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      in Tennis

      Serena Williams Willed Her Way to a Glorious Goodbye

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      Her last match — at the U.S. Open and probably of her career — was a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.It was match point, which Serena Williams had faced many times before. It was career point, which was startlingly new territory for one of the greatest athletes of any era.But Williams, on this night like no other at the U.S. Open, remained true to herself and her competitive spirit on Friday, with the end of her 27-year run as a professional tennis player suddenly becoming very real.Yes, Ajla Tomljanovic was about to serve for a place in the fourth round, at 40-30 with a 5-1 lead in the third set. But Williams, clearly weary after nearly three hours of corner-to-corner tennis, was not yet prepared to accept what looked inevitable.She saved one match point with a swinging backhand volley. She saved a second with a cocksure forehand approach that Tomljanovic could not handle. She saved a third with a clean forehand return winner that had fans in the sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium shouting: “Not yet! Not yet!”“I’ve been down before,” Williams said later. “I think in my career I’ve never given up. In matches, I don’t give up. Definitely wasn’t giving up tonight.”She saved a fourth match point. She saved a fifth, and by now it was clear, as the winners and bellows and clenched fists kept coming, that Williams would get a fitting finish.A record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title in her farewell tournament at age 40 was always going to be a long shot. An inspiring last dance was no guarantee, either, given all the matches and miles in her legs and all the rust on her game in recent weeks.But she salvaged it in New York. She conjured it with all of her pride, power and sheer will. She found a familiar gear in the second set of her opening-round victory over Danka Kovinic. And she stayed in that groove as she defeated the No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the next round before coming up against Tomljanovic, a tall and elegant baseliner who represents Australia but lives in Florida, and who was born and raised in Croatia.A capacity crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium roared for Williams throughout Friday night’s match. Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBarring a major change of heart from her much more famous opponent, Tomljanovic will be the answer to the trivia question “Who was the last player to face Serena Williams in an official match?”But while Williams could not fend off the sixth career point, striking a low forehand into the net, she did strike a much more appropriate final note at Flushing Meadows than if she had chosen to forgo this final comeback.At last year’s Wimbledon, she retired with a leg injury before the first set of her first-round match was done, crying as she hobbled off the Center Court grass where she had won so often.Serena Williams at the U.S. OpenThe U.S. Open was very likely the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Glorious Goodbye: Even as Serena Williams faced career point, she put on a gutsy display of the power and resilience that have kept fans cheering for nearly 30 years.The Magic Ends: Zoom into this composite photo to see details of Williams’s final moment on Ashe Stadium at this U.S. Open.Her Fans: We asked readers to share their memories of watching Williams play and the emotions that she stirred. There was no shortage of submissions.Sisterhood on the Court: Since Williams and her sister Venus burst onto the tennis scene in the 1990s, their legacies have been tied to each other’s.She was 39 then and took nearly another year to return to competition. But as the tears came for a different reason on Friday night on court in her post-match interview, and then again in her news conference, it was evident that she had gotten a measure of what she was searching for by returning to play.She gave herself a suitably grand stage to thank her fans and her family, including her parents, Richard Williams and Oracene Price, and her big sister, Venus Williams, who was watching from the players box just as she did when Serena won the family’s first Grand Slam singles title at the U.S. Open in 1999. They went on to win 29 more, Serena finishing with 23 and Venus, though not yet retired, almost certainly finishing with the seven she has now.“I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus, so thank you, Venus,” Serena said. “She’s the only reason that Serena Williams ever existed.”Though Williams was still struggling to use the word “retirement” herself on Friday, the WTA Tour was not as it congratulated Williams on a grand career. Nor did Williams give herself much wiggle room when asked what it might take to bring her back for more.“I’m not thinking about that; I always did love Australia, though,” she said with a smile, referring to the next Grand Slam tournament on the calendar: the Australian Open in January.But that sounded much more playful than serious, and she soon turned reflective, talking about motherhood and life away from competition, which she has already experienced at length during the coronavirus pandemic and in her latest year away from tennis.“It takes a lot of work to get here,” she said of the U.S. Open. “Clearly, I’m still capable. It takes a lot more than that. I’m ready to, like, be a mom, explore a different version of Serena. Technically, in the world, I’m still super young, so I want to have a little bit of a life while I’m still walking.”It is Williams’s call, of course (of course!), but it seems the right choice and the right time. Though she is correct that her level was often remarkably and surprisingly high this week, it is also true that the last time she lost this early in singles at the U.S. Open was in her first Open appearance in singles in 1998.Tomljanovic did herself proud on Friday, effectively countering Williams’s signature power and handling the deeply partisan and sometimes unsportsmanlike crowd with great composure and dignity. Fans cheered for Tomljanovic’s missed serves and errors, and with the match in its final stages, some shouted “Serena!” in the midst of her service motion.She said she borrowed a trick from Novak Djokovic, who won the 2015 U.S. Open men’s singles final against Roger Federer in a very pro-Federer atmosphere by, he said, imagining that they were cheering “Novak” instead of “Roger.”Ajla Tomljanovic of Australia proved a formidable challenger for Williams. She won the final six games of the match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“I mean, I used that,” Tomljanovic said. “And I also, just, really blocked it out as much as I could. It did get to me a few times, internally. I didn’t take it personally because, I mean, I would be cheering for Serena, too, if I wasn’t playing her. But it was definitely not easy.”Tomljanovic gathered herself impressively after Williams seized the second set in a tiebreaker and then broke Tomljanovic’s serve in the opening game of the third set. Tomljanovic also graciously and respectfully hit all the right notes in her on-court interview, even though she had been reluctant to follow Williams to the microphone.“I have known Ajla since she was 12 years old, and I have never been prouder of her,” said Chris Evert, the former No. 1 who has been a mentor to Tomljanovic but watched the match from afar, in Aspen, Colo., where one of her sons was to be married on Saturday.Tomljanovic’s victory will certainly provide premium content for Netflix, which has been following her and several other players closely all season as it films the tennis version of “Formula 1: Drive to Survive,” its behind-the-scenes automobile racing series.But Tomljanovic, who swept the last six games of what is almost certain to be Williams’s final match, is also an unseeded 29-year-old veteran who has never been ranked in the top 30 in the world and has yet to advance past the quarterfinals in a major tournament. That she had the tools to stand toe-to-toe with Williams and prevail is one more hint that Williams’s time at the top of the game has truly passed.What was also clear on Friday as the match extended well past two hours and into a third set was that Williams’s stamina and speed were fading. That is understandable with her lack of match play in recent months and in light of all the physical and emotional energy she was absorbing and expending with the public roaring her on. She also had played an intense doubles match the night before in Ashe Stadium, losing in two close sets with Venus.But understandable does not negate the reality that she looked late to the ball, and often nowhere near the ball, as Tomljanovic broke up baseline rallies by firing winners to break her for a 5-1 lead.It looked, just for a moment, as if Williams, one of the most ferocious competitors in tennis history, would have a sotto voce finish.Instead, she dug in and dug deep, drawing strength from past revivals and again showing no fear of swinging for the lines with a Grand Slam match at stake.Should we really have been surprised?As the points and great escapes piled up, Pam Shriver, the ESPN analyst sitting courtside, turned to those of us in the same row and said wide-eyed, “There should be a documentary just about this game.”Not a bad call, but perhaps better to make it the final act of a documentary about this week, when Williams shook off the rust for three final rounds and gave the crowds and all those who have followed her for nearly three decades, through triumphs and setbacks, an extended reminder of what made her great. 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      in Tennis

