Jay-Z has recently partnered with the mega-agency CAA to start a sports-agency business called “Roc Nation Sports.” 

Roc Nation has already signed Roberto Cano of the Yankees and Mr. Z will sell his stake in the Brooklyn Nets to allow his company to represent NBA players.

Now this is just speculation on my part, but maybe Mr. Z is in Cuba — thanks to his friendly ties with the Obama administration — developing a relationship for when Cuban baseball players are allowed to freely play in the MLB?

At Kalyani Stadium near Kolkata (Calcutta), India, over a dozen poisonous snakes invaded a soccer field very soon after a game between Mohun Bagan’s 3-2 victory over Arrows in the I-League on Sunday. Said Bagan midfielder Rahim Nabi, “I for one would be afraid of playing there again.” No one was bitten and authorities attribute the summer heat to the serpent invasion, not snakes released to kill a federal witness.

Of two 13-year-old girls. And as in the Steubenville case, “classmates” of the accused have been vocal on Twitter calling at least one of the alleged victims all sorts of names:

Two star members of the Torrington High School football team have been charged in sexual assault cases involving different 13-year-old girls, at least one of whom has been taunted online by dozens of upset classmates.

Two 18-year-old football players, Edgar Gonzalez and Joan Toribio, who live in the same Highland Avenue condo, have been charged with felony second-degree sexual assault and other crimes in a police investigation that began last month.  Both players were friends with the girls, who are in middle school, according to detectives.

Investigators said the football players were friends with the 13-year-old girls and made the arrests two weeks after the alleged misconduct, when a victim’s family member came forward on Feb. 10.

Details of the allegations have been sealed from public view.

Gonzalez also has a pending robbery case from last year, but was allowed to play in past football season.

School administrators said they were investigating cyberbullying against the alleged victim.

“We’re doing everything we can to provide the safety they need in schools,” Kenneth Traub, chair of the Board of Education, said. 

Social media posts by classmates taunting the victim have included vulgar  language and have blamed her for “ruining” the football players’ lives.

The rest here. 

In preparation of the tenth anniversary of the 2003 Iraq War tomorrow, arte.tv has released a documentary called Iraq: 10 Years, 100 Viewpoints. The documentary shows several short videos of life in Iraq and will be releasing these videos every day up until May 1, President Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” statement. In this video, Trainer Bassam Raouf Hamid leads his 120 pupils, instilling in them the dangers of sectarianism, and “believes his club is an example of the ‘love, brotherhood and tolerance’ needed for Iraq’s peaceful future.”

Sports royalty’s latest power-couple.

“Right Field” contributor Corey Hall is at the hospital as I type awaiting the birth of his third daughter. Good luck Corey and Maggie!

At the Corner, Nat links to a video of Congressman Peter King’s boxing match against Josh Foley. The fight was good-natured, and King admitted that Foley was taking it easy on him.

Still, let’s take a closer look at the congressman’s fighting style.

It isn’t a high quality video, and we can’t see the congressman’s footwork, so let’s just focus on his hands.

The Good: The congressman seems to throw strong punches; one punch (at about 25 seconds in) manages to push Foley back a step. King has a nice one-two combo (at about 11 seconds in), which demonstrates basic boxing literacy. And best of all, King is clearly not fazed by Foley’s superior skill set. The congressman, true to his political persona, charges ahead.

The Bad: The congressman tends to drop his hands when throwing punches. After throwing a cross, a boxer should quickly return his dominant hand to his face for protection; King drops his hand to his ribcage. King also throws what looks like a left-hand hook (15 seconds in), but he drops his right hand to his waste. In a fight against a less charitable opponent, these lapses most certainly would have resulted in a knockout. 

McClatchy:

The National Rifle Association, a touchstone for gun-rights advocates in the national debate about gun control, is putting its name on the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway in April.

The NRA 500 will be the name of the race scheduled for April 13 at the 1.5-mile track, part of a one-year deal announced Monday by speedway president Eddie Gossage.

“This isn’t a political platform. This is a sports marketing opportunity,” Gossage said. “Demographically, it’s a perfect match.”

The NRA sponsored a NASCAR Nationwide Series race in Atlanta last September, the “NRA American Warrior 300.”

