
When Your Hometown Team Gets a New Identity
Black fans of the Washington Football Team are adapting to a new future for their beloved franchise—and reckoning with its past disregard of Native Americans.
Black fans of the Washington Football Team are adapting to a new future for their beloved franchise—and reckoning with its past disregard of Native Americans.
When I was young, the Superdome was full of joyful chaos. Then Katrina hit, and filled it with despair. Now the stands at Saints games are hauntingly empty.
Love them or hate them, the NBA’s most storied franchise was the right team for this moment.
Here’s why you probably haven’t heard about it.
Amid a global pandemic, the NFL’s non-guaranteed contracts force players into a familiar choice: stay safe, or stay on the field.
The Milwaukee Bucks’ going on strike and disrupting their season at one of its most crucial inflection points proves that the players’ activism is no longer a fringe movement.
The league’s insulated relaunch in Florida amid the pandemic has a surprising antecedent.
A lifelong fan took in yesterday’s Manchester City–Arsenal game, and struggled to connect with his onetime obsession.
As players return to empty arenas, they are discovering a basic truth: Live sports is an act of social imagination.
The first live sports games to air in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic provide a hopeful, yet harrowing, look at the future.
With its deep archival footage of the Bulls legend, The Last Dance was always going to be epic. Now it needs to fill the void of sports writ large.
Sunday’s showing offered a blueprint for a potentially dynamic chapter in professional football.
A social-justice-focused ad that aired during last night’s Super Bowl affirmed a disturbing and all too familiar truth about the league.
Houston’s dominance once looked like the sport’s biggest success story. Now their whole legacy is in doubt.
The MLB has handed harsh penalties to Houston for sign stealing, but revoking the team’s ill-gained 2017 championship is implausible.
Even before Saturday’s game, New England was showing signs of having been passed by.
As the 2019 season enters its final stretch, an entertaining MVP race showcases a less restrictive brand of football.
After a season away, the future Hall of Famer comes back to a league that no longer has much use for him.
For the first time in years, nobody really knows what to expect.
Breaking a pattern of first-round heartbreak, the decade’s most downtrodden playoff team finds itself in the World Series.
The Chicago Cubs say goodbye to the manager who led them to their first World Series victory in 108 years.
After a record-setting regular season, the MLB playoffs figure to host offensive fireworks and long-ball fatigue.
As the league looks to the future, the way many analysts talk about black players such as the Baltimore Ravens passer still belongs to an ugly past.
After a grueling and dramatic final against tournament antihero Daniil Medvedev, the Spaniard inched closer to the men’s grand-slam record.
The 19-year-old Canadian’s victory over Serena Williams marks one of the most meteoric rises by a young tennis player in recent years.
Long heralded as a future No. 1, the world No. 78 is within striking distance of his first Grand Slam final.
In trying to reverse a generation’s worth of losing, the team is loading up on stars and embracing the hype.
This year’s U.S. Open has no shortage of female players who could win the title, which has made for an exciting tournament—with one caveat.
The Clemson quarterback and Heisman favorite, seen by many as NFL-ready, is all but forced by the mechanisms of amateur sports to play for free.
The Colts quarterback is leaving the game at age 29—a move that reaffirms the danger of the sport and the willingness of some players to walk away from it.
Considered the greatest of all time by many, Serena Williams and Roger Federer will seek to solidify their legacies with another grand-slam title.
The argument that the female champions can draw big crowds only during World Cup years doesn’t consider the lacking investment from their governing body.
The 32-year-old Serb overwhelmed Roger Federer in a marathon men’s singles final at Wimbledon and proved himself the best of his generation.
The 27-year-old Romanian underdog handily defeated the formidable Serena Williams in a final that echoed a classic 2008 match.
Some 1 billion people tuned in to the games this year, making the USWNT’s victory even more crucial in their upcoming legal fight for equal pay.
As the United States and the Netherlands prepare to face off, teams and fans wonder whether VAR—or instant-replay reviews—will decide the champion.
It’s not just about the game—these athletes are playing with something more to prove.
The young male players trying to unseat the “big three” of tennis should look to upstarts such as Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka for a lesson on how to translate talent into titles.
Two of the NBA’s best players have teamed up in the league’s glitziest and most history-rich locale, each with a legacy to burnish and an unhappy narrative to reverse.
The Golden State Warriors were hampered by injuries, but the league’s newest victors were built to seize on the opportunity.
After Golden State’s star forward injured his Achilles tendon in the NBA Finals, the team’s decision to let him play is facing scrutiny.
A new documentary about the athlete formerly known as Ron Artest moves beyond his—and the NBA’s—most notorious moment: 2004’s “Malice at the Palace” brawl.
The Golden State Warriors forward is an unstoppable scorer and matchup nightmare—and without him, the team is on the doorstep of another championship.
The postseason is lagging in action and viewership. A skunk rule could be the solution.
The Milwaukee Bucks’ do-everything prodigy has simplified his approach and become the NBA’s best player.
The most appealing aspect of the golf pro’s 15th major championship is that it doesn’t quite signal a return to dominance.
For the first time in its history, the World Surf League requires that cash prizes be uniform for men and women. But gender inequality isn’t completely eradicated from the sport.
Opening Day 2019 finds the league tinkering with the sport to draw younger audiences—and weighing which aspects of the game are essential.
Mike Trout just signed a record-breaking contract extension with the Los Angeles Angels. What he really needs is a team that can win championships.
In a new lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, the athletes say they earn just a fraction of what their less successful male counterparts make.
It’s clear that the Duke freshman doesn’t need the league as much as it needs him. This makes the phenom uniquely positioned to revolutionize the game.
Bryce Harper’s and Manny Machado’s contracts are similarly lucrative, but they represent two different approaches to the same bet.
In a tedious championship game against the Los Angeles Rams, New England confirmed that the ingredients of its success can’t be replicated by the rest of the NFL.
As the ageless Tom Brady and Bill Belichick lead the Patriots to another Super Bowl, the star tight end shows signs of wear and tear.
How the 21-year-old Japanese phenom cemented her position as a bona fide superstar—plus a look at what lies ahead for the men’s final
With shrewd drafting and a style adjustment, New Orleans built a team capable of helping out its star quarterback—and winning a Super Bowl.
The Circuit, Rowan Ricardo Phillips’s latest book, deftly chronicles tennis’s 2017 season with a joyful reverence.
LeBron James has just started his next act with the Lakers. But when he retires, what will become of the endless debate over which player is the Greatest of All Time?
As the sport gets faster and scores climb higher, a formerly traditionalist program and its star quarterback embrace the future.
With a match against the Cavaliers looming, James could be on the brink of taking a big step forward with his new team.