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Shifts in technology and media are changing the way we play, watch and understand sports. Business models are adapting and social change is forcing those in charge of teams and leagues to reconsider decades-old practices.

Sports

Cleveland

Axios Cleveland

Cavs shooting guard Donovan Mitchell has been named an NBA All-Star starter for the first time in his career. 

Driving the news: The 26-year-old phenom was selected by fans, coaches and players to represent the Eastern Conference in the Feb. 19 showcase in Salt Lake City. 

Mitchell is joined by guard Kyrie Irving and forwards Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum and Kevin Durant as starters. 

Between the lines: Mitchell, nicknamed "Spida," played his first five seasons for the Utah Jazz, arriving in Cleveland via a blockbuster trade this summer, so the All-Star venue will be familiar turf.    

By the numbers: Mitchell is scoring a career-best 28.3 points per game and is shooting nearly 40% from beyond the three-point line, (a scorching rate).  

He has posted the best scoring season by any Cavaliers player not named LeBron James in franchise history. 

On Jan. 2, Mitchell joined an elite club when he scored 71 points and dished out 11 assists in a victory over the Chicago Bulls. He is one of only seven players to have eclipsed 70 points in a single game, and the only one to do so while recording 10+ assists.   

Mitchell's been no slouch defensively, averaging 4 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game.

🕷️ The bottom line: Despite hand-wringing over all-star selections by national NBA pundits, Mitchell was a no-brainer. His individual heroics, and the team's success, have earned him a rightful spot among the league's most telegenic stars.

Donovan Mitchell named NBA All-Star starter

Spida's supernova season earns him rightful place among league's best.

Donovan Mitchell, sweaty and smiling in red jersey.

Spida smiling after his 71-point explosion on Jan. 2. Photo: David Liam Kyle/Getty

Phoenix

Axios Phoenix

Big names in sports and entertainment have their eyes fixed on an upcoming athletic event in the Valley. 

No, we're not talking about the Super Bowl. It's the nation's fastest-growing sport: pickleball.

What's happening: Major League Pickleball (MLP), the buzzy pro circuit, is hosting its first competition of the year at Mesa's Bell Bank Park, which kicked off Thursday and will continue through Sunday. 

Why it matters: Professional and recreational pickleball's popularity has exploded, with an 11.5% average annual growth rate among recreational players over the past five years. Celebrities such as Tom Brady, Kevin Durant and Heidi Klum have purchased teams.

The onslaught of interest offers major revenue opportunities for metro Phoenix, where many courts and indoor facilities already exist given the retiree community's early adoption of the sport.

State of play: This weekend's tournament has two levels: the Premier Level, made up of the top 48 players drafted, and the Challenger Level, which consists of the next 48.

Premier teams will all play Friday, with quarterfinals Saturday, semifinals Sunday morning and the final showdown that night. 

The Challenger tournament kicked off Thursday and will conclude on Sunday at 2pm. 

Zoom in: Arizona's MLP team, AZ Drive, is in the Challenger Level and faced the Atlanta Bouncers, Brooklyn Aces and Dallas Pickleball Club Thursday. The Drive won only one match and did not advance to the quarterfinals. 

A group of notable Arizonans, including former Cardinal Larry Fitzgerald, Suns star Devin Booker, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and country music star Dierks Bentley collectively own AZ Drive.

What they're saying: Fitzgerald isn't just a financier — he also picked up the sport as a hobby during the pandemic. And he takes his performance very seriously.

"People pick fights with me and I just finish them," he told 12 News. "You know what I mean? I'm not out here looking for trouble. Like 50 Cent says, 'I don't want any problems, but if you want a problem, no problem. I got you.'"

Be smart: MLP is live-streaming all the games on YouTube.

To see the action in person, buy a single-day ticket for $10 or a full-weekend pass for $35.

Major League Pickleball hosts first event of 2023 in metro Phoenix

Major League Pickleball is hosting its first competition of the year at Mesa's Bell Bank Park.

A logo that says "MLP by Margaritaville Mesa."

Photo: Courtesy of Major League Pickleball

News

Things to Do

Philadelphia

Howard Eskin was a television sportscaster in the 1980s when he broke a huge story about then-Eagles owner Leonard Tose shopping the franchise to buyers who’d relocate the team.

Flashback: The news ignited a firestorm and exposed Tose’s gambling problems. He’d later admit to losing millions in Atlantic City casinos. 

Flash forward: The Eagles stayed, partially thanks to Eskin’s reporting, and are now a win away from their second Super Bowl in five years. 

Meanwhile, Eskin went on to a decorated radio career for WIP and as the Eagles sideline reporter.

He’s also courted controversy, including a feud with Mayor Jim Kenney over the soda tax.

