Sports, in brief

Spending set by somebody else

Spain's league published Barcelona's ceiling at 582m euros and Real Madrid's at 832m [11]; the Atlanta Falcons paid a guard's salary early to open room under the NFL's cap [32]

Waiting on a price nobody has named

college football gave ESPN 30 days alone to say what a bigger tournament is worth [10]; baseball's owners may not bid at all until a new labour deal exists [21]

Paying to get in

Madrid spent 150m euros to join the grand prix calendar [1]; the newest women's football team in the United States cost $205m to join, which has priced out Racing Louisville's owners [28]

Contracts reopened early

Mikel Arteta is close to new Arsenal terms a season before his deal ends [26]; Arda Guler signed a new Real Madrid contract and Vegas gave Braeden Bowman six more years [19][24]

1. 1Madrid spent 150m euros on a Formula One track by its airport. Its first race comes as drivers say the new rules make them lift off on purpose.
2. 2College football asks a broadcaster what more is worth
3. 3Spain's league prints what every club may spend
4. 4Real Madrid took the player Barcelona turned down
5. 5Como play their first Champions League match

Formula One races in Madrid this weekend for the first time, on a part-street, part-purpose-built circuit called Madring next to the city's airport. [1][3]

Watch how many overtakes Sunday's race produces: the junior drivers who have tested Madring say the walls are close and the track is narrow, and Madrid has nine more races to sell after this one. [1]

The College Football Playoff told ESPN on Tuesday that it has 30 days to talk exclusively about a bigger tournament. [10]

The playoff decides the champion of American college football and currently takes 12 teams. [10] Organisers want a price for a 24-team version before they vote on expansion by 1 December. [10]

ESPN is in the first year of a six-year deal worth $7.8bn to the conferences and universities, which covers a playoff of up to 14 teams. [10]

Extra rounds would wipe out the conference title games, so the playoff must raise about $250m a year before it gains anything. [10]

Fox Sports, which holds the Big Ten's rights, has said it wants to bid as well. [10]

When a rule makes you refill what you spend, the winning move is to give some of it up on purpose, at the exact point where giving up looks like losing.

This year a driver can be quicker by lifting off early, because the battery charge that saves is what pushes the car down the next straight.

the same step: Barcelona could only sign Anthony Gordon and Rodri once Robert Lewandowski and other high earners came off the wage bill and refilled the room

the club took room under this year's cap by pushing the charge into later years, which is spending the store forward instead of now

they may hold their money through the opening of free agency, because signing now is worth less than signing under the rules they are trying to write

expansion would use up the conference title games worth about $250m a year, so the playoff has to earn that back before it gains anything

Guess wrong and you hold back for nothing, then finish with charge in the battery and a slower lap behind you.

The drivers did not write the engine rules, Barcelona did not set its own ceiling, and the Atlanta guard did not ask to be paid early.

Each of them is doing the sensible thing inside a limit that someone else drew, and from inside it the limit stops looking like a choice at all.

LaLiga, the top Spanish football league, published its squad spending limits on Thursday. [11] Barcelona's rose by almost 150m euros to 582m.

Real Madrid's is 832m and Sevilla's is 20m. [11]

The limit is roughly a club's income minus its non-football costs and debt repayments, and it covers wages for players, coaches, reserves and youth teams. [11]

Barcelona is inside its ceiling again after Robert Lewandowski and other high earners left. [11]

Every rival can read the figure, so a Barcelona offer is now judged against a published ceiling rather than a rumour.

Sporting director Deco says the club chose Anthony Gordon because it wanted more running in wide areas. [12]

Bernardo Silva left Manchester City as a free agent after nine years and joined Real Madrid. [13] Barcelona had been treated as his likely destination and did speak to him. [13]

Deco, who runs Barcelona's football side, says the 32-year-old's wage demands were one problem and his position was the other. [13]

He said Silva did not play where the coach Hansi Flick needed a player. [13]

A free transfer still costs wages, and wages are what the published spending limit measures.

