The NFL is turning to makers of a hit action movie for its next wellspring of content.

The league struck a deal with “Top Gun: Maverick” producer Skydance Media to create documentaries, as well as fictional movies and shows.

• The league hopes to develop broadly accessible content and a complement to HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” which follows one NFL team per season.
• The NFL will make a substantial investment in Skydance Sports.
• Skydance was valued at more than $4 billion on a $400 million funding round last month. RedBird Capital Partners, KKR, and Tencent Holdings participated in the round. 

More Than Football

While the league itself is expected to be the core source of content for the venture, NFL chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp indicated that the team-up will explore other sports as well.

Skydance Sports, which launched in September 2021, signed a deal in October with soccer superstar Kylian Mbappe and his production company Zebra Valley to produce scripted and unscripted content.

The division also recently inked Ben Affleck to direct a film for Amazon Prime Video about Sonny Vaccaro, a key operator in signing Michael Jordan to launch NIke’s Air Jordan sneaker line.

FIFA already has plenty of controversy on its plate with the World Cup starting on Sunday, but now it’s got another potential problem: match-fixing.

Soccer’s global governing body is working with sports data and technology company Sportradar to identify any signs of unfair play.

• Sportradar monitors both the betting markets and the games themselves. The company says it tracks 30 billion data sets from 600 global bookmakers.
• It identified 600 suspicious soccer matches in the first nine months of 2022 alone, mostly in leagues with relatively low pay for players and officials.
• Global bets on the World Cup are expected to top $100 billion, making suspicious wagers potentially harder to identify.

Though FIFA is being cautious, the World Cup is considered an unlikely target for match-fixing due to players’ ample compensation. FIFA will distribute $440 million in prize money, plus $10,000 per player per day to club teams that have employed World Cup players in the last two years. 

Ugly Live TV Moment

World Cup host Qatar’s Supreme Committee apologized for an incident in which security forces threatened to break the camera of Danish journalists during a live broadcast. 

“Tournament organizers have since spoken to the journalist and issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”

The committee also rejected claims that videos from Doha posted on social media were from fans paid to be there, calling the accusations “disappointing and unsurprising.”

The city that has everything is getting a new major sports stadium.

New York City Football Club struck a deal with city officials to build a dedicated soccer stadium in Queens. The 25,000-seat venue is scheduled to open in 2027.

The stadium will be located at the Willets Point area, neighboring the New York Mets’ Citi Field and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which hosts the U.S. Open.

• The team will cover the cost of stadium construction, which is expected to reach around $780 million.
• The city will allow the team to forgo real estate taxes for the duration of the lease and make infrastructure improvements related to the project. The team will not get any kickbacks related to mortgage recording and sales tax.
• The team will pay the city $4 million annually over the 49-year lease with an option for a 25-year extension.

Not Just a Stadium

The Major League Soccer team has long been on the hunt for a home of its own, having played games at Citi Field, Yankee Stadium, and Red Bull Arena, home to the rival New York Red Bulls and the NWSL’s NJ/NY Gotham FC. 

Following the trend of many new stadium and arena developments, the project will include a 250-room hotel and 2,500 units of affordable housing on land the city is leasing to developers Related Companies and Sterling Equities.

Warner Bros. Discovery Sports cut more than 10% of its workforce on Tuesday.

The layoffs affected roughly 70 employees across Turner Sports, Bleacher Report, and the company’s studio operations, with some open positions being eliminated.

Turner Sports, which became a division of Time Warner in 1996, handles broadcasts for leagues including the NBA and NHL and later acquired sports media company Bleacher Report for $175 million in 2012.

In an email to employees, Warner Bros. Discovery chair and CEO Luis Silberwasser referenced the changing industry.

“Our reality is we must evolve to position WBD and our sports division for long-term success against an environment that includes a challenging macroeconomic forecast,” he said.

The company will reportedly remain active in sports rights negotiations. 

• In 2015, WBD struck an agreement with the International Olympics Committee for European rights to four Olympics from 2018-2024. 
• It has rights to several cycling events including the UCI World Championship and UCI World Tour events.
• WBD Sports holds rights across Europe for every Grand Slam.
• The company also has rights in golf, winter sports, and motorsport.

Layoff List

The eliminations aren’t Warner Bros.’ first this year as the company looks to cut its spending by $3 billion. In October, six months after its $43 billion merger with Discovery in April, the company eliminated 125 jobs in its TV Group.