Latest news with #AustonMatthews'
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
J.T. Miller's golf miss creates ripples in sports NFT and fan token space
J.T. Miller (via Getty Images) NHL star J.T. Miller, who has made his mark on the ice with the Vancouver Canucks, found himself in a different sort of battle this week—battling his way into the US Open golf championship. But the forward's bid for a place failed at the qualifying stages, Fox News reported. His bid for golf, if cut short, had a ripple effect elsewhere. The news strangely provided a boost to sports NFTs and fan token crypto markets. Crypto markets respond quietly as J.T. Miller fails US Open golf cut J.T. Miller's failure at US Open golf qualifying would not normally find itself on the radars of money players. But in the current blockchain-based fan economy—where superstars' activities beget blockchain-based fan ecosystems—such activities can precipitate instant, transient market activity. On May 15, 2025, J.T. Miller's miss made the headlines. Within the hour, sportsbook and entertainment cryptocurrency like FUNToken (FUN) had its trading volume increase by 7% to $1.2 million on Binance, as per CoinGecko. Such micro-reactions are now the new normal in niche altcoins, particularly those that track real-time sports storylines. Other athlete-based token Chiliz (CHZ) saw a negligible 5% volume bump to $8.5 million, showing slight sentiment changes by retail investors on athlete-based narratives. Broader crypto ETF flows and technicals otherwise failed to deviate from form. Bitcoin's Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 48 was neutral momentum, while FUNToken's momentarily spiked to 62, which is overbought. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Bravus Fire | São Paulo | Enfrente seu obstáculo! Bravus Fire Inscreva-se Undo No spillover effect to legacy equities or institutional crypto flows Legacy markets remained resilient even as there was a temporary reaction in crypto altcoins. Traditional stocks such as DraftKings Inc. (DKNG) and Penn National Gaming (PENN) remained immune to price changes. DraftKings traded at $42.50, and Penn traded at $15.80—both insensitive to sports news, according to Nasdaq and Bloomberg information. Institutional investors, however, watched macroeconomic data, with crypto ETFs such as ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) holding steady at $24.10. Inflows for Bitcoin ETF were in line with weekly averages of $150 million, said CoinShares, citing that large capital allocators are not responding to such micro-events. Also read: Auston Matthews' words for J.T. Miller spark frustration among fans amid New York Rangers' loss and trade As much as J.T. Miller's US Open golf qualifying performance may at first glance appear insignificant, it is a reflection of how digital economies are developing. Tokenized fandom and real-time engagement mean that even ancillary sporting tidbits can be enough to change the sentiment for a moment in certain reaches of the crypto universe. For day traders and NFT players, they are temporary but deliberately chosen moments of profit—evidence that in the correct digital economy, every shot is important. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
Toronto Sun
11-05-2025
- Sport
- Toronto Sun
What unites Maple Leafs fans despite decades of losing?