      Serena Williams Brought New Fans to Tennis. Are You One of Them?

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      Part of Williams’s legacy can be seen in the stands of her matches, where the spectators are among tennis’s most diverse.Tell us about your experience watching Serena Williams play in the form at the end of this column.When you watch Serena Williams play from the comfortable remove of a living room, she pops from the screen. All that willpower, athleticism and skill, even as she ages and fades.When you watch Serena Williams play live and up close, in a packed stadium during a tight match on the biggest stage — now, that is something else altogether. That’s an event, a happening, a mix of Broadway and Cannes and the Met Gala, with a whole lot of forehand winners and sometimes a soap opera mixed in.Those performances will cease now that she is “evolving” from the game, as she announced this month, to pursue a life beyond tennis and perhaps have a second child. But her legacy goes far beyond what she did between the lines: It’s clear in the stands of every tournament that Williams’s glitz and drama beckoned to fans of all kinds, including large swaths who only pay attention to sports when she plays.To be at a Serena match — among masses of attendees, particularly brown and Black spectators making their first foray to a professional match — was to feel a sense of new possibility for a sport long steeped in whiteness.Take the U.S. Open, for instance. Since her ascension to tennis’s upper reaches when she won there in 1999 at age 17, Flushing Meadows has been a special stage for Williams and her fans.In 2016, bidding for an Open-era record 23rd major singles title, the overall U.S. Open attendance figures showed nearly a quarter of fans there were Black, according to the United States Tennis Association. In 2017, with Williams’s career on hold as she sat out to give birth to her daughter, the number of Black fans at Flushing Meadows dropped by 10 percent.That is the Serena effect.“The magnetism of Serena attracts all kinds of new fans,” said Chris Widmaier, a U.S.T.A. spokesman. “But you can certainly see the outsize and indelible impact that she has had on Black Americans in their relationship with tennis.”Widmaier has been working communications at the Open for 20 years. He has seen Williams play all over the world and figures he has watched her more than any other top player.“When Serena would walk on the court and you had the ability to be courtside, you would get chills,” he said. “You just knew you were in the presence of greatness. And it didn’t matter at which point in her career. That is what I always felt.”Williams’s matches always made viewers feel. And while her career — and that of her sister Venus — has drawn onlookers of all kinds, it has had special resonance for Black fans and others traditionally at the margins of the tennis scene.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe tennis star is retiring after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.On Her Own Terms: Serena Williams announced her decision to retire in an article in Vogue in a way that felt unapologetically her own. A Beacon of Black Excellence: The tennis player achieved greatness without ever masking the struggles it took to win — especially as a Black woman.A Career on Top: Williams won her first Grand Slam in 1999, when she was 17 years old.  Over the next two decades, she became the sport’s most dominant force.Her Legacy: While emerging as the face of tennis, Williams, along with her older sister Venus, changed the face of the sport, carrying the load for the nation’s aspirations.If that’s you, I want to hear your story. Especially if you made the pilgrimage to see Williams play in person. Even if “up close” was the nosebleed seats at the Olympic tennis stadium in Rio. Or if you made it to one of the smaller tournaments on the WTA Tour, without the Grand Slam crowds and prices.Were you there at Indian Wells in 2001, as many in the majority-white audience booed Williams during her championship win? Were you there 14 years later, when she ended her boycott of that desert event?What moments and images from Williams’s career, good and bad and utterly astonishing, stick with you? What compelled you to see her in person?For me, when I think of Serena, of course, I also think of Venus. Watching them together was sports as beautiful alchemy. Just the right mix, even if their matches were sometimes full of nervousness and imperfection.At the U.S. Open in 2008, Serena and Venus were about to clash in a quarterfinal match on a hot, humid New York evening. Two hours before, I watched as fans gathered outside the stadium. Yes, it was still a mostly white and well-heeled crowd, but it was also Black, Latino, Asian, every hue, every class.It felt supercharged. The air surged with electric excitement and anticipation. I heard many say they would not have ventured to Flushing Meadows that evening if not for Serena. Adding Venus to the mix sealed the deal.The sisters put on a show. There were early pockmarks of sloppy play, but in the end, the evening sizzled with excellence, and Serena affirmed her superiority, winning, 7-6, 7-6.Looking back on the arc of Serena’s career, the swings of that match are a hallmark. She has always been capable of producing clumps of errors in batches — and then turning up the winners when everything counts. That’s part of the wonder.On the grounds of the most significant events, it often felt like the competition had not really stepped into high gear until Williams put on a high-pressure spectacle.A fan held a sign in support of Serena Williams during the Western & Southern Open in Ohio last week.Dylan Buell/Getty ImagesSerena brought the buzz, whether she won or not. It began from the moment she’d leave the players’ tunnel and walk before the fans. If you were there at the 2018 French Open when she entered that red-clay center court dressed in her tight black, Wakanda-inspired bodysuit, the feel in the stands, the swooning and gasping and awe, will be in your mind for good.God, I loved that moment. It gave me goose bumps.In her boldness and bearing, Williams has always reminded me of my undaunted nieces and cousins and my late paternal grandmother, Peggy Mae Streeter, a powerful Black woman born one generation from slavery. Dressed in that bodysuit — reveling in her complete self, with that trademark “I’m gonna do my thing, no matter what” kind of attitude — Williams, it seemed to me, was channeling their unbreakable spirit.I’m certainly not the only one to observe and feel that way. She spoke for herself and in doing so, spoke to us.It’s strange, but I seemed to have a knack for being in the stands when Williams was surprisingly upended. The loss to Elina Svitolina at the Rio Olympics in 2016. The time she blew a 5-1 last-set lead and succumbed to Karolina Pliskova at the 2019 Australian Open. With each loss, on the grounds of those events, you could feel energy and passion drain from fans once they realized she would no longer be around.When, in 2019, Williams worked in vain to fend off Bianca Andreescu, the talented young Canadian, I was one of the 23,000 who jammed Ashe Stadium for what may have been her last Grand Slam final.Thinking about it now, I can still hear the proud and melancholy sound of Williams’s straining breath as she served to stay in the match, facing a third match point. I can feel her gasping exhale echoing across the stands. I can remember Andreescu dialing up a forehand reply, just as I can recall Williams’s lunge as that forehand spun by for a winner.Game, set, Slam, Andreescu, 6-3, 7-5.You had to be there to feel the poignancy. A collective, mournful groan underlay the standing ovation applause for a new and deserving champion.This was the ultimate tennis champion on her last legs, coming up short, fighting to the end. I’m thankful to have been there as a witness.Has Serena Williams Impacted You? Share Your Story.The Times wants to hear stories from people who have seen Williams play at tournaments, and those particularly impacted by her career. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first. More

