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Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I’m your host, Joe Popriano, and I’m here to coach you through the financial game. Today, we’ve got Yahoo Sports senior writer Jake Mintz coming on the show to discuss all things baseball, and British boxing promoter Eddie Hearn joining us to discuss Mattroom’s growing business around the world. Let’s huddle up and get right into it.We are kicking off this week with POM’s Playbook, where I take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know. First up, the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes a tax provision that could quietly destroy professional gambling in the United States. Right now, gamblers can offset 100% of their losses against winnings. However, starting in 2026, that deduction will be capped at 90%.That means if you win $100,000 in a year and also lose $100,000 in the same year, you’ll be taxed as if you made $10,000 in profit, despite the fact that you really didn’t make any money.This seemingly small change could collapse the foundation of legal sports betting. Professional gamblers who help set efficient lines and fund prize pools will flee to offshore markets. Without their volume, sports books will reduce contests, wide odds, and raise fees on casual players. Daily fantasy sports prize pools will shrink, betting markets will get less.And legal gambling will start to spiral. Ironically, some sports books may welcome this. Professional gamblers eat into their profits, and this bill could push them out of the system entirely. But state governments stand to lose the most. They build big budgets around gambling revenue. If activity goes offshore, tax revenue dries up, not just federally but locally too.This isn’t the first time excessive gambling taxes backfired. It happened in the US in 1951 in the UK before the 2000s. So, unless Congress steps in to fix it, we could see history repeat itself.Next up, Texas Tech just pulled off one of the biggest recruiting wins in college football history, and it comes with a massive payday. On the 4th of July, 5-star offensive tackle Felix Ojo, the #6 overall player in the 2026 class and the top recruit in Texas, committed to Texas Tech over Blue Bloods like Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio State.But this wasn’t just a football decision, it was a business one too. According to reports, Ojo signed a fully guaranteed revenue sharing deal with Texas Tech worth $5.1 million over three years. About half of that is guaranteed, with the rest tied to incentives and renegotiation clauses. He’s set to earn $1.2 million in year 1 $1.6 million in year two, and $2.1 million in year three. Numbers previously unheard of for an offensive lineman at the.level. This all became possible thanks to the House for NCAA settlement, which took effect on July 1st and officially allows schools to share revenue directly with athletes. Texas Tech has already been making waves in the transfer portal, but this solidifies their emergence as a serious national player. Ojo becomes the highest rated commitment in school history and headlines would shaping up to be a top 25 class. It’s a new era in college football, and Texas Tech is wasting no time jumping in headfirst.And last on PO’s playbook today is news that ESPN just landed a major win with NFL analyst Dan Orlowski set to stay with the network for several more years. After weeks of speculation, Front Office Sports is reporting that Orlowski and ESPN have agreed to a long-term contract extension. The former NFL quarterback is set to continue on his roles on NFL Live, SportsCenter, First Take, GetUp, and as lead analyst for the ESPN’s #2 Monday Night Football broadcast team along Chris Fowler and Lewis Reddick.This deal brings stability with the NFL preseason just around the corner and shuts down any potential move to CBS, where Dan Lawsky was reportedly on tap as a top candidate for the college football coverage. His popularity has even sparked coaching rumors with reports that he’s spoken to NFL teams and expressed interest in a future on the sidelines. But for now, ESPN gets to keep one of its rising stars just in time for what’s shaping up to be a big 2025 season.All right, everyone, let’s talk baseball. July is a big month for Major League Baseball. We’re halfway through the season. The All-Star game is a week away, and the trade deadline is set for July 31st. So today we’re bringing on Yahoo sports writer Jake Mintz to cover all the bases. Pun absolutely intended. Jake, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Let’s start with just what your top storylines for MLB so far this year are.

