Weekend Rap

The return to MMA of Ronda Rousey after a decade away and the announcement of the return of Conor McGregor after five years away happened in the same night, perhaps not coincidentally. Rousey “followed the method that defined her entire career ... finding an arm and taking it home in a heartbeat,” to stop Gina Carano in 17 seconds of the first round during MVP’s first MMA show and the debut of MMA of Netflix. It was Rousey’s ninth career win of less than a minute (CBSSPORTS.com, 5/16). As quickly as she returned, Rousey is gone again. Rousey: “There’s no way I could’ve ended it better than this. I want to make some more babies and I gotta get cooking.” Four of the five bouts on Netflix ended in the first round with the other fight going to Round 2 (SBJ).

MVP’s Nakisa Bidarian said viewership numbers should be available Monday -- it is up to Netflix to release them -- but he seemed bullish on the debut effort during the postfight news conferences. Bidarian: “Between visibility to market, my understanding of accounting of the UFC, and Ronda Rousey being the face of our promotion inside and outside the cage, we feel like we have a good shot if tonight works. Guess what? It really worked. ... We have a special sauce that we’ve created with this company and we’re looking forward to seeing what fighters want to work with us and hopefully it’s Netflix for MMA” (X, 5/17).

UFC President & CEO Dana White announced McGregor’s return on Instagram from cageside at UFC Fight Night 276. McGregor will face Max Holloway on July 11 at UFC 329 in Las Vegas as part of International Fight Week. McGregor’s last appearance was a TKO loss to Dustin Poirer on July 10, 2021 (ESPN.com, 5/17). The announcement came just as former UFC champion Francis Ngannou was walking to the cage on the MVP show. MVP co-founder Jake Paul said, “Little insecure boys trying to piggyback off of our event and try to put some news over top of us. It’s not going to work, buddy.” Bidarian took a more measured view, noting a possible future matchup between Paul and McGregor. “Hopefully these two run it in boxing and MMA and we shatter their records all over again” (MMA JUNKIE, 5/17). MMA Fighting reporter Damon Martin called White’s move “classic Dana” and the timing of his announcement a “foregone conclusion” that had been in the works for weeks. (X, 5/16).

Ronda Rousey had said her Saturday fight with Gina Carano would set a purse record for female fighters and called the bout “a landscape-shifting moment for the sport.” Pay for all fighters on the card had been a significant issue during the leadup to the event. According to the California State Athletic Commission, Rousey received a purse of $2.2M, with Carano being paid $1.05M. The figures do not include “any discretionary bonuses from the promotion, or potential earnings from Netflix viewership numbers and ticket sales.” No fighter received less than $40,000 on the list of disclosed pay, as promoters had said. Francis Ngannou made $1.5M for his first-round knockout of Philipe Lins (MMA JUNKIE, 5/17). After the bout, Rousey was asked about the disclosed figures. Rousey: “I was compensated, not just for my fighting services. I also was promoting this event as well, so I think it’s literally on the contract that I’m not supposed to tell people. ... I’m very happy and very grateful and me and my husband are gonna go house shopping in Hawaii after this” (X, 5/17).

Total commingled betting on the Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park on Saturday was “down 8 percent compared to strong betting on the race last year.” The $61.9M bet this year, including all multi-race wagers ending in the Preakness, was well short of last year’s $67.3M, the second-highest amount bet on the second leg of the Triple Crown. For both this year’s Preakness and last year’s Preakness, the winner of the Kentucky Derby skipped the race. The Preakness this year had an “extremely competitive field,” but the field “lacked any national star power” (DAILY RACING FORM, 5/16). The race was won by Napoleon Solo by 1 1/4 lengths for trainer Chad Summers, owner Al Gold and jockey Paco Lopez. Iron Honor finished second by 3 1/4 lengths over Chip Honcho. Napoleon Solo was injured earlier in the spring and had not raced since a fifth-place finish in the Wood Memorial. Summers said that the decision to run in the Preakness came “after ’300 to 400 phone calls’” (DAILY RACING FORM, 5/16).

Attendance was capped at 4,800 at Laurel, making a far different experience for the Preakness. The race is scheduled to return to Pimlico next year. In Baltimore, Kyle Goon wrote, “The dominant characteristic of the 151st Preakness was space. There was a ton of it. ... The only thing at full capacity were the prices. Looking at $220 parking and $22 cocktails, you would have never known this was the off-brand year for the Preakness” (BALTIMORE BANNER, 5/17). BLOODHORSE’s Sean Collins wrote, “Pimlico is currently in the process of a rebuild, an event that has been patiently waited for many years as the grandstand severely decayed. For Maryland racing, it will hope that patience will pay off with a rejuvenation of the iconic middle jewel of the Triple Crown” (BLOODHORSE, 5/16).

As SBJ reported in April, the Preakness is set to move to a week later on the racing calendar, which would mean three weeks after the Kentucky Derby instead of the traditional two. The broadcast home of the race also could change, with NBC Sports in the final years of its contract.

Donna Brothers, the former champion jockey who joined NBC Sports in 2000 to work as the track reporter for coverage of the Triple Crown races and Breeders’ Cup World Championships, made the “rider’s up” call at the Preakness in her final assignment for NBC.

U.S. Soccer and the federation’s pro women’s leagues have “engaged in preliminary discussions about an interleague competition that could begin as early as 2028,” according to sources cited by ESPN.com. The NSWL and USL Super League are sanctioned as first division by U.S. Soccer, with the WPSL Pro “expected to launch as a second-division professional league in 2028.” Sources said that “whether and how amateur teams would be involved in the prospective competition remains unclear,” but all three pro leagues “have been involved in the conversations with the federation.” A source noted that the proposed competition is “not expected to be called an ‘Open Cup,’” and details like format and structure are “being approached with a blank slate rather than directly copying the men’s U.S. Open Cup.” A U.S. Soccer spokesperson declined to comment (ESPN.com, 5/15).

The NFL’s revamped accelerator program “returns at the NFL owners meetings Monday and Tuesday in Orlando.” Among the notable names in the 34-person pool is Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, the Dolphins coach from 2022 to 2025. The program “shifted focus from high-potential candidates to senior-level executives and coaches more aligned with head coach and general manager readiness.” Many of the coaching participants, including Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, Rams offensive coordinator Nate Scheelhaase, Lions passing game coordinator Mike Kafka and Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, have received “multiple head-coaching interviews in recent years.” Eighteen execs are slated to participate, and among those are Browns Assistant GM & VP/Player Personnel Glenn Cook and Browns Assistant GM Catherine Hickman. A league source said that the NFL received “60-plus nominations from a selection committee that included at least one sitting NFL head coach and general manager before finalizing the accelerator list” (ESPN.com, 5/16).

USA TODAY’s Jarrett Bell notes, “For the first time since its inception in 2022, the Accelerator program will not be limited to diverse participants.” Bell wrote that was the NFL’s intention even before Florida AG James Uthmeier’s March 25 letter questioning the NFL’s Rooney Rule. Bell: “Given a political climate injected with anti-DEI dogma, it would have been a shock if the NFL didn’t expand the Accelerator program beyond minorities and women. For the NFL, it’s damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” (USA TODAY, 5/17).

The Pac-12’s total revenue for FY2024-25 plunged from $566.6M in the final year of the legacy Pac-12 to $111.5M with Washington State and Oregon State “existing alone with a meager media rights agreement.” WSU and OSU took home $29.2M and $29.3M, respectively, in distributions -- a “decrease of approximately” $6M from the average amount they received in the years immediately preceding the conference’s implosion. The Pac-12 began FY2024-25 with $128M in net assets and ended with $65.8M, including $22.9M in cash. Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould, who took charge in March 2024 after serving as deputy commissioner, was paid $1.5M in salary (SEATTLE TIMES, 5/15).

The Golden Knights must forfeit their 2026 second-round NHL Draft pick, and coach John Tortorella has been fined $100,000 by the league after he “skipped his postgame news conference and the team failed to allow locker-room access to reporters” after a victory in Anaheim on Thursday. The NHL cited “flagrant violations” and said that the penalties come after “previous warnings.” After a 5-1 victory in Game 6 that sent the Golden Knights to the Western Conference final, PR staff informed media members that the team would “not open the dressing room for players to speak to the media, and cited congestion in the Honda Center hallway as staffers attempted to take bags to the team bus.” Golden Knights RW Mitch Marner and C Brett Howden spoke at a news conference, and D Shea Theodore spoke briefly in a separate room outside of the visiting dressing room. The NHL requires that coaches be made available to reporters “daily during the Stanley Cup playoffs, following morning skates, practices and games.” Teams are also required to “provide a 30-minute media access period to reporters in the locker room after practices and games” (THE ATHLETIC, 5/15).

