Wimbledon Says Goodbye to ESPN+
Plus: A Serena story we wish we'd written, a World Cup jersey battle, and the financials behind NBA Europe
Here are six things we’re discussing to start the week ⚽🎾…
What I’m Wondering 📺: Grand Slam tennis is back on ESPN networks, which means a new streaming schema. Jacob’s pretty sure the first stuff he watched on ESPN+ after its 2018 launch was that summer’s grass-court action. This year, ESPN+ doesn’t have any Wimbledon coverage; instead, every match is on ESPN Unlimited (in addition to daily coverage on ESPN/ESPN2 and some matches on ABC). Here’s our best attempt at tracking the evolution over the last two years (h/t Canva):
Predictably, folks had two very different reactions.
A. “I was pleasantly surprised in preparing for my Wimbledon experience to find that I already had ESPN Unlimited as part of my cable subscription.”
B. “@espn Once again your greed will consume you.”
ESPN+ is sticking around, home to smaller events, 30 for 30s, etc. But ESPN Unlimited is clearly the company’s favored child. It’s right there in the name. Everything else must be limited.
Story We’re Jealous Of 🎾: We had a 30-minute call at Sportico last week brainstorming story ideas for Serena Williams’ return to singles tennis at Wimbledon. Much has already been made about her GLP-1 endorsement, and her many superlative business records both on the court and off it. We wish we’d come up with this idea, cross-posted by Jessica Schiffer’s Hard Court and Ben Rothenberg’s Bounces1, asking why one of Serena’s longest-running partners was suspiciously quiet about her return.
Story That We Love ❤️: This Twitter thread from an American woman, who went to a World Cup watch party in Oakland for Cape Verde, and ended up meeting someone from her past2. There’s a lot of (legitimate) skepticism about the World Cup, but we can still enjoy the great aspects too.
Story We’re Following 🎽: Speaking of Cape Verde, the team’s Cinderella run at this World Cup has sparked a fascinating battle over licensing rights. The Blue Sharks currently play in jerseys made by Capelli, an American company that signed a four-year deal with the federation earlier this year, but its prior partner, an Austrian company called Tempo, is advertising across social media taking pre-orders for the Cape Verde jerseys that the team wore last year. Capelli has sent Tempo a cease-and-desist, and Tempo is almost certainly acting outside its rights here, but unlicensed merch (even brazen examples like this) is a game of Whac-A-Mole that will likely never end.
Non-Sportico Story of the Week ⚽: The defending World Cup champions have picked up right where they left off—Argentina won all three group stage matches by a combined score of 8-1 and Lionel Messi has already scored six goals. But simmering underneath the team’s incredible success is a youth soccer culture rife with exploitation. According to a recent ESPN investigation, “thousands of vulnerable children—unpaid, separated from their families, warehoused in unregulated dorms—face, at one extreme, sexual predation, but also extortion, hunger and neglect.” Kudos to Steve Fainaru for this incredible piece, which should be required reading for anyone enjoying the World Cup.
Sportico Story of the Week 🏀: The NBA is likely just a few weeks away from starting to announce the groups that will own teams in its new European league. Teams in 12 different cities are expected to sell for hundreds of millions—some may top $1 billion—and will begin play in NBA Europe in 2027. This week Eben and Scott broke down the economic plan for the new league, including how it will share revenue, how it will distribute the billions in franchise sales, and what teams will be allowed to sell by themselves.
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.
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If it comes out this is fake we’re logging off of the internet forever