March 31, 2023

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This year’s women’s Sweet 16 and Elite 8 were held in two cities [[link removed]] rather than four for the first time — earning raves from Final Four coaches, who appreciated the atmosphere and logistics of the new regional setup. The stats support their view: The regionals broke an all-time NCAA attendance record, drawing over 82,000 fans.

College Athletics LSU’s Angel Reese Leads NCAA Basketball In NIL Deals [[link removed]]

McKenzie Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK

DALLAS — LSU forward Angel Reese isn’t just leading her team to the Final Four. She’s also leading the entire sport in name, image, and likeness deals.

The 2023 AP All-American has inked a total of 17 NIL deals, according to a recent SponsorUnited report. Only four other Division I athletes have more than her — and none of them play basketball.

Reese has an estimated earning potential of $392,000, which ranks sixth across D-I women’s basketball. She previously said [[link removed]] her NIL earnings top the value of a WNBA contract.

In addition to more traditional sports partnerships with companies like Bose and JanSport, Reese has partnered with brands that reflect her image as the “Bayou Barbie,” like luxury fashion brand Coach.

Juggling NIL and tournament play isn’t easy.

“It’s been a lot,” she told reporters on Thursday, explaining that she’s had to stick to a strict posting schedule. Reese’s last pregame post, for example, was Thursday at 1 p.m. ET.

NIL Support Staff

Reese isn’t the only Tiger with NIL success — her teammate Flau’jae Johnson has a budding rap career and a deal with RocNation.

But unlike other teams, LSU head coach Kim Mulkey isn’t involved at all. “I don’t want to deal with it,” Mulkey told reporters. “It’s too much. I just want to coach.”

Instead, Mulkey designated an assistant coach to help players navigate NIL.

Mulkey’s Tigers take on Virginia Tech in Friday’s first semifinal at 7 p.m. ET. Iowa faces South Carolina in the second game, with a 9 p.m. ET tipoff scheduled.

Executives Billionaire Eyeing Man United Might Have to Sell French Club Stake [[link removed]]

OGC Nice

If Jim Ratcliffe’s bid for Manchester United is successful, he’ll likely have to give up his stake in another European soccer club.

The British billionaire and his company INEOS — which he founded in 1998 and serves as its chairman and CEO — hold a stake in Ligue 1 side OGC Nice.

Current UEFA rules state that an owner is only allowed to have one club in a European club competition at any given time — meaning that if Ratcliffe wins the race to buy Man United, the club would risk being excluded from the Champions League or Europa League if Nice were also to qualify.

Therefore, Ratcliffe could be forced into selling his portion in Nice should his bid win out for the chance to buy United, according [[link removed]] to ESPN. Ratcliffe, a lifelong Manchester United fan, would probably happily oblige.

Earlier in March, UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin said [[link removed]] that the federation is considering softening its rules pertaining to shared ownership across its competitions.

Ratcliffe could also demonstrate that there is enough separation between his clubs to justify letting them play in the same competition, such as Red Bull did with its Leipzig and Salzburg clubs in 2017.

It’s far from a sure thing that Ratcliffe will even win the bidding war for Manchester United. Qatar’s Sheikh ­Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani reportedly [[link removed]] submitted a bid “in the ballpark” of the Glazer family’s $7.4 billion asking price for the club — but Ratcliffe did not.

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Real Estate Residents Not Happy About $800M Northwestern Stadium Plan [[link removed]]

Northwestern University

As Northwestern University gears up to potentially build a new $800 million stadium to replace the old Ryan Field, it’s getting significant pushback from the venue’s surrounding neighborhood.

The university is seeking a zoning change from the city of Evanston that would allow it to host concerts and serve alcohol at the stadium — something the 47,000-seat, 96-year-old current Ryan Field cannot do.

