Welcome to October, the equivalent to a full moon for North American sports fans. With the NFL, college football, and Major League Soccer seasons in full swing, ice hockey and basketball return this month while baseball and the WNBA are in playoff mode. Any given night or afternoon features something engrossing to watch.
With that comes an onslaught of dealmaking. Scoreboard hears that the first round of the sale of the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics got under way this week, with banks reaching out to and engaging with interested individual bidders. (The Celtics, meanwhile, open their 2024-25 pre-season with exhibitions in Abu Dhabi this weekend.) And weeks after the NFL formally approved institutional investment in teams, the Miami Dolphins are in talks to sell a minority stake to private equity firm Ares. Stay tuned on both of these deals and more, and meanwhile we have dispatches on LVMH’s continued sports push and the race for the next president of the International Olympic Committee. Do read on — Sara Germano, US sports business correspondent
Send us tips and feedback at scoreboard@ft.com. Not already receiving the email newsletter? Sign up here. For everyone else, let’s go.
Formula One bags LVMH as new top sponsor
That victorious F1 drivers currently spray Italian spumante over each other rather than actual champagne has been something of a running joke. Made with Chardonnay grapes grown in the Italian Alps, Ferrari Trentodoc may have a very motorsport name, but still lacks a certain je ne sais quoi on the podium.
That looks set to change after F1 signed up French luxury behemoth LVMH as a new global partner from next year. The 10-year deal is worth more than $1bn, and will involve several of the company’s high-end brands, which include fashion labels Louis Vuitton and Dior, jewellery brand Tiffany & Co, and Benefit Cosmetics. LVMH will become F1’s top sponsor by annual spend.
The most obvious starting point will be for LVHM’s Tag Heuer brand to replace Rolex as F1’s timepiece partner. Rolex has been tied to F1 since 2013, but its 11-year deal is about to run out. Tag Heuer has long fostered links to F1 through individual sponsorships, such as with drivers Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Lewis Hamilton and even the late Ayrton Senna.
As for French bubbles, LVMH has plenty of options to pick from, including Dom Pérignon, Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart. Which one LVMH executives go for may tell us more about who they see as the F1/LVMH crossover audience.
LVMH’s foray into motorsport has long been in the works, but its firm commitment to F1 comes hot on the heels of its lauded debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
For F1, landing such a big sponsor is evidence that it is still reaping the financial rewards of the growing US and female fan base brought to the sport by Netflix show Drive to Survive. According to earnings from F1 owner Liberty Media, sponsorship accounted for 18 per cent of the sport’s revenue in 2023, so around $580mn; this deal suggests there is still plenty of room for growth.
More broadly for sport, it offers hope to those who believe that big brand sponsorships can help pick up some of the slack as the media rights boom tapers off.
After Paris, a new Olympic race gets under way
Barely two months after the successful Paris Olympics, the games have a new contest ahead of them: the selection of the next president of the International Olympic Committee.
With current leader Thomas Bach set to complete his term limit of twelve years next spring, the candidates to succeed him include World Athletics chief Lord Sebastian Coe, the son of former president Juan Antonio Samaranch, Zimbabwean swimming champion Kirsty Coventry, Prince Feisal al-Hussein of Jordan, among others. The election is set to take place in Greece in March, preceded by presentations from each of the candidates in January.
At stake is an Olympic movement steadying itself amid global political and economic instability. Since Bach’s tenure began in late 2013, the IOC has shifted from its bullish push into new geographies, such as the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games, to a more conservative approach favouring recycled host cities (Los Angeles, Salt Lake City) and sustainability (tap water and public transit-reliant Paris). Through this period, Bach has sought to make the Olympics a distinguished advocate for political refugees, while also staging games through the help of authoritarian leadership in Sochi and Beijing.
“If we start taking parts as an organisation saying ‘this country’s human rights record I don’t like’ or ‘this other country is guilty in this war’, we will disappear” said Samaranch Junior of Spain in an interview about his candidacy with Reuters. He also proposed moving summer Olympics to winter months if global warming makes such events unfeasible.
The younger Samaranch’s father served as IOC president from 1980-2000 and developed the lucrative advertising scheme, known as TOP, which turned the games profitable. In recent years, a clique of Asia-based corporates signed on for sponsorship to cover the 2018-2022 stretch of three straight regional games in Pyeongchang, Tokyo, and Beijing; this week Bridgestone Tires joined fellow Japanese brands Toyota and Panasonic in opting not to renew with the IOC.
Other candidates are still forming their public message. Coe, the current World Athletics president and two-time Olympic champion, has said on his personal social media that he will release “a detailed manifesto” in the coming weeks. Kirsty Coventry, who would become the first woman and first African IOC president if elected, emphasised recent efforts by the Olympics to reach gender parity. Unlike other political elections this year — this one is just warming up.
Highlights
-
Fifa’s rules on the transfers of professional footballers break EU rules on free movement, Brussels’ top court said, in a ruling that could disrupt the European game’s system of player sales between clubs. The ECJ’s verdict came as a result of a case brought by Lassana Diarra, a former French international player.
-
The world’s top ranked men’s tennis player Jannik Sinner could be banned for up to two years after the World Anti-Doping Agency challenged an earlier decision by an independent panel to clear the Italian of any wrongdoing after he tested positive for a banned substance in March. Sinner said he was “surprised” and “very disappointed” by Wada’s decision to take the case to the Court of Arbitration in Sport.
-
Nike withdrew its guidance for its fiscal 2025, which began in June, as sales and profits continue to decline and the world’s largest sportswear maker prepares for a CEO transition this month.
-
GMR Group, part-owner of the Delhi Capitals Indian Premier League team, has acquired Hampshire County Cricket Club, making it the first English side to become foreign owned. GMR, an energy and infrastructure conglomerate, also has investments in crickets teams in Dubai, Pretoria and Seattle.
-
Renault will cease making Formula One engines at the end of next year. Alpine, the F1 team part-owned by the French carmaker, could instead turn to Mercedes to supply its future power unit.
-
Youth sports are not immune to the forces of commercialisation, and are now estimated to be a $30bn-$40bn per year industry. Private equity investment is now threatening to make Little League — baseball for tykes — too expensive for the average US family.
Chart of the week: Juve’s pain
Italian football club Juventus, which has a public listing, posted another year of losses, after failing to qualify for European football last season. That alone pushed revenue for the 2023-34 season down by €76mn compared to the previous year, while losses widened to €199mn after tax. The club has not made a profit since 2017, while cumulative losses over the past six seasons are now just shy of €900mn.
However, the club, owned by the Agnelli family, gave a more upbeat outlook for the year ahead. Executives believe the return to the Champions League this season plus cost cuts will help the club break even this year, with the aim of returning to profit in 2026-27.
Final Call
The lengthy trailer for the Six Kings showcase depicts a gigantic clay Rafael Nadal, a floating wolf pack leader Novak Djokovic, and a lightning-struck Viking chieftain Holger Rune all pinging tennis balls to each other. It’s pretty weird.
What’s it all for? Well, according to Andy Murray it’s to promote “an exhibition tennis event that nobody cares about”. See for yourself.
Scoreboard is written by Josh Noble, Samuel Agini and Arash Massoudi in London, Sara Germano, James Fontanella-Khan, and Anna Nicolaou in New York, with contributions from the team that produce the Due Diligence newsletter, the FT’s global network of correspondents and data visualisation team
You must be logged in to post a comment Login