ATLANTA — The Super Bowl is a bonanza for brands, advertisers and influencers. The prospect of attaching even the most unrelated product to the biggest television spectacle of the year means marketers are out hawking massage chairs, avocados and social media apps as somehow the perfect Super Bowl #content. You might not see any of this in the slew of […]

Earl Campbell, a former All-Pro running back in the N.F.L., said the first painkillers he took came in a small brown packet that a trainer gave him on the team plane. The former lineman Aaron Gibson received his first painkillers in his rookie year after undergoing shoulder surgery. Randy Grimes, a former center, started taking Vicodin and Halcion, a sleeping […]

Rudy Gobert should be an all-star this year. He’s averaging 15 points, 12.8 boards, and 2.2 blocks per game, and he anchors the league’s fifth-best defense, which is 7.7 points per 100 possessions better than league average when he plays. The Jazz have turned their season around and solidified a playoff spot as Gobert steadied things amid Donovan Mitchell’s shooting […]

On Friday, the Qatari national soccer team did what it had never done before, beating Japan 3-1 in the final of the Asian Cup to claim its first continental trophy ever. Qatar steam-rolled the entire competition, going undefeated in group play with a goal difference of +10 before nipping by perennial contenders Iraq and South Korea in the first two […]

The Knicks sent franchise centerpiece Kristaps Porzingis to the Mavericks on Thursday in exchange for a couple of future picks, two players they have no use for, and Dennis Smith Jr., an unhappy, defensively challenged, and poor-shooting point guard who struggled to fit with Luka Doncic and whom the Mavs were already actively trying to dump—and whom the Knicks already […]

If advance interest in season tickets is any indication, the Winnipeg Ice won’t have to worry about local sports fans being burned out on too much hockey. The WHL franchise, which will be relocating from Cranbrook, B.C. next season, caused a lot of debate over whether it would be able to compete in a crowded market against established NHL and […]

LAUSANNE (AFP) – Twelve Russian track and field athletes, including 2012 Olympic high jump champion Ivan Ukhov, have been suspended for doping, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced on Friday (Feb 1). The suspensions range between two to eight-year bans, with 2013 world high jump gold medallist Svetlana Shkolina also suspended. CAS had been ruling in the cases […]

The cross-code former England star will be on the Irish bench as defence coach while his son captains the Red Rose. Six Nations 2019 fixtures, results and standings Why is Andy Farrell the Ireland defence coach? After a year as Saracens first team coach, Farrell joined England's coaching team in 2012. In 2013, he toured with the British and Irish […]

  ATLANTA – Rob Gronkowski can’t avoid the question.  Everyone wants to know if Super Bowl LIII represents the last hurrah for the New England Patriots’ larger-than-life tight end. With each day, the tally rises.  Asked how many questions regarding his future he has fielded this week, Gronk paused, leaned into the mic, said “Thirty,” in a drawn-out manner that betrayed […]

Most fans probably think the Saturday night before the Super Bowl has to be the most stressful night of the players' lives. That it's a night of tossing and turning in bed while thinking about what they'll be playing for on Sunday, how big the stage will be, and how fortunate they are to be living their dreams. So I […]