Michigan will begin its 2025 football season with $12.5 million true freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood under center, coach Sherrone Moore announced Monday.

“He’s earned the opportunity,” Moore said in publicly naming Underwood the Wolverines’ Week 1 starter. “It was not given to him. He took ownership of the team.” 

No. 14 Michigan hosts New Mexico at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, then travels to No. 18 Oklahoma on Sept. 6. Underwood, 18, was widely expected to become the starting quarterback after agreeing to a massive eight-figure NIL (name, image, and likeness) deal that helped flip his commitment from LSU to Michigan last November. Underwood played at Belleville High School, just outside of Ann Arbor, and was the No. 1–ranked recruit of the 2025 class.

The unprecedented NIL deal was funded by billionaire technology and media tycoon Larry Ellison. Last fall, the deal was believed to be worth at least $10 million over four years, and On3 has reported it could be as high as $12.5 million over that same time frame. LSU had been offering Underwood closer to $1.5 million annually in NIL money.

Michigan’s Next Chapter

Underwood’s highly anticipated college debut will come as Michigan deals with the fallout from the school’s sign-stealing scandal.

Michigan was hit with fines that will total at least $20 million, and Moore will serve a previously self-imposed two-game suspension that will see the Wolverines without their head coach for the Sept. 13 game against Central Michigan and the Sept. 20 matchup at Nebraska. The school has said that it intends to appeal the fines that were levied by the NCAA.

MLB is going back to the Iowa cornfields as part of its special-event strategy for 2026. 

The league is finalizing plans to have a third iteration of its Field of Dreams Game next year, sources tell Front Office Sports, reviving a strategy used by the league in 2021 and 2022. The Phillies and Twins will play at a complex adjacent to the filming site of the famed 1989 baseball movie of the same name that starred Kevin Costner. 

The first two trips to Iowa were successful, with the first one involving the Yankees and White Sox averaging 5.9 million viewers on Fox, representing the most-watched game in the regular season since 2005. A return the following year involving the Cubs and Reds nearly halved to an average of 3.1 million viewers, but still represented by far the high-water mark for MLB’s 2022 regular season, except for a game in Aaron Judge’s historic home-run chase later that year. 

The 2026 event will be a continuation of MLB’s run of domestic special-event games, an effort that this year saw the league go to Bristol Motor Speedway. The MLB Speedway Classic, though marred by rain and an overnight postponement, set a single-game attendance record.

The Phillies and Twins will play in a newly developed permanent field as the Field of Dreams site, now owned by the nonprofit Dyersville Events Inc., that is being developed into a large-scale youth baseball complex. The first two MLB games there happened at a temporary venue. The site also remains a popular tourist attraction. 

The development of the plans for another Field of Dreams game additionally arrives as the league is planning to release on Tuesday its 2026 regular-season schedule. 

While that release might not match the intensity or spectacle of those for the NFL or NBA, the unveiling of the MLB slate nonetheless will set in motion a wide range of planning across numerous constituencies—including individual teams setting promotional calendars, fans and tour companies making travel arrangements, and broadcast and streaming networks angling for top matchups. 

Those media outlets will look a bit different from this year as MLB is also in the midst of finalizing a set of national-level rights deals for the 2026–28 seasons.

On the US Open’s first Sunday start instead of Monday, the story of the night was about a controversial umpire call caused by a cameraman.

The night match between 2021 US Open champion Daniil Medvedev and France’s Benjamin Bonzi was delayed more than six minutes in the third set. Bonzi was serving for the match and missed his first serve when a cameraman walked onto the court.

Umpire Greg Allensworth told the cameraman to “get off the court,” then awarded Bonzi first serve due to the delay caused by outside interference. Boos started to rain down from the audience at Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York, and Medvedev, who is known as one of the most expressive tennis pros, encouraged the fans to show their disapproval.

Medvedev approached the umpire to show his displeasure with the call, even shouting at the camera, “Reilly Opelka was right!” a reference to the American pro’s request to have Allensworth suspended back in February. The incident at the Dallas Open was also due to external interference at a match.

The crowd would continue to roar even after Medvedev returned to the baseline, chanting “second serve” even as Allensworth asked for them to quiet down. Bonzi would eventually serve, losing match point and two consecutive sets before taking the match in the fifth set.

The US Tennis Association said the photographer had his media credentials for the US Open revoked because of the incident. 

After the match, Bonzi called it his “best victory ever,” but he also believes Medvedev crossed the line.

“The rule is the rule. The guy went on the court between two serves. I mean, it’s not my call to say first serve. And I think yes, Daniil started it, and he put oil on the fire. He went with the crowd crazy. He went with them.”

Medvedev, who has lost in the first round in three of the four Grand Slams this year, said his gripe was not against the photographer, but the call made by Allensworth.

“I was not upset with the photographer. I was upset with the decision,” Medvedev said.

Asked whether he expects a fine for his behavior, Medvedev said he has “no idea,” but that they fine players like him more than others. 

“[Nick] Kyrgios, me, [Alexander] Bublik. Who else? Reilly. Even if Reilly is a nice guy, and they fine him just because they don’t like him,” Medvedev said.