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From Athens to Sochi and on to Rio, stadiums and arenas in varying stages of decay are symbols of the crisis facing the International Olympic Committee. Budapest’s decision on Wednesday to withdraw its bid for the 2024 summer games leaves just two cities — Los Angeles and Paris — competing to play host to sport’s biggest event. The decision by the Hungarian capital came after thousands signed a petition urging…

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As a native of Mexico, rookie Daniel Suárez has had a lot of firsts in NASCAR. Two years ago, he became the first driver of Latino descent to race full-time in the XFINITY Series, then the first Mexican-born driver to win a race in the series and, at the end of the 2016 season when he claimed the XFINITY Series championship, he was the first foreign-born…

The four-pitch intentional walk, a relic from baseball’s past used at declining rates in the modern game, died on Wednesday, when Major League Baseball and its Players Association agreed to replace it with an automatic walk triggered by a signal from the dugout. The curious part was its cause of death: It was sacrificed in the name of shorter games. That is curious, to say the least, because the intentional…

8:00 AM ET Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email print comment SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After 17 professional spring trainings, Jake Peavy‘s instincts point him toward the comfort of a baseball diamond. He should be arriving bleary-eyed at the clubhouse with a cup of coffee at 7 a.m. and getting ready for a bullpen session, rather than working out at his ranch in Alabama and coaching part time just up the…

If you’re considering the LG Watch Sport as a health-and-fitness tracking sport watch, I won’t blame you. But if you have small-ish wrists, I will dissuade you. This new smartwatch, made by Google and LG, seems like it would be the platonic form of a fitness-focused smartwatch. It has an always-on display. It has GPS. It has LTE. It has built-in heart rate sensors. It has a barometer. It’s waterproof…

FIFA 17 gaming matches are to be be broadcast live on television after BT Sport announced they had won the rights to show the remaining four EA FIFA Majors in this year’s Ultimate Team Championship Series. Pitting the best FIFA 17 competitors in the world, fans will be able to watch virtual football on TV for the first time as competitors on BT Sport strive to become the ultimate champion,…

An online commercial released by Nike (NKE.N) this week that showed Arab women fencing, boxing and spinning on ice-skates has stirred controversy over its attempt to smash stereotypes about women leading home-bound lives in the conservative region. It begins with a woman nervously peering out of her doorway and adjusting her veil before going for a run in the street, while a female voice narrates in a Saudi dialect: “What…

MLB spring training is here, meaning its time for another round of God’s gift to photography: baseball team pictures. Teams throughout the league continue to send in the results of their roster shoots, and the following are 25 of the greatest individual (and joint!) head shots of the 2017 MLB season. We do not deserve Colby Rasmus or his disgusting neck beard. 

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, in collaboration with his quisling associates in the players’ union, is apparently ready to do away with the normal and basic baseball act of four balls leading to a walk. He and they have agreed to a scheme by which the intentional walk doesn’t physically occur, but is simply motioned for from the dugout. Advertisement This is revolting, not just because Manfred is a…

Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored but had to leave the pitch nine minutes later Manchester United eased into the last 16 of the Europa League with victory at Saint-Etienne but goalscorer Henrikh Mkhitaryan could be out of Sunday’s EFL Cup final after limping off. Leading 3-0 from the first leg thanks to a Zlatan Ibrahimovic hat-trick, United started sharply in front of a noisy home support at a stadium often referred to…

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Ever since its birth on Daytona Beach in 1948, NASCAR has for decades been one of the most thrilling, unpredictable and dangerous sports Americans love to watch. But enthusiasm for the sport has been sputtering in recent years and now NASCAR is facing record declines. In 2004, 8 million people tuned in to NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series. Last year, only 4.6 million did, a decrease of…

For 89 minutes on Sunday, Long An and Ho Chi Minh City played a great game of soccer. The match was especially exciting for Long An, the underdog in Vietnam’s top-flight league. With the score level at 2-2, the bottom-ranked team looked like it would take home a point for a draw against their big-city rivals. But then the 90th minute happened and everything fell apart. One of Long An’s…

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, in collaboration with his quisling associates in the players’ union, is apparently ready to do away with the normal and basic baseball act of four balls leading to a walk. He and they have agreed to a scheme by which the intentional walk doesn’t physically occur, but is simply motioned for from the dugout. Advertisement This is revolting, not just because Manfred is a…

“He’s a looker!” When my Little League coach yelled that to our pitcher, we got the message loud and clear: The batter was waiting for a walk, so just throw strikes and make him hit his way on base. It was good advice then. It’s good advice now. If baseball really wants to fix its pace-of-game issues, they only need to make one simple change. Have the umpires call more…

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On its front page Wednesday, the nation’s largest newspaper by circulation said NASCAR’s problems “seem to have spun out of control.” “Long a Cultural Icon, NASCAR Hits the Skids,” reads the headline on the article in The Wall Street Journal. One of the article’s two writers, Tripp Mickle, graduated from Myers Park High in Charlotte. The article says NASCAR’s largely working class and white fan base is aging and was…

Nascar has been in a skid thanks to falling TV viewership, bottomed-out race attendance and retreating sponsorship investments. The latest solution? A radical format change intended to bring new excitement – and new fans – to the race series. (Sean Gardner/Getty Images) A dozen years ago, few leagues could match the popularity of Nascar, which boasted record-high viewership and was going toe-to-toe with the NFL. But then few leagues suffered…

If you think the National Football League has a viewership problem, just look at what’s happening with another iconic US sport—Nascar. The sport of stock-car auto-racing, which will hold one of its biggest races of the year on Feb. 26, has been hemorrhaging TV viewers over the past decade. And efforts to revamp the sport for new audiences have alienated its core fans. Since its peak in 2005, Nascar’s TV…

2:08 PM ET Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email print comment No changes will be made to the risqué outfits worn by Monster Energy models at NASCAR races this year despite some criticism voiced on social media by fans after Sunday’s Clash at Daytona. Mitch Covington, Monster’s vice president of sports marketing, told ESPN on Wednesday that the outfits are a fabric of what the company does at events it…