Offside: MLS teams are increasingly valuable, but many are still in the red

2/21/23 7:00PM

Top of the league

‍With the bidding war for soccer giants Manchester United heating up — bids are reportedly in the region of $6bn — and the MLS season kicking off on Saturday, we thought we’d explore the finances behind one of America’s fastest-growing sports.

Although some way off the largest European clubs, soccer in the US is big business, with last season’s champions Los Angeles FC becoming the first MLS franchise to hit a $1 billion valuation earlier this month, per Forbes.

‍Off-field finances

‍The MLS was founded 30 years ago as part of the 1994 US World Cup bid and has grown steadily ever since, building on the strong grassroots participation in the sport. Last year the MLS hit a record 10 million in annual attendance, helping the league to ink a lucrative $2.5 billion decade-long streaming deal with Apple.

Teams will be hoping that some of that fortune trickles down, as 18 of the 28 competing clubs in the 2022 season lost money, with New York City FC, Chicago Fire and Toronto FC among the clubs who lost $10m+.

Despite those losses, Forbes estimates that the average MLS club is now worth ~$580m, presumably because of the potential for growth over the coming decade. That valuation is up 85% from 2019 — and sides like Atlanta, and the other team in Los Angeles, LA Galaxy, are approaching the $1bn mark too.

Millie Giles9h

OpenAI set to air a minute-long Super Bowl ad for a second consecutive year, per WSJ

OpenAI is expected to broadcast a lengthy commercial at Super Bowl LX, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Having aired its first-ever paid ad at last year’s Big Game, the ChatGPT maker is set to take another 60-second ad slot during NBC’s broadcast on February 8, according to people familiar with the matter.

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Big winners at the Golden Globes could indicate this week’s Oscar noms

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Chalamet with award at the Golden Globes

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Tamagotchis are making a comeback, 3 decades after first becoming a global toy craze

If you were a ’90s kid, you might remember the craze around little egg-shaped toys with an 8-bit digital screen, displaying an ambiguous pet-thing that demanded food and attention.

Now, on the brand’s 30th anniversary, the Tamagotchi — the Japanese pocket-sized virtual pet that launched a thousand cute and needy tech companions, from Nintendogs to fluffy AI robots — is making a minor comeback.

Tamagotchi Google Search Trends — Sherwood News

Looking at Google Trends data, searches for “tamagotchi” spiked in December in the US, up around 80% from just six months prior, with the most search volume in almost two decades.

While the toys are popular Christmas gifts, with interest volumes often seen ticking up in December each year, the sudden interest might also have something to do with the birthday celebrations that creator and manufacturer Bandai Namco are putting on, including a Tokyo exhibition that opened on Wednesday.

Game, set, hatch

More broadly, modern consumers appear to have a growing obsession with collectibles (see: Labubu mania), as well as a taste for nostalgia (see: the iPod revival, among many other trends).

But, having finally hit 100 million sales in September last year, the brand itself is probably just glad to exist, giving a whole new generation the chance to experience the profound grief of an unexpected Tamagotchi death.

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“Avatar: Fire and Ash” surpasses $1 billion globally after 18 days

James Cameron is now the first director in history to have four consecutive movies gross over a billion dollars.

$5.6B

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Disney could be well on its way to its third billion-dollar film of the year following a $345 million opening weekend for “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” The film’s opening gross puts the “Avatar” franchise’s total box office earnings at $5.6 billion — and counting.

The latest film, the second “Avatar” entry under Disney’s tent, earned about 75% of its total box office gross internationally — in line with previous movies in the (as of now) trilogy. Domestically, this one earned $88 million, falling short of expectations.

“Fire and Ash” was the widest Imax release ever, debuting on 1,703 screens globally and earning $43.6 million through the format. The $345 million “Fire and Ash” opening weekend was the second-highest of 2025, behind Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” which recently passed the $1 billion mark, globally.

Year to date, Disney has earned $5.8 billion globally at the box office.

Offside: MLS teams are increasingly valuable, but many are still in the red

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