fl Page 24 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Has Detroit Found An Answer To The Publicly Financed Stadium Scam?
When Marathon Petroleum received a $175 million tax break from the city of Detroit in 2007, they promised jobs for Detroiters. And, as of last January, the $2.2 billion expansion of Marathon's refinery on the city's southwest side had, in fact, created new jobs for tax-paying residents —all of 15 of...

This Chill Californian Might Be The Future Of The U.S. Downhill Team
Shortly after his run, just before mounting the most important podium of his career—and the first World Championships downhill podium for the U.S. since 2005—Travis Ganong was already thinking of powder. In particular, the two feet of powder that had hit the slopes at home in Lake Tahoe the night be...

Tina Maze Can't Quit Until She's The Best At Everything
Tina Maze made history yesterday, and not just as the first world champion to double as a Slovenian pop star. At 31, she's now the oldest female skier to have won gold in a Championship event....

How To Build A World-Championship Ski Course
At the World Championships downhill events that started today—the women raced this morning, the men tomorrow—it all comes down to a minute and a half. That's about how long it will take most of the racers to come screaming down more than 8,000 feet of steeps that reach up to a 34-degree gradient....

Bode Miller's Big Crash Couldn't Ruin His Comeback
The sky over Beaver Creek's Birds of Prey course was bluebird-bright, the grandstand was stuffed with 3,500 people screaming their lungs out, and Bode Miller–Olympic medalist, self-taught skiing dynamo and great divider of opinions–was in the starting gate. ...

Is Manny Pacquiao's Promoter Sabotaging The Floyd Mayweather Fight?
For years, the biggest obstacle to a Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao superfight has been the fighters' management—Pacquiao's promoter, Bob Arum, in particular....

MLB's Awful Blackout Rules Are Finally Under Attack In Court
Major League Baseball's exemption from federal antitrust law may not be secure as we thought....

Why Tonight's Heavyweight Title Fight Shouldn't Be On The Level
While professional boxing unquestionably often involves two fighters hitting each other as hard as possible in order to win their match, it also often puts business first. It looks as if a lot of X's and O's are being moved around in two upcoming heavyweight title bouts, presumably as long-range s...

MLB, The Giants, And The Law Job The A's ... Again
Major League Baseball is breathing a huge sigh of relief after a federal appeals court upheld a broad scope of the league's exemption from federal antitrust law on Thursday. But the league's win comes at a high price for the Oakland A's—and adds to the literal shitstorm the A's are in at the old a...

Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao Is (Maybe) Happening, Five Years Too Late
Manny Pacquiao has reportedly agreed to two of the key obstacles holding up his long-awaited showdown with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. First, a 60/40 split of the revenue, with Pacquiao's side taking the short end; second, a fight date on May 2, Cinco De Mayo weekend, a popular date for pay per view cards...

Inconceivable Stupidity: Your Guide To Ignoring Today's NFL Playoffs
So the Mueller report was released this week, and ho-ho! Look how it confirmed the NFL's story, of never having been granted access to the tape from inside the elevator. Amazing! That's great news for the NFL....

Gender Equity Is Not A Zero-Sum Game
The world of college sports reform can be divided into three camps. The first is the NCAA itself, which seems to want to change just enough to have everyone stop bashing it just for a little while. Then there are two opposing camps, both of which see the NCAA's centralized control of college sport...

Wait, The NCAA Can Pay Players' Parents Now?
The day before yesterday, if a school reached the Final Four or the College Football Playoff and anyone—the NCAA, the CFP, the school, a booster, President Obama, etc.—agreed to pay for a parent of one of the athletes to travel to the game, it was unethical conduct, an extra benefit, and punishabl...

Strong Taek Alert! PFT Commenter Predicts The College And NFL Playoffs
Apologies to Adam Silver, Rust and Marty, and YikYak, apologies to Sarah Koenig, Charles C. Johnson, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, apologies to Lupita Nyong’o: 2014 was the year of PFT Commenter....

Dan Snyder's Stooge Has Spotted A Symbol of Organizational Dysfunction
Here's a surprise: Craven Dan Snyder hand-puppet Chris Cooley took a break from manning the office of Exalted White Ex-Player at D.C.'s Snyder-owned ESPN radio affiliate to go in, for the umpteenth time, on former teammate Robert Griffin III, to Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post yesterday....

The Photo That Took Surfing Worldwide
The artistry of photographers Ron Stoner and LeRoy Grannis (among others) contributed mightily to the boom in surfing in the 1960s. Their Technicolor spreads of big-wave riders and sun-drenched beaches inspired a generation of Jeff Spicolis to get stoked, and, in turn, helped make surfing a billion-...

How Japan Built The World's Best Horse Racing
TOKYO — I came to watch Japan's top racehorses, arguably the strongest in the world, contest last Sunday's Japan Cup, worth more than $5 million. I left believing that the reason the Japanese racing industry is so much healthier and more popular than any of its counterparts is about much more tha...

A Day At The Track For The World's Biggest And Strangest Horse Race
TOKYO — One of the most-watched and best-attended sporting events in the world took place in Tokyo last Sunday. More than 100,000 people, thousands of whom slept outside overnight, streamed into Tokyo Racecourse for the $5 million-plus Japan Cup. But as the Cup's 18 runners entered the walking rin...

The St. Louis Rams Have Nothing To Be Sorry For
You don't call Mike Francesa's radio show unless you are upset, and probably also otherwise damaged in some way. A person who is doing fine, thanks, does not run some avant-garde hear-me-out-Mike trade—Nothing crazy, just Eli Manning for a couple of first-round picks and a couple of second-round p...

Mikaela Shiffrin Is Striving For Perfection
Mikaela Shiffrin's style is sure-footed and rhythmic. Like the best slalom skiers, she sets up her turns high. She thinks a few turns ahead. And Shiffrin—who in Sochi last winter became the youngest racer ever to win Olympic gold in slalom and who thus spent several days as a cheery, effervescent ...