Mixed Zone blog

If you’re sad, like we are, that the 2025 Grand Slam season has come to an end, we recommend a big, beautiful biography that will fill you up with all the tennis you are missing. Arthur Ashe: A Life, by historian Raymond Arsenault, chronicles all the on- and off- court experiences of the man whose commitment to human rights and building a better world proved to make for a remarkable and inspiring legacy.

Europe’s football leagues are getting serious about enforcing “financial fair play” and “profit and sustainability rules” designed to ensure that clubs live within their means. All of which sounds good in theory, and as a means of avoiding the type of ruinous speculation that led some clubs in the past to go bust. But increasingly the financial straightjackets on ambitious mid-sized clubs with deep-pocketed owners are looking like an incumbent-protection racket that protects the bigger clubs and their privileged position.

No one did more to make the NFL the huge success it is today, or to drag it into the international limelight. And no one did more to jump-start American interest in the world’s dominant varietal of football, making the US a deserving World Cup host nation. And so no one would have been more delighted by the spectacle of his hugely popular Kansas City Chiefs opening their regular season in a beautiful World Cup stadium in the South American nation that is practically synonymous with soccer. A festival of all the footballs bringing us together.

So much of the history presented by the stories and cultural artifacts of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City is powerful and poignant. From our Great Game Lab lens, perhaps the coolest thread is the little-known role of African American baseball players in globalizing America's pastime.

American college soccer has long represented the best place in the world for many of the world’s best players to develop their game… not to mention that they got to enjoy a world-class education to boot. This will remain the case for countries without strong domestic leagues and robust investment. But for many of the major stars in the Women’s EURO, domestic league development pathways may prove comparable or even superior to the U.S. college route.

Anyone fancy an Uzbekistan vs. Ecuador in Dallas, a Jordan vs. Senegal in New York, or a Norway vs. Iran in Mexico City?

Intrigued by the expanded, revamped men’s FIFA Club World Cup taking place this summer in the U.S. and one year out from the North America-hosted men’s World Cup next summer, I made a last-minute decision during a business trip to Washington, D.C.

When it comes to sports innovation, what is fair? And which innovations should be banned? Clearly a motorized running shoe would cross a line, but shoes with springboard-like carbon plates that have improved runners’ times are deemed fair game. So where do we draw the line?

My son taught himself to play the guitar during Covid lockdown. Someone else recently told me they picked up French, and we all know about all the sourdough yeast starters out there.

When Dominique Malonga, the French teenager with the viral dunk videos, was selected second in the WNBA draft on April 14 by the Seattle Storm, many U.S.-based women’s basketball fans and even journalist

One of the more intriguing sights I encountered on a book reporting trip to England this month was a poster in a restroom at the University of Leeds entitled “Recognising Microaggressions.” Among the expressions listed that could, even unintentionally, amount to discrimination against members of

As we await this month’s fascinating European Champions League quarterfinals, we heartily recommend you watch Wolves: Champions of the World, a 13-minute documentary that sheds light on the iconic European competition’s origins.