After more than a week away, a special midweek edition with a Deep Dive. ESPN and the College Football Playoff have a handshake agreement for a 24-team field from 2027: ESPN's Pete Thamel reports the network will pay an average of $345 million more a year for five years, on top of the $1.3 billion a year it already pays. With the Power 4 conference title games expected to disappear, ESPN gets back about $140 million a year, putting its net cost near $205 million, and Fox gets back an estimated $50 million. Also today: Netflix lands exclusive rights to the 2030 World Cup in Spain and Andorra, with free games built in; the PNG Chiefs sign Nambawan Super two years before their NRL debut; Adweek's Sports Marketing MVPs favor content over signage; Rezzil raises $10 million to expand into North America; Jean Eric Salata buys 2.1% of the Dolphins at a $12.5 billion valuation; and Nike's "So Win" is named an Adweek Media Plan of the Year. In the Deep Dive: what DAZN is actually launching in the U.S., from 19 directly carried teams and ViewLift-powered apps to free over-the-air games and a promise not to buy rights "for billions of dollars or to lose money." The throughline: the price of getting in early, and the price of staying in.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Every Disney+ subscriber in the U.S. will be able to stream Super Bowl LXI on February 14, 2027, ESPN and the NFL said on Wednesday. It's the first Super Bowl ESPN will produce, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the ESPN and ABC telecast and a Spanish-language feed on ESPN Deportes. Disney+ will also carry the game in more than 55 international markets, and it gets two Monday Night Football simulcasts first, starting with Cowboys-Eagles on October 26. Also today: ESPN's 30-day exclusive window to negotiate a 24-team College Football Playoff closes Friday, opening the door to CBS, Fox, NBC and Prime Video; Bomani Jones moves "The Right Time" to Playmaker and hints at a subscription; Kalshi, Polymarket and Novig sign-up codes run under the CBS Sports and Fox Sports brands; Kalshi offers to cap its trading desk at 5% of exchange volume; Rogers closes its C$4.35 billion purchase of the rest of MLSE; Tommy Hilfiger and "F1 The Movie" win at the European Sponsorship Association awards; and Hyrox sells majority control at about €600 million. The throughline: sports is reaching people in places that used to belong to someone else.

Music by Cheerry Red

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Paramount completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, and the combined company is now Skydance, with CBS Sports and TNT Sports under one roof. Former CBS Sports CEO David Berson will lead Skydance Sports, while TNT Sports' Luis Silberwasser is leaving. RedBird Capital added $4 billion at closing, for about $6 billion in total, and the company starts life with about $80 billion in debt and a Fitch rating cut to BB from BB+. Also today: Iowa-Ohio State averages 5.966 million viewers on CBS, the network's first most-watched game of a college football weekend since 2023; buy now, pay later company Zip adds the 76ers to a sponsorship push built around Philadelphia; Ferrero will run Nutella and Kinder Bueno spots in Super Bowl LXI as part of a $50 million sports push, after its first Super Bowl ad drove a 140% lift in volume sales; NHL Productions and GameDay Creative roll out a shared graphics package for the Ducks, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Stars, Wild and Blues; the NFL and 72andSunny's "Champion" wins an Emmy; and Uganda's tourism board sponsors the Champions Hockey League to reach Swiss travelers. The throughline: the difference between getting bigger and getting more precise.

Intro / Outro music by Cheerry Red

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