Y! Sports Biz: Grab an apron

[ASFN Admin]

Welcome to Wednesday! From team sales to salary cap dynamics to labor battles, there’s never been a more important time to make sense of the money in sports. Tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe!

In today’s edition: The NBA’s second apron noise, dollars from the Derby, multi-million-dollar sports cards, the Lakers’ new glue guy, MLB’s labor battle lines, and more.


Time to show you the money...


TAX PLANNING

THE NBA'S STAINED APRONS​

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(Joshua Gateley/Getty Images)


Remarkable as it may seem, a five-year deal worth $252 million can be considered a hometown discount in today’s NBA. For a player of Victor Wembanyama’s stature, however, any penny saved relative to his maximum earning power is worthy of that description.

Money on the table: Wembanyama’s extension represents the 25% maximum of the salary cap currently available to the player under the CBA. However, were Wembanyama to be named MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, or All-NBA next season (likely, if he remains healthy), he would become eligible for a higher 30% “super max” contract.

• In this type of scenario, an extension would typically incorporate escalators to ensure the player is paid commensurately.
• Wembanyama, however, abstained from demanding those escalators, instead prioritizing the Spurs’ ability to remain competitive as his star teammates become eligible for extensions of their own.
• Based on current salary cap projections, the concession means Wembanyama will leave approximately $50 million on the table over the life of the contract.

Apron evasion: Wembanyama’s decision reflects the realities of the NBA’s current luxury tax system, where exceeding certain payroll levels is treated so punitively that star-laden teams are forced to disband within a few seasons. The system, designed to increase parity, has made long-term roster construction more complicated than ever. Most threatening are the penalties for surpassing the second luxury tax apron, set this season at $221.7 million, which decimates roster-building flexibility.

• Among the second-apron penalties: Teams have no access to the midlevel exception; their first-round picks are frozen from being traded starting seven years out; they cannot use existing trade exceptions; they cannot use cash in trades; and they cannot aggregate salaries in trades. Teams that have operated above the second apron for three of the last five years have their first round pick moved to the end of the round.
• Those penalties are layered on top of first-apron penalties, which eliminate sign-and-trades and reduce the ability to take back salary in trades.
• Being a repeat payer of luxury taxes incurs harsh financial penalties. If a team has been a taxpayer in three of the previous four seasons, every dollar of payroll spent over the luxury tax is penalized with $3 in taxes, versus $1 for non-repeaters, and those numbers escalate with the size of the excess spend.

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Unaffordable luxury: Under this system, the penalties — both financial and sporting — are too harsh to endure for an extended period. A roster of stars will operate on borrowed time, attempting to maximize the results of their window before the inevitable breakup. That demolition ensures an escape from the repeater tax before the team can spend heavily again.

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It’s not you, it’s the second apron: These dynamics will force teams into unpopular decisions. The Celtics are the first team to incur the apron’s wrath, having begun the teardown last offseason. By shedding $46 million in payroll relative to what their 2024-25 roster would’ve cost, escaping the luxury tax in the process, the Celtics saved over $325 million, per an analysis from Third Apron.

• “The second apron’s why those trades happened. I think that those are pretty obvious. The basketball penalties associated with those are real,” Brad Stevens said of the 2025 offseason trades. “I’m not sure I understood how real until they were staring me in the face.”
• But even with that great escape, the Celtics’ reckoning with future second-apron encounters continued, as the team elected to trade Jaylen Brown rather than navigate extensions that would see Brown and Tatum combine to account for 70% of the salary cap.

What they’re saying: Wembanyama’s concession is the latest episode to raise the ire of the NBAPA toward the current system, with star players shouldering the burden of sacrifice to ensure competitiveness.

• "If you get drafted to a team and you make these benchmarks, All-NBA, whatever the case may be, and that takes you to a certain percentage of the cap, it ends up being a perception of a negative,” said NBPA President Fred VanVleet.
• “It should not put a player in a position where he has to carry the burden in order to keep a team together,” offered NBAPA Executive Director David Kelly, speaking at his introductory press conference before the Wembanyama news was announced. “A system that does that — we have a problem.”

