Hopefully, athletes will see what’s going on and understand that if they don’t stop what they’re doing the sport will die. And hopefully they will understand what the sport is going through and what they need to do. | | | | Eric Hosmer is a blur around the bases.
(Patrick Smith/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Hopefully, athletes will see what’s going on and understand that if they don’t stop what they’re doing the sport will die. And hopefully they will understand what the sport is going through and what they need to do.”
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| | rantnrave:// The road to the major leagues is straightforward. Sports is mostly a meritocracy. The best athletes get to play. The road to the broadcast booth is tricky. Who gets to call the games is a more fraught argument than who gets to play in them. Former MLB player DOUG GLANVILLE made a compelling argument for ESPN SUNDAY NIGHT BASEBALL analyst JESSICA MENDOZA's right to be in the booth. Mendoza has had to deal with misogynistic attacks and general disregard for her competence. Never mind that she earned two OLYMPIC medals during a sterling softball career. Or that she's good at her job. The right to be in the booth, for some, isn't about any of that. It's about who fits the criteria determined by uptight fans and cranky players, and the TV execs unwilling to budge off antiquated archetypes. Why else are women still shoehorned as sideline reporters, and not cast as color analysts? DORIS BURKE can do that job better than an ex-jock. She's not alone, but only a handful of women have that role in the NBA. It's not just an issue of gender, either. RED SOX pitcher DAVID PRICE cursed at team announcer DENNIS ECKERSLEY for daring to criticize a player on air. Eckersley, he believed, wasn't qualified to do that because he didn't show up enough in the clubhouse -- as if small-talking players would give him a better understanding of their performance. Maybe Price is right. Or maybe he's rationalizing. Eckersley, of course, is a Hall of Famer pitcher. The common trait among every case of the beleaguered announcer is that fans and players alike take umbrage when their team gets criticized. And if we're asking who's allowed in the booth, maybe the answer lies there. The only broadcasters worth their salt, to them, are the ones who see it their way... Video games like MADDEN, FIFA and NBA 2K haven't just sold millions of copies, they've taught their sports to a new era of fans and bred the next generation of stars. Madden helped exposes future NFL players to the sport's Xs and Os. FIFA pulled a new generation into soccer fandom. Video games have changed how fans consume sports from arcade to living room to dorm room. SportsSET: "Nearly Real Sports: The Video Games That Changed Sports"... Do all the fitness gadgets and apps we have access to in 2017 make us better? MOLLY MCHUGH asked that question after she spent three months tracking her runs with RUNKEEPER. She was running more for the app than for herself. Still, she ran more miles than she would have without it. Does that justify the app trap? Everyone works out for different reasons. But if we get sucked into the apps and not the workouts, what are we ultimately taking away from the experience? For many, workouts are as much mental cleansing as physical exertion. Does tech get in the way?... The best story you'll read today on a five-year-old tweet. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| Video games like Madden, FIFA and NBA 2K haven't just sold millions of copies, they've taught their sports to a new era of fans and bred the next generation of stars. They've changed how fans consume sports from bar to arcade to living room. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| In 2017, technology can optimize even the most basic activities -- like going outside for a run. But what happens when an app overshadows the experience it’s supposed to improve? | | |
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 | Sports Illustrated |
| Amid swirling reports of the biggest transfer the game has ever seen and ahead of a World Cup in his absolute prime as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo approach the end of theirs, Neymar is poised to seize soccer's spotlight. | | |
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 | Runner's World |
| I tried to become a cana-athlete runner. Here’s what happened to my runner’s high. | | |
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 | ESPN |
| The last time famous Las Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy Vaccaro made a fighter a -2700 favorite, the year was 1990 and Mike Tyson was fighting Buster Douglas. Here is the story of how Vegas made odds on the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight. | | |
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 | Yahoo Finance |
| London-based Perform Media is quietly turning Sporting News, the respected 131-year-old American sports publication, into a marketing vehicle for a subscription video service in Europe and Japan. | | |
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 | Aeon Magazine |
| Working until the early morning hours in a Manhattan restaurant kitchen, Julio Sauce still finds the energy to train for and compete each year in the New York City Marathon -- a gruelling 26-mile endurance test through the five boroughs. | | |
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 | Deadspin |
| MLB guarantees salaries completely. So does the NHL. The overwhelming majority of NBA contracts are guaranteed. Of the four major U.S. sports, the NFL is an outlier. This is the case this even though the NFL is expected to rake in an estimated $14 billion in revenue this year, and $4 billion more than any other U.S.-based sports league. | | |
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 | Kotaku |
| This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, "BLOOD, SWEAT, AND PIXELS," which comes out on September 5 and tells the stories behind 10 different games including "Diablo III," "Uncharted 4," and "Star Wars 1313." | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Players such as Didier Drogba and Eden Hazard are part owners of teams in the States. But it’s not MLS that attracts them. | | |
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 | The Awl |
| No piece of writing has captured the essence of Stephen A. Smith better than a viral tweet imagining him at P.F. Chang’s. | | |
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 | OZY |
| "The only person that can guard me is a 500-pound dude who is faster than Iverson. And you'll never find nobody like that." | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Nothing is more disruptive to an NFL passing game than pressure on the quarterback, and the numbers show that sacks are true drive-killers. | | |
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 | Yahoo Sports |
| He still believes he can compete. He continues to enjoy the game. And occasional misplaced foul ball aside, his body is holding up rather well. | | |
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 | The Players' Tribune |
| Let’s get something out of the way: I’m black. Damn, glad I got that off my chest. | | |
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 | B/R Mag |
| Forget the apology tour-ATL wants revenge. Inside the plan to get back to the Super Bowl...and win it this time, Tom Brady be damned. | | |
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 | AListDaily |
| Steven Roberts, the executive chairman at ESL, joined AListDaily senior brands editor Manouk Akopyan for our inaugural podcast to explain how marketers can control the current that is esports. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| A Day on the 'Golden Tee' Pro Tour: Meet the guys who get paid to play video games. | | |
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 | NBA.com |
| Twenty-five years ago this week, NBA's superstars took world by storm in 1992 Olympics. | | |
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 | The Bill Simmons Podcast |
| Bill Simmons is joined by L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and sports media mogul Casey Wasserman to discuss L.A.'s Olympic bid, modernizing the Coliseum, the biggest Olympic concerns, L.A.'s underdog status with the IOC, Trump's involvement in the bid, connected car-share technology, and L.A.'s Olympics legacy. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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