Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte has agreed to an 11-year, $38.8 million contract extension that will keep him in Austin as one of the highest-paid executives in college sports.

Del Conte’s new deal will pay him a $2.9 million base salary this fiscal year, a number that is set to escalate to $4.25 million by 2036, the final year of the extension. Del Conte’s average annual salary under the reworked 11-year pact will amount to nearly $3.53 million, although it’s likely he could receive another raise before the new expiration date—he most recently received an extension in 2023.

Still above Del Conte, though, is Tennessee AD Danny White, whose total compensation reached $3.35 million this past fiscal year. White, the former AD at Central Florida, was hired in Knoxville in 2021 and received an extension and raise last year.

Everything Is Bigger in Texas

During the 2023–24 fiscal year, Texas had record operating expenses and revenues of $325 million and $331.9 million, respectively. That marked the first time a Division I public school reported more than $300 million in both revenues and expenses in the same year.

Texas has made the College Football Playoff semifinals each of the past two seasons and enters the 2025 season as the No. 1–ranked team in the nation. 

“The popularity of the Texas Longhorns is at an all-time high,” football coach Steve Sarkisian said last month at SEC media days.

Texas is entering its second season in the SEC, after drawing huge TV ratings and big attendance numbers during its debut campaign in the conference, which ended with a loss to Georgia in the SEC championship game.

The PGA Tour will return to Trump National Doral next season after a 10-year absence, bringing a new big-money tournament to the South Florida course owned by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Doral last hosted a PGA Tour event in 2016, but in 2026, it will be the home of the Miami Championship, set to be played April 30 to May 3. It’s likely a sponsor will be brought on and added to the tournament’s official name. The event will take place the week before LIV Golf plays its first U.S. event of its 2026 season at Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C. in Sterling, Va., on May 8–10.

The PGA Tour released its 2026 schedule Tuesday morning, confirming the addition of the Doral tournament, which will become the circuit’s ninth signature event, featuring an elevated field and $20 million purse. For the past three seasons, there have been eight signature events.

The Miami Championship is the only new tournament on the 2026 schedule. The Mexico Open, which was played in February this year, has been part of the PGA Tour since 2022, but it is no longer on the main season calendar. Several other tournaments will be played on different weeks of the year than they typically have, though. 

Trump Back With PGA Tour

When Trump was re-elected in November, many players and other PGA Tour leaders anticipated his return to the White House helping push forward negotiations with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, which financially backs LIV Golf.

“Those talks have been significantly bolstered by President Trump’s willingness to serve as a facilitator,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in March, after a meeting at the White House involving Monahan, Trump, Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

Before November’s election, Trump said he could get a PGA Tour–PIF deal done in “the better part of 15 minutes.”

However, as the golf season ends this week with the Tour Championship in Atlanta and LIV’s team championship in Detroit, the rival tours still appear to remain far apart on any sort of merger or reintegration. LIV has not released its full 2026 schedule, but it has confirmed multiple dates for events next year.

The Rockies’ march to ignominy has hit a bump in the road—in a rather positive way for the beleaguered MLB club. 

The franchise, which earlier this season was well on pace to post the worst single-season record in modern baseball history, is no longer on target for that ugly history. By winning its 36th game of the season Monday night against the Dodgers, and fourth straight overall, the Rockies are just six victories away from surpassing the win total of last year’s White Sox, the sport’s current standard-bearer for losing. 

Colorado still has nearly six weeks and 37 games left in the regular season to get that 42nd win, but the way it is now surging, it appears poised to hit that with plenty of time to spare. The Rockies are 8–9 this month, and 14–15 since the All-Star break, measures that in both instances essentially match the division-leading Dodgers.

Even as Los Angeles has begun to reassert its competitive dominance in recent days, the Rockies made a statement of their own, walking off the Dodgers on Monday with a dramatic, ninth-inning single by first baseman Warming Bernabel. The heroics gave the Rockies their first win of the season against the Dodgers. 

“You definitely see flashes,” said Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman. “We’re a super-young team. But getting that learning experience and figuring out how to win at this level, and how to do it together as a team, has been pretty cool to watch the last month or so.”

The Rockies are on pace for a 47–115 record, which would match the performance of several recent teams, such as the 2018 Orioles and 2019 Tigers, that have since rebounded to become playoff entrants. 

Still Plenty of Holes

Despite the recent on-field improvement, the Rockies still have plenty of issues. The team has by far the worst run differential in the league, more than doubling the negative margin of the next-worst team, the Nationals. There is currently little in the way of front-line talent for the Rockies, suggesting that the rebuilding effort still will be a multiyear effort. Top draft picks such as Ethan Holliday, the son of former Colorado star Matt Holliday, are likely years away from reaching the majors. A 100-loss season for the third year in a row remains quite likely. 

The Monfort family, who owns the Rockies and has generated widespread criticism for its stewardship of the team, is likely to continue into another generation. The team promoted 38-year-old Walker Monfort, son of chairman and CEO Dick Monfort, to EVP in June, and beginning in January, he will lead the club’s day-to-day business operations. Younger brother Sterling Monfort is the club’s director of professional scouting operations.

Fans, meanwhile, are still taking something of a wait-and-see attitude regarding watching the Rockies at Coors Field. The club is now down 6% in attendance at 29,312 per game, 17th in MLB. That decline has accelerated from a 1.3% drop in early June.