andyabramson.com

DIRTY LAUNDRY: HOW SCANDAL BECAME SPORTS’ MOST RELIABLE REVENUE LINE

A $606,812.23 judgment against a volunteer hockey administrator nobody outside Colorado has heard of. A billionaire suing the family he sold his own team to. A max-salary forward one podcast away from a suspension. Three stories, no relation to each other on paper. One business model connects all three, and it isn’t the NBA, the … Read more

Sell the Fraction, Not the Whole

How a third-division club in Lima, and four teams like it, built sponsorship and identity models the big-budget playbook was never designed to sell. Every jersey deal in the world starts from the same assumption: one shirt, one buyer, one price the market will bear. Peruvian soccer/futbol club Municipal broke the assumption instead of negotiating … Read more

MLS Bets Big on World Cup Momentum. But the Scoreboard Tells Two Different Stories.

The World Cup is over. Spain has beaten Argentina 1-0 in extra time, the trophy has been lifted, and the largest World Cup in history has completed its 39-day run across the United States, Canada and Mexico. (AP News) Now Major League Soccer gets the ball. MLS throws nearly everything it has into capitalizing on … Read more

FIFA’s Revenue Revolution: When Football Became a Platform Business

I stayed up late last night reading through the notes from a fascinating podcast conversation about FIFA’s financial transformation, and I’m still thinking about it this morning. Not because of the numbers themselves, though a jump from $7 billion to $13 billion in one World Cup cycle is certainly eye-popping, but because of what those … Read more

Mind the Gaps: Why Differentiation Alone Isn’t Enough

For years, I’ve watched startups, telecom companies, SaaS providers, and platform businesses obsess over one thing: differentiation. The pitch usually goes something like this: “We’re faster.” “We’re cheaper.” “We have more features.” “We’re AI-powered.” That’s all well and good, but being different and being relevant are not the same thing. In my years helping companies … Read more

Sports Marketing in 2026: The End of “Sponsorships as Campaigns”

Sports Marketing used to be a clean loop: buy rights, build a campaign, measure impressions, renew. That loop is breaking. In 2026, the winning sports marketers are treating sports less like a media buy and more like infrastructure—a system where content, distribution, identity, and commerce run together. The shift isn’t subtle. It’s structural. Here are … Read more