For the second year in a row, Taylor Swift was in attendance at the Super Bowl to cheer on her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, as the Kansas City Chiefs took on the Philadelphia Eagles in hopes of securing a NFL championship three-peat. Although, this time around, she didn't have to rush back from a four-day leg of her Eras Tour in Tokyo, Japan, to make the game. As per usual, photos and videos of Swift quickly began circulating online shortly after she arrived at the venue on Sunday, revealing she had a few different famous friends in tow for her big entrance at New Orleans' Caesars Superdome. Last year, Swift brought Blake Lively, Ice Spice, stylist Ashley Avignone, and her mom, Andrea Swift, with her to the game. This time around, Taylor was first spotted once again with Ice Spice as well as all three sisters from the band Haim, with whom she collaborated on the evermore song "No Body, No Crime." Seated behind her in the Superdome was her friend Ashley Avignone, a celebrity stylist. Photos later in the night also showed Swift cheering near Kelce's parents, Donna and Ed, and Travis' best friend and former NFL tight end, Ross Travis. The night before the game, Swift dined out in New Orleans with pals and family members including Kelce, his sister-in-law Kylie Kelce, Alana and Danielle Haim; her parents were also photographed at the Italian restaurant Gianna, according to People. On game night, Swift wore an off-white blazer and over-the-knee boots, a scoop-neck tank and sparkly silver shorts as she walked through the stadium to take her perch for the big game. Meanwhile, the evening kicked off with the R&B singer Ledisi's rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a performance of “Hold My Hand” from Lady Gaga filmed on Bourbon Street, and a celebration of New Orleans music featuring Harry Connick, Jr., horn players clad in purple velvet, dancers, and a marching band. Early on in the game, Swift was shown on the jumbo screen and many in the crowd appeared to "boo" collectively. She was shown looking toward Ice Spice with a half-smile and appeared to say, "What's going on?" (Eagles fans, we presume.) Later in the evening, President Donald Trump shared a side-by-side post on Truth Social of him receiving cheers from the crowd and Swift being booed. While Swift was spotted more frequently during the first half, the camera gave her more space as Kelce and the Chiefs fell further behind the Eagles as the game wore on, ultimately ending with an Eagles victory and a score of 40-22. It may not have been her or Kelce's night, but Swift's not known for retreating into the shadows for long. As Yahoo's Kelsey Weekman shared late in the game, we have been waiting on Reputation (Taylor's Version) for quite a while now.

Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. When one considers the dominant NFL conversation-starters of the past quarter century, these names rise to the top. Brady with his record seven Super Bowls and Greatest of All Time (GOAT) status. Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs superstar, is chasing history on Super Bowl Sunday, trying to become the first signal-caller to win three straight Super Bowls titles. A win against the Philadelphia Eagles would already give Mahomes four championships, at age 29, leaving him plenty of time to threaten Brady’s supremacy. Quarterbacks, quarterbacks, quarterbacks. Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre, Lamar Jackson, on and on. Fans obsess about the arms. Teams pay astronomical sums for the good ones. No question, there have been outstanding players at other positions that demand our attention: J.J. Watt, Terrell Owens, Troy Polamalu, to name a few. But there was once a time, from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, when runners weren’t just game-changing players, but bonafide mainstream stars. Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Bo Jackson, Walter “Sweetness” Payton, Marcus Allen, O.J. Simpson. Everyone knew the big running backs (RBs). That hasn’t really been the case in recent years. Until now, thanks to Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, the key player of Super Bowl 59. Especially if Barkley and his Eagles can pull off the win, knocking Mahomes off his quarterback (QB) perch. With his monster 2024 regular season and postseason, Barkley brought some shine back to the running backs. Barkley has scored five rushing touchdowns (TDs) this postseason: if he were to achieve three more at the Super Bowl, he’d tie Terrell Davis for the most rushing scores in a single playoffs (eight, in the playoffs following the 1997 season). In the 1998 season and postseason, Davis rushed for 2,476 yards, an all-time high, as the Broncos repeated as Super Bowl champs. With just 30 rushing yards on Sunday, Barkley—who will turn 28 on Super Bowl Sunday—will break Davis’ record for most total rushing yards in a regular season and playoffs. Three of Barkley’s TD runs during Philadelphia’s playoff run have been for 60 or more yards; he ran for 62 and 78-yard scores against the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round, and added a 60-yard TD rush in the NFC Championship Game, against the Washington Commanders. In short, Barkley’s been a thrill ride all year. He’s a threat to break free, on any handoff. He could will the Eagles to victory, almost solely on the deftness of his footsteps. Between 1990 and 2000, five running backs were named NFL MVP. Since then, only three RBs have won the award, and none since Adrian Peterson, in 2012. Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen edged out Jackson for the 2024 honor; Barkley, as dominant as he was, finished third. The conventional wisdom, in recent years, is that running backs are expendable. They can be replenished by younger, cheaper players that cycle through the league. While Brady and Rodgers can play into their 40s, running backs have a much shorter shelf life. The market for running backs was so financially depressed—relative to other positions— in 2023 that a group of top RBs, including Barkley, reportedly hopped on a Zoom call to express their concerns. The undervaluing of running backs was put on full display last year on Hard Knocks, the popular behind-the-scenes HBO docuseries that embeds with an NFL team. The series tracked the New York Giants, Barkley’s former team, last off-season; New York general manager Joe Schoen had inked quarterback Daniel Jones to a four year, $160 million contract extension in 2023. The cameras caught him wavering on his commitment to Barkley. “You’re paying the guy $40 million,” Schoen said of Jones. “It’s not to hand the ball off to a $12 million back,” meaning Barkley. So Schoen encouraged Barkley to test free agency. “I’d have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia, I’ll tell you that,” New York owner John Mara said in front of the cameras. Barkley wound up signing a three-year contract, worth $37.75 million that includes $26 million guaranteed, with Philly, New York’s division rival. Barkley’s in the Super Bowl. New York released Jones this season, and finished 3-14. After Barkley’s success, teams would be wise to rethink their investments in running backs. Davis was the last running back to win Super Bowl MVP honors, 27 years ago. If Barkley can repeat that feat, it’s official. This NFL thing has some legs.

