The president-elect has been clear about his contempt for ‘softer’ rules in America’s most lucrative sport. Will that effect the fight against brain trauma?Earlier this November, an NFL executive gave a fascinating, if bewildering, quote to Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman regarding the future of the nation’s most popular sports league under Donald Trump.“Under President [Barack] Obama, the country was intellectual and looked at facts. I think that’s why our ratings fell,” said the anonymous executive. “People read a lot about our scandals or CTE and didn’t like what they saw. Under Trump, the country will care less about truth or facts. It’ll be [more raw] and brutal. Football will be more of an outlet. We’ll go back to liking our...
The NBA engenders an climate of open dialogue that’s made basketball players more willing to speak on social issues – and it’s more important now than everThe NFL and NBA have roughly the same racial profile with African Americans comprising 68 to 74% of their rosters. They have long been leagues dominated by athletes of color and should be places where essential social issues involving race are discussed. And yet when it comes to the actual expression of their players’ voices the two sports are worlds apart.While NFL players like Colin Kaepernick have spoken out about racial inequalities and police shootings in recent years, their voices are lonelier on those issues than in basketball, where stars feel emboldened to address the problems...
Trump appeared on Saint and Greavsie 25 years ago to help with the League Cup fifth-round draw. Ian St John reflects on the bizarre meeting with ‘daft Donald’“The whole thing is absolutely crazy,” Ian St John says as he mulls over the possibility of Donald Trump becoming US president. “There surely must be someone inside the Republican party who’s a more suitable candidate than him – they’d only need half a brain.”Sadly not, it seems, and in two weeks’ time Trump could be elected to become the most powerful man on the planet. It’s unlikely but possible and St John is among the thousands on both sides of the Atlantic shaking their head in bafflement at the prospect. Related: Thunderous:...
The former pitcher’s new show debuted on Tuesday morning and like boiling a pot of water, it took a few minutes for the takes to heat all the way up“Nothing that this government does feels in any way shape or form American. And that’s the thing that scares me. We’ve accepted the fact that our White House and this administration: they are cowards. They are bowing before the world. And they don’t represent any of the things I was brought up to believe this country stands for. So.” Curt Schilling’s podcast on Breitbart.com debuted on Tuesday morning and like boiling a pot of water, it took a few minutes for the takes to heat all the way up. But by...
A $5,000 legal challenge over exploitation of workers building for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar pales next to the value of private flights accepted by Fifa’s presidentIn the grim scheme of things, it is the modesty of the sum that gets you. With the formal backing of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation, a Bangladeshi man named Nadim Sharaful Alam is to sue Fifa for its alleged complicity in the mistreatment of those migrant workers in Qatar who are charged with building its World Cup venues and infrastructure. (Suggested tournament slogan: “Believe The Mirage™”.) Related: Fifa faces legal challenge over Qatar migrant workers Related: Athletes on Trump's 'locker room banter': that's not how we talk at work Continue reading...