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Super Champions League
⚾️ The $126 million man | Neville joins Serena | 777 Partners in talks this week
GM sports fans. It’s Tuesday, Mar. 5. Don’t forget the Champions League Round of 16 is on this evening. First time reading this? Sign up here.
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Head Start
FOOTBALL
Super Champions League
A major Champions League format change was announced yesterday. From the 2024-25 season onwards, the current 32-team group stage will be replaced by a 36-team league phase in all UEFA men's competitions. The new format is loosely modelled on the scrapped Super League format.
How it will work: in the Champions League and Europa League, each team will be drawn against eight opponents, playing four home games and four away games in the league phase. Teams in the Europa Conference League will only be drawn against six teams. A team's finish in the league phase will determine whether they qualify for the round of 16, enter the play-offs to qualify for the round of 16 or are eliminated.
From the round of 16 onwards, the format remains the same as the current Champions League format - two-legged matches for each stage leading up to the final which is determined by a single leg. The Champions League will have more matches from 2024-25 (189 instead of 125) and increase revenue for UEFA from €3.5 billion annually to €4.5 billion.
Critics say the new format replicates the proposed Super League and yesrtady a Madrid-based lobby group released a poorly conducted survey claiming 72% of football fans support the formation of a European Super League.
BASEBALL
Baseball’s $126 Million Man
Pitcher Zach Wheeler has agreed to extend his contract for three years with the Philadelphia Phillies. The 33-year-old is part of the most lucrative extension in baseball history with an annual salary of $42 million. Pitchers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander will remain the highest paid in the MLB as they signed deals as free agents with the New York Mets that averaged $43.3 million.
There are a few reasons why Baseball’s elite players are some of the best-paid athletes in the world. There’s no salary cap, they play a staggering 162 games a season that last nearly 3 hours, and the MLB has some of the most well-paid media rights agreements of any sport.
Although the MLB’s average salary is at its highest, there’s a huge disparity between the team’s payrolls. During the 2022 season, approximately $226 million separated the payrolls of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles. Plus, most MLB players need more than three years of service before they can negotiate their salary, so many players make close to the league minimum wage, around $720,000.
FOOTBALL
Neville joins Tom Brady & Serena Williams
Gary Neville has been appointed as a partner of the global advisory and investing firm, Consello. Despite fellow pundit Roy Keane telling Neville to “slow down” with work, he shows no sign of following his ex-captain’s instructions.
Alongside his punditry, Neville is co-owner of Salford City FC, owner of Relentless Group and owns two hotels in Manchester. Neville will now be chairman of Consello Strive, an advisory arm of Consello that is tailored to sports, media and entertainment.
Neville isn’t the only sports star the investment firm has hired. Other Consello Strive partners include seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams, and two-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer Pau Gasol. Neville’s publicly available Companies House statements show he has more than £10 million cash to withdraw as profits.
Across The Field
YOU SHOULD ALSO KNOW: Arsenal continue their dominate display as they beat Sheffield United 6 - 0 to take them within two points of the top spot | Jason Kelce has confirmed his retirement after 13 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles (More) | FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem is under investigation for an alleged attempt to interfere with an F1 race result (More) | Austin Eckroat won his first PGA Tour title on a Monday finish at the rain-delayed Cognizant Classic, taking home $1.6 million (More)
FINANCE: 777 Partners is expecting to meet with the Premier League this week to discuss the takeover of Everton (More) | Everton’s future is at risk if the takeover doesn’t go as planned (More) | Investment banks helped steer around $25 billion of sports-related mergers and acquisitions in 2023, Bloomberg-compiled data shows, making it the third consecutive year of record-breaking transaction values in the sector (More)
Your Home Advantage
HEALTH AND FITNESS
→ Hope may be in sight for millions of Alzheimer’s patients as scientists have found a way to slow the disease's progression and treat its symptoms using only light and sound (More)
→ More than a billion people are now living with obesity, according to global estimates recently published in The Lancet. This figure includes around 880 million adults and 159 million children. This means that almost 1 in 8 people are obese, globally (More)
→Researchers have grown mini-organs from cells shed by foetuses in the womb. It’s a breakthrough that sheds light on malformations which affect 3-6% of babies globally (More)
DOWNTIME
→ Legendary keeper Petr Čech features on The Obi One Podcast and discusses how he kept the most clean sheets in Premier League history (Listen)
→ Meet the other Lionel Messi: an 11-year-old boy who plays for São Paulo’s youth team whose father is obsessed with football and Messi (Read)
Extra Time
British tennis player Katie Boulter overcame five successive top-40 opponents to lift the San Diego Open.
Francis Ngannou picks up Shaquille O'Neal.
Polish golfer Adrian Meronk took two minutes to hit his ball, resulting in a fine worth around $200,000.
Neymar admits that he would like to play again with Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi in the future.
Celtics are the first team in NBA history to have three 50+ point wins in the same season. They beat the Pacers 155-104, the Nets 136-86, and the Warriors 140-88.
A breakdown of Formula 1’s insane 2024 calendar.
Today is day six of 11 of the World Table Tennis Series - Grand Smash.
On Today
FOOTBALL
Champions League RO16: Bayern Munich v Lazio (20:00 GMT, TNT Sports 1)
Champions League RO16: Real Sociedad v PSG (20:00 GMT, TNT Sports 2)
Championship: Multiple games (19:45 GMT, Sky Sports Football)
BASKETBALL
NBA: New York Knicks v Atlanta Hawks (00:30 GMT, TNT Sports 1)
SNOOKER
World Snooker Tour - World Masters of Snooker Quarter Final (13:00 and 18:00 GMT, Discovery+)
HOCKEY
NHL: Multiple games - (00:00 GMT, Viaplay)
TENNIS
Indian Wells - Qualifiers - (03:30 GMT, Sky Sports Main Event)
*EST -5. PST -8. CET +1. CST +8. JST +9.
“The first 90 minutes are the most important.”
-Bobby Robson