Sports
NHL monitoring teams’ income-tax advantages, but ‘there are no easy fixes’
LAS VEGAS — Four of the past five Stanley Cup championship teams have come from states that don’t collect state income taxes — and seven of the past 10 finalists.
Those runs, by the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars, have understandably sparked a debate over whether the teams involved have an unfair advantage in signing players at below-market rates.
In many cases, players signing in those states — Florida, Tennessee, Texas, Nevada and Washington are among the states that deduct no further income tax than the federal taxes — would lose millions of dollars over the lives of their contracts if they played north of the border or in high-income-tax states such as California, New York, New Jersey and Minnesota.
The NHL is keeping an eye on the situation.
In a recent poll of fans by The Athletic, 84.6 percent of 14,066 respondents felt that teams in no-state-income-tax states have an advantage. Of that, 42.8 percent feel changes need to be made to even the playing field, 41.5 percent feel it’s not a significant enough advantage to warrant complex changes and 14.7 percent feel the issue is overblown.
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“It’s an issue that comes up from time to time in our room at the board level and general managers level,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said last month at the NHL’s European player media tour in Prague. “There are no easy fixes. It’s not like we can just pick from Column A and fix the problem overnight. Players make decisions on where they want to play for a variety of reasons. Their bottom line is one of them, but the quality of life and the communities they live in is probably more important.”
Daly echoed that sentiment Tuesday at the NHL’s North American player media tour in Las Vegas. He said while it’s too early to determine if this is something that may have to be addressed, he has talked to the NHL Players’ Association about the subject and the mutual feeling is that leveling the playing field would be too complicated.
For instance, even if the league systematically adjusted the cap ceiling for teams in no-state-income-tax states, what would happen if a player was traded or sent to the minors? Also, if it was deemed that a player was willing to sign a “hometown discount” contract at lower than what he could have received elsewhere, how problematic would it be to try to determine how much of a discount they took?
The NHLPA, so far, doesn’t see this as much of a problem. Executive director Marty Walsh met with the two dozen players who attended the media tour in Prague and explained this would be a complicated issue to fix. Plus, they don’t see this being a debate in other leagues.
As Daly said, “This is not new. This has all existed over the course of time.”
But some players do see a need for action.
“They have to find a way to tweak it, honestly,” Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto said Tuesday. “If you look at all these free agents, you don’t blame them for going down south. It’s just what it is, and it’s best for their families and taxes and lifestyle-wise. But I do think they have to find a way, especially for the Canadian teams. They’ve got to overpay guys to come to Canada every time, and that messes up with the cap. I think they do have to find a way to try to just even it out.
“I know it’s not easy because it’s been like that forever, but I think it’d be nice to have an even playing field.”
To be fair, few were complaining about the lack of state income taxes in Florida when the Tampa Bay Lightning were a doormat in the 1990s. Few brought this up when the Florida Panthers didn’t make the playoffs from 2000 to 2011 and didn’t advance past the first round from 1996 to 2022.
“I think every place certainly has its advantages, whether it’s (lifestyle), and taxes is certainly a part of it,” said Nashville Predators star Filip Forsberg, whose no-state-income-tax team had a banner summer by signing Juuse Saros to an eight-year extension and Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei to contracts totaling more than $166 million. “At the end of the day, that does play quite a bit of difference on our salary. It’s a fair point. I’m not disagreeing with it.
“It’s above my pay grade whether to decide if it’s right or wrong.”
Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar signed an eight-year, $50 million contract with the Calgary Flames in 2022. He previously played in Florida, acquired along with Jonathan Huberdeau in the Matthew Tkachuk blockbuster.
Alberta has a relatively low income-tax rate among Canadian provinces. Still, according to the Turbo Tax and Smart Asset websites, Weegar would be making approximately $950,000 more on his current $6.25 million a year contract if he were being paid in Florida.
He’s not bothered by that. But he does think it’d be nice if the league and players’ union could find a mechanism to even things out in the next collective bargaining agreement.
“You definitely feel like it might pull some other guys down south to those teams,” Weegar said Wednesday. “So there could be something in the next CBA to work something out. But ultimately, the Tampas, Florida, you look at Nashville, the teams are winning. That’s what really pulls people in. The New Yorks and Calgary, if we start winning, nobody really cares about taxes.
“The contracts are already big enough. You don’t really notice the tax too, too much. You still living pretty comfortably. So I’d say, start winning, you’ll get your guys to come in, and your free agents that want to play there.”
Like Stamkos and Marchessault going from Tampa Bay and Las Vegas, respectively, to Nashville, defenseman Brandon Montour went from no-state-income-tax state to no-state-income-tax state. A day after celebrating winning the Stanley Cup during a parade on A1A in Ft. Lauderdale, Montour signed a seven-year, $50 million contract with the Seattle Kraken.
