The Africa Cup of Nations, the third-largest continental championship in the world, has entered the knockout stage in Cameroon.
State of play: African powers Ghana and Algeria (defending champs) were shockingly eliminated in the group stage, while Gambia and Comoros — two tiny nations making their AFCON debuts — are still alive.
All of the roughly 240 American athletes going to next month's Beijing Winter Olympic Games have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Team USA's top doctor told AP on Thursday.
The big picture: There was no vaccine requirement for American Olympians at last year's Summer Games in Tokyo, and about 100 of the 613 Team USA athletes competing in the event were unvaccinated.
ESPN announced Thursday that it will not be sending news personnel to the Beijing Olympics due to concerns about COVID-19 and related pandemic restrictions.
What they're saying: "The safety of our employees is of utmost importance to us,” Norby Williamson, ESPN executive vice president, event and studio production & executive editor, said in the press release.
The NCAA approved a new policy Wednesday for transgender athletes, calling for each sport's national governing body to determine its own eligibility requirements for participation.
Why it matters: The policy change comes amid a national debate on the issue of inclusion of transgender athletes in collegiate sports, which has dovetailed the introduction of Republican-sponsored anti-trans legislation across the U.S.
Autograph, an NFT collections startup, announced that it's raised $170 million in new venture capital funding co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins.
Why it matters: If the dollar amount isn't enough — after all, it seems as if every NFT-based startup is raising money right now — the company is co-founded by Tom Brady.
The Automated Ball-Strike system (ABS), the tech powering what's colloquially known as robo-umps, is inching ever closer to the big leagues.
Driving the news: The independent Atlantic League — which has partnered with MLB since 2019 — last week announced it was doing away with robo-umps after testing them for the past season-and-a-half.
Most of NBC's event announcersfor the Beijing Olympics, which open in 15 days, will make their calls from NBC Sports HQ in Stamford, Conn., rather than traveling to Beijing, because of China's strict COVID rules.
The big picture: "NBC's broadcasting teams for figure skating, Alpine skiing and snowboarding had been expected to be in Beijing, but those plans have been canceled," USA Today's Christine Brennan reports.
"Cheer," the much-buzzed-about reality series about junior college cheerleading, has been a smash hit for Netflix and turned the stars of the show into celebrities.
Yes, but: The two cheering programs at the heart of the series — Navarro College and Trinity Valley Community College, rival two-year schools near Dallas — haven't benefited nearly as much.
