KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The night was winding down at The Rieger, an upscale casual restaurant in Kansas City, and a couple of Denver Broncos fans in town for a game last month were standing at the bar, engaging in some friendly ribbing with supporters of the hometown Chiefs. At some point, the Broncos fans […] More
The Portuguese fan was looking for soccer’s secrets when he began hacking into the legal and financial networks supporting the game’s multibillion-dollar industry five years ago. For years, he plundered internal documents and secret agreements, unmasking questionable practices — and even criminality — by lawyers and players and teams, and then published the information anonymously […] More
Enjoying this newsletter every week? Forward it to a friend and tell them to sign up at nytimes.com/rory. The ideas just keep coming. From Europe’s leading clubs: a proposal to expand the Champions League, to squeeze four more lucrative matchdays into the competition’s format. From UEFA: a whole new trophy to win, but one for […] More
The Pro Bowl is different from a typical N.F.L. game in a lot of ways. But one of the most obvious is that nobody kicks off. Since a rule change in 2013, the team that gives up a touchdown or a field goal simply gets the ball at its own 25-yard line. But a team […] More
Huddled in the stands during the waning moments of the Giants’ regular season finale last month, as the last seconds ticked off in yet another disastrous Giants season — the team’s sixth losing campaign in seven years — Giants fans sought succor in a memory. They began to chant, “Thank-you, E-li. Thank-you, E-li.” On the […] More
If you want to pick a fight, bring up Eli Manning and the Hall of Fame. With Manning, the Giants quarterback, set to hold a news conference on Friday to confirm that he will retire, the debate about his accomplishments that has simmered for years now will have closure. A quick summation of Manning’s career […] More
When it comes to sports, Las Vegas is more than just a boxing town, thanks largely to the 2017 arrival of the Golden Knights, who went to the N.H.L. championship final in their inaugural season. Now, as the N.F.L.’s Oakland Raiders team prepares to move to Vegas this year, professional sports — both live and […] More
LEICESTER, England — There seemed to be genuine pleasure in Jürgen Klopp’s voice as he said it. Klopp, the Liverpool manager, had been asked, not long after his Premier League-leading side had crushed Leicester City on Boxing Day, to assess its next obstacle: Wolves. A “very dangerous” team, he said; he was full of praise […] More
