Morning Buzz

Comcast Spectacor and the 76ers have “decided on a precise location in the South Philadelphia sports complex” for their new arena, which will also host the Flyers and an as-yet unnamed WNBA team. The new arena “will be located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, right next to SEPTA’s Broad Street Line,” which serves the sports complex. The location “echoes the Sixers and Flyers’ original home,” the Spectrum, “as will the ultimate -- and still unrevealed -- design.” While Comcast Spectacor has “long talked about building a sprawling mixed use development -- and turning the district into a real neighborhood” -- company Chair & CEO Dan Hilferty says that is “still in the future.” For now, the company is “focusing on adding more retail around the new arena” (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 4/15).

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil on Wednesday dismissed the notion that the league would be shut down this week in Mexico City, telling staff in a late afternoon memo: “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.” O’Neil sent the email, timestamped for 4pm ET, after a day of speculation about LIV’s future. He noted the league was “heading into the heart of our 2026 schedule with the full energy of an organization that is bigger, louder and more influential that ever before.”

The Financial Times reported the Saudi PIF was “on the verge” of pulling its funding for LIV, though a final decision had not been made about the future of the league. Other outlets, including the Wall Street Journal and N.Y. Times, had similar reporting about LIV’s future. Much of the debate among industry sources centered around when, not if, the PIF would pull funding, either this week or at the end of LIV’s 2026 season. Though O’Neil’s email didn’t directly address funding from the PIF, sources within the league said funding would continue throughout 2026. However, late Wednesday, Fox News’ Bret Baier cited two sources as saying the PIF’s funding “will definitely come to an end at the end of this LIV season, citing a change of priorities.”

Meanwhile, the PIF on Wednesday announced its investment strategy for 2026-30 and within it highlighted six economic ecosystems that would strengthen its investments. Those include: “Tourism, Travel, and Entertainment,” “Urban Development,” “Advanced Industries and Innovation,” “Industry and Logistics,” “Clean and Renewable Energy and Water Infrastructure,” and “NEOM.” When the PIF announced its strategy for 2021-25, it highlighted 13 sectors it would focus on for its core domestic strategy. Among those was “Leisure & Sports,” which was not included in the 2026-30 plan announced today.

LIV is scheduled to tee off in Mexico City on Thursday, its sixth tournament of the 2026 season.

In a conversation with Colin Cowherd at SBJ’s CAA World Congress of Sports in L.A. on Wednesday, Fox Sports CEO & Executive Producer Eric Shanks said this summer’s FIFA Men’s World Cup will be the biggest sports event in his network’s history.

Shanks said Fox has been preparing for this summer “since the lights went out in Qatar” four years ago. He noted that on-field success for the U.S. would be “massive” for Fox, but that the network isn’t reliant on the home team.

“People are rooting just as much for the stars of the sport, for Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappe, as they are anything else. So I think it’s a really highly educated soccer market now in the U.S., especially when it comes to international tournaments,” Shanks said. “So we’re going to tell this country the stories of soccer around the world.”

The tournament will also present the hotly anticipated broadcast debut for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Shanks said he was introduced to Ibrahimovic by RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale; RedBird owns AC Milan, for which Ibrahimovic serves as an adviser.

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TKO Group Holdings is hard at work trying to grow its mature properties and establish its new ones, according to board member Nick Khan. But while he tracks key performance indicators, Khan is not on social media fretting about criticism directed toward WWE or Zuffa Boxing, he said at Wednesday’s CAA World Congress of Sports.

Khan, the former longtime CAA agent who now serves as president of WWE, spoke ahead of this weekend’s WrestleMania 42 at Allegiant Stadium, where he expects to approach gate records set last year but may fall just short of eclipsing them. “We think it’s going to get close to that record, but fingers crossed,” he said.

Khan spoke about growing up in the Las Vegas area in the 1970s and ’80s, where he watched the city’s main sports of UNLV basketball and boxing. He served as an usher during WrestleMania 9 at Caesars Palace. Asked what motivated him to get into law school and the sports industry, he replied simply: “I just didn’t want to be broke anymore.”

Khan started working at CAA in 2012 and represented talent there until he moved to WWE in 2020, when the company was still majority owned by the McMahon family. WWE later became part of the publicly traded TKO when it was formed in 2023.

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After a packed lineup Wednesday, the CAA World Congress of Sports concludes Thursday in L.A. with featured conversations with Chelsea FC majority owner Behdad Eghbali and Nets and Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai. Programming begins at 11:45 am ET with a panel on “Sports Business and Entertainment 2026 and Beyond” that includes LAFC co-President Larry Freedman, AEG CRO Todd Goldstein, NBA SVP Leah MacNab, NBCUniversal Chairman for Global Advertising & Partnerships Mark Marshall and Walt Disney Co. President of Major Events Integration Ken Potrock. Transformative sponsorships are the topic for T-Mobile VP/Sponsorships & Events Amy Azzi and SAP VP/Global Sponsorships Dan Fleetwood. PIF Head of Sponsorships Alanoud Althonayan, Concacaf CCO Heidi Pellerano and former USWNT player Leslie Osborne discuss partnerships beyond the field.

The first full day of events at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live saw several sports business leaders discussing the top issues in the industry.

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A pair of execs were dismissed by the MLBPA following an international investigation amid a federal probe into the union. MLBPA COO Xavier James and CHRO Michael O’Neill were fired with cause, ESPN reported. The dismissals followed an internal investigation, the report said. SBJ confirmed that James and O’Neill are no longer with the MLBPA. The union declined comment.

Former MLBer Chris Capuano, who has been with the union since 2019, will replace James as interim COO, with Ian Penny, formerly the senior advisor to the Exec Dir, moving into the interim CHRO role.

