Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Be careful where you jump a fence this week, or you might face federal charges.

So a country with a bad government is in the World Cup. Should you root for them, stay away, or maybe it’s not that simple? We’ll dive into the situation with Iran’s men’s soccer team, then move on to what might be the worst new thing about this World Cup (not hydration breaks, sorry!), and close with five thoughts about golf’s U.S. Open.

Locker Room Links

• Congratulations to Giannis Antetokounmpo on going from Wisconsin’s 7.65 percent income tax rate (10th-worst in the nation!) to Florida’s 0.0 percent. This is going to save him at least $4 million a year.
• The PGA Tour has announced a major shake-up to its schedule and format.
• The caddies at Pebble Beach voted to unionize—possibly because their employer moved them from contractor status to full-time employees. “It is believed that this is the first time that elite caddies at a major golf destination have voted to unionize.”
• After (wisely!) rejecting a big subsidy for the Chicago Bears, Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to spend a $425 million subsidy on infrastructure for the Chicago Fire’s stadium.
• NASCAR’s race weekend on Naval Base Coronado in San Diego involved “no federal spending,” according to documents seen by The Athletic thanks to a FOIA request. The Navy got to keep all the money from alcohol sales.
• The MLB proposed a draft overhaul that would raise the age floor (two years past high school graduation for American players), shorten the draft, create a separate international draft, and make picks tradeable. The players union was not happy about it. College baseball fans should be! For better or for worse, I also think a higher age floor will make the draft a more effective way to rebuild.
• The Protect College Sports Act, which I covered before here, passed a Senate committee vote and could get a full Senate vote soon. The bill now restricts the Big 12 and ACC from conference expansion (the bill originally intended this only for the Big 10 and SEC). It also tries to close a loophole that may have unintentionally allowed for a super league. The NFL and NBA players unions, and the NFL itself, support the bill. The SEC and Big 10 are still opposed. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R–Auburn), a former college football coach, suddenly withdrew his support.
• Elsewhere in Reason, the sports takeover continues. On the Giants Pride Night controversy, we have “Major League Baseball Teams Have the Right To Offer Pride Uniforms. Should They?” by Billy Binion (update here). On the World Cup, we have “England Fans Warned Not To Chant ‘Keir Starmer’s a Wanker’ at World Cup,” by our favorite English/Moroccan/Egyptian staffer, Reem Ibrahim.
• This is why no one outside of New York was rooting for the Knicks.
  

  The Knicks overcame the odds and won the NBA championship.

  We can also overcome the odds, beat the oligarchs and create an economy that works for all, not just the few. https://t.co/BrIly7rb9r

  — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 18, 2026

The Case for Rooting for Iran

If you love freedom, you wouldn’t root for the North Korean soccer team to win the World Cup, would you? (Perhaps you’d root for them to at least qualify, so a few players could courageously defect.) You wouldn’t root for the Soviet Union to win at Lake Placid in 1980. You’d probably never root for China, even if they paid you millions of dollars to do it.

So why should you root for Iran to succeed in a World Cup on U.S. soil?

It’s a nasty regime, after all. Dissent is brutally and murderously repressed. Rights are hard to come by. Even simple daily freedoms—like, say, going to a soccer match as a woman—are heavily restricted. The regime and sports in Iran are deeply intertwined. “In the Islamic Republic, sports are too serious to be left to the athletes,” as Kambiz Foroohar wrote for the Middle East Institute in 2021. “Over the past two decades, most sports clubs and related bodies have been taken over by political or security-military organizations, with former Revolutionary Guards holding the top positions.”

In theory, Iranian victories at the World Cup are a vindication of the regime. But somehow they have an opposite effect: Major victories by the men’s soccer team have often been the spark of anti-regime demonstrations.

When the men’s team qualified for the 1998 World Cup, thousands of young women went to the main stadium in Tehran to celebrate, even though the media called on them to stay home. Soon after, Iran won a World Cup match for the first time—against the United States. The New York Times‘ report on the celebrations mentions some anti-American sentiment, but plenty of exuberance that surely went beyond what the religiously conservative regime would have appreciated: “The young woman flung her head scarf off and hung out the window of the blue Volkswagen, her long red hair flying wild in the wind….A man and a woman sat halfway out of their car windows and swayed to the American rock music that blared from their car.”

This “support the team, not the regime” sentiment was on full display at Iran’s first World Cup match on June 15, against New Zealand. The stadium in Los Angeles was overwhelmingly full of local Iranian supporters—who booed the regime’s national anthem, snuck the prerevolutionary Iranian flag past security, and steadfastly supported the team that technically represents the regime anyway (because of travel restrictions, it’s not like current Iranian residents were making the trip). The match was an exciting 2–2 draw.

