Hey, Friends! One of the things that always amazes me is how the NFL has turned itself into a 24/7/365 business. There are no days off. Between draft season and free agency, every fanbase looks forward to the future, and debate shows fill their time with NFL content despite the NBA, NHL, and March Madness being in full swing.

Still, this week, the Bears stole the show, announcing a new indoor stadium project on the lakefront in Chicago. This deal is equally complex as it is interesting, so we’ll dig into all of it today. Plus, we’ll chat through Deion Sanders’ early financial impact at Colorado, Russell Wilson’s $50 million real estate problem, Nick Saban’s most recent comments on NIL, and more. Let’s get right into it!

The Hurry Up: What I’m Thinking/Hearing/Watching…

1. Deion Sanders’ first season at the University of Colorado didn’t go as planned —  the team finished dead last in the Pac-12 conference with a 4-8 record. But off the field, it’s a different story. Colorado was on primetime television several times throughout the early part of last season, and that increase in attention led to a record 68,000 applicants for the fall of 2024, a 20% jump from 2023. This is called the Flutie Effect — where athletic success leads to academic success — and there are countless examples, including Alabama’s enrollment increasing by 60% under Nick Saban. Colorado’s out-of-state students also pay 3x more in tuition than in-state students ($13k vs. $42k), so this increased attention only needs to result in a few hundred additional students to pay off Deion’s entire $30 million contract. Plus, more applicants means the school can be more selective, eventually raising their academic standards, too. That’s why they say sports are the front door to a university.

2. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan did his annual press conference at the Players Championship yesterday. He talked for roughly an hour….yet he said virtually nothing. Monahan got visibly annoyed at questions about the LIV Golf-PGA Tour merger with the Saudi Arabian PIF, which is weird, considering he only talks to the media a couple of times each year, and that’s the single most important storyline in golf. He also refused to answer whether anyone on the PGA Tour’s board has asked him to resign, and the most interesting thing Monahan said all day was that he and members of the PGA Tour’s new investment group, Strategic Sports Group (SSG), flew to Saudi Arabia in January, and merger talks are “accelerating.” Maybe I’m being harsh, but the lack of communication is frustrating. Monahan makes $20 million annually and flies around the world on a private jet, yet he sat back and watched LIV Golf take some of the PGA Tour’s best players due to his inability to raise capital quickly. Now, they have the money via a $3 billion deal with SSG, but no one knows what is going on, including PGA Tour players themselves. And there is still no end in sight despite the merger being announced nearly a year ago.

3. NFL free agency is one of the most entertaining periods in sports. The legal tampering period is especially amusing because deals start getting announced minutes after it begins, with fans led to believe teams reach out to agents, negotiate contracts, and agree to deals that get publicly announced within a few short minutes. This, of course, isn’t how it works. Many of these deals have been in the works for months through conversations during the offseason and at the NFL Combine. Most of what you read online isn’t really true, either. Take Baker Mayfield, for example. He signed a $100 million extension with the Buccaneers, but only $40 million of that is truly guaranteed upfront, and the team could cut him after next year and save $60 million. The other interesting thing to watch is how these deals get reported. ESPN pays Adam Schefter $9 million annually to break as much NFL news as possible, and he typically does a fantastic job working the phones to earn that salary. But the dirty secret in NFL free agency is that the insiders (everyone, not just Schefter) really work for the agents. These agents typically text them details of a free agency deal in a group chat, sometimes providing the exact wording for a tweet. This is why Zach Ertz’s agent is always referred to as a “TE guru,” and it allows agents to control the narrative, publishing the highest number possible regardless of how the contract is structured.

4. Sticking with the NFL free agency theme, you probably saw that Rusell Wilson signed a $1.2 million veteran minimum deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers. A veteran minimum deal was always going to be his best option since teams knew the Broncos would be on the hook for his entire salary up to $38 million. The more interesting part to me is that Wilson and his wife Ciara are now selling their $25 million home, the most expensive residential sale in Denver history. Wilson is also still trying to sell his $26 million home outside Seattle, meaning he currently has over $50 million of residential real estate on the market. I don’t know what level of financing he used, but the carrying costs on those two homes are probably hundreds of thousands of dollars each month collectively. Something’s telling me Wilson will rent in Pittsburgh, especially since it’s a one-year prove-it deal.

