SBJ Unpacks: Celebrating 150 years of Spalding

Tonight in Unpacks: Starting from a sporting goods store in Chicago that two brothers founded, Spalding has become an indelible part of the sports landscape and American recreational culture, writes SBJ’s Terry Lefton in this week’s magazine.

Also tonight:

• Publicis acquiring 160over90 to expand sports marketing reach
• NBA teams can seek new TV deals amid Main Street wind-down
• Spirits sponsorships (and numbers) remain high, even as Americans drink less
• Op-ed: What it would take to fix Indian football

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour examines Publicis’ acquisition of 160over90 and its recent run of sports-agency deals, Netflix’s strong Opening Day audience with younger demos, the NFL giving Brazil a big draw with Cowboys-Ravens and more.

PUBLISHING NOTICE: SBJ Unpacks will not run Friday, April 3, for the Good Friday holiday. It will return Monday, April 6.

It was 150 years ago that Albert G. Spalding and his brother, J. Walter Spalding, founded a sporting goods store on Randolph Street in Chicago. In the store’s first week, they sold a single baseball. It was the baby steps for a brand that eventually made it onto nearly every recreational product, from bicycles to ice skates and automobile wheels, even automatic rifles during World War II.

There were so many firsts (some disputed): the first National League baseball in 1876, followed a year later by the first baseball glove; the first basketball in 1894, as well as manufacturing the first American-made football, golf ball, tennis ball and volleyball. Albert Spalding was an early 200 game-winning pitcher, a founder of the NL and former president of the Chicago White Stockings, so his name had retail clout.

Jeff Mann is Spalding’s unofficial historian and archivist. His passion for Spalding is large enough that he has a collection of Spalding memorabilia that contains 5,000 artifacts, including an 1894 Baltimore Orioles uniform in “immaculate condition.” Mann’s regard for Albert Spalding is so enormous that he won’t rest until there’s an Albert Spalding museum.

“Spalding did a tremendous amount for sports in America and really never gets the credit he deserves,” said Mann. “I’m not sure we would even have professional baseball without him.”

Spading made the first official NL baseball from 1876 to 1976; the NHL’s game pucks from the early 1930s through the mid-1940s; the AFL’s game ball from its start in 1960 until the NFL merger in 1970; footballs for the Arena Football League and the XFL; and the official NBA ball from 1983 to 2021. Even the much-touted “Duke” football, which has been the NFL’s spheroid of choice for more than 80 years, has roots with Spalding: Wilson bought the “Duke” name from its rival in 1941.

These days its basketball “officialdom” extends into the ACC, the Harlem Globetrotters and Overtime Elite. And when the winning March Madness teams climb those Werner ladders to cut down nets, they will be nets affixed to Spalding’s NCAA-official hoop.

Mention those lost NBA ball rights to Brian Collins, Spalding vice president of marketing, and he’s quick to remind you that the NBA stanchions are still made by Spalding.

Basketball remains Spalding’s largest category, accounting for more than half of sales; even without NBA rights, it still maintains that it’s the largest basketball and basketball equipment supplier. Dudley softball equipment is another big brand and 40% of its sales are offshore, including Sherrin, the official Aussie Rules football since 1880.

Since 2003, Spalding has been owned by Russell Brands, a subsidiary of Fruit of the Loom, a company owned in turn by Berkshire Hathaway. Wonder what old A.G. would think about his empire being owned by Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, one of the world’s wealthiest men?

As for observations of Spalding’s sesquicentennial? Low-key at best, including some content pieces. With all that history, “it’s a heritage that’s easy to be proud of,” said Collins. “But we learned that core customers are not as concerned with how many years we’ve been around as they are with what we’re doing now.”

Contemporary products of note include Spalding’s shot-tracking DNA “Smart basketball” ($250 MSRP, including a training website subscription) and the Momentous EZ Assembly portables hoop, which it says can go from box to play in a half hour.

“The focus is on our next 150,” Collins said.

