Sports Business Radio Top 10 Sports Business Stori

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love the deals, prices and selection vary by store. Mark Cuban, how you do anything is how you do everything. If you're not, if you don't pay attention to detail on the little things, you're not gonna be an avid, a paying attention to detail for the big things. Can Griffey Jr. Hey, where's his hat back for us? Well, where my hat got this? Cause my dad had

a fro and I wonder where his hat. And if I put his hat on at 86 and you know, he's got a 8.5 and I got like a little 5. It's not gonna really stay on my head. Turn out, it's good to see everybody. John Smolts. If you don't have the imagination and the willingness to fail or not being afraid to fail, I don't think you

can be truly great. Candace Parker. I have so much hope for this generation coming up that I've grown up with women in sports, in leadership roles, on television, speaking about sports, speaking knowledgeably about sports. To me, all the work that I've done, all the humanitarian work that I've done has always given me great perspective. I gotta keep my feet on the ground and has really put

and reminded me what's truly important. Damien Miller. That was for Seattle. Just to name a few. Welcome to sports business radio. Now here's Brian Burger. Well, happy holidays and thanks for joining us on this edition of sports business radio. Our last of 2022. And at the end of the year, if you listen to us since 2004, you know that we do our top 10 sports business

stories of the year. We look back at the year that was. I'm joined by executive producer Brian Griggs. Griggs, how are you? I'm doing good. And every time we get to this moment, it's always like, wow, that was a year already. It just flies by as it always does. But always a fun show to dig into our top 10. And every year there's always some big

sports stories. So I'm looking forward to the show. Yeah, and we've had some great guests this year as well. So I would invite our listeners to go back into the sports business radio podcast archives and, you know, just some amazing guests. We kicked off the year with Monica Aldama from the Netflix show cheer. One of the best coaches in the country in any sport. Molly Bloom

was with us. You know, we just got back from doing some shows in St. Peter's Burg with the Tampa Bay Lightning in San Francisco with the Golden State Warriors. It was so good, Griggs, to be out on the road last week. I mean, we hadn't done a road show in almost three years. So, yeah, it felt good. We've got a bunch of road shows coming up

in 2023. So we'll be out on the road again. And it's always fun to be in front of a studio audience and to see people in person, including our guests. Yeah, I was nice to be in person with people. And you and I dominate the cities. We always go to by walking and fooding and drinking some good drinks and seeing some great locations. So it's always

fun, especially at Christmas time, it was fun to see San Francisco with the tree and go on the cable car and do all that stuff. So it was fun. Yeah, your first trip to San Francisco. So you got to go on the cable car, not trolley. Yeah. And we had some great Chinese food and dinotown. Oh my God. So good. We did not go ice skating.

Nope. That was a little bit of an upset. Yeah, usually we do ice skating. We start to work during our December road show time. But you know, I got to say, if it went to San Francisco, ice skating just not the same as New York City, it's Central Park or rock center. Yeah, we walked by there, a rink a couple times and it was just like

a little underwhelming. And I was like, you know what? Let's keep it a fancy one. The big one's the good ones and we'll just skip San Fran this time. Yeah. So again, if you're listening, you can watch this on our sports business radio YouTube channel, which you can find the link at sportsbusinessradio.com or obviously listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, spread the

word. Like I said, we've been around since 2004. We've got a truckload of archives that you can go back and listen to. Let's get to it, Greg. Let's start with our 10th biggest story of the year 2022, this according to our crack staff at sports business radio. The passing of a few icons and you know, sometimes the word icon gets thrown around lightly. These two were

giants. Yeah. Literally one of them was a giant Bill Russell 11 time NBA champion, the first black NBA head coach, a social justice giant. You know, he is on the MVP trophy for the NBA finals. He died on July 31st. And you know, he had a great life, such an impact on, on so many people. One of the most distinguishable laughs that you would ever hear

in your life. You know, he helped lay the blueprint for many players, including the late Kobe Bryant. But when you talk about winners in sports, not too many people have one more than 11 championships and, you know, left the legacy that he left the boss, Boston. Celtics. Great. Dolores. Yeah, 11 champs in 13 years. Let me just think about that. Like most guys play and don't

even maybe even get to the finals. That's like a, you know, a wish list item 11 champs that 13 seasons. This crazy. He's a 12 time all star or five time MVP, one little tip. But I looked up, he was actually cut from his junior high team and almost from his high school team. I love those stories. Were they the underdog and then look at what

he turned into be. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. And endured a lot of tough times and hatred for being a black athlete back in the day had people break into his house and write terrible things on the wall in his home. And, you know, was like I said, a social justice warrior. So he was so much more than just a great athlete. He was a great

humanitarian. And, you know, his impact will be felt for many, many years to come. But if you're looking at the history of the NBA. He's on the Mount Rushmore of people who had the greatest impact on the league. I think it's great that everyone's been wearing the number six patch on their jerseys. The Celtics have it on their court. So we lost Bill Russell this year.

Then we lost another giant. And, you know, I think some people who've listened to this show know I went to school in Los Angeles. I went to Loyal of Marymount. I had the pleasure of listening to Vince Gully while I lived in Los Angeles and Vince Gully left us on August 2nd. So here's the first one. We're in the span of just a few days we

lost Bill Russell and then we lost Vince Gully. But Vince Gully, you know, was the soundtrack of so many great sporting events of my lifetime. You know, he was on network TV. He called golf. He called NFL football. He called baseball. But he's probably best known for being the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers. And, you know, really being the, you know, person who documented everything

that happened to that franchise. And he called for his franchise for decades. And as players come and go, he was the constant that remained with the Dodgers. And, you know, if you remember, Bob Costas joined us. I think it was last year. The time is all distorted now to me. But, and he talked about how Vince Gully called such a great game was so vivid with

his description that Ray Charles asked Bob Costas to introduce him to Vince Gully. And, you know, I guess that's probably the highest compliment you can have is when someone who can't see feels like they could have someone paying a picture of what baseball would look like if they could see. And that's what he thought Vince Gully did. It's about the highest compliment you can have as

a play by play person. But he was the best. And, you know, we will miss him, but, you know, like with Bill Russell, the impact that Vince Gully has left will be felt for many minutes. Yeah, I mean, I'm a radio guy. I always have loved it. And I live in the Portland area. So we didn't get Dodgers games all the time. But then when streaming

started taking on, I could, you know, catch something. I mean, he's just masterful. It was nine innings of storytelling and just the way he painted the picture like you just mentioned, especially for baseball. I think he was just perfect for baseball because he had that kind of a relaxed slow just calming, you know, presence about his voice. I love listening to him. I mean, 67 seasons

calling those games. That is just incredible. He's got an Amy couple of Hall of Fame's in there, Radio Hall of Fame. He goes on forever. But yeah, he is just the master of his craft and will be missed for sure. Yeah. I mean, 67 years. He's doing anything is remarkable. Right. But doing what he did and being at the top of his craft for many of

those 67 years, you know, gosh, we'll miss him. You know, like you said, is radio broadcasters. He's what we all strive to be. Was a good human being as well. Just like that. I feel rustle. So, you know, those are two icons that will be missed. I would be remiss if we didn't mention one other person that we lost recently, literally in the last week. And

that's Mississippi State head football coach Mike Leach. You know, all the stories are flooding out since his death about all the kind things that he did. I just read a story today on sports illustrated about a black single mother who lived in Mississippi who owned a restaurant. And, you know, Mike Leach loved the food in there, found out that they were, you know, suffering tough times