Barcelona chose Gordon and Rodri instead, and the man they passed on went to the club with the bigger ceiling. [11][13]

Como, from a lakeside town in northern Italy, hosted RB Leipzig at the Stadio Sinigaglia on Thursday in their first Champions League match. [14][15]

The club is owned by the Djarum Group, an Indonesian conglomerate founded by the Hartono brothers, who bought Como in 2019. [14]

It reached Serie A, Italy's top division, in under five years and qualified for Europe in its second season up, under manager Cesc Fabregas. [14]

President Mirwan Suwarso and several directors gave up their own seats for supporters born in 1950 or earlier. [14]

Como are now drawn against Real Madrid and Bayern Munich with one of the smallest grounds in the competition. [14][15]

A renovation of the Sinigaglia is under way, and until it is done the gate is the ceiling on what the run earns. [14]

Manchester United played Sabah of Azerbaijan at Old Trafford on Thursday, their first Champions League match since December 2023. [18][19]

The club's finances were built for deep runs in the competition, yet it has reached the quarter-finals only once in the past 12 years. [18]

Final tickets were still on general sale on the day, partly because Sabah were expected to bring few travelling supporters. [18] Benjamin Sesko started up front. [19]

Champions League money is the gap between United's spending plans and its income, and three years without it has to be paid for somewhere. [18]

Matchday one of the league phase ran across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with 36 teams playing. [15]

Barcelona beat Feyenoord 5-1, Paris Saint-Germain put six past Slovan Bratislava, Liverpool beat Atletico Madrid at Anfield and Arsenal beat Napoli 1-0 through a late Martin Odegaard goal. [15]

Manchester City and Real Madrid won on Tuesday without convincing. [15]

Jose Mourinho, who returned to Real Madrid this summer, faced Inter Milan, the club he won the competition with in 2010. [16]

The league phase replaced the old group stage, so every club now plays eight different opponents in one table. [15]

More fixtures is what the format was sold on, and it is also what the broadcasters bought. [15]

Borussia Dortmund beat Villarreal in their opening Champions League match, with Serhou Guirassy scoring at both ends. [17]

Dortmund have now lost only two of their last 23 home games in the competition. [17]

Villarreal lost each of their final six league-phase matches last season, the longest such run in their European history, and scored five goals in eight games. [17]

Dortmund conceded 21 goals in 10 games last season, their second-worst rate in a single edition. [17]

Both records point the same way: last season's league phase was decided less by single results than by which clubs could hold a level across eight games. [17]

Arda Guler signed a new contract at Real Madrid. [19] The Turkish midfielder is in his fourth season there and made 51 appearances last season, scoring six and setting up 14. [19]

Jose Mourinho, the new head coach, has started him in three of Madrid's first games. [19]

Chelsea had been linked with a move reported at about $116m, and the extension closes it. [20]

A club that renews a contract early never has to name a fee, because the player is no longer close to leaving. [19]

Chelsea have to find another target, and the money set aside for Guler now goes to somebody else. [20]

Major League Baseball's labour agreement expires on 1 December and a lockout by the owners is widely expected. [21]

Free agency opens weeks before that, and owners may simply not bid while they push for a salary cap. [21]

Three players coming from Japan, Teruaki Sato, Kaima Taira and Hiromi Itoh, are expected to be posted in early November so they can sign before the deadline. [21]

Tarik Skubal is expected to break the record for a pitcher's contract, currently $325m. [21]

Before the last stoppage, after the 2021 season, clubs rushed deals through in days, including $500m between Corey Seager and Marcus Semien at Texas. [21]

This time the owners want to change how salaries work, so waiting costs them less than signing. [21]

The Washington Nationals lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose outfielder Kyle Tucker is paid about $60m a year. [22]

The Dodgers' baseball chief Andrew Friedman once said that being rational about every free agent means finishing third on every free agent. [22]

Washington cannot match that outlay and has not tried for years. [22] The club is now weighing whether to bid seriously this winter. [22]

Baseball has no salary cap, so the only limit on a club is what its owner will spend. [21][22]

That is the rule the owners are trying to change by 1 December. [21]

Sportsnet, the Canadian channel that carries the National Hockey League, will show Monday games only on its streaming service Sportsnet+. [23]

Television subscribers can sign in with their TV details but must pay a further $12.99 a month. [23]

Rogers, which owns Sportsnet, says the service will be free for people already subscribed to the channel on 29 September, when the season starts. [23] Saturday doubleheaders stay on television. [23]

The night that goes behind the paywall is the test: if Monday audiences hold, more nights follow. [23] Two long-serving analysts, Jennifer Botterill and Kelly Hrudey, will not be back. [23]

The Vegas Golden Knights signed forward Braeden Bowman to a six-year extension on Thursday worth an average of $3.4m a season, running to 2032-33. [24]

Bowman played 54 NHL games last season, scoring eight goals with 18 assists, and 34 more in the minor leagues. [24]

