soccer Page 15 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Now is the time to buy a women’s professional sports franchise
Last month, the WNBA’s Seattle Storm was valued at a record $151 million as reported in the Wall Street Journal. The team isn’t for sale, but investors can purchase one of 15 shares of the team, as it looks to finance a $64 million practice facility....

Deadspin’s 2023 Men's NCAA Tournament Automatic Bid Tracker
The Men’s NCAA Tournament is just over the horizon and as its 32 automatic bids are earned in rapid-fire over the next week, it can be too much to track on your own. That’s what this space is for. One of these 32 automatic bids from a smaller conference is likely to become a Cinderella, but first ga...

Mallory Swanson can win the World Cup on her own, and she may have to
It is certainly a wonderful place to be, and a comment on what the USWNT has built over generations, that they can win three straight games over three decent-to-good teams in the SheBelieves Cup, conceding only one goal, and the overriding emotion is still more apprehensive than swagger. That is the...

These are the most obnoxious fan bases in sports (and pop culture)
The easiest way to protect yourself from outside criticism is to critique others. Negativity begets negativity, and I don’t even know where this is going because I’m here to tell you about insufferable fan bases....

Billie Jean King reminds us how far women's sports have come — even if the progress has been slow
Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss both spoke at Seton Hall University last week. The discussion kept coming back to money — from the one dollar that started the WTA Tour back in 1970, to the $50 million to buy a National Women’s Soccer League team, to the ratings for live women’s sports that keep goi...

MLS doesn’t know what fans want
It tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Major League Soccer that A) the season starts in five days and you likely didn’t know that, and B) with only five days to go is when the league actually finalized what the playoff system for this season will be. That’s right, teams didn’t kn...

This is the best idea to solve the NBA’s midseason lull
After throwing slop at a wall like everybody else trying to figure out the best route for the NBA regular season and All-Star break to matter, I have the ultimate solution. There is no better idea, and even though it won’t happen, the potential to overwhelm the news cycle is so alluring that Adam Si...

Thierry Henry as the USMNT’s next coach isn’t as bad as you think
The direction of the United States men’s national team nearly three months after its World Cup campaign in Qatar began is in flux. The Yanks are at the wheel, but don’t know whether to hit the gas or the brake. The car is in neutral at a time where that’s acceptable, but not ideal. Making the right ...

The fight for equality is not over
Canada’s national women’s soccer team is the reigning Olympic Gold medalist. There is no reason why they should be taking a budget cut. There is no reason that they should be getting paid less than their male counterparts. There is no reason they should not be supported, especially as they are the b...

Arsenal blinked
Arsenal had passed most every test this season. There’s still a hint of wonder/confusion at their place atop the Premier League. While improvement was expected from their fifth-place finish last season, to run through the league for the first half of the season as they have come out of nowhere. What...

MLB cares more about middle relievers — and money — than the fans
No one comes up with a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist quite like MLB. It’s their specialty....

Put Devin Hester in the Hall of Fame, you cowards
Most every time, I don’t care about the Hall of Fame. Any of ‘em. The Baseball Hall of Fame is now just a platform for every voter and commentator to prove how important they think they are or what new metric they say proves all. Everyone gets into the Hockey Hall of Fame as long as they went out dr...

Nepotism in college football hits a new low
Normally, when a football program has a competent coach who’s gone stale, the university will force out whichever coordinator is most responsible for the lack of success. If only life was that easy for the Iowa Hawkeyes. The team is stuck in an offensive malaise (to put it kindly), but can’t oust Br...

Tom Brady's not the only star who couldn't quit the spotlight
For the second straight Feb. 1, Tom Brady retired from the National Football League. His first retirement lasted all of 40 days, coming back to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers minutes after the NCAA Tournament field was chosen on Selection Sunday. He’s now retired “for good” and the entire sports world kno...

The NHL will always be a niche sport — and that’s fine
There is no fanbase that can whipsaw from beseeching the masses to watch their sport to getting pissed off at any mainstream coverage or attention quite like hockey fans. Any discussion of hockey’s ratings and popularity always includes a collection of the same reasons it’s not more popular, along w...

So do Chelsea have a plan?
You have to hand it to Chelsea FC’s new-ish owner Todd Boehly. If you’re replacing Roman Abramovich as owner, and ushering in a new era after the club’s trophy-laden one that the Russian Oligarch oversaw, you can win over the fans by going on a spending binge that would even make Abramovich raise on...

'Visit Saudi' sponsorship furthers FIFA’s tone-deaf record ahead of Women’s World Cup
The Women’s World Cup is nearing, and as is tradition, FIFA marked the occasion with controversy. Host countries Australia and New Zealand are urging the soccer federation to back out of its sponsorship with Visit Saudi. The main issue with the deal is Saudi Arabia’s ever-present, awful record of wo...

Oh my god, they signed McKennie!
It’s transfer deadline day, and with the news that the USMNT will be in the Copa America (unless there’s some sort of qualifying disaster, which has never happened before, right?), what the members of the team do with their club teams takes on greater urgency. It’s not waiting three years anymore. T...

Qualifying for Copa America 2024 should only help the USMNT
Here’s a compliment sandwich. The 2024 Copa America, South America’s premier international soccer tournament, will again be played in the United States after America hosted the showcase for the first time in 2016. Despite being the host nation, the USMNT hasn’t directly qualified to play in the even...

A rising tide lift all boats and it's time we threw Jason Whitlock’s ilk overboard
Choosing between women’s and men’s sports is a false choice. If you’re a certain blogger for Glenn Beck’s conservative Blaze media, revisionist history can be a comfort zone that vilifies feminism in sports as your woke sports boogeyman, but makes you look like a headass instead. Jason Whitlock’s re...