Your next Amazon shipment might come from a former golf course.

Golf has gotten a lift during the pandemic as an outdoor sport with easy social distancing, but that’s not enough to counteract two other market forces —  more courses than the market needs, and companies hurting for warehouse space amid surging online commerce.

Amazon and UPS recently took over shutdown golf courses to open up large warehouses, according to Bloomberg. 

In addition to warehouses, some courses have been turned into housing developments and parks, while others have repurposed space for baseball fields, putt-putt golf courses, disc golf, skate parks, and community-supported agriculture. One course in Houston was converted into a “detention pond” to absorb water from Hurricane Harvey.

The number of U.S. courses increased each year from 1987 to 2005, according to the National Golf Foundation, adding 4,567 in total. Since then, however, the golf courses have seen net closures nearly every year, losing 1,645 over that span.

Now, many course owners are finding the land they own to present a great opportunity.

“With golf, you’re just limited to the income of the ongoing business concern,” Keith Cubba, national director of Colliers’ Golf Course Advisory Services, told Bloomberg. “There’s going to be a much higher yield on 200 acres of residential or commercial.”

Michael Jordan could change the course of motorsports. 

The six-time NBA champion and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin teamed up in 2020 to launch 23XI Racing, which competes in the NASCAR Cup Series. Bubba Wallace, the only Black driver in NASCAR, is the behind the wheel.

Wallace has yet to produce a win on the track, but his racing team’s apparel is already a hot commodity. 

In December, 23XI’s first merch release sold out within five minutes, recalling flashes of the frenzy that led the Air Jordan I to more than $100 million in sales its first year on the market. The Jordan brand has made MJ $1.3 billion since he signed with parent company Nike in 1984.

“The future for them is just stunningly bright,” NASCAR managing director of consumer products Paul Sparrow said to GQ about 23XI.

If the racing team continues to see success with its apparel, it could very well end up competing more directly with Puma in the category. The German sportswear brand, a leader in motorsports fashion, welcomes it.

“The bigger awareness the general public has of motorsports, the better it is for all of us,” PUMA’s head of business unit marketing motorsport Anja Egger told GQ. 

The Jordan brand has yet to officially work with 23XI, but it may only be a matter of time.

Watch out Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — Michigan is quickly becoming one of the premier online sports betting markets in the country.

Retail sports betting in the state launched in March 2020, and online betting has exceeded expectations since it went live in January 2021.

“It is difficult to imagine how an online debut could have gone any better,” PlayMichigan.com analyst Matt Schoch told SBC Americas. “It took less than 40 days to transform Michigan into one of the largest U.S. gaming markets.” 

Michigan’s online sportsbooks recorded a sports betting handle of more than $300 million in February, the first full month of operation. The total lifetime online handle for Michigan stands at $417 million, bringing in $45 million in revenue and $2.2 million in tax dollars for the state. 

Michigan currently has 12 online sportsbooks in operation. BetMGM alone has seen $19.4 million in revenue from a handle of $174 million. 

FanDuel partner MotorCity Casino isn’t far behind. The operator has the state’s largest total handle at $192.6 million and has brought in $8 million in revenue.

“Michigan has long had the potential to be a top-five market, but its rapid ascent shows just how much pent-up demand was unleashed,” said Jessica Welman of PlayMichigan.com.

Companies are being accused of disingenuously using sports sponsorships to convey a dedication to health despite a lack of climate action.

A recent report by the New Weather Institute, found that more than 250 advertising and sponsorship deals in 13 different sports include some of the biggest corporate polluters.

“We know about ‘greenwash’ — when polluters falsely present themselves as environmentally responsible,” said Andrew Simms, co-director of the institute. “This is ‘sports-wash’ — when heavily polluting industries sponsor sport to appear as friends of health activity, when in fact they’re pumping lethal pollution into the very air that athletes have to breathe.”

The report found the car industry to be the largest high-carbon sector for sports sponsorships, with 199 different sports deals. Toyota has 31 of those, most notably signing on as a global Olympic sponsor in 2015 for nearly $1 billion. Airlines and oil and gas companies were the most active high-carbon sports sponsors after automakers.

English football club Forest Green Rovers was recognized as the world’ first carbon-neutral club in 2018, and Arsenal signed the UN’s Climate Action Framework last year. The new report is calling on more teams and leagues to reconsider their partnerships.

“Sport has been a game-changer in raising awareness and rapidly shifting opinions and policy on vital issues ranging from child poverty to racism,” said Simms. “Now we could be set to do the same for climate change.”