Sports, in brief

The Southeastern Conference, a group of American universities that run their sports together and share the money, sued LSU in a federal court in Alabama on Thursday. [4][5]

It named LSU's president Wade Rousse, its athletics director Verge Ausberry and its football coach Lane Kiffin as defendants alongside the university. [4][5]

Its argument is that American free-speech law lets a private group refuse to be associated with members who break its rules. [4][5]

Hours later a Louisiana state judge ordered the conference and the NCAA, which writes the rules for US college sport, not to punish any school that plays the men who sued. [1]

The men are Dae'Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, two former Ole Miss players who spent August in NFL training camps and want a fifth college season. [1][6]

They are among more than 40 athletes suing the NCAA, which moved to a flat five-years-to-play-five rule that left out their year group. [2][9]

Clemson, who play LSU on Saturday night in Baton Rouge, emailed LSU on Friday that fielding the pair could breach the two schools' 2018 game contract. Clemson said it will play anyway and will not claim damages. [3]

The conference had reaffirmed its own rule last week. A member that signs a former professional loses its head coach for half a season and can no longer vote with the other schools. [4][1]

The fine attached matches half that sport's annual budget, which in football runs to tens of millions of dollars. LSU abstained from the vote. [4][1][6]

Georgia's attorney general Chris Carr asked the conference's members to consider suspending or expelling LSU, and other member schools have discussed forfeits and a boycott. [6][7]

Any player who goes back to college has to terminate his professional contract and repay what he was paid. [9]

Chris Ballard, who runs the roster at the Indianapolis Colts, called the idea of NFL players returning to college the stupidest thing he had ever heard. [9]

Why it matters. Watch whether LSU actually puts Wright and Harris on the field against Clemson - the conference says it will appeal the Louisiana order, and the Alabama federal judge has not ruled at all yet.

A judge in Indiana ruled on Friday that Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt may play for Indiana University, the reigning US college football champion. The pair had rejoined the team in early August and then had their status challenged. Judge Krothe wrote that she meant to put them back in the position they were in at the end of their last college season. A further hearing is set for 11 September. The same case covers a Miami basketball player, an Indiana volleyball player, a Butler basketball player and two Indiana swimmers. [10]

Why it matters. Louisiana, Texas and now Indiana have each decided who may play college sport this season, and every order covers only the people who actually sued. [10][1]

Cathy Engelbert, 61, will retire as commissioner of the WNBA, the top women's basketball league in the United States, after seven and a half years. She told the Associated Press she had originally intended to stay three and a half. During her time the league signed a new agreement with its players' union, a long-term television deal and added expansion clubs. Her leadership was publicly attacked last year by the Minnesota Lynx player Napheesa Collier, who called the league's governance negligent. Engelbert said the decision to go was entirely her own. [12][13]

Why it matters. She leaves with the league's biggest contracts signed, its relationship with its players in dispute, and no successor named. [12]

The FIA, motorsport's governing body, said on Friday that its International Court of Appeal had restored two five-second penalties given to the Alpine driver Pierre Gasly for speeding in the pit lane at the Monaco Grand Prix. Race officials in Monaco had cancelled those penalties, which lifted Gasly onto the podium ahead of Red Bull's Isack Hadjar and McLaren's Oscar Piastri. Both teams appealed and won, dropping Gasly to seventh. Alpine's executive adviser Flavio Briatore then alleged that one of the judges on the panel is very closely linked with McLaren. [14]

Why it matters. A finishing order settled months ago was rewritten one level up, and the team that lost went after the judge rather than the rule. [14]

The American Gaming Association, the US casino industry's trade body, expects $29.5bn to be bet on this NFL season with licensed sportsbooks, up 0.3% on last year. Betting grew 4% over the previous nine months, against 14% in the same stretch a year earlier. Prediction markets, which sell wagers as financial contracts and answer to a different regulator, are expected to roughly double their NFL volume to $36.8bn; their August volume was 4.6 times last August's. The NFL wrote to those operators this week saying some markets threaten the sport's integrity. [15]

