From Contracts to Creativity: The Ever-Evolving Playbook of Sports and Entertainment

Welcome back to the Spotlight! Just one more installment on the way next week before this dog and pony show packs it in for the rest of the year (pause for groaning, protests and/or sighs of relief). Unlike Juan Soto, I promise to be back next year—it won’t even take $765 million to make it happen. Though, for the record, I certainly would not turn down $765 million. While I’m on the subject, I’m not going to talk about the dynamics between the New York Yankees or Mets, I’ll save that for another time. Instead, if Soto is to receive $765 million (or more) over the next 15 years—the most lucrative professional sports contract—how much higher can players’ salaries go before we’re talking about equity compensation (in the form of options to purchase a piece of a team after retirement—so as to avoid apparent conflicts of interest) rather than cash? Such a shift might level the playing field so to (Soto?) speak for owners that are not worth $21 billion dollars (like the Mets’ Steve Cohen).  We’ve seen it most recently with Lionel Messi’s Major League Soccer deal with Inter Miami CF, so maybe it is just a matter of time before we see it in one of the Big Four professional sports leagues. 

• Authentic Brands Group strikes a stadium naming rights deal to rebrand the home of MLS’ New York Redbulls, Sports Illustrated Stadium.  Perhaps that means we can expect the team to play in swimsuits one match per year.
• The Writers’ Guild of America wrote (obviously) a scathing letter to Hollywood studios criticizing their allowing their intellectual property from being used for training generative AI models. In fairness to the studios, they didn’t have anything to say because the WGA didn’t write anything for them.
• University of Colorado star Wide Receiver/Cornerback and Heisman Trophy frontrunner, Travis Hunter signs an endorsement deal with Adidas ahead of the draft. As part of their pitch, Adidas gave him two hats.