5. Nick Saban participated in a NIL roundtable discussion in Washington yesterday, and he caught a lot of flak for saying NIL played a significant role in his retirement and everything he believed about college football for 50 years no longer exists. Most people seem to be arguing that Nick Saban earned $150 million (before taxes and agent fees) through an inherently corrupt system, and now he just doesn’t like that players have more power. But I don’t think that’s the case. Saban is 72 years old and could be enjoying retirement at his $20 million Florida home after committing 50 years of his life to football. Instead, he is on Capitol Hill on a Tuesday afternoon, participating in a group effort to improve the sport. He loves this stuff. And at some point, people will realize every coach is telling us the same thing: the current model is unsustainable. But rather than reverting to the old model, which, again, was inherently corrupt by withholding the lion’s share of profits from student-athletes, Saban is arguing that we should transition to a new “NFL-like” model where athletes are treated like employees and get to share in sport’s increasingly large TV contracts. That seems like a genuinely good idea that most people would agree with.

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The Bears New Stadium Deal Offers More Questions Than Answers

On Monday, the NFL’s Chicago Bears confirmed they would be building a new stadium on Chicago’s lakefront near Soldier Field. The new stadium will reportedly include a $2 billion private investment from the team and a dome, allowing the city to potentially host premium events like the Super Bowl and Final Four.

This is welcomed news for fans. The team’s current stadium, Soldier Field, is 100 years old and by far the NFL’s oldest stadium. It’s also the NFL’s smallest stadium at 61,500 seats, and a new venue could drastically increase the team’s annual revenue.

However, I’m still not convinced this is going to happen. Building a stadium directly south of Soldier Field is a logistical nightmare for fans, and anyone who has followed Chicago politics over the years knows how impossible it is to build on the lakefront.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the city and its taxpayers would own this stadium despite the Bears contributing $2 billion of personal money. This is a *highly unusual* arrangement, as most professional sports teams in the United States like to subsidize the cost of stadiums via taxpayer funds while privatizing the subsequent profit via franchise valuation growth.

That’s not to say it couldn’t work. A potential scenario, for example, might include Chicago giving up the land for free to build the stadium, providing the team with free rent in perpetuity, and offering them tax breaks on the $2 billion construction investment. But it’s also important to remember that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and when things don’t add up financially, it’s typically for a reason.

Instead, it feels like the Bears might be using this announcement as leverage. Many of you will remember that the team previously purchased a 326-acre plot of land for $197.2 million in Arlington Heights, a suburb 25 miles northwest of the city.

The Bears sold everyone on a grand vision, including a multi-billion-dollar privately funded stadium with a surrounding entertainment district. But then Arlington Heights increased the property’s annual tax assessment 5x from just a few years prior, despite the construction process not even starting yet, and the Bears suddenly found themselves looking at a $100 million higher property tax bill than they expected.

“The property’s original assessment at five times the 2021 tax value, and the recent settlement with Churchill Downs [the property’s former owner] for 2022 being three times higher, fails to reflect the property is not operational and not commercially viable in its current state,” the Bears said in a statement in June 2023.

The Bears (obviously) weren’t happy about this and have been negotiating with Arlington Heights since. In fact, after the Bears announced their plans for a new stadium on the lakefront earlier this week, the village of Arlington Heights released a statement saying they had spoken with the team and received assurances that the Bears’ interest in building a new stadium in Arlington Heights had not changed.

“The Village of Arlington Heights is aware of media reports regarding a proposed Chicago Bears stadium concept in Chicago. Village officials spoke with the Chicago Bears Football Club today, and while they are evaluating all of their options, they confirmed that their continued interest in Arlington Park has not changed.”

The unpopular truth is that we don’t know what will happen next. I feel comfortable saying that because I have seen enough stadium deals fall through or change entirely over the years, and sometimes it’s best to wait for more answers.

Chicago Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren dealt with a similar situation when he was with the Minnesota Vikings. In 2011, the Vikings had a deal to build their new stadium in Arden Hills, a suburb just outside Minneapolis. That deal fell through, though, and the Vikings shifted their focus to downtown Minneapolis, building a billion-dollar stadium with about half the money coming from taxpayers.

I tell you this because maybe it offers some indication of what the Bears might do in the future, with Warren previously ditching a suburban stadium in favor of a downtown project.

However, the most important thing to remember is that sports ownership has changed a lot over the last few years. The most valuable teams now operate like real estate companies, owning their venues and building mixed-use developments nearby.

The Atlanta Braves are probably the best example. In 2017, they left Atlanta for a new stadium in Cobb County called Truist Park. It was only 12 miles up the road, but it allowed them to build “The Battery,” a 75-acre mixed-use development surrounding Truist Park that includes restaurants, shops, hotels, and more.

This wasn’t a vanity project, either. The Battery is now the Braves’ third-largest revenue category, generating $59 million in additional revenue last year and growing faster than any of the team’s baseball-specific categories, including television rights, ticket sales, merchandise, and licensing deals.

Many teams have copied this model since — and it provides the perfect example of how a big-market franchise like the Bears could maximize value by owning their own real estate.

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I hope everyone has a great day. We’ll talk on Friday.

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