The record crowds that flocked to the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League were treated to lots more than the Victor Wembanyama Show. Our correspondent in the desert empties her notebookThe most common mistake people make post-Vegas is overreacting, whether positive or negative. Yes, the NBA’s Summer League provides a high-profile showcase for undrafted and G League players to show their mettle, so if they impress, it shouldn’t be discounted. And some rookies display their rough edges in their first NBA-branded outing in ways that might raise flags for concern. But, on the whole, sweeping generalizations from the past 11 days shouldn’t be made in either direction off a handful of games that in the long run don’t carry a whole...
The crumbling stadium that’s prompted the Athletics’ move to Las Vegas was just as cavernous, threadbare, outdated and unfashionable as advertised. Naturally, I loved itOakland-Alameda County Coliseum, the fifth-oldest stadium in Major League Baseball where the A’s have called home since 1968, has been called baseball’s last dive bar. A brutalist concrete doughnut short on grandeur and long on character, seated next to a Bart station at the center of an industrial waste land, no one could ever mistake it for the sport’s revered old cathedrals like Boston’s Fenway Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field or Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.When I paid the princely sum of $2 for a ticket to a recent Wednesday afternoon game against the Cubs, the stadium...
Lost in the bombast of the Raiders’ exit from Oakland is the not-so-subtle admission by the NFL that their opposition to gambling was always temporaryFor decades, the NFL wanted nothing to do with Las Vegas. As the city boomed in the Nevada desert and other professional team sports at least dabbled with the idea of a Las Vegas franchise, the world’s most lucrative league stayed away. Even talking about Las Vegas meant opening the door to gambling – and the NFL wasn’t going down that alley.But now that Nevada has $750m of public money to offer the Oakland Raiders for a gleaming new stadium, the NFL is embracing Sin City, even championing it. When the league’s owners approved the Raiders’...