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      in Golf

      LIV Golfers, Paid Upfront, Giggle Their Way Around Trump Bedminster

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      Henrik Stenson won the third event on the LIV Golf tour, where nine-figure signing bonuses for top players guaranteed a carefree vibe.BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Brooks Koepka, the four-time major golf champion, was riding in a golf cart Saturday with his wife, Jena Sims, sitting on his lap, both laughing as the cart headed for the golf course.It was a nice snapshot of summer in New Jersey.But what set this scene apart was the fact that Koepka was roughly two minutes away from teeing off in the second round of the LIV Golf event at Trump Bedminster Golf Club. Typically, the buildup to the first shot at a professional golf tournament is tense, anxious and pressure-filled. After all, a seven-figure payday is on the line.The lighthearted Koepka-Sims cart ride, while harmless fun, underscored the impact of guaranteed nine-figure contracts earned by top players on the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour. Koepka reportedly received more than $100 million to join the breakaway circuit.No wonder he and his wife were giggling.Patrick Reed teed off on the first hole on Saturday.As LIV Golf completed its third event this year on Sunday, there was an unmistakable carefree air to the undertaking, a sense that everybody had already gotten their money. That’s because dozens had, and even the player who finished last was assured a $120,000 payout (with the travel and lodging expenses for top players reimbursed).Henrik Stenson won the tournament and earned $4 million.Still, for all the focus on the sumptuous prize money, the LIV Golf experience has been illuminating and edifying for professional golf in other less avaricious ways. The vibe from Friday to Sunday in northwestern New Jersey was decidedly younger, less stuffy and clearly more open to experimentation than on the established PGA Tour. That meant blaring high-energy music even as golfers tried to execute devilish putts or challenging chips. The Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)” serenaded Dustin Johnson ($125 million upfront payment) at a high volume as he teed off on the first tee Sunday.His shot landed in a bunker.But many fans felt energized in the environment.“You go to a traditional golf tournament and they’re constantly telling you to shut up,” Patrick Shields, who lives in Hackensack, N.J., said next to the 16th tee. “It is a sporting event, right?”Golf carts filled with players, caddies and family members headed to each of the 18 tees for a shotgun start on Saturday.LIV Golf on-course volunteers, however, did carry crowd control placards meant to quiet fans, as is customary on the PGA Tour, too. The placards, held overhead, read, “Zip it,” or “Shhhh.”Although, just as relevant, the volunteers never had to deal with sizable crowds. The attendance for Sunday’s final round was substantially improved from the meager gatherings that turned out for the first two rounds — often there had been only about 30 people surrounding a green — but the total number of fans on the grounds Sunday was no more than several thousand.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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      in Basket

