General

For fans of some sports, particularly boxing, MMA, tennis and snooker, two words have become synonymous with the action: Riyadh Season. It’s been the snappy hashtag used by Saudi Arabia in a bid to normalise its ‘takeover’ of international sport, which has seen a number of high-profile events held in the country. Prior to 2020, […]

At the start of the 2024 F1 season, the bookmakers had Max Verstappen down as a 1/8 chance to win yet another Drivers’ Championship. His Red Bull team was even shorter than that – quotes of 1/20 the best available – to win a third consecutive Constructors’ Championship. And then, well…. There’s every chance that […]

One of the stars of the Euros in 2024 was Lamine Yamal, the impossibly young Spanish winger. He broke all manner of records when scoring against France in the semi-final of the tournament – of them, becoming the youngest goalscorer at a European Championship or World Cup at the age of 16 years, 362 days….younger […]

There’s something masochistic about the play-off system in sport. You see it every year in English football, or in elite basketball and American football franchises like the NBA and NFL. The regular league campaign counts for very little as the pressure of the post-season is ramped up; hopes fade and dreams are shattered in this […]

The so-called biological clock dictates that most women are at their most fertile in their twenties and early thirties, which can lead to some awkward conversations no doubt for female athletes at the peak of their powers in that age range. They must decide whether to put off having children until the end of their […]

The contenders for the 2023 BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) have been announced and the diverse list features sportspeople from cricket (Stuart Broad), horse racing (Frankie Dettori), football (Mary Earps), golf (Rory McIlroy), athletics (Katarina Johnson-Thompson) and wheelchair tennis (Alfie Hewitt). We’ve seen SPOTY winners from all those sports before, except wheelchair tennis […]

Betting odds also double up as a predictor of how likely something is to happen in the eyes of bookmakers and the punting public. These odds can easily be translated into implied probabilities – for example, you’d get at least 1,000/1 on there being an alien invasion of earth this year; a probability of 0.1%, […]

The most glorious way to win something is to be the best – there’s no feeling like it. But if you can win something by being the only participant….well, that still counts. And it’s by that logic that the United Kingdom and Ireland will ‘win’ the right to host Euro 2028 – the only other […]

The pressure of winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games is hard enough as it is. But imagine if winning said gold not only delivered glory for you and your glory, but it also ensured you would be exempt from completing mandatory military service. It might sound strange, but that’s exactly the scenario that […]

One of the greatest moments in sport, certainly for professional athletes, was the day that they realised that they were commercial commodities as well as supremely-talented individuals. Amongst the first sponsorship deals ever penned by a sports star came in the late 1950s, when NFL ace Frank Gifford agreed to promote – incredibly by today’s […]

The world record attendance for a women’s sporting event has been broken – and by the most unlikely of candidates. A college volleyball game between Nebraska Cornhuskers and Omaha might not necessarily strike you as the hottest sporting ticket in town, but students love their NCAA sport in America and the gigantic Memorial Stadium in […]

Put two or more players on a court either side of the net, hand them a racquet and let them hit a ball to one another until one side is unable to return it. You may think we’re describing tennis, but there’s a hot new racquet sport in town. You may have heard the word […]

It’s amazing to think that even today, with all of the technologies we have at our disposal, that sports stars and criminal gangs believe they can get away with spot fixing. But it does still go on, and worryingly it seems deeply entrenched in Brazilian football, where 16 people – including seven players from top-tier […]

With thousands watching in person and millions more tuning in on TV, many sporting events in the UK and beyond provide the perfect platform for protestors and activists to have their 15 minutes of fame. Thankfully, stewards and security personnel are pretty savvy when it comes to spotting these things and are able to nip […]

It’s got poacher turned gamekeeper vibes about it. Is that why so few sportsmen and women go on to become a referee or match official in their chosen career? Perhaps, but some have given it a go – more on that shortly – and the latest cab off the rank is William ‘Smush’ Parker. He […]

As a 47-year-old global sporting icon, Tiger Woods really ought to have known better. After hitting a longer drive than playing partner Justin Thomas at the Genesis Invitational, golf’s greatest ever made an attempt to jokingly mock his mate by handing him a tampon. It might have been more forgivable if it had been a […]

