When I left the NFL, the only thing I saw that had the potential to be as big was the esports space. What fascinated me was just the level of engagement, the fact that we measure consumption in billions of minutes consumed. | | | | A Second Bundesliga match in the snow.
(Alex Grimm/Bongarts/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “When I left the NFL, the only thing I saw that had the potential to be as big was the esports space. What fascinated me was just the level of engagement, the fact that we measure consumption in billions of minutes consumed.”
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| | rantnrave:// JOSE ALTUVE and JJ WATT are SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's SPORTSPERSONS OF THE YEAR. I'm a sucker for legacy media and the award still matters to me. Picking a winner is like trying to sum up the past sports year with one last note. There's a meaning to each selection. Watt raised $37 million for HOUSTON after HURRICANE HARVEY. Altuve won the city a WORLD SERIES TITLE with the ASTROS and then the AL MVP. Watt is a symbol of philanthropy and civic consciousness. Altuve a symbol of athletic excellence. But doesn't it feel a little anodyne after the year we've had? 2017 has been a year of movements and protest. It's been about substance vs. rhetoric. #METOO. It's been about taking a stand and a knee. For gender equity and social justice. Against sexual assault and systemic racism. About trying to upend norms. Do Altuve and Watt reflect that? Maybe SI didn't want to get political or create controversy. It also put ROGER GOODELL locking arms with STEPH CURRY on its cover in September. DAVE ZIRIN suggested COLIN KAEPERNICK and MCKAYLA MARONEY instead. What about MALCOLM JENKINS and ERIC REID? MAYA MOORE? By choosing Watt, SI picked an NFL player who had nothing to do with the biggest sports story of the year. It's been hard to keep politics out of sports this year, so how can it be ignored altogether? SI's award does mean something. The mag has given us an album to remember the last 63 years. How will we remember 2017 in 25 years? Will you think of Altuve and Watt? SportsSET: "Best of the Best: SI’s Sportsperson of the Year"... What is DISNEY buying if it acquires FOX's regional sports networks? It would double-down on live sports rights. ESPN has national NBA, NFL, NHL, and college sports TV rights. Fox's 22 RSNs broadcast hockey, basketball, college sports, and hockey locally. The deal would give the company more content for ESPN's eventual OTT app. Up until now it seemed that ESPN was only going to offer a subpar package of games on its app. It didn't seem worth paying for. But if viewers can get access to the local TV games for the 44 MLB, NHL and NBA teams all in one place, that app becomes extremely enticing. A catch-all app for large portions of three different leagues. It could make consumers less likely to pay for NBA LEAGUE PASS or MLB TV as well. This is all conjecture but there could be large ramifications for how we watch sports. If the deal goes down, Disney and ESPN are going to have large control over that -- more so than before. ERIC JACKSON and MAURY BROWN break down the reported deal... RUSSIA is banned from the 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS. A harsh punishment but would the IOC have burned its credibility completely if it let Russia go to PYEONGCHANG? Will this deter systemic doping in the Olympics?... TOM IZZO tries to blend into the background on daytime TV... Isn't there a mercy rule? | | | - Mike Vorkunov, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| It's hard to choose one athlete to define an entire year but Sports Illustrated does it every year. They are champions, groundbreakers, legends, and record-holders. Sometimes it's not just one, either. A yearbook for Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year. | | |
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 | Wired |
| Highly paid players. Billionaire team owners. Dedicated fans. A major new league aims to bring videogame competition into the mainstream--and upend the world of sports. | | |
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 | 30 for 30 Podcasts |
| Throughout his hall of fame career, John Madden’s passion wasn’t just for playing and coaching football— he was driven to bring the nuances of the game to the masses. In the late 1980s, a golden opportunity fell into his lap via an upstart company called Electronic Arts. Will Wheaton narrates the story of how Madden built a video game empire — and pushed the limits of gaming. | | |
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 | Sports Illustrated |
| More than any other athlete, this year belonged to José Altuve, who helped will the Houston Astros to a World Series win, and who is SI's 2017 Sportsperson of the Year | | |
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| Sports Illustrated |
| When devastation hit his city of Houston in late August, J.J. Watt set out to raise $200,000. He ended up raising more than $37 million in Hurricane Harvey relief, via donations from both millionaires and six-year-olds. And, after suffering an injury in the fifth game of the season, Watt has finally been able to realize that he's much more than just an NFL player. | | |
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 | Grailed |
| We'll make a brash claim: the most important shoe of all-time is 35 years old, hasn't changed much over the last three-plus decades, and is best known for it's monochromatic white and black colorways. | | |
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 | B/R Mag |
| Inside Audio, a club in Sao Paulo, Brazil, samba music echoes off the walls. Men in short-sleeved shirts dance with women in tight-fitting clothes. It's past 11 p.m. and Thiaguinho, a local pop star, is on stage. Next to him, gyrating to the beat in a yellow Brazil jersey, is a guy dressed as a canary. | | |
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 | Victory Journal |
| 2 Chainz isn't the first rapper to mention bowling in his lyrics. But in his case, it's a perfect fit. | | |
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 | CBSSports.com |
| Roy Williams, Tom Izzo, Mark Few and Coach K offer their thoughts on college hoops' reputation problem. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| In barring Russia's team, Olympic officials left the door open for some Russian athletes. Those with histories of rigorous drug testing may petition for permission to compete in neutral uniforms. Although it is unknown exactly how many will clear that bar, it is certain that the contingent from Russia will be depleted significantly. | | |
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 | The Forward Podcast |
| Phil Keoghan has been the host of "The Amazing Race" television show since 2001. The New Zealand native recently completed the documentary, "Le Ride." The film follows Phil and his friend Ben as they try to recreate the 1928 Tour de France route on original bicycles from the same year. Phil joined Lance for a screening of the film in Austin. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The black player never fully understood the gesture of the raised fist. His decision to end his protest is no great loss to the movement. | | |
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 | The Undefeated |
| Leave it to America's Team to start a global revolution. On Aug. 8, 1970, the Dallas Cowboys were playing their fifth preseason game against the San Diego Chargers in a penalty-plagued contest before nearly 40,000 fans at Jack Murphy Stadium. | | |
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 | ADWEEK |
| And it’s basing teams in cities, like the NFL and MLB do. | | |
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 | Fast Company |
| Can a broader approach to fitness and lifestyle help the cult brand seem, well, less cult-like? The chain expands, hoping to draw in a new type of consumer. | | |
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 | FiveThirtyEight |
| If you'd have told people five years ago that the Wichita State men's basketball team would be a national contender in 2017 with a chance to return to the Final Four, they'd have laughed you out of the room. | | |
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 | Vice Sports |
| Is the difference between Russian and American sporting culture as stark as 'they're willing to cheat, and we're not'? Or is simply the case that we cheat differently? | | |
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 | GQ |
| The Rockets are advancing a version of basketball we’ve never seen before. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Craig Carton has problems. The former WFAN morning guy is facing 45 years in federal prison for running what prosecutors say was a ticket-broker Ponzi scheme. He lost his job on radio. In 2017, there's only one way to resolve such a professional and criminal and public-relations nightmare: Carton started a podcast. | | |
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 | Yahoo Sports |
| When the inevitable became official Sunday afternoon, and the word “Georgia” appeared on the ESPN graphic confirming that the Bulldogs were in the College Football Playoff, there was a brief eruption in Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. For head coach Kirby Smart, the moment was fun but fleeting. | | |
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