The Rays have suffered yet another serious hit to their hopes of building a $1.3 billion ballpark and staying in the Tampa area, as the St. Petersburg, Fla., city council voted Thursday to delay issuing bonds funding part of the construction. But it’s the team itself that likely has rendered the largest amount of damage to the pursuit.

The decision by a 5–2 margin puts on hold $287.5 million of bonds—nearly half of the planned public-sector contribution toward the new stadium. The council also approved and then later rescinded its approval of $23.7 million in appropriations for repairs to the Tropicana Field roof, which suffered major damage last month from Hurricane Milton and represents the largest and most critical part of an estimated $55.7 million bill for initial stadium restoration.

The city vote on the bonds for the new ballpark closely followed and mirrored Tuesday’s move by the Pinellas County commission to delay for a second time its consideration to issue bonds supplying another $312.5 million toward the stadium. Like the county’s consideration, city leaders are grappling with using taxpayer funds for a new stadium during a time of extreme local need because of the storm.

“I need to know more. There’s too much that’s vague with our infrastructure needs,” said city council member Gina Driscoll.

A case that threatened to upend the marketplace for college sports apparel ended Tuesday when a federal jury in Pennsylvania ruled in favor of Penn State in its lawsuit against online retailer Vintage Brand.

Penn State proved that Vintage Brand, which sells vintage T-shirts, throwback hats, retro tees, socks, magnets, koozies, mugs, cutting boards and similar products associated with sports teams, infringed PSU’s trademarks by selling products bearing the school’s imagery without permission. The jury awarded Penn State $28,000 in damages, but the verdict’s real value is in a judicial finding that infringement occurred. That finding upholds a longstanding relationship between trademark law and college sports merchandise.

Penn State sued in 2021, noting that Vintage openly sells products that “free ride” off the university’s fame by using logos and imagery. Consumers may have wrongly believed they found a licensed seller for products that Penn State sells. The products at issue were sold from 2018 to 2021 and, according to Vintage, generated less than $25,000 in revenue.

Penn State v. Vintage Brands has been a focal point of attention among intellectual property law professors over the last few years. Of particular interest has been Vintage’s defense and how it could disrupt conventional understanding of trademark law.

Vintage unsuccessfully argued that its use of historic images—which Vintage argued are already in the public domain as documented history—ought to be viewed as lawful under trademark law. The company, which stressed it used a disclaimer to tell consumers that its products were not licensed by Penn State, noted that a trademark is not intended to serve as an ornamental or decorative feature. A trademark should instead identify the source of a good and distinguish it from other goods. As applied here, consumers might not believe that Vintage products using imagery from Penn State’s storied athletic history were made or authorized by Penn State. Instead, the use is merely ornamental or decorative.

Had that defense prevailed, it would have provided more confidence to Vintage and other online retailers that draw from the historical accomplishments of college athletics programs in designing and selling vintage products. Penn State is not alone in suing Vintage. Purdue, Arizona, Arizona State, Cal Berkeley, UCLA, Colorado, Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Stanford, Utah, Washington and Washington State have also filed suit. They have raised essentially the same set of arguments and complain that unauthorized use undermines their sales. Unauthorized sales also diminish the value of licenses colleges sell to apparel and merchandise companies that produce jerseys, collectibles and other products.

Vintage can appeal the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Although the ruling is also not binding precedent on cases in other federal districts, it is a victory for colleges and their official licensees.

Bryce Underwood became the second five-star quarterback to flip his commitment this week, spurning LSU for his hometown Michigan Wolverines on Thursday.

Before Underwood officially flipped, reports were swirling that Michigan was preparing a massive offer. On3 reported last week that Michigan offered Underwood $10.5 million over four years, while ESPN Louisiana radio host Matt Moscona said Thursday the figure reached $12 million.

Underwood is the No. 1 recruit in the nation for the 2025 class, according to ESPN’s rankings. He hails from Belleville, Mich., just a half hour’s drive from the Wolverines’ campus in Ann Arbor. Coincidentally, former Wolverines staffer Connor Stalions is an assistant coach at Belleville High School. Stalions infamously was at the center of Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal during its 2023 national championship season.

Regardless, it appears the figure was several multiples of LSU’s offer. The Tigers offered Underwood around $1.5 million per year, according to the multiple reports. Had Underwood stuck with his commitment, he would have been LSU’s highest-paid player, according to The Advocate.

Underwood’s flip came a day after Julian Lewis, who is ranked right behind Underwood in ESPN’s rankings, committed to Colorado days after backing off his pledge to USC.

This summer, Jalen Brunson essentially gave the Knicks a nine-figure discount by agreeing to a four-year, $156 million extension instead of waiting a year to sign a five-year, $270 million deal. In the same offseason, the team promoted Jalen’s father, Rick, a longtime NBA coach, to its lead assistant role after Johnnie Bryant left for the Cavaliers.

The NBA is apparently investigating whether Rick Brunson’s promotion was an illegal benefit to the Brunson family, and the Knicks took that personally. Before any story was even published, MSG Sports issued a statement Monday night.

