international Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The latest league to try to compete with the NFL is already doomed
There’s no doubt the NFL is the most popular sports league in America, if not the world. Domestically, the second-place NBA isn’t even close to it. Trying to replicate the NFL’s mainstream success has been a bunch of offshoot professional leagues, giving opportunities to players several steps down f...
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...
The Olympic Scandal we should be talking about
Yesterday morning, news outlets around the world breathlessly reported that French police had raided the 2024 Olympics headquarters in suburban Paris, as part of an investigation into corruption and favoritism in handing out contracts to build the upcoming Summer Games. News of the investigation mad...
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: Legends of stupidity return to May leaderboards
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH. Please enjoy our latest offering to the pageview gods, presented thusly in a convenient slideshow format....
Of all people for Brett Favre to publicly stump for, he chose Tucker Carlson
For those curious about Brett Favre’s feelings regarding Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News, you can get it straight from the horse’s mouth. He is unhappy with the decision to oust a host so toxic that with more than three million viewers per night, the program struggled to find blue-chip adverti...
The NFL mistreats Black people in America, yet they keep expanding into Africa
A football league that’s been a willing participant in the discrimination and systemic oppression of Black people for over 100 years has announced that it will continue to expand into a continent where football — the global version — is king, which is also the place that Black people come from....
IDIOT OF THE MONTH: A March to the bottom
Welcome to Deadspin’s IDIOT OF THE MONTH! Take a gander at these dunces and be reminded that a future in which artificial intelligence destroys all biological life on Earth might not be so bad after all....
It’s been another banner week for FIFA
The election of a FIFA president is probably as close as we can get to a world president, as being the governor of the world’s most popular sport certainly allows one to wield an insane amount of power and influence. What exactly Gianni Infantino has done to earn a second term is anyone’s guess, oth...
Is this the beginning of the end of Brittney Griner’s detainment?
From the beginning, Brittney Griner’s status has been the most unique American hostage situation in modern history. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, her celebrity status, and her identity as a Black lesbian woman have heightened the urge to get her home as quickly as possible in a wartime climate th...
What if the Saudis come for tennis next?
Let’s paint a picture for a moment. It’s two, maybe three years from now. The Saudi Golf League has taken off, gotten its sponsorships and TV deals, and superstar commitments. It’s expanded its tournaments, the majors are now allowing defectors to return, and — all in all, it’s a success....
Oneil Cruz is in Pittsburgh to provide no hope
The most exciting time, other than any actual championship, for a fan of a team that is supposedly in a total rebuild is when the hopes for the future start to populate that Major League roster. There isn’t any pressure of “having” to win, and no longer are these players relegated to the myth of whi...
The International Gymnastics Federation will break you… eventually
The ability of the sports world to churn on through societal decay is dismaying or courageous depending on how you frame it. Oscillating between the stoicism of the Ukrainian national team playing through an invasion, and Black athletes being asked to perform in front of white people a day after a r...
Jacksonville Jaguars are being sued for Urban Meyer ‘coaching’ with his feet
Former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo, forever known now as the kicker who was kicked by Urban Meyer, is suing the Jacksonville franchise for creating a hostile work environment during the 2021 season....
Let them play!
A ban from the FIFA World Cup didn’t stop any needless aggression from Russia in its brutal war on Ukraine. Even those Russians brave enough to speak out against Vladimir Putin’s needless invasion have felt the consequences of the barbaric actions of the Russian army, like Fedor Smolov. As another h...
Staying quiet about Brittney Griner hasn’t worked
For the past two months, people around Brittney Griner and the WNBA have been low-key. The idea was that any loud calls to have the basketball star released from her Russian prison as Vladimir Putin launched an assault against Ukraine would only upset the authoritarian, and so the wise course was to...
When Jackie opened the door, these men walked through
It took 2,559 days after Jackie Robinson’s debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers for Major League Baseball to have its 42nd Black player appear in a game. Those seven years and two days saw 11 of the league’s 16 franchises integrate. The Boston Red Sox were the last to do so with Pumpsie Green in July 1959...
How flag football is supposed to help the NFL grow
The NFL has been trying to expand its appeal overseas for decades. They’ve had several games hosted in London. They’re set to have a game in Germany next season. A few years ago, they even partnered with Pro Football Focus, a football data analytics company that was founded in the UK. Still, they ha...
Mississippi Boondoggle comes back to Favre’s drug that maybe never was
Brett Favre has never satisfactorily answered why he took a million bucks of state money, intended for needy kids, to do a radio PSA. He just kind of said that he did it, and promised to pay the money back, and then tried not to do so....
College hockey is just as mad in March
You and I have probably been spending the last week the same way, staring at our monitors watching St. Peter’s destroy any chance we had at winning our office bracket challenge. We’ve been so enticed by the upsets, bracket busters, and magical run by Michigan (with Juwan Howard returning to the side...
Why you never dance with devils
The reckoning has finally come for the sports organizations that have played footsie with autocratic nations. And not just FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, but for the Premier League, Formula One, and any sports league that has cashed checks from questionable international sources while...