il Page 490 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
NIL deals are flawed, but Tommy Tuberville is not the solution
The latest proposed “bipartisan” piece of federal legislation to regulate name, image, and likeness deals for college athletes is being roundly applauded by the NCAA, the college coach-turned-senator who proposed it, other college football coaches, Power Five conferences, and a bunch of people who s...
World Cup Day 7: It’s easy when you’re big in Japan…and Spain we suppose
After Group A decided to keep everyone alive with some truly weird (and awful) soccer on Monday night, it was time to send some teams to the land of wind and ghosts on Tuesday, as Costa Rica, Zambia, and Ireland will make it home before the postcards. Let’s make it happen, captain!...
Maybe I’ll just give up on the AEW Women’s Division
On Friday night, Athena and Willow Nightingale had one of the best matches, not just women’s matches, of 2023 on Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor PPV. Not only was it the culmination of a three-match trilogy through both ROH and AEW, or the budding of a rivalry that will probably last years, bu...
No one does the absurd quite like the Red Sox
The challenge of baseball, and the beauty of it, is the length and density of it. It’s pretty much every day for six months, and every team and every player has to do whatever is necessary to even remember what day it is at this time of year and beyond. Over 162 games in 180 days or so, anybody can ...
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. ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Trea Turner is finding out more is less
Lucky for Trea Turner, he signed in one of the most patient cities in Major League Baseball, Philadelphia....
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...
Aaron Rodgers wowing at New York Jets training camp
This might be the most highly anticipated New York Jets season in the organization’s history. Signing future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers and all that surrounded that fiasco has brought us here to the start of training camp, and A-Rod is already wowing folks with his brand of creativity. Rodgers conn...
Paul Pierce speaks his truth on Dwyane Wade comparisons
Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce is known for running his mouth, especially since he retired, and became part of the media. Pierce has once again created social media buzz with his comments on the set of It Is What It Is with rappers Cam’ron and Mase. The Truth, which Pierce was anointed years ago ...
World Cup Day 4: Not much more than a feeling
If the story of the first three days of the World Cup was that the tournament favorites were kind of inching their way through their first matches, nothing changed on Day 4. Sweden, Holland, and especially France all had an air of trying to figure out what all the buttons do and what the lights mean...
When is the worst time to hassle an athlete for an autograph?
I’m not a big signed memorabilia type of guy. Personally, I’d rather take a picture. It lasts longer, is less labor intensive and I feel like less of a goofball displaying it. The parasocial connection between autograph seekers pressuring athletes to sign comes with the territory though. This week, ...
Without Deion Sanders in attendance, Pac-12 Media Day might as well pack it up and go home
Things have grown so dire for the Pac-12 that they’re one cycle away from returning to tape delay airings. The Left Coast’s elite has always found themselves at a disadvantage in cuing up interest for its football campaign. Cue the beat of Deion Sanders drum. ...
The NFL’s program for diversity in sports medicine is something this league finally got right
Doing right by diversity isn’t in the NFL’s DNA. But their venture with the league’s Physicians Society (NFLPS) and the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) is a great diagnosis. ...
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...