Fanatics has fired back against Panini in their escalating legal battle, filing a countersuit alleging its rival engaged in unfair competitive practices and interfered with its historic entry into the sports collectibles business.

Four days after Panini filed its lawsuit in Florida, Fanatics responded formally with a countermeasure filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which claims Panini grew lazy and complacent in servicing collectors, then sought to improperly block Fanatics’ move into the space.

“Having lost a number of major licenses, Panini’s Italian owners embarked on a protracted, unlawful, and deceitful campaign of unfair trade practices, strong-arm tactics, and tortious misconduct to hamper Fanatics Collectibles’ nascent business,” the lawsuit reads.

The suit also claims Panini attempted to extract “extortionate amounts” of money to yield its current league and union licenses early.

Fanatics made a sensational swoop on the industry over the past two years, buying Topps and striking exclusive, long-term licenses with the NBA, MLB, NFL, and their players unions, thereby disrupting an industry that had enjoyed decades of relative stability.

The company’s 101-page complaint included an extended array of social media posts detailing what it sees as broad collector unhappiness with Panini’s products and services.

“If Panini had been as unsuccessful as Fanatics pretends, Fanatics wouldn’t have had to use decades-long, exclusive-dealing arrangements to lock it out of the market, or improperly cut off Panini’s supply, interfere with Panini’s production facilities, and raid its employees,” Panini attorney David Boies said.

While the Pac-12 struggles to survive the defection of five more teams, the ACC’s most influential schools are pondering how they can remain competitive in the increasingly consolidated landscape of college sports.

Before the wheels fell off the Pac-12’s wagon on Friday afternoon, the ACC was scheduled to meet that evening to discuss its own expansion plans, according to Yahoo Sports. A “coast to coast” idea included the possibility of adding as many as seven Pac-12 schools. 

Florida State has particularly been making noise, and its power brokers are clearly worried about the school’s future. 

The ACC is locked into a media rights deal with ESPN that pays the conference just $240 million a year through 2036 — which will be fourth behind the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 in 2025. The Seminoles have also begun working with JP Morgan to explore institutional investment.

Chain Reactions

Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney said he isn’t surprised by the moves and expects even larger conferences in the future — as well as a bigger College Football Playoff, which is already expanding to 12 teams next season. 

“Eventually we’re going to have … 40, 50, 54 teams (in a league), something like that — and it’s going to be a 14- or 16-team playoff,” he said.

Michigan regent Jordan Acker called the Big Ten’s addition of Oregon and Washington “utterly indefensible on any other grounds” but TV money, blaming the NCAA for not having college sports “under control.”

Warner Bros. Discovery plans to debut its long-awaited sports tier for Max with the start of October’s MLB playoffs, according to industry sources.

After WBD CEO David Zaslav said last week that a sports tier on the prominent streaming service has been a key option for the company, plans are now set to come to fruition in less than two months and could be formally announced sometime around Labor Day, per sources.

MLB playoffs coverage, which has been a key WBD tentpole for years, is poised to be joined by the NBA, NHL, and NCAA on Max, as the company owns digital rights for all its key live sports content.

The start of the NBA and NHL seasons, also in October, closely follow the start of the MLB playoffs, which will provide a critical confluence of content for the debut of the new sports tier — and make the month one of the most important in WBD’s entire sports calendar.

The sports tier will carry branding from Bleacher Report, the sports media outlet Time Warner acquired in 2012 and which was part of the subsequent Warner Media-Discovery merger. Its coverage will also feature B/R highlights and supplemental content, as that outlet’s younger demographic is a key target of potential streaming consumers given its tendency for cord-cutting.

Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but in its current form, Max costs $15.99 per month without ads and $9.99 per month with commercials. 

Max currently has 95.8 million global direct-to-consumer subscribers, ranking far above other rival services such as Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+, and ESPN+, but below Netflix and Disney+.

CNBC initially reported the news of Warner Bros. Discovery’s timing for the sports tier.