Actual NFL Combine News

Plus: MLB broadcast predictions, a questionable rebrand, and a crossover no one saw coming

Welcome back to Club Sportico, where we break down the intersection of sports and money—with an extra bit of humor and opinion. Here’s a six-pack of items to start the weekend.

The Sportico Story of the Week ⚽️: There’s a lot of change in college sports, if you haven’t heard. I remain optimistic that the ultimate result will be positive for athletes and fans, if not the schools themselves. One potential benefit is a lot more differentiation between how sports are governed, including the schedules they play on and the way they crown champions. Daniel Libit and Luke Cyphers spent weeks digging into the conversations already going on across college soccer.

Eben and I also discussed what’s coming on the Sporticast this week.

The Non-Sportico Story of the Week ⚾️: Baseball is back, which means so is Stephanie Apstein, with her latest story perfectly spanning the realms of sports business and human interest. This year, MLB is testing automated strike measurements in Spring Training, so the league has to measure every player’s height to create an accurate zone. And thus a dilemma, hope you get the smallest strike zone possible, or stretch out to prevent people from realizing you’ve been lying about your height all this time…

I think you can guess which way players appear to be leaning (or stretching).

What Made Me Laugh 🤡: An early contender for headline of the year👇