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Afternoon Edition

July 28, 2025

MLB’s Saturday game at Bristol Motor Speedway will be the highest attended in history, as more than 85,000 tickets have already been sold. The league’s most ambitious special-event game is on track to be a success story.

— David Rumsey [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]], and Colin Salao [[link removed]]

The Fastball and the Furious: Bristol MLB Game Will Set Attendance Record [[link removed]]

Earl Neikirk/Neikirk Image

​​It’s now official: MLB going to a famed motorsports venue to play a baseball game is big business.

The league said Monday that it has sold more than 85,000 tickets for the MLB Speedway Classic on Aug. 2 at Bristol Motor Speedway involving the Reds and Braves. That figure surpasses a regular-season record of 84,587 set in 1954 in Cleveland between that team and the Yankees.

An even larger crowd of 115,300 attended an exhibition game in 2008 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The unique layout of Bristol Motor Speedway relative to a baseball diamond, however, and the league’s desire to maintain optimal viewing angles for fans, will prevent that larger figure from being reached.

Instead, MLB expects to max out at slightly under 90,000 for the game. By any measure, though, this will remain a historic event, and it is also the most ambitious special-event game in MLB history [[link removed]].

“Breaking this record makes this an even bigger event than it already was and was first contemplated, and helps ensure this won’t be remembered in 2025, but hopefully a lot longer than that,” MLB SVP of global events Jeremiah Yolkut tells Front Office Sports.

In the works for more than a year, the MLB Speedway Classic had already been targeted as the largest single-game attendance of the season [[link removed]]. The game will also be MLB’s first in the regular season held in Tennessee.

Ticket buyers have come from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington, D.C., and nine other countries on four continents.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS LIVE

Hang Out in the Hamptons

Front Office Sports returns to the Hamptons this week for the ultimate summer Friday event.

On Aug. 1, with official partners UBS, On Location, and Saratoga, we’ll host our second annual Huddle in the Hamptons [[link removed]], bringing together business leaders for a morning of conversations, networking, and racket sports.

Speakers include MLS commissioner Don Garber, UBS executive and former NFL player Wale Ogunleye, Super Bowl champion and Emmy Award–winning ESPN analyst Ryan Clark, former professional soccer player and Bay FC co-owner Leslie Osborne, and more.

Follow FOS on Twitter [[link removed]], Instagram [[link removed]], and TikTok [[link removed]] for a peek at the action.

Inter Miami Owner Calls MLS Messi Suspension ‘Draconian’ [[link removed]]

Rich Storry-USA TODAY Sports

The recriminations from Major League Soccer’s one-game suspension of Inter Miami CF superstar Lionel Messi [[link removed]] are still unfolding, heightening scrutiny over the Argentine icon’s future career plans.

Messi, along with teammate Jordi Alba, served the suspension Saturday for missing the July 23 MLS All-Star Game in Austin. The suspension was in keeping with a long-standing league policy for players missing the key midseason event without an approved medical reason. Without Messi and Alba, Inter Miami played to a scoreless draw against FC Cincinnati before an announced crowd of 21,044 at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Inter Miami owner Jorge Mas and coach Javier Mascherano, however, both blasted the suspension. They said Messi’s historic contribution to the league, and recent demands amid a tightly clustered schedule, should have been taken into far greater account.

“Obviously, Lionel Messi is Lionel Messi. He is different,” Mas said, who called the punishment “draconian.”

“He has completely changed the economics of this league for every single club, every team, every sponsor, the league, media, etcetera. He’s important. But at the end of the day, Lionel Messi wants to play in competitive matches,” Mas said. “It’s a question of, ‘How do you make the MLS All-Star Game an event that does not kill the management load on their physical ability to perform?’”

To that end, Mascherano cited Messi’s workload, which includes playing every minute in 22 of 23 Inter Miami matches since early April.

“Messi has played an enormous number of matches,” he said. “When it’s about selling tickets or filling stadiums, no one complains. But now that we had a home game, he’s suspended? Would they have done the same if we were playing away? It’s frustrating.”

Player Sentiments

Messi and Alba will be eligible to return for Inter Miami’s Wednesday Leagues Cup match against Liga MX club Atlas. At Saturday’s match, Messi appeared relaxed while watching from a Chase Stadium suite, despite the vitriol from club leaders.

From there, Messi went Sunday night to Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, where Coldplay was performing. Messi and his wife, Antonela Roccuzzo, were shown on the jumbotron [[link removed]] during the show—a much-discussed element since the recent scandal involving two Astronomer executives at a Coldplay tour stop in Massachusetts. Band frontman Chris Martin described Messi as “the number-one sports person of all time.”

Long-term, though, Mas said he remains worried the situation with the league could have a detrimental effect on Messi’s future status. A three-year contract signed in 2023 expires after this season, and while there has been optimism about an extension, there is no deal, and other clubs such as Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahli have reportedly shown interest in the 38-year-old.

“I’m hopeful it doesn’t have an impact long-term,” Mas said. “Will it have an impact initially in the player’s perception of how the league rules work? Absolutely, no doubt.”

Deion Sanders Had Bladder Removed Due to Cancer, Is Ready for Season [[link removed]]

Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

Colorado football coach Deion Sanders announced he had bladder cancer earlier this year, but is in good health and ready for the 2025 season after a successful surgery and treatment.

Sanders, 57, revealed the news at a press conference in Boulder on Monday ahead of training camp opening. Dr. Janet Kukreja, a urologic oncologist at Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, and Colorado football assistant athletic trainer Lauren Askevold accompanied Sanders on Monday.

Coach Prime was away from the football team most of the offseason, and he declined to offer specifics about his health during Big 12 media days earlier this month.

After a cancerous tumor was discovered on Sanders’s bladder in the spring, a decision was made to undergo full robot-assisted laparoscopic bladder removal, and create a new bladder from Sanders’s own small intestines. The surgery was completed in early May.

“I am pleased to report that the results from the surgery are that he is cured from the cancer,” Dr. Kukreja said.

The timing was likely life-saving for Sanders. “Very lucky to have found it at this stage, where it was still I could say the word ‘cure,’ because I don’t use that word lightly as a cancer doctor,” Dr. Kukreja said. “And there’s a lot of patients where we don’t have that same conversation.”

Sanders said he kept Colorado AD Rick George informed throughout the process. “I always knew I was going to coach again,” he said.

That commitment played a part in Sanders opting for bladder removal, which was not the only option. “The decision I made in the surgery I chose was based on not just family, it was based on football,” he said. “I didn’t want to be going weekly to the hospital while I’ve got practices.”

There will be no travel restrictions in place for Sanders, as Colorado looks to build on its 9–4 season from a year ago. In March, Sanders signed a five-year, $54 million contract extension [[link removed]] that makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in college football. He’ll make $10 million in 2025, with his salary increasing to $12 million by 2029.

Despite the serious medical situation, Sanders was in good spirits Monday, even joking about his new reality, which includes challenges controlling his bladder. “If you see a port-a-potty on the sideline, it’s real, O.K.? I’m just telling you right now, you’re gonna see it,” he said.

Colorado opens the season at home against Georgia on Aug. 29, for a Friday night primetime matchup on ESPN.

Bulls Extend Billy Donovan After Rejecting Knicks Advances [[link removed]]

Nell Redmond-Imagn Images

Many NBA front offices have shown a short leash for head coaches, but the Bulls are going the other way.

Chicago agreed to a multiyear extension with head coach Billy Donovan, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported Sunday. The exact length and financial details of the deal were not made clear. He first signed with the Bulls in 2020 on a reported four-year, $24 million deal [[link removed]].

Chicago has made the playoffs only once in five years under Donovan, and they have yet to win a postseason series. Donovan is 195–205 in his five years with Chicago, and the team’s lone playoff berth (2021–22 season) was also the only time the Bulls finished above .500 under the 60-year-old coach.

Donovan coached the Florida men’s basketball team from 1996 to 2015, winning back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007. He made the jump to the NBA in 2015, coaching the Thunder for five seasons before joining Chicago. Oklahoma City later replaced Donovan with Mark Daigneault, who led the Thunder to the 2025 NBA championship.

Zigging or Zagging

The head coaching position has turned into a revolving door across most of the league. The Grizzlies and Nuggets fired accomplished head coaches [[link removed]] right before the 2025 NBA playoffs; the Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau [[link removed]] after he led the franchise to its first conference finals since 2000; the Suns—who were in the 2025 NBA Finals—have brought in their fourth head coach in four years [[link removed]].

