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Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I'm your host, Joe Pompeano, and I'm here to coach you through the financial game. Today we've got Yahoo Sports women's basketball reporter Cassandra Negli to talk about all things WNBA and Infinity Sports Network radio personality Andrew Parlo to discuss the latest $10 billion sale, the NFL, and so much more. Let's huddle up and get right into it.We are kicking off this week with Pop's Playbook. Why take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know? First up, after weeks of rumors and speculation, the Phoenix Suns traded Kevin Durant late last week to the Houston Rockets for Jalen Green, Dylan Brooks, the number 10 pick in the 2025 NBA draft, and 5 2nd round picks. Durant found out about the trade while he was at last weekend's Fanatics Fest, but it wasn't through a text or phone call from his agent.
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We will
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Now, while Durant will be 37 years old next season, he's still one of the top scorers in the NBA. The 15 time All-Star will also bring a veteran presence to a young Houston Rockets team led by rising stars that finished as the 2nd seed in the Western Conference last season, and sports books absolutely love the move for the Rockets. Earlier.We, Houston went from the 6th to 3rd in the odds to win the 2026 NBA championship at plus 900 behind only the Cavaliers and the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Next up, according to multiple reports last week, Nike is delaying the launch of its new activewear line with Kim Kardashian's Skims brand.The Nike skims line will be released later this year instead of spring due to production delays, and a new launch date hasn't been revealed. There are also still no details on what products will be featured in the line's first collection. However, reports indicate that the production delays were internal and not due to supplier or shipping problems. CNBC also noted that Nike and Skims are on the same page and that the two sides want some more time to ensure the initial product line is properly ready for its debut.Now, while production delay isn't ideal, Nike is betting big on the partnership with Skims and Kardashian to revitalize its brand as it grapples with declining sales and increased competition. And Nike needs a boost under new CEO Elliott Hill, who came out of retirement last year to lead the swoosh. The company's stock is down 20% year to date.Last up, UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones has officially retired from the UFC. UFC president and CEO Dana White announced Jones' retirement after the promotions event in Baku last weekend.
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John Jones called us last night and retired. John Jones is officially retired. Tom Aspinall is the heavyweight champion of the UFC.
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Jones later confirmed his retirement in a post on X, where he reflected on his 17 year UFC career. And while Jones is considered by many to be the greatest MMA fighter of all time, his career included plenty of controversy with failed drug tests and multiple legal issues. Plus, Jones is currently facing a new misdemeanor charge in Albuquerque, New Mexico for leaving the scene of aAccident, though neither Jones nor the UFC indicated the matter was related to his retirement. Now, while this is all an anticlimactic ending for one of MMA's best fighters in top pay per view draws, the UFC will begin a new chapter with rising star Tom Aspinall as the heavyweight champion in the division that has been stagnant in the wake of Jones' last title events in November 2024.This week I'm joined by Yahoo Sports women's basketball reporter Cassandra Negli to discuss the state of the WNBA in the upcoming Commissioner's Cup final between the Indiana Fever and Minnesota Lynx. Cassandra, thank you so much for joining us today, and we're about 25% of the way through the WNBA season, so I'd love to just hear from you, what are some of the top storylines that you've been following this year?
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The big storyline is, will we see a rematch of that exhilarating 2024 WMA finals between the Liberty and the links that won a full five games. They've so far shown up, um, but injuries have impacted them. Nafisa Collier, the MVP candidate, uh, might be out for a few games, and the Liberty are without John Qui Jones, their star center, they always say if JJ gets a double-double, we win the game.So it's going to be tricky for those two teams. Caitlyn Clark, obviously a big storyline that everyone loves to watch, the fever shored up their team, but uh have been average so far and Caitlin Clark missed time.
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Yeah, and what are your thoughts on the Valkyries? I mean, I think when they started the season, people saw them come in as this expansion team. Uh, a lot of the draft picks actually didn't end up on the roster, which I know is quite common in the WNBA but still shocking to many traditional sports fans. How have you watched and seen their performance grow over the year?
