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On the opening night of Overwatch League, a Dallas Fuel fan at the Blizzard Arena hoisted a sign with the alt-right meme frog Pepe on it, and had it confiscated by event staff before the night was over. But that was only the first meme with racist associations to worm its way adjacent to Blizzard’s big mainstream…Read more...

The Tallahassee Democrat is reporting that Florida State quarterback Deondre Francois is being investigated in connection with a domestic violence incident that occurred early Wednesday morning.

With Chris Fowler busy hand-waving away Tennys Sandgren’s alarming political views and hateful beliefs, and the rest of tennis media cowed into silence by Sandgren scolding them for asking about his beliefs after he encouraged them to ask him about his beliefs, Serena Williams called for Sandgren to apologize for the…Read more...

Bob Costas won’t be at the Super Bowl this year.Read more...

Oakland Raiders wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson recently swung through New York City. While he was in town, Deadspin sat him in front of a camera to ask him a bunch of stuff.Read more...

When we last saw Cam Newton, he was once again at the center of an NFL concussion protocol controversy. After taking a blow to his head during his team’s playoff loss to the New Orleans Saints, Newton was slow to get up and eventually went to the ground as he tried to return to the sidelines. From any objective point…Read more...

Gizmodo Rebuffed Flat Earth Rocketeer Says He Will Actually Launch Himself Into the Sky at 500 MPH This Time | Jalopnik Tesla Driver Who Slammed Into Parked Firetruck On California Freeway Says Car Was On Autopilot (UPDATED) | The A.V. Club Star Wars: Episode IX can fill Leia’s absence by embracing its forgotten queen…Read more...

Hyeon Chung defeated Tennys Sandgren 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. Before that, under the new scrutiny that comes with being one of the last eight remaining players in one of the biggest tournaments in tennis, Sandgren deleted all his tweets, including one that expressed support of the…Read more...

Amazon’s January fitness sales continue unabated today, with great prices on both an exercise bike and a rowing machine.

The NBA continues to be cranky as hell. Last night Kevin Durant got ejected again, for the fourth time this season, late in the Warriors’ 123-112 win over the Knicks. Then in his post-match presser, he called out referee James Williams by name for targeting him.Read more...

When it became clear late in the third set that American Tennys Sandgren was probably going to lose his Australian Open quarterfinal match to South Korean 20-year-old Hyeon Chung, ESPN commentators Chris Fowler and Patrick McEnroe decided it was the time for a perfunctory discussion of how Sandgren used his public…Read more...

It’s been one week since Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin’s office issued a citation recognizing Jan. 17 as a day for boxer Floyd Mayweather, a move that made and makes no sense.Read more...

It is—with good reason—generally very difficult to smuggle anything that could be considered a legitimate or even semi-legitimate threat of violence or distraction into a major sporting event. How do bad fans get around that? They use whatever they might find waiting for them in the stands. Like, at an Alpine Ski…Read more...

The NCAA has formally opened an investigation of Michigan State due to the university’s failure to address repeated reports of sexual abuse by former employee Larry Nassar, who is already in prison for child pornography and is currently being sentenced after pleading guilty to several counts of criminal sexual conduct.Read more...

In an overtime battle against Oklahoma State last Saturday afternoon, Trae Young put up one of the wildest statlines imaginable. The Oklahoma freshman used 51 percent of his team’s possessions, scored 48 points, and took 39 total shots. (He was 6-of-19 from two, 8-of-20 from three, and perfect on 12 free throws.) It…Read more...

Vince Carter turns 41 on Friday, and he’s the oldest dude in the NBA. But that didn’t stop him from showing young Aaron Gordon how to throw it down tonight.Read more...

John Geddert—the owner of Twistars USA Gymnastics Club in Lansing, Mich., who has been called out numerous times during the Larry Nassar sentencing hearing for his own abusive behavior toward gymnasts—sent an email signed by him and his wife saying he was retiring, the Lansing State Journal reported today. It comes…Read more...

Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle has apologized to Salah Mejri after yelling at the center during last night’s game—specifically saying, “you have two fucking points, get the fuck out of here” after Mejri was ejected with his second technical foul in the third quarter—and says he will try harder to build a…Read more...

Here’s a rock-dumb hypothetical the staff has been arguing about for a few hours: If you were forced to choose two groups of fighters from the following draft class of eight kinds of animals and one guy with a gun, what’s the best possible defense you can construct for yourself against the remaining seven?

There is perhaps no active player who has been as owned by the Big Four as painfully as Tomas Berdych. Poor, big-hitting Tomas Berdych, one of the fixtures of the men’s game, constantly found loitering in the later rounds of the majors, but never winning them. The Czech quasi-star has surged as high as No. 4 in the…Read more...

Kotaku The Great Graphics Card Shortage Of 2018 | Gizmodo Man Says He Spent Thousands on Bitcoin Mining Rig and Got Boss Baby DVD Instead | Jalopnik Never Ever Agree To Let Someone Make Payments When They Buy Your Car | The Takeout Ask The Salty Waitress: Am I the worst if I only order water? | Lifehacker Here’s…Read more...

Put on your finest denim jacket and pour yourself a big glass of maple syrup, because we’ve got a fine Canadian controversy. It involves a man named Rush Hulk—not his real name—who is a fan of the Saskatchewan Rush box lacrosse team.Read more...

Liberian president-elect George Weah was inaugurated yesterday in Monrovia, marking the first peaceful transition of power in Liberia since 1944. Weah was one of the best soccer players throughout the 90s, when he played for Monaco, PSG, and AC Milan. He won the Ballon d’Or in 1995. The striker won Serie A twice,…Read more...