      Fans Love W.N.B.A. All-Stars, but Cast a Critical Eye on the League

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      Even as fans flocked to Chicago to celebrate their favorite players, they called for the W.N.B.A. to improve. The players did, too.CHICAGO — Benita Harrison-Diggs traveled from Virginia Beach to make a weekend out of the W.N.B.A. All-Star Game with friends. She remembered the excitement around the league’s “exceptional” inaugural season in 1997 and was hopeful that 2022 would match it.Harrison-Diggs, 63, was one of hundreds of fans outside Wintrust Arena eager to cheer on the best women’s basketball players in the country. “The atmosphere is electric,” she said, smiling.But as excited as Harrison-Diggs was to be in Chicago for All-Star weekend, she also felt let down.“I’m a little disappointed that these women, as hard as they play, don’t get the same recognition that the N.B.A. gets,” she said. “They don’t get the same exposure, the coverage and especially not the same money.”Harrison-Diggs came to the arena with friends for the W.N.B.A.’s skills competition and 3-point shooting contest, only to find that they were closed to the public and being held in a convention center next door. Instead, she and her friends were in a nearby courtyard watching the events much like people at home: on a TV screen. The competitions were scheduled to air on ESPN but were shifted to ESPNU at the last minute while ESPN showed the end of the men’s doubles tournament at Wimbledon. Many fans do not have access to the lesser-known ESPNU channel, and some complained on social media. ESPN later announced that it would rebroadcast the skills competition.“They wouldn’t have bumped the men,” Harrison-Diggs said.Chicago Sky guard Allie Quigley won the 3-point contest on Saturday.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressLiberty guard Sabrina Ionescu won the skills competition.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesThere is a swell of engagement and enthusiasm for the W.N.B.A. as it plays its 26th season, but the league’s ballooning fan base has come with a critical eye. Much of the league’s good will has been built around a core group of stars like Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi, Sylvia Fowles and Candace Parker. But as they begin to retire, the W.N.B.A. is transitioning into a new era of younger, social-media-savvy talent and a fan base demanding more of the league.“I would have liked to see this actually feel like they put some thought into it, some foresight, about what they actually want a weekend to look like,” said Anraya Palmer, who traveled from Atlanta for the All-Star Game.Palmer, who is Black, was 6 when the W.N.B.A. made its debut. She was instantly hooked. “It was the first time I saw women basketball players, especially women athletes, that looked like me: ‘Oh, I can actually grow up and do this,’” Palmer said.Palmer grew up to be a teacher, but she’s also an Atlanta Dream fan. She said the league had changed for the better in many ways, but All-Star weekend was a prime example of an area for improvement. “It kind of feels like some things were maybe thrown together last second,” she said. “But the die-hard fans are still going to come out and have a good time.”The W.N.B.A. said it did not have access to Wintrust Arena until Saturday night because it was being used by a cookware convention. The league hosted fan events and invitation-only concerts outdoors, but Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said security concerns because of mass shootings contributed to the league’s decision to close the concerts to the public. Spokesmen for the city and the Chicago Police Department declined to comment on the record.As the W.N.B.A.’s fan base has grown, so have its demands. Fans are pushing for easier access to games and more teams.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressOn Sunday, 9,572 fans filed into Wintrust Arena, which seats about 10,400, for the All-Star Game. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces and Fowles of Minnesota were the captains of Team Wilson, while Breanna Stewart and her Seattle teammate Bird led Team Stewart. Team Wilson defeated Team Stewart, 134-112.Brittney Griner, the seven-time All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury, was named an honorary starter. She has been detained in Russia on drug charges since February. Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, sat courtside. All 22 All-Stars wore jerseys with Griner’s name and No. 42 for the second half.Aaron Brown of Chicago, a longtime Fowles fan, said he wouldn’t have missed the All-Star Game “for the world.” Brown said most men think women’s basketball is “boring,” but for him, the women’s game is “more pure and more entertaining.”“The beauty of women’s basketball is the fundamentals — they play with I.Q. and skill level that even the men don’t,” he said. “You actually have to use not just your body but also your mind. Mostly men can get by off athleticism, but they don’t have the fundamentals.”His favorite player is Aces guard Kelsey Plum. She tied Maya Moore’s record for points in an All-Star Game with 30, and was named the most valuable player. Brown said Plum, like many other players, does not get the same kind of attention as the league’s bigger names.“They kind of only push the same five or six,” he said. “There are so many other good players who are here now and not going to leave in two years. They deserve to shine.”Patrick Schmidt of the Detroit area agreed, saying he’d like to see the league “showcasing more of their Black superstars in addition to the legends that they do.”Some fans also spoke about the disparity in pay between W.N.B.A. and N.B.A. players.In 2022, the salary cap for each W.N.B.A. team is about $1.4 million, and the maximum player salary is just under $230,000. In the N.B.A., the team salary cap will be more than $123 million for the 2022-23 season, and the top players make nearly $50 million per year.“It makes no sense that a star women’s basketball player makes less than a bench player in the N.B.A.,” Sterling Hightower, a fan from Chicago, said. “I’m a big N.B.A. fan. There are people in the N.B.A. I don’t even know who are making more than Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird.”Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird is the W.N.B.A.’s career leader in assists. She’s retiring at the end of the season.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesLike Bird, Fowles is retiring at the end of the season. She is the league’s career leader in rebounds.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressCynthia Smith, a Liberty season-ticket holder for 24 years, put it bluntly: “Out of sight is out of mind,” adding, “I don’t know if we’re going to get equity in pay, but we need equity in exposure.”Over the weekend, many players, like Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, echoed the fans’ sentiments: “Put us on TV more,” she said.Fans have long complained about how difficult it can be to view games, such as having to toggle through multiple platforms, like ESPN, Twitter, Facebook and a buggy W.N.B.A. app.“You tell me I’ve got to go through three apps, I’m not watching that. Let’s be honest here,” Wilson said. “I think that’s just key as to how the league can grow.”Plum agreed, saying she’d like to see the league make it easier to watch games. “We understand that the product is great, and when we get people to watch the game, they love it,” she said. “But the hardest part is getting people there.”Bird, who is retiring this year after 21 seasons in the league, said the key would be renegotiating television rights over the next couple of years.“That’s the moment,” Bird said. “That could really break things open and change the entire trajectory of our league.”Nneka Ogwumike, a forward for the Los Angeles Sparks and the president of the W.N.B.A. players’ union, said the league was “on the precipice of something that can really turn into something big.”Ogwumike said “the magic word is expansion.”Las Vegas Aces guard Kelsey Plum shooting against Seattle’s Breanna Stewart. Plum was named the most valuable player of the game after scoring 30 points, tying an All-Star record.Stacy Revere/Getty ImagesThere are 12 teams, with 12 roster spots each. Engelbert said the league was analyzing demographics, women’s basketball “fandom” and viewership data for 100 cities, and new teams could be on the horizon by 2025. She also said finding the right media package was her “top business priority” for this year.One of the greatest areas of growth for the league has been activism around social justice. The next wave of activism could be around abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Stewart called the decision “disgusting” and “heartbreaking” and said she expected there to be discussions soon about how to handle events in states where abortion is banned.“As we are continuing to fight these social issues and injustices based on race, sex, sexual orientation, all of the things, the league needs to have our back in every way,” she said.Bird said the shift to addressing social and political issues marked a huge transformation among players.“I think back on my career, and I definitely was part of a shut-up-and-dribble generation where that’s what we did — we didn’t complain too much or talk about things too much, because we were scared to,” she said. “We have found our strength in our voice, and I’m just proud that I got to be a small part of it at the end of my career.” More

