Sports & Entertainment Spotlight

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Please accept my sheepish apology—I had planned to use this week’s Spotlight to announce Taylor Swift’s latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl” but Jason and Travis Kelce beat me to the punch on their “New Heights” podcast. It seems having a top rated podcast, several Super Bowl rings and a high-profile romantic relationship with said recording artist, puts you higher in the pecking order than having a middling newsletter, a few legal profession awards and (checks notes) no prior contact with said recording artist. I’m not mad, Taylor. I’m just disappointed. Granted, we will never have a basis for comparison, but I will give credit where credit is due, as Swift’s appearance and announcement of her new album on the podcast has yielded a record for the most viewed podcast in history within the first 24 hours of posting.

It all boils down to yet another example of the melding of sports and entertainment coming together to launch to…new heights. As for me, I still have an announcement, after all: the Spotlight is going on hiatus during a period in which many — myself included (“The Life of a Lawboy”?) — will be on vacation. I hope to see you all back here in September.

• • The Estate of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is selling ownership of the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers to an ownership group led by Tom Dundon. Dundon brings to the table not only sports ownership experience as majority owner of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, but also a last name that sounds like an episode of “Law & Order.”
  • With news of Paramount’s $7.8 billion media rights acquisition for UFC, the mixed-martial arts event promotion company may be abandoning its pay-per-view distribution model about 33 years after first rolling it out, and about 30 years after I learned the distribution model was not “paper view.”
  • After his translator was convicted for illegal gambling last year, Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star Shohei Ohtani is again courting controversy, this time on the receiving end of a $240 million lawsuit alleging he sabotaged a luxury real estate deal in Hawaii. Clearly, the highest paid player in baseball is finding out “Mo’ Money, Sho’ Problems”
  • The International Olympic Committee is allowing event organizers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics to allow sponsors to secure naming rights for competition venues, abandoning long-standing tradition against the practice in favor of long-standing tradition of generating as much revenue as possible.

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! In many cultures, the number eight is considered lucky—one that is associated with wealth, prosperity and good fortune. So, it’s only appropriate then that on the eighth day of the eighth month, you’ve joined me (vintage '88) here to receive a wealth of knowledge, prosperity (if dad jokes had any value) and the good fortune of the best sports and entertainment industry newsletter this side of the Mississippi. Before you go rushing out the door to pick up your lottery ticket, allow me to prove my mettle:

• • On the heels of great news of beating bladder cancer, University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders announces an endorsement deal with incontinence underwear brand, Depend. The partnership promises to destigmatize the product while having the added benefit of cutting down on restroom lines at football stadiums everywhere.
  • Actor Zendaya and athletic footwear brand On unveil a co-designed shoe. The cushioned design of the shoe is likely to bring your feet Zen, daya-in and daya-out.
  • Legal deja vu: Sony Music takes Napster to court alleging copyright infringement. In other news, a cat chased a mouse.
  • The NFL and ESPN agree to a tie up that makes the football league a 10% owner of the sports network in exchange for NFL Media Properties (including the popular NFL RedZone channel) and media rights to additional football games. For my part, I will be contributing a Josh-shaped imprint on my couch. 

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 August. If you’ve made it this far into summer, congratulations on plodding along through joy-blunting, sizzling hot temperatures. That is not to say that I don’t like the heat, but it would be nice to be able to comfortably wear jeans without having to wring the sweat out afterwards.

Speaking of jeans, you may have heard that there has been somewhat of an outcry over Euphoria and The White Lotus star Sydney Sweeney’s participation in a campaign promoting clothing company American Eagle’s jeans. In particular, the controversy surrounds the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress appearing in advertising materials that say she has great jeans, an obvious double-entendre for her genes that critics maintain evokes eugenics movements from darker moments in history. What’s most offensive to me, however, is the easy pun the brand used. Why couldn’t they at least have considered, “our jeans cover these ‘neys”? Whatever the reason and intent behind the campaign, in a not-so-surprising turn of events, the outrage has only drawn more eyeballs to the campaign, sending American Eagle’s stock price soaring like…a bird of prey. Particularly in light of my wringing (not ringing) description above, the partnership and ensuing Streisand-esque reaction is arguably the best thing that happened to American Eagle since I stopped wearing their jeans after college.

• • Happy Gilmore 2 is now the owner of the Netflix record for most-viewed film with 46.7 million views. I’d like to think my free advertising in last week’s Spotlight contributed about five viewers to that tally—not asking for money, just a “thank you” would be nice.
  • Ex-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron—whose now viral and infamous marital affair was caught on a “kiss cam” during a Coldplay concert—is rumored to be weighing legal action against the British rock band for their audacity in uncovering his web of lies. If Byron is trying to strike back against being thrust into the spotlight (no relation), he may have to trade in his Coldplay fandom for that of Barbra Streisand.
  • Former NBA Star Gilbert Arenas was arrested as part of a federal probe into illegal, high-stakes poker games he hosted at his California mansion. If convicted, he could face a maximum of five years in prison, but he may be able to get off with probation, if he plays his cards right.
    Congratulations to the winners who predicted the “over” on the over/under of 1.5 Barbra Streisand references! See you next week!

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! Somehow, we’re nearly in the month of August, which feels both like this year has been going by really quickly, despite it feeling at times like it has gone by really slowly. Time is truly a mystery. Take for instance the fact that Adam Sandler’s classic sports comedy film “Happy Gilmore” premiered nearly 30 years ago. Although it certainly feels like 30 years since I saw the movie for the first time, the fact that it has endured through pop culture references and quotable lines has always made it seem closer in time (that and the fact that I have probably seen the movie once for every year that’s passed by).

