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🏀 NBA FINALS PREVIEW·
💰 MLS FRANCHISE VALUES UP 340% SINCE 2015·
🏓 MAJOR LEAGUE PICKLEBALL RAISES $75M SERIES B·
⚾ YANKEES STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS DEAL IMMINENT·
📺 NFL SUNDAY TICKET RIGHTS: WHO BIDS NEXT?·
🏀 NBA FINALS PREVIEW·
💰 MLS FRANCHISE VALUES UP 340% SINCE 2015·
🏓 MAJOR LEAGUE PICKLEBALL RAISES $75M SERIES B·
⚾ YANKEES STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS DEAL IMMINENT·
📺 NFL SUNDAY TICKET RIGHTS: WHO BIDS NEXT?·
Home
Business
History
Pickleball
Opinion
About

Featured Story

The Hidden Economics
of the Modern Franchise

Your favorite team isn’t just a team anymore. It’s a real estate play, a media company, and a private equity bet rolled into one. The fans fill the seats. The billionaires collect the upside. Here’s how that happened.

RLO
RLOJune 1, 2026 · 9 min read

Read the story →

01
Pickleball
Every Serious Sports Investor Is Betting on Pickleball. Here’s the Actual Math.
It’s not a fad. The PE money moving into MLP right now says otherwise.
02
History
The 1994 Strike Killed the World Series. It Also Saved the Players.
Nobody won that year. But the fallout quietly shifted power in ways we’re still living with.
03
NBA
The Knicks Are Worth $7 Billion. Madison Square Garden Is Why.
Strip away the arena and the real estate and you’ve got a mediocre basketball team.
04
Media
Streaming Wars Are Over. Live Sports Won Without Trying.
Netflix spent a decade trying to kill cable. The NFL just waited them out.

Latest Stories

Business

Private Equity Is Buying Into Sports Teams. Nobody Asked the Fans.

When a PE firm buys a stake in your team, their timeline is 5 to 7 years. The team’s timeline is forever. That tension is going to matter soon.

May 28 · 6 minRead →
History

Baseball Owned Its Players for 100 Years. One Man Finally Said No.

Curt Flood gave up his career to challenge the reserve clause and lost in court. He won everywhere else. Most fans have never heard his name.

May 25 · 7 minRead →
Pickleball

Five Years Ago Pickleball Was a Retirement Hobby. Now It Has a Valuation.

I’m not going to pretend I saw this coming. Nobody did. But the money that’s moved into MLP in the last 18 months is not retirement-hobby money.

May 22 · 8 minRead →
NBA

Adam Silver Gets Too Little Credit for the League He Built

Stern gets the dynasty years. Silver gets the drama. But look at the numbers — global reach, franchise values, media deals — Silver’s era is the better business story.

May 18 · 5 minRead →
MLB

Somebody Paid $14 Billion for Live Sports Rights Last Year. That’s Not Normal.

I keep seeing this framed as good news for leagues. Maybe. But when the deal goes sour — and some of them will — the sport pays the price.

May 15 · 6 minRead →
Opinion

Athletes Aren’t Overpaid. You’ve Just Been Told to Think That.

Every summer someone gets outraged about a player’s contract. Nobody does the math. The owner bought the team for $400M and it’s worth $4B now. That guy isn’t in the take.

May 12 · 4 minRead →
0
Knicks Valuation (B)
Up from $1.1B in 2010
0
MLP Teams Founded
In just 3 years
0
NFL Sunday Ticket ($B)
YouTube’s 7-year deal
0
Avg MLB Salary ($M)
Post-CBA record high
🗳 Reader Poll

“Which sport has the best business model for the next 20 years?”

🏈 NFL — Scarcity wins forever38%

🏀 NBA — Global growth runway29%

🏓 Pickleball — Early mover advantage18%

⚽ Soccer — The rest of the world already knows15%

2,847 votes this week
🔥 Hot Take of the Week

“The NFL doesn’t have the best product. It has the best scarcity. Sunday is the whole business model. Take away Sunday and it’s just another sport.”

— RLO, Beyond the Box Score

The Sunday Briefing

Every Sunday morning — five sports business stories that actually matter, with context you won’t get from a highlight reel. No fluff. Just the stuff worth knowing.

More Stories

05
History
The ABA Had Better Basketball, Better Style, and a Better Ball. It Still Died.
The red, white, and blue ball. The 3-pointer before anyone respected it. Dr. J before the NBA knew what to do with him. Ahead on everything except money.
May 10, 2026 · 10 min
06
Business
Stadium Naming Rights Cost $700 Million. The City Usually Pays More.
A company writes a big check to put its name on an arena. Somewhere in the fine print, the public picked up the tab for the building. This happens constantly.
May 7, 2026 · 7 min
07
MLB
Small Market Teams Get Mocked Every Year. They’re Part of What Makes Baseball Work.
The Royals win a World Series. The Rays go to the Fall Classic from a dome nobody fills. That parity is part of why baseball still matters in 30 cities.
May 3, 2026 · 6 min
08
Opinion
NIL Is Two Years Old and College Sports Will Never Be the Same. That’s Fine.
Everyone said it would ruin college football. It didn’t. What it did was force a conversation about who was getting rich off these kids — long overdue.
April 29, 2026 · 8 min

About RLO

I write about the business and history of sports — the stuff that happens off the field that shapes everything on it. Finance background. Sports obsessive. Based in New York City.

Topics

BusinessHistoryNBAMLBNFLPickleballMedia RightsLaborPEOpinion

Follow Along

New stories every week. Follow on Twitter and LinkedIn for daily takes between posts.

The Business of Sports — Written by RLO
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© 2026 Beyond the Box Score · Written by RLO · New York City

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