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| Axios Sports |
| By Kendall Baker ·Aug 04, 2021 |
| 👋 Good morning! LeBron James, who has been a Laker for three years, is now the longest-tenured player on the team. Today's word count: 1,677 words (6 minutes). Let's sports... |
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| 1 big thing: 🎓 The NCAA's summer of change |
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| Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios |
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| The college sports landscape has changed more this summer than at any other point in history, as the NCAA grapples with new rules and shifting power dynamics. The state of play: When NCAA competition resumes this fall, everyone involved — from student-athletes and coaches, to universities and fans — will be entering a new world. - NIL rules: College athletes have only been able to earn money off their fame for a month, and this sea change has already trickled down to high school. Top-ranked QB Quinn Ewers is skipping his senior year to enroll at Ohio State and cash in on NIL, while hoops star Mikey Williams, 17, is now free to sign endorsements.
- Transfer landscape: New rules introduced in April allow all athletes to transfer once and be immediately eligible, creating college sports' version of free agency and transforming the world of recruiting.
- Realignment: Texas and Oklahoma will join the SEC by 2025, creating a 16-team super-conference and ushering in "Realignment 2.0." The domino effect: The Big 12 and Pac-12 commissioners met Tuesday amid reports of a potential merger. More buzz: Kansas to the Big Ten? West Virginia to the ACC? AAC to raid Big 12?
- New pathways: Investors are flocking to new leagues that will compete directly with the NCAA. An example: Overtime Elite, which is paying high school hoops stars six-figure salaries to skip college.
The big picture: With so many seismic shifts happening at once, the role of the NCAA is bound to change dramatically in the coming years. - The NCAA's iron grip on college sports has been slipping for decades, as TV-rich Power 5 conferences grow more powerful and question why they need the organization in the first place.
- NCAA president Mark Emmert sees the writing on the wall, saying recently that it's time to decentralize college sports and shift power to schools and away from the NCAA. This comes after the organization took a very hands-off approach to NIL reform.
What's next: The NCAA Board of Governors will convene in November for a "special constitutional convention." The goal: dramatically reform the six-article constitution that lays out the organization's purpose. "This is a really propitious moment to sit back and look at a lot of the core assumptions and say, 'You know, if we were going to build college sports again, and in 2020 instead of 1920, what would that look like?'" — NCAA president Mark Emmert In related news ... A law firm hired to investigate gender equity concerns at NCAA championships released its report on Tuesday. - The NCAA prioritized men's basketball "over everything else in ways that create, normalize and perpetuate gender inequities," it says.
- One recommended change: Holding the men's and women's Final Fours at the same site.
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| 2. 🥇 Olympics dashboard |
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| Sydney McLaughlin (C) with Dalilah Muhammad (L) and Femke Bol (R). Photo: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images |
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| Snapshot: - 📆 Coming up: Today's key events include the men's 200- and 800-meter finals. Full schedule.
- 🥇 Medal tracker (as of 7:30am ET): Team USA (77) has the most medals, followed by China (69) and Russia (52). Full list.
- 🇸🇮 Wild stat: Slovenia has never lost a basketball game with Luka Dončić, improving to 17-0 after defeating Germany to reach Thursday's semifinal against France.
Track and field: - 🇺🇸 Queen Sydney: Just like the men's event, the women's 400-meter hurdles saw both the gold and silver medalists break the world record. This time, it was Americans Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad. Watch the race.
- 🇸🇪️ King of the vault: Swedish pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis — who broke the world record twice in one week just before the pandemic and then proceeded to train in his childhood backyard during quarantine — won gold at his first Olympics.
- 🇺🇸 Back on top: 19-year-old Athing Mu breezed to the gold in the 800, setting an American record (1:55.21) and becoming the first American woman to win the event since 1968.
- 🇯🇲 Twice as nice: Elaine Thompson-Herah, who already led the trio of Jamaicans atop the 100-meter podium, doubled up with gold in the 200, setting a Jamaican record (21.53) and becoming the first woman to successfully defend both medals at the Olympics.
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| 3. 🇯🇵 While you were sleeping: Tokyo headlines |
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| Photo: Yuichi Masuda/Getty Images |
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- 🦠 COVID watch: Tokyo organizers reported 29 new COVID-19 cases among Olympic personnel on Wednesday, a single-day high since they began tracking on July 1. Four were athletes, also a single-day high.
- ⚾️ Baseball: Red Sox prospect Triston Casas hit his third HR of the Olympics and the U.S. beat the Dominican Republic, 3-1, to stay in gold medal contention.
- 🏀 Women's basketball: Breanna Stewart (23 points) led the U.S. past Australia, 79-55, and into the semifinals.
- 🛹 Skateboarding: Two Japanese teenagers and a 12-year-old girl swept the podium in the inaugural women's park skateboarding event.
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| A message from Axios |
| Market news worthy of your time |
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| Get a daily look at the news and trends dominating the worlds of global business and finance. Why it matters: We highlight the stories that matter and share crucial economic insights. Stay informed in just a few short minutes. Subscribe for free |
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| 4. 🧠 Biles brings attention to mental health |
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| Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images |
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| Simone Biles' withdrawal from Olympics gymnastics events generated significant public interest in mental health, according to exclusive data from NewsWhip. - Why it matters: The Tokyo Games offered the ultimate platform for the topic to get global attention, with much of the world watching the same story, Axios' Neal Rothschild writes.