Gossage said this a one-year title sponsorship agreement with the NRA. He said that the track normally signs three-year deals with title sponsors, but that the NRA has options for the following seasons. He said the NRA approached the track last fall about a deal, but that it was not finalized until last week.

The announcement was made during Media Day at Texas Motor Speedway, where drivers Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Travis Pastrana and James Buescher met with reporters to promote the race weekend.

The rest here.

At the end of the first Men in Black movie, there’s an amusing scene where Will Smith’s character reveals that Dennis Rodman is actually an alien from the planet Solaxiant 9, and Linda Fiorentino’s character says, “Not much of a disguise.” Well, Rodman’s overlords have dispatched him on a new mission, a diplomatic one, to an equally alien culture. The man they called “The Worm” has slithered into Pyongyang with three members of the Harlem Globetrotters on a diplomatic outreach mission to unsuspecting North Koreans, using basketball’s popularity to build bridges between two peoples who know little else about each other. Said Globetrotter Buckets Blakes: “We use the basketball as a tool to build cultural ties, build bridges among countries. We’re all about happiness and joy and making people smile.”

When the people of the DPRK catch a glimpse of the tattooed, bejeweled, and bescarved Rodman, a shriek of horror is the more likely reaction. “He looks like a monster,” was one North Korean’s assessment on seeing a picture of Rodman in all his glory. On the surface, the whole thing screams “international incident.”

Unleashing Rodman as an ambassador of U.S. culture and values does seem like an odd choice; this experiment in hoops diplomacy may be the only contact with American citizens that many of these people will ever experience, and Rodman is the impression we want to leave them with?

On the other hand, for all his eccentricities (and that’s putting it kindly), Rodman is a pretty flawless representation of a uniquely American version of freedom, individualism, and self-expression. (Not to mention shameless self-promotion. And offensive rebounding.) Letting the North Koreans think we’re a nation of Rodmans seems like a pretty good deterrent against future saber-rattling. Worm, I say let your freak flag fly over Pyongyang.

— Rob Doster is senior editor for Athlon Sports.

Via HuffPo:

California’s workers’ compensation system has awarded millions of dollars in benefits for job-related injuries to thousands of professional athletes, including many who played for out-of-state teams, according to a report.

Sports leagues and their insurers are working to stop the practice, which has paid an estimated $747 million to about 4,500 players since the early 1980s, according to the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/XLiSkD).

Some of the athletes played as little as one game in California.

Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis, a former Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, got a $199,000 settlement for injuries related to football. This came despite the fact Davis was on the roster of a Colorado team and played just nine times in the Golden State during an 88-game career, the newspaper said.

Here’s an idea: delete your social-media accounts:

Meet Rebecca Marino, a 22-year-old Canadian tennis player who has been ranked as high as 38th in the world in women’s professional tennis. Marino has a 150-107 record in her WTA career, with no wins and one runner-up back in 2011. This week, Marino announced that she would be retiring from professional tennis because she was struggling with all the online abuse she was getting from “fans” that berated her on social media.

Marino admitted during a conference call this week announcing her retirement that she has been battling depression for over six years and all the negative energy from the social media outlets just pushed her into a darker place instead of improving her outlook on life.

“Social media has also taken its toll on me,” Marino said, saying that she would receive numerous tweets that tell her to “go die” and “go burn in hell” and even scold her for costing her money if people had bet on her during certain matches.

Basically Marino admitted that tennis wasn’t fun for her anymore, and there is no point to continue something, even at such a high level, if it isn’t fun.

 

Guerlain Chicherit performs a 360 degree backflip in a Mini in Tignes, France. Wow!

In time for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, FIFA has announced that goal-line technology will be used. Following the successful use of the technology at the Club World Cup in December in Japan, FIFA president Sepp Blatter effectually gave it his approval. It is to be said that this is an important change in Blatter’s perspective, as he has in the past expressed his unwillingness for goal-line technology in soccer. The two leading companies, among others invited to submit bids, are GoalRef and Hawk Eye.

No one can forget Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in their 2010 World Cup quarterfinal match against Germany. England have not been victims only, but benefactors of such faulty decisions, as John Terry’s late clearance in England’s Euro 2012 match against Ukraine denied the East Europeans a goal.