during the pandemic. And he wrote a check to say of her restaurants. He impacted so many of his players, so many different coaches, you know, was just the straightest shooter you can have. If you Google some of his videos, I think my favorite one is his thoughts on marriage. When someone at a press conference told him that they were going to be getting married soon. He

went on to this five minute, you know, dial and talk about what between now and the wedding was going to look like with the planning. You know, he was an outside the box thinker with the air raid offense that he ran laid the blueprint for other coaches that followed after him only 61 years old. So, you know, whereas Bill Russell and Vince Scully were older and,

you know, had more full lives. Mike Leach, I feel like was taken from us far too soon. And very suddenly, so, you know, I'd be remiss if we didn't mention him and the losses this year. Yeah, I think one of my favorite interviews I heard about him was his love of pirates. He just would go off on pirates and it would just go forever. And I

love when somebody would interview him, you know, he'd ask one question about the game or whatever. And then basically the rest of the interview was about something other than the game, which is awesome. And again, a great storyteller all over the place, but so funny. His interviews are just iconic. I've already been since he passed. I've been pulling them up on YouTube and just watching. I'm

over and over because they're so funny. I mean, hit me up at SB radio with your thoughts on Twitter. But I was thinking after he died, he's got to be in the conversation for the greatest press conference person of all time. You know, we talk about Bill Bella check and Greg pop of it, really giving us nothing during press conferences and stonewalling the media. When you're

looking at the people who consistently not just one or two times, but consistently. He really entertained us at press conferences after games. Mike Leach has to be at least in the top three for most entertaining press conferences consistently of all time. So again, like I said, listeners, hit me up on Twitter at SB radio. If you have other people on that list, but I mean, Greg's

don't you agree? 100%. I mean, it's and he was not one of those guys that would march on linchet and come to say no comment. He was in there being there for 15 20 minutes talking. I mean, he's the last guy to look at the belief. And I love that too, because he respected what all the media was doing. He respected the teams and everything involved.

But oh, I agree. It's got to be top three top five for sure. Yeah. All right. Our ninth biggest story of the year 2022. This is kind of a combo, but two very prominent athletes saw their careers go downward. Maybe not money wise, but certainly reputation wise. Let's start with Kyrie Irving. You know, we talked about that at length on the show this year. I won't

go back into it. But you know, he liked an anti-Semitic video on Twitter on social media. You know, there's all kinds of things going on with him this past year. And again, I'm not going to re-document all of it. But he lost his sponsorship with Nike. He was suspended and fined by the Brooklyn Nets and the NBA. He had to go through sensitivity training. You know,

I think we look at Kyrie Irving pretty differently now than maybe we did two years ago. And he's going to be a free agent at the end of the year. And you have to wonder like who wants a sky on their team. And he's certainly not going to get the money that he would have had. He just played basketball and kept his nose out of controversy.

So, you know, that's one big athlete who fell. And then the other one, Griggs, is Phil Mikkelson. So Mikkelson in February was dropped by workday, Callaway, KPMG, Heineken. They all dropped him in February. But he didn't really care because he was too busy signing a $200 million contract with the Louvre Golf Tour weeks later as they launched. And we'll get to that later in the show.

But, you know, when you lose all your sponsors, when you lose your money, you know, you're going to lose your money. Every reputation, when people look at you differently, when they boo you wherever you go, it's tough. And these were two very prominent successful. And I would say well liked athletes before this year. Yeah. And I think Kyrie a little bit maybe more than Phil, but

I feel like Kyrie's controversy followed him around a little bit more. He always had something going on off the court that wasn't quite, you know, in tune with what maybe the team wanted. So I think that kind of was not terribly surprising when he did the last, you know, F up that he just did. I think Phil was more, was more well liked I would say

for, you know, around the world. But I mean, man, what a February for Phil loses all those sponsorships. But of course, like you said, you're signing $200 million with a live. So it didn't really matter to him. But, you know, I miss seeing Phil around. I thought he was such a fun player to watch play. And, you know, you just always, he was never out of

the hunt in a tournament, especially a major. He could always show up in place. So we'll see what we see on the live tour with him. But yeah, those are two big names that had some, some rough 2022s. I'm just trying to see who signed Kyrie in 2023 and for how much. And I would guess it's going to be on a short turn deal, like a

one maybe two year deal. And then with Phil, like he's kind of embraced being the black hat and the villain. He literally wears all black now. He's got his own logo on his hat. He has no logos on his shirt. You know, he sold the soul to the live tour. And he's making $200 million. And, you know, I think that's what I'm going to say. I

lost all of his sponsors. So, you know, we'll see what happens in the future for Kyrie and Phil. Our eighth biggest sports business story of 2022. More controversy, Griggs. We had two owners who have been in the news for a long time for what they've been doing. But it all kind of came to a head in 2022. First dance nighter. I mean, there have been congressional

hearings. There have been reports that led to the firing of John Gruden, because emails got leaked. We've learned that dance nighter has done some pretty bad things. I mean, he hired private investigators to tail the former GM of the Washington commanders. And they did so with drones and with showing up on construction sites. And I mean, you want to talk about crossing the line. And, you

know, what he's done with the cheerleaders and women in the organization. It's all very well documented. But I think that's what I'm going to say. But on November 2nd, he announced that he was engaging Bank of America to facilitate a sale for the team. So when you're looking ahead to 2023 and you're looking for some of the biggest sports business stories of the year, the sale

of the Washington commanders is going to be one of those big stories. And, you know, the Denver Broncos are the most recent NFL team to sell. They sold for $4.65 billion. I would expect the commanders to get more money. More than that. It's going to be closer to $5 billion. So it will set the record for the highest sale in NFL history. And furthermore, the, you

know, stain that the NFL has on it right now from the ownership of dance nighter will be removed from the league. So the NFL and Roger Gidell can't get dance nighter out of the league fast enough. Sure if they could sell them tomorrow. Or specifically before the Super Bowl on February 7th, that would be great. So Roger Gidell doesn't have to stand up at his state

of the Union press conference at the Super Bowl and ask answer questions about dance nighter and, you know, these reports and all the things that he's done. The other owner. That his face controversy this year is Robert Sarver, the owner of the Phoenix Suns. He announced that he'd be selling the team on September 21st. And Griggs, as we tape this today, Matt Aschibia is the president

and CEO of United wholesale mortgage. It's a Michigan based company. He purchased the sons for a record for billion dollars. He was a walk on for Michigan state. He was part of the Spartans 2000 national championship team. He's close with Hall of Fame coach Tom iso. He previously made a 32 million dollar donation to the basketball program. But if you recall, go back a few months

when. The other announcement was made that he was going to start soliciting offers for the team. Yours truly said $4 billion. Would be the sales price. And some people were like, oh, it's only going to be $3 billion or $2.5. No one's going to pay $4 billion. And by the way, the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA are also included in the sale. And they have good

value as well. But it's a $4 billion sales price. So I was right. And. And it's an MBA record for sales. And again, just like we said, Roger Gidell would be happy to have Dan Snyder out of the league. Adam Silver will be very happy to have Robert Sarver and his controversy out of the league. And this new owner who becomes the youngest owner 42 years

old in the league. So also some fresh thinking most likely some new energy because he's a young guy. You know, we remember when we were in the Mark Cuban came into the league and brought some new energy with him. It's always good to have younger owners come in and bring that energy. And you know, they're probably going to be around for a while as well. I

hope that whoever buys the commanders. And I hope this new owner of the suns were thoroughly vetted by the NFL and the NBA. So we don't find skeletons in their closet like we did with Snyder and with Robert Sarver. And so we don't have a repeat of that poor behavior. You would think both leagues really vetted these owners carefully. Yeah, you'd hope so because you know,

