April 21, 2020 3:44 am
UNDATED (AP) – Novak Djokovic says he won’t take any anti-coronavirus vaccination if it becomes compulsory for tennis players to return to the world tours. The world’s top-ranked men’s tennis player said in a live Facebook chat he wouldn’t “be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel.” Djokovic and his wife have two children and have spoken previously against vaccinations. Djokovic won the Australian Open in January for his 17th grand slam singles title.
April 19, 2020 8:02 am
An online petition addressed to Tokyo Olympic organizers and the city government has drawn tens of thousands of signatures for permission to occupy the massive Athletes Village going up alongside Tokyo Bay. The village was to be home to 11,000 Olympic athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes. It is largely complete and empty with the Olympic opening postponed by the virus outbreak until July 23, 2021.
April 19, 2020 8:01 am
Youth sports leagues are bracing for even bigger financial losses with no end in sight for the shutdown of activity because of the outbreak. Communities with sprawling, empty fields and arenas are losing millions of dollars with lucrative tournaments canceled or postponed. Team sports participation dipped after the 2008 recession, so officials wonder what youth sports will look like when kids begin to return to fields and courts.
April 18, 2020 4:13 am
UNDATED (AP) – Two of college basketball’s young stars have announced they are entering the NBA draft before completing their eligibility.
The list of draftable players now includes consensus All-American and Mountain West Conference Player of the year Malachi Flynn, who will forego his senior season at San Diego State. Flynn became the most decorated player in Aztecs history in his one season at SDSU after transferring from Washington State and sitting out a year. Flynn averaged 17.6 points, 5.1 assists and 4.5 rebounds this season as the sixth-ranked Aztecs went 30-2. Cole Anthony is entering the NBA draft after just one season at North Carolina. He had been considered a likely one-and-done player and a high first-round draft prospect before his arrival in Chapel Hill. The son of former NBA player Greg Anthony set an ACC freshman record by scoring 34 points in his conference debut and finished the season averaging a team-high 18.5 points for the Tar Heels.
April 17, 2020 3:46 am
UNDATED (AP) – The PGA Tour is laying out an ambitious plan to resume its season, with hopes of a restart at Colonial on June 11-14 and keeping fans away for at least the first month.
Tour officials said Thursday that if government and health authorities give golf the green light, the tour will have an official event every week through Dec. 6 except for the week of Thanksgiving.
The Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial in Fort Worth, Texas, was pushed back a month to June and would be followed by the RBC Heritage, which was postponed this week. The PGA Tour season would conclude with the Tour Championship on Labor Day, and a new season would start the following week (Sept. 10-13) in Napa, California. That would mean only one major – the PGA Championship – is held in this 2019-20 season, and as many as seven majors would apply to the following season. Meanwhile, the Canadian Open was added Thursday to the list of canceled events. The event was scheduled for June 8-14 at St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto.
April 16, 2020 3:45 am
UNDATED (AP) – Little League has been benched. The youth baseball program that boasts more than 2.5 million kids spread over 6,500 programs in 84 countries is on hold at least until May 11 due to the corona virus pandemic.á Even that target date for a return to the sports lineup seems optimistic, and the fate of its signature event, the Little League World Series in August in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania is unclear. The LLWS is scheduled to run Aug. 20-30 and any kind of cancellation would stagger the hospitality industry. There is no timetable for a return to play.
April 15, 2020 3:47 am
UNDATED (AP) – New York Yankees co-owner Hank Steinbrenner has died. The oldest son of George Steinbrenner was 63. The team said he died at home in Clearwater, Florida, due to a long-standing health issue. Hank Steinbrenner was one of the four siblings who own the team’s controlling shares. He had hoped to succeed as father as the team’s controlling owner. Between the 2007 and 2008 seasons, he became the public voice of the Yankees ownership. He didn’t appear to have much involvement in the team’s operations in recent years and devoted more time to racing interests.
April 15, 2020 2:08 am
UNDATED (AP) – Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman Willie Davis has died at 85. Davis was a five-time All-Pro who helped Green Bay win six championships from 1960-67, including the first two Super Bowls. He was voted to the NFL’s all-decade team for the 1960s and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981, 12 years after he retired. Davis played his first two seasons with the Cleveland Browns after being taken in the 15th round of the 1958 NFL draft out of Grambling.
April 14, 2020 3:45 am
UNDATED (AP) – The XFL has filed for bankruptcy, likely spelling the end of the second iteration of the league. The filing Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware estimates the organization has between $10 million and $50 million in both assets and liabilities. Former coaches Bob Stoops and Marc Trestman are among the creditors with the largest unsecured claims. The WWE-backed XFL canceled the rest of its return season last month because of the coronavirus pandemic. It suspended operations and laid off its employees Friday. The XFL had eight franchises this season and played five games out of a planned 10-game schedule. It drew decent TV ratings early on and had deals with ESPN and Fox.
April 13, 2020 3:52 am
UNDATED (AP) – Former golfer Doug Sanders has died at age 86, according to the PGA Tour through a text from Sanders’ ex-wife, Scotty. Sanders was still an amateur when he won his first PGA Tour event in 1956 at the Canadian Open in a playoff. His best year was in 1961 when he won five times and finished third on the PGA Tour money list.