Do you hear all that whining about the Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 1990s, the one forged by Michael Jordan and forever immortalized by The Last Dance docuseries? Or, say, the three-headed Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic tennis dynasty, which won all those tournaments in the 2000s, and gifted fans memorable duels and wondrous points and fevered appreciation for their sport? Or complaining that Serena Williams or Tiger Woods, in their primes, won too much? Of course not. Because history looks quite fondly upon sports dynasties, of both the team and individual varieties. Jordan and the Bulls, through their six NBA championships, were international rock stars who helped grow basketball into the global phenomenon it is today. Tiger and Serena and the tennis guys, they’re called GOATs. Sports dynasties are pretty great. And the current NFL royals, the Kansas City Chiefs—who on Feb. 9 will try to become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls—are no different. You’d never know it, however, judging from all the Chiefs hate out there. A segment of the NFL’s fan base seems convinced that the refs rig the games in the Chiefs favor. Barstools Sports founder Dave Portnoy claimed he was done watching the NFL after Kansas City’s win over Buffalo in the AFC Championship game cost him $1 million in a bet. The hashtag #boycottsuperbowl trended on social media. Yes, the Chiefs received some favorable calls against Buffalo. But jokes about how the refs favor Kansas City, just like they did New England and Jordan back in the day—remember that pushoff on “The Last Shot”?—are just that, jokes. There’s no real evidence of a Chiefs conspiracy to speak of. Kansas City draws record audiences. Some 57.4 million viewers tuned in to Chiefs-Bills, the most ever for an AFC championship game. The second Chiefs-Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl—KC beat Philly two years ago—is safe money to set another audience record, and for good reason Sure, Taylor Swift’s presence at these games since she started dating Travis Kelce has undoubtedly attracted new fans to football. But plenty of fans love watching Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes work his magic, or KC’s somewhat underappreciated defense grind out wins, while appreciating the team’s penchant for exciting comeback victories. Don’t forget, the Chiefs trailed by double digits in each of the last two Super Bowls—against Philadelphia and San Francisco, respectively—only to pull both games out. And a healthy portion tunes in hoping the Chiefs get their comeuppance. Rooting for underdog opponents is what sports is all about. Plus, compared with the NFL’s most recent dynasty, the Tom Brady-Bill Belichick New England Patriots, Kansas City comes up roses. There’s been no whiff of scandal—no spying, no football deflating—attached to these Chiefs. KC coach Andy Reid isn’t a professional grump like Belichick. He seems pretty jovial, he’s not afraid to make a fool of himself, we have the always amusing clip of him competing in a youth football competition as a giant 13-year-old, he looks like a walrus, and that baby dressed up like him for Halloween. There’s a lot to like there with Andy. Mahomes might be the MJ of his day. He rocks a dad-bod, sounds like Kermit the frog—something he gleefully acknowledged while firing back at haters the other day—but constantly delivers on the football field, with both his arms and legs. With a win on Feb. 9, not only would Mahomes become the first three-peat QB in Super Bowl history, he’d join Brady, Joe Montana, and Terry Bradshaw as the only QBs with four or more Super Bowl titles. Brady was 37 when he won his fourth. Montana was 34. Bradshaw was 31. Mahomes would be 29. Brady’s seven titles would be in reach.

The American Airlines flight that collided with a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter was carrying members of the figure skating community, the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA) said on Jan. 30. In a statement, the USFSA said: “U.S. Figure Skating can confirm that several members of our skating community were sadly aboard American Airlines Flight 5342, which collided with a helicopter yesterday evening in Washington, D.C. These athletes, coaches, and family members were returning home from the National Development Camp held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas" The competition, which occurred from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26, crowned new champions in senior women’s, men’s pairs and ice dance. The event also included competitions at the novice and junior levels, as well as development camps that are the gateway for athletes to join the national team, which competes at the world and Olympic levels. The flight included 60 passengers (and four crew persons), but USFSA did not confirm how many passengers were members of the skating community. Russian news agency TASS, citing an unnamed source, reported that Russian-born world champions in pairs skating from 1994 Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were among the passengers. “Our coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board the crashed plane,” a source is quoted as telling the news outlet. The couple, who competed for Russia and are believed to have married in 1995, moved to the U.S. in 1998 and now coach figure skating at the Skating Club of Boston. The Club has disclosed the names of its members who were on the flight—athletes Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, Han’s mother Jin, Lane’s mother Christine, and Shishkova and Naumov. Among Shishkova and Naumov’s students is their son, Maxim, who competed at nationals and finished fourth in the men's event. The Daily Mail reported that a teammate said he was not on the flight and had left Wichita earlier in the week. Maxim's performance earned him a spot on the U.S. team that is due to compete at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Seoul, Korea, in late February. Doug Zeghibe, CEO of Skating Club of Boston, posted on the club’s Instagram account earlier Thursday, “Our sport and this DLub have suffered a horrible loss with this tragedy. Everyone is like a family. Of the skaters, coaches and parents on the plane, we believe six were from The Skating Club of Boston. We are devastated and completely at a loss for words. These athletes, coaches and parents were returning from the U.S. Figure Skating’s National Development Camp, following last week’s U.S. Championships in Wichita. This camp is for young competitive skaters of tomorrow with the most promise to be a champion of tomorrow. The Club sent 18 athletes to compete at the U.S. Championships. It sent 12 athletes to the National Development Camp.” Members of the figure skating community have been reacting to the news. Tara Lipinski, 1998 Olympic champion who served as commentator for the US championships on NBC with Johnny Weir, posted on her Instagram stories, “It’s unimaginable the loss. We will mourn their loss and ALWAYS remember them…So many of our own were on this tragic flight and my heart aches, for them and for everyone part of this devastating accident.” Weir also reacted, saying on Instagram, “I’m praying for everyone affected by this tragic accident. Members of our skating family were on that flight returning home from nationals in Wichita. We mourn their loss and pray for their families & loved ones.” Ilia Malinin, who just earned his third consecutive national title and trains in Virginia, initially posted, “I hope and pray for everyone who was on that flight is okay,” and after authorities said it was likely they would not find survivors, said, “I’m heartbroken by the tragic loss of my fellow skaters in this devastating accident. The figure skating community is a family, and this loss is beyond words. My thoughts are with their families, friends, and everyone affected. We will never forget them.

