Afternoon Edition

October 8, 2026

As MLB labor talks continue, team owners are now proposing arguably the largest change to the annual schedule in more than 65 years, with a reduced regular season and an expanded playoffs.

—Eric Fisher

First Up

ICE has detained a Mississippi Valley State basketball player, one of several college athletes arrested by ICE in recent months.
The Titans fired three business execs amid the team’s 0–4 start to the season, continuing a trend of recent instability within the NFL franchise.
Jeanie Buss’s siblings called her August petition to stop them from selling their Lakers shares “a meaningless academic exercise.”
Caitlin Clark said the Fever’s priority should be re-signing four-time All-Star Kelsey Mitchell, who had commented on the challenges of playing for the team.

MLB Owners Pitch 154-Game Season, Expanded Playoffs in Labor Talks

Eric Canha-Imagn Images

MLB team owners continue to push for radical change in their ongoing labor talks with the MLB Players Association, this time proposing a reduced regular season and an expanded playoffs.

After previously seeking a hard salary cap, a remade reserve system, and a reconstructed method for amateur entry into MLB, management is now proposing arguably the largest change to the annual schedule in more than 65 years. Among the latest proposals:

A return to a 154-game regular season, not used in the American League since 1960, and not in the National League since 1961. This time, however, it would be with interleague play, which didn’t start until 1997.
An expanded seven-game Division Series. The other rounds of the postseason would remain at their current lengths.
The ability for higher playoff seeds to pick their opponents in the wild card and Division Series rounds.

The seed selection component of the postseason would take effect with the 2027 season, while owners are seeking to implement the 154-game season and expanded Division Series beginning in 2029.

“Returning to a 154-game schedule would allow us to introduce a weekly off day, which is good for player health, while also creating a new national broadcast window to showcase our most exciting teams and players,” said MLB spokesman Glen Caplin. “A shorter regular season unlocks making October even better for our fans—with fewer weekday afternoon games, a longer Division Series, and more opportunities to see the game’s best pitchers on the biggest stage. And allowing the top seeds to select their opponents in the first two rounds would create compelling storylines, intensify existing rivalries and create new ones.”

Collectively, the shifts push more of the baseball calendar to the postseason, which generates the most viewership and are the most coveted games among broadcasting networks. This point is crucial as after the 2028 season, all of MLB’s current national media-rights pacts will have expired, and league commissioner Rob Manfred is looking to restructure the sport’s media profile by blending the national and regional agreements.

The weekly off day would normally be Mondays, which outside of holidays is typically a weaker day for attendance and viewership.

Major Caveats

Like other management proposals in the ongoing labor talks, the latest schedule ideas were presented in the context of the owners’ push for a salary cap. That makes the latest offer essentially a nonstarter with the union.

“The league made multiple proposals today. We are reviewing these materials, including the proposed changes to the playoff format,” the MLBPA said Thursday. “Players will weigh in on these proposals and we will respond at the bargaining table. Unfortunately, the league once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players’ agreement to a salary cap, a system that guts player rights and compensation, as well as its other anti-player proposals.”

Because of the ongoing division between the two sides, a management lockout is expected when the current collective bargaining agreement expires in December.

FOS SURVEY

Want a Chance to Win $500 in Tickets?

At Front Office Sports, we’re always looking for new ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from those who matter most—you!

Help us learn more about our audience by taking a few minutes to complete this survey. It won’t take long, and as a thank-you, we’re offering a chance to win $500 in tickets. Your responses will be anonymous, and no personal data will be shared.

Take the survey today.

ONE BIG FIG

NFL’s Prediction-Market Plea

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

$1.8 billion

That was the amount of prediction markets’ trading volume related to the NFL on the first Sunday of this football season alone. Total trading volume that day was about $3.3 billion.

The league cited the figure in an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue of sports event contracts offered by prediction markets. The NFL said it believes they should be regulated at the state, not federal, level, but criticized what it called a “laissez-faire approach to regulation by the industry.”

LOUD AND CLEAR

Open for Business

Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images

“It’s a possibility.”

—Sergio Garcia said this week when asked whether he would consider returning to the PGA Tour. Garcia, who has played the past five seasons with LIV Golf, became the first player to have his contract with the league officially terminated Wednesday through LIV’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. Without a special deal, the earliest he would be eligible for PGA Tour events would be August 2027—one year after his most recent LIV event.

Garcia, 46, was speaking ahead of this week’s Spanish Open on the DP World Tour, which began Thursday. He mentioned one day potentially competing on the PGA Tour Champions circuit, which is for golfers ages 50 and older, as well as his goal of making the 2027 European Ryder Cup team.

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.

STATUS REPORT

One Up, One Down, Two Push

Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

Tyrese Haliburton ⬆ The All-Star Pacers guard was back on the court for the first time in 472 days, playing 16 minutes and scoring 7 points in Indiana’s 123–112 preseason victory over the Timberwolves. Haliburton last played in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, when he got off to a blistering start in the first quarter before tearing his right Achilles tendon and watching from the bench as the Pacers lost to the Thunder. The exhibition was held at Iowa State’s home arena in Ames, and Haliburton bought out the entire student section so Iowa State students could attend for free.

Gianni Infantino ⬆⬇ The 54 African soccer federations in FIFA “unanimously and unconditionally” support the current FIFA president in the upcoming election, the head of its continental federation said Thursday. Meanwhile, the European confederation released a statement calling for Infantino to be replaced, saying it has “lost confidence in the current FIFA leadership.”

Formula One ⬇ The FIA, the governing body that oversees F1, confirmed Thursday after a full investigation that a software bug caused several cars to grind to a halt during the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on Sunday. Due to wet weather conditions, a number of drivers, including Lewis Hamilton, had power issues and were forced to pull over to the side of the track. A software fix was hastily written to allow the race to continue after a nearly hour-long delay, and the FIA said that code will remain in place at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Australian Open ⬆⬇ The widely acclaimed 1 Point Slam will be back and “bigger than ever,” according to the tournament’s 2027 launch press release. Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, and Coco Gauff have all signed up to play the event, which sees professionals and amateurs face off in a bracket of one-point matches for a $1 million prize before the main tournament begins in Melbourne. That rollout was undermined, however, by new tournament director Andrew Abdo, who committed a series of gaffes including calling Sinner “Jacob” and mispronouncing the name of WTA world No. 1 Elena Rybakina.