those are two big franchises, especially the Washington commanders. I mean, that brands iconic. I mean, and the stadium and the markets big and Phoenix is too. But you know, it's good. Like you said, it's good to get these stains removed that have been in the work. I mean, I think it's been many, many years, especially Dan Snyder of just, you know, still skeletons in the closet

and knowing that this was not looking good. And finally, we're getting around to getting these guys out and getting some new young blood. But it'll be interesting to see. We've talked about it when we talked about the Dan Snyder stuff earlier in the year. Who's going to buy it? And the list is, you know, Jeff Bezos and it goes on and on. But that'll be interesting

to see and how much they go for too, because you're, you know, you predicted the four bills. So let's see what happens with the commanders. Well, one thing I didn't predict and every article I read, no one had Matt is Shibuya. No, fine pronouncing his name correctly on anyone's list. So what this shows you is these deals get done in the dark of the night behind

the scenes. They're not played out through the media and you wake up one day and it's like, oh, the sun's are sold and here's the person that knowing knew about that was buying the team and they have a basketball background and they know Adam silver and they know some of the other owners and now they're in the club. And they paid a record four billion dollars.

We don't know who the other bitters were. Maybe there were others. I would assume there were. But four billion. I mean, again, if you're one of these leagues, you get to say, hey, look, we have a new record sales price. So anything after this, whether it's the Portland trailblazers or anything else, you can say this house in the neighborhood just went for four billion dollars that

ups the ante for anyone else who wants to buy their way into the lead. Yeah, I think, and being in Portland, there's always been rumors of after Paul Allen's passing if the blazers are going to be sold. And I've read a couple of things today about, you know, hey, this brings up market up like you're like you're saying, when your next tone able sells for four

bill, hey, all of a sudden the blazers are worth, you know, instead of 2.25, it's hey, we're in 375 range, 4 billion range. So I think it, it does help the sales and the movement of these other teams that are up for sale. But, uh, man, that's big money. And it just keeps going up every year. All right. Our seven biggest sports business story of the

year 2022 sports media right to continue to soar. So the big 10, the NFL on Amazon, MLS and MLB on Apple. These are all things that were announced this year. Greg's the big 10 deal seven years. We talked about this earlier in the year. It's the agreement is with Fox CBS and NBC. It's going to bring them $7 billion. The deal is going to begin on

July 1st. Again, I always joke on this show. This is amateur athletics. Right. Seven billion dollars. And that's not for the NCAA and all of college athletics. That's just for the big 10 conference. So, you know, you see major league soccer. This was a pretty groundbreaking deal because they're the first league to go exclusively on the streaming. They made the deal with Apple for 10 years.

And you and I have talked a lot lately about long term deals. 2.5 billion dollars. Apple is going to show all MLS regular season and league cup games on Apple on the streaming platform. So if you were a local broadcaster and we know some of them. For the major league soccer teams on TV, you're out. Like your job is done. It's network only. There's no local

TV broadcasts anymore. You're streaming only. So there's no over the air TV. MLS had been with ESPN for over 25 years. And, you know, you look at MLB. MLB still has over the air deals, but they're streaming deal was a big deal. So then you talk about streaming and you go into Amazon. And Amazon is the exclusive sponsor or, you know, carrier of Thursday night football.

13 billion dollar deal that runs through 20, 33. It's basically a billion dollars a year. It means Amazon's paying for each game is roughly 67 billion dollars to broadcast the game. And by the way, Greg, there have been some stinker. Thursday night football games. Yeah. So you're paying 67 mill for a stinker. You know, you're not getting the cream of the crop games like Sunday night

football or even Monday night football. You're kind of getting the stinky games and you're paying 67 million dollars for those games. We're going to see Amazon do the first black Friday game next year. So, you know, at a certain point, are we going to have a game from the NFL every day of the week? Yeah. Sunday Monday. We've seen Saturday night. Saturday games, Thursday games like,

you know, when are we going to have Tuesday, Wednesday and we just said black Friday. So like, I guess Tuesday and Wednesday will be the only times that we won't have NFL games. But with the amount of money that's been thrown around for these media rights. The NFL almost can't say no to some of those opportunities. Well, yeah. And the NFL's king and it gets the

most viewers and no matter how bad the game is, there's still millions of people tuning in. And I think Amazon's done a good job. I like the. You know, the video stuff around it and the crew and I think they've they've done a good job with it. And of course, you know, it's NFL. They're going to they're going to make these things, you know, pop and

make it big and have the production around it. So I think it's. It's going well. And I was when you were talking about all this, there's numbers and billions. I, you know, not even that many years ago, everything millions was a lot, right? Now everything we're talking about has to be in front of it. Like the TV rights deals and the sales of these teams. And,

you know, I think the NBA TV rights is up 2024 25 season. How is that? How's that going to go? I mean, where's that going to end up? That's going to be fun to see too. Well, that's why you see a sales price for the son to four billion. That owner I guarantee you is factoring in. We're going to get a lot of money from the

media rights deal. So this is going to be worth it to pay the four billion. So he's getting in early. Before the media rights deal is done, a team like the Portland Troublasers, they may wait until after the media rights deal is negotiated to sell the team and say, look, this is part of what you're going to inherit as an owner. We're jacking up the price.

Because you're going to get all this media money. So it's interesting to watch the landscape of these teams, but, you know, as we just showed you with the big 10, the NFL on Amazon and MLS and M.O.B. on Apple, the media rights continue to soar live sports on TV is the most valuable thing on TV because it's unpredictable. People are going to watch it live. They're

going to stay glued to their TV. I mean, you know, we'll talk about this later, but that World Cup final game, you weren't moving anywhere from your TV. When there were PKs and there was extra time and, you know, you were glued to your TV. You cannot find that with most any other type of programming that you're going to put on over the air TV. So

that's why you see these media rights continue to soar. Yeah. I think it's the streaming is awesome because you could be in a plane and pay for the Wi-Fi and you're watching World Cup, you know, from 35,000 feet in the air. I mean, there's stuff that when you and me grew up, that was nothing. It was four channels on the turn dial, you know, and that

was it. And now it's like, oh, just pick up your phone, your tablet, your iPad, whatever. And you can watch basically anything you're subscribed to. So I mean, I think it's the death of local TV broadcast, but it's, uh, it's fun because you get it wherever you want. You're listening to sports business radio. We'll be right back after this. When it comes to your health and

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You can get 20% off the entire inside tracker store. Just go to inside tracker.com forward slash SBR. That's inside tracker.com forward slash SBR. Now back to sports. With Brian burger. All right. Our sixth biggest story of 2022 USC and UCLA are heading to the big 10 in 2024. And as I said, when this happened, which it happened earlier in the year, it was announced on June

30th. When I read this on Twitter, I was like, this has got to be a typo. You see a land USC are on the Pacific coast. They can't play in the Midwest. Flip. They're this doesn't make any sense. What are we doing here? But sure enough, the regents have approved UCLA USC is a private institution and they, you know, knew what they were doing all along.

And those media rights that we just told you about with the big 10, the $7 billion. A big reason they were able to get $7 billion is they said, Hey, look, we're bringing USC and UCLA with us. So this is literally a deal that's going to change the length. And that's the landscape of college sports. You're going to see games between USC and UCLA against big

10 opponents played earlier. These are huge markets. I mean, they're both in LA, but they both have enormous fan bases. You know, USC and UCLA. And we've had Matt Linerd on this year. And we've had, you know, other people, you know, Ryan Leif who played at Washington state. They've all talked about they want to play during the time when the most amount of money. And when

you play in the pack 12 and you play on the West Coast, your games start at 10 PM Eastern. And even though Caleb Williams won the highest draft stock, because more people are going to watch you, of course, you're going to do it. And USC and UCLA knew that the pack 12 was on the decline. And the big 10. And remember, we had Kevin Warren on

last year. And who knew Kevin Warren was going to pull this rabbit out of his hat, the commissioner of the big 10. I mean, he's got to be up for sports business executive of the year for what he did with the big 10 this year. But this was a huge story. Great. And again, 2024, you know, we're going to see this. And oh, by the way,

we're also going to see, you know, taxes and is it Oklahoma moved to the SEC and then not too distant future. So the college sports landscape. It is a changing quickly. Yeah. And I think we're seeing the playoff expanding to. So I mean, you're seeing how this whole thing is just revolving into a whole another world. And I mean, like with USC and you, you see

a late big 10s. Great. I mean, look, they compete. You got Ohio State, you got Michigan, you got Penn State, you got even produce shows up. You got into, I mean, you're big team, big teams that are always in the top four or five teams at the end of the season. So I think it's a, it's a great move for both those L.A. teams. And again,

you got the huge L.A. market. There's obviously going to be some more travel expenses and not. You're going to be traveling earlier in the week and all that too. But yeah, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to see schools moving all over the place. And, you know, the power five could be changing to who knows what it ends up being.

You know, North and South or whatever they end up calling it or North Southeast West, whatever. But yeah, it's, this is fun to watch. And again, amateur athletics, right? No money involved here. Just billions and billions and billions. Well, and we just saw recently, this isn't in our top 10, but eventually it will be the expansion of the college football playoff, right? It's not going to

be four teams anymore. It's going to expand beyond that. So how is that going to impact college football? You know, just a lot happening with the sports landscape. Mark Emert is stepping down. The longtime president of the NCAA guest on this show, he's going to be replaced. I believe it March. So continues to evolve. You wonder how long the NCAA is going to remain in existence.

Are the conferences just going to govern themselves at some point. Again, if you're getting $7 billion for your media rights, probably could govern yourself. I mean, you're bigger than the NCAA at that point. I would say absolutely. The big 10 is more powerful than the NCAA as an organization. So we'll watch that story closely. Our fifth biggest story of 2022, the emergence of the live golf

tour. This came on the scene in July and Griggs. They took some big names from the PGA tour we told you earlier, $200 million for Phil Mikkelsen, Dustin Johnson, $125 million by the way. How else do you get? Dustin Johnson, you say I'm going to give you $125 million just to play on our tour. But then we're going to give you incredible prize money. And we're

going to give you if you win the points at the end of the year, kind of like the FedEx Cup, you get an $18 million bonus. So Dustin Johnson, this year, brought in $125 million to sign with the live golf tour. Then he brought in another $35 million in prize and bonus money from the live golf tour. So when you start looking at career earnings of

these golfers, your pain Phil Mikkelsen, who's been around for a while, $200 million, that's more than he had earned in his entire career. Your pain, Dustin Johnson, more this year than he had earned in his entire career to this point. These guys have won majors. They won lots of golf tournaments. They're in the top top 10 in prize money all time. And you're paying them in

one year. More than that. They've earned in their entire career. I'm not saying I agree with them signing. And as we told you earlier, Phil Mikkelsen lost all of his sponsors. Many of the golfers I'm about to name lost their sponsors as well, but Bryson DeChambeau went to the live golf tour. Brooks Capka went to the golf tour, the live golf tour. Bubble Watson, who we've

had on the show, went to the live golf tour. And then, you know, one of the real up and comers and golf cam Smith went to the live golf tour. So they took the big names, Greg Norman, and the live golf tour. You know, they're flying them around in these fancy planes. They've got, you know, benefits for the caddies and for the wives. And, you know,

they really have become the anti-PGA tour, which has always been very traditional, but a little stuffy. You know, a little bit like, you know, the members at the golf club in Caddy Shack. But, you know, it's really going to be interesting to see what happens. So, it happens with these two tours. And another piece of breaking news that just came down today is the masters said

in 2023, hey, the guys from the live tour, they can play in the masters. So at least for now, this is a big victory for Phil Mikkelsen and Bryson DeChambeau, and Dustin Johnson and Brooks Capka and Bubble Watson. Because if the masters had said anyone on the live golf tour is forbidden from playing golf, and they're not allowed to play golf. And they're playing in the

masters. Well, most of these guys, yes, they're playing for the money, but they're playing for the Grand Slams. That's where the legacy is. That's where the history is. And if you take that out of consideration for them, and they can't play in the majors, and the masters is one of the most premier majors. Now you're really putting a dent in the live tour. Well, that didn't

happen. So it may happen eventually, but for 2023, Griggs, that might be one of the most entertaining. I mean, it's going to be like a WWE, you know, you got the black hats coming in, and you got the good guys coming in, and it's Rory versus DJ, and it's Bryson DeChambo versus Capca, and it's, you know, Cam Smith versus whoever Rory, it's going to be really

interesting TV, because it's almost like it's going to be the PGA versus the live tour, and whoever wins that tournament is going to have that feather in their cap for their respective tour. It's the Super Bowl of golf big time right now. It really is. Yeah. The Masters has always must watch TV with just a PGA, and this is going to just bring the drama, and

you can already hear the broadcasting and the stats showing the live stats for Phil and the PGA stats for Rory over here. And man, I think that is going to be cool. I'm glad that they're letting him in because that's going to be fun to watch. No, I'm sure have a lot of drama building up for that one. And who's going to come? Who's going to

play? I'm looking forward to it. And his traditional is the Masters. Hey, look, they buy their own TV time. They want great ratings. They want eyeballs on that thing. They're not stupid. They know that you pit PGA versus live. That's going to get a lot more attention than if you just said this is only limited to the PGA tour and all the guys. And most of

the ones I've mentioned Phil Mikkelson has won the Masters. Bubble Watson has won the Masters. Dustin Johnson has won the Masters. So these are past champions too. You got to let him in. And let's let him go at it. And I want to see some finger pointing and some smack talk and some uncomfortable groupings of two. And you know, how great would it be on the

last day, the final round of the two leaders that T off last. One is from the PGA tour and one is from the live golf tour. That is must see TV. So golf could be boring unless Tigers playing or Rory's doing something special. But now I think there's some added drama to this thing. And the underlying part of this is look at how we've talked about

the sports washing that's going on. Whether it's the live golf tour, whether it's World Cup or whether it's a Saudi team saying, hey, Ronaldo, we'll pay you two. $200 million a year to play for our team. The sports washing is going on. You know, the money is coming from bad sources. So that's definitely a part of the story. I don't want to dismiss that or discount

that. But, you know, the live tour forming anytime you have competition and business. It's going to make the incumbent have to work harder. And the PGA tour had to change some rules this year. They had to go find more money for bonuses and for prize money. And it made them step up their game and they've owned pro golf basically as a monopoly for many, many years.