He filled in when captain Mark Stone was injured and scored in three games in a row. [24] He has not yet held down a full season in the top team. [24]

The NHL has a hard salary cap, so a club that waits until a young player has proved himself then has to pay in full. [24]

Vegas have bet six years that Bowman becomes a regular. [24]

NHL rookie camps opened this week and training camps follow on 16 and 17 September. [25]

Detroit still have no general manager after Steve Yzerman stepped down in July, and captain Dylan Larkin has asked to be traded. [41]

Winnipeg's goaltender Connor Hellebuyck has also asked to leave, and Buffalo want him. [41]

Hellebuyck won the league's most valuable player award in 2025 and an Olympic gold medal in 2026, and his play-off record is 24-34. [41]

A trade request carries weight while a season has not started. [41] Every day of camp that passes makes it cheaper for a club to say no. [25][41]

Arsenal are close to agreeing new terms with Mikel Arteta, whose contract runs out at the end of this season. [26]

The 44-year-old won the club's first league title in 22 years last season and took them to a Champions League final. [26]

He is reported to earn about $13.5m a season, with a further $6.8m for qualifying for the Champions League, and will get a large rise. [26]

Talks moved on once the summer transfer window closed. [26]

A manager in the final year of a contract is a free agent in waiting, and rivals can talk to him. [26]

Arsenal are paying to remove that conversation before it starts. [26]

Mauricio Pochettino signed a new four-year contract as head coach of the United States men's football team. [27]

He took the side to the last 16 of their home World Cup this summer, and says he had promised to stay until the tournament finished. [27]

Speaking in London this week, he said the commitment that had been absolute before the World Cup is no longer the same. [27]

He left Chelsea four months before taking the job in September 2024. [27]

A coach who has already delivered the thing he was hired for has less reason to refuse the next call. [27]

The federation kept the signature and lost the certainty that came with it. [27]

Racing Louisville sit second from bottom in average attendance in the National Women's Soccer League, spend near the bottom, and their best player has asked to leave. [28]

The owners, who bought in for between $1m and $2m before the 2021 season, say they will be forced to do something. [28]

The newest team in the league, in Columbus, paid an expansion fee of $205m. [28] New ownership is the likely answer, and that usually raises the question of moving the club. [28]

The owners joined when a place cost between $1m and $2m and now sit alongside owners who paid $205m. [28] Nothing the team does on the pitch closes that gap. [28]

Major League Soccer clubs spent a record $370m buying players in 2026, up 10.1% on last year's $336m. [29] They received $218m for players sold, up 7.9% on $202m. [29]

The league has been trying to bring those two numbers closer together for years. [29]

Money received as a share of money spent was 35.3% in 2021 and is 58.9% this year, though it reached 76% in 2024. [29]

A league that sells as well as it buys stops depending on its owners to fund every signing. [29]

The 2024 figure shows the ratio can move backwards in a single year. [29]

The United Soccer League agreed a revenue-sharing deal with its men's professional clubs, letting them take part in the league's national income. [30]

The board approved it at the end of August and owners in the USL Championship and USL League One ratified it last Tuesday with a two-thirds majority. [30]

The deal runs five years and also covers USL Premier, a first division the league plans to start in 2028. [30] The share itself was not disclosed. [30]

Clubs below the top flight normally live on ticket money and their owner's patience. [30] A share of national income is the first thing that makes a lower-division club worth buying. [30]

Lamar Jackson, 29, is going into a season with the Baltimore Ravens without an extension. [31]

General manager Eric DeCosta answered six questions about him at a news conference and refused to discuss the talks. [31] Jackson has twice been the NFL's most valuable player. [31]

He is choosing to play the season out rather than take the deal on the table. [31]

Jackson has no contract for the years after this one, so every good game raises what Baltimore must pay. [31]

If he is injured instead, he carries that loss on his own. [31]

The Atlanta Falcons paid guard Chris Lindstrom his 2026 salary early, which converts most of it into a signing bonus. [32]

Under NFL rules a bonus is spread across the remaining years of a contract, so the charge against this year's salary cap falls and later years rise. [32]

The Falcons have spent the summer extending young players, which lowers their near-term cap charges in the same way. [32] The owner is willing to pay the cash up front. [32]

A salary cap limits the accounting charge, not the cash. [32]

A club with an owner willing to write the cheque can buy room this season and leave the charge in later ones. [32]

