The NFL season is still three months away, but certain matchups are already hot commodities. 

Even in retirement, Tom Brady has a strong pull on demand for NFL games: The most expensive game on the secondary market is the New England Patriots’ home opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, where Brady is expected to be honored. Fans are paying $1,054.22 on average for seats, according to Logitix.

Brady’s influence is visible in another way: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have seen a 41% drop in demand for their games with the legend no longer playing quarterback for their team.

The Brady commemoration game makes the Patriots the home team with the highest demand at an average price of $563.82. 

However, the Las Vegas Raiders are close behind at $544.88, and seven of the top 10 most desired games are at their Allegiant Stadium. Brady recently reached an agreement to become a minority owner of the Raiders, pending NFL approval.

Allegiant is also hosting Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024.

There is a wide gap from the Raiders to the third top home team, the San Francisco 49ers, who have an average secondary-market home-game ticket of $383.28. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Eagles, fresh off their run to the Super Bowl, are seeing a surge in interest with a 97% leap in secondary ticket prices.

This year’s Indianapolis 500 is set to draw its second-largest crowd this century. 

“We will be pushing the 325,000 range,” Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Doug Boles told Forbes. The record still belongs to the historic 100th running of the race in 2016, which drew 350,000 fans.

This latest predicted number would equal last year’s race, which was the first to run at full capacity post-pandemic after operating at 40% in 2021 and no fans in 2020.

As of Thursday afternoon, 230,000 tickets had already been sold for Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which has a permanent capacity of just over 257,000, in addition to tens of thousands more who can fit in the racetrack’s infield.

“It will feel like what an Indianapolis 500 should feel like,” Boles told the Indianapolis Star.

Roger Penske has been working to revamp the IndyCar Series — and its flagship event — since purchasing the series and iconic racetrack in 2019.

The sport appears to be in a healthy spot, with NTT Data this year re-upping as title sponsor of the IndyCar Series, which is in the midst of a multiyear media rights deal with NBC Sports. IndyCar also expanded its international broadcast coverage to 223 markets in 142 countries this year.

Southern Comfort

The motorsports-heavy weekend will be capped Sunday night by NASCAR’s longest race, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway — where Michael Jordan’s 23XI race team will outfit driver Bubba Wallace with a Carolina blue, Jumpman-themed No. 45 car.

The organizing committee for the 2024 Paris Games is planning the largest opening ceremony at any Olympics ever — but at significant human and financial costs.

The Games will begin with an elaborate parade along the River Seine, with plans to draw hundreds of thousands of fans along the route, marking the most ambitious opening ceremony ever — and one intended to revive the event after a pair of editions spoiled by the pandemic.

To pull that off, the French government introduced a new protocol in which those wishing to watch for free must pre-register for tickets and will be separated from about 100,000 projected to pay as much as $2,900 each for closer, waterside views. 

The government also plans to relocate homeless people out of Paris ahead of the Olympics, opening up hotels that authorities use to provide emergency accommodations, but also fueling outcry from regional towns expected to house those people.

Meanwhile, further criticism is growing, even from athletes, over high ticket prices to many individual events, leading committee president Tony Estanguet this week to acknowledge the frustration — even while touting more than 6.8 million tickets sold.

Making matters worse, Brigitte Henriques, the president of France’s Olympic Committee and the first woman to lead Olympic sports in the country, resigned on Thursday after months of heavy infighting within the organization. Astrid Guyart, that committee’s general secretary, will assume the role on a temporary basis before a successor is chosen this summer.

Formula 1 rolls into its most prestigious race of the season this weekend when the Monaco Grand Prix takes over the seaside city-state with the highest GDP per capita of any country in the world.

Red Bull has won every race in 2023 as the circuit heads to Monte Carlo, where cars will race around the world-famous casino seen in James Bond movies, which also sponsors the F1 race. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez is the grand prix’s defending champion, while fellow teammate Max Verstappen won the 2021 event.

As of Thursday afternoon, the cheapest ticket for a grandstand seat on Sunday on F1’s website was $954. If you’d prefer to watch from the water, hospitality companies offer yacht seating on three different vessels for between $2,600-$3,800. VIP terrace packages were going for nearly $5,000.

On the ground, a major change in operations will see F1 produce the race broadcast for the first time, supplanting the long tradition of local hosting. F1 already produces the world feed for every other race on the schedule.

F1 is keen on presenting the best aspects of a race that saw record U.S. viewership last year on ESPN, which is reportedly paying at least $75 million annually for F1 rights. The broadcast audience will likely grow again this year as Disney moves the Monaco race to network coverage on ABC at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday.