Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast ever, has signed an agreement to represent the women’s clothing brand Athleta and is leaving Nike, her longtime sponsor, just three months before the Summer Olympics begin in Tokyo. The deal, announced Friday, also includes arrangements for Athleta to fund a post-Olympic gymnastics exhibition tour organized by Biles that […]

As football developed, players at certain positions began to migrate to certain numbers, and the N.F.L. began to codify its numbering rules in the 1950s. The big change came in 1973, when strict rules were put in place, tying numbers to position. In other sports, numbers are primarily used so that fans can identify players, […]

The A’s, who led the A.L. in homers and steals through Wednesday, will start a seven-game road trip in Baltimore on Friday. They left Oakland on a high: After shutting out the Twins in both games of a doubleheader on Tuesday, they survived a 13-12 thriller on Wednesday by scoring the tying and go-ahead runs […]

LONDON — Fans loathed it, politicians opposed it and even Prince William warned of the damage it risked “to the game we love.” So swift and ferocious was the backlash to a plan to create a new super league for European soccer that on Wednesday six of England’s most famous clubs were in disarray, issuing […]

Antonio Brown, one of the N.F.L.’s most prominent wide receivers, said through a representative on Wednesday that he had settled a lawsuit brought by his former trainer who had accused him of rape and sexual assault. The statement from Brown’s representative was also released by the accuser’s legal team. The resolution appeared to have ended […]

It is not that Stephen Curry has not been good all season. He has had games of 62 and 57 points, after all. But with Golden State mired in mediocrity and players like Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid emerging as leading candidates for the Most Valuable Player Award, Curry had faded a bit into the […]

Chelsea, like some of the other founding clubs, has been taken aback by the strength of opposition to the proposals from its fans and the wider British public. The strength of feeling led to the team’s change of heart, according to the person with knowledge of the club’s plans. The Guardian newspaper reported the team […]

Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks skated on N.H.L. ice for the 1,768th time on Monday, setting the league’s record for the most games played. Marleau passed Gordie Howe, the six-time scoring leader and most valuable player known as “Mr. Hockey.” Marleau started the game against the Golden Knights and after its first whistle, […]

More important, Mourinho’s relationship with his squad was curdling. He had retained the support of many of Tottenham’s red-letter players over recent months — most notably Harry Kane — even as he cycled through many of the well-worn tropes of his late-stage career: the intensely personal criticisms of specific players; the seemingly arbitrary ostracisms; the […]

That amount is more than four times what the winner of European soccer’s marquee tournament, the Champions League, took home in 2020. In the letter, the founders of the Super League say they do not wish to replace the Champions League but to create a tournament that would run alongside it. The damage to the […]