Afternoon Edition |
October 7, 2025 |
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The NHL opens its new season Tuesday night in arguably its strongest position ever, with record revenue, rising salary caps, labor peace, and star stability setting the stage for what should be a landmark year.
—Eric Fisher and David Rumsey
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The National Hockey League begins the 2025–26 season Tuesday night, and it will do so in arguably a position of unprecedented strength.
The start of the season arrives after a productive summer that saw the NHL and several of its teams set themselves up for both the short- and long-term future. Among the major events that happened around the sport since the Panthers claimed a second consecutive Stanley Cup in June:
- The league completed a four-year collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players’ Association. The deal, running to September 2030, will include an expansion of the regular season to 84 games beginning next year, as well as changes to hockey’s free agency. The pact arrived without any public drama and continues to herald a very different relationship between the two organizations compared to the 1990s and early 2000s.
- Oilers superstar Connor McDavid, a three-time Most Valuable Player and perhaps the sport’s greatest talent, signed a two-year, $25 million contract extension with Edmonton. The team-friendly deal, designed to extend the Oilers’ window to win a Stanley Cup, ended a summer full of uncertainty about McDavid’s professional future.
- Canadian media giant Rogers Communications closed on its $3.46 billion deal to acquire 37.5% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. The deal brought the Rogers stake in the Maple Leafs’ parent company to a controlling 75% and solidified one of the most powerful sports ownership groups anywhere in the world. The MLSE agreement closely followed a separate, $7.9 billion pact Rogers signed in the spring to extend its NHL media rights in Canada for 12 years.
- The Wild signed star forward Kirill Kaprizov to an eight-year, $136 million extension, setting new records for overall contract size and average annual value, and likely opening up a new era in NHL player compensation.
Key business metrics for the NHL, meanwhile, have continued to rise. In particular, attendance last season reached a record 23 million, and expectations are strong that the number will be challenged again.
That growth, as well as revenue that reached a league-record $7 billion in mixed currency last season, has also been reflected in upcoming salary caps. The NHL’s current level, set at $95.5 million for the 2025–26 season, is estimated to rise to $104 million in 2026–27 and $113.5 million for 2027–28. With those increases, the NHL salary cap is set to spike by more than 25% over a three-year period.
The NHL has leaned in to its current success with its new season-opening marketing campaign entitled “The Next Golden Era Is Now.” The effort seeks to juxtapose many of the game’s stars with current cultural and business trends such as working from home, artificial intelligence, and reality television.
Next Up: Chasing Gold
The upcoming season, meanwhile, will be paused in February for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, which will feature NHL players for the first time since the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.
The international competition will seek, in part, to build on the success of last season’s introductory 4 Nations Face-Off, which set its own series of viewership records.
The Winter Classic, meanwhile, will lean in to another nontraditional setting as the Jan. 2 game will be held at Miami’s loanDepot park, home of MLB’s Marlins. A subsequent Stadium Series game will also be held in Florida at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Buccaneers.
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Last year, college football bowl games paid players through NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals. Next year, that practice will expand to at least one season-opening kickoff game.
Auburn is moving its Sept. 5, 2026, home game against Baylor to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. It will now be next season’s Aflac Kickoff Game, an annual event hosted by Peach Bowl, Inc. that, in recent years, has hosted Power 4 opponents Georgia, Clemson, South Carolina, and Tennessee, among others.
As part of the move, Auburn players will be able to engage in “NIL activations tied directly to ticket sales … and surrounding events,” according to the announcement, which calls the deal a “multi-million-dollar partnership.” Organizers will “work with third-party entities to secure marketing assets and promotional appearances by Auburn student-athletes, giving them meaningful visibility and new avenues to benefit from their NIL.”
Auburn and Baylor originally agreed to a home-and-home series for 2025 and 2026; the Tigers beat the Bears 38–24 in Waco, Texas, on Aug. 29 to open the season.
Season-opening neutral-site matchups this year included a two-game Aflac Kickoff series—Duke’s Mayo Classic in Charlotte, and the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin. Similar events have been hosted in recent years in Dallas, Las Vegas, and Orlando, among other cities.
All Season Long
The expansion of NIL into a neutral-site college football kickoff game comes after two postseason bowl games last season set up similar pacts for players.
The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl signed South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers and Illinois signal-caller Luke Altmyer to NIL deals, via the game’s title sponsor, before the Gamecocks and Fighting Illini squared off in Orlando. Players from Miami (Ohio) and Colorado State also received NIL deals around their clash in the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl presented by Gin & Juice by Dre and Snoop. No financial details were released for any of those deals.
Peach Bowl, Inc. operates the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which this season will be a College Football Playoff semifinal.
