Sports

2:13 PM ET Sid LoweSpain writer “Well, the fans didn’t take any notice of me, that’s for starters,” Xavi Hernández said. Twenty-five days after FC Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembele had been handed an ultimatum — renew or leave — and told he wouldn’t play for the club again, there he was, playing for the club

12:51 PM GMT There are no plans to change the participants of Rugby’s Six Nations, the organising body said in a statement on Friday, amid media reports that South Africa are set to replace Italy in the tournament. British newspaper the Daily Mail reported this week that South Africa were keen to re-align with northern

Oct 30, 2019 Anna Katherine Clemmons Close Anna Katherine Clemmons is a contributing writer for ESPN The Magazine. Editor’s note: This story was originally published before UFC 244. Walker’s next fight takes place on Oct. 2 against Thiago Santos. Good luck finding a recent UFC fighter who’s had quite the rapid rise as that of

8:00 AM ET Mike Modano started his Hall of Fame NHL career with the Minnesota North Stars. They were a blast to watch back in the 1980s, with players like Neal Broten and Dino Ciccarelli scoring copious amounts of goals, until Norm Greed … er, Green … stole them from the “State of Hockey” and

6:49 AM ET ESPN betting analysts The PGA Tour makes its final stop on the West Coast swing for the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California. Max Homa is the defending champion, but Jon Rahm enters as the favorite in a star-studded field. Which players are the favorites this time around?

6:32 AM ET Associated Press LONDON — Mark Todd, a two-time Olympic champion in equestrian and now a notable racehorse trainer, has temporarily lost his training license pending an investigation into a video showing him striking a horse with a branch. The British Horseracing Authority imposed the interim suspension on the 65-year-old New Zealander on

9:15 PM ET ESPN News Services DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Sebastian Korda and Adrian Mannarino were among easy winners Tuesday at the Delray Beach Open, both giving up only five games on their way to making the round of 16. Korda, the No. 5 seed and a finalist at Delray Beach last year, defeated Thanasi

7:50 AM ET Mike CoppingerESPN The first two months of the 2022 boxing schedule featured returns for several notable fighters — Keith Thurman and Daniel Jacobs among them — but lacked marquee matchups. The next two months on the calendar are when boxing truly begins to heat up with some of the biggest names in

7:25 AM ET It’s almost wrong to refer to the time period between the Super Bowl and training camp as the NFL offseason. Packed with tentpole events designed to keep fans interested for the next five months, it’s more accurate to call it the NFL’s second season. The spring of 2022 will be just as

Thursday’s trade deadline is in the books, and the NBA looks quite a bit different entering this week than it did to start the last. The Philadelphia 76ers can finally move on from the Ben Simmons saga, adding a former MVP alongside Joel Embiid. Simmons will join a Brooklyn Nets team that is left wondering

6:55 AM ET We’re more than halfway through the third straight pandemic-affected NHL season — but it finally feels like we’re tracking toward normalcy. We have (mostly) full arenas again, and a (mostly) typical 82-game schedule — save for those few weeks in December where a flurry of postponements threatened to wreak havoc on everything.

9:55 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” TAMPA, Fla. — The most important day in baseball’s attempt to salvage its season arrives Saturday. Major League Baseball plans to make a proposal it hopes will defibrillate negotiations on a new

4:30 PM ET After a week of rampant speculation about Bryan Harsin’s future at Auburn and an internal inquiry into his handling of the football program, Harsin remains the head coach of the Tigers. On Friday, the school announced that Harsin will return for his second season at the helm. “My most recent conversations with

5:24 PM ET ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Christian Pulisic is the youngest United States men’s national team player ever to appear in a World Cup qualifier, score a goal and captain the team. His transfer in 2019 from Borussia Dortmund to Chelsea was the most ever paid (a reported £58 million fee) for

1:14 PM ET Associated Press ARCADIA, Calif. — A necropsy on 2021 Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit showed no definitive cause of death. The California Horse Racing Board on Friday released the results of the examination performed after the colt collapsed and died following a workout on Dec. 6 at Santa Anita. Trainer Bob Baffert

12:12 PM GMT Maro Itoje has been moved to blindside flank as England coach Eddie Jones made a number of changes to his side to face Italy in the Six Nations Championship at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Sunday. England lost their competition opener 20-17 in Scotland last weekend, but will be expected to

10:11 AM ET Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR’s top drivers have once again unified to form an independent council to gain a collective voice in decisions that affect the sport. The Drivers Advisory Council, announced Friday, is a more organized effort than a previous attempt to unify in 2014. A board of directors has

10:56 PM ET The UFC’s first Fight Night card on the road since 2020 has its new main event. Curtis Blaydes will meet Chris Daukaus in the heavyweight contender headliner of UFC Columbus on March 26 in Ohio, sources confirmed Thursday with ESPN. MMA journalist Ariel Helwani was the first to report the news. ESPN

1:57 PM ET Mike CoppingerESPN Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin, at long last, are on the verge of a trilogy fight. Canelo and Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing are closing in on a two-fight deal worth upward of $85 million for boxing’s top star to compete on DAZN, sources told ESPN. The first fight of the

7:05 AM ET SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s one of the most iconic shots in PGA Tour history, not as much for the feat itself but for the celebration that ensued. After Tiger Woods‘ hole-in-one on the par-3 16th hole on the Saturday of the 1997 Phoenix Open, there were the missed high-fives, beer showering the