David Beckham has the green light to build a stadium for Inter Miami CF.

Construction on Miami Freedom Park has been cleared to begin after city commissioners approved a zoning plan on Tuesday night.

In April, Miami commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of a no-bid, 99-year lease for roughly 130 acres next to the Miami International Airport to be used for Major League Soccer. The city still needs to sign the lease documents.

Beckham and co-owners Jorge and Jose Mas are funding the entirety of the $1 billion project and will pay property taxes and a reported $4.3 million in annual rent.

• The plan will start with an environmental cleanup of land under the site of the project – the Melreese Country Club. 
• The project will include a 25,000-seat soccer stadium, a new 58-acre public park, office space, a hotel, and a retail village.

“Just to start vertical construction on the stadium, we are going to have to spend $120 million,” Jorge Mas said in April.

Project’s Plans

Miami has to give the operator of the Melreese golf course at least two months’ notice before canceling its lease.

Jorge Mas previously stated that the owners’ long-term plan for the stadium includes a professional women’s soccer team, along with boys’ and girls’ soccer programs. 

“A new park, an MLS stadium, and thousands of new jobs coming soon … The Future of Fútbol is in Miami,” mayor Francis Suarez tweeted.

The Pac-12 is taking bids for its next media rights deals — and a tech giant could be a big X-factor at the negotiating table.

The conference is reportedly considering linking up with Amazon, according to the Mercury News. 

• The Pac-12’s current 12-year deals with Fox and ESPN run until 2024 and carry an average annual value of $250 million.
• Conference commissioner George Kliavkoff said in July that a deal with a major digital media company is “highly likely.”
• While Amazon is expecting a dropoff in viewership for “Thursday Night Football” this year as it takes over exclusive rights, a deal with the Pac-12 beginning in 2024 could give the company more time to become a mainstream sports destination.

The Pac-12 is looking to land a deal that would allow it to grow its per-school payout, which was around $33 million in 2020, per tax filings, compared to $54 million from the Big Ten. 

Realignment Pains

The Pac-12 will have to negotiate a new deal without two of its most prominent schools: USC and UCLA have both announced plans to bolt for the Big Ten in 2024.

Last month, the Big Ten struck seven-year deals with Fox, CBS, and NBC collectively worth more than $7 billion.

With the Big Ten and SEC emerging as super conferences through their recent expansions, the Pac-12 and Big 12 explored a partnership, but the Big 12 reportedly ended talks regarding a merger in July.

A minority investor in AC Milan has decided to end an attempt in an Italian court to freeze the $1.2 billion sale of the top-flight soccer club to New York-based private investment firm RedBird Capital Partners. 

In June, Blue Skye Financial Partners claimed American investment firm Elliott Management — Milan’s majority shareholder since 2018 — held talks “behind closed doors” about the sale. 

In July, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla authorized Blue Skye — which owns a 4.3% stake in the Italian soccer champions — to obtain a “limited” number of documents to use in a Luxembourg court.

• Earlier this month, RedBird announced it closed its deal to purchase Milan.
• Before the sale, Blue Skye had filed a petition in an Italian court to halt the deal.
• On Tuesday, a hearing was held where the request was dropped.

Milan — the 14th-most valuable soccer team in the world at $1.2 billion, per Forbes — had garnered takeover interest from several private equity firms, including Investcorp.

The Bahrain-based company, which has $42.7 billion in assets under management, was once in exclusive talks to buy Milan but failed to reach a deal before the end of an exclusivity period in April. 

Big-Name Investors

In August, MLB’s New York Yankees and investment firm Main Street Advisors — backed by NBA superstar LeBron James — became stakeholders in Milan. The deal marked the Yankees’ second soccer investment, which includes a 20% stake in MLS’ New York City FC.