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Don’t let these big numbers fool you.

Sure 123.4M is a lot of people to watch a football game (in fact, it’s 37% of the country), but the moon landing was still bigger with an estimated 150M viewers across multiple channels.

That was 64% of the country. It’s hard to beat outer space.

Here are today’s topics:

🗞 The Big Story: The NCAA is on Life Support

📉 Biggest Loser: $2500 for an Airless Basketball?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: The PWHL is Losing Money, on Purpose

🗞 The Big Story

This might be the biggest story in the history of college athletics, and no one is talking about it.

The Ruling: Last week, while everyone was busy getting ready for the Super Bowl, a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board issued a groundbreaking ruling:

He said that Dartmouth men’s basketball players should be classified as university employees, meaning they should be paid salaries by the school and should even be allowed to form a player’s union.

If this decision stands, it could mean the end for the NCAA and college sports as we know it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Why Now? This ruling states that student-athletes at Dartmouth satisfy two criteria to be considered employees:

1. Control: They’re subject to punishments by the school according to a Student-Athlete Handbook.

2. Compensation: They currently receive apparel, meal stipends, and even preferable admission to the university.

What Changes? The new precedent would allow all student-athletes at DI private schools, like Dartmouth, to be able to claim employee status and unionize.

This would entitle those athletes to:

• Salary and wages

• Healthcare

• Workers’ compensation

• Collective bargaining power

But since limiting those benefits to private schools would create a competitive imbalance in college athletics, public schools would likely have to follow suit.

This means every DI school across the country would have to start paying its players a salary and allowing them to form unions.

A trend that could even affect DII and DIII schools.

When Will It Be Finalized? The fact that the case has even gotten this far is a good sign.

A similar case popped up in 2014 at Northwestern when football players tried to unionize and they got shut down right away because they were in a conference with both private and public schools.

But this case is dealing with an Ivy League school (an all-private school conference) meaning the next step after this is for a higher court to give their decision until it eventually gets appealed up to the Supreme Court.

This process could take years, but in the meantime, players can still form unofficial unions to prepare for the ruling.

Outlook: Given the Supreme Court’s recent decision to let college athletes earn money based on their Name, Image, and Likeness, it’s not impossible to think that the courts could rule in the athletes’ favor.

Which would officially mark the end of amateurism in college sports, and make the NCAA’s existence completely pointless.

📉 Biggest Loser

It’s going to cost $2,500 to buy one of Wilson’s viral Airless basketballs, but there’s a reason they had to make it so expensive.

Background: Today, February 16th, Wilson is releasing 200 of its Airless Gen1 basketballs to the public.

This ball first debuted at last year’s NBA All-Star Game when Kenyon Martin Jr. used it in the dunk contest but what we didn’t know at the time is that the ball had actually been in development for years before that.

The Perfect Design: The engineering team at Wilson and EOS had to take the time to perfect the balls:

• Latticed pattern

• Shape

• Material

To get the ball to bounce exactly like a regular basketball without having to be inflated.

I actually had the chance to dribble the first prototype of the ball myself last May and I was shocked by how similar the 3D-printed ball performed to a regular ball.

Bottlenecks: EOS, the company responsible for printing the balls, actually told me that at the height of their production process, they were only making one ball per day.

This is primarily due to the limited number of machines that exist to make these balls, and it explains why Wilson is now only offering 200 for sale at such a high price point.

Collectors Edition: If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on one of these balls you’ll have the option to get it in:

• Black

• Brown

• White

But representatives from Wilson say that they’re expecting the majority of people who buy these to be collectors and tech enthusiasts.

And as for the rest of us?

The lead engineer of the ball, Dr. Nadine Lipa says it’ll probably be years before the 3D-printing industry can catch up to demand.

Until then, I guess you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you that this ball is legit.

📖 Recommended Reading

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🏆 Winner’s Circle

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is already more successful than the NHL was, but it could still go bankrupt.

By The Numbers: The PWHL was making headlines just 13 games into its first season:

• Over 65,000 total fans

• Averaged 5,000 fans per game

In fact, the Ottawa home opener broke the attendance record for professional women’s hockey with over 8,000 fans.

Only for that record to be broken a few days later when Minnesota had 13,316 fans come to its home opener at the Xcel Energy Center.

PWHL>NHL? The PWHL is well ahead of where the NHL was during its first season in 1917 when only 700 people came to watch the league’s first game between the Montreal Wanderers and the Toronto Arenas…

And they were giving away tickets for free.

But the real concern for the PWHL is if their league is actually sustainable.

A Better Model: The league’s set-up is different from other leagues that have failed in the past.

For starters, payers are paid a minimum of $35,000 per year, with the average salary sitting at $55,000.

But each roster is also allocated at least six spots for players earning over $80,000.

Another interesting aspect is that each of the 6 teams is owned by the league, and the league isn’t supported by the NHL but rather by a group of wealthy directors led by billionaire Mark Walter, who is also the co-owner of the LA Dodgers.

This is important because the league is likely going to lose money in its first year (which is to be expected when you have to start from scratch).

But instead of risking individual teams going out of business, the league can equitably support all teams financially to ensure competitive balance and stability.

Worthwhile Investment: From the perspective of Mark Walter and the other directors, supporting this league is a good bet to make, as we’ve seen other professional women’s sports leagues boom in just the last year.

• NWSL drew 1.37 million fans in 2023 (league record)

• WNBA had a total attendance of 1.58 million (13-year high)

• Collegiate volleyball and women’s basketball have been posting huge sell-outs all season

So why can’t women’s hockey be the next successful league? Especially when they’re already off to a great start.

⏱ In Other News

• Future HOF WR, Tyler Webb?

• Insider trading with… Gatorade?

• Kansas City is getting a new $2B baseball stadium.

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👋 Uncle Charlie might be hiring soon. Nothing is set in stone yet, we just know it’ll probably be a live coverage position in professional baseball this summer.

If that sounds like something you might be interested in, shoot me a connection on LinkedIn. That’s probably where I’ll post about it first.

Happy Friday!