MLB extends Manfred contract, Fox TV deal LSU, Miles reach buyout settlement
ATLANTA — Baseball owners on Thursday locked down their commissioner and their main broadcast partner to longterm deals.
After wrapping up two days of meetings at a hotel next to the Atlanta Braves’ SunTrust Park, the owners announced a new contract for commissioner Rob
Manfred, keeping him on the job at least through the 2024 regular season. Manfred, 60, started a five-year term in January 2015.
The owners also signed off on a new television deal with Fox, which still has three seasons to go on its current eight-year contract that pays baseball an average of $525 million per season. The seven-year extension, which runs through 2028, will be worth just over $5 billion to MLB — roughly a 36 percent increase to an average of about $715 million per season.
The relationship with Fox, which began in 1996, will continue to include the World Series and All-Star Game, as well as extensive playoff coverage on both the network and FS1, its all-sports cable channel. The new agreement also commits Fox to showing more games from the League Championship Series on its main network, beginning in 2019. It was criticized for televising all but Game 2 in this year’s seven-game NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers on FS1. Starting next year, two of the first four games and Game 7 will be on Fox.
In other pro baseball news: • Sosuke Genda hit a three-run triple that chased starter Brian Johnson ina four-run second inning as Japan beat the MLB AllStars 4-1 at Nagoya, Japan, for its fifth win in the sixgame series.
TENNIS Federer makes ATP semifinals
Roger Federer advanced to the last four of the ATP Finals at London for a record-extending 15th time with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Kevin Anderson.
Six-time champion Federer needed only a set to advance and produced his best performance at the season-ending tournament to end the round-robin stages with a 2-1 win-loss record. Dominic Thiem’s 6-1, 6-4 victory over Kei Nishikori earlier had left Federer with a modest task and ensured that Anderson became the first South African to reach the semifinals. Anderson had not faced a break point in winning his first two matches. Federer broke him twice more in the second set to claim top spot in the group and likely avoid a semifinal meeting with top-ranked Novak Djokovic. In other news:
• The Davis Cup and the Laver Cup are getting a new team-competition companion. The men’s tennis tour said the debut of the ATP Cup will take place in January 2020, just a week before the start of the Australian Open. The announcement of the 24-team event comes three months after the International Tennis Federation said it would hold a oneweek competition for 18 nations in Madrid in November 2019. The ATP Cup will be played over 10 days in three yet-to-be-confirmed Australian cities.
GOLF Howell up by 2 in RSM Classic
Charles Howell III shot an 8-under-par 64 that gave him a two-stroke lead in the first round of the RSM Classic.
Howell, who has not won since Riviera in February 2007, played the Plantation course at Sea Island Resort at St. Simons Island, Ga., without a bogey. Defending champion
Austin Cook and J.J. Spaun also were on the Plantation course and each shot 66.
The Seaside course was more exposed to the chilly, blustery conditions. The best score there belonged to Brian Harman and
Peter Uihlein at 4-under 66.
In other news: • Amy Olson shot a 9-under 63 to take a oneshot lead over Brittany
Lincicome (64) and Nasa Hataoka (64) after the first round of the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship at Naples, Fla.
SOCCER England has easy time against U.S.
Christian Pulisic played just his second match with the U.S. national team in 13 months as the Americans failed to muster much of an attack in a 3-0 loss to England that marked Wayne Rooney’s farewell with the Three Lions. Jesse Lingard and Trent Alexander-Arnold scored in a 104-second second span midway through the first half, just after Pulisic was denied by goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, and Callum Wilson beat American goalkeeper
Brad Guzan in the 77th minute. The United States is 0-3 and has been outscored 7-0 in three matches at old and new Wembley in London.
Rooney, who joined Major League Soccer’s D.C. United in July, entered in the 58th minute in his 120th international appearance. The best chance for the 33-year-old striker came in stoppage time, when his low shot was saved by Guzan. His finished his career with an England-record 53 goals. In other news:
• The National Women’s Soccer League formally recognized the NWSL Players Association as the exclusive bargaining representative for the league’s players. The NWSLPA represents current and future players who have signed standard player agreements with the NWSL. LSU and Les Miles completed a $1.5 million lumpsum settlement that relieves the school of paying its former coach an additional $5 million through 2023.
Miles was fired four games into the 2016 season but was due a buyout of around $12.9 million at the time.
If the buyout had remained in place, Miles would have had to count his salary from a new college head-coaching job against what LSU owed him.
PRO HOCKEY Point’s 3 goals power Lightning
Brayden Point scored three consecutive powerplay goals in 1:31 — the sixth-fastest three goals in NHL history — as visiting Tampa Bay beat Pittsburgh 4-3. Bill Mosienko holds the record, scoring three times in 21 seconds for Chicago against New York in 1952. Point's 91-second burst was the secondfastest three goals since 1967-68.
In other news: • Anthony Beauvillier had three goals and an assist, and the New York Islanders held off the Rangers 7-5 keep up their recent mastery over their crosstown rival. The Isless have beaten the Rangers 12 times in their last 13 meetings.