Manchester United owners Kevin and Edward Glazer are putting 9.5 million of the club’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange, worth around $186 million, until Oct. 8. 

The amount totals roughly 8% of the family’s combined ownership and follows Avram Glazer’s sale of $97 million in shares in March. 

Fans have recently criticized the Glazers for being a part of the short-lived Super League, saying their “sole motivation is personal profit.” When the Glazers, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, purchased the team for $1.4 billion in 2005, thousands of fans were reportedly forced to sell shares to the family in a compulsory buyout.

The Premier League club will not receive any proceeds from this week’s sale but is experiencing a financial uptick in recent months nonetheless.

• Man U’s broadcasting revenue increased 88% year-over-year to $347.3 million for the 12 months ending June 30.
• The team acquired star Cristiano Ronaldo in August — its equity value has increased by 12% since.
• Ariel Investments became the third-largest owner of the team’s common stock last month after it increased its stake from 5% to 13.8% through the franchise’s NYSE listing. The fund now owns 5.97 million shares of the team, worth a reported $103.2 million.

The club is currently valued at $3.2 billion. Despite recent sales of shares, the Glazers reportedly remain committed to the franchise.

Amazon has stayed persistent in its quest to be a successful game developer despite multiple setbacks, and on Tuesday, CEO Andy Jassy gave some insight into why.

Speaking at a Geekwire technology conference, Jassy said that gaming could become the entertainment industry’s largest category.

The retail and tech giant seems to have finally produced a popular title with last week’s release of “New World.” On Tuesday, the open-world game had 662,000 concurrent players on Steam.

• Amazon already has a strong foothold in the gaming world through Twitch, the gaming-focused streaming platform it acquired in 2014 for $970 million. Twitch made around $2.3 billion in revenue in 2020.
• Amazon is spending around $500 million annually on its gaming division.
• “My personal goal is to create two-to-three AAA, live-service games, which capture millions of players and stay in the market for 10-plus years,” Amazon Games VP Chris Hartmann told the Verge.

The company is still taking a diverse approach to media, holding broadcasting rights to “Thursday Night Football,” the Premier League, WNBA, and Ligue 1, as well as making a renewed push into fitness and wearables.

Amazon is believed to be a leading contender for the rights to the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket.”

Endeavor agreed to a deal on Wednesday with eBay, teaming up with the e-commerce giant to sell sports memorabilia around a series of live events.

The move presents a unique opportunity for Endeavor as it taps into a trading card market that saw $2 billion worth of merchandise sold on eBay in the first half of the year in North America alone.

• Last week, Endeavor joined Silver Lake and Insight Partners in a $350 million Series A funding round for Fanatics Trading Cards, valuing the business at $10.4 billion.
• eBay hosted transactions for more than 4 million cards in 2020, which its “State of Trading Cards” report revealed was a 142% increase in domestic sales compared to a year prior.
• Endeavor and eBay are scheduled to collaborate in January at Mint Collective, an event in Las Vegas that brings sports collectible companies and investors together.

Endeavor raised $511 million in its April IPO. A private placement brought the total raised to $1.8 billion and made New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and AC Milan owner Paul Singer stakeholders in the business.

The company agreed to purchase London-based OpenBet for $1.2 billion last week. It generated $1.1 billion in revenue in Q2 2021 — a $650 million increase year-over-year.