SBJ Unpacks: How the WNBA got to its new CBA

Tonight in Unpacks: SBJ’s Tom Friend goes in depth into the eight days of late nights and give and take that led to the WNBA’s new CBA, from the roles of league and union leadership to players’ involvement.

Also tonight:

• Disney not considering ESPN spinoff
• NWSL sticking with current calendar through 2030
• A Hollywood take on the industry model
• Op-ed: The World Cup as a showcase for future events

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Abe Madkour looks at JP Morgan Chase’s big Olympic investment, the NBA’s lottery cure for tanking, the latest AI sponsorship move and more.

Nothing good happens after midnight — except for the eight days that saved the WNBA season.

The clocks would strike 1 a.m., 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., with WNBPA Executive Director Terri Carmichael Jackson sipping green peppermint tea and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert hydrating with water, and there was no end in sight due to this thing called revenue share or this other thing called housing or this other thing called stubbornness.

There were eight days of give and take and take and give — from Tuesday, March 10, through Wednesday, March 18 — and when it appeared both sides would never get to the magic revenue share number of 20%, the union was convinced the league thought: “The players are going to cave.”

But somewhere around the Ides of March, in the middle of the night at a lush New York hotel called The Langham, 13-year pro and WNBPA Vice President Alysha Clark laughed all of that off. She looked over at the players doing yoga or crashing out on the floor with blankets — her being one of them — and said, “Do they really think they’re going to outlast an endurance athlete? This is what we do.”

So the stalemate was on. It should be a “30 for 30.”

In November, when the union was asking for 40% of league and team revenue and the league was dug in below 15%, Engelbert received a notice in the mail — for jury duty.

She didn’t mind it, actually. The commissioner considered it “part of my civic duty” and was prepared to check in at the courthouse — until the league’s lawyers told her no.

At the time, collective-bargaining tensions were palpable. The previous CBA had expired on Halloween, and there were labor talks during an ensuing 30-day extension period. The union was perturbed that the league would negotiate only in hour-and-a-half or two-hour pockets — “What if we wanted to keep going?!” Jackson says — and it would’ve been horrible timing if Engelbert was suddenly nowhere to be found, if she was in some New York-area courtroom listening to a random petty theft trial.

So, of course, her lawyers told her not to go. Engelbert requested a deferral and was fortunately given a new jury duty date, far, far, far down the road: March 16, 2026.

She’d certainly be free by then. Right?

November, December, January and most of February came and went — with no deal. You could have counted the issues on 10 hands, but the two core disagreements that would turn March into madness were revenue share and housing. One of them about math, the other about heart.

By late February, lines were being drawn in the sand or being blurred, depending what side of the table you were on. On or around Feb. 21, the league and the union had a rare in-person bargaining session with several players sitting in — such as Clark, WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike and WNBPA Treasurer Brianna Turner — plus countless others on Zoom. But the league didn’t have them at hello.

Right off the bat, the WNBA placed a calendar on a screen that had the players seething. In a nutshell, the league was telling the union that if no verbal agreement was reached by March 10, the 2026 season schedule would be affected. Did that mean, if no handshake by then, the season wouldn’t start on time? Did it mean the union had to get on board or get locked out? Was it daring the players to strike?

With the clock ticking, the league certainly had, among other things, tickets to sell and sponsorship deals to close. It saw that March 10 deadline as necessary, while the union saw it as another “scare tactic” after previous nebulous deadline threats in December and January – and especially after the league had ignored the union’s December request for a 30% revenue share for six weeks.

“And so they opened that meeting with these dates, with this calendar that we’d never seen before, we’d never discussed,” Jackson says now. “Very off-putting, is one word. It was very frustrating because we’ve come in for a bargaining session and they’ve looked to start it with how to apply pressure very, very swiftly with a full audience of players.”

Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart were two of those players. But which side were they on?

March was finally here, and so was an ESPN report that Plum and Stewart (a vice president of the union) were essentially trying to submarine the WNBPA. Included in their three-page letter to Jackson was the insinuation that the union was freezing players out of the negotiations, with the accusatory statement, “We do not feel like we have an adequate seat at the table.” The letter was supposed to have been private.

“You know what it was,” Jackson says now, the implication being that Plum’s and Stewart’s agents orchestrated and leaked the supposed coup. Jackson and her team felt the agents wanted no part of a strike and that the league was working in concert with the agents to break the union. Engelbert and her staff didn’t dignify it with a response, but it reinforces how much trust there was then: Zero.

Still, the next 24 to 48 hours was a breakthrough of sorts, according to Michael Goldsholl, the union’s senior vice president for business and legal affairs, the kind of breakthrough that labor lawyers are dying to hear. After Jackson, Goldsholl and Erin Drake, WNBPA senior adviser and legal counsel, defused the so-called rift — with a joint statement of solidarity from Plum, Stewart and the executive committee — the results of a player survey came tumbling in. The union had already dropped its revenue share request from 30% to 27.5% to 26%, and a crucial survey question was whether to accept the league’s seeming non-negotiable offer of just less than 15%.

“That survey said the 15% — or the not even 15% — was unacceptable," Jackson says now. “It was a resounding: ‘There’s no way we’re taking this offer.’”

Goldsholl put it this way: “I would say we had a mandate to get at least 20%. That was the mandate: 20%. At least.”

In other words, see you March 10.

So it was all set. The league and the union would meet at The Langham on Fifth Avenue, where — on the right day — you can get a room with a king-sized bed for $1,600 and change. But on March 10, the negotiators didn’t need beds; they needed a large conference room and two adjacent breakout rooms. The listed price online? $2,000 to $5,000 a day.

The key leaders on each side walked in that day around 5 p.m. For the league, it was Engelbert; WNBA general counsel Jamin Dershowitz; Dan Rube, NBA executive vice president and deputy general counsel; Jachele Vélez, WNBA deputy general counsel; and Bethany Donaphin, WNBA head of league operations. For the union, it was Jackson, Goldsholl, Drake, SVP of Player Relations Jayne Appel-Marinelli and an advisory committee consisting of Deb Willig, managing partner of Willig, Williams and Davidson; sports and entertainment executive Tag Garson; and communications specialist and NYU professor David Cooper. Members of the WNBPA’s Executive Committee — Clark, Turner, Ogwumike and Stewart — would make a grand entrance, after getting in their workouts.

They settled in for the short haul, not knowing it would be the long haul. The first day of talks went an interminable 11 hours, with Jackson exiting at around 4 a.m. and Engelbert around dawn at 5 a.m. That was just Day 1.

By this point, Engelbert — whose jury duty date was only days away on March 16 — had already requested another deferral, only this time she says the courthouse “only gave me a week,” meaning she had to show up in court, no ifs and buts, on Monday, March 23.

No problem, right? Wrong. The “elephant in the room,” as Drake puts it, was revenue share, but Engelbert says now there were more than 50 issues to negotiate, which began a week straight of days into nights and nights into dawn. “I think what was underestimated was the number of issues,” Engelbert says. “Everyone thought there was one. And I really think the players thought there was only one.”

That one sensitive, make-or-break, die-on-the-vine player issue was housing. Don’t be mistaken: Ogwumike was still savvy enough to be telling everyone “the big thing’s the big thing,” meaning revenue share. But the WNBA’s early decision to eliminate league-sanctioned housing — then only bending to allow it for first-year players — was the sore spot, whether Engelbert and her lawyers realized it yet. And during those first three days at The Langham, from March 10 through 12, housing wasn’t front and center yet. There was 401(k), retirement, health benefits, on and on and on.

So the players had to hurry up and wait.

“Stewie quipped in a fun way: ‘Now I know what I don’t want to do after basketball,’” Engelbert says. “‘Become a lawyer.’”

Everyone had a story about the all-nighters, the eight straight days of them. The union would send out for ice cream in the wee hours, and it would arrive with the security guards asleep on their chairs. The league ordered ice cream, too — but not necessarily coffee ice cream. Engelbert doesn’t do caffeine.

“I never had a cup of coffee in my life,” she says. “Water, water. People think I’m crazy, but water.”

She says she’s known for “not needing a lot of sleep,” and that obviously came in handy when she was calling or texting team owners across the country with 4:30 a.m. updates.

“Adrenaline’s a powerful thing, thankfully,” Engelbert says. “Everyone says you’ll sleep when you’re dead — we just didn’t want to die doing it."

Across the room, Jackson says she’d given up coffee for Lent but was rescued by The Langham’s “great teas” — specifically the green peppermint. She would get a ride home generally about 3 a.m., sometimes later, and says, “According to my sleep app, I averaged four hours.”

Goldsholl says he averaged maybe two, because, just like Drake, his mind would be spinning with numbers and brainstorms and rebuttals. In some absurd way, the fatigue was exorcised from their bodies, with Drake saying, “We were in a vortex. I truly felt like we were in a little world all with each other. And that came with understanding the way that people are at 3 in the morning, the way people are at 10 in the morning, at 7 in the morning. What people like to eat, just the familiarity and the closeness, the proximity … I think I felt very vulnerable in that space.”

