The Lead

With the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan, many groups have been fearful of retribution, including the Afghan Women's National Soccer Team, which has long been a symbol of defiance to the ultra-conservative Islamic group. Last week, against all odds (and amidst the chaos at the Kabul airport), the players and their family members managed to make it out of the country alive. Today, we have...

The start of the NFL season is now just two weeks away. And while teams have been hard at work in training camps, The Athletic’s Lindsay Jones has also been hard at work -- traveling to those camps. Lindsay joins us today to share her observations from recent trips to Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, and Denver, where she had a front row seat for everything from Urban Meyer's unconventional practices t...

Heading into this MLB season — the 15th of his career — it looked like Joey Votto might be on the decline. But this summer, the charismatic Cincinnati Reds first baseman has found another gear. The Athletic’s Trent Rosecrans collected stories about Votto’s larger-than-life personality, and today, he joins us to look at how the veteran’s sometimes strange behavior (including non-stop mopp...

Manchester City dropped their opening game to Tottenham, but still look like title favorites. New signing Romelu Lukaku shined in his debut for Chelsea over the weekend, and the Blues are off to a perfect 2-0 start. Paul Pogba is off to a record-setting campaign for Manchester United, and the Red Devils also look poised to challenge for the title. Arsenal? Not so much. So, who will be sitting atop...

With fans back in the stands during the 2021 MLB season, we’ve seen the return of one of baseball’s most unique traditions: fans interacting with outfielders while they’re playing in the field. However, as fun as these interactions can be, there are times that the dynamic turns dangerous, like the incident this year where a fan threw a baseball at Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo. Today, we’re join...

In late June, the college sports landscape changed forever when the NCAA's Board of Governors voted to allow student athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness -- or NIL. Notre Dame star safety Kyle Hamilton and his family have wasted no time in exploring what this new reality means for his ability to build a brand before he even enters the NFL as potential top-10 pick. Today The Athle...

In her early teens, Morgan Stickney was a highly accomplished swimmer who had a legitimate shot at the Olympics. Then came a mysterious series of injuries that upended her life and left doctors across the country scratching their heads. Now, a decade later, Morgan is one of the U.S.‘s top swimmers and a favorite to win gold at the Tokyo Paralympics. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy...

For a lot of fans, the first thing that comes to mind with minor league baseball is family fun, goofy promotions and generally just an all-around happy environment. However, in 2021, the reality for the players — especially when it comes to finances — is a lot more bleak. The Athletic's Britt Ghiroli recently reported on the squalor that many minor leaguers have been living in, from roach inf...

A year ago, Tyler Gilbert was a minor league castoff who had returned to his hometown to train with his high school baseball coach and to work with his dad, who is an electrician. Then, this past weekend, against all odds, Gilbert threw a no-hitter for the Arizona Diamondbacks in his first major league start -- a feat that has been accomplished by only three other people in history. Zach Buchanan,...

Nothing determines an NFL team's success more than the guy who lines up under center. But one of the trickiest things in the sport is figuring out which guys can really move the needle. For the past eight years, The Athletic's Mike Sando has polled coaches, general managers, and other decision makers from around the league to rank the NFL's best (and worst) quarterbacks. He joins us today to share...

The Carolina Panthers are hoping to make some noise in the NFC South this season, and one key component to their success is their dynamic young defensive end, Brian Burns. As it turns out, Burns’s development has been fueled in part by his older brother, Stanley McClover, who endured a difficult stretch after his own NFL career ended. Today, The Athletic’s Joe Person has the story of how McClover...

The second season of Ted Lasso is now underway, and that means we’re all being treated to more hilarious scenes of Jason Sudeikis’s signature coaching character and his unyielding positivity. Earlier this year, The Athletic’s Rustin Dodd tracked down the real life coach who inspired Sudeikis's Lasso character, at least in part, and he joined us to talk about the coach and the impact he had on Sude...