Josh Jacobs of the Green Bay Packers pleaded no contest to misdemeanour charges and was fined $1,000 plus costs, with a follow-up court date set for September 2027. [33]

The charges followed an incident at his home in May; the complaint says he threw a woman to the ground and she hit her head. [33]

The NFL had placed him on its exempt list, which keeps a player away from the team on full pay. [33] He said he takes full responsibility. [33]

The league's agreement with its players sets six games as the standard suspension for domestic violence. [33] The court is finished with the case; the employer's penalty has not started. [33]

Aaron Rodgers said he doubts Green Bay would invite him back to Lambeau Field in a non-playing role, and doubts he would accept. [34]

He played 18 seasons for the Packers and won four most valuable player awards there. [34] A month ago he said an invitation would have to come first. [34]

He said some people in the building would not be on board, and that he might not be either. [34]

A club's past is part of what it sells, and Rodgers is 18 seasons of Green Bay's. [34]

He is saying the invitation would have to come from people who may not want to send it. [34]

Ryan Day, head coach of Ohio State, has stopped calling plays and is hiring coordinators who have worked in the NFL. [35]

He gave up play-calling after the 2023 season and the team won the national championship in 2024. [35]

He says his job is now running the organisation, including fundraising and the payments universities make to players. [35] No head coach has won a title while calling plays since 2013. [35]

Paying players changed what a college head coach does all day. [35] The skill that got Day the job is now the first thing he delegates. [35]

Bill Ackman, 60, runs the investment firm Pershing Square and has an estimated fortune of about $10.4bn. [36]

He gave the teenage Frances Tiafoe more than $100,000 for coaching and travel; Tiafoe plays on Friday for a place in the US Open final. [36]

He also put money behind Novak Djokovic's effort to start a players' union. [36]

He played in a professional tournament himself at the International Tennis Hall of Fame, hoping to become the oldest man ever to score on the ATP ranking list. [36]

Ackman's money went straight to the people he picked: a junior's travel costs, a players' union at its launch, courts in the Bronx and Washington. [36]

The teenager he funded is now two matches from winning the US Open. [36]

Louisiana State University left two former NFL players off its football roster, ending a fight with the Southeastern Conference over whether they were eligible. [37]

A judge had earlier suspended the conference's power to punish the university. [37] LSU dropped the position rather than keep testing it in court. [37]

The conference is still pursuing its own legal case. [37]

The rule survived because one member chose not to push it, not because anyone decided it was valid. [37] The next university to disagree starts from the same place LSU did. [37]

Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina made up the women's semi-final line-up at the US Open, the American Grand Slam tennis tournament. [38]

It is the first time since 1975 that the top four seeds have all reached that stage there. [38]

All four began the tournament able to finish it ranked first in the world. [38] Gauff said she was surprised when she was told. [38]

Seeds are set from ranking points before a ball is hit, and they usually break down before the last four. [38] The last time all four survived here was 1975. [38]

Sky Sports uses about 130 people, 17 cameras and a drone flown from a rooftop nearby to televise a Test match at Lord's in London. [39]

Every ball is typed by hand into software that feeds the on-screen score and the graphics the commentators use. [39]

Former England players sit with producers and scroll the footage frame by frame to find the moment a bowler lets go of the ball. [39]

A producer talks into the commentary box while play continues, offering lines of analysis. [39]

Most sports earn more from selling television rights than from anything else, and this is what a broadcaster spends to make the thing it sells. [39]

The analysis a viewer treats as obvious takes more people than are on the field. [39]

ESPN listed every Australian women's international and where she is playing in the 2026-27 club season, ahead of the 2027 Women's World Cup. [40]

A large group are at clubs in Europe and North America rather than in Australia's own A-League Women. [40]

Coach Joe Montemurro picks his squad from those clubs next June and July. [40] Players outside the strongest leagues have fewer minutes to show him. [40]

A national team's depth now depends on which foreign clubs will play its players. [40]

A season on the bench abroad can cost a place that a season at home might have kept. [40]

Formula 2, the last step before Formula One, showed the car its drivers will race from 2027. [9]

The series is owned by Formula One and run under the FIA, motorsport's governing body, and every team uses the same car, built by Dallara in Italy. [9]

The new version keeps the 2024 chassis and changes the aerodynamics, to avoid raising costs for teams and drivers. [9] The last new car arrived in 2024 on a three-year cycle. [9]

One shared car is what makes the category a test of drivers rather than of budgets. [9] Keeping the chassis is how the organisers hold the entry price down. [9]