🧀 Y! Sports Biz: Cheese squeezed financially

· Yahoo Sports

👋 Welcome back! The hot stove is sizzling, training camp is underway, and even the quiet parts of the sports calendar are getting louder.

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In today’s edition: A look under the hood at NFL finances, the biz behind Bron’s decision, the yellow jersey sees green, Hoka's laces loosen, remembering Boston’s Olympic exit, and more.

Time to show you the money...

🏈 CHEESE SQUEEZED

PACKERS REPORT RARE LOSS

(Michael Reeves/Getty Images)

It doesn't take billions to become an NFL owner: One share in the Packers cost just $300 in the team's most recent stock sale. Those shares are effectively a novelty, but the team’s publicly owned status does convey one major benefit: It provides the one annual look under the hood at the financials of an NFL team.

Record revenues: The Packers reported a record $753 million in total revenues, up 4.7% from the prior year. The split between national and local revenues has remained relatively steady at 60% national, 40% local, as the storied franchise keeps pace with the booming league business.

  • National revenue, driven by league-level media rights, sponsorships, and licensing, grew 4.8% to $453 million. That figure implies $14.5 billion in total national revenue.
  • Local revenue, comprising ticketing, sponsorships, retail sales, and events, totaled just under $300 million, up 4.7% over the 2024-25 season, despite one fewer home game.

Yes, but: Despite the record revenues, the Packers posted a rare $1.1 million operating loss. The culprit? A $131.7 million increase in player costs to $447 million.

  • Though the NFL has a salary cap ($279 million in 2025-26) that pales in comparison to revenue, that number is not always a reflection of true ownership costs, somewhat undermining the bulletproof perception of league finances.
  • Player spending impacts some years more severely than others from an accounting perspective. Last offseason, the Packers acquired Micah Parsons (complete with a $44 million signing bonus) while waiving or trading several key players, which accelerated the impact of their compensation on the bottom line.

Big picture: The Packers' results confirmed that the NFL’s financial position is the strongest in sports, while offering a whispered warning that it isn’t entirely infallible, particularly when teams spend aggressively to compete.

NFL Network boost: While the team recorded an operating loss, it posted $132.5 million in net income, boosted by an anomalous $133.7 million in non-operating income. The Packers attributed that sizable windfall to ESPN’s acquisition of the NFL Network and other investment gains.

Left in the minority amid minority sales? Packers President and CEO Ed Policy voiced concerns about the ongoing influx of minority investment enjoyed by other teams, calling it "an ATM that we don't have." The inaccessibility of minority capital (due to the team’s publicly owned status) increases the importance of generating local revenue to remain competitive as other teams sell stakes for hundreds of millions of dollars.

A lot of cheddar: The Packers will likely return to operating profitability next season, and few NFL owners will lose sleep over their loss, even if the rare dip into the red serves as a muffled reminder that financial prosperity is not guaranteed. Bringing future Lombardies to Titletown — or anywhere — will not be cheap, but, more often than not, it will matter little in the context of the NFL's relentless revenue growth.

📸 BANK SHOTS

MONEY ON THE FIELD

(Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

Paris, France — Tadej Pogačar rode triumphantly into Paris to capture his record-tying fifth Tour de France victory.

Add it to his tab: The winner of the general classification earns €500,000, and Pogačar generated an additional €111,980 throughout the tour for his stage wins, climb earnings, and yellow-jersey stage bonuses. However, this prize money (just shy of $696,000 in total) is often pooled among the other members of the team.

(Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)

Chicago, Illinois — Rookie and No. 1 draft pick Azzi Fudd won Friday night’s WNBA 3-Point Contest, the first rookie champion in the contest's history.

It’s all relative: Fudd earned $70,000 for her triumph. Under the old CBA, that would’ve nearly equaled her first-year salary (last year's No. 1 pick, Paige Bueckers, made $78,831 her rookie year). Instead, the hearty payday is not quite as significant relative to Fudd's $500,000 salary.

(Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)

Blaine, Minnesota — 21-year-old Jackson Koivun, playing in just his third tournament as a professional, won this weekend's 3M Open.

Pace setter: Koivun took home $1,584,000 for the victory. If he keeps this pace, he should eclipse Tiger Woods’ all-time earnings mark ($121 million) in just 213 more starts. No pressure, Jackson. By then, Scottie and Rory will be tens of millions further along on the horizon.

🏀 DECISION 4.0

BIZ OF BRON

(Topps)

The Decision 4.0 didn't reverberate through pop culture quite like LeBron’s fateful sitdown with Jim Gray in 2010, but his latest choice still broke all kinds of new ground, particularly in business terms.

Etched in cardboard: In a sports-world first, a trading card scooped Shams Charania on a free agency announcement. In collaboration with James, Topps announced his decision with a Topps Now card, posted to social media channels to break the news. The card was on sale for 48 hours.

  • We know Topps had sold at least 106,000 copies of the card with 15 hours remaining. The final print run has not yet been announced, but the record for a Topps Now NBA card is 208,735 copies. 
  • If the card approached the record volume and you estimated an average cost of $11 per card, that’s $2.3 million in revenue, or more than half of what James will make next season. Speaking of…

Historic pay cut: Last season with the Lakers, James made nearly $53 million. He'll play the next two seasons on the veteran minimum in Philadelphia, earning just under $3.9 million in 2026-27.

  • In dollar terms, that nearly 93% pay cut is the largest in NBA history.
  • However, by percentage, it's not quite as big as the one Michael Jordan took in his Wizards era. In his last season with the Bulls, Jordan made $33 million, which was reduced by 97% to just over $1 million in Washington. Granted, MJ was years removed from the court.

Price of the tick going up: Per TickPick, the average price to attend a regular-season 76ers game last season was $68. At present, the get-in price for the first preseason home game sits at $261. Now that James has made his decision, Adam Silver and the NBA can finalize the schedule. What was a highly intriguing team a week ago is now a season-long spectacle, with prices likely to match.

Markets moved: The movement on prediction markets relating to James' team choice became a popular topic of conversation, particularly in light of the Heat’s YouTube gaffe. The Kalshi market ultimately totaled nearly $234 million in volume.

  • The 76ers were a dark horse. Philadelphia didn't sustain a break above 1% odds until June 30, and they never topped 20% until the decision was made.
  • They became the fourth team to serve as the market's favored destination in a race that the Cavaliers, Warriors, and Heat led previously.

Chalk toss: Where LeBron James goes, big business follows, showering his teams and teammates with more attention and, therefore, more dollars. But the question remains: Will a championship follow him to Philadelphia?

⚡ ICYMI

LIGHTNING ROUND

(Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

🏀 Duke-Michigan matchup canceled: Duke's slated matchup with Michigan, originally scheduled to take place at Madison Square Garden and air on Amazon Prime, has been canceled. The game became the subject of a rights dispute shortly after its announcement, with Fox, the Big Ten rightsholder, arguing it held the rights after last year's game aired on ESPN, which is the ACC rightsholder.

🏈 Stanford players establish players association: A group of Stanford University football players reached the membership threshold necessary to form the first chapter of the College Football Players Association. The move could be a potential precursor to eventual collective bargaining in college sports, though it would require chapter formation at additional schools and formal unionization.

⏰ Paramount, WBD deal delayed: The mega-merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery is on hold, as the former has agreed to postpone the acquisition until pending lawsuits are settled or until June 1, 2027. Twelve states have attempted to block the deal via antitrust lawsuits. The delay clouds the future of any potential synergies or crossover between Paramount and TNT Sports.

🤝 The Team close to sale: Providence Equity is reportedly nearing a deal to take full control of The Team, formerly Wasserman, in a deal that values the agency at a $3.4 billion valuation. Providence already owns 60% of the firm, having invested in 2022. The deal, first reported by Puck, would be the latest in an agency space that has seen significant M&A and investment in recent years.

