Welcome back to Keeping Score, our Friday column that highlights the personalities, teams and games that sports fans are talking about — by the numbers.
$5,904
Cost of an eternal resting place outside the Jacksonville Jaguars' new stadium.
If being a sports fan didn’t cause you enough pain in life, you can remain a loyal fan even after you shuffle off this mortal coil.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are offering fans the chance to keep their remains in a monument outside the team’s new stadium, which is expected to open in 2028, according to Front Office Sports.
The 904Ever Club monument is the creation of Eternal Fan, a company that creates large art installations for sports teams that can function as memorials for fans’ cremated remains.
Company founder Matt Linn is a funeral industry veteran. He told Front Office Sports that Eternal Fan is fulfilling a common request from fans, who often ask for a final resting place connected to their love of sports, like fans who ask their loved ones to spread their ashes at a college football stadium or Augusta National Golf Club.
“So many people talk about wanting to be at their ‘happy place,’ and so often that has something to do with a sports team,” Linn said.
4
Professional golfers who have publicly committed to staying with LIV Golf 2.0 next season.
LIV Golf is planning to soldier on with a 17-tournament schedule in 2027 under BC Capital following the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s exit after spending $5.5 billion in the last five years, according to the Financial Times.
Don’t expect the glamorous, star-filled fields of the rebel golf tour's heady early days. LIV’s player exodus continued this week as 2010 Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen jumped ship. Shrek’s departure follows Jon Rahm's recent separation agreement with LIV. Meanwhile, Sergio Garcia, Cameron Smith, Harold Varner III, Matthew Wolff and Marc Leishman are suing to terminate their LIV contracts.
The only golfers who've publicly committed to LIV's 2027 season are Richard Bland, Ben Campbell, Brendan Steele and Cameron Tringale. But all hope is not lost at LIV. Sources told ESPN that the tour’s biggest draw, Bryson DeChambeau, is still committed to LIV and is “working diligently behind the scenes to bring LIV 2.0 to fruition.”
Right now, DeChambeau is mostly working on his YouTube channel. His most recent video, "I Played Golf with the Amish," already has more than 1.2 million views in just two days.
30%
Shooting percentage of players not named Angel Reese in Game 2 of the WNBA Finals.
Defense wins championships, and that’s never been more true than in the 2026 WNBA Finals. After a high-scoring and high-flying regular season that saw the league shatter its records for attendance and television ratings, the Finals between the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries have been a hard-nosed and hard-fought defensive battle.
One player is bucking this trend though. Dream forward Angel Reese scored 30 points on 10-of-16 shooting in Game 2. (The other players in the game were a combined 32-of-107.) Then when the series moved back to Atlanta, she scored 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting in Game 3.
Reese has been silencing doubters during this entire playoff run. The seventh pick in the 2024 draft, she is the top scorer and rebounder in the Finals, averaging 21.7 points per game and 13.3 rebounds per game.
The Dream now lead the series 2-1. Game 4 is Saturday in Atlanta at 1 p.m. Eastern.
1,000
Milwaukee Brewers fans who bought a ‘Timeless Ticket’ usable at any future game. Many of these fans are using this ticket to attend the World Series.
After seeing a “forever” stamp at the post office, Milwaukee Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger had an idea: a “Timeless Ticket” that Brewers fans could redeem at any game in the future, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In 2015, the Brewers sold these tickets, which resemble Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, for $1,000 to 1,000 fans, bringing in $1,000,000. (We hope someone gave Schlesinger a raise.) The tickets are beautiful, too, a one-pound brass ticket with the fan’s name engraved on it.
The problem is that the Brewers are back in the World Series for the first time in 44 years, and there are hardly any seats available for the game for less than $3,000. Standing room seats are over $2,000. The Brewers are honoring the Timeless Ticket for the World Series, but fans who own the tickets are not happy with the seats. They had the expectation that the ticket meant a good seat, but fans are only being offered upper deck seats or standing room.
As a mea culpa, the Brewers are letting fans who redeemed their Timeless Ticket for nosebleed World Series seats redeem it again for another game.
Our advice: use ’em or lose ’em. The 2071 World Series is a long time away.
77%
Chance that Harry Kane will win the Ballon d’Or this Monday.
The prediction market odds on the Ballon d’Or winner have been more volatile than South Korea's stock market.
The Ballon d’Or winner will be announced in London on Monday, and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane is now the clear favorite to win the most coveted individual trophy in soccer and maybe all of sports.
That wasn't the case a few weeks ago, when a swell of support for Barcelona's Lamine Yamal vaulted the young Spaniard's chances above Kane’s briefly. Yamal was given a 54.8% chance to win at his peak on Oct. 1, and since then the odds have moved firmly in Kane's favor.
