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The California-based federal judge overseeing the trio of antitrust lawsuits that could reshape college sports will weigh in for the first time Thursday on a proposed new model for paying athletes.

Judge Claudia Wilken will ask questions and gather information from plaintiffs, defendants and other parties to decide whether to grant preliminary approval for a proposed settlement between the NCAA, its five power conferences and a class of former and current Division I athletes.

Her approval would be the next, but not last, step toward implementing a system that would bring an unprecedented level of change to major college sports. Wilken does not have to decide from the bench Thursday — a ruling could come days or weeks later — but the hearing provides the first chance to gain insights about whether she feels the deal is a fair and adequate system for compensating college athletes for the next 10 years.

“I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how important this could be in the grand scheme of things for college sports. We are closer than ever to an entirely new era,” said Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane University and an expert in NCAA legal issues. “Part of what we’re looking for is to see if Judge Wilken has concerns about the settlement.”

The NCAA and conferences agreed in May to pay roughly $2.7 billion in damages to athletes who say their earning potential while in college was illegally restrained by the association’s rules. The parties also agreed to a forward-looking system that will allow schools to directly pay athletes via name, image and likeness deals up to a limit, which is expected to be between $20 million and $23 million per school next year and rise on an annual basis. In exchange, the NCAA would have far more leeway to enforce rules it says are designed to protect a competitive balance between schools and preserve what makes college sports unique.

Since the two sides submitted terms of their agreement in July, five groups have responded to the court with formal objections, and several other groups have raised concerns via public statements. The objectors say the deal unfairly restricts future athletes or too broadly addresses NCAA issues that don’t fall within the scope of the three cases they are agreeing to settle, among other concerns.

One group of athletes, led by former Colorado football player Alex Fontenot, argues that the settlement would unfairly eliminate their separate, pending antitrust case challenging the NCAA’s limits on what schools can pay players directly. The settlement also undervalues the potential damages that athletes could receive from the Fontenot complaint, his lawyers wrote in their objection.

A separate group of former and current women’s rowers filed an objection claiming that the settlement’s plans to distribute the overwhelming majority of the $2.7 billion in damages to football and men’s basketball players is unfair to women athletes.

As for the forward-looking terms of the settlement, multiple groups argued that the 10-year length of the settlement would bind future college athletes — some still in grade school — to the terms of a revenue-sharing deal in which they have no say. Those athletes would have the ability to object to the revenue-sharing terms but would need to convince Judge Wilken to reconsider the terms in order to create change.

Lastly, Fontenot’s attorneys argue that having the same parties negotiate the past damages and the future revenue-sharing model creates a potential conflict of interest — one in which the plaintiffs’ attorney could make concessions on the future revenue-sharing plans in an effort to make sure the lucrative damages agreement is completed. The attorneys argued that Wilken should deny the proposal and assign different groups of attorneys to represent the different classes of athletes involved in the case.

Steve Berman, co-lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in the settlement, said the objections were “silly.”

“This is an extraordinary settlement, something I didn’t think we’d be able to achieve when I started the case,” Berman told ESPN. “For all these Monday morning quarterbacks to come in and say that it’s not enough or it’s not perfect, it’s just misconceived. They’ve lost sight of the big picture.”

The NCAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wilken can ask questions of the formal objectors during Thursday’s hearing and raise their concerns to Berman and the other lawyers who negotiated the terms. Wilken, who has ruled on a series of major NCAA-related lawsuits in the last decade, is also free to broadly consider how the deal might impact the college sports industry moving forward.

Legal experts say it’s rare for a judge to deny preliminary approval in an antitrust settlement case. Tulane’s Feldman said the volume of objections is not unusual or surprising, especially in a case that affects such a large and disparate group. However, some antitrust experts say the proposed settlement is novel and broad enough that it might invite extra scrutiny from the judge.

Marc Edelman, a law professor at Baruch College and an expert in sports antitrust issues, said the parties are, in effect, attempting to use the settlement to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with a salary cap (like those that exist in professional sports) without input from a players’ union. Several objectors noted that antitrust law prohibits any industry-wide cap on compensation unless it’s negotiated by a formal union.

