Defector

It was clear that the relationship between Real Madrid and La Liga president Javier Tebas was heading toward disaster when the two parties started bickering in the press less than a month ago, but we've now reached the stage where one is earnestly comparing the behavior of the other to an infamous Nazi.

ESPN is reporting that ESPN and the College Football Playoff are close to a deal to expand the playoff field to 24 teams in 2027. This news arrives merely two years after the field already expanded from four teams to 12 teams. Not only was this expansion inevitable, it is unlikely to be the last we see. But for now, we are on the cusp of a 24-team playoff, which comes as ESPN and the CFP have been negotiating a big new deal for the network to continue broadcasting the games.

Welcome to the Defector College Football Watch Guide, where Israel Daramola and Ray Ratto will tell you which of the weekend’s college football games are worth giving a crap about.

And so ends the Los Angeles Dodgers' reign as baseball's most overwhelming boogeyman. The poster kids for the omnipotence of money, the belief that having the best player means being the best team, the power of the big market over all it surveys—all of that feels less important at this moment than the ability to do the things the Milwaukee Brewers do better than anyone else. The same old song has been replaced, for the moment, by this: Yes, meet your new overlords.

Welcome back to The Not-So-Great Defector Bake Off, where Kelsey and Chris attempt to complete the technical challenges from the newest season of The Great British Bake Off in their own home kitchens, with the same time parameters as the professional-grade bakers competing on the show. It's nice having Nigella Lawson in the tent. She is cheerful and radiates serenity, and she takes those big glorious bites. She makes you want to bake and to eat.

The model of Donald Trump currently on display is fussy and sour, poached to glossy and unappetizing gumminess in his own luxurious bathwater; he is also, to all appearances, miserable. It is hard to say whether the adoration of his admirers or the revulsion of a large and growing portion of the American populace has been worse for him in that regard, but neither seems to have done him much good.

L.A. Material is an independent news organization aimed at filling some holes in the Los Angeles news landscape and making that fascinating, fragmented city more legible. You can learn more, and subscribe, at lamaterial.com. This story originally ran at the site on September 30, 2026. I had been going to Dodger Stadium with my dad for about 30 years before he pointed them out to me. “See that?” he asked, gesturing toward two rectangular panels of concrete on a far wall of the main seating structure.

After a flyout and a strikeout in his first two attempts, Jake Bauers's third time facing Blake Snell in Wednesday's Game 3 of the National League Championship Series went like this: Bauers took a slider down the middle of the plate for strike one. He took two non-competitive pitches down low to make the count 2-1. He foul tipped a changeup, and then, sitting on two strikes, four pitches into his at bat, he decided that he simply would not strike out again.

This week on Nothing But Respect, Harry and I had on our two favorite WNBA writers to talk about the Golden State Valkyries' forthcoming WNBA championship. Both Maitreyi Anantharaman, whom you all know from her work here, and Mata Goldberg-Safir, whom you also know from her work here and should know from her work at Rough Notes, know ball and will be covering the series between the Valks and the Atlanta Dream.

Ross Douthat has a fantasy novel for young-adult readers: The Falcon's Children, the first in what reportedly will be a trilogy from the respectability-conservatism peddler, who left his sinecure as a columnist at the New York Times earlier this year so that he could lower television's aggregate charisma level by 944 percent as a correspondent for Bari Weiss's 60 Minutes. That is virtually all I will ever know about The Falcon's Children, and I beseech you, tender reader, to follow my example.