The sports world has always been at the leading edge of technological progress. Athletes dominate the list of most-followed celebrities across social platforms. Teams and players have used everything from video games to fitness trackers to AI in order to get an edge over their competition. Nothing has shaped the future of TV more than the bidding wars over live events like the Super Bowl or the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. You’ve seen Microsoft’s Surface tablets thrown all over NFL sidelines, VR cameras promising a courtside view of the NBA Finals, and shoes that make marathon runners even faster somehow. From VAR and robotic umpires to hyperrealistic Formula One simulators and league-affiliated esports, the future of sports is as much a story about technology as it is about wins and losses. It’s taking place across sports, across the globe, and at record-breaking speed.
On Pablo Torre Finds Out, comedian Dan Soder talks about the backlash that pushed EA to remove microtransaction paywalls it had added to single-player modes.
We’ll see how long that holds, but as the crew of Shutdown Fullcast points out, EA could sell things people want, like a SWAC addition, or what I want: a Pony Excess DLC pack that lets me recruit Eric Dickerson with cash and cars.
The team went up for sale following its Super Bowl win in February. After rumors that Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg might buy the team, Vinod Khosla has emerged as the new owner, according to ESPN. The Khosla family will have to give up its ownership stake in the 49ers first, though.
Trump has injected himself into Netflix’s business dealings, intervened in the antitrust case against Ticketmaster, and turned the FCC into his attack dog. Now he’s reportedly sullied the beautiful game by pressuring FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review the suspension of the United States’ top scorer, Folarin Balogun.
[The New York Times]
The racing league has been testing it for at least two years now, and it’s ready to make its big debut. It can accelerate to 300 km/h (186 mph) in 4 seconds with a top speed of over 350 km/h (217 mph). The big challenge is keeping that up for an entire lap without exploding.
Correction June 28th: This post originally stated the race in question was the Australian GP.
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Over the weekend, the DoorDash X account posted repeatedly about the World Cup, but instead of tagging New Zealand soccer player Tim Payne, the account tagged musician T-Pain — who responded accordingly. The posts had no indication that they were an ad (as the Federal Trade Commission requires).
I asked DoorDash if this was a coordinated effort and whether T-Pain was paid for his posts. Head of social Zaria Parvez said in an email that the company noticed Payne was a fan favorite and happened to share a nearly identical name with T-Pain. “So, in partnership with T-Pain, we executed a fun campaign to connect fans from around the world and remind people that DoorDash has whatever they need throughout the World Cup.”
On Sunday, the rich and powerful gathered to watch men choke each other out on the White House lawn. Welcome to peak idiocracy.
Following a monthslong carriage dispute, Fubo has announced that it reached a deal with NBCUniversal, restoring access to NBC, Bravo, Telemundo, Universo, NBCSN, and local NBC Sports channels.
Telemundo and Universo have the Spanish-language rights to the World Cup, which kicks off on Thursday.
[Businesswire]
Telemundo’s live feed on Peacock will apparently be the first commercial deployment of the efficient Dolby AC-4 codec by a streaming platform, promising immersive stadium sound that shouldn’t overload the network. Peacock will also be streaming the World Cup in 4K and 1080p HDR, according to Dolby spokesperson Andrea Villarreal.
Update and correction: Peacock will stream the games in 4K and 1080p HDR, but won’t offer personalized audio controls as previously stated.
On the ground at the invite-only ‘Steroid Olympics’ in Vegas, where the athletes are the experiment.
MLB The Show Mobile, a mobile version of Sony’s baseball franchise, has officially been released worldwide (except in Japan) on iOS and Android. In the game, you put make a team from player cards (“including current stars and all-time greats”) and then use that deck in solo and multiplayer modes.
Sony soft-launched the game late last year.
Knicks fans are certainly an eccentric bunch. One of them felt the need to bust out his laptop to record himself celebrating outside Madison Square Gardens after the Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers. Hope it wasn’t a work laptop!
The Major League Soccer match between the LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo FC will stream live on Apple TV this Saturday and will be the first “major professional live sporting event broadcast” captured entirely using iPhones, according to Apple.
iPhones were first used to capture parts of a live MLB game between the Red Sox and Tigers last year. Here’s what their setup looked like then.
Apple’s dedicated sports app (where betting odds may be on by default until you turn them off) has expanded to 90 new markets. Apple also says that new features include a tournament bracket view for the World Cup stages, visual formations of each starting lineup, and one-tap links to Apple News coverage.
