The sports world has always been at the leading edge of technological progress. Athletes dominate the list of most-followed celebrities across social platforms. Teams and players have used everything from video games to fitness trackers to AI in order to get an edge over their competition. Nothing has shaped the future of TV more than the bidding wars over live events like the Super Bowl or the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. You’ve seen Microsoft’s Surface tablets thrown all over NFL sidelines, VR cameras promising a courtside view of the NBA Finals, and shoes that make marathon runners even faster somehow. From VAR and robotic umpires to hyperrealistic Formula One simulators and league-affiliated esports, the future of sports is as much a story about technology as it is about wins and losses. It’s taking place across sports, across the globe, and at record-breaking speed.
That’s how much Disney says ESPN and its sports business lost in income during the 15-day YouTube TV blackout late last year, totalling $110 million. That’s almost double the daily hit analysts had estimated at the time, and it’s just for sports, not counting any hit to ABC or Disney’s entertainment channels.
The NFL has added prediction markets to its list of “prohibited categories” for commercials in Super Bowl LX. However, as Front Office Sports points out, sports betting isn’t on that list. While there will be limits on the number of sports bettor ads allowed, the league seems to be drawing a distinction between the two categories.
[Front Office Sports]
Tennis’s biggest stars keep being asked to take their Whoop trackers off at the Australian Open. The wearable is permitted by the sport’s governing bodies, but banned by the tournament, prompting frustration from player (and, um, paid Whoop ambassador) Aryna Sabalenka:
“All the tournaments I play, we wear Whoop. It’s just for tracking my health. I don’t understand why Grand Slams are not allowing us to wear it.”
When I wrote about Nike’s “neuroscience-based” Mind 001 and 002 shoes, I thought they looked uncomfortable. The 22 nodes in each shoe are meant to stimulate your foot’s pressure points and relax your mind, and those nodes “hurt,” according to shoe reviewer Chris Chase at WearTesters.
They might be a particularly bad match for Chase, who has arthritis in the balls of his feet. Still, the discomfort and general gimmicky vibe is a pass from Chase (and me).
As part of a partnership between TikTok and FIFA, select media partners can livestream “parts of” World Cup matches as well as “post more curated clips and access special content produced by FIFA for TikTok.”
During the Winter Olympics next month, Peacock will expand on features like multiview and its whiparound Gold Zone show with curated “Rinkside Live” behind-the-scenes angles. For some figure skating events that will add a Coaching Cam view during the routines, as well as a view of team benches during some hockey games.
When Intuit Dome opened last season, the arena staff assumed only a third of fans would opt-in to scanning, but close to 75 percent of venue attendees enrolled. The Clippers promise they are not using facial recognition — sorry, they call it “facial authentication” — for security purposes.
Early facial ticketing pilots were met with some protests. And energy still exists to create more state or federal oversight. But as the technology’s penetration has expanded, pushback seemingly hasn’t. A demand for security is leading venue operators to test out the newest tech, while a desire for convenience and personalization has seen fans increasingly getting in line.
“Prediction markets” continue to appear everywhere, including CNN and CNBC, and Polymarket is shitposting about citizen journalism.
Meanwhile, The Athletic is the latest (following Awful Announcing and Front Office Sports) reporting on sports misinformation X accounts like “Emma Vance” and “Scott Hughes” have spread while sporting those site’s affiliate badges.
John Madden, that is, filling the shoes of the legendary NFL coach and commentator, in David O. Russell’s upcoming biopic for Prime Video. There’s only the briefest still of a video game shown in this short teaser trailer, and a quick glimpse of John Mulaney as EA exec Trip Hawkins.
Madden is scheduled for release on Thanksgiving Day, 2026.
Last night was the first Xbox Bowl, with Arkansas State taking the trophy, presented by Halo’s Master Chief, over Missouri State. Every player received a free ROG Xbox Ally handheld ahead of the game, but the winning team also received a playable trophy to, presumably, lock away in their case.
Stopping to watch the race from outside the track can get you fined, but as long as you keep moving, security can’t do anything about it. Most of the view is obstructed along the pedestrian areas. One of the few exceptions is a pair of escalators at Spring Mountain and Las Vegas Blvd, which are closer than any of the seats and at one of the best turns.
Instead of offering MLS Season Pass as a separate subscription, you might be able to watch MLS games next season with just a base Apple TV subscription, like how Apple TV will be the place to watch F1 in the US, ESPN reports.
During an earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company isn’t “trying to break any new ground” on a deal that would end the ESPN blackout:
The deal that we have proposed is equal to or better than what other large distributors have already agreed to... While we’ve been working tirelessly to close this deal and restore our channels to the platform, it’s also imperative that we make sure that we agree to a deal that reflects the value that we deliver.
What happens when AI agents take over the work of comparing ticket prices and seat selections across vendors, potentially diminishing the value of all those marketplaces? Sportico writes about the DoorDash problem of the entertainment industry, and how ticket vendors are preparing for a world of agentic buying.
[Sportico.com]
Ahead of one of the biggest games of the NFL season so far, I have a feeing there might be something he wants to talk about. He’ll be on the show at 8PM ET.
Bluesky was the best place on the internet during the World Series last weekend. I wrote yesterday about how the matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays was a feast for fans old and new, and now we have some numbers to illustrate that: Bluesky says at least three percent of all posts on Saturday (Game 7) were about baseball, and the site had a 30 percent surge in traffic.
The company said in its Q3 2025 earnings report that it’s “making progress” on the new service, which it initially teased in September. Upon launch, WBD will take sports content off HBO Max and put it into TNT Sports, which will be available as yet another streaming bundle option.
Whether you should, or would, clone a pet is not the point of People’s article about Tom Brady’s cloned dog Junie.
It’s to tie in with news about a company he invested in, Colossal Biosciences (which claims it has de-extincted dire wolves), buying Viagen, “the leader in animal cloning.”
The standoff between Disney and YouTube started just before midnight on Thursday evening, and unlike the 36-hour tiff in 2021, there’s no sign of an end yet. Disney said it asked Google to turn the networks on for 24 hours for election (and probably football) coverage, but YouTube declined.
There are plenty of other options for customers - election news information is very widely available across other broadcast stations and news networks on YouTube TV, as well as on the main YouTube service, for free. In fact, on the last two U.S. election days, the vast majority of tuned in YouTube TV subscribers chose not to watch ABC.
My beloved Blue Jays are currently up 3-2 in the World Series, in part due to an outstanding performance from 22-year-old Trey Yesavage, who apparently uses doomscrolling as a way to prepare mentally. Professional athletes: they’re just like us!
Apparently, there’s more going on than just Jontay Porter. ESPN, ABC News, and NBC News report that Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups have been arrested by the FBI in separate cases, with a press conference planned for 10AM ET.
[Rozier and Jones are] among six people charged Thursday with turning professional basketball into a criminal gambling operation by using inside information to place unlawful wagers, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
No reason was given for Strava’s voluntary dismissal, three weeks after it attempted to block sales of Garmin devices due to alleged patent infringement.
[DC Rainmaker]
