Scoop: MLB media deal musical chairs
- - Scoop: MLB media deal musical chairs
Kendall BakerAugust 20, 2025 at 9:23 PM
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🚨 Headlines
⚾️ Yankees bash nine homers (again): The Yankees hit nine home runs in their 13-3 rout of the Rays, matching a franchise record set earlier this year. There have been only four times in MLB history that a team has hit at least nine HR in a game; the 2025 Yankees have half of them.
🏀 Liberty avoid the sweep: The Liberty beat the Lynx, 85-75, to avoid the four-game season sweep in their finals rematch after dropping the first three games to Minnesota.
🏈 Jones named QB1: The Colts named newcomer Daniel Jones as their starting QB over Anthony Richardson, who's struggled with health and consistency since Indy drafted him fourth overall in 2023.
🏀 Guilty as charged: Former Heat security guard Marcos Thomas Perez pleaded guilty to stealing and selling nearly $2 million worth of memorabilia when he worked for the team from 2016-21. He faces up to 10 years in prison.
⚽️ Record transfer: The Orlando Pride are finalizing a deal to sign Mexican forward Lizbeth Ovalle from Tigres UANL for a $1.5 million transfer fee — the largest in women's soccer history.
📺 Scoop: MLB media deals
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Could Apple be getting out of the MLB business? Could NBC soon have "Sunday Night Baseball" to add to "Sunday Night Football" and "Sunday Night Basketball"? That's what I'm hearing, according to trusted sources.
Plus:
MLB.TV appears to be headed to ESPN, which would give Disney an intriguing new asset (all out-of-market games) to potentially add to its DTC offering that launches tomorrow.
Sources say Netflix will be the new home of the Home Run Derby, which would help the event reach a more global audience. Bloomberg first reported Netflix's potential involvement last week.
Bottom line: Nothing has been finalized, so things could still change. Apple's deal runs through 2028 and they may not be going anywhere; the Friday night package is the part I've gotten the least clarity on. But sources say the MLB.TV and Netflix deals are all but certain and could be announced in the coming days.
💵 Top 3 biggest winning bets in U.S. history
(Aaron M. Sprecher/Getty Images)
From Yahoo Sports' Ben Fawkes:
The U.S. now has legal sports betting in 40 states (with Missouri set to come online later this year) thanks to the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in May 2018.
The increase in available outlets for big bettors and the prevalence of social media has led to an increase in large wagers reported by different sportsbooks. Previously, those wagers could (legally) be made only in Nevada, and speaking with many veteran Vegas bookmakers for this story, there certainly were plenty of seven-figure wagers made before legalization.
However, there's little doubt that we hear more about them in the present era of sports betting. And there have been plenty of seven-figure parlay wins off of smaller wagers, as well. For this article, though, we're focusing on the largest reported winning wagers in U.S. sports betting history — all of which have happened since 2018. And wouldn't you know it, the largest of all comes from just a few months ago.
1. $8 million on Thunder (-700) to win 2024-25 NBA championship -
Date: June 5, 2025
Sportsbook: BetMGM
State placed: Ohio
Bet won: $1.14 million
How it happened: Placed a few hours before tipoff of Game 1, a bettor in Ohio had serious conviction on the Thunder — and with good reason, as Oklahoma City was one of the largest NBA Finals favorites since 1968. This bettor had a much bigger sweat than anticipated, as Indiana pushed the series to the limit before the Thunder prevailed, 103-91, in Game 7.
2. $3.46M on Buccaneers +3.5 (-127) in Super Bowl LV -
Date: Feb. 3, 2021
Sportsbook: DraftKings
State placed: Colorado
Bet won: $2.72 million
How it happened: Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale — the Houston furniture salesman known for placing large sports bets as hedges for promotions — flew into Colorado Springs, logged onto the DraftKings mobile app and wagered a cool $3.46 million on Tom Brady's Buccaneers to beat Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. McIngvale paid a little extra juice to move the line from Bucs +3 to +3.5, which didn't end up mattering. Final score: Bucs 31, Chiefs 9.
3. $3.1M on Eagles ML (-700) to beat Panthers in Week 14 -
Date: Dec. 5, 2024
Sportsbook: Circa Sports
State placed: Kentucky
Bet won: $442,857
How it happened: One bettor plopped down $3.1 million on Jalen Hurts' Eagles (10-2 record at the time) on a Thursday to simply defeat Bryce Young's Panthers (3-9 record at the time) on that Sunday. It's thought to be one of the biggest wagers ever on a regular-season NFL game. The Eagles closed as 13.5-point favorites, but were winning only 14-10 at halftime and actually were losing 16-14 heading into the fourth quarter. They ended up winning, 22-16.
New on Yahoo Sports: We just launched to a new content hub dedicated to sports betting news and analysis. Check it out.
