When the U.S. faces Paraguay on Friday, attendees will have no issues when it comes to buying a beer or a hot dog.
Via the Associated Press, the union representing roughly 2,000 SoFi Stadium workers announced Tuesday that a deal has been struck to avoid a strike during the World Cup.
Union members, who recently voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, will vote Wednesday on the ratification of the agreement.
The agreement includes higher wages and protections against the subcontracting of union work.
SoFi Stadium will host eight of the matches in the upcoming international soccer tournament. The labor peace also will extend to Rams and Chargers’ home games.
Rams Clips
The Rams have added an outside linebacker.
Los Angeles announced on Tuesday that the club has signed Tomon Fox.
Fox, 28, spent the last four seasons with the Giants, largely bouncing between the team’s active roster and the practice squad after initially signing with the club as an undrafted free agent in 2022.
In 37 career games with two starts, Fox has recorded 45 total tackles with 2.0 sacks. Last season, he appeared in nine games with one start, tallying six total tackles while mainly playing special teams.
Rams offensive lineman Alaric Jackson was arrested for felony domestic battery on Monday night in Los Angeles.
NBC4 reports that Jackson was arrested at around 11 p.m., after police were called to his home.
The report said Jackson and a woman had an argument, Jackson thought the woman was recording him with her phone and allegedly tried to take the phone out of her hand, and investigators said the woman had scratch marks on her arms.
Jackson was jailed early Tuesday morning, and released after posting a $50,000 bond.
In 2024, the NFL suspended Jackson two games for violating the Personal Conduct Policy, as a result of a woman reporting that Jackson recorded her during sex without consent, refused to delete the video and taunted her with it. The woman filed a lawsuit against Jackson in November.
Last year the Rams signed Jackson to a three-year, $57 million contract extension. Jackson started 16 regular-season games and all three postseason games for the Rams last season.
Myles Garrett got on the practice field with the Rams for the first time on Monday and he began to acclimate himself into life with a new team.
It’s also a new defense, but it doesn’t sound like Garrett is going to have to spend too many late nights in the playbook to be ready to take the field. Defensive coordinator Chris Shula invoked some big names on Monday while talking about how the team views integrating Garrett into the scheme.
“Obviously, we’re still gonna have our principles . . . but we’re gonna let him do what he does best, and we all know exactly what he does best,” Shula said, via the team’s website. “You’re not gonna take Michael Jordan, LeBron, all those guys and pull them out of their comfort zone. We’re gonna work with him and put him in the best spots that we think for him and the defense to succeed.”
There will be some things for Garrett to get used to as the Rams run a 3-4 base rather than the 4-3 he became familiar with in Cleveland, but any alignment is going to benefit from Garrett getting after the quarterback as often as possible.
Retired defensive lineman Aaron Donald is “flirting” with a comeback after the Rams traded for edge rusher Myles Garrett last week. It has created a buzz in Los Angeles, even among Rams players.
“When you have a guy that’s that serious about even considering coming out, it’s like ‘OK, we might have a chance,’” safety Quentin Lake said Monday, via Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times.
Donald, 35, has not played since 2023, his 10th season in the NFL.
The thought of pairing Donald, who has won Defensive Player of the Year three times, with Garrett, who has won it twice, including in 2025, has the rest of the NFL worried.
The Rams are waiting and dreaming of the possibility.
Defensive coordinator Chris Shula said he would “love to have him back, with open arms.”
“To just have two historic, if you will, defensive players on that line together,” defensive lineman Kobie Turner said, “and to have the rest of us who are trying to build up our reputations, and to build to that level of greatness that they’ve been able to garner, I think that would be cool for L.A.”
Myles Garrett was noncommittal on participating in the Rams’ organized team activities during his introductory news conference last week. Garrett, after all, skipped all of the Browns’ voluntary offseason work, losing a $1 million workout bonus.
The All-Pro edge rusher, though, was on the field with his new teammates on Monday.
The Rams posted photos of Garrett in his No. 95 practice jersey and helmet at the practice.
The team has two more OTA sessions this week followed by a mandatory minicamp on June 15-16.
The reigning Defensive Player of the Year set a single-season sacks record with 23 last season and has 125.5 sacks in his career.
The best way for the circus to make money is when the circus isn’t in town. In American sports, no league has mastered that reality like the NFL.
From the Super Bowl to Week 1, the league has developed many ways to attract attention and drive interest when it’s not football season. Prior to 2006, June 1 was the occasion for a fresh wave of free agency. In 2026, June 1 made a major comeback.
