Hey all, now that football season is underway, time for some housekeeping. (Seriously, I need to do some housekeeping; once football starts my house falls into disrepair.)

Here’s the schedule for the next few months of Sports! The Newsletter:

First: if you’re not interested in the NFL or college football (or perhaps if you’re only interested in those things), you can turn individual sports on or off via “Manage Profile” in the top-right corner.

Second: You may remember that in August I said that I would switch to this CFB/NFL/schedule if we got up to 1,000 paid subscribers. That was basically my way of gauging how much my readers wanted a third newsletter every week.

Full transparency, I, uh, did not really consider what I would do in case of what actually happened (which, in retrospect, was the most likely outcome): we got about 100 new subscribers (hell yeah! Thank you so much!) but did not hit 1,000. I decided that was more than enough people to go ahead with the three-posts-a-week plan.

Your paid subscriptions are helping us do more and different things! This newsletter features a guest entry from Sydney Bauer, an international sports expert without whom I would not have gotten through the 2016 Olympics in Rio. And I’m also working on bringing on an additional editor to handle the Monday NFL newsletters.

Here’s how to upgrade your subscriptions to support the newsletter.

If you’ve sent me an email or left me a comment in recent weeks, sorry I haven’t gotten around to replying. The start of football season hit me a little bit harder than I was expecting, but I’m going to prioritize those now that I’ve got a little bit of a handle on things.

As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for subscribing. Onto the Sports!

– Rodger Sherman

An American superteam won its fifth-straight FIBA Women’s World Championship this past weekend in Germany, rallying back from a 14-point deficit against France:

After losing the 2024 gold medal game by a couple feet — the best international women’s basketball game ever — the French looked like they might pull off the upset. They went on a 16-0 run and led by 14 early in the second quarter.

But Team USA came back and won comfortably. Between the World Championships and the Olympics, Team USA has won 71 consecutive games and 10 consecutive gold medals. We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of the team’s last loss in a major international tournament — a 75-68 loss to Russia on September 21, 2006, at the World Champs in Brazil.

Let’s break down the world’s best basketball team:

Like I said at the top, I’m excited to have a guest entry by Sydney Bauer. Sydney knows the weird world of international sports better than just about anybody. (Trust me: when my company sent me to cover the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Sydney gave me dozens of helpful tips about how the Olympics work and how to cover them.) You can follow her on Bluesky, and she also appeared on Phantom Island this week.

What if I told you that there’s a multi-sport event larger than the Olympic Games? What if I told you that it’ll start any day now, and you’ve probably never heard of it?

I’m talking about the Asian Games, starting this weekend in Nagoya, Japan. More than 15,000 athletes will participate in 43 sports, including esports, which is 4,000 more athletes and 11 more sports than Paris 2024.

Mets fans can handle some losing. (It’s sort of their whole deal.) But the humiliation hit a new level in Flushing this week, as the mega-million Mets play out the string on one of the most embarrassing seasons for a franchise full of them.

This week, the Mets hosted the Orioles, the team that signed the Mets’ all-time home run leader, Pete Alonso, this offseason.

On Tuesday, Alonso hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning — incidentally, the milestone 300th homer of his career — before the Mets lost in extra innings. Mets fans cheered the player they loved; Alonso took a curtain call.

On Wednesday, Alonso hit another home run. When a ball dropped harmlessly between Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, and Bo Bichette, ESPN’s Kevin Brown dryly noted that there were “a billion dollars worth of Mets out in left field, and none of them could pick it up.” He was underselling it: The contracts for Soto, Lindor, and Bichette are worth a combined $1.28 billion.

The Mets’ front office has been given free rein by billionaire owner Steven Cohen to spend as much money as they want. They have the second-highest payroll in baseball at $340 million. (That’s right: Three hundred and forty million dollars.) But they’re really, really, REALLY bad at spending that money. The Mets are in last place in the NL East, even though you could add the Nationals ($98 million) and Marlins ($82 million) together and still only get 52 percent of the Mets’ payroll.

How did the Mets pull off such an expensive failure?

The first World Athletics Ultimate Championships were held in Budapest. The Championships are part of an attempt to create more regular events that showcase the world’s best athletes, and it seemed to go pretty well, although there weren’t any major surprises.

Except for the event’s official theme song, written and performed by Cajun-Swedish pole vaulting legend Mondo Duplantis:

I’m looking forward to Duplantis releasing a version of this song that is exactly the same, but performed one note higher in a few months.

Hyrox world record-holder Joanna Wietrzyk won an elite endurance race in China despite an explosive bout of mid-race diarrhea. (Hyrox is a workout racing competition where athletes complete a timed course of exercises.) Wietrzyk, the reigning World Champion, competed with poop running down her leg, forcing athletes behind her to wonder whether they were racing in a trail of her poop. (This famously happened in the Olympics in racewalking, but the athletes behind the pooper weren’t doing lunges and burpees.)

Wietrzyk initially celebrated her victory, posting “a win is a win,” but has since forfeited the event, apologizing for not stepping off the track after pooping.

Following up on Friday’s post about Cavan Sullivan: He scored the best goal of his career in yet another Philadelphia Union win this past weekend, and earned his first call-up to the USMNT on Thursday.

