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Happy Friday! We’ve made it to the end of another week in sports, where the stretch runs of ongoing seasons are starting to overlap with the promises of new seasons to come. MLB played its Field of Dreams Game last night, a quintessential late-summer made-for-TV event, and the WNBA continues to play through the dog days as well (despite the playoff teams effectively all being known by now). At the same time, the NFL preseason is in full swing, for whatever that’s worth — see below — and the NBA is a fount of activity between mind-boggling team sales and its schedule reveal. During this weirdly transitional time, here’s what we’re watching for the weekend ahead:
🗓️ THE WEEKEND DANCE
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game
Friday (8/14)
⚾ MLB: Cardinals (36%) at Cubs (64%)* - 2:20 p.m. (Apple TV+)
⚾ MLB: Yankees (59%) at Blue Jays (41%) - 7:15 p.m. (Apple TV+)
⚾ MLB: Brewers (36%) at Dodgers (64%) - 10:10 p.m. (SportsNet LA) - NLCS rematch!
⚾ MLB Championship check-in: Dodgers 37% to win World Series
🏀 WNBA: Wings (27%) at Fever (73%) - 7:30 p.m. (ION)
🏀 WNBA: Fire (42%) at Storm (58%) - 10 p.m. (ION)
🏀 WNBA Championship check-in: Lynx 48% to win WNBA title
⚽ NWSL: Gotham FC (54%) at KC Current (23%) - 8 p.m. (Prime Video)
⚽ MLS Championship check-in: Inter Miami 26% to win MLS Cup
⚽ NWSL Championship check-in: Gotham FC 25% to win
⛳ Golf: FedEx St. Jude Championship, Round 2 - 3 p.m. (Golf Channel) - Scottie Scheffler 13% to win
🏈 NFL Preseason: Broncos (64%) at Falcons (36%) - 7 p.m. (NFL+) - Super Bowl XXXIII rematch
🏈 NFL Preseason: Dolphins (62%) at Commanders (38%) - 7 p.m. (NFL+) - Super Bowl VII (and XVII) rematch
🏈 Championship check-in: Rams 18% to win Super Bowl
Saturday (8/15)
⚾ MLB: Yankees at Blue Jays - 3:07 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ MLB: Phillies at Twins - 7:10 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ MLB: Brewers at Dodgers - 7:15 p.m. (MLB.tv)
🏀 WNBA: Liberty (80%) at Sun (20%) - 1:00 p.m. (Local)
🏀 WNBA: Lynx (54%) at Aces (46%) - 8:00 p.m. (CBS) - Championship referendum for both teams?
⚽ MLS: Inter Miami CF (32%) at Nashville SC (43%) - 8:30 p.m. (Apple TV - MLS Season Pass)
⚽ NWSL: Thorns (45%) at Pride (26%) - 8:45 p.m. (ION)
⛳ Golf: FedEx St. Jude Championship, Round 3 - 1 p.m. (Golf Channel) / 3 p.m. (CBS)
🏁 NASCAR: Cook Out 400 (Richmond Raceway) - 7:30 p.m. (USA Network), Denny Hamlin 18% to win
🏈 NFL Preseason: Rams (45%) at Chiefs (55%) - 4 p.m. (NFL Network)
🏈 NFL Preseason: Eagles (64%) at Ravens (36%) - 7 p.m. (NFL Network/Local)
🥊 Boxing: Claressa Shields (95%) vs. Kaye Scott (5%) - 9 p.m. (DAZN) - WBA and WBC Middleweight World Titles
🥊 UFC 330: Islam Makhachev (76%) vs. Ian Machado Garry (24%) - 9 p.m. (Paramount+) - Welterweight Championship Main Event
Sunday (8/16)
⚾ MLB: Brewers at Dodgers - 4:10 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ MLB: Mariners at Astros - 7:20 p.m. (NBC/Peacock)
🏀 WNBA: Fever (64%) at Dream (36%) - 5 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 WNBA: Fire (36%) at Mercury (64%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN)
⚽ FA Community Shield: Arsenal (47%) vs. Manchester City (53%) - 10 a.m. (ESPN+)
⚽ MLS: Sounders (27%) at Whitecaps (50%) - 10:30 p.m. (Apple TV - MLS Season Pass)
⛳ Golf: FedEx St. Jude Championship, Final Round - 1 p.m. (Golf Channel) / 3 p.m. (CBS) 🚨 - FedEx Cup Playoffs opener champion crowned
🏁 IndyCar: Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham (Markham, Ontario) - 12 p.m. (FOX), Alex Palou 40% to win
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
Don’t believe in the preseason
The NFL preseason finally got started for real on Thursday, with a handful of games that made us really excited that football season is around the corner. But how much can we truly read into these early previews of the campaign to come?
