It’s a historic day for basketball in Tasmania as the state fields its first professional women’s team in 30 years.

The Tasmania Jewels will play in tonight’s WNBL season opener against the Geelong Venom, becoming the first Tasmanian team to play in Australia’s top women’s competition since the Hobart Islanders’ last season in 1996.

The Jewels will look to get their time in the league off to a winning start in front of a sold-out crowd in Hobart from 7pm tonight. You can watch their debut on 9Now.

$65.82 billion
The total global value of sports media rights in 2026, according to SportBusiness Media. The record figure is 15% higher than last year’s and was boosted by the Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup. More than half (53.9%) of the total comes from U.S. sports, with the NFL accounting for almost a fifth of the global total.

“We would anticipate that decision will be made by the end of the month.”
Lawyer Rob Fitzgerald, representing LIV Golf, responding to a question in court about whether the breakaway golf league would be “toggling to a wind-down” or continuing in 2027. After losing the financial backing of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the league has filed for bankruptcy and is currently undergoing a court-supervised restructuring process. Organisers are relying on a new source of funding in the form of an investment from British firm BC Partners and on having enough players signed on to form a golf league by 25 October. Earlier this month, three-time LIV Golf champion and former world number one Jon Rahm announced he would not be signing a contract to join ‘LIV 2.0’.

American Al Oerter won gold in the men’s discus at every Olympic Games between 1956 and 1968, becoming the first athlete to win gold in the same individual track and field event across four Olympics. The only other athlete to achieve this feat is fellow American Carl Lewis, who won gold in the men’s long jump from 1984 to 1996.

🏏 Australia has defeated Bangladesh by eight wickets in the third and final ODI of the series, claiming a 3-0 series victory at Allan Border Oval in Brisbane. Bowler Megan Schutt took four wickets for just 16 runs and was named the player of the match. With 10 wickets across the three ODIs, Schutt was also named the player of the series. The Aussie women will now prepare for a three-match T20 series against New Zealand, which begins on Sunday at North Sydney Oval.

🎾 Alex de Minaur will play world number one Alexander Zverev in the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters tonight. Australia’s top-ranked tennis star advanced to the quarter-finals in Shanghai for the second consecutive year after beating Russian Karen Khachanov in straight sets earlier this week. De Minaur, who has beaten Zverev in their past two meetings, is seeking to become the first Australian semi-finalist at the Shanghai Masters.

🥋 Janine Watson, Australia’s most successful para-taekwondo athlete, has announced her retirement from the sport. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the age of 25, Watson was determined to stay active and took up taekwondo. She went on to win three consecutive World Championships between 2015 and 2019. In 2021, when para-taekwondo made its Paralympic debut in Tokyo, Watson became Australia’s first para-taekwondo Paralympian and won a bronze medal.

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In July, FIFA president Gianni Infantino unveiled a proposal to sell a slice of the international organisation’s commercial operations to outside investors. After intense backlash from fans and officials, he scrapped the idea.

On Thursday, Infantino is meeting with FIFA’s 37-member ruling council in Zurich for the first time since the failed proposal.

The stakes are high because the heads of three of the sport’s continental bodies want Infantino out. UEFA (Europe), the Asian Football Confederation, and CONCACAF (North and Central America plus the Caribbean), have each called for an independent review of FIFA and for Infantino to resign.

Several more issues are hanging over Infantino, including ongoing criticism of FIFA’s decision to award U.S. President Donald Trump the organisation’s inaugural peace prize, and that he pocketed an extra, previously undisclosed $AU2.5 million in 2024 on top of his regular salary. The extra payment was disclosed earlier this week in an official financial filing with U.S. authorities.

None of this seems likely to cost him his job just yet. Infantino is picking up support across Africa, South America, and parts of Asia ahead of next year’s presidential vote. The window to nominate alternate candidates closes 18 November, before members vote at FIFA’s congress, the organisation’s annual general meeting, in Rabat, Morocco, next March.

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The men’s Rugby League World Cup will begin tonight with a clash of the tournament’s two top-ranked teams, Australia and New Zealand. It marks the beginning of one month of rugby league action as the tournament is played alongside the women’s World Cup.

The men’s tournament features 10 teams, down from 16 after a string of one-sided results at the last tournament in England.

Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the Cook Islands form one pool, while the remaining six sides are split into two further groups that cross over, with each team playing every side in the opposite group rather than its own.

The top two teams from Australia’s pool, plus the top two from the combined ladder of the other two groups, advance to the semi-finals on 7 and 8 November.

The women’s tournament will have eight teams vying for World Cup glory, split into two pools of four, with the top two from each group also advancing to the semi-finals on the same dates.

The finals for both tournaments are scheduled for 15 November at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.

Australia’s Kangaroos are the tournament’s defending champions and have won the title a record 12 times. The only other teams to have won are Great Britain (1954, 1960, 1972) and New Zealand (2008).

The Kangaroos, captained by Panthers star Isaah Yeo, head into the tournament as heavy favourites, with their biggest challenge expected to come from New Zealand. The Kiwis have reached just one final since their shock win over Australia in 2008, but look stronger than they have in years, behind a team built around captain James Fisher-Harris, playmaker Jahrome Hughes, and fullback Kalyn Ponga, who switched allegiance from Australia.

Other potential contenders for the title include Samoa and England. Samoa were runners-up at the last World Cup in 2022 and feature NRL stars Stephen Crichton, Brian To’o, and Spencer Leniu. England will be hungry to avenge a 3-0 Ashes series loss to Australia in 2025. Their team includes eight NRL players, highlighted by Roosters premiership winners Victor Radley and Hugo Savala.

Australia’s Jillaroos, who will open their title defence against Samoa on Friday, have lost just once in their past 16 matches and have not conceded more than two tries in a game since 2018. Nine of Australia’s squad were named in this year’s NRLW team of the year, including Dally M medallist Tamika Upton. The team is being captained by Isabelle Kelly, who captained the Sydney Roosters to an NRLW premiership earlier this month.

In the last World Cup final in 2022, they beat New Zealand 54-4. Since then, New Zealand have improved, beating the Jillaroos in 2023 and coming within six points of a win last year. The Kiwi Ferns will be co-captained by Raecene MacGregor and Georgia Hale.

Elsewhere, Samoa and Fiji are both making their World Cup debut, while Papua New Guinea are a steadily improving outfit.

The men’s tournament kicks off tonight with Australia and New Zealand at 8:05pm. The women’s tournament will begin tomorrow evening with Australia taking on Samoa.
You can watch every match on Channel Seven and 7plus.