Drake described it as “just a level of care,” with people making runs to CVS for toothpaste or peanut M&M’s. It was the perfect time to be in the city that never sleeps, because they weren’t sleeping, either. They would DoorDash Chinese or Brazilian food at 11 p.m., from restaurants such as Cocina Del Sur, Wolfnights and Din Tai Fung.

But for the music, they had Clark’s playlist to thank. While reviewing documents, they’d listen to Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Earth, Wind and Fire, Rufus — all courtesy of Clark. Those players were waiting for a deal, waiting for their million-dollar salaries, sleeping on Langham hotel floor blankets. They played pop-a-shot when the sessions moved to league headquarters over the weekend and ping-pong when talks shifted to union headquarters. They walked around with Excel spreadsheets. They cheered out loud on Sunday night, March 15, crowding around Clark’s laptop, when Michael B. Jordan won an Oscar for “Sinners.” And they waited and waited for housing, with an entire player membership in mind.

And when it came time, Brianna Turner was ready.

The sides were inching closer to a deal on that weekend of March 14-15, after Engelbert and the league drew up a T-account (a method perhaps from her Deloitte days) to give everyone a “you give, you get” mentality. They were chipping away. Next up was housing.

The league argument had always been: The max salary is going to be over a million, the average salary is going be over 500,000 — you can pay your own rent now. But Turner’s mic-drop moment was when she said: “What about 2028?”

Following a silent beat, a league official asked, “What do you mean?” And then she started in on it — that 2028 was an Olympic year and housing would be scarce and overpriced in L.A. that summer. How would the Sparks players cope? How would players find affordable short-team leases? Turner, whose nickname inside the union was suitably “Hidden Figures,” also mentioned that the league’s new minimum salary at that time of negotiations was below last year’s max of $249,000. She said if max players last year got housing at $249K, why not now? The league had no response.

“She annihilated it,” Drake says. “It disabused them of all of the assumptions they were making.”

Engelbert admits now she had no idea how “emotional” housing was to the players, and Donaphin isn’t afraid to say Turner “was compelling” because she passionately represented the middle-class players. To Engelbert’s credit, the league gave back housing for the first three years of the deal, and, for players making less than $500,000, future years, as well.

The two sides were perhaps in the home stretch on March 16, as the big thing — revenue share — finally became the big thing. The league had been holding firm at about 15%, because if they’d agreed to the union’s original 40% request, they calculated over $2 billion worth of losses over six years. At 30%, the losses would have been $660 million, and at 27.5%, $460 million. They weren’t budging.

But the union, adhering to the player survey’s mandate, wasn’t blinking, either. As negotiations reconvened at The Langham on St. Patrick’s Day, after more than 100 hours of talks and a sense the 20% number was attainable, there was hope, doom, hope, doom — but also enough of a glimmer that two league staffers borrowed one of the WNBA board of governors’ cars and drove up and down 5th Avenue to find an open liquor store. To buy champagne.

“I don’t know,” Englebert says. “You’d feel really good at one point in the day and then five hours later you’d be like, ‘We’re never getting a deal done and we’re going to have to cancel games.’”

Finally, at 2 a.m., on March 18, with just one salary cap issue unresolved, the league walked in to tell Jackson, “All right, we’ll do it on your terms.” Jackson blurted, “Hold it” — and hustled to find the players in their side room, where Clark and Stewie, Ogwumike and Turner were on blankets closing their eyes or talking to family. It was all officially done now, at 2:22 a.m. Empty cartons of Häagen-Dazs were everywhere. Engelbert remembers hugging players. Jackson remembers toasts but isn’t so sure about the hugging.

The champagne popping probably woke up the security guards.

Everyone has a story. Vélez, who’s getting married in May, was able to make it to her bachelorette party in New Orleans the following week. She also says she exited The Langham with a memento: a champagne cork.

Her colleague Donaphin took a pen -- “I won’t ever write with it again,” she says. “I’m just going to always hold onto it” -- and Goldsholl grabbed a pen himself, though he definitely writes with his.

Jackson walked away with some of Langham’s green peppermint tea and engraved Langham notepads — her notes from the most historic and transformative CBA deal in women’s sports scribbled all over them.

