Newsletter - Beyond The Whistle

Beyond The Whistle, delivered every Tuesday morning – insights on the trends, technology, and leadership decisions shaping the future of sports business. Browse past issues below, or subscribe to get the full issue delivered to your inbox.

Issue #5 – The $3M Bet on Lane Kiffin’s Bonus
The 2026 college football season kicks off with a Penn State fan token, SIDEARM Sports adding bidding on fan experiences to it’s 1,500 college websites and a $3M Kalshi bet that could be tied to Lane Kiffin’s bonus.

Issue #4 – The 34-Year Advantage
34 years. That’s the age of the United States Tennis Association and IBM partnership. That’s more more than services and tech features. That’s the institutional knowledge of both organizations that the technology behind the US Open is built on.

Issue #3 – Why The Lakers Sale Isn’t About Basketball
The question isn’t about Mark Walter – why he’s selling, what he knows, why the timing. The question to ask is why are Josh Kushner and Bob Iger paying 22.7x revenue for a basketball team?

Issue #2 – The Playing Field UTSA Just Leveled
A UT San Antonio athletics-academics partnership shows how mid-major programs can compete without bigger budget, plus what Fenway Sports Group’s move into women’s golf signals, how the Olympics are using AI behind the scenes, and a fan-engagement “quadrant” that isn’t from who you’d think.

Issue #1 – TKO Is Betting Against AI
While most of the industry races to bolt AI onto every fan touchpoint, TKO’s Mark Shapiro just made the opposite bet – treating live events as a hedge against AI, not a use case for it. This issue traces what that signals about scarcity as the next competitive moat, plus how the San Francisco Giants built their AI agent in six weeks and where the real AI opportunity in sports business is actually sitting.