Publicis is acquiring WME’s sports/experiential agency 160over90. The purchase price will be more than $500M, per the Wall Street Journal. The move continues the recent flurry of consolidation and brings another multibillion-dollar holding company into the sea of sports agencies competing with Omnicom’s.

For Publicis, striving to build a meaningful sports practice to match its media-buying prowess, the move is the latest in a series that began with last year’s acquisitions of agencies Adopt and Bespoke. The acquisition gives Publicis unprecedented sports-marketing reach. Last year, 160over90 activated more than 500 events in nearly 30 countries and across 38 states.

Pairing sports marketing with media buying is not a novel idea, but it has been difficult to make it work.

“The scale involved makes it very intriguing,” said a longtime sports agency head. “The question everyone will be asking is how a media conglomerate can manage the cost center of running high-level activation and production. That has been challenging for all of them.”

Said the head of another large sports/experiential shop: “It doesn’t surprise me that a traditional advertising holding company is going after sports, but traditional holding company models usually stifle sports marketing — it’s very different.”

160over90’s name is expected to endure, and its executive leadership will remain intact and report to Suzy Deering, Publicis Sports CEO since last October. However, Rob Henchman, named 160over90’s president last September, will remain at WME as a senior partner.

160/90 has about 700 employees around the world and clients including A-B/inBev, Allstate, Kia, Marriott, USAA, Rocket Mortgage, Visa, and some Coke and McDonald’s work for the FIFA World Cup. Seven-year-old Publicis Sports has around 85 staffers.

The acquisition pits two heavyweight ad holding companies ($16.4B Publicis and $17.2B Omnicom) with sports as the magnet, especially attractive with the upcoming World Cup and 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.

“Real scale was something 160 didn’t have,” said another sports agency president. “Publicis gives them more of that and access to a global network, so now I’d take them even more seriously as a competitor.”

With its recent acquisition of IPG, Omnicom has a formidable collection of sports shops, including GMR, Momentum, Octagon and Optimum Sports.

Main Street Sports Group will officially wind down after the first round of the NHL playoffs, SBJ learned Thursday, while sources said Main Street’s 13 NBA teams were informed in a league call Wednesday that they will likely be reimbursed some portion of this year’s lost rights fee payments.

The development is a prelude to seismic change in the local TV industry, with the NBA, for instance, telling the Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, T’Wolves, Thunder, Magic and Spurs that they can begin signing new in-market deals for the 2026-27 season, which is tantamount to a free-for-all.

For linear -- where the rights fees will likely be under $10M annually -- many of those teams could either switch to local over-the-air channels or their own in-house networks, such as the Cavaliers’ Rock Entertainment Sports Network. For streaming (and even linear, as well), the NBA is urging teams to sign one-year deals or packages with at least a one-year exit clause, in the event the league does not launch a national streaming platform until the 2027-28 season. But sources said there is a sense multiple teams could shift to a streaming-only template for next season with platforms such as DAZN or Victory+ -- which would be a first for NBA teams.

While it was almost a forgone conclusion for months, Main Street’s lenders on Thursday officially signed the paperwork to wind down the business -- for the NBA on the last day of its regular season April 12 and for the NHL after any of its seven teams (the Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Kings, Wild, Predators and Blues) finish the first round of the playoffs. The NHL opening round is expected to begin April 18, with all of the best of seven series likely to end by the end of the month or conceivably early May.

As a result, sources said many Main Street staff members have either already left or are staying through April 15 because they have retainer bonuses coming their way. A skeleton crew is expected to remain through May 15, those same sources said.

In a statement to SBJ, a Main Street Sports Group spokesperson said: “FanDuel Sports Network has reached agreements with the NBA and NHL to broadcast games and other programming through the end of the 2026 NBA regular season and the end of the first round of the NHL playoffs. We are preparing to wind down our operations upon seasons’ end unless we reach a strategic transaction. We’re pleased to finish out the NBA and NHL seasons, and we appreciate the collaborative relationships we have enjoyed with our team and league partners as well as the connections we have fostered with local fans.”