Toronto Maple Leafs fans celebrate Auston Matthews' 60th goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Buffalo Sabres, Saturday, March 30, 2024, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jeffrey T. Barnes) Whether suffering from blue-and-white disease or not, the Maple Leafs fan base is undeniably among the most passionate and loyal in the National Hockey League. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Whether the Buds win or lose in their playoff series against the Florida Panthers, Leafs Nation will likely forever remain intact. Why, after decades of heartbreak, do the fans continue to come back for more? The longevity of the storied franchise, which has won 13 Stanley Cup championships but precisely zero since 1967, can't hurt for starters. So says Craig Hyatt, associate professor of sport management at Brock University in St. Catharines. 'The Leafs have been around for over 100 years, with a loyal fan base that is transferred from generation to generation,' Hyatt said in a wide-ranging synopsis of the franchise ahead of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. 'For many families in English-speaking Canada, specifically southern Ontario, Leafs fandom is a family legacy passed down like a family heirloom.' For instance, families might bond over watching the Leafs take the ice during the weekly Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, Hyatt said. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'You learn all the rituals, traditions and stories — the Legend of Bill Barilko or of Darryl Sittler scoring 10 points in one game — that get passed onto the next generation of fans,' the resident expert said. 'If mom and dad cheer for the Leafs, you cheer for the Leafs and breaking that cycle would almost be like betraying your family.' The Leafs have long asked their fans to be patient. Playoff success has been next to non-existent in recent years, or more accurately decades. In fact, when the Leafs ousted their Battle of Ontario rival Ottawa Senators in Round 1, it marked just the second time since 2004 that Toronto has advanced to the second round. RECOMMENDED VIDEO But as Bob Dylan once sang, the times, they just might be a-changin'. After winning the Atlantic Division title by finishing the regular season with 108 points, the Leafs find themselves in contention in 2025 as they aim to erase the longest active Cup drought among NHL teams. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Because they were so awful for so long, they got high draft picks with the goal of developing those players into superstars to become a contending team,' Hyatt said. 'There is now a lot of excitement in southern Ontario as Leafs Nation thinks their dreams are finally going to come true.' It's not just diehard fans who are invested in the team's playoff run. Hyatt's colleague at Brock, fellow associate professor of sport management, Olan Scott, said casual and new fans alike have joined the fray, for various reasons. 'A bandwagoner is often disparaged as someone only being a fan when things are good, but it's also just fun to have something to talk about with friends,' Scott said. 'Sports are like a social glue that brings people together. Following the game and the progression of the series, for a moment, takes the focus off some of the other geopolitical things happening in the world. It's a reprieve for people who watch and enjoy it together.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. While ticket prices might make witnessing a game in the building next to impossible for some, there are other ways to be part of the electricity, such as the fan gatherings outside in Maple Leaf Square. 'The average fan also gets together with their friends at the local sports bar in their jerseys and takes over the place, becoming this communal thing that is completely independent of the marketing efforts of the Toronto Maple Leafs,' he said. 'Technology has also provided a range of ways to consume the team; it's a whole different 21st-century paradigm for sport fans.' As for the team's ultimate destiny in 2025? 'A lot of this really has to do with luck,' Scott said. 'One of the beautiful things about sport is that it's unscripted. We see it happening in real time — and we have no idea what's going to happen.' And if things don't work out, hey, there's always next year. Read More Health Sports Toronto Maple Leafs World Sunshine Girls
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
NHL draft lottery 2025, date, odds, and key details
NHL Draft Lottery at NHL Network Studio (Credit: Getty Image) The National Hockey League is maintaining its traditional East Coast location. ESPN, Sportsnet, and TVA Sports will provide live coverage. Though the exact broadcast time remains to be announced. Understanding the Draft Lottery Process NHL Draft Lottery explained The NHL employs a weighted system designed. To help struggling teams while maintaining competitive balance. The lottery consists of two distinct phases. This is conducted sequentially. The San Jose Sharks enter the lottery with the highest probability at 18.5%. This a result of finishing with the league's worst record. Chicago follows at 13.5%. With Nashville rounding out the top three at 11.5%. These percentages reflect the NHL's deliberate effort to balance assistance for struggling teams. While preventing outright tanking. A generational player could transform their outlook and energize their fanbase. Similarly, the Blackhawks hope to continue building around their young core with another blue-chip prospect. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Actress Reveals Weight Loss Trick and Gets Fired - Just a Coincidence? nutritiouslivingtips Learn More Undo Recent lottery history shows both expected outcomes and shocking upsets. Last year saw a team with middling odds jump into the top three, altering draft plans across the league. Such unpredictability keeps general managers on edge until the final reveal. Statistical analysis suggests teams with the worst records win the top pick about 30% of the time, maintaining the system's designed balance. Preparing for Draft Weekend The lottery balls take flight during the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery at NHL Network Studio (Credit: Getty Image) Following the lottery, attention shifts to Los Angeles where the draft will occur June 27-28. The first round at the Peacock Theater promises glitz and drama as top prospects walk the stage. Day two's rapid-fire selections often yield hidden gems that become future stars. Beyond individual teams, the draft shapes the NHL's future competitive landscape. Recent top picks like Connor Bedard have immediately impacted their franchises. This year's selections could similarly alter power dynamics for years to come. Scouts suggest several players in this class possess that level of transformative potential. The league expects strong viewership for the lottery broadcast. Hardcore fans follow the event religiously, while casual viewers tune in to see where top prospects might land. Read more: NHL adjusts Auston Matthews' stats ahead of critical game 5 Another chapter in the league's ongoing evolution While the lottery focuses on top selections, savvy teams find value throughout the draft. Many current stars were chosen in later rounds, proving the importance of thorough scouting. Teams will have their full staff working through all seven rounds to identify potential steals. As May 5 approaches, anticipation builds across the hockey world. It combines cold mathematics with human drama, producing unforgettable moments. This year's edition promises to deliver another chapter in the league's ongoing evolution.