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I doubted them, um, after the expansion draft, a lot of 6 players, 7th players, they weren't really active in free agency.I thought they would land in the lottery. They've been incredibly impressive in front of that home crowd at Chase Center. They have a bunch of players who were 6 players, and I think what was overlooked was understanding how to fill holes and do the little things, to play solid defense, to do whatever needs to happen to win a game. They've had different players pop up offensively, and I think Natalie Nakasse should be the leading candidate for Coach of the Year for what she's done with these players andThey have players overseas at Eurobasket too, so they've had to bring in hardship players who have stepped up during these games. I think that's an impressive thing for her.
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Yeah, it's been fun to see the crowd there. I mean, uh, obviously they have the Warriors in town who have had tremendous success over the years, but it seems like a different crowd altogether. I know the numbers backed it up from a season ticket perspective, but I also want to talk about Caitlyn Clark. You mentioned her earlier. She had an injury where she missed, um, you know, a handful or so of games this year. What do you make of her sophomore season so far, and then more specifically, like, how do you think the WNBA has done as a whole, taking advantage of some of the growth that she's been able to bring to the league?
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The thing about CaitlynClark isher,her, she's just always setting the bar so high for herself, right? And like her rookie season was so good that I don't think she's taken a step back, but I don't know that we've seen incredible growth from her yet, and obviously missing 5 games kind of hampers that. She has some new teammates in that role. She came out of um missing those games with an incredible 3 point number and now she's kind of slumping.Uh, but she's still Caitlyn Clark and she's finding a Leah Boston on those pick and rolls, and they'll be OK, they'll figure it out. I think the league has done a good job of reallyFueling their growth through the opportunity of these household names like Caitlin, like Paige, um, Cameron Brink, Angel Reese. Obviously the media rights deal moving forward is going to be huge for that, and part of that is showing fever games because people like to watch Fever games, and so having that relationship with ESPN this year and other outlets to make sure they're available and they're getting the viewership numbers, kudos to them for that.
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Very true, yeah. And I'd love to just end on the commissioner's Cup. This was a new event in 2021. It's gone on for a few years. Since then, the fever are playing the links on Tuesday, July 1st. What do you make of the success of this, uh, this event since it launched in 2021, and do you think that it will continue into the future?
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It's been good in terms of what they wanted to see out of it. When Cathy Engelbert announced it, she wanted to see rivalries, um, household names, games of consequence, and so far we've had that. The last two commissioners' Cups, those competitors have gone on to face each other in the finals. So you're able to say in June when maybe viewership would usually dip, this game could foretell an interesting finals. I don't think it'll go away.Um, I don't think they want to walk away from that. There's also money at stake for the players, and that was a big reason they put it into place. For the W, I know that a lot of players are proud that they kind of set the path for some of these things, right? They were the first to speak out about social justice, and we've seen that increase, and now the NBA has their own cups. So I think it'll continue to grow, and we're finally seeing some of those rivalries that were lost when the WNBA changed their playoff format.
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Yeah, I was just gonna say whether it's the WNBA or the NBA, it seems like every sports league is trying to find a way to elevate viewership during the regular season, so it'll be interesting to see what the final number is this year, but thank you so much for joining us today, Cassandra.Thank you. We're going to take a quick break, but coming up, I've got Infinity Sports Network radio host Andrew Perloff joining the show.Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I'm your host, Joe Pompeano. We've made it to the one on one, a conversation where I get to break down news and sports with the key player in the industry. This week, I'm talking to Infinity Sports Network radio host Andrew Perlo. Welcome to the show, Andrew. I'd love to start with something that's a little bit more topical that came out this week, which was a joint report between Pablo Torre and Mike Florio, essentially discovering that the NFL encouraged teams to collude in regards to guaranteed.Contracts. Now this is something that popped up after Deshaun Watson got his fully guaranteed guaranteed deal from the, uh, the Cleveland Browns, and it has continued since then with Lamar Jackson and other players coming under the microscope. Now this report essentially says that the NFL was not found to have colluded, although they do say that the NFL certainly made some remarks and encouraged other owners to limit the amount of guarantees that were in contracts. Just at a 30,000 ft view, what do you make of this entire situation?
