TheChek News Flow

The sports business stories to watch in 2026

World Cup intrigue, F1’s Apple era, NBA expansion and more

The biggest sporting story of the year will surely be the Fifa World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico. There will be plenty of political threads to pull on — such as whether the three host nations can be civil to each other throughout the five-week event and whether fans from certain countries will be let in.

But the commercial story will be fascinating to watch unfold too. The recent row over ticket prices is just an early salvo in a broader battle about what — and who — the World Cup is for. Is it football’s great coming together, a moment where the beautiful game silences all else? Or is it the one chance Fifa has each four years to reap a harvest of cash that it can then use to invest in the game? Can it be both?

In the months to come, those who want to challenge Fifa’s power through the courts will no doubt lean into the argument that the governing body has lost its way in pursuit of profit. The ticket price row adds fuel to the fire. Perhaps more so now than in the past, a few days of bad press could have real ramifications.

Formula 1 made a big statement when it dumped Disney’s ESPN to partner with iPhone maker Apple. ESPN, which had broadcast F1 in the US since 2018, enjoyed a record-breaking final season, with an average of 1.3mn viewers per grand prix.

But US owner Liberty Media is looking to supercharge growth in the US. The big question is whether Apple can emulate the success of F1 The Movie, which starred Hollywood actor Brad Pitt and grossed more than $630mn globally at the box office.

F1 has played up the fact that there is more to the new partnership than broadcasting races on Apple TV, with plans to “amplify the sport across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+”.

Developments on the track are also key to Liberty Media’s American dream. The grid is expanding thanks to Cadillac F1, the newly established 11th team owned by US billionaire Mark Walter, whose sports portfolio also includes the $10bn LA Lakers.

It’s never easy to succeed in F1, but at least every team is dealing with the massive overhaul of the sport’s regulations. New cars, new engines, new puzzles for engineers to solve. Which teams and drivers will adapt best?

Continuing to strive for F1 to be spoken about in the same breath as the Super Bowl or the NBA playoffs is vital to Liberty’s ambitions.

Private equity and college sports spent much of 2025 circling each other. That changed last week when the University of Utah struck the first-ever private equity deal in college athletics with Otro Capital, which will invest in a for-profit company created in partnership with the public university. Then came news that the Big 12 — one of four top-tier conferences in college sports — was nearing a $500mn private capital deal with RedBird Capital Partners and Weatherford Capital.

The economics of college sports have transformed in the last five years. The legalisation of “name, image and likeness” (NIL) payments in 2021 allowed college athletes to earn money for endorsements. A landmark antitrust settlement in June permitted universities to share revenues with players. The amateur model is officially dead. 

US college sports generate tens of billions of dollars in media rights and sponsorship, largely driven by the popularity of American football and basketball. But university athletic departments, already notorious spendthrifts, face rising costs as college athletics increasingly resemble professional sports. Private equity thinks it has the solution.

Talk of NBA expansion, both domestically and internationally, has been brewing for years. In 2026, we should finally get some clarity.

Commissioner Adam Silver said on Tuesday the NBA will decide on domestic expansion next year, mentioning Seattle and Las Vegas as potential targets. Seattle seems like a slam dunk should the league choose to expand. The city has a rich NBA history (SuperSonics relaunch, anyone?) and a deep-pocketed tech industry to tap into. Las Vegas already hosts the league’s annual Summer League and the later rounds of the NBA Cup — the relatively new in-season tournament that gave Knicks fans a (not quite real) championship to celebrate this week. But the NBA has reportedly been underwhelmed by local enthusiasm for the Cup, while Vegas has lost some of its shine since legal gambling exploded across the US. Could other options emerge? 

On the international front, the NBA has said it could begin fielding club bids for its planned European league early next year. It aims to combine existing basketball teams (think Real Madrid or Barcelona) with new ones in key markets such as London and Paris, where the Qatari owners of Paris Saint-Germain have shown interest in launching a franchise. The NBA would like to capitalise on passionate fan bases around the region. But commercial success in basketball hotspots such as Turkey or Greece could be a challenge — as will instilling basketball tradition in Europe’s football-mad metropolises.

