Sports & Entertainment Spotlight

Welcome back to the Spotlight! This time of year, the color orange not only evokes pumpkins and falling leaves, but also basketball. Indeed, the NBA season tipped off this past week, replete with intrigue and excitement on and off the court. Notably, the offseason media rights shuffle reunited the NBA with NBC (reviving the sweet sounds of John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock”) and brought old faces to new places with the “Inside the NBA” team of Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith debuting on ESPN after having moved over from TNT (the latter two hosts predicted a certain orange (and blue) team from New York would be playing for an NBA championship this year).

Regrettably, however, orange also evokes jumpsuits as much as it does jump shots, with the Department of Justice announcing the FBI’s arrest of current and former NBA players Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones and Terry Rozier in connection with a federal gambling probe that uncovered several alleged conspiracies involving fixed poker games and sharing of inside information with bettors. To be sure, the timing is awful for the NBA (if there ever was a time for a sports league to have its integrity called into question). But it is also rather inauspicious timing for it to be announced this very same week that collegiate athletes and schools’ athletics staff will now be permitted to gamble on professional sports. Perhaps the conduct of the pros will serve as a cautionary tale for collegiate athletes rather than a foreshadowing of things to come in this sports business environment. At the very least, it should serve as a reminder of the need for athletes’ mentors and advisors to encourage the exercise of better judgment regarding the use of money and the privileged position that allows them to earn it.

• • Having already launched a lifestyle brand, “American Riviera Orchard” (recently rebranded “As Ever”) Meghan Markle looks poised to be next to wade into the crowded waters of celebrity-branded beauty products. A word of advice to Markle’s potential business partner: go heavy on the equity – she tends to distance herself from royalties.
  • Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen, when asked about Jeremy Allen White’s portrayal of him in the biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” said that he could not tell the difference between White’s voice and that of his own on certain recordings. AI-driven music companies, when asked about Jeremy Allen White’s portrayal of Springsteen in the biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” said “stay in your lane!”
  • Ari Emanuel’s global events and experience company MARI acquired digital ticketing platform TodayTix, in what I can only assume is a gross overpayment for tickets to see “Wicked” on Broadway.

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! One thing I love about this season is the memorable fall pastime of apple picking, with another installment of that chapter coming for me this weekend. Something about the experience makes paying above retail prices for the opportunity to pick your own fruit off trees just gets my juices flowing. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. As you know, the core of the Spotlight is to plant seeds of sports and entertainment industry with a dash of humor (or at least that’s what I call it). I guess you could say my writing style stems from my desire to make the reading more a-peeling so that you may pick from a tree in my orchard of knowledge—by the bushel, and always free (or at least until I figure out how to monetize this). For those who are feeling rotten from all this wordplay, apple-y for you, I have other fruits to bear.

• • Netflix’s viral sensation film “K-Pop Demon Hunters” is rolling out sing-along screenings of the film around Halloween. It’s perhaps the scariest house of horrors for introverts around.
  • New Balance ink UCLA Basketball’s shooting guards on the men’s and women’s side to NIL endorsement deals, giving their bank accounts new balances.
  • With sights set on a “Rat Pack” themed venue in Las Vegas, Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group acquires the rights to Frank Sinatra’s name, image and likeness. No word on what the venue would be named but the pizzeria there will almost assuredly be named “Amore.”

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! After an exciting Game 3 of the American League Division Series in which Aaron Judge hit a memorable, almost impossible game-tying home run to help propel the New York Yankees to a comeback victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night, the Yankees showed a glimmer of hope that they could mount a comeback and win two more games to advance to the next round of the MLB postseason. Sure enough, aided by the Toronto Blue Jays’ unorthodox decision to swap out their baseball bats for pool noodles and to wear cinderblock cleats, the Yankees had a resounding Game 4 victory on Wednesday night to set up a decisive Game 5 tonight in Toronto.

OK, so that part didn’t actually happen in real life (the Yankees were eliminated in Game 4 after the Yankees’ bats might as well have been pool noodles), but it did appear to happen with the aid of OpenAI’s new hyper-realistic Sora 2 video generation AI model. The absurdity of my account of Game 4 undoubtedly provided a big hint that it was contrived. But, what happens when the model gets so advanced, and the absurdity gets removed?  People will have an exceedingly difficult time separating fact from fiction and the individuals depicted in these videos may find themselves losing control of their personas.  That is exactly why Hollywood’s talent agencies have voiced concern over the technology—with WME going so far as to opt-out from having their talent’s likenesses licensed for use by Sora 2. It will be interesting to see whether OpenAI puts safeguards in place to protect brands’ and individuals’ intellectual property from unauthorized exploitation by Sora 2. But for now, I think I’ll try to create a video of me at the New York Yankees’ ticker tape parade that never was.

• • LeBron James teased a “Second Decision” making light of his infamous 2010 television special surrounding his NBA free agency in which he announced he would be signing with the Miami Heat. This time around, the “Decision” turned out to be an endorsement for Hennessy Cognac. Incidentally, for New York Knicks fans like myself, the initial Decision was also taken as an endorsement of liquor.
  • Innovative Artists Entertainment signs 6’10” NBA Hall of Famer Dwight Howard for representing him in broadcasting opportunities. In a related story, Innovative Artists Entertainment signs a purchase order for larger door frames.
  • This year’s selection of Puerto Rican recording artist Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show has roiled many to the point that Conservative organization Turning Point USA will be counterprogramming the halftime show. In other words, halftime will be as much about the divide between the first and second halves of a football game as it will be about the divide between Americans.

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