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    As Sports Gambling Grows, So Do Appetite-Whetting Sure Bets

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAs Sports Gambling Grows, So Do Appetite-Whetting Sure BetsOnline gambling sites are offering can’t-lose propositions, giving away easy money to attract new customers to a nascent multibillion-dollar industry. These come-ons should reach a crescendo just ahead of the Super Bowl.CreditCredit…Alex Eben MeyerFeb. 2, 2021, 9:06 a.m. ETYou’ve heard it all your life: There is no such thing as a sure thing. Well, that was before betting on sports could be legal anywhere in the United States. Now it’s a free-for-all of easy money as sports books in search of new customers hype their services on sports broadcasts, social media and drive-time air waves.Last week in Michigan, where online betting recently became legal, the gaming company FanDuel was happy to give new customers their beloved Detroit Pistons and an eye-popping plus 159.5 points against the Los Angeles Lakers. Bettors didn’t need the can’t-lose points — Detroit won, 107-92, costing the sports book $2 million in payouts.For FanDuel, it was money well spent. For about $45 a head, the site signed up nearly 47,000 new Michigan bettors.In the gambling industry, can’t-miss propositions and cash handouts are time-tested ways to build market share quickly. These come-ons will reach a crescendo just ahead of this weekend’s Super Bowl, the holiest of occasions in the religion of sports and the most-watched television show in the United States.With DraftKings’ “Big Game No Brainer,” a new user will be able to turn $50 into $100 if either Tampa Bay or Kansas City scores a single touchdown in Sunday’s game. “Win Terry Bradshaw’s Money,” brought to you by FOX Bet, has already become a staple of N.F.L. programming on the network.Charles Barkley promotes FanDuel Sportsbook during TNT’s N.B.A. coverage.Credit…Turner SportsFox News interviewed the winner of a contest sponsored by FOX Bet.Credit…Fox NewsBookmakers have said the sports betting market is maturing faster than they anticipated, with an unfortunate and unlikely assist from the economic devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic.“The tipping point is here. What we went through last year is the driver,” said Kip Levin, the chief executive officer of FOX Bet. Even with the disruption in sports, Levin said, 14 betting states collectively took in more than $1 billion in revenue in 2020, demonstrating that sports gambling can bolster economies in new markets.“State officials recognize this and now they need revenues for their state,” he said.Less than three years after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prohibited sports gambling in most states, betting on games is legal and underway in 20 states and the District of Columbia.The more than $1 billion in 2020 revenue is projected to grow sixfold by 2023, according to a study by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research and consulting firm. If all 50 states permit sports betting, revenues will surpass $19 billion annually, the study projects.Multibillion-dollar industries will beget multibillion-dollar marketing as bookmakers, media companies and tech entrepreneurs have rushed in to claim their place in the market.Check your Twitter and Instagram feeds, count the commercials and pay attention to the betting content now incorporated into pregame broadcast shows of all sports. On TNT’s N.B.A. broadcasts, America can go up against Charles Barkley in a proposition bet on, say, whether LeBron James or Giannis Antetokounmpo will score more points.“Sports betting now is like water and finding its way into everything, especially now when operators are trying to attract new customers,” said Chris Grove, a partner at Eilers & Krejcik. “In a mature market like the United Kingdom, a mid-tier bookmaker will spend about 40 cents of every dollar acquiring and retaining new customers. Here we’re seeing a 100 percent or more spend on each buck.”Last year, bookmakers spent more than $200 million on television advertising alone, according to the advertising information company MediaRadar, and since mid-June of 2020 they have increased their television spending by 82 percent over the previous year. Sports gaming executives have said they expect to double that amount on advertising and promotions by year’s end, as betting operations move closer to opening in five more states — Washington, North Carolina, Louisiana, Maryland, and South Dakota.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who is banking on the State Legislature to approve mobile sports betting this spring, has said it could bring hundreds of millions of dollars into state coffers as New York is facing a multi-billion-dollar deficit. Despite his enthusiasm, Cuomo said he wanted the state to have tight control over the betting platforms, likening sports gambling to the state-run lottery.“This is not a moneymaker for private interests to collect just more tax revenue,” he said. “We want the actual revenue from sports betting.”No matter what deals are reached in New York, betting on sports has already demonstrated a grip on American culture and a capacity to assault our senses.CreditCredit…Alex Eben MeyerSports gaming executives acknowledge there is a fine line between seducing new customers and exhausting them. Officials at DraftKings and FanDuel said they had learned from mistakes they made trying to bring daily fantasy sports to the market.In 2015, the two sports books blanketed television with advertising, spending more than $100 million each, consistently ranking among the top companies each week in airtime purchased. During the N.F.L.’s opening weekend alone, DraftKings and FanDuel spent more than $27 million for about 8,000 television spots, according to data from iSpot.tv, which measures national TV advertising.The aggressive marketing helped lift each company’s valuation to $1 billion, but it also brought scrutiny from state attorneys general who were not convinced the fantasy games were legal. With expensive legal challenges and a backlash among customers, both businesses were badly damaged.“We spent a lot of money. It was not the wisest thing to do,” said John Avello, the director of the sports book at DraftKings. “It did make us well known. Now we do it smarter.”Mike Raffensperger, chief marketing officer at FanDuel, said sports books were merely following in the footsteps of Netflix, Uber and other digital companies that pioneered new markets.This time around, FanDuel wants to become part of the sports media landscape by exploiting social media and making exclusive content partnership deals with networks like TNT and Entercom Radio, one of the country’s largest owners of sports talk radio stations.With sports betting measures under consideration in heavily populated states such as California, Texas and Florida, sure-thing bets are certain to be dangled before new customers for years to come. Sports betting and its place in American culture are here to stay.“What the public thinks is going to happen in a game, which team is going to cover the spread, has become part of the larger narrative of sports,” Raffensperger said. “Betting on games has become part of the sports ecosystem.”Jesse McKinley More

