The Deal with Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly

If you know nothing else about women’s hockey, you probably know Hilary Knight. The 5-time Olympic medalist has played the most games in U.S. Women’s Hockey history. She has also served as the captain of two PWHL teams and is one of the reasons the league exists in the first place. In 2019, Hilary was among several players who vowed to boycott any North American league that was not fin...

Lisa Bhathal Merage is very busy cementing Portland’s reputation as the global epicenter of women’s sports. In partnership with her brother Alex and their RAJ Sports venture, Lisa is the owner and governor of the NWSL’s Portland Thorns and the WNBA’s Portland Fire. They came to own both teams under pretty unusual circumstances. The Thorns were in turmoil after their previou...

LIV Golf is known for doing it big: big player contracts, big worldwide events and big prize purses (an average of $460 million annually). It has also received big funding from one particular source. As of February 2026, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has pumped $5.3 billion into LIV. But this past April, the PIF announced that it would halt its funding of the league at the end...

Here on The Deal we have interviewed  some of the world’s most famous athletes and some of the most powerful people in sports. But today we welcome our most important guests and probably our hosts’ biggest critics: their children. In this special Father’s Day episode of The Deal, Alex and Jason’s kids join us to share some perspective on who their dads are off the air. Firs...

Not only have the Knicks brought New York City its first NBA title in 53 years, the team also brought their hometown a lot of money. An estimate by the New York City Economic Development Corporation puts the economic impact of the Knicks’ postseason run at $380 million. In this special NBA Finals episode of The Deal, NYC EDC Interim CEO Jeanny Pak joins Jason to break down the methodology be...

It’s the first day of the 2026 World Cup! Ticket prices, transportation, security, visas, Attorneys General investigations and water bottles are just a few of the issues threatening to distract from the play on the pitch. Now that it's time for the football to actually be played, we will finally get some answers to the biggest outstanding questions: Will FIFA’s controversial ticketing...

Jill Ellis has seen soccer from every angle: as an elite player, as the two-time World Cup champion coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team and as an NWSL team president. She is bringing this expertise to FIFA as the organization’s first Chief Football Officer. As one of the chief architects of the global game, she is the ultimate World Cup insider. In this episode of The Deal, Jill te...

Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady is considered one of the best shooting guards to ever play the game of basketball. His post-playing career is one of a multifaceted businessperson. T-Mac is one of the lead studio analysts on NBC’s nostalgic return to NBA coverage. And in December 2024, Tracy and his cousin Vince Carter were among 10 limited partners who joined the Buffalo Bills ownership group. O...

Jess Pegula has spent her life around elite sports — both as one of the best tennis players in the world and as part of the family behind the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres. Beyond competing at the highest level, she’s become an influential voice in the future of professional tennis through her role as a player representative for the Women’s Tennis Association, giving her a rar...

Alan Waxman’s Sixth Street Partners has a deep conviction in sports. Over the past five years, Alan and his firm have taken a minority stake in teams in most major professional leagues, including: the Boston Celtics, the San Antonio Spurs, the San Francisco Giants and FC Barcelona. In 2024, Sixth Street became the first investment fund to take a controlling interest in an American pro team w...

Baseball and softball are both having a moment. The 2025 Women’s College World Series was the most watched ever, with 2.4 million people tuning in to game 3. On the baseball side, almost 11 million people watched Venezuela beat the U.S. to take the 2026 World Baseball Classic title. The audience for both sports is growing, and LSU softball star and baseball media analyst AJ Andrews is one of...

Steve Young has created a playbook for so many athletes looking to make their way in business and spends a lot of his time paying it forward. HGGC, the private equity firm he started in 2007 with Rich Lawson, currently has an AUM above $10 billion. He also happens to be one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game of football.  In this episode of  The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason...

Kara Nortman bets big on women’s sports, and it’s paying off. She is the co-owner of Angel City FC, an NWSL team with a $335 million valuation. She is also the managing partner of Monarch Collective, the first investment platform exclusively dedicated to women’s sports. Monarch is now investing a $250 million fund with a stake in three NWSL teams and a European football club. In...

