In case you were wondering, the new Pope is a White Sox fan, so if he can manage with that ordeal, he’ll probably be fine in his new job. 

This week we talk about the latest in the Boston Celtics takeover, show our new documentary about how folks are trying to Americanize the Premier League, and wonder if AI can handle translating sports lingo into different languages.

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Celtics Deal Update 

Hi, it’s Giles. It’s been an insane week in knock-out sport. The Champions League semi-final between Inter Milan and Barcelona was the best two legs of football I’ve seen in years. And watching the Boston Celtics blow a 20-point lead twice has been ludicrous. 

The Celtics front office has some big decisions to make now that they’re down 0-2. And so do investors in the NBA team.

In March, Bill Chisholm pulled together a consortium that included tech and real estate investors, alongside a private equity firm, to buy the Celtics for $6.1 billion.

Kristaps Porzingis of the Boston Celtics dunks the ball against the New York Knicks. Photographer: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images North America

Initially, Chisholm didn’t have all the cash needed to buy at least 51% of the team. Private equity firm Sixth Street put up $1 billion or so (with some conditions). Chisholm and his crew needed to find at least another $2.1 billion (minus however much cash Chisholm and his pals were putting in).

After a mini-roadshow, Chisholm’s bid is now over-subscribed, according to two people familiar with the matter. That’s banker speak for they’ve got more money than they need. (There were rumors they'd struggle. Apparently not.)

It’s not clear who these new investors are, but some are those already invested in the Celtics, like telecom billionaire Bob Hale. 

Over the next week or so, Celtics investors not rolling over to be part of the Chisholm group need to decide how much of their 49% they wish to part with now, or they can wait until 2028 and sell at a price dictated by a preset formula based on league growth.

Unless something seismic happens, and given the NBA has signed a new media deal, league growth should be pretty easy to predict over the next few years for these investors.

But everyone will probably need to invest more money into the team. The Celtics are an expensive club to run. Some projections put the payroll next season at $500 million, with a record $270 million from tax penalties. 

I guess what’s left to decide is whether the existing owners need the cash to spend elsewhere, or think they can get a better return on a different investment, or they’re just desperate for the adrenaline that comes with winning another championship. Maybe it’ll be clearer on Saturday night if the Celtics trail 0-3.

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• Unrivaled Sports, which owns a number of youth sports venues and events, is raising $120 million in a funding round led by the venture arm of retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods.

• Clara Wu Tsai and her considerable family fortune created a superteam (and the WNBA’s defending champions) by treating star players like the pro athletes they are. Now the New York Liberty want to be the first $1 billion women’s sport franchise. 

• David Beckham is making another attempt to boost the finances of Salford City FC, after helping bring in a raft of new investors to recapitalize the fourth-tier English football team.

• In the latest episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk about McLaren Racing’s success at the Miami Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris finishing first and second on the podium. They also speak with Zak Brown about how McLaren came back from the brink of bankruptcy.

Hi, it’s David. This week, we published a mini-documentary showing how clubs are altering their stadiums and rapidly expanding premium seating to hike matchday revenues.

As an explainer on how changing seats can be a fraught business, let’s look at Manchester United. One of the world’s most famous teams is currently in the middle of a painful process of relocating about 600 of its most loyal supporters to other seats in Old Trafford to make way for a premium priced 'dugout section' — which is located at field level — as the Premier League club tries to boost revenues and reverse years of losses.

How is Manchester United risking upsetting die-hard fans?

The club is asking some of its season-ticket holders around the dugout areas at Old Trafford to move because it recognizes that these can be sold at higher prices. Manchester United last year had a pretax loss of £131 million and part-owner Jim Ratcliffe has instructed the club's managers to look at ways of increasing revenues. Boosting sales isn't just to return to profitability; it’s also crucial for the club to buy new players while still remaining within the league’s financial fair play rules.

How much will Manchester United charge for the new tickets?

Manchester United is currently receiving around £66 for the prime seats in the dugout area, according to a person familiar with the situation. The fans with these seats have season tickets, which have likely been in their family for years, if not decades. 

Unsurprisingly, football clubs would like to hike what they perceive to be the most prized seats and make tickets available to fans beyond long-term season ticket holders. 