Citing high U.S. taxes, Manny Pacquiao would prefer his next fight be in China:

Manny Pacquiao’s chief adviser insisted Monday that the Filipino superstar’s preference is for his next bout – a fifth fight against Juan Manuel Marquez – to take place away from Las Vegas, with the off-shore Chinese gambling resort of Macau emerging as the “favorite.”

Michael Koncz told Yahoo! Sports that the 39.6 percent tax rate Pacquiao would face if he were to fight again in the U.S. makes a fall bout in Las Vegas “a no go.”

Promoter Bob Arum is hopeful of arranging a fifth match between Pacquiao and Marquez in the fall, potentially on Sept. 14. Arum’s preference is for the fight to be at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, which is his company’s home base.

But Arum and Koncz say Pacquiao is balking at the additional money he’d lose to the government if the fight were held in Las Vegas. Arum said Pacquiao would not have to pay taxes if the fight takes place in casinos in either Singapore or Macau.

Some good news out of Somalia: Until August 2011, anyone playing soccer there was subject to the death penalty under the extremist Islamic group al-Shabaab, but the game can now be played freely again.

After being courted by many high-profile teams, soccer’s most coveted manager, Pep Guardiola, has chosen Bayern Munich. The former Barcelona manager had taken a year’s sabbatical following the conclusion of the 2011–2012 La Liga season. Since then, speculation has run rampant about which club would succeed in securing his services. He will begin at the German club in July. The decision has been welcomed by the club’s supporters. Manager Jupp Heynckes had already intended to resign, despite the current success he is enjoying with the team.

The Catalan-born coach won 14 trophies in his four-year spell at Barcelona. In his first year, the 2008–2009 season, he steered the team to three trophies — La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League — becoming the first Spanish team to do so. More domestic titles and another Champions League trophy, along with the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup would follow. Under Guardiola, Barcelona also dominated the many El Clásico clashes with arch-rival Real Madrid. These are major achievements for the young coach who, prior to managing Barcelona’s first team, was Barcelona B team’s coach for only a year, leading them to a Tercera División crown — all before his 42nd birthday.

Exhaustion drove him to take a break from the game, he told reporters last May. When his sabbatical began, he rented an apartment with his wife and young children on New York City’s Upper West Side — far from the center of the soccer world, where he has enjoyed being anonymous even while living in plain sight.

Bayern Munich’s hiring of Guardiola’s signature is seen as a major coup, considering the many other high-profile clubs that were hoping to hire him. Among these were the English clubs Chelsea, owned by Russian magnate Roman Abramovich and Manchester City, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Italy’s Milan, owned by Silvio Berlusconi; and French club Paris Saint-Germain, owned by the Qatar Investment Authority — all teams with very deep pockets. However, according to former Bayern Munich player and current CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, had it been only about money, the Bavarian club would not have succeeded.

Chelsea’s erratic owner, Abramovich – who has hired and fired ten managers since his takeover of the club in 2003 — has long courted Guardiola, admiring his success and wanting tiki-taka-style soccer at Stamford Bridge. Abramovich’s November 2012 firing of Roberto Di Matteo — a former Chelsea player who is well-loved by supporters — angered the team’s fan base. Di Matteo guided Chelsea to Champion League glory over Bayern Munich in May 2012, the one trophy the Russian oligarch lusted after. Manchester City, on the other hand, hoped that by hiring former Barcelona player and Director of Football Txiki Begiristain and financial vice-president Ferran Soriano last October they would lure Guardiola to the Etihad. (Begiristain played with Guardiola in the early 1990′s and was part of the Dream Team under Johann Cruyff).

Bayern Munich’s coup will raise not only the team’s profile but that of the entire Bundesliga. While the English Premier League remains the world’s most-watched league, the Bundesliga also has a considerable international following — Bayern Munich being its best known and most popular team, the Manchester United of the Bundesliga. The German league also does not face the same financial problems that plague the Spanish and English leagues, and its stadia are usually filled to capacity, due to more affordably priced tickets.

Doubtless, Bayern Munich’s financial stability is one of the reasons Guardiola chose to sign there. They are one of soccer’s wealthiest clubs, with Audi and Adidas each owning a 9 percent stake. At the end of the 2011–12 La Liga season, member-owned Barcelona recorded a debt of €320 million. Chelsea and Manchester City continue to record dramatic losses.