4:20 spk_1

Hm, good question. Uh, I think it is the Los Angeles Dodgers versus the world, just the staggering amount of money that that organization has decided to spend on players, uh, is really overwhelming.They have kind of, you know, been sleepwalking through what has been a dominant first half. They are up by a comfortable margin in the National League West, uh, and the storyline moving forward is can anybody challenge them come playoff time, and then in Newand the Big Apple, you have the Yankees and the Mets, two other big market teams, kind of scuffling a little bit through June, starting to maybe find their footing as they move towards the trade deadline, which will be a good opportunity for them to reinforce their rosters.

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Yeah, as a Yankees fan, the last couple of weeks have been tough, especially with pitching injuries and everything else, but hopefully they clean that up. I mean, the Dodgers have had some injuries too, so, uh, the fact that they’re, they’re doing so well is is uh quite impressive. But let’s talk about, uh, the CBA. One of the things that I think is fascinating is that the, um, the CBA is going to be renegotiated, I think in uh at the start of 2026, it’s up and need to sign a new deal.One of the things that keeps popping up is that uh the idea of a salary cap. Now, this has been talked about for a long time, owners obviously would like it, uh, players do not want it. What do you see happening here? Will there be a lockout? Do you think it’ll actually get approved, or do they just kind of go business as usual and keep things status quo?

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So, everything that I’ve heard rumblings about the next round of CBA negotiations is that it’s going to be pretty adversarial, and there is an expectation that some games may be missed, um, hopefully a full lockout is avoided. I do think you’re right that the salary cap is going to be a major issue.Next time that the CBA gets negotiated, the union will not agree to a salary cap without a salary floor would be my assumption. I think that the spending that the Dodgers have undergone over the last few years has made a salary cap a more interesting proposition for fans.And so you’re seeing more of a push for that from the public side. How that actually impacts negotiations remains to be seen.

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Are there anything else, uh, within the CBA that you’re hearing would be of interest to either the owners of the players that might be sort of like a um uh a point of emphasis that could cause a lockout or something like that?

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Um, I think the, the last CBA negotiation, the big conversation was about competitive balance and incentivizing small market teams to spend, right? What the union wants is for the owners of these teams to see their uh ownership.stewardship, as an investment in a local institution, and not necessarily as some something that makes money for the sake of making money, that there are other, you know, areas and avenues for these business people to go ahead and do that. And I think Steve Cohen, the owner of the Mets, hasMaybe, uh, not created some discord within the group of owners, but showed that there’s kind of a different way. Like he is spending money on the Mets because he grew up a Mets fan and he wants them to win the World Series, and I think that is what fans want to see owners acting like instead of a larger kind of, you know, investment group coming in and using the organization as more of a, you know, an an investment opportunity.

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And lastly, I’d love to just get your opinion quickly on uh just the state of Major League Baseball. I mean, the year started with ESPN backing out of its deal with MLB. I think maybe they might even regret that to a degree. The numbers are obviously really good this year and the sports appears to be doing rather healthy. There’s a lot of young stars, etc. Like, what is your general impression of where baseball is today versus where it was maybe 5 years ago?

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The rule changes that Commissioner Rob Manfred implemented a couple years ago have been very successful, most notably the pitch clock. The games move faster, they end earlier, and for a younger generation that is more distracted than ever, that is a big deal. Numbers are up in terms of viewership, numbers are up in terms of attendance, but when itcomes to the national stage, it is still a very localized sport, more than any other sport in our country, and that is part of the hold up with the negotiations with ESPN, right? ESPN would like more of a local focus in that package, because that’s where the viewership numbers are. I believe 25%.Around uh of the total revenue comes from these local TV packages across the entire league. Um, and so ESPN is a little bit less interested in the national stuff during the regular season, because it doesn’t really move the needle. Local is king when it comes to baseball. But as far as the sport is concerned as a whole, I do think it’s in a really healthy spot compared to where it was 5 years ago.

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Yep, I’ve really been enjoying this season so far. Jake, thank you so much for joining us.

