God bless the Friday Dump 🥟🇺🇸…

Due to America’s wonderful birthday, this will not be a traditional Friday Dump. Instead we’ll give you our Top 10 Dumps from the first six months of 2024!

Hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday 🧨.

…My home sweet home.

10. Camden Yards has a new landlord

➡️ In late January, private equity buddies David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group) and Mike Arougheti (Ares Management) reached an agreement to purchase the Baltimore Orioles from the Angelos family valuing the team at $1.73B.

➡️ The group started buying 40% of the Orioles and now will buy the remaining 60% following the death of previous owner, Peter Angelos, in March 2024. He previously stepped away from the team in 2018 due to illness.

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9. Netflix busting out the suplex

➡️ In late January, Netflix entered the live sports chat and agreed to a 10-year deal worth $5B with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to stream its popular weekly show, Raw, beginning in January 2025

➡️ Why will this work so well? The WWE is a 43-year-old brand that has an extremely loyal fanbase. Netflix is easily the most popular streaming service out there, being in the homes of 260M people and counting. From a viewing POV, WWE programming is right up Netflix’s alley as these are scripted live action matches and storylines for pure entertainment content.

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8. Premier League clubs caught sautéing the books

➡️ Everton (second time in one year 😬) and Nottingham Forest were charged with breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) after the 2022-2023 season.

➡️ If found guilty, this increases the risk that Everton and Forest could face relegation from the EPL at the end of the season…which means big time financial jeopardy!

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7. Peacock flaunting those feathers…and deep pockets

➡️ In January, Peacock, the NBC streaming service, exclusively aired the wild-card round matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins. And to say it changed the way we view streaming might be an understatement.

➡️ For the upcoming 2024-25 NFL season, we’re going to be seeing more streaming platforms have exclusive rights to certain games. Which means fans will need to subscribe to these platforms to be able to watch these games live.

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6. Safety sells for the hockey community

➡️ Earlier this year, USA Hockey announced it will require all players 18 and under to wear neck laceration protection starting on August 1, 2024. This move comes just months after former NHL and Nottingham Panthers player, Adam Johnson died during competition.

➡️ After Johnson’s death, there was an influx in immediate consumer response that led to companies such as: Bauer, ShockDoctor, Aegis Impact Protection, and Tek2Sport to get involved in this type of safety protection. Even Washington Capitals star, T.J. Oshie, started his own apparel line highlighting on these safety protocols.

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5. Reggie’s redemption

➡️ In late April it was announced, 14 years after being forced to give up the most accomplished individual award in college football, Reggie Bush’s 2005 Heisman Trophy is being returned to him. The Heisman Trust formally announced Bush’s reinstatement where he will get the trophy back, and a replica will be given to USC

➡️ He originally forfeited the trophy in 2010 as he was involved in a high-profile NCAA investigation with USC where it was revealed that Bush received improper benefits during college.

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4. Super Bowl Champs begging for stadium charity

➡️ In March, Chiefs President, Mark Donovan, went on KSHB 41 in Kansas City and essentially threatened the voters of Jackson County, MO that if they rejected a sales tax that would help pay to renovate Arrowhead Stadium and build a new stadium for the Kansas City Royals (MLB), then they would pick up and move the team to another city.

➡️ The voters ended up not being phased in the slightest as they went to the ballot box and turned down, by a 58/42 margin, a proposal that would have created a new ⅜-cent sales tax mechanism over 40 years to generate as much as $2B for these stadium upgrades.

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3. Sunday Ticket becoming a real pain in the NFL’s ass

➡️ What started in a San Francisco bar in 2015 as a minor complaint revolving around how the NFL handles their out-of-market broadcasts, is now turning out to be quite the class action lawsuit nearly a decade later.

➡️ A group of ~2.4M residential and 48K commercial subscribers to NFL “Sunday Ticket” on DirecTV took the league to court and was awarded ~$4.7B in damages. The NFL will continue to appeal this ruling but this happens to be one of the more jaw-dropping cases we’ve encountered with a league in a long, long time.

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2. WNBA already bringing home the bacon

➡️ Even before the legendary 2024 WNBA Draft, teams and ticket resellers were already jacking up prices for games against the Indiana Fever (yes, Caitlin Clark’s team) and the WNBA’s television partners are planning ahead as well.

➡️ The league ended up putting 36 of the Fever’s 40 games on national television. And the league saw one of its most attended games a couple days ago as the attendance (20,366) between the Las Vegas Aces and Indiana Fever not only set a new franchise mark for the Aces, but it was also the largest WNBA crowd in 25 years

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1. Another day, another NBA media rights deal report

➡️ We don’t know what the hell is going on, but that doesn’t mean it’s not great entertainment! According to the most recent report from The Wall Street Journal, the NBA is closing in on deals with NBC, Disney (ABC/ESPN), and Amazon that would bring in $76B (~$7B/year) in media revenue over an 11 year period.

➡️ However, Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT) is in negotiations to secure a possible 4th media-rights package. This could end up being a smaller, less-expensive package that includes regular season/playoff games.

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