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Amazon has acquired the broadcast rights to a revived made-for-TV golf classic that will give Prime Video wall-to-wall live sports on Black Friday, alongside NFL and NBA coverage.
On Nov. 28, The Skins Game will return for the first time since 2008, as the PGA Tour brings back the unofficial money event that was a hit for nearly three decades, featuring stars like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player, among others.
This year, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, and Keegan Bradley will face off in a $4 million showdown at Panther National in South Florida. In a traditional skins game format, each hole carries a dollar value, and tied holes roll over to raise the stakes. However, the event will feature a “reverse purse,” in which all players will begin the competition with $1 million on the scoreboard, with each player’s total rising or falling based on winning or losing each hole.
Coverage of the 18-hole golf event will begin in the morning, creating a jam-packed all-day sports lineup for Amazon (all times Eastern):
- 9 a.m.: The Skins Game (PGA Tour)
- 3 p.m.: Bears at Eagles (NFL)
- 7:30 p.m.: Bucks at Knicks (NBA)
- 10 p.m.: Mavericks at Lakers (NBA)
This will be Prime Video’s third NFL Black Friday game, but its first NBA doubleheader, as part of the league’s new $77 billion media-rights deals that begin this season.
Golf Gets Bigger
The Skins Game marks the second major golf rights acquisition for Amazon in as many months, following news in September that Prime Video will stream a new broadcast window for The Masters, from 1–3 p.m. ET during the first two rounds.
Meanwhile, it also adds to the growing made-for-TV golf event space. In December, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler will lead two four-man teams in The Golf Channel Games at Trump National Golf Club Jupiter.
The on-air talent lineup for The Skins Game will be released at a later date.
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More charges have been brought against Mark Sanchez after Saturday’s violent incident, as the former quarterback also faces potential civil penalties in addition to felony assault charges. FOS reporter Ben Horney joins Baker Machado and Renee Washington to explain the possible outcomes in this complicated situation, which now also involves Fox Sports as a legal party.
Plus, TNT broadcaster Kenny Albert gets us ready for the upcoming NHL season, which begins Tuesday. Albert evaluates the likelihood of a Panthers three-peat, Alex Ovechkin’s potential final season, and the new CBA. He also explains how TNT is prioritizing NHL coverage after losing the NBA.
Also, the new Rays owners explain their stadium plans, LeBron James’s “Second Decision” is a big dud, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver addresses the tense situation between the WNBA and league commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Watch the full episode here.
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Amazon Prime Video ⬆ The streamer drew 14.79 million viewers for its Week 5 Thursday Night Football matchup between the 49ers and Rams. That’s up 20% from the audience for Buccaneers-Falcons in Week 5 last season. Through four games, TNF is averaging 15.72 million viewers, up 11% over the first four weeks last year, and a record pace for Amazon.
Skycams ⬆⬇ After two incidents involving the cameras that hover over the field of play and provide unique angles during NFL games this past weekend, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford said the league has “got to find a way to make sure that those things aren’t playing a role in the outcome of the game,” speaking on this week’s SiriusXM Let’s Go! podcast.
MLB’s playoff format ⬆ Following a high-octane finish to the regular season and record viewership during the wild-card round, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred praised the league’s playoff structure. “We’ve kind of found the sweet spot between enough teams that September was really exciting for us, right through the last weekend,” Manfred said on the Phillies Radio Network on Monday before that team’s division series Game 2 against the Dodgers. “The incentives that are embedded in the system kept everybody playing hard right through the end.”
Connor McDavid ⬆ After the Oilers superstar signed a two-year contract extension Monday, EVP of hockey operations and GM Stan Bowman highlighted the highly unique negotiation avoided monetary issues. “In every other negotiation, it’s focused on the money. So this was really an unprecedented situation,” Bowman said. “We had a great number of really good conversations with [McDavid], and it was never once about term or dollars. It’s extremely unusual, but the circumstances are unusual.”
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- After back-to-back losses, Penn State is in a bad spot for the College Football Playoff. Front Office Sports Today explored James Franklin’s massive buyout—and what could come next for the Nittany Lions. Check it out.
- North Carolina is backing out of its season-long Hulu docuseries. The Tar Heels are 2–3 with multiple blowout losses to begin Bill Belichick’s debut season.
- The WNBA may have to weather a lockout, as the league’s CBA standoff could lead to a potential work stoppage. Take a look.
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 | She said she’s “too locked in” on Travis Kelce’s season to perform. |
 | Stugotz hasn’t appeared on Le Batard’s show in months. |
 | Prediction markets keep pushing further into the mainstream. |
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