Drake left thinking they’d taken down Goliath and says those eight days in March are “something I’m never going to forget and probably won’t ever stop talking about — because it was so intense and so beautiful. But also so hard in all the ways that make something that makes history totally worth it.”

Engelbert? She pilfered some Langham paper herself … and then showed up at jury duty the following Monday. The court had no idea she was commissioner of the WNBA, fresh off of a sleepless marathon — and she didn’t tell them. They excused her, by the way.

It was the time of their lives. But had it dragged on nine nights, 10 nights, 11 nights, 12 nights, 20 nights, it might’ve been the worst time of their lives. Engelbert — thrilled that the WNBA’s 30^th season is starting on time — chuckled and didn’t answer when asked how close they all came to a work stoppage.

“That,” she says, “will be part of the ‘30 for 30.’”

While new Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro has reportedly decided against spinning off ESPN for now, that doesn’t mean the company’s thinking might not shift over the next six to nine months, sources told SBJ. D’Amaro was in Bristol last week meeting with ESPN execs in one of his first high-level meetings with network brass, sources noted. Some industry insiders have suggested ESPN could be an option for Disney to license in the emerging “channels” business, in which an OTT platform’s subs can subscribe to a streaming service directly through that platform (for instance, subscribing to Paramount+ through your Prime Video or Apple TV account). But sources noted Disney’s position on that has not changed and there are no plans to license ESPN, NFL Network or other Disney-owned channels to competitors.

Business Insider’s Peter Kafka was the first to cite sources as saying that Disney has decided against spinning off ESPN. It was “one of the first major calls” for D’Amaro. The question of whether Disney would turn ESPN into a stand-alone company has “hung over the company for years, as some investors and analysts argued that the declining cable business was a drag on the larger company’s value.” But sources said that Disney thinks ESPN’s “presence will help its pivot to streaming.” Disney will “continue with efforts to offer ESPN to customers in multiple ways,” as part of its traditional cable bundle, as part of a streaming bundle with Hulu and Disney+, and as a streaming service. It may also “look for other partners to take minority interests in the company,” as it did when it sold a 10% stake in the company to the NFL last year.

The NWSL will retain its current spring-to-fall calendar through at least the 2030 season following discussions among ownership about moving to a fall-to-spring schedule that would align with European leagues, FIFA’s international match calendar and, beginning next season, MLS. The league, however, did not close the door on a future switch.

“Following extensive evaluation and close collaboration with key stakeholders, we have made the deliberate decision to maintain our existing competition calendar for this period,” the league said in a statement. “This decision reflects our confidence in the strong momentum and growth the league has achieved under its current structure, and our commitment to providing stability for everyone invested in the NWSL’s success.”

The league added: “We remain thoughtful about the long-term evaluation of our calendar -- and will continue to assess future opportunities with the same rigor and broad stakeholder alignment that guided this decision. Any change of that magnitude would be communicated with ample notice.”

ESPN had recently reported that NWSL owners were expected to vote on a calendar change at board meetings this week in Portland. On Monday, however, CBS Sports reported that the board no longer intended to hold such a vote.

The NWSL has been evaluating a potential move to the European calendar for several years, but discussions intensified after MLS decided last year that it would adopt a summer-to-spring schedule beginning in July 2027.

MLS’s move will directly impact NWSL clubs, some of which share stadiums with MLS teams either as tenants or under shared ownership. Some MLS teams hope to hold more non-soccer events at their stadiums during the summer after the switch, which has the potential to limit available dates for the NWSL.

Like MLS, the NWSL would have to consider the feasibility of training and playing in winter months given that many of its teams play in cold-weather markets. MLS is implementing a winter break from mid-December through early February to avoid the coldest months but will still play more matches in November, December and February following the switch.

Other considerations would include the impact of aligning transfer windows with European leagues and whether moving its playoffs to the spring would increase visibility.

The NWSL Players Association commended the league for declaring its intent to keep its current calendar for the next several years.

“NWSL has made the right decision to provide stability and certainty over the calendar footprint for the next several years,” the union said in a statement. “Throughout this process, players made clear that any discussion about the calendar must prioritize Player health and safety, infrastructure (including training and match facilities) and professional standards necessary to compete at the highest level.”

As I was putting the finishing touches on my story about Learfield’s sale to TPG for this week’s SBJ cover, I kept coming back to one idea: How can the multimedia rights business continue to grow in college sports?

That thought coalesced over the weekend as I listened to The Ringer’s “Big Picture” podcast. During the April 17 episode, Puck’s Matt Belloni distilled the movie business, its relationship with theaters and how these operations intertwine.

