Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

It seems pertinent on Women’s Equality Day to mention that there are still WNBA players going overseas to earn more money than they would playing stateside.

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The group-stage draw for the UEFA Champions League is always a strange, exciting, but mostly strange day. The path to European glory becomes more in focus with a straightforward goal: finish in the top half of your group and you make it to the knockout stage that begins next year. If you don’t you’re onto the Europa…Read more...

The Minnesota Vikings head into the 2022 NFL season with one of the most explosive offenses in the league. They feature one of the most productive quarterback-wide receiver duos from last year in Kirk Cousins and Justin “Mr. Griddy” Jefferson, plus a second Pro Bowl WR, Adam Thielen. Minnesota finally caught up with…Read more...

Before today’s joint practice between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals, Cincy head coach Zac Taylor, a former Rams assistant coach, had high hopes for their first face-to-face with the team that barely slipped past them in Super Bowl LVI.

We learned a lot in 2020, most of it sad and depressing. In the moments when we weren’t terrified, mourning, angry, or all of the above, some of us might have turned on sporting events once the UFC got back to broadcasting events and the NBA concluded the 2019-20 season in The Bubble. Sports looked different for a…Read more...

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Update (8/25/22): It ain’t happening, chief.Read more...

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Unicorn status has been bestowed throughout the last decade upon NBA players with proportions so fantastical that we thought they only existed in fables. Whenever one of those hoops fantasies steps out of our imaginations and onto the court, it’s akin to witnessing a futuristic autonomous concept of a flying car go…Read more...

The Lakers are a hot mess.

The NFL season hasn’t started yet, so we have to pretend that certain teams aren’t a lost cause. However, a cause has never been so lost as the 2022 New York Giants. New coach and general manager be damned, the franchise that hasn’t won more than six games since 2016 is continuing its trend of misfortune.

The most noteworthy part of now-former AEW champion CM Punk’s three-minute loss to Jon Moxley on Wednesday’s Dynamite had nothing to do with the story beats presented on screen, in the ring, or by the show’s commentary team. It had everything to do with an incident last week in which Punk, at the beginning of a…Read more...

I wanted to see what they’d do. I decided to be patient, so I waited.

After weeks of stillness on the NBA free agency and trading front, due largely to Kevin Durant’s trade request and eventual decision to remain a Net, the Lakers and Jazz finally broke the silence.

It’s supposedly only the smallest of detours — like having to briefly merge because of a single city truck in the right lane — but still no New Orleans Saints fan wanted to hear that Michael Thomas is currently injured. He’s been out since Saturday due to a hamstring injury.

If you’ve ever gambled on sports, you know the feeling. You spend all your time prepping, finding the perfect line, and studying the trends in order to maximize the money you can win. You get through the first three legs of your four-game parlay totally unscathed and all that’s left is the final game, which you…Read more...

There’s a different brand of pressure mounting around Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher. It’s not the-hot-seat-reaching-an-inferno temperature coaches like Nebraska’s Scott Frost are facing. This isn’t a battle to stay relevant on a national scale like the Deion Sanders-led charge from Jackson State, with Prime Time…Read more...

If you’re reading a post about baseball to start your Thursday morning procrastinating there’s a good chance that at some point in your life you’ve been at a bar with one of those punching bag machines. You know what I’m talking about, it looks like a huge speed bag and you put in a dollar or whatever and it drops…Read more...

Some people get annoyed by the process of how big fights are set up. For me, it’s the one time that I love raw, unregulated capitalism. People openly doing whatever it takes to get as much guaranteed money as possible, and as many eyeballs on the screen as possible.Read more...

Despite having won nothing on the field in 25 years, the Dallas Cowboys remain in the spotlight as “America’s Team.” They can’t get out of their own way, yet continue to dominate NFL headlines year-round. Owner Jerry Jones has a radio show in Dallas, and now another Cowboys personality will have a weekly national…Read more...

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Let’s start talking about Tony Gonsolin for the National League Cy Young Award.

Every time I try to get out, the Astros’ cheating scandal of 2017 keeps pulling me back in! Whether it’s new information coming out that perhaps other teams were conducting similar schemes, new video footage detailing how José Altuve likely never participated in the team’s sign-stealing shenanigans, or just people…Read more...

Welp. Here we go again.

Of all the things that Kevin Durant got blamed for on NBA Twitter on Tuesday, I found one tweet extremely entertaining because the truth is always the funniest.

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The top 25 is littered with pinpoint passers or dual threats, ranging from Bryce Young to Devin Leary to Tyler Van Dyke and K.J. Jefferson. For programs returning subpar starting quarterbacks, the offseason was about ironing out the deep wrinkles in their existing starters or hoping a clipboard-holding QB would rise…Read more...

After a long 2021 — complete with a rapid heel turn — that ended with a home-playoff loss as the top seed in NFL, along with Aaron Rodgers’s second consecutive MVP, the drama appears to be over. Rodgers signed a three-year extension during the offseason that guarantees him over 100 million, and averages out to $50…Read more...

Here’s a look at the athletes and sports figures we’ve lost in 2022.Read more...

The perception of the National League to fans of AL teams is that of inferior baseball, due largely to the (until recently) absence of the designated hitter. This kind of bias happens in other sports, but it’s mostly unproven generalizations like the Western Conference is finesse basketball compared to the East’s…Read more...

You may have missed it but for a brief moment, former NBA player Dennis Rodman was back and ready to schmooze concessions out of another authoritarian.Read more...

I join many others in giving MLB hitters a hard time. The need to lift and drive has added an untenable amount of strikeouts to the game, and it can be frustrating watching guys simply pound contact right into a gaggle of fielders shifted over. But we also try to defend them as best we can, given the devil’s…Read more...

There’s no one on Earth hotter than Albert Pujols right now. In his last 10 games, Pujols is slugging 1.258. That is the second-highest mark of his career over any 10-game stretch, beaten only by his slugging percentage between August 6 and August 21 of this year: 1.259. Basically, at 42 years old. The Machine is…Read more...

The 2022 NFL season is just over two weeks away from kicking off, and this year will see a host of big game rematches from last year. The league isn’t wasting any time giving teams the opportunity to avenge crucial losses or rejection by players. So, here’s the list of some of the biggest revenge games of the…Read more...

Live event television moves quickly. Not only does the production team have to decide on the fly which camera angles of the main action are most appealing to the audience at the right time, they also need shots that give viewers the feeling that they are at the venue.

Of course, he’s back under Paul “Triple H” Levesque’s leadership. Any doubt about the future career path of longtime NXT MVP Johnny Gargano turned to hope in the aftermath of Vince McMahon’s resignation from WWE. “Johnny Wrestling” left the company on good terms. He did it to spend time with his then-pregnant wife,…Read more...

The Association’s red-hot summer of jack shit continues, with the crown jewel of the offseason — the true Petty King, Kevin Durant — appearing to be locked atop Brooklyn’s scepter.Read more...

This isn’t my beautiful house.

Talent trumps anything in the NFL — and Jimmy Haslam knows that.Read more...

What makes a baseball season unique and wonderful can also make it torturous. Baseball is there. Every single day. That’s the excitement of Opening Day, not that that occasion in itself matters greatly, as it’s one of 162. But Opening Day is a reminder and a celebration that for the next six months, baseball will be…Read more...

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Add famed Cleveland Indians leadoff hitter and stolen base king Kenny Lofton to the list of Cleveland sports figures being accused of sexual misconduct in civil court. The retired six-time All-Star is now being sued by a former employee, who claims he was fired for bringing Lofton’s alleged lurid workplace behavior to…Read more...

It wouldn’t be apt to compare wrestling or wrestling companies to major sports leagues in how they deal with those accused of domestic abuse or sexual assault, though the usual balloon-handed nature of it certainly looks similar. There are definite, top-level sports leagues that could enact any number of rules or…Read more...

North Carolina, get ready for commercials for the new Baker Box at Bojangles, because the Carolina Panthers have named a Week 1 starter. The team traded for Baker Mayfield in July, and have announced that he is their QB1.

The 2022 NFL season is likely to be one of the worst in a long time for the Seattle Seahawks. They took a couple of steps backward after trading Russell Wilson to Denver, the last link to their championship defense, Bobby Wagner, was released in March, and there’s a quarterback battle between two guys who would be…Read more...

October of last year may feel like an eternity ago, but take yourselves back for a moment. The Yankees were 92-70, securing a wildcard spot on the last day of the season. They lost the wildcard game to the Red Sox in a game where Gerrit Cole didn’t make it through three innings.

Kamaru Usman’s loss to Leon Edwards in the final minute of the fifth round was the fourth latest finish for a UFC championship fight. Usman, the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC will be granted a rematch to regain his title, but his chance to tie Anderson Silva’s 16 consecutive wins is likely gone. The…Read more...