Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic’s weekly sports business cheat sheet.
Name-dropped today: Ilia Malinin, the “Blade Angels,” Tony Clark, Mike Selig, Casey Wasserman, Michael Jordan, Ronda Rousey, Barry Bonds, Eileen Gu, Angel Reese, Wachtell Lipton and more. Let’s go:
Driving the Conversation
Flag football is next
Imagine this scenario in the fall of 2028:
• The L.A. Olympics have just finished, and the flag football gold-medal game drew more of a U.S. TV audience than swimming, the 100-meter dash or even basketball.
• Sixty-plus “Power 4” college women’s flag teams head into the 2028 season with a $100 million TV deal and a 64-team “Flag Madness” playoff.
• The NFL’s pro men’s and women’s flag leagues have launched, with their own big TV deals. This includes extending the playing careers of older NFL stars.
• Flag football has passed tackle football on the boys’ side and volleyball on the girls’ side as the No. 1 participation sport among kids aged 6-16.
MoneyCall regulars know I am beyond bullish on flag football. I have seen first-hand how much kids love it, but also level after level of enthusiastic investment, particularly from the NFL.
The NFL’s support — from reinventing the Pro Bowl as a flag game to dedicating Super Bowl ads to the sport to creating a pro flag league to investing in local high school girls’ varsity leagues, like the one in my Maryland county — is real. Because across all its levels, flag is a multi-billion-dollar sports business opportunity.
My colleague Jourdan Rodrigue did a deep dive — just published this morning — on the NFL’s ambitions around flag football. It’s absolutely worth your time. Here’s a portion that stood out to me:
“Over the next two years, Team USA’s men’s and women’s rosters will be built meticulously through Olympic trials, world tournaments and multiple roster cutdowns. Current players are already training for upcoming world competitions. If NFL players want to get on board, they had better start training — and learning the rules — soon.”
Let’s revisit my predictions in two years.
Get Caught Up
Big talkers from the sports business industry:
Winter Olympics: If nothing else, we know THE storyline of the next Winter Olympic cycle is Ilia Malinin’s comeback.
Must-see tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET: U.S.-Canada women’s hockey gold-medal game and the “Blade Angels” free skate. Fire up the double box! (Seriously: The U.S.-Canada women’s hockey rivalry might be the best in all of sports. More Olympics below!)
MLB’s swirling storylines: As the league enters a 2026 season more notable for the looming labor crisis at its end than what might happen between now and then …
😬 The players’ union is in disarray at the top.
📺 MLB owners aren’t thrilled about the local TV situation.
💰 The prediction-market cash influx feels inevitable. Speaking of:
Prediction-market mania: At this point, a weekly update is necessary (and barely sufficient to keep up with the news).
At the macro level, Mike Selig, the head of the CFTC (the federal agency with oversight of prediction markets), is aggressively touting its regulatory primacy — over concerns from the states that prediction markets are, y’know, mostly sports gambling, which is typically regulated at the state level. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox takes issue with Selig’s position. (“I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds.”)
LA28’s Casey Wasserman under pressure: Under Epstein-related pressures, the exec is selling his stake in his agency, and the mayor of L.A. just called for Wasserman’s ouster as head of the LA28 Olympic initiative. Hard to see Wasserman making it to 2028 in that role.
Michael Jordan’s team wins the Daytona 500: Coming out of his offseason battle with NASCAR, this is a best-case scenario for both 23XI Racing and the league itself. Why? Jordan’s active promotion (and success) elevates the league at a moment it is refreshing its brand, playoff system and connection with fans.
Sacramento State jumps to college football’s top division: The school is paying a staggering $18 million to the geographically remote MAC and the usual $5M fee to the NCAA, buying its way into relevance it *thinks* will totally change the school’s national trajectory.
Netflix gets into MMA: A splashy Rousey-Gina Carano match on May 16 in L.A. — both are coming out of retirement to fight — is right in line with the streamer’s “event”-based strategy. (Interesting side note: They’re fighting in a hexagon, not the UFC’s distinctive octagon.)
Other current obsessions: Biathlon as a quadrennial “this rules!” … Barry Bonds on Netflix’s MLB coverage … the Eileen Gu narratives … Cadillac F1’s fan-merch strategy …
What I’m Wondering
Milan Cortina: Early takeaways
There are still a few more days to go until the conclusion of the Winter Olympics, but it’s not too early to try to zero in on notable storylines that broke through.
I shot a Slack message to Zack Pierce and Oskar Garcia — embedded in Italy and tireless co-proprietors of our daily Games Briefing newsletter (sign up here!) — with a simple question:
What (or who) do you think has been the most unexpected breakthrough?
💬 Pierce: “I’ll go with Franjo von Allmen. The Swiss skier wasn’t a nobody going into the Games, but if you don’t follow Alpine skiing, you’d almost certainly not heard of the 24-year-old with five World Cup wins to his name. He wasn’t even the most hyped Alpine skier on his own team going into these Games. Instead, von Allmen won THREE in an all-time great performance.”
💬 Garcia: “It’s gotta be hard to beat the Kazakh figure skater Mikhail Shaidorov toppling Ilia Malinin and being one of the only contenders to not fall in the final. He delivered the performance of his life. Our columnist Steve Buckley had a great line about it: ‘If Shaidorov doesn’t run for president someday, it’ll be only because he doesn’t want the job.’”
(FWIW, my vote is for the drone cams that, thanks to their innovative use across the Games, are now table stakes for any live sports production.)
Grab Bag
Power Rankings: Top 2026 MLS Kits
(1) San Jose Earthquakes’ “Grateful Dead”
(2) Atlanta United’s “Olympics ‘96”
(3) LAFC’s “Art Deco”
See Felipe Cardenas’ full ranking here.
Ratings Point: 8.8 million
That’s the preliminary rating for the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, which would make it the most-watched ASG since 2002. While that’s a big number, there are contextual factors:
• It was on a broadcast network (NBC), a bigger platform than the usual cable.
• Its lead-in was the Olympics, an audience magnet.
• Once again: Nielsen adjusted its measurement system last year to better account for all the places people might be watching, and everyone’s live sports ratings have been boosted ever since.
Investor: Giannis, Part 2
Last week, we talked about Giannis’ eyebrow-raising investment in Kalshi (much more on that today from my colleague Mike Vorkunov), with a brief mention of his investment in Chelsea Women. Since then, my colleague Eric Nehm talked further with Giannis about the soccer investment, and the star’s enthusiasm is real: “I was like, ‘Say less. I want to do it.’”
Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition
Puzzle No. 513
Dan’s time: 00:24
Try the game here!
Worth Your Time
Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute:
The business of Angel Reese, a feature from The Athletic’s Shakeia Taylor. Reese has navigated the marketing landscape of the past few years as brilliantly as any athlete in sports.
Two more:
• Inside the relationship between the NBA and one of its law firms, Wachtell Lipton, the go-to when the league has to investigate … itself.
• You might remember that item a few months ago when Premier League star Cole Palmer trademarked his “shiver” celebration, along with his nickname. How about a Palmer-branded moped? My colleague Adam Crafton goes inside the world of soccer player trademarks.
Back next Wednesday! Text your colleagues this link so they can get MoneyCall every week for free. And check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, too.