The trades of defensive end Myles Garrett, defensive end Jared Verse, and receiver A.J. Brown made it a big week for the NFL. And it raises the question of whether the league and its teams will further embrace the possibility of making deals on June 1 in the future.
It’s a point raised at the tail end of an article from ESPN reviewing the trades that happened last Monday.
“I think the league will [lean into] the June 1 thing,” an unnamed AFC executive told ESPN. “It’s the summer, it’s slow, and these deals are good engagement for the league.”
They also need to be good for the teams involved, and the primary benefit for the seller comes from trading bloated contracts in the hopes of reducing the cap consequences in the current year. That’s why June 1 used to be a major date for free agency; before teams could release up to two veterans with a post-June 1 designation in March, they had to hold the contracts until June in order to spread the dead money over two years.
But if teams are willing to move highly-paid veterans — and if other teams are willing to give up significant compensation to get them — June 1 can become yet another date to circle, every year. And, yes, at some level, the NFL wants to have more tentpole events at a time when the three-ring circus is in mothballs.
After the Browns proposed expanding the universe of future picks that could be traded from three years to five (and the Rams coincidentally agreed), Rams president Kevin Demoff said, “Nothing creates more interest in the NFL than trades. This is why Cleveland’s proposal to allow teams to trade picks up to 5 years out as opposed to 3 years out makes so much sense. More picks to trade = more trades = more interest & team building options.”
The option of building a team and generating interest with June 1 trades has been hiding in plain sight, for years. In 2026, the NFL got a taste of what that day could become, if the trend continues.
The World Cup is coming. And SoFi Stadium workers could be going.
According to the Wall Street Journal, via Sports Business Journal, roughly 2,000 hospitality workers at SoFi Stadium voted “overwhelmingly” to authorize a strike. The walkout could occur “at any time.”
Union officials have, per the report, indicated that the U.S. men’s national team’s opening match against Paraguay on June 12 “would be an opportune moment” to exercise their right to initiate a work stoppage.
Legends Global, which operates the concessions at SoFi Stadium, expressed confidence that an agreement can be reached. The company also said that it has a contingency staffing plan in place, in the event that a strike happens.
In the days following his trade from the Browns to the Rams, defensive end Myles Garrett received a new contract. As recently explained, the deal carries no new dollars over the five years that were left on his deal with the Browns.
This means that Garrett will be, as a practical matter, taking a pay cut.
The Browns owed Garrett $179 million from 2026 through 2030. The Rams owe Garrett $179 million from 2026 through 2030. Given the significant differences in state income tax rates between Ohio and California — 3.125 percent versus 13.3 percent — Garrett will lose 10 percent of his gross pay that, in Cleveland, he would have kept.
No, it’s not a straight and complete 10 percent. Game checks are taxed in the states where the games are played. Still, 10 of 20 games each year are played at home — and bonus money typically is taxed in the state where the player’s team plays.
The Rams got a gift on this one, because Garrett could have made a very fair and reasonable request to have his pay increased to offset the elevated tax burden. And it’s no small issue; the difference is in the millions.
He received a bump from $30.5 million to $37 million in 2026, which helps. But the total dollars over the next five years (and the first three) are unchanged.
Will Garrett make up the difference in marketing opportunities, now that he’ll be based in L.A.? Possibly. Regardless, it would have been more than reasonable for Garrett to ask for a pay increase in connection with his trade, especially since he has a no-trade clause.
Even though he didn’t renew his request for a trade after the 2025 season, the fact that he accepted the trade despite the dramatically higher state income tax rate says it all. He wanted a fresh start with a contender, and he was willing to give up a significant chunk of cash to make that happen.
As Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis learned last month, throwing out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game is usually a no-win proposition. Do it well, and no one notices. Do it not-so-well, and you never hear the end of it.
That basic truth didn’t stop new Rams defensive end Myles Garrett from giving it a whirl on Saturday. And it went very well.
Here’s the video. It was a strike from the top of the mound — and it had some heat on it.
Garrett wore a T-shirt with an image of L.A. icon Kobe Bryant in a Dodgers hat. If Garrett plays for the Rams like he played for the Browns, Garrett will be the guy on the T-shirts worn by L.A. fans.
For now, Garrett checked the box regarding his perfunctory first pitch at Chavez Ravine. Even if it would have gotten far more notice if the throw had gotten away from Garrett.