My friend, the freelance journalist Natalie Fertig, was at the match and said the Iranian fans largely separated their support for the team from their negative view of the Iranian regime. She saw several flags that even blended together the American stars and stripes with the prerevolutionary Iran flag, and one “Make Iran Great Again” hat. The non-Iranians in attendance, whether American or European, generally seemed supportive of the Iranian team too. (A scuffle broke out in her section toward the end of the game over a flag, though it was unclear to her which flag and who felt aggrieved by it.)

Overall, she described a family atmosphere. Iranian-Americans brought their kids, greeted each other, and were proud to support the soccer team representing the country of their heritage, even if they don’t support those in government power (something even some Americans need to learn). “A lot of people want an excuse to love their country, even if they don’t agree with everything that its government does,” Natalie tells me. “That was really the sense that I got from the Iranian fans that I was around, was that they were so excited for this moment to support their identity and their culture, even if they were going to take the moment during the anthem to show opposition to the current government.”

So even if Iran makes it out of their group, or even wins a knockout game or two, don’t expect it to be used by the regime to tighten their tenuous stranglehold on the country. Iranians, at home and abroad, don’t seem to view the team as an extension of their government. The World Cup is a place for the team and their global fans to represent Iran (much like regular Americans should be the “face of America,” not whoever is president).

“That’s the World Cup, right? It’s people finding ways to separate what governments do from who people are,” Natalie says. “And that oftentimes, people no matter where they live, want the same things out of life.”

As it turns out, people can have nuanced opinions on the Iran regime, the Iran soccer team, and the Iran war all at the same time. Maybe America’s geopolitical enemies don’t always have to be our sporting enemies, too.

The Worst Rule at the World Cup?

It’s great that FIFA is trying to crack down on racist abuse against players, whether it’s coming from the stands or from the other team. But this rule is giving me major “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!” vibes.

HISTORIC SENDING-OFF

Paraguay's Miguel Almirón becomes the first player at the 2026 World Cup given a red card under the new rules barring players from covering their mouths to conceal discriminatory behavior. pic.twitter.com/mE4PnzZ3oe

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) June 20, 2026

The theory, I guess, is that if players are about to say something racist or insulting, they’ll cover their mouths so that the lipreaders in the peanut gallery can’t turn them in. But banning mouth-covering is a bit like banning guns or banning VPNs—it assumes there are no legitimate uses and anyone who wants to use this or do that must have nefarious reasons for it.

But in the sporting context, as any (American) football coach can tell you, there are very important reasons to cover your mouth when speaking in the middle of a game. The rule does specify that it’s supposed to involve “a confrontational situation with an opponent,” but it still seems likely that an overzealous referee might punish a player for an innocent action or inoffensive language.

If someone facepalms or wipes their face while talking to an opponent, is that deserving of a red? We’ll find out!

Especially since covering your mouth doesn’t affect gameplay, the punishment being a straight red card (thus kicking the player out of the game and his team can’t replace him) instead of a yellow card seems harsh. If a player says something racist, give them a red card—but don’t kick them out for something that maybe, you’re not sure, could have been done to conceal saying something racist.

That said, I’m sorry that I can’t get worked up about the hydration breaks that soccer purists are mad about. Maybe I’m just used to commercial breaks as an American, or used to seeing Arsenal use an injury break to take a drink and get some coaching. The breaks seem to change up momentum a little bit, and I’m fine with that. If you were FOX, you’d gladly use them to make $250 million (or more) too.

The Worst Golfer, Par None

Since I invested a lot of time and energy into consuming U.S. Open content this week, here are some quick thoughts:

• I really do not like Wyndham Clark. There are a lot of golfers I like, there are some I’m ambivalent about, and some I don’t care for. I don’t think I hate any of them, but Clark comes close. Even the LIV Golf defectors have (mostly) only given me one reason to not like them, and I at least understand why they defected. Clark has given me several reasons to not like him.
• Thankfully, sports are better when there’s a villain to root against, and golf is desperately in need of one as the power of the LIV Golf defectors fades away.
• I’d still rather live in the universe where this putt on the 18th hole drops and we get to see a playoff instead. Putting is based more on randomness and luck than you’d think!
• The U.S. Open is run by the United States Golf Association, who governs golf for pretty much everyone in the country who isn’t a professional player—your weekend hackers, your regular Joes, and even your played-in-college-but-not-Tour-material players. (It does decide rules of play and equipment standards for professionals, too). As such, I think they should only have the U.S. Open at public courses that everyone has access to (everyone who can afford them, anyway). They don’t have to be municipal courses (like Bethpage), but this would still include many iconic courses like Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, Torrey Pines, etc. Leave the fancy, exclusive country club courses for the PGA Championship. The point of the U.S. Open’s site selection should be “You could play here too!”
• I’m not related to Miles Russell, but I’d like to be. This is awesome stuff.
  

  

  Miles Russell's father, Joe, took over as caddie for his son's final walk up 18.

