The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics recommended that Divisions I, II and III sponsor legislation to add flag football to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.

The committee’s recommendation Wednesday gives all three divisions an opportunity to sponsor legislation that would move the fast-growing sport through NCAA governance structures.

A sport must have a minimum of 40 schools sponsoring the sport at the varsity level and meet minimum contest and participation requirements to be considered for championship status.

At least 65 NCAA schools are sponsoring women’s flag football at the club or varsity levels this year, with more slated to join in 2026. Flag football also has been added as a sport for the 2028 L.A. Olympics.

The Trump administration’s latest directive on Title IX offered athletic departments more certainty about paying players, while suggesting the federal government wouldn’t hold schools to rigid requirements to distribute the proceeds equitably between men and women.

Though experts say the largely expected decision to rescind guidance issued by the Biden administration will have more symbolic than real-world impact on the class-action lawsuit settlement and other issues reshaping college sports, some see that as exactly the reason it’s unwelcome news.

“Here we are experiencing this immense growth across all women’s sports and this sort of says we really don’t really believe that’s valuable,” UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close said. “It really feels like it’s putting women’s sports back 25 years, honestly.”

Had the Biden guidance stayed in effect, colleges would have had to grapple with how to equally distribute up to $20.5 million in NIL payments between men and women. Now that it has been scrapped, schools can go back to their original plan for the House settlement, which in many cases involved funneling most of the money to football and basketball players.

“This change is an impact, but it’s a ‘what-we-expected’ impact because schools are going to follow the formula for NIL that they’d been planning all along,” said Rocky Harris, the chief of sport performance for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which has been watching the House settlement closely because around 75% of their athletes come from the college system.

MLB

Alex Bregman and the Boston Red Sox agreed to a $120 million, three-year contract, multiple sources reported. The agreement was subject to a successful physical.

A two-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion during nine years with Houston, the 30-year-old third baseman is coming off one of his poorest offensive seasons. He hit .260 with 26 homers and 75 RBIs in the final season of a $100 million, five-year contract while winning his first Gold Glove. His 19 postseason home runs are tied for sixth in major league history.

Nick Pivetta became the last of the high-profile free agent pitchers to reach an agreement this offseason, a backloaded $55 million, four-year contract with the San Diego Padres, multiple sources reported. The dealwas subject to a successful physical.

A right-hander who turns 32 Friday, Pivetta was 6-12 with a 4.14 ERA in 26 starts and one relief appearance last year for Boston. He turned down a $21.05 million qualifying offer from the Red Sox.

Newly acquired Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Spencer Horwitz is expected to miss most of spring training after undergoing surgery on his right wrist. Horwitz, acquired in a trade with Cleveland in December, will be out at least 6-8 weeks.

Horwitz, 27, hit .265 with 12 home runs and 40 RBIs in 97 games with Toronto last season. The Blue Jays shipped him to Cleveland in December and hours later the Guardians sent him to Pittsburgh in exchange for pitcher Luis Ortiz and two prospects.

The Detroit Tigers are expecting Alex Cobb to miss the start of the season. The team indicated that Cobb had an injection last week to treat hip inflammation that developed as the right-hander was throwing. Cobb, who has had hip surgery twice, signed a $15 million, one-year contract two months ago.

NFL

NFL wide receiver Kadarius Toney was charged with assaulting a woman in Georgia and preventing her from calling for help.

Toney, 26, was arrested and booked into the Douglas County Jail on Feb. 6 on charges of aggravated assault and obstructing or hindering an emergency call, according to online jail records. He was released the same day on $50,000 bail.

Toney played in just three games for the Cleveland Browns in 2024 before he was released in December. A 2021 first-round pick by the New York Giants, Toney helped the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl two years ago after they acquired him in a trade during the season.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Former Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Jim Tressel was confirmed as Ohio’s next lieutenant governor. State senators and representatives affirmed Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s nomination of Tressel in separate floor votes: 31-1 in the Senate, 68-27 in the House.

Tressel, 72, succeeds Republican Jon Husted, who was appointed last month to the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Vice President JD Vance.

Tressel retired in 2023 as president of Youngstown State University, a position he had held since 2014. He previously spent nearly a decade as head coach of Ohio State’s football team, leading the Buckeyes to a national championship in 2002 and six Big Ten championships.

UNLV senior offensive lineman Ben Christman, who transferred after last season from Kentucky, has died, the university announced.

Christman, who was 21, was found dead in an off-campus apartment Tuesday. The university said it didn’t have other details and a cause of death would later be determined by the Clark County Coroner’s Office.

Christman began his college career at Ohio State as a highly rated prospect in the 2021 recruiting class. He redshirted that season and played in one game in 2022 before transferring to Kentucky. Christman did not play in ’23 because of an injury, but appeared in all 12 games last season. He then transferred to UNLV.

Ohio State is hiring former Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia as defensive coordinator, multiple sources reported.

SOCCER

FC Dallas acquired Argentine midfielder Luciano Acosta from FC Cincinnati for at least $5 million in one of the biggest official cash-for-player swaps to date in MLS. The 2023 MLS MVP is Cincinnati’s franchise leader with 54 goals and 72 assists after joining the club in 2021.

SKIING

Franjo von Allmen became a double world champion and Loic Meillard claimed his fourth career world championship medal when the Swiss pair won gold in the new team combined event in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria. They led a Swiss sweep of the podium at the worlds, 0.27 seconds ahead of silver medalists Alexis Monney and Tanguy Nef.

BOXING

Algeria’s Imane Khelif, who found herself in the middle of a bitter divide about gender in sports during the Paris Olympics, denounced “false and offensive” accusations from the International Boxing Association.

The IBA said this week it will file criminal complaints against the International Olympic Committee in the U.S., France and Switzerland. The IOC allowing female boxers Khelif and Lin Yu-ting to compete and win gold medals in Paris last year “may serve as grounds for criminal prosecution,” the IBA claimed.

Khelif responded by saying she “will take all necessary legal steps to ensure that my rights and the principles of fair competition are upheld.”

The Russian-led IBA has been banished from the Olympics but it cited an executive order on transgender athletes by President Trump to justify the criminal complaints.

The IOC has consistently said the boxers from Algeria and Taiwan, who were assigned female at birth and identify as women, complied with all the rules for the Olympic tournament.