The WNBA and its players are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement that will reset the economics of the fast-growing women’s basketball league. The WNBA has reportedly offered significant salary increases, but players are seeking a larger slice of the revenue pie. Talks have been acrimonious. The players’ union voted overwhelmingly this week to authorise calling a strike “when necessary”. Facing a January 9 deadline to agree a new CBA, a work stoppage seems increasingly likely.

Meanwhile, the MLB’s 2026 season will be the last under its current CBA, and the league seems destined for a gruelling labour battle of its own. Owners may push for a salary cap, a third-rail issue for players (ahem, Bryce Harper). With MLB franchise valuations lagging behind other major US sports leagues, a salary cap could provide greater cost certainty and competitive balance. The Los Angeles Dodgers are already reloading after winning their second straight World Series last season. But are dynasties such a bad thing?

The battle for Warner Bros Discovery is likely to have big implications for sport. WBD owns TNT Sports and Eurosport.

This is not just a US story. TNT Sports is the main UK broadcaster for English club rugby, The Ashes and has a slice of English Premier League games. Across Europe, it is a key broadcast partner for the Olympic Games and the tennis Grand Slams.

Suitor Paramount has been splashing huge sums recently to acquire rights to UFC in the US and the Uefa Champions League in several big European markets. If Paramount’s hostile takeover succeeds, the combined entity would become a new global powerhouse in sports rights.

If the bid from Netflix ultimately wins out, WBD’s sports business is set to be hived off, perhaps making a juicy acquisition target for someone else. We’ll be watching this one closely.

Most analysts agree that Real Madrid is the most valuable football team in the world. Real estate tycoon Florentino Pérez, who has ruled at Spain’s most successful club for much of this century, wants to capitalise.

He has unveiled plans to bring outside shareholders into the inner circle at Real Madrid for the first time. Football Benchmark, the consultancy and data provider, values Real Madrid at €6.3bn including debt. Pérez thinks €10bn isn’t too fanciful.

But the club’s ownership model could be a hindrance. Navigating the 100,000 individual members, or socios, who own Real means Pérez and his advisers at Key Capital will have to be creative. A deal that puts a value on Real Madrid would set a new benchmark for the rest of football.

Apollo’s new sports investing vehicle has already made waves. Apollo Sports Capital has backed Wrexham AFC, the football team owned by Hollywood duo Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac; Spanish football club Atlético Madrid; and Ari Emanuel’s MARI.

This as private capital firms increasingly see sport as an asset class. So how many more deals might we see?

“The business of sports has evolved from ticket sales and local sponsorships into a $2.5 trillion-plus global ecosystem spanning media, merchandise, wellness, and live entertainment, powered by scalable, multi-channel monetisation,” says Apollo in a white paper.

In fact, the argument goes, most sports franchises aren’t borrowing enough when you take into account record valuations. Even better for private capital, commercial banks have largely steered clear of sports.

Apollo adds: “Traditional lenders have long treated the sector as niche, leaving inefficiencies and gaps in the capital stack. Despite record valuations, most franchises remain under-levered at roughly 10 per cent loan-to-value, creating vast potential for hybrid and private credit solutions to unlock liquidity, optimise balance sheets, and capture equity-like upside, with credit-like risk.”

Sophisticated investors are entering an industry that is not known for financial sophistication. Who stands to benefit?

After raising more than £500mn from investors through the auction of stakes in eight team franchises in The Hundred, English cricket will start to feel the impact of the new owners.

Silicon Valley chief executives, New York hedge funds and Indian billionaires will all be directly in the short-form competition when it returns next summer. Expect to see a whole host of new commercial deals, name changes and big spending on top players. Will that be enough to take the competition to the next level?

The NFL’s $111bn media rights deal contains an opt-out after the 2029-30 season, but commissioner Roger Goodell has signalled the league could begin renegotiating as soon as next year. The NFL would need its partners — Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Amazon and Fox — to agree to come to the table early. But there’s little reason to believe they wouldn’t follow the NFL’s lead. The sport, by far the most-watched content on American television, is indispensable in today’s fragmented media landscape. As streamers’ hunger for live sport grows, renegotiation would allow the networks to lock up NFL rights for years to come. Expect the world’s richest league to get richer.