  What a Father's Day gift! pic.twitter.com/7tfHKSrjyx

  — U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 21, 2026

Replay of the Week

The best soccer teams always know how to utilize the sport’s most secret weapon: the own goal.

1-0! GOOOOAL FOR USA!

Flo Balogun charges in and the @USMNT finds the back of the net on the own goal pic.twitter.com/GdivDaeNt9

— FOX Sports (@FOXSports) June 19, 2026

That’s all for this week. Enjoy watching the real event of the weekend, pickleball’s 2026 APP Vlasic Classic Cincinnati (we need more pickle sponsorships in sports).

The post You Can Root for Iran at the World Cup Without Rooting for the Iranian Regime appeared first on Reason.com.

Major League Baseball (MLB) found itself mired in controversy this past week after three San Francisco Giants players—Landen Roupp, J.T. Brubaker, and Ryan Walker—inscribed Bible verses on their hats that had been designed for the team’s Pride night. Another, Sam Hentges, declined to wear the hat altogether. Whether people were mad at the players for their lack of pride or at the team and league for their alleged abundance of pride depends on vantage point. But people were mad.

Put differently, we are living in Groundhog Day, but make it gay. We’ve had this fight before. Around and around we have gone. A lot of people are wrong. So why are we still doing this?

The MLB may be wondering the same thing. “We have told teams, in terms of actual uniforms, hats, bases that we don’t think putting logos on them is a good idea just because of the desire to protect players,” said MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in 2023, “not putting them in a position of doing something that may make them uncomfortable because of their personal views.” The Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers, however, have continued incorporating the Pride uniforms because of a standing agreement.

This fight is not constrained to the outfield or the infield or the minefield-ridden culture war battlefield. “I write with grave concern over your reported decision to issue a formal warning to three Major League Baseball (MLB) players for publicly expressing their Christian faith,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) said in a letter to Manfred. “You must answer for what appears to be a pattern of discrimination within MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith.” The senator was joined by other government actors promising to intervene, including the U.S. Department of Justice’s Harmeet Dhillon, who referred the league to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for an investigation.

“This routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” the league said in a statement. “We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s uniform regulations….We have given the same warning numerous times in the past to players for messages such as ‘Dad,’ ‘Happy Mother’s Day, I Love Mom’ and names of family members.”

Dear reader, you are entitled to the view that such a policy is silly. You are also entitled to the view that teams could and should avoid this carousel ride of controversy altogether by not politicizing uniforms. But the MLB’s rule is unequivocally, uncontroversially protected by the First Amendment. Yes, the league receives subsidies (too many, in fact!). So do many private organizations and companies: Amazon, Intel, Boeing, Ford, tech companies and agricultural companies and energy companies and on. That does not mean they forfeit their constitutional rights. Baseball is a symbol of Americana, after all. Appropriately, it is not an arm of the U.S. government.

One person who provides a good reminder that this is constitutionally protected is, ironically, Dhillon. “The Civil Rights Act prohibits MLB and its franchises from unreasonably burdening the rights of players with religious objections to serving as the League’s vehicle for pro-Pride messages,” she writes in her letter. “Federal law is clear: employers must modify their uniform requirements to reasonably accommodate their employees’ exercise of religion.”

They did. The Pride hats were not mandatory; Hentges opted out, which players are permitted to do, and he thus received no verbal warning. That is “reasonably accommodat[ing]” by every measure. A team offered its employees clothing that aligned with its values and the league enforced rules it has about writing messages on uniforms—two things that are indisputably within the purview of private actors. If a franchise gave players hats inscribed with the Ichthys (a.k.a. the Jesus fish), it would be similarly vindicated in admonishing employees who added anti-religious screeds.

The difference, of course, is that an MLB team offering such a hat would be nearly beyond belief, including (maybe even more so?) to the devoutly religious. Which does tell you something.

Teams are working toward a collective. But they are made up of individuals. Some players are religious, some are not. Some support gay rights, some do not. Some believe ranch dressing is the best condiment, some have no taste. This is, fortunately, their right. “I’m thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want…and express what we want,” Roupp said after the game last week. Pressuring players under a national microscope to take sides on any given political issue mostly just breeds conflict for the sake of virtue signaling. And for what? Expressions of support—for gay rights, or for anything—mean much more when they are done voluntarily, by your own initiative, on your own time.

“By resorting to ‘us’ and ‘them’ instead of truly understanding the humanity of the people asking for help, those who chose to make a statement on or with their hats completely missed the point,” wrote Grant Brisbee in a viral column for The Athletic, a subsidiary of The New York Times. “If anyone is looking to make the world better, they might try listening and understanding.” The author, respectfully, could stand to take his own advice.

The post Major League Baseball Teams Have the Right To Offer Pride Uniforms. Should They? appeared first on Reason.com.

