F1: Tech and fintech brands (Microsoft, Nubank, Revolut, eToro and more) pile into team F1 sponsorships as Audi builds a deep pre‑debut partner roster and Mercedes’ valuation surges past £4.6 billion.

Basketball (WNBA & NBA Europe): Toronto Tempo’s launch and the WNBA’s potential equity buy‑back collide with a tough CBA fight, while the NBA courts sovereign wealth funds with plans for a 16‑team NBA Europe built on $1 billion franchise tags.

Football: Manchester United’s Lionsgate series turns club history into scripted IP, City Football Group secures another £60 million capital injection, Sporting KC’s $700 million sale lifts MLS benchmarks, and England’s new regulator prepares to confront parachute payments and revenue gaps.

Women’s Football: Arsenal, Chelsea and Barcelona headline a Deloitte table where the top 15 generate €158 million, with commercial income making up over 70% of revenue and widening the gap to the rest of the women’s game.

Cricket: The European T20 Premier League sells its first three £11.1 million franchises to groups led by Steve Waugh and other ex‑internationals, just as Cricket South Africa clings to a 15‑team domestic structure despite missing R200 million in targeted savings.

Pickleball: Selkirk Sport raises $30 million from Bluestone Equity at a $200 million valuation, cementing pickleball equipment as a serious platform play rather than a niche hobby business.

Tennis: Grand Slams lock in long-term, billion‑dollar broadcast deals, but strict footage controls are squeezing player social content and testing how tennis balances media revenue with the need to grow younger audiences.

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GameSquare $GAME ( ▲ 12.03% )
$0.427 | +2.52% 1D | +8.27% YTD | -52.01% LTM
Zoned, a GameSquare Company, and Dairy MAX Announce Renewal of Multi Year Partnership

Samsung Electronics $SSNLF ( ▲ 55.02% )
$2,250 | + 8.17 1D | +11% YTD | +71.9% LTM
Samsung Electronics' shares rose 2.96% and 5% over two days, reaching record closing levels, boosting the KOSPI index amid positive sentiment in AI and semiconductor markets.

CloudFlare $NET ( ▲ 4.88% )
$169.97 | -4.20% 1D | -14.54% YTD | +42.52% LTM
Investors took a much closer look at the company's plan to acquire Human Native and its long-term implications.

VF Corporation $VFC ( ▼ 1.16% )
$19.52 | +4.66% 1D | +7.31% YTD | -19.07% LTM
Unified leadership drives brand turnarounds and operational efficiency for sustained growth

FC Porto $PORTO ( ▲ 1.67% )
$3.88 | +16.87% 1D | +2.65% YTD | +259.26% LTM
FC Porto shares hit highest level in nearly 18 years

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Formula 1’s 2026 season is witnessing an unprecedented commercial acceleration, with teams securing more than 20 major sponsorship deals in January alone, collectively valued at over $200 million annually, signaling the sport’s escalating appeal to technology, fintech, and premium consumer brands.

Where the big sponsors are landing in F1 2026:

Mercedes F1: Dual Tech-Fintech Play
Mercedes-AMG Petronas has locked in two blockbuster partnerships that cement F1’s status as a premium global marketing platform. Microsoft is entering F1 as a major sponsor in a deal estimated at about $60 million a year, joining Mercedes ahead of its 2026 car launch, while Nubank’s multi-year deal makes the Brazilian digital bank with 127 million customers an Official Team Partner. Together with George Kurtz’s late‑2025 15% stake purchase, which valued Mercedes at over £4.6 billion, these deals highlight the team’s commercial resilience despite no constructors’ title since 2021 and provide financial ballast going into the 2026 rules reset and rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s arrival alongside George Russell. Nubank immediately deepens Mercedes’ footprint in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, while Microsoft’s role positions the team squarely at the intersection of motorsport, cloud computing and AI.

Audi’s Pre-Debut Commercial Blitz
The Audi Revolut F1 Team has executed the most aggressive sponsorship buildout in recent F1 history, announcing 11+ major partnerships ahead of its 2026 debut. This includes:

Audi’s roster reflects a sophisticated commercial strategy with premium European heritage brands (Piquadro, Paulaner, Adidas) paired with next-generation technology (Revolut, Nexo, NinjaOne, Perk) and traditional motorsport sponsors (BP/Castrol). The diversity protects against category conflicts while maximizing global reach. Chief Commercial Officer Stefano Battiston has deliberately pursued a “clean, clear, crisp outlook” of premium partners rather than cluttered car branding.

