Index-Linked Products Specification v1.0

Major League Markets · Draft for venue review · 2026-09-28
Applies to: NFL 2026 Index. The family rules extend to NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS under the League Index Framework v1.0.
Status: Draft. Becomes effective when published at majorleaguemarkets.com/products and referenced from /spec.

Nothing in this document is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any financial instrument. Major League Markets is an index provider. It does not list, match, clear, or hold custody of any contract. Major League Markets is not affiliated with the National Football League or any of its clubs.

1. Two indexes

Major League Markets publishes two values for every constituent (club) of an index.

1.1 Settled Value Index (SVI)

The cumulative redemption value each club has earned from official league results, under the published ladder: $2.00 per regular-season win, then Berth $2, Wild Card $4, Divisional $8, Conference $12, Super Bowl $40. A tie credits $1.00 to each club. A bye credits the round it skips. Range $0.00 to $100.00.

• Moves only on official results. Flat on every day without one.
• Published at the official close: 09:00 CT on the calendar day after any day with an official result (T+1). A close is final when published. Result changes by the league are applied as forward corrections; no published close is restated.
• The sum of SVI across all 32 clubs at any close is a known constant: $2.00 for every regular-season game with an official result, plus every playoff rung credited. At season end it is $700.00 exactly.
• Live today at majorleaguemarkets.com and /api/v1/indexes/nfl-2026.

1.2 Reference Price Index (RPI)

The traded price of a club's Season Share on its listing venue, sampled by rule.

• Source (v1.0): one venue, the venue that lists the Season Share. Multi-venue composition is reserved for v1.1.
• Sampling, in order of precedence:
  1. The venue's own official settlement price for the Season Share, if it publishes one for the sampling day.
  2. Otherwise the volume-weighted average price of all trades in the 30 minutes ending at the official close (08:30 to 09:00 CT).
  3. If fewer than ten trades print in that window, the time-weighted midpoint of the best bid and best offer over the same window.
  4. If no two-sided market exists in the window, the previous RPI carried forward, disclosed as carried forward.
• Availability gate: the RPI is published for an index only after the listed Season Share has shown a two-sided market on at least 90% of sampled minutes for 20 consecutive value days. Until then no product may reference it.
• Range $0.00 to $100.00 by construction of the Season Share.
• Not yet published for NFL 2026. It begins with the first listing.

2. Product family

2.1 Common terms

• Contract value: one dollar per index point (multiplier 1.00). A venue may list micro or standard multipliers; the settlement value is unchanged.
• Tick: $0.01.
• Settlement value bounds: $0.00 to $100.00. Every product is fully collateralizable at the venue's option: a long requires at most the price paid, a short at most $100.00 less the price received.
• Expiry event: a named point on the league calendar. "After Week N" means the official close that follows the last game scheduled in Week N as of the Tuesday before that week began. A game postponed beyond its week does not delay the expiry; its value credits the week in which it is played.
• Settlement time: the official close, 09:00 CT, on the day after the expiry event.
• Last trading time: set by the venue, no later than the settlement time.
• Trading calendar: set by the venue. Index values are published on every value day; contracts may trade on days without value days, including the offseason, at the venue's discretion.

2.2 Settled Value Futures (B)

Settle to the SVI of the club at the official close after the expiry event. Because the SVI is a step function of results, the contract's price before expiry is the market's expectation of the club's settled value at that point in the season, and it converges to the published SVI at settlement.

Listing cycle: at all times the next two segment-ends and the season-end are listed. Segment-ends are Week 4, Week 9, Week 13, Week 18, and each playoff round. When a contract expires, the next segment-end is listed.

Basket identity: at every expiry the sum of the 32 settlement values is fixed by the schedule. A holder of one contract in every club has no exposure to any result. This holds exactly at every Settled Value expiry.

2.3 Reference Price Futures (C)

Settle to the RPI of the club at the official close after the expiry event. The contract's price before expiry is the market's expectation of where the Season Share will trade at that point, which reflects both results and the market's revision of the club's remaining season.

Listing cycle: at all times the next four weekly expiries, the next two segment-ends, and the season-end are listed. In the offseason the next four weeklies are Weeks 1 to 4.

Precondition: the RPI availability gate in §1.2 has been met for the index on the listing venue. Reference Price Futures list only on the venue whose Season Share supplies the RPI (v1.0).

Basket identity: approximate. The sum of the 32 reference prices equals settled value plus the market's expected remaining value, which sums to $700.00 at season end and to the fixed pool less realized value before it, up to the venue's pricing.

2.4 Reserved for v1.1

• Options. European, cash-settled to SVI (season-end and segment-end) or RPI (weekly). Strikes on the ladder grid, $2.00 increments for NFL. Because the underlying is bounded, a call is fully collateralized by $100.00 less the strike and a put by the strike.
• Sub-indexes. Wins Index (regular-season component, maximum $34.00) and Playoff Ladder Index (maximum $66.00). SVI equals their sum by identity.

3. Settlement calendar

• Every official close is published to the index page and the API with the value day, the results it reflects, and the results source.
• Expiry events for the season are published before the first regular-season game, with the scheduled settlement date of each.
• A venue's contract specification names the expiry event and inherits the settlement value from the published close. Major League Markets does not compute venue-specific settlement values.

4. What each party provides

5. Regulatory posture

Major League Markets is an index provider and is not a registered entity. A U.S. designated contract market lists index-linked products under CFTC Part 40 by self-certification (§40.2) or a request for approval (§40.3); Major League Markets supplies the methodology, this specification and the settlement source analysis for that filing. The Reference Price rule in §1.2 is designed against the Part 38 guidance on cash-settled contracts: a published rule, a fixed window, a fallback hierarchy, and a liquidity gate before any product may reference it. Venues outside the United States list under their own rules. Each venue is responsible for its own filing and its own eligibility rules.

6. Licensing

Standard terms for exchange-listed index products: an annual index license per venue, plus a per-contract royalty on every listed product that references the index, tiered by volume. For venues whose contracts carry $1.00 notional, the royalty is expressed as a share of the venue's transaction fee revenue on those contracts. Data-only licenses are available for firms that do not list. Pilot terms are available for a first listing.

7. Edge cases specific to products

8. Versioning

This specification is versioned independently of the index methodology. Changes to a live product's settlement terms are announced with at least seven days' notice and never apply to a contract already listed. Reserved products (§2.4) are published as v1.1 with their own effective date.

Indicative index values, calculated daily under the published Index Methodology at majorleaguemarkets.com/method.

Expiry calendar, NFL 2026

Machine-readable: /api/v1/indexes/nfl-2026/products.

Indicative index values, calculated daily under the published Index Methodology.

Prices shown are indicative index values calculated under the published methodology from public market data. Nothing on this site is an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any financial instrument, and no product is currently available. Major League Markets is not affiliated with the National Football League or any of its clubs.