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    What to Know About Covid-19 and the 2021 Super Bowl

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat to Know About Covid-19 and the Super BowlPlayers from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs are being tested for the coronavirus more often, and just 25,000 fans will attend the game.Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Fla., will be scaled down from the usual fanfare that surrounds the N.F.L.’s marque event.Credit…Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2021Updated 7:21 a.m. ETThe Super Bowl is unlike any other American sporting event: A football game provides the anchor for parties, fanfare, and an eye-popping TV broadcast where the commercials and halftime show are just as much of an attraction for the more than 100 million fans who will watch.But like everything else in the year since the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Fla., has been adapted to Covid-19 health guidelines and scaled down, despite the excitement over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers becoming the first N.F.L. team to play in the championship game in its home venue — Raymond James Stadium.While the football being played on Sunday will look largely the same as in other years, nearly everything else surrounding the Super Bowl will be different.Super Bowl LV: Kansas City Chiefs vs. Tampa Bay BuccaneersSunday, Feb. 7, 6:30 p.m. Eastern, CBSPlayers are being tested for Covid-19 even more.Players, coaches and members of each team’s staff have been tested for Covid-19 daily throughout the season, including on game days. Since the Buccaneers and the Chiefs qualified for the Super Bowl on Jan. 24, team personnel have been tested for coronavirus twice daily.Anyone with a confirmed positive test must stay away from their team for a minimum of 10 days. The Buccaneers and the Chiefs have not had a positive test in more than three weeks.However, two Chiefs players — receiver Demarcus Robinson and center Daniel Kilgore — came in close contact with an infected person and must isolate for at least five days, Chiefs Coach Andy Reid confirmed Monday.Since the beginning of August, about 15,000 N.F.L. players, coaches and staffers have received nearly 1 million tests, far more than any in other United States-based sports league. More than 700 players, coaches and staff members tested positive during that time.Because of concerns about exposure to the coronavirus, the Buccaneers and Chiefs have departed from the normal Super Bowl itinerary. In most years, the two opposing teams would arrive in the Super Bowl city one week in advance of the game to conduct practices and scheduled interviews with media. This year, players and coaches will do those interviews via videoconferences, as was the case throughout the 2020 regular season.To further reduce the team’s chance of infection, the Chiefs are not scheduled to arrive in Tampa until Saturday. The Buccaneers won’t have to drive far.Fewer fans will attend the Super Bowl.Super Bowls typically sell out their seating capacity, even for tickets that cost $10,000 or more. Attendance has never dipped below the 61,946 who attended Super Bowl I in Los Angeles in 1967 and has in some years topped 100,000.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    In N.F.L., the Same Old Line and Verse About Hiring Black Coaches

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySPORTS OF THE TIMESIn N.F.L., the Same Old Line and Verse About Hiring Black CoachesIn the latest hiring cycle, Eric Bieniemy, the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, watched from the sideline as white peers were chosen as head coaches.Eric Bieniemy, the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, will coach in his second consecutive Super Bowl on Sunday.Credit…Mark Brown/Getty ImagesFeb. 1, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETThe N.F.L. can’t hide its Eric Bieniemy problem with poetry.The league announced last week that Amanda Gorman, America’s first youth poet laureate, whose soaring verse on a nation rived by race and conflict enthralled viewers of President Biden’s inauguration, would deliver a pregame poem at the Super Bowl on Sunday.On the one hand, that’s terrific news. Gorman’s way with words is a tonic we need right now.On the other hand, beware. Pro football’s embrace of a young Black woman like Gorman — coming on the heels of its sudden, forced support of Black Lives Matter after the killing of George Floyd — is part of a public-relations campaign that obscures troubling reality.The N.F.L. now sells itself as a champion for equality. But where change is needed most, it remains stuck in the stinging days of old.Black players make up about 70 percent of N.F.L. rosters, meaning they provide the bulk of the entertainment. Yet whites hold the power, and won’t let go. No Black team ownership. A sprinkle of Black faces in upper management. It took until 1989 for the N.F.L. to hire a Black coach for the first time in the league’s modern era. Not much has changed: Now there are three.The story, or, rather, the shameful passing over of Bieniemy, the offensive coordinator who helped power the Kansas City Chiefs to consecutive Super Bowls, puts a fine point on it. He is the best known, and most talked about, head coaching candidate in a small cluster of African-American coordinators in the N.F.L. But he continues to watch from the sideline as his white peers are chosen to lead teams.In the latest round of head coach hiring, there were seven openings. Seven opportunities for the N.F.L. to stand behind the slogans like “End Racism” that now line its fields and adorn its helmets. Seven chances, and Bieniemy was shut out again.What more can he do? His squad marched through the N.F.L. playoffs as if its opponents were stick figures. One more win, and he’s got back-to-back Super Bowl rings.The star quarterback Patrick Mahomes talks up Bieniemy every chance he gets. Andy Reid, the Chiefs’ head coach, says he’s a rare and gifted leader. Given Reid’s stature in the N.F.L., that’s like a blessing from God.Yet Reid continues to be dumbstruck at how his second in command keeps being overlooked. “I’m glad I have him, but I’m not so glad I have him,” Reid said last week. “I was really hoping he would have an opportunity to take one of these jobs. He would be great for any number of teams.”So why can’t Bieniemy get a fair shake?Naysayers claim he doesn’t call plays. But Reid and Mahomes say that’s not true. And