The RFK Stadium bill advanced out of a Senate committee Tuesday, leaving one more significant step before it heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The legislation—which would make D.C. a player for the next home for a new Commanders stadium—passed the Energy and Natural Resources Committee by a 17-2 margin after Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) backed off his opposition to the legislation that would give D.C. control of the federally controlled land where the team played for decades. That leaves about a month before Congress is expected to adjourn on Dec. 20—the deadline to pass legislation to avoid a government shutdown—to get the bill through the Senate.

A group of business executives with ties to the state of New York have a deal in place to buy 10.6% of the Bills alongside Arctos Partners, sources said, which will take 10% of the team if NFL owners approve the deal as expected.

Both the Bills’ proposed transaction and the Dolphins’ plans to sell 10% to Ares Management -- the first two deals permitted under the NFL’s new policy allowing institutional investment in teams -- are on the agenda for Tuesday’s NFL finance committee meeting, indicating a high probability of winning final approval from owners in December.

Angel City FC and NYX Professional Makeup reached a multiyear deal to showcase the makeup brand on the sleeve of the home and away jerseys of the NWSL club starting with the 2025 season.

NYX replaces women’s footwear company Birdies, which had been the sleeve partner since Angel City’s started play as an expansion team in 2022. Financial details were not disclosed.

An ongoing dispute between a former Suns employee and the team has made its way to court.

Andrea Trischan, the team’s former program manager of diversity, equity, and inclusion for 10 months between September 2022 and July 2023, is suing the organization alleging harassment, racial discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. In the lawsuit, she also alleges financial misconduct, sexual misconduct, and racial discrimination by current and past team executives.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. The suit, which was reviewed by Front Office Sports, is asking for unspecified damages and a jury trial. A Suns spokesperson told ESPN that Trischan is seeking $60 million. A Suns spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sheree Wright, Trischan’s attorney, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Trischan joined the organization in 2022, just days after an ESPN story detailed a toxic workplace environment in the team offices, which started with former owner Robert Sarver. The report detailed instances of Sarver using racially insensitive language around employees, misogynistic behavior, and included a story of him pantsing an employee. In September 2022, the NBA suspended Sarver for one year after its own investigation and fined him $10 million. Sarver sold the team to mortgage lending tycoon Mat Ishbia for $4 billion in February 2023.

In her role, Trischan was supposed to help address the workplace issues the ESPN report highlighted under Sarver, one of which was an NBA requirement that the team improve its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the lawsuit states.

A federal lawsuit filed against the Mountain West Conference, league commissioner Gloria Nevarez, and others over a purported transgender volleyball player at San Jose State could impact the conference’s upcoming postseason tournament.

A dozen women—including SJSU assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose and co-captain Brooke Slusser—requested an injunction as part of the lawsuit filed in a Colorado federal court Wednesday to prevent the player’s participation in the MWC championships. The plaintiffs also seek an injunction that would restrain the MWC from using the current standings—which includes SJSU’s forfeited wins attained after Boise State, Wyoming, the University of Nevada-Reno, and Utah State refused to play the Spartans—to determine the six-team tournament that begins Nov. 27.

The lawsuit named the purported trans player, but the athlete in question has never publicly discussed their gender identity. The university has never said the athlete is transgender. Batie-Smoose has been suspended indefinitely by SJSU, according to the lawsuit.

“This lawsuit is an extremist attack that weaponizes and distorts the language of women’s rights to justify discrimination and bigotry,” Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools for the National Women’s Law Center, said in a statement to Front Office Sports. “These anti-trans extremists are relying on disinformation and attempting to misuse civil rights laws to force illegal discrimination against women and girls who don’t conform to their stereotypes, in ways that would violate Title IX and the Constitution, and also reinforce anti-LGBTQI+ stigma and bigotry in our society.”

The attorney for the athletes suing the Mountain West said that the women’s First Amendment rights were being violated.

“Recently, the MWC, SJSU, and the other defendants have collectively manipulated MWC rules, diminished sport opportunities for women, spread inaccurate information, used their positions to chill and suppress speech with which they disagree, and punished dozens of female collegiate volleyball student-athletes for taking a public stand for their right to compete in a separate sports category, all in a concerted effort to stamp out debate over women’s rights in sport,” William Bock wrote in the civil complaint.

or more than 50 years, schools have been required to provide equal opportunities to women’s sports athletes thanks to a law called Title IX. Enacted in 1972, it prohibits any school (including universities) receiving federal funding from engaging in discrimination on the basis of sex. It requires educational opportunities to be equitable across genders, and has been interpreted to adjudicate sexual misconduct claims in an academic setting.

Title IX isn’t foolproof, but it’s had a major impact on the sports world. It’s given hundreds of thousands of athletes opportunities and created a robust women’s sports pipeline serving as the bedrock for professional women’s sports leagues, as well as Team USA

But under President-elect Donald Trump, that could change.

Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education, which enforces Title IX. His policies could weaken the federal government’s ability to ensure equal opportunities and resources for sports participation, slowing the progress of women’s sports, experts tell Front Office Sports.

Trump has also said he wants to ban transgender athletes from playing women’s sports. Reinterpreting or even rewriting Title IX could be a way for his administration to achieve this goal.

The coalition of St. Louis and Kansas City pro teams that spearheaded a ballot referendum to legalize sports betting in Missouri saw it narrowly pass last week, though with a framework that could drastically diminish the value of the licenses they secured as part of it.

