The 2025 Major League Baseball playoff field is now set, and the 12-team group includes plenty of history and a hefty dose of disruption to the sport’s traditional economic order. 

The Guardians, despite the No. 25 luxury-tax payroll at $121.4 million, claimed the American League Central title Sunday after the Tigers lost to the Red Sox, 4–3. Rebounding from a deficit of 15 and a half games behind the Tigers in early July, Cleveland completed the largest comeback in the 57-season history of MLB divisional play, topping the 14-game revival by the 1978 Yankees. 

The Reds, holding the No. 22 payroll at $140.9 million, are the other half of the low-budget Ohio teams crashing this year’s playoff party. Cincinnati claimed the final National League wild card spot Sunday, despite a 4–2 loss to the Brewers, after the Mets fell 4–0 to the Marlins. 

In June, the Mets held MLB’s best record, reflecting their No. 2 payroll of $340.5 million. The team, however, closed the season with a 7-14 slide to complete their shocking exit from the postseason chase, and big organizational changes in Queens, N.Y., are quite possible this offseason. 

The other playoff position solidified Sunday was the Blue Jays winning the AL East division and the No. 1 overall seed in the playoffs after beating the Rays 13–4 on Sunday, and holding off a furious late-season rally by the Yankees. Toronto, a division champion for the first time in 10 years, entered play on the final day of the regular season tied with New York, which will have the No. 4 seed as the AL’s top wild card team. 

The wild card playoffs begin Tuesday with these four matchups:

• Tigers-Guardians: After battling all season for the division title, the two teams will pick the rivalry right back up with the series at Progressive Field.
• Padres-Cubs: A rematch of the 1984 NL Championship Series, the teams played two series in the first three weeks of the season, splitting six games. Chicago is back in the postseason in a full season for the first time since 2018. 
• Red Sox-Yankees: Despite finishing third in the AL East behind the Yankees and Blue Jays, Boston still earned its first playoff berth since 2021. The matchup will revive one of the great rivalries not only in baseball, but in all of sports.
• Reds-Dodgers: Los Angeles is trying to become the first repeat World Series winner since the 1998–2000 Yankees, something that, despite a widening financial divide across baseball, shows an element of competitive balance unmatched in major U.S. sports.

The Brewers and Phillies earned first-round byes in the NL playoffs, while the Blue Jays and Mariners did so in the AL. Those four teams will begin postseason play in the division series round, starting this Saturday against the winners from the wild card round. 

The playoffs in particular will be a showcase for Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, this year’s MLB breakout star and home run leader with 60, and a competitor with Yankees superstar Aaron Judge in the high-profile race for AL MVP. Seattle won its first division title since 2001.

As the postseason field was set, a modern-day dynasty was interrupted, at least for this year, as the Astros missed the postseason for the first time since 2016. The eight-year run for Houston included World Series wins in 2017 and 2022, and AL pennants in 2019 and 2021.

Ugly American is no longer just a political label, but also something reflecting the U.S. team’s play at the Ryder Cup, and also fan behavior at the sometimes-fractious golf tournament held on Long Island.

The European team completed a 15–13 win Sunday in the high-profile event, which began with plenty of anticipation but ended with the outcome never really in doubt—despite the U.S. beginning as a slight betting favorite and then attempting a late comeback in singles play. The loss was the first for the U.S. at home in the Ryder Cup since 2012.

Saturday’s play became particularly ugly as Rory McIlroy, a star of the European team and the No. 2-ranked player in the world, was the subject of numerous profane chants and fan taunts as he competed. Other European team members were also heckled by a particularly rowdy crowd at Bethpage Black, and tensions remained palpable during the final day of play Sunday. 

Mic Drop, Literally

Comedian and actress Heather McMahan, the master of ceremonies at the Ryder Cup, stepped down from that role early Sunday as video emerged of her shouting, “Fuck you, Rory!” into the microphone. The PGA of America later issued a statement confirming that McMahan apologized to McIlroy and had indeed left the MC role.

McIlroy initially responded to the crowd in similar fashion, telling spectators to “shut the fuck up” at one point as he lined up a shot. Later, though, he attempted to take the heckling in stride, saying, “I don’t mind them having a go at us.” European captain Luke Donald wasn’t nearly as magnanimous and said the U.S. fans “crossed a line” with their behavior.

“What I consider crossing the line is personal insults and making sounds when they are trying to hit on their backswings or very close to when they are trying to go into their routines. That did happen a little bit,” Donald said. 

Other issues surrounding the Ryder Cup included poorly reviewed early coverage on NBC and a Friday appearance by U.S. President Donald Trump, during which the Europeans began their domination of the event.

Levi’s Stadium will be hopping at halftime of the Super Bowl. 

The NFL announced Sunday night that Bad Bunny will headline the halftime show at Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara. The announcement was made during halftime of the Cowboys-Packers game on NBC (which is also airing this season’s Super Bowl). 

Bad Bunny, a rapper who hails from Puerto Rico, saw his odds on prediction markets spike in the past week. A week ago, he had a 6% chance on Kalshi. It rose dramatically this weekend, and those odds were 78% as of 7:55 p.m. ET Sunday. 

The announcement is notable because Bad Bunny has not been performing in the continental United States recently.

“There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the US, and none of them were out of hate—I’ve performed there many times. All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent,” he told i-D magazine in an interview that ran earlier this month. “I’ve enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the US. But specifically, for a residency here in Puerto Rico, when we are an unincorporated territory of the US… People from the US could come here to see the show. Latinos and Puerto Ricans of the United States could also travel here, or to any part of the world. But there was the issue of—like, fucking ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about.”

Bad Bunny follows Kendrick Lamar, who performed at the Super Bowl earlier this year in Las Vegas. That performance averaged 133.5 million viewers.

This year’s announcement comes a little later than usual, as the NFL typically reveals the halftime performer during Week 3 (and last year was even a little earlier). 

Other artists who had been rumored over the past several weeks included Taylor Swift and Adele. 

The Super Bowl halftime show is produced by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and sponsored by Apple Music.

It took until the final day of the regular season, but Major League Baseball scratched out another attendance increase to solidify its first three-year run of growth at the gates since 2005–2007.

Including the 15 games played simultaneously Sunday afternoon, the league finished the 2025 regular season with a total attendance of 71.4 million, up a scant .09% from last year. 

The league went into the season with plenty of confidence that its attendance momentum from 2023, jump-started by that year’s introduction of several meaningful on-field rule changes, including the pitch clock, would continue for a third season. That confidence was ultimately validated. 

There was some final drama around surpassing the 2024 attendance number; however, as the overall league figure was dragged down somewhat by both the Rays and A’s playing this season in minor-league ballparks, and the widening gap between high-drawing clubs and other low-drawing ones. 

The Dodgers, as expected, led MLB in attendance for the 12th straight year, drawing a franchise record of 4.01 million, representing the first team in the league to reach that figure since 2008. The A’s were at the bottom with a total of 768,464, holding the same position they had last year in Oakland, while choosing to play the first three planned years in Sacramento at Sutter Health Park, as a new ballpark in Las Vegas is built. The team surpassed 10,000 in home attendance for a game just twice after the All-Star break—both in this past weekend’s closing series against the Royals.  

The Rays were 29th in attendance, totaling 786,750 while playing in a minor-league ballpark by circumstance instead of choice, as repairs to hurricane-damaged Tropicana Field continue in anticipation of next year. The team played home games this season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, also the spring training home of the Yankees. 

Speaking earlier this month at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred lauded the league’s ongoing attendance growth.

“It’s a continuation of the momentum that we’ve seen in the game,” Manfred said at the summit. “We are playing in two minor-league ballparks, which is a little bit of a drag on your attendance, but despite that, we’re going to be above 70 million [in total attendance] again, which I see as a real accomplishment for the sport. That momentum is really important going into 2026.”

Notably, the 61,016 spread between last year’s full-season attendance and this year’s figure is similar to the difference in capacities between Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati and Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, site of this year’s MLB Speedway Classic. That special-event game, though delayed by rain, drew an announced attendance of 91,032, representing the largest single-game crowd in league history.