Deadspin > Sports News Without Fear, Favor or Compromise

Elena Delle Donne is listed as a starter for the Washington Mystics in their do-or-die Game 4 semifinal matchup against the Atlanta Dream Sunday afternoon. I am sure you will join me in saying please don’t make me watch the video of her knee bending backwards like al dente linguine again.Read more...

When 18-year-old Brazilian forward Vinícius Júnior was signed to Real Madrid on a €45 million transfer this summer, there was probably some expectation on his end that his footballing life would change for the better.

Not everything dredged up in the big FBI investigation of recruiting violations in college basketball is worth the attention of federal law enforcement. An apparel company funneling actual money to elite players so they’ll play for elite basketball programs, for example, is a function of a blackmarket created by the…Read more...

Well, if the Raiders weren’t going to do it, another team would. After trading four draft picks for Khalil Mack, the Chicago Bears signed the 2016 Defensive Player of the Year to a six-year $141 million extension, making him the highest-paid defensive player in league history.

A strange thing happened in the eighth inning of Saturday night’s Cubs-Phillies game. Veteran umpire Joe West, working third base, noticed Phillies reliever Austin Davis pull a notecard out of his back pocket before pitching to Addison Russell, and decided he needed to know more, and brought the game to a halt.Read more...

Manchester United are not having a great season so far. They’ve managed to earn just three points in their first three games, manager José Mourinho is reaching a breaking point, and Graeme Souness is getting the dog whistle out early.

Kimi Raikkonen has not won a Grand Prix since the 2013 season-opening Australian round in his Lotus F1 Team E21. Today in Italy, after setting the fastest lap in Formula One history, it looked like he had a real chance to add to his victory total, but all of that was thrown away on a Ferrari tire choice gamble.…Read more...

Martavis Bryant’s career with the Oakland Raiders lasted all of four months before the team decided to cut him from the final roster.

The lowly San Diego Padres gave fans attending Saturday night’s game against the Rockies complimentary beach hats. Nice! The problem? Some of the packaging of the hats was discovered to contain an infestation of disgusting bugs:Read more...

Ole Miss beat up Texas Tech Saturday afternoon, eventually winning 47–27 behind 336 yards passing and a pair of touchdowns by senior quarterback Jordan Ta’amu. Having gotten that out of the way, let us gawk, slack-jawed, at this spectacular catch from Texas Tech sophomore receiver T.J. Vasher:Read more...

Here’s some happy news, especially for Tottenham fans and, uhh, the friends and family of members of South Korea’s national soccer team: Forward Son Heung-min, facing two years of compulsory service in the South Korean military, has earned an exemption via the only route available—a gold medal in this summer’s Asian…Read more...

For a brief moment after last month’s national championships, it seemed like things were getting better, if only slightly, for USA Gymnastics. We had the return of gymnastics juggernaut known as Simone Biles, who demonstrated that nine months of training is all she needs to become unstoppable in the sport once again.

The Los Angeles Lakers will reportedly buy out the remaining two years of the contract of Luol Deng, bringing to a close one of the great mistakes of the insane summer of 2016.Read more...

With All-Pro defensive end Khalil Mack headed to the Chicago Bears, the Raiders will turn to rookies P.J. Hall and Arden Key to step up along their defensive line. Key, in fact, is in line to nab Mack’s starting job. A promotion! So how is the rookie feeling about this latest roster development?Read more...

Jordan Zimmermann was working on a no-hitter in the bottom of the fifth inning Friday night when home plate umpire Nic Lentz gave him a strike against Gleyber Torres on a fastball that sure looked like it missed off the inside of the plate. Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who was apparently already displeased with…Read more...

Tony Romo advanced to the first stage of Web.com Tour qualifying on Friday, after shooting a 2-over 74 to finish tied for 37th at Lantana Golf Club near Dallas. The finish left Romo just one measly shot short of the cut, a devastatingly slim margin. But! Fortune turned Romo’s way when an opponent choked away an…Read more...

The Nationals traded lefty starter Gio Gonzalez to the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday, the last day that players can move between teams and remain eligible to play in the postseason. Gonzalez has been in Washington since 2012; during that time he’s gotten married, had a couple kids, and entrenched himself as a beloved,…Read more...

Race fans around the world were jumping to their feet and dropping jaws left and right during the final moments of qualifying for F1's Italian Grand Prix this Saturday morning. Yeah, that’s right: they just watched Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap ever in Formula One history.Read more...

