The Celtics are "again champions of the NBA," as they took down the Mavericks 106-88 in Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals to win the series 4-1 and claim a league-record 18th NBA championship. The Celtics ended a 16-year title drought and "broke a tie" with the rival Lakers that had stood since 2020. Celtics F Jaylen Brown won the Bill Russell Award for the NBA Finals MVP, while Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, 35, became the youngest coach since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976 to win a title (THE ATHLETIC, 6/17). Fanatics founder & CEO Michael Rubin was one of the many celebrities who sat courtside for Game 5, with Rubin seated next to Celtics Gov. Wyc Grousbeck (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/17).

The torch "has been passed to a new generation of champions" -- Brown and Jayson Tatum. Boston’s "bookend superstars" reached the summit in their seventh season together, "shredding all competition in one of the most dominant seasons in the history of the league." With the two Jays leading the way and "buffeted by Brad Stevens’s acquisitions" of G Derrick White, G Jrue Holiday and C Kristaps Porzingis, the Celtics won 80 of 101 games and went 16-3 in the playoffs. After a 38-point beatdown in Dallas last Friday, the Celtics "responded with full fury in the Garden finale, which was more coronation than competition." The Celtics' new hardware "extends New England's 21st century pro sports High Renaissance" (13 championships for the Patriots, Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics). And after a 5½-year "drought, the Duck Boats again are ready to roll" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/17).

In the end, the Mavs "simply couldn’t contend with everything Boston brings to the table." The Celtics "just did what they’ve done all year" -- while winning 64 games and losing just two in the playoffs. The Mavs don’t have much cap room to "make any noise in free agency," so "any significant additions will have to be made by trade." Next year "will come with higher expectations" for the Mavs, and "this team earned them" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 6/17).

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell reiterated during testimony in federal court Monday that the league’s “Sunday Ticket” package, the subject of a class-action lawsuit, is a “premium product” while also “defending the league’s broadcast model,” according to Joe Reedy of the AP. Goodell was called as a witness by the NFL as the trial for the lawsuit filed by “Sunday Ticket” subscribers entered its third week. During cross-examination in an L.A. courtroom, Goodell said the NFL has “been clear throughout that it is a premium product. Not just on pricing but quality.” Goodell added, “Fans make that choice whether they wanted it or not. I’m sure there were fans who said it was too costly.” The class-action claims the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of out-of-market Sunday afternoon games at an inflated price. The NFL maintains it has the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. Reedy reports if the NFL is found liable, a jury could award $7 billion in damages, but that number could balloon to $21 billion because antitrust cases can triple damages (AP, 6/17).

POSSIBLE CHANGES: PROFOOTBALLTALK's Mike Florio appeared on the "Pardon My Take" podcast Monday to give some insight on his attempts to cover the NFL's "Sunday Ticket" trial, saying, "I'm one of the only ones that is out there looking for any bits and pieces I can get about this massive 'Sunday Ticket' trial." Florio: "I'm trying to shine the light on what this could be and I'm trying to get people to at least be somewhat optimistic that at the end of the day, 'Sunday Ticket' could be a lot cheaper than it's been." Florio went on to say he's always been puzzled by the way "Sunday Ticket" is offered, questioning "why can't we just buy the teams that we want?" Florio: "There's no flexibility, and it's always felt weird to me." Florio went on to say that the court case is about "what the NFL has allegedly done to protect the deals with CBS and Fox." He added that the case argues the NFL allegedly has "required DirecTV to charge a certain price so people don't get it and they just watch whatever CBS or Fox has to offer." Florio highlighted evidence presented last week that ESPN "wanted to charge $70 for the whole season and give you a team-by-team option." Florio: "The NFL allegedly ... wanted to keep it at a certain number, they called it a premium product, because they wanted to protect the CBS and Fox relationships." Florio added the league "has done this for 30 years," but "the chickens have come home to roost and this al might blow up in their faces." Florio noted that the "worst case scenario" for the NFL would see them pay out as much as $21 billion in damages and "as a practical matter, they're going to have to revolutionize the way they make the games available." Florio: "This is good for fans" ("Pardon My Take," Barstool Sports, 6/17).

Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill said he "will interview" today with the lead investigator who is "examining whether WNBA rules were broken" when sponsorship deals were offered last month to Las Vegas Aces players. Hill announced to the players on May 18 they would each receive a $100,000 sponsorship each of the next two years from the LVCVA. The WNBA hired a law firm, Kobre & Kim, to "investigate whether the league’s salary-cap rules were circumvented." Hill said yesterday the authority "did everything according to the WNBA’s policies, including working independently of the Aces to arrange the sponsorship agreements." He said the authority "did alert the team it planned to offer sponsorships to the players, but did not divulge the details." Hill said he "wasn’t aware of any rules barring the LVCVA from working with the ... Aces to set up the announcement that was videotaped and promoted by the authority" (AP, 6/17).