The 2025 Super Bowl will be one to remember as fans watch a rematch between 2023 Super Bowl finalists the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 9. But despite excitement about one of the biggest annual U.S. sporting events, ticket pricing for the Super Bowl has decreased by about 14% when compared to the 2024 resale price of a Super Bowl ticket, according to Seat Geek data reviewed by TIME. The average price for a 2025 Super Bowl resale ticket stands at about $10,417 as of Wednesday, compared to the 2024 resale price of $12,128, the same number of days before the event. “The Super Bowl is always one of the most in-demand events in all of sports, and this year’s rematch between the Eagles and Chiefs adds an extra layer of intrigue. Right now, we’re seeing strong early demand, particularly from Eagles fans, who are leading ticket sales,” said Chris Leyden, Seat Geek director of growth marketing. “While prices are currently trending lower than last year at this stage, we know that Super Bowl ticket prices can be dynamic, and we’ll be watching closely to see how the market evolves as game day approaches." The decrease in pricing might be due to this year’s location, hosted in New Orleans at the Caesars Superdome. Last year’s game was held in Las Vegas— a much bigger market—at Allegiant Stadium. As of Wednesday afternoon, the cheapest price to nab a seat at the big game, including fees, was $5,705 on Seat Geek, whereas the most expensive ticket stands at $20,674. Pricing is fairly similar on Ticketmaster’s site, with the lowest ticket priced at $4,750 and the most expensive at $17,842, not including fees. Prices are expected to fall as game day approaches. The Kansas City Chiefs have the opportunity to take home the Super Bowl trophy for the third year in a row. The last time they played against the Eagles was in a Super Bowl final in February 2023, beating the Philly-based team by three points. If the Eagles take home the win this year, it would be the second time they earn the championship in franchise history, with their first Super Bowl win in 2018 against the New England Patriots.

On a balmy December morning in Boston, Richard Daynard is sitting at his dining-room table watching a livestream on his laptop. “Pure. Horsesh-it,” he declares as a witness testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The hearing has been called to discuss what seems to be becoming America’s new favorite pastime: throwing down bets on sports, 24/7. And what has set the bearded, bookish law professor off is a former gambling regulator from New Jersey’s use of a talking point favored by both the industry and the professional sports leagues: that the reason it’s so easy to wager on sports these days is this is what the American people want. To Daynard, president of the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University’s law school, such language deflects from gambling’s heavy social toll. “This is consumer choice!” says Daynard, the sarcasm driving home his point. “This is freedom!” Daynard has been fighting big public-health battles for decades. He played a foundational role building landmark legal cases in the 1980s and ’90s against U.S. tobacco companies, which ultimately resulted in cigarette manufacturers’ agreeing to pay more than $200 billion in settlement funds to the states. Now, at 81, he is no less indignant about the way companies seem to put profits over customer well-being. His latest objective is curtailing the excesses of sports gambling. “We’re talking,” says Daynard, “about addiction.” Americans bet an estimated $150 billion on sports in 2024, up 24% from the prior year, according to the American Gaming Association, and sports books kept some $14 billion of that, up 27%. State governments collected about $2.5 billion in sports-betting tax revenue in 2024, a 19% jump. Networks broadcast incessant advertising, featuring premium pitchmen like Kevin Hart, LeBron James, Peyton Manning, and Jamie Foxx, from gambling companies like DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM. But America’s burgeoning love affair with sports gambling has come with costs. Calls to problem-gambling hotlines have spiked. Emerging research suggests that sports betting depletes investment accounts of already financially vulnerable households, increases bankruptcy risk, and even contributes to upticks in intimate-partner violence. “I am presently, or have recently been, treating divorces, breakups, estrangement from children, criminal charges, incarceration, loss of all savings, foreclosure of homes, end of careers, suicidal ideation, hospitalization for a suicide attempt,” says PHAI director of gambling policy Harry Levant, a former gambling addict who’s now a clinical gambling-disorder therapist and also testified at that December congressional hearing. “The deepest forms of despair.” Daynard argues that sports-betting operators, much like tobacco companies, have engineered their product to foster addiction, through the constant stream of bonuses, promotions, and opportunities to microbet—on the speed of the next pitch, on the rebound totals of a particular player, on who will score the next touchdown—on your phone during a sporting event. “You’re just pushing buttons,” says Daynard. “You’re just going after action.” His approach to reining in the industry is twofold: litigation and legislation. In late 2023 PHAI filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of customers in Massachusetts accusing DraftKings, one of the biggest gambling operators in the U.S., of utilizing deceptive marketing practices. Last summer, a judge denied DraftKings’ motion to dismiss the case, allowing it to potentially advance to the discovery phase. Daynard’s team also helped Representative Paul Tonko, a New York Democrat, draft the SAFE Bet Act, a federal law that would ban sports-gambling advertising during live events, prohibit gambling operators from accepting more than five deposits from an individual in a 24-hour period, and eliminate the use of AI to track a bettor’s gambling habits for customized promotions. “Nobody’s had more experience with fighting addiction as a scholar and activist and thought leader,” says Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who as state attorney general in the 1990s worked with Daynard to file lawsuits against tobacco companies and introduced the SAFE Bet Act with Tonko. “He was a very powerfully articulate advocate at a time when there were not a lot of them, making our lawsuits credible.” As he sips soup in the three-bedroom Back Bay apartment he’s lived in since 1974, Daynard seems energized by the challenge ahead. After all, he not only knows what it’s like to take on a deep-pocketed adversary, he also understands the impact he can have if he prevails: Over the past 30 years, the price of a pack of smokes has gone up more than 450%, thanks in large part to the 1998 settlement that requires tobacco manufacturers to compensate states as long as cigarettes are sold in the U.S. Big Tobacco has stopped advertising to kids. And cigarette sales have fallen 59% since the settlement. “People laughed at Dick Daynard in the ’70s and the ’80s because they thought his ideas