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Well it's so funny, Joe. It was basically a secret ruling. We've been talking about why isn't Lamar Jackson getting a guaranteed contract? Why is in Patrick Mahomes and all these great quarterbacks, we thought if Deshaun Watson got one, we thought it would begin a trend where everybody would get one, but you've seen the most recent contracts, most recently Bro Curry, uh, they are not not.Guaranteed. Now we know why it's unbelievable. It's like, it's like a hit your head moment. Oh, of course, the NFL was colluding, and the interesting thing was how both the NFL and the NFLPA kept this under wraps. So it kind of explains a lot, but I'll tell you, you know, uh, we take a lot of calls on my show, Maggie Prooff show, andI gotta tell you from a big standpoint, fans are not gonna get into this one, because they don't quite understand. They think the quarterbacks are making all this money. They see Brock Purdy gets a 5 year, $265 million deal. The agent puts that number out, that's the number in the in all the stories. So it is a bit of a subtlety for real insiders, uh, but that being said, I think that this might push them publicly.To actually guarantee the next set of contracts, and you know, Lamar Jackson ironically is up again. He might be the next big guaranteed contract because the NFL is obviously sensitive to this kind of collusion, uh, uh, collusion case, and the fact that they kind of lost in a way, that the judge ruled that they did have the intent to collude, means that they're gonna be very, very careful moving forward because they're obviously gonna be scared of future lawsuits.
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Yeah, that was sort of the most interesting part to me was that the judge actually ruled that they did collude, but they weren't, uh, there was not enough evidence to prove damages, which sort of seems, uh, you know, impractical considering that there's, I mean, in the report, there's text messages between owners of teams, the Chargers owner texting the Cardinals owner saying, hey, congrats on the contract, the Cardinals owner writes back.Uh, and I quote, these QB deals are expensive, but we limited the fully guaranteed money and have some pretty good language. Thankfully, we have a QB that's worth paying. And then the Chargers owner wrote back, your, your contract helps us with our QB deal next year, right? So like, there's obviously some inference there of, hey, your language is helpful to us when it comes to guaranteed money. So I'm curious, I, I agree with you.That I think a lot of this isn't going to really make its way down to the fans because at the end of the day, the fans just want to watch football. They see the headline numbers. It's really not their job to give the weeds of the contracts. But what do you think will happen? It sounds like you believe uh some more guaranteed contracts will come on the horizon. Do you think that will come from players potentially holding out or refusing to play? Like how did we get there?
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Well, I think uh it'll be quarterbacks will be obviously the ones with the guaranteed money. I mean, they do get a lot of guaranteed money in these contracts. I don't think they'll have to hold out. I think the owners probably got caught with their hand in the cookie jar here and will be more amenable to doing this. Now, the funny thing is you mentioned the fans.The reality is it's gonna become a little more like the NBA. You're gonna get stuck in some bad contracts for teams, and you're gonna have some teams that are really going to be behind the eight ball because they're paying $55 million to $60 million for their quarterback. I mean, look at the most recent contracts, uh, Trevor Lawrence, Tuatango by Loa, uh, you know, uh, I, I don't think that, uh, Jordan Love really did what they expected this year. These are gigantic.They're guaranteed, that means that a team's salary cap is going to be in trouble for the next several years. So I honestly think this might not help the fans and teams as much as you might think. Yes, it's fair, but from a sort of salary cap standpoint, I think the NFL has done a good job of keeping enough player movement to keep teams close to parity. I mean, obviously, we have some really bad teams, but the future is, I think, going to be guaran.Contracts, they'll be fine in Baltimore because they're a great team. But what happens when, gosh, maybe Joe Burrow gets a free agency and someone says, we're going to give you $450 million guarantee, and for some reason, something terrible happens, gets hurt, boom, your salary cap is done for a long, long time. So I, I can understand why the owners don't want the guarantees, because it means lack of flexibility, which is a really big deal for team building.
