OLYMPICS

FOOTBALL

According to reports, the NFL is close to announcing a decision allowing players to take a knee during the national anthem.  Two years ago the league released a statement with the intention to make players and personnel “stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem”. The policy was never enacted due to very public complaints, but teams did have the ability to issue fines if someone didn’t show respect.

SOCCER

The U.S. Soccer Federation is having discussions on changing its current policy against kneeling or sitting during the national anthem. The current policy states, “All persons representing a Federation national team shall stand respectfully during the playing of national anthems at any event in which the Federation is represented.” This policy went into effect in 2017 after U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe knelt during the national anthem in solidarity with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

UFC

Back in April, UFC President Dana White announced he would continue tournaments on “Fight Island“. The details of the fight island have been revealed. It’s called Yas Island in the United Arab Emirates’ capital city of Abu Dhabi. The UFC will host its first major fight there on July 11th.

UFC

The mixed martial arts sporting event, UFC249, took place on Saturday night without fans but gave the sports world their first live event. Justin Gaethje beat out the heavily favored Tony Ferguson, but Ferguson told fans afterward, “We did this for you, to bring sports back.” Even President Trump got into the action with his taped message on ESPN before the event saying, “I want to congratulate (UFC President) Dana White and the UFC. They’re going to have a big match. We love it. We think it’s important. Get the sports leagues back. Let’s play. Do the social distancing and whatever else you have to do. We need sports. We want our sports back.”

FOOTBALL

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh sent a letter to the NFL and NCAA outlining a plan to allow players the opportunity to enter the NFL draft at any point during their college careers and allow them to return to school if they don’t get drafted. Harbaugh insisted he is advocating for a system that “allows for more freedom and self-determination”, but many believe he’s mostly interested in reducing the number of elite players at his rival schools.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft decided to auction his Super Bowl LI championship ring for the fundraiser “All In Challenge.” In announcing his donation, he said, “I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. I finally thought about our experience in Super Bowl LI against the Atlanta Falcons. We were down 28-3 (in the third quarter) and had 99.6% (odds) to lose. And we came back, and we won.” The winner will also receive a personal visit with Kraft and the use of the team plane to get to Boston if the winner lives too far to drive.

FOOTBALL

The NFL announced the 2020 schedule. Let’s hope the season really does start on September 10th with Houston at Kansas City!

Baltimore Ravens safety Earl Thomas was allegedly chased at gunpoint by his wife Nina back on April 13th. Nina tracked him down by using his brother’s Snapchat and found Earl and the brother in bed with another woman. The situation became public when TMZ reported the story yesterday. Earl took to Instagram to explain his side of the story saying, “So my agent just hit me and said that I’m going to be on TMZ tomorrow from an altercation that happened with me and Nina, Just wanted to get ahead of it. It’s really not anybody’s businesses. It pisses me off that it got out, but it’s the world we live in today. But, instead of talking about us, just keep us in y’all prayers. Stuff like this happens bro. We try to live the best lives we possibly can. Sometimes it don’t go as planned. Just pray for us as we go through this stuff. We’ve been talking. I’ve been seeing my kids. So just keep us in your prayers.”

GOLF

Peyton Manning roasted Tom Brady in a live stream promoting their charity golf match on Sunday, May 24th at 3:00 pm. “The Match: Champions for Charity” will feature Peyton Manning paired with Tiger Woods and Tom Brady paired with Phil Mickelson. The match includes a $10 million donation to COVID-19 relief efforts. Watch Manning’s hilarious takedown of Brady.

ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP

UFC will return with a live bout (with no fans) on Saturday, May 9th at 6:30 pm ET on ESPN.

SOCCER

Several Major League Soccer teams have already returned to their training fields.

BASKETBALL

NBA players will be allowed to return to their practice facilities starting today.

BASEBALL

The Chinese Professional Baseball League has gotten creative announcing that the Rakuten Monkeys will have robot mannequins instead of fans in the stadium seats when their season opens on Saturday, April 11th.

