Morning Buzz

A sold-out crowd of 42,175 “flocked to Flushing” Wednesday night for the first NWSL match held in N.Y., as Gotham FC came away with a 1-0 win over the Washington Spirit at Citi Field. The Queens Classic was the third NWSL match held at an MLB ballpark in the past two years and was also “the first women’s sports event hosted at Citi Field in its 17-year history.” The crowd was “the largest at a New York women’s sports event, surpassing” the 28,143 fans at the 2023 U.S. Open women’s singles final at Arthur Ashe Stadium. It was also the “second-largest NWSL crowd in league history,” only behind the 63,004 fans at Denver’s Empower Field in March. The game “was a stepping stone for the NWSL, too, as its attendance continues to grow and it looks to capitalize on the excitement drawn” by the men’s World Cup (N.Y. POST, 7/15).

ATLANTA -- The 2026 FIFA World Cup delivered yet another classic Wednesday, with Argentina scoring twice in the final minutes to stun England 2-1 and advance to the World Cup final. The victory sets up a meeting with Spain on Sunday at N.Y. N.J. Stadium, a match featuring two of the world’s most recognizable sports stars: 39-year-old Lionel Messi and 19-year-old Lamine Yamal.

The matchup is a marketer’s dream, as evidenced by the robust lineup of brands featuring the two players in World Cup-related campaigns. Messi has worked with Adidas, Michelob Ultra, Lay’s, Mastercard, Duracell and Lowe’s, while Yamal has represented Adidas, Visa, Powerade, McDonald’s and American Eagle.

EMW Global founder & CEO Michael Rocha-Keys told SBJ before Wednesday’s match that the star power of Messi and Yamal has helped his agency secure commercial partnerships for the Argentine and Spanish federations in distant markets such as China. Among those deals is a deal between the Spanish federation and Chinese kitchen appliance brand Vatti, which has promised to reimburse customers for all purchases made during the tournament if Spain wins, just as it did in 2018 when it partnered with the French federation.

Wednesday’s semifinal clash inside Atlanta Stadium had all the intensity of a championship match. Argentina fans outnumbered their English counterparts roughly 3-to-1 among the sellout crowd of 68,239, Atlanta’s sixth consecutive full house to cap its run of eight World Cup games.

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Argentina faces the “prospect of disciplinary action” from FIFA after their players celebrated the 2-1 World Cup semifinal win against England Wednesday night “with a banner in support of their country’s claims to the Falkland Islands.” After Argentina produced a “dramatic late comeback in Atlanta,” Argentine players “celebrated while holding a banner reading ‘Las Malvinas son Argentinas,’ which translates as ‘The Falklands are Argentine.’” The Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, “remain the subject of a sovereignty dispute between Britain and Argentina.” After Wednesday’s victory, Argentina VP Victoria Villarruel posted on X, “writing ‘it wasn’t just another match’ alongside a video of what appeared to be Argentine soldiers.” British MP Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said Argentina’s banner was “entirely inappropriate,” adding that he expects FIFA “to do a thorough investigation” into the matter (BBC.com, 7/15).

The International Football Association Board, football’s lawmakers and FIFA “have a clear stance on political flags, slogans and symbols being displayed.” It is “standard practice for FIFA to wait until the various match reports are submitted to it from the game before making any kind of decision.” Once FIFA has received those reports, it “will make an assessment and decide on what the next steps should be.” There is “no set timeframe for any decisions to be made” (THE ATHLETIC, 7/15).

Argentina MF Leandro Paredes “poured further fuel on the fire post-match,” saying, “And the Falklands will always be Argentinian.” In Buenos Aires, “more than a million fans gathered to celebrate the victory.” Some fans “were seen burning an England flag, and a coffin painted with a St George’s cross was hoisted above fans’ heads.” Fans were also “filmed before the game burning English flags.” Hours after the match ended, the Argentine government said that it had “presented a formal note of protest to the British embassy in Buenos Aires,” condemning the movements of the HMS Medway, which sailed from the Falkland Islands to the Strait of Magellan last week (London TIMES, 7/16).

In Buenos Aires, Argentina fans “started celebrations by singing their unofficial tournament anthem led by a public announcer in the fan city’s fan park.” He shouted again and again, “For Messi, for the Malvinas!” to cheers from the crowd. As hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the city center, a motorcyclist “drove past with a flag attached to his bike with the banner ‘Malvinas libres’” (London TELEGRAPH, 7/15). Argentina’s games “are a collision of politics, culture and sports.” For Argentina, “beating England means more, and with a berth in the World Cup final at stake, it was hardly any surprise that the Argentine players stayed on the field after the game to commune with their mass of supporters behind the goal” (N.Y. TIMES, 7/15).