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Yeah, it's funny because if you think about the worst examples, I mean, Cleveland is probably the worst example because they did the guaranteed. It's sort of an outlier because their quarterback, you know, hasn't played plus has had all the distractions and injuries too. But that's sort of a shorter contract too, right? They can get out of it after what is it, 4 or 5 years. Whereas if you think about what happens after that, which is you give the guaranteed money on 4 or 5 year deals, what's the next step to optimize cap? It's to extend those.Contracts like a Patrick who've got a 10 year deal, right? And then you get in really bad situations. So we'll see how the, uh, the NFL and some of the owners start to approach that. But certainly interesting nonetheless, to bridge the gap between, uh, we're talking about the NFL, but you mentioned the NBA too and kind of bringing those two together. You had a recent article that I thought was really interesting, breaking down ring culture in in sports, but specifically the NBA and NFL. And this was on the back of LeBron James.saying that ring culture in the NBA is essentially outrageous, right? And then the NFL doesn't really exist. We don't grade players on just how many championships they have, like a Peyton Manning or someone like that. What is your counterargument to that proposal byLeBron?
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Oh my gosh, I think LeBron is too young to remember how much people talk about Peyton Manning not winning a Super Bowl. When you're at a elite level quarterback, everybody knows Joe Montana has 4.Rings. Everybody knows that Tom Brady has 7, right? Uh, it's the rings define quarterbacks as much as anything. And I, I'll take it to the NBA. The ring culture comment was ridiculous. The whole point of playing basketball is to go out there and win a title. I still don't understand what LeBron is, is talking about. And I think he's been widely criticized. I think this is one of the most unpopular things in the sports world that LeBron has said, becauseI think that's the whole point of sports is to win and to win a championship. It felt self-serving, I'll be honest, I'll tell you, Joe, it's LeBron James sitting there trailing Michael Jordan in a number of championships, and Steve Nash, who did not win a ring, famously, came close, I mean, didn't even make a finals, but I, it felt like, oh, you're talking about your own legacy, and it seems somewhat anti-competitive. Can you, would you buy that, that it felt like LeBron's like, well, winning isn't everything. Of course winning is everything.That's the only thing.
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Yeah, I also think there's a difference between being the number one guy and a and a second tier guy, right? If you're the 2nd or 3rd option on the team, ring culture probably doesn't matter as much. Sure, it's important, but you're not gonna argue, you know, a great number 2 player is better than is worse off than, you know, a bench guy that has a ton of rings because he was on the Warriors during the 2010s, right? Like that's just not really an argument.And the other thing is the NFL, it sort of feels like I agree to your point, ring culture still exists. Tom Brady is literally the goat because of how many rings he has. That's how it works. But I also think football is so much more of a team game, right? Like LeBron had that stack going for a while where he went to basically any team he went to made the Eastern Conference Finals or the finals. And that was because LeBron was so dominant, right? And he made such a difference to whatever team he went.If you went and you stuck Patrick Mahomes on, I don't know, the worst team in the NFL, like, they're not gonna go to the Super Bowl, right? There's just so many more things that go into a team, they'd get better, but they're not gonna go to the Super Bowl. So I think that ring culture, uh, while it's prevalent still in the NFL, it's also much less of a stat versus where in the NBA I think it's also just as important.
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Well, what about Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen, the Ravens quarterback and the Bills? I'm, I'm hearing a lot of, man, they better, better get a ringer. I feel like there's enormous pressure on those guys, even more so than the NBA stars. A quarterback, you know, like you said, the first guy gets the most pressure. I feel those two guys, Dan Marino, who was mentioned by LeBron.I don't think you get two paragraphs into his life story without talking about him not winning a Super Bowl. I really think it's important, and I know Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen wanted it so bad, uh, and I agree, if Patrick Mahomes to go somewhere else, who knows what trajectory would be, but once you get a guy like that, you have to build a champion around him. Like the Ravens have to build around Lamar, the Bills have to build around Josh. So I, I think rings are a big deal. I think people are gonna be watching that storyline very closely this year in the NFL.
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Yeah, those are two great examples actually, because that's exactly the conversation people have about them every offseason is, oh, they didn't get it done again, they're choking in the playoffs, they can't get to the big game. So I agree with that, but, uh, sticking with the NBA, the Lakers just got sold at a $10 billion valuation. Mark Walter, who is the owner of the Dodgers. What are your just overall thoughts on on the Lakers and why the buss family is selling now, but also Walter as an incoming owner?