Walking around the White House South Lawn these days, you notice a few things. There is the tiered platform with mics and music stands. There are the many folding seats, situated in a theater in the round, each stamped with: “WARNING: PLEASE DO NOT STAND ON CHAIR.” There are the stairs branded with crypto.com. And then, above it all, there is “The Claw”: the hulking, four-legged, makeshift canopy hovering 92 feet aloft, finished in red, white, and blue.

There are selfies.

The Trump administration on Thursday provided the press pool a preview of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Freedom 250 event that will take place on Sunday night, when an international cast will duke it out for various titles. There was no formal briefing. But the White House did set us loose to mill around for about half an hour and drink in the spectacle. Several minutes in, I passed attendees who had crowded around the centerpiece—the octagon—for self-portraits. One woman tried to mount the ring; the attempt, courtesy of an official standing nearby, was short-lived.

UFC Freedom 250 has, depending on whom you ask, become the crown jewel of America’s semiquincentennial. A series of cage matches is an unusual choice to celebrate the history of the Founding. But it is arguably the perfect event to capture this moment in history. 

The story of mixed martial arts is itself a microcosm of the progression. It would have been difficult to believe the sport would have a substantial audience just a few decades ago when it was banned in 36 states, as well as on pay-per-view, which swore off cage fighting while allowing porn.

This is not just a cultural phenomenon anymore. “There are only a handful of things that bring people together in one place at one time, united by their interest in one thing,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in announcing a public-private partnership between the federal government and UFC. “We need more of those. We need more of those forms and those settings in which we can bring people together to enjoy something together and find something in common, and if you’ve been to UFC fights…the crowd is as diverse as you can imagine.”

There is an irony in claiming that a sport centered around beating your rival to a pulp—and whose audience skews heavily male and heavily young—is broadly unifying. Yet Rubio is still right that it is representative of where we are.

You need not look far. The country’s birthday party was originally helmed by America250, an initiative established 10 years ago with heavy bipartisan support. President Donald Trump countered with his own group, Freedom 250, setting off a tug of war between the two that has been its own kind of blood sport. A celebration that transgressed partisan lines to venerate the Founding principles and the freedoms that make America unique would have been ideal. It also would have been an act, as politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths about the need to come together while seizing virtually every opportunity to trash their opponents. That acrimony is obviously not limited to fights around the U.S. semiquincentennial. What epitomizes our current moment better than blood flying?

A strange choice for lifting up American exceptionalism, maybe. But what it misses in commemorating history, it makes up in marking it. After all, UFC Freedom 250 doesn’t just kick off celebrations for the Founding, whose anniversary is still a few weeks away. It more precisely coincides with a different milestone: June 14, 1946, when Trump was born.

The post The White House UFC Fight Is the Perfect Event for the Present, Not the Past appeared first on Reason.com.

“Gene doping represents a threat to the integrity of sport,” asserts the World Anti-Doping Agency, which prohibits athletes from “the non-therapeutic use of genes, genetic elements and/or cells that have the capacity to enhance athletic performance.” The agency also bans gene editing.

Even if genetic enhancements remain unjustifiably prohibited to elite human athletes, should a ban on gene doping also apply to animals that compete in sports? The International Equestrian Federation says yes. “The use on, or administration or application to, any Horse of Gene Editing or Genome Editing is prohibited at all times.”

The Argentine Polo Association (APA) agrees: It has imposed a ban on the world’s first genetically enhanced polo ponies. “The use of genetically manipulated or edited horses will not be permitted by the APA for polo, in any official or unofficial tournament,” declared the organization.

The banned horses were bred by Buenos Aires–based Kheiron Biotech, a leader in horse cloning that produced about 400 clones in 2025. Researchers at the company edited five clones of the award-winning mare Polo Pureza (“Polo Purity” in English) to suppress the myostatin gene, which normally limits muscle growth. The goal was to breed horses with stronger muscles and more explosive speed.

“This takes away the charm, this takes away the magic of breeding,” APA President Benjamin Araya told Reuters. Yet biotech has been shaping the breeding “magic” of Argentine polo ponies for years. More than 60 percent of Argentine polo horses are now produced by embryo transfer, in which embryos are flushed from high-value mares and implanted in surrogate broodmares. This process enables mares to keep competing while producing multiple foals each year without carrying the pregnancy themselves.

As a result of this artificial fecundity, sought-after Argentine polo horses are widely exported, with around 2,400 sold abroad last year.

In 2012, the International Equestrian Federation lifted its ban on cloned horses and their offspring in sanctioned competitions. Argentine polo legend Adolfo Cambiaso was among the first to take advantage of this technology; his team famously won a match in which he rode six different clones of his favorite mare, Dolfina Cuartetera.

Evidently, cloning poses no threat to the integrity of polo.

