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By: Justin Lafleur Story Links HANOVER, N.H. — Following a sensational season, five members of Dartmouth men’s heavyweight rowing’s varsity eight have been named Empacher-IRCA All-Americans. Leading the way was Billy Bender, who was named an All-American for the fourth time in his career, earning first-team honors for a […]
HANOVER, N.H. — Following a sensational season, five members of Dartmouth men’s heavyweight rowing’s varsity eight have been named Empacher-IRCA All-Americans. Leading the way was Billy Bender, who was named an All-American for the fourth time in his career, earning first-team honors for a third time. Miles Hudgins was also named a first teamer, with Isaiah Harrison, Julian Thomas and Munroe Robinson all garnering second team All-America recognition. The five All-Americans are tied for the most nationally.
As members of the Eastern Sprints runner-up boat, all five were also named second team All-Ivy League last month.
Bender was named a second team All-American in 2021 then first team in 2022 and 2023. Last season, he was away from campus training for the Olympics. Upon his return to Dartmouth, he was in the stroke seat all year for the varsity eight, which went unbeaten in its spring dual season. The crew went on to finish second at Eastern Sprints and third at the IRA National Championship, only trailing Washington and Harvard at IRAs. Dartmouth’s grand final time of 5:30.900 was only 0.15 seconds behind the Crimson in second and just 1.12 seconds behind the national champion Huskies.
Meanwhile, Hudgins sat in the five seat of the varsity eight. He was also named an Academic All-Ivy member this season. Along with his success at Dartmouth, he has been a mainstay in the USRowing pipeline as a member of the Under-19 national team in 2021 and Under-23 teams in 2022 and 2024. Last summer, he won gold in the four.
A first-year, Harrison jumped right into the varsity eight and impressed, sitting in the four seat at Eastern Sprints and IRAs. Julian Thomas was in the six seat while Munroe Robinson sat in the seven seat, all playing critical roles in the varsity eight’s success. The spring began with a win at Yale, giving Dartmouth the Olympic Axe for the first time in the Axe’s 21-year history. The crew went on to pick up dual victories over Boston University, Syracuse, Wisconsin, Columbia and Northeastern. Thomas has excelled with USRowing as well, with the Under-19 team in 2021 and Under-23 teams from 2022-24. Last summer, he won silver in the eight.
The varsity eight’s third-place finish at IRAs marked its highest national finish since 1992.
Class of 2026 hockey forward prospect Mason West has committed to Michigan State over Boston College. West announced his collegiate decision through a social media post on Saturday morning. “I’m honored to announce my commitment to play Division 1 hockey and further my education at Michigan State University,” said West via X. “I am extremely […]
Class of 2026 hockey forward prospect Mason West has committed to Michigan State over Boston College.
West announced his collegiate decision through a social media post on Saturday morning.
“I’m honored to announce my commitment to play Division 1 hockey and further my education at Michigan State University,” said West via X. “I am extremely grateful for my family, friends, coaches, and teammates who helped me along the way.”
Earlier in the month, West spoke to NHL.com senior draft writer Mike G. Morreale and shared that he was down to the Spartans and Eagles leading up to the 2025 NHL Draft.
The rising high school senior attends Edina High School in Edina, Minn. He is a two-sport athlete that also plays quarterback on the school’s football team.
He also revealed to Morreale that he is planning to play one final season of football in the fall before heading to Fargo, N.D., to join the Fargo Force in December.
“Fargo really gave me that experience of what the hockey path could look like,” said West. “Obviously, they don’t have that in football, so I got to see what the next step is for a hockey career, and I want to pursue that. I think I can get way better when I really focus on one sport.”
West has already seen time in a handful of games for the Force last season where he tallied one goal and eight assists for nine points.
On the ice for Edina, West appeared in 31 games and tallied 27 goals and 22 assists for 49 points last season. On the gridiron, he went 178-of-244 for 2,592 yards, 38 touchdowns, and four interceptions.
He is expected to be picked in the draft next week.
It may not seem like it, but UCLA has a rich history on the ice. Currently a club team in the West Coast Hockey Conference (WCHC), the question must be asked: is it time to bring Bruins hockey back where it belongs — on the national stage — and make it a platform for aspiring […]
It may not seem like it, but UCLA has a rich history on the ice.
Currently a club team in the West Coast Hockey Conference (WCHC), the question must be asked: is it time to bring Bruins hockey back where it belongs — on the national stage — and make it a platform for aspiring California hockey players to reach the next level?
Starting in 1926, back when it was known as the Southern Branch of the University of California, UCLA opened the doors to its first varsity hockey program, joining several others such as now-rival USC.
