The USWNT head into this weekend’s Women’s World Cup Round of 16 match with its fate — and Fox Sports’ prospects for big viewership — highly uncertain.

After watching one win and two draws during group play, fans in the States will need to be awake at 5 a.m. ET on Sunday to see the Americans’ knockout-round clash with Sweden from Melbourne. Had the U.S. won Group E as projected, their first knockout game would have been against South Africa on Saturday at a much more favorable 10 p.m. ET.

After drawing more than 5 million viewers to Fox for each of their first two matches in prime time, Tuesday’s draw against Portugal at 3 a.m. ET delivered 1.35 million — which was enough to solidify the most-watched group stage ever on English-language TV with an average audience of 4.35 million.

The U.S. are still favored to beat Sweden but have fallen behind England and Spain in tournament betting markets. If they advance, the remaining three matches would take place between 3:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. ET.

Paying A High Price

Team USA members comprise 11 of the 15 highest-paid players at the Women’s World Cup. But the U.S. scored fewer goals than 10 other teams during the group stage — prompting an awkward back-and-forth with former USWNT captain Carli Lloyd, who is serving as an analyst for Fox during the tournament.

After Tuesday’s game and the resulting second-place group finish, Lloyd said, “I’m just not seeing that passion.” That prompted current USWNT captain Lindsey Horan to call Lloyd’s comments “frustrating,” explaining the team is trying to “keep the noise out as much as possible.”

The San Antonio Spurs’ business is significantly escalating — and not just thanks to the heralded arrival of rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama.

On Thursday, the NBA team completed an arena naming rights pact with longtime sponsor Frost Bank to rename the former AT&T Center to the Frost Bank Center.

That deal is only the beginning of the franchise’s revitalization. Next month, the Spurs open their $500 million practice center and mixed-use campus, the Rock at La Cantera, a project combining a next-generation training facility with parkland, an event plaza, and commercial space. 

The team also received 4,000 new season-ticket deposits this summer, thanks largely to Wembanyama.

“We’ve been building a team for the future, a franchise for the next generation, and then the hoop gods gave us a gift,” Spurs CEO R.C. Buford told Front Office Sports. “We’re now looking to be on a transformational growth trajectory.”

One of the NBA’s revered franchises on and off the court with five league titles and a reputation for best-in-class business operations, the team missed the postseason the last four seasons, and attendance rankings have dropped from 10th in the league to 25th in that time.

“This team is now on a great path,” said Frost Bank CEO and chair Phil Green to Front Office Sports. “We’d have done the deal with or without Victor, but his being there is icing on the cake.”

Next Arena?

The Frost Bank deal calls for a series of upgrades to the current facility, including a new Frost Club and an interactive light show corresponding with fan noise.

The team’s current arena lease expires in 2032, and Spurs leaders have been increasingly exploring a new downtown venue.

The Charlotte Hornets have started a new era with the introduction of Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall as owners on Thursday, officially ending Michael Jordan’s 13-year tenure as majority owner. 

Jordan sold the Hornets to Plotkin and Schnall’s group at a $3 billion valuation and is keeping a minority stake in the team while remaining an alternate governor. Plotkin and Schnall said they each own a similar amount of the franchise. 

The two men will rotate the team’s governorship every five years, beginning with Schnall, a former minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks. Schnall was already an investor in the Hornets under Jordan. The Milwaukee Bucks have recently operated under a similar structure with alternating governors instead of one primary owner.

Other notable members of the Hornets’ new ownership group include North Carolina natives like rapper J. Cole and country music artist Eric Church — as well as Dyal HomeCourt Partners, a division of investment company Blue Owl that currently has or had stakes in the Hawks and Sacramento Kings, and Phoenix Suns.

Queen City Spotlight

Schnall and Plotkin said they have no plans to move the Hornets from Charlotte and would like to build a standalone practice facility to improve on the current training gyms attached to the Spectrum Center. A plan for a $60 million uptown practice center had been approved, but Schnall said that nothing further has been decided.

The Hornets’ arena is undergoing $275 million in renovations that Schnall said fans will start noticing this year.

The sports collectible wars are escalating in a major way.

On Thursday, Panini America filed an antitrust suit against Fanatics, claiming the Michael Rubin-led giant violated federal law with its dominant entry into the trading card business. 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, also alleges Fanatics disparaged Panini to various industry partners and interfered with existing contracts.

Fanatics has made a massive sweep into the industry over the past two years, buying Topps and striking exclusive, long-term licenses with the NBA, MLB, NFL, and their players unions. The pacts upended an industry that had enjoyed decades of relative stability.

“Fanatics is preemptively eliminating all competition before showing competitive superiority or any ability to benefit consumers,” the suit reads. “By locking up player trading cards for all three major U.S. professional sports leagues for the next decade and two of them for the next two decades, Fanatics is foreclosing any meaningful competition for the foreseeable future.”

Panini is seeking unspecified monetary damages and Fanatics’ divestment of Topps, and has supplemented its intentions by hiring veteran attorney David Boies. The longtime power broker has represented Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, numerous leagues, and players unions, and also aided the U.S. government in a successful antitrust suit against Microsoft.

Fanatics Pushback

Fanatics blasted both the Panini lawsuit and the company’s overall approach to collectibles.

The “lawsuit is a baseless, last-gasp, flailing effort by a company that has lost touch with its consumers, is failing in the marketplace, and has tried unsuccessfully to sell itself,” Fanatics said.

In May, the sides reached a separate agreement restricting Fanatics’ ability to recruit Panini staffers and enjoining Fanatics’ ability to use confidential information from former Panini employees.