Why it matters. The money is not going away, it is moving to a product that a different body licenses and a different rule taxes, while the courts argue about which body that is. [15][33][16]

A 30-page paper published on Friday says a purpose-built ground can bring a women's sports team roughly $1bn to $3.8bn in extra revenue over thirty years, and puts the value of owning one at between $211m and $637m today. It was written by the investor Project Level with the advisory firm Comeback Ventures. Kansas City Current, the only club in the National Women's Soccer League to have built its own ground since the league began in 2013, was the case study. The paper says the industry's problem is no longer demand but buildings. [17]

Why it matters. Two new clubs, Denver Summit and Boston Legacy, say their own grounds open in 2028, and Brighton hope to be the first women's club in Europe with one by 2030. [17]

American football clubs in Tennessee, Cleveland, Washington, Kansas City, Denver and Buffalo are all building new grounds. Public subsidies for the ones whose budgets have been published come to $5.74bn and average more than $1bn each, with Kansas taxpayers putting up $1.8bn for the Kansas City Chiefs. An economist who has studied stadium financing for two decades points out that none of the six clubs publicly threatened to leave, and that voters in Jackson County rejected an earlier Chiefs request in a 2024 referendum. [18]

Why it matters. The usual explanation, that leagues keep clubs scarce so cities bid against each other, does not fit the numbers: the four big US leagues have each added between three and eleven clubs since 1990 while the subsidies kept climbing. [18]

Stan Kroenke agreed this week to buy the Los Angeles Angels and their television channel for a reported $4bn, a record for control of a Major League Baseball club. Forbes reported that a $2.5bn stadium project was already being put together, then retracted that after Kroenke's company said the club was not ready to move forward and might do so in future. Angel Stadium opened in 1966 and is the fourth-oldest ground in the sport. The purchase is not expected to close until early 2027. [19]

Why it matters. Whether Anaheim is asked for public money now depends on a decision one private company has not made and does not have to explain. [19]

More than $30bn of sale agreements were reached for clubs in the four biggest US leagues between June and the start of September, according to Sportico. The Seattle Seahawks went at $9.6bn, the Los Angeles Lakers at $12.5bn, the Minnesota Timberwolves at $4.5bn and the Angels at $4bn. That beats the total for any full calendar year before 2026; 2023 and 2025 each came in around $22bn. [20] Arte Moreno bought the Angels from Disney in 2003, at a price CBS Sports gives as $180m and The Athletic as $182.5m, and the club has not reached the play-offs since 2014. [22][21]

Why it matters. The Angels' best-known player, Mike Trout, called the sale needed and a fresh start, which is a fair summary of a price set by what a club is rather than how it plays. [23][22]

Telemundo, the Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, has bought exclusive US Spanish-language rights to Serie A, Italy's top football division, along with the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana. The deal runs for three seasons from 2026-27 through 2028-29 and covers its main network, its cable channel Universo, the streaming service Peacock and a free advertising-funded channel. Language rights are sold separately from English-language ones, so one match can have two different American buyers at the same time. [13]

Why it matters. It is a bet that the Spanish-speaking audience for Italian football in the United States is large enough to pay for a rights deal on its own. [13]

American football's NFL and the video app TikTok announced a multi-year renewal of their partnership. Individual clubs get their own hubs inside the app, the league's GamePlan features are being extended, and advertisers will be able to buy space next to videos posted by the league and by the clubs. TikTok is also opening its Pro Events product to the NFL. Neither side published a value for the deal. [13]

Why it matters. Short clips of matches used to be something a league chased off the internet; here they are inventory the league sells. [13]

League One Volleyball, a US professional league known as LOVB, named the pharmacy chain CVS as its first league-wide jersey patch sponsor. A jersey patch is a small advertisement worn on the playing kit itself. The CVS logo will go on the front of every LOVB team's shirt from the coming season. It is the first time the league has sold that space at all, and CVS says it is the first league-wide patch the chain has bought anywhere. [13]

Why it matters. Selling one patch across every club is a single negotiation instead of eight, which is how a young league can sell space a big league sells team by team. [13]

