Sports & Entertainment Spotlight

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.

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Given the volume of rain across the country recently, I may have to temporarily change the title to “Floodlight.” Yikes. I’d say these late nights watching the NBA Playoffs have made me a little loopy, but then again, that joke is standard fare for this space that is often so corny that it would make a Nebraskan farmer blush. OK, enough of that – let’s get into some of this week’s stories.

• • Actress Sydney Sweeney partners with soap brand Squatch on a limited edition bar of soap made with her used bath water. Glad to see someone is taking conservation efforts seriously! 

• • Just three years after launch, Hailey Bieber’s skincare brand Rhode is being acquired by e.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion – which sounds great at first blush, but I know from my research to be wary of an elf that spins things into gold.

• • Coffee company Nespresso and recording artist The Weeknd link up for an iced coffee campaign, meaning a recording session with Sabrina Carpenter can’t be too far off.

• • The WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces enter a sports betting partnership with BetMGM – a heart-warming reminder to always bet on yourself.    

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 the past 7 months, I have borne witness to monumental postseason collapses by two of my favorite professional sports teams: my beloved hometown New York Yankees and New York Knicks. Last October, in epic fashion, the former blew a five-run lead in the top of the fifth inning in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, en route to the Yankees’ eventual demise. And this past Wednesday night, the Knicks lost Game One of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers, despite having held a 14-point lead with about 2:30 left in the fourth quarter. There are a litany of other heartbreaks over the years. Begging the question of why I (and others) keep coming back for more? For one thing, it’s the drama of the game - each has a story to tell. Sometimes, that story is a reminder that those who rake in the big bucks through endorsements and salaries, often appearing larger than life, are still human. Or maybe I just like to be miserable. After all, it’s the losses - torturous as they can be - that teach the greatest lessons and make the wins that much sweeter.

• • Following fellow recording artist Post Malone’s limited edition run of signature Oreo cookies, Selena Gomez has partnered with the brand to roll out her own spin on the iconic sandwich cookies. Perhaps the cookies will become collector’s items. Though if the artists really wanted to stand the test of time, they’d launch their own Twinkies.
  • Jason Momoa and WWE wrestler Roman Reigns are among those signed on for a Street Fighter movie, rebooting a film based on the video game of the same name. Meanwhile, I am still waiting on a call from my agent on my Pong screenplay.
  • Hip hop duo Salt-N-Pepa are suing Universal Music Group in an effort to reclaim the rights to their catalog recordings including their late 80s and early 90s hits “Push It” and “Shoop.”  Fortunately for the duo, their legal team is said to be seasoned.

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! While I appreciate your valiant efforts in coming back to this space, that comeback pales in comparison to the two comebacks the underdog New York Knicks have had against the defending NBA Champion Boston Celtics – somehow clawing back from 20 point deficits in consecutive games to seize a 2-0 lead in the 2^nd round of the NBA Playoffs.  The games have been nothing short of captivating, yet immensely trying. What started out with questions in my mind about how the Knicks could possibly survive this series has been replaced by questions about whether I can survive the ups and downs of this series. Regardless, these NBA Playoffs have provided some of the most compelling moments in recent memory—the TV ratings have certainly backed up that assertion. So, for all the concerns about who will be the stewards of the league now that LeBron James is reaching the end of his career, it’s clear that the present and the future are bright as ever, with chances for athletes to build their own brands and author their own success stories. Speaking of comebacks, I’ll be out recharging next week but will return the week of 5/19—hopefully you will do the same.

• • Country music star Chris Stapleton’s Tennessee whiskey brand, “Traveller” becomes the first official whiskey of Major League Baseball. Given the name, it’s unlikely that the NBA will follow suit.
     
  • Nine-time NBA All-Star guard Russell Westbrook comes aboard as a founder of Eazewell, a startup company that uses artificial intelligence to ease grieving loved ones’ burdens with funeral planning. Humanity will have dodged a bullet if artificial intelligence sticks only to that sense of the words “funeral planning…”

• • Rihanna’s multibillion dollar beauty brand Fenty Beauty, becomes the latest such brand to secure sponsorship in the WNBA, partnering with the defending WNBA Champions New York Liberty. As part of the sponsorship, the brand’s logos will be included on the team’s pregame warm-up apparel, while other in-game activations are contemplated. No word on whether the team will be creating a co-branded umbrella…ella…ella

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

Hard to believe that June is just around the corner. Interestingly, June is one of two months with four letters in it (the other being July).

Speaking of four letter words (don’t worry—I’m not about to channel my inner George Carlin. I have a reputation to uphold here!), one four letter word that has not been recently uttered in this space is “NFTs.” That could be because after pandemic-fueled NFT bubble (I guess people were attracted to the fact they did not need hand sanitizer to handle them…) popped, leading valuations into a freefall and spurring a number of high-profile civil and criminal cases to crop up, not the least of which being a pending $1 billion class action lawsuit against Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo arising out of his promotion of NFTs on the cryptocurrency platform Binance. You might think that such a hefty lawsuit might influence Ronaldo to lay low for a little bit. Pelo contrário meus amigos.

Instead, Ronaldo has chosen to double-down and release a new collection of NFTs on Binance. But hey, when you’ve been labeled one of the sexiest men in the world, one of the greatest soccer players of all time and are paid $200 million a year to play soccer in a foreign land, you might have some built-up hubris. Sure, it’s not quite the same confidence booster as being told (mostly by family) that your “Spotlight” was well done in a given week, but I imagine it is up there…Whatever comes of Ronaldo’s decision, I would hope for the sake of him (and his lawyers) that they got a robust indemnification provision in Ronaldo’s deal with Binance.  Otherwise, his defense attorney will be drinking Champagne while his transactional attorney drinks something stronger.  

In any event, if you’ve made it this far, why not double down and see what else is in store this week.  

• • UEFA Champions League Final-bound, German soccer club Dortmund strikes a sponsorship deal with a German arms manufacturer, but don’t expect the deal to be a difference-maker for the club. After all, the sport relies more heavily on legs. 
    
    
  • Range Sports and The New York Mets partner up on a development deal to produce short form off-field content around the players. An exciting development for a team that struggles to produce quality on-field content. 
    
    
  • Sony Music seems poised to bid a king’s ransom of over $1 billion on the song catalog of legendary rock band Queen. Alexa, please play “We Are The Champions.”