2025 in review: 25 stories that shaped the sporting year

This year saw the IOC elect its first female president, YouTube creators get their hands on live sports rights and Fifa finally deliver its revamped Club World Cup. But those are just some of the major stories picked out by the SportsPro editorial team from the past 12 months.
15 December 2025 SportsPro
Features

1. Ligue 1 becomes first major European soccer league to go all in on DTC

Why Ligue 1 went DTC and will its streaming service be a success? 26th August: With a DTC model, Ligue 1 assumes all the risk and clubs will have to get used to the idea of variable media income. And because media revenues are now directly linked to subscriber numbers, broadcast revenues will be much lower unless Ligue 1+ continues to grow its user base.

It will take time to build the user base, and the threat of churn is constant. The clubs need this to be a success. While broadcasters use sports rights as a means to support their core businesses, Ligue 1 is only involved in one business – soccer. There is no other division to offset any financial catastrophe. 

Grand long-term visions of Ligue 1+ being a trailblazer are secondary to the immediate goals of reversing the decline and short-term survival. Read more.

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2. Kirsty Coventry makes history as first female IOC president

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3. NBA’s European plans promise to shake up basketball landscape

14th February: Euroleague Basketball chief executive Paulius Motiejunas has questioned the logic of mooted plans for a new European club basketball competition spearheaded by the National Basketball Association (NBA).

“To read comments about another league in Europe, for me personally, doesn’t make any sense,” said Motiejunas, speaking exclusively to SportsPro.

“We already have four different leagues. We, as EuroLeague, have the best product possible. I don’t think it’s something that should not be valued and understood and appreciated, because what the clubs and the league have achieved in 25 years, it’s amazing.”

Motiejunas’ comments come after NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed last month that the North American league is looking “very closely” at launching an independent competition in Europe. Read more.

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4. ECB has last laugh after Hundred auction values franchises at UK£1bn

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5. Record team sales prove franchise valuations show no signs of slowing

Mark Walter buys the Lakers: Breaking down the record US$10bn deal – 31st October: One of the most recognisable US sports franchises is now set to embark on a new chapter under the ownership of Mark Walter, who has finalised his purchase of a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers.

The NBA board of governors has unanimously approved the deal, which sees Walter buy the team from the Buss family at a reported record sports team valuation of US$10 billion.

The sale of the Lakers comes after the Boston Celtics, another storied NBA franchise, were valued at a then-record sum of US$6.1 billion in a sale to William Chisholm – a deal approved by the NBA in August. Read more.

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6. Major events in women’s soccer, rugby and cricket set more commercial records

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7. WBD sparks bidding war as media consolidation gathers pace

9th December: Paramount Skydance has made a hostile US$108.4 billion bid to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) just days after Netflix agreed to buy the company.

The all-cash offer, made directly to shareholders, is supported by funding from the Ellison family, private equity firm RedBird Capital, and US$24 billion from three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

Paramount hopes it can tempt shareholders by offering more lucrative terms than the US$82.7 billion on the table from Netflix, which only wants WBD’s studio and streaming businesses. This would see WBD’s linear networks – including TNT Sports in the US and Eurosport in Europe – spun off into an independent entity. 

“WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” said David Ellison, chairman and chief executive of Paramount. “Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros Discovery board of directors in private, provides superior value, and a more certain and quicker path to completion.” Read more.

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8. Unrivaled ups standards for women’s sports while WNBA CBA talks stall

Terri Carmichael Jackson, Executive Director, WNBPA, 3rd June: “The NBA, the WNBA, they’ve been at this for nearly 30 years, and folks are waiting for them to get it right. The opportunity that we have right now, the players having opted out again to talk about this business and to get it right, this is our moment. We’ve got to seize it.

“On our side, we understand it, and hopefully on the league and team side, they understand that this is their moment too. Because there are folks who are circling. There are folks who are looking at this and seeing this as a business opportunity.

“The players opted out to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. It’s up to the league and the teams to see that this is their moment to get it right, to course correct. I’m not sure they’re going to have another moment, so it’s incumbent upon us, upon them, to seize that moment.” Read more.

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9. End of an era for Team as Relevent overhauls Uefa Champions League broadcast picture

11th February: Uefa looks set to end its longstanding relationship with the Team Marketing agency after announcing that it has entered into an exclusive period of negotiation with US-based Relevent Sports over the global commercial rights to its men’s club competitions.

