ESPN Daily

Just a few years ago in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Major League Baseball painted a picture of a dire financial situation across the league…but less than three years later, the finances – and the contracts dished out this offseason – paints the picture of a very healthy MLB economy: Aaron Judge reached a deal to stay in pinstripes for 9 years, $360 million. Trea Turner went back to the Eas...

The NFL playoffs are cruel. Take Dak Prescott…last week, he had the best game of his life against the Buccaneers. This week, his season ends on an inexplicable trick play that humiliates you in front of tens of millions of people. Or, take the Buffalo Bills…who were licking their chops to face a banged up Bengals offensive line, only to look completely outmatched in front of their home fans. So to...

Domonique Foxworth has a theory. Our current ESPN colleague is convinced that the job he used to have––NFL cornerback––is more interesting than it has ever been.   So today, ahead of the Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs, we summon the heightened and unparalleled confidence of Domonique Foxworth. He brings all his diva cornerback vibes to explain why his old job is the biggest hidden secret-to-...

The path to the Super Bowl is starting to narrow. But after the truly super, Wild Card Weekend where we only saw one blowout, the remaining contenders are catching their breath after needing miracles, big and small, to make it out of the fourth quarter. So we called up our friend Bill Barnwell to take us through each matchup one-by-one…and he tells us what to expect from a divisional round where a...

It’s not just you, we really are seeing more high-scoring performances by NBA players than usual. We’ve seen 50-point performances from Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Giannis, and counting this season…and that’s not including Donovan Mitchell’s 71-point game on January 2. It seems as though the saying “50 is the new 40” has finally made its way to the NBA, and it's become t...

It’s the dream of every sports fan: the star player on your favorite team goes down with an injury. The coach is desperate, and someone needs to step up. Somehow you, the average sports fan, get picked out of the stands to hit with the bases loaded, or step in at quarterback, or take the game winning shot. Obviously, that never happens in real life, or in sports, really…except for extremely rare o...

The NFL’s Super Wild Card Weekend did not disappoint, with nailbiting finishes, surprising upsets, and a comeback for the ages. Heavy favorites like the 49ers and Bills both advanced, although Dolphins put up a bigger fight in Buffalo than many anticipated. Meanwhile, the Giants continued their surprising season behind a resurgent Danny Dimes by upsetting the #3 seed Vikings. And the Bengals finis...

Why are Buffalo Bills fans called “Bills Mafia?” It’s a story that’s become legend within Buffalo. But outside of Bills fandom, the story is less well known, even for the individuals involved with the creation of Bills Mafia themselves. Twelve years ago, Stevie Johnson dropped a potential game-winning touchdown pass in overtime, and seemingly blamed God on Twitter, in the aftermath. That moment sp...

America is a French goose of a nation on Super Wild Card Weekend—a kind football foie gras about to be force-fed a seemingly endless menu of expensive, high-stakes NFL playoff games, until we luxuriously burst. So today, we ask our friend Bill Barnwell—the sharpest and most empirically minded football analyst we know—to explain how he’s attacking these half-a-dozen dishes. Will numerous quarterbac...

If you live in the United Kingdom, you probably know the voice of Wayne Mardle. But after last week, millions of people around the world suddenly got a taste of him calling the World Darts Championship final – a genuinely historic duel between Michael van Gerwen of the Netherlands and Michael Smith of England. And Wayne’s commentary helped make it the most globally viral thing that’s pretty much e...

The family feud between the Berhalters and the Reynas is unlike anything we’ve seen in sports. It feels more comparable to Shakespeare, or Game of Thrones, or even Star Wars. But it became all so real when Claudio Reyna, childhood friend of USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter, and father of rising star Gio Reyna, along with his wife Danielle, exposed a 1991 domestic violence incident between Berhalter and...

The final ticket to the NFL playoffs has been punched, and it belongs to the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks stayed alive with an overtime field goal over the LA Rams, and they got the help they needed from the Detroit Lions, who spoiled the playoff hopes (and bit the kneecaps) of the Green Bay Packers. The final week of the regular season was also the most emotional, especially for the Buffalo Bil...

It’s hard to find a more unlikely college football journey than that of Georgia QB Stetson Bennett. He first arrived in Athens as a walk-on in 2017 and a year later, when five-star recruit Justin Fields committed to the Bulldogs, Bennett transferred to Jones County Junior College. He returned to Georgia in 2019, and didn’t get his shot as the starter for two more years after that. But now, Bennett...

Pelé is without question one of the most famous people to ever live. He won three World Cups for Brazil from 1958-1970, and is widely regarded as the benchmark to which today’s greatest players are compared. Pelé died on Dec. 29 at the age of 82. ESPN Global Sports Correspondent Sam Borden is on the ground in Brazil for the funeral, and he tells us what he’s seen in Pelé’s hometown…and how his dea...

Damar Hamlin’s name has been echoing across sports for the last two days. On Monday night, the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety collapsed on the field during the Bills-Bengals game in Cincinnati, where he was administered CPR and eventually taken to a Cincinnati hospital, where he remains in critical condition. Tyler Dunne, a Buffalo based journalist and founder of Go Long, a football focused news...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're republishing one of those episodes, which originally ran on July 22, 2022: There are many ways to describe ESPN baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian: Brilliant. Hilarious. Competitive. And above all, passionate. Passionate about the game o...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're revisiting another great episode, originally published on June 27, 2022: In June, the Avalanche beat the Lightning to win the Stanley Cup, sending the trophy back to Colorado for the first time since 2001. It was an era when the Ava...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're republishing one of those episodes, which originally ran on November 18, 2022: It’s no surprise that the athlete's mental health has been one of the biggest topics in sports in recent years, as more and more players are coming forwa...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're republishing one of those episodes, which originally ran on September 30, 2022: The story of Betsy Sailor and Irv Pankey is unlike any you’ve heard before. It’s a story that, for years, was shrouded in darkness, tied inextricably to...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're republishing one of those episodes, which originally ran on October 4, 2022: In 2021, the National Women’s Soccer League faced a crisis. Explosive allegations from players of abuse, sexual harassment, and unrelenting coercion by one...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're republishing one of those episodes, which originally ran on April 29, 2022: A little over 30 years ago, April 29, 1992, the city of Los Angeles went to war with itself. Riots erupted on the streets following the acquittal of four LA...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're revisiting another great episode, originally published on March 18, 2022: The Iditarod is the most famous dog sled race in the entire world, run across 1000 miles through the Alaskan wilderness. And while the event brings to mind im...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're revisiting another great episode, originally published on December 25, 2019: 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 S...

We've collected our favorite episodes of 2022 into one playlist, to help ensure you didn't miss any of our best stories from this past year. And on today's show, we're revisiting another great episode, originally published on December 8, 2021: Extra, extra, read all about it! Maroons Championship STOLEN! The Pottsville Maroons were one of the greatest early NFL teams, but the league stripped them...

It took 294 days, but Brittney Griner is back home. On December 8, the WNBA star was freed in a prisoner swap with Russia for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, ending an almost year-long fight for her freedom by her loved ones, teammates, fans, and the White House. But just because Griner is back home, doesn’t mean her life will ever be the same. We called up TJ Quinn to close the book on the big...