Missouri gambling regulators will offer online and retail sportsbook licenses to six major pro sports franchises, as well as each of 13 casino locations across the state. It also will allow “untethered” online-only licenses to two operators that choose to enter the state without striking a market access deal with a team or casino.

After nearly two years of turbulence and many pronouncements of its impending demise, this is the week when Diamond Sports Group finally learns whether it will become a viable company once again.

The regional sports network operator is scheduled to go before a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in a hearing starting Thursday to determine whether its reorganization plan can be confirmed. If the plan is approved, the FanDuel Sports Network parent will have a new lease on life, marking a major turnaround after first filing for bankruptcy in March 2023.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday defended his push to add a live tiger to the sideline of LSU football games and brushed aside the concerns of animal rights groups.

This past weekend, at Landry’s behest, LSU brought a tiger named Omar Bradley to its stadium for a game against Alabama, despite the animal’s handler facing federal scrutiny. PETA has accused the caretaker, Mitchel Kalmanson, of not meeting the standards of the Animal Welfare Act, and published federal citations given to Kalmanson including a lack of proper documentation for animals, insufficient protections during events, and animal abuse and neglect.

Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel is leading a buyout of his company’s sports betting assets—IMG Arena and OpenBet—for $450 million.

The sports and entertainment giant, which is in the process of being taken private, announced Monday afternoon that it had reached an agreement to sell the two assets to OB Global Holdings LLC, which is backed by Emanuel. A number of OpenBet executives, including CEO Jordan Levin, are participating as well.

Endeavor bought OpenBet in 2022 for $800 million ($750 million in cash and $50 million in stock)

Penn Entertainment met expectations in the third quarter—but the next few months are a critical period for the success of its sports betting partnership with ESPN.

The company reported Q3 2024 revenues of $1.64 billion, about a 1.2% increase from the same period in 2023, and nearly in line with Wall Street’s $1.66 billion projection. The company’s stock was up 5.15% at the closing bell Thursday.

Penn’s interactive segment, driven by ESPN Bet, recorded $244.6 million in revenues, up 24.6% compared to the same period last year, but also nearly doubled its EBITDAR loss in the segment to $90.9 million.

Revenue growth was driven by the sportsbook’s growing user base. Penn reported 3.9 million digital users, an 85% increase in the last year, and a No. 3 ranking among all sportsbooks in weekly active users, behind the two sports betting giants, FanDuel and DraftKings. ESPN Bet also launched in New York in September, the company’s 19th state.

“Prior to the start of football season, we released several product enhancements and ESPN integrations to our ESPN Bet offering. These product improvements helped contribute to a higher parlay mix and sportsbook hold during the third quarter,” Penn CEO Jay Snowden said.

Florida gifted Billy Napier some job security.

Athletic director Scott Stricklin posted a statement Thursday morning supporting Napier, who has a 15–18 record coaching the Gators over the last three seasons. The team is currently 4–4 on the year and 2–3 in the SEC, most recently losing 34–20 on Saturday to rival Georgia, currently ranked No. 2 in the nation.

Stricklin referenced “times of change across college athletics,” and wants Napier at the helm as the landscape “evolves,” he wrote. “I am confident that Billy will meet the challenges and opportunities ahead. We will work alongside him to support any changes needed to elevate Gator football.”

The school is—at least temporarily—shutting down questions by placing trust in Napier, as midseason firings in college football and the NFL have skyrocketed in recent years. But it’s also a financial decision. If fired, Napier’s buyout would be more than $26 million, which would make it the second-largest buyout in college football history. His contract with Florida runs until Jan. 31, 2029, and he’s guaranteed 85% of the remaining amount on his deal if fired.

Florida has some of the highest revenues in all of college athletics, but a potential Napier buyout could be the least of their concerns. It’s possible that power conference schools will start paying athletes directly as early as next year as part of the House v. NCAA settlement, which outlined revenue-sharing payments of about $20 million every year—though it’s unclear how the money would be distributed among athletes. Still, that could factor into Florida’s decision not to pay Napier’s buyout in addition to the cost of hiring his replacement.

University of Texas forward Trinity Byars signed with the San Diego Wave, the club announced Thursday. What would normally be a routine line on the transaction wire marked a historic moment: Byars is the first player to choose her pro team directly out of the college system without a draft in the way.

The NWSL and its players’ union agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement in August that abolished its draft, making all amateur players true free agents.

In addition to scrapping entry and expansion drafts, the new CBA banned trades without player consent, added charter flights, increased player salaries, guaranteed all contracts, made all current players free agents at the end of their contracts, and introduced revenue sharing. The current average salary of $56,000 will land roughly between $135,000 and $159,000 next season, and grow both with the introduction of revenue sharing and as the deal progresses. Parts of the deal—which runs through 2030—began July 11, while the rest kicks in Jan. 1, 2025.

In August, NWSL Players Association president Tori Huster told Front Office Sports that taking away the draft removes some of “the anxiety that comes along with not knowing where you’re going to land.”

NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said in August that removing drafts helps the league “align with global standards and achieve long-term labor peace.” The 2026 expansion team in Boston—which botched its brand rollout so badly the club had to issue an apology—will be allowed to sign only free agents. Those discussions can begin six months before their existing deal ends.

While control of two branches of the federal government is the most important issue at stake in America this week, control of an NBA franchise and a WNBA franchise is also on the ballot—at least the ballots of three arbitrators tasked with deciding the future of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx.

Retired Hennepin County (Minn.) District Court Judge Thomas Fraser, retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Blatz and Wilson Sonsini partner Joseph R. Slights III will preside over a confidential arbitration proceeding intended to resolve the disputed ownership of these two franchises. Current Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and a group led by Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore both claim they’re the controlling owners.

The NFL has about 14.1 billion reasons to safeguard its trial court victory in the Sunday Ticket antitrust class action. In a new move, the league made clear it is prepared to appeal any setbacks at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Last Friday, the NFL filed notice in the trial court and Ninth Circuit of its conditional cross-appeal should they encounter any “adverse orders, rulings, decrees, decisions, opinions, memoranda, conclusions or findings.”

Tom Brady is still feeling out how far he can go in his new role as Fox’s lead NFL analyst.

Though the league has barred Brady from criticizing officials—and much more—on the air because of his stake in the Raiders, there appears to be some wiggle room.

Brady won’t be punished for his comments during Sunday’s Packers-Lions game.

The 2024 World Series wrapped up Wednesday night, and so did the debut season of Strauss as MLB sponsor.

And while some fans were put off by the ad placement—and complained about it on social media—Strauss, a family-owned German apparel brand, told Front Office Sports the partnership was “a huge success.”

Strauss agreed to a deal with MLB in September to be MLB’s official workwear partner and the first sponsor to ever have its logo appear on batting helmets. The deal runs until 2027 and includes its logo on batting helmets in Minor League Baseball throughout the regular season, beginning next year.

The move has received backlash online from fans opposed to the growing number of advertisements on players’ uniforms. While Strauss has aired the occasional commercial during postseason games, many U.S. fans unaware of the brand have been left confused since the logo is the most prominent of the advertisements and Strauss isn’t well known among U.S. consumers.

“The attention has been immense,” CEO Henning Strauss said. “This is reflected in traffic to our website, social media followers, and sales. Our U.S. business is at full speed, ramping up in order to meet very high demand.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Philadelphia Eagles fans who were injured at a Washington Commanders game in which a railing collapsed and who attended the game as family and friends of a ticket purchaser could be bound by an arbitration clause even though they didn’t buy the tickets.

Naimoli et al. v. Pro-Football, Inc. et al. could serve as valuable precedent for teams that use arbitration clauses to evade tort litigation of injured spectators.

Michael Naimoli Jr., Morgan French, Andrew Collins and Marissa Santarlasci were among nine people who drove from New Jersey to FedExField (now called Northwest Stadium) to attend the Eagles-Commanders (Washington Football Team) game on Jan. 2, 2022. They attended the game using tickets purchased online by Brandon Gordon, who was related to, or a friend of, group members. Although Gordon is factually central to the dispute, he’s not a party to the litigation.

The 2024 World Series champion Dodgers, in many ways, are a classic, big-market and high-dollar team. After all, the franchise boasts MLB’s top attendance, one of its largest local media-rights deals operating in the No. 2 U.S. market, the game’s highest-paid player in Shohei Ohtani, and the No. 5 player payroll this year.

But club officials are crediting much of their latest title—the Dodgers’ first in a full season since 1988—to still thinking and operating much like an underdog.

After topping the Yankees in a five-game series that was much more taut than that margin would suggest, key parts of the Dodgers’ success included looking beyond just the record-setting $700 million Ohtani signing last offseason. While that certainly was the team’s headline going into this season, the Dodgers then pursued other numerous player acquisitions and continued to scrap their way to an MLB-leading, 98-win season, even while grappling with injuries and numerous other setbacks.

Once in the World Series, the team then relied heavily on nearly every player on its active roster, including emptying its bullpen across Games 4 and 5.

“Every good organization is like that, and I think we are one,” Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said on the Yankee Stadium field, moments after accepting the Commissioner’s Trophy. “It’s not just 26 people [on the active roster], it’s not just the 40-man roster. It’s about everybody throughout the organization. It’s also about the people you add during the year, and we added plenty of significant, big-time contributors, and we’re very proud of that. … We are opportunistic. That’s how we are.”

The PWHL is looking to add two more franchises to begin as early as 2025, a quick expansion for the women’s hockey league that began play last year.

The league is launching a request for proposal (RFP) process for prospective new clubs, according to Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vice president of business operations. They’ve asked groups to submit plans for how the single-entity league, financed initially by Mark and Kimbra Walter, might best open up to new fans, partners and athletes.

The NBA on Tuesday filed a memorandum of law in support of a request to New York Judge Joel M. Cohen to seal what it terms “confidential provisions” of the league’s new national media rights agreements with Amazon and NBCU and of its digital rights agreement with Bleacher Report.

In July, TBS and Warner Bros. Discovery sued the NBA after the league determined they had failed to match an offer by Amazon to broadcast games from 2025-26 through 2035-36. TBS and Warner Bros. Discovery believe the NBA is in breach of contract while the NBA insists the plaintiffs not only didn’t match but couldn’t match the terms of Amazon’s offer, which contemplates the delivery of games through streaming rather than linear TV.