Quick fix? In explaining the Brown trade, Brad Stevens offered a potential solution to the NBA’s new reality, where even teams that successfully draft and develop stars are forced to jettison those homegrown players to avoid penalty: “We may not be sitting here if there was a rule in the CBA that said guys you drafted and signed to 35% supermaxes count 25% against the cap, because that would allow you to build out toward the aprons with a lot more flexibility.”

Bottom line: In today’s NBA, basketball decisions and financial decisions are one and the same. Even at H&R Block, they don’t talk about taxes this much. Roster breakups are inevitable, and in most cases, they will not be the result of ownership frugality, but instead an effort to reset the clock in the renewed pursuit of on-court success. Tick tock, San Antonio.


DOLLARS FOR DINGERS

PRICE TAGS: DERBY EDITION​

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(Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)


$1,000,000

For Monday’s Home Run Derby triumph, Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker won the $1 million prize, which is more money than Walker will make via salary this season. Playing in his last year before arbitration, Walker is making $799,400, though a multi-year extension will likely amount to a nine-figure total. He currently leads the league in RBIs with 74 and sits 10th with 22 home runs.

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(Chris Graythen/Getty Images)


$500,000

Hometown favorite Kyle Schwarber earned $500,000 for his runner-up performance. With an average annual contract value of $30 million in his newly signed contract with the Phillies, the Derby bonus is equivalent to about $1,070 for the median American. Not nothin’ for a few rounds of glorified batting practice! The rest of the Derby participants made $150,000 apiece.

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(Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)


$100,000

For hitting the night’s longest blast, a gargantuan 491-foot shot to left-center field, Rays slugger Junior Caminero took home a $100,000 bonus. The blast, however, fell short of both the Derby record (520 feet) and the non-Coors-Field Derby record (513 feet).


CARD CURRENCY

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: SEVEN-FIGURE SPORTS CARD​

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(Chris Hondros/Newsmakers via Getty Images)


On Tuesday, Fanatics Collect announced that it brokered a $3,365,000 private sale of Shohei Ohtani’s 2018 Bowman Chrome Superfractor. The sale is the most expensive in history for an Ohtani card, and it’s the second multi-million-dollar Ohtani sale in the last month. The record price came just one day before a very fitting anniversary.

On this day in 2000, the first million-dollar sports card was sold, as a T206 Honus Wagner card reached a $1.265 million sale price in an eBay auction. That card, previously owned by Wayne Gretzky, had sold in 1996 for $640,500, a record at the time. It was also believed to be the first card ever graded by industry giant PSA, bearing the serial number "00000001."

Scandal ensues: In October 2013, Bill Mastro, another of the card’s prior owners and CEO of Mastro Auctions, pleaded guilty to mail fraud, admitting that he had trimmed the card to improve its appearance. The card was last purchased by supercollector Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who bought it for a reported $2.8 million in 2007.

Fast forward: While seven-figure territory used to be familiar grounds for only T206 Wagners and 1952 Topps Mantles, million-dollar sports card sales are now commonplace.

• According to data from CardLadder, a card sales database, there have been 24 sports card sales exceeding $1 million to date in 2026. The Ohtani sale makes 25. That’s a pace of one roughly every week and a half.
• The market is on pace to tally 41 sports card sales exceeding $1 million in 2026, as many as were recorded in 2025 (26), 2024 (6), and 2023 (9) combined. It would also put 2026 on par with the 2021 (42) and 2022 (41) boom years, reflecting a market that has recovered from the bust that followed the euphoria.

Cultural currency: The prevalence of high-priced sports cards reflects the growing status of sports collectibles as assets of cultural resonance, with their physical scarcity increasing their appeal in an era of digital abundance.

• That appeal has captured the attention of deep-pocketed individuals and institutions alike, who recognize the financial merits of owning these assets.
• The retraction of the OG Anunoby ball from a recent Sotheby’s auction is evidence that leagues and teams themselves are waking up to the value of these artifacts, whether purely historical or financial. No further Knicks memorabilia has appeared in subsequent auction events.

Proceed with caution: While the card market is once again soaring, driven by the headline sale prices of its most celebrated assets, the lessons from just a few years prior bear heeding. A downturn in the card market coincided closely with inflation-driven consumer malaise and the ensuing Fed rate-hiking cycle.

