Sports & Entertainment Beat

Welcome back to the Spotlight! To those who were hoping that Tom Brady’s retirement (the second time around) meant that his winning ways in the NFL were over, you might want to sit this one out. Indeed, the future Hall of Famer, widely thought to be the greatest quarterback of all time (except for when he plays my New York Giants in the Super Bowl) has managed to work a pretty sweet deal for himself. For one thing, he’s in the first year of a 10 year, $375 million broadcasting deal with FOX Sports to handle commentary on NFL games. Now, he’s using a substantial portion of his salary to fund his purchase of a minority ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders franchise. In so doing, finds himself restricted by the NFL from having to do some of the more labor-intensive aspects of sports broadcasting—attending production meetings and meeting with players and coaches—all while collecting his same paycheck. In sum, Brady has gone from owning NFL teams (not the Giants) on Sundays, to owning an NFL team everyday. Brady’s detractors can take solace in the fact that the Raiders don’t win many games—for now. 

• • Famed singer-songwriter Randy Newman sells his publishing and recorded music catalogue to Litmus Music.  Although the terms of the deal have not been publicly disclosed, rest assured that the dollar figure involved is enough for people to come out of the woodwork to tell Newman, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
     
  • Golf legend Jack Nicklaus finds himself embroiled in an effort to reclaim commercial rights to his name, image and likeness from his old company that has since developed an A.I. version of Nicklaus and attempted to restrain the real Nicklaus from using his name in a commercial setting.  In other words, Nicklaus wants to take a mulligan to prevent the commercial value of his NIL from being nickel-less.  
     
  • The New York Knicks jersey patch sponsorship will shift from Sphere Entertainment Co. to Experience Abu Dhabi coinciding with an announcement from Sphere that it will be bringing another immersive entertainment venue comparable to its Sphere in Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi, bringing things full circle (or (4/3)πr³ divided by (3/4)r)  

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn.