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🚨 Headlines
⚽️ Messi staying put: Inter Miami has signed Lionel Messi to an extension through the 2028 season, keeping the GOAT in South Florida until he’s 41.
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🏈 Chargers 37, Vikings 10: The Chargers routed the Vikings at home on “Thursday Night Football” behind QB Justin Herbert (289 total yards, 3 TD) and RB Kimani Vidal (127 total yards, TD).
🏀 NBC does big numbers: Tuesday’s “NBA Tip-Off” on NBC averaged 5.6 million viewers, making it the league’s most-watched opening night doubleheader since LeBron James’ Heat debut in 2010.
👟 Marathon star banned: Women’s marathon world record holder Ruth Chepng’etich has been banned for three years after admitting to a doping violation. The 31-year-old Kenyan broke the world record by almost two minutes (2:09.56) last year at the Chicago Marathon.
🏈 Pro Bowl in primetime: In an effort to continue showcasing its flag football initiatives ahead of the 2028 Olympics, the NFL is moving this season’s Pro Bowl from the Sunday before the Super Bowl to primetime Tuesday.
🏀 Rozier, Billups arrested in FBI probe
(Amber Matsumoto/Yahoo Sports)
Just three days into the new NBA season, focus has unfortunately shifted from on-court action to a potentially disastrous off-court scandal involving illegal gambling activity.
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Rozier and Billups arrested: Heat guard Terry Rozier and Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups were among the 34 people arrested by the FBI on Thursday in connection with two different criminal cases. They’ve been indicted on charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy and have both been placed on immediate leave from their teams.
Operation Nothing But Net: Rozier was one of six people, along with former player and coach Damon Jones, named in this case for allegedly passing inside information to win sports bets between December 2022 and March 2024, including a 2023 game in which Rozier left early with a fake injury to win thousands worth of prop bets on his “unders.”
Operation Royal Flush: Billups was among the 31 people named in a case involving rigged poker games dating back to 2019 in which the Mafia was involved. Billups (and Jones, also named here) was used to lure unsuspecting players into these rigged games. Billups, though not named in the sports betting indictment, matches the description of a co-conspirator.
The backdrop: This scandal casts a darker cloud over a league also embroiled in another scandal — that of Kawhi Leonard’s alleged “no-show” sponsorship deal. It also comes at a time of increased gambling scandals in the sport (see: Jontay Porter), all as the NBA has openly embraced partnerships with gambling companies, writes Yahoo Sports’ Ben Rorhbach.
From Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken: The inevitable bill of legalized sports gambling has come
The original idea behind the legalization of sports gambling was that if a consumer had access to the activity in Nevada, it should have access in New Jersey. The Supreme Court agreed.
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But even those of us who agreed in principle didn’t necessarily understand how sports gambling would explode into every aspect of our lives as fans, nor how it would alter a relationship that had been fundamentally built on fandom.
Now, for many, it will be built on suspicion. Was a bad night just a bad night? Is an injury really an injury? Is a player sitting on the bench because a coach has been sitting at the wrong poker table?
For most, it won’t be fair. But Thursday’s arrests will undoubtedly move those concerns to the front of mind for many fans.
That’s the cost for all those sponsorship dollars teams and leagues have been raking in. For the first time since sports gambling logos got inside their arenas, it’s time to wonder if those profits are worth it.
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Further reading: Why do millionaire athletes get involved in gambling? (Jay Busbee, Yahoo Sports)
⚾️ Baseball is booming
(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports)
The World Series begins tonight in Toronto, capping off a season that has shown baseball — across all levels of the sport — is in its healthiest spot in a long time.
Baseball is booming: MLB’s total attendance this season (71.4 million fans) increased for the third consecutive year, which hadn’t happened since 2005-07. That growing popularity could be seen over the airwaves and other digital channels, too.
Viewership: Postseason games drew an average of 4.33 million viewers through the Division Series, a 30% increase over last year and the highest in 15 years. Similar high-water marks were seen during the regular season, where TBS (highest viewership since 2011), ESPN (2013) and Fox (2022) all drew big numbers, too.
Streaming: A record 19.39 billion minutes were watched on MLB.TV, which saw seven of its 10 most-watched games ever take place this year.
Digital: MLB’s social media pages garnered a record 17.8 billion views this year and the MLB app had its most-trafficked season ever.
What’s driving this? A variety of factors are at play, but the discussion has to begin with the implementation of the pitch clock, which may go down as one of the best decisions in MLB history.
