🏈 Y! Sports AM: NFL power rankings

⚾️ MLB roundup: Pete Alonso hit his 300th career home run at Citi Field (and in a classy move, got a curtain call from his former home fans); the Brewers clinched the NL Central following another gem from Jacob Misiorowski (5 IP, 7 K, 0 R); Rays 3B Junior Caminero hit his second walk-off homer in his past four games as he makes a late push for the AL MVP.

🎰 Betting backlash: The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS are banding together to crack down on betting-related harassment of players, coaches and families, with the leagues issuing a joint statement suggesting punishments for those who engage in such behavior. The WNBA criticized the NBA for failing to include them in their joint statement.

🏈 Big weekend ratings: Texas’ comeback win over Ohio State on Saturday was ESPN’s most-watched regular-season college football game in a decade (14M viewers), and the Giants’ win over the Cowboys on NBC was the most-watched Week 1 Sunday night game since 2015 (25.7M viewers).

🇦🇷 Messi’s last dance: Lionel Messi, who already announced his retirement from international soccer, will take part in one final farewell match with Argentina on Oct. 6 against Benin in Buenos Aires as part of the upcoming international break.

⛳️ Sorry, LIV: PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp on Tuesday unveiled the qualification system for the Tour’s new two-tier structure debuting in 2028. He also addressed the elephant in the room, making it clear that the Tour will not offer a return opportunity for LIV Golf players like the one Brooks Koepka used earlier this year.

See what else is trending on Yahoo Sports.

• No. 5 49ers (▲11): Few teams looked better in Week 1 than the Niners, who scored a resounding victory in the battle of dueling jet lag strategies. The only bad news for San Francisco: They lost exciting rookie WR De’Zhaun Stribling (ankle) for at least a month.
• No. 6 Jaguars (▲8): The Jags picked up right where they left off, destroying the Browns for their ninth straight regular-season win behind Trevor Lawrence (18/23, 245 yards, 4 TD), who looks poised for another big season.
• No. 7 Chiefs (▲5): Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III looks like he’s ready to transform Kansas City’s offense, which will only get better as Patrick Mahomes gets more comfortable in his return from a torn ACL.
• No. 14 Giants (▲9): Big Blue bullied the Cowboys in primetime to deliver a statement victory for new head coach John Harbaugh, who has already given the Giants something they haven’t had in years: hope.

• No. 11 Patriots (▼6): They won’t look this bad every week, but some negative regression should probably be expected in New England after last season’s storybook run came against the third-easiest schedule in NFL history.
• No. 15 Broncos (▼11): Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong in Denver’s opening contest. You have to wonder if Sean Payton is already considering taking back play-calling duties from first-year OC Davis Webb.
• No. 16 Cowboys (▼9): Was New York’s offense really that good on Sunday night? Or is Dallas’ supposedly improved defense still just as bad as it was last season? Time will tell.
• No. 19 Chargers (▼6): Their loss to the Cardinals was so bad it had Jim Harbaugh lamenting the decision to sit his starters for most of the preseason. Things could get ugly in a hurry with an absolutely brutal schedule coming up.
• No. 24 Colts (▼5): Daniel Jones didn’t look great nine months after tearing his Achilles, and Indianapolis looked a lot more like the team that ended last season on a seven-game losing streak than the one that started it 8-2.

More fallers: No. 4 Rams (▼3), No. 13 Texans (▼3), No. 18 Packers (▼1), No. 26 Panthers (▼1), No. 29 Falcons (▼1), No. 31 Titans (▼4).

Don’t see your squad? The No. 2 Seahawks, No. 8 Eagles, No. 9 Lions, No. 20 Steelers, No. 21 Buccaneers, No. 22 Commanders, No. 30 Browns and No. 32 Dolphins all stood pat and maintained their position from last week’s rankings.

The top 20 owners in sports are collectively worth an estimated $666 billion, according to Forbes’ annual rankings, up 10% from last year.

For context: The cumulative market capitalization of the S&P 500 is approximately $69 trillion. The cumulative wealth of just 20 sports owners equates to nearly 1% of that figure. How about U.S. household wealth? That totals $186 trillion. 0.36% of it is represented here.