The Khalil Mack extension saga in Oakland seems to have drawn to an unexpected close. Rather than reach an agreement with their all-world defensive end, the Raiders have reportedly agreed to trade him to the Chicago Bears.Read more...

The shower head that came preinstalled in your home or apartment is probably terrible, but if you don’t have the cash to upgrade it to a Delta In2ition, the Delta 75152 is a stunningly good option for just $17. That’s not an all-time low, but it is the best price we’ve seen since last year’s holiday season.

Wayward helicopters are probably very low on the list of things professional cyclists have to worry about, right down there with crashing in the finishing chute. However, a scatterbrained helicopter pilot managed to combine both at the Vuelta a España yesterday.

Okay. Okay. So. An ugly and kind of dumb but real thing that sometimes happens in the life of a more-or-less normal person is, you had the idea that you and your longtime pal Hubert were meeting up for Special Pal Beers together, like in old times, just the two old pals, but then you find out that your old pal also…Read more...

When I got Pepper Johnson on the phone, I had no idea what to expect. I sure as hell didn’t think we’d talk for four hours. But we did, and I still can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone else for four consecutive hours in my life. But Pepper’s got stories.Read more...

After playing the first four years of his career on a shitty rookie contract, after two consecutive lengthy offseason holdouts, and after becoming the best defensive tackle in football, Aaron Donald has finally convinced the Rams to pay him.

It’s been a weird tournament so far for U.S. Open chair umpires. Less than a week into the tournament, chair umpires—whose goal is to be an unobtrusive as possible—have been directly responsible for launching two huge controversies: First, a chair ump needlessly penalized Alize Cornet for changing her shirt on court,…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. 2 Maryland.

Usain Bolt may have retired from track, but he hasn’t given up sports entirely. He is currently signed to a trial contract with the Central Coast Mariners, an Australia A-League team, trying to realize his dream of becoming a pro soccer player. He made his official debut in a preseason friendly last night, and…Read more...

Under Armour’s Outlet is already 40% off, but when you spend $50+ and use code WORKHARD or HUSTLE20, you’ll get an additional 20% off. Why are there two codes? Great question, but if one doesn’t work, you can try the other.

May 19, 1990 was WCW’s Capital Combat pay-per-view, and the event was promoted with an added bonus: RoboCop himself would be there. The tagline for the show was actually “Return of Robocop,” though RoboCop hadn’t really appeared in wrestling before. But RoboCop 2 opened a month later. The poster for the event even…Read more...

Several months after it first made history, the indie wrestling supershow “All In” is here. On Saturday night, the much-hyped, self-funded brainchild of Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks will, after months upon months of speculation and buzz and promotion and noise, finally become real in front of over 10,000 fans at…Read more...

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

Look, I don’t know how much time he has left as the manager of Manchester United, and so I am begging you to enjoy José Mourinho in full Meltdown Mode while you still can. It really is one of the greatest shows in sports.

When you’re watching porn, especially one of those gauzy-lensed sensual ones, you generally do not find yourself thinking, Boy, that porn star fellow must be quite the gentleman at home.

Foxtrot Alpha This Is Why All That Fighter Jet Testing Is So Important | Gizmodo Now There’s a Water Gun That Shoots Liquid Bullets and Refills Itself | Kotaku Battle For Azeroth Is More Exciting When You’re Horde | Lifehacker Send One Scary Email This Weekend | The Takeout How to make a Brandy Alexander, a Frosty for…Read more...

According to multiple reports, the San Francisco Giants will trade soon-to-be free agent Andrew McCutchen to the Yankees ahead of Friday night’s final deadline to acquire players who will be eligible for the postseason. The Giants will receive a package headlined by mid-tier infield prospect Abiatal Avelino in return.…Read more...

Whether you’re starting or expanding your Philips Hue collection, this weekend is the time to buy more accessories. Everything below is way cheaper than usual, so place your orders before the lights go out on this sale.

Yes, it’s happening again. Nordstrom Rack has brought back their Clear the Rack sale and it’s full (and I mean FULL) of really incredible deals, with tons of stuff available under $10. Designer clothing, brands you’ve never heard of, everything in clearance an extra 25% off their already discounted prices.

Thursday night was, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the college football season, as an actual ranked team in UCF took on UConn in the silliest rivalry in sports. (There’s also a Northwestern-Purdue game, for the true perverts among us.)Read more...

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...