Sports rules are ultimately arbitrary and can be adjusted to accommodate scientific advances while maintaining transparency and fair play. The Argentine Polo Pony Breeders Association plans to monitor the progress of enhanced clones for the next four or five years before deciding whether they can be officially registered as polo ponies.

The best way for sports officials to reduce potential harm—to humans or to horses—from using enhancements is to bring their use out of the shadows, allowing them to occur with medical oversight and sound research.

The post Polo Officials Ban Genetically Enhanced Ponies To Save 'the Magic of Breeding' appeared first on Reason.com.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! If you’re pregnant and about to give birth, maybe avoid hockey games—or else your child might be known for getting born during a 5–1 drubbing.

We’re coming to you a day early this week with reaction to President Donald Trump’s executive order that he thinks will fix college sports (it will not). We’ll start with that, move on to some sports TV news, and close with thoughts on the Masters ticket lottery. Giddy up.

But first, congratulations to Reason‘s own Phillip “The Ultimate Fris” Bader on winning our women’s bracket challenge, followed by Carl “Milwaukee’s Best” Peterson in second. Yours truly came in third—smart enough to pick UCLA to win, not chalky enough to beat Phillip and Carl.

Locker Room Links

• After bailing out the government authority that owns Progressive Field and Rocket Arena, Cleveland’s Democratic Mayor Justin Bibb is looking at raising fees on fans and businesses to fund stadium repairs.
• If you try to teach your underage child how to bet responsibly in New York State, you might get banned from concerts and casino restaurants.
• FanDuel Sports Network (formerly Bally Sports Network and Fox Sports Network) is coming to an end soon after the NBA and NHL seasons.
• “New Jersey cannot regulate Kalshi’s prediction market, US appeals court rules.”
• England’s Premier League is “voluntarily” (after a consultation with the government) banning gambling sponsors on jerseys starting next season. Now teams (usually smaller ones) are trying to find tens of millions of lost dollars.
• Augusta National Golf Club is famously extremely protective of its image—it has at least 67 registered or pending trademarks on various phrases and images.
• Volleyball on the rise: Two women’s volleyball matches are happening at Wrigley Field over Labor Day weekend.
• Elsewhere in Reason, our new cover story on presidential power: “Trump Realized He Can Just Do Things. Who Can Stop Him?“
• Go Blue.
  

  Michigan’s best players are a guy Mick Cronin buried, a guy who was a bust at North Carolina, a guy who came off the bench at Illinois and a guy who played at freaking UAB.

  Get outta here. https://t.co/cSUiYxV5un

  — Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 5, 2026

Can the President Regulate College Sports?

This certainly isn’t the first time Trump has tried to bring order to a chaotic situation and just ended up making it messier.

The president signed an executive order late on Friday attempting to overhaul how college sports function. The order says college athletes can only play five seasons, and they must happen during a five-year window (even though state judges are already saying otherwise). It also allows only one transfer (even though a 2024 antitrust legal settlement already said the NCAA can’t restrict transfers). Any schools that accept an athlete breaking these rules risk losing their federal funding. It also asks the attorney general (whoever that may be) to invalidate state laws that are in conflict with the order. The order takes effect on August 1.

Yet by the time you read this, the executive order may have already been challenged and stopped in federal courts.

You might think the president would be more focused on the big issues of the day, like inflation or the war he chose to start against Iran, but anyone who’s been a dedicated reader of this newsletter knows the president talks about fixing college sports almost every week.

Many people are frustrated with the constantly changing rules governing college sports, especially transfers and eligibility. A more proactive version of the NCAA may have taken the lead on these issues before the courts forced their hand. Instead, the NCAA has basically said there’s not much they can do, and asked Congress to figure out their mess. Now we have rules created by lawsuits that are ever changing and different by state.

These rules are, for good reason, not something the president can change with the swipe of a pen. But the Trump executive order has made the chaos even worse. Schools are stuck between a rock and a hard place: follow the president’s set of rules, or follow the rules that were set by various court decisions? They have to break someone’s rules, and that’s going to lead them straight back to court.

Apparently the real goal of Trump’s executive order is “to spur legislative action,” sources told The Athletic. But even rules passed by Congress are going to end up getting challenged on constitutional grounds. Attorneys’ billable hours remain undefeated.

The American college sports system is weird and unique. No other country spends as much time, energy, or money on collegiate sports. But Trump’s executive order is a great argument for getting federal government funding out of higher education altogether. “American universities spent $60 billion in federal money in 2023, more than 30 times what they spent in 1953, accounting for inflation,” according to calculations in The New York Times.

Schools wouldn’t have to worry about the president taking all that federal funding away over sports regulations if they didn’t take any federal funding.

Stopping Streaming in its Tracks

Did you know businesses don’t like competition, and often try to use the government to protect themselves? Fox Corp. and Sinclair Broadcasting certainly know it, since they’re trying to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to knock down league broadcasting deals with streamers.