It was the beginning of something special. In 1938, the school built the Tropical Ice Gardens Arena, an ice rink where all Los Angeles-based programs would play.
However, during World War II, all Pacific Coast schools were forced to shut down their hockey programs with the intention of restarting later. Unfortunately, UCLA was not one of the schools to bring its team back. The Tropical Ice Gardens Arena, only 11 years old by 1949, was shut down and ultimately demolished a year later.
The Bruins revived their hockey program in 1961, but only as a club team — and it’s remained that way ever since.
Now a member of the WCHC, UCLA often faces schools such as Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, and Arizona State — which has both a Division I team and a WCHC presence.
They’ve also developed a strong rivalry with USC. Each year, the two teams face off in a five-game series called the Crosstown Cup, typically played at Crypto.com Arena, home of the Los Angeles Kings.
Despite being a club program, UCLA has had recent success on the ice. While the 2024–25 team didn’t meet expectations, the Bruins posted a 35-16 record from 2022–24 under head coach Griffin McCarty.
McCarty believes UCLA is a high-end destination for hockey players looking to advance their careers while receiving a top-tier education — but with the team still designated as a club, the exposure is minimal.
“The more seasons like we have this year (will) let kids know if you are a great academic student and a great hockey player, come to UCLA,” McCarty told Amelie Ionescu, of the Daily Bruin. “You’re going to get a great degree, you’re going to play high-level hockey, and you’re going to have a great time.”
But how can UCLA become the next Arizona State?
One word: funding.
ASU’s hockey program received $32 million in donations from Don Mullett and an anonymous donor. So the Bruins will need something of that nature.
UCLA has already allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to programs like basketball, football, and baseball. The baseball team reached the College World Series for the first time in 12 years, and football is in the midst of a promising rebuild.
So is there room for hockey?
Possibly. But given how little hockey moves the needle for most athletic departments — and how expensive the sport is — there isn’t exactly a rush from deep-pocketed donors.
One realistic long-term funder is Anaheim Ducks owner and UCLA alum Henry Samueli, a billionaire whose name is on the school’s engineering department. But with $1 billion in planned renovations for the Ducks’ Honda Center, it may be a reach to expect Samueli to step in right now.
Still, hockey in Southern California is thriving. Youth and peewee programs have exploded in participation. The region has seen three Stanley Cup wins — two by the Kings, one by the Ducks. And there’s a growing list of California-born NHL stars like Jason Robertson, Trevor Moore, Thatcher Demko, and more.
The challenge? The West Coast lacks Division I representation. Aside from ASU and a few teams in Alaska, nearly every D-I hockey program resides in the Midwest or Northeast.
Giving college hockey a legitimate platform out West would expand the game and introduce the sport to new fans. And with the right backing, UCLA could be the next program to help redefine the college hockey landscape.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets: Item No. 1: Dealin’ Don Since the end of the Stanley Cup Final early last week, business across the NHL has picked up, with a flurry of signings and trades as clubs get […]
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collection of notes, insights, ruminations and did-you-knows gathered throughout the week that was for the Columbus Blue Jackets:
Since the end of the Stanley Cup Final early last week, business across the NHL has picked up, with a flurry of signings and trades as clubs get ready for next weekend’s draft and the start of free agency.
Blue Jackets GM Don Waddell has yet to join the party, but it’s not for lack of trying. Waddell, who spent part of last week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., attending a showcase for young Russian players, has been quietly working behind the scenes on moves both big and small.
As colleague Pierre LeBrun reported, the Blue Jackets had talked with the Dallas Stars about Mason Marchment before Marchment was traded to the Seattle Kraken last week.
The Blue Jackets want a top-six forward and a right-shot center, but they also want to reconstruct their blue line with a right-shot (right side) defenseman who can play in the top four. They’d also like to overhaul their goaltending, which has been among the worst in the NHL over the past four seasons.
Yeah, that’s all.
Of course, Waddell may not get it all done — that’s literally every position on the ice, right? — by the time the league settles into its offseason hibernation around mid-July.
As the silly season kicks into overdrive beginning this week, here are six players (or commodities) the Blue Jackets might trade, six players they could trade for and five players they could be expected to pursue via free agency.
1. No. 14 pick: OK, not a player (technically), but this pick will have a name by Friday evening. Waddell has made it clear he’s willing to part with one or both of his first-round picks — he also has No. 20 — but the guess here is he’ll need to add a sweetener (perhaps No. 2 on this list) to land an impact player.
