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![Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/b3603fb90aecd1832bb1a38e66b05618.jpg)
Disney-sponsored Orlando Magic say $50k donation to Ron DeSantis' PAC came before presidential bid [Update]
Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been engaged in a blood feud for more than a year. On Tuesday DeSantis’ self-appointed governing board of the Walt Disney World district in Orlando dismantled all of the diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in it. In February, Disney decided to canc...

Former USWNT star Carli Lloyd is never hesitant to remind everyone she was the star
The bane of sports analysis, especially when it comes to soccer in a nation that has become too mature in its fandom of the sport to accept this kind of drivel, is to default to claiming something unquantifiable as the reason a team won and a team lost. “Wanted it more” is a phrase you hear all too ...

Women's World Cup 2023: The USWNT isn't a championship squad
Portugal’s headed home looking happy. The flight back to Lisbon should be filled with post-elimination joy and realizations of long-term progress knowing how they held the former undisputed world champions in check. And that’s all you need to know about how the United States women’s national team pe...

NBA doing everything it can to marginally disrupt player empowerment
The NBA league office prolonged the current stalemate between the Portland Trail Blazers and Miami Heat over a deal for Damian Lillard. A memo was circulated to all 30 franchises Friday saying that any player, or agent, who makes public comments about an unwillingness to “fully perform the services ...

NBA needs to up the ante with its international game slate
What happens when a seventh seed and a 13th seed meet on a basketball court in a country that doesn’t have an NBA franchise? Who knows, but we’re going to find out....

Choosing Orlando for the Pro Bowl exemplifies the NFL’s wishy-washy stance on racial, social issues
There’s nothing more infuriating than a fake ally. And no one is a better model of that than the NFL....

Jaylen Brown and the volatility of a $304 million contract
It’s difficult to contextualize what just happened with Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics. The team’s second-best player, who’s got the handles of a wing with two left hands, landed the largest contract in NBA history, signing a five-year, $304 million supermax extension. That’s a lot of money, an...

Gifting Broncos fans with tickets is a good way for Russell Wilson to get back on the city’s good side
The 2022 NFL season was a forgettable one for Denver Broncos fans and one they’d love to tuck away and pretend never happened. Most of the blame for last year fell on the offense under one-year blunder, Nathaniel Hackett, who got the ax last December. Denver got rid of Hackett, but the other part of...

World Cup Day 1: It’s their party and they’ll win if they want to
And we’re off. World Cup 2023 finally kicked into gear, and while it’s a bit disorienting to watch an event on a cold winter night from a summer morning locale as the sun comes up, we here tend to do our best work when we’re disoriented. Both hosts started the tournament, and both exited the day wit...

Trade James Harden for Grade-A role players, you coward!
When Daryl Morey says he’s not going to be irrational with a James Harden trade, he is to be trusted. We saw what happened with Ben Simmons, and the plain-clothes staring contest that resulted in Harden becoming a Philadelphia 76er. It was an arduous ordeal that festered until mid-February 2022, and...

Deadspin predicts the Women’s World Cup
How was the USWNT’s Megan Rapinoe being thrust into the forefront of sport and society while helping the United States women’s national team lift a second straight World Cup title four years ago? No matter how long ago it feels, the next edition of the global showcase is here, with 32 teams competin...

Shout out to SUNY Morrisville for getting attention by being asinine
SUNY Morrisville and Catholic University had better hope for rain or early fall for their noon kickoff in Morrisville, N.Y. on Sept. 16. If there are any remnants of summer in the atmosphere then their cleats had better come with air conditioning because the field is going to feel like hot coals....

Dak Prescott calls his shot — but do his words ring hollow?
The 2023 NFL season is right around the corner, with the start of training camps just days away. As usual, there are plenty of storylines for fans to follow all over the league, and of course, “America’s Team” is never lacking in that department. As if there wasn’t enough pressure on the Dallas Cowb...

Women's World Cup Group F Preview: Can happiness buy France the whole thing?
Sadly, the story for a lot of teams in this World Cup are those taking the field in spite, or directly to spite, their FAs. Canada, Spain, England, Nigeria, Haiti don’t even complete the list of teams that are having problems with their governing organizations as they enter the biggest tournament in...

Joel Embiid sends warning shot to Sixers management
The Philadelphia 76ers have advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals in five of the last six postseasons. During the Joel Embiid era, that has been their ceiling chasing that ever-elusive Eastern Conference Finals appearance, which the franchise hasn’t been featured in since 2001. Pressure cont...

Carlos Alcaraz out-Djokovic’d Novak Djokovic
There is a vision of how to beat Novak Djokovic at a major, especially at Wimbledon, and even more especially at Centre Court, where he hadn’t lost in 10 years. It’s only a vision, because so few have ever achieved it. Only Rafa Nadal and Daniil Medvedev had managed to beat Djokovic in a major in th...

Thank goodness the WNBA learned from last year’s all-star mistake
The WNBA decided to put minimal effort into one of its most prestigious individual honors this season. During last season’s All-Star Game, the league was embarrassed by the MVP trophy that winner — Kelsey Plum — could have dangled and referred to as “her little teacup.” Jewell Loyd was named MVP of ...

The next Olympics will be held without Russia and Belarus, but maybe not Russians and Belarusians
World sports fans in search of a natural antagonist for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will have to find countries other than Russia and Belarus to root against. The IOC has decided not to invite the countries due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which started mere days after the Beijing Winter Oly...

Women’s World Cup preview: The Americans will run into trouble in Group E
The most deceiving thing about the United States women’s national team’s chances of a three-peat isn’t that it has a major target on its back and therefore is part of the game plan to knock out from every other nation in Australia and New Zealand. That was true for the 2019 showcase in France. How’d...
