That said, claiming the top step on the Olympic medal podium is no longer a given for U.S. swimmers.

Nine days of thrilling competition at La Defense Arena wrapped up Sunday night with the Americans barely pulling out the lead in the gold medal standings thanks to a victory in the last race.

The U.S. finished with just eight golds, its fewest since the 1988 Seoul Games and one ahead of its biggest rival, Australia.

More notably, the rest of the world totaled more victories (20) than the United States and Australia combined, the first time that’s happened since the 1996 Atlanta Games.

The Americans will certainly be intent on improving their performance heading into the home games at Los Angeles in 2028, when swimming will have in its largest, most spectacular setting yet — a temporary pool inside SoFi Stadium with a capacity for some 38,000 fans.

Still, with more and more international swimmers getting their training in the U.S. — and prominent American coaches such as Bob Bowman spreading their knowledge to other countries — a more diverse list of gold medalists is likely to be the norm going forward.

“This sport is growing and I can’t help but feel like we’ve been a part of that,” American gold medalist Bobby Finke said. “It’s something we should take home and be proud of.”

Two of the biggest swimming stars in Paris, France’s Léon Marchand and Canada’s Summer McIntosh, train in the U.S. but won a bevy of medals for their home countries.

Marchand, who captured four individual golds as well as a relay bronze, is coached by Bowman, best known as the guy who guided Michael Phelps throughout his record-setting career. It was a bit strange to see Bowman in a France shirt, working on the coaching staff of Marchand’s nation.

After a break to savor his Olympic triumph, Marchand will return to the U.S. to continue his work with Bowman, who now heads the swimming program at the University of Texas.

“Look at Bob Bowman. He doesn’t care if you’re from the USA or whatever,” said Shane Ryan, an American-born swimmer who competes for Ireland. “He just wants to coach the fastest swimmers at all times.”

McIntosh trains with a team in Sarasota, Florida, where she honed the form that produced three individual gold medals — the most ever by a Canadian athlete — and a silver.

“I think competition is great,” said longtime American stalwart Ryan Murphy, who trains with several international athletes at Cal-Berkeley including Spain’s Hugo González. “He’s pushed me a lot. There’s plenty of days where he’s right next to me and helping me get better.”

Murphy said it’s only natural in today’s information-driven world that more nations are rising up to challenge the U.S.

“People will take a video of what they’re doing in practice and put it up on social media right away,” he said. “The learning curve is so quick around the world. That’s a big reason why there’s so many talented athletes across the world now.”

The U.S. certainly has its shining moments in Paris.

Katie Ledecky won two more golds, moving her into a tie for second place among all athletes on the career list with nine. She also joined Phelps as the only swimmers to win the same event at four straight Summer Games with her victory in the 800-meter freestyle.

The women’s team produced several more stars, including Torri Huske (three golds, two silvers), Gretchen Walsh (two golds, two silvers) and Regan Smith (two golds, three silvers).

But there were plenty of disappointments, particular on the men’s side.

Caeleb Dressel, a big star at the Tokyo Games with five gold medals, finished sixth in the 50 freestyle and didn’t even qualify for the final of the 100 butterfly.

Murphy settled for a bronze in the 100 backstroke and, like Dressel, failed to qualify for the final of his other individual event, the 200 back.

In all, the American men produced only two gold medals, and they didn’t pick up an individual victory until Finke’s world record in the 1,500 freestyle on the final night.

“You always want to be better,” said Anthony Nesty, head coach of the men’s team. “Yes, we want our athletes to win gold medals, but the other teams have great athletes as well. We have to go back, all the coaches in the U.S., get back on it and hopefully four years from now we have a better result. From the men, for sure.”

The depth of the American team remains its biggest strength. Even with four of its most prominent stars — Dressel, Murphy, Lilly King and Simone Manuel — managing only one individual medal (Murphy’s bronze in the 100 back), the U.S. easily led the overall medals table with 28.

Three of the four world records set at the meet came from the Americans, two of them in relays.

“Whether our athletes won a gold medal or failed to make a semifinal or whatever it might be,” said U.S. women’s coach Todd DeSorbo, “you’ve got to learn from it, go back home and be better.”

___

The post Americans have more depth than anyone at the pool, but gold medals harder and harder to come by appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Beyond the severe pain in his right ankle on Sunday night in Miami Gardens, the tears on the face of Argentina’s captain showed a deeper anguish.

Despite winning the title in one of his “last battles,” as Messi described this Copa, the 37-year-old superstar did not pass the fitness test that could have opened the way for him to play his sixth World Cup in 2026.

Argentina successfully defended its South American title with a hard-fought 1-0 extra-time win against Colombia. Messi left the pitch in Hard Rock Stadium in the 64th minute, breaking down without being touched.

