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Saturday Brief: Microsoft’s Copilot Bundle, MSCI’s Strategy Screen and the NBA’s Parlay Ban

October 17, 2026 Aaron Harme

Britain’s competition regulator proposed giving itself the power to set rules for how Microsoft sells Windows, Office and Copilot to UK businesses. MSCI finalized a screen that could force the funds tracking its indexes to sell Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin.

The NBA told its partner sportsbooks to drop several player bets before the season opens, EuroLeague’s owners approved a 10-year plan that leans on selling new seats, and Replit’s CEO said the coding platform no longer works with Anthropic.

In this Brief

The CMA proposed strategic market status for Microsoft in business software, with Copilot among the first areas it would examine
MSCI will make non-operating companies ineligible for its global indexes after the Nov. 30 close
The NBA barred same-player under parlays and several other bet types at its partner sportsbooks
EuroLeague projects €3.4 billion for its teams over 10 years, €1.2 billion of it from franchise fees
Amjad Masad says Replit has moved to OpenAI and put cost first among his reasons

Britain moves to write rules for Microsoft’s software

The Competition and Markets Authority proposed designating Microsoft with strategic market status in business software, a status under the UK’s 2024 digital markets law that lets the regulator impose binding conduct rules, each after its own consultation. The CMA says over a million UK businesses and public bodies use the software. Comments are open until Nov. 13, with a final decision due by February 2027. A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters the company did not share the CMA’s views.

The CMA’s roadmap says customer evidence shows no significant switching from Teams since Microsoft began selling Microsoft 365 without it. Some businesses that bought Copilot told the CMA’s researchers the return is unclear on what they see as a high licence cost, and they worry about future price rises. Our longer read walks through the four areas the roadmap names.

MSCI’s screen reaches the bitcoin holders

MSCI’s announcement makes “non-operating companies” ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes in the November review, effective as of the Nov. 30 close, with a final list on Nov. 11. A company that fails a screen for substantial operating assets then faces five financial ratios, and a flag on four of them rules it out. A current index member comes out only if it fails in each of its two most recent annual filing periods. Yahoo Finance reports Strategy, which holds about 4% of all bitcoin, fell more than 3% Friday and had called the proposal discriminatory.

Fundstrat’s Sean Farrell put selling across MSCI-linked products at “around $2 billion,” roughly what Strategy raised by issuing common stock in August. Our longer read covers the 2025 freeze on those companies’ index weights, which MSCI ends with the same review.

The NBA narrows the player bets its partners can take

A league memo bars partner sportsbooks from offering parlays built on unders of the same player’s stats, ESPN’s David Purdum reports. A parlay is one ticket that pays only if every leg wins, and an under is a bet that a stat lands below a set line. The memo also drops bets on the opening tip, on players missing specific shots, on unders for players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes, and on alternate under lines with bigger payouts. CNBC reports the letter went to FanDuel, DraftKings, Fanatics and others.

The NBA estimates its partner books account for upward of 99% of the US betting market, ESPN reports, and CNBC says the memo does not specify how the restrictions would apply to prediction markets. Our longer read has the separate team memo on in-person betting training and AI monitoring.

EuroLeague’s plan counts on new seats

All 13 shareholder clubs, the teams that own the league, approved a 10-year plan projecting €3.4 billion in payments to teams, €2.2 billion from revenue and €1.2 billion from franchise fees, according to Euroleague Basketball’s release. A franchise fee is what a new team pays for a permanent place. The release counts 15 binding offers worth a combined €1.2 billion, with expansion windows in 2027 and 2031. Front Office Sports reports the plan came less than two weeks after EuroLeague rejected an NBA proposal that asked it to pause expansion.

The fee forecast matches the offers already in hand and makes up about 35% of the projected payout to teams, the share a pause would have put on hold. Our longer read sets the €1.4 billion the league puts on itself today against the $3 billion it wants in any NBA deal.

Replit’s CEO says Anthropic is out

Amjad Masad said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt that Replit “is no longer working with Anthropic,” TechCrunch reports, calling it “a decision based on both cost, you know, partnership, and performance.” One person familiar told TechCrunch the partnership is still in place, and Replit had not answered TechCrunch’s request to clarify at publication.

Replit announced its OpenAI partnership in August, and a Replit blog post in September still listed Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 running in Replit Agent’s production environment. Our longer read goes back to May, when Masad called Anthropic “undefeated on the core agentic loop.”

Also noted

Schwab CEO Rick Wurster told Yahoo Finance that handing an AI agent the keys to trade is “a leap too far,” and that Charley, Schwab’s own assistant, will start with administrative tasks such as changing an address; our longer read covers Schwab blocking outside agents from moving client money.
PostgreSQL 19, the next version of the open-source database, is now expected around Nov. 19 after developers reverted eight to 10 significant features, The Register reports, with core committer Peter Eisentraut crediting AI code review for surfacing defects faster than they could be fixed.
Harvard’s endowment returned 27.1% in the fiscal year ended June 30, ahead of the S&P 500’s 22.3%, and its largest disclosed US stock holding was a $2.2 billion SpaceX stake, Business Insider reports.
Rep. Ritchie Torres announced he will introduce the Power To The Players Act, which would direct the FTC to write rules protecting buyers’ ability to own the games they buy, citing NBA 2K25, a $69.99 game delisted from digital stores on Oct. 30.
Milwaukee faces Cleveland or Tampa Bay from Oct. 23 in the first World Series between two bottom-half payrolls since 1991, the AP reports, six weeks before a likely lockout over the owners’ salary-cap proposal.

Sources

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