Reddick drives for Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing, one of two teams suing NASCAR over antitrust allegations surrounding the sport’s controversial and complicated team charter agreements (loosely known as NASCAR’s version of franchises).

Adidas reached an out-of-court settlement with rapper Ye that officially ends their partnership, the company said on its earnings call Tuesday. The German sportswear giant split with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in October 2022 following antisemitic comments. Unfurling the partnership been a multifaceted headache for the company: Adidas lost more than $600 million in sales in the quarter it halted the Yeezy shoe line, faced a lawsuit from investors who claimed the company didn’t warn them about Ye’s problematic behavior, and had to figure out what to do with all the shoes.

JuJu Watkins doesn’t need to go outside her endorsement portfolio to get glammed up.

The University of Southern California star has inked a partnership with NYX Professional Makeup. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s believed to be among the first college athlete sponsorship agreements with a professional makeup company.

Watkins, the Big Ten’s unanimous Preseason Player of the Year, is the first of many athletes that NYX Professional Makeup plans to partner with as the beauty brand dives deeper into such agreements after securing deals with teams like the WNBA’s New York Liberty and NWSL’s Angel City FC.

The long-running legal battle between DraftKings and a former executive could be nearing an armistice.

Attorneys for Michael Hermalyn and DraftKings noted in a Tuesday court filing that the two sides “are negotiating a potential resolution” of a federal lawsuit that began days after Hermalyn left for Fanatics Sportsbook in February.

DraftKings sought and won an injunction that hamstrung Hermalyn’s day-to-day duties at Fanatics earlier this year, though Hermalyn is expecting his first victory in the bicoastal legal battle over the enforcement of his non-compete agreement as part of a separate case in California.

U.S. District Court Judge Julia Kobick granted a request Tuesday from Hermalyn and DraftKings to stay proceedings in the federal case until Nov. 20, a day after a scheduled one-day trial in Los Angeles as Hermalyn seeks to get his one-year non-compete invalidated sooner than its Feb. 1, 2025, expiration date. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Tony L. Richardson noted in a court filing in the case that Hermalyn was “likely to prevail on the merits.”

DraftKings and a spokesperson for Hermalyn declined comment when reached about the potential settlement.

The Cleveland Browns sued the City of Cleveland in federal court on Thursday, claiming an Ohio law—Revised Code 9.67, the so-called “Art Modell law”—is unconstitutional and can’t legally block the team from building and relocating to a domed stadium in nearby Brook Park.

The Browns’ complaint contains six counts, five of which are demands for declarations that the Modell Law violates the U.S. Constitution, with a sixth seeking a finding that even if the law is constitutional, the Browns have followed it.

The Browns’ lease with Cleveland to play at the publicly owned Huntington Bank Field will expire in 2029, after which the Browns say they will have “no right or obligation” to continue to play at HBF. The team is exploring a stadium project in Brook Park, a city about 15 miles from Cleveland. While HBF is used for major events 10 to 12 times per year, the Browns say the envisioned Brook Park stadium would host as many as 70 major events a year and “drive significant economic activity” in and around Cleveland.

From a business perspective, the 2024 season is the most important year in recent WNBA history.

The league hadn’t drawn a million viewers to a game since 2008. Then it hit that mark 22 times in the regular season alone, which helped the league ink an 11-year, $2.2 billion media-rights deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon in July (with an option to renegotiate three years in). Commissioner Cathy Engelbert instituted charter flights for every game, attendance soared, and national media coverage (and controversies) skyrocketed.

The league is also readying to begin its expansion era with Golden State, and Engelbert already announced the regular season will expand by four more games and the Finals will be a best-of-seven.

In many ways, the league’s hands are tied until 2026 when those media dollars come in: Critics will spotlight projected top draft pick Paige Bueckers’s base salary of $78,831; the WNBA will offer paltry player contracts compared to overseas women’s basketball leagues.

Still, several opportunities remain to continue the upward trajectory of this season while awaiting the explosion of cash.

Shohei Ohtani’s historic 50th home run ball set a record at auction. Now it goes to court.

The ball, which cemented the Dodgers star as the lone player to hit 50 home runs in the regular season and steal as many bases sold for nearly $4.4 million at auction, which includes the buyer’s premium, making it the most expensive ball of any sport ever sold. The ball was consigned by Goldin.

A $375 million settlement agreement between UFC and UFC fighters to resolve Cung Le et al. v. Zuffa, a class action antitrust litigation that began a decade ago, received preliminary approval on Thursday from U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware.

The NCAA has spent the last decade on a major losing streak in court that has chipped away at the business model of amateurism. It started with athlete NIL (name, image, and likeness) rights, but it could end with a full-on employment model.

So the NCAA has more recently turned its attention to Congress, investing millions in convincing lawmakers to halt, and in some cases reverse, the onslaught. The NCAA’s wish list includes preventing athletes from becoming employees, and getting legal protection to enforce their own compensation rules.

So far, the efforts have been unsuccessful. But the 2024 election, now just two weeks away, could change that.

Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore have put $942 million into escrow as they prepare for binding arbitration that will determine whether they can finish their purchase of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, according to multiple people familiar with the move.

