English Premier League soccer clubs Liverpool, Arsenal, and Tottenham have announced pre-season tours in Asia as they look to boost fan engagement in the region.
Liverpool announced they will return to Asia for their 2025 pre-season tour, playing against Italian giants AC Milan in Hong Kong at the newly opened Kai Tak Stadium on July 26 before heading to Japan.
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The club said details around the Japan leg of the tour will be announced at a later date.
Liverpool last visited the region in 2023 when playing in Singapore and previously traveled to Hong Kong for pre-season in 2017. It will be the club's first visit to Japan, with Wataru Endo currently playing in the first team.
North London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham, meanwhile, will also play a match against each other at Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong on July 31 as part of their pre-season tours in the region.
As part of their tours, the three Premier League clubs will be holding open training sessions on July 24, 29, and 30.
Meanwhile, the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, the regional sports network (RSN) aligned with the Major League Baseball (MLB) team, have agreed a last-minute renewal with US telecoms giant Comcast amid a dispute over carriage rights fees.
An hour before the expiration of their contract, YES and Comcast released a joint statement that they had “reached an agreement for continued distribution of the YES Network.”
The pair had been locked in a standoff related to carriage fees, with Comcast wanting to move YES Network out of the basic cable tier to a high-priced digital tier. However, RSN was resistant to the proposal.
The carriage deal had been due to end on September 30, 2024 but the two sides kept negotiations going with deal extensions.
The agreement will keep the YES Network distributed in the New York area as the Yankees look to defend their 2024 American League title.
Elsewhere, Jersey Mike’s sandwich chain has become the official sub sandwich of American football’s NFL in a multi-year deal.
The new agreement gives Jersey Mike’s exclusive rights to use the NFL’s trademarks in its advertising as it looks to increase its marketing efforts on the back of its recent $8 billion sale to private equity firm Blackstone.
The deal includes Jersey Mike’s sponsoring the NFL Draft Experience in Wisconsin, the Super Bowl Experience next year, NFL Flag, and the Pro Bowl Games.
Additionally, the Professional Fighters League (PFL), the US-based mixed martial arts (MMA) series, has announced a multi-year partnership with blockchain analytics firm Arkham.
The deal spans all PFL properties, including the 2025 PFL World Tournament, Champions Series, PFL Europe, PFL MENA, and soon-to-be-launched PFL Africa, and will see the pair launch sweepstakes for fans starting today, with participants given a chance to win a trip to the 2025 PFL World Tournament Championship on August 21.
The 2025 PFL World Tournament will air live across the US and Canada via international sports broadcaster ESPN, while coverage across Europe will come via the OTT sports streaming platform DAZN.
