In the Game

Florentino Pérez, Chairman of Real Madrid, is widely considered to be the architect of the now-defunct European Super League.  While the English were almost universally up in arms against the ESL and their fans ensured that it was over before it started, the view from Spain, and particularly, Madrid, is very different. 

Real Madrid supporter Amit Nawalrai takes us into the mind of Florentino Pérez, widely considered to be ...

Ann Kletz founded Goal Five with a simple mission, to help young female athletes enjoy sports by wearing apparel suitable to their physicality and sport. But the company is on a broader mission to raise awareness about inequality in sports and at the same raise the confidence of young girls entering sports. It's an important time for the company and for sports equality, and Ann's work is just beginning.

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In The Game is a we...

In trying to make sense of all that has transpired last week in European soccer, I reached out to a trusted friend who understands the game really well. Chris Jones was a college soccer player, and he worked in the industry following his years playing the sport. Most recently, he is involved in trying to raise money to make an investment into soccer in Europe, so when it comes to understanding the impact of the now-defunct...

Does anybody watch sports on cable anymore?    Smashing through walled-garden of old-school TV broadcasting, sports is now consumed OTT - Over The Top.  That's streaming - to our phones, iPads, laptops and other digital devices.  We watch what we want - clips, highlights, interviews or the entire game, when we want - on the bus, at the gym, at the beach or by the pool.  How are the big leagues evolving to keep up with our ...

Soccer (or football!) is at war!  The billionaire owners of 12 of the leading teams across Europe thought they had launched the much-vaunted European Super League on Sunday night.  Is this the beginning of the NFL-isation of the beautiful game?  Or does fan-power smash the elites?  Listen in to find out!

Anand & Vlad butt heads in a "friendly" fight over whether the European Super League is good for soccer.  In a botche...

Sports D³ mission is to democratize finances in the global sports industry. SD³ is a global marketplace for digital assets in the Sports industry, which brings together sports clubs & athletes with millions of their fan-investors around the world.

Our conversation with CEO Gene Swinton brings us a step closer to understanding how this FinTech platform can help sports clubs and athletes tokenize & securitize the econ...

Hideki Matsuyama is the first Japanese golfer to with the Masters, and his country could not be more excited about that. It's a very wealthy economy, it's a country with over half of all golf courses in Asia, and marketing sponsorships pay out very well. Some estimate he could be a $1B golfer by the time he retires, which could be in a couple of decades given the longevity of golf players.

Topps was purchased by former Disn...

Anand & Vlad sit down and talk rugby with Former Australian Rugby Union International, Adam Freier.  Now General Manager of the Los Angeles Giltinis Rugby Club, Freier shares insights covering a wide range of topics about Rugby Union in the USA. 

Join us for a fascinating conversation covering :

 - Why LA Giltinis is named after a cocktail
 - How Freier plans to build the Giltinis into a household brand name
 - Ma...

The NCAA's case that reached the Supreme Court in March of 2021 was somewhat predictable, and in the eyes of our guest, no strategically beneficial. Nonetheless, the fate of college sports lies in how this case is decided, and it will shape the nature of revenue collection and distribution in collegiate sports for decades to come.

To help us through this holy mess of an issue, we have invited a friend of the podcast, Ma...

Anand & Vlad analyze the week's top sports business stories:  Amazon Prime could soon be the world's largest sports broadcaster. "The other team in Liverpool", Everton, will build a world-class stadium.  Will that lift them into the top-tier of European football?  Most pro tennis players can't earn a living on tour.  Novak Djokovic questions if the ATP is broken.

Listen in for some great analysis surrounding:

AMAZON PRIM...

Joe Pompliano joins Anand & Vlad for the second part of our discussion about the Sports Industry.  Listen in to learn about how you can invest in your favorite sports teams, why now you could profit from million-dollar sports cards, how digital sports assets bring opportunities for athletes, teams, leagues and fans.

Joe created Huddle Up, a daily newsletter where he discusses everything at the intersection of sports...

The NFL has just closed some amazing broadcast deals and accomplished its goal to double its revenue over the next decade. But, they're also lowering the salary cap, which means the teams' margins just went up. Significantly! This provides maximum flexibility for the ownership and less flexibility for players, but it will certainly be a sticking point at the next collective bargaining discussion.

Patrick Mahomes & ...

Joe Pompliano decided in early 2020 to leave his fixed income Wall Street job to pursue a passion in telling stories about sports and business. Since kicking off this initiative, he's garnered over 32,000 followers on Substack and over 164,000 Twitter followers.

He joins us today to talk about one of the top news items that hit the airwaves last week, the NFL's successful doubling of broadcast fees with its network par...

Vlad and Anand discuss LeBron James's investment into Fenway Sports Group, owners of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC. They also analyze Beneliga, a proposed merger between 2 European Soccer Leagues - Belgian's First Division A and Holland's Eredivisie. Finally a look at how rapid growth in the Sports Gambling industry is reflected in the expanding value of the $BETZ ETF.

"Shorts" is In The Game's new mid-week look at th...

Even with all the complaining some All-Stars did, the big NBA weekend was, buy most accounts, pretty successful. Most importantly, the stars had a really good time, and everyone could tell. Some of those at the weekend reminded us that there are different ways to get to the league, and we explore some of those paths the new stars will likely take to enter the professional ranks. Our take is that college will not be a natur...

The NFL is in a protracted battle to double its broadcast revenues over the next decade, and one story recently came out saying their supposed deal with Disney is not getting them quite what they were hoping to achieve. Whether that's true or not, we'll find out soon.  If, however, the revenue shortfall is as large as the claim states, it will be difficult for America's most successful sport to reach its goals.

News is begi...

Today's episode takes us to Indianapolis, where Telemetry Sports CEO Jeremy Hochstedler talks about innovation in sports analytics and his company's foray into NFL and MLB professional leagues. Teams are turning to data more and more, and his firm is at the forefront of helping teams identify ways to optimize the performance of its players.

But first, we tackle NFL's broadcasting rights, which have been in place for 10 yea...

Athletes Unlimited is about to kick off something others have failed to sustain in the past - a women's professional volleyball league in the US . They're taking a novel approach to the play, the scoring and the revenue. It's a play they've already tested with a professional softball league, and lacrosse is next. But this month's kick of the league in Dallas, Tex. will be something to watch. We sat down with Athletes Unlim...

Before we properly introduce Matt Doherty (@DohertyMatt), we have a couple of story items to cover. We are recording this just after the Superbowl game ended, and as we look at what the Buccaneers managed to do during this weekend’s game, we notice that there is some correlation between their success and their ownership. 

But, probably one of our favorite Super Bowl stories has nothing to do with the sport and everythin...