General
The Ringer Partners With Grand Central for Book Publishing Deal
Katie Kilkenny, The Hollywood Reporter
Bill Simmons’ voice-driven news, sports and pop-culture media company The Ringer is offering a new platform for its writers and podcast personalities: book publishing. The Los Angeles-based follow-up to beloved news and commentary site Grantland (which helped popularize the work of writers including Wesley Morris, Rembert Browne, Molly Lambert, Emily Yoshida and more) is partnering with Grand Central Publishing on a series of books from staff writers and contributors, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The Athletic is experimenting with free content
Sara Fischer, Axios
The Athletic, a subscription-based digital sports media company, will begin experimenting with putting some of its audio content in front of its paywall in an effort to expand its audience, a source familiar with the plans tells Axios.
This high school football team never tackled in practice last year. Then it won a state title.
Roman Stubbs, The Washington Post
The gruff veteran coach stood at midfield and closely studied his stopwatch. “Eyes up!” Drew Gibbs screamed as the seconds ticked away.
Buffalo Wild Wings CMO dishes on man caves and football prenups
Jessica Wohl, Ad Age
Buffalo Wild Wings is gearing up for football season by presenting its restaurants as the place to watch live games and suggesting fans abandon their couches and their fall obligations to head out for wings, chicken sandwiches and beer. The push kicks off this week with the 30-second “Man Cave” spot, which laments the popularity of so-called man caves, where guys often watch games at home.
Indiana just days away from legalized sports betting
Tom Davies, The Associated Press
Sports betting is just days away from becoming legal in Indiana and the state’s casinos are lining up to start collecting wagers. Indiana becomes the 12th state with sports betting when a state law adopted this spring takes effect Sunday.
The most exciting thing about the 2020 Games might be the robots
Mark Wilson, Fast Company
Toyota shared its electric vehicle and robot lineup for the 2020 Olympic Games. Things are about to get weird.
NFL
For Alliance exiles, NFL training camps have sure felt good
Dave Campbell, The Associated Press
Karter Schult and his Salt Lake Stallions teammates were assembled one day this spring for what began innocuously as a regular position group gathering for the defensive linemen, when someone in the room glanced at his phone. Their employer, the American Alliance of Football, was halting operations just two months into its first and only season.
Rob Gronkowski Doesn’t Miss Football
Benjamin Hoffman, The New York Times
A few weeks ago, it was announced that Rob Gronkowski, the recently retired tight end of the New England Patriots, would be disclosing his “next chapter.” Notable in the social media age, a secret actually stayed secret until he walked into a conference room at the Andaz hotel in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday to a room of reporters who had no idea why they were there.
Betty White Leads NBC’s Next Promotional Football Blitz
Brian Steinberg, Variety
Leave it to Betty White to keep conquering new fields of play. The 97-year-old actress, who has over the decades held forth on everything from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” to a popular Snickers commercial, has found her next role.
The 100 most influential people of all-time in the business of the NFL (Nos. 51-100)
Daniel Kaplan, The Athletic
The NFL next week begins its 100th anniversary celebrations as it kicks off the season. So what better time to evaluate the top 100 most influential people in NFL history? Influence is defined here as moving the needle of the business of the NFL, or helping move the league further into the mainstream of popular culture.
Seahawks great Doug Baldwin joins board of Seattle startup, will speak at GeekWire Summit in October
Taylor Soper, GeekWire
Doug Baldwin has two rules for deciding whether to partner with a business or organization: it has to be something he believes in, and there can’t be any a-holes involved. That’s why it made sense for the former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver to join the board of Valor Worldwide, a Seattle digital media startup providing services to the military community.
NBA
After His Final NBA Season, Vince Carter Is Ready to Transition to His Next Gig in Media
Jacob Feldman, Sports Illustrated
It’s not the jumping that’s hard, Vince Carter says. He can still jam reverse-360s, reminiscent of the guy who cleared a 7-foot-2 defender and shut down a dunk contest, the leaper who kept basketball alive in Toronto and inspired a generation of jammers. Actually, make that two generations.
Jeremy Lin joins Beijing Ducks to play Chinese league
Pei Li and Brenda Goh, Reuters
Former NBA star Jeremy Lin has signed a contract to play for China’s Beijing Ducks, the team announced in a social media post on Tuesday. It is not clear how long the ethnic Chinese-American Lin will play for the Beijing Ducks.