when has not calling plays been an obstacle for white assistants hired to steer teams?Another chorus claims Bieniemy doesn’t interview or communicate well. But that belies his calm, sure manner while addressing reporters. Besides, plenty of white coaches seem incapable of expressing themselves clearly.Some say Bieniemy has not been hired because of brushes with the law that took place decades ago — including a fight in college after he was called a racial slur and an arrest on a drunken-driving charge in 2001. But this ventures into double standards for a league notorious for overlooking violent misdeeds off field with its players and blemishes with its white coaches.Does Bieniemy, 51, a former player in his 15th year as an N.F.L. assistant, somehow need more experience? Then how do we explain a league currently in love with a new prototype: the young white coach trumpeted for his genius despite little on his résumé. Consider the Los Angeles Chargers’ new coach, 38-year-old Brandon Staley. In 2016, he was an assistant coach at Division III’s John Carroll University. Now he holds the reins of an N.F.L. team.So much for experience when you look like an N.F.L. owner’s grandson.For a long while, during this same-as-it-ever-was hiring cycle, it looked as if it would be a complete shutout for Black coaches. Then, with one last job available, the Houston Texans hired the Baltimore assistant David Culley.Culley is 65. You read that right: retirement age, and he’s only now getting his first lead job in the league. He has been coaching for roughly 40 years. Is that really what it takes? Four decades of toil? It’s important to understand how discrimination alters pathways for N.F.L. assistants. But there’s another, less talked about worry: the stifling effect on the ambition of Black coaches all the way down the pipeline.Charles Adams is just one example.A few months back, I wrote about Adams and his journey as an African-American police officer and head coach at Minneapolis North high school. He inherited a struggling team from the toughest part of his city, turned it into a perennial power and won a state title. When you watch the Super Bowl and see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie Tyler Johnson catching passes from Tom Brady, know that it was Adams who guided the young receiver through high school and still mentors him today.When we spoke recently, Adams told me how he used to imagine latching on with a college team and working up the ladder from there. Maybe the pros. Maybe head coach. Why not? For years, he applied for an N.F.L. fellowship that sends Black coaches to training camps so they can network and soak up knowledge. He never got a response.That’s a stinging blow. Seeing Bieniemy being constantly overlooked is another. Together the message is awful. Don’t think too big.“For many of us, it becomes ‘Why bother?’” Adams said.That’s the overlooked tragedy. Ambitious white coaches look at the N.F.L., see plenty of open lanes and keep charging forward. Ambitious Black coaches see roadblocks and dead ends — and often dim their expectations.The cycle continues. An age-old American tale.It will be great to see Amanda Gorman recite poetry at the Super Bowl. But when you do, think of Bieniemy and all the coaches who look like him. Think of their hopes and frustrations — of their dreams deferred, again and again.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Rams Acquire Stafford for Goff as N.F.L. Quarterback Market Warms

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRams Acquire Stafford for Goff as N.F.L. Quarterback Market WarmsThe Los Angeles Rams added a productive passer, Matthew Stafford, to a sagging offense, while the rebuilding Lions took on Jared Goff, a reclamation project with an onerous contract.Jared Goff, who led the Los Angeles Rams to a Super Bowl in the 2018 N.F.L. season, was traded for Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, who is ranked fifth among active quarterbacks in passing yards (45,109).Credit…Paul Sancya/Associated PressJan. 31, 2021Updated 8:04 p.m. ETIn many other N.F.L. off-seasons, a swap of quarterbacks once drafted No. 1 over all, with a bundle of early-round future picks also involved, would signify the boldest, most intriguing move of the winter. But the trade consummated on Saturday by the Detroit Lions, who agreed to take on Jared Goff’s onerous contract from the Los Angeles Rams to sweeten their return for Matthew Stafford, might just be a prelude to a series of wild quarterback deals and signings over the next two months that upend the N.F.L. landscape.About half of the league’s 32 teams ended the regular season with uncertainty at the quarterback position. That group includes the Indianapolis Colts and the New Orleans Saints — Philip Rivers retired at the end of the regular season and Drew Brees is likely to follow — but it is headlined by the Houston Texans, who are locked in a stalemate with their marvelous but disgruntled star, Deshaun Watson, who has reportedly requested a trade.The Rams had been hinting for weeks at their disenchantment with Goff, in whom they invested $110 million guaranteed via a contract extension signed 16 months ago. Rather than risk another team swooping in to acquire Stafford, long among the league’s more prolific passers, they enticed Detroit by sending a third-round pick in this year’s N.F.L. draft and first-round picks in 2022 and 2023 for the ability to offload Goff’s contract.A person in football with direct knowledge of the deal confirmed the trade, which cannot be made official until the new league year begins on March 17. The Rams, though, did wink at it Saturday night in a post to Twitter that asked whether Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw — who attended Highland Park High School in Texas with Stafford — had “heard from an old friend today?”For Los Angeles, acquiring Stafford represents just another audacious move for a franchise that specializes in them. The Rams have not drafted in the first round since 2016, when they traded up to take Goff. Unless they acquire a pick, they won’t select in that round again until 2024. But it is the team’s eagerness to part with draft compensation for production at critical positions that has consistently positioned them as a contender in the N.F.C., even boosting them to the Super Bowl behind Goff in the 2018 season.Over the last two years, though, Goff has regressed, committing 38 turnovers — 29 interceptions, tied for third most in the N.F.L. in that span — and was effectively benched in favor of the undrafted backup John Wolford at the end of the regular season even though he told Coach Sean McVay he had recovered enough from thumb surgery to start. In unburdening themselves of Goff, the Rams gain the potent downfield passing threat they have been lacking while also bolstering their capacity to compete in an N.F.C. West where Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson set a blistering pace.Pending more moves, this iteration of the Rams — the team had the league’s stingiest defense in the 2020 season — just might have more talent than any team Stafford has played on across his 12 N.F.L. seasons, all of which were with Detroit. That stretch was defined by the Lions’ inability to complement him on the other side of the ball. Stafford, who turns 33 on Sunday, is by far the Lions’ franchise leader in passing yards, completions and touchdowns, and ranks fifth among active quarterbacks in career yards with 45,109. But he has played in only three playoff games, winning none, and was selected to just one Pro Bowl, in 2014.He asked the Lions to trade him this off-season, and his departure marks another milepost in their grand organizational overhaul. After firing Coach Matt Patricia and General Manager Bob Quinn in November 2020, Detroit hired a new coach, Dan Campbell, and a new general manager, Brad Holmes, who as the director of college scouting had endorsed the Rams’ selection of Goff No. 1 over all in 2016.Goff, who is still owed roughly $43 million guaranteed, affords Detroit a credible quarterback to start in 2021 but hardly prevents the team from pursuing another quarterback in the draft. Selecting in the top eight for the third consecutive year, the Lions are stockpiling picks to be used not only to augment a barren roster but that could go toward a package for Stafford’s long-term successor.Considering the package that the Lions received for Stafford, it is presumed that the Texans, should they choose to honor Watson’s request, will try to extract an even greater total of first-round picks for a younger and better quarterback. By that logic, though, Houston would also have to take on a contract as onerous as Goff’s to receive appealing compensation.That trade-off was worthwhile for the Lions, who have sorted out their quarterback situation, and the Rams, who seem delighted to have landed Stafford. Much of the league will be busy figuring out whether to stay put or to try to surpass them.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Palmeiras Wins Copa Libertadores, Far From Its Fans

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesSee Your Local RiskVaccine InformationWuhan, One Year LaterIn Brazil, Risk and Reward, Side by Joyous SideThe coronavirus kept Palmeiras fans far from their team when it played Santos in the Copa Libertadores final. A last-minute winner made everyone forget the distance, and the rules.Credit…Supported byContinue reading the main storyJan. 31, 2021, 8:36 a.m. ETSÃO PAULO, Brazil — In the cramped streets around Allianz Parque, hundreds of Palmeiras fans huddled together, craning their necks to try to catch a glimpse of whatever television screen they could find. The pandemic meant they could not go to the final in Rio de Janeiro. But it also meant they could not even go into the bars and restaurants, which are restricted to takeout service on weekends.Instead, the fans improvised. A handful of them, residents of the apartment buildings and houses around the stadium, home to their beloved Palmeiras soccer team, angled their screens so they could be seen on the streets outside. Other fans crowded outside the bars and cafes, packed cheek by jowl, flags draped over their shoulders.Virus restrictions forced fans outside, where they huddled around any available screen.Their thoughts were 300 miles away, in the sweltering heat of Rio, inside the famed Maracanã, where their team was facing its rival Santos in the final of the Copa Libertadores, facing off for the greatest prize in South American club soccer.In a normal world, of course, many of them would have been there instead, flooding in by the tens of thousands, by plane and by car and by road, just to be there, to festoon the spiritual home of Brazilian soccer in green and white. This was, after all, a historic moment: the first time since 2006 that the Libertadores final had been contested by two Brazilian teams, and the first time ever that it had been contested by two teams from the state of São Paulo.Social distancing took a back seat to enthusiasm, but stadium officials in Rio still made an effort.Credit…Pool photo by Mauro PimentelThe vast majority of them could not be there, of course, because this is not a normal world. Only 5,000 fans were allowed to attend the final in person — all of them specially selected by the respective clubs, rather than through a sale of tickets, and all of them, counterintuitively, packed into the few open sections of the 78,000-seat Maracanã rather than spreading out across its vast, largely empty bowl.But even if the circumstances had been altered, the old instincts had not. Over the last 10 months, it has become clear that — no matter the risk or the restrictions — if soccer is played, for the moments that mean the most, then fans will feel an urge to be together.The final, a cautious and nervy affair, was settled on a last-minute goal that released all the tension at once.Credit…Pool photo by Ricardo MoraesIt happened in England, when Liverpool won the Premier League and when Leeds won promotion. It happened in Italy, when Napoli won the Coppa Italia. It happened in Argentina when Diego Maradona died. It is not advisable. It is not wise. It is not safe. But it appears, in some way, that it is irresistible.And so the Palmeiras fans came to Allianz Parque on Saturday, to the place that feels like home, hours before the game started, to drink and sing and wave their flags. They had waited a long time for this — their team had not been crowned South America’s champion since 1999 — and they would have to wait some more, through 90 minutes of a game defined more by its caution than its quality, played by teams more conscious of what might be lost than what might be won.A Copa catharsis: hugs in São Paulo, confetti in Rio and fireworks over Allianz Parque.Credit…Pool photo by Ricardo MoraesCredit…Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesThen, in a flurry, it happened. A melee on the sideline, and Santos’s veteran coach, Cuca, was sent off. The 90 minutes were up, the clock ticking deeper and deeper into injury time. After eight minutes, Rony, Palmeiras’s star forward, conjured a deep, searching cross. Breno Lopes, timing his jump, steered his header over the Santos goalkeeper.He raced toward the fans, and they poured over the seats to get to him and his teammates. Palmeiras had its victory. And in the cramped streets around Allianz Parque, those who could not be there felt, at last, as if they were.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Rangers, Celtic and the Perils of a Zero-Sum Game

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRory Smith On SoccerOld Rivals, New Ideas and Why Some Clubs Are Reluctant to TryRangers and Celtic are so focused on beating one another that they may have lost sight of the future. In Brazil, two rivals enter the Copa Libertadores final toying with a new concept: coaching stability.Is it possible Rangers and Celtic are too tangled up in their rivalry for their own good?Credit…Russell Cheyne/ReutersJan. 29, 2021Updated 12:04 p.m. ETNobody wants to say it is over. Steven Gerrard, the Rangers manager, will not tempt fate. He will only believe the title is won, he has said, when the math says so. Neil Lennon, his counterpart at Celtic, similarly cannot concede defeat. His team, he has said, will keep going, keep fighting, while there is still some small glimmer of hope.But both must surely know that it is over, and has been for some time. It was over long before this last, toxic month, when Celtic staged a winter training break in Dubai in the middle of a pandemic and flew back into a coronavirus-infected storm.It was over before two Celtic players duly tested positive, before pretty much the whole first-team squad had to go into isolation, before criticism rained down on the club from the Scottish government and even its own fans. It was over before Lennon gave a startlingly bellicose news conference defending the trip only a few days after Celtic’s hierarchy had admitted it had been a mistake.All of that has served to foster a sense of crisis around Celtic, created an impression that the club was falling into disarray as its dream of a 10th straight league title disappeared, but the narrative does not quite match up to reality.Rangers has been clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership for some time, stretching further and further ahead of its great rival, the gap spooling and yawning until it became a chasm. Its lead currently stands at 23 points. Rangers needs to win only eight more games to be crowned Scottish champion again. Or, to put it another way: Rangers needs to win eight more games so that Celtic cannot be crowned Scottish champion again.It is hard to pinpoint, precisely, when the idea of Celtic’s winning 10 titles in a row was first touted as an ambition, or floated as a possibility. A mixture of instinct and memory suggests it was after the club had won three or four straight, in the early years of the last decade.It is easy, though, to see why it appealed. The power tussle between Rangers and Celtic — the twin, repelling poles of Scottish soccer — has long provided the driving animus in that country’s sporting conversation. With only occasional exceptions — particularly in the 1980s, when Hearts, Dundee United and Aberdeen all had their moment in the sun — the story of the former has felt like the story of the latter. Seasons turned on their head-to-head meetings. Trophies were a zero-sum game: the more won by one, the fewer by the other.Celtic has led Scotland in trophies, and confetti, for a decade.Credit…Russell Cheyne/ReutersIn 2012, though, the rivalry disappeared — if not as a sentiment, then certainly as an event. Rangers, after years of mismanagement, went into liquidation and was forced to start life again in Scotland’s semiprofessional fourth tier. Unmoored from its counterweight, Celtic effectively found itself in a league of its own, its financial firepower vastly superior to any of its putative rivals’, any challenge to its hegemony entirely theoretical.In lieu of an opponent, it set out to play against history. Celtic’s great team of the 1960s and 1970s had won nine league titles in a row. So, too, had the Rangers teams of the late 1980s and the 1990s. But nobody had ever made it to double figures. Celtic was in need of a target, and Scottish soccer in need of a plotline.And so, for the better part of the last decade, the quest for 10 in a row has consumed both sides of the Old Firm: for Celtic, the chance to outstrip its rival once and for all; for Rangers, an almost existential urgency to prevent it from happening.For several years, though, the achievement seemed inevitable. Even after it was restored to the top flight in 2015, Rangers was operating at such a vast financial disadvantage that the prospect of overhauling Celtic seemed fanciful. Under Brendan Rodgers and his successor, Lennon, Celtic completed the quadruple treble: winning all three of Scotland’s senior domestic competitions, four years in a row.And then, this season, it happened. Under Gerrard, now in his third season in his first managing job, Rangers has an air of invincibility. It has only conceded seven goals. At the same time, Celtic has all but collapsed. Though Lennon has pointed to the fact that his team has only lost twice in the league, he also has confessed that he does not know where his all-conquering players of the last few years “have gone.”Celtic has dreamed of 10 titles in a row for almost nine years. All of that work, all of that hope, has evaporated over the course of a few months. The race is over. The story is, too. And while one side of Glasgow will greet that with delight and the other with despair — happiness in soccer is a zero-sum game, too — that may be a good thing, for both teams.Steven Gerrard and Rangers can clinch the league as early as April.Credit…Andy Buchanan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesScotland occupies a strange, outsize place in soccer’s landscape. By most measures, it is a small country: five and a half million people or so, roughly the same size as Slovakia, a little smaller than Bulgaria, half the size of Portugal.But partly because of its historical significance to the sport — it is the place that invented passing, inspired professionalism, produced some of the game’s most celebrated players, and for a considerable period of time quite likely possessed the best or second-best national team in the world — it does not judge itself like a small country.The fact, for example, that until it qualified for this summer’s postponed European Championship, Scotland had not been to a major tournament since 1998 was a source of the sort of embarrassment and disquiet that, in all likelihood, would not really happen in Slovakia (though, in fairness, Slovakia has been to major tournaments much more recently).The nature of the Old Firm, too — both the size and scope of its clubs, with their vast stadiums, global fan bases, rich histories and unyielding enmity — distorts the reality of Scottish soccer.What matters to Celtic and Rangers, at all times, is winning — to garland their own reputation and to dent that of their rival. It leads to a form of thinking in which tomorrow must necessarily be sacrificed for today, because losing today is unfathomable.That logic has been on full display as the thought of 10 in a row consumed both clubs. Celtic has failed to refresh its squad, fearful of the consequences of getting it wrong. Rangers has had to invest heavily, often in players in their peak years, in order to catch up as quickly as possible.But that approach is out of step with the most forward-thinking clubs in leagues of comparative size: places like