Sport & Story Daily December 19, 2023

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December 19, 2023

Good morning! ESPN’s Bill Barnwell maps out the road to recovery for 3 NFL teams

Fixing the NFL's Most Disappointing Teams: Jets, Chargers, Patriots
“After their Week 15 losses, I'm going to help them along the way,” writes ESPN Staff Writer Bill Barnwell. “I'll lay out a blueprint for what each of these teams should do over the next nine months to be back in contention by September.”
^espn.com

Details of New-look Club World Cup Emerge and Not Everyone Likes It
FIFA unveiled the schedule and club selection process for its newly expanded 2025 Club World Cup on Sunday, creating almost immediate controversy.

“Decisions to scale competitions have been introduced without implementing appropriate safeguards and without any say from the players who are at the forefront of driving the game’s popularity and revenue generation,” the union said. 
^{frontofficesports.com}

The 40 Best Ads Of 2023
Ad Age weighed in on the 40 best ads from 2023, one of them being Maximum Effort’s State Farm stunt. It features Jake From State Farm, hanging out with Donna Kelce as she cheered on her son Jason at a Philadelphia Eagles game—just a week after Donna was swept up in the pop culture mania over Taylor and Travis in Kansas City.
^adage.com

NFL Expands Hispanic Heritage Foundation Partnership With ‘NFL Latino Youth Honors’ for Student-Athletes
“The NFL is proud to again join forces with the Hispanic Heritage Foundation in the launch of this year's 'NFL Latino Youth Honors,' where Latino students and their inspiring stories will motivate the next generation of fans and athletes of this great sport," said Marissa Solis, NFL Senior VP/Global Brand & Consumer Marketing.
^{nflcommunications.com}

ESPN’s Most Expansive Gymnastics Season in History Tumbles into 2024
ESPN soars to new heights in its NCAA Gymnastics coverage across ESPN platforms, with a record number of programming hours (more than 70) dedicated to flips, full-outs, and all-around action in 2024.
^{espnpressroom.com}

UFC Leads Legal Fight To Knock Out Streaming Pirates
UFC executive vice president and general counsel Riché T. McKnight testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on Wednesday in a hearing focused on solutions to piracy of movies, TV, and live sports.

“UFC’s experience is that many OSPs frequently take hours or even days to remove pirated content posted during or immediately after UFC’s live sporting events.” -McKnight

Michele Kang Adds to Her Multi-club Women’s Soccer Portfolio
Michele Kang, owner of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit and the top-flight French soccer club Olympique Lyonnais Féminin (Lyon), just purchased the London City Lionesses, a second-division English club that competes in the Barclay’s Women’s Championship league. Kang reportedly paid $35 million for the Spirit and became a majority stake owner in Lyon earlier this year, but numbers on the Lionesses deal are not available.
^{frontofficesports.com}

Djokovic Tops 2023 Tennis Earnings With $16M. His ATP Bonus? $0
In a banner year for pro tennis earnings, four players made at least $10 million on the court in 2023. Even adjusting for inflation, that has only happened three other times: in 2012, 2015, and 2019. All four top earners were men. Leading the pack was Novak Djokovic, who raked in just under $16 million.

Rosenthal: Yankees need more pitching with or without Yamamoto, plus more Ohtani fallout
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal weighed in on various MLB teams’ approaches to signing free agents, saying, “One problem with signing free agents is that teams do not always know the personalities of the players they’re getting. The Arizona Diamondbacks reduced that risk by investing in two players with whom they are familiar: left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez (five years, $80 million) and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (three years, $42 million, pending physical).”
^{theathletic.com}

Orioles, Nationals Reach MASN Deal, This Time Without Legal Drama
The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals have reportedly agreed on the teams’ local media rights for the 2017-21 seasons, jointly telling the Supreme Court of the state of New York that they agree with a recent MLB arbitration decision that each club is due $304 million for those five years, amounting to nearly $61 million annually.
^{frontofficesports.com}

What Will Happen With the Colorado Rockies Television Broadcasts?
When the Colorado Rockies walked off the Minnesota Twins on October 1, it marked the end of an era.

Earlier in the season, AT&T SportsNet, the regional sports network that had broadcast Rockies’ games since 1997, announced it would no longer be airing the team’s games once the season ended. As players walked around Coors Field thanking fans, the Rockies were in need of finding a new broadcast home.
purplerow.com

NFL Playoff Picture: Christian McCaffrey, 49ers Clinch Division. Is NFC’s Top Seed Next?
The San Francisco 49ers are the hottest team in the NFL and look unstoppable. Their latest conquest was a 45-29 shellacking of the Arizona Cardinals to notch their sixth straight victory. The 49ers also became the first division champion of the year, securing their second straight NFC West crown.
^{theathletic.com}

Video: Tour Wake Forest's New $38 Million Football Facility
Wake Forest’s program recently provided a tour of the new $38 million facility that spans 60,000 square feet, and it’s much more than a bunch of team meeting rooms. The new digs include hyperbaric sleep chambers for napping that help with inflammation after practices, 130 lockers that give players plenty of space, a players lounge, nutrition station, and hot and cold pool areas.
^{footballscoop.com}

Jets Get Embarrassed Again, and Robert Saleh’s Team Future Grows More Tenuous
“If Robert Saleh felt safe after last week, he should be worried now,” writes The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt. “There is losing games, and then there is losing the locker room, and Saleh is getting dangerously close to the latter. It might already be happening.”

“You put together the best plan possible — sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not,” Saleh said after their loss to the Dolphins. “But overall, just from coaching to execution, all of it on the offensive side just wasn’t good enough today.”
^{theathletic.com}

College Basketball Rankings: Auburn Easily Handles Bronny James and USC, Looking Like an SEC Contender
CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish names the Auburn Tigers as a contender, noting they’ve beaten Indiana by 28, St. Bonaventure and Virginia Tech by 17 each, and USC by 16. “So, barring a surprise,” Parris writes, “Auburn will enter the SEC portion of its schedule with an 11-2 record and should be considered among the contenders to win the conference championship.
^{cbssports.com}

Dylan Raiola, No. 8 Recruit for 2024, Flips From Georgia to Nebraska
Dylan Raiola, ESPN's top pocket-passing quarterback in the 2024 recruiting class, told ESPN on Monday he's switching his college commitment to Nebraska from Georgia, resulting in a “potentially seismic shift in fortunes for Nebraska football.”
^espn.com

How Race, Politics, Culture and Money Are Shaping Which Kids Abandon Tackle Football -- and Which Keep Risking its Toll
Dave Sheinin and Emily Giambalvo take a look at the declining rate of youth football participation nationwide. Since 2013, high school participation has fallen in every state except Alabama and Mississippi. In college, the proportion of White players is declining, and that of Black players is rising at faster rates than national demographic changes.
^{washingtonpost.com}

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