⚽️ The Problem with Adidas' New High Tech Ball

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If I set it up correctly, you should now be able to listen to these newsletters by clicking the ‘listen online’ option above.

But that’s not even the biggest newsletter development of the week. More info on that is at the bottom.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: The Truth Behind College Softball’s First Millionaire

📉 Biggest Loser: Why Team USA Is Spending $100K on AC

🏆 Winner’s Circle: The Problem with Adidas' New High-Tech Soccer Ball

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🗞 The Big Story

This softball player just became one of the richest athletes in NCAA history, but her deal reveals one of the biggest problems in college sports.

Background: NiJaree Canady just came off back-to-back trips to the Women’s College World Series and a 2024 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award after she posted:

• 24-7 record

• 0.73 ERA (1st)

• 337 strikeouts (1st)

• 230 2/3 innings pitched (4th)

As the undisputed best pitcher in college softball, she had her pick of any school when she decided to enter the transfer portal this summer.

Her previous school, Stanford, obviously tried to keep her with a six-figure NIL offer, but Canady knew she could get more.

That’s when Texas Tech’s biggest booster and co-founder of the school’s NIL-affiliate Matador Club, John Sellers, came calling with an offer that’s unlike anything a college softball player has ever seen.

The Deal: It’s important to note that in 2023, Texas Tech Softball only made:

• $380,000 in revenue + $1M donation from Sellers

• Still operated at a $1.15M deficit

But that didn’t stop the Matador Club from offering Canady a one-year, $1,050,024 deal — the highest ever for a college softball player by a wide margin.

• $24: Her number

• $50,000: One year of living expenses

• $1,000,000: Remaining amount for Canady

For reference, Texas Tech’s new coach will only make $250,000 next year - less than a fourth of what his star player will make.

But the craziest part is that after this deal, Canady will still have a year of eligibility left, meaning she can find another million-dollar deal (even though most college softball programs are still losing money across the country).

I guess that doesn’t matter when you have big boosters that will pay whatever it takes to win.

📉 Biggest Loser

The Paris Olympics just made one of the most dangerous decisions I’ve ever heard, and it’s costing the United States close to $100,000.

Background: The city of Paris is attempting to host the “greenest ever” Olympic Games this summer, aiming to cut the event's carbon footprint in half compared to previous Games.

To do this, the city has employed “innovative, eco-focused cooling solutions” in the Athlete Village to keep the rooms cool during the high summer heat.

There’s just one problem:

No one thinks any of their ideas are actually going to work.

The Issue: Ahead of all the countries arriving, the Paris Olympics announced that it wouldn’t install any air conditioners in any of the rooms athletes are staying in.

Instead, the city says various design features will keep the rooms cool, including:

• Building the rooms facing away from direct sun

• Use of efficient insulation

• Cooling the rooms with a system of water pipes beneath the floorboards

The Danger: Not having air conditioning isn’t all that rare in France:

• < 25% of French homes have AC

• Nearly 90% of US homes have AC

But it is a big deal when you consider how hot it could get during this year’s Olympics.

This time last year, Paris recorded its highest-ever temperature of nearly 109°F, which was part of a heat wave that killed more than 5,000 people in France alone.

And even though Paris’ mayor claims that at these temperatures, rooms will stay around 82°F - that’s still way too hot for anyone to sleep in, much less world-class athletes.

That’s why countries including:

• Canada

• Great Britain

• Italy

• Germany

• Greece

• Denmark

• Australia

• United Stats

They have each spent upwards of $100,000 to bring their own AC units for each room, even though the Paris Mayor told them to “trust the science.”

🏆 Winner’s Circle

The most high-tech soccer ball in the world costs just $170, but some athletes are worried it’s making the game too easy.

Background: Adidas has slowly been rolling out a new line of “connected technology” into their balls across:

• World Cup

• Champions League

• 2024 Euros

This tech utilizes a 7-gram chip fixed on a gyroscope inside each ball, making it the first ball with a sensor with a perfectly balanced center of mass.

This means that while the ball’s physics doesn’t change, it can now send 500 data points per second within a centimeter of accuracy.

The ball's exact position, speed, rotation, and force are all being tracked in real-time, but even more impressively, this chip is also able to detect even the slightest touch by a player down to the millisecond.

This is especially helpful for making offsides and handball calls when there are several players in the way of the various camera angles officials have used in the past to make these calls.

The idea is that not only will calls become more accurate, but they can be made much more quickly with the assistance of AI.

The Issue: But that’s not even what’s making the game “too easy” because several goalies complained about how far these new balls flew during its most recent use in the 2024 Euros.

Evidently, this version of the ball is made with more “sustainable bio-based materials” than balls used before, like:

• Corn fibers

• Sugar cane

• Wood pulp

According to players like England’s Harry Kane, “when you strike it, it stays hit,” referring to several players' ability to make impressive, long-range goals they might not have otherwise been able to make before.

⏱ In Other News

• It just got more expensive to be a sports fan (again).

• You can buy OJ’s Heisman Trophy.

• The clock is ticking on Brett Favre.

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