sports

Let’s Create a California Conference

Stanford and Cal, Instead of Running Scared to the Atlantic Coast, Form a Statewide Athletic League of Your Own

Let’s Create a California Conference | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Dear Cal and Stanford,

Why are you running away from California?

Yes, the collapse of the Pac-12 Conference—occasioned by the departure of eight schools seeking better TV contracts—leaves the two of you without a home for your sports teams.

But your flailing around for a new sports home on the other side of the country looks pathetic. Your desperate appeals to join the Atlantic Coast Conference would be a joke, if it weren’t such a crime against geography.

And if that doesn’t work out—and …

by Joe Mathews |

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Why We Love the Great G.O.A.T. Debate

Behind Every Achilles, Ali, and King James Lies a Fallible Human, Whose Foibles Are Often as Memorable as Their Achievements

by Oliver Mayer |

There is something about the spirit of our time that fuels seemingly constant discussions around the title “The Greatest of All Time” (aka The G.O.A.T.). Who started it, and why …

Boxing Isn’t Only a Labor of Love—It’s Work

The Industry Will Require Collective Effort to Overcome the Challenges Champions Face in and out of the Ring

by Talib Jabbar |

Boxing has big pictures (Raging Bull, Creed), big personalities (Muhammad Ali, the original G.O.A.T.), and big spectacles (pay-per-view fights adorned with flashing lights, raucous crowds, and stylized ring entrances). You …

Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance

The Way a Fighter Steps Into the Ring Communicates Everything From Pride to Protest

by Rudy Mondragón |

The first time I really paid attention to boxing ring entrances—the long, celebratory walks fighters take from their dressing rooms to the ring before a bout—was in 1992, when I …

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods

Making the Pilgrimage to Bainbridge Island Connects Fans to the Sport’s Origins and to One Another

by Terry Shoemaker |

Pickleball—an addictive mashup of tennis, badminton, and ping pong—is seemingly everywhere these days, and played by seemingly everyone.

There are now a whopping 4.8 million players in the U.S. (a number …

Why Are Our Sports Stadiums Becoming More Like Roman Amphitheaters? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Why Are Our Sports Stadiums Becoming More Like Roman Amphitheaters?

Today’s Shift to Status-Based Seating Is an Unwelcome Return to the Rigid Social Divides of an Imperial Age

by Edward Watts |

More than 230 amphitheaters, among the largest and most memorable monuments left to us by the Romans, survive in cities from northern England to the banks of the Jordan River. …


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