Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

At an internal town hall meeting with CNN employees today, CNN boss Jeff Zucker was asked his opinion on the possibility of his employees unionizing. His answer may surprise you, or not!Read more...

Riding over gravel, on purpose, for a long time, is one of the wilder and more fun ways to race your bike, even if it sounds like hell. Road cycling can become stale after a while, and like most forms of cyclocross, gravel riding makes for arduous and somewhat wacky racing. Which brings us to the Rock Cobbler, a…Read more...

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking Olympic boning, poopy undies, phone tag, and more.

Olympic women’s curling begins Wednesday (extremely late Tuesday evening in North America) with Team USA playing Japan at 12:05 a.m. ET. Defending gold medal winner Canada’s first game will be against 2014 bronze medalists Great Britain at 6:05 a.m. ET. The top four teams after the 10-team round-robin will advance to…Read more...

Assuming Washington isn’t crazy enough to franchise him—though no moronic idea should ever be put past a team owned by Dan Snyder—Kirk Cousins appears to be headed to free agency. Von Miller would really like you to know he wants Cousins to sign with the Broncos.Read more...

Yesterday morning, Adam Rippon got a rude message from an anonymous Twitter account. “You have shown to all just what a complete I.D.I.O.T you are!” wrote Grumpygrampa22. “You’re an embarrassment!” Here’s the bad news for Grumpygrampa22: Unless he meant to insult a 37-year-old game designer in Oakland, California, he…Read more...

By the time the NBA’s All-Star break usually rolls around, the standings are more or less set. It’s typically obvious which four or so teams will be contending for a championship, and it’s also apparent who will be spending the rest of the year in the toilet, tanking for superior lottery odds and draft positioning. As…Read more...

There’s a sort of dissonance to watching American snowboarder Chloe Kim compete, and it goes a long way towards explaining why the experience is such a thrill. Kim cheerfully, casually upends everything that is supposed to be true about a 17-year-old’s place at a marquee sporting event like the Olympics. In the…Read more...

Ryan Harrison defeated fellow American tennis player Donald Young 6-3, 7-6(4) yesterday at the New York Open. During a changeover in the first set, the two players had a dispute that got heated enough for the umpire to descend from his perch and defuse the situation. Unfortunately the broadcast barely carried any of…Read more...

Jerry Lawler is one of the most legendary figures in professional wrestling history, an all-around talent who is not just a local legend in Memphis and the surrounding areas, but also beloved by wrestling fans around the world. He’s worn various hats during his decades in the sport and has done most everything he’s…Read more...

Arsenal came into this past weekend’s must-win North London Derby and proceeded to get comprehensively smashed up by their fiercest rivals in a manner that would’ve cratered the Gunners’ confidence if not for the fact that it’s been evident for so long now that Tottenham are simply a much better team. Still, it was a…Read more...

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea—“Nobody loves me as much as I love me; so I guess I’ll just be my own Valentine tomorrow,” American figure skater Adam Rippon said at a press conference the day after he helped the U.S. team win a bronze medal with his clean free skate. Either he really really loves himself or he hasn’t been…Read more...

Adrien Broner, who is both troubled and very much a dick, was arrested for sexual battery in an Atlanta shopping mall on Monday. TMZ first reported the news, and jail records show that Broner was booked at Fulton County Jail today.

So here’s something weird: The other night, Chicago’s ABC 7 ran a graphic about the “P.F. Chang Olympics” during a report on the Pyeongchang Olympics. P.F. Chang’s China Bistro is an American casual dining restaurant. (Like many chain restaurants, there is no one person named P.F. Chang—it’s a combination of the…Read more...

Okay, yes, maybe he gets points deducted for pulling this move during a game against the pitiful Suns, but Warriors head coach Steve Kerr did something genuinely cool and unexpected last night: he let his players run every timeout huddle. The Warriors won 129-83.

Before today, Marcel Hirscher had never won Olympic gold. Somehow.

After a full year of hype, we now have a decent idea of what the Overwatch League looks like in practice. With the season a quarter over—“Stage 1" just ended—Compete staff checks in on how things are going.Read more...

Kotaku Armed Fan Invades YouTube Stars’ Home [Update] | Jalopnik The Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI Was More Of A Nightmare Than You Can Possibly Imagine | Sploid Man Redefines Horror By Building a Singing Furby Organ | Vitals How to Get Into Speed Skating |Read more...

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Last night, USA Today reported that the IOC was considering requiring U.S. hockey goalies Nicole Hensley and Alex Rigsby to remove the images of the Statue of Liberty from their helmets, pursuant to a rule banning,“the wording or lyrics from national anthems, motivational words,…Read more...

In their second match of group play, Team USA is currently stomping Russia in women’s hockey, leading 4-0 midway through the third. The second and third of those goals were scored by North Dakota native Jocelyne Lamoureux, just six seconds apart. That’s an Olympic record for fastest time between two goals, man or…Read more...

For exclusive videos, pictures, and more, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Send us your confidential tips at tips@deadspin.com, call our confidential tips hotline at (347) 746-8471, contact our writers directly, or use our anonymous SecureDrop system.Read more...

ACES Baseball Agency is being sued by a former associate, Juan Carlos Nuñez, who says his former bosses encouraged him to make under-the-table payments to players and their families as well as help clients get steroids for bigger contracts. The lawsuit was filed today in New York State Supreme Court in Kings County.

Bucknell downed Colgate tonight at home in a stunning last-minute comeback that saw the Bison score 13 points in the final 50 seconds.Read more...

The IOC has reportedly contacted the U.S. women’s hockey team about removing the Statue of Liberty from goalkeepers’ masks because the image may count as a political symbol.Read more...