• The precipitous drop in values was most pronounced in ultra-modern cards (think: active players), with CardLadder’s Ultra Modern index falling 52% from its April 2022 peak to its December 2024 trough as rampant speculative activity receded.
• The peak-to-trough declines in the Pre-War Vintage (pre-1945) and Vintage (1946-1983) indices were much more modest, at 14% and 22%, respectively.

Rings true: For those still incredulous at pieces of cardboard selling for seven-figure prices, the words of Brian Siegel in 2000, after buying that first million-dollar Honus, are just as relevant today as they were then: “The fact is, this is the value of the card. It just sold at auction; everybody knew about it. The value of something is how much people are willing to pay for it.”

Bottom line: People’s willingness to pay for the market’s most coveted sports cards appears to be rising daily.


ICYMI

LIGHTNING ROUND​

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Leonard, Clippers investigation expanded: The scope of the NBA’s investigation into Kawhi Leonard’s Aspiration endorsement and the associated cap circumvention allegations has expanded, according to The Athletic. Wachtell Lipton, conducting the inquiry, has reportedly examined whether Leonard had expenses improperly covered by the team and whether he engaged in a previously unreported endorsement deal. Adam Silver is hopeful the investigation will be concluded this summer.

Open Championship reveals lowest purse among majors: The Open Championship announced Tuesday that this year’s tournament will feature a $17.75 million prize purse. While that’s up from last year’s $17 million, it trails the Masters and US Open by $4.75 million and the PGA Championship by $2.75 million. The shortfall is unlikely to dampen players’ desire to raise the Claret Jug.

Charlotte FC drops PSLs: In a rare about-face, Charlotte FC is eliminating its personal seat licenses for season tickets and will credit previously made PSL payments toward future season-ticket renewals. The decision comes amid declining attendance in recent seasons and represents part of an effort to reinvigorate interest after the World Cup. Sports Business Journal reports the credits could cost the team $8.5 million in season ticket revenue.

Bundesliga agrees new U.S. media rights deal: The Bundesliga has inked a new U.S. media rights deal with USA Network and Fandango (yes, Fandango*), as first reported by The Athletic. The deal will pay a reported $100 million over five years, with the annual value dipping from $30 million with ESPN to $20 million with the Versant-owned properties. At least 30 games will appear on USA Network, which already airs Premier League matches.


*It’s not hard to imagine a world where a satirical version of Y! Sports Biz wrote this headline. But, no. It’s real. It’s spectacular. It’s Fandango. If you need to buy movie tickets to The Odyssey — which, by the way, sponsored Erling Haaland’s YouTube World Cup diaries — you know where to go: the U.S. home of the Bundesliga! If you connect enough dots, you inevitably arrive at a sports business story.


See what else is trending on the Yahoo Sports Business Hub.


CBA WIZ

DREAM JOB: THE BRAINS BEHIND THE LAKESHOW​

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(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)


The NBA CBA is a complex beast, and conquering it — or at least avoiding being conquered — requires an army of minds well-versed in the legal, financial, and strategic ramifications of the sport’s bible.

Just posted: The Lakers are seeking one such mind, their Executive Director of Strategic Capabilities. While that’s among the vaguest titles in showbiz, a look under the purple-and-gold hood reveals that this individual is tasked with being the best organizational glue guy since Mark Madsen roamed the end of the bench at the Staples Center.

Many hats: Not only must the ED of Strategic Capabilities be strategically capable. They also need to equip the front office with the necessary tools, information, and data to build a winning roster. Among the most interesting job responsibilities:

• Translate complex NBA salary cap rules, collective bargaining agreement (CBA) provisions, legal considerations, and player contract structures into practical strategic frameworks and technology solutions.
• Partner closely with the Data Systems Development team to design and deliver technology solutions that support roster construction, trade analysis, contract modeling, salary cap planning, and transaction management.
• Initiate, develop, and oversee complex salary cap strategy projects that build scalable systems supporting contract evaluation, trade simulations, free agency planning, and long-term roster management.
• Monitor evolving NBA rules, CBA interpretations, and league trends, proactively incorporating changes into organizational strategy and supporting technologies.

