Sports, in brief

American college football's season opened this weekend with the most expensive squads the sport has ever fielded. [4]

Sports Illustrated asked more than 40 coaches, athletic directors and agents what teams are really paying. At least seven programmes are above $40m for one football squad. [1]

Ohio State, Oregon, Miami and Texas Tech are all named at or above that line. Michigan sits just under it. [1][2]

The official limit is $21.3m per school, and it has to cover every sport that school runs, not just football. [2]

Almost everyone above the line pays the difference through separate sponsorship deals with players, which sit outside the cap. One athletic director described the whole arrangement as washing money. [1]

Illinois coach Bret Bielema told a press conference in February that his new defensive coordinator would bring pressure and movement from unusual body types. [2]

Later the same day he gave a different reason. He had spent his money on offensive linemen, and big defensive tackles were going for sums he could not match. [2]

So he did not buy worse defensive tackles. He built a defence that does not need them. [2]

Bielema had thought a $5m gap was survivable. Ohio State and Oregon now spend two to three times what Illinois does. [2]

Maryland is spending a little over $20m and has won one league game in each of the last two seasons. Its athletic department reports $32.7m of losses over five years. [2]

Iowa's Kirk Ferentz, in his 28th season there, calls the money gap the single biggest problem in the sport. [2]

The average college footballer earns about $30,000 a year. A typical starter at a big programme makes at least $1m, and the top of the market is around $5m. [3]

Players are paid as self-employed contractors, so state tax rates change what they keep. Two quarterbacks with very different headline figures can end up with the same money. [5]

A bill in the US Senate would raise the cap from $21.3m to $48.8m. It lets the biggest spenders keep doing what they already do, and hands everyone else a number they cannot reach. [2]

Eight of last season's ten highest-rated college football games involved Big Ten teams, and Indiana's title win drew 30.1 million viewers. That audience is where the money comes from. [7]

None of this is a sport in decline. Television ratings are high, the money is real, and the Big Ten just extended its commissioner through 2033. [4][6][17]

Why it matters. Watch whether the Senate bill passes this autumn. A higher cap would confirm the split rather than close it, and the sign to look for is a middle-tier programme announcing it will not chase the new number.

Tampa's city council voted 4-3 on Thursday to put in $80m, and Hillsborough County followed 5-2 on Friday with $796m. The Rays cover about $1.37bn and every cost overrun. [18][19][20][21]

Why it matters. It ends a search that has run for two decades, and it clears one of the two blockages holding up baseball's expansion plans. [22][23]

NFL owners unanimously approved the sale of the Super Bowl champions to Vinod and Neeru Khosla at an enterprise value of $9.612bn. The previous NFL record was $6.05bn for the Commanders in 2023. [24][25][26]

Why it matters. Only four NFL teams have changed hands since 2015, so each sale resets what every other owner believes their club is worth.

Colorado signed defenceman Cale Makar to an eight-year, $163.2m extension. At $20.4m a year he is the first NHL player past $20m a season. [27][28][29]

Why it matters. It is the fourth time in eleven months that the league's top salary has been beaten, and three of those came this summer. [28]

Every NFL club has to be down to 53 players by 6pm eastern on Sunday, a day earlier than usual because of a season opener in Australia. Clubs began announcing cuts on Friday. [30][31][32]

Why it matters. What happens next depends on service time. Four years in the league means you are released and can sign anywhere; fewer means you go on the waiver list and the worst team gets first claim. [30]

A club that puts an injured player on the reserve list before cuts loses him for the whole season. Wait until after, and he can return after four games. [33]

Why it matters. But he has to survive the cut to 53 first, so somebody else gets waived in his place and any rival can claim them. [33]

The Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC all moved within days to stop athletes who signed professional contracts from playing college football again. LSU abstained from the SEC vote. [12][13][14][15]

Why it matters. Lawyers argue that four rivals adopting the same rule at once looks like an agreement not to compete, and players have already sued. [9][10][11]

The window closes at 11pm UK time on 1 September. Eleven Premier League clubs have broken their transfer records this summer, and Chelsea have spent about $476m. [34][36]

Why it matters. Aston Villa have banked about 132.6m euros more than they spent, after a 22.5m euro UEFA fine in June for breaking its squad-cost rule. Selling can be a rule problem, not a football one. [35]

ESPN lists ten who could go before Tuesday, including Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who has had no suitable destination since Zion Suzuki arrived for 30m euros. [8]

Why it matters. A player nobody bids for is how a club finds out what its own valuation was worth.