At the Tokyo Olympics last week, U.S. track and field star Allyson Felix won gold in the women’s 4 x 400 meter relay, making her the most decorated American track and field athlete ever. Today, we’re replaying an episode that aired in the buildup to the Games. Tiffany spoke with The Athletic’s Kavitha Davidson (our very own former co-host!) about how Allyson Felix experienced an awakening thr...

The word out of the San Francisco 49ers training camp is that rookie quarterback Trey Lance has been looking good, and head coach Kyle Shanahan recently said that the former North Dakota State star will definitely be getting minutes this year. So, today, we’re replaying an episode that first aired back in May, shortly after Lance was, somewhat surprisingly, drafted 3rd overall by the 49ers. The At...

Over the weekend, a tearful Lionel Messi stood at a podium and announced that he would, in fact, be leaving Barcelona -- the team and city that have been his home for the past 21 years. But one of the silver linings of this sad saga is that Messi could very well be reunited with his good friend and former Barcelona teammate, Neymar, at Paris St. Germain. The Athletic’s Jack Lang joined us to...

Trey Mancini's incredible comeback story continues. In March of last year, the Baltimore Orioles first baseman was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer, and began undergoing cancer treatment -- right around the time the world was shutting down because of the pandemic. Today, the O's slugger is once again putting up solid numbers, and he even advanced to the final of the home run derby a few weeks...

You probably know that Simone Biles withdrew from several gymnastics events at the Olympics last week and then returned this week to win a bronze medal in the balance beam. But did you know that a statue of a sumo wrestler has been terrifying horses at equestrian events? Today on the show, we recap some of the most unforgettable stories of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics -- from Italian announcers absolut...

At the Tokyo Olympics, Japan has more or less dominated the competition in a martial art that originated in Japan -- judo. But it turns out, it was actually an American who is responsible for judo becoming an Olympic sport in the first place. The Athletic's Daniel Brown recently sat down with the now 101-year-old Californian, Yoshihiro "Yosh" Uchida, to talk about his incredible life journey -- fr...

We have reached the semifinals of the men’s Olympic basketball tournament, and one of the teams still standing is the three-time defending gold medalist United States. Today, we’re joined by The Athletic’s Joe Vardon — who’s in Tokyo — for the latest on Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday and Team USA, their biggest challengers for gold (including Luka Doncic and Slovenia), and wh...

We have already seen a number of new Olympic sports make exciting debuts in Tokyo, including surfing and skateboarding. This week, we’re adding one more to that list, as we watch the first Olympic appearance of sport climbing. Today, we’re joined by Alex Honnold — from the Academy Award-winning documentary "Free Solo" — to look at how climbing finally got into the Olympic Games, and the...

The college football world was thrown into a tizzy last week when Oklahoma and Texas announced that they planned to leave to their home in the Big 12 for the SEC by 2025. The story took an even stranger turn when Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby accused ESPN of trying to sabotage his conference to expedite the move. Today, The Athletic's Max Olson gives us the inside story of this seismic move that...

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly trans athlete to qualify for the Olympics earlier this year, and is considered one of the favorites to win a medal in her competition next week. Meanwhile, the South African runner (and two-time gold medalist) Caster Semenya is not competing in the Olympics at all this year, because of a recent ruling by the Court of Arbitration for S...

Coming into the Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. Women's Soccer Team was the clear favorite to bring home a gold medal, which would make them the first team to ever a World Cup title and an Olympic title back-to-back. But after dropping their first game to Sweden 3-0, and battling Australia to a tough 0-0 draw, some questions have started to emerge about the squad and head coach Vlatko Andonovski, who is...

The Tokyo Olympics are in full swing, and already there have been a number of surprising developments from Japan, including Simone Biles deciding to withdraw from the women’s team gymnastics competition and the individual all-around competition, and Katie Ledecky losing for the first time ever at the Olympics — but rebounding to win gold. Today, we break down the stories that have captured ou...

The NBA Draft is almost here and one of the most intriguing prospects at the top of the lottery is USC big man Evan Mobley. The seven footer's game has drawn comparisons to reigning finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and All-NBA big man Anthony Davis, but questions over his introverted personality and skinny frame have some evaluators questioning if he can actually reach his incredible upside. The A...