🥊 Why The Biggest Winner of Jake Paul-Mike Tyson Is Netflix

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I’ll spare you my usual “billionaires should pay for their own stadiums” diatribe this week because what’s happening in Chicago is straight-up depressing.

Their team is falling apart, their current stadium is falling apart, and now their plans to build a new stadium are also falling apart. As a Packers fan, I’m giddy but more on that at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: Why The Biggest Winner of Jake Paul-Mike Tyson Is Netflix

📉 Biggest Loser: What the Hell is Going on with the Chicago Bears’ (Stadium)?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How This Helmet Solves Football’s Hidden Problem

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🗞 The Big Story

Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson could be the most successful fight in sports history, but not for the reason you might think…

BIG Money: Both Paul and Tyson will receive 8-figure payouts for their fight in front of a 70,000-person crowd at AT&T Stadium.

In fact, even with the fight being delayed five months, tickets are still averaging $352, and the fight's promoter expects to generate at least $15 million in ticket revenue.

This is helped by the fact that they’re currently offering a $2 million ticket, which includes:

• Ringside VIP suite

• On-stage position during ceremonial weigh-ins

• Autographed boxing gloves by both fighters

But that’s not even the craziest part.

Netflix, Pay Up: While Netflix has already spent $4.1M on eight different ad spots to promote the fight, they likely paid around $75M just to acquire the rights to it in the first place.

But that could actually end up being an incredible deal.

That’s because the streaming service paid $150M for two Christmas Day NFL games this year, and the promoters of this fight say they expect viewership to top that of last year’s Peacock-exclusive playoff game between the Dolphins and the Chiefs, which drew around 23 million viewers.

For reference, Peacock’s playoff game helped drive 3 million paying subscribers to the platform in just three days - making it the biggest single day for streaming signups ever. Not to mention, 71% of those people were still subscribers seven weeks later.

Netflix’s Angle: Even though Netflix already has more subscribers than Peacock, the platform could see similar success in acquiring new subscribers as it continues targeting people who might only want to watch live sports on its platform.

📉 Biggest Loser

What the hell are the Chicago Bears doing?

Double Reverse: After paying $197 million for the land to build a new stadium 30 miles outside of the city in Arlington Park and then ditching that plan to build a new $4.6 billion stadium next to Soldier Field, they’ve now changed their minds for a third time with the announcement of their latest stadium location.

The Bears didn’t build their stadium in the Arlington Park suburbs because they thought the city wasn’t giving the team a big enough tax break.

So, as a negotiation tactic, they ditched that plan and seemed to be all-in on building a new lake-front stadium next to the existing Soldier Field.

The team even agreed to contribute $2 billion to the new domed stadium, with another $300 million coming from an NFL loan and $900M more from public bonds.

However, that still left the city and the state responsible for at least $1.5 billion in infrastructure costs to make the new stadium accessible to fans—an amount neither the state nor the city seems willing to pay.

Third Building Site: That’s why, just last week, the team announced they were reconsidering a third building site that they had previously discarded - but it might actually be the perfect location.

Now, the reason team president Kevin Warren initially dismissed this empty plot of land two miles south of Solider Field was because he felt it was “too narrow” and wouldn’t be feasible since it’s located above an active rail line.

However, as the team realized that the city and the state weren’t as willing to pay for parts of a new stadium as they previously thought, this old hospital site started seeming like a better and better option.

Positive Momentum: A $4.3 billion plan to redevelop the Bronzeville neighborhood in and around the 48.6-acre proposed building site is already in place.

This includes money the city has already committed to new infrastructure and tax subsidies for which the stadium would be eligible.

It also still overlooks the lake and wouldn’t require tearing any existing buildings down.

But regardless of which location the team chooses, Kevin Warren has already committed to starting construction by next year—RIP to the oldest stadium in the NFL.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This helmet helps solve the biggest problem in sports that you’ve never heard about; let’s break it down.

Background: Back in 2006, a former Harvard quarterback and eventual doctor named Vin Ferrara realized that there had to be a better way to build football helmets and prevent the sort of head injuries he had experienced during his playing days.

So, after spending three years researching and developing, he took his unique concept to the field for the first time and launched the Xenith X1 football helmet in 2009

Now, while it might not look like much, it actually had three ground-breaking features that are still used in Xenith helmets today—from youth to the pros.

Adaptive Fit: For starters, the X1 debuted what’s called “adaptive fit” technology, which basically means that instead of attaching the chin strap to the outside of the helmet, it was attached to the inner lining.

This allows the inner liner to cinch down around the player’s head, offering a custom fit and helping keep the helmet secure on the player’s head.

Lining Connection: It’s also worth noting that the inner padding is only connected to the outer shell in a few spots, meaning that even as a player’s helmet gets twisted, their head doesn’t move as much—helping to dampen impacts while making the helmet more comfortable.

Shock Absorbing: However, the most impressive feature of Xenith helmets is the little shock-absorbing pucks located between the outer shell and the inner lining.

These pucks can intelligently adapt to different levels of impact and dissipate the energy by collapsing to vent air for a more complete and gradual compression, depending on how hard a player gets hit.

And these shock absorbers are key in helping reduce the smaller, and more frequent impacts called sub-concussive hits that studies show lead to concussions more frequently than big hits.

Why it Matters: As Xenith’s Director of Product Development explained to me, helmet companies today often design their products to test well for the type of super-violent hits that may only happen once or twice per year.

However, Xenith has found a way to protect athletes from both kinds of hits with its new custom foam shock absorbers, which can harden or soften based on the level of impact.

This not only makes their helmets up to 1 pound lighter than others on the market, but it’s why they were awarded over $500,000 from the NFL and proven to be the safest helmets for offensive and defensive linemen who experience these subconcussive hits most often.

⏱ In Other News

• Why Jerry Jones actually can’t solve his stadium’s biggest problem

• Jon Gruden signs a multi-year deal with Barstool

• The basketball league that doesn’t want to sell tickets

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👋 Happy Friday!

Speaking of Chicago, I’m off to Soldier Field (for the first time) this weekend to watch the Bears vs. Packers; however, after reviewing this ranking for NFL gameday experiences, my expectations are low (TL;DR—Chicago is ranked 30 out of 30 on that list).

I have a video planned to either debunk or confirm that rating. I’ll follow up with my findings here next week, too.