💣 Y! Sports AM: Bombshell buy

On Tuesday, the New York Yankees announced a $2.6 billion financing agreement with Apollo Sports Capital. On Wednesday, another iconic sports franchise, the Los Angeles Lakers, were sold for the second time in nine months. Welcome to the age of sports as big business.

Changing hands: Investor Josh Kushner and former Disney boss Bob Iger are purchasing the Lakers for $12.5 billion from Mark Walter, who bought the controlling stake in the team from the Buss family less than a year ago, closing the deal in October at a $10 billion valuation.

• The bombshell sale news comes just weeks after it was reported that Walter's businesses are the subjects of a federal investigation.
• Bloomberg additionally reported Wednesday that the sale comes as Walter is seeking cash to pay down the companies' scrutinized loans.
• According to both the Los Angeles Times and The Athletic, Walter has no plans to sell the Dodgers, which he and his partners at Guggenheim Baseball Management purchased in 2012.

Wild stat: The $2.5 billion increase in the Lakers' sale value alone, achieved in just nine months, is more than any NBA team had ever sold for before 2019.

The incoming owners: Kushner founded venture capital firm Thrive Capital, while Iger is the former two-time CEO of Disney, who is also apparently a Clippers fan!

• The pair was previously reported to be among the suitors for the NBA's Las Vegas expansion franchise. Kushner owns a minority stake in the Heat, which he will have to sell, and Iger is the majority owner of Angel City FC.
• Kushner-led Thrive Eternal was positioned as the lead investor in the now-canceled FIFA Forward Enterprise entity, and it previously acquired a stake in the San Francisco Giants.
• While the ownership structure for the Lakers deal is not yet clear, Thrive Eternal could own up to 20% of the Lakers under NBA rules.

Loud and clear: For the moment, amid the many questions, one signal is crystal clear. The valuations for the premier assets in sports are rising incomprehensibly fast.

This story first appeared in Yahoo Sports Biz, our new sports business newsletter authored by Dylan Dittrich. Sign up here to begin receiving it in your inbox.

The NFL preseason kicks off in earnest tonight. Once upon a time, that meant getting a decent look at your team's starting quarterback. Not anymore.

By the numbers: QB1s accounted for roughly 35% of preseason passes in 2001, reflecting how starters were used at the time: a series or two in the preseason opener, more in Game 2, extended action in Game 3, then little or no action in the finale.

• That trend began to break in the 2010s, when first-string QBs went from throwing 33.5% of preseason passes in 2011 to just 12.1% of passes in 2019.
• The slide has continued into the 2020s, and last preseason saw the number dip below 10% for the first time (9.8%).

Bottom line: The NFL preseason used to be a dress rehearsal for starters, at least some of the time. Now it's mostly an audition for backups — and the disappearing QB1 is the clearest evidence of that shift.

The chart and data in this story are courtesy of Neil Paine, who is an awesome dude and writes an excellent Substack.

Dan Wolken, Yahoo Sports:

Kyle Whittingham's first season at Michigan is beginning under a cloud of scandal that is shocking the state.

No, he's not hacking into female students' photo libraries or illegally scouting opposing teams or sleeping with his administrative assistant. Those are garden-variety scandals in the Michigan program over the last few years.

In the eyes of some Michigan fans, their head coach is committing a far more serious offense: He doesn't hate Ohio State enough.

"Would we have a better chance to win if I hated them?" Whittingham said. "I don't understand. Whatever gives us the best chance to win, I'm all for. Want to beat them worse than anybody around so I don't know how that got to be such a hot topic."

Whittingham's comment Monday, in response to a topic that came out of Big Ten media days a couple weeks ago, is like touching the third rail of college coaching. To admit that you don't have as much visceral hate for your rival as the fan base?

Bravo to Whittingham for eschewing the performative nonsense many coaches engage in and approaching his job like a fully grown adult.

And, brother, best of luck to him.

Because if there is one thing Michigan fans won't tolerate, it's the idea that their new head football coach doesn't have Ryan Day lodged in his brain from the time he takes his morning shower to the time he lays his head on the pillow.

Keep reading.

The Brewers have surged to the top of our first post-trade deadline MLB power rankings, a list that remains heavily skewed towards the superior National League, which boasts four of the top five teams and seven of the top 10.

Dive in:Full power rankings

• ⛳️ Golf: U.S. Amateur Championship (3pm, NBCSN/Peacock) … The Round of 16 tees off at Merion Golf Club outside Philadelphia.
• 🏊 Swimming: Pan Pacific Championships (1pm, Peacock) … The star-studded event is back on U.S. soil (Irvine, California) for the first time since 2010.
• 🏀 WNBA: Sparks at Liberty (8pm, Prime); Mystics at Aces (10pm, Prime) … The Mystics (19-13) will be seeking revenge against the Aces (23-11), who snapped their seven-game winning streak on Tuesday.

NBA legend Russell Westbrook, who announced his retirement on Wednesday, played 18 seasons for seven different teams.

Question: Can you name all seven?

Hint: Six West, one East.

Answer at the bottom.

It's no wonder Adam Silver was urging LeBron James to make his free-agency decision so that the league could set the schedule. NBA Opening Night just isn't the same without King James, and his 76ers will meet the Knicks in the second leg of the season-opening triple-header.

Opening Night (Oct. 20):

• Celtics at Pistons: Our first look at Boston in the post-Jaylen Brown era.
• 76ers at Knicks: The get-in price for this game is currently over $2,000.
• Thunder at Spurs: Wemby vs. SGA in a Western Conference Finals rematch.

Primetime player: LeBron didn't appear on Opening Night for the first five seasons of his career. Since then, his team has featured in 17 of the last 19 seasons, and the Sixers' inclusion extends his current streak to eight years. Oddly enough, the last time James didn't appear on opening night was in his first season as a Laker, in 2018.

Trivia answer: Thunder (11 years), Lakers (2), Clippers (2), Rockets, Wizards, Kings, Nuggets