Morning Buzz

The LIV Golf event in New Orleans set for the last week of June “may not be played,” according to sources cited by New Orleans-based WDSU-NBC. This comes after “weeks of turmoil involving the league and its financial backing.” An official announcement is expected Tuesday. Sources said that the state of Louisiana is “postponing the event until LIV can restructure financially and find additional sources of funding.” The event could be rescheduled in the future. The state “will be repaid” $1M, which the state had “already paid to LIV ahead of the event, and no additional money will go towards the event at this time” (WDSU.com, 4/27).

The New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE’s Stephanie Riegel cited a source as saying that LIV would “potentially reschedule a smaller, exposition-style tournament this fall.” No dates or financial terms for a smaller event have been discussed” (New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE, 4/27).

Meanwhile, next week’s LIV event scheduled for Trump National outside D.C. “for the moment ... remains on.” LIV Golf has an “extensive relationship with Trump properties; before a single player was publicly announced, Trump Bedminster was listed as LIV’s first venue” (GOLF DIGEST, 4/27).

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Monday said that the league is “in talks with federal regulators that could result in partnership with prediction market operators.” Silver said that the NBA is “in talks” with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission “about a ‘memorandum of understanding.’” Silver said, “I’m encouraged by what we’re hearing from the CFTC, as the way they’re looking at it. ... They want to hear directly from the leagues about their concerns. So we’ve engaged directly with the CFTC right now.” He indicated that any final product “would resemble the ‘memorandum’ between” MLB and the CFTC reached last month. Silver confirmed that the NBA “remains in talks with prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket about a potential marketing and data partnership.” Silver: “We’re watching closely the uptick in the amount of sports activity that’s happening on those platforms. We aren’t necessarily adverse to entering into licensing deals with them. But again, the league’s number one role is to ensure the integrity of the competition.” Silver added that any integrity guidelines concerning prediction market trades would be “more strict than the ones concerning traditional sports betting” (BOOKIES.com, 4/27).

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday signed Senate Bill 1501, which “establishes joint ownership of Moda Center between the city and the state and allows the state to contribute” $365M toward renovations through taxpayer-backed bonds. The bill was seen as a “cornerstone of the efforts to renovate Moda Center and ensure the long-term viability of the Trail Blazers in Portland.” The bonds will be sold “only if the Trail Blazers agree to a new long-term lease at the arena.” The current proposal calls for the renovations to be “fully funded with public dollars.” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has pledged $120M up front with $14M in “annual operating costs over a 20-year lease.” Kotek said that she expects the Portland City Council to “lock in its contribution to the expansive funding package for Moda Center renovations within the next six weeks.” Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson earlier this year said that the county was “prepared to allocate” $88M to the project. Trail Blazers President Dewayne Hankins has said that the team is “targeting renovations over three summers from 2027-29” (Portland OREGONIAN, 4/27).

The FAST channel Reach TV has named Rachel Jacobson as its next CEO. Jacobson, who was previously Drone Racing League President, will look to scale the 10-year-old travel media network’s commercial footprint and grow content partnerships. She will report to Ben Berentson, CEO of Owned Media at Stagwell, which owns ReachTV. Jacobson also spent 21 years at the NBA, and was an SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree in 2010. As part of Jacobson’s hire, ReachTV founder Lynnwood Bibbens will transition into the newly created role of Executive Chair. ReachTV is distributed in 500,000 hotels and over 2,500 airport screens across North America, while also delivering 24-hour live sports in-flight. It claims an audience of around 50 million viewers each month and has live rights to the NFL, as well as licensed content from NBCU, Live Nation and AMC, among others.

USA Volleyball has named Bari Greenfield as its new COO, bringing in the former MLS and N.Y. Road Runners exec as it looks to build on the sport’s momentum ahead of the L.A. 2028 Olympics. Greenfield, who starts May 18, succeeds Steve Bishop in the role and will report to USA Volleyball President & CEO John Speraw.

Greenfield most recently served as VP/Enterprise Partnerships at MLS, where she helped lead enterprise-wide planning for the 2026 FIFA World Cup business operations while overseeing a commercial portfolio spanning partnerships and consumer products across the league, its clubs, MLS NEXT Pro and MLS NEXT. She previously was VP/Strategy, Planning & Organizational Operations at N.Y. Road Runners. Greenfield said that she has been drawn throughout her career to mission-driven sports organizations at “critical inflection points,” adding that volleyball is in a rare moment nationally with participation, viewership and fandom growing across levels.

“LA28 obviously offers such an unparalleled athletic commercial and cultural platform in our own backyard no less,” Greenfield said. “Even before that, we have FIVB world championships on both the men’s and the women’s side ... these cycles just represent such generational windows to think about catalyzing sponsorship, to think about catalyzing media fandom.”

In the role, Greenfield will focus on day-to-day operations, supporting Speraw and helping align the organization’s infrastructure across events, membership, regional relationships, strategy operations and commercial opportunities. She also pointed to accessibility, fan growth and broader cultural relevance as key opportunities for the sport.

US Squash has signed Hightower as its official wealth management sponsor, giving the national governing body a multiyear deal ahead of the sport’s inclusion in the 2028 L.A. Games.

The deal represents a significant step forward as US Squash works with Octagon to expand its commercial prospects. Octagon negotiated the deal on behalf of US Squash, with Peter Carlisle, managing director of Olympics, taking the lead. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“The community is really connected. It’s really passionate,” said Mollie Marcoux Samaan, CEO at US Squash. “It takes notice of those who are involved in supporting. So everyone involved in the sport, from the junior families to the college athletes, to the adult amateurs and our professional athletes, they’ll all really know that Hightower is our partner.”