The NCAA, conferences and Turner Sports contend an antitrust lawsuit brought by Mario Chalmers and 15 other former college basketball players over the use of their NIL in broadcasts is barred by the passage of time and the limitations of law. Chalmers, who starred for the Kansas Jayhawks before playing nine years in the NBA, is leading a group of athletes who played for the 1997, 2008, 2011 and 2014 NCAA championship teams. The defendants raise several counterarguments, starting with the assertion that the claims are time-barred. Antitrust claims normally have a four-year statute of limitations.

WNBA players reopened the debate around the economics of women’s basketball on Monday, announcing their decision to opt out of the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement in search of a new deal. The current CBA, enacted in 2020, will now expire after next season instead of in 2027, giving the league and its athletes one year to agree to updated terms in what could become a tense round of discussions.

One week after Elliott Hill started at the helm of Nike, the company announced a 12-year contract extension as the official on-court uniform and apparel partner of the NBA, WNBA, and G League. The last contract was an eight-year deal signed in 2015 and began in the 2017–2018 NBA season. That deal was reported to be valued at around $1 billion; CNBC reported the new deal is “much bigger” than that.

Last week, University of Virginia men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett appeared to be going about business as usual. He participated in ACC media days and spoke about preparing for another season at the helm of the Cavaliers program. But then he took a short vacation with his wife, Laurel, during the university’s fall break this week—and made the decision to immediately retire, he says. Unregulated NIL (name, image, and likeness) payments, the transfer portal, and other issues in college sports had made his job untenable.

It’s an environment caused by the NCAA itself, which refuses to engage in any sort of reform until a court decision forces its hand. The solution to Bennett’s grievances, which he himself referenced, is to engage in collective bargaining. But the NCAA refuses to do so, because that would require athletes to be classified as employees.

On Thursday afternoon, the Virginia athletic department made the abrupt and shocking announcement of Bennett’s retirement. The following morning, Bennett held a press conference, explaining through tears that the current landscape of college sports has driven him out of coaching.

“I am no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment,” he said. “The game, and college athletics, is not in a healthy spot.” Bennett said he believes “there’s still a way in this environment. … But it’s complicated. To admit, honestly, that I’m not equipped to do this is humbling.”

Bennett isn’t the only one who is fed up. He’s the latest big-name coach of several to retire since the beginning of the NIL era: Villanova’s Jay Wright and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski exited the game after the summer of 2021; Alabama football coach Nick Saban announced his retirement earlier this year; UNC’s Roy Williams did so right before NIL began. But Bennett, at 55, is the youngest of the group—as well as the most candid about the college sports landscape being the reason he cut his career short.

But Bennett continued, “There’s gotta be collective bargaining. There has to be a restriction on the salary pool that teams can spend. There has to be transfer regulation restrictions. There has to be some limits on the agent involvement to these young guys. And there are good agents and there are bad agents and they’re driving some of this stuff that we’re in.”

FC Barcelona tried to solve its financial headaches by selling off some of its future earnings. It’s now going to have to pay a roughly $542,000 fine for how it accounted for that money.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed Barcelona’s latest appeal in a ruling published Friday. The fine was originally imposed by UEFA in July 2023, and the club lost its appeal to that body in November of that year.

Several factors, including strict LaLiga financial rules and the COVID-19 pandemic, left Barcelona in a sticky financial situation. As a quick-fix move to help dig itself out, the club made deals to sell 25% of its next 25 years of broadcasting revenue from domestic matches to Sixth Street, a U.S.-based investment firm.

UEFA said, and the CAS confirmed, that Barcelona “intentionally” misreported that money to overstate its “break-even results” by about $290 million.

The CAS also said UEFA gave Barcelona a chance to fix the error, which would’ve lowered the fine to about $86,000, but the club didn’t correct it.

The approximate $542,000 fine was “actually rather mild,” the CAS said. “The Panel finds that the intentional nature of the violation in conjunction with the major impact of an overstatement of Relevant Income in an amount of [about $290 million] in a single season make the infringement severe, justifying also a severe sanction,” the court ruled.

Barcelona has been trying to recover from a financial headache for almost a decade. Its spending on players rose just as the pandemic cut revenue, and left the club violating tight LaLiga rules around spending. As superstars like Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué have left the club, and Barcelona has signed younger players, the wage bill has gone down. The sale to Sixth Street will hurt its revenue in the future, but it helped bring in about $330 million last year.

NASCAR is returning the heat Michael Jordan brought them to court with.

In a court filing Wednesday, the racing company responded to the antitrust lawsuit filed by Jordan’s 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports, claiming the teams are using the “antitrust discovery process as a weapon.” The racing company asked for the motion of expedited discovery to be thrown out.

In its filing, NASCAR calls the suit “meritless” and accuses the plaintiffs, which include 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin, of “alleging baseless antitrust claims in order to obtain commercial agreements they previously rejected.” NASCAR accused the racing teams of attempting “to extort more favorable contract terms.”

23XI Racing, owned by Jordan and Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by restaurant entrepreneur Bob Jenkins, filed a joint suit Oct. 2 accusing NASCAR of using its monopoly power to bully racing teams in negotiations and hoard revenue, calling the France family, the company’s owners, “monopolistic bullies.”

The lawsuit argues NASCAR’s charter system stifles competition and binds teams to its series, race tracks, and suppliers. The France family owns many of the race tracks where NASCAR races are held. The suit came after two years of failed revenue-sharing negotiations between NASCAR and its racing teams.