The Golden Knights said that they “were aware of the league’s ruling and would have no further comment.” They have been “offered a chance to appeal the penalties,” and that meeting with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman would take place this week. Tortorella said, “We put our statement out as an organization, so we’ll go by that. We’ll have no more comment.” After that, Tortorella looked ahead to the Western Conference final, which begins at 8pm ET on Wednesday against the Avalanche in Denver (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 5/15).

Hockey Canada “refuses to participate” in providing Sport Integrity Canada with the identities of people who, after due process, have been found responsible for serious misconduct “unless the federal government indemnifies it against possible defamation lawsuits.” Sport Integrity Canada maintains a national public registry which is “meant to give parents, athletes, and sport organizations a centralized way to identify people who have been suspended or banned from working in amateur sport.” Some of the sanctions are recent, while others are historical. The standoff comes as Hockey Canada “continues to face public scrutiny over how it has handled abuse, misconduct, and transparency in the sport.” Hockey Canada Chief of Staff Jeremy Knight in an email wrote, “All individuals who are banned or suspended by Hockey Canada and/or our members are tracked securely within the Hockey Canada registry to ensure their restrictions are upheld and they are not able to participate in sanctioned hockey programming anywhere in the country.” Knight declined to say how many people are currently suspended for misconduct or have been permanently banned. Of the 93 national sport organizations that have adopted the Canadian Safe Sport Program, 80 “agreed to provide sanction data for the registry.” Eight more were “considering whether to participate” and five NSOs, including Hockey Canada, “either indicated that they would not voluntarily provide this information or did not respond” (TSN.ca, 5/15).

A bipartisan Senate bill backed by the White House and major stakeholders provides the “clearest path yet for codifying NCAA rules into law and shielding the organization from antitrust challenge.” A presidential committee on college sports, chaired by Yankees President Randy Levine and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is “coordinating a unified letter of support.” The bill itself is authored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and it represents the “first moment in years when Congress, the White House and stakeholders across college sports are genuinely aligned on the need for federal intervention.” Sources said that the bill is “expected to supplant the long-gestating SCORE Act as the NCAA’s best chance yet to pass legislation in Congress.” The SCORE Act is “set to be on the House floor THIS week,” though lawmakers believe it will “fall short of the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.” That is why the White House is “now pushing this separate, bipartisan alternative.” The exact contents of the Cantwell-Cruz bill “remain unclear,” but a memo suggests it will “incorporate elements from the White House committee’s draft framework, including antitrust protections and explicit prohibitions on NIL-based salary-cap circumvention” (CBSSPORTS.com, 5/15).

The purse for this weekend’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club is $20.5M, with $3.69M going to the winner. Last year, the PGA Championship ranked third among the four majors with a purse of $19M. The U.S. Open awarded $21.5M, while the Masters paid out $21M. The Open Championship’s purse was $17M. In April, Augusta National Golf Club raised its purse to $22.5M. Until this year, the PGA Championship’s purse “had been less than those of the PGA Tour’s signature events,” which were increased to $20M. The Players Championship purse is $25M. The second-place finisher Sunday will win about $2.2M, while third place gets about $1.4M. Each of the top 20 finishers will receive at least $252,000 (ESPN.com, 5/16).

The Dream “sold out their home opener” against the Aces set for Sunday at State Farm Arena. The feat marks the team’s 45th consecutive sellout, which includes four games hosted at State Farm Arena over the last three seasons. In addition to selling out their home opener, the Dream have “sold out their next five home games” at Gateway Center Arena to bring the streak to 50 (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 5/15).

Miami-Dade County will run “free game‑day shuttles from four transit hubs to Hard Rock Stadium during the 2026 FIFA World Cup to ease traffic and parking pressure for the seven matches scheduled in South Florida.” The county announced that verified ticket holders will have access to free transportation. The idea is to “reduce traffic congestion, as well as parking demand” near Hard Rock Stadium. Parking passes for matches at the venue were “available only to ticket holders, with some costing upwards of $200” (USA TODAY, 5/15).