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      in Tennis

      In Wimbledon’s Queue, Waiting Is a Pleasure, and the Point

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      In a world of online ticketing, camping overnight for tennis seats is an anachronism, but it is also about community and a sense of belonging.WIMBLEDON, England — It was nearing 10 p.m., and Richard Hess, an 81-year-old American, was sitting inside his small tent and merrily preparing for his latest sleep-deprived night in the Wimbledon queue.“You caught me blowing up my mattress,” he said, poking his gray-haired head out of the tent and offering his visitor a seat in a folding chair.Hess is an Anglophile from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., who memorized the names of all the English monarchs beginning with William the Conqueror before his first visit to Britain. He has a doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and played the California junior-tennis circuit at the same time as Billie Jean King. He has been queuing at Wimbledon since 1978: first lining up on the sidewalks for tickets and then, beginning in the early 1990s, camping out overnight with hundreds of other tennis fans in the quest for prime seats on Centre Court and the other main show courts.“When I was a child, I asked my father, what’s the most important tournament in the world, and he said, ‘Well, that’s Wimbledon,’” Hess said.On his first day, he and his oldest daughter saw Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe play first-round matches, and Hess had spent his latest day at Wimbledon watching the new Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz before returning to his tent and his community.“It’s not just the tennis that keeps me coming back; it’s the culture and the people,” Hess said.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park.Lucy Nixon and Richard Hess heading for the Wimbledon gates after purchasing their tickets.One of those people is Lucy Nixon, a 42-year-old from Norfolk, England, who met Hess on her first day in the queue in 2002 and is now a close enough friend that she invited Hess and Jackie, his wife of 60 years, to her wedding.This year’s Wimbledon has been a chance to reconnect after the tournament was canceled because of the pandemic in 2020 and was staged without a queue in 2021 for health-and-safety reasons.There was doubt it would return. In a world of online ticketing, the queue is clearly an anachronism, but then Wimbledon — with its grass courts, all-white-clothing rule for players and artificially low-priced strawberries and cream — is an anachronism writ large.“Some people are traditionalists,” Nixon said. “And it’s like, we’ve always done it this way, we’ve always had a queue, we’re always going to have a queue. And then there’s other people that are just like, you know, let’s do what every other Grand Slam does and just sell tickets online and be done with it.”For now, the queue lives on, although many other Wimbledon traditions do not.“The queue is not still here because it’s just a thing we’ve always done,” said Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club. “The queue is here because it’s about accessibility to the tournament. That’s really integral to our traditions.”A steward carries the Q flag past tents on the Wimbledon queue.Nixon, who has had ample time to ponder these issues in 20 years of waiting outside the club’s gates, has a “love-hate thing” with the queue.“I’ve been to other tennis tournaments in Europe and in Indian Wells, and as an ordinary person I could go online with my ordinary phone and book tickets with my ordinary bank account,” she said. “It was much easier to do that. You’ve got to work for your Wimbledon tickets, so in a way, it’s kind of like, actually are they really that progressive and inclusive? Or are they making the little people work hard for the crumbs they are going to get, which is a measly 1,500 tickets out of how many thousands available for the main courts?”The All England Club, which conducts an annual ticket lottery and also has season-ticket holders, has a daily capacity of around 42,000. It reserves about 500 seats each on Centre Court, No. 1 Court and No. 2 Court for those in the queue, who pay face value for tickets. The Centre Court and No. 1 Court seats are down low, near the action.“That’s the real appeal,” Hess said.If you are one of the often-thousands in the queue who do not get a main-court ticket, you can still buy a grounds pass for access to the outside courts, although it could be a long wait if you are deep in line or another night in a tent if you want to try again for a main-court spot.It is not precisely clear when queuing began at Wimbledon, but according to Richard Jones, a British tennis historian and author, there were news reports in 1927 of fans lining up at 5 a.m. for tickets. Overnight queuing was happening by the 1960s, became more popular as Borg and McEnroe did, and for about 40 years it happened on the sidewalk that the British call “the pavement.”“I was always waiting for someone to get run over,” Hess said.In 2008, the overnight and increasingly polyglot queue went bucolic: moving into Wimbledon Park, the vast green space that lies opposite the All England Club on the other side of Church Road. The tents are pitched in numbered rows on the grass near a lake. It is more peaceful yet heavily controlled, more trailer park than adventure. There are food trucks, unisex bathrooms, a first-aid center, security guards and lots of stewards milling about to keep order and position the flag that indicates the end of the queue to new arrivals.The queue enters the wooded area of Wimbledon Park through a series of branded portals.Volunteers begin rousting campers shortly after 5 a.m. to give them time to pack their gear and check it at the huge white storage tent before entering the queue well ahead of the All England Club’s 10 a.m. opening time.“Four or five hours of sleep is a good night,” Hess said.Would-be ticket holders are issued a card with a number when they arrive at Wimbledon Park. The lower the number, the higher your priority, and on June 26, the first night of queuing at Wimbledon in nearly three years, the person who was first in line and holding “Queue Card 00001” was Brent Pham, a 32-year-old property manager from Newport Beach, Calif.Pham arrived in London on the Thursday before Wimbledon, bought a tent and air mattress, and spent Friday night sleeping on the sidewalk and Saturday night sleeping in a nearby field in a group of about 50 before the queue officially opened at 2 p.m. on Sunday. It paid off with a guaranteed Centre Court seat.Twilight descends on the queue and rows of tents in Wimbledon Park.Christopher Clarey/The New York TimesBrent Pham entering the All England Club on Monday morning.Christopher Clarey/The New York Times“My dad, he loved to watch Wimbledon, and he passed away in 2017, and he never got to experience this, so I feel it’s extra important to make sure I get on Centre Court every year,” said Pham, who carries a printed photograph of his father, Huu, with him into the grounds each day. “So his spirit at least is able to be at Wimbledon,” he said.In a normal year, getting into Centre Court each day from the queue would have been nearly impossible, but the queue’s numbers were down significantly in the first four days this year: at around 6,000 per day instead of the usual 11,000. Potential factors included lower international visitor numbers, galloping inflation, shifting habits because of the coronavirus and rain. Then there is Roger Federer. The eight-time Wimbledon champion is not playing in men’s singles for the first time since 1998.“During the Federer years, there were a lot of people who would camp two nights to see Roger,” Hess said. “They’d see his match, come right on out, set up their tent — there might be 200 of them — and sleep two nights to get in for his next match.”Hess has spent more than 250 nights in the queue and will log 10 more this year. Long ago, he set a goal of queuing until he was 80. The pandemic delayed the milestone, but he made it.“Now I’m reassessing,” he said before returning to his underinflated air mattress. “But I fully expect to be back next year.” More

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      Why Golden State Fans Travel Far to See Curry: It’s Worth It

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      Some Golden State fans traveled thousands of miles to Boston to watch their team face the Celtics in the N.B.A. finals.BOSTON — As Stephen Curry emerged from an arena tunnel for his pregame warm-up routine, he was the center of gravity, drawing fans to him as he often does defenders on the court.The Golden State faithful in the stands — who appeared to be in the dozens — dangled sneakers and posters into the tunnel for Curry to sign, or otherwise leaned over each other to get a better look at him. Ian Rea, a 16-year-old who drove with his parents from Saint John, New Brunswick, held up a sign that said, “Steph, if you sign my jersey, I will cut all my hair.”The meticulous combination of Curry’s jumpers, floaters and trick shots with a dash of goofiness is the basketball equivalent of watching Louis Armstrong run scales on the trumpet.Curry did not end up signing Rea’s poster. But several rows away, watching Curry run his own scales, Matt Velasquez, 49, a flight attendant, was wistfully considering the concept of basketball mortality Friday night, with Golden State then down a game to the Celtics in the N.B.A. finals.“You may be coming to an end of an era,” said Velasquez, who is from Danville, Calif. He and his friend Dale Villasenor flew across the country just to watch Game 4 in Boston. They each spent $2,500 to sit in the loge section. Velasquez, a lifelong Golden State fan, said he tries never to miss a home game in person.Curry signed autographs before Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals on Friday night in Boston. Fans regularly come out early just to see him warm up.David Butler Ii/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe fan base isn’t at a crossroads quite yet. Curry, 34, hasn’t said anything about retiring, and Golden State may end up winning this series. It is tied, 2-2, with Game 5 on Monday.The other two stars of the core, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, are just 32. But age creeps up on all of us — and in basketball years, the three of them are somewhere between middle-aged and eligible for Social Security. There likely aren’t many runs left with these players performing at an elite level.Villasenor, 49, a dentist from Walnut Creek, Calif., recalled what life as a Golden State fan was like before Curry was drafted with the seventh pick in 2009, back when the team played at Oracle Arena in Oakland instead of the Chase Center in San Francisco.“We used to watch games where we would just go hang out and just watch for All-Stars to come through,” Villasenor said.Now, Golden State is the draw. Usually, when Golden State plays road games, a significant contingent of its fans shows up. The team is among the N.B.A. leaders in road attendance. Sometimes, it’s a matter of having one of the world’s biggest stars on your team in Curry, a top jersey seller.In Boston, however, a city with a storied basketball history, road jerseys were harder to spot on Friday night. Trying to locate a Golden State fan was like playing Where’s Waldo? but for specks of gold and blue instead of Waldo’s red and white. Every seat in the arena was draped with a white-and-green shirt from the Celtics that said, “It’s All About 18,” a reference to Boston’s pursuit of an 18th championship.This N.B.A. finals is a contrast in legacies. Golden State has won six titles — three of them in the past seven years. Its dominance has mostly been in the 21st century, whereas the Celtics are steeped in nostalgia — wistful for the days of Bill Russell and Larry Bird, with only one championship since 1986.Looking for Golden State fans in Boston felt a little like playing Where’s Waldo?Winslow Townson/Getty ImagesThis has created different reputations for the supporters of each franchise. Recent success, as Chris Swartzentruber, 30, an insurance agent from Kalona, Iowa, put it, invites recent fans.“I don’t know any bandwagon Celtics fans,” he said. “I know a lot of bandwagon Warriors fans.”Not that Swartzentruber is the purest fan himself. He said he roots only for Thompson, not the team. He has followed the team to several finals games since 2015 to watch him play, and, as expected, he was donning a Thompson jersey to take in Game 4. For this trip, he traveled from Kalona by himself to sit courtside. His ticket cost $3,500. His fandom stems in part from being a strong shooter himself growing up.“I don’t spend that much money,” Swartzentruber said. “This is my vacation, and I haven’t had a vacation in, like, three years.”And because sport fandom is an irrational enterprise, it invites some amusing allegiances and profane behavior. This is especially the case in Boston, where fans are known to be — let’s call it, expressive. The Celtics’ fan behavior has become a story in this series because of Game 3, when fans chanted vulgarities at Green.N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver was asked for his response to fan chants by a local reporter in Boston.“I want fans to enjoy themselves,” Silver said. “Of course, as the league office, you want to see it done with respect for all the participants, but I get it. I love the energy that Boston fans bring.”If Silver’s wide smile could talk, it might have added: “Boston, please don’t be mad at me. Did I mention I love clam chowder?”Fans in Golden State jerseys before Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals in Boston. Winslow Townson/Getty ImagesNancy DeBlasio, 41, attended the game from Berlin, Conn., with her girlfriend, Ashley Cialfi, 33. Both of them wore blue-and-yellow Golden State T-shirts. DeBlasio is a teacher and a basketball coach rooting for Curry. DeBlasio said that being on the streets of Boston with her T-shirt had been “pretty brutal,” but that the two of them were “taking it because we understand.”“I think it’d be worse if we were guys,” Cialfi chimed in.“Oh, most definitely,” DeBlasio concurred.Really? But why?“Because they’re going to go easy on some chicks,” Cialfi said.But then came a pro-wrestling-style plot twist: DeBlasio said she is actually a Celtics fan, but simultaneously a Curry fan. She insisted that despite her shirt, she was actually rooting for a Boston win. (“No, you’re not,” Cialfi informed her.) No epithets were thrown in that exchange.Nor were they thrown near Andy and Ryan Malburg, a father and son who had driven almost seven hours from Buffalo for the game. Ryan, 15, who almost cried when he found out about the tickets, was a lifelong Golden State fan attending his first N.B.A. game.OK, fair point: What is “lifelong” when you’re 15?But this means Ryan’s generation of Golden State fans is spoiled: He has mostly known winning, which made his reference to the team as a “good, up-and-coming team right now” understandable. (Andy and Ryan are also Buffalo Bills fans, so it evens out.) Ryan’s father, meanwhile, made clear that the Malburgs would not be taking part in any profanity-related high jinks initiated by impolite Boston fans.“He knows to be respectful, and he will not say any of those things,” Andy Malburg, 43, sternly said. “I can guarantee you that.”After Game 4, Stephen Curry greeted perhaps his biggest fan of all: his mother, Sonya.Winslow Townson/Getty ImagesSure enough, Celtics fans chanted again at Green throughout the game and occasionally even cursed at Thompson. But ultimately, it was the Golden State fans who left the arena satisfied. Curry put on a vintage performance, scoring 43 points. Instead of mortality, Curry had backers of both teams awed by the latest campaign to enshrine himself in basketball immortality.“It doesn’t get any better than this,” Velasquez said after the game, “coming out to the East Coast to watch the Boston Celtics, historically one of the best franchises.”“The Boston Celtics,” Villasenor exuberantly interrupted.“I know!” Velasquez said, matching his jubilance. “To beat them at their home court!”As they spoke, a man who looked to be in his 20s and wearing a Celtics jersey approached and noticed their Golden State attire.“You guys are bums, you know that?” the man said, unprompted. It was one of several opinions related to the team he wanted to get off his chest.As he closed out his eloquent soliloquy, the man turned around and did a dance — with his own bum gyrating toward Velasquez and Villasenor.“Eh,” Villasenor said of Celtics fans, sarcastically. “Honestly, classy.” More

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      40,000 Fake Tickets at the Champions League Final? Actually, It Was 2,589.

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      The French authorities blamed tens of thousands of counterfeit tickets for the chaos before Saturday’s Champions League final. The official count was far lower.One of the main claims pushed by French officials to explain the chaotic crowd scenes that created a dangerous crush of fans outside last weekend’s Champions League final near Paris has been that tens of thousands of people arrived at the match bearing fake tickets.France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has claimed as many as 70 percent of tickets presented at the Stade de France in St.-Denis were fake. He told a news conference Monday that the “root cause” of the chaos was roughly 30,000 to 40,000 English fans bearing counterfeit tickets — or no tickets — who jammed the entrances.But according to official numbers reviewed by The New York Times, the exact number of fake tickets intercepted by stewards manning the entrance gates was far lower: 2,589, to be exact.That figure is almost three times the usual number of forgeries at the Champions League final, a game widely considered to be European soccer’s equivalent of the Super Bowl, but significantly lower than the figure used by Darmanin, who had as of Wednesday not provided details of the source of his estimate.Darmanin and France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who has made similar claims about fake tickets, have faced growing criticism over the handling of the game. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, on Wednesday called for “full transparency” in an investigation of the match-day scenes and their causes. At an appearance in front of a committee of the French senate later Wednesday, Darmanin admitted, “Clearly things could have been organized better.”“It is evident,” he added, “that this celebration of sport was ruined.”France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, faced testy questioning from lawmakers on Wednesday.Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn what became a testy appearance in front of the committee, Darmanin and Oudéa-Castéra came under sustained pressure over the organizational failures. In response, they largely repeated the language that has enraged Liverpool, its fans and members of the British government.At one point, Oudéa-Castéra told lawmakers that Liverpool supporters carried a “very specific risk” in the view of the French authorities, without elaborating what she meant.Darmanin, meanwhile, insisted the counterfeit ticket numbers were of an unprecedented scale, claiming at one point there were so many that stadium security guards thought their tools to validate them were faulty.The hearing lasted longer than an hour, ending with little clarity and a doubling down by the officials on their previous claims, again without evidence to support their conclusions.That prompted one lawmaker to ask: “Since Saturday, we have blamed Liverpool fans and the club, striking workers and locals for the chaos. What allows you to make these declarations without a thorough investigation?”Not all attendees had the same experience at the final. While most of Real Madrid’s fans arrived with electronic tickets, Liverpool requested paper ones for its official allocation of 23,000 tickets. Those tickets came embedded with two main security features: one that needed to be confirmed with a chemical pen and a second that was a laser engraving of the Champions League trophy.Those holding tickets without the two security features were to be denied access by stewards at an initial checkpoint far from the stadium’s bar code readers. But that system collapsed under a deluge of fans: To relieve the growing crush of people, officials abandoned those first checks and allowed the crowds to move closer to the stadium.The debacle has led to chorus of criticism of the security at the match, in which Real Madrid defeated Liverpool, 1-0, to claim its record 14th European title. Liverpool police who attended in supporting roles labeled the situation outside the gates “shocking.” The club, its fans and a European supporters group all called for investigations even as the game was underway. And in the days since, British government officials have demanded answers from their French counterparts and European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, for the treatment of thousands of Liverpool supporters.Thousands of fans were trapped for hours in tight crowds before the final, causing a delay to the match’s kickoff. Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSupporters faced multiple issues, including dangerous crushes, after being corralled into narrow spaces, and the final was delayed more than 30 minutes as the French riot police used tear gas and pepper spray on fans after appearing to lose control of the situation. At the same time, hundreds of local youths tried to force their way into the stadium, either through the turnstiles or by climbing over security fences. Officials estimated as many as 4,000 ticketless people may have succeeded.Part of the explanation into why Liverpool supporters found themselves trapped in such a small space has now turned to transportation problems on the day of the game, including a strike by workers that affected one of the major rail links to the stadium.UEFA and local officials have compared travel data from Saturday’s game to figures from the French Cup final held at the Stade de France on May 7. They found that one of the stations closest to the Stade de France had four times as many fans travel through its gates Saturday than had used the station during the French Cup final. That, they believe, contributed to the dangerous bottleneck of supporters.It may be months before a complete picture of what occurred at the stadium emerges. On Tuesday, UEFA, reeling from chaotic scenes at last year’s European Championship final in London as well as the recent Europa League final in Seville, Spain, appointed a former education minister of Portugal, Tiago Brandão Rodrigues, to lead an independent inquiry into the failures around the Champions League final.The claims made by the French government’s representatives, though, continue to infuriate Liverpool and its ownership. The club’s chairman, Tom Werner, said as much in a caustic letter to Oudéa-Castéra, the French sports minister.He wrote, he said, “out of utter disbelief that a minister of the French government, a position of enormous responsibility and influence, could make a series of unproven pronouncements on a matter of such significance before a proper, formal, independent investigation process has even taken place.”He decried the “loose data and unverified assertions” presented to reporters Monday before an investigation had taken place.“The fact that your public position went against this objective is a concern in itself,” he added. “That you did so without any recourse to ourselves or our supporters is an even greater one. All voices should count in this process, and they should count equally and fairly.”As well as assailing Oudéa-Castéra for her claims, Werner also demanded a public apology. By late Tuesday, Oudéa-Castéra’s tone — though not her claims about fake tickets — had changed.“The issue of the false tickets does not change this: Liverpool is one of the greatest clubs ever,” she wrote on Twitter. “And on Saturday there were supporters with valid tickets that spent a terrible evening or were not able to watch the game. We are sorry for that.”Liverpool continues to be inundated with video evidence shot on cellphones by its supporters. The images, many of which have also been uploaded to social media, are sometimes harrowing, showing children and older fans dealing with the effects of tear gas fired — sometimes indiscriminately — by the riot police.Fans of Real Madrid faced similar problems on their side of the stadium. Since the final, several supporters have come forward to say they were attacked or robbed on their way in and out of the stadium.Amando Sánchez, 51, who traveled to Paris in a group of 14, mainly family members, said his 87-year-old father and an older brother missed the game as a result of chaos at the entry gates. Another brother, Sánchez said, fought off an effort to steal his ticket as he prepared to present it at a stadium turnstile.“Really no one was in charge,” Sánchez said in an interview Wednesday. More

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      As A.C. Milan and Inter Return to Top, San Siro May Be Coming Down

