A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. | | | | Romelu Lukaku gets big goals and big air.
(Shaun Botterill/Getty Images) | | | | | | “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”
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| | rantnrave:// What will sports look like in the future? There'll be changes in style of play: The return of the midrange in the NBA? Football abandons kickoffs for safety? Baseball puts a cap on reliever usage? But that's mostly cosmetic. Can sports undergo a complete systemic change like TV has? In about a decade, HULU, AMAZON, and NETFLIX have taken the reigns in content. Talent and shows have flocked there, following the money. Check the EMMY winners. Can sports undergo such a seismic shift in power? Can leagues be disrupted? Modern athletes are aware of their value and leverage. Look at the NBA, where LEBRON bends the CAVS to his whims, and PAUL GEORGE can orchestrate an exit from INDIANAPOLIS while still under contract. Would those stars, or the next generation, ever consider making the biggest power play possible and starting their own league? The idea comes up when there's a threat of a lockout or strike. It was mentioned during Monday's ILR CORNELL SPORTS LEADERSHIP SUMMIT in NEW YORK. What provides the most value to leagues -- the players or the infrastructure? That argument is probably a part of every CBA negotiation, no matter the sport. Could basketball stars lead a revolt out of the NBA, put together their own league, pick teams, and start an old-school barnstorming tour? A league where players shed the NBA's CBA and its revenue split, name their own executive board, and share the profits, and leave current owners with stadium debt and a diminished pool of talent? It's the sport most likely to make it work. What is the NBA without CURRY and DURANT? Then again, what's the NHL without CROSBY and MCDAVID? Quality of play matters. The NFL has been beat up the last few years for its below-average product, which some argue has contributed to the ratings dip. Would Amazon pay enough in rights fees to make an upstart league sustainable? FACEBOOK offered $120 million a year to INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE cricket; how much would a splinter football league be worth? Is all this a crazy idea? Or are modern athletes so entrepreneurial that one day they could change the terms of pro sports? Are there lessons to learn from wrestling, where new associations pop up and gain market share by poaching off familiar wrestlers? It's probably a daydream but I'd love to see someone think through the viability of something like it. As HBO REAL SPORTS' JON FRANKEL said at the Summit, if there's gambling on any league, there will be interest... Heard two incredible stats at that summit, courtesy of CAA SPORTS co-head MICHAEL LEVINE. Three percent of the hours spent on the internet in 2016 was playing or watching LEAGUE OF LEGENDS. That game also accounted for more than one percent of total traffic. Explains why so many companies and people are trying to find a way to capitalize on eSports... Check which TWITTER account you're on before you tweet... Good dog. | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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| Lance Armstrong has a new narrative about his incredible rise and fall. Should we believe him this time? | | |
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| Several Latino ballplayers relish the show as a device for polishing their English. (And who can resist Joey?) | | |
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| Sports are as much about fandom and conversation as they are about watching games, and for a long time ESPN's hit show "SportsCenter" owned that conversation. | | |
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| The sixth annual showdown between San Quentin Warriors vs. the basketball operation staff of the Golden State Warriors. | | |
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| I hope this isn't going to be received as another feel-good story about a poor kid who made it out of the hood. | | |
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| How did America's fastest-growing company learn the skills to conquer? Countless hours of e-sports. | | |
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| While a source of anxiety for some, player-tracking systems could also allow scouts to use their greatest asset: their eyes. | | |
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| Bautista, who's playing out his final days with the Blue Jays, has been doubted and vilified every step of the way but the polarizing star always stayed true to himself to become one of baseball's great characters. | | |
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| The opening of Mercedes-Benz Stadium will mark a rite of passage not just for the Falcons or Blank, but for Atlanta itself. NFL stadiums-new NFL stadiums, that is, with gleaming features and staggering budgets-have become the sine qua non for the cities that claim a franchise. Want to host a Super Bowl? | | |
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| Sports have always been political. | | |
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| The NFL believed if it could put its product in Europe that Europeans would learn to love the sport. It’s worked. Yet what remains is the same question: What is the end game? Namely, would the NFL truly place a full-time franchise in London? | | |
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| Andy Murray practised against both boys and girls in his early years, and went on to play with some of the world's top female tennis players in mixed doubles. He hit the headlines recently for his comments on gender in sport, including once when he corrected a journalist's casual sexism. Here, he writes about his hopes for women in tennis. | | |
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| Mike Patton grew up obsessing over baseball statistics he'd read in the newspaper. But eventually the world of stats changed with advanced sabermetrics. Mike and his band have since been battling that change ... with music. | | |
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| Robert Coover’s oft-forgotten 1968 novel, and the origins of fantasy sports. | | |
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| In her memoir and beyond, Sharapova can’t stop using Williams to define her own career. | | |
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| Sports commentators have abandoned the practice of sexually objectifying female athletes on air for more covert forms of sexism. | | |
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| Offenses are as bad as ever? Wrong. The league has an issue with quarterback play? Wrong. Neither argument holds up upon closer inspection. Still, there's no on-field precedent for Colin Kaepernick not having a roster spot. | | |
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| Denis Shapovalov is just one of the young stars ready for the spotlight. | | |
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| Remembering the late, great announcer and manager, who was often the smartest man in wrestling. | | |
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| From the Robert Lee-Charlottesville debacle to the Sergio Dipp-“Monday Night Football” fiasco to Jemele Hill’s viral anti-Donald Trump tweets, the crises have kept ESPN on the defensive and detracted from noteworthy stories that would have painted ESPN in a brighter light, several ESPN staffers said. | | |
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