Sporting Kansas City have signed 17 players and sold 16 this year, including a club-record $18m for Brazilian winger Andre Luiz, and have two designated-player slots still open. [37]

Why it matters. One sporting director told The Athletic that spending $12m or more is not as easy as it looks, because the good players have European options. [37]

Tottenham paid an initial 75m pounds for Savio, with the package rising to 85m. One estimate of his market value put it at 30.1m. [38]

Why it matters. There is no agreed way to value a footballer, so a fee is mostly a statement about how badly one club wanted one player.

The streaming company bought the exclusive commercial distributor of NFL Sunday Ticket, the service that supplies bars. The NFL's investment arm becomes a DAZN shareholder as part of the deal. [39][40][41]

Why it matters. The league already owns 10% of ESPN and a slice of Paramount, so it increasingly holds equity in the companies bidding for its own games. [40]

The women's league replaced Victory+ with Roku, starting with eight Sunday matches this season and rising to 25 free games in 2027. [42][43]

Why it matters. The Athletic reported that unpaid money from Victory+ contributed to the split, and 2027 is a World Cup year. [42]

The tournament announced record player pay and a new player council, but its chief executive said prize money is not calculated from revenue. Players are pushing for a fixed share, from about 15% today to 22% by 2030. [44]

Why it matters. A bigger cheque is given once. A percentage would hand players a claim the tournament could not reset each year.

The Seahawks agreed a three-year, $90m extension with Leonard Williams, days after the club changed hands at a record price. [45][46][47]

Why it matters. It is a live price for exactly the kind of player the Illinois coach above decided he could no longer buy.

Florida extended basketball coach Todd Golden to a total of $49.5m through 2031-32. His salary next season rises from $6m to $7.5m. It is his third raise in three years. [48][49]

Why it matters. Coaches' pay was rising fast before players could be paid at all, and none of it counts against the cap on players.

Groups interested in Las Vegas and Seattle have submitted investors and prices, with a second Las Vegas deadline in September. The league has signalled it wants $7bn to $10bn per team. [50]

Why it matters. Adam Silver has not committed to adding anyone, and says the league may end the process with no new teams.

The league could award a 33rd team to Austin or Houston by the end of the year, after agreeing a $2bn expansion fee. Seattle paid $650m in 2021. [51]

Why it matters. Its media contract runs out after 2027-28, and a bigger set of markets is a better hand at that table.

The combined company would account for about 20% of all in-home viewing in the UK, second only to the BBC. [52]

Why it matters. Analysts say the merged business goes into the next football rights auction with both money and reach, which is a stronger position against the sellers.

Boston Legacy will play the 2027 NWSL season in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, because its stadium is still being built. It has averaged 8,980 fans there this season. [53]

Why it matters. Building the ground is the part of a new club nobody watches, and it is usually the part that decides how the first seasons go.

FedEx Freight is expected to replace Craftsman as title sponsor of NASCAR's third series from 2027, in a deal reported in the low eight figures a year. [54]

Why it matters. FedEx Freight was spun out of FedEx as a separate public company on 1 June, and a new company buys a name.

The English Football League and the Scottish league found their games on a Russian streaming service and are considering legal action. Both stopped selling rights there in March 2022. [55]

Why it matters. A league can withdraw from a market and still be broadcast in it, which is a limit on what a rights deal actually controls.

Mark Walter's company said the Dodgers and its Cadillac Formula One team are not for sale, after he agreed to sell control of the Lakers. [56]

Why it matters. Joey and Jesse Buss, out of the Lakers, have put money into the Padres instead, whose owners called it a family investment. [57][58]

UEFA dropped its threat to boycott FIFA competitions after receiving a letter confirming FIFA's Forward Enterprise plan had been permanently withdrawn. [59]

Why it matters. The row is about who controls the money in the game, and it is being fought a year before a FIFA presidential cycle.

Cleveland will almost certainly release Deshaun Watson by 13 March 2027. A clause added when the deal was restructured makes a $200m salary guaranteed in 2029 if he stays. [60]

Why it matters. He is starting this season anyway, which is what happens when a club has already paid $230m and has nothing left to protect.

Guardian analysis found 22 of the last 50 permanent Premier League managers to leave lasted under a year. This season 110 matches feature two coaches appointed in 2026. [61]

Why it matters. Past results between two clubs stop meaning much when neither side is run by the person who produced them. Manchester City beat Crystal Palace 4-1 on Friday and are still chasing another signing. [61][62]

Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White said they intend to enter the 2027 draft. The WNBA's agreement with its players says only women may play, without defining the word. [63]

Why it matters. The league now has to write a definition it had never needed to write down.

A first dangerous-hit penalty no longer carries a suspension into the next game; a second does. Officials also get wider guidance on taunting and celebrations. [16]

Why it matters. It lowers what a first offence costs and raises what a repeat costs, which is a bet that the threat matters more than the punishment. [16]