FC Barcelona is once again selling a stake in Barca Studios, the club’s media production arm, for $102.6 million in a last-minute effort to alleviate debt and register players ahead of its La Liga opener — on Saturday.

Barcelona — the second-most-valuable soccer team in the world at $5 billion, per Forbes — will sell a 24.5% stake in Barca Studios to audiovisual production company Orpheus Media.

• The deal gained approval by board members in October 2021.
• It will help Barcelona alleviate more than $1.5 billion in debt reported last year. 

The sale comes after Barcelona agreed to offload a 24.5% stake in Barca Studios to investment fund GDA Luma earlier this week, according to Spanish daily newspaper Sport. However, talks stalled between Barcelona and GDA Luma, leading the club to search for fresh capital. 

Barcelona had a major sense of urgency due to an inability to register players ahead of its first La Liga matchday against Rayo Vallecano at Spotify Camp Nou.

Earlier this month, Barcelona secured a deal with fan engagement company Socios.com to sell a 24.5% stake in Barca Studios in a pact also valued at around $102 million. 

Economic Levers 

Barcelona has used other “economic levers” to alleviate debt.

In June, Barcelona secured a deal with private equity firm Sixth Street to sell a 10% stake in its TV rights worth up to $278 million. The club doubled down in July after selling an additional 15% stake in its TV rights to Sixth Street for $326.5 million.

LIV Golf is pushing back against an allegation that it is not as generous as advertised.

In a U.S. District Court hearing on Wednesday in San Jose, California, an attorney representing three LIV Golf players implied that prize money won by players counts against their initial bonuses.

• Responding to a point made by Judge Beth Labson Freeman that players receive bonuses just for showing up to the first tournament, attorney Robert Walters replied, “Well, they do, but then they have to win money in order to recoup against the contract.”
• Many LIV golfers, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Cameron Smith, have received bonuses of at least $100 million. Tiger Woods turned down an offer of $700 million to $800 million, per LIV CEO Greg Norman.

LIV Golf was quick to deny Walters’ claim.

“Prize money is of course separate from the contractual monies that players earn,” said LIV COO Atul Khosla. “As you already know, prize money is not subtracted from a player’s contractual earnings.” 

Bubba Resigns

Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson announced his resignation from the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf. Watson is reportedly securing a bonus of around $50 million to join the Saudi-backed league.

Watson is recovering from a torn meniscus and is not playing this season. He has earned $48 million across his PGA Tour career, per Sportrac —15th all-time.

Nearly 650 Black NFL retirees have had their dementia tests automatically rescored, after the NFL announced last year it would no longer assume that Black players have less cognitive abilities when assessing brain claims.

Previously, hundreds of Black retirees were denied payouts in a $1 billion concussion settlement with the league. The dementia tests previously used “race norming,” making it harder for Black players to prove they had a cognitive decline. 

So far, the change in testing qualified 61 Black NFL retirees for moderate-to-advanced dementia award — averaging $600,000 — with nearly 250 showing early signs of dementia, according to the Associated Press. The latter will receive up to $35,000 in medical testing and treatment.

• The former players had already met other criteria, including hours of validity testing.
• Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and deaths before April 2015 involving chronic traumatic encephalopathy also qualify for awards.

Since the 2016 settlement, the NFL has approved more than $1 billion in claims, totaling about $916 million after appeals and audits. The Associated Press states the results will add millions to the league’s total payouts.

Past, Present, and Future

The tests’ discrimination went relatively unnoticed until a 2020 lawsuit was brought by former Pittsburgh Steelers Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport.

The process has slowed — nearly four in 10 claims are now audited by the claims administrator BrownGreer, despite the involvement of program doctors and expert opinions, according to the Associated Press.

Other Black retirees can continue to seek new testing.