Related to the feasibility of a “strategic transaction,” Main Street has long been in talks to sell its platform to DAZN. And sources said Main Street -- knowing it has attractive long-term distribution deals with DirecTV, Charter and Comcast -- has held out hope it could reach a deal at the 11th hour.

But other sources said NBA teams were told Wednesday that Main Street will absolutely dissolve in April, and, for months, DAZN has been reaching out to individual teams -- independent of Main Street --to acquire teams’ digital rights and get their foot in the door to potentially house the NBA’s eventual national streaming RSN.

But teams had waited to strike any local TV deals, just in case Main Street found an investor. It put those franchises in a bind, though, because Main Street has not made a single rights fee payment in 2026 to any of its 13 NBA and seven NHL partners -- and many of those teams had doubted the money would ever arrive.

But sources said the NBA franchises, at least, were finally told Wednesday that once they sign a dissolution agreement with the league and with Main Street, they should receive a rebate based on a complex formula related to the NBA/NHL teams and Main Street’s creditors. Multiple sources said it’s possible each team could receive as much as 60% of their lost TV money.

Teams are also hoping to recoup money another way -- if the NBA fast-tracks its national streaming RSN. Although the NBA has toyed with launching a streaming hub for local broadcasts in time for next season, the project was not a topic at the recent Board of Governors session, and the teams are proceeding as if it won’t happen until the 2027-28 season at the earliest. For that reason, the league has asked all teams to sign those one-year digital deals for 2026-27 or deals with exit clauses – so the franchises can join the platform in aggregate once it goes live.

Because of that one-year gap, platforms such as DAZN, Victory+, ViewLift and Kiswe are trying to pounce now on the 13 available NBA teams, with DAZN most notably hoping to show its viability with local broadcasts for one season – and then bidding to house the national streaming hub whenever the league is ready.

DAZN’s competition for the national RSN, though, could be the more established Amazon, YouTube TV or even the ESPN app. As of now, sources said YouTube TV has shown particular interest, and a key connection could be YouTube TV’’s Managing Director, Head of Sports and Live Partnerships Jen Chun – who until Sept. of 2024, was the NBA’s EVP, head of content partnerships, working alongside the league’s media lead Bill Koenig.

But sources said YouTube TV may only be interested if at least 20 teams join the national platform and even more so if those 20 teams don’t have coinciding linear deals -- meaning customers leaguewide would badly covet the streaming-only YouTube TV package.

As of now, those 13 Main Street NBA teams are the most likely candidates to join a streaming RSN, along with five former RSN teams – the Suns, Jazz, Mavericks, Trail Blazers and Pelicans. The final few —to get to 20-plus —could be NBC’s RSN teams such as the Celtics, Warriors, Sixers and Kings.

In the interim, until that streaming hub materializes, the possibilities are intriguing. Sources said multiple NBA teams are considering a 2026-27 local TV blueprint that would have them streaming their games only -- without an over-the-air linear option. Teams such as the NHL’s Stars and Ducks have already gone the streaming-only route through Victory+, but no NBA team has yet to dive in.

Sources, though, said teams such as the T-Wolves and Hornets are contemplating local streaming-only deals, with the WNBA’s Lynx potentially streaming all of their non-national games alongside the T-Wolves, as well.

Victory+’s model would pay teams a minimum guarantee and later share advertising revenue with teams once that money has been earned back. Games would be streamed for free, with no paywall and with 10-to-15 games simulcast over-the-air in local markets for promotional purposes. DAZN, meanwhile, would pay teams a rights fee, but the platform would be subscription based, again with 10-to-15 games broadcast free OTA in local markets for exposure.

If teams go elsewhere and choose ViewLift or Kiswe for streaming, those companies would be their technology partners who set up a franchise’s proprietary DTC network. ViewLift, for instance, handles Altitude+ for the Nuggets and Avalanche and Monumental+ for the Wizards and Capitals, while Kiswe handles SEG+ for Jazz and Mammoth streams.

While there’s been increasing discussion among the sponsorship cognoscenti about declining spirits and alcohol consumption, it hasn’t yet made an impact on team and league sponsorships in that area.

