📰🏟️ Mr. Steal Your Coach

Good morning. The Athletic just released its annual 2025 Anonymous MLB Player poll. Some takeaways:

• Not just fans: Players also appreciate watching history in the form of Shohei Ohtani. The Dodgers star came in as the player other players like watching play the most, followed by the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr.
• Again, not just fans: The low-attendance drawing and frugally managed Oakland A’s have the worst reputation of any team among players, with the White Sox and Rockies next.
• Unruliness abounds: Players overwhelmingly report that legalized sports betting has changed their interactions with fans, often for the worst.
• No robots: 63% of polled MLB players were against replacing human home-plate umps with robot ones, though some of that cohort supports the adoption of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system tested in spring training.

Explore the full poll here (paywalled).

—Peter & Kyle

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📺 BROADCASTING HISTORY

How the Goodyear Blimp became synonymous with sports

The Goodyear Blimp, a seemingly omnipresent major sporting event attendee, with appearances at the first Super Bowl, several Olympics, and the Indy 500, turned 100 years old last week.

But, similar to a 40-year-old finance major who left a cushy VP job on Wall Street to become an aspiring Vegas DJ, its original purpose was quite different.

Sports weren’t even a part of the equation. The Akron-based tire company launched an aeronautics department in 1910—hoping that wealthy Americans would adopt blimps for leisure and luxury travel, aka an air yacht of sorts—with its first blimp taking flight 15 years later.

The company subsequently made helium-filled floating machines for the US Navy in WWII. Then, as a market for frustratingly slow air travel failed to emerge, the Goodyear Blimp made its first appearance at a sporting event—the 1955 Rose Bowl.

Sports are cool, buy tires

The now-iconic sports + Goodyear Blimp partnership flourished, as broadcasters and the tire company realized they could fruitfully scratch each other’s backs.

• Goodyear works primarily with TV networks, not the leagues or event organizers, and money almost never exchanges hands for the blimp’s services, Front Office Sports reports.
• Instead, the blimp provides aerial coverage of the event in return for publicity in the form of in-game graphics for at least 10 seconds per hour.
• This means when deciding whether to attend sporting events, Goodyear performs a simple calculation: the cost of running a commercial vs. operating the blimp for the duration of the event. 

By the numbers: The Goodyear Blimp is ~250 ft long, bigger than a Boeing 747, and holds three Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of helium. It typically cruises at 30-40 MPH, with a max speed of 70+ MPH.

Looking ahead…Goodyear owns four of the world’s 20 operational blimps, with plans to expand their presence to major non-sporting events, including concerts and music festivals. But first—expect an appearance at this weekend’s College World Series games.

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⏱️ Catch Up Quick

Headlines de la semaine

🏀 The NY Knicks keep trying to steal other teams’ coaches. The franchise fired head coach Tom Thibodeau last week in the wake of its Eastern Conference Finals loss, and now seems hell-bent on replacing him with another team’s current head coach. The Knicks have reached out to four NBA teams in recent days to ask permission to interview their head coaches—Chris Finch (T’wolves), Ime Udoka (Rockets), Jason Kidd (Mavericks), and Quin Snyder (Hawks)—but Knicks GM Leon Rose’s attempts to roleplay as Mr. Steal-Your-Coach were rebuffed each time, per ESPN’s Shams Charania.

⚽ Fans can watch Lionel Messi play in the Club World Cup for just $4. FIFA hosts the opening match of its newly expanded Club World Cup at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Saturday, with tens of thousands of tickets still available to see Messi’s Inter Miami squad play Egyptian team Al-Ahly. In an effort to fill these remaining seats, FIFA this week partnered with Miami Dade College to offer its students a five-for-$20 ticket deal. Analysts say lower-than-expected attendance will likely be an ongoing theme for the US-based tournament, with early sales numbers indicating other group stage matches will also see near-empty stadiums.

🎓 College sports has a new non-NCAA enforcement entity. As part of a newly approved House v. NCAA settlement, an independent org called the College Sports Commission—led by Bryan Seeley, longtime MLB head of investigations—was created to enforce new revenue-sharing rules and to run an NIL clearinghouse developed by Deloitte. The settlement’s approval is the first in what insiders call a two-step process to bring stability to college athletics, with step two being a bill approved by Congress that codifies the settlement terms and prevents legal challenges (like one filed yesterday by female athletes alleging Title IX violations).

