Veteran icons Beckham, Federer court success
BULLS OF THE WEEK
A slow-moving, five-year rollercoaster of on-again, off-again ups and downs finally arrived at the announcement that the David Beckham Major League Soccer ownership group was ready to officially unveil plans for its longawaited expansion franchise in Miami.
It’s a bullish play for Beckham, who brought star power to MLS in 2007 and was gifted franchise rights for US$25 million as part of his five-year deal with the L.A. Galaxy.
With MLS entry fees now pegged at US$150 million, there’s a huge upside for Beckham and his partners, now planning to move ahead with a new stadium on land they’ve bought despite opposition from local community groups.
Despite declining TV ratings for the NFL in the lead-up to Super Bowl LII, it was a bullish week for Fox and the league as the upstart network upset incumbents CBS and NBC for the rights to Thursday Night Football.
They’re paying $3 billion over five years — or about $60 million per game for 11 TNF games each season — which is a win-win for the NFL and FOX as it can now even more lavishly pre-promote its existing Sunday lineup of games by holding down Thursday night.
Yet no one has had the kind of bullish week that Swiss tennis star Roger Federer had, winning the Australian Open at the age of 36 to capture his 20th major singles title in his 30th Grand Slam final. Those nice round numbers solidify his status as the greatest of all time, but there appears more work to be done with Federer hinting he has no plans to retire before 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympic Games (the one prize that has eluded him in an otherwise remarkable career that has earned him US$115 million in tournament prize money and more than US$600 million in sponsorships with Nike, Wilson, Credit Suisse, Mercedes-Benz, Rolex, Lindt, Moet and a new five-year, $40-million deal with pasta brand Barilla).
In 2017, Federer won $14 million on the court and another $50 million off the court in endorsements and appearances. He is now the world leader in alltime athlete earnings, surpassing golf ’s Tiger Woods last fall. Why stop when you’re having that kind of fun?
BEARS OF THE WEEK
The Los Angeles Clippers exposed themselves this week as a franchise without a strategic compass when they traded marquee superstar Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons seven months after all kinds of elaborate wooing in his free agency re-signing last July.
It’s not a good look for either head coach Doc Rivers or owner Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO who bought the Clippers out of auction four years ago for US$2.15 billion.
Question: Does the decline in L.A. inspire Ballmer to give his old stomping grounds of Seattle atry?
It’s of course Super Bowl week for the NFL, the league’s annual high point. Yet there were some sobering trends in this week’s Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that showed a nine per cent drop since 2014 in the percentage of Americans who said they’re following it “very closely.” More alarming, a 24 per cent drop over four years in its core audience of males 18-49, from 75 per cent to 51 per cent.
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