Daily Archives: June 1, 2022

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher says hes ready to move on from his squabble with Alabamas Nick Saban.

The college football offseason got much more interesting a few weeks ago when Saban alleged that A&M bought every player on their team via name, image and likeness deals, prompting a fiery retort from Fisher. The Aggies head coach went scorched earth on his former boss, calling him a narcissist and saying Sabans comments were despicable in a quickly arranged news conference the next day.

Saban didnt back down from the overall sentiment of his comments, which were critical of the current NIL environment as a whole, but he did apologize for singling out A&M and a few other schools.

Fast forward to this week and Saban and Fisher were in the same room together with the rest of the SEC head coaches at the conferences annual spring meetings in Destin, Florida. Fisher, who was an assistant under Saban at LSU from 2000-2004, previously said their relationship was done. On Wednesday, he acknowledged that the two had since spoken.

Its over with. Were done talking about it, Fisher said per Al.com. Were moving on to the future of what goes on and trying to fix the problems we have in college football. There are a lot more pressing needs than our arguments. Were moving on. I have no problem.

Fisher said he doesnt regret anything he said about Saban, but added that hes ready to move on to the next thing.

During that May 19 news conference, Fisher encouraged people to dig into how Saban operates.

Some people think they are God, Fisher said of Saban. Go dig into how God did his deal and you may find out a lot about a lot of things you dont want to know. We build him up to be this czar of football, go dig into his past. You can find out anything you want to find out or what he does or how he does it.

Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher called Nick Saban a narcissist after the Alabama coach made despicable comments about the Aggies using name, image and likeness deals to land their top-ranked recruiting classes. Saban called out Texas A&M for buying players. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

On Tuesday, Saban said he has no problem with Jimbo at all and again reiterated that he should not have singled out Texas A&M and other schools in his comments. He also added that he didnt really say that anybody did anything wrong.

Story continues

Saban has said multiple times that he is not against players earning money from the use of their name, image and likeness. However, he is leery about the lack of consistent regulations within the current environment around the country.

Im not against name, image and likeness. Our players made a lot of money last year. I told our players to get an agent, get representation and make what you can make, Saban said on SiriusXM Radio last month. I think the issue in college athletics in general now is the whole system of collectives and people raising money to basically pay players to come, whether its to come to their school or pay the players that are on their team.

The rest is here:

Jimbo Fisher says he's 'moving on' from beef with Nick Saban - Yahoo Sports

NASCARs Cup Series is making its first trip to World Wide Technologies Raceway on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1) and theres a familiar face as the favorite for the win.

Yes, Kyle Larson is once again the betting favorite ahead of the race. But Larson is far from an overwhelming favorite. Hes at +750 to win and there are seven other drivers at +1000 or better to get the win.

The track formerly known as Gateway has hosted NASCAR races since 1997 when it first hosted an Xfinity Series race. The Truck Series began racing at the track a year later.

NASCAR hasnt raced at the track every year since the late 1990s, however. The Xfinity Series departed the track after 2010 and hasnt returned. It races at Portland this weekend. The Truck Series also didnt race from 2011-13 at Gateway before returning in 2014 for an annual weekend.

Kyle Larson is the favorite ahead of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Gateway. (Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

There are six former Truck Series winners at Gateway in the field for Sundays race, though its doubtful those wins are going to mean too much. Kevin Harvick won in 2010, Bubba Wallace won in 2014, Cole Custer was the winner in 2015, Christopher Bell won in 2016, Justin Haley won in 2018 and Ross Chastain got a win at Gateway in 2019. Chastain is the only driver among the six who you can consider a favorite to win. Hes at +900.

Heres what you need to know to bet Sundays race. The 1.25-mile track is egg-shaped with different corner radiuses at each end of the track. Its a similar shape to Darlington, but Darlington has much more banking and the preferred line is near the wall. The two tracks arent much alike at all.

All odds are from BetMGM.

Kyle Larson (+750)

Denny Hamlin (+800)

Kyle Busch (+800)

Martin Truex Jr. (+900)

Ross Chastain (+900)

William Byron (+900)

Larson continues his run as the weekly favorite and while were skeptical of Larson as the favorite, were also not sure who wed have in his spot if he wasnt the favorite. Hamlin and Busch finished 1-2 in that marathon at Charlotte, while Truex feels on the precipice of a win. Chastain led the most laps at Charlotte and Byron has been fast nearly everywhere this season.

Story continues

Joey Logano (+1600)

Alex Bowman (+1800)

Loganos season has been a roller coaster with more downs than ups but hes worth a flier here. With the playing field relatively level for everyone entering Sunday, Bowman feels like a sneaky good bet. Especially at these odds.

Wed probably have Almirola in the next section if he was at +5000 or longer. But at +3300 its hard to find value in a driver who has just four top-10 finishes this season.

The season has been miserable for Keselowski so far. He has one top-10 finish and that came at Daytona to start the season. Theres been some promise in recent weeks, however, and maybe it all comes together this week. This honor was between Keselowski and Bubba Wallace (+8000) as Wallace continues to have speed but an incomprehensibly bad pit crew.

Continue reading here:

NASCAR betting: Is it wide open ahead of the first Cup race in St. Louis? - Yahoo Sports

Fantasy Baseball analyst Dalton Del Don highlights some key performances from Tuesday's action. For his earlier story on updated park factors, click here.

Alejandro Kirk hit two homers with four RBI during Torontos win Tuesday, and the underrated catcher has multiple hits in four straight starts to move his season OBP up to .382. Power hadnt yet been there until Tuesday nights eruption, but with a 12:17 K:BB ratio, Kirk is a real threat to win the batting title. Hes just 31 percent rostered in Yahoo leagues and is going to have a bunch of fantasy value at an extremely thin catcher position moving forward.

After homering twice Monday, Tyrone Taylor picked up three RBI Tuesday to finish a highly productive May. Hunter Renfroes stay on the IL is reportedly going to be short-term, but the Brewers had Taylor batting cleanup Tuesday, while Andrew McCutchen (64 wRC+) and Lorenzo Cain (46 wRC+) have been two of MLBs worst hitting outfielders this season. Taylors bat needs to stay in Milwaukees lineup, and he remains available in more than 85% of Yahoo leagues.

Tyrone Taylor is making a fantasy impact. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Byron Buxton got a breather Monday after batting just .102/.206/.220 over his previous 15 games and went 2-for-9 (two singles) during Tuesdays doubleheader. Hes quite clearly compromised while playing through a knee injury whose healing time remains a mystery. Hell improve (or go on the IL), but when evaluating fantasy trade offers and/or setting DFS lineups, realize that projection systems dont know Buxton is playing injured.

George Kirby tossed six shutout innings to pick up a win Tuesday but note that it came with a pedestrian 28% CSW and against a bad Orioles lineup in a Baltimore park thats suppressed power in a big way this season.

Ranger Surez was shaky again (22% CSW) during Tuesdays start against the Giants and continues to struggle making the transition into a full-time starter this year. Rostered still in 57% of Yahoo leagues, Surez sports a 4.45 FIP and will remain hampered by a terrible Phillies defense, so he can be dropped in most formats.

Story continues

Blake Snell looked good during his third start of the season Tuesday, producing 15 swings-and-misses while limiting a strong, righty-heavy Cardinals lineup during a no-decision. Busch Stadium has also been highly favorable for homers this year, so Snells performance was especially impressive. He consistently battles control and health issues and can be extremely frustrating, but Snell also posted a 1.83 ERA and a 0.77 WHIP with 65 Ks over 44.1 innings after July ended last season. He possesses a bunch of fantasy upside now healthy again.

Free Vinnie Pasquantino!

Follow Dalton Del Don on Twitter

Here is the original post:

Fantasy Baseball: What to know from Tuesday's MLB action - Yahoo Sports

CINCINNATI The U.S. mens national soccer players agreed to equal pay without formally entering the negotiating room.

While womens players regularly joined lawyers and representatives from all sides at bargaining sessions, according to sources, the men instead relied on their longtime executive director, Mark Levinstein, to secure a deal that will compensate the USMNT and USWNT on identical terms and that, while mostly hailed as a historic win for the women, also makes the men one of the most well-paid national teams in the world.

Levinstein communicated primarily with Walker Zimmerman, a late-blooming defender who became an on-field leader throughout 2022 World Cup qualifying, and who simultaneously became the chief organizer within the mens players association. But behind the scenes, dozens of players partook in transatlantic Zoom calls, in-person meetings and group chats. And here in Cincinnati for their first camp since the collective bargaining agreements ratification, several described relief in labor peace.

Zimmerman and others have said, and reiterated this week, that theyve long believed in the whole premise of equal pay, which headlined the deal. But they also believed last June that they had a deal with U.S. Soccer, separate from the women until, suddenly, they didnt. Zimmerman told Yahoo Sports that the deal fell through. Three sources familiar with the situation said that Levinstein and U.S. Soccer CEO Will Wilson had agreed to it, but U.S. Soccers board of directors refused to approve it.

That deal, according to two sources familiar with it, offered the men 90 percent of the 2022 World Cup prize money that U.S. Soccer would receive from FIFA. U.S. Soccer, instead, called on the men to pool their prize money with the women and share it evenly. The men werent opposed to the concept, but Levinstein balked at proposals that offered the men less than what theyd already been offered in June. Merely pooling prize money would, in every scenario, have netted the current team less World Cup cash, because FIFA will distribute $440 million to 2022 mens World Cup participants and likely $60 million after the 2023 Womens World Cup.

Story continues

The men ultimately agreed to equalize World Cup prize money in part because they secured other concessions that will, on the whole, potentially net them more 2022 World Cup-related money than the June deal would have, according to information released publicly and a source close to USMNT players. They sacrificed upside they will be giving up money if they reach the quarterfinals or beyond but likely raised their floor in the event they crash out at the group stage.

Walker Zimmerman (3) and the USMNT reached an equal pay agreement with the USWNT in May. Here's how it benefits them. (Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Although the federation had long argued that gender disparities in World Cup bonuses were products of similar disparities in FIFA prize money, previous CBAs featured fixed numbers, not percentages. The last mens CBA, for example, which ran from 2011-2018, gave $2 million in total to players who participated in the successful 2014 qualifying campaign; $55,000 to each player who made the World Cup roster, and $5,500 to each player per game; and $175,000 in total per group-stage point. There were then bonuses for advancing to the Round of 16 ($3.6 million), the quarterfinals ($4 million) and beyond.

Under those terms, a group stage exit with three points would have netted the men $4.2 million in 2014. In 2018, that hypothetical number rose to $5.2 million. As they entered negotiations for a new CBA, they considered this three-point scenario and targeted a jump to $8 million $4 million to the players responsible for qualifying, and $4 million to the players at the tournament itself according to a source close to the players.

The 90 percent that U.S. Soccer offered last June, therefore, became a different route to a similar outcome. FIFA has promised $9 million to each 2022 group-stage loser. The USMNT thought theyd locked in a $8.1 million floor.

When that offer disappeared, and any deal became contingent on sharing with the women, the floor fell to a projected $4.5 million if the women suffered stunning early upsets in 2023, and a projected $6.8 million even if the women won a third-straight title. The men, instead of receiving 90 percent of their own World Cup prize money, would receive 45 percent of their own and 45 percent of the womens a significantly smaller sum, because FIFA has indicated that the 2023 prize pot will be just 13.6 percent of the 2022 mens pot. (FIFA has not yet announced the payout scheme for 2023. The projections, with 32 teams now sharing an expected $60 million, are based on a minimum payout of $1 million and a maximum of $6 million.)

The eventual collective bargaining agreement struck last month, however, included two buckets from the old compensation structure on top of the 90 percent equally shared by men and women. The men received a $2.5 million qualifying bonus for 2022, just as they would have in 2018. Both mens and womens players will also receive $10,000 apiece per World Cup game.

Those bonuses raised the mens 2022 floor by $3.2 million, and the worst-case scenario originally $8.1 million, a number the men liked last June became a range: $7.7 million to $10 million. With the women far more likely to advance deep into the tournament than exit early, the men, if they dont survive their group, could actually receive more under this equalized deal than they would have under the separate deal they thought they had last June.

If they advance to the Round of 16, and the women win it all, the men would still be slightly better off.

If the women slip, or the men win a knockout match, the men will have given up money, and they know that. But theyll still have made more than most, if not all of their foreign peers. And besides, they say, they believed in the principles on which these side-by-side deals were based. They dont care that, over the totality of a four-year cycle, the women might make more than them, and might become the highest-paid national team in the world.

We decided early on that equal pay was something that we really needed within the group, defender Aaron Long said Monday. We think that it was gonna be something that was gonna change the landscape for a lot of different organizations, a lot of different countries. That was at the forefront of our minds.

With a deal hashed out then rejected last summer we had agreed to terms, Zimmerman told Yahoo Sports many structural aspects were already in place by the time Levinstein returned to the table in the fall. The USMNT, however, and even more so its union, was in a state of transition. It hadnt elected new player reps since 2018. Three of the six Brad Guzan, Michael Bradley and Wil Trapp were out of the national team picture.

In 2021, Tim Ream had unofficially taken charge, but hed stepped back after June, and he, too, faded from the picture that fall. Zimmerman, at the time, was a fringe player, initially left off the October roster. But he had the trust of a wide range of USMNT players, especially as he became an every-game starter. Walker, throughout the process, slowly climbed to the top, Long said.

Their informal leadership group, though, had expanded as the player pool evolved. Zimmerman mentioned Matt Turner, Sean Johnson, Zack Steffen, Long, Paul Arriola, Tyler Adams, Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie as others whod been involved in group discussions, but anybody who wanted to could be. With half the team in Europe and half stateside, and some navigating nine-hour time differences, scheduling those discussions outside of international breaks was tough. You're kinda limited to a few-hour window, Zimmerman said. Theyd sometimes schedule multiple calls or use email to relay summaries, Long said.

Walker Zimmerman helped lead equal pay negotiations behind the scenes, across time zones and communication methods. (Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

In part because of those scheduling difficulties, perhaps, no player ever participated in a joint bargaining session with the women, according to several sources. Some felt the mens players, with their more lucrative club salaries, simply didnt care as much. Others felt the streamlined process, through Levinstein via Zimmerman, worked optimally for the men, but Zimmerman acknowledged the women had more to fight for.

They were working to get things that we already had, he told Yahoo Sports things like equal staffing and working conditions.

But the men also fought. And Levinstein, whom sources describe as an unyielding negotiator who despises the federation, fought on their behalf. Zimmerman confirmed that there were discussions around commercial and event revenue sharing, with percentages and structures constantly being tweaked. He also said that retroactive pay for the nearly three and a half years that have elapsed since the previous mens CBA expired was an absolute must. We were not gonna move forward at all without full retroactive pay.

But they did want to move forward. We were pushing to get it done before the World Cup, Long said. Theyll meet with lawyers and reps on Friday in Kansas City, just to go over more of the specifics for the whole group, Zimmerman said, but the deal is done. It officially goes into effect Wednesday.

Obviously there's a sense of pride, and relief, and congratulatory messages on reaching this agreement, Zimmerman said of the mood in camp. Because it really is historic.

View post:

How USMNT players agreed to equal pay without formally entering the negotiating room - Yahoo Sports

The PGA heads to Dublin, Ohio, for the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club. This is a course that has extensive data with the PGA having played here every year since 1976. Its a par 72, over 7,500 yards, and although it has seen some renovations, it still holds the original bones.

For this event, Im largely looking for great ball strikers who can keep out of trouble. Miss the fairway, and you can find yourself in a penalty area. Its a type of course that gets tougher as you get closer to the hole, so Im also looking for players that can navigate around the greens. Heres one full tournament matchup to consider.

Smith is typically an auto bet for me in tough field, tough track events. He was starting to check all the boxes of what I was looking for this week until I looked at his course history. Smith has played Muirfield on six occasions, has four missed cuts (including last year) and has finished no better than a T65. Is Smith a better player now? Yes. However, one way players could find themselves in some trouble is by hitting errant shots off the tee. The fairway bunkers have been rebuilt and shifted to narrow the landing zone from the tee. Muirfield is a penal course. If you miss the fairway, your ball could be buried in the thick ryegrass rough or find a hazard. Smith is outside the top 100 in the field for strokes gained off the tee.

Then theres the need to be great around the green. Smith lost over three strokes around the green to miss the cut at RBC Heritage. Hes now had back-to-back events losing strokes on his short game, including three strokes putting in the PGA Championship at a Southern Hills course with bentgrass greens, which is now what Muirfield has.

In the field, McIlroy is third in strokes gained off the tee and fourth in strokes gained around the green. Also, unlike Smith, he has good course history at Memorial with only two missed cuts in the last 10 years and six top-20 finishes, including a T18 last year. Now, unfortunately, McIlroy has lost strokes around the green at Muirfield in six of those events, but he makes up for it with his ball striking and putting. I put trust in consistency and McIlroy has that here.

Story continues

Rory McIlroy plays a shot during the final round of the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills Country Club on May 22. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

I was on this play last week for Charles Schwab and it nearly came through with Berger landing on the cut line at +1. A birdie on 15 is what got him there. Maybe Im being stingy here but I'm going back to Berger to miss the cut. The problems hes had in the last few tournaments showed up last week through individual rounds. In his last eight events, Berger has lost strokes either off the tee, on approach, around the green and putting. It hasnt been pretty with his stat lines bleeding red. Despite this, he only has two missed cuts, in Februarys Phoenix Open and the PGA Championship two weeks ago.

Last week was a close call. In the first round at Schwab, Berger hit only 43% accuracy and 55% greens in regulation. He managed to stay one over par relying on his putter. The next day, he improved in both categories but lost three strokes putting. His game is just so volatile and inconsistent right now. Another reason to risk on plus money, Berger has played the Memorial just three times and has missed the cut twice, with the last coming in 2020. Im not convinced Berger has found his way back to form and on a track like this, he could fall back into doubt.

Read the original:

Betting PGA: Backing Rory McIlroy in the head-to-head market at Memorial - Yahoo Sports