2. Yegor Chinakhov, LW: Chinakhov has plenty of talent; the shot, the speed. But he has had trouble staying on the ice, and if there’s one thing veteran GMs loathe, it’s a player who is frequently injured or is perceived to be unwilling to push through pain.
3. Elvis Merzlikins, G: If we assume there is a market — a team that thinks it can pull Merzlikins’ considerable talent back to the surface — the Blue Jackets would have to consider it. Any deal would likely require the Blue Jackets to pay a portion of his remaining salary (two years, $5.4 million salary cap hit). Failing a trade, a buyout is possible.
4. No. 20 pick: It’s unclear whether this draft is deep enough for anybody to be truly excited about the No. 20 pick, but, hey, you have to listen. Waddell is willing to move one of his first-round picks. He’s not against moving both of his first-round picks, either. Friday could be fun.
5. Ivan Provorov, D: If it becomes clear that Provorov is hitting free agency, there will be several teams lined up to sign him, just as teams were lining up to trade for him at the deadline in March. If a club wants dibs, it might trade for Provorov’s rights so it can negotiate a deal without interference from another club. We see you, Rangers.
6. Cole Sillinger, C: This one would sting. Sillinger is an important part of the Blue Jackets at a very young age, and there’s certainly no desire to trade him. But if the Blue Jackets are in the market for big moves involving significant pieces, they’d have to include impact players, too. Sillinger, who plays behind Adam Fantilli and Sean Monahan, would move the needle for a lot of clubs.
1. JJ Peterka, LW, Buffalo: It seems unconscionable that the Sabres, waiting desperately for their rebuild to gain traction, would move a 23-year-old player who has scored 55 goals the past two seasons. But it doesn’t sound like Peterka is longing for upstate New York. Few would be more familiar with the Blue Jackets’ roster than former GM Jarmo Kekäläinen, who joined Buffalo’s hockey operations department earlier this month.
2. Rasmus Andersson, D, Calgary: The Blue Jackets need a top-four defenseman who can play on the right side. They (desperately) need some grit and nastiness in their top four. Andersson checks both of those boxes. If Dante Fabbro doesn’t re-sign with Columbus, Andersson could potentially get a look on the top pair with Zach Werenski. Andersson has one year remaining at $4.55 million and has a six-team no-trade list, according to PuckPedia.
3. John Gibson, G, Anaheim: The Ducks and Gibson have been rumored to be parting ways for, what, three seasons now? It’s never seemed more likely than now, with youngster Lukas Dostal playing his way into the No. 1 job. The market for free-agent goaltenders is thin. A trade might be the safest bet. Gibson has two years remaining at $6.4 million and a 10-team no-trade list.
4. Noah Dobson, D, NY Islanders: Is this guy seriously available? His name has been kicked about more than you’d expect for a 25-year-old, top-four defenseman who has averaged 11.5 goals and 52.25 points over the last four seasons. The return would have to be substantial, and there would be many bidders.
5. Jason Robertson, LW, Dallas: It’s hard to believe the Stars would even take calls on a two-time 40-goal scorer, one-time 100-point producer who turns 26 next month, but they are reportedly listening. One should assume Waddell has Dallas GM Jim Nill on speed dial — wait, is that still a thing? — but the asking price would be monumental.
6. Martin Necas, RW, Colorado: The salary cap has gone up, but it won’t provide enough relief for the Avalanche, who have been in cap and injury hell for a while now. Necas has a history with Waddell, of course. They were in Carolina together when Necas emerged as a legit NHL top-six forward.
1. Mitch Marner, RW, Toronto: It’s also hard to believe the Maple Leafs will let a 100-point scorer walk, but it will likely come to that. If Marner is receptive to the idea of joining the Blue Jackets — and they’re a much more inviting situation now than they were a short while ago — expect Waddell to throw massive term and money at Marner. His addition would make the Jackets one of the NHL’s most dynamic offensive clubs. They might even discover a power play!
2. Nikolaj Ehlers, LW, Winnipeg: The bigger role he’s long wanted with the Jets would be his in Columbus, including a possible run with Monahan and Kirill Marchenko on the top line. He’s a 25-goal, 60-point player despite modest minutes. He played 15:47 per game last season, which would have ranked eighth among forwards in Columbus.
3. Jake Allen, G, New Jersey: In a thin market, he’s at the top of most lists. If the Jackets part ways with Merzlikins, they’d almost certainly want a veteran player to pair with young Jet Greaves as a new-look tandem. Allen, who turns 35 later this summer, will seek a team that can promise him a shot at being the starter. It might take a three-year deal to land him, though.
