Afternoon Edition

October 7, 2026

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After quietly suffering a summer peanut shortage, the Yankees say the beloved ballpark snack will make a full return Wednesday night.

—Daniel Roberts

First Up

First at FOS: The NFL will use its sports analytics competition to learn what data gathered at the scouting combine best indicates players’ on-field success.
Jon Rahm, who has multiple years left on his LIV contract, will not participate in the next iteration of LIV Golf.
Just one day before a preseason exhibition game against McNeese State, LSU still doesn’t have enough players listed on its roster to fill out its starting five.
Kyle Juszczyk won his appeal of two $14,926 fines issued by the NFL for his fake-chugging celebrations.

Yankee Stadium Quietly Suffered a Summer Peanut Shortage

Mike Segar-Reuters

Just in time for Game 3 of the American League Divisional Series on Wednesday night in the Bronx, the Yankees say they’ve solved their summer peanut shortage.

Fans who attended a game at Yankee Stadium in August or September may have noticed peanuts were difficult to find. For weeks at the end of the summer, the classic ballpark snack was unavailable at most locations throughout the stadium.

“We had delays in receiving product toward the end of the summer,” a Yankees spokesperson told Front Office Sports.

Legends Global—the food and hospitality company that services Yankee Stadium and is jointly owned by the Yankees, Jerry Jones, and private equity firm Sixth Street—called it a “temporary disruption” from Bazzini, the nut conglomerate, and told FOS it “supplemented with other brands of peanuts starting in late August” to make up for the shortage.

All 30 MLB ballparks sell peanuts. Bazzini declined to comment for this story.

Jeff Sunday, a pseudonymous sports betting influencer, noticed the peanut shortage on Sept. 22 when he attended a Yankees game. He says multiple concession workers told him they had not had any peanuts in stock for about a month. A video he recorded at the game includes a vendor saying, “We haven’t had any for the last few home stands.”

When FOS attended the Red Sox–Yankees wild-card game Sept. 30, no peanuts could be found anywhere on the 300 seating level, and two food workers said the ballpark was still all out.

“I went to like four different locations looking for peanuts, and everyone I asked was confused,” Sunday told FOS. “Clearly there wasn’t some memo sent around explaining it to all the ballpark workers.”

Legends Global says Yankee Stadium will be fully stocked with Bazzini peanuts for the rest of the playoffs—which may be only one more game.

Last Chance to Join Tuned In

Tuned In, presented by Spectrum Business, is back next week with some of the biggest names in sports media, including:

ESPN on-air legend Chris Berman
Mike Tirico, lead host and play-by-play announcer at NBC Sports
Radio Hall of Famer Chris “Mad Dog” Russo of SiriusXM
Prime Video’s Taylor Rooks
Netflix sports broadcaster and lead host Elle Duncan
MLS commissioner Don Garber
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman
LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler
NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell
Hans Schroeder, EVP and chief media officer at the NFL
Mike Foss, EVP and executive editor, sports news and entertainment, ESPN
Pablo Torre of the Pulitzer-winning podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out
College sports broadcaster John Fanta of NBC Sports
Josh Pate of Josh Pate’s College Football Show

Don’t miss your chance to go beyond the headlines with conversations on the future of broadcasting, media rights, and more with some of the industry’s most influential voices.

Get your ticket now before they’re gone.

LOUD AND CLEAR

Gauff Sounds Off

Geoff Burke-Imagn Images via Reuters

“It has been kind of draining, I’m not going to lie.”

—Coco Gauff on dealing with online abuse and racist social media comments. “I just turn off my phone and move on. There’s nothing you can do,” the women’s world No. 4 told reporters in Beijing.

Gauff was accused of cheating after halting play during her tennis match Monday at the China Open against Sun Xinran, who was playing in her home country. The point was replayed, and Gauff went on to win the match. She advanced to play Elise Mertens on Wednesday but lost in straight sets and appeared to struggle throughout the match. Following the loss, Gauff also announced she is pulling out of the Wuhan Open, another WTA 1000 event she won last year, due to fatigue.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Super Bowl LXI Will Stream on Disney+

David Dee Delgado-Reuters

Super Bowl LXI will stream on Disney+ in addition to airing on ESPN and ABC, Disney and ESPN jointly announced Wednesday.

The Big Game, taking place on Valentine’s Day in 2027, will be available in both English and Spanish on the streaming platform.

Super Bowl LXI will be called by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, with Laura Rutledge and Lisa Salters as sideline reporters. ESPN previously announced there will also be a ManningCast on ESPN2.

Disney stopped reporting subscriber numbers for the streaming platform after the quarter ending September 2025, when Disney+ notched 132 million global subscribers. But the Disney+ news still broadens the reach of ESPN’s first Super Bowl telecast, as streaming audiences on Peacock and Tubi helped augment the overall viewership numbers for the last two Super Bowls on NBC and Fox, respectively.

Wednesday’s announcement also revealed two Monday Night Football games—including Cowboys-Eagles on Oct. 26—will be simulcast on Disney+ this season.

—Ryan Glasspiegel

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STATUS REPORT

Two Up, Two Down

Scott Taetsch-Imagn Images

Orioles ⬇ Baltimore let go of at least 16 staff members in a round of layoffs that targeted employees in business operations, content production, and game presentation, according to The Baltimore Banner. Even its mascots couldn’t escape the Tuesday afternoon axing. The staffers inside the costumes for Oriole Bird and Mr. Splash, the two primary mascots, were both casualties of the layoffs. The club has not clarified how this will affect game operations next year.

Mikel Arteta ⬆ The Arsenal manager put pen to paper on a new four-year contract that reportedly doubles his salary and makes him the highest-paid manager in the Premier League. Arteta could make more than $26.4 million (£20 million) per season including bonuses, placing him in the realm of the world’s highest-earning managers, including Al Hilal manager Simone Inzaghi and Atlético de Madrid manager Diego Simeone. Arteta delivered Arsenal its first Premier League title since 2004 last season, but the club is still chasing an elusive Champions League trophy.

Kalshi ⬆ Four more Native American tribes, including three based in California, are getting into prediction markets. The tribes will all launch and own individual apps powered by Kalshi, according to a statement shared with Front Office Sports. This marks the second such announcement in just a few weeks. Victor Rocha, conference chair of the Indian Gaming Association advocacy organization posted on social media that this doesn’t “change a thing in our fight against prediction markets.”

Berlin Marathon ⬇ A Chinese fitness influencer was disqualified from last month’s race after being caught riding on the back of a bicycle in the marathon’s final miles. Yuanyuan Sun, who has more than 500,000 followers under the handle “Abeeeer” on the Chinese platform RedNote, posted about finishing the race in a personal-best 4:53:46, but she admitted to cheating after images of her sitting on the bicycle circulated online. “Riding a bicycle during the Berlin Marathon did indeed violate race rules,” Sun wrote in a translated statement on RedNote.