Belgium, Denmark, Austria and, to an extent, even Portugal.There, even the most dominant clubs have accepted that they are no longer a destination, but a way-point on a journey. Teams like Club Bruges, Genk and Red Bull Salzburg may not have the history of the Glasgow clubs, but they are not without pride. Still, though, they have embraced the idea of being steppingstones and have made it work for them.They have worked to scour specific markets for players, offering them the chance to hone their craft in a Western European league before making the jump to one of the big five. They have focused almost exclusively on either recruiting or developing young players. In doing so, they have found not only domestic success but often European relevance, too.For fairness, this is a picture of Rangers celebrating.Credit…Mark Runnacles/Getty ImagesAnd this is a picture of Celtic celebrating.Credit…Russell Cheyne/ReutersThanks to the geographical and stylistic proximity of the Premier League — as well as their almost guaranteed places in European competition — Celtic and Rangers should be well-placed to do the same. Celtic, indeed, was the first point of arrival in Britain for the likes of Virgil van Dijk and Victor Wanyama.But the obsession with today, with outdoing each other, mitigates against it. Celtic has lost two of the stars of its academy to Bayern Munich in recent years; both should have been able to see a more viable pathway to first-team soccer in their homeland than at one of Europe’s superclubs.Though Celtic sold defender Jeremie Frimpong to Bayer Leverkusen this week, only three more of Lennon’s regulars are 23 or under. Only one, the French striker Odsonne Edouard, is likely to catch the eye of the Premier League. The Rangers squad is older still: Gerrard has fielded only one under-23 player, Ianis Hagi, regularly. His most salable asset is the controversial Colombian forward Alfredo Morelos.Rangers, of course, needs only to point at the league table to justify its approach, just as Celtic has done for the last nine years. But now it is over. There will be no 10 in a row. And as both teams ask themselves what comes next, they must determine whether it is enough to have eyes only for each other, or whether, perhaps, it is time to shift their horizons.Read This Before You Send That Angry NoteCan’t we all get along, at least in this newsletter?Credit…Russell Cheyne/ReutersTwo more Rangers-Celtic points before we move on:A NOTE ON NAMES Some Celtic fans, perhaps even a majority, reject the use of the term Old Firm. That was a rivalry, they say, between Celtic and Rangers, and it ended in 2012. The team that replaced Rangers, in their mind, is not that Rangers. It is just another team that plays in blue, in Glasgow, at Ibrox, called Rangers.ON THAT OTHER WORD From experience, the exact meaning and nature of the term liquidation, at least as it applies to the demise and revival of Rangers, is contested by Rangers fans. It is effectively impossible to write about this subject without transgressing some minor, semantic point of difference. When you don’t have a horse in the race, it is almost too much trouble to bother with.Now, onward.Long-Term Thinking and Short-Term RewardsFans turned out to see off Palmeiras as it departed for Saturday’s Copa Libertadores final.Credit…Amanda Perobelli/ReutersEven by the standards of Brazilian soccer managers, Cuca’s résumé is pretty remarkable. Not just for the successes it contains — half a dozen regional trophies, a national title, a Copa Libertadores — but for the sheer length of it. Cuca is 57. He has been coaching for 23 years. He is currently on his 27th job.All but one of those roles have been in his native Brazil. He has taken charge of Flamengo, Fluminense and Botafogo twice each. He coached Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro — fierce crosstown rivals in Belo Horizonte — back to back. Grêmio and São Paulo are on the list, too. In August, he was appointed coach of Santos for the third time.Five months later, he has steered the club to its first Copa Libertadores final since 2011. Whether or not Santos beats its local rival, Palmeiras — quick check; yep, Cuca has coached there too, twice — at the Maracanã on Saturday is unlikely to make much of a difference to Cuca’s long-term prospects. He led Atlético Mineiro to the biggest trophy in South American club soccer in July 2013. It was the first Copa Libertadores title in the club’s history. He was fired that December.Name a Brazilian club, and chances are good that Cuca has coached it.Credit…Pool photo by Alexandre SchneiderBrazilian soccer has been this way for some time, and its managers are accustomed to its volatility. Indeed, in some ways, both Cuca and his counterpart on Saturday — Abel Ferreira — are advertisements for its benefits. Ferreira has only been in his post since October. Cuca, by contrast, has almost had time to get comfortable: He rejoined Santos last August.And yet there are signs that this cycle may be changing. Palmeiras’s rationale for appointing Ferreira, a 42-year-old Portuguese, rather than plucking a name off Brazilian soccer’s endless carousel was that it wanted to build for the long term, rather than seek yet another short-term fix.In the context of Brazilian soccer, that makes sense. Each of Saturday’s finalists boasts a cadre of bright young things: Gabriel Menino, Gabriel Veron, Danilo and Patrick de Paula at Palmeiras; Kaio Jorge and the Venezuelan Yeferson Soteldo at Santos. What players at that stage of their development need is stability, a clear pathway, a long-term vision.Changing coaches is not in their interests, or those of their clubs, which rely on the transfer fees they can generate to compete. A second continental crown would be ample reward for Cuca’s long, circuitous journey. But so too would be the thought that it might buy him time to settle into a job for once.The Danger of Too Much, Too YoungAt Chelsea, all eyes have turned to Thomas Tuchel, who coached his first game Wednesday.Credit…Pool photo by Neil HallManagerial instability is, of course, not unique to Brazil. A few months after leading a young Chelsea team to a creditable fourth-place finish in the Premier League, and on the back of a career in which he became one of the greatest players in the club’s history, Frank Lampard was fired on Monday morning. His replacement, Thomas Tuchel, was in position by Tuesday afternoon.There has been an abundance of wailing and gnashing of teeth in England in the days since about what that might mean for the young players — Mason Mount, Reece James, Tammy Abraham and the rest — who flourished under Lampard’s aegis, but in truth those worries are misplaced.Tuchel, after all, has a background in youth coaching, and he made his name at Borussia Dortmund, a club that draws its very identity from the dynamism of youth. More tellingly, Tuchel took that approach with him to Paris St.