ViacomCBS saw revenues rise 16% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $8 billion, and the company announced a major rebrand.

As of Wednesday, the company is changing its name to Paramount, aligning its brand with flagship streaming service Paramount+.

Football was once again key to the media conglomerate’s performance.

“The ‘NFL On CBS’ averaged over 18 million viewers, more than any prime-time television sports, entertainment, or news series on any network this season,” the company declared.

• Streaming revenue leapt 48% from Q4 2020 to $1.3 billion. 
• The company added 9.4 million streaming subscribers to reach 56 million. 
• ViacomCBS noted that its local sports rights, such as Australian soccer’s A-League, helped fuel global growth in Paramount+.

The company missed revenue estimates, and its stock dipped around 6.1% in after-hours trading immediately following the earnings release.

Big Game Rights

ViacomCBS will pay the NFL around $2 billion each year from 2023-2033 for broadcast and streaming rights, plus a place in the Super Bowl rotation, with its next turn coming in 2024. 

CBS is one of the main broadcasting partners for the PGA Tour. In 2020, it won the English-language rights to the UEFA Champions League. CBS and Univision reportedly paid a combined $150 million for the three-year package.

The company has multiple partnerships with Comcast-owned Sky on jointly-owned streaming services across Europe. Their SkyShowtime venture will launch in over 20 European countries encompassing 90 million homes later this year, according to the company.

Alex Rodriguez is making a major real estate investment in one of the most controversial properties in the U.S.

The baseball star-turned business mogul is a lead investor in a group buying the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. 

The property is being purchased for $375 million by a fund launched by CGI Merchant Group, which A-Rod joined in December 2020.

• The $650 million Hotel Opportunity Fund targets properties with values devastated by the pandemic with the intention of rebranding them. The D.C. hotel will scrub the Trump name and be managed by Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria group.
• Rodriguez has been involved in real estate since 2003 when he founded Monument Capital Management, which has made over $750 million in property acquisitions across 14 states, according to its website.
• The star player signed a record 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in December 2000 and made $399.3 million over his playing career — the most in MLB history. 

Wolf Pack

The “Shark Tank” panelist and ESPN television analyst purchased the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx with tech entrepreneur Marc Lore for $1.5 billion last year.

Prior to that, the duo made a failed bid for the New York Mets.

A-Rod’s SPAC, Slam Corp., called off a deal to merge with sports card and collectibles company The Panini Group at a valuation north of $3 billion, after Panini did not renew licensing deals with the NBA and NFL.

There are reportedly serious discussions among NFL team owners as to whether Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder should be forced to sell their teams.

Ross allegedly incentivized losing games, and Snyder was accused of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct. Each owner’s removal would require a vote from three-fourths of the 31 other owners, a league source confirmed to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapaport.

The allegations against Ross came to light in Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL over its hiring practices and for racial discrimination. 

• In 2019, Ross allegedly offered Flores up to $100,000 for every loss, aiming for a better draft spot. The league has launched an investigation into the claims, but Ross has denied the allegations.
• Flores was fired despite leading Miami to back-to-back winning seasons. 

Snyder’s team was fined $10 million in July after a 10-month workplace misconduct investigation due to allegations of inappropriate behavior. More have since surfaced, and the league said it will conduct a new investigation. The initial investigation’s full findings have not been released.

PFT Live’s Mike Florio reported “there is a sense among ownership that the time has come for Dan Snyder to move on.”

Ownership Timeline

Since 2008, Ross has purchased 95% of the Dolphins for a total of $1 billion. The team is now worth $3.42 billion. Snyder purchased the Commanders, now valued at $4.2 billion, in 1999 for $800 million. He bought the remaining shares for $875 million last year.

The International Olympic Committee is facing scrutiny over whether it caused Team USA’s Julie Marino to injure herself by mandating changes to her Prada snowboard.

Marino won the silver medal in women’s slopestyle on her stylish red-and-white snowboard, but Prada’s not an IOC sponsor. The IOC demanded the seven-time X Games medalist cover the Prada logo on her $3,600 snowboard. 

Did It Cost Marino A Medal?

Marino was apparently so distracted by the controversy she crashed and injured herself during a practice round for the women’s big air event. 

The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee argued Marino’s case to the IOC to no avail. In a letter obtained by Front Office Sports, USOPC vice president Dean Nakamura warned that covering the logo was not a “feasible” option.

• “The logo is molded to the board, and altering it would cause drag and interrupt the surface intended to glide. For these reasons, we ask the IOC to reconsider its position and allow Julia Marino to use the board used during the Snowboard Slopestyle competition,” he wrote.  The IOC still said no.
• Marino then drew over the Prada logo with a Sharpie, but the alterations slowed her run down.
• The 24-year-old got hurt again, forcing her to withdraw from the Olympics.

Marino explained her decision in an Instagram post: “Decided not to risk further injury even [though] that didn’t appear to be the top priority of the IOC.”