Dispatches from the World Cup, NBA players unite and women's football deserves better
What's Shaping Sports? Weekly Edition #004
Welcome to the latest weekly digest of What’s Shaping Sports? where you’ll find me currently in New York soaking up the World Cup atmosphere, doing some on the ground filming to capture the mood and see how New York is still glowing in the New York Knicks win.
On Saturday I spent the evening watching Paraguay vs France at the House of Goal in Brooklyn, where Football Co and a host of brands including Modelo and Jameson laid on activations, a rave and of course the football. I spoke to people to see how they’re experiencing the World Cup.
On Sunday I walked around the streets to soak up the atmosphere as Norway and Brazil fans arrived on mass in Times Square, before heading to the stadium. I then caught the contrasting feeling of football fandom at the Football Factory with Brazil fans packing it out and then onto Houston Hall where Norway recreated that now iconic Viking Clap.
Stay tuned for more. Onto this week’s updates.
One of the great things about Wimbledon is the ‘queue’ and being able to buy tickets on the day. However it’s not for the faint hearted as more and more people camp overnight in it. For day 1 tickets some fans queued for two days to ensure they got Centre Court tickets on opening day. Most days of the tournament people have been told later in the day to not join the queue to avoid disappointment, after over 10,000 fans were in the line for day 1.
The National Basketball Players Association has launched Plyrs Untd, to help more than 500 NBA players use their collective name, image and likeness rights and turn it into business opportunities, partnerships and products.Plyrs Untd replaces the previous licensing arm Think450 with a focus on leveraging the players own brands for their benefit, rather than years of loaning their IP to build the brands of others. Former executive director Andre Iguodala and 4-time NBA Champion, refocused the organisation around a player-first mission and pushed what was possible for the players. Not all every player has the brand power of a Lebron James, Steph Curry or Anthony Edwards so this becomes an interesting and valuable way for players to find opportunities.
Despite an increase in the total prize fund from the The International Cricket Council, some players at the Women’s T20 World Cup were unpaid amateurs, while one player had to quit her day job to be there.
All teams are guaranteed a minimum of £184,245, more than double what was assured to each team in 2024 which is great for the game. Australia earned a winners prize of $2.34m (£1.74m) with runners up England taking home $1.17m (£871,024), the same earnings as the last edition. Yet there is a big difference between the leading teams and the emerging ones with Netherlands only having one fully professional cricketer in their squad, top-order batter Sterre Kalis. The rest are either studying or working while pursuing their cricket careers. In May, Caroline de Lange quit her job as a doctor to play in this tournament.
The tournament has been a great mainstream success with record attendances in a competitive sporting calendar. Overlapping with the tournament has been the football World Cup, Wimbledon tennis starting and the England men’s cricket team creating more headlines for the wrong reasons in their series vs New Zealand. Not to mention battling the heat.
Heatwaves are likely to disrupt the Tour De France. We’re seeing the impact of climate change again in sport as the Tour De France is expected to be impacted with the potentially the first ever stage cancellations as another extreme heatwave grips Europe. “We will obviously experience high temperatures during the Tour de France. Protecting the riders and the public is paramount for us. The watchword is adaptation,” race director Christian Prudhomme told AFP. There is an extreme temperature protocol to follow while additional refreshment zones and even relaxing time limits for elimination may be relaxed to counter the impact. The prestigious cycling championship got underway in Barcelona on Saturday and will finish on the scenic stretch of the Champs-Élysées in Paris on July 26.
Forest Green Rovers have disbanded their women’s team so all energies can be focused on the men’s team getting back to the football league. I can’t believe I’m writing that in 2026. Forest Green insist women’s football will eventually resume at the club but that just isn’t the goal now. Their owner Dale Vince has come out swinging at the justified criticism in my opinion of his decision, even taking aim at the local university for not taking the responsibility on. This comes a month after Plymouth Argyle let most of their players know they wouldn’t be renewing their contracts by email, in cost cutting measures. The women’s game deserves better. Clare Mcewen at She Can Kick It has a must read article on this.
The Lawn Tennis Association is aiming to create the ‘St George’s Park’ of tennis by buying land in Roehampton to build 36 courts and a state-of-the-art academy to develop elite juniors.
The LA Olympics is just two years away and last week was National Olympic and Paralympic Day which saw more than 13,000 young people take part in Olympic and Paralympic themed activities across 180 locations in the United States.
MarketWatch reported that the World Cup has not yet produced a clear hiring boost to the US leisure and hospitality employment.
The hydration breaks are only loved by broadcasters selling adverts and maybe fans of Bon Jovi. It’s been interesting watching the coverage while in the US to see the interruption in viewing experience with the cutting away to ads. An analysis by The Times has broken down how much impact they have had on momentum and not surprisingly it backs up the eye test. According to Opta, the data shows that 32 per cent of group-stage games had an above-average shift in momentum after the first three-minute hydration break, and 26 per cent after the second. Match momentum measures the swing of a match based on the likelihood of a team scoring a goal, calculated bby the ball’s location and the actions of the team with possession.