If those talks are successful, the deal would see Relevent sell the commercial rights to the Uefa Champions League, Europa League and Conference League on a global basis for the 2027 to 2033 cycle, a role that has largely been fulfilled by Team for more than three decades.

The news will come as a significant blow to Team, which was established alongside the modern Champions League in 1991 to sell the commercial rights to Uefa’s premier club competition and played a central role in developing the identity of the tournament.

According to The Independent, Uefa’s decision resulted in a state of shock at Team, as well as some anger about the process. Read more.

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10. DAZN delivers debut Club World Cup but Fifa’s new tournament gets mixed reviews

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11. Change coming to rugby as R360 catches the eye of investors

Charlie Beall, Chief Executive, Saracens, 23rd September: “It’s interesting that [R360] consider their approach to be additive. I think it would be potentially disruptive.

“I would love to have an open and collaborative dialogue with them.

“The market will decide whether it’s investable but I think it will come with a hefty price tag to achieve. Ultimately, it’s still a startup and you only have to Google the percentage of startups that fail within their first three years to understand the risk profile of the venture.” Read more.

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12. Sports hand live rights to online streamers in effort to reach Gen Z audiences

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13. Big leadership changes in golf and tennis but wait for mergers drags on

Two sports that have undergone significant change in recent years are golf and tennis, and the past 12 months have seen leadership transitions at the top of both games.

Former Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment (HBSE) chief Scott O’Neil replaced Greg Norman as chief executive of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit in January, before the PGA Tour dropped the bombshell news that commissioner Jay Monahan (pictured below, right) is stepping down when his contract expires at the end of 2026. His day-to-day responsibilities have been taken over by longtime NFL dealmaker Brian Rolapp (pictured below, left), who has become the US-based tour’s first chief executive.

Image credit: PGA Tour

Meanwhile, in tennis, Eno Polo was named chief executive of the ATP in September following the departure of Massimo Calvelli, which came at a time of rising tension within the men’s game. On the women’s side, the WTA confirmed Valerie Camillo as the replacement for outgoing chair Steve Simon.

Each of those new hires are likely to have a significant hand in smoothing over the respective commercial mergers that have been anticipated in both sports for some time. LIV, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have continued to strike independent commercial agreements with a union between the three organisations originally announced in 2023 seemingly no closer to being finalised.

There appears to have been more progress in tennis, with ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi expressing optimism in October that ‘Tennis Ventures’ could be operational by early 2027.

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14. Grand Slam Track suffers false start in blow for athletics

18th August 2025: Grand Slam Track (GST), the new global track league founded by Michael Johnson, will not return until its athletes receive their prize money for this year.

The competition, which cancelled the fourth and final event of its inaugural season in June, still owes millions of dollars in payments to competitors but had given assurances the money would be paid and the league would be back in 2026.

However, four-time Olympic gold medallist Johnson, chief executive and commissioner of GST, has now released a statement saying the league is ‘still struggling with our ability to compensate’ athletes, which include Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, Daryll Neita, Matthew Hudson-Smith and Josh Kerr, due to not receiving promised funding. Read more.

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15. Apple doubles down on Formula One following box office success

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16. Saudi grows gaming influence through EA acquisition but pulls out of Olympic Esports Games

29th September: Electronic Arts (EA) is going private in a transaction that values the video game giant at US$55 billion.

A consortium comprising Silver Lake, Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has made an all-cash offer the company, which will be the largest leveraged takeover in US history.

Leveraged takeovers are mainly funded by debts secured against the asset being acquired. The Glazer family used this tactic when buying Manchester United in 2005, banking that the club’s revenues would offset repayments – saddling the club with huge amounts of debt. Read more.

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17. US sports betting market enters new phase as regulations tighten elsewhere

Sports betting remains a lucrative endeavour in the US, where more states have legalised wagers on sporting events over the past 12 months. Rights holders, meanwhile, have continued to cash in on what is proving to be a valuable source of revenue through both sponsorship deals and data distribution arrangements. 

However, several recent scandals have put a spotlight back on the darker side of gambling. The NBA is now reviewing its betting arrangements after a federal investigation led to the arrests of Miami Heat star Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, as well as former player Damon Jones. Meanwhile, MLB and its sportsbook partners have implemented a US$200 cap on wagers centred around individual pitches after Cleveland Guardians players Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Chase were indicted and accused of fixing their throws.