Axios talked with Eskin about those perilous moments and his thoughts heading into Sunday’s NFC Championship between the Eagles and 49ers. The interview was condensed and edited for clarity:

Axios: People could say you saved the franchise from leaving Philadelphia with your coverage at KYW-TV. How much of that story is true?

Eskin: [Tose’s] attorneys threatened me. There was a point where to get money he wanted to try to move the team to Phoenix. I got that story, too, and when I put that out there, obviously, you can imagine that all hell broke loose … And then he tried to sell the team to a group outside of Atlantic City. They worked out the deal, and I found this out for fact, on a napkin over hoagies. I don’t know that I saved [the team from leaving], but I put something out there that probably helped in some way.

Axios: I can only imagine how bitter Eagles fans would’ve been. What would Philly have missed out on?

Eskin: They would’ve missed out on a lot of whining and complaining and some good teams along the way. It took until the late 90s, until a guy named Andy Reid. 

Axios: That’s a sexy storyline if the Kansas City Chiefs, where Reid is now head coach, beat Cincinnati and the Eagles knock out San Francisco to have a shot at their second Super Bowl ring.

Eskin: Andy Reid will talk about the good times he had here. He’s the best coach in the NFL right now.

Axios: Would it be bigger than the first Super Bowl if the Eagles win this year?

Eskin: I don’t want to take the luster off it but there’s nothing like the first one. It’s like a rematch in boxing. The second one’s usually not as good as the first one. But it’s still great. And I emphasize the word great. They could stuff it up the Cowboys’ nose. The Dallas Cowboys have five Super Bowls. I say yeah, dust off the trophies. I put an illustration up the other day on Twitter: Most rings since 1997, JLO 6, Cowboys 0.

Axios: You happen to be talking to a Cowboys fan. But I am rooting for the Eagles this weekend. Any circumstance when Eagles fans root for the Cowboys?

Eskin: Zero chance. Below zero. You get buried if you root for them. I call Cowboys fans cockroaches because when it’s gloomy they go into the muck and grime and you don’t see them. When it’s sunny they come back out. One time at a pregame show, I got live cockroaches from Texas and I had people eat the cockroaches when the Cowboys were playing that day. Of course, I brought a chocolate machine to sweeten them up a little bit. You could hear the crunch when the people were eating cockroaches to bury the Cowboys fans. 

Eskin: I lean to the Eagles. They’re at home. Seven of the last nine NFC Championship games have been won by the home team. 

Axios: I have to ask if you ever patched up that feud with Jim Kenney on the soda tax.

Eskin: Oh, no. We don’t like one another a little bit. We got in a yelling match when the Eagles were in London because he got mad that I got a Super Bowl ring, and he didn’t.

Axios: We should strap a couple football helmets on you guys and let you go at it. 

"The King" thinks the Birds are headed to the Super Bowl

Axios talked with the Philly sports radio legend about what's at stake this weekend and a perilous moment in Eagles’ history.

WIP radio host Howard Eskin interview former Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel at the Linc.

Hot takes and mic drops, longtime Philly radio personality Howard Eskin, left, isn't afraid to mix it with athletes or politicians. Photo: Drew Hallowell /Philadelphia Eagles/Getty Images)

Detroit

Axios Detroit

The USFL's Michigan Panthers are coming home.

Driving the news: The Panthers will play their home games at Ford Field starting in April, the league announced yesterday.

The second-year league played all its regular season games in Birmingham, Ala. last year.

Another USFL squad, the Philadelphia Stars, will also call Ford Field home.

Flashback: The original USFL, which bears no relation to the new startup league outside of its name, also had a Michigan Panthers team. 

A 1983 Panthers playoff game drew 60,000 at the Pontiac Silverdome, according to the Detroit News.

They won the USFL championship that year.

🏈 More pro football coming to Detroit

The USFL's Michigan Panthers will play their home games at Ford Field this spring.

shmael Hyman of the Michigan Panthers celebrates after scoring a touchdown with Joe Walker in the second quarter of the game against the New Jersey Generals at Protective Stadium on June 11, 2022 

Ishmael Hyman and Joe Walker of the Michigan Panthers celebrate after scoring a touchdown last season. Photo: Michael Reaves/Getty Images

QB sneaks have been on the rise in the NFL for years, and one of the four remaining teams has perfected the play to such an extent it should probably be called the (new) Philly special.

State of play: Teams attempted 291 QB sneaks this season when facing a down-and-1 (or less). That's up 20% from last year (243), double the total from 2019 (133) and almost four times the total from 2016 (73), per NYT.

They're increasing because they work: 82.8% of sneaks this season resulted in either a first down or TD, compared to a 62.5% success rate on standard rushing plays on fourth-and-1.