9:13 spk_1

It’s a pleasure. Thank you for having me. All

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right, we’ve got to take a quick break, but coming up we’ve got an inside look at the man turning boxing matches into blockbuster events, not just in the US or UK but all over the world.Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I’m your host, Joe Pompeiano, and for today’s one on one, I’m joined by one of the most powerful men in boxing. He’s promoted more than 1000 fights, filled stadiums around the world, and never turns down a microphone. This week we’re talking to Mattroom Sport chairman Eddie Hearn. Eddie, thank you so much for joining the show today. For people that are listening to this show that maybe aren’t as familiar with boxing as a sport or you in general, uh, can you just explain a little bit about what Mattroom does specifically?

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Yeah well, Metrom is a, a big sports global promotional company. So we are delivering sports events globally around the world across a multitude of sports. Boxing probably the most famous of those, and certainly with the highest profile as well. Um, trying to explain boxing is very difficult. Uh, trying to explain a sport with no barriers to entry, um, you know, all these different governing bodies, all these different promoters, all these different networks, all these different.Uh, platforms is very difficult, but essentially boxing is, you know, the, the prize fighting sport that spans back decades with, you know, steeps of history and a huge amount of hype and noise every time there’s a major event and.Through the peaks and troughs of the sport of boxing, one thing remains, the, the desire of platforms and broadcasters and, and money men and fans to become involved in the major events, and right now, boxing’s seeing a major boom in the market.

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Yeah, one of the things that we’ve noticed over the years specifically is, uh, the type of boxing has changed, right? I think in America specifically, we’ve become accustomed to some of these more celebrity driven fights where uh the boxers themselves have become celebrities, but we’ve seen crossovers from UFC uh with Conor McGregor. We’ve seen some of the YouTube personalities start to box as well. What makes like a good fight in your opinion, to where you’re gonna be able to draw a good viewership number?

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I think really it’s about narrative, you know, it’s about the promotion, and one of the reasons that these crossover fights work is because of the.Uh, profile and the self-promotional ability of those individuals. I mean, Conor McGregor’s a great example. Jake Paul is obviously another example as well. So it’s really about the, you know, the, the drawing power of the individual, the followers that they have, and the narrative that they can sell. For us, we’re a pure boxing promotional company. I, I probably started the YouTube mess by doing KSI against Logan Paul 2 in in Staples Center. We made a lot of money, but I really didn’t enjoy it because it was just not.You know, I’m a, I’m a hardcore boxing fan, you know, so we’re trying to bring the great fights back. And I think what Is the big event, of course, is a great product, which is a great fight, but also great storytelling, great narrative, and, and, you know, that’s when you know you’ve got a great fight and you can build a huge audience. So, yeah, right now the boxing world, you know, like I said, sometimes it’s a little bit like the wild west in terms of the, the product itself.Um, but certainly the key for me in driving a big event is pre-event hype, build up, and a great narrative, great storytelling, and really that’s my job as a promoter, to tell the fan base the story of this fight.

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And I’m sure you’ve been asked about this a million times, but you mentioned earlier how kind of, uh, segregated boxing is, right? There’s no barrier to entry. There’s all these different organizational bodies, and it’s really difficult to comprehend for new fans. One of the things that I think American sports fans have probably heard of over the last few months is, uh, the new entity that is now popping up to sort of be like a traditional sports league for boxing between TKO Group, Saudi, Turkey, etc. What is your overall just opinion on what that looks like and its chances of success?

