FOS Crystal Ball: Predictions for the Business of Sports in 2025

After a 2024 that included massive transformations across investment strategy, media deals, college sports, and more, it’s become clear that we’re broaching a new frontier in the business of sports. In short: More change is on the way. 

The Front Office Sports editorial staff share their predictions for another big year.

Streamers Get More Live Games, Threatening Broadcasters

The NBA choosing Amazon over TNT for its new rights deal was an enormous inflection point. Look around the sports landscape and you see more streamers getting more live game rights: Amazon has Thursday Night Football, Apple TV+ got the main MLS package, and Netflix made a massive statement with its Christmas Day NFL doubleheader. At our Tuned In sports media summit in September, NBCUniversal chairman Mark Lazarus told me streaming apps “don’t have the combined reach that we have with broadcast and streaming.” That may be true, but the data points are piling up to suggest that leagues will simply award games to the highest bidder. I wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix gets an NFL tripleheader for Christmas 2025. It’s no longer inconceivable to ask how soon a streamer gets a Super Bowl. —Dan Roberts

NFL Will Auction Rights to New International Game Package

The NFL is a wizard at conjuring new media-rights money out of thin air. Roger Goodell & Co. will use the league’s global expansion to auction a new media-rights package of international games played in the U.K., Germany, and other far-flung locales. Such a Sunday morning package could fetch $1 billion or more from giant streamers like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, or Apple, according to sources. For football viewers, it would provide an all-day smorgasbord of games from morning to midnight. —Michael McCarthy

New York Will Dominate MLB’s 2025 Storylines

New York baseball has already been the story of MLB’s offseason with the Mets signing Juan Soto to a record-setting, $765 million contract, and the Yankees essentially rebuilding the lost impact of Soto in the aggregate through several impactful acquisitions. Could both teams actually get better because of this, even after the Yankees reached the World Series in 2024 and the Mets the National League Championship Series? It’s quite likely. Despite the Dodgers entering 2025 as defending champions, the Big Apple will be by far the sport’s epicenter. The Yankees and Mets will combine to draw more than six million fans—forming a key base of another attendance increase for the league—and a Subway World Series is a rather strong possibility.  —Eric Fisher

Women’s Sports Will Fully Look Like Men’s Sports

This past year was the very end of women’s sports being viewed as charity cases. Now they’re a cold-blooded investment opportunity, and both the talent and the money will forever see it that way. Next year we will see nonstop iterations of what that means. A work stoppage in the WNBA? Saudi money in women’s golf? The Boston NWSL stadium going another $100 million over budget? The possibilities are endless.  —Dennis Young

NCAA Athletes Won’t Become Employees

The landmark House v. NCAA settlement proposal, which would allow Division I schools to share millions in revenue with players starting in 2025, is up for final approval in April. But the settlement doesn’t answer the biggest question over the future of amateurism: whether athletes will be deemed employees. This time last year, I was of the mind that the athlete employment classification was inevitable—two National Labor Relations Board cases and one federal court case all seemed to be trending in that direction. But after a red wave swept the 2024 general election, the next Congress may be more willing to act to halt these cases. The NLRB’s national board will also have a more conservative makeup, especially after the Senate blocked the reconfirmation of left-leaning chairman Lauren McFerran. Athletes may not be deemed employees in 2025, after all. —Amanda Christovich

More College Coaches Resign, Citing NIL Era Exhaustion

NIL mania continues to upend the college sports landscape and will claim more coaching careers as a result. In just the final months of 2024 we saw Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett, Wake Forest football coach Dave Clawson, and Miami basketball coach Jim Larranaga all step down abruptly. Their reasons included the “current environment” (Bennett), “where the industry is right now” (Clawson), and feeling “exhausted” by “this whole new world that I was dealing with” (Larranaga). In 2025, college sports chaos will only deepen, driven by NIL money and the transfer portal, and more coaches will throw in the towel. —Dan Roberts

Sports Leagues Will Tiptoe Around Trump, Musk

Early in Donald Trump’s first term as president, he rattled the NFL by calling for quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players who knelt to draw attention to police brutality and racial injustice to be “fired.” Kaepernick indeed did not play in the NFL after Trump’s fiery remarks at a 2017 rally, although there were more factors than just his comments. Clashing with Trump—and billionaire associate Elon Musk whose X/Twitter platform houses official league accounts—is something league commissioners and college sports leaders would like to avoid in his second term. That could mean a repeat of championship teams skipping White House visits would be less likely, although individual athletes are another story. Many around sports are girding for Trump’s return, hoping they don’t become targets once again. —A.J. Perez

The Club World Cup Is Going to Get Messy

Soccer’s best players and biggest decision-makers spent 2024 bickering over the match calendar, with players complaining about being overloaded and professional leagues claiming FIFA is expanding too much. The new Club World Cup, held in the U.S. in June and July 2025, will grow from seven teams to 32. That increase drew further ire because it led the Africa Cup of Nations to push back its matches, which will now overlap with the European league season. The tournament will take place one year before the 2026 North American World Cup jumps from 32 to 48 teams and 64 matches to 104. All of this led to major European leagues and the FIFPRO players’ union filing a complaint to the European Union in October over FIFA’s expanded international calendar. 