FOOTBALL

In college football, Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy insisted programs try and “power through the pandemic” and wants his program back by May 1st saying it was time “to run money through the state of Oklahoma.” He went on to say, “From what I read, the healthy people can fight this, the antibodies make it better.”

ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP

Dana White announced he’s canceling UFC 249 which was scheduled for next weekend at Tachi Palace, a casino on Native American tribal land. California Senator Dianne Feinstein, as well as Disney and ESPN, urged White to cancel the event. White still insists the private island “Fight Island” is still a possibility for future fights.

BASKETBALL

Kudos to the NBA for trying to keep us all entertained. The League announced they are airing a “HORSE” competition with current and former NBA players and WNBA players. The game will be a single-elimination contest held remotely. The contest begins on Sunday, April 12th at 7 p.m. ET with NBA All-Star Chris Paul (Oklahoma City Thunder), 2020 NBA All-Star Trae Young (Atlanta Hawks) and Basketball Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings headlining the event. For more information on the tournament, click here.

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ULTIMATE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP

UFC President Dana White announced he’s buying a private island to hold fights during the coronavirus pandemic. He told TMZ, “I am a day or two away from securing a private island. I have a private island that I’ve secured; we’re getting the infrastructure put in now, so I’m gonna start doing the international fights, too. With international fighters, because I won’t be able to get international fighters into the U.S., I have a private island that I’m gonna start flying them all in and doing international fights from there. So as of April 18th, the UFC is back up and running.”

FOOTBALL

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell officially declared the draft would be “fully virtual” with personnel in separate locations and communications via phone or internet. The NFL draft begins on April 23rd.

GOLF

All of golf’s major championships have been rescheduled. The Masters will be held from November 12-15 (previously played in April); the PGA Championship will be played August 6-9th (previously in May) at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco; and the U.S. Open will be held from September 18-21 (previously in June) at Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y. The British Open, however, will be outright canceled for 2020. The Open was supposed to be played at Royal St. George in July but will be rescheduled to July 15-18th, 2021.

UFC

Ultimate Fighting Championship President, Dana White, is not too happy with ESPN analyst Darren Rovell for making fun  of the whopping $4 billion sale of UFC to William Morris and IMG. Over twitter the two went at it with Rovell starting the fight by asking if it was too late for the sale to fall through considering UFC’s main stars have been accused of using performance enhancing drugs. White then responded by calling Rovell some not so nice names. Fun times!

NBA

The NBA announced its All-Star weekend will relocate from Charlotte, NC to another city due to the controversy over the HB2 law, which states that people need to use restrooms according to the sex they were assigned at birth versus the sex they identify with.  Many public figures went on record expressing their views, which may have led to the NBA decision. Mike Krzyzewski, legendary coach of Duke’s basketball program stated, “It’s an embarrassing bill,” Many celebrities including Bruce Springsteen and Ringo Starr  have also expressed disappointment in the law by cancelling shows in NC.

NFL

Ray Rice, former running back for the Baltimore Ravens before his suspension for domestic violence, said he’d donate his salary to charity if he was signed by an NFL team for the 2016 season. He said, “Me donating my salary is something that’ll be from the heart for me. I only want to play football so I can end it the right way for my kids and for the people that really believed in me.” So far no word on a team taking him up on this but stay tuned.

NBA

After 5 NBA Championships and 19 years with the San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan is retiring. The soon to be Hall of Famer was awarded 3 NBA MVP Finals trophies in his time with the Spurs. The team grabbed him with their #1 pick in the 1997 draft and never looked back. Duncan is only one of 3 players to stay with a team for at least 19 years. Kobe Bryant and John Stockton were the other two players. At 40 years old, Duncan holds almost every Spurs’ record and is known as one of the best power forwards of all time.

UFC

The organization which promotes mixed martial arts, the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), just sold for a whopping $4 Billion dollars. Considering the owners of the company bought it in 2000 for $2.1 Million, that’s a pretty good profit! UFC has grown in popularity (particularly with millenials) with breakout stars like Ronda Rousey.