⚾️ Olson passes Rose
(Matthew Grimes Jr./Atlanta Braves/Getty Images)
Braves 1B Matt Olson played in his 746th consecutive game on Tuesday, passing Pete Rose for the 12th-longest streak in MLB history.
Cal Ripken Jr: 2,632 games (1982-98)
Lou Gehrig: 2,130 games (1925-39)
Everett Scott: 1,307 games (1916-25)
Steve Garvey: 1,207 games (1975-83)
Miguel Tejada: 1,152 games (2000-07)
Billy Williams: 1,117 games (1963-70)
Joe Sewell: 1,103 games (1922-30)
Stan Musial: 895 games (1952-57)
Eddie Yost: 829 games (1949-55)
Gus Suhr: 822 games (1931-37)
Nellie Fox: 798 games (1955-60)
Olson: 746 games (2021-present)
Catch him if you can… Just how crazy was Ripken's streak? Olson, whose own streak began in May 2021, would need to play every game from now until the middle of the 2037 season (when he'll be 43) to catch the Orioles legend.
🏈 Auburn claims four new titles
The 2004 Auburn Tigers walk onto the field before the SEC title game. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
Auburn will now recognize itself as a nine-time football national champion, adding four new titles (1910, 1914, 1958, 2004) to the five the Tigers already claimed (1913, 1957, 1983, 1993, 2010).
From Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee:
Auburn can justify the new rings on two fronts: first, because pre-21st-century college football was a chaotic nest of competing rankings and ad hoc justifications, and second, because Alabama already went there.
Back in the 1980s, an Alabama sports information director went diving in the record books and in one swoop, awarded Alabama five pre-Bear Bryant-era titles.
Now, granted, there's the question of an incredibly slippery slope here. If Auburn is going to claim a national title for 2004, why can't Utah — which also went undefeated at 12-0 that year — also claim one?
Why couldn't 2017 Central Florida or 2023 Florida State, which, like 2004 Auburn, were both left out of the postseason dance despite going undefeated?
Yes, Auburn's ring-grab could well set off a new wave of schools retroactively seeking to claim national titles won by their great-grandfathers.
We could see new banners hanging in stadiums all across the country as enterprising researchers whip up dissertation-length justifications for why their school deserves titles from the days before cars or TV.
But so what? We now have in place a means of determining, once and for all, a season's indisputable national champion. And as college football sins go, a bit of reapportioned valor ranks pretty low on the list. We've got to hold onto something to argue about, after all.
Read the full story.
📺 Watchlist: Wednesday, Aug. 20
Errani and Vavassori celebrate during their first-round win on Tuesday. (Elsa/Getty Images)🎾 US Open, Mixed Doubles | 7pm ET, ESPN2
Defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori — the only traditional mixed doubles team in the field — made it back to the semifinals, where they'll face Danielle Collins and Christian Harrison. The other semifinal pits Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper against Iga Świątek and Casper Ruud, with the final rounding out the evening.
⚾️ LLWS | 1pm, ESPN
The winner of Venezuela and Taiwan (1pm) advances to the international championship, while the loser faces the winner of Aruba vs. Japan (5pm) tomorrow for the other spot. Likewise, the winner of Nevada vs. Connecticut (3pm) advances to the U.S. championship, while the loser faces the winner of South Dakota vs. South Carolina (7pm) tomorrow for the other spot.
More to watch:
⚽️ Leagues Cup: Inter Miami vs. Tigres UANL (8pm, FS1); Toluca vs. Orlando City (9pm, Apple); Seattle Sounders vs. Puebla (11pm, FS1); LA Galaxy vs. Pachuca (11:45pm, Apple) … Quarterfinals.
🎾 U.S. Open: Qualifying (11am, ESPN2) … Former Top 25 stars Zhang Shuai, Daniel Evans, Nikoloz Basilashvili and Christian Garin are among the seeds in the play-in tournament.
Today's full slate.
🏀 NBA trivia
(Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
John Wall announced his retirement on Tuesday after 11 NBA seasons.
Question: In 2010, Wall became the first of three players drafted No. 1 overall out of Kentucky. Can you name the other two?
Hint: Bigs.
Answer at the bottom.
🍿 Now streaming: "America's Team"
(Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP Photo)
"America's Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys" premiered Tuesday on Netflix, and the eight-part docuseries is already being compared to "The Last Dance."
From Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee:
"America's Team" is, in so many ways, the embodiment of Jerry Jones' outsize ego and persona. It begins with the vibe of a Taylor Sheridan series like "Yellowstone" or "Landman" — sweeping billionaire's-eye views from the window of a helicopter.
Jones craftily recounts his early days as an Arkansas oilman: "I was really good at drilling oil wells, and I was really good at borrowing money."
Something to consider:Would you want Jones to own your football team?
Trivia answer: Anthony Davis (2012) and Karl-Anthony Towns (2015)
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