Manchester United hasn't released details on how it will do that, but it’s aware that Chelsea, following a custom that is familiar in US sport, has for the past two seasons been selling tickets for seats around the dugout area at mind-boggling prices. Tickets for next week's game in London against Manchester United have been advertised for as much as £12,500 each.

At Chelsea, the ticket holders have lunch, can walk across the pitch before the game and meet some of the players. The seats are occasionally occupied by high-profile personalities. John Kerry, former US Secretary of State during the Obama presidency, was recently seen in the dugout for a match.

The Manchester United crest on a seat in the home dugout. Photographer: Nick Potts - PA Images/PA Images

What do the fans think of being moved?

Many fans are upset at the prospect of being moved from an area that they or their families have been sitting in for years. One season ticket holder whose family has had their seats since the 1950s said that she originally was told that the club would call everyone, but she hasn’t heard from anyone yet. That’s left her upset by the whole relocation experience. 

MUST, one of the club's fan groups, says: “Of course we understand the need to increase revenues, but breaking up groups of long-standing fans only serves to worsen the atmosphere and that feeds through to performances on the field, costing the club more than any marginal revenue gains.”

What has Manchester United said about this move?

The club issued a statement at the time the new dugout zone was announced.

“We understand that moving a limited number of season tickets from seats around the dugouts will be unpopular with the affected fans, and we regret that disruption. However, these are the most valuable seats in the ground. In many clubs, these seats are the most premium and high-profile hospitality. Converting these seats will allow us to generate significant additional revenue, which helps us to minimize increases to season ticket prices.”

Read More: Premier League Football Adopts American Approach to Boost Profit

Robotic Commentary

Hey, it’s Saritha Rai, Asia AI reporter, writing from Bangalore.

Artificial intelligence-powered apps and bots are swamping everyday life, hyper-personalizing our fitness plans, customizing autonomous driving experiences and re-jigging our shopping carts.

Now they want to mess with sports commentary.

A startup called Camb.AI is providing AI-powered live dubbing in multiple languages. In January, Camb’s technology dubbed the finals of the Australian Open in Spanish via a YouTube stream. 

The Men's Singles Final during the Australian Open in January. Photographer: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Last year it worked with Europe’s leading sports digital streaming platform Eurovision Sport to trial AI-generated commentary in Portuguese, English and French for the 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships at Lima. It’s also begun work with Major League Soccer. 

Live-streaming sports is far more complicated than live-streaming an interview. In sports, the AI also has to capture and faithfully translate the nuances of language and the context and the emotions of the game.

The Dubai-headquartered Camb was established in 2022 by tech industry veteran Avneesh Prakash and his son, Carnegie Mellon-trained computer scientist Akshat Prakash, who worked as an engineer for Apple Inc’s voice assistant Siri.

“Our AI can translate both words and emotions as the anchor goes from poised composure to unrestrained elation in less than three seconds,” said Akshat.

The startup competed with 1,600 companies for a spot in the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech 2025 accelerator. The consortium is testing how Camb’s AI “can bring a more inclusive experience for players, teams and fans,” said Jenna Kurath, head of Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech.

AI dubbing isn’t new. The startup’s peers in the AI audio space, including New York’s ElevenLabs and Seoul-based Supertone, enable the creation of lifelike, expressive audio content for movies, documentaries, TV shows and music videos.

ElevenLabs recently helped dub Lex Fridman’s podcast with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi into multiple languages, such as Hindi and English, preserving the natural tone of both speakers. Modi speaking English with a foreign accent was a bit weird. Equally strange sounding is Fridman speaking perfect Kannada, the language of the state of Karnataka, home to Bangalore.

Camb is powered by large language models — similar to the generative AI used to make ChatGPT — that are prone to hallucinations. It gets particularly complicated in sports because there are unique player names, tactical concepts and specific metrics — all which require careful handling.

For example, Messi could be transcribed as “messy.” And offside trap could be misheard as “aside trap.”

Camb says its AI has proved hardy, at least so far. It did a Major League Baseball game in which the commentator screamed: “The ball peppers off the green monster!” — the nickname for the left field wall at the Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park. Camb’s AI screamed in Hindi that the ball hit a high wall and rebounded.

“That moment showed that our model’s really understanding what’s going on,” Akshat said.

Still, more work is needed to translate the magic that is great commentary. 

Last week we described the University of Kentucky’s Champions Blue, LLC as a for-profit. The newly formed company housing the university’s athletic department is a non-profit.

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