ESPN Daily

It’s no secret that times are hard for fans of Chicago sports. The White Sox, Cubs, Bulls, and Bears are all in the midst of middling, or worse, performance in recent years. And the same is true of the team that used to be the reliable winner, the Blackhawks. When they drafted generational prospect Connor Bedard first overall in the 2023 NHL draft, the future appeared to be bright. An idea seeming...

Every year the NBA Draft produces a crop of rookies that are full of expectations. And some are stamped with labels like “can’t miss” or “generational”. But where their careers go from there aren’t always inline with the guarantees they come into the league with. So today we talk with veteran NBA reporters Tim MacMahon and Michael Wright about two of the most recent prospects to have been deemed “...

The NFL regular season has come to a close. And the league saved the best for last, with the hunt for the NFC’s one seed coming down to a Sunday night matchup between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings. So with all of the byes determined, and playoff pairings set - Ben Solak and Michele Steele explore how the 14 playoff teams locked down their spots, and what the offseason holds in store for...

As we settle into the new year, the phrase “deer in headlights” feels like an apt description for the state many members of “sports Twitter” currently find themselves in. More than two years after Elon Musk took over Twitter, now known as X, the platform has become an increasingly unpleasant space for sports conversations. While many users have already migrated to other platforms like Threads and...

The sports world is transforming in 2025, with new rule changes, new playoffs formats, and many other innovations across the landscape. So we brought on some of our favorite regular guests — Katie Barnes, Bill Barnwell, Elle Duncan, Luis Miguel Echegaray, Andreas Hale, Ryan McGee, Jeff Passan — and Clinton Yates, who will be back in the host’s chair later this month, to tell us not only what they’...

On September 26th, 2024, the Athletics played their final game ever in Oakland, the city they’ve called home for 57 years. As friend of the show Jeff Passan wrote, baseball in the East Bay was “killed by greed… John Fisher did not have to move this team… This was a choice. A wrong one. History will sneer.”  For the conclusion of our Death of a Sports Town series, we trekked to the Oakland Coliseum...

In covering Oakland’s unraveling as a big time sports town, we’ve documented the greed, the loss, the dubious decisions, and the rich sports community soon to be left behind. But we’ve yet to fully examine the most pertinent question of all––does the Athletics planned move to Las Vegas make any sense at all?  Today, in part four of our series Death of a Sports Town, we take stock of why the A’s (a...

The loss of three professional sports teams in five years has thrust Oakland into the media spotlight, with coverage focusing on every twist, turn, stadium proposal, and relocation rumor. But amid all that noise, a central experience has been overshadowed: the story of the fans. In part three of our series, Death of a Sports Town, we turn our attention to the diehard Oakland sports fans who refuse...

Any time a franchise owner threatens to leave a city, the pressure and scrutiny on civic leaders intensifies. But in Oakland, a parallel story emerged—a group of activist fans who refused to let the Athletics go quietly. In the second part of our series, Death of a Sports Town, we examine the three men who led the Warriors, Raiders, and Athletics away from “the Town,” the reasons behind their deci...

On the afternoon of September 26th, the Oakland Athletics played the Texas Rangers in their final game ever in the city they’ve called home for 57 seasons. Following the lead of the Warriors and Raiders, they are the third major sports franchise to leave the city in just five years. This exodus is the culmination of decades of decisions, negotiations and missteps. And now, Oakland is no longer a b...

It’s one of the most infamous fan stories in sports history: when Eagles fans booed Santa at halftime of a game played at Franklin Field. But who was the Santa in question - and why was he booed and pelted with snowballs? It’s ESPN Daily’s Christmas tradition to bring you this episode, so hear an encore with Jeremy Schaap and Mina Kimes as they reflect on the enduring legacy of the Philadelphia Sa...

By the time the end of the year rolls around, it’s easy to forget what has gone down in the previous 365-ish days. A story that felt like the center of the world in February, is lost to the passing of time as winter turns to spring turns to summer turns to fall turns to winter. But don’t fear, because today Michele Steele, David Dennis Jr., and Greg Wyshysnki hand out their awards for the biggest...