-Germain, where he blooded a host of academy products in the superstar-infested first team.More interesting is what it means for Lampard. A few months ago, the Manchester City player Raheem Sterling questioned whether high-profile white players were more readily given opportunities in management than high-profile Black players.Lampard did not disagree with the general assertion, but resented the suggestion that he might be a living example of the phenomenon. “I certainly worked from the start of my career to try to get this opportunity,” he said. “And there’s a million things along the way that knock you, set you back, that you fight against.”At the time, it felt a little like Lampard had misunderstood the point — the difficulties he has faced are not equivalent to structural discrimination — and had also misinterpreted his own journey. His first managerial job was at Derby County, in the Championship. His second, a year later, was at Chelsea, in the Champions League. He had not, as a coach, experienced any setbacks at all.Now he has, and how he responds will be telling. It is fair to assume that he would have regarded Chelsea as the pinnacle of his managerial ambitions, the club he wanted to coach above all others. Will he now be prepared to work his way back up? How low will he be ready to drop to do so? And most of all: Will he be willing to undertake the journey without a clear destination in mind?CorrespondenceMesut Ozil’s move to Fenerbahce is a fresh start, not a swan song.Credit…Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA valid concern from Steve Marron over last week’s column on Mesut Ozil: “You make it sound like he’s retired,” he wrote. “Just because he’s not playing in the Premier League any more doesn’t mean he’s suddenly irrelevant.” No, of course not — and he may have a wonderful grandmother’s summer in Turkey — but it is legitimate, I think, to look back on his Arsenal career at this point, and ask whether he is remembered there as he should be.The issue of Inter Milan’s forthcoming rebranding, though, seemed to exercise more of you than expected — enough, in fact, that it is probably worth a more thorough investigation. The current crest “was designed by Giorgio Muggiani,” Gavin MacPhee, a man of exceptional musical taste, wrote. “It’s a testament to his craft that the crest, 113 years later, remains classic and modern at the same time. One wonders if Juventus’s ‘J’ will stand the test of time.”I think I know the answer to that. It is: “No.”Some looks never age: Ronaldo in 1998.Credit…Luca Bruno/Associated PressRomelu Lukaku on Tuesday.Credit…Matteo Bazzi/EPA, via ShutterstockCallum Tyler, meanwhile, wonders if the crest is not the most iconic component of Inter’s jersey. “To a certain generation, the Pirelli logo is arguably far more synonymous with Inter, its history, and personality. It’s been on the shirt since 1995. It has outlived four versions of the crest itself.”Pirelli, Inter’s sponsor for a generation, is likely to go in the rebranding, too — the Chinese company Evergrande is the favorite to replace it — and, weirdly, it will feel strange to see those blue-and-black stripes promoting something other than tires.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Reeling Texans Set to Hire David Culley as Head Coach

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReeling Texans Set to Hire David Culley as Head CoachCulley, who is Black, is one of only two nonwhite N.F.L. head coaches hired in this cycle. His task: leading a Houston franchise that has alienated its star players.David Culley, 65, takes over the Houston Texans, whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. Credit…Scott Galvin/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJan. 28, 2021Updated 7:11 p.m. ETAs their tumultuous season bleeds into a tumultuous January, the Houston Texans have reportedly chosen the Baltimore Ravens assistant David Culley to help foster their revival, making him the first — and only — Black head coach hired after the 2020 regular season.Culley, 65, has a long and distinguished N.F.L. résumé, but this will be his first head coaching job at any level, and he joins the organization at a fraught time, as it strategizes how to proceed with disgruntled players, a star quarterback, Deshaun Watson, who is reportedly seeking a trade, and without many draft assets after trades gutted the supply.Culley, the Texans’ first full-time head coach of color since their inception in 2002, is the second head coach from a nonwhite background hired by a team this winter. Romeo Crennel, who is Black, had been interim head coach since October 2020 when the team fired Bill O’Brien, the coach and general manager, after starting the season 0-4. The Jets hired Robert Saleh, believed to be the league’s first Muslim Arab American head coach, earlier this month.The league, which has long been scrutinized for lacking diversity across its coaching positions, updated its interview processes last May, increasing the minimum number of interviews teams were required to conduct with external head coaching candidates from nonwhite backgrounds from one to two. But the guideline, the Rooney Rule, does not require teams to hire coaches of color, and the league will enter the 2021 season with only one more nonwhite coach than it started with last year. Three-quarters of the league’s players are people of color, but the vast majority of top coaches and player personnel executives are white men.“They are trying, but they are struggling,” Nellie Drew, director of the Center for the Advancement of Sport at the University at Buffalo School of Law, said of the N.F.L. in an interview Thursday. “The results to date have not been impressive, especially given the number of people of color who play in the league.”Saleh and Culley join Ron Rivera of the Washington Football Team, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Brian Flores of the Miami Dolphins as head coaches of color. In 2011, the N.F.L. had, for the first time, eight nonwhite head coaches among its ranks, a peak it reached again in the 2017 season.The Ravens will get two third-round draft picks, one in 2021 and one in 2022, as compensation for losing a nonwhite staff member who became a head coach as part of the N.F.L.’s incentive system that was ratified by league owners in November. The new measure was criticized by some, including African-American coaches and players.“I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing,” Tony Dungy, a former head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts, said in May 2020. “And so I think there’s going to be some unintended consequences.”Culley filled several roles for the Ravens across the last two seasons — assistant head coach, passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach — helping to establish the league’s leading rushing offense in 2020, but one that ranked last in passing. In 2019, Culley helped bolster the Ravens to No. 1 in scoring with an average of 33.2 points per game.Noted for his ability to develop creative schemes that improve players’ weaknesses and complement their strengths, Culley cultivated a reputation as an excellent teacher and communicator across his 27 seasons as an N.F.L. coach, most of which have been spent assisting Andy Reid, first in Philadelphia and then in Kansas City.