On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including new financial details about the recent sale of Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals.
According to a recent Sportico story, the $580 million deal assigned the NWSL team a $100 million valuation. That’s a significant jump from the roughly $2 million that the team’s previous owner, David Blitzer, paid to reactivate the team as an expansion franchise just a few years prior. Blitzer may not have made a sizable return on his investment in the MLS club, but the NWSL club was almost certainly a profitable transaction.
Next the hosts talk about the Tour de France. One of pro cycling’s most prominent French teams announced this week that it would change ownership for the 2026 season. The deal was announced during the biggest race on the annual cycling calendar. The hosts talk about the economics of cycling teams and the way in which French labor law makes riders more expensive for teams based in France.
Next they react to this week’s Penn State men’s hockey news. The program was a club team 15 years ago; this season it made its first Frozen Four appearance, and the Nittany Lions just landed Gavin McKenna, the biggest recruit in college hockey. McKenna is expected to be taken No. 1 overall in next year’s NHL draft, and his decision to go to Penn State reflects the rise of NIL money across the NCAA, a new change in NCAA hockey eligibility rules, and the rapid rise of PSU’s program.
They close by talking through a handful of other topics. They include BYU freshman basketball phenom AJ Dybantsa signing a new partnership with Fanatics, and FIFA opening a new New York office in Trump Tower, the latest example of the global soccer governing body seeking a cozy relationship with the current U.S. president.
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