Exactly a week after Spain won their second World Cup, the footballer who scored the goal that secured their first spoke out. On Sunday morning, Andrés Iniesta added his voice to those that had accumulated ever more rapidly over the previous days and hours, starting with the 23 players who had become champions in Sydney and the 12 who had not, ultimately sacrificing the moment of their lives for their principles, the pursuit of improvement. “We can’t tolerate the behaviour which has overshadowed this huge feat,” Iniesta wrote. “I can’t imagine how the players feel seeing that what is being talked about is not the great tournament they produced, or the fantastic football they showed us. It’s over.”
For Luis Rubiales, it is. Or …
The Wells Fargo Championship is the sixth of eight signature events on the 2024 season and begins Thursday at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. The event features a $20 million purse and increased FedEx Cup points. It also provides the 69-player field an opportunity to compete without red-hot Scottie Scheffler to contend with ahead of next week's PGA Championship. Our golf experts preview the tournament and provide their favorite prop picks along with best bets to win this week. WELLS FARGO CHAMPIONSHIP Location: Wells Fargo Championship, Charlotte, N.C., May 9-12 Course: Quail Hollow Club (Par 71, 7,558 Yards) Purse: $20M (Winners: $3.6M) Defending Champion: Wyndham Clark FedEx Cup Leader: Scottie Scheffler HOW TO FOLLOW TV: Thursday-Friday: 2-6 p.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday…
The 2022 NBA Draft’s most enigmatic player has arrived. Leonard Miller’s blank 247 Sports and Rivals pages are a tribute to how little he was recruited or scouted until recently. His Rivals recruiting page might as well be a ‘404 Not Found’ screen. He has no Rivals rating, no national rank and his ranking among small forwards is nil. The only bio information available lists him as a lanky 6-foot-10, 210-pound forward playing at Fort Erie International Academy in Toronto. However, in the right-hand corner of the screen I noticed they’ve tabulated that he has 10 offers pending and the fan projection predicts he will be attending Kentucky. This has to be a long con. It’s not uncommon for some impetuous high school student-athlete to gin up attention for themselves by generat…
The phrase “out of an abundance of caution” is so 2020, but here we are in 2021, seeing it again. It’s “out of an abundance of caution” that the United States won’t play Australia in men’s basketball on Friday, after Bradley Beal was ruled out for the Olympics and Jerami Grant entered health and safety protocols. Meanwhile, Thursday brought a couple of dueling headlines: “COVID-19 infections in Tokyo hit 6-month high as post-Olympics surge feared,” from Kyodo News, and “Risk of COVID spread is ‘zero,’ IOC chief says, amid rising cases” from Reuters, a headline in which the protagonist is undermined, appropriately, before you can even take a breath. “Risk for the other residents of the Olympic village and risk for the Japanese people is zero,” Thomas Bac…
MLB Photo Day is the best source for photos of MLB players looking visibly uncomfortable. A small percentage of the players embrace the situation as best as they can, like Nick Swisher. Let’s look at some others. The Texas Rangers took their photos in front of a distracting, ornate background, so every player looks like he’s posing for an acoustic sessions album cover. Here’s Josh Hamilton: Luke Hochevar would like to say hello, even if it means ruining Ian Kennedy’s game-face picture: Justin De Fratus does something similar to Ryan Cook: Here’s your annual opportunity to stare at Max Scherzer’s heterochromia: Who dragged Colby Rasmus out of the woods and made him take this photo? Pablo Sandoval’s thinking about all the fat jokes he’ll receive at Fenway: …
CBS has ordered a pilot for Home Game, a sitcom about Mark Schlereth, ESPN analyst and former Broncos/Redskins guard. Why? It's unclear. Here's what Schlereth wrote on his blog: Somebody's a producer! What an unbelievable ride it's been since last July at the ESPY's…That's where it all started, the seminal event if you will, where an idea was born! I was swapping stories with Peter Sussman and Steve Levinson (Leverage) at an ESPY's after party, you know, guy talk, chalk full of false bravado and embellished half truths. We were constantly interrupted by current players with obvious intentions. "Hey Mark, I'm So and So from the whoever I play for," before I could get out the obligatory, " great to meet you So and So," they ha…
If you want to judge college football’s first season that decided a national champion via a four-team playoff based on how much revenue the new system produced for the schools and conferences that participated in it, then the whole thing was an astronomical success. According to a report released by the NCAA, the combined payout from this year’s 39 bowl games surpassed $500 million, and increase of $200 million from the money that was generated by the 2013-2014 bowl season. Most of this money came from the new TV deals that put a premium price on the rights to broadcast the national championship game and the bowl games that hosted the semi-final games of the four-team playoff. Half a billion dollars! That’s so much fucking money! Too bad the idea of paying college football p…
data-mm-id=”_fzes2cxpf”>The NFL Draft will take place as scheduled April 23-25 and commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't want to hear any belly-aching about it. In a league-wide memo sent yesterday, he warned that any public dissenters would be risking penalty. "Public discussion of issues relating to the Draft serves no useful purpose and is grounds for disciplinary action," he wrote. On the democracy front, Goodell said the NFL Management Council Executive Committee was "unanimous and unequivocal that the Draft should go forward as scheduled, despite the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted work for most of the nation." On the totalitarian front, those speaking out will do so at their own peril. There are no easy decisions right now. Conducting the draft wil…
data-mm-id=”_x6fdkm0oc”>The ripple effects of coronavirus are far-reaching and plainly terrifying. Every new day brings another sobering reminder of the economic impact rubbing salt in the still-fresh health wounds. Multiple media outlets have already announced significant staff and salary reductions. And the one life preserver propping up revenue is not being spared. Yes, COVID-19 is bringing with it a precipitous drop in podcast consumption. “Downloads in the space overall have dropped about 10 percent since the start of March, according to data from Podtrac, which follows trends and usage in the space. Total unique listeners also dropped roughly 20 percent in the same time frame. “The cause and effect here is clear: No commuting and reduced alone time results in less listening. The…
data-mm-id=”_ifbd38kkt”>Jorge Masvidal says he wants an immediate rematch with UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman. Masvidal got dominated by Usman at UFC 251, losing a unanimous decision and looking completely outmatched. While Masvidal took the fight on six days notice and had a brutal weight-cut, he should have to win at least one fight before he gets another shot at Usman. Masvidal told ESPN's Ariel Helwani, "I want that damn belt and I'm stubborn. And I know I'm better than Usman, and I want to prove it. I want to fight again."He continued, "I'm not going to take nothing from him; he won the first one. Let's do it again."While it wasn't an exciting fight, Usman put on a clinic for how to slow down and neutralize a dangerous stri…