Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.

Name-dropped today: Gianni Infantino, Erling Haaland, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Karl Ravech, Cathy Engelbert, Sophie Cunningham, Tom Brady, Jason Sudeikis, the Khoslas, Justin Bieber, Josh Kerr and more. Let’s go:

Driving the Conversation

Wrangling with World Cup takeaways

When the news broke last night that Sunday’s thrilling World Cup final was the most-watched soccer game ever televised in the U.S. — more than 60 million viewers across Fox and Telemundo, putting it in an elite stratosphere of attention reserved for the NFL — one takeaway from the 2026 World Cup was clear:

Everyone invested attention.

That’s a pretty good starting point for any analysis of this event. Beyond TV, fans spent money on tickets (and everything else), brands spent on marketing and, at least qualitatively, everyone seemed pretty satisfied with their ROI. (Especially FIFA.)

But I’m also left with a whole lot of questions. Helpfully, my colleagues have just reported out a foundation of some answers:

• We were in a familiar place after the U.S.-hosted World Cup in 1994. Very different moment in time, obviously, along with a very different infrastructure around soccer. But it was impactful. How might 2026 be different?

• “Hydration breaks” were the most evident change to the game’s dynamics, on the pitch and for Fox’s bottom line, with a windfall of ad revenues. Are “Americanized” innovations like the mid-half (a.k.a. “quarter”) breaks here to stay?

• The tournament created new mega-stars. To be sure: Erling Haaland was already a soccer star, but he elevated to a higher tier while in the U.S. What next for Brand Haaland?

• With all of this kinetic energy generated by tens of millions of fans in the U.S. becoming enraptured by soccer, can MLS (finally) capitalize? Or do we all turn our attention to these world-class players we just watched … in European leagues?

• And for all the frustrating ploys, has FIFA emerged stronger than ever? (Gianni Infantino seems certain to stay in power.)

Fan attention whiplashes pretty quickly. We’re already on to LeBron’s decision, NFL training camps and college football machinations. But we’ll always have the summer of 2026. I think it will stand as an indelible memory for an enormous number of fans.

And, sooner than you think, we’ll have the summer of 2028 in L.A.

Get Caught Up

Big talkers from the sports business industry:

New layoffs at ESPN: When ESPN acquired NFL Network in the deal that saw the league get 10 percent of ESPN, it was expected that the overlap between ESPN’s production capability and NFL Network (based across the country in L.A.) might yield to staff cuts. Those came yesterday. Among the notable on-air folks to be let go, long-timer Karl Ravech was a surprise to many.

LeBron Watch: Soon? (No?) As a flex of pure power and influence, this extended Decision has been one of the most impressive demonstrations in league history.

Betting expert Sam McQuillan published an interesting analysis on his Substack yesterday: LeBron’s decision has generated a $200 million-plus market across Kalshi and Polymarket, “more money than either platform has ever taken on an NBA game.” (And, as McQuillan noted yesterday, “despite months of trading, the market hasn’t reached anything close to consensus,” which is unusual.)

WNBA All-Star weekend: Engelbert’s last stand? In the latest “No Offseason” WNBA newsletter, Sabreena Merchant and Annie Costabile noted: “There is no bigger story heading into All-Star weekend than commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s job security.”

More: “What should be a season marked by memorable celebrations of the league’s 30th year has been marred by poor officiating, harassment issues and Engelbert’s seeming inability to be proactive in addressing any of it.” (PS: Subscribe to No Offseason here.)

Tennis stars’ prize money dispute, cont’d: The players have found a really clever wedge issue — participation in the wildly popular new U.S. Open mixed-doubles event.

MLB Opening Day 2027: March 24, the earliest ever. It’s quaint to put that out there, knowing the season’s start (if not its entirety) is in jeopardy.

The SEC’s “breakaway” options: “According to multiple sources, the idea is real and not just a leverage play. Still, if it happens, there are also ranges of how drastic an SEC breakaway would be.” Nuclear option? Mild option? Something in between? Seth Emerson has an awesome explainer on a topic I have been thinking about for years.

Other current obsessions: Tom Brady’s kayfabe era … Our Zapruder-style film breakdown of the World Cup final trophy presentation mayhem … 64-team World Cup hive, unite … the Sophie Cunningham “point” business implications … WFAN, WEEI, WIP coming to SiriusXM? I’ll hang up and listen … Lionel Messi tributes … my colleague Josh Kloke watching his kid watch the World Cup for the first time …

What I’m Wondering

Fanatics Fest, in review

After last week’s extensive MoneyCall discussion, the New York collectors event was indeed a cavalcade of celebrity appearances, corporate activations and collectibles haggling.

My colleagues were at the Javits Center, covering the entire weekend. What were their favorite parts?

• Larry Holder: “Old ‘Saturday Night Live’ compadres Jason Sudeikis and Seth Meyers competed in a card-buying challenge during Thursday’s opening night.”

• David Betancourt: “Tom Brady nailing a Steph Curry-esque logoman shot during the basketball portion of the Fanatics Games competition.”

• Brooks Peck: “The last thing I expected going into this event was to be standing next to an absolutely locked-in Justin Bieber as he dominated Fanatics Games challenges, but that’s what happened on Saturday.”

Grab Bag

Data Point: 52 seconds
That was the longest duration of an individual “Gooooool!” call by announcers on Telemundo throughout the World Cup. I know that because my colleagues on our data team tracked each individual goal call and then did all sorts of cool stuff with that.

One more: $5,619
Another banger from our data team: They got seven fans to share — in granular, line-item detail — how much it cost them to attend the World Cup. One example:

OK, one more absolutely incredible piece from our data-visualization team: They logged the kaleidoscope of fan reaction shots from TV and sorted them. Just take a minute to check this out.

Name to Know: Josh Kerr
Still wrapping my head around the 28-year-old Scot’s record-setting mile run last weekend, a boon for him and his lead sponsor, Brooks. (Here’s how he hit 3:42.66s.)

Kerr talked with my colleagues Liam Tharme and George Edwards. He told them what he thought was the defining moment of the race, when he heard the bell with 400m to go:

“There was a lot of negotiation with my own body and my mind. I wanted to go, but I knew it was not the right time to push, because I was running fast enough.”

One more: The Khosla family, name-dropped last week as the future/would-be owners of the Seattle Seahawks. Get more familiar with them, thanks to Nicki Jhabvala.

Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 667
Dan’s time: 00:21
Try the game here!

Worth Your Time

Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:

A car crash nearly killed ESPN NFL Draft expert Matt Miller. Then came the fraud allegations.

Two more:

• MLB teams were using AI to make in-game decisions. I mean … did it actually help? Claude, should we throw the sinker or the splitter?

• One more interesting World Cup question: Looking ahead to 2030, there is a tussle between co-hosts Spain and Morocco over who will host the final. Who wins *that* battle?

Back next Wednesday! If you have any colleagues, friends or family who might enjoy this weekly analysis of the latest in money, power and attention in sports, can you text or email them this link to sign up to receive it in their inbox every Wednesday for free? And check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – three countries led by military governments – have submitted a joint bid to host the 2032 Africa Cup of Nations.

The announcement comes after the Confederation of African Football (Caf) opened applications for the 2028, 2032 and 2036 editions of flagship tournament Afcon.

The Malian Football Federation (Femafoot) said the joint proposal would be built around “solidarity, regional integration and sustainable development of African football”.

It added it would work with relevant authorities to prepare a “solid, credible bid” aimed at bringing a new vision to the continental game.

The three neighbours officially left the West African regional bloc Ecowas last year after forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a pact aimed at strengthening co-operation including in areas such as security, infrastructure, trade and economic development.

However, the security situation across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger remains deeply unstable in the midst of attacks from armed jihadist groups. The trio of governments have moved away from traditional Western security partners and strengthened ties with Russia.

Caf president Patrice Motsepe, when asked by BBC Sport Africa if continental football’s governing body would need security guarantees before assessing the bid, said the three countries “will have as good a chance as everybody else” of hosting the finals.

“They are not going to be disadvantaged or prejudiced by the fact that they are military juntas, but you raise a very important point,” Motsepe added.

“The questions of safety and security… those are questions that we will have to address. But there’s no decision that has been taken as to where it [Afcon 2032] will go.”

However, Motsepe also said that Caf has to “deal with reality”.

“Of course, democracy and freedom of speech and regular elections, that’s non-negotiable. And that’s critical,” he said.

“But I will be visiting those countries to engage on the football part.”

Despite initially fumbling the ball, Jemimah Rodrigues reacts quickly to run out Freya Kemp with a direct hit, a wicket which gives the Southern Brave a chance of victory against Welsh Fire in their opening match of the 2026 Hundred.

FOLLOW LIVE: The Hundred: Fire need 18 off 15 balls to beat Brave – watch & listen

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