Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Official attendance numbers—at any sporting event—are almost always lies, at least in the sense that they rarely represent the actual number of fans who both paid for a ticket and showed up to the game. We know that instinctively; it’s not a shocking revelation to see it proved as fact. But thanks to The Wall…Read more...

Kotaku People Who Haven’t Played Spider-Man Are Mad The Developers Took Out A Puddle | Gizmodo The Physical Security Key That Keeps Google Employees From Getting Phished Is Now Available | Jalopnik I’m Tired of Borrowing Cars From My Parents! What Car Should I Buy? | Lifehacker What to Do if Your TSA Precheck Isn’t on…Read more...

By the second set, Nick Kyrgios had earned his first boos. He’d lost the first set of today’s U.S. Open match to Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert on a double-fault second serve going 129 mph. Kyrgios’s serve—untouchable whenever he desires it to be—was broken to start off the second, and when he planted an easy…Read more...

We see a lot of deals around the web over on Kinja Deals, but these were our ten favorites today.Read more...

This week the Puerto Rican government raised Hurricane Maria’s official death toll from 64 to 2,975. In response to questions about the new, vastly increased estimate, President Trump said Wednesday he believed the response effort on the island had been “fantastic.”

A few weeks ago, I learned about a dystopian gathering called OzyFest where people paid real American dollars to gaze longingly at thinkfluencers and hear soup-brained psychopaths like Karl Rove host panels. The Silicon Valley–funded Ozy—which is somehow not an incisive performance art piece about our culture’s…Read more...

Welcome to the Deadspin 25, a college football poll that strives to be more democratic and less useless than every other preseason poll. Leading up to the college football season kickoff, we will give you previews of the 25 teams that you, the readers, voted to be most worthy of writing about. Now, No. 3 Alabama.

Suitcases get all the attention, but your toiletry kit is lowkey one of the most important travel accessories you can own. We asked our readers to nominate their favorites, and these were the standouts. Check out what everyone had to say below, then vote for your favorite at the bottom of the post.

According to a report from the Sacramento Bee, former Kings exec Jeffrey David embezzled $13.4 million from two Kings sponsors and used the money to buy beach houses in Southern California. David allegedly took $9 million from Golden 1 Credit Union, title sponsor for the Kings arena, and another $4.3 million from…Read more...

The group stage draw for this year’s Champions League tournament was just completed this morning, and now it is time to find out which teams have been unfairly boned and which teams were clearly the beneficiaries of a rigged lottery.

This week the NCAA informed Michigan State in a letter that it had concluded its investigation into how the athletic department handled Larry Nassar’s abuse of student-athletes, and how the school handled allegations of assault against members of the basketball and football teams. Their decision: Cleared on all…Read more...

Goalkeepers have no business existing in soccer. Maintaining an entire class of players whose job is to snuff the joy out of a game is absurd, and strapping on gloves to play a sport that prohibits the use of the hands is blasphemy. In defiance of not just strikers, but more or less everyone, the keeper believes there…Read more...

College football, the looser and more fun but also worse version of football played by younger and less well-compensated people than those in the NFL, is back baby. Or maybe is already back? Anyway the timing is complicated, because while the good stuff gets going this weekend, college football’s latest attempt to…Read more...

Ben Rothenberg, a well-known tennis writer who travels all over the world covering the sport for The New York Times and elsewhere, has thousands of avid followers. One, however, might be a little more devoted than others. Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios, the king of trash talk, tweeners, and tanking—but mostly…Read more...

If you love inky blacks and vibrant colors—and who doesn’t?—this 55" 2017 OLED LG TV is down to $1149 today at Walmart as a refurb, or an all-time low $1600 for 65", with small additional discounts available if you pick up in a store.

Some people are fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. This 2018 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.Read more...

Odell Beckham, Jr. got his money. So did Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Donald is reportedly on the verge of finally getting the Rams to pay him. Khalil Mack, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to signing an extension with the Raiders.