During its upfront presentation, Netflix offered a glimpse at its upcoming NFL games:
Fubo TV’s earnings seem to show the impact of the NFL, as the Q2 subscriber count dropped from 6.2 million at the end of 2025 to 5.7 million three months later, which is fewer than the 5.9 million subscribers it had at the same time last year. Still, revenue was up one percent.
And in AI news, an assistant is in the works for Roku, Apple TV, and mobile this fall:
The Company is developing an AI Assistant that will enable customers to search their DVR’d content for sports on the Fubo platform through casual conversation (rather than voice commands).
A Milwaukee news report focuses on fan response to the Packers sounding the alarm over a reported antitrust investigation into the NFL’s broadcast deals with streaming platforms, which happened to pop up around the same time as Florida’s push against the “Rooney Rule” for coach hiring. FCC chair Brendan Carr said the FCC might investigate, too, but the team says the current profit-sharing setup is what makes a small market like Green Bay viable.
While Apple TV broadcasts F1 action from Miami over the next few days, a throwback celebrating the company’s 50th birthday will be on two 963s run by Porsche Penske Motorsport competing in an IMSA event at Laguna Seca. They probably don’t have CarPlay inside, but the look is a reference to one that started running on a Porsche back in 1980.
Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook and current Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are considering bids for the Seattle Seahawks, Front Office Sports reports.
Paul Allen’s estate began the sale process for the NFL team in February after this year’s Super Bowl win. (Go Hawks, that was a great game.)
[Front Office Sports]
Sabastian Sawe was first to cross the finish, setting a new world record with a time of 1:59:30. Yomif Kejelcha wasn’t far behind, finishing in 1:59:41, making him the second man to run a sub-two-hour marathon. Nike targeted this goal in 2016 with Breaking2, but couldn’t quite reach it, as Eliud Kipchoge won in 2:00:25.
It finished the 21.1-kilometer race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. The world record was set just a month ago by Jacob Kiplimo, at 57 minutes and 20 seconds. More impressively, when this race was held last year, the winning robot finished in 2 hours, 40 minutes — a stunning improvement.
Correction April 19th: An earlier version used the wrong unit of measurement. A half-marathon is 21.1 kilometers, or 13.1 miles.
The first hint was a sponsored Instagram post on March 31st. But Curry has been spotted wearing the mysterious device (possibly dubbed “Google Fitbit Air”) in a video from Sotheby’s, and it even made an appearance in a behind-the-scenes clip way back from All-Star weekend. We don’t know much, but it looks like Google is getting ready to take on Whoop.
A new Wired investigation details the lengths Jim Dolan, owner of the New York Knicks and venues like MSG and the Las Vegas Sphere, goes to to spy on perceived enemies, fans, and critics. The vast surveillance apparatus includes dossiers, social media posts, and facial recognition tech.
Last year I wrote about one fan who believes a t-shirt design he had made resulted in a lifetime ban from Dolan’s venues — and that facial recognition picked him out of the crowd.
Baseball is back this week and we’ve already got the afterglow of a great World Baseball Classic, an upcoming Heated Rivalry-themed game night, and Netflix completely missing the first-ever robot ump challenge because they cut away to a mid-game interview. It’s a long season — can MLB keep the momentum going?
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Their partnership, reportedly worth up to $300 million over three years, includes giving Polymarket “access to Official League Data from Sportradar, MLB’s exclusive global distributor of data for prediction markets.”
This is after Emmanuel Clase de la Cruz and Luis Leandro Ortiz Ribera were indicted in November over allegedly rigging bets on pitches.
When Victoria Song reviewed the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2, she found a lot to like about their slimmer ear hook and wireless charging, even before their iOS 26 upgrade. Now, Beats is launching this color-splashed collaboration, which is at least bright, even if it lacks the internal hardware updates of Apple’s new AirPods Max headphones.
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The Climacool sneakers I reviewed last year are now available in an all-white colorway, complete with ghost stripes and white laces. The $160 Climacool Laced kicks are 15 percent lighter, thankfully, and available to buy worldwide from adidas.com and via the Adidas app. The $140 slip-ons are back in stock too.
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The old sport is going all-in on chasing virality.
Netflix’s latest livestreamed boxing match will take place on September 19th at the Las Vegas Sphere.
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