He said taxes were not the predominant reason in his decision.
“You can’t say money’s not a factor,” Montour said Wednesday. “But for me, that wasn’t what we were chasing. We had places that were the highest tax that we were considering, as well. I played in California. I played in New York. Obviously, the paychecks look a little nicer when you’re in Florida and Seattle. But it wasn’t a thing that we were focused on.
“It was trying to find something for our lifestyle and our family to set a spot and call home.”
Montour tried to grasp how the league and union could even address the situation.
“What do you do, like take a percentage off the cap?” he said. “Like if Florida signed somebody that was 10 million bucks, they’d take a percentage or 2 percent off the cap or something? I don’t really know what they would possibly be able to do.”
Montour said every player has different reasons to sign in different places, and there are many high-income-tax areas that are appealing. He thinks this is only a debate because these teams are in a cycle of winning.
“There are just too many variables to really control,” Daly said, “including the fact that there are some markets that are very highly desirable for players that have kind of the highest tax rates in the world. Yet there are other opportunities, other things, that make those markets attractive to players.
“So I just think there’s so much that goes into the equation of where a player wants to play, what he’s willing to take to play there. And a lot of that has to do with team chemistry and how teams are constructed and how the player sees himself fitting into the team in terms of their needs. And so to account for all those variables, I think it’ll be a very difficult exercise.
“Having said that, obviously there’s chatter out there, specifically in the Canadian media, that the Canadian franchises are disadvantaged. We take that chatter seriously and we always look for ways to make the system better. I just don’t have any obvious answers to it.”
Daly was asked if he could envision a scenario where teams in Florida, Vegas, Nashville, Dallas or Seattle have a lower cap ceiling than other teams. He said, “I don’t think we could ever have a different cap for different teams, even though we kind of do in some respects with respect to how the CBA works and bonus overages and the like. So I suppose maybe there’s a formula that you could think of that way.
“I have other ideas that I put ahead of that one.”
Asked if he’d share those, Daly laughed: “No.”
“Look, there are some crude ways you can try to make adjustments to account for it,” Daly said. “I don’t think this issue is the level of kind of trying to push something through, particularly without really giving it some advanced, thorough thought and running it through all the potential channels. I think sometimes when you rush to do something based on chatter, you kind of step into a hole sometimes and the unintended consequences kind of bear their heads.
“We’ll continue to monitor it. If we can make it better, we will. I mean, I could get proven wrong on that. If we have the next 10 years similar to the last five, then maybe it’s something that needs to be addressed. But at this stage, on the basis of a couple summers, I’m not really running to get there.”
That’s fine with Radko Gudas.
The Anaheim Ducks defenseman pays 13 percent in state income taxes in California, compared to zero percent when he played with the Panthers. Yet, Gudas said succinctly, “I don’t think the NHL should be stepping into tax problems.”
(Photo of Matthew Tkachuk at the Florida Panthers’ Stanley Cup rally: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
Sports
Florida AG launches civil rights investigation into MLB’s warning to Christian pitchers over Pride Night caps
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The attorneys general from Missouri and Florida have reacted strongly to the controversy stirred when Major League Baseball warned three San Francisco Giants players about inscribing a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps, and that reaction includes MLB being served with a subpoena that signals the launch of an official investigation.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier launched his investigation on Friday by serving MLB with a subpoena to investigate whether it is violating the civil rights of players based on their religious beliefs.
The general purpose and scope of Florida’s investigation “extend(s) to possible civil rights and deceptive and unfair trade practices violations in matters of employment concerning the business practices, policies, and procedures of Major League Baseball,” per the subpoena obtained by Fox News Digital.
In a letter from Uthmeier to MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred, the AG warns that “a pattern or practice of selectively enforcing its rules to benefit favored secular beliefs over disfavored religious beliefs would not only potentially violate Florida civil rights law, but it would also violate the League’s own policies.
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL FACES BACKLASH FOR ITS STANCE ON CHRISTIANS WRITING BIBLE VERSES ON PRIDE CAPS
“And a practice of claiming not to discriminate based on religion while discriminating based on religion could further amount to an unfair or deceptive trade practice in violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speaks at a news conference in Orlando on July 15, 2025, where he said U.S. Masters Swimming should not allow transgender athletes to compete against women swimmers or face legal action. Advocates Cassidy Carlisle and Lainey Armistead also attended. (Rich Pope/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service)
Uthmeier is particularly troubled by the fact MLB said its warning had nothing to do with the players’ religious beliefs but rather was strictly because of a violation of the league’s uniform code.
It should be noted MLB said in a follow-up statement to its initial warning to the players that it was merely enforcing its uniform codes and the warning had nothing to do with Giants pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker writing a Bible verse on the team’s Pride Night Cap most of the other players wore.