“Fox Corp. and Sinclair Broadcasting last Friday submitted statements to the FCC that effectively characterized the streamers as a clear and present danger to the local TV business, with Fox labeling the digital interlopers as an ‘existential threat,'” Anthony Crupi writes for Sportico. Sinclair (which “operates or otherwise provides services to 185 TV stations,” as Crupi describes it) seems to feel entitled to the NFL. Their FCC letter said: “Sports programming is also critical to the financial model that supports local broadcast journalism. Without high-value live sports on broadcast television, local broadcast journalism will suffer.”

The context here is that CBS is renegotiating its deal with the NFL, and FOX is expected to be up next. The old-school broadcasters are worried the NFL might replace them if they get a better offer from a more cash-rich streamer like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Apple TV. So now Fox and Sinclair are crying foul to the FCC, hoping for regulation or any kind of government pressure to stave off the streamers. The FCC’s recent request for comment on sports streaming was, as I wrote, “clearly a shot across the bow of sports leagues—a warning that the FCC may consider regulating games on streaming services in some way, or requiring leagues to broadcast every game on TV or the old-school regional sports networks.”

Threats to old business models are how a competitive economy should work. That’s what happens when businesses innovate and deliver new benefits for consumers. Fox and Sinclair aren’t entitled to NFL media rights any more than the Cowboys are entitled to a Super Bowl: You’ve got to be competitive and earn it. But instead of competing, Fox and Sinclair are hoping that whining to the FCC will get them some help. Since they’re both known for favorable coverage of Trump, they might just get it—and totally upend the landscape for streaming sports in the meantime.

The Masters Ticket Lottery Is Dumb

With apologies to soccer, golf is the real beautiful game—and this is the most beautiful week in golf, as the best golfers in the world head to Augusta, Georgia, for the Masters.

But unless you have some truly incredible luck or truly incredible wealth, you probably won’t be there in person. Augusta National distributes Masters tickets via lottery. If you win their lottery, you can get tickets for $140 each. Your odds of winning the Masters lottery in any given year are under 1 percent. If you don’t get through in the lottery, you better have $17,000 to spend on a premium hospitality ticket. Heading over to a ticket resale website is not a great option. As I wrote last year, “You can try to pay through the nose for a pass on the secondary market, but Augusta National has a strict ban on resale tickets and might not let you in—so you risk spending $2,500 on a resale ticket, plus hundreds more on flights and lodging, just to get turned away.”

Basically, as “Rick Golfs” points out below: “Now if you don’t win the lottery, you are screwed. Almost no chance of ever attending. Before you could at least bucket list it and do it once.”

What would you pay to attend the Masters?

The Masters has officially surpassed The Super Bowl and World Cup as the most expensive sports ticket.

$2,000 for practice round
$16,000 for Thursday
$8,000 for Sunday.

Why? The Masters has started cracking down on resellers, so… pic.twitter.com/GXMC2Z7Fcr

— Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) April 5, 2026

Augusta National has every right to ban ticket resale, but their low prices are not ensuring the most dedicated people are getting in. Raising the price of a day pass, or just adding some extra steps to weed out more casual fans, would help. 

Replay of the Week

The fact that these all happened in a one-run game is mind-boggling. Although I wasn’t actually all that impressed by the first two, which were mostly just well-timed jumps—the last one shows absolutely no regard for his own body.

All THREE of Jo Adell's home run robberies from tonight …

Yes, you read that right ???? https://t.co/bc0Wb9i1Ii pic.twitter.com/axhyQFpLHD

— MLB (@MLB) April 5, 2026

That’s all for this week. Enjoy watching the real game of the weekend, the Houston Gamblers against the D.C. Defenders and the beer snake in the UFL.

The post Trump's College Sports Executive Order Adds Chaos to an Already Wild Legal War appeared first on Reason.com.

On May 24, the Enhanced Games aim to take athletic enhancement to the next level. Performance-enhancing substances are transparently allowed and encouraged at this event, and athletes work with a full-service medical team. The business positions itself as the smart version of enhancement, not meatheads juicing themselves indiscriminately. Organizers expect about 50 athletes in Las Vegas to compete in swimming, track and field, 
and weightlifting.

The performance-enhancing substances aren’t just for the athletes, though. Enhanced wants to enhance you too. The company says a telehealth service is expected to be a larger share of its business than the sporting event itself—the company will sell tailored prescriptions for enhancement drugs such as testosterone replacement therapy and enclomiphene.

In January, Enhanced CEO Max Martin spoke with Jason Russell—who writes Free Agent, Reason‘s sports newsletter—about his goals for the Enhanced Games and the company—and who’s trying to stop him.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with the Enhanced Games this year?