Chloe Kim lived up to the hype during the women’s halfpipe final, putting forth a gold-medal performance on her very first run of the day. With a score of 93.75 there, the 17-year-old American easily jumped out to first place, and no one managed to catch her for the rest of the event:

This winter has held plenty in the way of absurd news about the Miami Marlins; it hasn’t even been two months since a full news cycle was devoted to Marlins Man complaining on the radio about his lack of invite to a season ticketholders’ meeting with Derek Jeter, ultimately receiving an invite to said meeting,…Read more...

Kotaku Sex, Pong, And Pioneers: What Atari Was Really Like, According To Women Who Were There | Gizmodo AMD’s Newest Processors Are So Good You Can Skip the Graphics Card | Jalopnik Jeremy Clarkson Reviewed The Tesla Model X With A Team Of Six Lawyers | Vitals Lemon Water Doesn’t Do Anything |Read more...

The AAU has banned the legendary youth volleyball coach Rick Butler after a multi-year investigation into sexual abuse allegations. The removal was announced Friday. In an emailed statement, the AAU, which had remained silent for months about the allegations, said:Read more...

Last summer, I asked three-time Olympic gold medalist Georg Hackl if anything less than victory in luge is acceptable to his native Germany, the sliding sport’s unequivocal ruler. He laughed before I could finish my question.

There are many sports in the Winter Olympics, all with varying levels of sex appeal. Cross country skiing is on the lower end of the spectrum, while luge (lube...) is all the way at the top. But there is only one that makes me weep from three holes, and that’s ice dancing.Read more...

Austrian luger Birgit Platzer lost control in turn 9, went sideways and briefly airborne during her second run Monday night in women’s singles luge, but was somehow totally fine. Or at least she was, as she put it, “better than the sled.”

The 142nd annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show goes down today and tomorrow in New York City. In lieu of a preview, Deadspin arranged an exclusive sit-down with a 5-year-old black Labrador retriever named Zeal—one of the favorites in the obedience competition—and his owner, Petra Ford.Read more...

Texas A&M freshman Patrick Kypson is a talented men’s tennis player—he’s among the top 100 performers in the sport on the sixth-ranked team in the nation. He’s also the goober you see hocking a juicy loogie into his own hand in the above photo.Read more...

After many months of ardent campaigning and intense pressure from those inside and especially outside the American soccer system for the implementation of serious, fundamental change at all levels of the sport following the USMNT’s horrifying World Cup qualification disaster, voters in the U.S. Soccer presidential…Read more...

You may think all the best forms of racing have already been invented. I am here to tell you you’re wrong. I have created the best new form of racing.

Back in 1973, Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker” was blaring from the PA in a California warehouse as two dozen women in flared jeans assembled Pong circuit boards. The smell of corned beef and marijuana wafted down the manufacturing line. Orders for Atari’s landmark table tennis video game were still pouring in on the…Read more...

It’s the Winter Olympics, the brief period every four years when everyone on earth cares about figure skating. Maybe too much, if this viral tweet from Thursday is any indication.Read more...

Blanka will come to Street Fighter V on February 20 with all his classic obnoxious moves, plus a flummoxing Gumby-like costume. Even without an embarrassing outfit, Blanka has his share of detractors because he’s a reactive character with “troll” moves that work best as punishments for an opponent’s mistakes. Blanka’s…Read more...

The vaguely and increasingly sad saga of Markelle Fultz’s lost shooting stroke has become one of the defining stories of this NBA season. And yet, for all the reporting and blogging around it, all the proffered diagnoses from coaches and GMs and anonymous sources close to Fultz or the Sixers, all the baffling and…Read more...

South Korean figure skater Alex Kang-chan Kam is competing at the 2018 Olympics in the pair skating event. He’s also on a quest to become a meme.Read more...

The Olympics are when the greatest athletes from all over the world gather to compete in their respective sports. Except for men’s hockey this year.

Boston’s reputation as a city oblivious to racial issues is undeserved, I tell you.

The reason why the tale of David and Goliath is notable is because most of the time, Goliath should win. Put a 5-foot-9, 175-pound AHL goon against a 6-foot-5, 235-pound counterpart, and who do you think will usually come out on top?

According to jail records obtained by Yahoo Sports reporter Jeff Passan, former MLB pitcher Esteban Loaiza was arrested in San Diego last Friday while in possession of 20 kilograms of cocaine or heroin.

Yesterday—or possibly today, I seriously don’t understand how these time zones work—Adam Rippon became the most popular figure skater in the U.S. by absolutely crushing his long program during the team competition and becoming a key contributor to Team USA’s bronze medal win.

This week, the Westminster Kennel Club is hosting its popular annual dog show, where canines of all shapes and sizes get to strut their stuff in front of discerning judges. Seems like harmless fun, but many purebred dogs are, or soon will be, in poor physical health—the result of an emphasis on cosmetic, and not…Read more...

The problem with being a pro football player is that people might not know what you look like. You wear a helmet while you play. Sure, casual fans know what the star athletes like the quarterback look like—but maybe not anyone else. (For more private individuals, this may be a feature.)Read more...

The best underdog story at the Westminster Dog Show came to an abrupt end this morning when Fanucci the German Shepherd was pulled out of the competition due to “a hematoma on his left ear that caused it to flop.” Fanucci was a favorite to win his breed, and victory would have capped a tremendous comeback that began…Read more...

The women’s snowboard slopestyle final, a disaster amid high winds, should not have been contested today. This seems an inarguable statement unless you’re one of the organizers who decreed that it go on because the Olympics were desperate for some marquee programming to fill a big hole on the schedule—a hole caused by…Read more...

The Celtics got beat down by the new-look Cavaliers yesterday and also retired Paul Pierce’s jersey. His old Celtics running mate Kevin Garnett was in attendance, and—oh my God what is going on with this hood: