April 12, 2022

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A very good year just got better for Los Angeles Rams QB Matthew Stafford. In February, Stafford led the Rams to a Super Bowl LVI title. In March, he signed a $160 million contract extension. And in April, Stafford purchased two of Drake’s homes — for $22.5 million and $11 million.

FIFA Launches Streaming Service, Will Broadcast 40K Games

FIFA

Soon, soccer fans around the globe will have access to thousands of games every month in a dozen languages — for free.

FIFA is launching [[link removed]] an ad-supported streaming service, FIFA+, which will broadcast 40,000 games this year.

While top-flight European leagues will be included [[link removed]] in FIFA+’s coverage, existing rights deals in those leagues will focus the service on underserved areas such as Angola, Denmark, Mexico, and Poland.The service will broadcast 11,000 women’s games this year.FIFA+ will initially [[link removed]] be available in English, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese, and expand to Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, Bahasa, and Korean by June.

The service will also include 2,000 hours of archival content, plus documentaries and docuseries.

Global Ambitions

While FIFA+ won’t broadcast the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the service seeks to build on and feed off the excitement around the global soccer tournament.

“We’ll be strategically extending — so we will be potentially going into gaming, social community, and potentially subscription depending on where this goes and where the industry disruption heads,” said FIFA+ lead Charlotte Burr.

The service aims to reach 200 million unique users by the end of this year. It will initially launch only as a digital service, but FIFA is in talks with broadcast partners.

Commanders Probe Shows ‘Unlawful Pattern of Financial Conduct’

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The House Oversight Committee alleged the Washington Commanders committed a “troubling, long-running, and potentially unlawful pattern of financial conduct” in a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday.

The 20-page letter [[link removed]] detailed how for years the Commanders underreported ticket revenue to the NFL and alleged that owner Dan Snyder had knowledge of some of the schemes first reported [[link removed]] by Front Office Sports on April 2.

Jason Friedman, a former Commanders’ ticket sales executive who worked for the franchise for 24 years, provided much of the information to the committee used in the letter, including spreadsheets and emails. The attorneys general for Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell were sent copies of the letter signed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York), the chair of the committee.

Snyder Implicated in Scheme

The allegations of financial improprieties date back to right after Snyder purchased the franchise for $800 million in 1999.

The Commanders “created artificial barriers to discourage customers from requesting” refundable deposits due to them. Friedman provided documents that showed the Commanders still held about $5 million in unreturned deposits from around 2,000 accounts as of July 2016. The team “repeatedly concealed ticket sales revenue that should have been shared with the NFL.”The methods used to conceal revenue from the NFL was known internally as “the juice.”

“This new information on potential financial misconduct suggests that the rot under Dan Snyder’s leadership is much deeper than imagined,” Maloney said in a statement.

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Baltimore Teams Receive $1.2B In Public Funding

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Camden Yards Sports Complex, which contains the stadiums for the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens — announced that the Maryland State legislature has passed an initiative committing $1.2 billion to its stadiums.

The Orioles play at Oriole Park at Camden Yards and the Ravens’ home is M&T Bank Stadium.

The entirety of the dollar amount will be funded through the public in what is reportedly [[link removed].] the second-largest public commitment to an MLB team. The funding trails only Yankee Stadium’s construction in 2009.

The money will be split equally between [[link removed]] the Orioles and Ravens.

“These public funds are just a portion of the more than 10 billion dollars in economic tourism impact generated by the Orioles during the past three decades at Camden Yards,” Orioles’ chairman and CEO John Angelos said [[link removed]].

Camden Yards cost around $110 million to build and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.The venue has produced close to 2,500 live professional events, attracting roughly 75 million visitors to the area. Baseball Stays In Baltimore

There was reportedly talk last year that the Orioles could leave the site, but the Maryland Stadium Authority believes [[link removed]] that the funding will assist in keeping the teams beyond their current leases — the Orioles in 2023 and the Ravens in 2028.

The Orioles were valued [[link removed]] at $1.375 billion by Forbes in March, with the Ravens landing a $3.4 billion valuation [[link removed]] in August.

Conversation Starters In The Leadoff, Rob Walton is reportedly bidding more than $4 billion to buy the Denver Broncos, the Washington Nationals are exploring a sale, the Oakland A’s potential move to Las Vegas could be derailed, and Epic Games raises $2 billion from Sony and the owner of the Lego Group. Click here to listen [[link removed]]. Content and media company Footballco has agreed to acquire [[link removed]] Dubai-based digital sports publisher Kooora in a deal valued at more than $25 million. Backed by private equity firm TPG and streaming service DAZN, Footballco owns soccer-focused publications Goal.com and Mundial magazine. The Philadelphia Phillies have yet to wear their cream and powder blue uniforms due to a delay [[link removed]] by Fanatics, which custom-fits and tailors uniforms for all 2,200 MLB players, coaches, and minor leaguers. The lack of uniforms is caused by a delay in receiving up-to-date measurements due to a shortened spring training. The Atlanta Dream made a splash on April 6, acquiring the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft from the Washington Mystics for the third and 14th picks. On Monday, the Dream selected Kentucky shooting guard Rhyne Howard [[link removed]] — a positive force both on and off the court. Subscribe to Scoreboard for more [[link removed]] on the 21-year-old and her new financial opportunities.

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Market Movers

U.S. stocks experienced gains across all three major indexes on Tuesday. Here’s a look at how sports-related stocks performed:

MTN [[link removed]]

Vail Resorts Inc.

[[link removed]]

$247.09

[[link removed]]

+0.28%

[[link removed]] DIS [[link removed]]

Walt Disney Co (The)

[[link removed]]

$130.77

[[link removed]]

-0.98%

[[link removed]] GCO [[link removed]]

Genesco Inc.

[[link removed]]

$66.56

[[link removed]]

-1.11%

[[link removed]] DKS [[link removed]]

Dicks Sporting Goods, Inc.

[[link removed]]

$105.78

[[link removed]]

-1.77%

[[link removed]] MANU [[link removed]]

Manchester United Plc.

[[link removed]]

$13.98

[[link removed]]

-1.89%

[[link removed]] (Note: All as of market close on 4/12/22) What to Watch

The Cleveland Cavaliers (44-38) face the Brooklyn Nets (44-38) on Tuesday at Barclays Center.

How to Watch: 7 p.m. ET on TNT

Betting Odds: Nets -9.5 || ML -475 || O/U 227

Pick: Expect Kevin Durant to give the Nets an edge. Take Brooklyn to cover.

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Written by Owen Poindexter [[link removed]], A.J. Perez [[link removed]], Abigail Gentrup [[link removed]]

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