endless Shrimp deal was discontinued months ago, thus making this joke rather forced and anachronistic).

• • In just one season playing basketball for the Duke University Blue Devils, All-American basketball player and presumptive number one pick in this year’s NBA Draft, Cooper Flagg earned an astronomical $28 million in NIL revenue. Looking to make a mark of his own and challenge that figure, high school recruit Davion Thompson partners with Bell’s Master Blend Sauces for his own signature sauce. In contrast to Flagg and Thompson, in high school and college, many of their peers received nil dollars while hitting the sauce.

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn.