Blog

Think of the Philadelphia 76ers, and you think first of Dr. J, Allen Iverson and a long drought since their last NBA championship. Now you should also think of e-sports. Last month, the Sixers became the first professional sports franchise in the US to enter the ranks of the wildly popular e-sports realm, acquiring not one but two teams and merging them under the Team Dignitas banner. On Monday, Team…

Wearing sparkly hats and waving Union flags, more than 150,000 well-wishers gathered on the streets of Manchester today to celebrate Team GB’s stunning performance in Rio. Excited fans draped in red, white and blue waited for hours along the parade route as they prepared to welcome Britain’s triumphant Olympian and Paralympians to the city. Matt Whitlock, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Ellie Simmonds were among the sporting stars taking part in the…

As a lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fan, Bob Higgins relished Sunday’s Game 2 victory over the Cubs. And for the sake of his marriage, he relished Saturday’s Game 1 loss. “I did text him during the game,” Bob’s wife, Jo Higgins, told me, “saying if he brought home a Los Angeles victory, the locks would be changed.” The Higgins, who live in Hinsdale, share a deeply rooted love for baseball and…

Think of the Philadelphia 76ers, and you think first of Dr. J, Allen Iverson and a long drought since their last NBA championship. Now you should also think of e-sports. Last month, the Sixers became the first professional sports franchise in the US to enter the ranks of the wildly popular e-sports realm, acquiring not one but two teams and merging them under the Team Dignitas banner. On Monday, Team…

There was room for both Cristiano Ronaldo and Steven Gerrard in the combined Liverpool-Manchester United XI There was no room for Sir Bobby Charlton or Eric Cantona – and Ian Rush and Kevin Keegan did not make the cut either. More than 150,000 BBC Sport users picked their greatest combined post-war Liverpool-Manchester United XI, and there were obviously some agonising decisions. Seven United players made the team and, as you…

Michael Bisping has plenty of experience facing off against chemically enhanced opponents. Throughout the course of his UFC career, Bisping has fought at least six opponents who have either failed a drug test at some point or used synthetic testosterone before the practice was banned in the sport. So it’s easy to understand why Bisping is one of the most outspoken advocates for drug testing in mixed martial arts not…

What stood out to me from our Sports Media & Technology conference held earlier this month in Manhattan Beach, Calif.: ■ The Twitter Experiment Advertisers are griping about Twitter’s low NFL viewership figures, which are coming in well below expectations. But sports media’s top executives say any focus on streaming numbers misses the main point of the deal. Twitter’s NFL deal is one of the top sports media storylines…

Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s new president, has ambitious plans. They are, however, easy to execute and may help further the goals of some of the soccer body’s major sponsors.  Planned total of teams in World Cup 48 For a start, Infantino is pledging to invest $4 billion to increase the number of football participants to 60 percent of the world’s population, from the current 45 percent. Guess what: He doesn’t have to…

x Embed x Share USA TODAY Sports’ Brant James looks ahead to the Hollywood Casino 400 and the story lines that fans should keep an eye on leading up to this weekend’s race. USA TODAY Sports Sprint has been the sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series since 2004.(Photo: Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports) KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Sprint employees will convene at Kansas Speedway today for their final homecoming game. There…

CHICAGO—The World Series won’t begin for more than a week, but this postseason already looks historic: It appears to mark the end of the modern bullpen. On the teams still standing in the 2016 playoffs, the managers have smashed through baseball’s fossilized conviction in traditional bullpen roles. Instead of sticking to a rigid script, managers…

At the end of a college football season, nearly every national title contender can look back at those one or two weeks that made or broke their campaign. If a team finishes with 10-12 regular season wins, there is a very good chance that at some point, usually in conference play, those national title hopes were hanging in the balance. Champions find ways to win those games, and if a…

Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s new president, has ambitious plans. They are, however, easy to execute and may help further the goals of some of the soccer body’s major sponsors.  Planned total of teams in World Cup 48 For a start, Infantino is pledging to invest $4 billion to increase the number of football participants to 60 percent of the world’s population, from the current 45 percent. Guess what: He doesn’t have to…

x Embed x Share USA TODAY Sports’ Brant James looks ahead to the Hollywood Casino 400 and the story lines that fans should keep an eye on leading up to this weekend’s race. USA TODAY Sports Sprint has been the sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series since 2004.(Photo: Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports) KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Sprint employees will convene at Kansas Speedway today for their final homecoming game. There…

If you hadn’t heard of Javier Baez before this postseason, you surely have by now. The Cubs‘ electric second baseman is making headlines almost every single postseason game, and Sunday night was no exception. With Chicago trailing 1-0 in the top of the sixth of a tense Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers mounted a bit of a threat, with Adrian Gonzalez drawing a one-out walk…

CHICAGO—The World Series won’t begin for more than a week, but this postseason already looks historic: It appears to mark the end of the modern bullpen. On the teams still standing in the 2016 playoffs, the managers have smashed through baseball’s fossilized conviction in traditional bullpen roles. Instead of sticking to a rigid script, managers…

Buy Photo Several of these items, including three autographed baseballs from the Tigers 1935, 1968 and 1984 World Series, are owned by Bob Matthews.(Photo: Todd McInturf / The Detroit News)Buy Photo Forget Ernie Harwell, the baseball fan was saying. Not literally, of course; that’s impossible, and who’d want to? It was just a figure of speech. David Higer of Farmington Hills was talking about his sainted grandmother, the woman who…

Jessie Wardarski/ Tulsa World 2016-10-17 ne-buddybaseballJW01 Jenks baseball players Eli Bilgrien, Landis Morris, and Chris Spry, along with Ojan the Trojan (Peter Song), run to third base with their Baseball Buddy, David Steele (center), 7, during the 10th Annual Buddy Baseball game with the Jenks Trojans at Hinch Baseball Field in Jenks on Sunday.  JESSIE WARDARSKI/Tulsa World Jessie Wardarski/ Tulsa World 2016-10-17 ne-buddybaseballJW37 Jenks baseball players, AJ Potts and Liam…

Like the rest of you — well, not the rest of you but those who don’t work and those who prefer to sleep in — I have been watching MLB’s postseason in the middle of the day and the middle of the night. I don’t want to say the games are interminable, but my goal is to write this entire column during pitching changes alone. Here’s the thing: A baseball…

x Embed x Share USA TODAY Sports’ Brant James looks ahead to the Hollywood Casino 400 and the story lines that fans should keep an eye on leading up to this weekend’s race. USA TODAY Sports Sprint has been the sponsor of NASCAR’s premier series since 2004.(Photo: Jerome Miron, USA TODAY Sports) KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Sprint employees will convene at Kansas Speedway today for their final homecoming game. There…