Relegation would be a handy thing to have in U.S. sports. Most Americans, I think, understand the concept, by now. In nearly all global soccer leagues that aren’t Major League Soccer, two or three teams at the bottom of the standings go down to the next-lowest league. Which is pretty much a disaster. (And the […]

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ESPN’s president yesterday told the New York Times that the network will not offer a new contract to Bill Simmons, the most prominent sports journalist in the U.S. now and, perhaps, ever. Simmons’s current deal, agreed to in 2010, runs out later this year and is thought to have been paying him $5 million a […]

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In the past year or two, the National Football League has been dragged into conceding concussions are a bad idea. Having your brain bang around inside your skull … turns out it’s bad. But we are finding that concussions are nearly inevitable in the game, and with more and more evidence/opinion seeming to suggest that […]

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The Grantland sports website has a story that pretty much cuts to the heart of the lockerroom “relationship” between athletes and media. Deconstructing a rude comment Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder made to a hometown newspaper columnist. The relationship between jocks and hacks was never good, not when I entered the profession in […]

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Now and then, the name O.J. Simpson, pops up. When they see that name, most Americans who were adults in the middle 1990s probably have a couple of thoughts flit through their heads. “Football star … killed two people and got away with it …” Often, the next-most-pertinent thought — “currently in prison” — doesn’t […]

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I saw the final three quarters of the Super Bowl, missing none of the scoring, after coming out of an AC-induced coma at about 4 a.m. UAE time. I never once thought Seattle would win, not until they got to the 1-yard line with 26 seconds left to play in a 28-24 game, and even […]

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Over the years, it has been noted that the NFL’s Super Bowl is perhaps the last significant reminder, in the United States, anyway, of the ancient counting system created by the Romans about 2,500 years ago. Roman numerals under the value of 20 still pop up, here and there, in modern American usage. In books. […]

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Taking a page out of Marshawn Lynch’s playbook … So, what are your thoughts on guys who refuse to talk at the Super Bowl? Read what I wrote last year. What? Read what I wrote last year.

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Running the sports section of The National is a bit of an out-of-body experience for an American. The Big Three of American sports are baseball, basketball and football. The Big Three of sports in this part of the world are cricket, rugby and football — football, as in soccer. We run cricket off-day stories here. […]

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One of our British colleagues walked into the sports department of The National today and said: “Johnny Football is a joke!” Referring to the Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel, Heisman Trophy winner, first-round draf pick — and a badly beaten man in his first NFL start, a 30-0 victory by the Cincinnati Bengals. He had […]

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