4. Aaron Ekblad, D, Florida: The Panthers will try to keep the band together after winning a second straight Stanley Cup title. For a time, it seemed Seth Jones’ arrival would make Ekblad expendable, but he had a tremendous postseason and has made it clear he wants to stay. That’s the only reason he’s No. 4, not No. 1, on this list.
5. Cody Ceci, D, Dallas: This wouldn’t set off fireworks in the Arena District, but Ceci can carry big minutes and play a solid role next to an offensive defenseman. If Fabbro doesn’t re-sign with the Blue Jackets, this might be more likely.
It was a momentous week for the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets, whose efforts to build a new facility and add multiple sheets of ice to the growing central Ohio hockey scene took a big step forward.
Delaware City Council approved plans to build a 125,000 square-foot complex — the Performance Impact Arena and Pavilion — that will include three ice rinks and a 6,000-seat amphitheater, which would host concerts in the summer and be transformed into an outdoor rink for use in the winter.
The facility, with a price tag north of $50 million, will be built on approximately 14 acres at the southwest corner of the Sawmill Parkway/Ohio Route 42 intersection, about three miles south of Delaware.
Ohio AAA Blue Jackets president Ed Gingher said the amphitheater, which hopes to host 30 concerts per summer, should be completed by May of 2027. For perspective, the downtown Columbus amphitheater, KEMBA Live!, can hold 5,200 for outdoor concerts.
The hockey rinks will likely be ready for use in the fall or winter of 2027. Gingher said the rinks will be available for use by all levels of hockey, including high school teams and tournaments and local adult leagues.
The Ohio AAA Blue Jackets count current NHL players Sean Kuraly, Connor Murphy, Keifer Sherwood and Jack Roslovic among their alums, along with several other pro players and hundreds of players who have earned college scholarships. Sascha Boumedienne would be the program’s third first-round NHL draft pick, joining Murphy and Roslovic.
When the Blue Jackets arrived as an expansion team in 2000, there were four ice rinks in Columbus. When this project is completed, the area will have 14 rinks, not including the main ice at Nationwide Arena.
• Every NHL GM needs to know how to juggle. Waddell, for one, has a lot of balls in the air right now, which might explain why talks with Provorov have been so slow. The Jackets are looking for a right-side defenseman who can balance their pairs, and the more likely path is via trade. That’s been Waddell’s focus for the last few weeks, and if he lands a top-four defenseman, Provorov is likely expendable. If he figures out he can’t, you can expect the Provorov talks to get serious quickly. (By now, both sides know where they stand, right?)
• Werenski finished second in Norris Trophy voting, the highest a Blue Jackets defenseman has ever landed. When we spoke with him earlier this week, he acknowledged having mixed feelings. “If you would have told me before the season that I’d finish second in the Norris, I would have been ecstatic,” he said. “But when it comes out and you’re second, you want to win it. I thought maybe the voting would be a little closer, but there’s no denying (Cale Makar’s) 30 goals and 90-something points. I totally get why he wins it, right?” Makar earned 176 first-point votes and 1,861 points overall. Werenski earned 13 first-place votes and finished with 1,266 points.
• Werenski said he knew he hadn’t won the award before it was announced, however. It seems the NHL’s new wrinkle this year — they surprised the award winners and captured it on video — was a big hit among fans, and made for a much more enjoyable awards show. But it did reveal to the other finalists whether or not they’d won. “We were in Europe and all of these surprise videos are coming out,” said Werenski, who took a pre-wedding honeymoon with his fiancée. “Nobody surprised me in Europe, right? (laughing) So, I knew two weeks before that I didn’t win.”
• Random item I stumbled upon this week: Mike Sillinger had a heck of an NHL career, totaling 240-308-548 in 1,049 games. But his claim to fame is playing for 12 different franchises (an NHL record) and being traded nine times (tied for an NHL mark). Now get this: His son, Cole Sillinger, who recently turned 22 years old, has already played more games for the Blue Jackets — 286 — than his father did for any of his 12 clubs.
• It sounds like the Blue Jackets and FanDuel Sports Network are nearing a deal to have the regional sports network continue to air games. There are still some details being worked out, but the framework of a deal is in place. FDSN has already announced it will continue to air Cleveland Cavaliers games next season. One issue regarding the Blue Jackets is finding a studio for use when the club is on the road. In recent seasons, host Brian Giesenschlag and analyst Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre have emanated from a Cincinnati studio during Blue Jackets road games, but that studio is no longer available for use.
