Afternoon Edition

October 9, 2026

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Tuscaloosa is in the direct path of Hurricane Isaias. The storm isn’t shutting down the Georgia-Alabama game, but game day operations are changing.

—David Rumsey

First Up

The Royals are officially moving to downtown Kansas City after city officials approved bonding to support a $3 billion ballpark and mixed-use development.
Premier League soccer club Everton is exploring a potential sale less than two years after The Friedkin Group acquired the team while it was in dire financial straits.
After keeping its team’s makeup shrouded in mystery all offseason, the LSU men’s basketball team finally revealed its 10-player roster.
MLB is set to look radically different by 2031—even if only a small portion of the ideas on the table in current labor talks become reality.

Georgia-Alabama Braces for Hurricane, Trump Cancels Plans to Attend

David Leong-Imagn Images

The biggest SEC matchup of the college football season so far is expected to be played as scheduled despite being in the direct path of Hurricane Isaias, but game day operations will be severely altered due to the inclement weather.

No. 2 Georgia visits No. 6 Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night. ABC has the broadcast at 7:30 p.m. ET, which could challenge Ohio State–Texas for the most-watched game of the season. Nearly 14 million viewers tuned in to the then No. 4–ranked Longhorns’ 24–23 come-from-behind victory over the Buckeyes, who were ranked No. 1 at the time.

Hurricane Isaias strengthened to a Category 3 storm Friday, with the Gulf Coast preparing for imminent landfall. The storm is largely projected to be north of Tuscaloosa by kickoff, but a number of safety precautions are being taken on campus ahead of the game.

‘College GameDay’ Shifts Indoors

ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show is moving from its typical outdoor setup to inside Alabama’s Coleman Coliseum, where the Crimson Tide basketball teams and some other sports play home games. Fans will still be permitted to attend inside the arena, and Pat McAfee’s “Kicking is Easy” contest will still be held, albeit indoors.

However, the weekly “College GameDay Scavenger Hunt” contest that launched this year—offering winners premium seating for the show—has been canceled. So has the “First-in-Line” prize giveaway that rewards early-arriving attendees. No overnight camping will be allowed, and fans will not be allowed to line up until 5:15 a.m. CT ahead of the program’s 8 a.m. CT airtime.

A Tamer Tuscaloosa

Alabama has banned tailgating and all other outdoor activities on campus before noon CT on Saturday, and will allow only uncovered tailgating after that. No pre-arrival setup will be allowed Friday or Saturday morning. Hurricane Isaias is expected to bring high winds to the area in addition to severe rainfall.

All activities on and around the Quad—a 22-acre green space at the heart of Alabama’s campus that is popular for tailgating—have been canceled. The weekly Champions Lane pregame fan fest—a free 60,000-square-foot entertainment area—has also been canceled. The “Elephant Stomp” pregame pep rally is not currently planned to take place.

Trump Cancels Plans

U.S. President Donald Trump canceled his plans to attend Georgia-Alabama on Friday, due to the disruption Hurricane Isaias will likely bring.

Trump attended the Texas-Tennessee game in Knoxville on Sept. 26—part of a big sporting weekend for him that also included being at the final day of the Presidents Cup in Chicago. The number of major sporting events Trump has attended this year is now in the double digits and still growing.

Queen of the Court

Grace Smith/IndyStar via Imagn Images

5

That’s how many WNBA MVP awards A’ja Wilson has racked up. This was the third year in a row Wilson was named MVP, a new league record in a season when Wilson reached a number of notable milestones.

The Las Vegas Aces center-forward tied her own single-season record, set last year, of 13 games with at least 30 points, and Wilson became the first player in WNBA history to record multiple career games with at least 45 points.

Wilson and the No. 3 seed Aces face the Golden State Valkyries in Game 3 of the semifinals Friday in Las Vegas. The Valkyries lead the series 2–0.

ONE FUN THING

Football Fine Art

SMU Athletics

While many college and pro marketing teams are experimenting with AI, SMU Athletics is going analog.

The Mustangs have enlisted creative services graduate assistant Aly Bayliss—who holds a fine art degree—to produce an original painting for each home football game this season. Once finished, the piece is incorporated into digital and in-stadium content before being put up for auction.

The effort is paying off, literally. Bayliss’s first two paintings sold for $469 and $350, respectively, while her latest work, created for SMU’s home ACC opener against Boston College on Oct. 3, fetched $5,000.

Something similar is happening this season at the University of Idaho; senior studio arts major Emma Cuddy is creating custom oil paintings for every Vandals football matchup, which the athletic department photographs and turns into a game graphic to share on social media. Her work is also being auctioned off, with Cuddy receiving a cut of the sale.

WNBA Semifinals Open Up 10% in Viewership

The WNBA’s postseason momentum continues. The semifinals opened with an average of 1.15 million viewers across Sunday’s two Game 1s, up 10% from last year despite competing directly with the NFL.

The Dream-Liberty matchup drew 1.17 million viewers on ABC, while Aces-Valkyries averaged 1.12 million across NBC and Peacock. The strong start follows a record-setting first round, which averaged 1.3 million viewers across 10 games, up 37% year over year.

Read the full story in the Women’s Sports Hub, presented by AT&T.

STATUS REPORT

Two Up, One Down, One Push

Gary Cosby Jr / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Saban ⬆ A new ESPN six-part docuseries chronicling the life and career of legendary college football coach Nick Saban premiered Thursday. One scene in particular has set the internet ablaze. For the first time, locker-room footage has been made public of Saban benching Jalen Hurts in favor of Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of the 2018 national title game. It shows the tense moment when he informed both quarterbacks of his decision. Alabama trailed Georgia 13–0 at the half, before Tagovailoa’s inspired play led the Crimson Tide to a 26–23 overtime victory.

Arizona State men’s hockey ⬆⬇ Changes continue for the Sun Devils, whose program has been in tumult since the collapse of defenseman Matthew Mayich during a preseason workout. This weekend, as ASU hosts Holy Cross in Tempe, controversial associate head coach Alex Hicks will not be behind the bench. Taylor Pyatt, an NHL veteran and former Phoenix Coyote, is listed as a “volunteer assistant coach.” ASU is also still without head coach Greg Powers, who was put on administrative leave; it is expected to imminently announce an interim skipper.

Jalon Daniels ⬆ There were 10 quarterbacks selected in the 2026 NFL Draft, but the first to start and win a game was the undrafted rookie who led the Buccaneers to a 24–16 win over the Cowboys on Thursday night. Daniels is earning a base salary of $885,000 this season, and his three-year contract’s average salary of $1,041,667 is the 85th highest among NFL quarterbacks. Deputizing for the injured Baker Mayfield, the former Kansas signal-caller completed 19 of 25 passes and tossed a touchdown pass as Tampa Bay earned its first win of the season after an 0–4 start.

Knicks contract talks ⬇ The defending NBA champions will not address contract standoffs with three key players anytime soon, according to a Knicks spokesperson. “We will not be negotiating contract extensions until later in the season and will remain solely focused on preparing for the start of the season,” the spokesperson told Front Office Sports. Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, and Miles McBride were all eligible for extensions this summer, but it now appears unlikely they will sign before the Oct. 19 deadline for non-expiring deals to be extended. Towns has a $60 million player option next summer, but if he declines to pick it up, he will become a free agent.