about going after the tobacco industry were harebrained,” says Thomas Sobol, a Boston plaintiff attorney who worked on the litigation against Big Tobacco. “They were wrong. People should think twice before even questioning his foresight.” A New York City native whose father ran a clothing business and mother worked as a public-school administrator, Daynard developed a smoking aversion when he was 12. He was the youngest member of the ham-radio enthusiast group that would meet in the back room of a Manhattan tavern, and the space would grow so thick with smoke, he’d have to retreat to the bar to get away. After attending the Bronx High School of Science, which counts more alumni as Nobel Prize winners than any other secondary school in the world, Daynard went to Columbia, where he majored in philosophy. “I was a nice, bright Jewish kid from New York,” he says. “There are two things I could do in life. I didn’t like blood.” So he was off to law school, at Harvard. He spent one summer working for a fancy Manhattan firm, drafting a brief on behalf of a marquee client, Ford Motor Co. But oiling the wheels of commerce wasn’t for him. “I’m sitting in my chair thinking about when I’m 50,” says Daynard. “What will my life be like? I’ve only got one of these things. What will I have to say for myself?” Daynard joined the Northeastern law faculty in 1969. (He also got a Ph.D. in urban studies and planning at MIT in 1980.) He started going to meetings for a quirky smoking-opposition group in the 1970s that, according to Daynard’s wife of close to 50 years, Carol, included a Boston landlord with a “huge” hat, a hermit who’d monitor TV transmission towers in Needham, Mass., and an MIT engineering professor who’d ride a recumbent bicycle throughout Boston. “It was sort of a weird combination,” she says. The couple’s son spread the anti-cigarette gospel: once, when he was about 6, he spotted a Boston motorcyclist lighting up and told the biker he shouldn’t do that. “My wife is watching him, feeling lucky that he didn’t get slugged,” says Daynard. In 1983, Daynard became president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP). While teaching a course on consumer protection, he solicited recommendations on what to do in his new gig. “This was a class of law students,” says Daynard. “So the answer was ‘Sue the bastards.’” Naturally. But since the 1950s, that had been a failing strategy. Big Tobacco hadn’t lost a court case brought by an individual smoker or paid a penny in settlements or damages. Still, Daynard started the Tobacco Products Liability Project out of Northeastern; in 1985, the group published the inaugural Tobacco Products Litigation Reporter, devoting a portion of that first issue to documenting a case out of New Jersey in which Rose Cipollone, a smoker for 40 years, sued tobacco companies for causing her cancer. The case continued after her death in 1984, and Daynard began publicizing documents from the trial. He held a 1987 press conference to disclose a memo, written by a government doctor, saying that a tobacco-company lawyer admitted in a meeting with the U.S. surgeon general that cancer is linked to cigarettes. In 1988, Cipollone’s husband won the first-ever jury award ($400,000) involving the death of a smoker, though an appeals court later overturned it. Taking on tobacco sometimes stressed out his family. “I told him he couldn’t go south of D.C.,” says Carol. “I was worried about backlash from some crazy tobacco farmer.” She once accompanied him to a meeting in Chapel Hill, N.C., and they received a police escort. In 1990, Daynard flew to Orlando to meet with a mysterious character posing as a woman in written correspondence: Merrell Williams Jr. was a theater Ph.D. who, while working as a paralegal at the firm repping tobacco giant Brown & Williamson, stuffed damning internal documents into a girdle, ripping open a bag of chips as he passed a security guard to cover the sound of rustling papers. The whistle-blower told Daynard about the documents, which included an admission from a Brown & Williamson lawyer that the company was in the business of selling “an addictive drug.” They were eventually funneled to congressional lawmakers, who had just held hearings in which seven tobacco CEOs had said under oath that nicotine wasn’t addictive; a medical professor who disseminated them online; and the Mississippi attorney general, who with the assistance of Daynard and private litigators filed the first state lawsuit against Big Tobacco. Daynard introduced the theory of “unjust enrichment” into the proceedings. It posited that while tobacco companies were making money off smokers, the state had to pay medical costs for sick customers and was thus the injured party. Other states followed Mississippi’s lead, and within just a few years, an agreement was in place that would transform cigarette consumption in this country. “As a physician and public-health professor, we often don’t view lawyers as partners and leaders in promoting public health,” says Dr. Howard Koh of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “But Dick has saved so many lives.” oduct can be addictive and enacts reasonable measures to protect consumers. “People fall off the cliff,” says Daynard. “The ‘responsible gaming’ approach is, we are here with the ambulance. The public-health approach is, you put a fence up on the top.” Daynard happens to live a few blocks from DraftKings headquarters. Since way before the legalization of Massachusetts sports betting, he’s parked in the garage beneath the building that now houses the company’s offices. He jokes he should carry a picture of DraftKings CEO Jason Robins with him, to recognize the executive in a pinch. “I have this fantasy that if I’m not watching,” says Daynard, tongue firmly in cheek, “Jason Robins will be there with a bat.” PHAI’s lawsuit against DraftKings alleges that the company’s offer “to get a $1,000 deposit bonus” on the sign-up page of its mobile app, and a similar offer on its website, tricked Massachusetts customers who were new to sports betting into funding new accounts and engaging with a known addictive product. Unbeknownst to them, the suit alleges, the customers would receive a $1,000 bonus only if they deposited $5,000 up front, bet $25,000 within 90 days, and bet that money on games in which you had at least a 25% chance of losing your skin. And even if someone fulfilled those requirements—which were, according to the suit, spelled out in “unreadable” small print—the $1,000 wasn’t a cash bonus. It was a credit to be used for more gambling. “The old dope peddler actually hands over the stuff,” says Daynard. “These guys can’t hand over, to use a technical term, the f-cking $1,000. They’ve just hooked somebody. But they can’t give you a goddamn $1,000?” In its argument for dismissal, DraftKings contended the promotion wasn’t misleading, and wrote that “no reasonable consumer would believe that a deposit of any amount would result in the immediate transfer to them of 1,000 U.S. dollars.” The company also claimed the plaintiffs failed to specify any financial harm caused by the promotion, as not receiving an expected bonus is not the same as losing money. Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Debra A. Squires-Lee, however, wrote that the extent of any DraftKings deception “must be developed in discovery,” and that the plaintiffs “plausibly suggest that they were harmed because they bought into a service worth less than they believed.” As in most class actions, legal experts say, the odds seem stacked against the plaintiffs. “But the fact that this case has survived that motion to dismiss is fairly significant,” says Holden. “That doesn’t spell victory automatically. But it is a signal that hey, this isn’t a nothing.” If the case does proceed to trial, experts say, a jury could be turned off by the way DraftKings marketed its promotion offer to novice customers. “The lawsuit does a good job of saying, ‘Of course, you put it in your terms and conditions, but you don’t emphasize that,’” says Keith Miller, a professor at Drake Law School. “You don’t emphasize how much people have to deposit. What the play-through is. Those sorts of things are the hardest for them to defend.” Law is like the NFL: a copycat operation. Innovations spread fast. As the Massachusetts suit progresses, lawyers in other states will file similar claims, just as they did in the tobacco wars. It’s already happening. In September, a suit similar to PHIA’s action was filed in New York; so far in 2025, DraftKings has been hit with lawsuits in New Jersey, Illinois, and Kentucky concerning its “no-sweat” and “risk-free” bet promotions. “DraftKings provides a legal and regulated platform that prioritizes integrity and responsible gaming,” a company spokesperson writes to TIME in a statement. “Our products are designed for fun and entertainment, giving players opportunities to follow their favorite teams and athletes while connecting with friends. We believe our promotional terms are clearly and fairly disclosed in plain language, and we fully adhere to the regulations set forth in each jurisdiction where we operate. We remain committed to resolving the matter in question through the legal process.” Meanwhile, the SAFE Bet Act— which would also ban such “bonus” and “no sweat” advertising, require that operators conduct customer affordability checks for wagers in excess of $1,000 in a 24-hour period or $10,000 in a 30-day period, and prohibit operators from accepting deposits via credit card—is also an underdog. After all, two Democrats are pushing for regulations in a Republican-controlled Congress. “I’m very clear-eyed that it will be an uphill fight,” says Blumenthal. “It will depend a lot on whether my Republican colleagues want to stand up to the industry and produce some decent reforms.” His Democratic colleagues, moreover, don’t count as no-sweat bets. “The power of the industry affects legislators on a bipartisan basis,” says Blumenthal. “To be very blunt, it’s not like Democrats are immune to campaign contributions and other forms of influence.” Through it all, Daynard, who’s well past retirement age, plans to keep fighting. He works out with a trainer and says he’s in the best physical shape in his life. He’s still teaching at Northeastern while pursuing a public-health agenda. “I love being productive and useful,” he says. “I don’t play tennis. I don’t play golf. I don’t sail. There’s a limit to how much solitaire I can play. I haven’t learned how to play pickleball.” He’s promised to go part time if he makes it to 100. “One of the great upsides of being older is you’ve seen a lot of things,” says Daynard. “And you can recognize them. So you see something, you say, ‘Aha.’” Daynard snaps his finger. “What’s similar with the tobacco industry is that they’ve designed the trap. The customers are in there, and they extract whatever money they can from them. And what happens with a trapped customer? Nothing good.”

The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, who faced off in the 2023 Super Bowl in Arizona, are heading to a rematch in New Orleans. The Eagles lost then 38-35 but are hoping this time to win their second-ever Lombardi Trophy following their 2018 victory over the New England Patriots. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are looking to make history as the first team to win three Super Bowls in a row. Perhaps the biggest sports event in the U.S.—more than 200 million people tuned in last year—takes place this year at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday, Feb. 9. Here’s everything you need to know about the 59th Super Bowl. When and where is the 2025 Super Bowl? Super Bowl LIX will kick off on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 6:30 p.m. ET, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. It’s the eighth time the stadium, which is home to the New Orleans Saints, is hosting the Super Bowl, and the 11th time the city is doing so—matching the Miami metropolitan area for the most Super Bowls hosted in NFL history. How can I watch the 2025 Super Bowl? The Super Bowl will be broadcast nationally on FOX. It will also be broadcast in Spanish on both Fox Deportes and Telemundo. A number of live TV streaming services will also carry the game via FOX, including YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and Fubo TV. NFL games are also available to stream via the NFL App. And this year Fox Sports announced a Super Bowl “takeover” of its ad-supported streamer Tubi, offering free coverage of the game and pregame programming. Outside the U.S., the Super Bowl is available to stream via a DAZN subscription. What are the 2025 Super Bowl betting odds? Gambling has controversially become a huge part of sports in America, and the Super Bowl is no exception. According to betting site aggregator oddschecker, as of Sunday night, Jan. 26, after the Chiefs and Eagles won their respective conference championships to take their spot in the big game, the Chiefs are slight favorites to win the Super Bowl, though that is likely to fluctuate in the run-up to the actual gameday. Who is performing the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show? Grammy Award winning hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar will headline the Super Bowl LIX halftime show—a musical performance that typically runs for some 12-15 minutes. “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date. And I’ll be there to remind the world why. They got the right one,” Kendrick Lamar said in an announcement in September 2024. On Jan. 23, Apple Music announced that singer-songwriter SZA will join Kendrick Lamar as a special guest performer. Are tickets still available to go to the Super Bowl? As of Jan. 26, tickets remain available for the Super Bowl, though they are pricey. According to Ticketmaster, the prices range from around $6,000 to $64,000. TickPick says the cheapest tickets hover around $6,000, with the average price at around $11,000. What happened at the 2024 Super Bowl? Last year, the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in a dramatic overtime finish led by star quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Here’s something you’ve never seen before: two great professional basketball opponents, who less than three months ago slugged it out during an epic WNBA Finals series, now sitting in the same room together to promote their new hoops startup operation. “Yeah, it got spicy between co-founders for a little bit,” says New York Liberty center Breanna Stewart, who along with her 2024 WNBA Finals rival, Minnesota’s Napheesa Collier, are starting Unrivaled, a three-on-three women’s pro basketball league that tips off Friday night in South Florida. The pair are conducting a joint Zoom interview with TIME from Unrivaled’s new all-purpose 130,000 sq.