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🚨 Headlines

⚾️ Bregman to Boston: Longtime Astros 3B Alex Bregman is reportedly signing a three-year, $120 million contract with the Red Sox. That $40 million average annual value ties him with Aaron Judge for the fourth-highest in MLB behind Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani and Zack Wheeler.

🏒 Canada wins opener: Canada beat Sweden, 4-3 (OT), in Wednesday’s thrilling 4 Nations Face-Off opener behind three assists from Sidney Crosby and an overtime game-winner from Mitch Marner.

🎰 Casinos score big: Nevada sportsbooks won a net $22.1 million on Super Bowl LIX, which is a record for the state. Although the betting on the final score was “relatively balanced,” they cleaned up on prop bets (notably, Saquon Barkley not scoring a TD).

🏈 Buckeyes to hire Patricia: Ohio State is finalizing a deal with former Lions head coach (and longtime Patriots DC) Matt Patricia to become their next defensive coordinator. He replaces Jim Knowles, who was poached by Penn State last month.

🏀 Prince allegations: TCU’s Sedona Prince, one of the most high-profile names in college basketball, is facing multiple allegations of sexual and physical abuse, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

⚽️ The Americanization of English soccer

Everton hosted Liverpool on Wednesday in the 245th edition of their historic rivalry — and the first to feature two American ownership groups. Welcome to the new normal.

Americans in England: Prior to 2005, there were no American owners in the English Premier League. Two decades later, 10 of the 20 clubs in England’s top flight are owned by Americans.

1. Arsenal: Stan Kroenke

2. Aston Villa: Wes Edens

3. Bournemouth: Bill Foley

4. Chelsea: Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital

5. Crystal Palace: John Textor, Josh Harris, David Blitzer

6. Everton: The Friedkin Group

7. Fulham: Shahid Khan

8. Ipswich Town: ORG, BPSP and Avenue Sports

9. Liverpool: Fenway Sports Group

10. Manchester United: The Glazer Family

Zoom out: Americans also own nine of the 20 clubs in the EFL Championship (one tier below the Premier League) and roughly one third of all teams in the the country’s top four leagues. And it’s not just England: U.S.-based owners now control over 20 clubs across Europe’s “Big Five” leagues, including three of the biggest teams in Italy (Inter Milan, AC Milan, Roma).

What’s driving this trend? Part of the appeal of European soccer clubs is the lower valuations compared to equivalent assets in the U.S. The “promotion” system is also a draw for investment-minded owners, who can essentially buy the equivalent of a Triple-A baseball team and generate huge returns if they make it to the big leagues.

Culture clash: Many of the owners listed above are running their Premier League clubs more professionally than ever as they attempt to “Americanize English soccer” (think: club seats, upscale dining, global partnerships). But that hasn’t gone over well with some English fans, who don’t think of their teams as “businesses” in the same way Americans do, notes Bruce Schoenfeld in The New York Times Magazine:

Most of the Americans spotted in the owners’ box from time to time — or, worse, seldom spotted there at all — are disdained by their club’s fans. “We’ve reached a point,” says [one former player], “where there is something of a stigma against American ownership.”

Gary Neville, a former Manchester United player and now a commentator on Sky Sports, has called American owners “a clear and present danger” to the game’s “fabric.” Henry Winter, one of England’s most respected soccer journalists, wrote that [Chelsea owner] Todd Boehly is “rebranding the club into a business where the sport feels almost secondary.”

The celebrity element: In addition to American billionaires and private equity firms buying up England’s richest clubs, American celebrities are also increasingly getting involved as minority owners. LeBron James (Liverpool), Michael B. Jordan (Bournemouth), Will Ferrell (Leeds United) and J.J. Watt (Burnley) all have stakes in Premier League and Championship clubs, while Tom Brady (Birmingham City) and the duo of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney (Wrexham) are battling for promotion in the third division.

🏀 NBA scoreboard: All 30 teams in action

All 30 NBA teams were in action on Wednesday night, and 28 of them surpassed 100 points. Shame on you, Charlotte and Philadelphia.

Wild stat: There were a combined 1,119 three-point attempts (37.3 per team), which is the most on a single day in NBA history.

📸 Throwback Thursday: Spring training

To celebrate the arrival of Spring Training, I dove into the Getty Images archives and picked some of my favorite photos from the past century. Take my hand, and let’s journey through time…

1925: Babe Ruth was in poor health for most of the spring in St. Petersburg, Florida, and fell ill on the train back to New York. So ill, in fact, that the London Evening News pronounced him dead. Ruth spent seven weeks in the hospital before returning to the Yankees lineup on June 1, 1925, which was coincidentally the starting date of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak.

1946: For the better part of 30 years, the Cubs held spring training on Catalina Island (south of Los Angeles), which had a 12-story dance hall, a movie theater, horses… and was literally owned by the team. The Cubs moved their spring training facility to Arizona in 1952, though the Wrigley family maintained control of the island until 1975. (Bonus movie clip: It’s the Catalina Wine Mixer!)

1948: The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League held spring training in Opa-locka, Florida, ahead of the 1948 season. The Fort Wayne Daisies (above) advanced to that year’s championship series, where they lost in six games to the Rockford Peaches, one of the AAGPBL’s founding clubs and the focus of the 1992 film, “A League of Their Own.”

