Man City Must Win at Burnley to Keep Arsenal in Title Race

Manchester City travel to Turf Moor for an 8pm BST Premier League showdown. A win would stop Arsenal from widening their lead, who have topped the table since a 2-0 victory over West Ham on 4 October.

The San Diego Padres have signed veteran right-hander Lucas Giolito, bolstering the surging club's injury-plagued rotation with the top starter left on the free agent market. syntagm.co.za

The Padres announced a one-year deal for Giolito on Wednesday with a mutual option for 2027. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

The 31-year-old Giolito is a Southern California native who went 10-4 with a 3.41 ERA over 26 starts last year for the Boston Red Sox, bouncing back solidly after missing the entire 2024 season because his right ulnar collateral ligament was repaired with an internal brace that March.

Giolito has played parts of nine seasons in the majors for Washington, the Chicago White Sox, the Los Angeles Angels and Cleveland, going 71-66, with a 4.30 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP.

He has been durable and dependable for most of his career while earning an All-Star selection in 2019 and throwing a no-hitter in 2020. Despite missing a season because of injury, he ranks in the top five among AL pitchers from 2018-25 in innings pitched (1,092), strikeouts (1,153), wins (68) and complete games (5).

But Giolito remained on the free agent market nearly one month into the regular season before landing with the Padres, who are pitching superbly this season despite major upheaval and injury problems in their rotation.

Opening day starter Nick Pivetta went on the injured list last week with a right elbow flexor strain that could keep him out for months, while Joe Musgrove has yet to make his season debut after a slower-than-expected return from Tommy John surgery. Yu Darvish already is out for the season with an elbow injury, and Dylan Cease left last fall for a $210 million free-agent deal with Toronto.

Yet the Padres' team ERA is the second lowest in the majors at 3.22 after they beat Colorado 1-0 on Tuesday night for their 11th victory in 12 games. San Diego (16-7) is even with the back-to-back champion Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in the majors.

General manager A.J. Preller figured out a way to fit Giolito under his budget even while his team is in ownership transition. The family of late Padres owner Peter Seidler is nearing a sale of the team to billionaire Jose E. Feliciano and his wife, Kwanza Jones.

Giolito will slot immediately into a rotation that currently includes Michael King, Randy Vásquez, Germán Márquez and former Dodgers star Walker Buehler. Right-hander Matt Waldron took a start last week after Pivetta's injury but struggled in a loss to the Angels.

Giolito agreed to a $38.5 million, two-year contract with Boston in January 2024. He will attempt to build on his strong work with the Red Sox in 2025, when he went 9-1 with a 2.26 ERA in 15 starts from June 10 to Aug. 31 after a slower start to the season. Opponents hit .194 (25 for 129) against his changeup and .200 (3 for 15) against his curveball.

He was left off Boston’s postseason roster after experiencing some elbow discomfort in mid-September, but there was no structural damage — something he said was “a small relief in a very unfortunate situation.”

“As it was described to me in layman’s terms, my flexor is very irritated and at this point it’s hard for me to describe,” Giolito said after Game 1 of Boston’s AL Wild Card Series against the New York Yankees. “It’s like weird stuff going on with my bone. It’s one of those things I was told you got to stop throwing and let it calm down.”

Giolito hasn't pitched in the postseason since 2021, when he made his second career playoff appearance for the White Sox.

San Diego transferred right-hander Bryan Hoeing to the 60-day disabled list to make room for Giolito on the 40-man roster.

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AP Baseball Writer Jay Cohen contributed to this report.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

The National Football League is going on offense as regulators from the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission are scrutinizing the company’s practices and media rights strategy and how sports’ shift to streaming is impacting consumers.

NFL executives Ted Ullyot, Hans Schroeder and Jeff Miller met with FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s chief of staff Greg Watson and attorney advisor Allison Howell, as well as the FCC Media Bureau’s Deputy Bureau Chief Evan Morris on April 17 to discuss its distribution approach for its live games and how it benefits fans and local broadcasters.

“Since its founding, the NFL has strived to put its fans at the center of everything we do. Nowhere is that more evident than in the NFL’s media distribution strategy, which for more than 50 years has served as a foundation and catalyst for the League’s growth and popularity,” the league wrote in a Tuesday letter. “While nothing can replace the excitement of attending a game, the vast majority of fans rely on this media distribution model to watch live games and follow the sport they love.”

The league noted that it has relied on free, over-the-air broadcast television as the primary means of distributing its games to over 200 million fans in the U.S.

“For many years, 100% of NFL games have aired on broadcast television in the home markets of the competing teams. Most of those games are distributed to a significantly broader geographic area, if not nationally,” the letter continues. “Our
contracts with ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC account for the distribution of more than 87% of all NFL games, a number that has varied little in the past two decades. This distribution model is good for our fans, for local television broadcasters, for our 32 clubs in small and large markets alike, and for the competitiveness of the game itself. The success of our fan- and broadcast-friendly strategy is evident as the 2025 season was the most viewed since 1989 and one of the most competitive in League history.”

It argued that having 32 teams negotiate their own rights deals individually would result in more viewer confusion and higher costs.

In addition to the letter, the NFL shared a presentation with the FCC detailing how traditional TV consumption has fallen from 77% in 2015 to 47% in 2025, while streaming consumption has climbed from 23% to 53% over the same period.

During that time, the number of pay TV households has fallen from 99 million to 65 million, per the presentation. Despite these trends, it noted that 86 of the top 100 TV programs in 2025 were NFL games.

According to the presentation, Amazon’s Thursday Night Football saw a 16% year over year ratings increase to 15.4 million average viewers in 2025. It notes that Prime Video has roughly 180 million subscribers. Meanwhile, CBS’ Sunday package grew 11% to 21.3 million average viewers, Fox’s Sunday package grew 6% to 19.6 million viewers, NBC’s Sunday Night Football grew 11% to 23.5 million viewers, ESPN’s Monday Night Football grew 13% to 16.5 million viewers and the NFL Network grew o.1% to 7.6 million viewers.

It also notes that Netflix has roughly 85 million subscribers in the U.S., while YouTube has roughly 255 million monthly active users in the U.S. Netflix’s NFL games averaged 23.7 million U.S. viewers in 2025, while YouTube’s averaged 18.5 million U.S. viewers.

The meeting comes as final replies for the FCC’s public comment period were due April 13.

The agency said that NFL games aired on 10 different services in 2025, which could cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch everything. It added that 20 NFL regular season games and one playoff game were nationally distributed, exclusively, on four different streaming services—Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Peacock and Netflix.

More to come…

The post NFL Defends Media Distribution Strategy Amid FCC, DOJ Scrutiny appeared first on TheWrap.

In a recent interview, Caleb Downs said that if the Giants pick him in the 2026 NFL draft, it would be a "blessed feeling"—a chance to honor his father Gary’s legacy with the team. Gary was a third‑round pick in 1994 and played two seasons for the Giants. Caleb, a top safety from Ohio State, is projected as a top‑five or top‑ten pick and hopes to add to the family tradition.