NBA fans, you’re about to see a whole lot more of Kenny Beecham. The founder of basketball media brand Enjoy Basketball first broke through in 2011 streaming NBA 2k games on Twitch. Since then, he has built a YouTube channel with over 700,000 followers, hosted altcasts on NBA TV and ESPN and interviewed Adam Silver. In October 2025, Kenny and Enjoy signed their biggest deal yet: a partnershi...

Elle Duncan has heard your criticism of Netflix’s MLB Opening Day Coverage. And as the streamer’s first sports anchor, she has something to say about it. In this episode of The Deal, Elle explains to Alex and Jason that there is a difference between constructive criticism and saying something is “too Netflix” and there’s a balance between "eventizing" sports and cover...

Jesse Cole is the Walt Disney of baseball. As the founder and CEO of the Savannah Bananas and its parent company Fans First Entertainment, Jesse rewrote the rules of baseball to build an entertainment juggernaut. There are no bunts, walks or mound visits in Banana Ball, but there are dancing umpires, trick plays and choreographed dance numbers. But the Savannah Bananas are more than just a zany ta...

Today is Opening Day of the 2026 MLB season. The season kicks off with a coast-to-coast showdown (on Netflix!) between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants. But it’s the off-the-diamond news that’s making the biggest waves. Beyond a streaming service partnership, baseball's also now in business with Polymarket, and facing labor strife that could lead to an offseason lockout go...

It’s brackets season! And you can watch all 67 games of both the women’s and men’s NCAA tournament on national TV, thanks to David Levy. Levy spent 33 years at Turner Broadcasting, eventually serving as its president, where he expanded the network’s NBA coverage. Levy is probably best known for brokering a $10.8 billion rights agreement that made every March Madness game av...

Tonight, the United States and Venezuela face off in the finals of the 2026 World Baseball Classic. And chances are, a lot of you will be watching. Based only on pool play, this year’s WBC viewership is up 142% from the 2023 tournament. 35,000 people have bought tickets to tonight’s final and over 100 million Japanese fans tuned in to watch Shohei Ohtani. Aaron Judge called the crowd a...

Bobby Wagner is one of three NFL Linebackers to ever record 2,000 tackles. But his biggest goal is ownership, whether that’s of a team or his own contract negotiations. Following the lead of his mentors Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, Wagner has spent the last decade diversifying his business interests, including investments in tech start-ups and taking a minority stake in the WNBA’s...

Can Americans really embrace the rest of the world's favorite sport? According to Roger Bennett, the founder and CEO of soccer media powerhouse Men in Blazers, we don't have to wait for this summer's World Cup -- the love affair with soccer is in full swing across the United States. In fact, Roger breaks the news to Alex that soccer has surpassed baseball as the country’s third most popular...

In this special episode, Jason Kelly speaks with Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasly about how drivers aren't just racers in today's Formula 1 – they're global brand ambassadors, technical consultants, and brands unto themselves. Gasly discussed how he is building his empire through partnerships with fashion brands, an investment group, and an ownership stake in FC Versailles, on top of competing...

In this special episode, Jason Kelly speaks with Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali about how F1 is bringing its booming business to Miami, why he's excited about the addition of Cadillac to the F1 grid, how he's pushing to bring more women into racing through F1 Academy, and why he teamed up with the folks behind the Brad Pitt movie "F1."  This interview was part of the third episode of Bloomb...

In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk to Angel City FC controlling owner Willow Bay about how she sees her investment giving back to the community. They discuss how Bay helped change sports media culture when she hosted “NBA Inside Stuff,” how her work as dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism inspired her to acquire a team in the N...

In this special bonus episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly hop on the mic to talk about the thrilling seven-game World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. They discuss why it was the best World Series Rodriguez has ever seen, how Dodgers owner Mark Walter's vision and checkbook have fueled the team, and why they see potential for a Dodgers three-peat ne...