-ft. hoops facility outside Miami. The Liberty outlasted the Lynx in a controversial deciding Game 5: with the Lynx a few seconds away from clinching the championship, Stewart appeared to travel before benefiting from a questionable foul call at the end of regulation, allowing her to make two free throws to send the game into overtime, during which New York prevailed to win the franchise’s first-ever WNBA title. In the postgame press conference, Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeves criticized the refs for allowing New York to play physically throughout the game and series. “This s--t was stolen from us,” she said. A few weeks later, on a podcast hosted by NBA player Paul George, Collier called the refereeing “terrible,” the non-call on Stewart’s foot-shuffling—and the whistle putting her on the foul line—“egregious.” In a GQ interview published in early January, Collier admitted she’s still not over the loss, referring to it as an “injustice.” So, with the pair now side-by-side on my laptop screen, I had to ask: does Stewart agree with her co-founder’s stance? “What a question,” Stewart says. “Umm, I think it would probably be the heat of the moment. Everyone is feeling all different types of reactions. But one thing that we’ve said is, with all this gained attention in the WNBA, it is going to put a little bit of an extra focal point on the referees. And hopefully that’s something that we can continue to grow and build.” Diplomatic, but a total dodge. Again: do you agree with Collier’s assessment that your title was an injustice? “No, I don’t agree with that assessment,” Stewart replies. Of course she doesn’t: just had to get it on the record. Still, none other than LeBron James spoke for many when he tweeted, after Alanna Smith was called for that foul against Stewart at the end of Game 5: “I’m sorry but that wasn’t a foul! Let the damn players dictate the outcome of a close [battle] tested game.” So was it a foul? “Yeah,” responds Stewart. “They reviewed it and they still called a foul, so…” Does Collier, who’s smiling throughout this exchange, want to add anything? “You’re just asking really pointed questions,” she says. “So I’m just laughing.” The former college teammates at UConn, who have also teamed up for gold medals twice at the Olympics—in Tokyo and last summer in Paris—should have no problem moving past that contentious series. For Unrivaled demands their undivided attention. The league, which has raised $35 million in capital and attracted sponsors like Ally Financial, Miller Lite, and Under Armour, is seeking to build on the momentum that women’s basketball—and women’s sports in general—has seen over the past few years. Unrivaled’s success should leave little doubt there’s still plenty of upside to the boom. Plus, for the WNBA players competing in this upstart league, Unrivaled offers an opportunity to bank significant offseason income, in the United States. On average, the 36 Unrivaled players will earn more than $220,000 in salary, which is higher than the $214,466 regular max base salary, and close to the $249,244 supermax base salary, for the 2025 WNBA season. Unrivaled also offers players equity and revenue sharing. These financial rewards incentivize players to skip suiting up for overseas pro teams during the WNBA offseason, as they’ve been doing for many years. Being in the United States during these early months of 2025 offers the ability to more easily activate sponsorship opportunities, through appearances and other commitments, while easing travel and other logistical burdens on their families. Collier says she began thinking about Unrivaled about two-and-a-half years ago, around the time her daughter, Mila, was born. She and her husband, basketball trainer Alex Bazell, joked that they should start their own 3-on-3—not 5-on-5—league. “It’s so bogged down in the paint, especially for players in our position,” says Collier, who like Stewart is a taller player who spends time tussling down in the paint. “To showcase our skills and abilities, we had to take people off the court.” The couple began to realize their idea had some legs. (Bazell, in fact, is now Unrivaled’s president). Stewart was a natural partner, given her ties with Collier, and the clout a now 2-time WNBA MVP and 3-time champ (about that last title…) would bring to the new league. She was sold, especially since it meant she could be home with her daughter Ruby, 3, in the offseason. Stewart played in Turkey after the 2022 WNBA season, when Ruby was one. Getting her acclimated to a new country, and finding day care, was challenging. “There are points where you’re like, ‘is it worth it?’” says Stewart. “Yes, you’re making money. You’re experiencing new cultures, which is always a positive. But you’re missing so much.” Unrivaled provides players with housing in South Florida. The league’s regular season and playoffs run from Jan. 17 through the March 17 championship game; regular season games generally take place on Fridays, Saturdays, and Mondays, with a midseason one-on-one tournament—featuring a $250,000 prize for the winner—unfolding the week of Feb. 10. Unlike Olympic 3x3, which is staged in a half-court setting, Unrivaled players will run up and down a full court, though one with smaller dimensions than the WNBA’s. There are 6 teams, with names like Lunar Owls BC (Collier’s squad) and Mist BC (Stewart’s): each roster features 6 players and a coach. TNT or TruTV will broadcast every Unrivaled contest. Max will stream all the games, which are all held at the league’s Medley, Fla. facility. That space includes a practice and game court, meeting and training rooms, a cafeteria with nutritionists, a family room, child care center, and a Sephora glam room. “I would stay here forever,” Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese, the WNBA rookie-of-the-year runner-up who will play with Unrivaled’s Rose BC, said at a recent Unrivaled media availability. “Everything I need is here—from massages, to cold tubs, to just being able to have resources, from workouts, to everything. So, just being able to be here and value women, it’s just really important right now, especially with the growth of women’s basketball.” Unrivaled will face some competition in the new sports league space. For example TGL, an indoor golf league in which teams strike balls into simulators, and putt on real greens, debuted in early January: ESPN is televising those events. Plus, fans already have plenty of sports and entertainment options at their fingertips: will they have the brain-space to consume something else? Collier believes Unrivaled will stand out because people already watch basketball during this time of year. Plus, the league’s star power could attract an audience. Besides