So if you like competition, if you like things changing and you like drama, well, you know, here you go. You got the PGA versus the live golf tour. We'll see how long live is around. You know, I think it would be really interesting if in five years, live goes on. I'm going to ask for so much money here. I'm going to assume that if this goes

under, or a young brisened dishambo, or those guys like out for life, and they're never welcome back. And they've got to go start another live like tour in order to play golf and make money for the amounts of money that live is paid out. It's almost like those golfers said, look, I'm going to ask for so much money here. I'm going to assume that if this

goes under, and I can't go on, I'm going to see that if you can't go on, I'm going to ask for this. I'm going to decide, I'm going to go under and I can't get back to the PGA tour. I'm set for the rest of my life because sponsors won't touch me. The PGA tour may not take me back. Like I got to make sure that

I'm covered for generations to come. Yeah, I think something to look, you know, in 2023 to watch with us live tour to is, and we've talked about before, When we talked about this is. So I'm going to be going and making money, they're going to have to start getting viewers easier than they have right now. So that'll be something to watch. And they can wear shorts.

Yeah. That's another thing. Phil is really enjoying showing off his calves and wearing shorts. So again, they're kind of the anti traditionalists. Yeah. They don't have the history that the PGA tour has, but it was interesting to watch. It's like the car accident you can't turn away from. Right. So all right. The biggest sports business story of 2022, two goats retire, both of them from the

tennis world, Roger Federer, the owner of 20 grand slam titles, $1.1 billion in career earnings from prize money, endorsements and appearance fees. He retired late in the year, played his last tournament or last competitive tennis at the labor cup in London, actually right after I had the chance to get back to the game. I was left, I wish I could have stayed and seen that. It

was really great to see how things ended. You know, a lot of pomp and circumstance and tears and holding hands with Rafael Nadal, his his longtime rival. That was amazing to watch. And then Serena Williams, you know, when she went out at the US Open, that was the end for her, although she kind of cracked the door open afterwards, but she earned $450 million in her

career with prize money. And that was the last prize money endorsements and appearance fees. She won 23 grand slams. So, you know, when you're talking about the goats of tennis, you know, I know people will mention others, you know, Martina and Chris Everd on the women's side. People will mention obviously Nadal and others on the men's side, but for my money. And I'm fortunate enough that

I got to see both Federer and Serena play in person. During my career. I mean, I don't know, I mean, I don't know if I can be a fan of that. But I think I was thinking about that. I was thinking about my lifetime. Wow. I mean, you can't get much better than what they did. And I just told you the money they earned. And they

were such the faces of tennis for pretty much two decades. You know, it was really neat to see what they did over the course of their career. And you have to tip your cap to them at the end of their career for the longevity that they had. And playing at the highest levels for as long as they did. What she did for women's tennis is it's

unfathomable. I mean, the the the girls that are playing now and the women that are coming up now and it's just it's incredible. It's just and I think Serena has encouraged an influence so many women to play tennis. And we see it on the court. There's some amazing women's tennis players out there. And when they are interviewed a lot of them, group credit to Serena, you

know, getting them on the court. So I mean, you talk about Bill Russell 11 champs in 13 years, 20 grand slams for Federer and 23. It's unbelievable. I mean, that is so many wins. And I'm so jealous you got to see both of them live because on TV, they're just dominating. They go out there and it's just like, you just know they're going to win when

they go out and play. It's just phenomenal to watch those two. Well, and Serena's got to be not even in the conversation. Like a sure fire lock for greatest woman athlete of all time. Yeah. Any sport, not just tennis, any sport. You know, you put her up against the greatest in any other sport on the women's side. Like you said, what she meant to tennis, if

you've seen the movie King Richard, which won some awards, you know, you see her backstory and, you know, the streets of Compton with her sister Venus and, you know, she had a lot against her to even get out of that neighborhood and play pro tennis, much less become the goat. So two goats right off into the sunset. I'm sure, you know, the good thing about tennis

is they can play exhibitions. They can play charity events. They can do. You know, both are very tied into the business world and own businesses themselves and have lots invested in business and sport. So sure, this isn't the last we've heard of them. But as far as playing competitive tennis and competing for Grand Slamz and again, just like we talked about with the golfers for Serena

and Federer. Like that's what it was about for them is history. They wanted to win Grand Slamz. They didn't care as much about winning, you know, a record. They didn't care as much about the regular season tournament. They wanted to win Wimbledon and the Australian and the French and the US. That was what they knew would, you know, be on their resume, you know, Joker and

Nadal have more Grand Slamz than Federer. But I'll take Federer. I mean, I love Nadal and I love Joker. But I Federer was so graceful. And there's literally no shot that he couldn't hit on a tennis court. He had a lot of things to do with the game. He had everything in his bag. And again, getting to see him, he just like floated across the court,

like a ballerina. And he always hit the ball right in the center of the racket on the strings. Like never, you know, mishit a shot. And, you know, Serena just had power. And, you know, could kill you with a serve and, you know, intimidated you. I thought she was a lot like Mike Tyson. You know, you walked onto the court against Serena. How many games am

I going to be able to, I hope I don't lose 6060, right? Like I just want to win some games and it wasn't as much the case at the end of her career when she slowed down and my God, after she had a child, like, you know, her body change. But, um, when you walked onto the court against Serena, you were just hoping to survive and

not get embarrassed much less, you know, Peter and win. Yeah. And I think one thing tennis does really well too is with the bringing these stars back to common. I mean, you see it on all the matches, you know, whether it's Chris Havard or, you know, any of these guys. And I love that because I think both these would be so fascinating to listen to watching

these matches. So I, I hope they maybe sign a little deal here and there with NBC, or whoever's doing tennis. But, uh, yeah, I think, uh, man, both of them intimidating in different ways. I love Roger Federer to like just the most even keel like he didn't get mad. He didn't get screaming or yelling. He just went out there and hit the ball and knew how

to hit it. And, uh, yeah, they're just, it's good. They'll be missed on the court because they're both fun to watch. All right. So if there's a any executive from ESPN listening to this right now, I have an idea. I would like to propose a Manning cast type of broadcast with Roger Federer and Serena Williams during the Grand Slam that you televised. Yes. Get it done.

I want to see Roger. I want to see Serena. I want to see them commentating during the Grand Slam on a Manning Castlet and bring on some guests. Think of the guests that they could bring on who wouldn't want to sit on with to go. Let's get it done. I know you're going to have to pay some money. It's not my money. I don't have to

put up the money. But I would like to see that. So ESPN or some big network. Please get it done. Good idea. I'm done with that. I would totally watch that one. All right. Our third biggest story of the year 2022, the crash of crypto and the impact on the sports world. There were athlete deals gone bad naming rights deals that went bad. I'm not going

to recapture all of this because we went into this in depth on our November 15th edition of Sports Business Radio and what it meant to Tom Brady getting sued and Steph Curry getting sued and FTX getting sued and having 17 of the 19 years left on the naming rights deal on the Miami Heat Arena. You know, the Lakers and the Clippers play in the crypto.com arena.