Belloni said the following:

“Imagine you’re the CEO of a theater company and your entire business is dependent on something you do not control. The amount of movies and the quality of those movies and the marketing … when it hits, it’s easy money, and you can charge $10 for popcorn that costs you 20 cents.

“… But then if you’re [Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO] Tom Rothman, and you spend $250 million-$300 million on a Spider-Man movie and put that kind of effort into making it something that people are going to love. And then they show up to the theater, and they’ve got 30 minutes of ads, and the floor is sticky, and the seat is broken, and it’s not a good experience. He doesn’t control that. He has no ability to control the actual environment in which his movies are consumed.”

Stay with me. I promise there’s a college sports angle here.

One source I spoke to recently boiled down the opportunity in college sports to two pillars: the games, and the television broadcast.

Multimedia rights companies own neither, leaving them beholden to the schools and TV networks that drive the broader growth of the enterprise. (See the parallels?)

The business of college sports is built on outsourcing responsibilities to operators outside athletic departments. Multimedia rights. Ticketing. Food and beverage. All have seen cottage industries crop up over decades, taking those operations away from the institutions themselves.

But with schools looking to take more control over their intellectual property to, in theory, drive more dollars, what might that portend for companies capitalizing on playing middleman?

Learfield CEO/President Cole Gahagan pointed to the fractured nature of college sports and the lengthy deals Learfield has in place as to why there is no reason to think the company can’t continue to grow that business.

“We have 365 Division I schools alone in college athletics,” Gahagan said. “In the absence of those leagues or governing bodies that bring those capabilities and resources to the table, in my observation and in my experience, our schools have needed — and now need more than ever — an operation at scale that delivers best practices, that delivers centralized capabilities, [so] that they can continue to do what they have to do on an everyday basis.”

Professional sports teams largely sell corporate sponsorship in-house. The New York Giants and Texas Rangers, for example, don’t pay a third party to staff and sell those assets for a cut of the profits. And yet, that’s how college sports have operated for decades.

Almost every AD I’ve spoken with in the last two years about multimedia rights has said they’ve at least considered bringing those operations in-house. For all that talk, only a few schools actually have — Arizona and Cincinnati chief among them.

Don’t grab your popcorn just yet. We’re still likely years away from a reckoning on how companies like Learfield, Playfly, JMI Sports play in the MMR game.

But for all the struggles the movie and theater industries are facing, perhaps there may be lessons about asset ownership and the parallels facing college sports.

The World Cup will take over venues across North America this summer at a global scale, with matches at 16 venues across the continent. While organizers and venue operators are hard at work getting ready for this summer, the real opportunity lies in showcasing stadiums as the top spot to host future events. The World Cup will double as a live audition to host mega-events for the next decade, including the 2031 Women’s World Cup, Super Bowls, Savannah Bananas games and other specialty events, concerts and more.

Additionally, as sports-anchored real estate developments play an increasing role in value creation for teams and a core in urban development, the World Cup is an opportunity to showcase the next stage of development at each location. Further, teams across the country are taking advantage of larger venues, where they can maximize capacity for marquee matches. I attended an Inter Miami vs. D.C. United match last month at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, which hosted 72,000 fans, far more than Audi Field’s 20,000 seats could hold.

Operators and their host cities must focus their efforts on the game-day experience, facilitating future sports-anchored mixed-use developments, and security challenges to host successful events and also to win future mega-events. Here’s the blueprint:

Game-day Experience

Sports fans increasingly come for the game-day experience in addition to cheering on teams. When venues compete with 100-inch TVs, every part of the game-day experience is essential, both at the venue and in the area around it. So, where should the focus be?

Top-level, on-site entertainment is key. Many facilities will open new clubs and other amenities just in time for the World Cup — they must operate flawlessly without the experience or repetition that comes from an ongoing season. While NFL facilities get many chances over the course of the season, these venues will only get a few chances to show their best to the world. Tight training and requirements for operations (including food service) are essential.

Smooth transportation is also essential. That means parking options at the facility and in surrounding garages, public transportation, and easy pickup and drop-off areas for ride share. One additional way to add value? Make it clear to fans which stadium entrance is closest to their seats. The joy of a fantastic match can be clouded by having a difficult time finding transportation.

Operators must improve the game-day experience for female fans. That includes food options, restrooms and other facilities, and family-focused entertainment. Caitlin Clark and other female superstars have shown the untapped market for women’s sports — proving that the facility and the market can provide best-in-class service will form the basis for future success. Remember that Nebraska hosted 92,000 fans for a women’s volleyball game in 2023. The potential growth is huge.

