Closing Bell

MILAN -- USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland came into these Olympics bullish on Team USA’s chances. Even with some high-profile medal misses, Hirshland remained optimistic in the direction Team USA took here.

With a handful of medal chances left this weekend, the Americans had collected 27 total medals as of Friday evening. That mark would give it the highest total since Sochi in 2014, when it had 28, and exceed each of the past two Winter Games.

That’s been led by some standout performances, including speedskater Jordan Stolz, who already has three medals with a chance for a fourth, and the U.S. women’s hockey team beating Canada for gold for the first time since 2018.

The mark comes even as medal favorites missed the podium. Figure skater Ilia Malinin lost a competition for the first time in more than two years, admitting after his final skate that the nerves of the stage got to him. Lindsey Vonn became the biggest story the first week of the Games, coming here as a medal favorite and competing on a torn ACL. Hirshland noted Vonn’s message of resilience after clipping an early gate and crashing.

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IOC President Kirsty Coventry says the organization will “investigate” if FIFA President and IOC member Gianni Infantino “breached the terms of its charter when attending the inaugural meeting of The Board of Peace” in D.C. on Thursday, which was established by President Trump. Infantino, who was “flanked by politicians and sporting a red hat with ‘USA’ on the front and the numbers ‘45-47’ -- a reference to Trump’s non-consecutive presidencies,” also used the occasion to announce that FIFA had signed a deal with The Board of Peace to help rebuild soccer infrastructure in Gaza. The IOC’s charter states that members “must act independently of political and commercial interests,” and “cannot accept ‘from governments, organisations, or other parties, any mandate or instructions liable to interfere with the freedom of their action and vote.’” Coventry: “We will go back and have a look at it. The IOC Charter is very clear what it expects of its members. We will go and research into the alleged signing of documents” (THE ATHLETIC, 2/20).

Basketball HOFer Pau Gasol was “picked by Olympic athletes” Friday to “represent them on the IOC executive board through” the 2028 L.A. Games. Gasol, won two NBA titles with the Lakers, has been a member of a “key Olympic panel” overseeing the Games since he was elected by athletes as an IOC member at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Gasol’s “rise in Olympic politics to join the influential 15-member IOC board” came at a meeting of the governing body’s athletes commission. He is the first male athlete to take the IOC board seat for 14 years. He follows ice hockey players Emma Terho of Finland and Angela Ruggiero of the U.S., German fencer Claudia Bokel and current IOC President Kirsty Coventry, who was still competing for Zimbabwe in swimming when she joined the IOC as an athlete member in 2013 (AP, 2/20).

Eight SMU “megadonors” have raised $50M “for the school’s athletes, signaling a dramatic escalation in college sports’ donor-fueled financial arms race to recruit and retain the best players.” The gift to SMU’s Student-Athlete Benefit Fund will “support scholarships, NIL advancement and revenue sharing.” The university has also “launched a major gift-giving organization,” the Boulevard Society, which expects to “raise at least an additional” $50M for the school’s athletes by the end of the year. The financial gift “underscores the financial muscle of SMU’s donors” who “believe the school is uniquely equipped to win big in college sports’ new professionalized model” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 2/20).

The Marlins are “close to finalizing a deal with a new flagship radio station,” with WQAM-AM/FM emerging as the “strong front-runner to replace” WINZ-AM, according to sources cited by the MIAMI HERALD. WQAM has both an AM and FM signal and a source said that the station believes it can “accommodate juggling Marlins, Heat, Panthers and Miami Hurricanes games.” Meanwhile, the Marlins also are “tinkering with their talent lineup on TV and radio,” as they are giving “more TV games to Jeff Nelson and Tommy Hutton” and moving Rod Allen to an “in-game radio analyst role and pregame and postgame TV commentary” (MIAMI HERALD, 2/20).

ESPN on Friday started distributing MLB.tv via the ESPN App and ESPN.com., a venture that ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro “has long coveted.” The pact, part of a realignment of MLB’s media rights deals, “gives ESPN purview over thousands of games that are made available to fans outside a specific home team’s market.” While ESPN will televise 30 national games each season as part of the new deal, the MLB.tv service “is an add-on” at a range of prices. The goal for ESPN is to get “more baseball fans who aren’t as tied to” the network to “gain more familiarity with its platforms” (VARIETY, 2/20).

The Kraken and TEGNA have a multiyear extension of a deal to put games on local OTA stations KING and KONG in the Seattle-Tacoma market. The sides first struck a deal two years ago when the NHL club decided to move away from Root Sports Northwest (which subsequently was disbanded when the Mariners moved to MLB). There also is a separate deal for non-nationally televised Kraken games to air on Prime Video. As part of the extension, all non-nationally televised games will be broadcast on KONG and Prime Video, while up to 20 games will be simulcast on KING. TEGNA, KING and the Kraken will continue to lead advertising and sponsorship sales for all local games.