(Top photo of Ivan Provorov: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Among the many things this column is waiting for — a result in the Manchester City vs Premier League cage fight, Fenway Sports Group to buy a Spanish team, Gianni Infantino to give a press conference — none has been imminent for quite as long as a takeover at Tottenham Hotspur. Much like soccer has […]
Among the many things this column is waiting for — a result in the Manchester City vs Premier League cage fight, Fenway Sports Group to buy a Spanish team, Gianni Infantino to give a press conference — none has been imminent for quite as long as a takeover at Tottenham Hotspur.
Much like soccer has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States for half a century, Spurs have been the next big English club on the block for a decade.
In that time, Spurs have built the best multi-purpose stadium in Europe and sold lots of shirts, but won only one trophy. During the same period, the Premier League has become majority-owned by American billionaires and Tottenham’s billionaire former majority-owner, British businessman Joe Lewis, has put his shares into a family trust, pleaded guilty to insider trading, and celebrated his 88th birthday.
This is a fruit ripe for picking and every investor, private-equity firm and sovereign wealth fund looking for a prize asset in the world’s most popular domestic football league has kicked the tyres at Spurs, taken the tour and run the numbers.
So, why hasn’t anyone bought them yet?
Well, one big reason is that the club has been run by Lewis’ business partner, Daniel Levy, since 2001 and he owns just over a quarter of the club’s shares. Most experts believe Spurs are worth about £3billion ($4bn), or perhaps a bit more now that they are back in the Champions League and the likes of Beyonce are filling the stadium over the summer. But Levy wants £3.75b, another $1bn at today’s exchange rate.
Quite the gap, then, but not so wide that you cannot start haggling, which is why the Spurs takeover story re-emerges every few months and will continue to do so until someone hits Levy’s number, which may have to come down a tad when Joe Lewis’ family decide they want their inheritances.
None of this is particularly shocking and has been widely reported, but The Athletic has been told by several potential suitors that there are two under-reported factors which may influence where this meeting of minds will come.
The first is that not everybody sees the same potential in Tottenham — the north London district, not the club — that Levy and Lewis did. Spurs are by far the biggest attraction in an area that has not seen much gentrification. It is also usually an hour’s taxi ride from the West End hotels and restaurants that the Premier League’s overseas ownership class enjoy.
And the second is the £775million in private placement notes that Levy used to refinance the cost of building the stadium. The size of that debt is not the problem, as the additional revenue from the club’s new home is more than meeting the interest payments. The issue is that Levy, thanks to his good timing and great salesmanship, got a sweet deal when those notes were sold to asset managers, investment firms and pension funds in 2021.
Spurs issued nine tranches of notes, with a range of repayment dates from 2035 to 2051 and interest rates between 2.49 per cent and 3.02 per cent. According to the club’s most recent accounts, Spurs had total borrowings of £851.5m at the end of June 2024, at an average rate of 2.79 per cent and average maturity of almost 19 years.
This means Spurs are paying an interest rate that is lower than inflation. So, in financial terms, they are not really paying any interest at all. This is great for Spurs but terrible for everyone who holds that debt, which is why they are all hoping for a takeover, too, so they can exercise their change-of-control clauses, get their money back and do something else with it.
The club’s new owners would have no problem finding other people — and perhaps even the same people — with whom to refinance the debt. It will just cost them about £20m a year more at the current rates, which adds up over 19 years.
However, neither of those two issues — Spurs’ location or Levy’s luck with the interest rate cycle — are permanent or insurmountable. London is a city of villages that have ebbed and flowed in appeal over the centuries, and any extra interest payments could be covered by a naming rights deal. Interest rates are also meant to be coming down.
So, sit tight, takeover watchers. Spurs will be bought by someone, at some point.
Not the boldest of predictions, maybe, but it is the best we can do.
On the subject of valuation gaps, Spurs’ is a hairline fracture compared to the gaping chasm at Wrexham or, more accurately, the debate about Wrexham’s valuation on this column’s favourite social-media channel, LinkedIn.
It all started earlier this month with a Bloomberg report headlined “Wrexham AFC Weighs Raising Funds at £350 Million Valuation”. Citing unnamed sources, the report said the newly promoted Championship club were talking to advisers about selling a minority stake to boost the playing budget and pay for a new stand.
Sensible stuff, right? And entirely in keeping with what the club’s owners have said they would do and — in fact — have already done, as they sold a stake to the New York-based Allyn family last October.
But that deal was at a valuation of £100m ($135m). OK, Wrexham were still a League One side back then, but it was a record for a third-tier side. So are we really suggesting they have more than tripled in value in less than nine months?
The answer is of course not… or perhaps, because Wrexham are unlike any other club in the English football pyramid.
