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Morning Edition

September 17, 2025

Last week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he had never heard of Aspiration, the company at the center of a controversy around Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers, and accusations of salary-cap circumvention. At our Tuesday Tuned In summit, Silver said something different: “If I said I never heard of it, I meant in the context of the accusations here. I mean, I certainly was aware of the brand.” We break down the complexities, as well as a few other big stories that broke Tuesday.

— Colin Salao [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]], and Eric Fisher [[link removed]]

Adam Silver Walks Back Claim He’d Never Heard of Aspiration [[link removed]]

Jeremy O'Brien/Front Office Sports

One week after NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he had never heard of Aspiration, the commissioner appears to have changed his tune.

“If I said I never heard of it, I meant in the context of the accusations here. I mean, I certainly was aware of the brand,” Silver said Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit.

Aspiration, a bankrupt financial sustainability company, is tied to an ongoing investigation by the NBA surrounding potential salary-cap circumvention by the Clippers. The podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out published an investigative report two weeks ago that alleged Aspiration paid $28 million [[link removed]] to Clippers star Kawhi Leonard.

At a press conference following an NBA Board of Governors meeting Sept. 10, Silver mentioned he had not heard of Aspiration when answering several questions about the investigation.

“When the podcast came out, it was news to me,” Silver said. “I’d frankly never heard of the company Aspiration before. And I’d never heard a whiff of anything around an endorsement deal with Kawhi, or anything around engagement with the Los Angeles Clippers. So it was all new to me.”

Silver admitted Tuesday that Torre’s podcast was the first time he had heard of any potential cap circumvention surrounding the Clippers and Aspiration. He added that additional media coverage from Torre and other outlets are part of the investigation, but that the league takes it at “face value.”

“I’m a lawyer. I believe in due process. I believe in fairness. We will be thorough, but we will begin with a presumption of innocence, not a presumption of guilt, which is what I keep reading about. Then we will follow the facts,” Silver said.

He said that there is no new information about the progress of the investigation, but reiterated that the league is throwing all its resources at it.

“We will get to the bottom of this,” Silver said.

The NBA has hired an outside law firm to lead its ongoing investigation. Silver said that regardless of the outcome, the league is expected to review its internal process in evaluating similar deals.

“When this concludes, we’ll take a fresh look at our rules in terms of companies that players are investing in and owners. We have rules now. We have lines. But there’s not a complete prohibition,” Silver said.

SECOND ACTS LIVE

Sue Bird’s Career and Second Acts

From Long Island to UConn to four WNBA titles with the Seattle Storm, Sue Bird’s story has always been one of resilience, reinvention, and rewriting what’s possible in sports. A torn ACL nearly ended her career before it began—but Sue came back stronger, cementing her place as one of the greatest point guards in basketball history.

When she retired in 2022, the question became: What’s next? Instead of fading away, Sue has built a new chapter—cofounding TOGETHXR, launching A Touch More with Megan Rapinoe, and stepping into team ownership with Gotham FC and the Storm. Now, as managing director of USA Basketball’s women’s national team, she’s shaping the future she once played for.

On Sept. 30 at McCaw Hall in Seattle, Sue brings this journey to the stage in the inaugural Second Acts Live. Learn more about the Seattle show and purchase tickets here [[link removed]].

Rob Manfred Says Any Talk of MLB Salary Cap Is Premature [[link removed]]

Bill Streicher/Imagn Images

One issue hangs over all others in determining the future of baseball: a possible salary cap. MLB is by far the biggest American sports league without one, and players would like to keep it that way.

Owners would not.

Tensions on the topic boiled over this summer, when Phillies star Bryce Harper told league commissioner Rob Manfred that he should “get the fuck out of our clubhouse” [[link removed]] rather than discuss a potential capped system.

Manfred did not get out, and the battle has continued. Bruce Meyer, the deputy executive director of the players’ union, said in July [[link removed]] that owners were pushing for a cap. “The league and some of the individual owners have made no secret that they would like to see a system that they tried to get for 50 years, which is a salary-cap system.”

Manfred—who has carefully avoided using the phrase “salary cap” in public—tried to downplay the fight Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In media summit in New York.

“The best I can tell you is what’s out there right now is noise,” Manfred told FOS reporter Eric Fisher in an onstage interview. “No decisions have been made by ownership as to strategy, actual content of what we’re going to propose. We’re a year away.”

MLB’s collective bargaining agreement with players expires after the 2026 season, and Manfred’s public comments marked a slightly more conciliatory approach than he’s taken in the past. Owners locked out the players during the last CBA negotiations, which slightly delayed the 2022 season, and he has all but said he welcomes another lockout next winter.

“The great thing about offseason lockouts is the leverage that exists gets applied between the bargaining parties,” Manfred told The Athletic [[link removed]] in January, enraging the players’ union.

Tuesday, he did not say “salary cap” or “lockout,” instead saying the focus should be on the exciting buildup to the playoffs.

“There’s a lot of time. A lot of water’s going to go over the dam before anybody can tell you what’s going to happen with labor,” he told Fisher. “We do believe the sport has great momentum right now,” he said, citing rule changes and increased attendance. “We’d like to keep that momentum going.”

A’s, Rays, and Expansion

Manfred also touched on several other key topics in the business of baseball. He spoke extensively about the league’s ongoing media-rights negotiations [[link removed]], and he touched on the A’s saga and recent Rays sale.

The commissioner said “there’s no way” he would be in office to see two new expansion teams take the field, though he would like to select the cities [[link removed]] that the league ultimately expands to.