Why is this necessary? When teams lack a firm handle on the complexities of league rules, things can go wrong to costly effect. Heck, it might have happened a few days ago.

• The Pelicans signed DeAndre Jordan to a two-year, $7.9 million deal, a sum that represents the veteran’s minimum for a player of Jordan’s tenure. When a player’s minimum exceeds that of a player with two years of service, the NBA pays the difference, and the excess does not count against the cap. This ensures that the higher pay owed to veterans doesn’t disincentivize teams from signing them.
• One problem: That reimbursement only applies to one-year deals. Perhaps other suitors made the second year a necessity. If not, though, an unforced error cost the Pelicans $3 million, in which case the team sure could use an Executive Director of Strategic Capabilities.

Polish those resumes: The required qualifications for this role are stringent, demanding a minimum of seven years of experience with the NBA’s CBA, salary cap rules, player contracts, and roster construction strategies. We must ask: Does extensive practice with the NBA Trade Machine count as experience in those fields? How about NBA 2K MyGM mode? No? Got it.

Secure the bag: The lucky, qualified candidate will secure compensation between $300,000 and $330,000 annually. That’s a little less than half of what the Mad Dog made for taking the early 2000s Lakers to the promised land. Or 0.63% of Luka Doncic’s 2026-27 salary. We prefer the Madsen comparison, too.


️ WAR OF WORDS

BASEBALL DRAWS ITS BATTLE LINES​

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(Henry Russell/Yahoo Sports)


The MLB All-Star Game is meant to be a celebration of baseball, uniting the league to rejoice in the successes of America’s pastime. Instead, separate Tuesday media sessions with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and interim MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer more closely resembled promos for the heavyweight labor fight that hangs over the season.

Meyer, on the contradiction between MLB’s healthy momentum and its insistence that the league’s competitive balance is askew:"The league, these supposed stewards of the game, have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince those same fans that they don't have hope, or they shouldn't have hope, or that the product that they're paying to consume in record numbers is somehow broken.”

Manfred, on salary cap support from disillusioned fans: "I think that we need a system where fans, particularly in smaller markets, can have some hope that the players that are signed and developed by the organizations can actually stay there through free agency.”

Tale of the tape: Both sides laud the unbelievable momentum in the business. Unfortunately, that’s where the common ground begins, and that’s where it ends. One side believes the sport doesn’t need radical fixes. The other insists on improving competitive balance, positioning itself as the voice of the fans. Though it all, both extol the undying unity of their ranks against and for a salary cap, respectively.

Payoff pitch: The distance between the sides is chasmic, but perhaps they can find unity in one troublesome truth: The surest way to halt the league’s momentum is with a lockout.

Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports: MLB, MLBPA draw battle lines in CBA fight.


LET'S PLAY

OVER/UNDER: NETFLIX'S TICKET TO THE BALLGAME​

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(Lisa Lake/Getty Images for Netflix)


Netflix aired its first Home Run Derby on Monday night, as part of a deal inked with MLB in November granting them exclusive rights to that event, Opening Night, and an annual special event game (this year, it’s the Field of Dreams game).

Question: Is the reported annual cost of that deal over or under $70 million?

Answer at the bottom…


COUNTERFEIT KITS

THREE LIONS ON A (FAKE) SHIRT​

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(City of Edinburgh Council)


Authorities in Edinburgh seized more than 58,000 counterfeit football kits yesterday, amounting to £5.5 million (almost $7.4 million) in goods. In total, the seized shirts weighed over nine tonnes, or nearly 20,000 pounds. Fan gear’s counterfeiting problem is serious, and it appears to be growing…

They’re not comin’ home: English and Scottish kits represented the lion’s share of the shirts, and the available supply of Harry Kane jerseys just got a whole lot lighter (figuratively and literally) the day before the Three Lions could claim their spot in the World Cup Final.


Over/Under Answer: Under!

The three-year deal is worth a reported $150 million, or an annual average of $50 million. It demonstrates Netflix’s continued exploration of the live sports landscape primarily through big events, rather than full-season rights purchases.


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