Sports & Entertainment Beat

Welcome back to the Spotlight! With next week being Thanksgiving here in these United States, I wanted to take a moment to give thanks for my family, my readers (those first two not being mutually exclusive), my clients, my colleagues and the opportunity to return to this space and share my passion (and ramblings, etc.). With that being said, the Spotlight will return in December. But do not despair, good pilgrims– it will all be gravy. I will be stuffing as many corn-y dad jokes into this course. Some of these jokes may seem canned like cranberry sauce, and to those gibs and giblettes that are uninitiated to the Spotlight, it may seem like I am yammering on but when I am done here, you may just end up wanting seconds. So, don’t be a turkey – grab a fork and dig into this week’s fixins’.

• • The latest professional athlete to launch their own sports and entertainment focused venture capital fund (the straightforwardly-named, Build Your Legacy Ventures) is the Milwaukee Bucks’ superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. For how exciting it must have been to work on the fund formation documents, it must have been at least equally as nerve-wracking to proofread the spelling.
     
  • NBA Hall of Famer and multi-hyphenate big man Shaquille O’Neal forks over $11 million to settle claims against him arising out of his promotion of NFTs. On a separate but related note, McDonald’s is debuting NFT art on its McCafé coffee cups. My unsolicited advice for any potential endorsement partners is to tread lightly--and for McDonald’s, it’s to bring back the Monopoly game (only this time without the fraud).
     
  • Global apparel and tennis equipment brands FILA and HEAD sign 16(!) year old high school tennis player Anna Frey to NIL deals. Congrats, Anna -- that brings me back to the days when I was (unofficially) sponsored by Yoohoo, Axe Body Spray and angst...

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn. 

Welcome back to the Spotlight! I am going to be brief this week as your intrepid author is battling some sort of a classroom-(and Bloomgarden boy)-incubated sinus infection. I suppose that is one of the occupational hazards of being a dad. (Sigh…if only they would share toys as well as they share pathogens…). In any event, here’s a little bit of what else has been going on this week:

• • Former New England Patriots Quarterback Drew Bledsoe is among the minority of athletes who have positioned themselves for financial stability in their post-playing careers, notably as a proprietor of several wineries in Washington state.  He has the added security of not having Tom Brady (again) come after his job – wine has too many carbs.
     
  • X users were quick to note that top footballer Cristiano Ronaldo failed to adequately disclose his endorsement relationship with Herbalife in a promotional social media post for the wellness company—a potential violation of Federal Trade Commission regulations. If he needs some assistance with FTC compliance, I know a guy.
     
  • Professional Bull Riding (PBR) terminates its contract with Dr. Phil McGraw’s Merit Street Media over the latter’s failure to make rights payments to the bull riding tour.  In so doing, PBR became the envy of many who wish to tell Dr. Phil to cut the bull.  

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn. 

Welcome back to the Spotlight! In a week that’s been dominated by headlines about the US Presidential election, against my better judgment, I can’t help but dive in to the discussion on some capacity—even though trying to write on the topic in an anodyne fashion makes me feel like I’m playing a game of Minesweeper. Throughout the respective campaigns of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, the power of entertainment and celebrity has been on full display. On the one hand, there was Trump, who rose to national prominence years ago with the help of the reality television series, “The Apprentice” and used the support of the likes of professional wrestler Hulk Hogan and recording artist Kid Rock at this past summer’s Republican National Convention. On the other hand, there was Harris, whose political platform was widely endorsed by some of the biggest stars in the sports and entertainment world—Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, to name a few. Objectively, if fame and the commercial value of an endorsement were a determining factor in an election, Harris would have won in a landslide. Instead, no amount of endorsements could move the needle far enough in Harris’ favor, as Trump prevailed. How and why voters voted as they did will be the subject of conjecture and examination in the days to come, but perhaps, in the current economic climate, the very voices that are so important to influencing purchasing decisions don’t carry as much weight for those who feel frustrated in their ability to afford purchases themselves. 

• • NBA big man Joel Embiid has received mounting criticism and investigations over his questionable injury status causing him to miss games for the Philadelphia 76ers. So naturally, when Embiid got into an altercation with a reporter over said criticism, his punishment was to…miss games for the Philadelphia 76ers.
     
  • Duke University Blue Devils freshman Cooper Flagg quenches his thirst for NIL income, signing an endorsement deal with Gatorade at the ripe age of 17.
     
  • Wrexham AFC co-owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds are now also co-owners of Wrexham Lager—as shrewd marketers who have seemingly had a Midas touch over the past few years, one can only hope that they are up for the challenge of finding a way to pair beer with sports.

For inquiries and/or unabashed compliments, please feel free to contact me at josh.bloomgarden@foster.com or add me on LinkedIn.