Happy Sunday! We hope you had a fantastic week.

A lot happened that wasn’t sports related over the past seven days. In case your interested, here’s what went down. There was a UFO hearing, an interest rate hike reaching the highest its been in 22 years, and there was a coup in Niger.

The United States is already a soccer country. It’s time to end the debate on if the US is a soccer country, the answer is overwhelmingly yes. One of the greatest soccer players ever… Lionel Messi is playing in Miami for the US league, also the US Women’s Soccer Team is chasing a three-peat for the Women’s World Cup, and 31% of Americans say they are fans of the sport. Happy National Soccer Day to those who celebrated on Friday.

Speaking of Soccer: Nike wins as the US Women fall short of a victory. After a disappointing draw, the USWNT needs to draw or win to avoid a World Cup embarrassment. This comes right as Nike Football has been releasing several different creative advertisements for the USWNT. Nike ads seems to be working since it has sold out of 17% of its 2023 Women's World Cup merchandise. Adidas is falling short by only selling out 9%. 

Take a look at two interesting and creative WWC ads:

Advertisement One: What the Football

Advertisement Two: Nice To Beat You

ICYMI: Here’s a very very very big number: $1.1B. That’s how much Kylian Mbappé turned down when we reportedly refused to meet with Saudi Arabian soccer team Al Hilal which made the reported $1.1B 1-year-deal. More than $330M would’ve gone to PSG, with the remaining > $700M going to Mbappé. Al Hilal failed to attract Messi to the organization, as he made his decision to join the MLS. It’s unclear where Mbappé will go, but rumors believe he may go to Real Madrid.

Look What We Found: Imagine if Golf and Tinder met… introducing Golf Lync. Golf Lync is a startup focused on changing how people connect up over golf games. It's like a dating APP for golf games and finding new friends and groups to play with. It’s estimated to have a nearly $1M valuation and only has one employee. It’s not a small market that this app is going after. Somethign to note is nearly 25.6M Americans played golf on a golf course in 2022 which equates to 8% of the total US population.

Weekly Headlines

🏟️ The Womens World Cup attendance Is outperforming FIFA’s expectations. Ticket sales for the 2023 WWC are nearing 1.6M which broke the previous record in 2015 of 1.35M. FIFA already predicted 1.5M in ticket sales, but the additional 100k has come for a shock. Plus, the WWC hosted by Australia and New Zealand is increasing prize money from $30M in 2019 to a whopping $115M, with most of the money going to the players.

⚾️ MLB attendance is up nearly 9 percent this season. It’s been a pretty incredible season for Major League Baseball as fans spend more money at the stadium despite shorter games due to the new pitch clock rule. While the MLB is experiencing success in the United States, the MLB is also making moves to reach international growth by connecting India to grow baseball. MLB is making the right move as it eyes to expand the sport of baseball into the world’s most-populated country in the world. Additionally, on Friday Aaron Judge, the Captain of the New York Yankees., returned from the IL.

🏎️ NASCAR and Xfinity agree on $800M deal which is CW’s biggest sports investment so far. The CW will air each of the 33 annual Xfinity Series races after reportedly paying nearly $800M in the seven-year package. This was the biggest move CW has made so far as they work to transform itself into a newly innovative sports outlet. We reported weeks ago that Netflix was also making a move into live sports. According to the Wall Street Journal… Netflix is reportedly in talks to live-stream its first sporting event later this year. The event is a celebrity golf tournament featuring professional golfers and Formula One drivers.

📱 Fanatics is making a push into content creation with a live shopping app. Fanatics, the sports apparel company valued at $31B, is launching a new live shopping app called Fanatics Live. This new app is the first digital marketplace designed specifically for sports trading cards and memorabilia. The app provides users a unique way for fans to watch live sports card breaks. For those not aware with what sports card breaks are, it’s where collectors record themselves opening packages of sports cards. The new app will provide its new content woth Topps, the trading card brand Fanatics purchased for a whopping for $500M.

In Case You Missed It

ICYMI: USA TODAY found 15 inspiring quotes from Apple TV Plus hit-show ‘Ted Lasso’ for youth sports coaches. Take a look.

Required Reading

Our required reading section has a brand-new look. Please message us on Twitter, or reply to this e-mail if you have any comments or suggestions!

Looking for Sports Biz Jobs?

Exciting announcement: The Detroit Pistons announced this week that all applications have been posted for their Full Season Internship Program. Apply here today!

More Jobs:

Applied Sports Science Apprentice - Houston Texans - APPLY NOW

Account Executive, Business Development - Tennessee Titans (Nashville · TN) - APPLY NOW

Corporate Partnerships Manager (Lakeland, FL) - Detroit Tigers (Lakeland · FL) - APPLY NOW

Coordinator, Partnership Activation - Huntsville City FC (Huntsville · AL) - APPLY NOW

Want to find more sports business jobs? We highly recommend checking out Teamwork Online. It’s a free sports business job posting site.

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