The Copa was Messi’s first major tournament since leaving European soccer to play in the less competitive Major League Soccer in the U.S. Still, he has missed several games over the last year for his Inter Miami club and Argentina due to muscle issues.

Messi felt muscular pains in his right leg in the second group match against Chile, which sidelined him from the following game against Peru. He did not deliver an impressive performance in the quarterfinals against Ecuador and missed his chance in the penalty shootout. In the semifinal victory over Canada, he scored his only goal in the tournament in the 2-0 win.

With a limp, Messi celebrated his second Copa title in modest fashion on the field. The injury still hurt the star on Monday.

“One more,” he said on his social media channels.

Messi did not speak to the media after the injury, and Argentina did not give details about the damage.

Messi’s farewell to the national team is still on hold, but there’s other players aged above 35 who are likely to have played their last major international tournament; winger Ángel Di María (36), defender Nicolás Otamendi (36), and substitute goalkeeper Franco Armani (37).

Argentina does have up-and-coming players and a squad averaging 28 years of age when the veterans are not counted. That is partly why it held strong against Colombia despite the absence of its star for 56 minutes of play.

“I don’t know whether we marked an era, but this team never ceases to surprise. It recovers from difficulties,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said. “When (Messi) leaves, the team multiplies with the one that comes in and we play better in a different way.”

Young talents such as Alejandro Garnacho, Valentín Carboni, Thiago Almada, Claudio Echeverri and Valentín Barco are not to be compared with the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, but they can help Argentina remain competitive when it defends the World Cup in 2026.

Key squad members such as goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, defender Cristian Romero, midfielder Rodrigo de Paul and striker Lautaro Martínez are likely to remain.

Argentina will return to action in September in World Cup qualifying against Chile and Colombia. The Argentines lead South America. That international window will give more hints about whether Messi’s legend will go on or stop at Sunday’s title.

The post Messi loses fitness battle at Copa America, puts goal of playing 6th World Cup on hold appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

A 62-page report written by two lawyers — Mary Beth Hogan and David O’Neil of Washington, D.C.-based firm Debevoise & Plimpton — was presented to the USTA Board of Directors last week and made public Thursday.

“The USTA complies with all of the requirements of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, and in several respects has policies and procedures that are more protective than the Center’s requirements. … We did, however, identify several ways to increase player safety that the USTA should consider adopting,” Hogan and O’Neil wrote.

The report arrives less than two months after a tennis player was awarded $9 million in damages by a jury in federal court in Florida following her accusation that the USTA failed to protect her from a coach she said sexually abused her at one of its training centers when she was a teenager. O’Neil — former head of the Justice Department’s criminal division — and Hogan wrote that their “review did not encompass the investigations of specific incidents involving allegations of sexual misconduct apart from reviewing whether the USTA met its obligations when abuse was reported to the USTA” and so they “did not investigate the events leading to” that Florida case.

They also noted that the USTA was a defendant in four other lawsuits — one of which resulted in a settlement — related to sexual abuse of tennis players over the last two decades.

The lawyers said they conducted “a thorough independent review” of the USTA’s “current policies and procedures for preventing, reporting, and responding to reports of abuse, including sexual misconduct.”

The review encompassed interviews with USTA employees and access to hundreds of the organization’s documents. It also included an assessment of safeguarding at 51 other national governing bodies for sports in the United States, Paralympic sports organizations and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, along with the guidelines set forth by the U.S. Center for SafeSport.

The report says “the Board expressed its intention to incorporate” the suggestions into the USTA’s Safe Play Program.

“We view this report, including recommendations from the Debevoise team, as an important step forward in our efforts to further ensure a safe environment for all those involved in the sport of tennis,” USTA CEO and executive director Lew Sherr said in a written statement. “We are working to implement the recommendations as thoroughly and swiftly as possible.”

The 19 recommendations include:

— seven that “focus on preventing misconduct before it occurs;”

— nine related to keeping “individuals who are known to have engaged in misconduct” away from USTA facilities and events, including by making information about them more broadly known, because, the report says, “one of the biggest concerns parents and players have relates to individuals who are known to have engaged in misconduct — either due to an adverse action by the Center or a criminal prosecution — but attempt to continue participating in tennis,” including by appearing “at USTA-sanctioned tournaments as spectators;”

— two “aimed at expanding the number of individuals who get Safe Play Approved … and individuals who take SafeSport training, particularly parents,” who “are often unaware of the ways in which coaches may manipulate both minor athletes and their parents, and it may be particularly difficult to identify problematic behavior when a parent is hopeful that a coach will help progress their child’s success in the sport;”

— and one that “calls for additional staffing and resources” for the USTA’s Safe Play Program to help adopt the recommendations.