How long is it until that deal goes bad? This was the gold rush of athlete deals, naming rights deals, and it looked all so great. And then it crashed. And now everyone's getting sued. And like I said, I'm not going to go into it in detail because on the November 15th show we did. So go back and listen to that. But great. This was a huge

story. And it's just the beginning. There's going to be lawsuits. There's going to be athletes who said, hey, pay me. Crypto instead of in money, like dollars, and you know, they're going to have lost money. We haven't heard the end of this. And it's going to, it's going to have an impact for a while. Yeah, I think it's just a big story. And I think we

talked about vetting owners, you know, when an owner is buying a team. It's like this kind of deal. This thing comes out and they sign all these big names. But we have no history. We have no proof that this is going to be around for five, 10, 20, 30 years and sure enough, here it goes a year to into it when it's like all this new

stuff. It's going to be a lot of money. And then, you know, they're big mistake that they now know is signing these huge names. You know, I mean, Tom Brady and Steph and all these guys in arenas. I mean, it's not something you can just, you know, push under the rug and it's gone. And today, now it's going to be around for a while. You're listening

to sports business radio. We'll be right back after this. Hey, everyone, Brian burger here. Ron is the new official menswear partner of sports business radio. I love their product. I've been a fan for a long time. Did you know, David Stern was one of their first investors? Ron makes the absolute highest quality, best fitting and most comfortable performance driven clothing for men. Their entire line places

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SBR 15 at checkout. Receive 15% off your purchase. That's Ron.com or H O N E dot com and enter promo code SBR 15 at checkout. Now back to sports business radio with Brian burger. All right. The second biggest sports business story of 2022 anytime we have major events. They tend to be the winner Olympics in China. They were held in Beijing from February 4th to the

20th. It's the first time a city has hosted both the summer and winner Olympic Games. It went off pretty smoothly. You know, if you remember, you know, because of the pandemic and because it's in China and it's a communist country and you know, there were a lot of concerns going in but all things considered there were no major events. There were no major incidents during those

Olympics. Grigs and, you know, they got good ratings on NBC and people tuned in and you know, there were athletes who benefited from doing well in the Olympics. I still just wonder about the long term viability of the Olympics in general, because there's so much money that has been put into these venues and to the infrastructure of the city. In many cases, they leave and it

becomes a ghost town and you look at Sochi in Russia. You look at, you know, Athens and Greece. You look at some of these places. Google the pictures now. They're ghost towns and you know, they sold their soul in order to host the Olympics. So it is at least good to see that Beijing has now hosted winner and summer. They could reuse some of the facilities

and there's some sustainability there. I think we're going to see that with L. L. A. in 2028 as well. Some of those facilities are going to be used again and some of them are being built for other purposes to begin with and they'll just happen to be used by the Olympics as well. But I don't know what were your thoughts on the Olympics. Yeah, I thought

once again, you know, NBC shows well, they do a good job with it. It always looks good. I had some more streaming this time, which was kind of fun to be able to watch it on your phone or whatever. But yeah, overall, I think it's good. And I think you bring up a good point too that a lot of these with the Olympics, especially. When they

look at these cities that are going to host it, maybe it should be more of these cities that have the infrastructure already built and they have the city and they have the support system around the city. Because man, those ghost town pictures are so sad when you see these countries that host it and spend all this money. And then it just goes to ghost town and

crap and and that's sad to see and you hear stories to about some of these Olympic villages and how dirty they are and how messy they are. And there's always back stories to everything. But you know, you and I both love the Olympic games. It's fun to watch. It's always must watch TV because it's it's drama. There's always something going on. There's big stories. There's, you

know, an injury here or something here or whatever happens. You know, there's political, you know, infrastructure and things going on with it too. So it's always must watch TV. And I am looking forward to having them, you know, in LA and see how the old US can handle them. So we'll see what happens. All right. Our top story of the year 2022 and we went into

great depth about this story on our November 28 show with Annie Peterson from the Associated Press. But it was the FIFA World Cup. Greg's we told our audience that this was by far the most expensive World Cup ever hosted $220 billion. Like literally $150 billion more than any other country had spent to host. It's almost like they built a whole new country. Yeah. For the World

Cup and a whole new city and all new venues and, you know, so many political undertones. And again, we cover those on our November 28 show since that show. I mean, Grant Wall, the long time soccer writer died while covering the World Cup. Some people suspected foul play. The autopsy was done. It showed otherwise. But, you know, in that kind of a country, you got at

least raise an eyebrow and go, huh, you know, he was saying some things that made the locals and the government. A little bit upset. But at the end of the day, what I think it will be remembered for the most is the most epic of finals. It was Argentina. It was France. It was the two best teams. Yeah. By far, those were the two best teams.

Two of the best players in the world just went at it. It was in Bope. It was messy. You know, I tweeted out. This was the closest thing I've seen to bird versus magic. Yeah. When I was a kid. When you watch the Lakers and Celtics and the finals, it was like, who's going to have the ball last? That's who's going to win? Because bird magic.

They're going to come up clutch every single time. Like they just go at it. And messy and in Bope. Bope as a hat trick. Messy as two goals and an assist. You know, they both played their best on the biggest of stages. The emotion. I mean, you hear about people from Argentina that, you know, sold their homes and cashed in on their life savings in order

to go to guitar and watch Argentina win the World Cup. And they did. And you see just the streets of Buenos Aires flooded with the parade to celebrate Argentina winning the World Cup. And it means so much to these people and so much to these countries that win or, you know, compete for winning like France did. But it was quite a showdown rarely do sporting events

live up to the hype. Yeah. Most of the time, it's like, oh, that Super Bowl was a blow outer. You know, that boxing match didn't turn out to be what we thought it would be. Or that final pairing at the Masters really landed with a thud in Bope versus messy and France versus Argentina. It lived up to the hype. Big time. I mean, it started. Architina

got those two earlier goals. And you're like, oh, come on. France got to come back here, right? And then a minute and 33 seconds and Bob being not sit to. And it's like, okay, now match on here. We go. And it was just I couldn't turn away. I had to keep watching. We were texting during it too. It's just like, everybody needs to be watching this

match because it is that good. And I don't know if we got ratings back. Because I think they were up against NFL. But, you know, I mean, you talk about what sport is the world sport. It is definitely football or soccer because those parades. I mean, Argentina was just unreal. How many people were in the city and, you know, messy got off the plane. And holds

up the trophy and everybody's just going nuts. I mean, it's it's so cool. The passion that these fans have for their their national team. And man, that was just phenomenal. I mean, World Cup always is. I mean, that's about the only sport I'll get up for, you know, three in the morning to watch a Morocco versus whoever, you know, just because World Cup. You never know

what's going to happen. And it's fun. So I love it. Yeah. 16.7 million people walked the final between Argentina and France, according to Fox Sports. The most watched. Soccer match ever in the history of the United States. So, and again, if you put this into NFL numbers, that's like a mediocre NFL weekend. That's a bad game on Amazon on a Thursday night. The Super Bowl is

getting 100 plus million viewers. But in the US, this isn't globally, because globally, the number probably does approach 100 billion at least, maybe more than that. But in the US 16.7 million people tuned in. And so, I think it's a good game to watch Argentina and France on Fox. And, you know, it was it was it lived up to the hype, like I said, you know,

I don't think Qatar should ever host another major event. They want to host the Olympics in the future as we detail on our November 28 show. That should not happen. And we tell you why in that November 28 show. But Griggs, that's our top story. FIFA World Cup and guitar. It wasn't just about the soccer. It was about the politics. It was about basically constructing a

whole new city. Yeah. I'm spending $220 billion. You know, all the TV and the streaming and, you know, everything that went into this huge undertaking. And, you know, the eyeballs from all over the world being focused on this thing. I felt like that was a much bigger event than the Winter Olympics in China. I didn't hear the buzz around the Winter Olympics in China. That I

heard around World Cup. And, you know, the viewership numbers, you know, basically back me up there. Yeah. And, you know, looking forward to 2023. You got the Women's World Cup coming up in July and August. That's going to be fun. That's just as awesome. I mean, I love it. USA's favorite probably in that one. But, you know, it's fun. And then in 2026, we got World

Cup in the US and three nations. Kind of the USA, Mexico and Canada. That'll be interesting to see 16 venues for the 2026 World Cup. That'll be fun to see. Yeah. It will be fun to see. It will be interesting to see what changes in the world between, you know, now and then, you know, again, if you would ask us on our, you're in show a

couple of years ago, hey, is there a pandemic coming? You know, we didn't even know what a pandemic was. Right. And it came. So you really do have to plan for scenario A, B, C, D, E, F and G now. Yeah. If you're one of these major events, you know, what happens if you can't plan for fans? What happens if, you know, you have to, you

know, just stream it or, you know, there's all these different scenarios that you have to look at now. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see with these, you know, major events and then, you know, just all the sports leagues and everything coming up the, you know, some other things that stood out in my mind that we're not the list this year. Just the transformation of

the NWSL, right. It went through a lot this year. We had Jessica Burman, the commissioner of the legal in this year. I would invite you to join us. You'll listen to that interview. I think she's a good leader. The league is in good hands. They've started this, you know, board of advisors of current and former players, which I think is really smart. But the growth of

women sports, the WNBA and the NWSL. There's more money being invested into these teams and leagues. Sponsors are really starting to get behind it, franchise values are increasing. If you see what's happening in the NWSL, you know, we had Abby Wombok on, she's part owner of that team a year ago. And, you know, it's all trending in the right direction. And as I've said, when people

have interviewed me this year, I've said, you know, if you're looking to invest in something, I think women's sports has the most upside right now. So, you know, I still stand behind that. Carly Lloyd was on this year on the show. Long time US women's national team member. She had some great things to say about the NWSL. The current and hopefully future state of women's sports.

So just some great guests. I mean, you know, I feel like this year, you know, we had some really good guests on the show. And I thank everyone for sitting down with us and talking with us and sharing their insight. And you know, it's just remarkable when we started this show in 2004. A lot of the athletes we had on they would come on and talk

about, oh, I have an endorsement deal with Nike or I've got an endorsement deal with McDonald's. Or now you have athletes like Malcolm Jenkins on and Carly Lloyd and Sue Bird and Abby Wombok. And they're the CEO of their own portfolio. Like they are, you know, owning restaurants. They are starting sports and apparel companies. They're investors and teams and leagues. Like they are, you know, many

moguls. And they took what they learned while they were playing and they built relationships. They were like, well, they were playing. And they've parlated into being, you know, many moguls when they are done. And they're invested in so many different things. They have diverse portfolios. They're providing jobs for many. They're really smart. You know, so the day of, you know, the athlete who went broke or

didn't invest their money wisely or, you know, only gets paid by an endorser. And they're not an investor. Those are over. Like these are some really smart. And they're, you know, they're not going to be able to do that. Smart savvy athletes that we have on, you know, we've had some great coaches on, always loving. We get the ownership perspective or the president perspective leaders of

organizations like the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Golden State Warrior to, as I've said, in the last 10 years, I'll put their success up against anyone and in their respective leagues, the NHL and the NBA. So, you know, I feel like I've said this since 2004, we all get smarter, including us. When we listen to the people who join us on sports business radio, it is

like a master class and listening to them share their wisdom of, you know, what they've learned, how they've created championship organizations and cultures and sustained it for long amounts of time like the warriors and the lightning. And, you know, I have been doing this now for 19 years. You've been with me for most of that journey. I'm not even close to bored. No, I am still

curious. I still want to talk to a lot of people. So, I'm not going to be able to do that. Unfortunately, sports business radio listeners, even though I probably had the toughest, worst year of my life personally, and, you know, I won't go into that now, but I might in the future on another platform. I hope we're doing this for a long time. We're coming up

on 20 years and 2024. So, you know, we want to do a big blow out for that. But, you know, it was a fun ride this year in the realm of sports business radio. Well, and I think like you mentioned, too, it's so much more than just like in our name sports business. Well, yeah, it's more than just sports because there's so much behind the scenes

and the stuff you can learn that we've learned from these guests this year about their brand and about what they've done off the court or off the field. It's fascinating because, you know, their window of sport is 10 years, five years, 15 years, and then they've got, you know, hopefully 50, 60 years of living life after that. And that's where, you know, becoming their own brand

and investing with these people and what they say on and off the field and court, it's fascinating. So, yeah, I think I learned so much more this year. I think that any year, I feel like we really just dug into some great conversations about, you know, life with these people and what they do off the court. So, yeah, fascinating stuff. And I love doing it and

I don't get bored either. It's always fun. Yeah. I want to thank our sponsors who, you know, without them, this show wouldn't be possible. Ron, the official menswear partner of sports business radio just love their stuff. You know, love Nate jackets and his team and what they're doing there. Not only what they're clothing, but, you know, in the realm of mental health. So many other initiatives

that they have going on. Boy and go is our long time partner of the sports business radio road show was great to see their CEO Mike Fenley at our event in San Francisco with the Warriors last week. Underdog fantasy, you know, we have so much fun competing against each other. Griggs, I kicked your rear in Best Bowl, many of three. So that was, that was fun.

And, you know, it just makes the game so much more interesting to watch when, you know, we've got some competition. Yeah. Going on an inside tracker. I mean, we're all trying to be healthier and they're about it. So, you know, it's good to be as good as it gets when it comes to, you know, really giving us data and analytics about our health. So, you know,

our sponsors are wonderful. We thank them. You know, I'd be remiss to not thank CG sports who powers sports business radio. You know, CG young Madam Maryland. You know, we've gotten a call who helps us with all of our graphics. Look at these cool backgrounds that we have. Thanks, Nicole. Calvin does our YouTube video. We have a lot of good news and our social media clips.

So we've got a really good team. I'm excited about what 2023 holds. I really do think it might be our best year ever at the end of the day. We've got some exciting things plan that we can tell you more about in the new year. But, you know, it's not just us two knuckleheads that are making this operation go. We've got the help of CG sports.

We've got the help of our sponsors. You know, and our list is going to be a lot of fun. I love hearing from people around the world. That's the thing that's cool about this show is since it's a podcast. Anyone around the world can listen. You can listen on your own time on demand. There's no barriers or boundaries. We could have someone in guitar. Reach out.

We could have someone in Russia. Reach out. I've had people in Australia. Reach out. Obviously we hear from people here in the States. It was so much fun for me to go to Europe. And to do a couple of shows from London and dive in to the business of English soccer. And if you haven't listened to those shows, those are really insightful and informative. We heard

from someone, you know, a GM who builds a team and is in charge of a roster. We heard from an owner. There's a lot of differences between American soccer and English soccer. And it was fascinating for me to get to see it. And people have been saying for years, hey, Burr, go over to Europe and compare and contrast. So we finally got to do that. And

it was an interesting time to be over there. The Queen died the day I landed. Totally unexpected. So, you know, I was there during a historic time. But yeah, Greg, it's been an interesting year. Thank you for all your great work and everything that you do. And, you know, I love when we go out to the roadshows and stuff. And I'm going to go back to

the show. And I appreciate that. And I think for the opportunity and the traveling is always fun. It's so fun to be back out traveling, finally, and seeing people and meeting our sponsors and hanging out. And man, just that personal touch, you know, is so. And just being together with people. So yeah, it's fun. It's been a great year. I'm looking forward to 2023. And just,

you know, the fun of talking to people and learning more and the master class continues, right? I think it's going to be on my phone or tablet or however I'm watching it. Looking forward to that. I think USA is going to do good and should probably hopefully win it. But I think, you know, we always talk about NBA finals and Super Bowl is the two big

ones to watch. I kind of think, can the Eagles keep a going? I don't know if Jalen hurts is unhealthy. I don't know if they can keep on winning. But I think Eagles and KC might be a fun Super Bowl if that works out. And then let's get the nuggets into the NBA finals. It's been a while for that. Wow. Yeah. Let's get the bucks versus