New York Times
31-01-2025
- Business
- New York Times
What skyrocketing NHL salary cap means for Maple Leafs, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and free agency
The NHL's salary-cap figures are in, not just for next season, but also the next three years. And they're going to make quite an impact across the league. Next season, the cap will jump 8.5 percent to $95.5 million, followed by an 8.9 percent increase in 2026-27 and an even bigger 9.1 percent increase in 2027-28. Advertisement As you can see below, those are incredibly dramatic year-over-year changes for this sport, especially considering the cap rose only 5 percent combined over the five seasons before this one. Three historic bumps one after another are going to be a big adjustment for general managers across the league. So, this is good news for teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, right? In some ways, for sure. In others, not as much. Let's dig into the pros and cons with some specific examples. I'll lay out the Leafs' cap sheet for a few scenarios over the coming years to show what the extra room might or might not allow them to do in the future. One simple guideline to use, regardless of what NHL organization we're talking about, is that teams with more of their core locked in are going to be in a better spot in this environment. Contracts signed based on last year's $83.5 million cap or this year's $88 million cap, in other words, are probably going to look pretty darn good in 2027-28. The biggest win for the Leafs is likely to be Auston Matthews' contract. Yes, he only signed for four years and he received a record AAV, but three of those years are still left to play. When he signed that deal in August 2023, his then-NHL-high $13.25 million cap hit was nearly 16 percent of the 2023-24 cap ($83.5 million). By comparison, if his deal was coming up in, say, 2026, he could expect that to translate to a cap hit of $16.5 million or more. It's a pretty big difference in only three years. The Leafs have 15 players on their roster signed for next season, a group that includes six defencemen and both their primary goaltenders. And they have 11 players signed into the following year, when the cap will be $104 million, more than 18 percent higher than today. Consider that a nearly 20 percent haircut on the cost of all 11 of those players. Here's a closer look at whom they have signed for next season (2025-26) and how much space that leaves them under a $95.5 million ceiling. So there are a lot of holes, but they're contained up front. Those contracts for the three top-four blueliners they signed recently (Jake McCabe, Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson) should age better in a higher cap environment, as should the goalie deals, provided Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz can stay healthy and play the way they have this year. Advertisement The overpriced contracts on the books, meanwhile, might look better in a $95.5 million cap world than they have in past seasons (i.e., Morgan Rielly, Max Domi and David Kämpf). If we jump ahead another season to 2026-27, when the cap is projected to hit $104 million, even more flexibility opens up: more than $45 million, with only two fewer players signed, given we've elevated a couple of prospects up front who will be on dirt cheap entry-level deals. (Don't pay attention to lines here because who knows at that point.) That's obviously without any of their key free agents signed, which brings us to the potential downside of having the cap go up as dramatically as it is going to the next three years. Really, the biggest downside here is going to be what happens with Mitch Marner, John Tavares (both UFAs) and Matthew Knies (RFA) entering free agency. Friday's announcement changes the parameters from what they had been negotiating around, and the player agents around the league I spoke to were, understandably, rather excited to see how things shift in the players' direction as a result. The complicating factor here is we've never really had a rapidly escalating cap projected out three years in advance like this. Historically, free agents and their teams have been negotiating based on a percentage of the next season's cap, with the league's best players often receiving between 14 percent and 15 percent, stars getting closer to 12 percent, and important depth players signing for closer to 6 percent to 8 percent. (With room for some to fall in between those designations.) Two years from now, however, that translates