Friday the 13th
Happy Friday! And it’s not just any Friday — it’s the most spooky, haunted Friday of all: Friday the Thirteenth. In honor of the occasion, we’re leaning all the way into sports curses, from the Bambino and Billy Goat to the Madden Cover and plenty of remaining hexes that still haven’t been broken. Plus, the weekend is a busy one: Texas-LSU and USC-Indiana headline a huge college-football Saturday, the Patriots and Lions kick off Sunday’s NFL slate from Germany, the NWSL is down to its semifinals, and No. 1 South Carolina meets No. 3 USC in one of the biggest women’s college basketball games of the young season. Here’s what we’re watching this weekend:
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game
🏀🏆 March Madness check-in: South Carolina 30% to win the women’s national title
⛳ PGA Tour: Austin Championship, Final Round (Golf ChannelFriday (11/13)
🏈 CFB: Illinois (22%) at No. 8 UCLA (78%) - 9 p.m. (FOX)
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 32% to win the national title
🏀 NBA: Knicks (73%) at Pacers (27%) - 7 p.m. (Prime Video)
🏀 NBA: Warriors (14%) at Spurs (86%) - 9:30 p.m. (Prime Video)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Spurs 23% to win🏒 NHL: Rangers (67%) at Canucks (33%) - 9 p.m. - 1994 Stanley Cup rematch!
🏒 NHL: Predators (37%) at Golden Knights (63%) - 10 p.m.
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Hurricanes 14% to win⚽ UEFA Nations League: Germany (78%) vs. Serbia (9%) - 2:45 p.m. (FS2 / ViX)
⚽🏆 Champions League check-in: FC Barcelona 23% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 78% to win
⚽🏆 Europa League check-in: Leverkusen/SL Benfica 17% to win
🏀 CBB: No. 12 Arizona (59%) at Auburn (41%) - 9 p.m.
🏀🏆 March Madness check-in: Duke 17% to win the men’s national title
⛳ PGA Tour: Austin Championship, Round 2 (Golf Channel) - Trace Crowe 16% to win
Saturday (11/14)
🏈 CFB: No. 22 Missouri (13%) at No. 1 Georgia (87%) - 3:30 p.m. (CBS)
🏈 CFB: No. 18 USC (26%) at No. 9 Indiana (74%) - 3:30 p.m. (Big Ten Network)
🏈 CFB: No. 6 Texas (38%) at No. 21 LSU (62%) - 7:30 p.m. (ABC / ESPN+)
🏀 NBA: Mavericks (41%) at Cavaliers (59%) - 7:30 p.m.
🏀 NBA: Pistons (64%) at Heat (36%) - 8 p.m. (NBA TV)
🏒 NHL: Wild at Bruins - 7 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Maple Leafs - 7 p.m. (NHLN)
⚽ NWSL Semifinal: No. 7 Utah (48%) at No. 3 Washington (52%) - 12 p.m. (CBS) 🚨
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Washington Spirit 46% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 25% to win MLS Cup (playoffs start Thursday, 11/19)
🏀 CBB: LSU vs. No. 14 Gonzaga - 3:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
🥊 UFC 334: Ciryl Gane (66%) vs. Josh Hokit (34%) - 10 p.m. (Paramount+ PPV) - Heavyweight Main Event
⛳ PGA Tour: Austin Championship, Round 3 (Golf Channel)
Sunday (11/15)
🏈 NFL: Patriots (42%) at Lions (58%) - 9:30 a.m. (FOX) - from Munich, Germany
🏈 NFL: Vikings (41%) at Packers (59%) - 1:00 p.m. (FOX)
🏈 NFL: 49ers (66%) at Cowboys (34%) - 4:25 p.m. (FOX)
🏈 NFL: Steelers (37%) at Bengals (63%) - 8:20 p.m. (NBC)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 18% to win the NFL title
🏀 NBA: Lakers at Suns - 4 p.m.
🏀 NBA: Mavericks at Celtics - 6 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Flyers - 7:30 p.m.
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Stars - 8 p.m. (NHLN)
⚽ NWSL Semifinal: No. 4 Kansas City at No. 1 Gotham FC - 3 p.m. (ABC) 🚨
🏀 WBB: No. 1 South Carolina (57%) vs. No. 3 USC (43%) - 1 p.m. (ESPN) - Will the real “USC” please stand up?
🔍 FIND THE EDGE
Cursed!
Since it is indeed Friday the Thirteenth, we thought it would be fun to use today’s newsletter to celebrate all things curse-related. There is a long history of superstitious beliefs in sports, which — rational as we pretend to be at times — any prediction-market trader can probably also relate to. (Or is it just me?) Any chance we have to control a cruel and random universe, we take it.
Sports curses can also be fun, a way to gin up storylines around games that otherwise might not be as interesting. For instance, while we probably would have noticed that the Chicago Cubs failed to win a World Series for 108 years regardless, knowing that it might have happened because a tavern owner and his pet goat were kicked out of a 1945 World Series game at Wrigley Field gave a lot of flavor to that 108-year drought. And once a curse gets established, it can take on a life of its own — the players start to feel the weight of it, whether it’s “real” or not.
But fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, we are starting to run out of some of the longest-running curses in recent decades. Famously, the Boston Red Sox ended the Curse of the Bambino — supposedly triggered by owner Harry Frazee selling the GOAT, Babe Ruth, to the Yankees in 1920 so he could finance the Broadway musical “No, No, Nanette” — when they came back from down 3-0 in the ALCS to the Yankees, then won the World Series, in 2004. But that was just the first of numerous long-standing North American sports curses to fall in the past 20+ years:
That group even includes the Milwaukee Brewers, winners of the 2026 World Series — who supposedly had a curse under which they could not win a World Series until the Seattle Mariners won first. (The M’s were the replacement for the Seattle Pilots, who were moved to Milwaukee after just a single season in 1969.) The Mariners missed their chance to win last year, and the Brew Crew took advantage this year, so maybe that particular curse makes no sense… but then again, that’s part of the fun when it comes to this stuff.
Take the fabled Madden Curse as another example, which states that a player featured on the cover of the NFL’s flagship video game is destined to either be injured, otherwise decline in performance, and/or fail on a high-profile stage. Now, you might be thinking, that offers a lot of paths to “confirm” this curse if one so desired, and that’s certainly true. It is also true that, even though 21 of the 27 historic cover athletes saw a decline in their Approximate Value (AV) versus the previous season — including current cover-man Caleb Williams of the Bears — much of that can be explained by regression to the mean. After all, Madden covers are selected on the basis of outlier performances that probably involved good luck in addition to great skill.
However, when I compared Madden cover athletes to comparable players (by position, age and prior AV), the Madden sample actually declined by a greater amount on average: -5.0 AV versus -3.6 for the non-cover players. So count this one as a curse that lives on!
And it’s not alone in that regard. For all of the hexes that have been broken in recent years, there is no shortage of remaining curses to potentially fall. Here are the most likely ones to get broken next, according to the prediction market odds for each given competition’s next championship:
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Because it allows for any of 7 different NHL teams to win the championship, the Canadian Stanley Cup Drought — which has run since 1993 — is the single most likely “curse” to end this season. (I suppose the curse’s origin involves the NHL’s Sun Belt expansion since the early ‘90s, which has drained away talent from Canadian teams in a very real way.) Elsewise, the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl, the Presidents’ Trophy Winner in the NHL, and England at the 2030 World Cup are the next-most likely curse-breakers.
And if all of those curses eventually fall too? Don’t worry: We'll just make up some new ones. The Sports Gods may be fickle, but our ability to explain away losing for reasons other than “we suck” remains undefeated.
Two very different MVPs
We noted yesterday that baseball’s Cy Young recipients — Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski — were just the third pair of unanimous winners in the award’s history. Well, we got another set of unanimous hardware last night as well, when Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubs and Yordan Alvarez of the Astros both swept the first-place votes for MVP. That double had never occurred prior to 2023, but it has now happened in 3 of the past 4 seasons, as we are perhaps all looking at the same data now. Still, it wasn’t exactly the same story in both leagues this time around; PCA won in large part because of his stellar defense in center field, while Alvarez — one of the only designated hitters ever to be named MVP — won despite it, given the negative position adjustment a DH receives in Wins Above Replacement (WAR):
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “I have taken notice, Joe Crispin” by Ken Pomeroy
🏈 “Cam Skattebo please stop backflipping” by Tyler Lauletta
🏈 “How The NFL Ruins Franchise Quarterbacks” by Joon Lee
⛳ “Golf loses a friend and major voice in Dan Hicks” by Bob Harig
⚾ “Tatís, Bregman, and 3 Other Second-Half Power Surges From 2026” by Matt Musico
🏀 “My Worst Sports Take: Ben Simmons Will Be Like Tim Duncan Meets Lamar Odom” by Jeremy Keys (and me, lol)
Next on deck…
Monday (11/16)
🏈 Monday Night Football: Chargers at Ravens
🏀 NBA: Trail Blazers at Timberwolves
🏒 NHL: Canadiens at Rangers
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Germany vs. Netherlands
⚽ CONCACAF Nations League Quarterfinal: Canada vs. Guatemala 🚨
🏀 CBB: Indiana at No. 19 Arkansas
🎾 Tennis: Nitto ATP Finals (Group Stage) - Carlos Alcaraz vs. Frances Tiafoe
Tuesday (11/17)
🏈 CFB: Miami (OH) at Kent State
🏀 NBA: Pistons at Spurs
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Panthers
⚽ CONCACAF Nations League Quarterfinal: United States vs. Haiti 🚨
⚽ CONCACAF Nations League Quarterfinal: Mexico vs. Jamaica 🚨
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Wales vs. Portugal
🏀 CBB: No. 3 Illinois vs. No. 2 Duke
🎾 Tennis: Nitto ATP Finals (Group Stage) - Alexander Zverev vs. Ben Shelton
Wednesday (11/18)
🏈 CFB: Central Michigan at Buffalo
🏀 NBA: Celtics at Nuggets
🏒 NHL: Canadiens at Devils
⚽ CONMEBOL / Int'l Friendly: Argentina vs. Uruguay
🏀 CBB: No. 4 UConn vs. No. 12 Arizona
🎾 Tennis: Nitto ATP Finals (Group Stage) - Carlos Alcaraz vs. Daniil Medvedev