A: I hope we are one of the most watched sporting events of 2026 and establish ourselves on an equal level to the Super Bowl, the Monaco Grand Prix. I believe we will be able to showcase that performance enhancements are actually, contrary to what many people think, not that dangerous. But under the right clinical and medical supervision—that’s very important for us—really something that can help athletes. And also not just athletes, but average people like myself, both for performance but also longevity and injury prevention.

Q: Is the goal of the games to showcase and normalize these treatments so that other sports leagues might start to allow them, or is it to, in the long term, try to replace other competitions?

A: First and foremost, we just want to build a great sporting event—that has merits on its own. I think of us as a new player on the map. I don’t think of us being there to replace anyone. We’ve been compared to the Olympics, but I think we are very different in the offering we provide both to the athletes and fans.

We are showcasing—with a targeted, smaller group of athletes—what the human body is truly capable of. Science is our biggest asset that we’ve developed as a species. We let that biggest asset finally be a part of exploring what the body is capable of and helping humans [become] the best versions of ourselves. Performance enhancements have been misunderstood, have been much abused in the past. Once you take it out of the shadows and you put it out in the open, you put the right regulation around it, you can make it safe, and then explore the benefits.

Q: Are you worried about any government or regulatory crackdown that says this event is illegal, or that these treatments should be illegal?

A: I don’t think it should be [illegal]. We’re seeing a lot of lobbying by global organizations like the World Anti-Doping Agency, constantly calling the U.S. government to stop us, which is completely ridiculous because we are operating within the law. We are against some private institution taking a high stance on the law. If we have a problem with the law, we should change the law. But for now, we have the law, what is [Food and Drug Administration] approved, what can be prescribed to you by a doctor. I think as an individual, you should be able to do [it] because it’s in the boundaries of the law.

And so, why should there be a private, mostly Swiss foundation that sits on top of that, that is governed by mostly elderly, white, overweight men that decides on what young athletes can put into their bodies?

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.

The post Max Martin on the Enhanced Games, Regulation, and Human Potential appeared first on Reason.com.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! Happy St. Patrick’s Day, have a Guinness or two (or 10).

Before we start, I want to make sure you know about our March Madness bracket groups. Click here for the men’s bracket group, and click here for the women’s one. Alas, there’s no monetary prize for winning this year, but it’ll be fun to see how your bracket compares to Reason staffers (several colleagues who don’t like sports usually join in) and fellow subscribers.

This edition also marks Free Agent‘s first anniversary. No gifts necessary, you can just forward this newsletter to a friend who might enjoy it, or send them straight to our subscription page. It’s been a really fun year—many thanks to all of you for reading and subscribing!

With that, let’s get into the World Baseball Classic, sports betting, legendary sports moments, and, unfortunately, a debate about sexy sports.

Locker Room Links

• Days before March Madness, Alabama’s Aden Holloway is suspended indefinitely after getting arrested for allegedly dealing marijuana.
• After Venezuela reached the World Baseball Classic final, President Donald Trump posted on social media, “STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?“
• Washington state is implementing an income tax on millionaires. “It’s gonna sting” in free agency, the Seahawks general manager said. Maybe a flat tax is the way to go?
• Next week NBA owners will vote on exploring expansion—but only in Las Vegas and Seattle.
• How lobbyists for the Portland Trail Blazers pressured politicians into spending $400 million on the team’s city-owned arena.
• Formula 1 canceled two races because of the Middle East war—the races had been planned for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
• The White House is posting more bombing videos from the war, now interspersed with footage from Wii Sports.
• J.C. Tretter resigned from the NFL Players Association in shame back in July—now he might get the union’s top job anyway.
• The Reason team was shocked and saddened last week by the death of our longtime colleague Brian Doherty. Brian’s work with Reason spanned four decades, a long and unmatched journalism career: from interviewing Milton Friedman in the ’90s, to chronicling the rise of libertarian Rep. Ron Paul in the 2000s, to countering antigun misinformation in the 2010s, to profiling Elon Musk’s MAGA turn in the 2020s, and many more timeless pieces I don’t have room to list. It’s a terrible loss for Reason, and for everyone who believes in freedom for all.
  

  A farewell to our colleague Brian Doherty, dead at 57 https://t.co/vNY3iVvTqf

  — reason (@reason) March 14, 2026

For Every Sport, a World Cup?

If there’s one thing most people seem to feel strongly about, it’s geography. The place they’re from? It’s better than the place you’re from. That goes whether it’s players from who-knows-where playing on their local professional sports team, or their fellow citizens playing on a team representing their country, or whatever kind of pizza their city is famous for.

Those strong feelings are why every sport would be wise to have a World Cup of some kind.

We’re seeing it now with the World Baseball Classic. The Marlins can’t give enough tickets away to fill their ballpark, but if you just pit the Dominican Republic against Venezuela there with some stakes on the line, you’ll see a $300 get-in price. At some point, MLB started to realize it had a potential hit on its hands—games went from being hidden on MLB Network to shown on FOX, they added more teams and more games, and higher-quality players started opting in, too.

