Author: Diane M. Eaton

By Shams Charania, Mike Vorkunov and Tim CatoDallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is selling a majority stake of the franchise to Miriam Adelson and her family for a valuation in the range of $3.5 billion, league sources said. Cuban, however, will retain shares in the team and full control of basketball operations.Las Vegas Sands Corp. announced Tuesday in a SEC filing that Adelson was selling $2 billion worth of stock in the company to put towards buying a majority stake in a sports franchise, along with her own cash. This is approximately 10 percent of her stake.“We have been advised by the Selling Stockholders that they currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering, along with additional cash on hand, to fund the purchase of a majority interest in a professional sports franch...

The Carolina Panthers have fired Frank Reich after 11 games, owner David Tepper announced Monday morning. Special teams coordinator Chris Tabor will serve as interim coach.Later in the day, the Panthers also fired quarterbacks coach Josh McCown and running backs coach Duce Staley, a league source said. pic.twitter.com/ewX2UsICZM — Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) November 27, 2023Reich’s firing comes two weeks after he took over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Thomas Brown — three games after delegating the responsibility to Brown in Week 8. Carolina fell to 1-10 on Sunday in a 17-10 loss to the Tennessee Titans.Brown will resume calling offensive plays with senior assistant Jim Caldwell serving as a special adviser, Tepper said.GO DEEPERA stadium takeover, a 3-TD loss for Pant...

Spoiler alert: Players around the NFL think Patrick Mahomes is pretty good.The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and two-time MVP was our runaway winner as the best player in the game today, according to the 85 players our beat writers from The Athletic spoke to over the past month. That’s no surprise, but the rest of the answers weren’t so obvious, as we set out to conduct our first anonymous NFL player poll.We asked each player we spoke to the same set of questions, although not every player answered them all. They were granted anonymity in order to candidly offer their opinions on the league’s players, coaches, commissioner and some of the biggest topics facing the league today — including running back salaries, the grass versus turf debate and more.Players were polled on who dishes the be...

WAUNAKEE, Wis. – A few hours after practice begins with players juggling tennis balls and Def Leppard rattling through the gym, a little while after serving groups are divided into Packers fans and non-Packers fans, Kelly Sheffield sits in a wine bar and describes his first office as a college volleyball head coach. This was at Albany. He shared space with rakes, shovels and snowmobiles belonging to the grounds crew. He assumes his computer was the first one ever made. For the first home match, he scrubbed net poles wearing his suit. Thirteen people showed up.This audience, on this Tuesday night, is into it. It should be. We’re a short drive north of Wisconsin’s campus. Also it’s $100 a head to get in.“B.S. and Bourbon” is the event, with part of the proceeds redirected to volleyball NIL e...

As the Premier League gets bigger and bigger, so – it seems – do the stadiums that play host to it.The vast majority of clubs in the top flight have either drawn up plans to expand their grounds to service the overwhelming demand or are poised to open gleaming new stands – or, in some cases, open new stadiums altogether.Here, our experts guide you through what each club has done to their home ground and what could come next, plus how we rated each stadium in our rankings published last month.Arsenal: Emirates StadiumCurrent capacity: 60,704What The Athletic said: “The Emirates has its critics, but it now delivers the atmosphere, facilities, accessibility and product any sports fan would expect from the Premier League.”The Athletic ranking: 4thWhen was the last redevelopment work done? Arse...

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The noise in the tunnel was loud, but the locker room was quiet. As Robert Saleh and Zach Wilson headed toward the visitor’s locker room at the Buffalo Bills’ stadium, there was commotion behind them. New York Jets defensive end Micheal Clemons and Bills offensive tackle Dion Dawkins had to be separated, a dust-up that carried over from the field into the tunnel as the two teams headed to the locker room, located in the same tunnel, directly across from each other, without much space between them. The near fight in question. Michael Clemons and Dion Dawkins have to be separated. Two big dudes almost locked horns. Spilled over from beef during the 32-6 Bills win. 📸 From my iPhone pic.twitter.com/P7xE0ADi3f — Otis Livingston (@OlivingstonTV) November 20, 2023It could’ve ...

It’s time to put some respect back on Washington’s name.The Huskies are undefeated and have the best win in the country, based on these rankings, but they have continually sat outside the top four of the College Football Playoff selection committee’s in-season rankings. That needs to change this week. After pulling out a 22-20 win against Oregon State on a rainy night in Corvallis, Washington has the most impressive resume in the country. The Huskies move up to No. 2 in this week’s Athletic 133.Washington has wins over Oregon, Arizona, Utah, Oregon State and USC. Nobody can match that many good victories. Yes, the Huskies needed a pick six and a questionable penalty to escape Arizona State and played Stanford close, but no team blows everyone out every single week.Quarterback Michael Penix...

The retired professor set his laptop aside and reached for the remote. For more than an hour, Chris Pionke had paid little attention to the NFL game on the television in front of him. The teams moved back and forth across the screen and the announcers provided analysis, but Pionke was scrolling mindlessly on his laptop. That changed when he heard the name.Josh Dobbs.Pionke, who taught engineering at the University of Tennessee for nearly three decades, perked up and increased the volume. He wondered if the announcers were just mentioning the former Volunteers quarterback, or if Dobbs was actually in the game. He squinted at the screen and spotted a tall, lanky, familiar-looking player wearing the No. 15 in Minnesota Vikings white and purple.Pionke hollered to his wife who had been sitting ...

You know your sport has issues when even its own Hall of Famers say they can barely watch it. But that’s where baseball was — until 2023, when Rule Change Baseball arrived to change everything.“It was tough watching the game,” Hall of Fame slugger Andre Dawson admitted last July in Cooperstown, surrounded by a significant number of baseball legends who felt just like he did.But that was in the Before Times. Suddenly, Dawson found himself watching a sport with true rhythm again, where athleticism was valued again, where ground balls were actually hits again, where runners motored from first to third again. So suddenly, Andre Dawson was interested again.“It makes the game a little bit more exciting,” Dawson said. “And it’s the best way, I think, to get the fan interest back. So that is start...

Erling Haaland is just six away from Norway’s goalscoring record, so it is surely inevitable that he will soon be his nation’s most prolific striker ever.On one hand, that will have happened remarkably quickly – Haaland only scored his first goals for Norway in 2020. On the other, this has been an incredibly long time coming.GO DEEPERWhat is Haaland really like?Of the 213 FIFA-affiliated nations, Norway’s is the longest-standing outright individual goalscoring record in the world. It was set by Jorgen Juve, a fascinating figure who ended his international career in 1937 and later became a renowned sports journalist in his home country.Juve scored a relatively modest 33 goals in 45 matches for Norway, including five hat-tricks, although his tally is made remarkable by the fact he played as ...