Collier, Stewart, and Reese, standout participants include Sabrina Ionescu, Brittney Griner, Skylar Diggins-Smith, Arike Ogunbowale, and others. “We said from the beginning, we have to get the stars for this to work,” says Collier. “We have all the best people here.” There are some notable absences, like reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and reigning rookie of the year Caitlin Clark, whose play helped the WNBA set a slew of attendance and viewership records a season ago. “I kind of want to just stay out of the spotlight,” Clark told TIME for its 2024 Athlete of the Year feature, when asked why she’s skipping Unrivaled’s rookie campaign. Stewart, for one, wasn’t surprised that Clark turned down Unrivaled, given that she again led Iowa to the 2024 NCAA championship game. “As someone who has gone through a college run and then gotten drafted two weeks later, and then reported to a new city and played a rookie season, it’s kind of a whirlwind,” says Stewart, who joined the Seattle Storm after leading UConn to the 2016 NCAA title, her fourth straight championship, and also played on the U.S. Olympic team in Rio that summer. “It’s definitely understandable for her to want to take some time off and just be off the court and just be a person for a little while,” says Stewart. “Hopefully down the line, she’ll want to come and see what this is all about.” Plenty of others have shown interest through their checkbooks. Unrivaled’s investors include tennis star Coco Gauff, NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, private equity billionaire and former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry, University of South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, and former Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff. Unrivaled’s latest $28 million funding round was oversubscribed. “We really just hit the market at the perfect time,” says Collier, citing the steady growth of the WNBA over the past few years, plus the influx of popular young players from college who joined the pro ranks this season. “I’m not surprised that we’re having this feedback, because for so long, we’ve tried to fight against the narrative that women’s sports is a charity, but it’s a great business investment,” says Collier. “People are seeing that, and so they want to get involved. Because it’s going to make them money.”

Hailaierke emerged from his corner in a southpaw pose, before abruptly switching to an orthodox stance inside the octagonal ring in the central Chinese city of Lüliang. Whether that sudden shift befuddled his opponent is unclear, but just 40 seconds later Shang Zhifa was sprawled on the canvas, felled by a vicious right hand. It was a first-round knockout that won Hailaierke the 1 million rmb ($135,000) top prize at the Dec. 28 flyweight Bounty Event held by JCK, China’s top mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. It also came against all the odds. Hailaierke was only drafted into the main bout after Shang’s original opponent turned up overweight. The respected MMA website Tapology.com assessed Hailaierke’s pre-fight chances at 0%. Yet Hailaierke possessed a secret weapon that is fast becoming headline news across the increasingly popular world of Asian MMA. In a victory video posted to social media, clutching bricks of prize money and wearing the white-studded “hero’s sash” of China’s Yi ethnic minority, the 25-year-old thanked “all my Yi compatriots for supporting me.” China’s Yi people number just 9 million scattered across the nation of 1.3 billion yet they are punching (and kicking) far above their weight in the pugilistic arts. Of the seven bouts at JCK’s Bounty Event, four were won by Yi. The rest of the card was made up of ethnic Kazakhs and Russians with the defeated Shang among only three fighters belonging to China’s majority Han ethnicity, which accounts for some 92% of the national population. In addition, two Yi already fight in the apex UFC promotion. The disproportionate success of Yi in Chinese MMA is a curiosity that is galvanizing interest in ethnic minority culture amongst sports fans as well as resurgent pride within those communities themselves. Following his victory, Hailaierke returned to a hero’s welcome in the Yi heartland of Liangshan, set amid the rippling hills where China’s southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces meet. Pigs were slaughtered in his honor, he was festooned with floral garlands, and hundreds young and old thronged the dirt streets to catch a glimpse of the conquering warrior’s return. “I got into fighting because the Yi are a society of heroes,” Hailaierke tells TIME. “I wear the Yi heroes’ sash because it symbolizes valor and strength.” Indeed, the Yi have long had a fearsome reputation which goes some way to explain their role as the rising force of Chinese MMA—one that is casting the nation’s oft-maligned ethnic minorities in a new light. “Most of the Yi people live in the mountains of Sichuan, but they have many excellent fighters,” says Chinese MMA analyst Hou Yu, who runs the popular “Punch of the Big Dipper” social media channel. “Their ethnicity is also proud of them, and more and more Chinese fans are also starting to recognize these minority athletes.” It’s recognition that stands in contrast to the mystery that has long swathed the Yi. During World War II, an American pilot crash-landed close to Liangshan, where he is believed to have been captured by the Yi and turned into a kind of god-slave. When Mao Zedong’s ragtag communist rebels underwent their Long March across China in 1935 they passed through the territory of the Yi, who would raid and loot their caravans until revolutionary General Liu Bocheng secured safe passage by drinking chicken’s blood with the Yi chieftain. Still, there remained an “antagonistic relationship” between the Yi and Han, says June Teufel Dreyer, a professor specializing in China’s ethnic minorities at the University of Miami. “The Yi didn’t have needles but recognized immediately that they were useful. They would have to trade, say, 10 chickens for one needle, and they rightfully viewed that as exploitation, and so they didn’t like the Han very much.” That animosity cut both ways, with the prevailing Chinese view disparaging the Yi and other minorities as “dirty and a step below the Han in humanity,” says Dreyer. Indeed, China’s ethnic minorities have often chafed under Beijing’s rule. Article 4 of the constitution of the People’s Republic theoretically guarantees equality for all its 56 ethnic groups, though in reality the Chinese Communist Party rules according to a Han Chinese orthodoxy, which claims a direct lineage from the early Yellow River basin tribes and alone defines the national vision. In recent years, Beijing has enforced curbs on local language in Inner Mongolia, corralled some 2.8 million Tibetans into urban work groups under the guise of “poverty alleviation,” and unleashed a campaign of extrajudicial detention and cultural assimilation against predominantly Muslims Uyghurs and Kazakhs that that the U.S. and other nations have labeled genocide. “The party is happy to celebrate minorities’ achievements as long as it doesn’t conflict with what it