“David will do a good job,” Reid said after practice Thursday. “He’s a people person. He’ll bring energy to the building.”Ravens Coach John Harbaugh overlapped nine seasons with Culley as assistants in Philadelphia and has said that he tried multiple times to hire him in Baltimore. When Harbaugh finally succeeded in 2019, luring Culley from Buffalo, where he coached the Bills’ quarterbacks, he called it a “coup.”Culley was an athlete growing up in Sparta, Tenn., about 90 miles east of Nashville, where he played football, baseball and basketball at White County High School. He was a quarterback at Vanderbilt and went on to coach at several colleges before entering the N.F.L. in 1994 as the receivers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.It came as no surprise to Harbaugh that Culley would be picked up this year — by the Texans.“I do believe that David Culley would be a tremendous hire for any team; maybe, especially, the Texans with Deshaun Watson,” Harbaugh said on Jan. 11.But the opportunity to coach Watson may not come, as the quarterback reportedly requested a trade after a series of disagreements with the Texans’ upper management. He reportedly became disgruntled when the team hired a new general manager, Nick Caserio, without his consultation this year and felt the team had been inattentive to social justice causes, including diversifying their hiring practices.Watson had signed a four-year, $156 million contract extension in September 2020 that included about $75 million guaranteed, a $27 million signing bonus and a no-trade clause, meaning that he will have a say in where he ends up next, if the Texans pursue a deal. Culley’s hiring will not have an effect on Watson’s decision, according to ESPN.Culley takes over a team whose 4-12 record last season almost belies the bleakness of its circumstances: limited draft capital, no elite receivers, a forbidding salary-cap situation. After finishing 10-6 in 2019 and winning the A.F.C. South for the fourth time in the previous five seasons, the Texans flopped last season. O’Brien had reportedly argued with players, including the star defensive end J.J. Watt, who later ranted about the team’s “trash” season in a postgame news conference.“We need a whole culture shift,” Watson told reporters in a videoconference after the regular season ended. “We need new energy. We need discipline. We need structure. We need a leader so we can follow that leader as players.”Culley will have to be that person, with or without Watson.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Chad Wheeler Charged With Felony Assault in Domestic Attack Case

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyChad Wheeler Charged With Felony Assault in Domestic Attack CaseThe N.F.L. lineman was arrested Saturday after a violent assault on a woman in his home.Chad Wheeler, 27, was arrested early Saturday morning on suspicion of felony domestic violence. He is facing two felony charges and one misdemeanor charge.Credit…Stephen Brashear/Associated PressJan. 28, 2021Updated 5:32 p.m. ETChad Wheeler, an N.F.L. offensive lineman who played five games with the Seattle Seahawks this season, is facing three criminal charges after his arrest last week on suspicion of felony domestic violence.Wheeler was released by the Seahawks on Wednesday, soon after prosecutors formally charged him with first-degree domestic violence assault, a felony; domestic violence unlawful imprisonment, a felony; and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor. In their charging papers, prosecutors in King County, Wash., said Wheeler “viciously attacked the victim” and choked her.Wheeler, 27, was arrested early Saturday morning and released from King County Jail on Tuesday after posting a $400,000 bond. Wheeler will be arraigned on Feb. 9 in Kent, Wash., where he lives. Prosecutors asked that Wheeler wear a GPS tracking device on his ankle.According to the prosecutor’s charging papers, Wheeler attacked his girlfriend in her bedroom, choking her at times with both hands until she lost consciousness. After she awoke, he choked her again until she became unconscious. She told the police that when she tried to roll away from Wheeler, he grabbed her left arm and ripped her body back toward him.When she awoke the second time, the woman told the police, Wheeler returned to the bedroom and said, “Oh, you’re still alive.” She then said she went into the bathroom, locked the door and sent text messages to her family, friends and Wheeler’s father, asking that they call 911. The woman also called 911 and told an operator she was being “killed.”When the police arrived, Wheeler refused to be detained. Unable to put him in handcuffs, officers used a Taser. According to the charging papers, Wheeler said, “I don’t beat women,” and yelled to the woman that he loved her.After the woman was taken to the hospital, doctors determined she had a fractured arm and a dislocated elbow. Her face was swollen in a way that doctors believed was the result of choking. The woman also had lesions on her neck, some in the shape of fingertips.According to prosecutors, Wheeler is 6 feet 7 inches and 310 pounds and the woman is 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds.The woman told the police she believed Wheeler had bipolar disorder and had not been taking his medication.The N.F.L. said it was reviewing the case. After the league completes its investigation, Wheeler could be suspended or fined, if he was found to have violated the league’s personal conduct policy. If Wheeler is signed by another team before the investigation is completed, the league could put him on the commissioner’s exempt list, which would prohibit him from taking the field until the league’s investigation is complete.“The Seahawks are saddened by the details emerging against Chad Wheeler and strongly condemn this act of domestic violence,” the team said in a statement Wednesday. “Our thoughts and support are with the victim.”On Wednesday, Wheeler apologized via social media for what he called “a manic episode” and said he was leaving football.“It is time for me to walk away from football and get the help I need to never again pose a threat to another,” he wrote on Twitter. “I cannot express my sorrow or remorse enough. I am truly ashamed.”Wheeler was set to be a free agent in March, but by waiving him now, the Seahawks have cut ties with him. Wheeler started 19 games with the Giants in the 2017 and 2018 seasons.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More