Still, it’s a growing concern as glasses stay unfilled. Alcohol consumption in the U.S. reached its lowest level in almost 90 years, according to a 2025 Gallup poll in which 54% of Americans said they consume alcohol. It’s a growing move toward less being more. The Gallup figure fell to 62% in 2023 and 58% in 2024, before reaching 54% last July. Other reports have U.S. retail liquor, wine and beer sales falling.

As ever, SponsorUnited’s Bob Lynch pulled some germane data. SU says that over the past four years, total sponsorship spending on alcohol (spirits, beer and hard seltzer) rose 18% to around $700 million across what it defines as the “five major U.S. pro sports.”

An average team in the top five sports has just over four spirits deals, according to SU. Within total alcohol, since 2022 spirits total spend shifted from 30 % to 32%.

The tequila market continues to drive a lot of growth within spirits, but the “brown liquors” —bourbon/scotch/whiskey — continue to be the largest sponsorship category at about 35% for 46 brands, declining slightly in spending. Tequila is now 20% of all spirits deals, with Casamigos pacing the way among 33 brands with the biggest total spend and 37 team deals. MLS, NFL and the PGA Tour are growing the most in terms of total deals, SU said.

“It [reported consumption decline] has generated a lot of discussion, but so many of these are multiyear deals, you probably won’t see anything resulting from that for a while,” said Nick Kelly, who heads consultancy Encore Sports & Entertainment and was the former VP/partnerships at Anheuser-Busch InBev. “So many of the big brewers are global. It isn’t impacting them much elsewhere,”

Ready-to-drink cocktails continue to outpace the rest of the category. The combination of those and hard seltzer now has 62 active brands accounting for a spending increase of 35% in two years. Most active brands include Surfside, Sun Cruiser, Top Chico and Cutwater.

Birds are singing. Flowers are starting to bloom in my neighborhood. And some fresh capital is pouring into the sports tech scene yet again.

Welcome to the SBJ Tech Funding Round(up) for Q1 2026. In my two-plus years of doing this, we’ve never had the quarter end one day and the roundup run the next. Look at that turnaround!

Let’s dive right in with a look at the numbers, along with three key takeaways.

Whoopin’ it up

Right at the buzzer, Whoop announced a whopping funding round Tuesday to just squeak into this quarterly installment. The company raised $575 million at a $10.1-billion valuation.

A couple of things stand out from the reporting of my colleague Joe Lemire. For starters, while Collaborative Fund led the round, the involvement of Abbott and Mayo Clinic is a clear indicator that Whoop continues to evolve as both a consumer-facing product and a tool for medical research. Also, CEO Will Ahmed said this money lets Whoop invest more into key areas of the business, specifically mentioning research and development.

If I had to guess, that would include even more focus on AI enhancements to the tech and analysis Whoop brings to its users. More than two years ago now, Whoop rolled out a generative AI coach. As Whoop chugs along toward an IPO, I bet a lot more innovation comes with it.

It’s a hot time to be a wearables manufacturer. At the end of 2025, Oura raised $900 million. In a related note, I’ve started sketching mockups of my own wearable products that will be available later this year. Editor’s note: This is a joke. I would make a terrible product.

Tackling youth sports

As the business potential of youth sports grows, more companies are pouring in to find their spot in the massive sector. Otto Sport AI, a youth sports management platform, emerged earlier this year with a focus on lacrosse, soccer and volleyball. Interestingly, the platform looks to ease the life of all in the bubble around competition: players, coaches, parents and even recruiters looking for talent to take to the collegiate level.

Diamond Kinetics raised $12 million to bolster its livestreaming and building of AI-automated highlights. And NurivaTech is bringing biomechanics to baseball and softball (for all levels of play) with an $8 million raise and its first product, SportFX, which uses a smartphone’s camera to analyze swings via computer vision and provide recommendations for improvement.

A new player

Finally, you may have noticed a recurring lead in these rounds. Game Changers Ventures has hit the scene by backing three of these early-stage startups.

