Good morning and welcome to a different version of Free Agent! Remember to arrange a Struggle Membership together with your pleasant neighborhood geopolitical rivals this week.
We’re speaking in regards to the Olympics as we speak—not the true ones, the brand new Enhanced Video games that permit athletes to make use of steroids (or not). Then we’ll transfer on to a brand new Netflix documentary on Brett Favre, adopted by System 1’s Monaco dilemma and a wild story of a journalist getting banned in England.
- “Memorial Day is an underutilized sports activities vacation,” Matt Yoder writes at Terrible Asserting, and he is proper. Looks like a no brainer that each MLB crew needs to be taking part in at 1 p.m. native time, maybe with one large primetime Memorial Day extravaganza, full with fireworks. Similar goes for the Fourth of July and Labor Day.
- Plans for a presidential fee on school sports activities are paused whereas Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) works on federal laws. (Good luck, Ted!)
- “What NASCAR Can Be taught From System 1,” in accordance with NASCAR driver William Byron.
- “The Indy 500 can run simply advantageous with no tax break“
- Anybody else catch all of the sports activities references on HBO’s The Final of Us? Catherine O’Hara’s character is outwardly a Tigers fan, and a sure NFL stadium will get an enormous reveal too.
- Elsewhere in Cause, additionally by yours really: “Ought to the Civilization Video Video games Be Enjoyable—or Actual?“
- The ultimate scoreboard for ESPN’s Across the Horn:
After 23 years, as we speak is the ultimate @AroundtheHorn – episode 4,953 (5p ET, ESPN): https://t.co/WoTAQiSa6h@woodypaige tops the leaderboard w/ 688 wins & 2,964 appearances, whereas @TonyReali has hosted 4,525+ reveals.
*Big due to ATH stats guru/recordkeeper Caroline Willett pic.twitter.com/3WcxmnBvao
— invoice hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) Might 23, 2025
Some world information would possibly quickly fall.*
*However do not anticipate to see them within the precise file books, not even with an asterisk. The primary Enhanced Video games are coming in Might 2026, an Olympics-style occasion the place athletes who’re utilizing performance-enhancing medication are allowed to compete.
“Enhanced Video games athletes will likely be allowed to take substances which are authorized in the USA and prescribed by a licensed physician,” experiences ESPN’s Dan Murphy. “Examples might embrace testosterone, development hormone and a few forms of anabolic steroids. Illicit medication—cocaine, for instance—is not going to be allowed.” (One wonders the place the legally murky standing of marijuana is available in.)
Do not miss sports activities protection from Jason Russell and Cause.
Athletes who aren’t taking performance-enhancing medication are additionally allowed to compete, which may create an attention-grabbing distinction. Thus far there are solely plans in place for short-distance swimming, observe, and weightlifting occasions.
I am certain the general public is mostly in opposition to skilled athletes utilizing steroids and different performance-enhancing medication, therefore the net of guidelines and testing in main sports activities leagues. However, as my Cause colleague Ronald Bailey has written, it is nonetheless good for the Enhanced Video games to point out what athletes are able to when science boosts them past the fullest of their pure talents. Science is already altering athletic competitions in different methods, from quicker trainers to faster swimsuits and analytics-inspired ways.
Let enhanced competitions bloom, and allow them to compete for the general public’s consideration in opposition to nonenhanced occasions too. Doping is in all probability extra widespread than we already suppose anyway. Difficult antidoping guidelines typically punish athletes for unintentionally taking a drug they did not know was banned, or reward athletes who’ve achieved higher than everybody else at dishonest the system.
One world file has already fallen: Greek swimmer and former Olympian Kristian Gkolomeev, who began taking performance-enhancing medication in January, beat the world file within the 50 meter freestyle by 0.02 seconds in a February time trial.
By the way in which, do not anticipate the Trump administration to specific “deep issues” over all of this just like the Biden administration did—Donald Trump Jr. is a companion at a enterprise capital agency that has invested within the Enhanced Video games.
