Soccer’s Got a Money Problem. But Not That Kind.

The world’s game is a vessel for soft power, and the Saudi project will test the clout of cash against Europe’s sporting heritage and America’s equity stakes. [View in Browser]( [Esquire Sunday Reads]( [Saudi Arabia and Cristiano Ronaldo Have Sparked a Money-Drenched Tug-of-War in World Soccer]( Saudi Arabia and Cristiano Ronaldo Have Sparked a Money-Drenched Tug-of-War in World Soccer If an autocratic state’s slush fund offered you tens of millions of dollars to play soccer in the desert for a couple of years, would you take it? What about a hundred million? Believe it or not, these sums are actually below some early reports of what’s been on offer to a few marquee players after Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) took over four of the Saudi soccer league’s biggest teams this month. Cristiano Ronaldo was already over there, playing for Al-Nassr since January after he accepted an offer that by some reports totals over $200 million per annum. These contracts are not public and the sums are not confirmed, but the exact numbers almost don’t matter. The message is clear: come play in Riyadh for a couple years and never worry about money again. Come to Jeddah and set your family up for generations. [Read the Full Story]( [MORE FROM ESQUIRE]( [The Bear Season 2: The 'Fishes' Episode Left Me Speechless]( The Bear Season 2: The 'Fishes' Episode Left Me Speechless Anyone who has dared to attend a Family Holiday Dinner—let alone an Italian one!—will relate to the opening moments of The Bear Season Two's standout sixth episode: "Fishes." In a flashback to a Christmas Eve dinner roughly five years ago, three siblings—Carmy, Mikey and Sugar Berzatto—stand outside, deliberating how exactly to tip-toe around the ticking time bomb that is a certain family member. Here, it's their mother, and her trigger? Whenever Sugar asks: "Are you OK?" (Spoiler: she asks "Are you OK?" many, many times, with catastrophic consequences.) But that's simply the first thing "Fishes" gets right. It's an hour-plus-long episode that will surely go down as one of the year's best, right alongside Succession Season Four's standout episode, "Connor's Wedding," as well as BEEF's trippy season finale. The plot, quite simply, follows the ups and downs (mostly downs!) of the Berzatto family's Christmas Eve dinner. They're truthers of the traditional Italian "Seven Fishes" holiday meal—the menu is in the name—but of course, it becomes a look into why Carmy is Carmy. "Fishes" is what happens when you take a group of performers that would typically only convene, in front of a camera, at something like The Hollywood Reporter's Actors Roundtable, and ask them all to attempt to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in one fell swoop. Who knew Carmy is related to so many famous people? [Read the Full Story]( [Five Fits With: The Bear Creator Chris Storer]( Five Fits With: The Bear Creator Chris Storer For this week’s Five Fits With, I got to take a bit of a peek under the hood of one of my current favorite television shows, The Bear, which premiered on Hulu last night. I met with creator Christopher Storer at his New York office, and had the pleasure sharing takeout Peter Luger burgers with some of the creative team behind the brilliant hit. Though they’re a group of folks making one of television’s most poignant and truthful portrayals of what it is to work in a kitchen, they are humble, chill—almost as enthused to meet me as I am them. It’s surreal. I started this column years ago as a concept on a blog and what it’s blossoming into is the stuff of my young adult dreams. The Bear is FX’s most watched comedy series in history, which is particularly impressive if you think for a moment about the stream of ingenious comedies they’ve managed to produce over the last decade—though calling it a comedy doesn’t seem weighted enough to convey the rollercoaster of emotions the show buffets its viewer with. Below, Storer and I discuss trying to make it in L.A., growing up around family and friends in the restaurant business, the synergy between Thom Browne’s collars and the seriousness of the character Sydney, and plenty more. [Read the Full Story]( [Yeti's New Ice Bucket Isn't Just a Summer Accessory. It's The Summer Accessory.]( Yeti's New Ice Bucket Isn't Just a Summer Accessory. It's The Summer Accessory. Let me lay out a few scenarios. 1) You've planned a picnic. You and some friends are gonna grab some bottles and go violate your local open-container law. Sick, very European of you. 2) You've planned a barbecue. You're gonna grill, drink beer, and have a good time. Very American of you, love that. 3) You're out camping and you want to mix some fireside cocktails. Amazing. Thank God you got out of the city. What does every one of these scenarios need? Ice. Like, ice for serving, ice for chilling, and ice that's not from the bottom of the cooler. Ice that hasn't been contaminated by grimy hands reaching in for a union-made beer or another pour of skin-contact wine from Slovenia. But if you've ever used an ice bucket outside for more that two hours or in the scorching summer sun, you know, it doesn't end well. Real quick your beverages are floating in dirty water. It sucks, but now we have the solution: The Yeti Rambler Ice Bucket. [Read the Full Story]( [What I've Learned: Lester Holt]( What I've Learned: Lester Holt Alady, just a moment ago, stopped me and thanked me, which is kind of cool after what we’ve been through in the media these past few years. You can’t hammer people for half an hour with nothing but dark, difficult stories. You have to find a balance: Give them something hopeful, give them something to smile about, while making sure we hit the big stories of the day. Seconds count. While the ending story is on, the producer will say, “Okay, you have fourteen seconds on the back side to say goodbye.” Sometimes I only have three seconds. [Read the Full Story]( [Those Who Remain in Haiti—and Those Who Leave]( Those Who Remain in Haiti—and Those Who Leave Haiti’s myriad problems are partly due to bad governance, but also other factors: natural disasters, an unfair global economy, and Haiti paying reparations to former French enslavers for its freedom. While the natural and manufactured disasters are not insignificant, it is unsettling that there is an overabundance of stories about Haiti’s suffering rather than the narratives that I had known. I learned very early that being Haitian was that we might have a memory or experience of the country that contradicts the news. The rhetoric of chaos and terror is what most Americans are taught about Haitians and Haiti. Impoverishment is the avatar of how contemporary Haitians are perceived—which precludes reflection on anything else we offer. As a part of the diaspora, I shoulder a responsibility to find the nuance beyond the myopic poverty narrative, to celebrate the Haitian spirit. During one account of the 2010 earthquake coverage, the New York Times reported that “Limbs protruded from disintegrated concrete, muffled cries emanated from deep inside the wrecks of buildings — many of them poorly constructed in the first place,” bear a different picture than what I first witnessed in 1990. Often, they show a malnourished child or a woman staring at the camera with sullen eyes. The photographs have been especially arresting, not because of the reasons that draw me to the country, but for reasons that often made me feel shame for having parents who originated from it. [Read the Full Story]( Follow Us [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection]( esquire.com ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019