More than a thousand Evanston residents have signed [[link removed]] a petition asking city leaders not to approve the construction of the stadium, which is being entirely funded by private money. Dissenters worry that adding alcohol to the stadium’s concessions will lead to drunken disruptions for the neighborhood, as well as “crimes of opportunity” in the late-night hours.

The petition’s organizers have pointed to hypocrisy from Northwestern board of trustees chair Peter Barris, who asked local government officials in Martha’s Vineyard to stop construction at a hotel across the bay from his vacation home in 2021.

“The surfacing of this personal circumstance, which is distinctly dissimilar to Northwestern’s proposal, is an attempt to distract from our goals — to transform a century-old stadium into a community asset that will benefit all of Evanston and create one of the finest stadiums in the country,” Barris told the Wall Street Journal.

The new stadium is just the latest development for Northwestern, which has spent roughly $1 billion over the last 10 years building up its athletic facilities on its private stretch of Lake Michigan shore.

Executives Former Chelsea Owner Secretly Funded Takeover of Dutch Club [[link removed]]

Shutterstock

Chelsea’s former owner had deeper tentacles in European soccer than previously known.

Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who was forced to sell his Premier League club by the U.K. government after Russia invaded Ukraine, secretly funded the takeover of Vitesse Arnhem, a top-division club in the Netherlands, according [[link removed]] to the Guardian.

The oligarch proceeded to bankroll the Dutch club for years after, loaning it $127.6 million by 2015.

This financial arrangement came to light in what are being called the Oligarch Files, a cache of leaked data from a Cyprus-based offshore service provider called MeritServus.

Former Georgian player Merab Jordania, who is friendly with Abramovich, bought Vitesse Arnhem in 2010. Chelsea loaned many players to Vitesse Arnhem over the next decade.

Jordania, who owns Maltese club Valletta FC, left Vitesse Arnhem in 2013 and was replaced by another associate of Abramovich’s, Alexander Chigirinsky.

Another Russian oligarch close to Abramovich, Valeriy Oyf, became [[link removed]] majority shareholder in 2018. In March 2022, Oyf said he would resign from the team’s board and sell his shares in light of the Russia-initiated war.

The Royal Netherlands Football Association investigated the team’s connections to Chelsea in 2010 and 2015 but found no indications of managerial influence over the Dutch club.

Chelsea was taken over by the U.K. government and sold to a group led by Los Angeles Dodgers, Lakers, and Sparks co-owner Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in a deal worth more than $5 billion, factoring in the team purchase itself and promised investments.

Conversation Starters For the first time in its 147-year history, Major League Baseball will be on a pitch clock [[link removed]]. FOS senior reporter Michael McCarthy delves into the literally game-changing effects of the league’s new rules. The New York Yankees are asking MLB if they can stop issuing [[link removed]] jersey numbers to coaches — because after retiring a record 22 jerseys, they’re running out of numbers for players. The Red Sox’s new state-of-the-art clubhouse [[link removed]] includes custom maple lockers, LED lighting and sound systems, and 16 TV displays that can combine to make two mini-jumbotrons. Check out the video tour [[link removed]].

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How to Connect With the Modern Sports Consumer

After a tumultuous few years, the sports world [[link removed]] is back on top.

Stadium attendance is back on the rise. Live sports programming is dominating the ratings on both linear television and streaming services, and fans are consuming sports media all day long across multiple platforms and devices.

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Front Office Sports Today They Said What?

Akron Beacon Journal

“Hopefully, players are not in absurd binds that they were finding themselves in. You hear stories about people pooling together money to buy really basic staple foods from Walmart and living off that for a week. It brings a level of decency and dignity that should have been in place a long time ago … It’s overdue.”

— Evan Drellich, senior writer for The Athletic who covers Major League Baseball, on the impact that the new collective bargaining agreement will have on minor league baseball players during the latest episode of Front Office Sports Today.

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Pelicans (+185) at Nuggets (-215)

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LSU (-135) at Virginia Tech (+115)

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Raptors (+200) at 76ers (-240)

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