Around the leagues: 10 NFL teams are represented in the top 20, just two more than the NBA and one more than MLS, thanks to the popularity of bolting on a soccer franchise to existing NFL infrastructure. The richest owners in each league are as follows:

• NBA: Steve Ballmer, Clippers ($156 billion)
• NFL: Rob Walton, Broncos ($132 billion)
• NHL: Henry Samueli, Ducks ($34 billion)
• MLB: Steve Cohen, Mets* ($27 billion)

Bottom line: If your team’s owner is featured on this list, they have little reason not to invest in their competitiveness… within the rules, of course (right, Steve?).

*Soon to be replaced by Stan Kroenke with the completion of his Angels acquisition. Until then, MLB appears on the list just once!

Lane Kiffin stiff-arming Ole Miss for LSU is one thing. But his reimagining of the whole saga on the eve of his return to Oxford is another, writes Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken, who pulls no punches in his latest column.

Here’s a teaser:

Lane Kiffin has been through so many lifetimes in college football and tried on so many different versions of himself that sometimes you wonder if he gets confused about which character he’s supposed to play.

When Kiffin left Ole Miss last December for LSU, sacrificing a viable chance to win a national championship in the process, he did it for a defensible reason. Though everything about the timing and execution was terrible, there was nothing controversial about the belief he’d have a better chance of consistently contending for titles at LSU. Why won’t he just own it?

What he’s saying: “I told the players today, man, you don’t have anything to worry about as far as like attention on you all week,” Kiffin said during Monday’s press conference in Baton Rouge. “There’s going to be so much attention and hatred and everything on me … Really, the pressure’s on them [Ole Miss]. We won seven games last year, they won 13. They return two Heisman candidates. … So you guys get to go play. The pressure’s not on you.”

Huh? If there is one thing we know for sure about why Kiffin left Ole Miss, it wasn’t to be the underdog. Not in this game, not in any game. He went to LSU not just to win, but to dominate — backed by a university administration that would rather jump in Mike the Tiger’s cage than tell their football coach no.

“They’ve been playing this matchup for a long time and this is the first time in the last 64 years both teams are in the top 10,” added Kiffin. “I think it’s a really good thing that a lot of people could look at it and say, hey, both sides are doing really well and both sides won.”

Baloney. The idea that “both sides won” is laughable gaslighting. It only turned out that way because Ole Miss refused to let Kiffin get everything he wanted. Put on the black hat once and for all and own it, Lane. If not, what was the point of going to LSU in the first place?

Read the full story.

• ⚾️ WPBL Championship: Los Angeles vs. San Francisco (7pm, ESPN+) … Game 1 in the best-of-five series to determine the inaugural champion of the pioneering league.
• ⚽️ US Open Cup: Columbus Crew vs. Orlando City (7pm, CBSSN); Colorado Rapids vs. St. Louis City (9:30pm, CBSSN) … Semifinals of the long-running domestic cup competition.
• ⚽️ Campeones Cup: Inter Miami vs. Cruz Azul (8pm, Apple) … The eighth annual match between the reigning MLS and Liga MX champions.

Travis Kelce (13,073) passed Jason Witten (13,002) on Monday for second on the all-time tight end receiving yards list, trailing only Tony Gonzalez (15,127).

Question: Which two tight ends round out the top five on that list?

Hint: Rob Gronkowski is sixth (9,286), so he’s not one of the answers.

Answer at the bottom.

Yahoo Sports and Apple TV are teaming up to deliver alternate broadcasts of “Friday Night Baseball” and MLS games, with the first such soccer altcast coming during tonight’s Campeones Cup match between Inter Miami CF and Cruz Azul.

Tune in:The Cooligans hosts Alexis Guerreros and Christian Polanco will broadcast the full game, including a brief pregame show (7:55pm ET), on Yahoo Sports. Viewers can also watch the main broadcast of the match on Apple TV.

Trivia answer: Antonio Gates (11,841 receiving yards) and Shannon Sharpe (9,961)