By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Sports

Last year, total ad spending on women’s sports jumped to $244.4 million, increased sharply from the $102.3 million spent the previous year — a 2.5 times increase. This comes not only from increased real estate — commercial airings were up 37 percent — but the increasing value of that real estate: dollar volume was up 139 percent in the period. One key engine of that jump has been women’s basketball, as the NCAA tournament final last year had the single largest audience for any basketball game aired on television since 2019.

Anthony Crupi, Sportico

Streaming Geographies

One strange idiosyncrasy of the music business’ shift to the streaming model is that the worth of a song’s streams depends on where it happens. This means that the nationality of the ear listening can have some pretty significant reverberations for artists, especially artists who come from countries with low royalties but who manage to make it big in other places in the world. The U.S., for instance, has a pretty high royalty rate. If an act can make it big here, they can make bank even if the artists are based in other countries. For example, a Nigerian act enjoys domestic success by drawing from a pot where a Spotify subscription goes for $0.84 per month, but making even a slight appeal in the U.S. or U.K. (where subscribers pay $11.99 a month) means they can make great money and enjoy great buying power with that at home. The buying power is another thing; your standard 0.35 cents per stream royalty gets you 2.8 cents of buying power in Nigeria, 1.2 cents in Indonesia and 0.95 cents in Colombia.

Glenn Peoples, Billboard Pro

Sphere

I met a traveler from an antique land,
who said — “A gigantic, immersive LED Sphere
stands in the desert. Near it, by The Sands,
wait, sorry, I guess it’s The Venetian now,
there’s a concert venue that’s pretty dope,
I think that its builder also owns the Knicks.
It yet survives, but I see it less on Instagram,
like the U2 show was cool but who’s in it now;
And on the newswire, these words appear:
Sphere Entertainment: “quarterly net loss of $126 million
look on my RSN, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing but Sphere remains. Round the decay
of that colossal Wreck, MSG Networks,
forbearance deadlines stretch not far away.”

Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico

Seal on a Bedsheet

Illinois voted on a proposed set of new state flags to replace its current flag, which was presumably put together the night before it was due by the parents of whichever guy had to decide on a flag. A long-derided “seal on a bedsheet” flag — or SOB — won after a process of narrowing down the alternatives to 10 new finalists, 2 previous flags and the current flag. The headline news is that the existing flag won with 166,000 out of 385,000 votes. The real news is that if you were specifically trying to not replace your flag, “create a vote where the established well-known flag is up against twelve possible replacements and all it takes is a plurality to win” is exactly how I would design an election to ensure that you keep the flag. Indeed, the proof of dissatisfaction with the current flag is clear, given that 219,000 people voted against it, albeit for a myriad of other options. At the very least, the great state of Illinois has yet again given election nerds another example to bring up in their social choice theory discussions of how not to run an election.

John O’Connor, The Associated Press

Hype Hits Reality

A new survey monitored shifting perceptions around AI in just four months. In a poll taken at the end of November/beginning of December, 26 percent of respondents were hopeful about artificial intelligence, 24 percent were excited, 36 percent were skeptical and just 11 percent were overwhelmed. Well, after four months of this stuff, the bloom is off the rose: 24 percent are hopeful (down 2 points), 19 percent are excited (down 5 points), 44 percent are skeptical (up 8 points) and 17 percent are overwhelmed (up 6 points), which isn’t really the direction you want those numbers to go.

Jamie Ballard, YouGov

Novocaine

A tough weekend at the box office; despite 5 new releases, total receipts came to just $52 million, the worst of the year so far. This pushes year-to-date revenues 5 percent behind 2024 and 38 percent behind where they were in 2019, not exactly what an industry that had circled 2025 as the big comeback year was hoping for. Next weekend Snow White is coming out, so it’ll be the last $50 millionish weekend until probably after August. Winning the weekend was the action comedy Novocaine which made $8.7 million, followed by Mickey 17 with $7.6 million and Black Bag by Steven Soderbergh with $7.5 million.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

Switch 2

The release of the Nintendo Switch 2 is poised to be a major driver of gaming in a year that’s already chock full of drivers. Analysts anticipate that Nintendo is going to make a play for the single largest game console launch ever. They anticipate that Nintendo will release the console in June with a first-day launch inventory of 6 million to 8 million units. For perspective, the 2 most recent PlayStations each moved 4.5 million units in their first quarter, and the Switch sold 2.7 million units in its first month. The real question comes down to price, as the new chip in the Switch 2 probably costs $130 to $150, well above the $80 that the Nvidia chip in the Switch cost.

Takashi Mochizuki, Bloomberg

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