ant Page 163 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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 ...
Where did the American heavyweight boxing champions go?
Errol Spence and Terence Crawford’s highly-anticipated welterweight Fight of the Year doubles as a ring showdown for the pound-for-pound crown that boxing aficionados have been counting down to for years....
The Oakland A’s might not even be the worst team this year, let alone all time
Coming into the 2023 season, many thought that the Oakland A’s had the potential to be not just the worst team in baseball this year, but the worst of all time....
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....
Expectations for Victor Wembanyama continue to pile up according to oddsmakers
Unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock in the back of a cave for the past few months, you’re likely aware of the name Victor Wembanyama and the hype around him entering the NBA. Even those who aren’t necessarily “fans” have heard the name, especially after his Britney Spears encounter earlier t...
Lionel Messi’s quick start for Inter Miami has MLS’ detractors quiet
The shouts about Major League Soccer at large from other parts of the sports world get repetitive. Stating it’s a retirement league was always a jaded view. Perhaps it was the league with the most publicity that was willing to take big names past their prime. And while a lack of promotion and relega...
Saudi Arabia poaching NBA talent is possible, but unlikely
In a jocular response to the Saudi Public Investment Fund offering a record $1.1 billion to PSG and Kylian Mbappé for the French icon to play one season in Saudi Arabia, two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo offered up his services to the Al Hilal club. ...
Patrice Bergeron was your favorite player’s favorite player
When Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young in 2010 while his record was only 13-12, it was seen as something of a first strike for the new way of analyzing baseball. There was no question that Hernandez was the best pitcher in the AL that year, he had a 7-WAR season for fuck’s sake, but the fact that for...
The NFL is all in on betting, just not for players
Five years after states won the right to regulate a sports betting market, American consumers are starting to get it. With sports shows adopting the language of wagering, and professional leagues partnering with fantasy and betting outfitters, those campaigns to “educate” a sports fan base where bet...
Arthur Smith’s Falcons are riding the Bijan Robinson train in an age of aviator offenses
Arthur Smith migrated to the Falcons after laying down the railroad tracks for the Tennessee Titans’ 2020 AFC Championship berth. One would hope he isn’t trying to put his spin on the Derrick Henry cloud of dust offense he conducted for two years, but with Bijan Robinson. An essential part of buildi...
World Cup Day 5: We cannot run from who we are
Day 5 of the World Cup was probably the most rewarding, and a great example of how football is football no matter who is playing it, no matter where they come from. We do our best to not compare or relate the women’s game to the men’s, as they’re two different sports. But Sunday night’s fare was per...
Not all change is a good thing, as the Coastal Athletic Association shows
Are we sure this isn’t April Fools’ Day? About two weeks away from when Division-I football teams open fall camp, one of the best FCS conferences and overall D-I mid-majors across the country changed its name. And not only does the shift not make sense, it’s a straight-up repetitive name that doesn’...
World Cup Day 3: A demolition to start the United States’ three-peat campaign didn’t happen
The last time the United States women’s national team opened a World Cup, it scored 13 goals against Thailand. That pile-on isn’t typical and wasn’t a drubbing for the sake of sticking it to Yul Brynner. There was no downside to putting up the unanswered baker’s dozen for the sake of goal difference...
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...
Draymond Green is public enemy No. 1 on NBA social media platforms
Nearly a year after the punch heard around the NBA was landed when Draymond Green took off on former Golden State Warriors teammate Jordan Poole in practice, we’re still talking about the incident, and some people are tired of reliving the ordeal. One of those people is Poole’s father, Anthony, who ...
These NFL teams haven't been on HBO’s <i>Hard Knocks</i>
Football season is near, which means HBO is gearing up to give us another season of all-access on Hard Knocks that won’t feature anything worth seeing....
Everyone wants to love women’s soccer without taking any responsibility for it
It wasn’t quite the theater of the idiotic that his pre-Qatar speech was, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino had to get in front of a mic before the kickoff of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and certainly wasn’t in any more of a mood to take any responsibility for problems with ...
Adam Schefter basically says to avoid <i>Hard Knocks</i> this season
Breakout the B-roll of lawnmowers and field painters, it’s almost time for HBO’s Hard Knocks. One of HBO’s crown jewels since the turn of the millennium will feature the New York Jets for the second time. When Rex Ryan’s team was featured for a month on the small screen 13 years ago, it was some of ...