GCV is the newest investment vehicle of Roger Ehrenberg, the founder and managing partner of Eberg Capital, a firm holding stakes in sports teams like the Marlins, Real Salt Lake and the Alpine F1 Racing Team. GCV focuses on sports, media, gambling and entertainment, and the three Q1 investments indicate a keen interest in data and operations. Case in point:

• Equipe looks to enhance college sports by developing a data platform that produces wholistic views of individual fans. (I am a big believer in the Equipe platform after getting a walkthrough recently, and the fact that their first client was the Texas athletics department doesn’t hurt, either.)
• Arkero is an operational platform trying to streamline game-day planning and add more efficiency to the process with AI.
• idPair is an infrastructure layer looking to unify the self-exclusion process (when a person essentially raises their hand and says “do not let me play these games right now for my own well-being”) around betting and gaming.

GCV is creating a unique portfolio in these early days, and I’m intrigued to see what other companies might spark their investment.

Other rounds covered by SBJ in Q1 2026:

• The 33rd Team
• Whistle Performance
• Faves
• The Realest
• Novig
• SportIQ
• Recentive Analytics (recently named to the latest cohort of SBJ’s 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies)

In a previous article, I outlined the structural failures that have kept Indian football locked in a cycle of commercial growth without sporting progress: a fragmented development pyramid, an unstable top flight, and a governing body mired in legal paralysis that leaves one of the world’s largest football audiences without a viable pathway to the global game.

Since that January piece, the Indian Super League has resumed after a nine-month hiatus in a single-leg format, with all clubs returning to competition. The restart has been framed as a sigh of relief for the All India Football Federation. But the return of the ISL does not repair what sits beneath it. Governance uncertainty remains, the federation has yet to restore its authority as an operator, and the pathways linking youth football to the professional game are still fractured. The same conditions that allowed the league to be suspended still exist. In corporate terms, Indian football has addressed liquidity without addressing solvency.

I am not an expert, and I do not pretend to be one. There is still much about football governance and development that I am learning. But I am Indian, and I have watched football for as long as I can remember. Like many of my countrymen, I have grown up loving the game and wondering why that passion has never translated into sustained progress on the pitch.

This piece exists for one reason: to engage directly with what rebuilding Indian football could realistically look like. Not as a critique from the sidelines, and not as a promise of quick success, but as an attempt to think seriously about what durable change requires. If the sport is to move beyond survival, the conversation has to shift from managing crises to designing systems. For me, it starts here.

The first step is attacking the root. No argument holds up without confronting the AIFF itself. Many downstream failures trace back to a governing body that has not acted as a credible steward of the sport. A mass reconstruction of the AIFF is not optional if Indian football is to progress. That reality, in fact, has already been exposed: In 2022, the Supreme Court of India temporarily displaced the federation’s leadership through a Committee of Administrators, and FIFA later suspended the AIFF for undue external influence. While control was eventually returned, the episode made clear that the federation is not immune from consequence.

Indian football deserves a body that is simpler, more credible, and aligned with the interests of the football community rather than one trapped in internal power struggles. For this piece, I refer to that reimagined institution as the Indian Football Governance Association (IFGA). The IFGA would not be a rebrand, but a reset: a regulator, not an operator, mandated to enforce standards and restore credibility across the ecosystem. It would operate in compliance with FIFA and AFC governance frameworks, backed by transparent audits, fixed term limits, and external oversight to prevent the concentration of power that has repeatedly undermined Indian football. Without accountability at the top, no reform elsewhere can endure.

A core responsibility of the IFGA would be to bring coherence to India’s fragmented league system. Today, the ISL operates as a closed competition with no promotion or relegation, while the I-League (now being branded as the Indian Football League) and its lower divisions function as a separate pathway with limited connection to the top tier. The separation distorts incentives: clubs outside the ISL compete without a clear route upward, while clubs inside it operate without the pressure that promotion and relegation creates. Success in one system does not reliably translate into opportunity in another, making long-term planning difficult for clubs, players, and investors alike.