But Chicago has continued to trust Donovan, who was already the third-longest-tenured head coach in the league behind two with multiple NBA championships: the Heat’s Erik Spoelstra (17 seasons) and Warriors’ Steve Kerr (11 seasons).

Discussions between the Bulls and Donovan on a contract extension reportedly started this past season, despite the Bulls, for the second year in a row, finishing with a 39–43 record and a loss in the play-in tournament.

The Knicks pursued Donovan to take over for Thibodeau, one of many names the team was denied permission to interview. Others include Ime Udoka of the Rockets, Chris Finch of the Timberwolves, Quin Snyder of the Hawks, and Jason Kidd of the Mavericks—who is expected to receive a contract extension of his own before the start of next year, according to NBA insider Marc Stein.

New York hired Mike Brown [[link removed]] earlier this month.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS TODAY Tom Brady Talks Birmingham Ownership

FOS illustration

Move over, Wrexham. Birmingham City is the latest European soccer club to capture the world’s attention. The team is celebrating its 150th anniversary along with its latest promotion to the EFL Championship (the second tier of English soccer), with a little help from minority owner and NFL legend Tom Brady. Brady tells Baker Machado and Renee Washington why he purchased a stake in the club, what makes him a good owner, as well as the team’s new documentary Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues, which streams on Amazon Prime Video on Aug. 1.

Also, after being out of the public eye for some time, Colorado football coach Deion Sanders revealed he was treated for and successfully beat bladder cancer after doctors found a tumor that required surgery. FOS reporter David Rumsey has the latest on when Coach Prime will be able to return to the Buffaloes’ sidelines and why he did not reveal his diagnosis to his sons Shedeur and Shilo until now.

Watch the full episode here [[link removed]].

STATUS REPORT Three Up, One Down

Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Kurt Kitayama ⬆ Entering the 3M Open outside the top 100 of the FedEx Cup rankings, and in danger of missing the FedEx Cup playoffs, Kitayama came through and defeated Sam Stevens by one shot. The win secures Kitayama’s full-membership status for two years as he earned 500 FedEx Cup points and vaulted up to 57th in the rankings. His $1.512 million payday pushed his career earnings to more than $14.5 million since he joined the PGA Tour in 2022.

Tadej Pogačar ⬆ The reigning world champion secured his fourth Tour de France title Sunday, winning four stages and dominating each terrain along the way. He’s now just one victory away from tying the all-time record of five Tour de France wins shared by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Induráin.

Super Bowl scalping ⬇ The NFL has fined 100 players and two dozen team employees for reselling Super Bowl LIX tickets for prices above face value, which violates the league’s policy under the CBA. Offenders will now face financial penalties up to two times the original ticket price and multiyear bans from purchasing tickets in the future as the NFL ramps up enforcement ahead of the upcoming season.

Bubba Wallace ⬆ The 23XI Racing driver made history Sunday as the first Black driver to win a major race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s iconic oval, winning the Brickyard 400. It was his first victory in more than 100 races and secured him a spot in the NASCAR playoffs, marking the biggest moment of his Cup Series career so far.

Conversation Starters This year’s Hall of Fame class [[link removed]] features three legends and a combined $528 million in MLB earnings. Rory McIlroy casually flexed his $107 million career earnings and fresh Green Jacket from his recent Masters win. Check it out [[link removed]]. A Caitlin Clark rookie card just sold for $660,000, surpassing the previous record for women’s sports cards by 80%. Take a look [[link removed]]. Editors’ Picks Dead Sports Franchises Are Alive and Well on Twitter [[link removed]]by Ellyn Briggs [[link removed]]The Expos, Sonics, and Whalers have active social media accounts. Why Rumors Nick Saban Could Leave ESPN for Coaching Aren’t Crazy [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]Saban has not fully ruled out a coaching comeback as rumors swirl. Rutgers Finds New Athletic Director After Almost a Year [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Rutgers’s previous athletic director, Pat Hobbs, resigned in August 2024. Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Shows [[link removed]] Written by Eric Fisher [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]], Colin Salao [[link removed]] Edited by Or Moyal [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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