It’s been a busy week for Major League Soccer.

Since Tuesday, MLS has announced plans to expand its playoffs and made deals with Audi, Adidas, and RBC Wealth Management.

The Audi MLS Cup Playoffs — which is named under Audi’s new deal extension — will add two more teams per conference for a total of nine each. The 2023 postseason will also add two single-elimination wild-card matches for a best-of-three series in the first round.

Audi will also remain the league’s official automotive partner and presenting sponsor of the MLS Golden Boot Award under the extension agreement, which is reportedly for three years and will “pay a multimillion-dollar fee annually,” according to Forbes.

This week, Adidas renewed its deal with the league, reportedly worth $830 million through 2030 — the company’s largest investment in North American soccer. Its current contract, which is valued at $700 million, was signed in 2017 and expires next year.

MLS also announced a multiyear deal with RBC Wealth Management on Tuesday.

The deals follow the league’s landmark broadcasting deal with Apple in June, which is worth at least $2.5 billion over 10 years.

Companies continue to invest in the league as its franchises prosper — since 2019, the average team value has increased 85% to $579 million, per Forbes.

The league added a 29th team — St. Louis City SC — for this season, which starts on Saturday, and hopes to announce a 30th team by the end of the year.

Weighed down by Diamond Sports Group, Sinclair missed estimates in the fourth quarter. 

The broadcast giant’s total revenues dropped 35% from the same period last year to $960 million. Its stock was down 6% on Wednesday.

Removing Diamond, which owns the 19 Bally’s regional sports networks, from the calculations, Sinclair’s revenue increased by 18% year-over-year due to strong spending on political advertising prior to the November elections.

In March, Sinclair deconsolidated Diamond, separating the company from its financial accounting despite still owning it. Diamond removed Sinclair as an operator of its sports networks in December.

Diamond missed a $140 million interest payment and owes around $2 billion in media rights, namely to MLB, the NBA, and NHL, this season. The company — which is widely believed to be headed toward bankruptcy — is currently in a 30-day grace period in which it can negotiate with leagues and creditors.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last week that if the company is unable to pay, the league would take control of the local rights of the 14 teams under contract with Diamond and produce games through its MLB Network.

Manfred added that the affected MLB teams would take a revenue hit in the short term, but he would seek to negotiate the right to stream games locally as part of any new deal for local broadcasts.

Viacom18 is banking on advertising sales to bring in revenue as it streams the “Super Bowl of Cricket” for free. 

The joint venture between Paramount Global and Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate Reliance Industries beat out Disney and Sony to purchase Indian Premier League rights for $2.7 billion last year. 

Disney, which won the IPL’s TV rights for $3 billion over the next five years, previously carried TV and streaming rights through Disney+ Hotstar. The Board of Control for Cricket in India sold the rights separately for the first time in 2022. 

Viacom18’s move to stream games for free — any amount of games for any length of time — hasn’t been announced. Bloomberg reported that the company is trying to offer games to as many people as possible to generate advertising sales.

Company executives have predicted that more than 550 million people will tune into the IPL games, which start on March 31 and last nearly eight weeks.

Women’s Competition 

Viacom18 also recently purchased media rights to the new Women’s Premier League for $117 million over the next five years — before the new league’s teams were even announced.

The BCCI generated roughly $572.7 million from sales of the teams.

“I believe that with a record media valuation earlier and now these high bids, the league will be a commercially independent and self-sustaining property,” said cricket board secretary Jay Shah.

Microsoft has remained optimistic about its deal to acquire Activision Blizzard — but it won’t go ahead without its signature title.

After a British regulator suggested that Microsoft may need to divest “Call of Duty” to go forward with its $69 billion acquisition, company president Brad Smith shot down the idea that the franchise could be removed from the deal.

It is not “feasible or realistic to think that one game or one slice of this company can be carved out and separated from the rest,” Smith told reporters. 

Regulators in the U.S., U.K., and European Union have been scrutinizing the deal over concerns that it could give Microsoft too much power in the gaming sector.

Microsoft recently reached deals with both Nvidia and Nintendo to put “Call of Duty” on their platforms.

The company has made the argument that the deal would benefit gamers and also pointed to Sony as a more dominant company in gaming, noting that it sells more consoles. 

Smith described the choice now before regulators: “Do you want to kill a deal and cement Sony’s position and its 80% share in the European Economic Area, or do you want to let the future go forward with behavioral guardrails and remedies and bring this title to 150 million more people?”