Closing Bell

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- Rory McIlroy offered a scathing critique of the PGA Tour’s new track plan on Tuesday, saying the proposed “Track 2” tournaments would be comparable to the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour events. SBJ previously reported on the tour’s plans for both tracks for the 2028 season. There are expected to be 16 regular-season Track 1 PGA Tour tournaments and 20 Track 2 events. Sources expected Track 1 would have between 120-130 players, while Track 2 would have in the 140 range.

McIlroy, asked about potential concerns he had about the changes, worried that some partners unable or unwilling to pay the $30M annual price to title sponsor a Track 1 event would take a back seat in the new system.

“I guess, just recency, an event like last week, the Canadian Open, potentially going to one of these Track 2s -- Track 2 is a glorified Korn Ferry (Tour) event,” McIlroy said. “That’s what Track 2 is going to be. So, I don’t think the Canadian Open should be one of those. … There’s going to be certain events that might lose their stature if a sponsor doesn’t pony up $30 million. So that’s the tough thing.”

Though McIlroy compared Track 2 to a Korn Ferry Tour event, they likely won’t be remotely close, at least from a purse perspective. According to people SBJ spoke with while at the U.S. Open, Track 2 is expected to have around $80M in prize money across 20 events, or about $4M per tournament. Meanwhile, the Korn Ferry Tour’s season-long purse in 2026 is $27M across 25 events. For additional context, the DP World Tour has a season-long purse of around $153M over 42 events, or about $3.6M per tournament.

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The NBA Finals delivered growth across every key metric on X (Twitter) this year, with Game 4 delivering one of the biggest sports moments of the year to date on the social media platform. Across Games 1-5, X saw 10.4 million posts related to the NBA Finals, as well as 3.3 million unique authors, 9 billion impressions and 888 million video views in the U.S. alone. When comparing Games 1–5 of the 2026 NBA Finals to Games 1–5 of the 2025 Finals, those metrics were up 2.9x, 2.1x, 2.3x and 3x, respectively.

Even with just five games, total NBA Finals posts and video views both doubled year-over-year.

The Knicks’ comeback in Game 4 from 29 points down saw conversation peak at 136,000 posts per hour as the game ended, up 2,014% vs. the daytime average for NBA Finals posts. The top performing posts involved athlete reactions in real time, commentary from rival NBA players and discussion about celebrity attendance (Taylor Swift was the most-mentioned celeb). For the clinching Game 5 on Saturday night, the most-viewed post on X came from “SportsCenter,” which had a video of actor Timothée Chalamet celebrating the Finals win.

The Race Team Alliance has found its new chairman to try to propel the business of NASCAR’s top competitors, with former RCR president Torrey Galida elected to succeed the outgoing Rob Kauffman.

In March, the RTA said Kauffman would be stepping down from the position after a decade in charge of the organization, which was founded in 2014 as NASCAR teams tried to halt the effects of the Great Recession, better run their businesses and maximize their leverage. With NASCAR and its teams having reached labor peace for the foreseeable future, Kauffman decided this was the time to let someone else run the RTA, particularly since he was no longer a team owner in the series.

The RTA has elected Galida to become the second chairman in the organization’s history, according to a press release seen by SBJ. He ran RCR as president for over a decade before moving into the vice chairman position in 2025 and then later retiring from the race team completely.

A Duke graduate, Galida has former stops at Ford Motor Co. and RFK Racing, according to his LinkedIn page. He will work with RTA Executive Director Jonathan Marshall on the various initiatives that the teams are pursing, including revenue growth, efficiencies and various partnerships.

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Sportsnet and CBC announced that the public broadcaster will not carry NHL broadcasts moving forward (Sportsnet). The decision means that “Hockey Night in Canada” will “not return to the public broadcaster” after nearly 75 years. A sub-licensing agreement between Rogers Communications and the CBC that allowed the program to air on the network “expired at the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs,” and the two sides did not renew for the upcoming campaign, which will be the first year of Rogers’ 12-year, $7.7B rights deal with the NHL (CP, 6/16). The CBC received “no advertising revenue from the ‘Hockey Night’ telecasts,” but also did not “pay Rogers Sportsnet for the rights to the Saturday night games under the deal” (N.Y. TIMES, 6/16).

In its place, CBC will “launch a new Saturday night prime time show on CBC and streaming on CBC Gem, featuring Canadian athletes competing at home and at the biggest events around the world” (CBC.ca, 6/16).

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- Top-ranked amateur golfer Jackson Koivun will turn pro following this week’s U.S. Open, and he’s doing so with a list of endorsements ahead of his debut at the John Deere Classic next month.

The 21-year-old Koivun is one of the most decorated amateurs in recent years, winning 11 collegiate tournaments while at Auburn along with a handful of other awards. He earned PGA Tour status through its PGA Tour University Accelerated program.

Koivun last week signed an apparel deal with Malbon Golf and has been a Titleist endorser for his clubs and ball. He also has deals with Omni Hotels & Resorts, wealth management company Betterment and Old Republic Insurance, all of whom were NIL partners that re-signed with Koivun upon his decision to become a pro.

“Turning pro, you see guys switch logos quite a bit, and not that that’s a problem, but I’ve just been gotten very close with the partners I have now, and excited to keep them going,” Koivun said on Tuesday.

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NEW YORK -- Juggernaut Capital Partners and retired soccer superstar Gareth Bale have collaborated on the launch of a sports-focused fund in both teams and sports-adjacent businesses.

The stated goal of the Juggernaut Diversified Sports Fund is to raise more than $500M but intentionally less than a billion to retain maneuverability. Juggernaut has intensified its sports investments in recent years -- golf management firm KemperSports, youth sports operator 3STEP Sports, apparel brand Mitchell & Ness (later sold to Fanatics) and sports content company Thrill Sports -- and will now seek opportunities in growth companies.

John Shulman, the founder and managing partner of Juggernaut Capital, said the fund’s first investment in a women’s professional sports franchise was on track to be finalized within the next few months.

The new sports fund will primarily consider opportunities in North America and Europe. Juggernaut’s headquarters is in D.C., and Bale will remain based in the U.K. He connected with Shulman through a mutual friend over a round of golf and realized their shared perspective on the industry.

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Ares Management is “close to agreeing a deal to take control” of French Ligue 1 club Olympique Lyon, alongside businesswoman Michele Kang, according to sources. Sources added that Ares and Kang, who were involved in Lyon under the previous management of investor John Textor, have “been finalizing a deal with Cork Gully LLP,” which is acting as the administrator of Textor’s Eagle Football Group Bidco. The proposal from Ares and Kang involves them “putting in fresh funds to help Lyon with its working capital requirements and help it get through an annual inspection with France’s football regulator,” the DNCG. It is unclear what the ownership split between Ares and Kang would be and the talks “may still fall apart.” Ares has invested in a number of teams, but Lyon “would be the first football club that it has taken control of.” The deal with Ares and Kang is subject to approval by the DNCG (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 6/16).