Keep reading to find out why. We'll close with some thoughts on the shockingly high prices being charged for transit and parking at the World Cup. Locker Room Links An ESPN version of Jeopardy! is apparently in the works, with Joe Buck likely to host.

Zachariah Branch, who will probably get drafted this weekend, was arrested for obstructing a sidewalk and obstructing a law enforcement officer. For sports bars, streaming sports is more complicated and expensive than you think. President Donald Trump apparently wants former President Teddy Roosevelt inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (a bit odd, considering Roosevelt was a critic of professionalizing sports and had more of a direct impact on the college game).

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D–Wisc.) has a plan to regulate sports broadcasts. Kansas City (the Missouri one) is prepared to spend "up to $600 million" on a new Royals stadium.

Dallas might demolish its city hall to build a new entertainment district, including a Mavericks arena. An online mob got mad at Nike for a Boston Marathon ad that said "Runners welcome. Walkers tolerated."

Nike gave in and removed the ad. Now the Justice Department is investigating MLB's streaming deals, after recently opening an investigation into the NFL's deals. "The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine" Elsewhere in Reason: "The Promise and Limits of Trump's Psychedelic Therapy Order" The Commanders added a spear in their alternate logo and people got mad: The Association on American Indian Affairs called the Commanders' logo update "disappointing and inappropriate," adding, "We are not your mascot," per @USAToday.

The team called its new alternate logo, which features a spear and interwoven "W," "a powerful joining of past and… pic.twitter.com/Q4J5sQIwiQ — Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 17, 2026 Pittsburgh's Draft Debacle If you believe the NFL and local authorities, hordes of football fans are about to descend on Pittsburgh from all over the country to spend gobs of money watching the NFL draft in person, forever altering the region's economy for the better. As many as 700,000 fans might attend, they say, with the expected economic impact well within the range of "$120 million to upwards of $213 million." (Don't worry, the draft will also result in 500 new trees planted in Allegheny County, plus "400 hanging flower baskets and 420 yellow-and-black planters" installed downtown.) If you really think all that is going to happen, then spending a measly $19 million in taxpayer dollars to bring the draft to town seems well worth it.

Pennsylvania is spending about $13 million of that, with the rest coming from county and city sources. It is mostly flowing to Pittsburgh's tourism nonprofit, VisitPittsburgh, which has vaguely said it is spending $16 million on "essential services" (according to great reporting by Mia Hollie of Pittsburgh's Public Source). The main intent of that spending is on tourist marketing, though.

The problem is that most draft attendees are not traveling from the farthest corners of the country—it's mostly locals and day-trippers. The total attendance numbers and economic projections are overly rosy too. Once you realize that, the whole facade of the draft as an economic engine worth public subsidies starts to fall.

"The overwhelming majority of visitors are local residents or day-trippers and much of their spending is likely redirected from other local entertainment or dining options rather than being economic gains for the host cities," economist E. Frank Stephenson from Berry College wrote in a paper last year. "The net gain in room rentals in the 2019-2024 host cities varies greatly from a decrease of nearly 20,000 room nights in Las Vegas to an increase of about 9,000 room nights in Nashville, but in all cases is a small fraction of the claimed number of people attending draft-related events."

That $19 million in taxpayer spending on the event is just the floor, too. "Pennsylvania State Police said they, too, are coordinating security planning, traffic tactics, risk assessments and interagency exercises, while declining to provide an estimated cost for that work, citing security reasons," writes Adam Annaccone with the University of Texas at Arlington. "That means the public cost of hosting the draft may be visible only in part."

The cost isn't just financial, but time: Authorities have spent months training and preparing for the event instead of working on other priorities. It's not just law enforcement spending time on the draft, the city is also using in-kind staff time from at least nine city departments, "including, but not limited to: Office of the Mayor; Office of Management and Budget; Innova