As the NFL season heads into its final few weeks, the jockeying for playoff position is getting more intense. There are three teams grouped at the top of the NFC, and with the Lions and Vikings poised to face off in week 18, and the Eagles coming off a tough loss in Washington on Sunday, it looks like the road through the NFC could run through the north. Meanwhile in the AFC, the Chiefs and Bills...

After months of games, upsets, rankings, arguments and prognostications – the College Football Playoff is finally here.  And tonight the race for the national championship starts in earnest in the heart of college football: Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. That showdown between Indiana and Notre Dame is just an appetizer for a full meal of games this weekend that could somehow create mor...

The 1970s were a tough decade for the New York Jets. After winning the Super Bowl in 1969, they quickly became the laughing stock in the NFL, unable to post a single winning season throughout the decade. But in 1981, four promising young defensive lineman changed everything. Mark Gastineau, Adbul Salaam, Marty Lyons and Joe Klecko became such a prolific force on the Jets defense that they earned t...

It's hard to believe that Indiana, which has lost more college football games than any other FBS program, has earned a spot in the inaugural twelve team college football playoff. And no matter what happens in their instate showdown with Notre Dame Friday night, it's already been a dream season for head coach Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers. A decade ago, Cignetti made a risky bet on himself, moving...

It started out as a rumor — one that most people thought was a joke — but now it’s all very, very real: Bill Belichick is the new head coach of the University of North Carolina football team. Just what would make someone with eight Super Bowl rings decide that an ACC afterthought should be the next stop in his career? And while many people could argue that the transfer portal and NIL deals are mak...

After 15 weeks of NFL football, the playoff picture is becoming more clear. But almost as important as who is going to get in, is how they are going to get there. We saw both the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks finish their games with questions about the health of their signal callers. While in Detroit, the Lions, already seriously injured on defense, suffered through more pain in a loss t...

Few rivalries are as bitter as the ones that exist between two teams in one city.  Ask New York Mets fans and New York Yankees fans, where the hatred can divide households. Or Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox fans whose team alliances mix with the pride in their neighborhoods. While out west, Los Angeles Lakers fans play the big brother, to their neglected stepsiblings, Los Angeles Clippers fans...

In 2008, Lisa Salters reported an E60 documentary called Blood Brothers about the family of former NBA star Carlos Boozer and their quest to save their son, Carmani, from sickle cell disease. But it turns out that journey was just the tip of the iceberg, because in April of this year — 16 years later — Blood Brothers was back on for a very different reason. ESPN NBA Draft Analyst Jonathan Givony j...

The field for the College Football Playoff is set and with a new expanded 12-team format, this looks to be the most exciting path to the title that we have ever seen. And as we are quickly reminded, no matter how big the playoff bracket gets, someone is always going to be left out, and that someone is always going to have something to say about it. But what about those other 36 bowls? The ones tha...

The Emirates NBA Cup is now in year two and we're all still trying to feel out what place it will take in the league’s attention economy. But one thing is clear –– nearly everyone is thrilled to have some bigger stakes on the table this early in the NBA season. Are the Oklahoma City Thunder ready to avenge their playoff elimination against the Dallas Mavericks? Can the New York Knicks prove their...

14 weeks into the 2024 NFL season, and the playoff picture is starting to come into focus. The Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, and Philadelphia Eagles are in. And both the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers are sure to punch their tickets to the postseason soon. In the NFC, the competition for the rest of the landscape is fierce, while in the AFC, all but one of the teams...

The 2024 Formula 1 season wraps up this weekend in Abu Dhabi and in many ways nothing is different, but at the same time, everything has changed. First off, you have Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver wrapped up his fourth straight title a couple weeks ago. But his team, Red Bull, has somehow fallen off the map. And now legendary names like McClaren and Ferrari – who haven’t won a team title in deca...

In recent years MLB’s Hot Stove has been kind of lukewarm. Even with big ticket free agents on the market, the pursuit of free agents dragged well into the New Year each winter. But ESPN’s Jeff Passan tells today’s host, David Dennis Jr., that won’t be the case with Juan Soto this offseason. The transcendent lefty slugger has virtually every big market owner chasing after him with a blank checkboo...