MLB

The Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton became a legend in Monday’s Home Run Derby (part of Major League Baseball’s All Star events). He hit 61 home runs in only 13 1/2 minutes, an historical feat.

UFC

UFC fighter Conor McGregor announced on Twitter he’s retiring early. “I’ve decided to retire young. Thanks for the cheese. See ya’s later,” the unceremonious tweet read. McGregor is 27 years old and has an incredible UFC record of 7-1, having just lost his first championship fight on March 5th . He’s been MIA since making the tweet, and his spokesman couldn’t be reached. The President of the UFC announced on Tuesday that McGregor has been pulled from the main event of an upcoming UFC spectacle in Las Vegas because he was unwilling to participate in mandatory promotional preparations for the fight. “Conor did not want to come to Las Vegas and film the commercial and be a part of the marketing. He’s in Iceland training,” UFC president Dana White said. “Is Conor retiring? Only he can answer that question. I don’t know.” McGregor made history in December by knocking out Jose Aldo, one of the best MMA fighters, in just 13 seconds. Whether McGregor really intends on retiring is still totally unclear.

NFL

Former Cleveland Browns Quarterback Johnny Manziel just can’t stay out of the news. Nike announced they ended their endorsement deal with Manziel. The quarterback was recently released by the Browns for off-the-field issues, and was then dropped by his agent. There’s also a grand jury investigation in Dallas going on now to determine if Manziel assaulted his girlfriend. Sound bad? It’s not over. Manziel was just dropped by his second agent in two months and that’s with an agent, Drew Rosenhaus, who hasn’t fired a single player in 27 years. Manziel has a five-day window to seek treatment if he wants to stay with Rosenhaus. Manziel has never been apologetic about his partying ways, nor has he ever made much of anything happen on an NFL field. If he doesn’t change quickly, his career will be over, virtually before it even began.

OTHER

Former New York Giants’ Defensive End, Michael Strahan is leaving his gig as co-host on “Live With Kelly and Michael” and joining the cast of Good Morning America. The producers are hoping Strahan boosts their declining viewership.

BASKETBALL

In the NBA, free agency is still in full effect.  The Los Angeles Lakers were the big losers in the Dwight Howard sweepstakes, and now they have a hole down low at the center position.  They needed to fill that immediately, and there was really only one candidate (besides Andrew Bynum) to fill the position.  It was a player that started his career in LA — with the Clippers.  Chris Kaman will be joining the Lakers for a year.  Kaman is getting into the later part of his career, and he’s probably not the best fit for Mike D’Antoni’s fast paced system, but then again, it doesn’t look like the Lakers will be winning much this coming season.

And speaking of Andrew Bynum above, it appears there is some competition for the big man.  Even though he had an injury that kept him out all of last season, teams still clamoring for a big man are very interested in Bynum.  The first suitor… the Dallas Mavericks.  They lost big in the Dwight Howard contest, and now they are scrambling to land some kind of flashy acquisition to get their fan base excited.  Grabbing Bynum would qualify, but he is a huge risk, not only because of his injuries, but because of his attitude.  The Lakers had problems with him, and he has a reputation for being a sour player on the team.  And now, it appears that the Cavs are interested in grabbing Bynum on a 1-year deal.  The Cavs have been busy this off-season, grabbing key role players to help out their emerging star Kyrie Irving and their #1 draft pick Anthony Bennett.  Will Bynum sign on?

UFC

Finally, in UFC news, Anderson Silva lost a big fight this past weekend to Chris Weidman.  Silva is widely considered the greatest UFC fighter ever, but he made a huge mistake against Weidman.  In the second round, Silva got cocky and began taunting Weidman, but Weidman caught Silva off guard landing two punches to the face.  That sent Silva to the ground, where Weidman jumped on him and smashed him in the face again.  Silva knows he messed up, and now wants a rematch.  The headlines today read that Silva-Weidman II will be the biggest match in UFC history.  There is no date set yet, but every UFC fan will be looking forward to this one.