RELATED: Davis says 'absolutely nothing' wrong with LVCVA sponsorship of Aces players

RELATED: LVCVA plans to proceed with sponsorship offer to Aces players despite WNBA investigation

Lincoln Financial Field has been certified as a LEED Platinum building by the U.S. Green Building Council, a recognition that highlights the stadium’s sustainable operations. The Eagles’ 21-year-old stadium becomes just the second in the NFL to achieve an Existing Building LEED Platinum certification behind U.S. Bank Stadium, and the first building that’s older than a decade. LEED certification is often achieved during a construction project -- Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium became the first LEED Platinum certified NFL stadium in 2018 -- but the Platinum Existing Building designation further underscores the Eagles’ commitment to sustainability in an older venue that’s advanced first from LEED Silver in 2013 to LEED Gold in 2018, to now the highest level of operational sustainability. 

The stadium was “obviously not built with LEED Certification in mind,” said Eagles VP of Fan Experience and Sustainability, Norman Vosschulte. "I think it goes to show that if you manage your building well with a solid sustainability program in place, the sky is the limit what you can achieve sustainably.”

Lincoln Financial Field’s sustainability achievements include: 

• First pro sports team in North America to install a hydrogen refueling station to power its passenger vehicles.

• First NFL stadium to use reverse vending machines to recycle beverage containers.

• 10,456 solar panels annually produce around four megawatts of clean energy.

• Water filtration fountains have eliminated the use of more than a million plastic water bottles.

• Implemented a closed-loop recycling program that collects bottle caps and turns them into new material for use at the stadium.

• Achieved a 50% wattage reduction by replacing the stadium’s lights with patented, high-powered LED lighting technology.

• Divert 99% of waste from landfills and operates on 100% clean energy.

Read More >>>

The TGL has added the final player for its 2025 launch, with Hideki Matsuyama set to join Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf. Matsuyama, a longtime target of LIV Golf, fills the spot left by Tyrrell Hatton, who left the PGA Tour to join LIV earlier this year.

Mark Lev, Boston Common’s president and CEO, said talks with Matsuyama’s team began soon after Hatton defected to LIV in February. TGL has been in contact with Matsuyama about competing for around 18 months, and Boston Common player Adam Scott has long served as a mentor to Matsuyama on the PGA Tour.

In working with Ross Berlin, TGL’s senior vice president of player relations, team officials including Lev, Sam Kennedy, John Henry and Linda Henry sat with Matsuyama and his reps at the Players Championship in March. The group had a follow-up session at the Wells Fargo Championship last month in Charlotte.

“He’s a bit of a national hero in Japan,” Lev said. “As we think about using our team as a platform to grow the game and help him grow it in Japan, it’s really a home run for us.”

Read More >>>

FanDuel is “threatening to terminate its exclusive contract running D.C.'s mobile sports betting platform” if the city “follows through with a plan to open the city's mobile sports wagering market to more operators,” according to Hudacek & Kline of the WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL. The D.C. Council last Wednesday passed a $21B budget that includes a provision to “create a new type of betting license allowing the city’s professional teams to run their own sports betting apps in partnership with an established sportsbook of their own choosing.” Per the measure in the budget, the city would create a Class C license that would “establish partnerships between the teams and sportsbooks.” But if D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signs the FY 2025 budget bill, FanDuel said that it “would move to establish a partnership with one of the city's teams” and "invoke its termination right" running the city's mobile betting app under a subcontract with the Office of Lottery and Gaming. FanDuel already has a Class A license to operate a physical sportsbook at Audi Field and said that it “would transition its D.C. operator license to its Class A license and simultaneously end its partnership with the Office of Lottery and Gaming.” FanDuel has been running D.C.’s mobile betting platform since April, when it was “ tapped to take over the city's unpopular and underperforming betting app, GambetDC." D.C. is one of just three jurisdictions with legalized gambling in the country where the mobile betting marketplace is controlled by a single vendor. BetMGM and Caesars do operate physical sportsbooks in D.C., at Nationals Park and Capital One Arena, respectively (WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL, 6/14).

The N.Y. Liberty will play the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup championship game on June 25 against the Minnesota Lynx at UBS Arena because the NBA draft "makes the Barclays Center unavailable,” according to Doug Feinberg of the AP. The NBA Draft is the next night and there “wouldn’t be enough time to change over the arena” and the Liberty have back-to-back games on June 22 and 23, so “moving the game up a day wouldn’t work.” A source said that Liberty officials “knew this could be a potential conflict in December and told the league.” The source added that when the team clinched home court earlier this month, the Liberty “offered to play their regular-season game against the Lynx on July 2 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn as the Commissioner’s Cup championship.” Feinberg notes the Lynx “declined that option.” The source said that the WNBA “gave the Liberty the option of playing the game in Minnesota, but the team said no.” Both UBS Arena and Barclays Center have a capacity of about 17,000 (AP, 6/17).