MLB ACCUSED OF ‘DOUBLE STANDARD’ AFTER CALLING OUT PLAYERS’ BIBLE MESSAGES DESPITE BACKING BLM IN 2020
Uthmeier noted that doesn’t ring true and presented in his letter a handful of examples where MLB has been absolutely fine with players adding to their uniform.
“In 2019, for example, a Cincinnati Reds player wrote on his cap in tribute to a nearby mass shooting,” Uthmeier wrote to Manfred. “And in 2020, MLB evidently added new, sweeping exceptions to its uniform rules by allowing players to ‘support social justice and diversity and inclusion.’ These policy changes included permitting players to add Black Lives Matter patches to their sleeves.
“MLB therefore appears to applaud — even change its rules for — the ideological beliefs it prefers, but targets players who express religious views the League doesn’t like.”
Commissioner of Major League Baseball Robert D. Manfred Jr. speaks at the 2024 MLB Draft presented by Nike at Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas, on July 14, 2024. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The Florida subpoena, issued under the Florida Civil Rights Act, demands action from MLB on July 23, 2026, at 9 a.m.. At that time, MLB must deliver to the AG’s office documents including:
- All documents concerning how MLB characterized or classified the June 2026 cap writing, including, for example, whether MLB treated it as religious expression, political messaging, protest, or a violation unrelated to its content.
- All documents concerning what prompted MLB’s review of and warning regarding the June 2026 cap writing, including any complaint, media inquiry, internal escalation, or third-party communication received before the warning issued, and the timing of each relative to the warning.
- All documents concerning the actual June 2026 warnings issued by the MLB to any club.
- All documents, including drafts and internal deliberations, concerning MLB’s decision to issue and publicly announce the June 2026 warnings, and any analysis of whether doing so adhered to the Code or with MLB’s treatment of comparable non-religious expression.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Landen Roupp wrote “Genesis 9:12-16” on his Pride-Night themed hat. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Uthmeier is thus joining Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, who recently wrote a letter to Manfred asking the commissioner to confirm that no player who has chosen to refrain from “wearing Pride Month paraphernalia or included Bible verses on Pride Month hats” will not be disciplined in any way.
Hanaway’s letter states that if Manfred fails to answer by June 25 or does not confirm that no discipline will be levied, she too will open an investigation of MLB.
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The two attorneys general have authority over their individual states. But it affects four MLB teams.
Florida is home to two MLB teams — the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins — while Missouri is home to the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals.
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Sports
Commentary: Why MLB’s Pride Night cap condemnation isn’t the anti-Christian crackdown conservatives claim
Amid the first days of grief after Alex Vesia and his wife lost their newborn daughter last fall, Vesia noticed something as he watched the World Series on television. He paused the broadcast, then checked the video, then texted another player to make sure.
51.
Dodgers teammates wore his number on their caps. So did players from the Toronto Blue Jays.
“It was awesome,” Vesia said. “It was a very heartwarming moment.”
Moving.
Touching.
And, under baseball’s rules, illegal.
Who knew, really, until this week? Three pitchers from the San Francisco Giants wrote the name of a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps and, amid an uproar, Major League Baseball said it had warned the players that “writing of any kind, with any message” on any playing apparel is not permitted. The issue, the league said in a statement, was not what they wrote on their caps but simply that they wrote on them at all.
Said MLB in the statement: “We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad’, ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of family members.”
To its credit, the league did not enforce the rule when Vesia’s number started appearing on caps in the World Series. But, if you’re going to draw a line on enforcement, where should you draw it?
In San Francisco, the actions of the Giants’ pitchers were widely condemned.
“They were in for a rude awakening with the response, and it wasn’t just from the gay community,” Giants broadcaster and former pitcher Mike Krukow told KNBR, the team’s flagship radio station. “It was from the Northern California community that supports the gay community.”
In response to media inquiries, and as first reported by Outsports, MLB confirmed it had warned the three players. I asked the league whether warnings had been issued in two other instances in which players had written on their caps, including Clayton Kershaw last year writing the same Bible verse on his Pride Night cap that the Giants’ pitchers wrote this year. MLB declined to comment.
“I got chastised by the league when I put Charlie [Kirk]’s name on my hat last year, because a man was murdered in cold blood,” Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen told me, “and now these gentlemen who are relievers in San Francisco are getting chastised by the league for putting a Bible verse on their hat. It’s crazy to me.”
Treinen said league officials had told him the rule is strictly enforced.
“I straight up asked Clayton last year, ‘Did they call you when you put that on your hat?’” Treinen said. “He said, ‘No.’”
The Pride caps feature team logos decorated in the colors of the rainbow, a symbol long associated with the gay community. In the Bible verse cited by the pitchers (Genesis 9:12-16), the rainbow represents “the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures.”