The review says the USTA has only three employees “dedicated to developing and implementing the Safe Play Program and monitoring compliance,” and its three campuses for player development — in New York, Florida and California — “do not have staff members designated exclusively to overseeing athlete safety.”

The post The US Tennis Association can do more to prevent abuse such as sexual misconduct appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Subscribers to the NFL’s “Sunday Ticket” package are claiming the league broke antitrust laws by selling its package of out-of-market Sunday afternoon games airing on CBS and Fox at what the lawsuit says was an inflated price. The subscribers also claim the league restricted competition by offering “Sunday Ticket” only on a satellite provider.

The NFL maintains it has the right to sell “Sunday Ticket” under its antitrust exemption for broadcasting. The plaintiffs say that only covers over-the-air broadcasts and not pay TV.

The case got underway on June 6 in Los Angeles.

How did this case get to trial?
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar in San Francisco. On June 30, 2017, U.S. District Court Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell dismissed the lawsuit and ruled for the NFL because she said “Sunday Ticket” did not reduce output of NFL games and that even though DirecTV might have charged inflated prices, that did not “on its own, constitute harm to competition” because it had to negotiate with the NFL to carry the package. Two years later, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over California and eight other states, reinstated the case. On Feb. 7, 2023, U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez ruled the case could proceed as a class action. Gutierrez on Jan. 12 rejected a final attempt by the NFL to dismiss the case.

Who are the plaintiffs?
The class action applies to more than 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses, mostly bars and restaurants, that purchased “NFL Sunday Ticket” from June 17, 2011, to Feb. 7, 2023. Google’s YouTube TV became the “Sunday Ticket” provider last season.

What are the chances of the NFL winning?
The NFL might be the king of American sports and one of the most powerful leagues in the world but it often loses in court, especially in Los Angeles. It was in an LA federal court in 1982 that a jury ruled the league violated antitrust rules by not allowing Al Davis to move the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles.

This is one of the rare times when a high-profile case where league financial matters would become public has gone to court without the NFL first settling. In 2021, the league settled with St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority for $790 million over the relocation of the Rams to Los Angeles.

Why is the NFL facing long odds?
According to memos presented by attorneys for the plaintiffs, Fox and CBS have always wanted the league to charge premium prices for “Sunday Ticket” so that it doesn’t eat into local ratings — the more subscribers to “Sunday Ticket,” the greater the threat to local audience numbers.

During opening statements, attorney Amanda Bonn showed a 2020 term sheet by Fox Sports demanding the NFL ensure “Sunday Ticket” would be priced above $293.96 per season.

When the “Sunday Ticket” contract was up for bid in 2022, ESPN wanted to offer the package on its streaming service for $70 per season along with offering a team-by-team product, according to an email shown by Bonn. That was rejected by the NFL.

How much could this cost the NFL?
If the NFL is found liable, a jury could award $7 billion in damages, but that number could balloon to $21 billion because antitrust cases can triple damages.

But when would the league have to show the subscribers the money?
Not for awhile, since the NFL would appeal to the 9th Circuit and possibly the Supreme Court after that.

What other ways could “Sunday Ticket” subscribers find lower prices?
The NFL could offer a team-by-team package, something done by Major League Baseball and the NBA for its out-of-market packages, and actively market a weekly package if fans didn’t like games being shown in their area.

Could this impact other sports?
Since all the major leagues offer out-of-market packages, they are keeping an eye on this case since individual teams selling their out-of-market streaming rights, especially in baseball, would further separate the haves from the have nots.

—-

The post Here’s what you need to know about the lawsuit against the NFL by ‘Sunday Ticket’ subscribers appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

It looked great on paper. It added up to exactly zero playoff wins.

The Suns were knocked out of the playoffs Sunday night after a 122-116 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, despite a 49-point effort from Booker and 33 points from Durant. The four-game sweep was a gut punch for a team that entered the season with championship aspirations.

Now the Suns have to decide whether to blow up the roster or run it back. Booker — who led the Suns to the Finals in 2021 before losing to the Bucks in six games — sounded as though he votes for the latter.

“It’s a tough league,” Booker said. “At the end of all this, there’s only going to be one winner. Everybody that doesn’t win is going to go into somewhat of a panic mode and feel like they have to make changes — do this and do that.

“But I think, over time, experience is the best teacher. The more you can spend time and feel this hurt together, go through it together, the better off you are in the future.”

Sticking together might be the only real choice the Suns have.

Phoenix general manager James Jones doesn’t have much room to maneuver under the league’s salary cap unless major changes are made. Durant, Booker and Beal all have big salaries and Grayson Allen just received a $70 million, four-year extension.

