🎬 'The Blind Side' Was a Lie

Growing up you think adults know everything, but once you turn about 23 you realize they really knew nothing this whole time and everything you’ve ever been told is a lie.

Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme but when I found out the movie ‘The Blind Side’ wasn’t real, I started to question everything…

Here’s what’s on tap:

🗞 The Big Story: Michael Oher Gets Blindsided

📉 Biggest Loser: Barstool Sold For $1, Now What?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Green Bay’s Gold Mine

⬇️ Listen: Should ESPN even be allowed to start a sportsbook? Jack Settleman and I disucss…

🗞 The Big Story

By now, you’ve already heard the allegations that the Oscar-winning movie about a Memphis family adopting future NFL offensive lineman, Michael Oher, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

But new details just came out that make these allegations a whole lot messier.

You see, last week a 14-page petition was filed in a Tennessee court that alleges Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never actually adopted Michael Oher.

Instead, the document describes how the Tuohys tricked Oher into signing a conservatorship that allowed them to make financial decisions on his behalf without paying him for the success of the movie - all while personally enriching themselves.

Now, Oher describes how at the time the Tuohys told him that a conservatorship and an adoption were virtually the same thing and that the only reason they needed to enter into a conservatorship was because he was over 18.

But the actual difference is that Oher was never a legal member of their family like the movie portrays and, more importantly, it means he had to surrender control over his financial affairs to the Tuohy family.

This apparently resulted in the Tuohys siphoning money from the movie to themselves and their two birth children with payouts that totaled $225,000 each plus 2.5% of the film’s net proceeds, a film which grossed more than $300 million at the box office with tens of millions dollars more in home video sales.

And Michael Oher allegedly got nothing.

Now, Oher only realized that the Tuohys didn’t actually adopt him this February, which was the final straw in an already strained relationship.

For starters, Oher didn’t like how he was portrayed in the movie.

Sure, it’s true that he led a hard-knock life growing up, but by the time he was introduced to the Tuohys, he was already one of the top-recruited linemen in the country who didn’t need Sandra Bullock’s to learn how to block.

Their relationship further declined when Oher saw that he was portrayed as unintelligent in the movie, which he said hurt his standing with teams in the NFL who thought he might not be able to learn plays or be a good leader.

The relationship was further strained when Oher realized he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie.

And the final blow was back in February when Oher realized he wasn’t actually an adopted member of the family.

And this revelation is what inevitably led Oher to petition the court for his share of profits from the movie as well as punitive damages, a total that could be as high as $10M.

But now an attorney for the Tuohys has come out and said that Oher “threatened” the couple and told them he would “plant a negative story about them unless they paid him $15M.”

The couple also alleges that this petition is just a way for Oher to promote his new book which was released last week.

But let’s be honest here because if even a fraction of this story is true, Michael Oher is in the right…

I blame SEC football.

📉 Biggest Loser

If you somehow missed the biggest story of the week, here’s a summary:

• Penn Entertainment sold Barstool Sports back to Dave Portnoy for $1

• Penn wrote off an $850 million loss on the sale

• Penn and ESPN are now partnering on ESPN Betts

There are more details, but that’s the gist.

So now what: Well, this sale has set a few dominos into motion, the first of which I hadn’t thought of until Jack Settleman brought it up on Sportonomics this week.

That is, Barstool had to sign a 6-month non-compete after the sale. This means during their busiest time of year (the NFL season) they can’t promote the most lucrative type of sponsor: gambling partners.

Now, it’s almost certain that come February Barstool will have signed a multi-million dollar agreement with another sportsbook partner. Hell, maybe even ESPN Bets.

But until then they just lost a massive revenue channel.

It’s worth noting: In the six months, Penn owned Barstool, they reported a $16 million loss on the brand. So it seems like Barstool isn’t even profitable, to begin with.

So what do they do? Jack astutely laid out two options:

1. Portnoy fires 30-40% of his staff to cut costs

2. Portnoy bootstraps this thing until they can get back on the gravy train

If I had to guess, I think Portnoy is already in the midst of the second option. He just sold the 1.25 million shares of Penn stock he received when he sold Barstool to Penn which is estimated to be worth $30 million.

At their current burn rate, that would be enough to hold the company over for a little less than a year.

Looking forward: ESPN just signed a 10-year, $1.5B deal with Penn to allow them to re-skin the Barstool Sportsbook into ESPN Bets, but I have serious concerns over the morality of a news organization getting into the sportsbook business.

Where do their incentives now lie? Breaking news or in the much more lucrative business of getting people to bet on games.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

The Green Bay Packers make over $800,000 every year from one practice.

NFL teams opening their practice to fans is fairly common these days. Attendance is usually free and held on practice fields that don’t hold more than a few thousand people.

In fact, when teams like the Bears have tried to open up their actual stadiums to allow fans to watch practice they couldn’t even fill up one section.

But the same can’t be said for America’s smallest market team.

Context: In 1999, the Packers introduced ‘Family Night’

• Tickets are $10 with open seating

• Parking is $5 with proceeds being donated to charity

• The team scrimmaged through 2013. The format was then changed to become a glorified practice

• They’ve sold out 19 of the 24 years

Altruism or Good Economics?: The price to attend a regular season game at Lambeau Field in 2022 was $182 for one person which includes a ticket, parking, food, and drink.

But it’s also worth mentioning that every time the Packers sell out their 81,441-person stadium, even with $10 tickets, they make $814,000.

⏱ In Other News

• Athlete podcasts are on the rise, and Raven’s safety, Marlon Humphrey, is the next man up.

• Skip Bayless has found a new co-host(s), and people at Fox aren’t happy.

• Neymar is getting paid $500K per social media post about his new Saudi Club.

👋 A little inside baseball for you all at the end of this week’s newsletter. An annual subscription to Beehiiv (the platform I use to host this newsletter) is $999, and I just bought it.

So don’t be surprised if I start testing new features and tools… I have to make my money back somehow 🤷🏼‍♂️