The start of the 2025–26 NBA season is also the beginning of a new era. The league’s 11-year, $77 billion media-rights deal comes with two new media partners, NBC and Amazon, meaning a slew of games across new platforms—including the NBA’s first exclusively streamed games on Peacock and Amazon Prime Video.

But the start of the season will also look different for another reason: For the first time in what is about to be a record 23-year NBA career, LeBron James will not be available to play on opening night.

Last week, the Lakers announced that James has been ruled out for at least 3–4 weeks due to sciatica, a nerve-related injury, on his right side. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Wednesday that James, who turns 41 in December, is expected to return in mid-November, and he will be taking a “patient approach” to his return.

Still a Ratings Magnet

While James has not won a championship since 2020, he is still one of the league’s most popular players. That showed in the ratings last season, when viewership numbers were a hot topic, especially following a slow start.

But with James out to start the year, the NBA’s new broadcast partners may feel the hit.

The Lakers are scheduled for the second game of opening night, the first NBA on NBC games since the 2002 NBA Finals—a year before James was drafted. The doubleheader will also air on Peacock, the first regular-season NBA games on NBC’s streaming network.

Los Angeles, which is tied with a league-leading 34 national games, is also scheduled to play Oct. 24 on Prime Video in the league’s first exclusively streamed doubleheader.

The Lakers are scheduled to play eight national games until the end of November, not including games on NBA TV:

• Oct. 21 vs. Warriors (NBC/Peacock)
• Oct. 24 vs. Timberwolves (Prime Video)
• Oct. 29 at Timberwolves (ESPN)
• Oct. 31 at Grizzlies (Prime Video)
• Nov. 5 at Spurs (ESPN)
• Nov. 12 at Thunder (ESPN)
• Nov. 25 vs. Clippers (NBC/Peacock)
• Nov. 28 vs. Mavericks (Prime Video)

The aging star has missed a chunk of time in the past. He played 70 games last season—when he had declared before the season that his goal was to play all 82 games. He has not played more than 71 games since the 2017–18 season, when he was with the Cavaliers.

However, with James out, the start of the season will also be a preview of life after the retirement of one of the league’s greatest players. 

The question of when James will retire has loomed over the past few years, but it’s likely to be at an all-time high with James injured to open the season. He already teased his retirement last week with “The Second Decision” on Instagram, one that turned out to be an ad.

Despite rising fan unrest and the looming possibility of a salary cap or some other reformation of Major League Baseball’s economic structure, the Yankees are attempting to maintain “business as usual.”

GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone held an end-of-season press conference Thursday afternoon, a session again rife with disappointment as the Yankees finished a 16th straight non-championship season, and sought to keep the focus on fixing the current team—with the same core group of players and within the current fiscal model. 

“That’s above my pay grade,” Cashman said when asked whether he was planning for future seasons with a potential salary cap or elevated luxury-tax rates in mind. “It’s business as usual as far as I’m concerned. Every time I’ve ever dealt with [Yankees managing general partner] Hal Steinbrenner, he’s always, ‘Bring whatever to me,’ … and that’s how we’ll continue to roll.”

The league’s current labor deal with the MLB Players Association expires after the 2026 season, and while MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last month at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit that no bargaining positions have been finalized, the union fears that the owners will pursue a salary cap. MLB commissioner emeritus Bud Selig, meanwhile, has extolled with FOS and with others the virtues of a cap used elsewhere in pro sports.

“I’m thinking about ’26, not ’27,” Cashman said. 

The Yankees’ season ended last week with the American League Division Series defeat to the Blue Jays. The club’s current streak without a World Series win, despite a $319.2 million luxury-tax payroll that ranked third in Major League Baseball behind the Dodgers and Mets, is the third-longest such run in the franchise’s celebrated history.

Tough Choices Ahead

There is relatively limited payroll flexibility for the Yankees as five of the team’s highest-paid players—star outfielder Aaron Judge, designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton, and starting pitchers Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Max Fried—are each locked up through at least 2027, and that quintet of players alone will be paid $147.3 million next year.

Overall, the Yankees already have $191 million committed in payroll for next season, before any free agency, arbitration, or option decisions are rendered. Cole is slated to return after missing all of 2025 due to Tommy John surgery. Rodón, meanwhile, is set to be out of action for about the first month of the 2026 season after a recent procedure to shave down a bone spur.

The Yankees’ budgeting for next season will be set in the coming months as the free-agent market evolves.

Cashman, meanwhile, acknowledged the fan frustration that is circling around the team as the championship drought continues, and he said he shares that feeling.

“We’re just as hungry, just as disappointed [as the fans],” Cashman said. “That’s really the message. … We didn’t earn the right to move forward. It’s as simple as that.”

As concerns grow about the subpar field conditions at Acrisure Stadium, home of the Steelers and Pitt football, the situation is likely to remain in the national spotlight through the end of the college football season.

The Steelers are one of three NFL teams that play on a natural grass surface and currently share their home stadium with a full-time college tenant (alongside the Buccaneers/South Florida and the Dolphins/Miami). 

The Eagles share Lincoln Financial Field, which has a hybrid natural grass/artificial turf playing surface, with Temple. The Raiders play on a retractable natural grass surface at Allegiant Stadium, which uses artificial turf for UNLV games.

Pittsburgh Problems

After players on both the Steelers and Browns complained publicly about poor field conditions following Sunday’s game in Pittsburgh, a new playing surface is in the process of being installed at Acrisure Stadium. NFL Players Association sources confirmed to Front Office Sports that players from both teams “expressed outrage” to the union almost immediately after the game. That concern has been conveyed to the NFL, according to sources.

There’s a break in the action at the venue this weekend, as the Steelers play at the Bengals on Thursday night, and Pitt plays at Syracuse on Saturday. But then Pitt hosts NC State on Oct. 25, one day before the Steelers host the Packers on Sunday Night Football. If the new field has problems withstanding those back-to-back games, the issue will be on showcase for a national primetime audience on NBC on Oct. 26.

There will be two more instances of back-to-back Pitt and Steelers home games at Acrisure Stadium next month, too, on the weekends of Nov. 15–16 and Nov. 29–30.

Moving Time? 

Retired Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said earlier this week that he doesn’t think Pitt should be sharing a stadium with the NFL franchise. “You can’t have a professional football team—not just the Steelers, but the opponents—play on a surface like that,” he said on his podcast, Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger.

Roethlisberger suggested Pitt build a smaller football stadium in a different part of the city, closer to the school’s campus.