See what else is trending on the Yahoo Sports Business Hub.

📆 HARD PASS

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: BOSTON BAILS ON OLYMPICS

(Maddie Meyer/Getty Images for the USOC)

We're only two years away from the first U.S. Summer Olympics since Atlanta in 1996, but in an alternate universe, we would be two years removed from the Games in Boston.

On this day in 2015, the U.S. Olympic Committee and local organizers pulled the plug on Boston’s 2024 bid, clearing the path for Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028.

What happened? In short, local support for the bid eroded entirely over just a few months.

  • Boston-area support fell from 51% in favor, 33% opposed in January 2015 to 36% in favor, 52% opposed by March.
  • But what happened to swing public opinion so severely in two months? Over 110 inches of snow happened, crippling local infrastructure and highlighting a lack of preparedness for the world stage.

Taxpayer burden looms: The potential for taxpayers to sustain the financial burden also became a central issue for the opposition.

  • Mayor Marty Walsh refused to sign a USOC agreement that saddled the taxpayer with any financial overruns from the infrastructure buildout. "I refuse to mortgage the future of the city away," Walsh said.
  • The tones from Walsh’s refusal were echoed in Rahm Emanuel’s opposition to a 2026 World Cup hosting role for Chicago amid certain demands from FIFA viewed as untenable.

The reality: Most economic analysis suggests the Olympics are a net economic drain on hosts over the long term, particularly when a large infrastructure build-out is required. That reality has shifted hosting focus toward cities with existing venues (hello, Los Angeles) and toward a heavy push for sponsor funding (hello again, Los Angeles).

Parting thought: A gold-medal baseball game at Fenway would’ve been cool, though…

📈 JOCK STOCKS

HOKA'S GROWTH COMING UNTIED?

(Yahoo Finance Alphaspace)

Shares of Deckers Outdoor Corporation (DECK), owner of HOKA and UGG, fell nearly 10% in trading last week, including an intra-day drop of 6% on Friday after the company reported earnings that beat estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Though shares recovered by market close, questions persist.

Hokay, what gives? The company did not raise its full-year revenue outlook, and despite healthy underlying results, the market appears to be cautious about slowing growth at Hoka, which notched its lowest year-over-year revenue growth on record. 

Some cushioned context: The heavily cushioned shoes that made Hoka so popular are now competitive grounds occupied by every running shoe brand. Deckers, however, believes it can still grow market share. Additionally, the quarter's slower growth was due largely to a planned shift in wholesale business. DTC revenues still grew 17% in Q1. 

Looking ahead: The eyes of the market are upon it as Hoka strives to achieve the accelerating second-half revenue growth pledged by management.

⚾️ LET'S PLAY

HALL OF FAME TRIVIA

(Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

This weekend, the National Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Jeff Kent, Carlos Beltran, and Andruw Jones into its ranks.

Question: How high does Carlos Beltran, the highest earner among the three inductees, rank in career MLB earnings?

A) Top 10

B) Top 20

C) Top 50

D) Top 100

Answer at the bottom.

💼 LINKEDIN UPDATE

#OPENTOWORK

(Shams Charania/LinkedIn)

LinkedIn is not Shams Charania’s platform of choice when breaking NBA free agency news, but Spencer Jones isn’t your typical NBA player.

Connection request: Jones is an active voice on LinkedIn, where over 37,000 people follow along as he documents his on-court career and off-court investments. So when he signed his offer sheet with the Thunder, there was only one place for the news to break.

Forgot your password? The Jones news was Charania’s first LinkedIn post in a month. It garnered a whopping 214 likes, just 12.8K less than the same announcement got on X, and 413.8K less than the LeBron news. Next time, find a way to work AI into the conversation, Shams!

Trivia answer: B, Top 20. Beltran ranks 18th with $249 million in earnings. Turns out a 19-year career, played at a Hall-of-Fame level, is quite lucrative. Who knew?

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