There are several ways that the early weeks and months of 2023 in the UK could be summed up, with few of them particularly positive. Perhaps the most damning indictment of life in ’23 is the strike action that is rife amongst NHS workers, teachers, railway staff and other sectors. Whether you believe they are […]

Those working behind the scenes at a bookmaker or betting exchange will have a natural inclination as to how much will be bet, and in what markets, for any given sporting event. They will use past data to analyse expected takings, and while allowing for the differences of individual events – feisty local football derbies, […]

If you were an alien from outer space that landed on earth for the first time on January 4, 2023, and your first act was to peruse the horse racing results from Newcastle that day, you might think this betting lark was a blast. An extraordinary day of racing saw not one but two 100/1+ […]

It’s one of the worst things that a spectator at a sporting event can see: a player of official collapsing to the ground, for seemingly no reason, to the horror of those around them. Less than 18 months after Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest while representing Denmark at the rescheduled Euro 2020, NFL star […]

When Gerwyn Price strode out to play his World Darts Championship quarter-final against Gabriel Clemens wearing industrial ear defenders, many thought the Welshman was engaging in a spot of light-hearted banter with the crowd. The former world number one has been something of a pantomime villain with darts fans in recent years, with a spat […]

NBA outfit, Phoenix Suns, are set to be acquired for the princely sum of $4 billion (£3.3 billion). The buyout, financed by billionaire mortgage magnate, Mat Ishbia, would be the third most expensive in sporting history. Chelsea broke the record for that in 2022 when American businessman, Todd Boehly, and his partners forked out £4.25 billion […]

It’s sad that it took nearly a century to get to this point, but that should not detract from Stephanie Frappart’s moment of glory. The Frenchwoman became the first female referee in history to take charge of a men’s World Cup game when she took the whistle for the Germany vs Costa Rica clash in […]

From the perspective of a punter, it would be rather epic to own a crystal ball that foresees the future….although it would take some of the fun out of the betting game, of course. Sometimes, you have to wonder if there are soothsayers in punting given some individuals’ abilities to predict what will happen years […]

He’s been variously described as a ‘freak’, a ‘unicorn’ and an ‘alien’, so you need to have pretty thick skin – and lots of it – to be a 7ft 4in basketball sensation tipped for the top. But that’s exactly where Victor Wembanyama could be heading after he was tipped to be the first pick […]

There will be almighty celebrations in parts of New York if the Buffalo Bills can end a 52-year wait to win the Super Bowl in February. However, the fireworks may lose their sparkle when the good people of Buffalo realize just how much they are forking out personally for the NFL franchise’s new stadium. The […]

There was a research study carried out at the University of Washington where subjects were asked to take a test. Due to the unique conditions of the examination, the participants were allowed to cheat but if they did, it would be obvious to the marker that they had. So would they go ahead and do […]

Fans of Atletico Madrid must be foaming at the mouth, and a little confused, as to why their talisman Antoine Griezmann is only playing the last 30 minutes of games so far this season. The reason is, you guessed it, down to money, and a clause inserted into his contract by parent club Barcelona ahead […]

It’s been coined the ‘crypto winter’. In November 2021, a single Bitcoin was flirting with a value of $70,000. As of September 2022, the same currency is now worth just $17,500. It’s a downturn that has seen billions wiped from the crypto market, that has witnessed investors losing money hand over fist and determined that […]

In this article, we’re going to be talking absolute balls. Specifically, just how bad for the environment are the balls used in football, rugby, tennis, golf etc, and are there a better, more eco-friendly materials and solutions out there? Most of us are more aware of green issues these days, but maybe we haven’t considered […]

In amongst the various sporting highlights of August 2022, it’s unlikely that the qualifying rounds of snooker’s British Open ranked all that high on the ‘must see’ list. But the event captured headlines all around the world when Ng On-yee defeated Ken Doherty 4-3 to book her spot at one of the sport’s biggest tournaments outside […]

Shocking new research that links repeated head impact to degenerative brain disease could send shockwaves through contact sports. Scientists from 12 leading universities around the globe, including Oxford Brookes, undertook the collaborative study, and in their findings there was ‘conclusive evidence’ that repetitive impact – in boxing, from rugby tackles and from heading a football, […]