First, they are Welsh. Second, they are the subject of a very popular Disney-made docuseries. And third, and we feel this column deserves a pat on the back for not mentioning this sooner, they are owned by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.
For those among you who only have time in their lives for football, McElhenney is an American TV actor, producer and writer, and Reynolds is one of the world’s best-paid actors and most recognisable faces. They bought the then-fifth-tier club for £2m in 2021, but three straight promotions, all charted in heart-warming fashion by Disney’s cameras, have brought them to the gates of the Premier League.
But come on, £350m?!? That’s not far off half a billion U.S. dollars. Most English Football League clubs are lucky to be valued at double their annual turnover. In Wrexham’s case, that would be £70m based on last season’s earnings or £100m on next season’s projected earnings.
The top Premier League clubs are valued at about five times their turnover, which reflects the league’s mega media-rights deals, as well as their huge stadiums, global fanbases and access to European football. For Wrexham’s touted price tag to make sense, you would need to apply a revenue multiple that only the most popular American franchises, in the biggest leagues, can command.
But Wrexham is not Los Angeles, and the Championship is not the National Football League. Hence the arguments on LinkedIn.
Of those, the most interesting has been between Alexander Jarvis, the founder of Abu Dhabi-based Blackbridge Sports LLC, and former Charlton manager and Southampton vice-chairman Les Reed.
Jarvis, who recently advised an American group on their purchase of a small stake in Portugal’s Benfica, among other deals, has written two posts about the Wrexham valuation, calling it “a total clown show”, “football’s most outrageous over-valuation”, and “a gamble on celebrity and hype that completely ignores the hard realities of running a football club in the Championship”.
Plenty of people have replied to him saying they agree, including William Storey, who is best known for a collapsed sponsorship deal with F1 team Haas and several failed bids for football teams. He might not be the best referee, then.
Reed, who has been Wrexham’s “football strategy consultant” since 2021, hit back with a post that pointed out Jarvis & Co “have never actually experienced running a club, let alone a club in the Championship”, before noting that Southampton’s former owners, the Liebherr family, eventually sold their shares in the club for close to 10 times their initial investment, which is impressive but not quite the point Jarvis was making about multiples of turnover.
Reed continued by raising the examples of Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton, three clubs who have invested heavily to become “sustainable” Premier League clubs, and asked “why would serious investors not want a stake” in Wrexham’s “journey” towards the same destination.
So, who is right? The guy trying to earn his crust by advising on football takeovers, or the chap who works for Wrexham?
Well, according to this column’s panel of secret football finance experts, it depends on whether Wrexham should be valued as a regular football club or if they have transcended that status and are now a global entertainment brand. If it is the former, they are worth about £100m, which is the valuation the Allyns came in at. If it is the latter, well, why not?
However, even that more conservative valuation is highly vulnerable to what is known in business as “key person risk”. If Rob and Ryan are struck by lightning, get bored, fall out, get sick or lose a court case, will Wrexham look so transcendent?
It is a good debate and there is only one way to settle it: the price someone actually pays for a stake in the club.
While very few clubs are as exposed to key person risk as Wrexham, all are vulnerable to any weakening in demand for the right to broadcast or stream their matches.
If you had to pick one reason valuations have kept rising in the big leagues on both sides of the Atlantic, it is that live sport has been a must-have for TV executives. This means their sports counterparts have only needed two rival broadcasters in any market to create an auction.
So, this month’s news that New York-based media giant Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is splitting into two separate companies has prompted an outpouring of speculation about what it might mean for sport. So far, there is no real consensus.
For those who have missed this story, WBD was formed in 2022 by an expensive merger between two multinational media conglomerates, WarnerMedia and Discovery. But the company’s bosses have now decided to put all the cool, still-growing stuff in one company, Streaming & Studios, so it is not held back by the profitable-but-in-decline TV channels.
The latter are being boxed up in a company called Global Networks and, just in case you did not work out which one of these two entities is the sexy one, it will be run by WBD’s head beancounter, while the chief executive is getting the company that makes Batman, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones. And just to underline that message, all of WBD’s merger-related debt is being passed to the dowdier daughter.
If there is any agreement on what this means for the sports industry, it is that any impact will be felt first in the United States, where WBD’s streaming platform Max has struggled to find its place in a congested market, despite having a decent range of sports to offer. Does this mean that sport is no longer a must-have for any self-respecting media offering, or has WBD just packaged it badly?