That the league would warn players against writing a Bible verse on their caps ignited a wave of conservative outrage, from Vice President JD Vance to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley fired off a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, alleging apparent discrimination “against baseball players who profess their Christian faith” and threatening the league’s antitrust exemption. Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon said on national television that players might be able to file a claim for employment discrimination.
That is complete nonsense. This is what you want: When employees raise an issue to their employer, the employer listens and addresses their concerns.
In 2023, the year after five Tampa Bay Rays players declined to wear rainbow logos for Pride Night, Manfred said the league would no longer compel players to do so.
“We have told teams, in terms of actual uniforms, hats, bases that we don’t think putting logos on them is a good idea just because of the desire to protect players: not putting them in a position of doing something that may make them uncomfortable because of their personal views,” Manfred said then.
Teammates congratulate Freddie Freeman after his walk-off home run gave the Dodgers a 1-0 win on June 5, when the Dodgers held their annual Pride Night. Blake Treinen, the winning pitcher that night, elected to wear his regular Dodgers cap instead of the Pride version.
(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
Manfred said the Pride Night celebrations could go on, however a team wished to stage them — or not, in the case of the Texas Rangers, the only one of the 30 MLB teams that declines to hold a Pride Night. And the league still sells Pride gear on its website for all teams, including the Rangers.
In the cases of the Giants and Dodgers, MLB grandfathered each team’s long-running use of a rainbow logo on the cap, with this accommodation to players: If you don’t feel comfortable wearing the Pride cap, just wear your regular cap.
That is what Treinen and outfielder Alex Call did when the Dodgers celebrated Pride Night. That is also what a fourth Giants pitcher did.
“My job is to abide by the rules,” Treinen said. “Ultimately, the only rule we have is to wear our team-issued uniform. So that’s what I chose to do.”
To Treinen, the decision over whether to wear a Pride cap is not about passing judgment on anyone else but about what he sees as the push “to force something on people that you know that is controversial to their faith — and, in fact, straight up against their faith.”
He expressed his support for the Giants pitchers.
“Kudos to those men over there who are standing strong in their faith,” he said. “It’s a sad thing to corner someone and try to make them feel bad about their convictions.”
I respect Treinen for explaining his viewpoint. To me, wearing a Pride cap for one night does not diminish your faith at all. It might sharpen your convictions. More important, it signals a welcome to everyone in the community that buys the tickets and broadcast subscriptions that help pay your salary.
“I think a few people made it about themselves and not about the community,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told the Bay Area Reporter.
We always proclaim the life lessons of sports. One of them: Sometimes you have to put the team’s interests ahead of your own.
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After its massive 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday night, Mexico has won Group A and officially clinched a spot in the knockout round.
El Tri will play its Round of 32 game in Mexico City, and will face the third-place finisher in either Group C/E/F/H/I.
This is the fourth time that Mexico has topped the group stage of a World Cup, with the other three coming in 1986, 1994 and 2002.
With the win, Mexico remains unbeaten in World Cup group games at home, going a combined 6-2-0 (W-D-L), with two wins and a draw in 1970 and 1986, and now two wins in 2026.
Before the tournament began, Mexico was listed at +6500 to win the World Cup. Now, after winning its first two games of the tournament, Mexico has surged up the oddsboard to +5000.
Can Mexico build off its first two matches and make a deep run in this tournament? Let’s check out the updated odds for El Tri as of June 19.
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Team Mexico — Stage of Elimination
Last 32: +125 (bet $10 to win $22.50 total)
Last 16: +135 (bet $10 to win $23.50 total)
Quarterfinals: +600 (bet $10 to win $70 total)
Semifinals: +1600 (bet $10 to win $170 total)
Runner-up: +3000 (bet $10 to win $310 total)
Outright winner: +5000 (bet $10 to win $510 total)
Mexico is currently +5000 to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup after winning Group A (Getty Images).
Mexico’s Past World Cup Results:
1930: Group stage
1934: Did not qualify
1938: Withdrew
1950: Group stage
1954: Group stage
1958: Group stage
1962: Group stage
1966: Group stage
1970: Quarterfinals
1974: Did not qualify
1978: Group stage
1982: Did not qualify
1986: Quarterfinals
1990: Banned
1994: Round of 16
1998: Round of 16
2002: Round of 16
2006: Round of 16
2010: Round of 16
2014: Round of 16
2018: Round of 16
2022: Group stage
2026: TBD
What to know: Mexico has made a habit of being in the running, but never really being in the running. Make sense? Consider this: El Tri made it out of the group stage in seven consecutive World Cups (1994-2018), but never made it past the Round of 16 in any of those years. In 2022, Mexico failed to make it out of the group stage, and it will look to get back to its winning ways in 2026 after a great start to the tournament. With its win Thursday night, Mexico has now advanced to the knockout stage in eight of the last nine World Cups. It is important to note, however, that Mexico has never made it past the quarterfinals at a FIFA men’s World Cup.
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