Sara Germano

Expanding on the issue of wealth inequality among sports owners with @mikevorkunov.bsky.social : why the net worth of your team’s owner matters more today

Is Steve Ballmer Too Rich for the NBA? Earlier this week, a handful of the richest people in the world convened at a five-star hotel in midtown Manhattan to discuss typical titans-of-industry fodder: overseas expansion, the future of media...

In 2019, Ballmer was the only decabillionaire among NBA owners. Today, roughly a third have net worths in the two-digit billions.

Why Aspiration-gate is a wake up call for sports leagues who entice the uber wealthy to buy in: www.theinformation.com/articles/ste...

The @pablotorrefindsout.bsky.social reporting that Steve Ballmer may have circumvented the NBA salary cap underscores one under-covered trend: the exploding wealth inequality between (already super rich) sports owners.

Since 2019, the wealth gap between Ballmer and the bottom tier has grown >3X

Can Tennis Connect With Young Fans Through the Metaverse and TikTok? For decades, the U.S. Open Tennis Championships has been a crown jewel of the global sports calendar. As the fourth and final Grand Slam of the tennis season, it has hosted historic athletic feats by ...

The Arena: Can Tennis Connect With Young Fans Through the Metaverse and TikTok?

Read more from @germanotes.bsky.social 👇
https://bit.ly/41vjn9X

This was the inevitable next step after Paris 2024 opened the floodgates to product placement www.ft.com/content/4db4...

Sports Leagues Hunt for Startup Investments in a Chummy Style of Venture Capital A couple weeks ago, LeBron James was in Las Vegas, seated courtside at the Thomas and Mack Center to watch his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, scrimmage against their crosstown rivals, the Clippers. The...

One of the biggest stories in the sports industry that not enough people are talking about is the recent trend of major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS) establishing their own, in-house venture capital funds.

I spent a month digging into it:

www.theinformation.com/articles/spo...

Say hi if you’re in the arena: sara@theinformation.com 🙃

I reported a deepfake of Caitlin Clark on X. Instead of it getting removed, here's what happened | Sporting News Trying to get a Caitlin Clark tweet taken down turned into a deep dive on the growing problem of deepfakes on X

I reported an offensive Caitlin Clark fake video on X to try and get it removed. Instead, I saw how deeply the platform is letting women down.

My story on one of the most disturbing issues affecting women in the age of AI, and X's failure to curb it:

www.sportingnews.com/us/wnba/indi...

The WNBA and Sports Have an Online Abuse Problem—and Few Good Solutions Last Saturday, the WNBA’s Indiana Fever hosted the Chicago Sky for their 2025 season opener, a highly anticipated matchup between archrival stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. It was a hard-fought ga...

And here is the original story from May: www.theinformation.com/articles/wnb...

Why The WNBA’s Chicago Sky Struck a Deal With a Counter-Terrorism Startup During the first game of the WNBA season, Chicago Sky star forward Angel Reese received a hard foul from her archrival, the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark. The tough basketball play sparked a maelstrom...

The back story of how the Chicago Sky and a national security startup will conduct 24/7 internet monitoring of hate speech for all players on the WNBA team's roster www.theinformation.com/articles/wnb...

In May, I wrote about the proliferating scourge of online hate speech against athletes, particularly in the WNBA.

That day, one of the owners of the Chicago Sky emailed me, asking to be introduced to some of the security experts I interviewed. Today, they announced a partnership:

Can Nike keep its cool? It made billions from mixing sportswear, social justice and style, but now employees say the company is not practising what it preaches

www.ft.com/content/d4cb...

Big Nike news: the company is going *back* to internal organization by individual sports, 5yrs after ex-CEO John Donahoe streamlined into men's, women's, and kids silos.

In short, new CEO Elliott Hill is undoing everything Donahoe implemented. I wrote about these risks in '21

Coming to Amazon: A 3D-Printed Nike Sports Bra? More than 1,700 men have broken the 4-minute mile, but no woman has ever done so. The fastest any female runner has ever covered the distance is 4 minutes and 7.64 seconds, the current world record se...

This week, Faith Kipyegon will try to become the first woman to break the 4-minute mile, an almost unthinkable athletic feat.

Behind the race is Nike, which is using the stunt to further its own impossible goal: making athletic gear entirely via 3D printing www.theinformation.com/articles/com...

