📰🏟️ Kind of a B1G deal
Plus: Wild Card, b*tches…
Good afternoon. The top-five sports stories of the day are at your fingertips. Let’s roll.
1) MLB Wild Card concludes today with three elimination games
While the Dodgers swept the Reds 2-0 yesterday to advance to their 13th straight NLDS, the other three Wild Card series saw the team on the brink of elimination claw back to force a win-or-go-home Game 3. The action kicked off this afternoon with the Guards vs. Tigers (2 pm CT), followed by the Padres vs. Cubs (4 pm CT) and Red Sox vs. Yankees (7 pm CT). In other MLB news, retired slugger Albert Pujols is reportedly the top candidate to take over as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.
2) Big Ten is considering a $2B private capital deal
The conference has been discussing for months the possibility of accepting $2B in capital from a private entity, according to multiple sources. The deal would reportedly include a 10-year extension of the Big Ten’s grant of rights through 2046, binding each individual team’s media rights to the conference. It would also reportedly create a new commercial entity—working name: Big Ten Enterprises—for all revenue generation, like media rights, sponsorships, and league revenue streams. The private capital investor would get a portion of this new entity, essentially meaning the new Big Ten Enterprises would have 20 equity shares split between the 18 schools, the league, and this new investor.
3) NFL details plan to launch new flag football leagues
The NFL is set to launch new professional flag football leagues for men and women “in the next few years,” Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed at a sports conference in London earlier today. According to Goodell, the new leagues aim to go live ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, which will feature flag football for the first time. Goodell also said the NFL’s end goal is to help build up flag football infrastructure at all levels—youth, high school, college, and professional.
The NFL’s plan to capture the flag
4) WNBA star Aliyah Boston to land NBC/Peacock broadcast deal
The 23-year-old Indiana Fever forward is reportedly finalizing a deal to serve as an analyst for NBC Sports and Peacock’s Big Ten college basketball coverage this fall, following her debut in the role two years ago. The reported deal sets up Boston, who majored in communications at South Carolina, to follow a dual career path similar to Fox’s Greg Olsen, TNT’s Draymond Green, and ESPN’s Chiney Ogwumike.
5) America’s keeping their eye on college ball
Alabama’s upset victory over Georgia this past Saturday drew an average of 10.4 million viewers, or ~2 million more than Oregon’s double-OT win over Penn State in the same time slot, according to new data from Nielsen. It marks the sixth CFB game with 10+ million average viewers so far this season—or two more than the entire 2024 regular season. Overall, college football viewership across all networks is pacing at a record high, up 19% from last year.
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