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Well, I was shocked. I, I do not think Jeanie Buss would do it because when you think of famous owners, Jeanie Buss is right up there. She is identified with the Lakers, and it struck me, I'm like, if she's not gonna own the Lakers, what is she gonna do? They just had a sitcom on Netflix about her taking over the Lakers, which with Kate Hudson. It was wonderful. I thought that was her identity, so I was really, really surprised, but then you pull back.You know, there's 66 kids who own the team. I understand, I believe 4 or maybe 5 of them were down with making this deal. In fact, it was $10 billion and there wasn't even an arena involved, shows you how much money was involved with this. Now, obviously, uh, here is my question. A lot of people have said, Mark Walter, what he's done with the Dodgers, uh, he's built up everything around the team, not just the payroll with the analytics staff, uh, the facilities. He's gonna do that with the Lakers, and he's going to build a champion.I'm not sure it's so easy in the NBA because there's so fewer players. Baseball is a big roster. Football is a big roster. You don't have a ton of moves you can make in the NBA. I don't know, you know, how many moves they're gonna be able to make. Steve Ballmer has all the money in the world, and he's not any closer to a championship. The team is better than it was when he took over, arguably. I mean, listen, Donald Sterling's teams won 56, 57 games, so I don't think you can buy it in the NBA.And these things are talking about analytics with, you know, the NBA, yeah, there was no analytics that gave the Mavs the number one overall pick. That was a ping pong ball. They got Cooper flagged. It wasn't analytics that get Victor Webbyyama, the Spurs, LeBron to Cleveland. NBA has a uh a degree of luck to get these singular players. The Lakers have always gotten them because people want to be in LA.So I don't think it's gonna be as easy for Mark Walter to build a champion with the Lakers, uh, as some people think they are. They say, look at the Dodgers, and you could bring that to LA. Yes, there's gonna be all the money in the world. They're not gonna worry about the aprons, you know, but it's hard in the NBA because you could get stuck in some really expensive deals and you don't quite have as much flexibility as baseball.
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Yeah, and uh my counterpoint to that would sort of be like the same reason why Mark Walter bought the team and is probably a pretty good owner for the Lakers is the same reason that Jeanie Buss had to sell. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today. I had a lot of fun. I hope to do this again soon.
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Yeah, anytime, like.
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The clock is winding down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. So let's talk about Tom Brady's big win at Fanatics Fest. By all accounts, last weekend's Fanatics Fest at the Javits Center in New York City was a huge success, with 125,000 people attending the second year of the three-day event, all from just 70,000 the year prior. But there was perhaps no bigger winner than Tom Brady, who won the inaugural.fanatics games, a 100 person competition of athletes, celebrities and fans that featured 8 competitions, including quarterback drills, basketball shooting, soccer goal scoring, baseball pitching accuracy, hockey shooting, a closest to the pin shot challenge in golf, a UFC hardest punch challenge, and a WWE walkout entrance. Competitors also included 50 fans.Eli Manning, Kevin Hart, Jayden Daniels, Joe Burrow, Logan Paul, John Cena, Rob Gronkowski, DJ Khaled, and others. Overall, Brady scored just under 400 points to win the first place $1 million prize, but said that he is giving $5000 away to each of the 50 fans who participate in the Fanatics games and donating the other $750,000 to charity.UFC lightweight star Justin Gaye was the runner up to Brady with 345.5 points and took home a second place prize Ferrari 812 GTS. And 39-year-old Pennsylvania teacher Matt Dennis rounded out the top three as a fan competitor, scoring 326 points and winning a 2003 004 Tops Chrome gold refractor LeBron James rookie card with a 9.5 quality grade from Beckett grading Services.But Dennis didn't hold on to the LeBron card for long. According to Collect.com, Tom Brady bought the card off Dennis for $250,000 a signed card and a signed jersey from the former NFL superstar. In the end, it was another feather in the cap for Brady, who can now add Fanatics Games champion to the 7 Super Bowls and 3 NFL MVPs on his resume.We're all out of time, so it's officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Cassandra, Andrew, and all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insights and catch us every Friday wherever you get your podcast. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano. See you next
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time.This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.