1. The Super Bowl halftime show is more popular every year, and that chain-moving trend is backed up by the numbers. With recent halftime acts seeing more than a 100 per cent increase in music sales leading up to and following the game, Super Bowl viewers have taken a particular interest in featured artists, regardless of their genre. According to data provided to SportsBusiness Daily by Nielsen, all acts over the past six years have seen a massive spike in digital download sales and actual album/CD sales. The biggest spike occurred in 2012, when Madonna saw a 482 per cent increase in sales in the two weeks leading up to the big game and a 591 per cent jump in the three weeks after Super Bowl Sunday. This year, the featured halftime act of Coldplay (with Beyoncé and Bruno Mars as special guests) was a unique combination. All three performers are expected to extend this trend of a massive spike in sales.

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2. The U.S. has been working hard to land a premier international athletics competition, such as the Olympics or the World Cup. The country’s best chance comes out West, where Los Angeles is one of four cities in the running to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach visited Los Angeles last week to check out the city and proposed venues for himself, calling the visit “very special,” and noting the city’s Olympic plans are “most impressive.” One big boost to L.A.’s bid was last month’s decision to house athletes in UCLA dormitories rather than building an all-new Athletes Village. The move would shave nearly $2 billion off of the current Olympic budget. Bach is currently touring all four candidate cities, stopping in Rome, Paris, and Budapest before he visited Los Angeles. The itinerary might be a subtle sign that the IOC was saving the best for last.

3. Despite revamping its roster selection format to better engage fans, this year’s Pro Bowl drew only 7.99 million viewers – the event’s lowest audience since 2007. While this number is well above what it was a decade ago, it’s also the smallest audience to tune in since the game was moved to the weekend before the Super Bowl in 2010. Not helping the Pro Bowl’s viewership was the NHL All-Star Game, airing opposite on NBCSN and drawing that network’s best audience yet. NBCSN finished with 1.6 million viewers for the game from 5:03-8:27 p.m. ET, up 34 per cent from 1.19 million viewers last year. While the disparate fates of the NFL Pro Bowl and NHL All-Star Game mean different things to their respective broadcast partners, they are in no way an accurate portrayal of the health of both leagues.

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4. After a tough couple of months trying to navigate U.S. legal loopholes, DraftKings has made the leap overseas. The Daily Fantasy Sports giant just secured partnerships with English Premier League teams Arsenal, Liverpool, and Watford as part of its global expansion into the U.K, according to The Drum. This marks the first international deal that DraftKings has signed, with hopes of launching a long and successful international campaign. The deal will see the DraftKings’ brand presence "visible throughout the grounds during domestic fixtures as well as marketing activities being promoted through each of the club’s digital and social media channels." Once it becomes operational in Europe, DraftKings will feature online games based on the EPL and UEFA Champions League. The move is sure to be embraced by European fans who are much more accustomed to “games of chance” being an integral part of their sports landscape.

5. The Minnesota Vikings are less than a year away from moving into their new, state-of-the-art U.S. Bank Stadium, and the franchise continues to rush toward their goal of selling $125 million in personal seat licenses (PSLs). The Vikings just announced that they are only $10 million short of that goal, having “sold 90 per cent of the available 'stadium builder’s licenses'" for the venue’s inaugural 2016 NFL season, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. This marks the first time that PSLs have been sold in Minnesota. Remaining are licenses for $2,000, $2,250, and $2,550. The fewer than 5,000 remaining PSLs to be sold "are for seats in the lower level corner and in the end zone." CMO Steve LaCroix reports that sales picked up after the Vikings playoff loss to the Seahawks, with the team "selling 1,000 licenses in the past three weeks."

“The Sports Professor” Rick Horrow is Visiting Expert on Sports Business at the Harvard Law School, and has written the books “When the Game Is on the Line” and “Beyond the Scoreboard.”