The sports world has always been at the leading edge of technological progress. Athletes dominate the list of most-followed celebrities across social platforms. Teams and players have used everything from video games to fitness trackers to AI in order to get an edge over their competition. Nothing has shaped the future of TV more than the bidding wars over live events like the Super Bowl or the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. You’ve seen Microsoft’s Surface tablets thrown all over NFL sidelines, VR cameras promising a courtside view of the NBA Finals, and shoes that make marathon runners even faster somehow. From VAR and robotic umpires to hyperrealistic Formula One simulators and league-affiliated esports, the future of sports is as much a story about technology as it is about wins and losses. It’s taking place across sports, across the globe, and at record-breaking speed.
According to a release by French prosecutors, Joseph Lombardi, the “unaccredited analyst” with Canada’s Olympic women’s soccer team, accepted a suspended eight month imprisonment sentence after admitting to spying on New Zealand’s team to learn its tactics.
The sport’s governing body has opened proceedings against Canada Soccer, while New Zealand has asked that no points be awarded to Canada if it wins today.
No, this isn’t another cardboard bed situation — the reasons for blocking the app make sense and mirror similar actions that Grindr took during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, after it was used to out a number of athletes during the previous Rio Games.
“For the first time, U.S. subscribers can stream MLB Network 24/7 including select out-of-market games,” writes MLB. It’s $5.99 a month — or $6.99 to bundle live audio for every MLB team.
For football, NFL Plus costs $6.99 a month. Basketball is $14.99 a season for NBA League Pass, though the 2025-2026 season will now come to Amazon Prime Video as well.
Really.
NZOC:
On July 22, a drone was flown over the New Zealand women’s football team training session in St Etienne.
Team support members immediately reported the incident to police, leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women’s football team, to be detained.
Samsung gave 17,000 of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 phones to athletes and others around the Olympic and Paralympic games, and here’s one more unboxing.
The phone itself isn’t more impressive than anyone else’s, but British rower Imogen Grant chose a tough upgrade path — the phone she’s replacing was another freebie from Samsung that she picked up at the Tokyo Olympics.
Olympians unboxing folding phones is my new favorite video genre. Watch members of New Zealand’s swimming team unbox their new Galaxy Z Flip 6 phones — in gold, naturally — which were supplied by Olympic sponsor Samsung. Not only is it delightful when they discover the screen is on “both sides,” the guys and I agree that it’s time for a foldable iPhone, too.
NBCUniversal owner Comcast announced tweaks it’s adding for the Paris Olympics on X1, like a customizable home screen and an “enhanced” 4K feed for the USA Network’s 24/7 broadcast sent over cable to X1 boxes.
...enhanced 4K brings together 4K video delivered over Comcast’s network at its highest bitrate, Dolby Vision® for life-like picture quality, Dolby Atmos immersive audio, and ultra-low latency
A support page explains, “Enhanced 4K will be available on XG1v4 (low latency feed) and Hi-Fi on Xi6 (30 Mbps and low latency).”
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
The Lotus Evija X, a prototype version of Lotus’ $2.3 million electric hypercar, almost immediately slammed into the haybales on the side of the track during its first official public appearance at Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, Autoblog reports.
The crash owed to “asymmetric grip caused by overcorrection during the rapid acceleration at the start line,” Lotus told Road & Track, adding damage was “minimal.” Here’s a clip from Sky Sports.
As explained by Front Office Sports, the NBA is waiting to see if TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery will try to match any part of the reported $76 billion in offers from NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.
WBD’s (not-HBO) Max could try to match Prime Video, but with a smaller audience than Amazon’s service, matching might not be enough.
By all reports, Apple and Warner Bros.’ F1 wasn’t cheap to produce, but you can definitely see director Joseph Kosinski putting that budget to work in the film’s new teaser trailer. The movie’s out internationally on June 25th, 2025, June 27th in the US, and will hit Apple TV Plus some time afterwards.
E-bikes open up cycling sports to more people, and not just the cheaters.
The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!
Tech reporter Janko Roettgers shared screenshots of the in-the-works live sports streaming app from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox in his Lowpass newsletter. Some features spotted by Roettgers include a DVR capability to record live events, multiview for watching multiple streams at once, and a tab dedicated to live programming.
Albania’s Jasir Asani brought out Mario-themed cleats for the team’s match against Croatia today.
Nintendo Switch Sports launched with a handful of games you’d kind of expect, like bowling, badminton, and swordplay, but after a free update dropping later this year, you’ll finally be able to shoot some hoops as well.
Following the introduction of live NBA scores, Threads will have live MLB scores “starting today,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced. You can see MLB scores by searching for a game while it’s happening or within one day of when it ends, according to spokesperson Alec Booker.
The company plans to “continue expanding live scores to cover more sports and leagues,” Mosseri said.
Update, June 13th: Added new details and an image from Meta.
What will we find there? NBC Sports writer Denny Carter might have the best guess, from this 2017 tweet:
Typical QB tweet: love my teammates god is good!
RB tweet: keep grindin
TE tweet: derp
WR tweet: the enemy speaks kindly & holds a knife
Following last year’s Quarterback series, Receiver premieres on Netflix on July 10th.
I’m a trail runner that switched from Garmin to an Apple Watch Ultra. I like to leave my heavy phone at home which meant installing (and paying for) WorkOutDoors and Footpath to fill that massive off-line mapping void. A native watchOS solution should make things much, much easier.
Here, let DC Rainmaker explain the new custom routes feature.
Following a shocking World Cup cricket win by the US over Pakistan, people are learning about players like Super Over hero Netravalkar. Other than being a “zippy left arm quick bowler with an efficient action capable of swinging the ball in both directions,” he’s also an Oracle software engineer.
If you need to become a cricket expert before next Wednesday’s matchup with India, try this explainer.
The FIA’s “nimble” cars will be shorter and lighter, and a new hybrid setup increases battery power from 120kw to 350kw with “manual override” for boosted overtaking. There’s active aero now in the front and back, but DRS is gone.
It’s live in 20 countries now and will reach 25 by July 1st. Warner Bros. Discovery also has bundle deals in place with providers like Telefonica and Vodafone.
In these European countries, Max will be the only way to stream every 2024 Olympic Games event live, it offers “double the amount of content” versus HBO Max, and House of Dragons season two will premiere on June 17th.
After plenty of teases and licensing news, EA is showing off the official covers for its NIL-enabled College Football 25 game, which is returning after a decade-long break. Even if they don’t have the backup QB from Texas, EA has signed the starter, as its cover features Quinn Ewers alongside Michigan running back Donovan Edwards, and Colorado wide receiver/defensive back Travis Hunter.