Manfred also said he “never had one second’s doubt” that John Fisher and the A’s would end up completing their move from Oakland to Sacramento to Las Vegas; the A’s are scheduled to play in Sacramento again next year. The team held a groundbreaking in Nevada this summer.

The Rays are set to be sold for $1.7 billion to developer Patrick Zalupski, and Manfred said that with new owners [[link removed]], “You have to assume it’s a clean slate.” The comments are notable as the previous Rays owners had extensive and often acrimonious negotiations with local government about where a new stadium would possibly be located.

Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl Rematch Sets Early NFL TV Ratings Mark [[link removed]]

Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

It wasn’t a Super Bowl–type audience for Sunday’s high-profile Eagles-Chiefs game, but the Super Bowl LIX rematch on Fox nonetheless posted by far the largest audience of the young 2025 NFL season.

The network said late Tuesday that it averaged 33.8 million viewers for the Philadelphia–Kansas City matchup, easily setting a new standard for the most-watched game through the first two weeks of the season and representing the most-watched Week 2 NFL game in league history.

That figure also surpassed the 28.3 million viewers who tuned in Sept. 4 on NBC for the league’s kickoff game [[link removed]] between the Cowboys and Eagles. That audience could have been higher, but the game was disrupted by a 65-minute weather delay.

As with nearly all other NFL games this season, the robust total owes in part to Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel audience measurement process [[link removed]]. That methodology, bringing in millions of additional data points from set-top boxes and smart TVs, is designed to provide a fuller view of audience behaviors and capture more of the content consumption that is already occurring.

The one NFL game that did not use Big Data + Panel— YouTube’s Sept. 5 game from Brazil [[link removed]] between the Chiefs and Chargers—continues to draw sharp criticism from other network leaders.

“Just like YouTube, we will continue to revise those numbers up until we can no longer revise them anymore,” Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks joked Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit, referring to the streamer’s recent and hotly debated adjustment of its NFL audience.

Other superlatives from the Eagles-Chiefs game include the most-watched telecast of any kind in U.S. television since the record-setting Super Bowl LIX in February [[link removed]] and Fox’s best-ever regular-season Sunday telecast.

The Chiefs, meanwhile, will have their status as the NFL’s most-watched team tested in the coming weeks [[link removed]] after falling Sunday to 0–2, representing the team’s worst start in 11 years.

Amazon Sports Chief Says NBA, WNBA Coverage Should Be Celebratory [[link removed]]

Jeremy O'Brien-Front Office Sports

As Amazon begins its new media-rights deal [[link removed]] with the NBA, the streamer hopes its coverage of the league, as well as the WNBA, leans in to positive storylines instead of more controversial topics that often engulf social media.

“Our approach is really twofold. It’s to celebrate and educate,” Jay Marine, head of Prime Video for U.S. and global sports, said Tuesday at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York.

“Celebrate the game, celebrate how great these players are,” he said. “The modern player in the NBA—the skill level up and down the bench—is incredible. Sometimes there’s too much weird negativity out there, when really, we should be celebrating how good these guys are. And that’s true, by the way, with the WNBA as well.”

Marine admits it’s hard to ignore negative discussions around the NBA on X (formerly Twitter). “Maybe it’s just part of Twitter,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s part of the world we live in. As things evolve, there’s always the nostalgia of the way things were—we’re all guilty of that at some time, and possibly the rapid-fire nature of Twitter, and just the media landscape these days, is part of that. But that’s not really our approach.”

Marine isn’t the only sports media executive focused on positive framing. “We do view ourselves as kind of the unpaid marketing arm for all of our [league] partners,” Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks said at Tuned In. “So we use our best judgment for what we think can make their sports more popular.”

In addition to Amazon focusing on celebrating the NBA and WNBA, the streamer will use technology to bolster its broadcasts like it has done with AI enhancements around its Thursday Night Football NFL package.

“I think it’s easy just to throw stats on a screen. That’s not that hopeful,” Marine said. “The real magic is when you can pull insights that you could never pull before but then be able to explain them easily and quickly because the game is so fast-paced.”

Conversation Starters MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says he hopes to pick future expansion cities [[link removed]]—from candidates such as Nashville, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Charlotte—before his tenure ends. Father-son duo Ian and Noah Eagle will team up to broadcast [[link removed]] Netflix’s first-ever slate of NFL Christmas Day games. Molly Qerim, longtime host of First Take and an ESPN veteran since 2006, will depart the network [[link removed]] at year’s end, according to Sports Business Journal. Editors’ Picks Amazon Says It Wants to Broadcast a Super Bowl [[link removed]]by Andrew Goodrich [[link removed]]Jay Marine says he is “optimistic” about airing the Big Game. Manfred Says New MLB Rights Deal ‘Replicated’ Money From ESPN Opt-Out [[link removed]]by Colin Salao [[link removed]]Rob Manfred spoke at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit. The Eagles Play Christmas Day for NFL on Netflix [[link removed]]by Michael McCarthy [[link removed]]The father-son duo will call the Christmas Day doubleheader again. Question of the Day

Do you think MLB will push for a salary cap next year?

YES [[link removed]] NO [[link removed]]

Tuesday’s result: 15% of respondents watched more WNBA games this year compared to 2024. 43% watched fewer. 42% watched about the same.

Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Shows [[link removed]] Written by Colin Salao [[link removed]], Dennis Young [[link removed]], Eric Fisher [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Or Moyal [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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