Axios

Treasure AI is betting that the rising popularity of women's sports can help build its brand — while the National Women's Soccer League's Portland Thorns and WNBA's Portland Fire see the AI company as a way to deepen their relationships with fans.

Why it matters: An expanded partnership announced last week deepens the bonds between the recently rebranded AI marketing company and two teams in the booming women's sports industry.

The Atlantic Council is launching a new organization to strategically elevate the importance of policy and statecraft involving sports on a global scale, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Sports operate at the nexus of geopolitics, financial power, technology and media, creating space for an influential policy voice across key sectors.

A sports-betting ad featuring a semi-nude Sydney Sweeney triggered a backlash across women's sports, with female athletes flooding social media with a countermessage: This is what women in sports actually look like.

The big picture: Ads have long sexualized women, but the Novig ad's appeal to the male gaze hit differently at a moment when female athletes have cultural cachet and the platforms to push back.

Girls flag football has become the fastest-growing high school sport, as tens of thousands take up a game that barely had a varsity footprint a few years ago.

Why it matters: Few girls high school sports have moved from niche to mainstream so quickly, broadening athletic opportunities in the process.

LIV Golf is asking a bankruptcy judge's permission to reject its player contracts, including lucrative deals with stars such as Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson.

Why it matters: The league filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund stopped funding it.

What they're saying: LIV's current player contracts "do not provide any material benefit" to the league, which is hoping to emerge from bankruptcy with a more sustainable tour, its lawyers said in a court filing.

• "The current contracts ... do not reflect the contemplated compensation structure under LIV 2.0," the attorneys wrote in a document filed late Tuesday in New Jersey Bankruptcy Court.
• The contracts the league wants to reject include deals with prominent players like DeChambeau, Rahm, Mickelson, Joaquin Niemann, Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Tyrrell Hatton and Cameron Smith.
• The league is also asking Judge Michael Kaplan for permission to file the actual contracts under seal, calling it "commercially sensitive" information.
• "In addition, given the high-profile celebrity nature of the Players, disclosure of the Personal Information, would create a real risk to the safety of the Players and could be used to harm or harass them," LIV attorneys said in their motion to seal.

Zoom in: A federal judge's approval will be required for the league to exit the contracts, but that's generally standard procedure for unsecured creditors in a Chapter 11 case.

• The league said in a court filing that it remains "hopeful and optimistic that, notwithstanding the rejection of these particular contracts, they will be able to negotiate new, long-term contracts with Players as part of LIV 2.0."
• The players will be treated as unsecured creditors and could receive a portion of their promised compensation when the bankruptcy estate is settled, though unsecured creditors often get far less than what they are owed in Chapter 11 cases.

The league also revealed in a court filing late Tuesday that PIF had invested $5 billion in LIV since 2021 but that the Saudi fund demanded numerous conditions when LIV went looking for capital to continue operating during bankruptcy, known as debtor-in-possession financing (DIP).

• Those conditions include that the league must file a reorganization plan within a month and emerge from bankruptcy within 120 days, investment banker Bradley Robins of Ducera Partners LLC said in a court filing.
• PIF is the league's owner and its only secured lender, according to Robins.

Behind the scenes: After seeking investments to continue operating before deciding to file for bankruptcy, the league received two non-binding term sheets, including one from BC Partners, which offered a $300 million investment contingent on LIV surviving bankruptcy.

• Robins said LIV didn't get any DIP offers, other than the one from PIF, because its "due to the perceived lack of collateral value to support the required amount of DIP financing."
• The league said Tuesday in a statement that it hopes to reorganize operations and emerge "majority owned by players."

The bottom line: LIV plans a major reduction in costs that won't involve massive windfalls for players like it provided when it initially launched.

LIV Golf — the Saudi-backed league that upended the sport with a costly splash but failed to identify a viable business model — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.

Why it matters: It's an ignominious turn of events for a brash organization that lured some of the biggest stars away from the PGA Tour with enormous paydays that proved to be unsustainable.

The WNBA, Major League Baseball and even a golf startup spent the summer as unlikely proxies in some of the country's fiercest national conflicts.

Why it matters: American culture has shattered into thousands of tiny shards of glass. But sports remains one of the few forces powerful enough to pull much of the country into the same moment — making it a prime target for political fights.

The U.S. Open has long been a "see and be seen" destination for fashion, business and Hollywood. Now, a growing class of content creators is joining the crowd — and getting schooled in tennis etiquette in real time.

Why it matters: Creator partnerships can help brands reach audiences traditional media may not, but putting new messengers into highly codified environments creates another responsibility: making sure they understand the rules of the room.

Stan Kroenke has agreed to acquire the Los Angeles Angels baseball club from Arte Moreno for an MLB-record $4 billion.

Why it matters This would make Kroenke the first person to own a team in each major professional sport.

Civil rights groups have called on Black college athletes to boycott schools in states that are rolling back voting rights. But highly paid NIL-era athletes are proving to be unwilling protesters.

Why it matters: It's exposing a disconnect between advocates who rely on 1960s-style protest tactics, and prominent athletes in today's $3 billion NIL economy who have different views of activism — and who are unwilling to sacrifice unprecedented financial opportunities.