Thirty-two more women spoke today in an Ingham County, Mich. court during the sixth day of Larry Nassar’s sentencing hearing, bringing the total number of victim-impact statements to 155 so far. The former Michigan State Athletic Department and U.S. Gymnastics doctor, who is already serving a 60-year sentence on…Read more...

In an interview on local radio show Staudt on Sports, Michigan State board of trustees member Joel Ferguson reinforced the university board’s stance that the majority of board members still support university president Lou Anna Simon, saying, “there’s so many more things going on at the university than just this…Read more...

At 12 p.m. I ate a destination salad from Chop’t. I knew it was too early for salad and that I’d be hungry before the day was over. Now it’s only 4:20 p.m. and it’s already Hoagie Time.

Every Hall of Fame voting season, a few narratives get beaten into the ground. What to do about steroids. What to do about the 10-year rule designed to screw over steroid guys. What about the war over WAR? But here’s one argument that still deserves to be used as a bludgeon against the BBWAA: The 10-vote limit per…Read more...

It’s currently -5 degrees Fahrenheit in Pyeongchang, where the Winter Olympics will kick off in just over two weeks. Even if it’s not quite that cold at the Opening Ceremony (although it probably will be) I wouldn’t begrudge the American athletes any sartorial compromises made to stay as warm as possible. Which…Read more...

Joe Flaherty’s obituary for Sonny Liston originally appeared in The Village Voice (January 14, 1971) and is also featured in At the Fights. It appears here with permission.

Today, LeBron James congratulated himself for scoring his 30,000th career point, a feat he will likely accomplish tonight as he’s just seven points shy of the mark.

Time for your weekly edition of the Deadspin Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. Today, we’re talking pancakes, crooked refs, point guards, meat, and more.

Pro wrestler Enzo Amore, whose real name is Eric Arndt, was released by WWE today. In a statement announcing his suspension yesterday, WWE said that the organization has “has zero tolerance for matters involving sexual harassment or sexual assault.”

Give a Larabars a try with this variety box, just $18 after the $6 off coupon. If you’re unfamiliar with Larabars, they’re gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free, vegan bars, mostly made from dates. This brand has a bunch of interesting flavors, blueberry muffin is my personal favorite, and this variety box is a good…Read more...

In an interview with ESPN earlier today, surprise Australian Open quarterfinalist Tennys Sandgren said he ran a program to clear out his tweets, like the one where he believed that Hillary Clinton participated in a Satanic ritual. At the time of the interview, the program had cleared several consecutive months of…Read more...

The Undertaker last appeared at WrestleMania 33 in April. He lost to Roman Reigns. WWE played it up as Undertaker’s last match. On Monday night, he returned to WWE Raw last night for Raw 25, an episode celebrating the show’s 25th year on the air. It was lame.

DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis are now 63 games into their career together, and the Pelicans are 34-29 over that span. That’s not any sort of record to be ashamed of, but it’s also just a little too heavy in the loss column to provide any assurance that Boogie and AD’s partnership will survive in the long term,…Read more...

Duke managed to edge out Kentucky and land five-star recruit Zion Williamson on Saturday, meaning the Blue Devils now have the top three high school players in the country from the class of 2018. This left Wildcats coach John Calipari facing some questions about his recruiting strategy at a press conference on Monday.Read more...

If you’ve been following the sentencing of Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics team physician who sexually abused more than a 100 women and girls under the guise of medical treatment, you’ve probably heard John Geddert’s name mentioned a lot. Many of the survivors have called out Geddert, a…Read more...

The Cavaliers are imploding; the Bucks fired their coach; the Rockets are tunneling into other teams’ locker rooms to make war; even the Celtics have lost three straight and seem wobbly for the first time since opening night. Stuff’s kind of weird around the NBA right now, is what I am saying.Read more...

When Jigar Desai got a text from his friend Brian Halloran after the NFC title game Sunday, he said it wasn’t him in the already-viral video.Read more...

If you had to pick a single image to represent Arsenal’s enduring subjugation in English soccer’s hierarchy, you could do a lot worse than one showing Robin van Persie lifting the Premier League trophy. van Persie famously pined for that title after failing to win it with Arsenal after nearly a decade of trying, and…Read more...

We’re smack dab in the middle of post-holidays winter, when all there is to do is be pissed off about the fact that there’s nothing to look forward to in the immediate future other than some dark, cold days. This wears on everybody, but it seems to be wearing on NBA players in particular.

Start off your day with discounts on Amazon’s new Echo Spot, a DEWALT tool kit, a refurbished iMac, and more.Read more...

Oscar nominations were announced early this morning in Los Angeles, setting the stage for what’s sure to be a politically charged ceremony similar to the Golden Globes earlier this year. Never ones to turn down a good montage, the Academy’s livestream opened with a stirring tribute to itself before cutting to hosts…Read more...

Amazon’s new Echo Spot is like an adorably rounded Echo Show, and as a consequence, one of the best alarm clocks ever made. But unlike all of its Echo brethren, Amazon’s never run a discount on it, until today.

If you have any big home improvement projects on the horizon, today’s DEWALT deal on Amazon might be a great investment.

The Cavaliers remain messy in every relevant sense. Having now dropped six of their last eight, they spent part of Monday’s off-day in a team meeting which featured the hot topic of whether or not Kevin Love was really sick this weekend.Read more...

Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson East released a searing video tonight, tearing apart USA Gymnastics for how the organization handled athletes’ reports of sexual abuse by doctor Larry Nassar, who is currently being sentenced for 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.Read more...

USA Gymnastics has announced the suspension of John Geddert, who worked with disgraced doctor Larry Nassar—now being sentenced for sexual abuse of more than 150 women, including scores of gymnasts whom he treated—at two different gyms.Read more...