That Was The Week That Was In Links - March 7, 2025
Some stuff I’ve consumed this week and items of note…
- More than 90% of NHL refs are wearing smartwatches designed to keep them safer on the ice. Per The Athletic:
One could make a strong case that officiating hockey is the most difficult of the major sports. It doesn’t have continual breaks in action, such as in football or baseball, and it moves much quicker — both the puck and the players — than basketball. And, with walls and glass surrounding the rink, there’s no quick way to escape the field of play to avoid contact.
As any fan knows, if you look away for even a second, the entire landscape of the ice can change. For officials, any time spent looking for the scoreboard high above the rink or on each end of the ice, is time they aren’t paying attention to the game on the ice.
The whole thing feels like a waste. The legacy and standard of the USWNT was compromised for Albert, and in return LGBTQ+ fans and allies feel discarded while the team fields a player who doesn’t do much to help them win. Korbin created the situation in which she’s currently in, and if internal work has truly been done, could at any time attempt to build a bridge by speaking on what she’s learned. Beyond that, there’s no public evidence that Hayes’ arm-around-the-shoulder approach has benefited Albert off the pitch, or the team she’s coaching on the pitch.
The schools that choose to opt in to the settlement are expected to have a salary cap of up to $20.5 million each to distribute to players. Under the guidance released during the final days of the Biden administration, they would have had to distribute that money between male and female athletes in proportion to their participation rates. Now, under Trump, that money is all but guaranteed to flow overwhelmingly to male athletes, mostly football and basketball players. For example, the University of Georgia plans to give 75 percent of its revenue-sharing to the football team, 15 percent to men’s basketball, 5 percent to women’s basketball, and the remaining 5 percent to all other sports. Other big-time sports schools are expected to follow a similar formula.
- Senate Democrats actually blocked a bill that would have banned federally-funded schools from allowing trans participation in girls’ and women’s sports.
- But then California Gov. Gavin Newsom came out against trans participation in sports. Let’s see how that plays out for him in four years when he is expected to try a presidential run and has morphed into 85% hair gel.
- Shortly after I published this piece on a renewed double standard regarding who and who does not have to “stick to sports,” The Athletic reported that “Stephen A. Smith has agreed to a new contract with ESPN worth at least $100 million for five years, an agreement that will result in Smith continuing to star on “First Take” on ESPN while scaling back some of his other required appearances on the network, which would free him up to talk even more about politics.”
- Speaking of other sports folks who don’t have to stick to that, Karim Zidan writes about how “Ali Abdelaziz, a former NYPD & FBI informant-turned-MMA power broker backed by key MAGA loyalists, is using his roster of fighters to push Trump’s federal takeover.”
- Spare a thought for a Canadian hero who has a sad that his country is giving him heat for supporting someone who wants to annex their country.
- Regarding what their attorneys call “an intergalactic paradigm shift” in college sports, “101,935 [current or former college athletes] had either filed a claim form or updated their payment information, which gives them a chance to receive a portion of the nearly $2.8 billion to be divvied among those who played before the NCAA approved name, image and likeness deals in 2021.”
- The ACC, Clemson, and Florida St. will remain together, but only because the two schools will now get a larger cut of conference TV money than the other ACC schools, and this may be a domino that leads other schools in power conferences to demand the same and eventually create superconferences.
- ESPN says that its women’s college hoops audience has greatly increased the last two seasons.
- PGA star Max Homa tells Sports Illustrated that he has quit X (Twitter) for good: “I think I finally had a come-to-Jesus moment that it’s for the sick. I was sick. I’m just trying to get healthy now. No, I have not enjoyed that app. It’s not very fun. It’s fun to watch our little highlights or lowlights, and that stuff is fun. The rest of it’s probably not great.”
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough
I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll…
This is what you get
When you mess with us - Radiohead, “Karma Police”
Weekend.