Allen led the league in 3-point shooting percentage this season and averaged a career-high 13.8 points per game, but suffered a sprained ankle in Game 1 against the Wolves and wasn’t able to contribute much.

The biggest question revolves around the future of first-year coach Frank Vogel, who struggled to turn this Suns team into a consistent winner. Owner Mat Ishbia has been unafraid to make big changes during his first 18 months.

But Vogel said on Sunday he expects to be back for a second season.

“I’ve got the full support of Mat Ishbia,” he said before Game 4.

To be fair, Vogel was given a tough assignment thanks to questionable roster construction. The Suns didn’t have a true point guard — asking Booker and Beal to handle that responsibility — and the team struggled all year with turnovers.

Beal was also hurt for a big chunk of the first half of the season, costing valuable time as the team tried to learn to play together.

The 35-year-old Durant continued to defy Father Time with another stellar season, averaging more than 27 points per game. He’s one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, but it’s also fair to wonder how long he can play at this elite level.

Booker and Durant are among the 12 players who will represent the U.S. in the Paris Olympics this summer.

“You reflect back on the season, we were just inconsistent with our play and the style of play that we wanted,” Durant said. “But I think guys will dig deep this summer, work on what they need to work on individually, the coaches will make adjustments because we’ve got stuff on film from all season on who we can be.”

—

The post The Suns built a superteam with Durant, Booker and Beal. It produced zero playoff wins appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

He was constantly checking the fine print on the ingredients in sunscreen. It reached a point a few weeks ago when the 42-year-old Colombian was trying three brands — one for his face, another for his arms, a third for his legs during practice rounds when PGA Tour players can wear shorts.

Nothing is left to chance.

“The first one I realized was more of a cosmetic. It didn’t really work as strong as I wanted,” Villegas said. “I’m trying a Korean brand now, and that has worked pretty good.”

Skin cancer has his attention — along with many of his fellow golfers.

There seems to be a renewed emphasis on sun protection. Golfers are more exposed to the sun for longer periods of time than players in any other sport. The weekday rounds last five hours. Throw in an hour of practice before the round, sometimes after, and it adds up quickly.

No need telling Stewart Cink. He was walking off the practice range at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, last month when he was asked why sun protection was important to him.

“Well, as someone whose maternal grandmother passed away from melanoma, and someone who’s out in the sun a whole lot and someone who already had a big chunk of stuff cut off the side of my face,” he said, pausing to smile. “It very important, not to mention what my wife is going through with her (breast cancer) treatment. It would be dumb not to.”

The American Academy of Dermatology Association estimates one in five Americans will develop skin cancer. The non-melanoma variety, such as basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, affects 3 million Americans a year.

Sunscreen is just one form of protection.

Stephanie Kyriacou of Australia has always been conscious about the effects of the sun, but a turning point during her amateur days was meeting a woman at home Down Under who invited her to a factory in Queensland.

That was her introduction to Australia-based “SParms,” which makes sun protection sleeves that have become enormously popular on the LPGA Tour.

The sleeves are made of high-tech fabric with an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of at least 50, meaning it blocks 98% of the sun’s ray. The sleeves can go up the arm and wrap around the shoulder blade.

“Like a lot of girls out here, I’m aware of my skin,” Kyriacou said. “Sunscreen on my face and SParms on my arms. And I like to wear pants unless it’s boiling hot.”

Now there are some 60 players at any given tournament wearing sun sleeves.

Kyriacou estimates she’s in the sun for at least seven or eight hours a day, and the 23-year-old Aussie has been playing since she was 4.

That’s typical of most tour players. They have spent practically their entire lives in the sun, facing the ultraviolet rays that can cause so much damage.

Exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet light raises the risk of skin cancer, the most common and one of the most preventable types of cancer. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends using a sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of 30 or higher and one that is “broad spectrum,” meaning it protects against both UVA and UVB rays.

“I don’t think I wore sunscreen ever,” Cink said. “You know, we use to wear suntan lotion or oil that would intensify the sun so you would get tan. I don’t think I wore anything protective at least until I got on tour.”

It wasn’t until he was 45 that Cink fully understood the danger. He had a basal cell carcinoma removed from the side of his nose in 2018. And now it’s not just any sunscreen he uses.

“I am not a big fan of chemical sunscreen,” he said, referring to the more common brands. “I like the physical barriers, the zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. I look for something that has a high concentration of those two. You can find them if you search.”

Villegas found it on an app called Yuka, which deciphers product labels and analyzes the impact of food and cosmetics. That includes sunscreen.

Skin cancer doesn’t discriminate, so golfers of color also are seeking protection.