1957: The Milwaukee Braves held spring training in Bradenton, Florida, where Hank Aaron (above) and other Black players were forced to stay in a crowded house in the “dilapidated Negro section” of town while white players stayed in nice hotels. Aaron, 23, went on to win NL MVP in 1957 while powering the Braves to the only World Series title in Milwaukee history.

1980: Here we have Nolan Ryan, who threw the most no-hitters in MLB history (7), and Sandy Koufax, who threw the second-most (4), posing for a photo in Florida. Ryan was entering his age 33 season (which meant he still had 14 seasons left!), while Koufax was serving as a pitching coach in the Dodgers’ farm system, where he helped shape future generations of hurlers.

💰 The highest-paid athletes of 2024

For the second straight year, Cristiano Ronaldo topped Sportico’s list of the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes after earning an estimated $260 million in 2024 — $215 million in salary and $45 million in endorsements.

The big picture: The top 100 athletes earned an estimated $6.2 billion last year (up 14% YoY), with $4.8 billion coming via salary/prize money and $1.4 billion coming via endorsements.

Top 10:

1. ⚽️ Cristiano Ronaldo ($260M)

2. 🏀 Stephen Curry ($153.8M)

3. 🥊 Tyson Fury ($147M)

4. ⚽️ Lionel Messi ($135M)

5. 🏀 LeBron James ($133.2M)

6. ⚽️ Neymar ($133M)

7. 🥊 Oleksandr Usyk ($122M)

8. ⚽️ Karim Benzema ($116M)

9. ⚽️ Kylian Mbappé ($110M)

10. ⛳️ Jon Rahm ($105.8M)

At a glance:

• By sport: The NBA leads the way with 36 players in the top 100, followed by the NFL (22), soccer (12), MLB (12), golf (9), boxing (6), tennis (2) and F1 (2).

• By nationality: The U.S. leads the way with 62 athletes, followed by the UK (5), Japan (3), France (3), Cameroon (2), Brazil (2), Spain (2) and Canada (2). 19 other nations have one athlete on the list, bringing the total countries represented to 27.

• Youngest/oldest: 21-year-old Carlos Alcaraz earned $40.4 million (87th), while 49-year-old Tiger Woods brought in $62.1 million (27th).

See the full list.

📺 Watchlist: USA vs. Finland

USA takes on Finland tonight (8pm ET, ESPN) in the 4 Nations Face-Off, where the Americans are seeking their first title in a best-on-best tournament since the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.

X-Factor: The Americans’ title hopes rest on the shoulders of Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who leads the NHL in goals allowed per game (2.06), shutouts (6) and save percentage (.925).

More to watch:

• 🏀 NCAAW: No. 3 Texas at No. 8 Kentucky (7pm, ESPN2); No. 1 UCLA at No. 6 USC* (10pm, Peacock) … Four of the nation’s top eight teams in action? Sign us up.

• 🏀 NBA: Thunder at Timberwolves (8:30pm, TNT) … Oklahoma City (43-9) has won six straight games by an average of 26 points.

• ⛳️ PGA: The Genesis Invitational (12:30pm, ESPN+; 4pm, Golf) … 46 of the world’s top 50 golfers tee it up at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

• ⛳️ LIV: Adelaide (11pm, FS1) … The Grange Golf Club in South Australia hosts the second tournament of the season.

• 🏁 NASCAR: Daytona Duels (7pm, FS1) … Two 60-lap, 150-mile qualifying races will determine the starting order for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

• 🥎 NCAA Softball: No. 9 Florida State at No. 16 Missouri (10am, ESPN2) … The Tigers are one of 13 SEC schools ranked in the top 25.

*Battle for Los Angeles: The Bruins (23-0), the nation’s only undefeated team, and the Trojans (21-2), led by sophomore phenom JuJu Watkins, meet for the first time as Big Ten foes.

🏈 NFL trivia

Travis Kelce, who is reportedly weighing retirement, ranks fifth among active* players with 77 career receiving touchdowns.

Question: Who are the only four players ahead of him?

Hint: Two have been his teammates.

Answer at the bottom.

*Note: Jimmy Graham (89 TDs) hasn’t officially retired yet, but we aren’t counting him as “active.” The 38-year-old spent last season as an unsigned free agent.

✍️ Good reads

🏀 Tom Haberstroh: Capture the Flagg: Which NBA teams have the best shot at landing the No. 1 pick?

The NBA trade deadline is in the rearview mirror. The All-Star break is nigh. For teams chasing postseason glory, there is plenty of regular season left to finetune. For the rest of the NBA? It’s high time to Capture the Flagg.

🏈 Frank Schwab: 2025 NFL offseason previews for all 32 teams

What are your team’s top needs? Who are their priority free agents? What’s their salary cap situation? Who might they target in the draft? What could move the fantasy needle? All of that and more as the offseason gets underway.

⚾️ Jordan Shusterman: College baseball season preview

Can Tennessee repeat? Will Rintaro Sasaki live up to the hype? What does the Texas A&M-Texas rivalry look like after an eventful summer? Here are all the storylines to watch as the Division I baseball season gets underway.

Trivia answer: Mike Evans (105 TD), Davante Adams (103), DeAndre Hopkins (83), Tyreek Hill (82)

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