Is NiJaree Canady's $1M deal the best return on investment in sports history?: MoneyCall

Welcome back to MoneyCall, The Athletic s weekly sports business cheat sheet.

(Want to get MoneyCall conveniently delivered to your email every Wednesday morning? Easy sign-up here .) Hot off the presses Wednesday morning: Andrew Marchand on ESPNs muddled NBA Finals TV commentator situation, including exclusive new reporting on the future of Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson .

Advertisement Name-dropped elsewhere today: NiJaree Canady, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Presti, Saquon Barkley, ShaCarri Richardson, Peyton Manning, Austin Ainge, Pablo Torre, Manute Bol and more.

Lets go: Lets talk about return on investment About a year ago, Texas Tech boosters offered (and paid!) $1 million to the best pitcher in college softball, NiJaree Canady, to leave Stanford and come to Lubbock.

The payoff? Canady has thrown every Red Raiders pitch during the programs first Womens College World Series appearance which includes leading them past juggernaut and four-time defending champ Oklahoma on Monday to advance to the WCWS championship.

(And, yes, one costly intentional walk gone wrong against Texas tonight.) In a time with plenty of open spending on college players, that feels like the best $1 million invested in college sports this year , whether your metric is exposure for the school and program, setting a new bar of earning power for womens college athletes or simply a wealthy booster getting to feel better than if theyd spent on, like, a bathroom reno.

That got me thinking about a couple of other pretty good ROIs in sports over the past few weeks: The OKC Thunder : Before they play in the 2025 NBA Finals tomorrow night, lets rewind to 2007.

Thunder GM Sam Presti took on $8 million of the Phoenix Suns undesired player salary in exchange for two future first-round picks.

Here we go ...

One of those became Serge Ibaka ...

who eventually was in a deal that got OKC a draft pick that turned into Domantas Sabonis ...

who eventually was traded for Paul George ...

who was eventually the key piece of the trade with the Clippers ...

that yielded the Thunder its NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, along with a draft pick ...

that turned into SGAs All-Star teammate Jalen Williams.

OKC went from being valued at less than $300 million in 2007 to more than $3.6 billion as of 2024, with this seasons trip to the finals assuredly tacking on substantially more.

Not a bad ROI for eating $8 million .

Advertisement Wrexham : Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought the team for $2.5 million in 2021.

Three promotions later , its now worth more than $100 million and ready to spend bigger with the chance to earn promotion to the Premier League.

(Naturally, the popular TV show Welcome to Wrexham will be back for Season 5 to capture the effort.) Relax about the NBA Finals.

Plus, a beloved shows next chapter Big talkers from the sports business industry: Other current obsessions : MLB investing in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League ...

the Big Tens obsession with four auto-bids to the College Football Playoff ...

annoying ads shown incessantly on TV in Canada during the Stanley Cup ...

the $20,000 Manute Bol basketball card ...

Saquon Barkley on the Madden 26 cover doing this (with some help ) ...

Saquon hit his iconic reverse hurdle for the Madden cover (via @saquon , @NFL , @EAMaddenNFL , @ari_fararooy ) pic.twitter.com/yjfpfsfNvv Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 2, 2025 Could anyone challenge the Premier League? While were on the topic of return on investment, earlier this week The Athletic published a thought-provoking dive by my colleague Dan Sheldon into this fascinating question: Why has there never been a challenger to the Premier League like LIV Golf to the PGA Tour or the USFL/XFL/etc.

to the NFL? The answer turns out to be a combination of the Premier Leagues sheer popularity, the well-established history of its biggest clubs and some significant structural barriers, including membership rules and massive broadcast revenues.

Part of it is that the Premier League itself was originally less of a challenger brand than simply a new organizing principle.

Former league CEO Richard Scudamore noted: Nothing changed, right? Its not like LIV Golf, the IPL (crickets Indian Premier League) or the proposed European Super League.

The Premier League didnt come along and say they were going to compete head-to-head with the existing structure of English football.

The smartest thing about it was that it was all change, but nothing changed.

It was really just a marketing arrangement.

...

so it disrupted only in a governance sense it didnt disrupt in a footballing sense.

But could it happen? What would it take? Advertisement Charlie Stillitano, footballs Mr.

Fixer, told Sheldon this about how a Premier League rival might emerge: Lets be honest, there are enough billionaires in the world, and they might say, Lets scrap this relegation and promotion thing in England.

You need to have a country that is really robust.

One country that you could do it in is the United States.

Players would come here, you can pay them the money and they will have a good life, and its the biggest media market and commercial market in the world.

But we also have sports fans who like football.

You could get billionaires here together to do it, but you need the courage to do it.

The entire story is well worth your time .

Name to Know: Pablo Torre The former ESPN talent, occasional Morning Joe co-host and full-time podcaster has made headlines in 2025 for his reporting on the Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson story, along with plenty of more esoteric topics on his eponymous pod.

My colleague Zak Keefer has a phenomenal profile of one of sports medias most unique talents.

Investor of the Week: ShaCarri Richardson The Olympic track mega-star was announced as an adviser-owner of Athlos, a startup womens pro track league co-founded by prolific womens sports investor Alexis Ohanian.

Runner-up: Peyton Manning , who became a part-owner of NWSL Denver.

Data Point: $9.55M What LAFC earned last weekend from a play-in victory to send the club to the FIFA Club World Cup.

(Open question: How much will qualifying U.S.

teams players actually see of that bag? Answer: $1M per team, total, and the players are, rightfully, not happy .) Branding of the Week: Orlando Magic A- for bringing back the 90s-era pinstripes.

introducing a new generation of Magic basketball pic.twitter.com/V8DWuZdpSG Orlando Magic (@OrlandoMagic) June 3, 2025 Date to Know: June 1 When the calendar flipped last Sunday, Bill Belichicks buyout to leave UNC football dropped from $10 million to $1 million.

To clarify: Thats the number Belichick who hasnt yet coached a game would have to pay to walk away , not what UNC would have to pay to fire him , which comes in around $30 million, a guarantee he gets the first three years of his contract.

Advertisement Filed under two things can be true Beat Dan in Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle #254 00:31 Hint: Fun, timely hockey theme! Try the game here! Great business-adjacent reads for your downtime or commute: Longtime friend of MoneyCall Joe Drape of The New York Times had an incredible feature this past weekend profiling an eighth-grade football star, his NIL opportunities and the moment we are living in when deals are coming for not just high school athletes, but even younger ones.

Read it here .

Two more reads worth your time: Back next Wednesday! Meanwhile, do you know what has a phenomenal ROI? Forwarding MoneyCall to a couple of friends or colleagues, with your personal recommendation to subscribe to receive it every Wednesday morning (totally free, as are all The Athletic s other newsletters ).

(Photo: Nathan J.

Fish / The Oklahoman / USA Today Network via Imagn Images).

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