In the lawsuit, the two racing companies claim NASCAR pressured the teams to agree to the charter deals in September of this year. It describes a “take-it-or-leave-it offer” from NASCAR, with teams privately saying they were “coerced” and had a “gun to our head” while signing.

Both companies refused to give in to NASCAR. In the initial lawsuit, 23XI and Front Row filed for a preliminary injunction allowing them to compete in the 2025 season despite not agreeing to the charters.

NASCAR introduced the charter system in 2016, which guaranteed 36 entries in every major Cup Series race and included revenue sharing. Of the 19 team owners originally granted charters in 2016, the lawsuit says only eight remain in NASCAR. The lawsuit says the league’s model comes without a path for owner profitability.

The charter system originally ran from 2016 to 2020, with deals getting automatically renewed through the end of 2024. With the current deal expiring, teams wanted a bigger slice of profits, a role in governance and rule-setting, and part of the revenue made off deals involving the league’s biggest stars.

In its response this week, NASCAR said it has been following contractual agreements to prepare for a 2025 season with just 32 charters. Given it’s not unprecedented to race without a charter, NASCAR requested that the plaintiffs’ injunction to race without a charter should be denied.

NASCAR also said in its response that it’s currently distributing funds 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports would have gotten to other teams that opted in to their 2025 charters before the deadline.

“We believe NASCAR exercises monopolistic control over the sport of stock car racing and has a history of engaging in exclusionary acts and restrictive agreements that stifle competition, Jeffrey Kessler, the lawyer for Front Row Motorsports and 23XI, told Front Office Sports in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our case for a preliminary injunction to Judge Whitney at the hearing on Nov. 4.”

There’s no league better at conjuring new, lucrative media rights out of thin air than the NFL. The league is once again playing the long game, eyeing the eventual sale of a separate international package that could fetch more than $1 billion in rights fees, sources tell Front Office Sports.

San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama on Tuesday sued a Texas man for illegally using his NIL to sell shirts, candles, hooded sweatshirts, coffee mugs, mousepads, magnets, baby bibs, beer mugs and wrapping paper.

Wembanyama, the 2023-24 NBA Rookie of the Year who led France to a silver medal in the 2024 Summer Olympics, filed a complaint in a Texas federal court against James T. Glodich, who is described as residing in Austin, Texas. According to Wembanyama, Glodich began an multifaceted plot to use his NIL about a month after the Spurs selected the 7-foot-3 French phenom with the first overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

James Dolan has long envisioned opening replicas of his Las Vegas Sphere in locations around the world, but he wanted financial allies for these costly projects, which reached $2.3 billion to open Vegas. Dolan has found his partner for the next Sphere.

Sphere Entertainment and the Department of Culture and Tourism in Abu Dhabi announced Tuesday that the United Arab Emirates capital would be the home of the second Sphere.

Former NBA stars Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, and former U.S. Soccer star Jozy Altidore, all of whom played in Toronto, are in talks to buy minority stakes in the Buffalo Bills, according to multiple people familiar with the negotiations who were granted anonymity because the details are private.

The club, which is owned by the Pegula family, has been seeking investors. Earlier this year the Bills said they’d hired Allen & Co. to help explore the sale of a non-control stake, which was reported to be around 25%. (The Pegulas separately own the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, which are not involved).

IFA is set to begin high-level discussions about the intricacies of its lucrative player-transfer system after a recent court decision threw its legitimacy into question.

On Monday, 10 days after some of FIFA’s transfer rules were declared contrary to European Union law by the Court of Justice of the EU, soccer’s governing body announced it will open a global dialogue on the transfer system, involving key stakeholders—think leagues, clubs, agents, players’ unions—to adopt the policy in question, which is article 17 of FIFA’s regulations on the status and transfer of players. A statement said the move “is in line with FIFA’s strategic objective to further improve the transfer system.”

Jim Trotter and his former employer, the NFL, have settled the reporter’s racial discrimination lawsuit.

He was let go by NFL Network after five years as a reporter in March 2023. Six months later, Trotter sued the league and its media arm, alleging he had been a victim of racial discrimination and retaliation.

Trotter is Black; his lawsuit claimed his contract wasn’t renewed because he repeatedly spoke out against the NFL’s lack of diversity in its offices, coaching ranks, and media arm.

He released a statement on X announcing the settlement Wednesday.

“The NFL and I have agreed to resolve my lawsuit,” Trotter said in the post. “I will be creating a scholarship foundation for journalism students at HBCUs and the NFL has agreed to make a donation in support thereof. I am proud to have the opportunity to help and support HBCU students achieve their goals and dreams, just as scholarships afforded me those opportunities when I was a student at Howard University.”

The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

Trotter had filed the case in the Southern District of New York. His 53-page complaint said his contract wasn’t renewed by the NFL Network partially because he challenged commissioner Roger Goodell on the league’s diversity track record at his past two Super Bowl press conferences before he was let go.

“The N.F.L. has claimed it wants to be held accountable regarding diversity, equity and inclusion,” Trotter said in a statement at the time the suit was filed. “I tried to do so, and it cost me my job.”

