fin Page 93 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
What Can We Learn From Four Stadium Deals That Don't Suck?
Whenever professional economists are asked about stadium and arena deals, they invariably explain, for the hundredth time, that these “almost never” work out to the benefit of the public. (Look, here are a bunch saying so just a few weeks ago!) Between the price tags in the hundreds of millions of d...
Detroit Arena To Replace Conspicuously Empty Red Seats With Less Conspicuously<em></em> Empty Black Seats
Ever since the new, taxpayer-funded home of the Pistons and Red Wings opened in Detroit, people have taken note of the often empty seats surrounding the action. This was especially true during Pistons games last season, when the team consistently found itself playing in front of a sea of vacant red ...
The Last Two Minutes Of The AFL Grand Final Were Thrilling Even If You Don't Know What You're Looking At<em></em>
Here’s two minutes of suspense that can be enjoyed with no context or understanding of Australian rules football. Big boys scrabble for ball. They boot the ball. They boot the ball in between posts. It’s hard not to get riled up by an Australian hollering, “He’s got the most impossible goal,” or by ...
Manitoba Admits It Got Conned, Gives Up On Winnipeg's CFL Stadium Ever Actually Paying For Itself
Build a stadium!, they say. It’ll pay for itself! It’ll spur economic development in the surrounding neighborhood! It never does. For every single city/county/state/province that falls for it, eventually there comes the moment when they have to admit they got bamboozled. It’s Manitoba’s turn now....
This Enormous Texan Stumbled Into Basketball, And Now He's Stumbled Into Australian Rules Football Stardom
Mason Cox has a history of getting lured into sports he did not actually play. Organized basketball found him first. At Marcus High School in Texas, he stuck to solely to soccer, a decision that looked slightly stranger after he grew six inches between his junior and senior years and found himself a...
Seattle Somehow Reaches New Arena Deal Without Horribly Screwing Generations Of Taxpayers
The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve a plan to let a group of private investors build a new stadium on the site of the current home of the Seattle Storm and the former home of the Seattle Supersonics, as part of a push to land an expansion NHL franchise later this year....
The Stadium Scam Goes Minor-League, And It Has An Unlikely Ally
When the state of Rhode Island offered up $38 million in June to the owners of the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox toward a new stadium, it seemed likely to be the first step on the road to a replacement for the beloved-but-modern-kitchenless 76-year-old McCoy Stadium. Sure, the PawSox owners had balked ...
Lane Kiffin Shows His Acting Chops During Surprise Scholarship Prank
The walk-on scholarship surprise is a well-trodden genre at this point, but what better way to inject some life back into it than to give Lane Kiffin license to really chew up some scenery?...
Athletic Writer Throws Fit Over Rhode Island Not Giving Into Stadium Financing Scheme
A hot new sports media startup may not be the place you’d expect to find a braindead take lifted straight from a dead-tree columnist’s 1996 notebook, but then you remember that The Athletic, in its quest to destroy all print sports sections, did hire plenty of middle-aged white guys. One of those gu...
Draymond Green Issues Non-Denial Denial Of Tristan Thompson Fight, Drags Cleveland
Draymond Green, a living, breathing personification of a train horn—who can also effectively play all five positions on the basketball court—has come out with his first public statement since reports surfaced that he and Tristan Thompson got into a little bit of a scuffle at a party hosted by LeBro...
Report: Bucks Fans Paying Tax Dollars To Put Private Company's Name On Arena Built Using Bucks Fans' Tax Dollars
Milwaukee’s new NBA arena will open later this summer, and will host Bucks home games starting with opening night in October. Last week the Bucks and banking software company Fiserv announced a 25-year agreement to name the new arena Fiserv Forum, but this otherwise standard piece of stadium busines...
Mariners Demand $180 Million In Public Funds Or They Won't Sign Long-Term Lease
The Seattle Mariners have issued an ultimatum: Give them $180 million in taxpayer money for their 19-year-old stadium, or they won’t sign a long-term lease....
Croatia's World Cup Final Run Was A Miracle
As a rule, small countries do not play in the World Cup final. Only 13 countries on earth have ever even made the final, and aside from one of Sunday’s participants, only big countries have played for the cup in the modern era. It’s been over 50 years since there was a final that didn’t feature one ...
These French People Celebrating Their World Cup Win Are Making Me Jealous
Man, winning the World Cup in a country that gives a damn looks fun....
France Topple Croatia In Hectic, Exhausting World Cup Final
A hilariously wild and ragged World Cup final concluded with a 4-2 victory for France, after a chaotic first half marked by a pair of dumb goals for France, and a second half marked by a Pussy Riot field invasion and maybe the dumbest goal you will ever see in a World Cup Final, from Croatia....
Idiots On The Field Disrupt World Cup Final; Pussy Riot Claims Responsibility
Kylian Mbappé had just made a great run. Danijel Subašić saved it. The Croatian team went for a counterattack and… suddenly, there were idiots on the field....
This World Cup Final Match Absolutely Fucking Rules
If you were worried the World Cup final would present a couple of cagey teams hoping to avoid mistakes and get lucky on one decisive set piece or counterattack, that fear was dashed in just the 18th minute, when a pretty shameless dive gave France a dangerous free kick that converted to an own goal ...
![Dear Croatia, Please Wear Your Extra-Cool Checkerboard Kits In The World Cup Final [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/if1e4zjshy1ramb1cjfx.jpg)
Dear Croatia, Please Wear Your Extra-Cool Checkerboard Kits In The World Cup Final [Update]
Mighty, valiant Croatia have had a dream World Cup, and this weekend, they will take the field for the World Cup final only 26 years after joining FIFA as an official national team. It will obviously be the biggest moment in Croatian soccer history, and as such, they had better not overthink it and ...
LeBronWatch: LeBron Hunkers Down In "Decision Cave" In The Caribbean
LeBron James deposited the Cavaliers (and probably the Rockets) in the trash can this morning and will become an unrestricted free agent, so expect LeBronWatch comes to a frenzied, frothy climax over the next few days. Leave it to the very frothiest, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, to report that LeBron Ja...
NBA Auctions Off What J.R. Smith Wore When He Lost What Was Left Of His Dignity
A token of J.R. Smith’s eternal shame is up for sale on the NBA’s auction site. “He played 38 minutes and registered 10 points with 2 assists and 6 rebounds,” reads the very charitable caption. In some sense, this is the greatest piece of LeBron James memorabilia that money could buy....