How Online Gambling Forces Athletes to Battle Hecklers on Their Own As a triple Olympic champion, Sports Illustrated and Vogue model, and Harvard alum, sprinter Gabby Thomas attracts thousands of fans wherever she competes. She also attracts some genuine weirdos. Last...

www.theinformation.com/articles/onl...

When a gambler harassed her at a track meet this week, Gabby Thomas got him banned from FanDuel. After exiting Roland Garros, Jessica Pegula shared a cascade of death threats on her IG.

Athletes in individual sports have to fight online abuse alone. And betting is making it worse ⬇️

The WNBA and Sports Have an Online Abuse Problem—and Few Good Solutions Last Saturday, the WNBA’s Indiana Fever hosted the Chicago Sky for their 2025 season opener, a highly anticipated matchup between archrival stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. It was a hard-fought ga...

www.theinformation.com/articles/wnb...

The WNBA says it has “not substantiated” allegations of racist fan behavior at Gainsbridge Fieldhouse during the Sky-Fever game.

Regardless, the allegation itself led to actual abusive discourse on social media, according to experts who are independently reporting it to the platforms

The WNBA spent its offseason boasting of a new program to combat hate speech. Then came the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese foul and a maelstrom of alleged fan racism.

I spoke to service providers who work w/ Team USA, the NCAA and others to fight athlete harassment. Why the W isn't doing enough:

The WNBA and Sports Have an Online Abuse Problem—and Few Good Solutions Last Saturday, the WNBA’s Indiana Fever hosted the Chicago Sky for their 2025 season opener, a highly anticipated matchup between archrival stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. It was a hard-fought ga...

www.theinformation.com/articles/wnb...

The WNBA spent its offseason boasting of a new program to combat hate speech. Then came the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese foul and a maelstrom of alleged fan racism.

I spoke to service providers who work w/ Team USA, the NCAA and others to fight athlete harassment. Why the W isn't doing enough:

Huge retail news. Nike is coming back to Amazon, years after breaking up with the ecommerce giant because it didn't crack down on counterfeiters.

Now, as Nike is trying to rebound from slumping sales and a failed DTC strategy, the swoosh needs the everything store.

Scoop w/ @theowayt.bsky.social

Creator Economy: Sports Influencers Edge Into Journalists’ Turf

Influencers are increasingly crowding into the space once dominated by sports journalists. That’s good, but there are drawbacks, writes our columnist @germanotes.bsky.social.

Read more👇

oh, and I asked the NBA about NBACentel

The strategy is still relatively new, but it has wide ramifications across both the sports + media industries. What happens when you give influencers the keys to all the leagues' IP? And are creators like RealTalk with Tee ascendant while traditional sportswriting contracts?

How Sports Leagues Learned to Love Creators Instead of Fighting Them In summer 2021, Matt Scharf and some of his guy friends were playing a round of golf at a leafy course near Austin, Texas, when they arrived at the 14th hole, a 290-yard uphill par 4. Clad in a busy H...

NBC linked w/ Good Good Golf to lure the golf bro audience from YouTube to Peacock. More than 60% converted. The NBA tapped MrBeast, Jesser and others to encourage people to tune into live games.

“It’s so clear to us that that’s the North Star" www.theinformation.com/articles/spo...

Remember when sports leagues would vigilantly police people sharing game highlights on social media?

Nowadays, the sports establishment is cozying up to YouTubers, Instagrammers, and TikTokers, hoping content creators can convert distracted Gen Zers into dedicated sports fans ⬇️

The WNBA and Its New Tech Owners Have a Merch Problem Keia Clarke thought she had a handle on her surging customer demand. As chief executive of the New York Liberty, she runs the business of one of the WNBA’s hottest teams, whose recent on-court success...

Even with those changes, W owners, execs, and retail experts say the league is growing so fast it can hardly keep up. Full story: www.theinformation.com/articles/wnb...

Inventory is up 400% this year for draft day vs last year, with a new crop of fan favorites like Paige Bueckers, Aneesah Morrow and Hailey Van Lith expected to enter the WNBA.

And the league doubled the number of ordering windows it has with Nike to get more merch

The WNBA Draft kicks off tonight, and with it some of the highest demand for jersey sales. Last year, the W was caught flat-footed without enough Caitlin Clark gear.

I spoke with sources in front offices and at retailers to get a fuller picture of what's different this year: