Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet. (Want to conveniently receive this via email on Wednesday mornings? Subscribe here.)
Name-dropped today: Mark Walter, Josh Kushner, Bob Iger, Jeanie (and Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey and Jesse) Buss, Jeff Bezos, Pat McAfee, Serena Williams, Jayden Daniels, Bill Rasmussen and more. Let’s go:
Driving the Conversation
The key threads of the Lakers debacle
So: About one minute after we sent you last week’s MoneyCall, news broke of the shocking Lakers sale to a group led by investor Josh Kushner and longtime Disney CEO Bob Iger.
As bummed as I was to miss adding that moment in last week’s edition, the good news is that it created a week of breathing room to unpack some of the key dynamics.
Start with this:
💰 The surprise super-celeb investors — the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law and one of the biggest media moguls of the 21st century …
🤖 And their basic thesis (AI will probably hollow out humanity EXCEPT FOR SPORTS) …
🤝 And their forward-looking ability to steward the Lakers franchise (Iger is world-class at relationship management) …
… are — at best — just the third, fourth and fifth most noteworthy things about all of this, behind these two:
1) Billionaire sports owner Mark Walter is under so much pressure from various government investigations and/or plugging various billion-dollar holes across his (non-sports) business empire that he sold one of the biggest franchises in sports.
It begs the question: Are the Dodgers next?
The upshot: Walter might not want to sell the Dodgers, but if he is under enough pressure to come up with a ton of cash quickly (see: Lakers shock sale) and if someone brings him a number he can’t refuse (see: Lakers shock sale), he might not have a choice.
How about Walter’s stake in Chelsea? (Ummm, soon?) Andretti Global racing or Cadillac F1? (The Walter Group told our Luke Smith it is “not considering a sale of the Cadillac team or any other part of TWG Motorsports.”) Los Angeles Sparks? (Would even a WNBA-record sale really make a dent?) PWHL? (That league is close to escape velocity where individual franchises finally get sold to investors.)
These extra billions could help, but wouldn’t necessarily solve the larger math problem.
Oh, and Shohei Ohtani has a clause in his contract that lets him get out of his deal with the Dodgers if Walter exits (which Ohtani’s team says he won’t invoke … *yet.*)
2) The Buss family play the feud: It’s Jeanie versus siblings Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey and Jesse. The latter five want the siblings to sell their 17.8 percent stake in the Lakers, which would remove Jeanie from her role as controlling partner. She is not interested in that outcome. The comparisons to HBO’s “Succession” are not far off, and we’ll ultimately need to let the lawyers figure it all out. But an ending here without a lot of messiness is unlikely.
Our Sam Amick and Dan Woike are out this morning with the latest on what they’re hearing about all of the questions. The shorthand? Answers “won’t be delivered quietly.”
Get Caught Up
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
Premier League season opens: Business-adjacent questions I’m tracking heading into a season where team ownerships and valuations are in flux:
🌎 Increased U.S. interest after getting to know players during the World Cup?
🦆 Lame-duck Liverpool: Just a countdown until the Jeff Bezos purchase? He and his co-investors just bought 40 percent, and that option to buy feels “when, not if.”
😬 Relegation Watch: Can Spurs avoid another season-long panic? (If so, who is this year’s Spurs?)
👕 Best ’26-27 uniforms? Coventry City at No. 1 here is a delightful surprise! (I agree with Nick Miller, but I’m also intrigued by Sunderland.)
More big season storylines from my colleague George Edwards here. And our crew’s 2026-27 season predictions here.
LIV cancels Team Championship in Michigan: That’s a dent in the payouts players were expecting to get over two final events, now down to one. Per Brody Miller, there was a player meeting yesterday featuring the league’s new “secret investor” (confirmed to The Athletic as BC Partners head Ted Goldthorpe).
(This pull-back by Gabby Herzig on LIV’s financial precarity is well worth your time. My read on the future, which requires the biggest stars to buy in: Typically, I’m all for equity, but in this case, I can see why Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm would want to keep their comp to cash, paid as much in advance as possible.)