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Games, which used to routinely last well over three hours, averaged just 2:38 this season — the third year in a row under 2:40 since the pitch clock arrived in 2023. Just three 9-inning games this season lasted longer than 3:30. In 2021, there were 391 such games.
The impact of this cannot be overstated. Fans at home can watch games without it taking over their entire evening, and fans going to the ballpark can reasonably expect to be home before 10pm most nights — a pipe dream in the not-so distant past.
Other new rules like larger bases, limiting pickoffs and banning the shift have also led to more steals, more balls in play and a generally more exciting game. It’s not rocket science: A better product with a smaller time commitment has yielded a surge in popularity.
Then there’s the star power: The sport’s two best players — one of whom is an international superstar — playing in the league’s two biggest markets is a boon of epic proportions. And Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani aren’t just MLB’s current best players; they’ve spent the last few years carving out their places as all-time greats.
This season also saw a switch-hitting catcher nicknamed Big Dumper swat 60 homers, a record seven players record a 30/30 season and a record-tying four players hit 50 bombs.
One mega-rich club is trying to win back-to-back titles, another failed to make the playoffs after an all-time collapse and a small-market darling finished with the league’s best record. In short, there was something for everyone, and everyone tuned in to watch it happen.
The big picture: Baseball’s boom seems to be having a trickle-down effect, with youth participation up to a record 8.49 million. Plus, the last three College World Series were the most-watched since 2011.
Looking ahead: It would feel disingenuous not to mention the dark cloud looming over all of this, which is that many fear a work stoppage is coming when the CBA expires next winter. Perhaps both sides will look at the undeniably positive state of their sport and find common ground to avoid that end.
📸 Through the lens
(Adam Hagy/NBAE via Getty Images)
Indianapolis — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander erupted for a career-high 55 points in Thursday’s NBA Finals rematch as the Thunder beat the Pacers, 141-135 (2OT), for their second straight double-overtime victory to open the season.
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More NBA: In the only other game of the night, Steph Curry (42-6-7) led the Warriors past the Nuggets, 137-131 (OT), despite a career-high 50 points from Aaron Gordon, who shot 10-for-11 from long range.
(Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
New York — An unexpected heavyweight fight broke out at the Garden when San Jose’s Ryan Reaves (6-foot-2) and New York’s Matt Rempe (6-foot-9) threw down in the first period of the Sharks’ 6-5 (OT) win over the Rangers.
More NHL: Sidney Crosby had two goals and an assist in the Penguins’ 5-3 win over the Panthers. It was his 497th multi-point game, tying Mario Lemieux for the sixth-most ever.
Morgan stands next to a jersey representing her 224 appearances with the USWNT. (Heather Barry/Getty Images)
Chester, Pennsylvania — The USWNT honored retired superstar Alex Morgan before their friendly at Subaru Park, where she scored her first of 123 career international goals — fifth-most in team history.
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Portugal 2, USA 1: The game itself did not go the Americans’ way, losing in their first match since July due to uncharacteristic mistakes and an attack that went quiet after scoring just 33 seconds into the game.
📺 Weekend Watchlist
(Bruno Rouby/Yahoo Sports)
⚾️ World Series
The 121st World Series begins this weekend with Game 1 (Fri. 8pm ET, Fox) and Game 2 (Sat. 8pm, Fox) in Toronto. Will Los Angeles become MLB’s first repeat champion since 2000? Or will Toronto capture its first ring since 1993?
Key matchup: The Dodgers rotation vs. the Blue Jays lineup. LA’s starters have allowed just 10 runs in 10 games this postseason for a ridiculous 1.40 ERA. Toronto’s hitters have an .878 OPS, the sixth-highest of any postseason team since 1969 (min. 7 games).
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🏈 NFL Week 8
With six teams on bye, including four that are over .500, Sunday is relatively light on marquee games. Among the best offerings: Denver vs. Dallas in a matchup of teams that are a step away from being contenders and Aaron Rodgers’ first game vs. the Packers.*
Bills at Panthers (1pm, Fox)
Giants at Eagles (1pm, Fox)
Cowboys at Broncos (4:25pm, CBS)
Packers at Steelers (8:20pm, NBC)
*A chance at history: If Rodgers leads the Steelers to a win over the Packers, he’ll join Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Brett Favre as the only QBs in NFL history who’ve beaten all 32 teams. (Of note: Joe Montana and Fran Tarkenton are also technically in that club, beating all 28 teams that existed during their careers.)