The tournament will exclusively air on DAZN after talks with Apple TV fell through (and major broadcasters passed on it), and some players have already threatened a strike. In sum, FIFA is throwing a ton of resources at a tournament the rest of the soccer world doesn’t really want, and I wouldn’t be surprised if key players or teams find a way to back out of it (which would in turn hurt ticket sales and viewership numbers). Real Madrid’s manager already did, saying the money isn’t good enough and other clubs will follow their lead. —Margaret Fleming

More Sports Betting Scandals Are Inevitable

In 2024 alone, former Raptor Jontay Porter received a lifetime NBA ban for betting on his own props and faced criminal charges as part of a wider conspiracy; Tucupita Marcano was banned by MLB for betting on Pirates games; and Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud after stealing millions of dollars to pay off illegal debts. In 2025, legal betting will only continue to expand, and the temptation and room for bad actors won’t disappear. In December, FOS contributor Ben Dowsett reported that even NBA refs represent a vulnerability. —Peter Richman

Gambling Reform Will Come, But Not How You Think

The $14 billion legal sports gambling industry in the U.S. found itself under pressure like never before, as politicians and regular people began waking up to the harms of easily accessible mobile betting. Every week, it seemed, there was a new athlete scandal or academic finding about the dangers of gambling. Legalized mobile sports betting was found to be tied to major increases in bankruptcies and domestic violence.

Curiously, despite the widespread impacts of legalized sports gambling, it almost never came up as an issue on the campaign trail. It’s hard to imagine the second Trump administration dedicating any energy to rein in powerful multinational companies beloved by Barstool-style young men, even with low-hanging reforms like raising the gambling age or forcing apps to require debit cards. But it is easy to imagine one change. The obscure practice of limiting sharps—banning or severely capping the tiny fraction of players who actually win—is something companies openly admit to doing. “This is an entertainment activity,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said in 2021. “People who are doing this for profit are not the players we want.” Rather than any protection for prospective addicts, this is what I see in my crystal ball: an absolutely unfettered right to gamble. Losers lose big. Winners win big. What could be more American than that? —Dennis Young

Gen Z NHLers Will Make Boatloads of Cash

One of the best NHL commercials this year features a pack of the top Gen Z players, including Connor Bedard, Jack Hughes, and Connor McDavid, ragging on Gen Z stereotypes, with elder-millennial Sidney Crosby shaking his head at the end: ”Kids these days.” The ad spot is great, but it’s also the reality of what the league has to do in 2025 and beyond. 

Although still unabashed stars, players including Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are in the twilight of their careers, and Gen Z talent holds the key to whether the league can grow its fan base, viewership, and revenue like it’s been pushing to for the past decade. With the salary cap projected to hit $92.4 million in the next couple of years and so many teams in long-view rebuild mode, I’m expecting a massive chunk of the cash to flow toward many of the youngest players—including some unexpected names—instead of the usual-suspect rentals. —Meredith Turits

A First-Round Prospect Will Reject the NFL 

The 2024 NFL Draft featured 54 underclassmen. In 2014, that number was 135. With the lure of steady developmental playing time as well as the growing influence of NIL (name, image, and likeness) money, college athletes are staying in school longer than they used to. However, it’s always been hard for top prospects to stay in school, as NFL rookie salaries are tied to draft slots and top draftees are well compensated. However, we’ve seen quite a few players return to school on big NIL deals, get paid, and boost their draft stock. Cam Ward was regarded as a mid-round prospect last year, got a big deal from Miami, and is now a likely first-round quarterback. 

I think next year, at least one prospect with a first-round projection will return to school and play on a seven-figure NIL deal in hopes he can raise his standing even further with more seasoning. Keep an eye out for quarterbacks, who typically stand the most to gain from additional playing time and can capitalize big from teams desperate for a young signal-caller. —Or Moyal

The Timberwolves Ownership Situation Won’t Be Resolved by Season’s End

The saying goes if it’s too good to be true, it usually is. Just ask Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore. The duo bought the Timberwolves from longtime owner Glen Taylor for $1.5 billion in 2021 at a time when sports team valuations were going through the roof. In March, Taylor took the team off the market, alleging Rodriguez and Lore were late on a payment to acquire a majority stake after already owning around 40% of the team. Rodriguez and Lore accused Taylor of seller’s remorse and both sides have since gone through mediation, and more recently arbitration, while awaiting a verdict. 

A decision won’t come until January or February–and if Taylor wins, the situation is settled. But if Rodriguez and Lore win, they still need to get approval from the majority of the NBA’s board of governors, which will only extend the process. Given the marathon this whole saga has been and the numerous curveballs it’s thrown, the NBA playoffs will start without the situation being fully resolved. —Alex Schiffer

A Major Premier League Club Will Get Relegated

Between the increasingly shambolic states of Manchester United, Everton, and even Tottenham Hotspur, and the slim possibility that Manchester City will be forcibly sent down, a very, very expensive roster will be playing in the Championship in 2025. —Dennis Young

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf Will Finally Reach a Deal—Kind Of

Men’s professional golf remains fractured between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf as 2024 comes to an end, despite a June 2023 announcement that the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV’s financial backers, had reached a “framework agreement” to unify the sport. After missing a Dec. 31, 2023, deadline to reach a definitive agreement, negotiations have continued to this day. A PGA Tour–PIF deal, the idea of which was scrutinized by the U.S. Department of Justice, could have an easier time getting green-lit once President Trump’s administration takes office. But even if the two sides form an official pact, complications will persist surrounding how LIV players can return to the PGA Tour and if and how LIV will continue to operate. —David Rumsey