Baseball's best pitcher is breaking arbitration

Plus: A new college football labor fight, Instagram avatars, and the King of Iowa.

Jan 12, 2026

As I mourn the Jaguars loss, here are six sports business items worthy of your attention at the start of the week…

Non-Sportico Story of the Week ⚾: I loved this ESPN story from Jeff Passan about baseball’s arbitration system, one of the weirdest—and most interesting— business quirks in major U.S. sports. For the uninitiated, it’s a process that lets some baseball players fight for higher pay before their rookie deals expire, creating the absurd situation where a player says he deserves X and then his employer presents mounds of evidence as to why he’s worth something lower. It’s been around since 1973, but Passan’s story really hits at how the more meta fight over arbitration may impact MLB’s looming labor fight.

Why You Should Care 🃏: Against that backdrop, Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is currently testing the limits of the arbitration system. The two-time defending Cy Young Award winner is seeking a $32 million salary for next year. The Tigers countered with $19 million. That $13 million gap is the largest in the history of MLB arbitration, and no matter where it ends—in settlement or in a formal hearing—the 29-year-old is going to get the largest salary ever to come out of arbitration.

What Made Me Smile ☺️: Last week the X account @CodifyBaseball posted a fun map of the most viewed pitcher Baseball Reference pages by state. Most of the list makes sense—its very famous pitchers, often in their home market—except for journeyman reliever Kyle Farnsworth’s dominance in Iowa…

Then a user DM’ed a possible explanation, which involves their father and Baseball Reference’s very fun daily Immaculate Grid game. For anyone (like me!) who gets stuck in weird tech ruts, it might feel very relatable.

Sportico Story of the Week🏅: The college football semifinals happened this week, but the industry’s biggest business story had nothing to do with Indiana Miami, Oregon or Ole Miss. Instead, everyone was buzzing about Demond Williams Jr., the quarterback at Washington, who tried to transfer elsewhere. In response, the Huskies claimed he had a signed revenue sharing agreement and that the school would sue if he left. It’s a new frontier in college football’s ever-evolving labor situation, and thankfully our colleague Mike McCann is here to break it down.

What Made Me Laugh 🤡: If you watch a lot of football and American football, this hits home.

What Made Me Wince ⌛: Another week gone by, another deadline missed, and the WNBA labor fight continues. At some point over the last few days the WNBA players union changed its Instagram avatar to an hourglass. I think it's smart business for the union to be making this fight increasingly public, but this rings to me like the angsty, passive aggressive away messages we used to post on AIM in high school. The inflatable rat, on the other hand, is 🔥🔥 .

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