"The quarterback can almost trip and fall forward to get the first down," ESPN analyst and former NFL nose tackle Anthony "Booger" McFarland told NYT.

The intrigue: The top-seeded Eagles use this play more than anyone, converting a record 29 sneaks this season on a record 33 attempts. Their strategy can be described in a single word: Push.

Rather than trying to catch the defense off guard, Philly surrounds Jalen Hurts with three teammates who push him forward, taking advantage of a 2006 rule change allowing that action.

No team deploys this strategy more often or effectively than the Eagles. It's no surprise, then, that Hurts scored 5 TDs on sneaks in each of the last two seasons, by far the most in the NFL.

Between the lines: Philly has another secret weapon in short yardage situations: All-Pro center Jason Kelce, who has perfected the art of subtly moving the ball forward pre-snap, creating just enough extra wiggle room to increase Hurts' chances of converting.

The new Philly special: QB sneak

82.8% of sneaks this season resulted in either a first down or touchdown.

Jalen Hurts sneaks in for the score. Photo: Norm Hall/Getty Images

Washington D.C.

Axios D.C.

Washingtonians have loved pickleball for a while, and now we have a professional Major League Pickleball team to root for. 

Why it matters: The League is backed by sports giants including LeBron James and Tom Brady. Eva Longoria, Kate Upton, and NFL star Odell Beckham Jr. are all part of the D.C. team’s ownership group.

Plus, this professional league will test whether local fans of the sport enjoy watching it as much as they love to play.

Driving the news: The D.C. Pickleball Team (yes, that’s the official name) starts its inaugural season today in Mesa, Arizona. They’ll play at 10am, 1pm, and 4pm ET. Depending on how they do, they’ll advance to the next round on Friday.

Stream their matches here. The semifinals and finals will be broadcast on the Tennis Channel.

Meet the team: Each MLP team has four players – two men and two women.

On the D.C. team, former pro tennis player Sam Querrey — who was once ranked 11th in the world — is already ruffling feathers, the Washington Post reports.

Despite being new to pickleball, Querrey predicted that he’d need only three months to become a top 10 player … but then lost his first round of singles, doubles, and mixed doubles matches at his first pro pickleball event earlier this month.

The rest of D.C.'s roster includes DMV local Monica Paolicelli, a former JMU soccer player from McLean; former Coastal Carolina tennis player Shelby Bates from Jupiter, Florida; and former competitive tennis player, gamer and racecar driver Stefan Auvergne from Austin, Texas. 

How it works: MLP athletes have the opportunity to earn sponsorships, appearance fees, and up to $5 million in prize money at league events. 

The league's 24 teams represent cities across the U.S., but athletes aren't required to live or regularly practice in the city they play for, per the Post. 

Half of the MLP teams are ranked as Premier, the highest level of play. The remaining teams (including D.C.) are in the Challenger group – described as up-and-coming talents.

💭 Our thought bubble: We’re excited to cheer for our local pickleball team but we need a better name! Send us your suggestions to: dc@axios.com.

How to watch D.C.'s new Major League Pickleball team

The D.C. Pickleball Team plays its first match on Thursday.

Illustration of a pickleball paddle hitting an exploding ball

Washington, D.C.

Columbus

Axios Columbus

👋 Tyler here. Back when Bengals QB Joe Burrow was in high school, I heard a story that he battled in a marathon game of Risk that lasted nearly an entire day. 

When Burrow finally lost, so the apocryphal story goes, he immediately reset the board and demanded a rematch. 

Flashback: I thankfully got to witness that competitiveness up close as a news reporter and sports broadcaster in his hometown while Burrow was the star of Athens High School.

State of play: Already a Buckeyes commit, Burrow received loads of attention during his magical senior season that ended with a heartbreaking loss in the state championship game.

A crowded press box forced our broadcasting crew to call a few home games on the roof, including one in which he caught a TD pass from himself.

Between the yard lines: I'm not a Bengals fan, but I still root for Burrow to succeed because he never forgot where he came from.

He memorably used his Heisman Trophy win to highlight the issue of rural poverty in Ohio and has since launched a foundation to help children dealing with mental illness and food insecurity. 

What's next: A year out from losing the Super Bowl, Burrow is now a win away from reaching the big game twice in his three NFL seasons. He's also a finalist for AP's Most Valuable Player. 

Who's surprised? Whether in football or board games, the kid from Athens County is always eager for another chance at victory. 

🏈 An Ohioan worth rooting for

The kid from Athens County is always eager for another chance at victory.

Joe Burrow in a Bengals hoodie before an NFL playoff game. 

Friday's sports stories