Closing the loop on the Michigan Mulligan: The NCAA’s FBS oversight committee reviewed the situation and essentially said that Western Michigan should have beaten Michigan in Week 1 because the NCAA’s official replay review protocols were improperly followed, and thus Michigan shouldn’t have had a second chance at a game-winning Hail Mary. … The committee also said it has no power to overturn results as determined by on-field officials at the time of games.

Great stuff, guys.

Australia is going extra-Australian for the upcoming 2032 Brisbane Olympics. The host committee announced a plan to hold the rowing and flat-water canoeing events at a venue on the Fitzroy River, home to more than 500 saltwater crocodiles. The BBC notes that “the assessment did not consider the crocodiles.” Australian gold medal-winning rower Drew Ginn suspects that in case of a crocodile sighting, “I'm sure all the athletes would row faster.”

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of discussion (and advertisements) about the Protect College Sports Act, a congressional bill that would affect a broad swath of issues in college sports, including television deals, conference realignment, player compensation, and the eligibility of transgender athletes. So I wanted to explain everything you need to know about the bill in detail:

I guess the Senate could vote on the bill. In that case, I’ll talk to you about the bill at some point in the next two months before the House returns to session.

The World Nomad Games were held in Kyrgyzstan, and featured a variety of traditional Central Asian sports. Apparently, we’ve got enough steppe-curious Americans to field a Team USA in Kok-Boru, a game in which teams play polo with the carcass of a dead goat. Here’s footage from the matchup with Russia:

Wikipedia says Team USA won a silver medal at the Games, but I haven’t been able to find details about who or what sport. Congratulations to whichever American nomads pulled it off.

My jaw dropped reading about NHL prospect Matthew Mayich, who has “zero chance of recovery” after collapsing due to heat stroke after a “military-style” workout at Arizona State. Mayich and his teammates were put through grueling exercises outdoors in the Arizona summer. The athletes were denied water during the workouts. Mayich remains alive in the hospital, but a representative for the family said his “body ceased functioning in a fundamental way, and this condition is irreversible.”

I honestly thought we were past the era when college coaches put their athletes through pointless, deadly workouts like this. That somebody thought this was acceptable to do in Arizona in August is unfathomable. The bare minimum should be firing everybody in this program.

On Deck is written by Bradley Locker.

Sunday, 4:05 p.m. ET (CBS)

These two AFC hopefuls experienced vastly different results in Week 1. The Jaguars steamrolled the Browns with an efficient day on both sides of the ball, while the Broncos imploded on Monday night behind some Bo Nix shenanigans and a catastrophic tackling performance. Denver looks to avoid a dreaded 0-2 start and avenge its 34-20 home loss to Jacksonville late last year.

Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ABC)

THE KIFFIN BOWL!

It feels like a while since Lane Kiffin unceremoniously left Ole Miss in the lurch, but he’s already making his return to Oxford in just his third game as the Tigers’ head coach. This game initially offered a fun quarterback duel between Trinidad Chambliss and Sam Leavitt, but Leavitt’s doubtful status means that LSU may need to lean on its potent defense to slow down Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy.

Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ION)

The W is back in full force this weekend after its FIBA World Cup hiatus, and this matchup is the showstopper. Fresh off another gold medal, World Cup MVP Breanna Stewart and New York head to Minneapolis to face Olivia Miles and the league’s top-seeded Lynx. These two teams have split their two games thus far.

Series begins Friday at 8:05 p.m. ET (MLB.TV)

Neither of these teams enter play Thursday above .500, yet this series has big playoff implications. The Blue Jays have fought off a World Series hangover to claw their way back into the Wild Card mix, in part thanks to the rookie heroics of Kazuma Okamoto. Meanwhile, the Rangers are tied for first place in the (sluggish) AL West behind Corey Seager and Ezequiel Durán. Texas is one game out of the third AL Wild Card spot, a half a game ahead of Toronto.

Saturday at 9 p.m. ET (Paramount+)

Joshua Van, the 24-year-old sensation, puts his flyweight title on the line against Alexandre Pantoja, the legend from whom he claimed the belt in December after a stunning first round arm fracture. Saturday night’s co-main is also a good bout between the talented, but seldom seen, Arman Tsarukyan, and the knockout artist Mauricio Ruffy.

Continues Thursday from Springfield, Illinois (ESPN+)

Remember when we told you about the Women’s Pro Baseball League a few weeks ago? The four teams are down to two for a best-of-five championship series. In Game 1, the LA Queens rallied back from a 6-2 deficit to win 7-6. (Pitching is at a premium in the WPBL — the final game of the semifinal series between L.A. and New York had a 15-11 final score.) — RS

Continues Thursday from Wuhan, China (FIBA3x3.com)

The international basketball action continues this weekend in the form of a more limited (albeit still exciting) 3x3 format. The men’s side has featured four different champions in each of the last four tournaments, including Lithuania in 2025. Meanwhile, the Netherlands has claimed two of the last three crowns in the women’s pool. Notable players include Americans C.J. Gunn and Alex Fudge, Japan’s Yurin Yamamoto, and Germany’s Fabian Giessmann.

Begin Saturday in Copenhagen, Denmark (WorldAthletics.org)

Over the course of this two-day event, champions will be crowned in the mile, 5K, and half marathon categories. Plenty of champions will be on display, including France’s Jimmy Gressier (5K), Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich (half marathon), and American Weini Kelati (half marathon).