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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Research suggests an average hockey player skates over 20MPH per hour. Impressively fast. But the pace at which NHL is increasing their business will beat even that. The average franchise valuation growth in the league is topping the giants. It’s more than double that of the NFL and even better than the NFL, NBA, and MLS combined. A deep dive reveals even more staggering insights.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Turning your mugshot into merch? That’s a twist. Sure, top athletes have been arrested a few times. Tiger Woods was arrested on DUI charges. Charles Barkley served a three-day prison sentence. Even the jolly-good fella Scottie Scheffler was arrested last year at the PGA Championship. But when did you see a sports icon transforming his arrest into a marketing ploy? Say hello to Haiden Deegan. And his masterplan.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
How good has Rory McIlroy been over the last decade? A recently released stat gives away a truth that is well known but rarely admitted. Rory McIlroy has been at the top of the game regardless of his ‘major’ misses. Golf Monthly released a decade overview of the world ranking – how the world’s top-ten looked like this week in 2020 and in 2015. In 2015, McIlroy was the World No.1, followed by Henrik Stenson and Bubba Watson. Both of them have now joined LIV Golf.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Will we see Sergio Garcia teeing off in Bethpage Black? For the Americans? Maybe… wait, did we just say for the Stars and Stripes? Surely, we must be joking. Well, yes, we say that in a bit of a jest, but looks like that’s what the golf community is talking about. Before you get confused and squinch your eyebrows, let’s just clear the air: Sergio Garcia was named an Honorary Texan.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Nelly Korda has a resume that would make anyone envious. 15 titles. Two majors. A Solheim Cup win. Worth envying. But not for herself, though. Actually, she isn’t even that impressed. 2024 would forever be a watershed moment in Korda’s career and LPGA’s history. That’s what the World No.1 would like to do every year. Last year, at this point, Korda was ruling the roost in the LPGA Tour.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Ryan Gerard is a Titleist staffer. But by no means does he use an all-Titleist bag. Generally, pros sign for a 9 or 11-club deal with an equipment company, as Michael S Kim shared in a social media post some time back. Gerard packs his bag with a bunch of Titleist equipment, but he picks a TaylorMade club as well. The 25-year-old University of North Carolina grad keeps a GT-3 driver with a 15-degree loft on top of his bag. The North Carolina-born star ranks 56th in driving distance.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
You would think that Earl Woods was focused on only one golfer in the family. But actually that’s wrong. The Vietnam war veteran was the architect behind not one but two golfers’ careers in the family. The first one, about his son, Tiger Woods, is well-known. But the second, of Cheyenne Woods, is relatively unknown. Yet, her career wouldn’t have started save for the faith Earl showed in her. Earl Woods used to work as a scout for IMG, recruiting talented junior golfers.
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3 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
LIV Golf pros (at least some) miss teeing off in PGA Tour events (at least in some). The rumor mill is hot with Brooks Koepka’s possible exit from the PIF-funded league, once his contract is over. The five-time major winner had kept it open till now. Now, another major champion, Bubba Watson, admitted he would love to play in some tournaments. Not that Watson wants to break away from LIV, but in a possible post-agreement world, he would like to go back to certain venues.
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4 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
Turns out that ESPN never really went away. Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, ESPN’s parent company, has renewed talks with Roger Goodell & Co. for a $2B acquisition of NFL Network. In return, he is encouraging (read: persuading) Roger Goodell’s NFL to own a 10% equity stake in the company. If the deal goes through, it will potentially be the most consequential media rights agreement in history–leaving its impact beyond the NFL and football fans.
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4 weeks ago | 
essentiallysports.com | Parnab Bhattacharya
For almost a decade, Warren Buffett wanted to give away $1M to one of his employees. Anyone. As long as they predict the perfect NCAA March Madness brackets. The odds of predicting all 67 games–with some basketball knowledge–is one to 120.2 billion. For context, the odds of getting hit by a meteorite is 1 in 1.6 million. You get the picture. So, the sixth-wealthiest man lowered the bar in 2025.