Trotter also mentioned multiple NFL owners in his complaint, alleging the league “swept under the rug” comments made by Bills owner Terry Pegula and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

The suit alleged Pegula told an unnamed NFL Media reporter in 2020, “If the Black players don’t like it here, they should go back to Africa and see how bad it is.”

Trotter also claimed Jones said to him that same year that “If Blacks feel some kind of way, they should buy their own team and hire who they want to hire,” in response to Trotter asking about the lack of diversity in the upper ranks of NFL front offices. Both Jones and Pegula issued statements adamantly denying the comments, while an NFL spokesperson said the league investigated the Pegula comments and could not verify the unnamed reporter’s account.

Despite the friction, Trotter expected his contract to be renewed. He cited Sandra Nunez, who handles the NFL Network’s on-air talent, in his complaint telling him she “could not envision any reason why his contract would not be renewed.” Nunez asked Trotter whether he wanted a bigger role in his next deal, according to the complaint. On March 24, Nunez notified Trotter’s agent that his contract wasn’t being renewed.

Trotter landed with The Athletic in April 2023 as a national columnist, but he did not cover the league while he was suing it. A spokesperson from The New York Times, which owns The Athletic, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Haason Reddick will be continuing his holdout against the Jets with new representation.

CAA Sports, which has represented Reddick, has parted ways with the disgruntled pass rusher, according to multiple reports.

The split was over “philosophical differences,” NFL Network reported Thursday, with CAA “trying to broker a deal” and Reddick fully “dug in.”

Reddick has concocted one of the stranger holdouts in recent NFL memory. The Jets traded for the Pro Bowler in March from the Eagles for a conditional 2026 third-round pick and shortly after, reported to the team facility in Florham Park, N.J., for a physical and press conference, but hasn’t been back since. At his press conference, Reddick didn’t sound like a player about to hold out.

“I know the juice I’m going to bring,” Reddick said at his April press conference. “Hopefully it rubs off on the guys. Hopefully their energy does the same for me. I looked at the roster—that was one of the first things that I did when I saw the trade—and I can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be some great ball being played.”


Reddick has 58 sacks over seven NFL seasons, 27 of which came in the past two seasons with the Eagles. In 2022, he led the NFL with five forced fumbles.

The Jets traded for Reddick in the final year of his contract, which pays $14.25 million. Before the trade, the Jets had a negotiating window with Reddick where the team offered a short-term extension, the terms of which were never publicly reported. Reddick turned it down. The Jets have said they traded for Reddick with the understanding he’d report to offseason workouts despite not having a new deal.

Reddick can’t be traded back to the Eagles, who could use him, because NFL rules state a team can’t trade him and reacquire him for two years. If Reddick does not report to the team by Week 10, the Jets will retain his rights for the 2025 season, costing Reddick his upcoming free agency.

Instead, he asked for a trade in August, which has yet to happen, and has lost about $9 million in the standoff—$5 million in league-mandated fines for missing summer workouts and $4 million in missed game checks. Jets GM Joe Douglas initially dismissed Reddick’s request and expected him to report.

The Jets are 2–3 despite having Aaron Rodgers available and just fired coach Robert Saleh.


Owner Woody Johnson held a press conference after he unilaterally fired Saleh this week. There, he pleaded for Reddick to report.

“Haason, get in your car, drive down [I-]95 and come to the New York Jets, and we can meet you and give you an escort right in the building,” Johnson said Tuesday on a Zoom call with reporters. “And you’ll fit right in and you’re going to love it here and you’re going to feel welcome and you’re going to accomplish great things with us.”

Jon Gruden’s NFL return with the Raiders didn’t lead to much winning, but he recently got one in court against the league.

The Supreme Court of Nevada agreed to rehear Gruden’s case against the league and commissioner Roger Goodell. The former coach and commentator sued both parties alleging they interfered with his employment when he resigned as coach. The news was first reported by ProFootballTalk.

Gruden resigned as head Raiders coach in October 2021 in light of an investigation that revealed he used racist, misogynistic, and homophobic slurs in emails to then-Washington GM Bruce Allen over a seven-year period while he worked as a commentator for ESPN. Some of Gruden’s language in his emails were directed toward Goodell.

Gruden filed the lawsuit in November 2021 shortly after resigning and is seeking monetary damages. In it, he alleged the NFL forced him to resign by leaking the emails —reported by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times—which destroyed his career and some of his endorsements.

In May, Gruden lost a bid for the Supreme Court of Nevada to reconsider its ruling that allowed the NFL to move the case to private arbitration. This week’s ruling means Gruden’s case will be reheard by a panel of seven judges instead of the three that ruled 2-to-1 in favor of the league.

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Since leaving the Raiders, Gruden has served as a consultant for the Saints and the Milano Seamen, a European football team, in addition to increasing his social media presence.

Gruden launched a YouTube show (164,000 followers) in September called “Gruden Loves Football” and a TikTok account with the same name (around 71,000 followers) in which he discusses recent games in what some viewers could describe as over the top. One segment, for instance, explains what “has me feeling nicey.”

The most significant settlement in college sports history has received another massive boost.

Judge Claudia Wilken granted preliminary approval of a proposed settlement in the House, Hubbard and Carter antitrust cases on Monday afternoon, opening a door for a complete reshaping of the way in which college athletic departments operate.