Andrew Kerth 
The Seattle Seahawks just sold for $9.612 billion — the biggest price ever paid for an NFL team and the second-biggest for any sports franchise on Earth, landing within sight of the $10 billion Lakers deal that tops the all-time list. Two of the three largest team sales in history have now happened within about … Read more
MLB’s luxury tax — officially the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) — is baseball’s substitute for a salary cap: teams can spend whatever they want, but every dollar above a set threshold gets taxed at escalating rates that reach 110% for the biggest repeat spenders. In 2026, the final year of the current labor deal, the … Read more
No nation has a relationship with the penalty shootout like England’s. Ten shootouts at major tournaments, seven defeats, a thirty-year stretch in which “penalties” became shorthand for national sporting trauma, and then, in the modern era, something like a cure. With England facing Norway in Saturday’s World Cup quarterfinal, and the memory of every knockout … Read more
Lionel Messi is 39 years old, has scored eight goals at this World Cup, owns the all-time tournament scoring record, and every match Argentina plays now doubles as a global farewell watch: is this actually his last World Cup? The short answer is that everything, his age, his own words, his contract, the calendar, says … Read more
Saturday’s Norway-England quarterfinal is many things, but at its center it’s the purest striker duel this World Cup can stage: Erling Haaland vs. Harry Kane, two of the three most complete No. 9s alive, meeting in a knockout match for the first time in their careers. One is 26, a goal-scoring cyborg authoring the greatest … Read more
One point from losing everything is tennis’s most honest location, and the short list of players who stood there and still won the trophy is the sport’s most exclusive club. Carlos Alcaraz holds the modern record, three championship points saved in last year’s French Open final against Jannik Sinner, and the club’s older members include … Read more
Argentina vs. Switzerland in Saturday’s World Cup quarterfinal in Kansas City is a rematch twelve years in the making: the last time these teams met at a World Cup, it took until the 118th minute, an Ángel Di María winner from a Messi surge, and a missed Swiss header in the dying seconds to separate … Read more
Norway play England in a World Cup quarterfinal on Saturday, and here is the sentence that explains the entire buildup: Norway has never been here before. Not once, in 96 years of World Cups, has Norway reached a quarterfinal, and the nation arrives via the most Norwegian route imaginable: by beating Brazil, the one giant … Read more
While the world watches Messi, Mbappé, and Haaland trade records at the top of the Golden Boot race, Harry Kane has staged the stealthiest climb in World Cup history: 14 career goals, as of this month tied with the legendary Gerd Müller for fifth all-time, compiled in just 16 matches, and still counting, with a … Read more
Sunday’s Wimbledon final has a problem that’s also its plot: Jannik Sinner has beaten Alexander Zverev nine consecutive times. It’s the most lopsided head-to-head a No. 1 vs. No. 2 major final has ever carried, so lopsided that Zverev, asked after his semifinal which opponent he’d prefer, deadpanned: “I hope I can play a junior.” … Read more