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      As he watched the soccer game playing out on television, the Milanese writer and actor Gianfelice Facchetti felt an emotional tug that he thought might be leading him toward his next book.It was during Italy’s first coronavirus lockdown, and Facchetti’s favorite team, Inter Milan, had been forced to play its matches behind closed doors. The decision left its longtime home, the 80,000-seat Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, more commonly known as the San Siro, devoid of atmosphere, and amid the silence Facchetti’s mind began to drift.He thought back not only to fond memories and tense moments in the arena where his father, Giacinto, had represented Inter and Italy but also to news stories that had been circulating for months describing plans by the teams that share the nearly century-old stadium, Inter and A.C. Milan, to abandon the stadium or, worse, demolish it.The San Siro’s contrast of cylindrical towers and long red trusses has admirers among fans and architects alike.Camilla Ferrari for The New York Times“I was thinking, when I started to write: If you want to destroy this place, this special place, it would be helpful to know the history,” Facchetti said.The book that sprang from that first impulse, “Once Upon a Time in San Siro,” was part history and part coping mechanism, Facchetti admits. He and many Inter fans, like those who support Milan, are still coming to terms with the fact that their “seconda casa,” or “second home,” could one day be no more.On the list of sins that stir the emotions of soccer fans, assaults on tradition surely rank near the top, particularly when maximizing revenue is seen as the motivation. Even minor changes, such as a new shirt design or an alteration of a club crest, can be like grabbing soccer’s third rail. For the same reasons, stadiums hold a special place in the minds of many supporters, serving as a physical embodiment of a lifetime of sporting experiences. A club’s decision to replace one, then, can bring not only monumental costs but also howls of protest.Yet replace them they do.From 2010 to 2020, 153 new stadiums were built across Europe, at a reported cost of more than $20 billion. Madrid got one. So did Stockholm and St. Petersburg. London opened two.Only 1 percent of this investment was made in Italy, though. Most professional teams’ stadiums in the country are both antiquated and publicly owned — only two have opened this century. And a new generation of deep-pocketed foreign owners with American tech, finance and retail fortunes are eager to create new revenue streams that they feel their clubs need to compete with richer rivals in England and elsewhere.Luciano owns a truck selling Inter and A.C. Milan merchandise. The latter held off its city rival to claim the Serie A title on Sunday.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesChange, though, is not as simple as drawing up plans and digging a stadium-size hole. When Milan and Inter announced their intention to build a new stadium more than three years ago, the subtext was that the San Siro — one of the largest stadiums in Europe and the site of four European Cup finals and matches in two World Cups — was no longer fit for its job in an age of luxury suites and corporate hospitality. Ever since, a debate about the arena’s future has split not only the teams’ wealthy owners and longtime fans but also politicians, preservationists and architects.“Italy is like an open-air museum: We have a lot of heritage,” said Massimo Roj, a Milanese architect and Inter fan who put forward one of the proposed designs for a new stadium in Milan. “We have to think that the San Siro is an old building. Your memory now is there, but, in 10 years time, we’ll be in another stadium, called San Siro again.”The first iteration of the San Siro opened in 1926 and was revolutionary for Italy because it was English in design, featuring four independent stands that sat square to the playing surface and no running track. It was expanded after the 1934 World Cup and again in the 1950s after Inter became a co-tenant.The most recent alteration came before Italy hosted the 1990 World Cup, when the architects Giancarlo Ragazzi and Enrico Hoffer and the engineer Leo Finzi added what became the stadium’s trademark: 11 cylindrical towers with helical ramps that allowed spectators to reach a new third tier. A roof made of red trusses was placed on top, its lines an angular — and to devotees, iconic — contrast to the circular forms that supported them.Yet in the decades after, the need for further refurbishments became increasingly apparent, fans said, as the Italian industrialists who once bankrolled the Milanese clubs sold their teams and Russian billionaires and Persian Gulf petrodollars rewrote the economics of elite European soccer.Many clubs in Serie A, arguably the world’s richest and most attractive league in the 1990s, now face growing debts and unsustainable budgets. Inter, for example, had to break up last season’s title-winning side just to meet its payroll.“In terms of revenues, we have, both Milan and Inter, revenues of around 35 to 40 million euros a year” — roughly $37 million to $42 million — “from the stadium, while our competitors are about €100 million,” the chairman of Milan, Paolo Scaroni, said in an interview. The San Siro reflected in the window of a tram that stops outside. Plans for a new San Siro nearby, and the destruction of the current one, have divided Milan.Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe teams say they initially considered changes to the current San Siro but quickly concluded logistical issues and delays would be too much to overcome. What they have proposed instead is a 60,000-seat arena to be built next door. Once it is constructed, the current San Siro will come down and make way for public space that may include elements of its iconic towers and ramps, according to the designs by Populous, the American architecture firm whose proposal was chosen.“I think these buildings are containers, and therefore the old buildings have such emotion attached to them that the idea that some of it can remain, if it can be there as a marker of history of what was before, is quite a nice idea,” said Chris Lee, a managing director of Populous. “One has to be careful about trying to transfer too much of that, literally, into new buildings, where it can easily tip into the pastiche of trying to recreate a building.”Opposition is to be expected, Lee said. In Milan, it has emerged in various forms.Milan’s mayor, Beppe Sala, while generally supportive of the project, has warned both clubs that the city-owned San Siro would remain until at least 2026, when it is expected to host the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.A different group, the Si Meazza committee, has taken a hard-line approach, challenging the mere idea of the demolition of the San Siro, which its most prominent voices — lawyers, concert promoters and former politicians — described as a symbol of Milan known around the world, a stage on which Diego Maradona, Bob Dylan and Beyoncé have performed. Other critics pointed to the ecological impact of tearing down a stadium and highlighted renderings that they argued proved the job could be done for half the cost while saving the original arena.Some fear, though, the die may have been cast: A future without the San Siro received the tacit approval of Italy’s heritage authority in 2020 when it raised no objections to the stadium’s demolition. In November, the project was declared in the public interest (with certain conditions) by city officials.A month later, the clubs chose the Populous design: It features a stadium enveloped by a steel-and-glass galleria, reminiscent of the famed luxury-shopping district in the center of Milan, as the centerpiece of an expansive park on the site.But the legal fight over building any of it may not be over.The stadium has hosted two World Cup and four European Cup finals. Camilla Ferrari for The New York TimesThe next steps for the clubs will be to put their proposals to the public; that is expected to happen this summer. Municipality decisions can be appealed, and other bureaucratic hurdles can take months to resolve, said Scaroni, the Milan chairman. Aware of those potential delays, the clubs have said that they are also considering a Plan B: a site elsewhere in Milan.“More than three years, we are still debating about our master plan,” said Alessandro Antonello, the Inter chief executive. “Unfortunately, yes, we started with a very exciting energy three years ago, and now, after three years, we are still waiting for some answers from the municipality. So, now, for us, the main priority is to build a new stadium, whatever the location.”For opponents like Facchetti, though, the delays are just one more hopeful sign their beloved San Siro might yet be saved. Another good omen, he said, came this spring: His publisher has approved a second printing of his book.“It’s a sign,” Facchetti said. “People still want to speak about the San Siro and its destiny.” More