Thanks for the great feedback on last week’s edition! Please keep it coming by responding to this email or on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter).

Forwarded this newsletter by someone in your network and want to receive it yourself? Subscribe here 

Good Thursday Morning. Bringing you an abbreviated, “snack size” version of SBP this week.

Five Interesting, Funny, and Touching Things that Happened in Sports This Week

#1: Deloitte released its annual report on the European soccer (full report here)

🗯️ My thought bubble: European soccer is a paradox.

On the one hand, you have storied, 100 plus-year old clubs playing the world’s most popular sport and attracting global audiences, which leads to some impressive numbers.

Real Madrid became the first club ever to record a 1 billion euro revenue year, and five others — Manchester City, PSG, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, and Barcelona — did three quarters of a billion.

Set against that backdrop, the comprehensive numbers here feel… relatively small?

• A 6% YoY growth for the full group feels low

• Domestic broadcast rights are staying relatively flat for the next few years, but there are concerns these will continue to stagnate and even diminish in some cases

• Call me crazy, but I would’ve expected one of these behemoths to have crossed the 1 billion euro mark awhile ago given their global scale

These observations highlight some of the underlying challenges with European soccer (more details here).

Putting aside the runaway player costs and threat of relegation, the revenue uncertainty is a true roulette game.

The leagues do not have the same socialized revenue sharing agreements as their U.S. counterparts, so much of the revenue that separates the big clubs is driven by making Champions or Europa league and individual club commercials.

This leads to significant disparity where the top performers are mostly storied older clubs and/or clubs that got a massive influx of capital from Gulf State owners in order to help them spend and win championships.

It’s often considered sexy to own a European soccer team, but the year-to-year business treadmill it puts you on is not for the faint of heart.

#2: This is impressive, and it’s going to be fascinating to watch how the pie continues to be fought over between players and schools in years to come

#3: Well done by Steve Ballmer and the Clippers. Head here if you want to watch the livestream tonight and donate

#4: TGL initial viewership numbers are in, and they are good (for now)

🗯️ My thought bubble: Keep your eye on TGL going forward. Averaging 870,000+ and drawing above 600,000 people for an event on weeknight is going to keep ESPN executives happy (see metrics below on average viewership by league), and the star power with Tiger and Rory has been a major boost.

The big question will be how TGL is able to sustain this as the new sport sheen wears off and Tiger and Rory aren’t playing every week.

#5: I’ve watched this 20 times and it still 1. makes me laugh, and 2. has me fascinated by Bench Guy’s thought process

Until next time, sports fans!

-Alex