Outrageous

As Major League Soccer’s 26th season begins this weekend, a record 27 teams will compete for the MLS Cup. That number will expand to 29 by 2023, with a 30th club in the works. While there are plenty of critics who say expansion is diluting the quality on the pitch and merely enriching current owners’ pockets with expansion fees, I for one want to see MLS expansion continue well beyond 30 teams. If you’re going to go big, go really fucking big. I’m talking 40, 50, 60 teams even.

“Banter club” is a common insult, but it’s 100 percent true for Tottenham Hotspur. How else do you explain the North London club’s recent acquisition of a paint sponsorship that’s already gone awry.

Spurs announced a new sponsorship deal on Thursday morning with paint company Dulux, the first official paint supplier of the Premier League club. Within hours Tottenham was forced to make fun of itself to save face after the new sponsor spent the morning making fun of Spurs on Twitter.

It’s always somewhat perplexing as to how streakers gain access to the field during professional sporting events. 

But doing it when football matches are being played behind closed doors and with the security that entails? That’s outrageous. And doing it in an empty stadium when it’s the most important match in the home side’s 89-year history? Well that’s unbelievable. 

And how about meeting all the above criteria but also doing it when your name around town is “The Nude Man of Granada”? That’s a miracle on grass. 

MADRID - An Athletic Bilbao fan endured more than just heartbreak as his side were beaten 1-0 in last Saturday's rearranged Copa del Rey final by rivals Real Sociedad, with local media reporting he suffered a punctured lung after jumping off a traffic light pre-game.

I spent a fair amount of time over the past month watching a sport other than soccer. The men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments returned from a year hiatus and produced thrilling competitions, with the Stanford women and Baylor men claiming the titles. Soccer fans who watched the tourneys will have noticed two things: The repeated use of FIFA songs in commercials/promos and basketball announcers pretending to know what they’re talking about while plugging the Champions League on Paramount+.