The deal finds both organizations on a similar growth trajectory, said Hightower CMO Jenn Anderson. While the Chicago-based wealth management firm has done individual athlete deals before, its sponsorship with US Squash is the first with a property.

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Insurance company Marsh wants to use a new partnership with Formula One Management to spread the word about its recent rebranding exercise, the latest U.S.-based company to look to the global auto racing series to build its business. Set to be announced this morning, the N.Y.-based insurer becomes a new official partner of F1. The terms include category rights of official risk and insurance-brokering partner, but what F1 is charging Marsh and the length of the term were unclear. Depending on the rights, deals with the London-based, Liberty Media-owned series can stretch well into the eight figures annually.

Late last year, the 155-year-old company formerly known as Marsh McLennan said it would re-brand to Marsh and refresh its logo in January while also changing the names of its three other sub brands. The aim was to simplify its offerings to clients particularly as the four brands’ duties started to overlap, according to Marsh SVP and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer John Jones. This opened up the opportunity to leverage sports marketing to expose the newly positioned company. The deal with F1 represents Marsh’s first enterprise-wide global sports marketing play, and assets include at-track signage, hospitality opportunities and a digital content series that examines risky parts of certain race tracks. TSMGI helped negotiated the deal for Marsh, which operates in more than 130 countries.

Jones said that the B2B-focused Marsh looked at getting into several different sports but landed on F1 because “we thought the alignment was there for Marsh with them,” citing the series’ global fanbase, recent popularity and how Marsh has long worked with companies in the automotive sector.

Jones: “We wanted to make sure we got our new brand out there and people would start to create some greater awareness around that, but then at the same time, F1 offered us a great opportunity to connect our story and what we do around risk to a great narrative -- obviously a sport known for precision, data driven and constant improvement were all appealing and aligned with what we were trying to do.” He said Marsh thought there was a fit between F1 and “our purpose ... a lot of it is perspective we bring to our clients, insights built on data and help them advise around whether it’s risk or strategy.”

Federal prosecutors “intend to bring new charges against” NBA free agent G Terry Rozier related to the sports gambling case against him and others. A lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of N.Y. said Monday that it “intends to file a superseding indictment” against Rozier, alleging that he “solicited and accepted a bribe.” The revelation came during a hearing before a federal judge in Rozier’s case “after his lawyer had asked the court to dismiss the case against him.” During the hearing, Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, said that prosecutors “had told him two hours earlier that they intended to bring new charges.” Rozier has pleaded not guilty to the original charges. Prosecutors will “present the charges to a grand jury.” The charges allege that Rozier “accepted a bribe and will argue that he committed sports bribery and honest services fraud” (THE ATHLETIC, 4/27).

Trusty, a partner at Ifrah Law, said during Monday’s hearing, “Our motion to dismiss is based on the idea that they picked an invalid legal theory to prosecute Terry Rozier. We’ll see what they do to try to fix that in the superseding indictment, but I expect we’ll have problems with it.” Meanwhile, former NBAer and assistant coach Damon Jones, a co-defendant in the case, is “expected to plead guilty Tuesday to charges related to the case” (ESPN.com, 4/27).

Spokenote is teaming with Butler Athletics and Playfly Sports to introduce personalized, scalable video experiences for fans and corporate sponsors. Through the partnership, Playfly Sports will deliver premium, VIP and behind-the-scenes experiences at Hinkle Fieldhouse and throughout the year. Spokenote’s platform will enable personalized video touchpoints and create new storytelling opportunities and sellable inventory. Fans will see new tech-infused gameday experiences spanning across ticketing, donor outreach, alumni engagement and other activations. Spokenote will also sponsor Butler Athletics’ end-of-year corporate partner reception on Wednesday (Spokenote).

EnGen3, an AI-powered IP licensing platform with roots in the film industry, has launched an Athlete IP Program with a pair of Olympic medalists, sprinter Fred Kerley and long jumper Brittney Reese. The goal of this new product from EnGen3 (pronounced “engine”) is to create a digital twin of an athlete’s image and likeness both for new commercial licensing opportunities and also blockchain-based verification for IP protection.

AI models will be trained on athletes’ photos and in motion capture studios and be embedded with a digital “birthmark” to trace its use and ensure that the athlete will receive appropriate revenue. Money is directly dispersed to the athletes.

“It is 100% to protect my likeness and image because a lot of people can steal my likeness and image at any given time,” Kerley told SBJ, “and they don’t know what’s real and what’s fake.”

“Now I get to decide how I want to use my image and how I want to use everything,” Reese added, “so it’s just basically taking control of it while also getting paid to do it.”

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FanFeed, a new social sports and entertainment app, is officially launching with its central feature a way for fans to automatically keep a record of their attendance at live events -- almost like a modern-day version of keeping ticket stubs as souvenirs.

Available as a standalone app or as a white-labeled feature, FanFeed reviews photos on a smartphone, using the date and location metadata to match attendance with sporting events and concerts. There are about 13 million events in the FanFeed database, and the technology can auto-populate attendance history back to 2012.

“With one click within our app or within a partner app, it could bring in the last 14 years of events you’ve been to by using all of the photos in your camera roll,” FanFeed founder & CEO Cole Rubin said, “so you can literally recreate your entire history as a fan in 30 seconds.”

Touting a fan-forward, frictionless approach, Rubin noted that the patented technology is free for users but will have enterprise appeal to teams and brands. Snap! Mobile is one such partner at launch.

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“Of South Africa’s 12 official languages, these 2 are alphabetically first & last.”