⚾ WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY

Major League Baseball finally joins the creator economy

Lip readings of closed-door offseason meetings are about to go crazy: Major League Baseball has acquired an equity stake in Jomboy Media, the pair announced this week, in what’s believed to be the league’s first direct investment in a creator-led content company.

Deal terms: MLB receives a minority stake with no editorial control or oversight, while Jomboy gets access to league and team IP for content, sponsorship, and merch purposes. 

• The size of the investment was undisclosed, though Jomboy says no new capital was pumped into the company, just used to buy out existing investors.
• The media brand, which last year generated 93M content engagements and $10M in revenue, previously raised a funding round of $5M led by Connect Ventures, whose cofounder was instrumental in getting this most-recent deal done, Sportico reports.

The move marks a 180 for the league, which has been criticized for being more restrictive with its digital rights compared to peer sports like the NBA. It wasn’t until 2019 that MLB players were allowed to post their own highlights on social media.

Meanwhile…MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said this week that he wants to reach a deal on reselling the league's media rights that were abandoned by ESPN before July's All-Star Game. TV ratings are up so far this year, according to data from broadcast partners.

💬 Word on the Street

Overheard

“It was this psychotic game of, ‘You want to play? Tell me about your sex life. ‘I have to drive you to your night class. Get in the car with me alone.’”

Alex Cooper, host of hit podcast Call Her Daddy, revealed she was sexually harassed by her female soccer coach at Boston University a decade ago. She also claimed the school failed to take action after learning of her concerns.

More details: In Part 1 of newly released documentary series Call Her Alex, Cooper said longtime BU coach Nancy Feldman frequently commented on her appearance, asked personal questions about her dating/sex life, and once put her hand on Cooper’s thigh.

• Cooper also said her playing time in the NCAA tournament was negatively affected after she tried to distance herself from Feldman.
• When she later met with BU’s dean of athletics about Feldman’s behavior, the administration abruptly told her they weren’t going to investigate or fire the coach, per Cooper.

The timing isn’t a coincidence. In a short episode of Call Her Daddy alongside the documentary’s release, Cooper says she decided to publicize her allegations after “new information came to light” that showed “the abuse and trauma I had been subjected to at Boston University was still actively happening,” though specifics weren’t mentioned.

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📰 NEWS

What else is happening

• Game 3 of the Women's College World Series final drew 2.4M viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched college softball game ever. Games 1 and 2 each drew 2.1M viewers, the largest audience ever for the first two games.
• Men’s college basketball is adopting a coaches challenge starting next year (one per coach per game), mimicking a rule the NBA added six years ago.
• Saquon Barkley unseated Patrick Mahomes as leader of NFLPA’s top 50 player sales list, which includes jersey sales, apparel, bobbleheads, accessories, figurines, wall decals, backpacks, drinkware, and more.
• The Women's Tennis Association announced it will protect rankings for players who undergo fertility procedures.
• Boise State reportedly expects to accept private-equity investment “within the next six months.”
• Upcoming this weekend: Stanley Cup Final action (FLA leads 2-1); NBA Finals action (Pacers lead 2-1); the US Open; and the 24 Hours at Le Mans.

🤔 TRIVIA

Jocks can be nerds, too

And now’s the time for you to prove it. Below you’ll find three sports-focused questions. Answer them correctly in 1 minute and 52 seconds to beat our CEO (a former D1 college football player).

1. Which NFL team has neither played in nor hosted the Super Bowl?
2. What college football team has the most national championships?
3. Who is the only MLB player to be voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously?

+A challenging bonus question: How many innings was the longest MLB game?

🌐 WEB GEMS

Interesting things to click

⚾ Good thing he has Livvy Dunne’s support: B/c Paul Skenes isn’t getting much from his Pirates teammates.

🏍️ Fast-paced: What it’s like to operate a motorcycle during a high-speed race. 

📺 Explore: College football's Top 25 plays since 2000.

🏒 In the know: Here’s a 2025 NHL Awards tracker ahead of tonight’s official awards ceremony.

💪 Fitness: The BarBend Newsletter offers science-backed fitness tips, workout plans, and expert supplement reviews to help you get stronger than ever. Subscribe now and get a free arm training guide.*

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🤔 Answers

1. The Cleveland Browns
2. Yale University (by the transitive property: Nerds can be jocks, too)
3. Mariano Rivera

+Bonus: 26 innings; in what ended up being a tie between the Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves on May 1, 1920

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