Got new money

The GIST: England’s newly-formed NewCo, which consists of the top two flights of English women’s football — the Women’s Super League (WSL) and Women’s Championship (WC) — just landed a $25.2M interest-free loan from the English Premier League (EPL) several months after the WSL requested money to revamp UK women’s soccer. Worth the wait.

The details: NewCo approved the loan last Wednesday after discussions with the Football Association (FA), English soccer’s governing body. The money will be used for various purposes as NewCo becomes operational for the 2024-25 season, and the loan will be repaid once NewCo reaches $126M in annual revenue.

• Additionally, EPL clubs will have a seat on NewCo’s board and offer their wealth of services to the women’s side, including resources and commercial development strategy. Teamwork makes the dream work.

The context: The FA was pushing the EPL to offer a $31M loan in September, but talks went quiet after a report indicated only a minority of clubs were in favor. Then in November, the EPL was scheduled to vote on approving the recently confirmed $25.2M loan, but instead proposed a private equity (PE) deal that would include investment in the WSL’s commercial operations.

• The Athletic reported that the EPL’s successful vote on the newly-approved loan likely occurred during a December 12th meeting, but wasn’t publicized. After the WC officially joined NewCo in late November, the EPL seemingly backed away from its PE approach and approved the loan a few weeks later. It’s about damn time.

Zooming out: The EPL’s main concern seemed to be how funding NewCo would financially benefit the men’s league, but this move signifies its belief in the company’s ROI. After NewCo hired CEO Nikki Doucet, both the WC and EPL have come back to the negotiating table, a smart call given that UK women’s soccer is expected to become a billion-dollar operation within 10 years. A billi.

The GIST: Last Tuesday, ESPN, FOX, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced their intention to create a unified live sports streaming app. It would offer content from all three platforms, a prospect that has already spooked smaller streamers, Wall Street investors, and sports leagues. Here’s what’s happened since:

⛔ Antitrust: With all three networks pooling content, experts estimate the app would comprise 55% of U.S. sports rights. While the networks have maintained they will operate media rights negotiations separately, lumping everything together has already raised antitrust red flags. Having trust issues.

📉 Scripps and Fubo: The deal is already knocking smaller players off the Monopoly board — Scripps, which owns 61 local stations and acquired recent stakes in WNBA and NWSL media rights, saw shares drop 24% after the megadeal was announced.

• The news seems to be hitting women sports–friendly streamers hard. Fubo — which greenlit critically-acclaimed The Syd & TP Show — saw its stock drop more than 20% and even issued a statement on the matter, saying “Every consumer in America should be concerned about the intent behind this joint venture and its impact on fair market competition.”

👀 Sports leagues suspicions: And it’s not just fellow networks feeling the pain — sports leagues are worried this deal means they’ll lose important leverage. After being “blindsided” by the news, leagues reportedly went on red alert, fearing this joint entity would negotiate for rights as a whole and thus reduce their payouts from each network. Don’t be suspicious…

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