Morning Buzz

TMRW Sports has hired industry veteran Brendan Donohue to become its first president of flag football, where he will lead the company’s professional flag football league along with the NFL. Donohue, best known for 28 years in basketball with several NBA teams and the NBA league office, had been managing director of Elevate Talent since January 2025.

In April, TMRW Sports hired Elevate Talent to direct the search for a leader of the nascent pro flag league, at which point Donohue expressed interest and entered the search process himself.

In a statement, TMRW Sports founder & CEO Mike McCarley praised Donohue’s resume as excellent preparation for this position. Donohue was the head of the NBA’s 2K esports league from 2017-25, and before that was best known as SVP of the NBA’s TMBO division.

“Brendan has three decades of experience building the businesses of NBA teams and launching a first-of-its-kind professional league with the NBA,” said McCarley. “As we debut a modern professional flag football league, his expertise makes him an ideal leader for the league TMRW Sports and the NFL are creating for flag football.”

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The MLS All-Star game is July 29 in Charlotte, and some notable names will be missing from the event as Inter Miami F Lionel Messi and MF Rodrigo De Paul “will take some time before rejoining” for the MLS season following their participation in the FIFA World Cup with Argentina, according to sources cited by ESPN.com. FIFPRO has called for a 21-day rest period at the end of each season for health reasons. It remains unclear whether the two players “will be unavailable for the entirety of the recommended 21 days.” Messi and De Paul will “plan their respective time off in conjunction with Inter Miami.” But sources said that both “will definitely be out for the matches against Chicago Fire FC on Wednesday, and CF Montréal on Saturday.” Sources added that Miami has told MLS that Messi and De Paul “will be unavailable to feature” in the MLS All-Star game, as it falls within the 21-day window (ESPN.com, 7/20).

Vanderbilt is slated to unveil a jersey patch deal with SRM Concrete that will feature the company’s logo on all 17 of its varsity sports uniforms, those involved with the agreement told Sports Business Journal.

The deal, which was brokered by Learfield, is an expansion of a previous sponsorship relationship that saw SRM serve as the naming-rights partner of the “SRM South End Zone Suites at FirstBank Field” since 2025. SRM Concrete was founded in 1999 in Smyrna, Tenn., and is headed by Vanderbilt alum and CEO Jeff Hollingshead. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Once we knew that this was going to be a category that would be available to us for an opportunity ... we wanted to be really deliberate and thoughtful with who we partnered with,” Vanderbilt AD Candice Storey Lee told SBJ. “We also wanted to make sure we’re optimizing the opportunity on the revenue side.”

The patch sale represents another notable bullet point in the increasing commercialization of Vanderbilt athletics during Lee’s tenure. Lee, who was honored as SBJ’s AD of the Year this summer, has been a key architect in the school’s aspirations through new commercial operations, vast facility projects and tens of millions of dollars in fundraising initiatives.

SBJ's Jersey and Helmet Sponsor Directory

Explore the landscape of uniform sponsorships across major U.S. sports leagues with SBJ’s comprehensive jersey and helmet sponsorship directory.

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ESPN has “cut ties with NFL analyst Ryan Clark,” according to sources cited by THE ATHLETIC. Clark was on “NFL Live” on Monday and sources said that he “was informed of the decision during the show.” Clark did not finish the program. Sources at ESPN said that the “reason they told Clark during the show was due to media inquiries into his departure and a fear that the news would leak out before they could inform him.” Sources first said that Clark was “likely to be let go” last week. ESPN’s plan “was to do that on Tuesday morning” but the network made the move on Monday afternoon because it “did not want him to read online before being told in person.”

ESPN and NFL Network are “expected to have more layoffs Tuesday as part of broader cuts” at Disney. There are “expected to be a small number of layoffs of on-air personalities based at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn., as well as a larger number of employees, both on- and off-the-air, from NFL Network” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/20).

OUTKICK’s Bobby Burack writes the dismissal is “particularly notable” given Clark’s role on the “Monday Night Countdown” pregame show. ESPN, which will air the Super Bowl in February, is considering “internal and external candidates to replace Clark” on its NFL studio coverage. It is unclear how much time, if any, Clark has remaining on his contract extension signed in 2024 (OUTKICK, 7/20). Burack also tweeted that it was Outkick’s inquiry to ESPN that led to the network pulling Clark from the show this afternoon (X, 7/20).

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CONMEBOL President Alejandro Dominguez has “confirmed that talks are under way to increase the World Cup to 64 teams” in 2030. The next World Cup will mark 100 years since the first edition of the tournament. South American nations Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay will hold a one-off game before the tournament moves to main co-hosts Spain, Portugal and Morocco. However, the South American nations “want to hold more games” and FIFA President Gianni Infantino revealed earlier this month that the tournament “could increase from 48 teams to 64.” Dominguez wrote on X, “We are working to ensure that the 2030 World Cup is held with 64 national teams in homage to the Centenary of the World Cup. International football grows when it opens up to the world. The expansion to 48 teams demonstrated that greater participation generates more opportunities, boosts the development of football, and turns the World Cup into a true global celebration. The Centenary offers us a historic opportunity to Dream Big” (SKYSPORTS.com, 7/21). There has been no official confirmation from FIFA on the matter of expansion. But if the tournament was increased to 64 teams, it would “consist of 128 matches.” This year’s tournament with 48 teams featured 104 matches (ESPN.com, 7/21).

Spain’s World Cup-winning team returned home to an estimated crowd of almost 2 million on hand to “greet the squad through the streets of Madrid.” The 26 players and their coaching staff met with the country’s royals, and then with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The squad then “boarded an open-top bus for a raucous parade through central Madrid.” They traveled to Cibeles Square, where authorities “told local media that some 120,000 people were on hand for a ceremony.” Groups of fans “had begun securing their spots” near Cibeles late Monday morning ahead of the team’s arrival with temperatures up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (AP, 7/20).

Fresh off the heels of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, soccer media and culture company Footballco has moved into the services side of its business with a controlling stake in K.C.-based creative and production agency Starting Eleven, a move aimed at broadening its studios offering in North America and beyond. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The deal brings Starting Eleven formally into Footballco’s ecosystem. London-based Footballco positions the transaction as its first investment in creative and production services, after a series of acquisitions focused on consumer-facing media. Those previous deals include Middle Eastern digital publisher Koora, soccer culture outlet Mundial, YouTube animation channel 442oons and U.S. grassroots women’s soccer brand Soccer Girl. Led by flagship brand Goal, Footballco says its portfolio of soccer and culture properties now reaches 20 million U.S. soccer fans per month.

Bringing Starting Eleven into the fold is meant to boost Footballco’s work on long-form features, commercial videos and global productions, especially for brands and rights holders in the growing U.S. soccer market. The two companies have already worked together on campaigns for clients including Modelo, Kia and E.l.f. Cosmetics.

Starting Eleven has built its reputation through work with FIFA, EA Sports and MLS. Its credits include multiple MLS projects such as MLS docuseries “Breakaway,” now in its fourth season for Apple TV; cover shoots for EAFC 24 and broader EA Sports campaigns; a DAZN mini-series tied to the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup; and the documentary “Messi Mania.”

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“It celebrated its 40th edition in 2026; the first one featured Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Jimmy Carl Black.”