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Boxing's Great White Hope Problem; Or, Why The Fuck Was Mike Lee In A Super Bowl Commercial?
During last night's Super Bowl, one professional boxer appeared in a commercial. It was not Floyd Mayweather, and it was not Manny Pacquiao, though they are the two highest-earning athletes in all of sports. It was not any champion of any weight division at all. It was Mike Lee, a mediocre light hea...

Last Night Was Probably The Closest We'll Ever Get To A Super Bowl Fair-Catch Kick, The Rarest Play In The NFL
When the Ravens intentionally took a safety, to give themselves better field position and run a few seconds off the clock, it brought the 49ers to within three points. It was the smart call, but it also raised the possibility of the rarest of all football plays—the fair-catch kick. It's only been at...

What Was John Harbaugh Ranting About During The Blackout? We Asked A Lip Reader
One of the highlights of last night's Super Bowl broadcast was watching John Harbaugh berate a poor old man during the 34-minute power outage. We don't know who the old guy was (Update: He is the NFL's vice president of game operations, Mike Kensil), but we assume he was some kind of stadium offic...

Why Did The Superdome Power Go Out?
The lights went out, and they stayed out for 34 minutes. Colin Kaepernick had just been sacked, and the 49ers were down 22, and if momentum is a real thing, the blackout swung it firmly to San Francisco. Had the Niners come back to win, the power outage would've gone down in sports history as one o...

Watch CBS Herp And Derp Its Way Through The Super Bowl Power Outage
Drew already highlighted how last night's Super Bowl blackout led to some spectacularly bad television. From repeated assertions that the game would resume "in about 15 [or 20] minutes" to sideline reporters fumbling for words, the Tiffany network spread fecal material all over the Superdome and ...

It Took A Blackout To Show You How Truly Useless NFL Broadcasters Are. Let's Blow Up The Studio.
I avoided the pregame shows yesterday. This isn't unusual. I never watch pregame shows for the same reason YOU never watch pregame shows. I showed up at my friend's house just as they were getting ready for Alicia Keys to spend eight minutes doing a national anthem/"Fallin'"/Jazz odyssey medley. And...

The Best And Most Surreal Photographs From The Power Outage At The Superdome
The power outage tonight in the Superdome created 34 minutes of awkward television and some truly dreamlike sports photography. We've collected the best from the Associated Press and Getty. Top photo by Evan Vucci/AP....

Baltimore 34, San Francisco 31: Your Super Bowl 47 GIF Roundup
The Baltimore Ravens outlasted the 49ers in a thrilling Super Bowl that looked all but over after the first half. Then the lights went out and the Ravens stopped pressing deep and the 49ers capitalized on some poor punting and suddenly we had a football game. In the end, the Ravens hung on thanks t...

Jim Harbaugh Wanted A Holding Call On The 49ers' Last Play, And He May Have Had A Point
Here's Jim Harbaugh's response to the 49ers' failed fourth-down play in the end zone, and for once, it's tough to really say he's overreacting. Ravens cornerback Jimmy Smith probably held Michael Crabtree in the middle of his route, and when Crabtree laid out for the catch, he couldn't quite reach ...

This Is The Most Mesmerizing Video From The Super Bowl
This year's Super Bowl was heavy on the dramatic build-up but short, at times, on the execution. (The lengthy power outage delay didn't help.) There was one moment, though, that both inspired numerous emails from readers and captivated everyone's attention, if only for a few seconds. We have Frank...

A Profane Joe Flacco Thinks Winning The Super Bowl Is "Fuckin' Awesome"
We're inclined to agree, though not having ever won the Super Bowl ourselves (even vicariously, having grown up Browns fans) we'll have to take his word for it. [CBS]...

Here's Your GIF Of The Moment The Lights Went Out At The Super Bowl
"The players have never been in a situation like this before..." as in the power going out, or the Super Bowl, or sober in New Orleans, or other? ...

The Ravens Dig The Deep Ball: Joe Flacco And Jacoby Jones Connect For The Play Of The Super Bowl (So Far)
We've previously mentioned Baltimore's affinity for the deep ball and here is Joe Flacco, once again, successfully going long. He may have underthrown it just a bit (give him a break though, he did throw it 50 yards downfield), but Jacoby Jones helped his quarterback out. He caught the ball as h...

Your Cast Of Characters For Tonight's <em>Super Bowl</em> Movie
More than any sporting event this side of Air Bud, the Super Bowl is where we go for cinematic, overproduced sports theater. CBS will have 62 cameras on hand, bringing sweeping panoramas, close-ups, high-definition snot-rockets—everything you could want from a staged drama, except live and unscripte...

How To Watch Football On Television, According To 1964
Spend enough time on sports boards and you start to absorb a multimedia shorthand. Someone asks why Raul Ibañez is a defensive liability, and you automatically post an animated gif of his laser-like throw from the outfield right into the dirt eight feet in front of him. Someone wonders why people di...

How To Make Pulled Pork: A Guide For Unfussy Super Bowl Eaters
So the Super Bowl is here, and the internet has spent the past several weeks telling you that your game-watching experience will be a sad, dismal, disappointing failure unless it is accompanied by a veritable buffet-table of exotic culinary delights—Great catch, Boldin! Could somebody pass me anothe...

The Best Super Bowl Documentary You've Never Seen (Featuring Bill Murray, Groupies, And Bob Irsay Being A Dick)
TVTV (Top Value Television), a group I co-founded, was a band of merry videomakers who, from 1972 to 1977, took the then-new portable video camera and went out to document the world. In those days, there were only three TV networks, using giant studio cameras, and no one had ever seen a portable cam...

Dead Letters: A Scandal That Could Destroy ESPN
Subject: ESPN First Take = FRAUD ACTORS...

FIBA: No, D.C. High School Basketball Star Junior Etou Really Is 20 Years Old. It Says So On His Birth Certificate.
In response to our report that its newest basketball star will turn 21 years old this year, Bishop O'Connell High School is standing by its, um, man. But that support's not making Junior Etou any younger in the eyes of global basketball authorities, who now say they have an "official" copy of the pl...

Who Is America's Favorite NFL Team? Facebook Data Offer A Clear Winner.
You've seen Facebook's map of geographic NFL fandom. Our clever friends at the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective dig deeper into the data to discover America's most popular football teams....