Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
As we put 2025 to bed and say “hello” to a new year, it’s time to consider what 2026 could bring for the universe of sports.
Today, this space is about predictions. It is not about New Year’s resolutions. I am not a fan of those at all. They are not practical and very few people follow through on them.
This is about what I think will or might happen in the coming year.
The challenge for you in this is that some of these predictions are meant to be silly and funny and I don’t really think they will happen at all. You get to figure out which ones are which.
Let’s roll.
I believe that the Hoosiers football team is going to win its first game in the College Football Playoff in a very convincing win over Alabama, but I do not think they will win the CFP championship.
If they make it into the championship game and they run into Ohio State again, Ryan Day will be at his most obnoxious in the days leading up to it. He’ll be telling us how the outcome will be different this time and how much tougher his team is this time around.
And somehow in it all, he will tell us how he’s out to prove Lou Holtz wrong.
And we will all roll our eyes.
I really hope I am wrong on that one.
In the same way, I don’t think the Bears are going to the Super Bowl.
I will say that I think the Bears’ wins in all those close games in the middle of this season will be a huge plus when it comes to winning playoff games. Experience doing something is very valuable, and the thought that they could be down 10 in the fourth quarter and no one on either sideline or in the stands believes the game is over is worth a lot.
I believe that the Olympics in Italy will be fraught with venue troubles and controversies that have nothing to do with the competitions and competitors.
We already know that the hockey rink is smaller than it’s supposed to be.
When that was revealed earlier this fall, and the project manager’s response was “we have no idea how that happened,” it did not inspire confidence.
Here’s hoping the games go off without a hitch, and here’s hoping NBC devotes an entire channel to curling.
I believe that the World Cup coming to North America this summer will mostly go well.
I also predict that the games and venues will be safe places for people to watch the matches from. While there is a part of me that understands that it only takes one person or one group and a well-coordinated attack to ruin the whole thing, I think it’s a lot harder to target one nation or fan group at events of this size.
I am very excited to have the world come over for a big party this July.
I predict that the Cubs will not make the playoffs in 2026.
Their dumpster-diving approach to finding players is shocking and embarrassing, and unbecoming of a team in the third-largest sports market in the country.
I mean, the way the Cubs go about filling out their roster would be like you going to a series of garage sales in May to find your family’s heirloom furniture or dishes. You wouldn’t do it.
Their front office has admitted that they are looking to bring in players who’ll have the best year of their career, and if enough of them do that, it will be a good year.
That’s a losing way of living.
I predict a major gambling scandal will rock college sports, but not until later in the year.
With the legal process playing out in the case of Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player Damon Jones for their alleged involvement in illegal gambling, rigged poker games, and providing inside info for prop bets, it’s only a matter of time before this hits the college campuses. The money is too big.
It probably already has, but we don’t know it yet.
The question is: “With the NCAA no longer in any sense of control of college sports and the conferences ruling the landscape, might a university administrator or conference commissioner learn of such a situation happening and hide it to protect the cash flow?”
Here are a couple of others.
I think Travis Kelce will retire from the NFL to spend the rest of his life with Taylor Swift. I also believe that by the time training camp starts, he will be ready to play football again.
I predict that I will catch more blue gills in Indiana in the spring and summer of 2026 than I have in a long time.
I predict that Notre Dame will be invited to join a conference and will decline.
I believe that significant conference movement will start back up again in local high school sports.
I believe that I will set a goal of writing 52 weeks of the year for you again in 2026.
Happy New Year!
