FIFA expects to follow one record revenue cycle with another.

Soccer’s global governing body approved its 2022 annual report, which anticipates $11 billion in revenue from 2023 to 2026.

FIFA brought in $7.6 billion in 2022, which of course was largely due to the World Cup in Qatar.

The organization also confirmed that hosts the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will all be granted automatic entry into the 2026 World Cup. The tournament will be played across 11 U.S. cities, three in Mexico, and two in Canada.

All three countries qualified for the 2022 World Cup.

In related news, Saudi Arabia was chosen unanimously by FIFA’s council to host the Club World Cup this December.

Saudi Arabia is also a contender for the 2030 World Cup and has pledged to underwrite the costs for potential co-hosts Greece and Egypt. Spain, Portugal, and Ukraine are also seeking to jointly host the tournament, as are Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, and Chile.

A final decision is expected in 2024.

Twitter had one of its most active days ever during Super Bowl LVII, giving the platform a needed boost after a wild four months since Elon Musk took over as owner.

On game day, the total number of tweets in the U.S. was up 20% and total tweeters were up 18%, each year-over-year, according to sources familiar with the data.

Unsurprisingly, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, and Travis Kelce were the most tweeted-about players during the Kansas City Chiefs’ 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles — but Rihanna’s halftime performance was the most tweeted-about moment overall.

The Big Game results are major validation for Twitter after months of financial turmoil.

Of the company’s top 1,000 advertisers in September, 625 stopped advertising on Twitter by January, per CNN. Monthly revenue dropped by more than 60% from October to January 25, according to the data — or from about $127 million to just over $48 million.

Musk rallied and struck deals with two major Super Bowl sponsors — PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev — just days ahead of the game. But that may not have been enough to satisfy the CEO.

After failing to publish a hit Super Bowl tweet (by his standards), Musk reportedly had the app’s algorithm tweaked so that his tweets would appear at the top of users’ timelines.

At-home fitness startup Tonal needs a reboot.

The company’s valuation peaked at $1.9 billion in September behind a $100 million funding round. Five months later, Bloomberg is reporting that company’s seeking funds at a valuation of $500 million or less.

Much of the decline can be attributed to the connected fitness trend fizzling — a post-pandemic reality that’s also challenging Peloton.

This news comes after Tonal cut 35% of its workforce last summer. Talk of a potential IPO has quieted in recent months, as well.

Tonal’s investors include LeBron James, Serena Williams, Mike Tyson, and Steph Curry. 

Peloton was in talks to acquire Tonal last year, per Bloomberg.

The leading reason an acquisition didn’t work out was that Peloton — which has failed to turn a profit for eight consecutive quarters — was looking to improve its cash position amid a continued restructuring.

The relationship between FC Barcelona and a consulting company has raised suspicions that the team was bribing referees.

The iconic La Liga club was revealed to have paid around $1.5 million from 2016-2018 to DASNIL 95 SL, a firm part-owned by Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, who was on La Liga’s refereeing committee at the time. The revelation came out on the “Que T’hi Jugues” show on radio station SER Catalunya.

Barcelona acknowledged the payments, saying they were for video reviews of young players on other clubs and consulting on officiating.

Team president Joan Laporta suggested that the practice is common among soccer teams and that the revelation is coming out because Barca is in first place in La Liga.

Negreira claimed in Spanish court that he didn’t influence how referees called games — and that he merely advised Barcelona on how to behave around specific referees.

Negreira was vice president of La Liga’s Technical Committee of Referees until 2018. Josep Maria Bartomeu was president of Barcelona at the time, but stepped down in 2020 amid tax fraud allegations.

Barcelona had a 78-game streak, ending in 2018, in which opposing teams were not awarded a penalty kick — Barca was given at least 32 penalty kicks during that period. The club also had a stretch of at least 28 games in which players weren’t given a single red card.