A brand new Netflix documentary, Untold: The Fall of Favre, appears to be like on the difficult legacy of Corridor of Fame quarterback Brett Favre. It is an enticing watch, though viewers in all probability will not study something essential they did not already find out about Favre, his sexually inappropriate textual content messages, and his welfare-related scandal in Mississippi. For me, the documentary raised two questions that I want had been explored.
The narrative originally of the film is obvious: Favre was so common in Inexperienced Bay that native followers and the media handled him like a god. However the media knew Favre, regardless of his household man picture, was gallivanting round. Not one of the journalists interviewed within the documentary appeared stunned at Favre’s habits within the specific textual content messages. Why did not any of them report on Favre’s indiscretions sooner? It could have been unpopular and troublesome, however it might have been the suitable factor to do, morally and journalistically.
One reporter who did the suitable factor and adopted by on unpopular journalism is Anna Wolfe, who gained a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for reporting on the Mississippi welfare funds scandal. Mississippi officers used federal welfare funds on a brand new volleyball constructing on the College of Southern Mississippi (the place Favre’s daughter was on the crew) and on Prevacus, a concussion-treatment firm that Favre invested in. What stunned me is that authorities officers spend cash on stadiums and politically well-connected corporations on a regular basis, simply not by welfare funds. All Mississippi needed to do was declare the cash spent was going to create jobs, and hardly anybody would have batted an eye fixed at it popping out of some state “financial improvement” fund. Why have been they so incompetent of their crimes?
The Monaco Grand Prix is famously the crown jewel of the System 1 calendar, essentially the most historic race with essentially the most glitz and glamor. But the precise racing typically sucks. Trendy F1 vehicles obtained larger, however Monaco’s slender streets stayed the identical, with the race turning into a quick, noisy parade with none passing. This 12 months officers tried to repair the standard of the motion by mandating that each driver make two pit stops—a superb try that finally didn’t make a lot distinction as a result of the issue with Monaco is not pit technique, it is that nobody can cross on the observe.
F1 rules are set to alter subsequent 12 months, and the brand new era of vehicles will likely be lighter and smaller with extra electrical energy for momentary pace boosts. Hopefully that solves a part of the issue. If not, F1 might need to analysis any attainable changes that might be made to the circuit to create longer straights for overtaking (although the Monégasque authorities might resist something involving everlasting development). The opposite possibility is to simply go away it as is and inform critics to recover from it: F1 has totally different sorts of circuits with totally different sorts of challenges, and Monaco is simply going to be what it’s.
Think about the Philadelphia Eagles denying Tony Romo press credentials and preserving him from commentating on one in all their video games, simply because he was one in all many individuals who referred to as out the Eagles proprietor for doing one thing loopy.
That is mainly what occurred in England this week.
Earlier this month, Nottingham Forest proprietor Evangelos Marinakis went onto the sphere instantly after a match to angrily confront the crew’s supervisor. (When one thing comparable occurred on Ted Lasso it felt overwrought and unrealistic, however Marinakis confirmed me mistaken.) Just about everybody agreed it was a loopy factor to do, and Gary Neville had the gall to hitch the refrain, calling it “scandalous.” This weekend, Neville was imagined to commentate on the ultimate Nottingham Forest match of the season, crucial match of the Premier League’s ultimate day. However as Neville detailed on Instagram, calling it an “unprecedented motion,” Forest “wouldn’t give me an accreditation or entry to the stadium as a co-commentator.”
Marinakis goes to need to develop some thicker pores and skin or nobody will likely be left to commentate on his crew’s matches. (Forest misplaced the match, 1–0).
The Indianapolis 500 was chaotic, with drivers struggling to adapt to low temperatures (apparently temperatures within the 60s are too chilly for them). Marco Andretti crashed out on the very first flip. A number of vehicles crashed making an attempt to decelerate or cease on pit street. Josef Newgarden’s bid for a three-peat ended with a gasoline system failure. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson spun himself out, ending his try to complete each the five hundred and the 600-mile NASCAR race on the identical day.
However essentially the most surprising factor was that the chaos really began earlier than the race even started, when sequence mainstay Scott McLaughlin crashed through the tempo laps.
That is all for this week. Get pleasure from watching the true recreation of the weekend, Southern Miss in opposition to Columbia within the NCAA Baseball Match.