McLaren x Puma: Premium Apparel Consolidation
McLaren Racing terminated its partnership with UK-based Castore one year early to secure a multi-year global partnership with Puma, covering F1, IndyCar, WEC, F1 Academy, and sim racing. The move consolidates McLaren with Puma’s growing F1 portfolio alongside Ferrari and Aston Martin, creating economies of scale for the sportswear giant while providing McLaren with superior retail reach and lifestyle collection capabilities. Castore’s previous deal was reportedly worth £30 million ($40 million) annually; Puma’s investment likely exceeds this given McLaren’s status as reigning 2025 constructors’ and drivers’ champions.

CEO Zak Brown framed the partnership as capitalizing on F1’s “influx of major fashion and lifestyle brands” seeking “deep and meaningful ways to engage with our growing global fanbase”. This reflects F1’s broader shift from pure performance sponsorships toward consumer lifestyle integration, critical as the sport targets younger, more diverse audiences.

Red Bull x Clear:
Personal Care Enters F1 Oracle Red Bull Racing signed its first-ever Official Haircare Partner with Unilever’s Clear brand (world’s No. 1 men’s shampoo), featuring branding on the RB22 car and balaclavas of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar. The partnership addresses a practical pain point, F1 drivers endure cockpit temperatures up to 60°C with profuse sweating and helmet use causing scalp discomfort, while opening a new sponsorship category. Clear’s activation spans Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, positioning the brand in “one of the most extreme performance environments” globally.

Ferrari x Whoop:
Human Performance Revolution Ferrari secured a multi-year partnership with Whoop (valued at $3.6 billion) as Official Health and Fitness Wearable Partner, marking F1’s first comprehensive human optimization program. Both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, along with trackside staff, will wear Whoop devices to monitor recovery, sleep, strain, and resilience in real-time. Ferrari’s medical team will collaborate directly with Whoop’s Performance Science division to develop bespoke programs tailored for F1’s unique pressures.

This partnership transcends traditional sponsorship, it integrates performance technology directly into team operations, with data informing training regimens, workload adjustments, and fatigue management throughout the season. Chief Racing Revenue Officer Lorenzo Giorgetti emphasized extending Ferrari’s “data-driven approach beyond the car, to aspects more related to the human factor”. Whoop gains credibility and product validation in motorsport’s most demanding environment while accessing F1’s 827 million global fanbase.

Williams: Premium Watch and Beer Incoming
Williams Racing is in advanced talks to add Estrella Galicia (beer) and Girard-Perregaux (luxury watches) to its portfolio ahead of 2026. These deals would fill open categories as Williams continues rebuilding its commercial roster, headlined by Atlassian. Notably, Girard-Perregaux is transitioning from Aston Martin, while Estrella Galicia previously partnered with Ferrari and McLaren, highlighting Williams’ improving brand appeal.

Haas Stability: Fix Network and Castore
TGR Haas F1 Team secured a multi-year partnership with Fix Network (2,000+ points of service worldwide in collision, glass, mechanical services), with branding on the VF-26, driver suits, and team kit. The Canadian company gains home-market activation at the Canadian Grand Prix. Additionally, Haas signed Castore for kit and retail after the British brand exited McLaren, providing Castore continued F1 presence alongside Red Bull and Alpine.

Aston Martin-Honda: Works Power Unit Partnership
Aston Martin Aramco’s works partnership with Honda from 2026 represents a significant technical and commercial milestone, with Honda providing power units alongside Aramco (fuel) and Valvoline (lubricants). This elevates Aston Martin’s championship aspirations while Honda re-enters F1 as a works partner following its Red Bull collaboration.

2026 Key Trends:

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City Football Group, the multi-club parent of Manchester City, has taken another £60 million in fresh capital via the issue of almost £6.8 million. A preference shares at £8.83 each. This follows a £70 million injection via preference shares in 2025 and comes against a backdrop of cumulative group losses approaching £1 billion since CFG’s creation in 2013, despite group revenues of £933 million and Manchester City leading the Premier League in income. The funding underlines two dynamics.