wants, which is control of ethnic minority culture,” says Dreyer. Little wonder Yi and other minority athletes always celebrate their identity within the parameters of being part of the great Chinese nation. When ethnic Chinese Kazakhs compete in neighboring Kazakhstan, they bond closely with their local counterparts during training, though always make sure to enter the ring wrapped in the red Chinese flag, says Vaughn “Blud” Anderson, a retired Canadian MMA fighter who has been Asia-based for over two decades and today works as a commentator, trainer, and analyst for JCK and other promotions. “Hans will cheer for a Tibetan or a Yi or Mongolian just as they will for a Han,” says Anderson. “I don’t think China is divided that way. Just so long as there’s nothing that person has done to isolate themselves.” Of course, winning helps, and today the resurgent Yi are enjoying a cultural renaissance at least amongst Chinese fans of martial arts. Though, in truth, minorities’ dominance of MMA is nothing new. In ancient times, mixed combat competitions were commonplace in China. Known as Leitai after the raised platform where they were typically held, these no-holds-barred contests combined striking, grappling, and wrestling. Yet the emphasis on Leitai dwindled as modern warfare came to depend more on weaponry than hand-to-hand combat. Instead, Chinese martial arts reverted to traditional striking forms such as shaolin kung fu, which is geared more towards rules-based competition and wowing cinema audiences. That is except in the minority-dominated areas hugging China’s borders—where Mongols, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and the Yi all retained a culture of wrestling. While the fluid acrobatics of kung fu may look great on camera, in a fight with few rules it’s the grappling styles of wrestling and Brazilian jujitsu that ultimately come out on top. When modern MMA first burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s it was ethnic Mongolian wrestlers that initially dominated in Asia. Today, Kazakhs and Tibetans also feature prominently, alongside the Yi. What links all these groups is a cultural tradition of wrestling as opposed to striking martial arts like kung fu. So could ethnic Han train like the Yi and be similarly successful? They already are. When Shi Ming entered the Octagon for the strawweight final of Road to UFC Fight Night in Macau on Nov. 23, few outside her corner believed she would defeat her younger, taller opponent. Indeed, Feng Xiaocan dominated much of the contest, exploiting her longer reach to upset Shi’s rhythm with a string of jabs. But then Shi unleashed a lightning head kick that sent Feng crashing to the canvas. As Feng was carried out on a stretcher straight to a hospital, Shi’s stunning knockout was already going viral around the world, turning the 30-year-old into a global sensation. “When I walk in the street people recognize me and want to take pictures,” Shi tells TIME. “I’m really happy to meet new friends and to see all the messages supporting me.” That victory earned Shi a UFC contract that seemed like a faraway dream when she first began training in taekwondo and kickboxing as a teenager. She was always a middling competitor, she concedes, never becoming even a provincial champion, let alone representing her country. But that all changed once she started working with U.S.-Iranian catch wrestling coach Bagher Amanolahi, who as part of Shi’s training regime would take her to compete at traditional Yi “sani” wrestling events in the hills of Yunnan province, where wrestling is an intrinsic part of every village festival. “I actually went there just for practice,” says Shi. “But it was really difficult for me. Even local farmers, these old women, they are really strong. And while they are not professional, they have taken part in this kind of wrestling since they were maybe five years old, so they have a lot of experience.” Shi, who by day works as a doctor in the Yunnan capital Kunming, says that the two benefits of being based in the province are the altitude for stamina training and the prevalence of ethnic minorities, allowing her to hone her wrestling skills. “I improved both my wrestling attacks and defense a lot, so I don’t worry too much even if they take me down, because I can get up,” she says. “So my striking also became more powerful.” But a cultural affinity with wrestling is not the only reason behind the disproportionate representation of China’s ethnic minorities in MMA. The arcane pockets of China’s periphery where the Yi and other minorities live are typically China’s poorest regions, far from the gleaming skyscrapers and bustling ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen. “As a child I grew up herding cattle and sheep,” says Jimuwusha, a 26-year-old Yi fighter who defeated an ethnic Kazakh from China’s Xinjiang province at JCK’s recent Bounty Event. “I followed cattle and sheep all over the mountains and fields. At eight or nine years old I had to climb one or two mountains a day.” Hailaierke has similar stories. “From a young age, I lived in a small rural village deep in the mountains,” he says. “I could eat enough food, but there was little money for other things, including school. From the age of 14 or 15, we raise sheep and cattle, or go out to find work in places like construction sites, and then marry young too.” Professional fighting is a working-class escape across the globe, but whereas in North America and Europe it’s typically deprived cities that prove the most fertile breeding ground, in China the countryside is where people are hungriest. “The population of Shanghai is 30 million people and there’s no real born-and-bred Shanghai fighter,” says Anderson. “It’s about the environment where these guys grow up.” Shi agrees. “Wealthy kids don’t want to do these kinds of tough sports,” she says. “And poor villages have a lot of kids who are willing to train hard.” She also notes that China’s government plows huge resources into spotting young athletes and training them for glory in international events like the Olympics. But there’s more incentive for kids from deprived backgrounds that perhaps aren’t reaching medal positions to quit sporting academies for the more immediate returns of commercial MMA. Even those who do achieve glory are making the switch. Yi bantamweight Buhuoyouga began training in boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling in his early teens, eventually winning China’s National Wrestling Championship. Today, the 32-year-old is pound-for-pound the No. 3 ranked MMA fighter across the Asia-Pacific. “In the past, we were relatively poor, and I changed my life through fighting,” he says. “Now I hope to inspire our Yi children.” And not just Yi. Today, young MMA fans across Asia have begun wearing the Yi hero’s sash to emulate these top stars. Meanwhile, Hou cites the example of the young Tibetan MMA fighter Ze Wang, whose fighting prowess combined with bleach-blond hair and smoldering good looks is inspiring young fans to embrace Tibetan culture. “Many young fans started to like him and also Tibetan culture,” says Hou. “I hope the cohesion of all ethnic groups can be increased through MMA.”