Viewership for the 2026 Daytona 500 rebounded from 2025, but was still lower than previous regularly-scheduled races in recent years.

Fox Sports said Thursday that nearly 7.5 million people watched Tyler Reddick’s win on Sunday. That’s an increase from the 6.76 million people that watched the 2025 Daytona 500, but that race was delayed significantly by rain. Last year’s event completed just eight green-flag laps before a rain delay of over three hours stopped the race.

Sunday’s race was moved up an hour because of potential rain, and started just after 2 p.m. ET instead of after 3 p.m. ET.

With the 2024 Daytona 500 pushed to Monday because of rain, the last regularly-scheduled race came in 2023. That race, won by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., averaged 8.17 million viewers. In 2022, the Daytona 500 drew over 8.8 million viewers.

Daytona 500 viewership has been on a steady decline since 2006, when Jimmie Johnson’s win drew over 19.3 million viewers. Kurt Busch’s win in 2017 had an average audience of 11.9 million and no Daytona 500 since then has gotten close to breaking 10 million.

In 2018, Austin Dillon’s win had 9.3 million viewers and Denny Hamlin’s win a year later had 9.2 million.

Did moving up Sunday’s race mean fewer viewers ended up watching? That’s an unknown. It’s possible, but the earlier 500 also meant it didn’t run head-to-head with the NBA All-Star Game as much as it was scheduled to originally. The All-Star Game drew its highest audience since 2011 on Sunday with 8.8 million viewers.

The game, aired on NBC after the network’s daytime Olympic coverage, drew 4.1 more million viewers than the 2025 All-Star Game on TNT.

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Two more Georgia football players have been arrested for driving-related offenses.

Linebackers Chris Cole and Darren Ikinaagbon were booked Wednesday night within a half hour of each other on misdemeanor charges. Cole for speeding and reckless driving, according to On3, and Ikinnagbon for speeding, reckless driving and following too closely.

The school said in a statement that it was aware of the charges and was “actively gathering additional information.”

Their arrests continue a trend that is not seeming to slow down in recent years for Georgia players. Over a dozen players have been arrested for driving offenses in the past three years since the death of offensive lineman Devin Willock.

Willock and team staffer Chandler LeCroy were killed in a car crash on Jan. 15, 2023 following the Bulldogs’ national title parade. Police said that LeCroy was driving an SUV that was racing another SUV driven by current Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter.

Carter pled no contest to charges of reckless driving for his role in the incident.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart has said his program has implemented efforts to curb the driving issues that have plagued it. In November, Nyier Daniels was dismissed from the team after he was charged with felonies for a police chase. Daniels and his mother were both arrested after he passed an officer who had pulled over his mother while going more than 100 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. Daniels then allegedly reached 150 MPH with his younger siblings in the car while he was evading police.

Cole was fourth on the team with 59 tackles in 2025 while Ikinaagbon had two tackles. 

The Kansas City Chiefs have used Patrick Mahomes’ contract to open up over $40 million in salary cap space.

According tomultiple reports, the Chiefs have restructured Mahomes’ deal to lower his cap hit from $78.2 million to under $35 million for the 2026 season.

Before the restructure, the Chiefs were over the cap by over $50 million and are still not cap compliant at the moment with this move. But the Chiefs could quickly get there with just one or two other moves. The team can save $20 million against the cap by releasing right tackle Jawaan Taylor, for instance. Defensive tackle Chris Jones' deal could be redone as well if the Chiefs are looking to open up more short-term cap space for free agency manuevering. 

Mahomes’ contract was always likely to be restructured ahead of the season given his projected cap number. Only Cleveland’s Deshaun Watson ($80.7 million) had a higher cap number going into the 2026 season.

It’s not the first time Mahomes’ contract has been redone, either. The Chiefs redid Mahomes’ deal ahead of the 2023 season. Mahomes first signed an extension with the team that kicked in during the 2020 season and goes through the 2031 season. His total contract value of $450 million, including non-guaranteed money, ranks No. 1 in the NFL by far, ahead of the Bills’ Josh Allen and the Bengals’ Joe Burrow.

Mahomes, 30, suffered a torn left ACL in a December loss to the Los Angeles Chargers and is pushing to be ready for Week 1 of the 2026 season. The Chiefs are also reportedly hoping to have tight end Travis Kelce return for another season. Kelce has been publicly non-committal about his future after the 2025 season.

After going 6-11 in 2025, the Chiefs have the No. 9 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. It's the first time the Chiefs have picked in the top 10 since Mahomes was drafted by the franchise in 2017.