The capital will support Unique's expansion strategy, which includes acquisitions, entry into new markets, and the launch of new verticals, including women's sports. Among its clients are West Ham's Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Tottenham's Brennan Johnson, and Arsenal's Ethan Nwaneri. 'We're not investing in teams; we're investing in these essential infrastructure businesses around the space,' said David Abrams, Managing Partner at Velocity. 'So if there is a change in the world economy and recession or trade war, it doesn't really matter.' Founded in 2022, Velocity is targeting $500m for its debut fund and currently manages $256m. Rather than pursue passive stakes in franchises, the firm focuses on operating partners across sports, media, and entertainment with traditional private equity return profiles. Its portfolio includes Elevate, Parella Motorsports, Videocites, Camp, and the X Games. Abrams, formerly Chief Investment Officer at Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, said the economics of football's transfer market offer a key advantage for agencies. Unlike US sports agents, football agents can earn a share of club-to-club transfer fees in addition to commissions on player salaries....

For the last year, former MIT middle linebacker and mechanical engineer Kodiak Brush '17 has been leading the development of football helmets for the California-based sports equipment manufacturer LIGHT Helmets. In December, Brush notched a major achievement in that work: LIGHT Helmets' new Apache helmet line was ranked the highest-performing helmet ever in safety tests by Virginia Tech's renowned helmet-testing lab. 'We're trying to lower the overall amount of energy going into each impact by lowering the weight of the helmet,' Brush says. 'It's a balancing act trying to have a complete, polished product with all the bells and whistles while at the same time keeping the mass of the helmet as low as possible.' 'It's really cool to work in the football helmet space after playing the sport for so long,' Brush says. 'We did this with a fraction of the research and development budget of our competitors. It's a great feeling to have worked on something that could help so many people.' Brush spent his playing career at middle linebacker, a position often considered the quarterback of the defense. In that role, he got accustomed to helping teammates understand their assignments on the field and making sure everyone was in the right position. At MIT, he quickly realized his role would be different....

My father-in-law, Bill, and I watch sports differently. Picture Clint Eastwood sitting in front of the TV with Jesse Eisenberg. When a college football game is on, Bill becomes serious, and my surface-level commentary'things like 'Not looking good,' when Arizona State is trailing'is usually met with silence. I wasn't raised a college-football fan; casually saying terms like 'Big Ten' or 'Ole Miss' still seems unnatural to me. But as I've tried to get closer to Bill over the years by trying to understand the sport, I've learned important lessons about my own relationship to fandom. For me, the most essential broadcast on live television has always been the Oscars. As a kid, the ritualized, fanfare-laden process for announcing the year's best movie evoked a grown-up world I was excited to inhabit one day. But over time, Oscar angst has overshadowed my pure enjoyment of my 'sport.' Like many movie fans, I experienced a blow to my sense of reality when I grew up and realized that terrible movies often win at the Oscars. The more I learned about the flawed nominating process, and the misconduct and exclusion tacitly sanctioned by the Academy and the wider movie industry'as crystallized by the #OscarsSoWhite and #MeToo hashtags'the more I struggled to maintain the idea that the ceremony 'mattered.' And I don't seem to be alone. The ratings trend for the Academy Awards has shown a decline for much of my adult life....

But for the men's England team, perhaps some of the shine has come off. Captain Harry Kane has openly criticised his fellow players for excusing themselves from international duty before matches in November 2024 against Greece and Ireland. Yet data suggests that fans ' and Kane ' should maybe give those players the benefit of the doubt. For the demands of the modern game in an overloaded football calendar are having a serious impact on players' wellbeing and performance. For example, one official review indicates a rise of 11% in player injuries in the Premier League during the 2023-24 season compared to the previous one. And aside from the physical damage, those injuries (most of which occur during the first half of the game) cost Premier League clubs '266 million on salaries for players who were unable to play. The new Champions League format has also introduced controversy in terms of the additional number of games it demands. Under the new system, teams are required to play eight first-round matches instead of six. Some will then need to play additional play-off games to reach the round of 16....