Just a day apart, Duke, Virginia, and Kansas men’s basketball pulled out of the ACC and Big 12 conference championship tournaments after team members tested positive for COVID-19.

While holding the tournaments has potential to reward conferences financially, the risk of teams contracting COVID and losing March Madness eligibility may also negatively impact revenue.

Conferences reap millions in revenue from media rights for men’s basketball championship tournaments. If ratings are high, some conferences can earn extra, Katie Davis, a CPA who works for D-I conferences, told FOS College.

However, playing in conference tournaments may cost Duke, Virginia, and Kansas their NCAA tournament berths. Each team needs at least five non-quarantined players to submit seven consecutive negative tests to be eligible. 

With fewer teams in March Madness, an entire conference’s bank account can suffer.

Conferences garner funds — called “units” — from sending as many teams as possible to the NCAA tournament. In 2021, Division I schools could receive a combined $613 million from NCAA distributions, some of that representing NCAA tournament unit earnings.

Virginia said it’s “exhausting all options” to compete in March Madness, and Kansas said it will prepare for the tournament “in a unique way.” Duke has not made a definite statement, though its fate hangs in the balance anyway as a bubble team.

JD Sports is adding to its global footprint yet again.

The UK sportswear company is set to buy a 60% stake in Poland’s Marketing Investment Group (MIG), which operates over 410 retail stores and websites across nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe. It sells sports footwear, apparel, and accessories.

While terms of the deal were not disclosed, JD said last month that it was targeting acquisitions after raising roughly $646.7 million in an equity issue. The company has been on a hot streak of large-scale investments for a few years now.

• June 2018: Acquired Finish Line for $558 million
• December 2020: Bought California-based Shoe Palace for $325 million
• February 2021: Purchased Baltimore-based DTLR Villa for $495 million

The aggressive expansion “gives JD a foothold in interesting growth markets, and we would expect flagship stores to follow in big cities,” said analysts at Peel Hunt.

As the company grows across Europe, executive chairman Peter Cowgill said it wants to avoid paying post-Brexit tariffs by finding a distribution center within the European Union. MIG doesn’t have enough warehouse space to satisfy that need, so JD will continue looking for a site in the Netherlands or Germany.

MIG reported revenue of over $278.3 million in its fiscal year that ended January 31, 2021. The deal with JD is expected to close before the end of May.

Come for the wings, stay for the boosted odds.

BetMGM established a partnership that could be a sign of things to come in the sports betting industry: bettors will get improved odds and special offers when they place sports wagers at Buffalo Wild Wings.

• Sports gamblers will have the same bets available to them as they would otherwise, but will make more money when they win.
• The partnership relies on geolocation tags to determine if someone is in a Buffalo Wild Wings and eligible for the offer. Betting providers regularly use geolocation to determine if wagers are being placed from states where sports betting is legal.
• BetMGM and Buffalo Wild Wings had an existing partnership in which the gambling operator provided a free-to-play NFL game at the restaurant chain.

Boosted odds have become a common method to entice customers, with many betting platforms, such as DraftKings and FanDuel, offering them on a regular basis. Buffalo Wild Wings and BetMGM’s deal signals a desire to reimagine the method in a rapidly growing industry.

In February, JPMorgan published a report that legal sports betting, which brought in an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue in 2020, will balloon to $9.2 billion in revenue by 2025.