nuggets. I'm calling that for the NBA. I think that's a great day for the NBA finals. So we'll see if the Greek freaking the joke is you can get at it. So that'll be fun to watch. Those are my, those are my wants for this year. All right. Those are all very good. You know, we talked earlier in the show about the NBA media rights deal

coming up. I think it's going to be record breaking. I think it's going to be mind boggling. You know, there's been a lot of talk about Turner resigning. You know, the NBA on TNT studio crew to 10 year deals. I think Turner's going to be a great guy. I'm going to step up with big money, you know, despite all the back and forth and the, and

the jockeying. I won't be surprised if there's a considerable streaming element to an NBA deal. So will you be able to watch NBA games somewhere other than, you know, just on ESPN or Turner. You know, the NFL media rights. You know, direct TV. You know, I think it's going to be a great day. The NBA has been the long time home of the Sunday ticket. Where's

that going to go? Is it going to be apples? Is it going to be Amazon? Is it going to be, you know, somewhere else? That's going to be something to really keep an eye on because it's been with direct TV for many, many years. So that's going to change how we watch NFL on Sunday. I think the Milwaukee bucks are going to win the NBA championship.

I think the Greek freak, like you said, is going to be back. I think they have Chris Middleton back. You know, we had Mark Lazare on in the last year, the governor of the box. And, you know, they have a really bright, smart front office. And, you know, if I was starting an NBA team, I love Luca. I love Zion. But I'm taking you on us

every time. I mean, that guy just plays hard on every single play. And I think he's the best player in the NBA. I think Tom Brady is going to wind up with the San Francisco 49ers. I think he's going to go home first final season. He wants to be near his parents. He's now divorced. I think he wants to end it where it all began. And,

you know, I am not sure the Niners think Traylantz is ready. Gropalo is out for the year, you know, the quarterback who is Mr. Irrelevant that's playing for them. Now Brock Purti, you know, great story. But I think they're going to see if we can get Tom Brady for his final season in San Francisco. So I think, you know, that's something on my radar as well.

I said earlier in the year, if I was betting on one woman athlete for the next 10 years, I'm betting on Sophia Smith of the NWSL and the Portland Thorns and the US Women's National team. I think she is a star in the making. I think she could be the next Alex Morgan, me a ham, whatever, you know, iconic women's player that you want to put

her next to Abby Wan. I'm a mom, but Sophia Smith, I'm buying all of her stock for the next 10 years. And I think if there's companies out there that are smart, they're going to get in on her early. And then gosh, I had another one. And I can't remember what it was. But those, yeah, those are some of my covers some good ones. Yeah, those

are some of my predictions. I, you know, major league baseball. They're spending a lot of money on these. They're going to be a lot of money on these players. And like we said, we're seeing 10, 11, 12, 13 year deals. I just don't feel good about those. I think, you know, when you get into year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 of those deals, you're going to

start having buyers remorse. Yeah. I love to be swanced and go into the cubs. You know, that was a good deal. It was seven years. And he's a young player, but you know, you're not giving him 13 years or 10 years or these long-term contracts that we're seeing. Yeah, it's great for the player. If you're an injury prone player. Like again, if I'm Anthony Davis, I'm

signing a 10 year deal. Because I get hurt every other game. Right. But if I'm Aaron judge, I'm not signing a 10 year deal. I'm signing a five year deal. And I'm re hitting the market. And, you know, LeBron has done that masterfully during his career. He's signed, you know, one in two year deals and has tested the market after those years. It's going to be

interesting to see what happens with the Lakers. I think they could blow that whole thing up. I think, you know, Anthony Davis, he showed he's got some, you know, great basketball in him with the 50 point games and stuff. But he also, like I just said, gets hurt all the time. LeBron is getting older. You know, to the Lakers blow it up and start over and

try and get some assets from those two players. I won't be surprised at the February trade deadline. If they're out of it. If they blow it up. And start over again. And, you know, there's nothing that sells better in sports, especially in the NBA than hope. Right. Ooh, you know, look at the Oklahoma City Thunder. We've got a good young core. And we have like 18

draft picks in the next four years. Yeah. You can sell hope. And people will buy it. I think the Lakers might be better off selling hope and rebooting and getting rid of Anthony Davis and LeBron James. But before they don't have any market value or have a lot less market value, then hanging onto them. And, you know, oh, we got into the play in big deal.

What is that going to get you? I do think the Lakers really want LeBron to break the old time scoring record, Kareem's record in a Lakers uniform. But if that happens and it happens before the February trade deadline. I think you could see LeBron and Anthony Davis in play on a, you know, we're going to blow it up scenario. And in Laker land, the Clippers have

a new arena that are going to, it's going to be coming on board. So here's an interesting stat. Here's some inside an insider told me this. How about this? So a typical arena from top to bottom has anywhere between, you know, 400 and 500 bathrooms, depending on how carried away you want to get. I was told by a source that the new Clippers arena is going

to have over 11. 100 bathrooms in the new Clippers arena. And it's because Steve Balmer doesn't want his fans missing any of the action. So what happens is you got to go to the bathroom. You miss a quarter. Yeah. You know, you decide you want to get something to eat. You miss two quarters. He wants people to be able to go to the bathroom quickly and

get back to their seat. I like it. So I was told that this new arena for the Clippers is going to have more bathrooms in it than any arena in the world. Because they, they don't want people to miss action. I think it's great. And if you're, you know, Steve Balmer and you've got $100 billion in money. He's no object. Why not? Why not? No, I

love it. I think it's great. Yeah. I mean, make the, lots of bathrooms in over and make the experience more easy for the fan. You know, and we talk about that too with the different things with food, mobile app and where it comes to your seat. We're seeing more of that. Because you don't want people. They're paying a lot of money for these games. You don't

want to have to get up and miss half the game. You know, wander around the con course, getting food and going to the bathroom. So hey, I love it. Yeah. I guess one of the things that I kind of alluded to it earlier is I do think the Washington commanders are going to go for $5 billion. So I think they're going to be, you know, the

most expensive franchise sold in North America. The Broncos have that record now 4.65 billion. I think the commanders will get five. Because they're, you know, in Washington, DC, even though there's a lot of controversy around the organization. I would expect a new owner to come in and clean house and reset the organization. I do think Ron Rivera is done. He's a great job there. I mean,

there's a lot of noise there. And he's helped his players play through the noise and has done a pretty good job. So maybe they keep Ron Rivera. But that's going to be an interesting story to watch too. So great. Those are some of the things on the radar for 2023. You know, it's been a great year for sports business radio. Not a good year for me

personally. But, you know, we'll keep plugging in along and, you know, hopefully the future improves. And again, thank you to you. Thank you to CG sports. Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you to our listeners. I hope everyone has a happy holiday season. I hope everyone's safe. And we look forward to, you know, interacting with everyone in 2023. This episode of Sports Business Radio is brought

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Fantasy, download the app, sign up with promo code SBR and get started right away with a free match on your first deposit up to $100. Well, that's it for this edition of Sports Business Radio. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks to our team at Sports Business Radio. Brian Griggs, Josh Blank, Ryan Nakajima, and our friends at CG Sports. To power Sports Business Radio. CG Young, Matt Amarlin,

Nicole Wardle, and Calvin Works. I'm Brian Burger. Have a great week and we'll talk to you soon right here on Sports Business Radio. The video is produced by Brian Griggs and Griggs Productions. GriggsProductions.com.