Dav

[Spike Eskin @SpikeEskin]

Can you imagine me telling you at any point:

Tyrese Maxey will be a borderline Top 10 player. After the Sixers come back from 3-1 to beat the Celtics on their home floor, the Sixers will trade for Jaylen Brown.

After that, Maxey will then help lure LeBron James to the team.

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

The best player in the @PremierLeague.

[B/R Football @brfootball]

The Premier League's best player levels it for Man Utd 👊

[Rich C @RichRedVoices]

Kobbie should be the first midfielder on the teamsheet every week for the rest of time:

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

Around 5 million children in the U.S. now compete on travel teams. Parents find themselves trapped. They know the benefits of sports and want that for their children, yet giving it to them often means buying into a sports ecosystem that’s inherently flawed.

The modern-day hydra of youth sports can partly be traced to the pandemic. While many public programs were put on pause, privately owned sports leagues had the capital to get back up and running soon after lockdown. Parents who could afford the fees were more than willing to pay if it meant returning their children to some semblance of normalcy. Investors saw an opportunity. Private investment firms began buying up teams, facilities, software, camps, apparel, and media streaming in a roll-up strategy that allows them to profit from almost every aspect of a family’s participation.

In 2024, families spent 46 percent more on a primary youth sport than they did just five years prior, according to Project Play. It estimated that youth sports generate up to $40 billion in annual revenue — nearly twice as much as the NFL. Meanwhile, profits for investors in youth-sports companies are growing significantly.

One reason parents accept these expensive and hypercompetitive conditions is they’re anxious about what will happen if they don’t. In a time of justified concern for children’s mental health and unease about the future, parents have latched on to sports as a lifeline. And in their pursuit of a competitive edge for their children, parents can inadvertently take the positive effects of sports and turn them inside out.

��Every day, it was soccer, soccer, soccer,” said London, who joined a travel team at age 9. “It could be so bad that I would start playing soccer and then start hyperventilating and have to sit down. I was so scared that I wasn’t doing good.”

Caitlin Moscatello reports on the increasingly commercial world of travel sports: https://t.co/r1qvlr29S0

[New York Magazine @NYMag]

‘Travel sports,’ a term that has come to encompass all sorts of private teams, leagues, and clubs, used to be for the truly exceptional young athlete. Now, they’re for anyone willing to pay — an expensive, exhausting commitment that has become popular not necessarily because millions of parents want them for their children but because it can feel like there’s no other choice. Rec programs are underfunded and struggle to compete with for-profit leagues for prime field, rink, and court times. And the level of play is diluted, often very early, as travel teams are incentivized to enroll children at young ages.

Around 5 million children in the U.S. now compete on travel teams. Parents find themselves trapped. They know the benefits of sports and want that for their children, yet giving it to them often means buying into a sports ecosystem that���s inherently flawed. As the pay-to-play model increasingly takes hold, so does the idea that kids should start competing at younger and younger ages, risking their sense of self along with their shoulders and ACLs.

“I never want my kids to look back and say I didn’t do everything I could to help them live their dreams,” a mother of three soccer players said. She’s hired professional photographers to take action shots for her 12- and 13-year-olds’ Instagram accounts — the platform has become a recruiting tool — and they’ve both asked her to pay for personal trainers.

“I think the word isn’t ‘specialize’; you are ‘professionalizing’ your kid early. You are exposing them to everything professionals have to deal with — I’m talking injury, time, schedule, everything,” said John Van Benschoten, a former MLB player and travel-baseball coach.

It makes one ask: All this for what? And for whom? Read Caitlin Moscatello’s cover story on how travel leagues have made youth sports more expensive, hypercompetitive, and all-consuming — and the investors who are making a killing: https://t.co/zHcKsPYfeC

[☈ッ @TheFergusonWay]

Finished 3rd and the board have given the manager a net spend of £22m in the middle of August

Cool

[Rich C @RichRedVoices]

I mean, if United stopped where they are transfer wise, with a season in Europe coming up, it would be absolutely catastrophic. Literally unforgivable.

[The Ringer @ringer]

“Nobody needs a commissioner more than the WNBA right now.”

@BillSimmons shares his frustration with the discourse around the league and explains why there needs to be a change in leadership.

[Florida Fan @A_Florida_Fan]

Regionality was the backbone of the sport.

[Liam Canning @LiamPaulCanning]

CM, LB, CF. Get it done.

[Liam Canning @LiamPaulCanning]

Mount off injured and the season's not started yet. Water is wet. United NEED to sign another midfielder, simple as that.

[Scott Patterson @R_o_M]

There’s definitely a player in there. He had unreal potential. But he’s massively fallen off. The insane Everton goal, for example, was almost 3 years ago now.

[ʀʏᴀɴ @Utd_Ryan_]

Cole Palmer will one day end up at United.

[Football on TNT Sports @footballontnt]

You're telling us this could be the World Cup final 😅

Nearly 20 years after Lamine Yamal's family won a raffle to take part in a charity calendar photoshoot with Lionel Messi, the two of them could line-up against eachother in the biggest game in football 🤯

[Dan Wetzel @DanWetzel]

Maybe making travel soccer even more expensive will help the US finally get good.

[Dan Patrick Show @dpshow]

Why does the WNBA keep getting in it's own way?

[Diana Kristinne @DianaKristinne]

Compelled to RT this picture every time it pops into my TL, because it's such an insane thing to have happened. If it was in a movie you'd think it was too much.

[caposa @Grabaka_Hitman]

Watching live, it felt like a haunting final walk. The fact he pulled off such an all-time upset after the likely FOTY when virtually everyone thought the result was a foregone conclusion. That puts it into another stratosphere. Easily one of the best in MMA history.