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Meet the NBA Draft prospect that is the reason for a “race to the bottom like we’ve never seen,” as one NBA GM told Adrian Wojnarowski. Victor Wembanyama is a 7’4 18-year old from France, currently playing for Metropolitans 92…and did we mention that he’s 7’4? Forget about a unicorn, this guy is an alien, something we have never seen before. There is so much hype around Wembanyama, that some have...

Pucks drop tonight around the National Hockey League as the regular season begins, but what's changed since the Colorado Avalanche hoisted the Stanley Cup back in June? Can Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers challenge Nathan McKinnon and the defending champs? In the Eastern Conference, do Sidney Crosby and his aging crew of Penguins have what it takes to make one more run? And what should we m...

If you had to sum up the NFL’s Week 5 in one word, it would have to be bizarre. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers held off the Atlanta Falcons, thanks in part to a bewildering roughing the passer call against the Falcons on a crucial third down in the fourth quarter. The Chargers survived the Browns, even after head coach Brandon Staley decided to go for it on a fourth down at midfield late in the game – w...

MLB’s Wild Card weekend begins today, with a new format that seems primed to produce maximum chaos: eight teams facing off over the next three days for the right to advance to the Divisional round. And while we may still have questions about how this is all going to work, Jeff Passan helps us make sense of everything, and why the biggest winners might be the underdogs. Learn more about your ad cho...

We’re just under a quarter of the way through the NFL season, and so many teams are still facing questions about their quarterback situations. In Pittsburgh, Mike Tomlin benched veteran Mitchell Trubisky halfway through the Steelers’ Week 4 matchup for rookie Kenny Pickett, in search of a “spark” on offense. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who previously publicly welcomed the idea of a QB contro...

During a match in September, chess grandmaster and world champion Magnus Carlsen made his opening move, and then promptly resigned from play and walked off. This moment sent the chess community into a frenzy, as later it was revealed Carlsen had resigned in protest, accusing his opponent, Hans Niemann, of cheating. But was there evidence to back up Carlsen’s claims…and just how prevalent is cheati...

Nearly a year ago, the National Women’s Soccer League faced a crisis. Explosive allegations from players of abuse, sexual harassment, and unrelenting coercion by one of the NWSL’s most successful head coaches set off a reckoning across the entire league. The commissioner resigned. Games were canceled. Players had no collective bargaining agreement and the specter of a canceled season loomed, all w...

Week 4 in the NFL saw the Bills storm back (in a literal storm) from down 20-3 to the Baltimore Ravens. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers held off rookie Bailey Zappe and the Patriots in overtime, and Patrick Mahomes casually threw 3 TDs against Tom Brady and the Bucs. But undeniably, the biggest story of NFL Week 4 actually took place on Thursday night, when the Dolphins' Tua Tagovailoa suffered a fr...

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 the unspeakable crimes of a former Penn State football player named Todd Hodne. ESPN’s Tom Junod and Paula Lavigne first brought Hodne’s horrific crimes to light this spring in their meticulously reported feature “Untold.” But in the midst of thei...

If you find all the headlines about Brett Favre and the unfolding welfare fraud scandal in Mississippi kind of dizzying, that is completely understandable. Even over the past week, the names, allegations, and revelations haven’t stopped. And all of it raises valid questions about possible criminal charges — not only for Brett Favre, but also the state’s former Governor: Phil Bryant. So we talked t...

The aftermath of the Robert Sarver investigation has been anything but what the NBA had hoped. Sarver, the subject of a massive investigation by ESPN and later the NBA, was suspended one year for racist and misogynistic behavior. Fans and players felt it wasn’t enough, and had been calling for the Phoenix Suns’ owner’s banishment from the league. The WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, who Sarver also owns, c...

Aaron Judge is having one of the greatest offensive seasons in baseball history. He’s on his way to setting the American League record for home runs in a season, and is on pace to claim the Triple Crown, something that has only been done once since 1967. In anything resembling normalcy, Judge would be a shoe-in for American League MVP. And yet, Shohei Ohtani exists. The Angels’ pitcher/designated...

When you punt the ball off the butt of your own personal protector and still win the game, you know it’s a strange week around the NFL. The Dolphins upset the Super Bowl favorite Bills, despite a tuchus-deflected punting mishap that rivaled the “Butt Fumble” in ridiculousness. The Chiefs stumbled against a Colts team that had looked hapless in their first two games. The Raiders dropped to 0-3, mak...