Xander Schauffele has darker skin, the son of a Taiwanese-born mother and a European father (French and German). He also uses the Yuka app and lately has been going with a product he calls Mr. Seaweed.

“It has less toxic stuff, I’ve been told by an app,” he said. “Sprays are bad. Cream is the best thing. I look up all that stuff.”

Justin Thomas, a two-time PGA champion whose father and grandfather were club professionals, said he has always used sunscreen, usually whatever is handy. Now he pays closer attention, and for good reason.

He said his legs and neck used to get hit pretty hard by the sun when he was practicing for long hours. He previously had five small moles removed as a teenager. But a tiny one on the back of his left leg concerned him in 2019 because of the odd color.

It turned out to be early stages of melanoma — the most dangerous form of skin cancer but curable if caught early — and he had surgery in which doctors cut down to the fat to make sure they got it all. The surgery left a scar across the back of his calf.

“I was 26 and my doctors are telling me I was months away from being a patient in the hospital,” Thomas said.

He wore sunscreen before. Now he is reading labels, paying particular attention to SPF and getting out the message that “you need to wear sunscreen and you need to get checked.”

—

The post Golfers follow the sun. Now they are paying closer attention how to protect themselves from it appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

That’s one reason why the Texas Rangers right-hander thinks Major League Baseball needs to look a lot deeper than a roster limit if it wants to return starting pitching to prominence.

“I became a better pitcher once I went through three times in the lineup and was failing on that third time through the lineup,” the 39-year-old Scherzer said. “That’s every young pitcher’s struggle, is learning how to pitch three times through a lineup. … We’re so scared now to let guys fail.”

The state of starting pitching has the attention of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who said in October the league is considering lowering the maximum of 13 pitchers per team to 12 possibly as soon as the 2025 season — with the goal of placing a greater emphasis on starting pitchers.

Big league starters averaged 15.4 outs and 85.1 pitches last year, according to Sportradar, and 15.6 outs and 84.9 pitches in 2022. But the numbers were 17.4 and 93.1 as late as 2015, and 17.8 and 98.6 in 2000.

“I grew up a fan of the game, and me and my dad used to pick Astros games based on when Roy Oswalt was pitching,” Chicago Cubs right-hander Jameson Taillon said. “We would look at pitching matchups, that’s what we would do. Nowadays, I feel like that allure is gone a little bit.”

MLB wants to put that allure back in the game, but it’s a tricky, multifaceted issue.

Pitching prospects are closely monitored on their way to the majors, and deviating from the organization’s plan could put the careers of minor league managers and coaches at risk. There is more arm talent in big league bullpens than ever before, and reams of data that illustrate the danger of leaving a pitcher in for too long.

“From a fan perspective, yeah, to see a guy in there to go seven, eight innings, I absolutely get it,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Doesn’t necessarily help you win baseball games, and I’m in the business of winning games.”

While a 12-pitcher limit could incentivize teams to let starting pitchers go deeper into games, it would add more stress to bullpens. It also could prompt teams to shuttle their middle relievers from the majors to the minor leagues even more — regardless of their performance.

The long-term answer most likely lies in the lower levels of the minors and how baseball develops its next generation of starters.

“It starts with training in the minor leagues,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s where it all begins. It’s hard to do it when guys are coming up. They’re not trained to do that. Now you’re going to ask them to get you deeper in the games and now you’re risking injury. So you got to be smart about that.”

The focus in the minors is more on stuff, Taillon said, and trying “to raise guys’ ceiling at a young age.”

“You see guys nowadays get called up who’ve never thrown five innings in their life,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

Pitch counts, especially for baseball’s top prospects, prevent pitchers from working deep into games in the minors.

Scherzer, who threw at least 95 pitches in 15 starts last year, thinks more latitude in the minors would help.

“I’ve been developed to throw, call it 105, 110 pitches on a five-day rotation,” he said. “It’s the rest. It’s more about the pitch count and then getting the appropriate amount of the rest. I don’t understand why we keep cutting that pitch count lower and lower, especially for the guys who are being developed.”

Scherzer called a 12-pitcher roster limit “a terrible idea,” but he agreed that it would take some sort of action to reverse the current trend with starting pitching.

“We need to incentivize keeping the starter in the game longer,” he said. “We’re going to have to come up with rules to do this. It’s not going to self-correct.”

Once pitchers make it to the majors, they are often pulled before the lineup turns over a third time because of statistics that show hitters typically have more success in their third plate appearance against the same pitcher.

It could be an ace right-hander rolling along with a low pitch count — with no sign of trouble — and the manager makes the move because it’s easier to address why he took him out than why he left him in for too long. That’s an attitude that would be difficult for Major League Baseball to take out of the game.

“Trusting what you’re seeing, trusting your eyes and knowing when those times are to be able to let them go, I think you might start to see that come back a little bit more,” Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “There’s no refuting the numbers. It’s just like being able to recognize when it’s time to let them let them go.”

—

The post MLB wants to make starting pitching more prominent, but it’s a tough task in today’s game appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

He just wants to see it thaw as quickly as possible.

“Those guys should be in camp,” Vogt said. “I don’t know who is at fault, I don’t know why, I don’t need to know. But our game’s at its best when the best players are on the field.

“I hope those guys sign soon.”

The guys Vogt is referring to are a half-dozen high-quality free agents who remain unsigned as the calendar nears March.

The resumes are impressive: two-time Cy Young Award-winning lefty Blake Snell, former MVP Cody Bellinger, six-time All-Star J.D. Martinez, four-time Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman, two-time All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson and left-hander Jordan Montgomery, who helped the Rangers to a World Series title last fall.

Vogt — of course — doesn’t make front-office decisions. However, 15 of the 30 general managers who do were at Cactus League media day on Tuesday.

Nobody seemed particularly desperate to make moves.

“It ebbs and flows, but there have been years, like I remember I was in Cleveland, and we signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn late in camp,” Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins said. “So it’s not out of the ordinary.”

This year’s free-agent market peaked in December, when the Los Angeles Dodgers spent more than $1 billion to sign two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and right-handed pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The defending National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks were also among the teams active early, signing lefty Eduardo Rodriguez to an $80 million, four-year deal.

D-backs general manager Mike Hazen said he didn’t want to speculate on other teams’ strategies.

“I can’t answer for everybody else,” Hazen said. “I feel like we’ve made a decent amount of transactions. We’re looking to help build our team any way we can and we’ve ended up getting a couple of deals done.”

The Los Angeles Angels and San Diego Padres are two teams that have spent big in the past, but seem to be taking a more cautious approach in 2024. The Boston Red Sox have been fairly quiet, too, and third baseman Rafael Devers said Tuesday his team could use some help.

“Everybody has a different perspective,” Angels GM Perry Minasian said. “Every offseason is different. I don’t think there’s any offseason that’s the same, because it’s a different pool of players. For me, we’re worried about what we have, not what we don’t have.”

The Padres had the third-highest payroll in baseball last season at $258 million, but finished 82-80 and missed the playoffs. The franchise has been in cost-cutting mode since.

San Diego still has a talented roster with a lineup that includes Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts. General manager A.J. Preller seems content to see where that group leads the Padres this summer, even though the team hasn’t ruled out adding players.

“That’s a pretty good place to start,” Preller said. “From our standpoint, it’s a good foundation.”

The 39-year-old Vogt is just two seasons removed from his 10-year playing career and has some personal experience with late signings. He signed with the Giants just as spring training began in 2019 and signed with the A’s a week before the season started in 2022.

“It’s weird,” Vogt said. “You feel like you’ve got to hurry up and get there. You feel like you’ve missed the 8-ball. You believe you’re going to get a job, but there’s also that ‘What if I never get the call?’ It can weigh on you.

“There’s a lot of good players out there who are probably thinking the same thing.”

—

The post Premium talent is still available on MLB’s free-agent market, but GMs don’t seem in a hurry appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

Amazingly, there is still something no player who ended his college career playing for the Crimson Tide has done: score a point in a Super Bowl.

That won’t change this year with neither the Chiefs nor the 49ers having a former Alabama player on the active roster.

Players from 143 colleges have scored a point in a Super Bowl with Miami players leading the way with 84, followed by Florida (82 points), Penn State (81) and Notre Dame and California (66 each).

Even the Coast Guard Academy has gotten into the act with an extra point by Washington’s Curt Knight in a 14-7 loss in Super Bowl 7.

The streak for the program with a record 12 Associated Press titles and the most NFL players (68) this season nearly ended a year ago when DeVonta Smith caught a 45-yard pass for Philadelphia before being ruled out at the 2.

That pass was thrown by Jalen Hurts, who began his college career at Alabama but entered the NFL out of Oklahoma. Hurts scored 20 points in that game with three TD runs and a 2-point conversion run.

Alabama has had Super Bowl success at quarterback with the first three MVPs being Crimson Tide products, along with Super Bowl 11 winner Ken Stabler.

Bart Starr threw two TD passes for Green Bay against Kansas City in Super Bowl 1 and added another the following year against the Raiders. But the NFL credits points to the player who catches a TD pass not the thrower.

Joe Namath won MVP for the Jets in Super Bowl 3 against the Colts without scoring or throwing for a TD. Stabler had one TD pass in his win for Oakland against Minnesota.

COMEBACK KIDS
San Francisco reached the Super Bowl thanks to an epic comeback against Detroit in the NFC title game.

The 49ers rallied from being down 24-7 at halftime to win 34-31 and advance to their eighth Super Bowl — tied for the second most ever.

The comeback tied the biggest in NFC championship history with the Niners also coming back from 17 points down to beat Atlanta 28-24 in the 2012 season.

It was one point shy of the biggest comeback in any conference championship game with Cincinnati coming back from 18 points down to beat Kansas City two years ago and Indianapolis doing the same against New England in the 2006 season.

The only other comeback that big in either a Super Bowl or NFL championship game was the Patriots’ rally from 28-3 down to beat Atlanta 34-28 in overtime in Super Bowl 51.

Overall in the playoffs, teams leading by at least 17 points at halftime were 107-6 before the loss by the Lions.

San Francisco also came back from seven points down in the fourth quarter to beat Green Bay in the previous round, becoming the eighth team to overcome second-half deficits in both the divisional round and the conference championship game.

ROAD WARRIORS
Kansas City didn’t play a single road game in their first five postseasons with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback.

That didn’t stop them from becoming a dominant traveling show on the way to a fourth Super Bowl appearance in five seasons.

The Chiefs followed a win at Buffalo in the divisional round by winning at Baltimore in the AFC championship game.

With a win next week against San Francisco, Kansas City will become the 10th team to win the Super Bowl after going on the road in the divisional round and conference championship. The Chiefs were the first team to do it in the 1969 season when they beat the Jets and Raiders on the way to Super Bowl 4.

The only franchise to do it twice was the Giants in 2007 and 2011.

The other teams to do it were the Tampa Bay in 2020, Baltimore in 2012, Green Bay in 2010, Pittsburgh in 2005, Denver in 1997 and the Oakland Raiders in 1980.

PROTECT THE BALL
Mahomes set one record and protected another on championship Sunday.

Mahomes became the first quarterback to go six straight playoff starts without throwing an interception with his last pick coming in overtime of a loss to Cincinnati in the 2021 AFC title game.

Six players had done it in five straight playoff starts: Joe Montana, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Drew Brees, Jeff Hostetler and Tony Eason.

San Francisco’s Brock Purdy missed joining that group when he threw his first career postseason interception in a 34-31 win over Detroit in the NFC title game. Purdy’s 114 consecutive passes without an interception to start his playoff career was the fifth longest streak, according to Sportradar.

Mahomes holds the record with 163 attempts, followed by Josh Allen (155), Alex Smith (119) and Jeff Hostetler, who has no interceptions in 115 career attempts in the playoffs.

CLEAN SWEEP
The 49ers finished off a clean sweep of the NFC’s other playoff teams.

The win against the Detroit Lions gave the Niners victories against the other six teams in the NFC that made the postseason. The last team to beat every other playoff team in their conference in the regular season or postseason was the 1993 Chiefs.

San Francisco also beat Pittsburgh in the opener, giving the 49ers wins against seven opponents who made the playoffs. Only five other teams have done that in NFL history: the 2022 Chiefs, the 2015 Broncos, the 2007 Patriots, the 2006 Colts and the 1982 Jets.

With a win against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, San Francisco will be the first team to beat eight opponents who made the playoffs.

___

The post An Alabama draft pick has never scored in a Super Bowl. That won’t change this year. appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.

More than 90,000 fans showed up for an outdoor match in Nebraska’s football stadium last summer, and the NCAA semifinal and championship matches set attendance and television viewership records.

The next sign of the sport’s evolution in this country was on display Wednesday night when the Atlanta Vibe played the Omaha Supernovas in the debut of the Pro Volleyball Federation.

The PVF is one of three U.S. women’s professional leagues now operating or planned for players who previously had no choice but to go overseas to continue their careers. League One Volleyball is on track to launch in November. The five-week Athletes Unlimited league recently wrapped up its third season.

Tori Dixon, the 31-year-old middle blocker for the Supernovas, has played in Azerbaijan, Japan, Italy and China over seven pro seasons. She said there’s international buzz about the PVF, and former teammates have asked her to help them get a contract.

“Maybe it’s a little less money, but you get to stay home and be comfortable,” Dixon said. “Overseas is a grind. It’s really, really difficult. I think a lot of top players are choosing to stay home in the States.”

Besides Atlanta and Omaha, the PVF has teams in Columbus, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Big-name investors
Opening night was everything PVF officials could have wanted. A crowd of 11,624 turned out at the CHI Health Center, and it was treated to a five-set thriller won by the Vibe. Fans were enthusiastic until the end with encouragement from an arena emcee, music between points and high-level play.