FLAGRANT MISSTEP: THE ATHLETIC's Ben Pickman writes the Commissioner’s Cup is “supposed to be the crown jewel” of the league’s regular season. He notes the problem with the change “goes well beyond making fans schlep to a new venue an hour away from where they expected to attend the event.” It is a reminder that the WNBA, “more than it cares to publicly admit, has fumbled some recent celebratory moments.” The potential need for a new venue “loomed for months.” Keeping the event in N.Y. “was a bet the WNBA seemed willing to take, even knowing the Liberty won last season’s Commissioner’s Cup, and entering this season as one of the Eastern Conference favorites.” The gamble “didn’t pay off.” Pickman: “Perhaps an easier route would be the WNBA not selecting June 25. Or perhaps the WNBA could have scheduled a game in a possible expansion market? Maybe Golden State or Toronto as 'Welcome to the WNBA' events. Or perhaps it could have taken the game to other potential expansion cities like Portland, Nashville or Denver.” He adds that would have “been a way to avoid Monday’s PR mess.” The decision is another sign that the NBA “holds the cards in the dynamic.” Pickman: “Simply put, the NBA’s showcase event took priority over the WNBA’s.” More than that, however, the last-minute decision to move the game “makes it hard to view the Commissioner’s Cup as a truly premier event.” A venue change is “by no means the biggest travesty in WNBA history,” but it is “indicative of a recent trend of hiccups” (N.Y. TIMES, 6/18).

Fox Sports and NASCAR will continue to shoot and air their weekly Radioactive feature that turns on-track action into a mini documentary, despite FS1’s “Race Hub” studio show having ended last week after 15 years.

The segment has become a staple for NASCAR’s hardcore fans who tuned into the daily studio show on FS1 to watch the roughly five-minute clips that stitch together key snippets of audio and video from the prior week’s race into a story arc. It includes radio transmissions and other angles that sometimes don’t make the main broadcast. Fox Sports ended “Race Hub” last week after its portion covering the end of the 2024 NASCAR season, the last under the current media cycle, as the company prepares for a slimmed-down package in the next cycle from 2025 through 2031. Nonetheless, Fox and NASCAR said today that Radioactive will continue to appear on NASCAR's YouTube page as well as on Fox Sports social channels, with a weekly release on Tuesdays. It’s unclear whether NASCAR and its other media partners will start up new shoulder programming next year after the loss of “Race Hub,” which came just a couple years after NBC Sports killed its “NASCAR America” studio show.

The PGA Tour has added a licensing partner through Owen’s Craft Mixers, a Maine-based transfusion mixer company that has been growing rapidly in golf in recent years.

Josh Miller founded the company in Portland, Maine, in 2016 alongside his brother-in-law, Tyler Holland, naming it after Miller’s great, great grandfather Owen Woods.

The duo started out making mixers that would be used in high-volume bars and restaurants, and the company now has product in 50 states and more than 1,500 golf courses. Its products can be used in mocktails or with spirits added.

Owen’s partnered with Barstool Sports around the start of the pandemic and sold product at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island in South Carolina. It also partnered with Tito’s Handmade Vodka for a number of PGA Tour events.

Read More >>>

The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s print edition has a Barron’s Guide To Wealth special report that looks at sports investing. Features include:

• Andy Serwer: “Get Ready For The Sports Investing Revolution: Some pioneering private-equity firms are spending big on team ownership. Here are the new rules of the game.”

• Greg Bartalos: “Sports Collectibles Can Be A Winning Investment.”

• Steve Garmhausen: “How Excelling At Sports Empowered These Advisors.”

This month’s SBJ I Factor is with Brandon Doll. SBJ’s Abe Madkour chats with the founder of Sports & Entertainment Advisors about his journey and how he played an instrumental part in bringing the Raiders to Las Vegas. Doll served as a Naval officer for seven years and he explains how lessons learned on deck prepared him for the sports industry. Doll is a member of SBJ’s Forty Under 40 Class of 2021. 

SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Warner Bros. Discovery has tapped former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs as Chief Communications Officer after the exit of Nathaniel Brownat the beginning of this year. Gibbs, 53, recently served as a partner at comms agency Bully Pulpit International and previously served as former President Barack Obama’s press secretary from 2009-11 (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 6/17).

Funko and the NBA have unveiled a limited-time collection of Pop! collectibles for fans that will include Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Al Horford alongside the NBA Championship trophy. The collection will be available exclusively for pre-order on Funko.com for one week only following the Celtics’ win last night (Funko).

The CHICAGO SUN-TIMES goes with the header, "For the Sky, playing the role of villain isn’t a good look." The Sky and most of the WNBA "don’t seem to understand" what Fever G Caitlin Clark has brought to everyone in the league. It’s "understandable players would be jealous of someone hogging the limelight, but that limelight spreads far." Clark can "trash-talk, complain, do all the things star hoopers do." But "to want to brutalize her is where it gets weird." All she has brought is more fans, more TV revenue, more endorsements, more sponsors, more charter planes and better treatment for all. Her light "spreads." If the Sky want to be the "Bad Boys" of the WNBA, "they should know that the Pistons' targeting of Bulls star Michael Jordan didn’t work." It "infuriated Jordan, and he viciously -- and fairly -- destroyed" any team in his path.

Also:

• The Lakers shot for the stars and landed in a black hole.

"Born 344 years apart, they are the two real people mentioned by name in the titles of 1990s Best Picture Oscar winners."

"Who are Shakespeareand Schindler?"