Fixture friction

Happy Wednesday! The Premier League season is already a month old, and we’ve already seen some movement in the odds. But that’s nothing compared to movement in the schedule itself: New research finds that more than 40% of EPL matches over the past five seasons were ultimately played on a different date than originally published (with broadcasters increasingly driving the movement). We’ll dig into who gets moved, why it matters and how teams cope, below. Plus, MLB may be headed for its first-ever sub-.500 division champion, and the WNBA is showing us how even an “embarrassing” loss can be a win. Here’s what we’re watching out for in the sports world today:

The Main Events

All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game

Football:
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: Rams 15% to win NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Texas/Notre Dame 15% to win national title

MLB:
⚾ Rays (42%) at Yankees (58%) - 7:05 p.m. (YES/TBS)
⚾ Brewers (57%) at Phillies (43%) - 6:40 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ Astros (44%) at Mariners (56%) - 10:10 p.m. (MLB.tv)
⚾ Padres (33%) at Dodgers (67%) - 10:10 p.m. (TBS/SportsNet LA)
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Dodgers 31% to win

WNBA:
🏀 Dream (44%) at Liberty (56%) - 8 p.m. (USA Network)
🏀 Wings (83%) at Storm (17%) - 10 p.m. (USA Network)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Lynx 42% to win 

Soccer:
⚽ Women's Champions League: FC Barcelona (96%) vs. Paris FC (3%) - 3 p.m. (ESPN Deportes/Paramount+)
⚽ MLS: Real Salt Lake (54%) at Seattle Sounders FC (23%) - 9:30 p.m. (Apple TV - MLS Season Pass)
⚽🏆 Champions League title check-in: FC Barcelona 25% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 50% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Vancouver Whitecaps FC 24% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Gotham FC 28% to win

Golf:
⛳ Presidents Cup (Medinah Country Club) - Official practice rounds - All Day (Golf Channel) - Team USA 82% to win

Schedule games

The 2026-27 Premier League season has been off and running for about a month now, and we’ve already seen some eyebrow-raising results — starting with Hull City shocking Manchester United 2-0 in one of the opening matches, and including more recent results such as Brighton routing defending champion Arsenal 3-0 and Brentford dismantling Chelsea by the same score just this past week. Meanwhile, a strong 5-0-0 start has Manchester City’s title odds double what they were on the eve of the season:

We know all of these trends will take on plenty more twists and turns by the end of the season next May. But I recently came across a fascinating piece of research, by Sandeep Rai of Columbia University, that shows just now many twists and turns the schedule itself will also take.

Rai studied the past 5 completed EPL seasons, looking at how the fixtures end up shifting around from the provisional list of matches released before the season. He found that 786 of 1,900 matches (or 41.4%) were played on a different date than was initially published, with an increasing number moving around due to broadcaster preferences (rather than other disruptions).

That movement is also unevenly distributed, with a focus on the traditional “Big Six” clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham) being shifted into more TV-favorable slots more often. Man U., for instance, averaged 21.4 fixtures moved off of their originally-published date per season and Spurs 21.2, versus 12.6 for Brentford and 12.4 for Wolverhampton. In individual seasons, the most-moved club could have 3-4x as many displaced fixtures as the least-moved club.

In terms of match-level consequences, it’s important to note that Rai did not find any effect whereby these changes caused team results to significantly differ from what the oddsmakers already expected. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t bigger-picture ways these scheduling shifts affect the season overall.

When forced to play on less rest due to scheduling shake-ups, teams respond by rotating their Starting XI more and more — and as we might expect, these changes also trend toward using less established players. On 3 days of rest or fewer, teams changed an average of 2.61 starters, and 29.2% of those teams’ games featured 4 or more lineup changes, versus just 15.3% on 5-7 days of rest.

So what does this mean for the Premier League? Well, it’s not quite “rigged”, if that’s what you were thinking — but it is true that more and more of the schedule is being dictated according to commercial preferences, rather than competitive integrity, and that those changes do have some tangible, cumulative effect on which players teams use in which situations.

Not all divisions are created equal

As we were breaking down the last week of MLB pennant-chase action yesterday, I made a passing allusion to the AL West potentially producing the worst division-champ in history — and, well, let’s dig into that a little more. After the Texas Rangers lost to the Mets (while the Houston Astros beat Seattle) on Tuesday, the two division candidates are tied with identical 78-79 records heading into today’s action. There has never been a division champion with a record worse than the 2005 Padres’ 82-80 mark, but according to the Elo rating simulations, there is now a 92% chance the AL West champ will match that ignominious record, a 61% chance it will be the first .500 (or worse) division champ ever, and a very real 21% chance that it becomes the first champ with a losing record. (Compare that with the NL Central, whose Brewers have a 34% chance to win at least 102 games, or 21 more than the AL West champ is likely to have.)

What else we’re reading

Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.

🏈 “Hoppen to Conclusions Week 3: NFL Trends & Performance” by Sam Hoppen
🏒 “Stanley Cup contender tiers: Where do all 32 NHL teams fit in?” by me
🏈 “Ernie Accorsi (1941–2026) and the Making of the Modern NFL” by Michael Weinreb
⚽ “Mbappé Joined On. Two Days Later, He Was Back in Nikes” by David Skilling
🏒 “Who Really Has Control...the Players or the NHL GMs?” by Jim Parsons
⚾ “The Rays Just Set a Uniform-Related Record” by Paul Lukas

Next on deck…

Thursday (9/24)
🏈 NFL: Falcons at Packers
⚾ MLB: Padres at Dodgers
🏀 WNBA: Fever at Lynx
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Netherlands vs. Germany
🏈 CFB: Liberty at Coastal Carolina
⛳ Golf: Presidents Cup - Round 1 (Medinah Country Club)

Friday (9/25)
🏈 CFB: Clemson at Cal
⚾ MLB: Dodgers at Giants
⚾ MLB: Orioles at Yankees
🏀 WNBA: No games. (Off day before playoffs start Sunday, 9/27)
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Italy vs. Belgium
⛳ Golf: Presidents Cup - Round 2 (Medinah Country Club)

Saturday (9/26)
🏈 CFB: Texas at Tennessee
⚾ MLB: Rays at Phillies - 2008 World Series rematch :-)
🏀 WNBA: No games. (Off day before playoffs start Sunday, 9/27)
⚽ Soccer: USMNT vs. Peru
⛳ Golf: Presidents Cup - Rounds 3/4 (Medinah Country Club)
🥊 UFC Fight Night: Rosas Jr. vs. Barcelos