MLB
The Astros’ Secret Weapon: Tons of Strikeouts—And Never Striking Out
Jared Diamond, The Wall Street Journal
The Houston Astros are among the favorites to win the World Series, and the reason is shockingly simple: They are really, really good at hitting the ball and really, really good at preventing their opponents from hitting it. This explanation might sound insultingly obvious.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge 3rd-fastest to hit 100 HRs
The Associated Press
No. 99 has hit No. 100. New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge became the third-fastest player in history to reach 100 home runs, connecting Tuesday night against Seattle.
For Christian Yelich, hitting is far from a science
Matthew Gutierrez, The Washington Post
See ball, hit ball. Christian Yelich’s mind is never cluttered with swing thoughts, launch angle or all of the intricate choreography it takes to square up a baseball. He needs to play without the noise, without judging every swing.
NHL
Power bars, heads-up displays and car-crash comparisons: How player tracking data could revolutionize hockey on TV
Fluto Shinzawa, The Athletic
Sometime in 2019-20, information from wired pucks, cameras and sensors will flood the NHL with an unparalleled degree of player tracking data. The league will know how fast a player skated on a goal-scoring rush, how many miles he logged during a game or the speed at which he pounded home the winning puck.
Soccer
What Sky Sports gains from making Premier League highlights free on YouTube
John McCarthy, The Drum
Sky Sports has made a surprise play this season, putting Premier League highlights on YouTube for free shortly after matches end. In sharing its coveted rights with a third-party platform, is the pay-TV provider conceding to the growing obsolescence of its subscription business model?
Racing
Truck Series driver Tyler Dippel charged with criminal possession of controlled substance
Daniel McFadin, NBC Sports
Tyler Dippel, the Gander Outdoors Truck Series driver suspended indefinitely by NASCAR last week, was charged by New York State Police on Aug. 18 with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree in his hometown of Wallkill, New York, NBC Sports has confirmed.
Golf and Tennis
Woods has surgery on left knee for minor cartilage damage
Doug Ferguson, The Associated Press
Tiger Woods says he has had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee to repair what he describes as minor cartilage damage. The surgery was not believed to be serious, and Woods says on Twitter he expects to return to practice.
In a Culling of Men’s Hopefuls, Four Top-Ten Seeds Lose
Ben Rothenberg, The New York Times
The opening for opportunity for men at the United States Open appeared to be, as it often is, in the one quarter of the draw without any of the Big Three — Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The gap in that relatively barren quarter of the draw is much wider after the first-round losses on Tuesday of all three top-10 players placed there.
Naomi Osaka’s U.S. Open Title Defense Starts With Nerves, a Small Crowd and a Win
David Waldstein, The New York Times
Nearly a year ago, Naomi Osaka summoned remarkable nerve and composure to block out thunderous discord and beat Serena Williams in perhaps the most contentious United States Open final ever. On Tuesday, she returned to the same court, but under markedly different circumstances.
College Sports
The 20 most powerful people in college football
Zach Braziller and Howie Kussoy, New York Post
The season begins in earnest this weekend, but most of the big players won’t be wearing helmets or shoulder pads. They are the coaches on the sideline, the commissioners and executives in their private luxury boxes.
Esports
Fortnite star Ninja signs multi-year apparel deal with Adidas
Jay Peters, The Verge
Fresh off of a well-publicized split from Twitch, streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins today announced a partnership with Adidas, which the apparel company now tells The Verge is a multi-year deal. There aren’t any shoes or apparel for sale right now, but on his Mixer stream, Blevins said, “I can’t say specifically what is in the works with Adidas, but use your imagination.”
Twitch’s cuts of payments to esports teams is benefiting YouTube
Tim Peterson, Digiday
Twitch has made cuts to its program in which the company pays esports teams to stream on the Amazon-owned video platform. The payment reductions are pushing more teams to post clips of their Twitch livestreams to YouTube in order to make up for the lost revenue and ease their reliance on the game-centric streaming service.
Opinions, Editorials, Perspectives and Research
NFL Players Are Evolving. Fans Aren’t Keeping Up.
Jemele Hill, The Atlantic
When Andrew Luck walked off the football field for the final time as a player, it was to the sound of boos from fans, because news of his shocking retirement had surfaced on social media. Their reaction wasn’t a surprise as much as it was evidence of an unpleasant reality.
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