FutureSports has inked a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) to launch performance-based financial indexes for all 30 MLB franchises, marking the company’s latest expansion into professional sports markets.
Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper. FutureSports is launching indexes based on MLB team performance. (Image: Denis Kennedy/MLB/Getty)As part of the accord, MLB will supply FutureSports with official league data “that the company will use to create new broad-based CME FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI)” on each MLB team. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) and the index provider announced a partnership in July. With the MLB deal in place, the exchange operator will offer derivatives based on the baseball indexes.
“The agreement paves the way for CME Group to list weekly, monthly and quarterly cash-settled futures contracts, pending regulatory review, based on the CME FSPI MLB benchmarks,” according to a statement issued by FutureSports.
Launch dates for the MLB team futures contracts weren’t revealed, but spring training for the 2027 season commences on Friday, Feb. 19, according to the league schedule.
ETFs, Of Course
The initial batch of FSPIs launched with NHL performance gauges, triggering a wave of filings from exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers seeking to launch futures-based funds for each professional hockey team. One issuer even filed plans for leveraged ETFs tied to the NHL indexes.
A similar scenario is playing out on the back of the MLB index introduction. Both LeagueShares and RexShares filed plans for ETFs tied to the FutureSports MLB indexes.
If approved, the funds would hold baskets of the CME-traded derivatives. LeagueShares went a step further by adding a filing for 2x leveraged MLB futures funds.
“Of course there’s already a filing for daily leveraged futures baseball ETFs — which are basically the equivalent of a corked bat with eight holes drilled in the handle that’s been dipped in pine tar,” wrote Ben Johnson, head of client solutions at Morningstar, on X.
As of yet, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hasn’t approved the aforementioned NHL futures ETFs.
Not Quite Betting, Not Quite Prediction Markets
For the right audience, likely professional traders and sophisticated retail investors, the CME futures on FutureSports indexes could amount to “Goldilocks” offerings because the derivatives aren’t standard sports bets nor are they carbon copies of the event contracts traded on prediction markets.
The MLB and NHL futures contracts could be deployed by big-money bettors as hedges on various team exposures over the course of those leagues’ seasons.
As for the regulatory outlooks for the ETFs, the SEC hasn’t publicly commented on the NHL funds’ fates and it’s too early to tell what will come of the MLB filings, but there are hundreds of futures-based ETFs on the market today.
That may be a sign that pro sports futures ETFs could avoid the “novel” label that’s been a hindrance in bringing other ETFs to market.
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