“This was breaking ground for a professional volleyball league, and there could have been 800 people and a poorly played match,” Omaha coach Shelton Collier said. “It was an incredible match with an incredible crowd, an incredible atmosphere, incredible support staff. Whoever put on this production for the fans, it was amazing. It was epic.”

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Orlando Magic chairman Dan DeVos, three-time Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings and multi-platinum recording artist Jason Derulo are among PVF team owners.

Big-name investors in League One Volleyball, known as LOVB, include basketball stars Candace Parker, Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant, tennis icon Billie Jean King, skiing star Lindsey Vonn and entertainers Amy Schumer and Chelsea Handler.

LOVB’s franchises are owned by the league and have been announced in Atlanta, Houston, Omaha, Salt Lake City and Madison, Wisconsin.

The Athletes Unlimited league, co-founded by Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros, plays a five-week season at one site with 44 players who rotate weekly among four teams and are paid a minimum of $10,000.

PVF players are under contract for a 24-match regular season and playoffs running through May and are to be paid $60,000 with bonuses for individual and team performance. There also is revenue sharing. The league champion is promised $1 million to divide among players and staff. Housing is provided along with other benefits. Two players on each roster will live year-round in their market and be paid an additional $40,000 as ambassadors for their team.

LOVB has not announced its pay structure or schedule.

It’s possible to earn six figures overseas, with the very best players making into the millions. But many more get paid far less, and some don’t receive paychecks consistently.

College players stay in US
PVF co-founder Dave Whinham said of some 300 American women who played in other countries last year, at least 120 were in PVF training camps this winter.

“That’s impactful,” Whinham said. “What else is so cool is so many of them have been pros for five, six, seven, eight years. So we’re not walking into the North American professional sports scene as a minor league. We’re rocking it at a very high level.”

PVF held its college draft in December and league officials were pleased, if not a bit surprised, 30 of the 35 selected players signed contracts, including No. 1 overall pick Asjia O’Neal of Texas (Columbus). Including veterans, at least 35 players in the league have been members of national or Olympic teams.

PVF officials said their league’s competitive level this season probably won’t match that of the top leagues in Europe and Asia, but they predict it will within five years.

Whinham and PVF co-founder Stephen Evans have worked together on several sports and entertainment projects over 25 years and began planning for a women’s pro league as the volleyball boom started about 10 years ago.

League administration is headed by CEO Jen Spicher, a longtime business executive and former college player and club coach. Former Florida State coach Cecile Reynaud is vice president of operations and former Texas A&M coach Laurie Corbelli is operations consultant. Four-time U.S. Olympian Logan Tom is director of international development and player strategy.

The start is well-timed. The sport drew global attention in August when the largest documented crowd for a women’s sporting event (92,003) showed up to see perennial college power Nebraska play Omaha at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. More than 19,000 attended each of the two nights of the NCAA final four in Tampa, Florida. The championship match was televised on ABC for the first time and attracted 1.7 million viewers.

CBS Sports Network will televise at least 10 PVF regular-season matches in addition to the playoffs. The PVF also has streaming agreements with Bally Sports and Stadium.

While the PVF has a more traditional structure, each LOVB team is associated with a junior volleyball club in its market where the pros train alongside club players and join them in other activities.

“Most leagues start kind of top down, if you will,” CEO Katlyn Gao said. “They start with pro (team) and then do programs with local youth clubs. What we saw as an opportunity was how vibrant and expansive the network of youth volleyball there already is at the club level, so we’ve asked these clubs to join us.”

Pro league in 1980s
The most significant previous attempt to establish a U.S. pro league was Major League Volleyball. MLV came about following a mini volleyball boom after the United States won the silver medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Most players earned $5,000 and had day jobs as coaches or in the 9-to-5 world. The league folded for financial reasons a month into its third season in 1989.

The PVF’s Corbelli, one of the ‘84 Olympians who played in MLV, said she’s confident it’s the right time for a women’s pro league in this country. Athletes Unlimited is in a different orbit with its structure and short season. As for the PVF and LOVB, the questions are whether one or both can survive long-term even if they play different times of year or whether they will merge.

“The hardest part for me is all these volleyball people are a family. We all know each other. There’s no animosity. It’s just hard because we’re going to go head-to-head for players and cities. It’s going to have to happen until one league …” Corbelli said, her voice trailing off.

“As I look ahead,” she said, “I don’t know if it can sustain that way. It might. I’m no palm reader, but I just kind of think it would be nice to have one strong, great league. Both of these leagues really want to do it and make it work.”

—

The post US women’s professional volleyball void is filled, and possibly overflowing, with 3 upstart leagues appeared first on The Florida Daily Post.