What’s in a name? When it comes to the University of South Carolina’s live rooster mascot Sir Big Spur, the answer is a whole lot of ruffled feathers. Over the course of four fowl weeks, the Gamecocks’ mascot went from Sir Big Spur, to the Cock Commander (kind of) to The General, to Sir Big Spur again. So with something of an identity crisis hatching in Columbia, we called up Ryan McGee to stick h...

With Roger Federer announcing his retirement following this weekend’s Laver Cup in London, most sports fans thoughts will immediately go to his 20 Grand Slam Titles (3rd most all-time) and his storied rivalries with Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. But for writer David Epstein, Federer represents something much bigger–a model for how to develop athletes, raise our kids, and discover our individual...

Brett Favre is a legendary figure in his home state of Mississippi for his Hall of Fame NFL career. But now, Favre is making headlines in Mississippi (and across the country) for very different reasons. Favre, and others, are accused of diverting millions of dollars in welfare funds to go toward the construction of a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi. The same school whe...

Last week, after the NBA announced a one year-suspension of Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver, many NBA players and stakeholders spoke out: saying the punishment wasn’t strong enough. Sarver was accused of racist, sexist, and misogynist behavior by scores of employees, chronicled by ESPN in an investigation from fall 2021. It’s a situation that in some ways mirrors that of former Los Angeles Clippe...

Week 2 in the NFL saw not one, but TWO 20-point comebacks. The Las Vegas Raiders somehow blew a 20-0 halftime lead to fall to Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals in overtime, while the Miami Dolphins overcame a signature Lamar Jackson performance thanks to Tua Tagovailoa’s 400 passing yards and six touchdowns. The 49ers lost Trey Lance for the season, extending the Jimmy G era in San Francisco...

50 years ago this month marks one of the darkest moments in sports history – the Munich Massacre, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 members of the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Shaul Ladany, now 86, was one of the Israeli athlete’s who survived the massacre, just as he had survived World War II and the Holocaust when he was a child. Ladany’s life is explored in the new E60...

The NFL’s Week 2 kicks off tonight with a thrilling AFC West showdown between the Chiefs and Chargers. So what did we learn about Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert in their Week 1 games? Bill Barnwell returns to make us smarter about football, previewing tonight’s game and what the Chargers need to do to contain Mahomes…and the Chiefs’ tasting menu of solutions for curtailing Herbert. Elsewhere,...

For years, European players were something of an afterthought in the NBA. They were (often unfairly) labeled as soft, not tough enough and frankly not good enough to hang with their American counterparts. But those days are long gone. Two European players, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic have combined to win the last four NBA MVP awards, and Slovenian Luka Doncic is maybe the NBA’s best pla...

It has been an all-time WNBA playoffs, full of historic performances and dramatic upsets…as well as one reluctant farewell. So, today, ahead of Game 2 of the Finals, with the Connecticut Sun trying to even the series in Vegas against the Aces, we bring you someone who knows this league better than anyone else. Someone who dominated it over 21 years, and 13 All-Star Games, and 4 titles, and more as...

The NFL’s first Sunday of 2022 kicked off in chaotic fashion…and we mean literally. The Dallas Cowboys were embarrassed on their home field by Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, losing QB Dak Prescott to a hand injury in the process. Chargers QB Justin Herbert showed off his superpowers against the Raiders, while Aaron Rodgers and his new receivers worked through some chemistry issues. The Bengals and...

New Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel doesn’t look or sound like other NFL head coaches. He’s young, self-deprecating, and his press conference sound bites are plastered all over social media. But just a year ago, few NFL fans knew who he was at all. So we called up our Dolphins beat reporter Marcel Louis-Jacques, to understand how McDaniel made the jump from boy-genius offensive coordinator...

In the second part of our two-part mega NFL preview, Bill Barnwell joins us to take a look at what’s going on in the NFC. As the Los Angeles Rams prepare to defend their Super Bowl title in year two of the Matthew Stafford era, the San Francisco 49ers are all-in on Trey Lance as QB1…or are they? Tom Brady retired, then just as quickly un-retired to come back for his 21st season in the NFL, but wil...