From an investor’s perspective, CFG is closer to a long-duration infrastructure and media holding company than a traditional club: stadiums, content, global sponsorship and player trading sit on top of a structurally loss-making football operation. That makes continued recapitalisation almost inevitable, but also preserves strategic control in friendly hands and keeps the platform investable for minority partners like Silver Lake.

The Illig family has agreed to sell a 71% majority stake in Sporting Kansas City to existing minority owner Peter Mallouk at a valuation of around $700 million, the highest price yet paid for a majority stake in an MLS club. Mallouk’s ownership will rise to roughly 80%, while the Illigs retain under 10%, day-to-day operational control and MLS board representation.

The deal slots into a rapidly repricing MLS market where:

For investors, MLS continues to behave like a long-duration growth asset even before the 2026 World Cup tailwind fully lands. The interesting nuance here is governance: Mallouk gains control economics without displacing the Illigs from the league power structure. That hybrid model, financial control separated from league governance, is likely to recur as more financial buyers come in but legacy owners retain political capital within MLS.

Adam Silver’s push for NBA Europe contemplates a 16‑team league launching around October 2027, with 12 permanent franchises and four qualification slots, NBA holding a 50% equity stake and franchise valuations targeted around $1 billion. The league is actively courting sovereign wealth funds and state-backed vehicles, notably Qatar Sports Investments, which already owns PSG, alongside traditional private equity and family offices.

In parallel, Africa-focused investment firm Silverbacks Holdings is in talks to acquire one of the planned permanent franchises in NBA Africa’s Basketball Africa League, backed by fresh capital and a portfolio spanning Cape Town Tigers and African Warriors FC.

For investors, this is closer to buying into a real estate and IP platform than a standalone club: franchise buyers are expected to fund arenas, local infrastructure and long-term market-building, with profits recycled into growing regional basketball rather than maximising short-term distributions.

The European T20 Premier League (ETPL) has sold its first three franchises, in Amsterdam, Belfast and Edinburgh, to investor groups fronted by former Australian and New Zealand internationals, including Steve Waugh (Amsterdam Flames) and a Glenn Maxwell–led consortium in Belfast. BBC reporting suggests each franchise has been sold for around £11.1 million ($15m) over 10 years, with a salary cap of roughly £1.1 million ($1.5m) per season.

With ICC approval and backing from the Irish, Scottish and Dutch boards, ETPL is positioning itself as Europe’s answer to the CPL or PSL: a mid-tier but serious franchise league that deepens the player market and builds domestic pathways in Associate nations. For investors, the economics are modest compared with IPL or SA20, but the upside lies in first-mover advantage in continental Europe, particularly if Indian investors and IPL franchises, as rumoured, acquire remaining slots.

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Toronto Tempo is building Canada’s first WNBA franchise against two ticking clocks: an inaugural game in May and an unresolved collective bargaining agreement that is delaying player signings. Team president Teresa Resch has already grown staff beyond 30, appointed Monica Wright Rogers as GM and Sandy Brondello a two-time WNBA champion coach with Phoenix and New York as head coach. Yet no players can be signed until the new CBA is agreed.

Off the court, the Tempo are:

Brondello is using the pause to “control the controllables”: scouting college and pro talent, modelling expansion-draft scenarios and designing culture-first frameworks so that once the CBA lands, roster-building can move fast.

For investors, Toronto is a test case of whether WNBA expansion teams can be built as sophisticated, data-led businesses from day one, rather than legacy cost centres. Local media rights, venue control and community-centric brand building will determine whether the Tempo sit closer to an NBA-style asset or a traditional women’s team reliant on central distributions.

In 2022 the WNBA sold a 16% league equity stake for $75 million, in what was then the largest-ever raise for a women’s sports property. That deal, widely reported as valuing the league at $1 billion, in reality implied a post-money closer to $475 million according to sources involved in the raise. Today, with three new expansion teams paying $250 million each and a path to 18 franchises by 2030, the league is exploring buying that stake back.

The prospective buyback intersects with contentious CBA talks. The players’ union is pushing for:

The strategic question is does the WNBA want to behave like a high-growth, independent league with clean cap tables and a clear equity story, or remain structurally tethered to NBA owners and a fragmented stakeholder base? A buyback funded out of rich expansion fees would be a strong signal that the league sees itself as the former.