13:12 spk_2

I think it’s great for boxing, you know, I mean, firstly, you have to ask yourself why is Dana White trying to enter the space? The answer is right now, I think boxing he is much hotter than MMA, you know, for, for a long period of time, it hasn’t had the big events, it hasn’t had the profile, it hasn’t had the hype, and now you’re seeing that with promoters stepping up with Turkey la Sheikh and Saudi Arabia investing a huge amount of money in the sport. For Dana and those guys, I think they’re gonna find it very difficult in boxing because they’re a business that’s built out of control.And for me, boxing is actually out of control, which in a sense makes it quite fun. But, you know, I think their plan is to go in and try and build young talent and and those middle line prospects and kind of create that ownership where you fight whoever you’re told to fight. And in boxing, probably to the detriment of the sport, sometimes you’re individually negotiating every single fight of a multi-fight contract.And that’s something you’re not doing in UFC. You sign a, you know, you sign a contract, you’re told when you’re fighting, your purse is already set. The UFC had complete control over the fighter, the talent, and that’s what they’ll be trying to do in boxing, and I don’t think that’s necessarily going to wash. It’s definitely not gonna wash with the big guys, because I think, you know, every fighter has a manager, a lawyer, an advisor.And they want to navigate the career correctly, ultimately their job is to take the easiest fights for the most amount of money.And the promoter’s job is to pay the fighter the right money for the biggest fights possible.

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I think that’s a very fair way to look at it. Those people are obviously very uh smart and have done a great job with the UFC, but you can’t just simply take that model and move it over to boxing, right? Even if you look at the UFC, the most popular fighters that would be able to demand the most money, they’ve had a lot of issues with those fighters, right? Because you get to a point where those fighters don’t want to be told who to fight, when to fight for this amount of money. They want to be able to negotiate their own.Deals and they know their values. So, uh, I’m totally aligned on that. But one of the things that I think Matchroom specifically has uh done that’s interesting is, uh, from a streaming perspective. I know that you guys have this broader partnership with the global streamer Dione, and you were one of the first global promoters to really dive into that from a linear TV to a streaming perspective. Why did you decide to do that initially and how do you think it has gone so far? And what do you think the future looks like for that versus uh linear television goingforward?

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I just think we noticed that the, you know, the habits of the viewer were changing, you know, from that of traditional linear TV to streaming. I mean, you know, obviously the, the growth of Netflix and and other apps like that is, is easy to, to identify. But from a sports perspective, I, I just think that people now, they want variation and they want the ability, because I think their attention span is drifting and they’re multitasking during during viewership.And I think really we wanted the ability to stream direct to mobile phones, to tablets, and we saw that growth many years ago, and our deal with the zone started 6 years ago, and it’s incredible the rise. I mean, people don’t necessarily understand in America, perhaps the size of the zone.Globally, in terms of the multitude of sports rights that it acquires. In America, really, you know, I know they’ve got the FIFA Club World Cup, of course, and, and other products as well. But it’s, it’s notoriously known as a boxing service, and it is now the global home of boxing. But, you know, Joe, when I launched with the Zone 6 years ago, I was going to these fighters pitching them and trying to have a conversation to explain that it’s time to leave HBO or Showtime because they’ll be leaving the space and you need to go with a streaming partner.You know, I laugh now at the conversation, so, so you’re telling me it’s an app. I’m like, yeah, it’s an app. But I, you know, this is the future of broadcast and it’s the future of boxing, and they’ve got there now, they’re in a tremendous place. I mean, I think it’s over 80 odd shows a year on the zone. Every major fight is on the platform. And we got ridiculed for a long time from our rival promoters.You know, calling the, the app or what’s the fight, who wants to fight on an app, you know, it’s dead zone, it’s not the zone, trying to make sure the fighters didn’t.Migrate there. Now those same promoters are phoning up the platform trying to get a rights deal with the platform and trying to place their product there. So it’s been a huge success and luckily we got that one right, you know, with with with streaming. And it was a long while back, it was a big move, cos we went from our traditional broadcasters like Sky Sports and HBO who I had a deal with at the time in America, and made the move globally to Dizone. And what was important with that was as well.Every market we had an individual rights deal with, and it’s a very mixed message. So when I’m out across social media trying to explain to the global fight fan where you can find the product, you know, it’s on Sky Sports in the UK it’s on HBO in America, it’s on Fox in Australia, it’s, it’s on via sat in Scandinavia. Now there’s one place where you can find Mattro’s product, globally, anywhere in the world, and that’s on the zone, and it’s been a, been a big success for our business.