Guardiola’s agent has said he chose Bayern Munich “because of its organization, its opportunities and its players.” Like Barcelona’s system of developing youth players to graduate into the first team, Bayern Munich has focused on youth development, not just purchasing big name players – while not being beyond luring young promising players from other German teams. 

Bayern’s style of play is another factor. One of the team’s former managers, Louis van Gaal, coached Guardiola in his playing days at Barcelona. In van Gaal’s first spell at Barcelona from 1997 to 2000, Guardiola was admired by the Dutch manager, who made him team captain, despite his youth and the presence of more established players such as Rivaldo, Frank de Boer, and Miguel Angel Nadal. “He saw the game and communicated to the team,” van Gaal observed about Guardiola. When van Gaal was appointed manager of Bayern Munich in 2009, he brought with him the Barcelona system of short passing and pressing high up the field. Since van Gaal’s departure in 2011, the club has maintained the tiki-taka style under current manager Jupp Heynckes. Guardiola will inherit a system he is very familiar with. 

Maybe the most surprising thing about Guardiola’s Bayern Munich choice is that he signed a three-year contract with the German club. At Barcelona he insisted on one-year rolling contracts, never wanting to tie himself down to one club for too long. As he said when he left Barcelona in May, “Four years is an eternity as Barça coach.” Presumably he will have more freedom than previous Bayern coaches over which players stay, come, and go.

Guardiola will be the first Spaniard to manage in the Bundesliga. His biggest struggle now until July is learning German.

Will he be forced to pay back the millions in Tour de France bonuses he bullied people into honoring or the money from a libel suit against the Sunday Times of London? From the Associated Press:

Lance Armstrong has finally come clean.

Armstrong confessed to doping during an interview with Oprah Winfrey taped Monday, just a couple of hours after a wrenching apology to staff at the Livestrong charity he founded and has now been forced to surrender.

The day ended with 2 1/2 hours of questions from Winfrey at a downtown Austin hotel, where she said the world’s most famous cyclist was ‘’forthcoming’’ as she asked him in detail about doping allegations that followed him throughout his seven Tour de France victories.

Speaking on ‘’CBS This Morning,’’ Winfrey said Tuesday she had not planned to address Armstrong’s confession before the interview aired on her OWN network but, ‘’by the time I left Austin and landed in Chicago, you all had already confirmed it.’’

’’So I’m sitting here now because it’s already been confirmed,’’ she added.

The session was to be broadcast on Thursday but Winfrey said it will now run in two parts over two nights because there is so much material. . . .

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. An attorney familiar with Armstrong’s legal problems told the AP that the Justice Department is highly likely to join the lawsuit. The False Claims Act lawsuit could result in Armstrong paying a substantial amount of money to the U.S. government. The deadline for the department to join the case is Thursday, though the department could seek an extension if necessary.

Way at the end of this CBS Report of Lance Armstrong admitting to Oprah about his illegal doping, is this:

CBS News has also learned Armstrong has indicated he may be willing to testify against others involved in illegal doping.

Once all the information was out and his reputation shattered, Armstrong defiantly tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader’s jerseys on display in frames behind him. But the preponderance of evidence in the USADA report and pending legal challenges on several fronts apparently forced him to change tactics after more a decade of denials.

I like it. If you’re going to go down in a sport that everyone knows is shady, you might as well bring the lot down with you. I assume eventually his argument will be, “yeah, I cheated. But so did everybody else and I was still the best.”

Each year Rome plays host to the Catholic equivalent of the World Cup, the Clericus Cup. Sixteen five-a-side teams made up of seminarians and priests vie for the title. The Vatican, once a supporter of the event, has officially backed off, criticizing it for “moving away from its goal of educating young people about fair play and sportsmanship.” The young seminarian in the video tells it best, especially when he reveals that he takes inspirational verses from St. Paul and puts them into his shin pad, and admitting that winning is the ultimate goal. Naturally . . .

Typically, stories about pitch invaders during soccer matches tend to involve hooligans interrupting the game to threaten or even cause bodily harm to a player or referee. This time, the pitch invaders during a friendly soccer match between Turkish side Galatasaray S.K. and German side VfR Aalen were two dogs that seemed to be fighting over a plastic bag. They were finally carried away by the grounds crew.