Lionel Messi is 39, done with Argentina, still playing in Miami, and buying his second Spanish club of the year. Denzel Ward signed the third-biggest contract among NFL corners in July and spent some of it on the baseball team down the road. Pusha T and Pharrell got a 130-year-old Italian roaster to make their coffee. Welcome back to The Closeout. Let's get into it.

CD Eldense confirmed on September 9 that Lionel Messi has reached a preliminary agreement to buy 100% of the club. He is acquiring the shares held by TH Soluciones Group, a Colombian investment group that took control less than a year ago. Eldense plays in Spain's second division, sits 20th of 22 after four matches with two points, and fired its manager on Monday. The deal still needs due diligence, final legal procedures, and approval from Spain's Consejo Superior de Deportes. No price was disclosed and no completion date was given.

That is the second Spanish club he has bought this year. In April he acquired 100% of UE Cornellà, a fifth-tier Catalan club known for developing young players. Neither is a trophy asset. Both are cheap clubs with room to move up the pyramid. Just look at Wrexham.

This is the latest addition to a broad club portfolio. He co-owns Uruguayan club Deportivo LSM with Luis Suárez. Leones de Rosario, a family project in his hometown run by his brother Matías, is now inside Argentina's professional structure. He holds a piece of KRU Esports, the organization Sergio Agüero founded. He is expected to receive equity in Inter Miami once his playing contract ends. Away from football there is a Spanish-listed real estate trust, a US venture fund, and a stake in an Argentine restaurant chain.

He recently announced his retirement from international football after Argentina lost the World Cup final to Spain in July. He is still under contract at Inter Miami, still playing, and was named to the Ballon d'Or shortlist this week at 39. Most players wait until the boots come off before they start investing. He is doing the buying while playing at an elite level, which means the clubs get his attention and his name at the exact moment both are worth the most.

Issue #9 ran Kylian Mbappé taking an 80% controlling stake in Ligue 2 club SM Caen at 27, against Lamine Yamal at 19 owning nothing at all. The argument was that the good ones eventually move from endorsements to equity, and the only question is when. Messi is the far end of that line. He spent two decades as the most endorsed athlete alive and is finishing by becoming a multi-club owner.

Eldense was founded in 1921 by Barcelona supporters, which is why they play in blue and red. A hundred and five years later a kid from the Barcelona academy is buying the whole thing.

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy are finalizing a round that would value TMRW Sports above $1 billion, per Front Office Sports, double the roughly $500 million from its 2024 Series A and up from about $650 million last year. TMRW runs TGL, launches women's league WTGL on November 8, and was picked by the NFL to build its flag football league before the 2028 Olympics. Not closed yet.

LeBron James invested in Mike's Red Tacos, a San Diego birria brand with more than 300 franchise locations in development. Terms undisclosed. The detail worth noting: chairman Bill Phelps was a founding investor in Blaze Pizza, which James backed for under $1 million in 2012, and later ran Dave's Hot Chicken, which James also backed and which sold to Roark Capital for $1 billion in June.

NFL stars Drake Maye and Dak Prescott took equity stakes in Athletic Brewing, the largest dedicated non-alcoholic brewer in America, valued around $800 million after a $50 million General Atlantic round in 2024. A company spokesperson confirmed the investment was not part of a new raise, so they bought existing shares. 

Hip-hop mogul T.I. invested in pocstock, a Newark company licensing rights-cleared images and datasets to AI developers so creators keep ownership of work used in training. The release states his involvement is limited to investing and that terms were not disclosed. Worth watching as a category even with nothing to price.

Denzel Ward has never played anywhere else. Nordonia High School in Macedonia, Ohio, then Ohio State, then the fourth overall pick by the Browns in 2018, currently playing his ninth season, and has five Pro Bowls under his belt. In July he signed a two-year extension worth $62.2 million, an average of $31.1 million a year, third among NFL cornerbacks, keeping him in Cleveland through 2029.

Last Wednesday the Cleveland Guardians announced he had bought a minority stake in the club. The size was not disclosed. He is 29 and he used contract money to buy a piece of the baseball team a few miles from his own stadium.

The community work came first and it is specific. His Make Them Know Your Name Foundation puts AED devices and CPR training into schools, gyms and businesses around Northeast Ohio. He threw out a first pitch at Progressive Field in 2024. This is a guy who was already showing up.

He is also the second NFL player to buy into the Guardians this year. Travis Kelce, who grew up in Cleveland Heights, took a minority stake in May, and both men watched the home opener from vice chairman David Blitzer's suite. Blitzer bought 25 to 30% of the club in 2022 with the right to increase annually, and can take majority control ahead of the 2028 season. He is the one bringing the athletes in.

Readers have watched this pattern build. Issue #6 had Giannis Antetokounmpo holding pieces of four franchises across two continents. Issue #7 had Baker Mayfield, Jalen Williams and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone joining an Oklahoma City soccer club where Russell Westbrook was already an investor. Active players are buying into teams in other sports while they are still playing their own, and the clubs want them because a local name in the ownership group sells tickets in a way a hedge fund cannot.

Ward could have bought anything. He bought the team he grew up watching.

Grindin' Coffee x Lavazza. Two Virginia Beach legends put their names on a coffee brand and then got one of Italy's oldest roasters to make it. Pusha T and Pharrell launched the line last week with Lavazza, which has been roasting since 1895. Two blends, dark and medium, both in ground and whole bean, sold direct at GrindinCoffee.com. The name comes from the 2002 Clipse single The Neptunes produced, which is about as Virginia Beach as a product can get.

The order of operations is the part worth noting. Pusha started Grindin' himself in late 2024, soft-launched it at Café Tropical in Los Angeles, and ran pop-ups at Camp Flog Gnaw two years running with Carhartt WIP merch alongside it. By his own account the lines were long enough that he was out there selling coffee at a festival he wasn't performing at. Pharrell found Lavazza after that, and Lavazza took on roasting and production.

Issue #12 had Pharrell opening a watches department at Joopiter and clearing $5.25 million on the debut sale. Same instinct here. Build the thing, prove the demand, then bring in the company that has been doing it for 130 years to handle the part you don't want to do.

Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman began StudBudz with an unplanned Twitch stream from WNBA All-Star Weekend in 2025. This year they came back with a sales plan. They say they booked more than $1 million in brand deals over 72 hours, and Forbes checked that against the signed contracts: nine partnerships, with AT&T as title sponsor of the stream. The audience grew too. Peak viewers went from 27,000 to 38,216, and paid subscriptions nearly doubled to 9,888. DoorDash got 16 million impressions out of a few scooter clips. They don't own any equity or sell a product. What they own is the audience, and brands are paying rent on it.

Coming up: a conversation with someone who has worked in name, image and likeness in both music and sports. See you next Wednesday.