The ongoing growth of prediction markets, meanwhile, will also be something for the industry to grapple with going into 2026. 

While the US tries to get to grips with the potential pitfalls of sports betting, regulations have been tightening elsewhere. For example, India’s gambling ban has forced major players like Dream11 to pivot their business, leaving rights holders such as the BCCI to find a new main sponsor. In the UK, meanwhile, this is the last season where Premier League clubs can have betting brands as front-of-shirt sponsors.

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18. AI becomes the heartbeat of sports technology sponsorships

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19. Major deals in UFC and boxing see combat sports ditch PPV model

The end of PPV? How the UFC, Saudi Arabia and streaming are changing boxing and MMA broadcasting – 3rd October: Paramount has complemented its new UFC deal by bagging broadcast rights in the US, Canada and Latin America to Zuffa Boxing, the new venture backed by TKO and Saudi powerbroker Turki Alalshikh. As with the UFC, PPV will play no part in a deal that cements Paramount as the leading combat sports broadcaster in the States.

The entry of Netflix into boxing has also been significant. The platform streamed September’s super-fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Terence Crawford to more than 300 million subscribers worldwide at no extra cost.

With MMA’s top promotion, boxing’s most influential figure and the world’s largest streaming service all freezing out PPV, the options for other combat sports properties appear to be narrowing. Read more.

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20. England’s independent soccer regulator passes into law

22nd July: Plans to establish an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) have formally become law after the Football Governance Act received Royal Assent.

The regulator, which will begin work later this year, will oversee the top five tiers of men’s soccer in England and have powers to ensure clubs are run in a financially sustainable manner.

It will also make clubs more accountable to fans while owners’ and directors’ tests will become statutory. Read more.

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21. Lewis Hamilton leads the way for a new era of athlete marketability

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22. ESPN DTC finally goes live – but pay-TV still has a part to play

This summer saw ESPN’s long awaited DTC service hit the market, offering the broadcaster’s most valuable content, such as the NFL, NBA and college football, without a cable subscription for the first time. It will also include streaming exclusives, interactive features, and a range of other content as ESPN seeks to become the default digital home for US sports fans.

The launch is designed to futureproof ESPN’s business and complement existing advertising carriage fee revenue streams, giving the Disney-owned company the ability to directly reach digital audiences, many of whom don’t or will never subscribe to pay-TV.

However, the launch of ESPN DTC isn’t quite the tipping point for cord cutting that many felt it once might be. Many consumers believe the cable bundle still has value and pay-TV providers continue to play a crucial role in distributing content – as demonstrated by the fact ESPN DTC is now being included as part of many packages.

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23. India cements hosting ambitions with Commonwealth Games award

26th November 2025: Ahmedabad has been formally ratified as the host city for the centenary 2030 Commonwealth Games.

The Indian city had been selected ahead of a rival bid from Abuja in India for the multi-sport event in five years’ time, and was given final approval at Commonwealth Sport’s General Assembly in Glasgow.

It comes as the country seeks to position itself as a reliable host for multi-sport events as part of its longer-term ambition to host the 2036 Olympic Games. Read more.

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24. Canadian sporting success drives record viewership in baseball and hockey

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25. Private equity giants tool up for more sports activity amid AI bubble fears

Fears have been growing in Silicon Valley and beyond about the possibility of an AI bubble, as the value of technology companies operating in the sector has soared in recent months and investments in the burgeoning industry continue to escalate.

As scrutiny of the AI market intensifies, private equity companies are tooling up to increase their investment in top-tier sport, which offers a level of security that is often absent in other sectors.

TKO Group chief executive and Mari founder Ari Emanuel is among those who plan to keep investing in physical experiences as AI rapidly commoditises digital content – a move that is being referred to as the ‘anti-AI bet’. Meanwhile, recent months have seen CVC launch a new global sports division and Apollo create a dedicated sports investment vehicle, while sports team investor Arctos is being eyed up by KKR. 

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Features
Big Tech, Broadcast & OTT, Decision Makers, Emerging Technology, Esports & Digital Sport, Finance & Investment, Global, Major Events, Media Rights, Movers & Shakers, Multiple Sports, OTT & Digital, Performance Technology, Politics & Governance, Sponsorship, Sponsorship & Marketing, Technology, Women's Sport