Professional male sports teams are a cross-section of many cultures. But the idea that they agree about much beyond winning is a fabrication. It's time to open up.
One former pro athlete recently observed that an athlete doesn’t mention three things in the dressing room: His playing time. His salary. And the first name of a teammate’s wife. He might also have added whether your favourite jock likes guys or girls when he gets home from the game that night. This prohibition has…
Let's face it: women's sports are second-tier entertainment, which even most women don't support
The men’s final at Wimbledon on Sunday took five immortal sets of tennis over four hours 57 minutes before Novak Djokovic finally outlasted Roger Federer in a stirring contest that ended in a fifth-set tiebreaker at 13-12. Saturday’s women’s final lasted just 56 minutes in two quick sets for Simona Halep to upset Serena Williams.…
Many people just want Rapinoe to shut up and play soccer because what she says and does makes them feel uncomfortable
America was built by bold people looking for a better life – for themselves and their brothers and sisters. That’s all U.S. women’s national team soccer player Megan Rapinoe is doing. She’s simply asking that, as a country, America live up to the last three words of the Pledge of Allegiance: “justice for all.”…
After years of being the best team in the world, they continue to fight for equal status and respect at home
Sexism sucks. And nobody knows that better than the U.S. women’s national soccer team. The current team members, and their predecessors, have been fighting gender discrimination on the part of the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for decades. The U.S. national team has been the best women’s…
Football fans look forward to the UEFA Champions League every year, and this season is no different. With football still the undisputed favourite sport in the world, Europe’s premier football tournament has been well received by fans with at least 46,000 in attendance for every match. Since the competition proper commenced last September 18, 2018,…
Every sport has a different approach to dealing with games that end in a stalemate, including overtime and skills contests
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the debut of the transcendent TV series The Sopranos. As its creator, David Chase understands better than most that a lousy ending can ruin a lot of the good work. Chase famously used a sudden blackout to conclude the final episode while Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ played in the…
Expansion meant salary caps and luxury taxes were necessary to keep teams competitive. But the system has failed players and fans
The problem with giving an athlete all the money he’ll ever need is that he’s going to ask you for something you can’t guarantee – no matter how much money you have. And that’s a championship. As the Erik Karlsson drama demonstrated last week, when an athlete gets all the money he can command, he’ll…
It’s difficult to detach the World Cup from patriotism, even among the most disenfranchised of citizens
The penetrating question of the 2018 World Cup of soccer is: Why do the large, powerful nations have short national anthems while the smaller countries have ones that go on forever? God Save the Queen (England) is over faster than you can say Bobby Charlton. But songs of Iceland and Peru seem more like six-part…
Many times in business, we face competitors who have more talent and money. Rarely do we have a strategy to humble them
Iceland tied Argentina in a World Cup soccer game last week. It was a David-and-Goliath match. A tiny nation, home to only 300,000 people, against a country more than 100 times as large. On paper, Iceland didn’t stand a chance against the much more experienced, highly professional Argentina, which was led by one of the…
But with so much more money to be made, the potential for mischief seems great. How do we control that mischief?
It’s been a big week for gambling. The expansion Vegas Golden Knights – home team of the Las Vegas sports books – continued hitting blackjack on their way to the Stanley Cup Final. And, in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the ban on sports wagering outside Nevada was struck down. Now states can allow legal…
One former pro athlete recently observed that an athlete doesn’t mention three things in the dressing room: His playing time. His salary. And the first name of a teammate’s wife. He might also have added whether your favourite jock likes guys or girls when he gets home from the game that night. This prohibition has…