Sporting mascots are supposed to be a bit of fun – a way for younger fans (and adults who refuse to grow up) to connect with their favourite team in a different way. But the life of a mascot isn’t exclusively one of fun and games, and often trouble is never far away for the […]

If you are a seasoned cricket fan, you watch the video of the fake Indian Premier League that has been doing the rounds and you laugh at how anybody could have fallen for it. Some nefarious individuals dreamt up a scheme that saw a collection of local unemployed people, farmers and labourers – each paid […]

It’s one of sport’s most challenging existential questions: how do we maintain inclusivity while ensuring integrity, safety and fairness are upheld? This is in the context, of course, of transgender athletes, and specifically whether or not they should have to compete in events against their ‘birth sex’ or the gender they have since transitioned to. […]

Even though they are often born just minutes apart, it’s amazing how different the personalities and lifestyle choices of twin siblings can be. And yet some choose to follow a similar path, and there are a number of examples of twins that have gone on to compete in the same sport at the highest level. […]

It’s one of the hottest, and most fiercely debated, topics in world sport. Should male-to-female transgender athletes be allowed to compete in events for women? The consensus has largely been yes, as long as the individuals in question have undergone testosterone reduction treatment. But now the leading governing bodies in two Olympic sports have come […]

It seems like a thoroughly modern punishment, on paper. More and more sporting authorities, and particularly those governing football, are ordering games to be played behind closed doors as a response to crowd trouble and bad behaviour. French Ligue 1 outfit Lyon were ordered to play without fans in attendance following disorder at one of […]

A racehorse described as having ‘no realistic chance’ of winning has joined the ranks of the longest odds victors in betting history. Sawbuck, trained by Conor O’Dwyer and ridden by his son Charlie, was a 300/1 shot for a maiden hurdle race at Punchestown in May. But the horse, described as a ‘modest sort’ with […]

You have to be from the land of the luddites to oppose equal pay in sport for men and women. Perhaps there’s an argument where men play a longer form of their chosen sport than women – in tennis Grand Slam events, for example, males play the best-of-five sets and females the best-of-three. There’s perhaps […]

It would depend on whether you’re English, an Argentine or a neutral as to how you perceive the World Cup in 1986. That was the tournament in which the Three Lions were dumped out in the quarter-finals by the Diego Maradona inspired Argentina, who bagged a brace of goals that would become football folklore. His […]

Sporting stars often say strange things when they are feeling under pressure, but Tyson Fury – the WBC champion and largely regarded as the best heavyweight boxer on the planet – has insisted that he will retire from the sport after his fight with Dillian Whyte. The Gypsy King, who’s still only 33, will walk […]

When you retire from your chosen sport at the age of 25, it’s fair to say that you have plenty of time on your hands. Ashleigh Barty shocked the sporting world when she announced her decision to walk away from tennis at such tender years, claiming that the non-stop carousel of touring life had left […]

As more and more Russian oligarchs face sanctions in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the knock-on effect is that sporting stars from Russia are being banned from competition too. But should they be? After all, they don’t have any control over the despotic actions of Vladimir Putin, and many – such as […]

When you’re one of the best athletes that your chosen sport has ever seen, it must be hard to let go and accept your inevitable retirement in good faith. Retirement U-turns are not thin on the ground in sport, and the latest member of this particular club is NFL legend Tom Brady. The seven-time Super […]

A record number of people watched women’s sport on TV in 2021, the viewing figures have confirmed. A whopping 32.9 million armchair fans switched on a female-led sporting event, which compares favourably to 26.9 million in 2020 and represents a viewership growth of more than 50% since a decade ago. It was two ‘new’ tournaments […]

You don’t need us to tell you how long women have been fighting for equality in the workplace, in sport and in life in general. Many of those battles are still going on to this day, sadly, although in sport it does feel as though there is a greater acceptance of the fairer sex – […]

You may not have heard about it, but cartoon monkeys are all the rage at the moment. A portfolio of digital art, curated by the collective Bored Ape Yacht Club, is selling for big bucks – and some of the most famous sports stars on the planet are desperate to get their hands on them. […]