Deloitte’s latest Women’s Football Money League shows the top 15 clubs generating €158 million in revenue in 2024‑25, up 35% year-on-year and crossing an average of €10 million per club for the first time. Arsenal top the list at €25.6 million (+43%), driven by elite matchday monetisation with five games at Emirates with crowds above 35,000 and around €7 million in gate receipts. Chelsea sit just behind at €25.4 million, with an enormous €19.1 million in commercial revenue, the highest in the sample.

Across the top 15:

The implication is that women’s football is still in a “brand-building and sponsorship” phase rather than a media-rights-driven phase. Clubs that can turn “big event” crowds into recurring, data-driven matchday and membership revenue as Arsenal are doing, will widen the gap over those relying on men’s-club cross-subsidies.

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The BCCI has secured a three-year, ₹270 crore ($32 million) sponsorship deal with Google’s AI assistant brand Gemini ahead of the 2026 IPL season. Gemini joins as a major sponsor while rival AI brand ChatGPT holds rights in the Women’s Premier League, marking an emerging “AI arms race” across Indian cricket.

For BCCI, the agreement:

For AI platforms, IPL delivers more than impressions: it is a sandbox for live product integration, real-time recommendations, contextual advertising and fan tools, which can feed back into core models and user acquisition.

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s has expanded its relationship with Inter Miami to become the club’s jersey sleeve sponsor, in what sources say is the richest and longest MLS sleeve deal to date. Typical MLS sleeve rights trade at $1–2 million per year; Inter Miami’s Messi-fuelled commercial profile has allowed the club to push well above that range without disclosing exact figures.

The expanded agreement:

With The Home Depot already holding category rights with FIFA, U.S. Soccer and MLS centrally, Lowe’s is effectively using Inter Miami and Messi as a bespoke platform that stands outside the usual inventory. For investors in club IP and real estate, it is another proof point that players of Messi’s magnitude can permanently reset a franchise’s sponsorship curve.

Manchester United has agreed a development deal with Lionsgate to create a dramatised series about the club’s history, styled on “The Crown”. The project is at early-stage, with no streamer attached, but United is guaranteed a low multi-million-pound payment if the series is produced and sold, plus future royalties tied to seasons, episodes and distribution scope.

This is a notable pivot away from fly‑on‑the‑wall docs that give cameras access to the dressing room. United previously walked away from a proposed Amazon “All or Nothing” series worth over £10 million amid concerns from coach Ruben Amorim about distraction and intrusion. The Lionsgate deal monetises the club’s IP and mythology of Busby, Ferguson and ownership battles, without compromising current football operations.

Strategically, it frames elite clubs as content libraries as much as teams. The upside, if the series lands on a global streamer, is a multi-season IP asset that can sit alongside live rights as a revenue line and brand builder.

Grand Slam tournaments have secured huge long-term rights deals, Warner Bros. Discovery is paying around $650 million over 10 years for US French Open rights from 2025, nearly tripling the previous US cycle, while ESPN’s US Open deal runs to 2037 at roughly $2.04 billion. Yet these same rights bundles come with strict content restrictions that prevent players from sharing match footage on their own social channels.

Players like Daria Saville and Daria Kasatkina have openly criticised rules that see highlight clips and even training videos removed from platforms on copyright grounds, while fan-run YouTube channels aggregating WTA and ATP highlights have been taken down after strikes from rights holders. The WTA, through its commercial arm WTA Ventures, is signalling a more permissive approach in future negotiations and experimenting with formats like “Inside the Tour” to emulate player‑vlog authenticity within official channels.

At the same time, MLB’s decision to end its $550 million‑per‑year deal with ESPN three years early, after the broadcaster sought fee reductions, is a warning sign. Rights-holders that lean too heavily on legacy linear fees, without embracing DTC (direct-to-consumer) flexibility and user-generated discovery, risk eroding long-term audience growth, particularly with Gen Z fans who live on short-form video.

The investment takeaway: tennis’ media cashflows look robust on paper, but the IP strategy is brittle. Properties that find ways to protect core rights while enabling player- and fan-led content will be better placed to sustain valuations when the next rights cycle hits.

After Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) walked away from its Master Rights Agreement with the AIFF in December, the Indian Super League’s 2025‑26 season has been delayed and truncated, with the league now set to start on 14 February. The AIFF has issued an RFP for a one-season TV and OTT rights deal, requiring bidders to:

Clubs have been asked to cover 60% of the league’s estimated ₹25 crore ($2.73 million) operating cost, about ₹1 crore ($109k) each, as part of the emergency solution. With established broadcaster FSDL out, and RFP timelines extremely tight, the risk is a short-term rights deal at depressed value just to get the season played.

For investors watching Indian football, this is a stress test of the league’s ability to stand on its own commercial feet, rather than relying on a single vertically integrated broadcast promoter. The long-term prize, a properly structured media and commercial model for a 14‑club national league, remains largely untapped.

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The new Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has set out the scope of its “State of the Game” report, with a draft due later this year and a final version in spring 2027. Central to the review will be parachute payments to relegated Premier League clubs and the broader distribution of revenues across the pyramid, an area where the EFL has long argued current structures distort competition and widen financial gaps.

Crucially, amendments to the Football Governance Bill now give the IFR backstop powers to:

The report will also examine club financial resilience, governance standards, fan engagement and protections for heritage assets like stadia and club colours. With early UEFA data showing European top-division clubs still reporting aggregate losses of €1.2 billion in 2023 despite record €26.8 billion revenues, and Brighton alone losing over £1 million a week in 2024‑25, the IFR’s work will shape how much risk English clubs can continue to warehouse on owner balance sheets.

A survey conducted by BDO (a mid‑tier global accounting network) of finance directors across England’s top four tiers paints a stark picture: nine in ten clubs expect to post pre-tax losses in 2025. Average wage-to-revenue ratios stand at 63% in the Premier League and an extraordinary 93% in the Championship, with many top-flight clubs anticipating wages above 70% of turnover next season.

Key findings:

Newly promoted Premier League clubs are performing worse on average than their predecessors over 30 years, while relegated clubs in the Championship are performing better, evidence of growing stratification and parachute-driven imbalance.

In any other sector, BDO notes, a mix of elevated costs, sustained losses and rising leverage would “ring alarm bells”. Football’s continued ability to attract institutional and private capital is defying gravity; the question is whether regulatory interventions, via IFR domestically and UEFA’s updated financial sustainability rules, arrive in time to avoid a hard reset.

Cricket South Africa has decided to maintain its current 15‑team provincial domestic structure, despite internal analysis and stakeholder debate indicating that reducing professional teams would deliver more meaningful cost savings and a more sustainable system. The current model, eight teams in Division 1 and seven in Division 2, replaced the old six‑franchise system in 2021, and was designed to widen opportunity and deepen the talent pool.

A year-long review driven by financial sustainability concerns, including expectations that ICC broadcast distributions could fall by up to 30% after 2027, explored cutting the number of professional teams and contracts, especially for players over 30, and rebalancing scheduling to reduce travel and operations costs. Smaller unions, heavily reliant on sponsorship and fearful of the commercial cliff of relegation, resisted.

The decision to “muddle through” preserves political harmony and development pathways in the short term but leaves CSA exposed if ICC money falls faster than expected or SA20 revenues plateau. For investors and broadcasters, it raises the question of whether South African cricket is prepared to take hard structural decisions or will rely on episodic windfalls (India tours, ICC events, SA20) to fill structural gaps.

Selkirk Sport, a leading US pickleball equipment brand founded by the Barnes family in 2014, has taken its first outside capital: a $30 million growth equity cheque from Bluestone Equity Partners at a roughly $200 million valuation. Selkirk’s revenues have grown about 1,900% since 2019 and are expected to hit at least $100m this year, against a backdrop of US adult pickleball participation increasing sixfold between 2019 and 2024.

Selkirk has:

Bluestone is investing from its debut $300 million sports and tech fund and explicitly framing Selkirk as a platform for both organic and inorganic expansion, including targeted M&A in a fragmented equipment market and international growth in Asia.

The thesis is straightforward: pickleball has crossed from fad to mass participation, but the brand hierarchy is not yet locked. Institutional money flowing into clear category leaders, Selkirk in equipment, Major League Pickleball on the competition side, suggests the window for discounted entry is closing.

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