For Indian football to function as a unified system rather than a collection of isolated competitions, its leagues must sit within a single framework with aligned standards. Unification into one pyramid is not about forced timelines; it is about establishing a coherent logic that connects the professional game from top to bottom. Without that connection, Indian football will keep restarting seasons without truly moving forward.

Any attempt to rebuild Indian football without addressing youth development is incomplete. While many ISL clubs have invested seriously in academies, the core problem is structural. As Darren Caldeira, director of football at Bengaluru FC, pointed out to me, even well-run academies lack a consistent, formalized league environment to compete in. Clubs are often forced to organize their own tournaments and fixtures, diverting resources away from coaching and long-term player development.

Under the IFGA, youth development would be anchored by federation-run academy leagues that clubs can rely on rather than recreate. The federation’s role would not be to manage training or recruitment, but to provide a stable, seasonlong competitive framework across age groups, integrated into the national calendar. The AIFF-FIFA Talent Academy, launched under FIFA’s Talent Development Scheme and guided by (my personal footballing hero) Arsène Wenger, shows the value of centralized standards, but its impact remains limited by scale. Without a nationwide, federation-led youth competition structure, academies will continue to operate in isolation, and the gap between potential and production will remain.

Finally, for the IFGA to function properly, it must move away from a long-standing pattern in Indian football where senior administrative roles are occupied by political figures rather than football leadership. Although the AIFF is formally an independent, nonprofit society, its effectiveness has often been undermined by the presence of serving politicians in key positions. Recent Supreme Court warnings and subsequent constitutional changes barring ministers and government officials from holding office reflect an acknowledgment that this model has failed.

The IFGA would need to enforce a different standard in practice. Its leadership should be drawn from individuals with clear experience in football — grassroots administrators, qualified former players, and technical professionals — rather than political appointees. External advisers from established federations could help set early operational standards, while structured engagement with supporter groups would add accountability. If trust is to be rebuilt, governance must prioritize football expertise and openness over political influence.

Of course, the IFGA is hypothetical. But what it represents is real: an idea I hope resonates with both decision-makers and the everyday fans who keep showing up, watching, caring, and hoping. If Indian football is ever to break its current cycle, it “will’” not come from another restart or short-term fix, but from a willingness to challenge the status quo and build something that lasts.

Arjun Anjaneya Krishnan is a student at NYU’s Stern School of Business pursuing his passion for the business of sport.

• This week’s SBJ Sports Media Podcast features SBJ’s Richard Deitsch joining host Austin Karp to break down the effects of Big Data on the viewership numbers for the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments. They also talk about the NFL and how Tiger Woods’ departure from golf could affect the TGL’s next media deal.
• Wisconsin is expanding its sponsorship deal with UW Health to include logo patches on Badgers uniforms in women’s basketball, hockey, volleyball and softball, reports SBJ’s Ben Portnoy.
• ESPN on-air personality Marty Smith, known for his work on “College GameDay” and “Marty & McGee,” signed a long-term contract with the network, notes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• Netflix drew 3 million viewers for its debut MLB effort featuring Yankees-Giants, but maybe most importantly for the league, it was the youngest MLB Opening Day audience since the delayed start to the pandemic season in July 2020, writes Karp. More than half of MLB’s teams also saw viewership increases for their openers.
• Michigan’s Fab Five — Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson — are doing an alt-cast on TruTV and HBO Max for Saturday night’s Michigan-Arizona game in the men’s Final Four, notes Karp.
• Karp also reports that UConn-Duke drew 13.4 million viewers on CBS on Sunday afternoon, and the best game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament to date heading into Saturday’s Final Four.
• The LOVB San Francisco ownership group is expanding with notable names such as soccer icon Julie Foudy and Warriors coach Steve Kerr, writes SBJ’s Rachel Axon.
• Former SportsCenter and “NFL Live” host Trey Wingo is aligning with Excel Sports Management for representation as he shifts his focus to online content and podcasting, reports SBJ’s Irving Mejia-Hilario.
• Pit Boss Grills is getting into UFC as a sponsor and is adding Bo Nickal as an endorser, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.