USB-C chargers, discounted Apple Watches, and a home security camera with free cloud storage lead off Thursday’s best deals.Read more...

io9 Even More Star Wars: Episode IX Casting Rumors | Vitals Try This Military Meditation Routine to Fall Asleep Fast | Kotaku A Retro Grand Theft Auto Would Now Be Set In The Year 2002 | Jalopnik At $2,000, Could This 1965 Nissan Patrol be For Real? | The Takeout This Papa John’s thing is never going to be over, is it…Read more...

Hurricane season is ramping up, the late summer thunderstorms are rolling in, and the snowy season is inching towards us. Thinking about how your feet will do in the precipitation? Pick up a pair of Muck boots from this Amazon Gold Box and you’ll be dry and comfortable, no matter the wet weather.

If reliability is something you crave in a pair of shoes (if it isn’t, you may need to reconsider), I bet you have Cole Haan in your closet. And if you’re looking for a new pair but don’t want to spend the normal asking price, Cole Haan is taking an extra 40% off sale styles with the code EXTRA40 at checkout.Read more...

When Reds pitcher Michael Lorenzen entered the batter’s box in the bottom of the sixth of tonight’s game against the Brewers, he was just trying to do what most pitchers do when asked to hit: his best.

Mark Jurich, son of former Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, is extremely, extremely pissed about the location of the 20 years’ worth of tickets granted to his family as part of his dad’s termination last autumn. The tickets are not the tickets they’re used to, and Mark is reading an awful lot of meaning into…Read more...

The Baltimore Orioles came into Wednesday night a horrendous 52.5 games out of first place in the AL East, and an equally shocking and horrifying 40.5 games back of the AL Wild Card. All of that sucking and losing happened before 8:33 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, when it was announced that this devious raccoon had…Read more...

That was quick. The Cleveland Browns officially released linebacker Mychal Kendricks tonight after he was indicted on federal insider trading charges earlier in the day. GM John Dorsey said in a statement that the team knew Kendricks was part of an investigation before he was signed, but only as a victim:Read more...

The Marlins have the worst home-field advantage in baseball, drawing a whopping 4,600 fewer fans per home game than the next lowest average attendance in the league. If you bring a harp to a Marlins home game and use it to play a soothing acoustic version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning…Read more...

The Astros won 5-4 today in the final game of a three-game series against the Athletics, after DH Tyler White hit a walk-off bomb. White’s homer not only extended Houston’s lead in the AL West to 2.5 games, but set a neat little MLB record, too.

The NBA is steadily laying the foundation for the end of the rule requiring basketball prospects to wait a year after graduating from high school before declaring for the NBA Draft. Adam Silver has been making noise about this for a while, and Condoleezza Rice’s otherwise useless commission recommended it, and anyway…Read more...

PAOK scored the first goal of their Champions League qualifying match against a superior Benfica team off of a neat little coordinated free-kick routine. Watch the goal above, because it’s cool, and then ponder the following: What is it about free goals that have the big tough soccer boys afraid of a little innovation?Read more...

When the Chicago Cubs acquired Cole Hamels from the Rangers before the trade deadline, it looked like the team was just buying a lotto ticket. Hamels, who was putting up a disastrous 5.19 FIP with the Rangers in 2018, was just another formerly great but presently iffy arm who could join the rest of the Cubs’ starters…Read more...

After playing professional soccer for 15 years, Clint Dempsey—celebrated striker and guy who broke John Terry’s face—is retiring at age 35 from both the Seattle Sounders and the United States national team. The Sounders posted a statement detailing Dempsey’s long and successful career; Deuce, characteristically, kept…Read more...

Welcome to the Deadspin 25, a college football poll that strives to be more democratic and less useless than every other preseason poll. Leading up to the college football season kickoff, we will give you previews of the 25 teams that you, the readers, voted to be most worthy of writing about. Now, No. 4 Virginia Tech.

This piece is part of a recurring series that aims to be a complete guide to the laws of war. You can read previous entries here.

Former Olympic swimmer and two-time gold medalist Klete Keller used the app Wag to find a dogsitter, and very much regretted it when he came home to find two shirtless men on his couch with “personal lubricant” and a camera.Read more...

Former Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith, who was recently fired from his job after multiple allegations of domestic violence from his ex-wife, Courtney, became public, has spent the afternoon tweeting angrily about his situation. He’s threatened to sue Brett McMurphy, the reporter who originally revealed the…Read more...

This week, the internet’s passed around several quotes by WNBA stars who called out their NBA counterparts and asking for better pay. Those quotes are all very fake. Supposedly Dallas Wings player Skylar Diggins-Smith bagged on LeBron James for being unskilled, and Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner asked for…Read more...

Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins was out of town back in June, at the time police say his brother killed a man at the New Jersey home Jenkins owns. But Jenkins asked someone to check on his house the morning Roosevelt Rene’s body was found there, telling that person he had been told his door was open, according to an…Read more...

Some people are fans of the New Orleans Saints. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the New Orleans Saints. This 2018 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Depending on how fussy you are about your sleeping temperature, BedJet is either one of the four horsemen of late capitalism, or a life-changing miracle. We’ve tested their old model, which was effective at cooling and heating a bed with an adjustable stream of air, but had major complaints about the UI.Read more...

If you were to name a poster boy for the phenomenon of promising young talents who join the game’s richest clubs only to find themselves spending more time watching soccer than playing it, Javier Pastore would be a perfectly credible choice. Now, after finally deciding to step out from the bejeweled cage he’d happily…Read more...

Red Sox outfielder J.D. Martinez will always have a gun on him, according to his 2013 Instagram post featuring a quote never actually said by Hitler. Wouldn’t that be dangerous if he dove for a fly ball?Read more...

Some people are fans of the Atlanta Falcons. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Atlanta Falcons. This 2018 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Federal authorities have charged former Eagles and current Browns linebacker Mychal Kendricks with insider trading. According to charging documents released by the government today, Kendricks made $1.2 million from illegal trades that were based on tips given to him by former investment banker Damilare Sonoiki, who is…Read more...

On Monday, Vulture posted a roundup of jokes from one of Aziz Ansari’s recent string of shows in Wisconsin (the one reviewed took place Saturday at Milwaukee’s Turner Hall). Before January, this post probably never would have been considered newsworthy enough to print (a lot of comedians do shows, some actually have…Read more...

There’s an old baseball saw that you should never make the first or third out at third base. What does the conventional wisdom say about making the third out—the game’s final out—trying to tag up and move to third base, but leaving second base before the ball is caught?

Last week came reports of the Pittsburgh Steelers erecting a tarp wall at the end of their practice field, apparently for the purpose of keeping prying eyes away from their football activities. When asked about the tarp, head coach Mike Tomlin mentioned “drones and so forth,” and the need for his players to have a…Read more...

$350 off MacBooks, Anker’s newest wall charger, and your choice of discounted dash cams lead off Wednesday’s best deals.Read more...

Prosecutors say that Todd Moyer, who was a strength and conditioning coach for the MSU men’s basketball team, was texting with friends and Googling for strip clubs when he plowed his car into another in July 2017, killing a woman and her 5-year-old daughter.

Gizmodo Texas Home CCTV Video Shows Woman in Broken Arm Restraints Ringing Doorbell in Dead of Night | Kotaku KFC Is Having A Hard Time In Japan | Jalopnik This Scion FR-S Stuck on a Speed Bump Proves That There is Such a Thing as ‘Too Much Stance’ | Lifehacker How to Turn Your Selfies Into Stickers | The Takeout …Read more...

On Monday, Manchester United manager José Mourinho stormed out of a press conference after his squad fell to Tottenham, 3-0. “3-0,” he said. “But also mean, three Premierships, and I’ve won more Premierships alone than the other 19 managers together.” He kept saying “respect” as he walked off stage.