Embattled Rays owner Stu Sternberg is closing in on a $1.7 billion deal to sell the MLB franchise to a group led by Jacksonville developer Patrick Zalupski, Front Office Sports has confirmed.

The agreement, though not done, involves a signed letter of intent and arrives just months after Sternberg walked away from a deal with St. Petersburg, Fla., and Pinellas County to build a $1.3 billion ballpark, citing additional costs he was not willing to bear.

The deal, first reported by Sportico, is nearly identical in price to a separate purchase of the Orioles last year by David Rubenstein.

As Sternberg has fallen heavily out of favor with local officials, the agreement is poised to give the Rays a fresh start as the franchise seeks to figure out its facility future, both in the short- and long-term. Tropicana Field is still being repaired after extensive hurricane damage last fall, and the Rays are currently playing at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, the spring training home of the Yankees.

The Rays made a brief statement Wednesday afternoon confirming talks to sell the franchise to the Zalupski-led group.

“The Tampa Bay Rays announced that the team has recently commenced exclusive discussions with a group led by Patrick Zalupski, Bill Cosgrove, Ken Babby, and prominent Tampa Bay investors concerning a possible sale of the team,” the Rays said. “Neither the Rays nor the group will have further comment during the discussions.”

Zalupski is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dream Finders Homes, and has an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion. Cosgrove is the CEO of Union Home Mortgage. Babby, meanwhile, already has an extensive track record in baseball, currently serving as the founder and CEO of Fast Forward Group, owner of Fast Forward Sports Group, which operates the Triple-A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp and Double-A Akron (Ohio) RubberDucks. It is one of the most successful ownership entities in Minor League Baseball.

Sternberg led the Rays for 20 years, winning two American League pennants, but after the demise of the stadium deal, his tenure had been thought locally to be essentially untenable. Before the start of the season, though, Sternberg and other Rays officials had consistently pushed back on sale rumors that had swirled around the franchise for years.

“Thank you Stu,” said Pinellas County commissioner Chris Latvala, a frequent and outspoken critic of Sternberg, in a social media post on Wednesday.

It is expected that the team will stay in the Tampa area should the sale be completed, though the club’s ballpark plans remain unsettled. MLB has had a keen interest in keeping the Rays in the region, particularly as it has grown to become the No. 11 U.S. media market.

WNBA player salaries are the hot topic surrounding the CBA negotiations for next season. However, for this year, the league’s players have to deal with the current structure. 

A significant chunk of players make five-figure salaries, including Caitlin Clark, the WNBA’s biggest draw. But Clark has a chance to enter the six-figure range while also helping her teammates in the process.

The Indiana Fever will play in the Commissioner’s Cup championship against the Minnesota Lynx, the defending champions of the WNBA’s in-season tournament, on July 1. 

The teams will play for a $500,000 prize pool, where players on the winning team each win around $30,000 while those on the losing team take home about $10,000 each. The MVP takes home an additional $5,000.

Each player on both teams will also receive $5,000 worth of cryptocurrency from Coinbase.

“Why wouldn’t we celebrate that [accomplishment]? We’re getting to play for a pool of money. That’s pretty fun, and you’re competing to win a trophy,” Clark said Wednesday after defeating the Connecticut Sun, a game that involved several on-court altercations.

For Clark, an additional $30,000 to $40,000 is probably not very significant given her multimillion-dollar endorsement deals, but a win and MVP provide more than a 50% increase on her annual salary. That’s a similar increase to other players on rookie contracts like the Fever’s Makayla Thompson ($69,267) and the Lynx’ Alissa Pili ($74,909).

Even for the highest-paid players on both teams, the prize still represents a significant lift. Lynx star Napheesa Collier, the WNBA’s leading MVP candidate, would see a 19% increase in her $214,284 salary if she leads Minnesota to victory and takes home the Commissioner’s Cup MVP award.

In the Emirates NBA Cup, the in-season tournament of the NBA, the prize money for one player on the winning team ($514,970) is more than the prize pool for both teams in the Commissioner’s Cup final. While that is a huge sum for most NBA players, especially for those on smaller deals, it’s like a drop in the bucket for the league’s biggest stars.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, the two best players on the Bucks, who won the 2024 NBA Cup, each made nearly $49 million last season. Based on an 82-game schedule, that means Antetokounmpo and Lillard made about $595,000 per game last year, which is more than they received for winning the NBA Cup.

“The rich get richer,” Antetokounmpo joked after defeating the Magic to advance to the semifinals in Las Vegas in December.

The concept of flex scheduling, for years a core element of the NFL, is set to take on heightened importance in the Premier League.

The top flight of English pro soccer unveiled its 2025–26 schedule Wednesday, and warned “there is an increased likelihood of Premier League fixtures moving at relatively short notice” during the season. The additional forthcoming shifts are due primarily to an unprecedented nine Premier League teams playing in European-level competition during the upcoming season.

Six clubs—Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle, and Tottenham Hotspur—qualified for the upcoming iteration of the UEFA Champions League, while Aston Villa and Crystal Palace will compete in the Europa League, and Nottingham Forest is in the Conference League. 

The FA Cup, a separate English competition that ultimately feeds into UEFA Europa League, could also prompt some schedule changes for the Premier League. 

“While the Premier League celebrates this success, it will come with an impact on the scheduling of league matches,” the league said in a statement.

Already, the Premier League announces specific game times, and any revised dates, for the season on a monthly basis, with at least five weeks of notice common. That rolling schedule for confirming game dates and times takes broadcast considerations into account, like in the NFL.

Greater Unrest

The increased level of forthcoming change also arrives amid fast-rising fan unrest about ongoing ticket price increases across the Premier League. Thirteen of 20 clubs in the league increased prices for the upcoming season, and though down from a comparable 19 clubs last year, the moves continue to spark fan protests under the hashtag of #StopExploitingLoyalty.

Liverpool, the defending Premier League champion, will begin the season Aug. 15 at home against AFC Bournemouth. 

The 2025–26 Premier League season, meanwhile, will be the first in a four-year media-rights term with Sky Sports and TNT Sports worth $9 billion, representing the largest sports-rights deal in U.K. history. The new domestic deals have a new provision in which all matches taking place outside of a Saturday 3 p.m. “closed period” will be broadcast live, a move that will involve at least 267 of the 380 league matches this season.

That Saturday afternoon slot is designed to protect attendance at lower-level soccer competition, not unlike the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 in the U.S. The NFL continues to find creative ways to work around that measure, aimed in part to preserve high school and college football. 

The upcoming Premier League season will conclude May 24, 2026, giving top players also on national teams a turnaround of less than three weeks before the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.