to superstars making unheard-of sums ($16 million plus), second-tier stars getting what used to be the NHL's high end ($12 million to $13 million) and second-line wingers and No. 3 and 4 defencemen making $7 million or more. Advertisement The big question is: Do agents and teams negotiate these next contracts and their cap percentage based on next year's cap number on a seven- or eight-year contract? Or, now that they know how rapid the growth is, do those percentages shift even higher, to account for the difference they're giving up in years 2 and 3 of a new deal? This is especially relevant to Marner's situation, which was already a real quagmire. The three highest-paid wingers league-wide (Artemi Panarin, David Pastrnak and William Nylander) were making between 13.1 percent and 14.3 percent of the cap when their deals kicked in. That's the right neighbourhood for Marner, for sure, but there's a wide gap between what those percentages mean in 2025-26 and 2027-28. Nylander's contract is on the low end, and even that equates to $12.5 million against next year's cap. For 2027, however, that jumps to $14.85 million! And that's the "low" end for those three players. The Tavares and Knies contracts could still get done with relatively minor bumps as a result of this news, but that's harder to forecast for Marner given he's one of the top forwards in the league and his unique comparables. It feels a lock that he could command more than $13 million on the open market given how many teams will be swimming in cap space, but how much more? Because if you go much higher than that, the $31 million in cap space the Leafs have for next season disappears very quickly. To the point that they won't be able to take advantage of the cap jump in free agency at all this summer. Which isn't ideal, given they continue to have needs at centre and on defence. This roster gives you an idea of just how tight things get next season if all three of the Leafs' high-profile free agents get paid handsomely. It's hard to see that roster as an overly exciting development, given how much of the new cap space is simply eaten up by raises. Yes, they could punt a couple bad contracts, and bring up prospects to fill out some depth roles, but it's not exactly going to lead to acres of room to upgrade overall. Especially given free agents across the board are going to be getting paid more. Advertisement That said, over the medium term, the cap's jumping from $88 million to $113.5 million should be a plus for teams like the Leafs. The biggest reason for that is Toronto will finally be able to flex its financial might, outspending other teams in smaller markets. This season, the parity level is so high in the NHL in part because almost everyone spends to the cap. As of Friday, there are 24 NHL teams on pace to spend either over the cap (using long-term injured reserve) or within $2 million under. That's 75 percent of the league, a group that includes all of the contenders and the vast majority of the 16 teams that will make the playoffs. There's basically no budgetary separation between the high-powered, big-money organizations and, say, the Winnipeg Jets and Ottawa Senators. But as the cap zips past $100 million, more and more organizations aren't going to be able to keep pace, and teams' internal caps will begin to be a bigger factor than they've been in years. Perhaps ever. Maybe, for example, only 20 teams can spend to the $95.5 million limit next season, and then 15 are willing to spend to the $104 million limit the year after that. That number could continue to drop, and the Leafs could become one of the only teams spending to the $113.5 million ceiling by 2027-28. That would open up new advantages and extra money to spend in free agency. Given their current roster, Toronto might not have any more high-profile contracts to sign until Matthews comes back up for a new contract in 2028. (When he can ask for a billion dollars, to the delight of Eddie Belfour.) It's going to be very interesting how the Leafs front office handles this situation in the near term, though. When the NBA went through its rapidly escalating cap years, suddenly middling depth players were getting ridiculous money, and it skewed a lot of teams' salary structures. Toronto has enough of its players signed that it likely won't fall into that trap. But how well it navigates this paradigm shift will play a big part in determining just how long this core's contention window stays open. (Photo of Mitch Marner: Brace Hemmelgarn / Imagn Images)