Two new leagues announced US broadcast deals in the same week. WTGL, a women's team golf league run by TMRW Sports with the LPGA, sold multi-year American rights to ESPN and to Scripps Sports' Ion channel, and launches on 8 November at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. World Team Tennis, which Billie Jean King helped found in 1974 and which returns for a 47th season, will have all six of its December matches shown on CNBC in the evening, with free streaming on Fandango. [13]

Why it matters. Both leagues sold their distribution before they had an audience, which is the order in which new leagues now get built. [13]

The San Antonio Spurs signed an exclusive direct-to-fan deal with the streaming service DAZN for the 2026-27 season. It covers every regular-season game not taken for national television, all pre-season games and club-made programming, with 22 games also going out free on a local broadcast channel. Fans across central, southern and western Texas will need the Spurs' own DAZN subscription for everything else. It will be sold monthly or by the season when it launches in the coming weeks. [31][13]

Why it matters. These games used to arrive inside a cable bill most households already paid; each club now sells its own screen to its own city. [31]

Rose Lavelle, who scored the goal that won last season's NWSL championship, has re-signed with Gotham FC. The club is already spending the league's full salary cap, the fixed total each team may pay its players, so it is expected to use the league's new High Impact Player rule to fit her in. That rule pays a qualifying star from a separate pot worth $1.257m in 2027 and rising to $1.457m by 2030. The cap itself goes to $4.4m next year and $5.1m by 2030. [24]

Why it matters. A cap that would otherwise force a champion to sell its best player now has a door in it, and the league is the one that built the door. [24]

Becky Sauerbrunn, 41, has rejoined the Portland Thorns as a technical consultant for the rest of the season. She played for the club from 2020 and was in the side that won the 2022 NWSL title, and she joined the league in its first year in 2013 with the now-defunct FC Kansas City. With the United States she played three World Cups, winning in 2015 and 2019, and three Olympics, winning gold in 2012. She was among the players who filed a 2016 complaint alleging pay discrimination. [25]

Why it matters. The Thorns' general manager Jeff Agoos said she joins the technical staff to work with players and coaches; she is one of the first from the league's opening season to cross to that side of it. [25]

Premier League clubs paid an average of £39.4m for a player signed from another Premier League club this summer, against £20.2m for one signed from outside England. Kieran Maguire, who teaches football finance at the University of Liverpool, calls the gap a Premier League tax. Deals worth £40m or more doubled in two years, from 13 to 27, and a growing share of them were done between English clubs rather than with clubs abroad. Manchester City finished the window as the biggest spender in the division, and its £125m for Enzo Fernandez matched the British record. [29][27]

Why it matters. European clubs now watch the same players leave at prices they cannot match, and the reason given is only that the buyer is English. [26]

Guardian analysis of the closed English window found Premier League clubs spent 23% less than last summer on players aged 24 to 27, the group that now plays most of the minutes. Spending on players aged 28 and over reached £323.3m, about £50m short of the total for the previous three summers combined. Players of 28 or more took 26.6% of minutes last season, down from 40% in 2021-22. Total spending passed £3.4bn, up 11.9% on last year. [27]

Why it matters. Clubs paid more for players over 28 in the same summer they gave those players less time on the pitch. [27][28]

Every football jersey in the Big 12, one of the four biggest US college conferences, now carries the conference's logo with Monster Energy's branding built into it. A decade ago an advertisement on a college kit was treated as unacceptable by fans and administrators alike. The patches arrived after US college athletes won the right to be paid for their name and image, and conferences and schools started selling space they already owned outright. [30]

Why it matters. College sport found money in the kit itself, and that space needs no court ruling and nobody's signature but the conference's. [30]

Dr Pepper unveiled what it calls the first Fan Wall of Fame in Bloomington, Indiana on Friday, an interactive public mural honouring the supporters of Indiana University's 2026 national championship football team. The company's pitch was that championship teams get rings, banners and player payments while the people who fill the stadium get nothing. Dr Pepper, owned by Keurig Dr Pepper, has sponsored US college football for years. [32]

Why it matters. The sponsor bought the crowd's side of the stadium instead of the team's, which costs less and does not stop working when the results turn. [32]