The NHL has confirmed its intent to hold the 2024 Draft at the Sphere, becoming the latest sports entity to embrace the next-generation venue in Las Vegas.

The league has not yet signed final contracts for the June 28-29 event, but commissioner Gary Bettman said the deal is a near-certainty.

“I think it’ll be a pretty well-viewed event, both in terms of the draft itself and the viral use of the Sphere inside and outside,” Bettman said. “So we think it’ll be dramatic and compelling.”

With the late-June timing, the NHL essentially jumps the line and becomes the first major sporting event held entirely at the Sphere, ahead of the UFC, which will stage a fight there in September 2024. (Formula 1 did incorporate the Sphere into its recent Las Vegas Grand Prix, both visually and as a hospitality area.) 

Since its opening in September, with a run of concerts by U2, the Sphere has captivated many across the business of sports — even though the venue wasn’t designed with sports in mind.

“The Sphere is a spectacular property, so I think both for the Sphere and for us this will be a good event to show yet another capability of this magnificent theater,” Bettman said.

Last Of An Era

The 2024 NHL Draft will also be the last before the league shifts to a decentralized model where teams’ general managers and scouts stay in their home markets, similar to that in other major sports leagues.

For years, the NHL Draft has served as a key offseason convention within the sport, often drawing a level of media coverage that doesn’t exist during the season. But logistical and cost concerns among teams prompted the shift.

The sale of a significant minority stake in Manchester United to British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe still isn’t complete, but momentum is building toward the end of the saga.

Multiple outlets are now reporting that Ratcliffe’s acquisition of 25% of the Premier League club will be publicly confirmed next week. Sky News and ESPN suggest the long-awaited deal will be announced as soon as Monday.

Ratcliffe would be buying Manchester United stock at $33 per share, which amounts to $1.57 billion. While the oft-criticized members of the Glazer family will retain majority control of Manchester United, they will be significantly reducing their investment as Ratcliffe comes on board.

Striking Distance

Once the sale process is completed, Ratcliffe could make an immediate impact both on and off the pitch.

He’ll reportedly take over football operations as part of the deal, a development that could quickly lift the spirits of some disgruntled fans.

He is also said to be committing an additional $300 million toward improving club infrastructure, particularly around the iconic but aging Old Trafford stadium. Manchester United CEO Richard Arnold, who had been with the club for 16 years, has already stepped down in a move widely believed to be related to Ratcliffe’s pending investment.

The book still isn’t closed on the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the latest chapter is perhaps the ugliest yet.

More than two years after those Games were held, in the summer of 2021 at a reported cost of $13 billion, six companies, including the advertising giant Dentsu, along with seven individuals, are standing trial in Japan on charges related to the bidding process. 

Those allegations largely center around claims of rigging a string of Games-related contracts. Dentsu in particular served as the chief marketing arm of the Tokyo Olympics, raising a record $3.3 billion in local sponsorships and receiving a commission on sales.

Many of the charges are going uncontested. Instead, the defense’s arguments are centered around a perceived lack of specificity within the bidding process. 

“Even if what happened gets categorized as bid-rigging, all my client did was abide by the organizing committee’s intentions, following their instructions,” said Genta Yoshino, an attorney representing former Dentsu sports executive Koji Henmi. 

Dark Coda

The trial, which is expected to stretch into 2024, represents a dark coda to one of the most challenged and controversial Olympics in modern history. On top of the yearlong pandemic delay, the event drew record-low ratings in the U.S., and a Japanese audit suggested that the actual expenditure to stage the event was perhaps twice what organizers said. Additionally, the scandal derailed a once-favored bid by the northern city of Sapporo to return the 2030 Winter Olympics to Japan.

The maximum penalty for any company found guilty in the Tokyo trial is $3.3 million, while individuals face up to five years in prison, with a $33,000 fine. 

The Tokyo situation also carries some thematic similarities to the ongoing turmoil surrounding the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris (2024) and Brisbane (’32), highlighting the growing difficulty of staging the Games in their current form. 

The commemoration of Black baseball and the Negro Leagues will take another significant step next year with the Hall of Fame’s revival of a long-dormant all-star game.

The Cooperstown, New York, shrine will stage the Hall of Fame East-West Classic on May 25, a tribute to the the Negro Leagues East-West All-Star Game that ran annually from 1933 to ’62.

The event at Doubleday Field will feature more than two dozen former MLB stars, including CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Curtis Granderson, Ryan Howard, and David Price. Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr. and Ozzie Smith have committed to managerial or coaching roles. 

The game dovetails with MLB’s planned June 20 game between the Cardinals and Giants at Alabama’s historic Rickwood Field, a park that opened in 1910 and hosted Negro Leagues games for decades. The Hall of Fame will also supplement the all-star game with a new museum exhibit on Black baseball.

“The way in which the world views baseball, Black baseball, race relations has changed in 25 years,” said Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch. “It’s also really important to the curatorial team and everyone else involved that it’s not just stories of struggle and challenges, it’s also a celebration.”

Cooperstown Evolution

Next year, the Negro Leagues tribute game will replace the usual Hall of Fame Classic that the institution holds each Memorial Day. The event extends an ongoing effort to evolve and draw additional visitors to the upstate New York locale — an initiative that over the years has also included various traveling exhibitions. 

Most recently, the Hall of Fame hosted the Savannah Bananas, a traveling independent baseball team that has become a fan sensation, at Doubleday Field. 

“Part of our mission across baseball is to make the sport as relevant to the next generation of fans as it’s been to the ones before,” Rawitch told Front Office Sports in September.