On this week’s pod, SBJ’s Austin Karp and Josh Carpenter reflect on the massive viewership around the World Cup quarterfinals, as well as Bundesliga’s shift away from ESPN. We look back at Netflix’s debut around MLB’s Home Run Derby, and Chicago Sports Network’s Mike McCarthy joins the pod to talk RSNs.

The Stars’ relationship with Victory+ is “status quo,” according to the team’s Dir of Communications Joe Calvillo, after the direct-to-consumer streamer saw both MLB’s Rangers and the NHL’s Ducks make plans to leave the platform in the past 24 hours. The team also “had no further comment on the news” of the Rangers’ and Ducks’ plans. A source familiar with ongoing talks between the Rangers and Victory+ noted the club “had grown increasingly concerned about the company’s ability to meet financial and delivery obligations.” The Stars became the flagship partner of Victory+ when the team signed a seven-year agreement with its parent company, A Parent Media Co. Inc. in July 2024 (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 7/15).

The Hawks formalized an expansive over-the-air TV deal with Gray Media on Thursday that puts the team’s 2026-27 games on WANF-Channel 46 in Atlanta and on the Peachtree Sports Network statewide.

The franchise becomes the fourth ex-Main Street Sports Group team to choose free linear broadcasts, following the Pistons, Heat and Bucks. Like the other three, the Hawks will have an out clause to join the NBA’s aggregated streaming hub when it launches likely for the 2027-28 season. But the team’s President of Business Enterprise & Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Saltzman said they are signing a multiyear contract either way because “we feel really, really good about where we sit and about this relationship with Gray Media.”

Gray runs broadcast stations across the state, and its Peachtree Sports Network will carry Hawks games on WALB in Albany, WRDW in Augusta, WTVM in Columbus, WPGA in Macon and WTOC in Savannah. But its largest channel -- Atlanta News First or WANF 46 -- will become the team’s flagship in-market station. On Thursday, in fact, Atlanta New First will be rebranded for a day as “Atlanta Hawks First” for all regularly scheduled broadcast news programs.

Like all OTA arrangements, the Hawks will offset a lower rights fee payment -- likely in the $8M-$10M range annually after relinquishing a $30M deal with Main Street -- by increasing reach, merchandise, ticketing and advertising revenue. Saltzman said Gray has “a robust sales group” that will handle ads both locally and nationally. He added that the Hawks’ global partnership unit will help monetize other inventory the team retains.

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ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips joins us at ACC Kickoff in Charlotte to discuss the conference’s 68% surge in football viewership, the impact of adding SMU, Cal, and Stanford, and how strategic scheduling is driving continued growth. He also shares insights on the ACC’s long-term ESPN partnership, record-breaking revenue, and plans to expand the conference’s game-changing replay transparency initiative in 2026.

Even though Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia won’t be remembered as an artistic success between the lines, fans in Philadelphia fueled a retail victory that was nearly unprecedented.

MLB officials said merch sales at the All-Star Village fan fest surpassed the previous high from the 2022 fan fest in L.A. by a double-digit percentage. That represented a 45% increase from last year in Atlanta. Across retail channels -- online, at Citizens Bank Park and at the fan fest -- MLB’s claim is that licensed merch sales equaled the record established in 2022.

Expect those totals to be challenged, if not surpassed, around next year’s All-Star Game at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

“Business is very strong right now across categories, especially trading cards and collectibles, and Philadelphia is a city where people just turn out,” said MLB Players Inc. President Evan Kaplan, who administers that organization’s licensing business.

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The Bundesliga has agreed to a three-year U.S. media rights agreement with Telemundo, marking the first time Germany’s top soccer league has sold its Spanish-language rights separately in the market. A source with knowledge of the agreement said Telemundo will pay the Bundesliga just under $10M a year for the Spanish-language rights. Combined with the $20M the league will receive annually under its five-year English-language deal with Versant, the league’s total U.S. rights haul going forward is roughly in line with the $30M it received annually from ESPN under its previous six-year deal.

ESPN held both English- and Spanish-language rights for Bundesliga matches in the U.S., with every match streaming on ESPN+ and only a handful appearing on its linear networks.

The Bundesliga’s annual U.S. rights revenue significantly trails that of the Premier League and La Liga, which earn $450M and $175M a year, respectively. Still, it remains ahead of Serie A, which recently exercised a one-year option on its U.S. agreement with CBS at economics believed to be in the low eight figures annually.

Under the new deal, Telemundo and its cable channel Universo will combine to carry more than 100 Bundesliga matches per season on linear TV, with all of the leagues matches available to stream in Spanish on Peacock.

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“The U.N. Conference of April 25, 1945 opened with a speech that said this man ‘gave his life while trying to perpetuate these high ideals.’”