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Yeah, very interesting and certainly the right decision. Last question for you, Eddie, is around uh just global expansion. I know Matchroom is expanding globally, US, UK, etc. but Saudi Arabia and the Middle East specifically has become a major player in boxing over the last number of years. Is this something that you think is sustainable or is it more of a short term kind of a gold rush?

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Yeah, for us individually, I mean, we’re the only global promotional company in the world, and what I mean by that is we’re the only promotional company that is the lead promoter in all these different territories. So we have major rights deals of course in the UK, in the US, in Mexico, 6 shows a year, 6 shows a year in Australia, Italy, Spain, um, and of course Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan throughout Eastern Europe. I mean we’re everywhere.And that’s been great for us. The growth in Saudi Arabia has been very interesting. I mean, they’re probably, they’re coming up to 2 years deep now in boxing. A lot of people felt that they would have left by now, but Turkey al Sheikh has a very good vision and is also very intelligent as well. And they are spending a huge amount of money, and I mean, I think it’s really benefiting the sport cos we’re seeing the big fights being made, but they certainly.Showing no signs of slowing down. Also, their partnership with us, their partnership with the zone. You know what I mean, this weekend you’ve got a Ring magazine card coming up uh in New York, fantastic card next weekend. We’re in Texas with Jesse Vargas, so, uh, Jesse Rodriguez. Last week we’re in Manchester. It’s like a global tour with the zone and the Saudis are really, really investing in the sport, not just in terms of paying up for, for, for the fights, but investing in the promotion.You know, Turkeyala Sheikh’s acquisition of the Ring Magazine as well, making that a very powerful platform for the sport. So that’s helped the profile of boxing, and as I said, it’s made, in my opinion, boxing now much bigger than MMA and it’s even made the guys in MMMA Michaelri it over to boxing. So I think at the moment, the property is red hot, the zone is red hot and uh long may it continue.

20:09 spk_0

Very interesting. Yeah, boxing doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all, especially in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. Eddie, thank you so much for joining the show today.Thanks, Joe.The clock is running down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. So let’s talk about the business behind the Tour de France. It all started in 1903 when French newspaper Elato created the tour as a marketing sun to boost circulation, and it worked with sales doubling immediately. Today, it’s owned by Amari sport organization, or ASO, a private company that also runs the Dakar Rally and other events, but the Tour de France is their crown jewel, accounting for more than half of ASO’s annual revenue.So how does it bring in that kind of money? Well, first is sponsorships. Roughly 50% of tour revenue comes from corporate sponsors. There are over 40 official partners, including LCL Bank and Continental. Even the iconic jerseys, the yellow, green, polka dot, and white, each have their own dedicated sponsor.Next up is meteorites. The tour is broadcast in over 190 countries and attracts up to 3.5 billion cumulative viewers. ASO reportedly earns more than $80 million annually from global broadcasting deals. Then there are hosting fees. Towns pay between $70,000 and $120,000 to host the stage start or finish. Why? Well, because the tour draws tens of thousands of tours, global media attention and priceless.Marketing value. ASO then uses that money to fund the race’s prize pool. The total purse is around $2.5 million with the winner taking home about $540,000. But unlike other sports, riders usually split that money with their entire team, including mechanics, chefs, support staff, and other riders on their team. That’s why most riders rely on salaries and sponsorships more than prize money. Top cyclists can earn between$2 million.05 million dollars annually through team deals and endorsements. In simple terms, the Tour de France is much more than a bike race. It’s a three-week traveling roadshow with 4500 staff members, team buses, helicopters, and production crews coordinating a new city each day. It’s also a global marketing platform. Sponsors don’t just put their logos on jerseys, they set up villages, run caravans, and interact with millions of fans lining the roads.So, next time you see a pack of riders charging up a mountain, remember behind every pedal stroke is a century old business model that’s still spinning out profits.We’re all out of time, so it’s officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Jake, Eddie, and for all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insight and catch us every Friday wherever you get your podcast. I’m your host, Joe Pompeiano. See you next

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time.This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.