Kane's 2025-2026 resume for player of the year is pretty impressive. He scored 73 goals for Bayern and England. He also won the Bundesliga, reached the Champions League semifinal and the World Cup semifinal. But will it be enough to top Yamal, who won a World Cup this past summer? Kane will have to wait to find out on Monday night at the award ceremony, just like the rest of us.
“I think my wife would prefer to know and my family, it’s very stressful for everyone,” Kane said. “From my point of view, of course, I’d love to know to just kind of see and not have to wait throughout the whole night. But it is their decision, I can’t control that. We'll have to just enjoy it and try not to stress out too much.”
The Ballon d’Or ceremony will be streamed live at the Ballon d’Or website on Monday at 2 p.m. Eastern.
3
How many times boxer Dan Garber’s corner threw in the towel before the referee stopped the fight.
This ref threw in the towel on throwing in the towel
When 20-year-old rising Irish heavyweight Adam Olaniyan fought 41-year-old journeyman Dan Garber on an undercard at London’s O2 Arena on Saturday night, boxing fans were hoping to get a closer look at the promising Irishman in the four-round bout. Instead, they witnessed a bizarre scene when referee Amy Pu refused to stop the fight after Garber’s corner threw in the towel, twice.
Overmatched from the start, Garber got knocked down in the second round. His corner threw in a towel, and when Pu didn't see that towel, Garber's corner threw in another. In a video from the fight, you can see Olaniyan point out the towels to Pu, who then sweeps them out of the ring with her foot like she was raking leaves.
Pu doesn’t have to accept the towel if she thinks the fighter isn’t hurt, and fans cheered when she told the fighters to get back to it. Twenty seconds later, Olaniyan dropped Garber again with another hard right. Another towel flew in from Garber’s corner, and this time Pu waved off the fight.
Afterward, Pu received criticism from Ring Magazine’s Louis Hart:
“Don’t like seeing referees throw the towel out at all, the corner knows best. Irresponsible from Amy Pu in the Olaniyan vs Garber fight.”
4
Steps that LaMelo Ball took during his ‘moonwalk’ three-point shot without being called for traveling.
Sometimes a move is so good that the referee doesn’t want to call traveling. That must have been the case when LaMelo Ball debuted his “moonwalk” three-pointer, where he picks up the ball and steps laterally about 15 feet before shooting. The referees didn’t call Ball for traveling, and ESPN commentators Mike Breen and Richard Jefferson were outraged by the no-call.
The Timberwolves went on to win the game 131-106, and afterward Ball defended the shot, which, in fairness to Ball, looks awesome.
“If you watch, I let the ball guide,” he said. “If I’m letting the ball guide and I ain’t touching it, you can take as much steps as you want.”
Unfortunately for Ball and for all fans of spectacular rule-bending moves, the NBA’s official referee account on X issued a definitive ruling after the game:
“For everyone asking, ‘how is this legal?’ It’s not! He gathers with his right foot on the floor and would be permitted two steps by rule (left-right). He takes four steps after gathering the ball and travels.”
5
Days that Vijay Singh had worked with caddie Wayne De Haas before winning the SAS Championship.
Vijay Singh became the second-oldest player to win on the Champions Tour last weekend when he won the SAS Championship in North Carolina at age 63. But before besting longtime rival Ernie Els by two shots, he had to overcome some caddie drama.
Singh, who is known to be a demanding taskmaster to caddies, revealed that his caddie fired him three days before the tournament started.
"Well, my caddie fired me this Tuesday. I think I was a little—I was getting onto him too much,” Singh said.
So Singh called Wayne De Haas, one of his former loopers, and five days later, he was holding his third Champions Tour trophy, a nice coda to a career that includes 34 PGA Tour victories and three majors.
But it’s no secret why he has trouble keeping caddies. Longtime PGA Tour caddie Kip Henley talked about his challenging experience looping for the hard-driving Singh on Golf.com’s Subpar show.
"He's mean,” Henley said of Singh. “He'll cut you to the bone every day, but it was more amazing working for him than anyone I've ever worked for."
27
New York City newborns named ‘Jalen’ since mid-June of this year.
The New York Knicks began the 2026-2027 season at MSG the way they ended the last one: in front of a sold-out crowd that paid a small fortune to be in the building. USA Today put the “get-in” price for the Knicks’ Tuesday night opening loss to the Sixers at $1,474, with many tickets going over $5,000.
But the love that New York has for this team can’t be measured with dollar signs. Haidee Chu, a reporter for The City Reporter, an independent news outlet, dug into city hall records and discovered a “Jalen boom” in baby names.
“Before the Knicks faced off against the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals series in mid June, just five babies had been named Jalen since March. Since then, 27 more newborns have taken on the name, adding up to a total of 32 Jalens between March and early October this year — more than double the 15 named Jalen over the same time period last year.”
So if you live in New York, get ready to see a lot of Jalens, Karls, Joshes and Oguguas at the playground. 🍼
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