The Evening Brief: Panini's fraud claim, Scheffler's final push, and cycling's tragedy

Friday and Saturday delivered escalation in the trading card industry's high-stakes legal battle, loss in college sports, progress toward a major-league return, and tests of resilience in golf and combat sports heading into their final stages.

Panini's legal team unsealed allegations this week claiming Fanatics obtained granular details of Panini's existing licensing deals, precise royalty rates, minimum guarantee schedules, marketing commitments, and autograph spend obligations, and then used that information to secure exclusive NBA and NFL trading card licenses worth billions. The allegations mark a sharp escalation from Panini's original 2023 antitrust claims, moving the litigation into fraud and trade secret misuse territory. Fanatics had sought to keep the allegations sealed; a magistrate judge ordered them unsealed. The honest read on the filing is that Panini's specific allegations are now on the record, but the mechanism by which any information changed hands is not detailed in what has been made public. The coming months will test whether Panini can produce evidence during discovery that traces the route the information took, and whether Fanatics' expected summary judgment motion succeeds in dismissing the fraud counts before trial.

College baseball paid tribute to Skip Bertman, who died Friday at 88. Bertman built LSU into a dynasty with five Men's College World Series national championships between 1991 and 2000, compiled 870 wins and won 11 total MCWS appearances, and later steered LSU's athletic department through two football national championships in 2003 and 2007. He was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 2006.

On the injury front, Shohei Ohtani's recovery from his July 3 left knee injury continued on schedule. He threw a 35-pitch bullpen session Friday, his first from the mound in more than three weeks, using his entire pitch mix. Manager Dave Roberts said he is "pretty confident" Ohtani will throw another bullpen session in two to five days, after which the recovery path should be clear for live batting-practice sessions and a return to major league competition.

Golf's FedEx St. Jude Championship enters its final round Sunday with Scottie Scheffler holding a two-shot lead at 13-under 197. Sam Burns and Sungjae Im are tied for second at 11-under 199. Scheffler shot 2-under 68 in Saturday's third round and chases his first win since January after recording five runner-up finishes and five other top-4 finishes in the interim. Burns, who beat Scheffler with a long birdie putt in a playoff at Colonial in 2022, will be paired with Scheffler in Sunday's final group for the first time in a high-stakes tournament pairing. Im has his own stakes: multiple players below the FedEx Cup cutline (top 50) are fighting for playoff eligibility and signature-event access Sunday.

In combat sports, Islam Makhachev defends his welterweight title against undefeated Ian Machado Garry at UFC 330 in Philadelphia on Saturday. Makhachev carries a 16-fight win streak and pursues his 17th consecutive victory, one shy of Anderson Silva's UFC record. The 34-year-old Russian fighter vacated the lightweight title in January 2025 and holds the record for lightweight title fight victories with five defenses.

The cycling community is grieving after 19-year-old Welsh rider Finlay Tarling died Friday during the Volta a Portugal. Local media reports indicate a car entered the race road going in the opposite direction and struck Tarling after the driver missed warning signs from race stewards. NSN withdrew its development squad from the race on Saturday. Coming checkpoints include statements from race organizers on safety procedures and any findings from authorities investigating the incident.