Finally, Ed Sheeran Gets a Win
Plus: Toronto's fittest real estate agent, a New York ticket ban, and a photo-op gone wrong.
Here are six things we’re discussing on this Monday morning…
Celebrity Investor of the Week 🧑🎤: Wrexham fans will need to wait at least another year for their Premier League moment, but English soccer delivered a different celebrity-owner celebration over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, English soccer club Ipswich Town secured promotion to the Premier League—just the second time in the past 25 years that the Tractor Boys1 will play in the sport’s most competitive circuit. In the locker room after the game, four-time Grammy winner (and Suffolk native) Ed Sheeran joined players to sing his hit “The A Team.” The video is any sports fan’s dream 👇
Sheeran was on tour in Miami the last time Ipswich secured an EPL spot, which I’m sure makes this moment extra sweet. But he’s not just a celebrity fan. He has financially supported the club for years, paying to be Ipswich’s main front-of-jersey-sponsor for three seasons from 2021 to 2024 as the team climbed to the top of the English soccer pyramid. In 2024, he also bought 1.4% of the club. Promotion to the EPL, particularly this close to its last relegation, could easily be worth $100+ million for the team.
Marketing Genius of the Week 🏡: Speaking of lower-level soccer, a striker in the Canadian Premier League made the most of his moment over the weekend. After scoring a goal, Tomasz Skublak pulled his business card out of his sock and held it up for the camera while miming the “call me!” gesture. Terrell Owens, move over!
The minimum salary in the Canadian Premier League is about $23,000 USD. If any of you need a real estate agent in Toronto, please give this man a ring.
Wishful Thinking of the Week 🎫: After his team’s shocking first-round upset over the Celtics on Saturday night, which set up a second-round I-95 showdown with the rival Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid had a message for fans.
Good luck! The 76ers are also restricting official ticket sales to fill orders only for buyers whose billing address is inside the Philadelphia area. This has become common in the NBA and NHL and it rarely works, because—news flash!—even local fans like to buy and flip tickets for cash.
Sportico Story of the Week 🛢️: The Edmonton Oilers’ 50/50 lottery2 has gained almost mythical status in major North American sports. While many teams sell ~$10,000 worth of tickets per game to their raffles, the Oilers raffles are orders of magnitude bigger. That’s thanks to a 2020 COVID-era decision to sell tickets online, in addition to in-arena. Last year’s total sales were $64 million (C$87.5 million).
In a profile of the 50/50’s growth, our colleague Justin Birnbaum also wrote last week about a third destination for a lot of that money. About 28% of sales in fiscal 2025 went to a company called Win50 that handles operations of the lottery, and Win50 is controlled by the same group that owns the Edmonton Oilers. More here.
Non-Sportico Story of the Week ⚽: I’ve spoken extensively about why I believe the upcoming World Cup will not be the commercial bonanza that many in U.S. soccer believed. Last week the Wall Street Journal profiled a number of homeowners, some who spent years—and thousands of dollars—preparing their residences for an Airbnb windfall that has yet to materialize. The anecdotes throughout are telling, but here’s one example:
Stunning Video of the Week ❌: At the 76th FIFA Congress last week, global soccer boss Gianni Infantino tried to get representatives from the Israeli and Palestinian delegation to pose for a photo together. Instead, Palestine Football Association president Jibril Rajoub told the crowd “We are suffering!” and walked off the stage.
Infantino, like his FIFA predecessors before him, loves to speak about soccer’s ability to bridge the most contentious divisions. This staged photo attempt came right after a speech in which he suggested the two groups “work together for the children.” But his hollow approach to diplomacy—he gave President Trump a new FIFA “Peace Prize” a mere weeks before Trump started an international conflict in Iran—has tested the limit of that already-dubious claim. I’m hoping he retires that rhetoric entirely.
Club Sportico is a community organized by Sportico, a digital media company launched in 2020 to cover the business side of sports. You can read breaking news, smart analysis, and in-depth features from Eben, Jacob and their colleagues at Sportico.com, and listen to the Sporticast podcast wherever you get your audio. Contact us at club@sportico.com.
Beautiful.
For the uninitiated, 50/50 lotteries work under the premise that 50% of sales go to a lucky winner and the other 50% goes to charity. But as you’ll see in that story, it’s way more complicated.