As it turns out, not much. And that’s becoming more and more true with each passing year.
If we go back to the 2000 season — excluding 2020, when no preseason was played due to the COVID-19 pandemic — the correlation coefficient between preseason winning percentage and wins per 17 games during the regular season was just 0.10, which indicates an extremely mild relationship at best:
Put a different way: The average team who went winless in preseason went on to win 8.1 games per 17 during the regular season, while the average team who went undefeated in the preseason… also won 8.1 games per 17 during the regular season. Between the two extremes on the preseason spectrum, there was literally no difference in outcomes once the games began to count.
And that relationship has been deteriorating for a while now, whether we look at winning percentage or points-per-game differential:
Early in the 2000s, the correlation in winning percentage was 0.133 — still not exactly greatly predictive, but much better than the 0.070 mark since 2016, or especially the measly 0.008 figure since the preseason was cut down to three games per team in 2021. That last change seems to have destroyed almost any relationship that ever once existed between the exhibition and regular seasons, leaving us wondering what we can really glean from these games.
And all of this goes hand in hand with another trend we found before: “Real” starters playing less and less than ever before in the preseason. With fewer of the same players in preseason action who’ll actually determine the season itself, it’s no wonder the two phases of the year have begun to bear less and less resemblance to each other.
In other words, enjoy the August football — just don’t read too much into what you see in it.
📊 CHART OF THE DAY
Lakefront property, sold
This week’s biggest sports bombshell: The LA Lakers are changing hands — again! — with Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner reportedly buying the franchise for $12.5 billion just 14 months after Mark Walter bought them for $10 billion. The timing is notable, as Walter’s sale comes amidst legal investigations into his financial dealings, including reports that he revised the amount of assets loaned by his life-insurance company to other businesses he controlled from $1.4 billion to $21 billion. This has fueled speculation that he needed liquidity to reduce exposure… and fast. Meanwhile, the price itself — a new record for a North American sports-team sale (breaking the Lakers’ old record from last year) — shows how dramatically franchise values have exploded in recent years, with teams treated as flippable assets rather than civic investments:
❄️ STAY FROSTY
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
⚾ “Let’s Put Tarik Skubal Back on the Tigers” by Ben Clemens
🏀 “When Did Sports Owners Stop Buying Into the Cities They Represent?” by Michael Weinreb
⚽ “’Life expectancy’ of managers in England is under a year. What now for 9 new PL bosses?” by Nick Harris
⚾ “The NL MVP aWARd” by Ben at The Weekly
🏈 “How to Go From Bad Quarterback to Offensive Wunderkind in 4 Easy Steps” by Jeremy Keys
👀 EYES UP
Next on deck…
Monday (8/17)
⚾ MLB: White Sox at Cubs
🏀 WNBA: Wings at Valkyries
⚽ La Liga: Elche at Deportivo
Tuesday (8/18)
⚾ MLB: Yankees at Orioles
🏀 WNBA: Dream at Aces
⚽ UEFA Champions League Playoff: Fenerbahçe SK vs. Olympique Lyonnais
Wednesday (8/19)
⚾ MLB: Yankees at Orioles
🏀 WNBA: Lynx at Valkyries
⚽ UEFA Champions League Playoff: Celtic F.C. vs. LASK
⚽ MLS: Inter Miami CF at Philadelphia Union
🧠 Looking ahead
Stay tuned for more updates and in-depth analysis of these events and more as they unfold. We’ll be bringing you all the scores, highlights, and expert commentary.
Got a favorite team or sport you want us to cover more? Let us know!
All data current as of time of send.
— by Neil Paine
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.