Khalil Herbert and the Global Trade in Disposable Legs By Our Jaded Trans-Atlantic Correspondent Who Once Covered a Bolivian Miners’ Strike Over Shin Guards Somewhere between the Danube and the Des Plaines River, the world’s attention pivoted from grain shortages, crypto-fraud, and that unfortunate submarine hobby, to a 5-foot-9 running back whose hamstring popped like…
Xavier Legette’s 200-yard Sunday matinee in Munich wasn’t just another box-score footnote; it was a geopolitical flare shot across the bow of every soccer-obsessed continent. While the Allianz Arena crowd practiced polite Teutonic applause, American expats in lederhosen howled like their student-loan balances had just been forgiven. Somewhere in Lagos a betting syndicate recalibrated the…
Houston Football: A Lone Star Circus with Global Tickets By Our Correspondent Who Once Mistook Texas for a Micro-Nation From the air-conditioned purgatory of Frankfurt’s airport lounge, the news ticker flashed a single line: “Houston Texans to Host NFL International Game in 2024.” Somewhere in Lagos, a WhatsApp group of Manchester United ultras groaned. In…
Connor Heyward: The Accidental Geopolitical Metaphor Running Through a Tackle PARIS — Somewhere on a practice field in Pittsburgh, a 6-foot, 230-pound fullback—listed, charmingly, as “tight end” on official rosters—named Connor Heyward just pancaked a linebacker and, in so doing, unwittingly illustrated the entire 21st-century world order. Allow me to explain before your eyes glaze…
The NFL Does Dallas (and Munich, and São Paulo): A Dispatch from the Empire’s Favorite Circus All eyes are on America today—though, let’s be honest, most of those eyes are behind paywalls, VPNs, or the tinted windows of Beijing sports bars that haven’t paid for a license since 2019. While the United States celebrates Thanksgiving…
When the New Orleans Saints released their 2024 schedule, the planet’s axis did not visibly tilt, yet from Jakarta to Johannesburg a certain breed of humans—those who can recite salary-cap minutiae but forget their wedding anniversary—paused to perform the annual ritual of cosmic prognostication. In the grand bazaar of geopolitics, the Saints’ slate is a…
The Patriots Schedule as Geopolitical Weather Vane A Dispatch from the Department of Overthinking Sports By the time the New England Patriots open their 2024 campaign against the Bengals in Cincinnati, no fewer than twelve sovereign governments will have changed, three currencies will have wobbled, and one rogue nation will have discovered that threatening nuclear…
