Huddle Up by Joseph Pompliano

(Fanatics Fest via Getty Images) Michael Rubin is about to spend $80-$90 million on a four-day party in New York City, and he's totally fine with the possibility that it might not even be profitable. During its inaugural event in 2024, Fanatics Fest drew 70,000 people to a 400,000-square-foot space at the Javits Center in New York City, hosted 300+ athletes and celebrities, and incurred a $15 million loss on a $50 million production budget.

Has Major League Soccer blown its chance at post-World Cup rocket fuel? I’ve been asked some variation of that question nearly every day for the last three weeks. At first, people were confused why they had not seen any MLS advertising during the first few weeks of the World Cup. Then MLS launched an advertising campaign last week, and the question became whether it was too little, too late. The advertising campaign is…fine.

StubHub was hit with a class action lawsuit this week after it was revealed that CEO Eric Baker has spent the last several decades running a professional ticket reseller on the platform, as well as a company that helps finance other scalpers. According to StubHub’s SEC filings, Baker is a part-owner and managing director at Andro Capital, a hedge fund that profits from buying and selling tickets on the secondary market.

(Image: Vinod Khosla via Bloomberg) I’m going to let you in on a secret. There are really only two reasons why major U.S. sports teams keep selling for record prices: 1) investors believe live sports represent scarce, authentic, communal experiences that can’t be replicated by AI, and 2) American sports teams are still the single best tax shelter for billionaires. The first point is self-explanatory.

(Christian Pulisic via Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) There are 30 people living in the United States for every one person living in Belgium, yet the U.S. Men’s National Team was embarrassed by Belgium on Monday night in Seattle, losing 4-1 in the Round of 16 at this year’s World Cup. We should have seen this coming.

Happy Wednesday, friends. I am still reeling from the USMNT’s lackluster performance on Monday night, and I’m sure Fox executives would have loved to see another 30-40 million viewers for Friday’s semifinal in Los Angeles. But what are you going to do? In the end, the USMNT is exactly what we thought they were: one of the top 16 teams in the world, but …

(Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexi Lalas via Fox) The 2026 World Cup is already the most successful tournament in FIFA’s 122-year history. The all-time attendance record (4.6 million) was broken before the knockout stage even began, and FIFA has been bragging for months about its projected $13 billion in revenue and $10 billion in profit from this World Cup cycle — roughly 2-3x higher than its previous revenue and profitability records.

(Image Credit: Emil Lendof/WSJ/Getty Images) BlackBerry has completed one of the most unlikely corporate reinventions in modern tech history. The same company that once commanded over 50% of the U.S. smartphone market (and saw its stock price fall from $147 to $2.30) is now up 250% over the last six months, propelled by a fundamentally different business. BlackBerry’s secret is QNX, a real-time operating system (RTOS) embedded in more than 275 million vehicles worldwide.

The main draw at Wimbledon begins today, but the biggest story at the All England Club is happening off the court. Several players in the men’s and women’s top 10, including Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka, and Coco Gauff, announced last week that they would limit their media availability to just 15 minutes per session.

(The flyover at Seattle Stadium via Doug Zimmerman/Getty Images) FIFA has repeatedly said that this year’s World Cup is the largest in history: 48 teams, 104 matches, 39 days. Billions of people around the world will watch the tournament on television, and FIFA is expected to generate roughly $13 billion in total revenue during this World Cup cycle (against just $3.8 billion in expenses).