Free Republic

....Obama weighed into the ‘deflategate’ controversy by cracking a few jokes ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Speaking at the annual House Democratic retreat in Philadelphia on Thursday, Obama called on any supporters of the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks to keep it clean.....

In the year 1617, King James issued his famous Declaration of Sports, a document which would be controversial due to its encouragement of the English to participate in certain sports on Sundays and Holy Days. This document, also known as simply the Book of Sports, enumerated a number of licit sports, which were fair game, as it were, for Sundays, and also listed several illicit sports in which subjects to the crown were forbidden to participate. Prior to this legislation, participating in sports on Sunday was not only discouraged, but in fact illegal. King JamesÂ’s decree permitted recreation through approved...

Would you leave a multi-billion dollar business up to chance? What if all of that time, emotion, and money has been wasted on a lie? What if the action on the field isn’t what it appears to be? What if you, and millions others like you, have been duped – outright lied to – by those franchises you hold so dear to your heart, all in the name of making an easy buck? Well, my friend, it has happened. And although your name might not be “Mark,” you have certainly become one to those running the carnival known as professional...

....the mayor of Glendale, Arizona - home to Super Bowl XLIX - is questioning the money-making potential of this year's big game, CBS News' David Begnaud reports. "I think if you looked in the till at the end of the day, I think you'll have less money in it than came in," said Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers. Weiers suspects that when the sun sets on Super Bowl XLIX, the only real loser may be his city. "I'm sure that we're going to spend $3 million," Weiers said. "I would hope, in tax revenues, that we can actually account for well...

News broke Friday evening that one of the greatest baseball players to ever play the game, Ernie Banks, had passed away at the age of 83. The man lovingly known as “Mr. Cub” spent his enter major league career with the North Side franchise, slugging 512 home runs and winning two NL MVP awards. The 14-time All-Star started his playing career in the Negro Leagues and was the first black player to put on a Chicago Cubs uniform. Despite playing for the perennially bottom-dwelling Cubbies, his optimism and love of the game never wavered, as evidenced by his famous quote,...

ESPN AUDIO has revamped its weekend lineup. Among the changes are eight new shows, including the expansion of an existing podcast to a weekly radio show and the launch of a new show presented by the female-centric espnW website. The new shows include "espnW PRESENTS: SPAIN AND PRIM" (noon-2p (ET) SATURDAYS) with SARAH SPAIN and PRIM SIRIPAPA ..................................................... espnW Editor-in-Chief ALISON OVERHOLT said, “SPAIN AND PRIM is yet another extension of espnW’s increasingly successful cross-platform expansion, and one we began fostering with ESPN RADIO last year with our first show focused on domestic violence and the NFL’s reaction. SARAH and...

Cable TV is about to get more expensive for millions of consumers because of a bidding war between networks and the country’s most powerful sports leagues. Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and scores of rural cable providers are tacking on sports surcharges each month, the direct result of higher fees they are paying to ESPN and other sports networks to carry their channels. Beginning Feb. 5, DirecTV will raise fees by 5.7 percent. The rise in cable prices is likely to test the patience of customers, who may already be tempted to cut their cords in exchange for streaming options that...

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California high school basketball coach has been suspended and faces accusations of mercilessly running up the score after his team won a game 161-2, one of the most lopsided scores in state history. Arroyo Valley High girls' coach Michael Anderson was suspended for two games after the victory last week against Bloomington High. Anderson said that he wasn't trying to run up the score or embarrass the opposition. His team had won four previous games by at least 70 points, and Bloomington had already lost a game by 91.

Days before Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers even suited up for a recent game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, an Irishman named Nigel Eccles had collected millions of dollars from people betting on Rodgers’ All-Pro arm. By noon on game day he was raking in $30,000 per minute. By the time Rodgers took his first snap, Eccles had collected $18 million. The action was happening far from the Vegas Strip or a Costa Rican website out of reach of U.S. law enforcement. Eccles’ company, FanDuel, is situated above a storefront in New York City’s Union Square, and its business...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sprint has informed NASCAR that it will not extend its title sponsorship of the organization's top-tier racing series beyond the current contract, which expires after the 2016 season. Sprint has been the entitlement sponsor for NASCAR's top series since 2004, when Nextel signed a 10-year agreement for the Nextel Cup Series. The name changed to the Sprint Cup Series in 2008 following the corporate merger between Nextel and Sprint.

Ruling to throw out texts damages case against Aaron Hernandez In a surprising and significant decision, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Susan Garsh ruled on Friday that text messages sent by Odin Lloyd prior to his murder will be inadmissible in the upcoming trial of former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez. Garsh’s ruling eliminates a critical piece of evidence against Hernandez and increases the stunning possibility of Hernandez being found not guilty. Jury selection in Hernandez’s trial is scheduled to begin on January 9, 2015.

Cork Gaines December 3, 2014The college football playoff committee has released its latest ranking and it is a terrible sign for the undefeated defending national champions, Florida State. The one big shakeup in the ranking came with TCU jumping up to take the spot in the top four vacated by Mississippi State who lost to Ole Miss. But more importantly, TCU leapfrogged past Florida State who fell to no. 4 after struggling to get by Florida. Here are the new rankings for the seven teams that still have a realistic shot to make the playoff: 1.Alabama 2.Oregon 3.TCU 4.Florida State...

Want to bet on tomorrow's NFL game between Chicago and Dallas? I do. Newspapers and websites all over America tell their readers that Dallas is favored by three points. That's the "spread" posted by bookies. Millions will be bet on that game, and billions will be bet on other games this weekend -- college football, NBA games, NHL matches, UFC events ... Most of these bets are illegal. This is not a good thing. Recently, National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver became the first major professional sports commissioner to endorse legalizing sports betting. In the New York Times, he wrote,...

Minnesotans are currently facing a fast and furious onslaught by the transgender lobby, which seems to be dictating policy to the Minnesota State High School League. The MSHSL decides policy for all extracurricular activities in public, private, religious, and home schools. It’s currently in the process of outlawing all sex distinctions in high-school sports. On December 4, it plans to install an athletic policy granting transgender students the choice to play on either boys’ or girls’ teams. In this scheme, there would be no accounting for sex differences in high school sports on the field or in locker rooms, bathrooms,...

....Dolphins safety Don Jones took to Twitter with inappropriate comments after Michael Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams on Saturday. As a result, Jones was fined an undisclosed amount and excused from all team activities, the team announced through a press release Sunday...

The early NFL Thanksgiving game (Lions and Bears) has turned into a liberal lovefest for Detroit's faux renaissance. Phil Simms and Jim Nantz are breathless with their admiration of the so-called "rebirth" of that DemonRAT city. Carefully-staged photos of downtown are then spoken in reverant terms by the announcers. I'm sure See-BS is forcing this narrative. Please Phil and Jim, just shut up about the failed city and focus on the game! Until and unless free-market Conservatism is allowed to flourish in Detroit, it remains a third world cesspool.

American baseball outfielder Giancarlo Stanton reportedly celebrated with a 20,000 dollars bottle of champagne after signing his brand new 325 million dollars contract with his team to become the richest athlete in sports. Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins outfielder was pictured in a hotel in Miami, where he was seen raging around 3 in the morning on Tuesday with his boys and some very attractive ladies. But the best part of the night was when the guy who just signed the LARGEST sports contract in American history was GIFTED a 20,000 dollars bottle of rare champagne, TMZ.com reported.

The Atlanta Falcons aren't dead -- far from it. Mike Smith's team moved into a first-place tie in the lumpy NFC South with a 19-17 win over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. Our takeaways: 1. Give the Falcons credit: They could have folded after Cam Newton led the Panthers on a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown drives, turning a 16-3 Atlanta lead into a 17-16 deficit. But Matt Ryan led the Falcons back down the field, got the go-ahead field goal from Matt Bryant, then held on defense with the help of Graham Gano, who missed a 46-yard kick, then had...

BETTING on professional sports is currently illegal in most of the United States outside of Nevada. I believe we need a different approach. For more than two decades, the National Basketball Association has opposed the expansion of legal sports betting, as have the other major professional sports leagues in the United States. In 1992, the leagues supported the passage by Congress of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or Paspa, which generally prohibits states from authorizing sports betting. But despite legal restrictions, sports betting is widespread. It is a thriving underground business that operates free from regulation or oversight....

Sports fans who bristle at all manner of anti-capitalist leanings in the political or business world routinely side with leagues and team owners when it comes to capping salaries for players who could and usually should earn far more than they’re making. Sports fans who pair face-painting and American flag lapel pin-wearing suddenly turn into crusty old Bolsheviks when it comes to taking free-market enterprise out of the sports they love.