📰🏟️ Transfer mania

Good afternoon. The top-five sports stories of the day are at your fingertips. Let’s get right to it.

—Kyle

1) NCAA to discuss 5-year eligibility model

An NCAA committee next week is scheduled to discuss a new age-based standard for athlete eligibility, amid a recent streak of inconsistent court rulings on eligibility, per multiple reports.

• Under the NCAA’s proposal, athletes would have 5 full years of eligibility from the time of their 19th birthday or high school graduation, whichever is earlier.
• There would be no waiver requests, redshirts, or exceptions allowed—outside of a small group of outliers that includes maternity leave, military service, and religious missions.
• A timeline for potential approval is still weeks or months away, sources say.

Breaking down the new model

2) OKC Thunder lock up historic top overall seed

The Thunder clinched the best regular-season record in the West—and entire NBA—with last night’s 128-110 drubbing of the LA Clippers.

• It’s the Thunder’s 3rd straight season finishing atop the West, becoming just the sixth team to three-peat as the #1 seed since the NBA went to the 16-team playoff format in 1983-84.
• The other five teams all won multiple championships during that period, most recently the Golden State Warriors (2015-17) and LA Lakers (2008-10).

Is OKC headed for another title run?

3) Half of all D1 hoops players are in the portal

Nearly 2,000 D1 men's basketball players—about half of all scholarship players—have already entered the transfer portal, according to Yahoo Sports, while other reports say that figure is even higher.

• The transfer portal opened at midnight the morning of April 7—and by 10 AM, more than 1,000 D1 players had entered.
• Some of the top players to enter the portal include Flory Bidunga (from Kansas), John Blackwell (Wisconsin), Robert Wright III (BYU), and Juke Harris (Wake Forest).

Ranking the top-40 portal players

4) Average MLB salary hits record high

The average Major Leaguer on Opening Day earned $5.34M, up 3.4% from last year and a new record high, per a study by the Associated Press.

Baseball's median salary rose to $1.4M from $1.35M last season, but remained below the record-high $1.65M in 2015.

• The NY Mets ($352.2M) led the league in Opening Day payroll for a fourth straight year, followed by the LA Dodgers at $316.6M (based on present-day value).
• Ten teams had $200+M payrolls (up from nine last year), while eight teams were under $100M (up from five).

Inside baseball’s latest salary dump

5) Michigan’s MCBB title was most-watched since 2019 

Michigan’s 69-63 defeat of UConn Monday night to win their 2nd-ever men’s March Madness title drew an average of 18.3M viewers, marking a 1.1% increase from last year.

• It ranks as the most-watched title game since Virginia’s OT win over Texas Tech 7 years ago—but far lower than the ~35M average viewers for the Larry Bird-Magic Johnson matchup in 1979 (the all-time record).
• Overall, the tournament averaged 10.9M viewers, up 7% from last year and the 2nd-most watched March Madness since 1994.

The numbers behind the Madness

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