The Manchester United sale saga isn’t over quite yet.

Despite reports last week that the Glazer family would sell the majority of the English Premier League club to British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe and his company INEOS, the story has taken another turn.

The club’s stock is on the rise following a revamped bid from Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani, which according to The Times still comes in at a lower valuation than Ratcliffe’s $6.3 billion.

Sheikh Jassim is offering to buy 100% of the team and has pledged $1 billion toward improving club infrastructure, while Ratcliffe’s bid was for 80% of the club. The former’s promise to dramatically upgrade Old Trafford could be particularly attractive to the many fans who regularly protest the current ownership group for its perceived negligence.

The drama is playing out as the Red Devils currently sit in fourth place in the EPL, one point above Liverpool and narrowly inside automatic qualification for next season’s Champions League. Manchester United could also qualify by beating rivals Manchester City in next month’s FA Cup final.

For now, disgruntled Manchester United fans will continue to cross their fingers that the Glazers move forward with a sale. No official timetable has been laid out for completion of a potential deal.

An entertainment district plan including an arena for the Arizona Coyotes was rejected by voters in Tempe.

The unofficial voting results were tallied late Tuesday for Propositions 301, 302, and 303, and none received more than 44% “yes” votes. In order for the Coyotes’ plan to move ahead, the measures needed to receive a majority of votes.

Coyotes President and CEO Xavier A. Gutierrez said in a statement that the next move for the franchise “will be evaluated by our owners and the National Hockey League over the coming weeks.”

That review — at least as far as the team’s interim plans — took less than 24 hours.

The Coyotes will return to ASU’s Mullett Arena next season, a source confirmed to Front Office Sports on Wednesday. The Coyotes signed a three-year lease to serve as the team’s interim home, and next season will be Arizona’s second at the 5,000-seat arena.

The $2.1 billion proposal included a 16,000-seat arena, hotels, shops, restaurants, and as many as 1,990 apartments. The 46-acre project project — proposed by Bluebird Development— was also privately funded.

“The National Hockey League is terribly disappointed,” commissioner Gary Bettman said regarding the results of the stadium vote.

Wandering Coyotes

The Coyotes — the least valuable NHL team at $450 million, according to Forbes — have played their home games at Arizona State University this past season with a capacity of only 5,100.

The team has called the Phoenix area home since relocating from Winnipeg after the 1995-96 season, but the franchise never found a foothold. In 2003, the Coyotes moved out of downtown Phoenix for Glendale, where the team languished and went bankrupt under former owner Jerry Moyes in 2009.

TelevisaUnivision has scored multiple wins in the battle for media rights — including those to North America’s biggest sports event.

The media giant secured the Spanish-language rights to Super Bowl LVIII, which will be played on Feb. 11, 2024, in Las Vegas. The Big Game will be TelevisaUnivision’s first national broadcast of an NFL game.

The English-language broadcast will be on CBS, which has no Spanish-language affiliate — unlike NBC and Fox, who respectively own Telemundo and Fox Deportes. 

The company also announced that it will broadcast the 2024 Copa America soccer tournament, which will be played in the U.S. The 16-team tournament will include the U.S., Mexico, and world champion Argentina. 

TelevisaUnivision will also hold the Spanish-language rights in the U.S. to UEFA club competitions in a three-year deal worth $225 million, according to Sportico. The English-language counterpart to those rights are also held by CBS parent Paramount on a six-year, $1.5 billion deal.

Televisa and Univision closed their $4.8 billion merger last year in a deal that brought together two North American media giants. Soon after, the combined company launched streaming service ViX — which now boasts more than 30 million active users per month.