The reported dismissals come two months after Exec Dir Tony Clark’s sudden resignation in February, with the DOJ looking into alleged financial improprieties. That probe remains ongoing. A whistleblower complaint accused Clark of self-dealing, misuse of union resources, abuse of power and nepotism. In March, the union shuttered youth-baseball initiative, Players Way. Deputy Bruce Meyer has since been elevated to interim Exec Dir.

James was the sixth-highest paid MLBPA employee last year, earning nearly $728,000, according to federal filings. Meanwhile, O’Neill made just over $327,000. James, a former executive at HBO and MasterCard, joined the MLBPA in 2018 as deputy COO and was promoted in 2019. He also spent 10 years as CEO for Gary Sheffield Management & Entertainment Group. O’Neill came to the MLBPA in 2020 and had previously spent 12 years at Guggenheim Partners as Senior Managing Director of Human Resources & Operations.

Celsius Holdings’ Rockstar Energy drink is getting back into NASCAR with 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick, as the classic energy drink brand’s return marks another sign of sponsorship interest in the sport. After first hinting at the deal on social media Wednesday, Rockstar later this morning will confirm that it is sponsoring 23XI’s No. 45 Toyota driven by Reddick in select NASCAR Cup Series races this year. Terms are unknown, but the first primary will come this month at Talladega. Assets include branding on the team’s materials and 18-wheel transporter in addition to the race car and using Reddick in marketing campaigns and digital media programming.

Rockstar hasn’t been in NASCAR in over a decade dating back to a deal in the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series that started in 2014 with Turner Motorsports and driver Dylan Kwasniewski. As part of a broader strategic deal with PepsiCo, Celsius Holdings last year acquired Rockstar for the U.S. and Canada regions -- and it’s now undertaking a broader marketing revamp to boost the drink.

The company started talks with 23XI at Daytona, where just days later Reddick would win the Daytona 500 and begin a three-race winning streak that was unprecedented in NASCAR history. Reddick was previously partnered with Monster Energy, which remains a sponsor of 23XI with another one of its Cup Series cars, the No. 35 driven by Riley Herbst, whose family owns the Terrible’s gas station chain. Celsius Holdings’ namesake Celsius brand was already a sponsor of yet another 23XI driver, Corey Heim, while Coca-Cola is the beverage on the No. 23 driven by Bubba Wallace.

Rockstar Senior Director of Sports & Music Steve Mateus said the brand had been itching to get back into NASCAR in recent years but the proper opportunity didn’t come till now. No agencies were used in the negotiations, according to 23XI President Steve Lauletta.

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USTA Ventures, the U.S. Tennis Association’s strategic investment arm, has made an undisclosed investment in Fastbreak AI and committed to using its machine learning-powered sports scheduling engine for USTA League recreational matches. The deployment will begin on a pilot basis this year before rolling out widely in 2027.

Michael Hughes, the USTA’s Senior Dir of Digital Strategy & Business Development, told SBJ the USTA selected Fastbreak after a request-for-proposals process intended to address a pain point -- scheduling USTA League matches across the governing body’s 17 sections -- that causes “tremendous operational overhead.”

“There are about 350,000 dual [team vs. team] matches every year of USTA League. It’s scheduling 2 million court hours against thousands of different facilities,” Hughes explained of the process, which had previously been done manually.

Hughes said he was introduced to Fastbreak through its participation in the NBA Launchpad accelerator (which he and the USTA keep tabs on) and an existing relationship with Fastbreak Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Chris Groer, who was a professional tennis player. Fastbreak’s work across more than 60 pro leagues (e.g., NBA, NHL, MLS) stood out, as did its expansion into youth sports through the launch of its youth sports operations platform, Fastbreak Compete.

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Fanzo, a technology company that connects fans to bars showing televised sporting events, has launched its B2B (Fanzo Venues) and bar finder platforms in the U.S., building on commercial momentum abroad. Fanzo co-founder & CEO Leo MacLehose told SBJ that Fanzo derives about half of its revenue from signing commercial venues (i.e., bars and restaurants) and content distributors (e.g., MVPDs, Joe Hand Promotions) to be listed on its free-to-use bar finder platform. The platform draws 6 million annual users, who can search for bars in their area showing select sporting events, or find out which sporting events are being shown at specific bars. Fanzo also has a brand solutions business through which it facilitates out-of-home digital activations (e.g., pick ‘em or trivia games) with brands like Guinness and Coca-Cola.

“The broad value proposition [is], how do we help venues maximize their return on investment from sport?” MacLehose said.

Fanzo has 47,000 bar partners worldwide, having started in the U.K. 16 years ago and expanded to Ireland, Germany, France, Australia and other markets. It launches in the U.S. with 11,000 American bars on the platform through partnerships with Joe Hand Promotions and Men in Blazers (for whom it white labels its technology for their “bar finder” web product). Fanzo also last year acquired The Rail Media and integrated the daily sports broadcast scheduling guide it publishes, “SportsTV Guide,” into its B2B platform.

MacLehose said Fanzo has raised $8M in its lifetime and been profitable for two years. Fanzo Venues’ annual pricing ranges from a free tier (“to identify yourself as a sports bar”) to a $3,000 package that includes search/social media marketing services and boosted visibility in Fanzo listings.

On this week’s pod, SBJ media reporters Austin Karp and Josh Carpenter go deep on a number of pressing topics. First, the duo looks at the impressive audience numbers for the Masters final round juxtaposed with the production hiccups. Then, it’s the latest on media rights for the Preakness, the NBA’s strong regular season, what to make of the DOJ investigation into the NFL and some ESPN talent moves.

“In 1909 she joined the Socialist Party & later published ‘Out of the Dark,’ her writings ‘on physical & social vision.’”