The main sports brand is TNT Sports, which is joining the gang in managed decline at Global Networks. It has been part of the Max bundle but has recently lost its NBA rights after a 40-year connection with the league. It still has some baseball, college basketball, ice hockey and motorsport, but it does not have any NFL, so it is more of a nice-to-have than a must-have for most American sports fans.
The picture in the UK is a little different, as TNT Sports does have what most British armchair sports fans consider to be essential viewing, namely a package of Premier League rights and near-exclusive rights to UEFA’s club competitions. TNT Sports acquired the football when it formed a 50-50 joint venture with BT Sports in 2022, which united BT’s menu of football, rugby and assorted North American pastimes with Eurosport’s smorgasbord of cycling, tennis and the snowy stuff we watch once every four years in the Winter Olympics.
And then, just to confuse you even further, WBD’s streaming offer in the UK and Europe has been Discovery+, although it has started to turn that off and replace it with Max. Oh, and BT has also been trying, unsuccessfully, to sell its 50 per cent of TNT Sports, which really means that WBD has declined to pay BT’s price for the rest of the business.
To make some sense of all this, this column asked four media analysts for their takes on the WBD split.
Dan Harraghy of Ampere Analysis does not see any impact for WBD’s UK operations until HBO Max launches in early 2026. For him, the real lesson of this tale is the tension “between the high value placed on sports rights by linear TV players” and the negative outlook for traditional broadcasting, which would explain why so many leagues have stopped seeing growth in the value of their rights.
Even the mighty Premier League has had to throw in more content, spread out over the weekend, to get the same amount of money from its domestic partners.
Independent analyst Paolo Pescatore thinks the split will highlight something he has been saying for a while: TNT Sports is “an entity in slow, painful decline”. He thinks the joint venture was “poorly executed”, with subscriber numbers falling and losses rising, which is why nobody has bought that 50 per cent stake in the business. Pescatore also believes the rising cost of watching sport, coupled with confusion over where to watch it, has driven the rise in digital piracy.
Sports rights consultant Pierre Maes said he cannot see signs of any positive strategy for building an attractive streaming product in the UK and Europe, and dismisses the WBD split as a “desperate move to calm down the stock market”.
But the BBC’s former head of sports rights, David Murray, is a bit more optimistic.
“My initial view is that it’s probably a good thing for sport,” he said. “I never got their strategy of wanting to bundle the likes of HBO with TNT Sport. So, in theory, the Discovery+ proposition can be a lot more focused, which should keep the price lower and allow it to cut through more than it would have done as part of a broader bundle.”
Lower prices and more focus on providing a great sports product should be a benefit to consumers and sports rights-holders, as digital piracy is probably the number one threat to professional sport as we know it.
Speaking of good times gone bad, we cannot have an edition of this column without a new cautionary tale about multi-club ownership (MCO).
This one concerns Irish club Drogheda United, who have just lost their appeal against a UEFA decision to prevent them taking part in next season’s Conference League, a prize they thought they had earned with their FAI Cup victory last November, because their American owners Trivela also have a stake in Danish side Silkeborg, who qualified for the same competition.
Under UEFA rules, two teams with common ownership cannot play in the same competition and any clash is avoided by removing the team that finished lowest in its league. In this case, UEFA looked at Drogheda United’s ninth-place finish in 2024 versus Silkeborg’s seventh-place finish this year.
Trivela took its case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claiming that neither the Football Association of Ireland nor UEFA told the Alabama-based group that European football’s governing body had moved forward the date for owners of MCO groups to create enough separation between their teams so they can potentially compete against each other.
Until this year, owners had until the start of June to dilute their shareholdings in one club or put all of their shares in a blind trust, but UEFA shifted that deadline to the start of March.
Drogheda United, of course, are not the only side to miss this memo, as FA Cup winners Crystal Palace are still waiting to find out if they will be allowed to take their place in the Europa League alongside their co-owner John Textor’s French side Lyon.
The two cases are not identical, as there is no dispute that Drogheda and Silkeborg are controlled by the same owner, whereas Textor has never had that much sway at Palace, but Trivela’s travails demonstrate that UEFA is getting increasingly strict with MCO groups.
“We are totally gutted by this outcome for the club, its players, its staff and its supporters,” Trivela co-founder Ben Boycott tells The Athletic.
“To all of them, I’m deeply sorry that we’re going through this. We genuinely felt we had a compelling case before CAS, a point somewhat reinforced in the observation that this appears to have been a split (2-1) decision among the arbitrators.”
Trivela has committed to filling the €500,000 (£425,000) hole in Drogheda United’s budget left by the removal of European football, but is still processing what Boycott believes was a “very harsh decision which ignored a number of mitigating factors and months of good-faith efforts on our part to come to a solution with UEFA”.