Well, today starts a new clock, as “Happy Gilmore 2” premieres with a star-studded cast of actors (including many reprising their roles from the first movie), entertainers and professional athletes—evidently not all mutually exclusive categories. So, I for one, am looking forward to a healthy dose of 90s nostalgia (in my biased opinion, the best decade to have been a kid)—unfortunately without the trip to Blockbuster—mixed with something entirely new for this era. I can only hope thirty years from now, my kids look back on this time the same way. I’ll probably wait a few more years to introduce them to Mr. Gilmore, though…  

• • In celebration of the premiere of the aforementioned “Happy Gilmore 2,” Spotify and Netflix partner up on an interactive video game replete with audio clips, film references and soundtrack playlists. A clever tie-up for two companies that know a thing or two about links.
    
    
  • Seattle Mariners All-Star Catcher, Cal “Big Dumper” Raleigh enters an endorsement relationship with portable toilet company, Honey Bucket. Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. 
    
    
  • Snoop Dogg becomes the latest celebrity to invest in a soccer club, taking an ownership Saks in Welsh team Swansea A.F.C. It wouldn’t be surprising if he offers to help out the groundskeepers, too—given his penchant for grass.

Welcome back to the Spotlight! This past week has been an interesting mish mash of Sports and Entertainment candy. Following on the heels of the Wimbledon Tennis Championship across the pond in England and the FIFA Club World Cup championship here in the States (a dry run of sorts for the FIFA International World Cup in 2026, exposing organizers to a large draw of far flung crowds, and players to the sweet air of East Rutherford, New Jersey), Major League Baseball went into its All-Star Break, headlined by the Celebrity Softball Game, the Home Run Derby and the Midsummer Classic (no, not Shakespeare)—the MLB All-Star Game.

There, spectators got to see countless celebrity appearances, a home run hitting competition won by Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (a man whose nickname derives from the size of his posterior) and the League’s best go down to the wire in a game decided by the first ever home run swing-off. To be sure, the event offered something for everyone and a level of fun and entertainment that is hard for so many sports leagues to achieve in their respective all-star exhibition contests. That task will be even harder for the WNBA with news that Caitlin Clark will be missing the upcoming All-Star festivities due to injury.

In any event, the following day the EMMY Nominations were announced, ensuring that your streaming queue remains full of enough content to last you several years. And later that day, ESPN’s ESPY Awards (showcasing the greatest athletes and moments in sports from the year prior) spurred another convergence of entertainment and sports figures. For me, it was stand-up comedian Shane Gillis’ envelope-pushing opening monologue that was the highlight of it all – that, and not being so heavily invested in whether my team won. But alas, that feeling is short-lived with my New York Yankees heading back to the diamond to resume their quest for their elusive 28th World Championship. Though if all else fails, I’ll have plenty of shows to catch up on.

• • Endangered social media platform TikTok is rolling out a feature allowing songwriters to promote themselves through the app to encourage other users to discover them. So, be sure to be on the lookout for up-and-coming writers, Artie Fishel Entelgens and Ian Notaspy.
    
    
  • Kansas City Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes is lead investor behind a better-for-you, ready-to-drink “sport coffee,” called “Throne” (which is suggestive both of royalty and where many end up after a cup of coffee). Perhaps the beverage will awaken referees to missed offensive holding penalties.
    
    
  • 90s superhero cartoon series “Captain Planet and The Planeteers” is being rebooted by Berlanti Productions as a live-action series on Netflix. I know I will be watching, as I love 90s nostalgia as much as anyone – but I can’t help but wonder why we need a team of superheroes to address environmental disasters in this day and age. Thoughts and prayers seem to be working just fine.
    
    
  • Barstool Sports Founder and President Dave Portnoy has been tapped by FOX Sports to appear on their Saturday College Football Kickoff Show, undoubtedly sending stadium concessionaires scrambling to improve their pizza recipes. In the meantime, I eagerly await word from his (and her) representatives whether his dog, the famous Miss Peaches will be in tow.

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Last week you may have celebrated the Fourth of July with hot dogs on the grill (70.5 of them, if you’re Joey Chestnut), your favorite beverage of choice in hand and fireworks. This week, you may be celebrating the Eleventh of July (or 7/11) with hot dogs (or at least I think they’re hot dogs) on those rotating rollers, a Slurpee in hand and (depending on the jurisdiction you live in) fireworks—though all bets are off as to whether you have a hand with which to hold the Slurpee after using said fireworks. In any event, if you’re looking for the latest in the sports and entertainment business mixed with humor, like the convenience store, the Spotlight is always open.

• • Many were shocked to learn this week that viral indie band The Velvet Sundown turns out to be completely AI-generated, albeit with some human direction involved. Frankly, not all that surprising given that the band’s hospitality rider included a request for chips and GPUs.

• • Designer Shoe Warehouse (DSW) strikes back at major record labels in a bid to defend against copyright infringement claims arising from the alleged unauthorized use of hundreds of songs on DSW’s social media accounts. I’m no litigator, but I would like my odds arguing “if the shoe does not fit, you must acquit.”

• • Desperately in search of a laugh (not unlike my writing), former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama join forces with Larry David to produce a sketch comedy show regarding American history. The financial details of the deal are not publicly known, though there will be a jar on set for the Obamas to put a dollar into every time they address Mr. David as “Bernie” or “Senator.”

• • Beverage brand Liquid Death continues its streak of cutting edge (and edgy) marketing, selling autographed DNA (saliva) samples on empty cans of their products drank by endorsement partner and rock legend Ozzy Osbourne. In announcing the promotion, Osbourne encouraged fans to clone him, though I would caution that there’s probably at least a 50/50 chance a fan ends up with a cloned vampire bat instead.

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! 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.