🏈 NCAA Football Week 9
Saturday’s slate is headlined by three ranked matchups, including Vanderbilt’s first game as a top-10 team since 1947.
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No. 8 Ole Miss at No. 13 Oklahoma (12pm, ABC)
No. 15 Missouri at No. 10 Vanderbilt (3:30pm, ESPN)
No. 3 Texas A&M at No. 20 LSU (7:30pm, ABC)
Best of the rest: UCLA at No. 2 Indiana (12pm, Fox); No. 4 Alabama at South Carolina (3:30pm, ABC); No. 11 BYU at Iowa State (3:30pm, Fox); Stanford at No. 9 Miami (7pm, ESPN).
⚽️ MLS Playoffs
Round One begins tonight with the first best-of-three series, as Lionel Messi and No. 3 Inter Miami host No. 6 Nashville (8pm, FS1). Three more series begin on Sunday: No. 1 Philadelphia vs. No. 8 Chicago (5:30pm, FS1); No. 2 Vancouver vs. No. 7 Dallas (7:30pm, Apple); No. 1 San Diego vs. No. 8 Portland (9:30pm, Apple).
🏀 NBA Opening Weekend
The first weekend of games tips off tonight with Prime Video‘s first-ever NBA games: Celtics at Knicks (7:30pm) and Timberwolves at Lakers (10pm).
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⚽️ El Clásico
Real Madrid hosts Barcelona on Sunday (11:15am, ESPN2) in the first El Clásico of the season, and 262nd all-time. Los Blancos sit atop La Liga (24 points), but second-place Barça (22 points) won all four meetings last season.
More to watch:
🏒 NHL: Avalanche at Bruins (Sat. 3pm, NHL); Canadiens at Canucks (Sat. 7pm, NHL); Avalanche at Devils (Sun. 1pm, NHL) … Colorado (5-0-3) leads the league with 13 points.
⚽️ Friendly: USWNT vs. Portugal (Sun. 4pm, TNT) … The two sides meet for the second time in four days, this time in East Hartford, Connecticut.
⚽️ Premier League: Bournemouth vs. Nottingham Forest (Sun. 10am, Peacock) … Third-place Bournemouth (4-3-1) are off to their best start ever.
👊 UFC 321: Tom Aspinall vs. Cyril Gane (Sat. 4:30pm, ESPN+ PPV) … Aspinall’s heavyweight title defense headlines the 14-fight card in Abu Dhabi.
🏈 Football trivia
(Getty Images)
Question: Can you name the eight states that don’t have an FBS program?
Hint: Half are on one side of the Mississippi River, half are on the other.
Bonus hint: It was nine until Delaware joined Conference USA in 2025.
Submitted by: Charles C. (Austin, Texas)
Answer at the bottom.
🏈 Jets fans deserve amnesty
(Harry Murphy/Getty Images)
Jets fans have it pretty rough, with this season’s 0-7 start just the latest in a string of organizational failures. And while we’d normally discourage this behavior, we’re prepared to issue a one-time-only, guilt-free bandwagon jump for members of Gang Green Nation who’ve had enough.
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From Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee:
We all knew the kid in school — or the guy at work — who roots for some hotel-buffet combination of the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Duke basketball, Indiana Fever and Kansas City Chiefs, regardless of where they grew up. Scornful graduates of Michigan and Alabama (are there any other kind?) call these bandwagon-jumpers “Wal-Mart Wolverines” or “Dirt Road Alumni,” and in most cases, all the disgust is deserved. You don’t get to just pick a better team when you have a perfectly fine one at home.
But if the home team isn’t “perfectly fine,” if the home team stinks like garbage juice in August, if the home team is the New York Jets … well, for this team only, and this season only, we’re lifting the societal scorn on bandwagon-jumping.
Want to give up on Gang Green and join the Mahomes/Kelce/Taylor Swift Chiefs cult? Come on in, brother and sister, it’s a big ol’ tent. Tired of losing the AFC East over and over and want to switch your loyalties to the Buffalo Bills? There’s a table with your name and Woody Johnson’s face on it, friend, dive right in. Want to join so many of your New York brethren and emigrate to Miami? We would advise against pinning any hopes whatsoever on the Dolphins, but at least you’ll be suffering in sunshine.
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Trivia answer: Alaska, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont
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