Meet tennis' richest loser (besides Bill Ackman)
Plus: Disney vs. Google, a World Series hangover, and some good—we promise—potty humor.
Back by popular demand, here are six sports business items that we’re talking about to start your week.
Sportico Story Post of the Week 📺: If any of you are you YouTubeTV subscribers, you likely learned this weekend about the latest sports carriage dispute. Disney and Google are fighting over how much the digital cable service should have to pay for ESPN’s family of networks, and as a result, YouTubeTV subscribers can no longer watch them.
On Saturday morning, Jacob wrote an explainer on X about the market forces at play. This dispute is not, he argues, about ESPN trying to push people to its own digital service. It’s a more classic fight over who should foot the bill for rising costs.
Non-Sportico Story of the Week ⚾: Here’s one thing YouTubeTV subscribers didn’t miss: ESPN’s TV coverage of a bombshell investigative story written by its own reporters about the MLBPA abusing millions in union funds. That’s because there was no coverage on ESPN’s TV properties.
Written by reporters Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Passan, the piece cites 30+ sources to unravel how the MLBPA used a youth baseball platform called Players Way to disappear million in union funds. It includes shady accounting, nepotism, and inflated salaries, and it’s just the latest blow to a union already cloaked in scandal. It’s good to see that impactful investigative journalism isn’t completely dead at ESPN, even if SportsCenter, Get Up and First Take don’t platform it.
What Caught My Attention 🚽: You don’t often get an overlap of potty humor and naming rights, but here we are…
The Milestone You Missed 🎾: Last week Spanish tennis player Alejandro Davidovich Fokina set a bizarre tennis milestone. He’s earned more than $10 million on Tour without winning a single title. It’s hard to understate how improbable that is. Only one player has ever eclipsed that threshold without winning at least two titles. Fokina, now ranked No. 14 in the world, has had multiple match points in multiple finals, and has lost them all. Here’s Lev with more 👇
What I Don’t Understand 🛫: Here’s the Golden State Warriors schedule from Oct. 30-Nov. 19....
Oct. 30 - @ Milwaukee 🦌
Nov. 1 - @ Indiana 🏀
Nov. 4 - vs. Phoenix ☀️
Nov. 5 - @ Sacramento 👑
Nov. 7 - @ Denver ⛏️
Nov. 9 - vs. Indiana 🏀
Nov. 11 - @ Oklahoma City
Nov. 12 - @ San Antonio 🐴
Nov. 14 - @ San Antonio 🐴
Nov. 16 - @ New Orleans 🪿
Nov. 18 - @ Orlando 🪄
Nov. 19 - @ Miami ♨️
That’s crazy! Two home games in nearly three weeks with 10 road games, all in non-pacific time zones?? This is the NBA’s second oldest team and one of the its most popular franchises, led by one of its biggest stars. If I’m Steph Curry I’m livid.
What I’m Curious to See 👀: Now that the epic World Series is over, baseball’s attention shifts to its looming labor fight. And the past week has bolstered both sides’ arguments.
On one hand, the Los Angeles Dodgers winning (again) with a $321 million payroll and more than $1 billion (!) in deferred compensation fits quite tidily into the owners’ narrative that the spending imbalance is ruining the sport. On the other hand, it’s hard to remember a more thrilling—and closer—World Series. Which wins out?
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.