The settlement could increase athlete compensation, Edelman said, but the deal is still a cap that could violate the law. While the settlement doesn’t prevent athletes from filing future antitrust claims, the financial incentive for lawyers to pursue those cases would be drastically reduced by the settlement’s terms. Edelman said that, in practice, the deal could stymie the types of legal challenges that have been the main catalyst for most major changes to the college sports industry in the last decade.

“This is backward, not forward,” Edelman said. “Even if the settlement in many ways is an important step in the right direction, at the same time it makes it more difficult to gain further reforms while imposing a new salary cap that reasonably still violates antitrust law.”

If Wilken does grant preliminary approval, current and former Division I athletes will have a window to opt out of the deal or raise further objections before it’s finalized. Berman said the plaintiffs have asked the judge for 60 days to prepare information for athletes and another 90 days to give athletes the chance to learn about the terms and raise concerns. On that timeline, the settlement would not be finalized until February at the earliest.

The settlement states that if enough athletes opt out, the deal is no longer valid. The specific number of opt outs needed to kill the deal is redacted in public court documents.

Multiple organizations with the potential to rally large groups of athletes have publicly disapproved of the current terms of the settlement. While none has started any efforts to urge players to opt out, leaders of those organizations say they will be watching Thursday’s hearing closely and will decide their next steps based on Wilken’s ruling.

The National College Players Association, which has spearheaded an ongoing National Labor Relations Board case in Los Angeles aimed at helping some college athletes achieve the right to form unions, issued a statement last week saying the settlement could give schools legal protection to create rules that would decrease the money and scholarships currently flowing to athletes.

The organization’s founder, Ramogi Huma, said he’s concerned that the settlement would allow conferences to set limits that are more restrictive than the proposed NCAA-wide spending cap. Unlike professional sports’ collective bargaining agreements, the settlement does not mandate schools share a minimum of their revenue with athletes, which Huma says creates a ceiling for athlete pay without creating a floor. The settlement also aims to eliminate a large portion of the money that currently flows to athletes from booster-led NIL collectives, which has served as a de facto salary for players over the past several years.

When combined, Huma said, those elements could lead to athletes earning less money than they do now in the NIL-driven market.

“Our hope is that [Wilken] rejects the preliminary settlement and hits the reset button on this process where the parties can go back to the drawing board and come up with something that’s fair for players,” Huma said.

Berman said he is confident that schools will want to pay players as much money as possible to remain competitive, and that Huma’s concerns were “not grounded in the economic reality of what’s out there.”

The settlement received a vote of support from Athletes.org — another organization building a players’ association for college athletes. The organization issued a statement Wednesday saying that the deal was an “important step in the right direction” but “not the end of the road for college athletes.” The group, which says it has more than 3,000 current athlete members, says the only sustainable way forward for the college sports industry is for athletes to have a voice in a “true partnership” with their schools. Their leaders are hoping that the settlement will be a catalyst for the next stage of that process taking place on individual campuses, where athletes can have a say in the resources and benefits they receive from the school.

While the settlement terms do not prohibit athletes from collectively bargaining for more benefits if they win the right to unionize, the NCAA and its schools are lobbying Congress to write laws that would block college athletes from being employees of their school, and thus the ability to form a union. College sports leaders, including NCAA President Charlie Baker, have said they hope the settlement will convince federal lawmakers to act.

Russ White, who heads a trade association of booster collectives, said rather than filing objections to the settlement, his group has been focused on lobbying Congress against the NCAA’s requested federal law. The NCAA is also asking Congress for a limited antitrust exemption, which would give the association more power to limit how much collectives are allowed to pay athletes.

Without a new federal law, White said he thinks it will be impossible for the NCAA to enforce limits on booster spending without facing further lawsuits. White said his organization has had some conversations with player advocacy groups about organizing a large opt out from the settlement if necessary. The group currently has members from 42 schools, which gives them an open line of communication with roughly 28,000 athletes.

“We could provide access to those athletes pretty quickly if needed,” White said. “Everything is on the table, but we’re waiting to see how the judge rules and where it goes from there.”

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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