⚾️ The Company Quietly Ruining the World Baseball Classic

Sponsored by

I recently posted this tweet to my Instagram story, and I’m not sure I’ve ever received such a passionate response from anything I’ve done.

I’ll give you my definitive ranking at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: What the Hell is Going on with the Chicago Bears?

📉 Biggest Loser: The Company Quietly Ruining the World Baseball Classic

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Why are the Seattle Seahawks Suddenly Up for Sale?

How Jennifer Anniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Anniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

🗞 The Big Story

What the hell is going on with the Chicago Bears?

Because less than two months after one of the most exciting seasons in franchise history, the person who Caleb Williams described as “the brains” of their offense, suddenly retired in the prime of his career, but the reason why is probably a lot more complicated than you might think.

Quarterback of the Offensive Line: Meet Drew Dalman, a 27-year-old center out of Stanford who was drafted in the fourth round of the 2021 NFL Draft by the Atlanta Falcons before signing a 3-year, $42 million deal with the Bears ahead of last season. Now, even though you might not have heard of Dalman before this week, his importance to the Chicago Bears’ last season can’t be overstated.

Not only did he earn himself a spot in the Pro Bowl after allowing just one sack and playing every single snap of the 2025 season, but head coach Ben Johnson called him “the quarterback” of an offensive line that helped lead the Bears to an NFC-best 2,456 regular-season rushing yards. In fact, even after the season ended, Dalman gave no indication that he was even thinking about retirement, saying “we” when talking about things like the team’s “trajectory” and “next year.”

Shocking Announcement: But then, out of nowhere, it was reported that Dalman was going to retire, and walk away from the game in the prime of his career with $24 million left on his contract.

But why make this decision now?

Well, one reason might be the mounting scientific evidence showing that over 90% of post-mortem brains of former NFL players contain CTE; however, I’d argue that Drew Dalman’s decision might be a bit more personal.

Family Matter: This is Chris Dalman, Drew’s dad, who was also a Stanford-grad turned NFL offensive lineman and played for the San Francisco 49ers from 1993-1999.

However, unlike his son, who retired under his own power, Chris Dalman was forced to hang it up at just 29 years old after suffering a neck injury during training camp in 2000 that left him temporarily paralyzed.

Now, it’s worth noting that Drew Dalman himself actually has yet to address why he chose to retire so young, but after learning more about his family, I can hardly blame him.

📉 Biggest Loser

The World Baseball Classic has a massive problem right now, and it’s all thanks to a company that you’ve definitely never heard of; let’s break it down.

Missing Talent: Even though 337 MLB players are set to represent their countries this month, for some reason, there are several star players who quietly won’t be participating in this year’s tournament, including:

• Francisco Lindor (Puerto Rico)

• Carlos Correa (Puerto Rico)

• Javier Báez (Puerto Rico)

• José Altuve (Venezuela)

• José Alvarado (Venezuela)

• Mike Trout (USA)

But why?

Well, it’s not because they don’t want to play or even because of injury. In fact, all six of these guys are healthy enough to suit up for MLB Opening Day in three weeks.

Instead, the reason some of the best baseball players in the world aren’t allowed to represent their home countries at the sport’s most exciting tournament is because of a company called NFP.

Selling the WBC: Credit to Baseball Doesn’t Exist for this scoop, but when the World Baseball Classic was launched by Major League Baseball in 2006, both owners and players were worried about getting injured right before the start of the regular season

So, as a way of convincing both parties to let star players participate, MLB agreed to cover 100% of a player’s salary if they got injured during the tournament. With position players getting two years of coverage, and pitchers getting four years. The only problem is, this year it’s estimated that the combined contract value of all 337 players participating is over $1 billion, which is cash MLB clearly doesn’t just have lying around.

That’s why, when they launched the WBC, they bought insurance on their players’ salaries from a company called National Financial Partners (NFP).

Insult to Injury: Now, salary insurance works just like your car insurance, meaning Major League Baseball pays NFP about $10-$20 million per World Baseball Classic, and in return, the insurance company is the one on the hook for paying out 100% of a player’s salary if they get hurt.

But this is where the problem starts to arise.

Since the insurance company is technically the one paying the player’s salary, they get to set the rules for which players get coverage and which players don’t. And as salaries continue to rise, NFP is becoming more strict about which players it chooses to cover.

For example, this year, any player who:

• Was on the ‘Injured List’ in August or September of last season

• Has had multiple surgeries over the course of their career

• Is at least 37 years old,

Is considered to be “too risky” to insure. Maybe these billionaire owners could just step up an insure their players’ salaries instead.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

Why did the Seattle Seahawks just go up for sale less than a month after winning the Super Bowl? The reason why actually reveals one of the most unique deals in sports history that no one seems to know anything about.

Let me explain.

Backstory: In 1996, then-Seahawks owner Ken Behring announced that he was moving the team to Los Angeles, after the Rams left the city for St. Louis the year prior.

However, since Behring never properly applied for relocation with the NFL before moving the team’s operations to Southern California, the league threatened to start fining him $500,000 per day, which forced him to sell the team in 1997 to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for $200 million.

As a Seattle native himself, Allen vowed to keep the Seahawks in Seattle for as long as he owned the team. However, after leading them to two Super Bowl Wins, Allen died in 2018 at just 65 years old, and since he never married or had any kids, his entire estate, which includes the Seahawks and the Portland Trailblazers, was left to his sister, Jody, who was given very specific instructions about what to do next:

Sell both teams and donate all the money to charity.

But if Paul Allen died back in 2018, why is Jody only selling the Seahawks now?

Maximizing Profits: Well, the truth is, her decision to sell the team actually has nothing to do with the fact that they just won the Super Bowl and instead has much more to do with a little-known law that the state of Washington passed all the way back in 1997 when Allen originally bought the team.

29 years ago, Seattle was so worried that their beloved Seahawks could be relocated that they petitioned the state to pass a law requiring that, if the team was sold at all before 2024, 10% of the proceeds go back to the state.

However, since that law has been expired for more than two years, it seems like Jody (whose fiduciary responsibility is to maximize the team’s sale price) felt that now would be the perfect time to cash in. Plus, a recent Super Bowl victory doesn’t hurt.

At least that $9 billion to $11 billion will be put to good use.

⏱️ In Other News

• Why does every sports logo look the same now?

• The company behind the Big 12’s glass basketball court

• 68% of MLB fans want a salary cap

🎁 Share the Bottom of the Ninth

When you refer new readers to the Bottom of the Ninth, you win exclusive prizes.

➡️ Here is your unique link to share: https://bottomoftheninth.co/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER

You’re currently at 0. That’s only 1 away from receiving a Bottom of the Ninth Sticker!

*Please do not use fake email addresses — they will not qualify as referrals. Thank you!

👋🏻 Happy Friday!

Here’s the tweet in question:

My criteria here were simple: the best sporting events create mono-cultural storylines and moments that transcend the casual sports fan. My general litmus test is, would my mom have heard about this?

To me, there are very few sporting events that reach this level of cultural relevance.

My honorable mentions include:

• Olympics

• College Football Playoff

But here are my official rankings (in order):

1. March Madness

2. NFL Playoffs

3. The Masters

Reply with your thoughts and rankings.