💸 Deposit Request: Want Blood Money?

Saudi Arabia’s national oil company made $161 billion in profit in 2022.

Or to put it another way, that’s:

• $3.1 billion per week

• $442 million per day

• $18.4 million per hour

• $307,000 per minute

You know what that means…

🗞 The Big Story

Lionel Messi just broke the American professional sports model.

And it’s not because he was offered a 3-year, $1.6 billion (!!!!) deal with Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal.

Instead, it’s the compensation package that MLS and Inter Miami put together that’s making the big splash. Here are the details:

• It’s a projected 2-4 year deal

• He will receive a percentage of all new subscriptions to MLS Season Pass on AppleTV+

• Messi has also entered a profit-sharing agreement with Adidas

• Reports claim that he was offered a 35% stake in Inter Miami

• There is the possibility of a David Beckham-style expansion rights deal

But what does this all have to do with the rest of American sports?

Well, if you think it’s crazy that Kyrie can demand a trade in the middle of the season while still under contract, consider what Messi just did by not only landing himself a salary likely worth $10+ million per year but also getting a stake in:

• AppleTV+

• Adidas

• MLS

You don’t think other athletes (mainly NBA players) are going to look at this deal and think “Why can’t I do that?”

Consider this, the NBA’s next media rights deal is going to amount to close to $8 billion per year.

For reference, the MLS’s deal with AppleTV is just $250 million per year.

I would bet that 10 players in the NBA are responsible for driving 90% of that value, but as it stands right now all the players in the NBA are paid evenly for their share of the media revenue.

So why wouldn’t the LeBrons of the world demand that their share of media revenue be higher?

The short answer is that no one player in the NBA has as much impact on the league as Messi does on MLS, but we’re certainly trending in that direction.

Look for the top NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL players to make a greater push for an unequal distribution of media, merchandise, and sponsorship revenue in their favor.

And don’t be surprised if more leagues start facilitating a path to ownership as a part of current compensation. Jaylen Brown really did call it…

📉 Biggest Loser

Golf.

The biggest loser from this week’s PGA/LIV merger is the game of golf and more specifically the players who make a living playing it.

Here’s the deal, this merger is the outcome the Saudis always wanted. It’s clear now that the whole “wearing shorts” and “team names” thing was nothing more than a bit of concealer on a nasty whitehead.

And that pimple has finally popped.

Exposing the truth of the last two years of LIV Golf, which is just another blatant attempt by a murderous government to gloss over all of their transgressions with the “mAgiC oF SpOrTs.”

Better known as sports washing.

Now, in our emergency episode of Sportonomics this week I compared LIV to the Michael Scott Paper Company.

But I now realize I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Because it’s clear that LIV was never the one that was going to run out of money. Instead, they were going to keep spending out of their endless coffers of oil money until the PGA folded or came to the negotiating table.

And now, the PGA has been strong-armed into accepting investment from the very entity it spent the past 18 months denouncing.

Telling players they were accepting “blood money” if they went over to LIV, with PGA Commissioner, Jay Monahan, even invoking 9/11 as a reason to stay with the Tour.

But while all of that was going on, that same commissioner was making a back-room deal with those same “blood money” guarantors to merge all of the golf tours.

Creating a super monopoly that strips any player, LIV or PGA, of the leverage they once had and setting golf back several years.

Will players get paid more in the short term? Sure.

But what incentive does this new golf tour have to keep its players happy? It just bought up all the competition.

I mean, it took a sovereign wealth fund from a Middle Eastern nation with endless money to finally get the PGA to drastically increase their prize money… and there are only so many more of those around.

So here’s to hoping the players wise up and unionize, otherwise, they’re just back to where they started.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

Thursday Night Football has gotten a bad rap since its inception.

Players, media, and coaches decried it for jeopardizing player’s safety, saying three days’ rest wasn’t enough to fully recover from the week before.

And on the surface, they’ve been proven right.

Numerous times in just the past year we’ve seen a player suffer a serious injury (often head, neck, or spinal related) on these nationally televised games.

But there’s a silent majority in favor of Thursday Night games, and it includes a pair of Super Bowl Champions.

On a recent episode of their podcast, New Heights, the Kelce brothers voiced their support of Thursday Night games as well as the recent change the NFL made to allow teams to play two Thursday Night games per year with the addition of flex scheduling.

Jason Kelce, Super Bowl-winning center for the Eagles, even went as far as to say that “players who are against Thursday Night games are just looking to make headlines.”

And that there’s “no fucking chance that anyone with half a brain cell is against Thursday Night games".

Spicy take? Maybe.

But the data backs him up. According to multiple studies, games played on shorter rest (4 days or less) have fewer injuries on average than games played on regular rest (6-8 days).

Is that why the NFL added more Thursday Night games for teams and flex scheduling? Probably not, but at least now they finally have some players running opposition for them.

🥱 In Other News

• A Louisana-based company called Tigeraire has released an air conditioning attachment for football helmets. One unit retails for $185.

• Duke basketball star, Tyrese Proctor, forwent the NBA draft to stay another year in school. Does NIL have anything to do with it?

• The NCAA 24 video game just hit a major hurdle. The College Football Players Association is threatening to boycott the game due to low athlete payouts. Each athlete is expected to make $500.

• Maps are hard.

👋 I’m headed to a friend’s bachelor party this weekend. However, I do plan on being fully recovered in time for next Friday’s drop. Have a great weekend!