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Nielsen research, revealed exclusively at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit Tuesday, found a broad bump in U.S. television audiences for soccer since Spain closed out its championship in the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup nearly three months ago.
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ONE BIG FIG
MLS Keeps Growing
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$25 billion
That’s what outgoing MLS commissioner Don Garber said the league’s enterprise value has nearly reached. “There are folks who came into MLS in the early days and it was $5 million to invest to get in,” Garber told Front Office Sports editor-in-chief Dan Roberts at the Tuned In sports media summit. “Now, we have teams valued over $1 billion. Several of them.” Garber said last year that the league’s enterprise value was more than $20 billion.
LOUD AND CLEAR
Calling Out CFP
Nadia DeMarinis-Front Office Sports
“Really, what it is is it’s an ATM to bail out very bad decision-making from, and I use this term loosely, leadership in college football.”
—Josh Pate slammed the idea of an expanded College Football Playoff at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit Tuesday.
Pate, host of Josh Pate’s College Football Show and contributing analyst at ESPN, joined by NBC Sports broadcaster John Fanta, was asked by FOS’s Ryan Glasspiegel about the CFP’s statement last month announcing it is officially considering expansion to 24 teams.
“Why would you stop at 24?” Pate said. “Why not go to 36? It’s the college basketball effect, but it’s just in college football.”
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College Football’s Biggest Videoboard
The University of Illinois is raising the bar for game day with the largest video display in college football from Daktronics. Totaling more than 17,300 square feet, the new end-zone videoboard at Gies Memorial Stadium is the highlight of an installation that includes 16 LED displays combining for more than 26,750 square feet and 30 million pixels. The main display itself is nearly double the size of the next-largest screen in college sports. This season, Illinois debuted its larger-than-life technology to enhance the live event experience and create an immersive atmosphere for Illini fans.
👉Take a look at Illinois’s new videoboard.
STATUS REPORT
Two Up, Two Down
Netflix
Netflix ⬆ For the first time, Netflix will broadcast FIFA men’s World Cup matches after it secured the rights in Spain and Andorra to show the 2030 tournament. The streaming giant is already broadcasting the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups to viewers in the U.S. and Canada. The 2030 men’s World Cup is being jointly hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, with three special matches at the beginning of the group stage taking place in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay to mark the tournament’s 100th anniversary.
Women’s flag football ⬆ The sport just got yet another major boost, this time from Michael Strahan. Bloomberg reported today that the former NFL star and Good Morning America host is cofounding a women’s flag tournament with $500,000 in prizes. Dubbed The Grand Slam of Flag, the event is set to debut in Los Angeles next February during Super Bowl week and will feature six women’s national teams, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Creative Artists Agency, EverWonder Studio, and SMAC Entertainment are also involved in the effort.
College hockey ⬇ Reigning Division I men’s national champion and current No. 1 Denver takes on No. 2 Michigan on Saturday night. The massive rematch of the 2026 Frozen Four semifinal features seven players picked in the 2026 NHL draft—including two first-rounders in Daxon Rudolph (Sabres) and J.P. Hurlbert (Red Wings). It could be a preview of this year’s postseason action—except the game won’t be broadcast on network television.
Trump Administration ⬇ It said it may have cut down up to 430 trees around East Potomac Golf Links in Washington, D.C., this weekend against the instructions of a federal judge. D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes ordered the administration to stop removing trees from the course Monday after she had previously warned it not to make irreversible changes without informing her. “What has happened has cost the government all of its credibility,” Reyes said.
YOUR NIGHTLY WATCH
Chris “Mad Dog” Russo on whether he would ever reunite with Mike Francesa, plus how he got his big break