BBCollective

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we raise the curtain on our seventh season, live from the Social Bar and Kitchen in downtown New London, with an examination of the Saudi-bankrolled LIV Golf tour in the context of our season-long theme of “sportswashing” and the presence of oppressive oligarchies across sports. LIV Golf claims to want to change the landscape of professional golf...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we have reached season’s end and you know what that means. That’s right, it is time to look back to our January draft of the worst people in politics and grade the picks! Each of your hosts drafted *five* political figures: a minimum of one Democrat and maximum of one pundit. Each of the fifteen selections are evaluated on a 10-point scale by the...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we have reached the climax of yet another season, our sixth, which now ties us with iconic television series including The Sopranos, Lost, Oz and Nash Bridges, among many others. As we do to cap off our seasons we present the fourth installment of Rantapalooza. That’s right, Rantapalooza IV is live, and while Super Bowl IV featured one of the grea...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we begin to tie the bow on this season celebrating women in sports with a conversation about Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. We are mere days from the 50th anniversary of Title IX being signed into law by President Richard Nixon, and it is likely no piece of legislation has had a greater, more positive impact on women’s sports. But t...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where it is our regularly scheduled second drop on a back-to-back, belly-to-belly twin bill: a conversational profile about tennis legend and iconic activist/advocate Billie Jean King. Few, if any, athletes can boast the combined on- and off-court level of achievement that can King. An owner of the rare career singles’ Grand Slam and 12 singles’ Slams i...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we have for you the rare Monday drop: a subject we just had to get some takes off on that didn’t quite fit into tomorrow’s episode. When a man of one Ryan Fitzpatrick’s magnitude walks away from football before the end of an eternal prime, that is means for commemorating one of the game’s most distinct and unique careers. Fitzpatrick has stepped a...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where it is primary season and your hosts are here to break down all of the results and narratives on the heels of primary elections that have set the table for forthcoming midterm elections this November. Among the highlights of the conversation include a trio of Republican Georgia races where perhaps Donald Trump’s influence or lack thereof made domin...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts examine WNBA star Brittney Griner’s ongoing detention in Russia following a dubious arrest on drug charges earlier this year. Griner is one of the faces of the WNBA: a perennial all-league performer, Olympic gold medalist and historic collegiate standout at Baylor. As is the case for many of her peers, financial inequities for...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts offer a look to the future with a nod to the present: a conversation about the state of American sports’ so-called “big four” and the chances of an upstart brand or property moving into that esteemed tier. Here’s what we know. The NFL is king. The NBA continues to broaden the gap between themselves and everyone else. Major Lea...

Welcome again to the Bill Bradley Collective, where it is part two of this week’s double drop: a conversation profiling legendary Tennessee women’s college basketball coach Pat Summitt. Over a career spanning nearly four decades, the late Summitt set the record book for all to try and catch. Eight national titles, eighteen Final Four appearances, 1,000+ wins and an Olympic gold medal are among her...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where we present the rare Monday drop: a conversation show on the fallout of a leaked Samuel Alito Supreme Court draft striking down the decision rendered in 1973 in the case of Roe v. Wade. The right-wing framing of the story: that a “leak” from the Supreme Court is the dominant narrative versus the content of said “leak” sets the Collective story. As...

Welcome again to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week we examine billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk move to acquire social media giant Twitter and the broader picture of billionaire influence over our news media and free speech. But first a rant or three, as Zak highlights the passage of a Connecticut bill aimed to protect abortion rights for recipients and providers against out-of-state lega...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where in deference to the forthcoming NFL Player Selection Meeting, your hosts present the inaugural Political Movie Draft. You’ve heard us draft the best and worst men and women across each sports and politics, as well as our choices for best sports movies, and this week follows a similar format. *Five* selections per collective host, drafted in snake...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week we continue our season long feature on women in sports with a profile of sports journalist Lisa Olson and her place in the NFL’s problematic history of female disenfranchisement. Olson got her start fresh out of college at the Boston Herald, where she quickly ascended to cover the New England Patriots beat. Shortly into her first season,...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts shine a deserved spotlight on the latest appointee to the Supreme Court, one Ketanji Brown Jackson. But first, we set the table with a rant or three, as Ed details the pending fate of Lizelle Herrera, charged with murder in the wake of Texas’ on-going legislative anti-abortion crusade; Andrew decries some of the coverage surro...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where it is a Dollop-style bonus week, as Andrew presents the story of golf icon Jack Nicklaus’ failed endeavor at removing then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman in an attempted PGA Tour coup. As tour profits and assets sky-rocketed through much of the 70’s and early 80’s under Beman’s watch, golfers prospered in lock-step, competing for increasingly l...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week we reward the best and worst in sports and politics over the last year with the 2nd annual Grover Awards. First a troika of red carpet rants; as Zak celebrates the inspired Cinderella run of Jersey City’s own Saint Peter’s Peacocks to the NCAA Tournament’s elite eight; Ed rails in the direction of South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and he...

Welcome again to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts survey the evolving relationship between sports and mental health awareness. Rants set the table, where Ed lays out the abhorrent details of a proposed Tennessee bill granting individuals the right to sue abortion providers and thusly allowing charges to be brought upon rape victims; Andrew wraps up day one of the NCAA Tourna...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts examine the recently settled Major League Baseball lockout. The ninth work stoppage in league history and first since 1994-95 that cancelled the ’94 World Series, players and owners came to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement following a three month-plus impasse. Union leaders sought most notably to increase the com...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where it is seasonal profile week as we present a deep dive on the lives of and rivalry between tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. Two of the greatest to ever pick up a racket, male or female, Navratilova and Evert each re-wrote the record book during their era and the only one stopping each of them from greater success was the other. As...

Welcome again to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts revisit the NFL’s Rooney Rule in the wake of Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the league alleging racial discrimination of minority coaches and executives. Flores’ lawsuit comes on the heels of his termination as Dolphins head coach and his discovery, thanks to former boss Bill Belichick, that the New York Giants had settled on...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where after a brief in-person pause we are here to put out the torch on these Winter Olympics with a look back on the scandal that embroiled the 1994 games involving Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan and a collection of goons straight out of the blackest of Hollywood comedies. Presumptive Olympic favorite and so-called America’s sweetheart Kerrigan arrived...

Another one of our Dollop inspired bonus episodes, where Zak tells the story of a truly classic American boxing match.

Welcome to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts examine the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the many complications surrounding these games. A cloud exists over these Olympics, and that cloud is the authoritarian regime of host China and, amongst other human rights offenses include most prominently the ongoing Uyghur genocide. How Beijing came to host these Olympic Games in s...

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week we profile one of history’s most significant African American women, Condoleezza Rice. National security advisor during President George W. Bush’s first term and U.S. Secretary of State for his second, Rice was the highest ranking African American woman in U.S. history until Kamala Harris’ ascension to the vice presidency in 2021. Her up...