It has been a tough few weeks for Trivela as their English outfit, Walsall, were 12 points clear at the top of League Two with 11 games to go, only to lose form and end up in the play-offs, where they rallied to beat Chesterfield in the semi-finals, only to lose 1-0 at Wembley to AFC Wimbledon.
More clubs equal more opportunities for disappointment.
And let us wrap up this edition of the Business of Football with another column staple: an update on the arrival of English football’s independent regulator.
We will keep this short and sweet — it really is coming now.
For the first time since this process started in 2021, something has happened ahead of schedule. On Tuesday, the Football Governance Bill passed through the committee stage of the legislative process, without requiring the three further days that had been scheduled for debate.
The next step is the report stage, then the third reading of the bill in the House of Commons, before moving to a final consideration of amendments and royal assent. But with the Conservative Party’s Premier League-backed rearguard action running out of puff, the bill’s supporters are confident it will become law before the politicians break up for their summer recess on July 22.
Which means we can all start moaning about the regulator’s shortcomings from next season.
(Top photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)
LOWELL – The UMass Lowell hockey team’s full 2025-26 slate has been revealed, with the season kicking off against Hockey East foe Merrimack College on Friday, Oct. 3. The schedule will consist of 34 regular-season games, with opponents from five different conferences, including Hockey East. It is highlighted by a two-game home set against the […]
LOWELL – The UMass Lowell hockey team’s full 2025-26 slate has been revealed, with the season kicking off against Hockey East foe Merrimack College on Friday, Oct. 3.
The schedule will consist of 34 regular-season games, with opponents from five different conferences, including Hockey East. It is highlighted by a two-game home set against the defending national champions.
The slate will feature 15 home games, including the addition of a home exhibition against Bentley University on Dec. 28. The remaining 20 games will be played on the road on opposing ice or at neutral sites. This is a change of pace from last season, which featured 17 games at the Tsongas Center.
Following opening night against Merrimack, the River Hawks will hit the road to take on the Warriors again on Oct. 10, before hosting defending national champion Western Michigan on Oct. 17 and 18.
That brings the team to a three-game stretch of away games, beginning in Erie, Pa., for a two-game set at Mercyhurst on Oct. 24 and 25, and returning to Hockey East action with an away-and-home series with Providence to close out the month (Oct. 31 and Nov. 1).
November will continue with more conference play, as the River Hawks take on New Hampshire on Nov. 7 and 8, before another road trip to New York the next week (Nov. 14 & 15). The squad will play Union to begin the weekend, before a matchup with RPI the next day.
The team will then be on a bye week after the trip to prepare for a return to New York for the Adirondack Winter Invitational in Lake Placid on Nov. 28 and 29, where they will look to take home the title for the second consecutive year. They will face off against Clarkson on Friday, with St. Lawrence waiting for them on Saturday afternoon.
UMass Lowell takes on two conference opponents during December, as a home-and-away series with Boston College is in the cards for Dec. 5 and 6, following by a solo game with Maine in Portland, Maine on Wednesday, Dec. 10 to finish off the month’s games. However, the exhibition with Bentley at home on Dec. 28 will warm the River Hawks back up after a break, preparing them for an action-packed second half of the season.
The new year will be rung in at the 2026 Cactus Cup, a tournament that will be hosted by UMass Lowell for the second consecutive year in Palm Springs, Calif., at Acrisure Arena on Jan. 2 and 3.
The River Hawks will be joined by Minnesota State University, Mankato, St. Cloud State and Yale and will open up the tournament against Minnesota State on day one. The tournament format calls for the losers of the first-round games to square off first on night two, followed by the championship game between the two round-one winners on Saturday evening. The River Hawks will look to repeat as tournament champs.
UMass Lowell will then play Hockey East games only for the remainder of the regular season, beginning with a two-game set with Connecticut on Jan. 9 and 10, followed by two series against Boston University (Jan. 16 and 17) and Maine (Jan. 23 and 24) to bring them into February.
It will be a battle of the UMass schools to kick off February, as the River Hawks will take on the Massachusetts Minutemen three consecutive times, first with a solo daytime matchup on Sunday, Feb. 1, before a two-game set the next weekend on Feb. 6 and 7. The River Hawks then follow that up with a two-game road trip to Vermont (Feb. 13 and 14) and an away-and-home series with Northeastern (Feb. 20 and 21), as a bye week rounds out the month.
March begins with another road matchup with Merrimack on March 6, before hosting Boston University the next night for the regular season finale. The Hockey East playoffs are set for March 11-21.
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