$182 Billion!

Halfway til’ the weekend! Yay! Let us help you get there….

Here's what we got for ya today:

The Super Bowl offseason afterglow
Real Madrid and Liverpool fans to be refunded by UEFA
No Crypto Super Bowl?
BIG on sports betting

Most valuable public market sports teams

Let's get into it!

NFL: Hangovers and back to business

The Chief's hangovers have surely worn off by now. Though that does remind Sports Goat of that one week long night out in Bangkok….or was that a film.

It’s offseason now, so everyone in the NFL puts their feet up and chillaxes. Or not. The week after the Super Bowl really is back to business. It’s history my friends. Let’s all move on, especially Eagles fans (sorry).

‘Tis the season of player contracts, business plans, scouting, and the draft at the end of April….which this year is in (drumroll please)....Kansas!

Let’s look at some big dates coming up:

February 28th is the week long scouting combine in Indianapolis. Here scouts will be able to analyse lots of potential signings in one setting.
March 7th. This is the time the scouts spread like honey bees around the USA to bring back that sweet sweet pollen back to HQ.
March 13th. Clubs can start negotiating with free agents. Negotiations never, ever, ever happen before this date. Ever. Honestly.
April 27th - 29th. The draft happens in Kansas City. Sports Goat will probably be found downtown in a dive bar.

The Bears have the first pick of the draft, though might be tempted to trade for a shiny new QB if they deem Justin Fields replaceable.

High profile free agents floating about include Javon Hargrave, and Jessie Bates III.

Sports Goat is looking forward to seeing how the draft unfolds in 2023.

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2022 Champions League Final

What’s this you say? The 2022 Champions League final was 10 months ago Sports Goat! The big news is due to the final being a complete mess, UEFA have agreed to reimburse some fans.

Imagine a Super Bowl so bad that 1,000s of tickets needed to be refunded. Europe, baby.

If you missed this, the 2022 Champions League final, contested between two of the competitions biggest clubs, was beset by problems. Fans complained of being crushed into hugely overcrowded areas, many of those holding official tickets were not let into the stadium, and to top it all off, they exposed to “brutal” policing by local French police. Not really the experience a sports fan wants.

The icing on the cake was that UEFA blamed the Liverpool fans. For daring to buy tickets. And turn up. And try to watch the event they had bought tickets for. Shame on you UEFA.

After a recent damning report of the incident UEFA have advised they will announce separately a refund scheme after assessing it’s own analysis of the event.

It’s certainly nothing that any sports fan should have to go through.

“On behalf of Uefa, I would like to apologise most sincerely once again to all those who were affected by the events that unfolded on what should have been a celebration at the pinnacle of the club season. In particular, I would like to apologise to the supporters of Liverpool FC for the experiences many of them had when attending the game and for the messages released prior to and during the game which had the effect of unjustly blaming them for the situation leading to the delayed kick-off.”

Theodore Theodoridis - UEFA General Secretary.

“Uefa’s report vindicates what I and other fans have been saying all along: that is, it was the fans who averted a disaster and were clearly not to blame, whilst the organisers – Uefa and the French authorities – were really responsible.”

Steve Rotherham - Mayor of Liverpool.

Happier times for Liverpool, lifting the 2019 Champions League

10,000 Free NFTs during Super Bowl!

Sports Goat was told the Super Bowl was crypto free. Crypto less. Like your gran. But no, Limit Break, a blockchain based gaming startup announced it would give away 10,000 NFTs during an ad spot, by way of a QR Code.

The tokens enhance gameplay in a forthcoming fantasy release called DigiDaigaku and Sport Goat is all over it. Possibly. Sports Goat has to figure out what it is first.

During this time of frugal spending from crypto companies, Limit Break reportedly dropped $6.5m USD on the ad spot! Unsurprisingly the NFTs were gone “instantly” after the ad and can now be found reselling for $700.

Most people were baffled, to be fair. But hey, crypto!

Sports vetting market to be worth $182bn by 2030

That’s a big number. By the Sports Goat’s arithmetic that’s 36.4 million Zinger Tower Burgers, 1,000 Christiano Ronaldo’s or 1 New Zealand.

Behind this growth is the increasing reach of the internet and regulation of gambling industry globally. Sports are of course a primer for this, with stalwarts such as the Premier League, NFL, FIFA World Cup and UEFA Champions League influencing growth.

The study, conducted by Grand View Research Inc. also found that:

Football (not that one….Soccer in this instance) registered the highest market share in 2022, followed by horse racing.
Online platform segment dominated the market in 2022 and is expected to have the highest CAGR.
eSports are expected to be the fastest growing market, having boomed during covid and are still growing strongly.
The U.S. has legalised sports betting in 36 states as of the start of 2023 which is leading to an increase in regional market growth.

What a time to be alive.