Pat McAfee to join ESPN’s “Monday Night Countdown:” Given the way he almost instantly became the center of the “College GameDay” universe, I’ll predict a similar impact on the NFL side.
U.S. Open is here: Serena watch! Mixed doubles! Wild cards! Honey Deuces!
NFL expanding internationally, eventually? Roger Goodell said “No doubt.” (In his NFL newsletter, Jacob Robinson asked where the league should put its first international franchise. Weigh in here!)
“Freedom 250” IndyCar race in D.C.: As someone who lives in the DMV, I’m both intrigued by the idea of turning the downtown roadways I use constantly into an IndyCar speedway and planning to steer clear of the mayhem this weekend.
Other current obsessions: Joshua Báez … Luke Kuechly with Peyton Manning grinding film together … Illinois football’s new mega-scoreboard … Katie Ledecky’s historic loss … the U.S. national flag football juggernaut stunned by American Samoa at the World Championships … Navy to the College Football Playoff? Count me in …
What I’m Wondering
‘Out of respect for Jayden Daniels …’
When news broke late last week that Commanders QB Jayden Daniels was in a spat with his alma mater, LSU, over how the school was leveraging his NIL, the detail that resonated most was his and his family’s apparent outrage over LSU allowing a current player to wear Daniels’ jersey number, 5.
The quarterback’s family, through a spokesperson, told ESPN it was “deeply disappointed and feels profoundly disrespected by LSU’s decision to give Jayden’s number to another player.”
As a quirky story during a traditionally slow moment of the sports year, the topic became irresistible to social media teams from across the sports world, in a micro-trend of removing instances of the number 5 “out of respect for Jayden Daniels.” Like when participating teams ended up with a 5 in their box score, on their roster or … Ivy League football field:
Say this about the meme: People now definitely associate Daniels with No. 5. So here’s my question: His feelings may have been hurt, but does he actually have a claim to the number at LSU?
“Absent an agreement, nobody can own a number,” MoneyCall pal Gabe Feldman, who runs Tulane’s Sports Law Program, told Ira Gorawara, in the only explainer you need.
(Sometimes we can keep it simple, friends. But this was, by far, the most peculiar sports marketing story of the past week.)
Grab Bag
Data Point: 530,000
That’s the early subscriber surge for LeBron James’ foray into joining the YouTube golf ecosystem with his own channel.
Ratings Watch: 1.66 million
Netflix’s Field of Dreams game (Phillies-Twins) fizzled a bit, drawing 1.66 million viewers, far less than last year’s game on Fox (which, to be fair, featured the Yankees).
Limited visibility is a bigger issue for MLB than Netflix, but — as Don Draper said — that’s what the money’s for. (The experience for those in attendance was, as always, incredible.)
One more: 2.6 million, the number of fans who tuned in for the Indiana Fever-Atlanta Dream on Sunday, making it ESPN’s most-watched WNBA game ever and also making it a pretty strong counterpoint that the league’s various melodramas aren’t eroding viewership. (And perhaps it’s the opposite.)
In Memoriam: Bill Rasmussen
The founder of ESPN died yesterday at 93. As Jim Miller — who wrote the book on ESPN — put it to me yesterday afternoon: “No Bill, no ESPN.”
Bill and his son Scott had the vision for a 24-hour sports network, then he was pushed out a year after it launched. After nearly two decades, there was a reconciliation, and Andrew Marchand has a great appreciation column today.
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 695
Dan’s time: 00:26
Try the game here!
Worth Your Time
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
Agents in college sports: It’s murky!
Two more:
• The trading card business is rocking. Dick’s Sporting Goods wants in.
• Where Yankee Stadium once stood, a park — and a promise — have fallen apart.
Back next Wednesday! And, as always, give a try to all The Athletic’s other newsletters. (Again: All always free.)