Sports-Anchored Mixed-Use Developments Opportunities

Each stadium is the core of the overall fan experience, but it’s not the only part. Many teams have created successful sports-anchored mixed-use developments, with the Atlanta Braves’ The Battery and the San Francisco Giants’ Mission Rock at the forefront. Teams can use the World Cup as a key springboard to show growth possibilities.

Many districts need approvals from several levels of municipal authorities, including zoning approvals, easements, and the use of eminent domain. By showing the value of future events and related development, teams can help smooth the path for future approvals. What better way to demonstrate potential than with clear data on economic impacts associated with successful World Cup matches?

In turn, cities should demonstrate that they can be strong partners for future development. To do this, cities should facilitate fan zone experiences, sponsor events, and other engagements that push the boundaries of traditional events. That includes allowing for events in public spaces, dedicating police and other support services to events, and asking venue operators what else they need.

Furthermore, World Cup matches are an opportunity for neighboring property owners to show how their sites fit into future districts. Partnerships and informal arrangements during the World Cup can create steppingstones to future partnership opportunities. Neighboring property owners should consider creating temporary or “pop-up” activities where permanent facilities could be developed in the future — it’s a perfect trial run.

Security and Access

The biggest piece of the puzzle may be security — ensuring the safety of every fan inside the stadium and out while maintaining smooth cooperation with law enforcement and creating a streamlined process for fans entering events. Security is one of the first experiences a fan has at a facility, so it has to be done properly. Scanning technology must be smooth — including consistent Wi-Fi and trained personnel — to prevent bottlenecks. Any incidents create significant reputational risk for venues, teams, and cities.

Operators must study the loss of control that occurred at Wembley Stadium during the 2020 Euro Final, which led to fans rushing into the stadium without tickets and massive rioting. Venues and law enforcement need to be ready for worst-case scenarios, especially given the intensity of World Cup fans. Safety and security will be key for venues to secure spots as a host of future mega-events.

Drone security will also top the list of key measures. Drone incidents increased significantly in 2025, including drones landing on fields during several major events. Stadium operators must use all legal means and obtain all required permitting to control their air space, including implementing flight restriction areas. Municipalities should take similar actions during all events. The Federal Aviation Administration continues to work on rules for drones around sports facilities and must act quickly before the World Cup starts.

Smooth coordination between venues, organizers, and municipalities is also key, both in terms of security process and funding. For example, the town of Foxboro had a prolonged dispute with the group organizing the World Cup events at Gillette Stadium, focused on security funding. Any dispute threatens smooth implementation while also creating a barrier to hosting the next event.

World Cup hosts have a dual spotlight — hosting 2026 matches while also positioning themselves for the next mega-events on the sports calendar. When the matches end, business teams at each venue will have real, live data to use for the next round of pitches for mega-events, and proof-of-concept data for elements that worked are currency. Organizers that can keep the focus on near-term execution and long-term positioning will be the real winners of the World Cup.

Paul Levin is a partner at Venable LLC and represents developers, corporations, nonprofits, and cultural and educational institutions in a wide range of real estate projects.

• Fox Sports announced the play-by-play announcers, match analysts, reporters and rules analysts who will front the English-language coverage in the U.S., reports SBJ’s Richard Deitsch.
• The CW found a solution for the streaming of its sports content, striking a four-year deal with ESPN that will see over 800 hours of content added to the ESPN Unlimited tier of the company’s app this summer, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp.
• The PGA Tour’s 2027 schedule is coming more into focus, as three additional tournaments have now been confirmed for the early portion of the year, reports SBJ’s Josh Carpenter.
• TGR Haas F1 Team does have a powerful new rival on its hands, team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted, but he sees clear differences between his organization and Cadillac and thinks Haas still has a good story to tell, reports SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• Pacers Sports & Entertainment owner Herb Simon is bringing Blake Shelton’s music bar venue Ole Red to his burgeoning mixed-use Fieldhouse District, reports SBJ’s Tom Friend.
• MLS selected the third cohort for its MLS Innovation Lab program that trials promising athlete and business technologies across the North American soccer ecosystem, reports SBJ’s Joe Lemire.
• UFL viewership is up 3% at the midpoint of the regular season, with games through Week 5 across Fox, ABC, ESPN, FS1 and NFL Network averaging 631,000 viewers, reports Karp.