- The big picture: Biles sparked a bigger conversation about mental health than either Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's interview with Oprah or Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from the French Open.
 Data: NewsWhip; Chart: Axios Visuals By the numbers: In the week after her withdrawal, stories about Biles and mental health generated over 2 million social media interactions — 25% higher than Meghan and Harry in the days following their interview. - There were more than 9,000 stories on Biles and mental health over the last week — nearly twice the coverage of Osaka, and nearly four times more than the mental health angle with the Royals.
What she's saying: "I am going back home in one piece, which I was a little bit nervous about. It's not how I wanted it to go, but I think we've opened bigger doors and bigger conversations," Biles said Tuesday after winning bronze in beam. |
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| 5. 📸 Exclusive: Behind the camera |
| Getty Images photographers picked their favorite photos from the Olympics so far and provided commentary on how they got the shot. Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images Caption: Six riders jump in unison during the Women's BMX quarterfinals at Ariake Urban Sports Park. To get this image, I used a special tilt-shift lens that changes the focal plane of the lens to give the effect of everything out of focus in the foreground and background. It took quite a few different races before I was able to get one that was focused on the heads of the racers and where the racers were all lined in a row like this. — Ezra Shaw Photo: Adam Pretty/Getty Images Caption: Spain's Nuri Vilarrubla competes during the Women's Canoe Slalom semifinal at Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre. I scouted out the course and found this gate to be one of the best photographically. The athletes hit this wave with quite a bit of speed and need to make a really hard turn to get inside the gate. There's so much power in the water that they have to get the canoe right on edge and try and almost surf their way out of it. — Adam Pretty Coming up: We'll hear from more photographers throughout the rest of the week. |
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| 6. 🏁 Snapshot: F1 at the break |
 Data: Formula 1; Table: Axios Visuals After 27 races in the 55 weeks since last year's pandemic-delayed season finally got underway, Formula 1's 2021 summer break has arrived. How it works: Between last Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix and the Belgian Grand Prix on Aug. 29, F1 teams will press pause for a school-like summer holiday. - Teams must close their factories for two weeks, effective declaring a "ceasefire" in the year-round innovation race. Some drivers go on vacation, while others relax with friends and family.
- "If you have a holiday at any other time of year, you are constantly getting emails," said one former team director. "With the shutdown, you don't get any, because everyone stops." Sounds wonderful.
Where it stands: Lewis Hamilton finished second in Hungary (courtesy of Sebastian Vettel's DQ), giving him the lead over Max Verstappen in the season standings heading into the break. |
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| 7. ⚡️ Lightning round |
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| Photo: Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images |
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| ⚾️ Booing the Astros: More than a year of pent-up animosity spilled from the stands on Tuesday night as the Dodgers hosted the Astros in front of fans for the first time since the sign-stealing scandal. 🏀 TBT champions: Boeheim's Army — a team featuring six former Syracuse players — beat Team 23, 69-67, to win The Basketball Tournament and its $1 million prize. ⚽️ Mayhem in Colombia: Colombian soccer fans brawled, stormed the pitch and fought police in their first game back in the stands. 🏈 Rivers hints at comeback: Philip Rivers, who is currently coaching high school football in Alabama, says he isn't ruling out a return to the NFL after retiring earlier this year. 💵 $3 billion stake: Spain's top soccer league, La Liga, has agreed to sell a 10% stake to CVC Capital Partners, NYT reports. If approved, the deal would be the first of its kind by a major European league. |
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| 8. 📆 Aug. 4, 1993: Ryan vs. Ventura |
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| Photo: Tim Roberts/AFP via Getty Images |
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| 28 years ago today, Robin Ventura, 26, and Nolan Ryan, 46, got tangled up in one MLB's most memorable skirmishes. What happened: The White Sox plunked Rangers slugger Juan González in the second inning. In the next half inning, Ryan returned the favor, nailing Ventura with a pitch he swears wasn't intentional. - Ventura, of course, thought otherwise, and after a moment's hesitation he threw off his helmet and charged at Ryan, who quickly put the youngster in a headlock and began wailing away on his head.
- A brawl ensued, and though Ventura was ejected, Ryan inexplicably wasn't, as he pitched seven innings and earned the win.
The big picture: This was Ryan's 27th and final season, as well as his 158th and final hit batsman, which ranks 15th all time. Other notable mound-charges: |
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| 9. 🏀 NBA trivia |
| LeBron and friends during NBA All-Star Weekend in 2016. Photo: Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images With Carmelo Anthony joining the Lakers, LeBron James (No. 1 pick in 2003) will have played with the No. 3 (Anthony), No. 4 (Chris Bosh) and No. 5 (Dwyane Wade) picks in that draft. - Question: Who was the No. 2 pick?
- Hint: Lefty.
Answer at the bottom. |
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| 10. 🏈 Quote du jour: Wobbly TDs |
| Source: Giphy "Nobody's thrown more wobbly touchdowns than me, OK? The spiral is overrated." — Peyton Manning, via Pardon My Take 🎧 Listen: Full episode (Pardon My Take) |
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| A message from Axios |
| Market news worthy of your time |
| |
| |
| |
| Get a daily look at the news and trends dominating the worlds of global business and finance. Why it matters: We highlight the stories that matter and share crucial economic insights. Stay informed in just a few short minutes. Subscribe for free |
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| Talk tomorrow, Kendall "Omaha! Omaha!" Baker Trivia answer: Darko Miličić 🙏 Thanks for reading. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @thekendallbaker and @jeffreytracy. |
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