sports: a soap opera

Lewis Hamilton had never cried after winning a race before Sunday’s British Grand Prix.

Across 103 grand prix victories and seven world championships in close to 20 years on the Formula One grid, never had he felt the staggering rush of emotion that came at Silverstone upon crossing the line.

Hamilton had not won since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in... See more

On top of all this, Ross Levinsohn, a former Arena executive, recently filed a suit detailing Bhargava’s thirst for taking over the company. The suit broadly claims that Bhargava used a minority holding in Arena to take over the company and, by extension, SI as part of a plot to consolidate his media holdings and secure free advertising for his bus... See more

The Dairy Daddies are just the latest in a long line of lower-league baseball teams that shirk traditional names in favor of more eye-catching identities. Pinpointing the origins of the trend is difficult — you could trace it all the way back to the late 1800s, when a team called the Dudes existed in Pensacola, Fla. — but the recent surge of sillin... See more

“But ...” Foster remembers telling his dad, “what if I am the Michael Jordan of officiating?”

Today, Foster insists he said that in jest. But it is significant to note that more than 30 years later, he remembered that scene, and that line, enough to retell it. And it’s significant to note that more than 30 years later, Foster has ascended to Jordane... See more

But to Nadal, any admission of superiority would have been a sign of weakness, not strength. As he once explained it to me, “If we have no doubts, it means that we are the arrogance ... So for me, living in constant doubt is good, because it means that we have to ask things of ourselves. We have to wonder, is this right? Is this wrong? What I'm hea... See more

Yesterday, ESPN reported that Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator who is accused of stealing $16 million from Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani to pay for his gambling addiction,has a connection to The Real Housewives of Orange County .

I really never thought this day would come. An ESPN headline about one of the biggest sports betting scanda... See more

In November 2014—only seven years after the Tim Donaghy betting scandal—he shook up the sports world with his New York Times editorial declaring “sports betting should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight.” That made Silver the only commissioner to support legalized sports betting. A decade later, virtually all pro sports league... See more

In most years, the aesthetic beats of a football season are consistent and predictable. The mood board has its Terrible Towels waving in Pittsburgh, bare-chested fans braving frigid temperatures in Green Bay or Buffalo, pregame flyovers, and spilled beer. Frustration is a coach who’s spiking a tablet; triumph is a roaring crowd or a touchdown spike... See more

Mr. Baffert’s horses have won the Derby six times, and he has been named champion trainer four times. He is third on the career earnings list with more than $355 million in purses. Mr. Baffert also has a lengthy record of rule violations. According to regulators’ records, horses trained by him have failed 30 drug tests over four decades — most nota... See more

the nearly unanimous opinion of everyone involved in the game — its leaders, its players, tournament organizers, sponsors, media executives, coaches — is that professional tennis is broken, a structural mess that exhausts its players, cannibalizes its business with dueling events and exists in a constant state of civil war among its alphabet soup o... See more