The NHL is ramping up its international involvement, too, with pros finally back in the Olympics and the NHL bringing back the World Cup of Hockey and taking it more seriously. Flag football at the 2028 Olympics has the NFL’s blessing. (The NBA seems to be missing the boat—perhaps because the Basketball World Cup is organized by FIBA and not the league itself, so there’s not much of a direct financial benefit.)

It’s a great way to grow sports internationally. What’s better? Staging a game abroad between two teams that foreigners have little attachment to, or staging a competitive game with a team of players from their country? Foreigners are obviously going to be more interested in following the latter long-term.

Even though these are competitions with a winner and many losers, they generally don’t sow actual hatred between different countries. Maybe you skipped the Canadian maple syrup during the Olympics, but now you wouldn’t think twice about it.

International competition gets players and fans excited—they care about the stakes, unlike in most All-Star Games. They give people something new to watch and care about, and are clearly a great avenue to deepen fandoms. Whatever sport it might be, leaders would be wise to figure out a way to get more of a focus on international team competitions.

Betting With Company Dollars

Lots of talk online last week about The Atlantic‘s new cover story, in which the magazine gave staff writer McKay Coppins $10,000 to gamble on sports during the most recent NFL season. The headline on the cover is “My Year as a Degenerate Gambler,” in case you had any hopes of it being a fair and balanced piece (also, fact check: the NFL season was less than six months long, not a “year”).

Coppins is a strong writer, and I can see why readers were drawn to his personal experience. He starts as a reluctant Mormon, begrudgingly participating in gambling for the sake of good journalism, before the betting devolves into an obsession that’s a strain on his family life.

But as someone who’s read every scolding “here’s how this person ruined their life through sports betting” article out there, I was disappointed. Thirteen thousand words and I didn’t see any new arguments I hadn’t heard before, or learned anything new other than “Don’t ask McKay Coppins for betting advice.” (I learned much more from a better and shorter Atlantic piece published over the weekend, “The Cure for Snoring“).

Coppins finishes the season having lost $9,891 of The Atlantic‘s money. While tempted to keep betting, he decides to fill out a self-exclusion form that bans himself from it instead. The takeaway for most readers, it seems, is that the pull of sports betting is too strong for mere mortals to deal with and must be stopped.

My takeaway is different. People should bet for fun. If they’re not having fun, they’re probably trying too hard to get rich quick (or make up for financial losses), which will probably make them poor and unhappy. The law should treat adults as capable of making choices that are best for them, even though a small fraction of the population will cause problems for themselves while everyone else is having fun. While the public narrative seems to think more and more people are getting consumed by sports betting’s temptations, there’s ample evidence that the number of people betting has plateaued.

Thankfully, defenders of betting got good news this week when a new poll found legalized sports betting has more supporters than opponents.

The best rebuttal to the piece, though, is all around you this week: tens of millions of people casually betting with their friends in March Madness bracket pools.

Legends Never Die

Is anything in sports truly legendary anymore?

There’s an interesting case study to be had about nothing in sports feeling legendary anymore. I don’t think it’s a nostalgia thing at all, I think it’s the rise of social media and accessibility so we move on from everything immediately.

— ⁸???????????????????? (@33643pts) March 11, 2026

It’s a sentiment that I sympathize with at times, but I think is totally wrong. When you grow up hearing about legends of the distant past like Babe Ruth and Gordie Howe, it’s easy to miss the fact that you’ve seen the legends of today’s era like LeBron James and Tom Brady. It’s also a weird sentiment to share after the whole country just celebrated a legendary moment thanks to the U.S. men’s hockey team (it was no Miracle on Ice, sure, but it captured the country’s attention for a week).

To be fair, some of this feeling is because of how quickly the news cycle moves. Before the last piece of confetti has been cleaned up, The Athletic and ESPN have “Way-Too-Early” power rankings ready for next season, and a free agency preview to keep your mind thinking forward instead of reveling in the champion’s glory. Yet I’m more likely to click on those early rankings to see how my team stacks up for next year rather than read about the in-depth profile of how some team I don’t care for finally won their title (or worse, did it again).

It’s fine to feel nostalgic about sports (unless you’re a politician thinking about subsidizing a stadium), but don’t let nostalgia cloud your appreciation for the amazing sports moments surrounding you. It’s easier than ever to enjoy all kinds of sports, and sports fans should be incredibly thankful for that.

Sports, Sexy? (Sorry.)

I regret to inform you that this post inspired a vigorous conversation at Reason on which sports are and aren’t sexy, and that I’ve been told this list would make good content.

Skiing is sexy and bowling isn't https://t.co/lCwJcP42kc

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) March 11, 2026

Sexy sports: Skiing, swimming, billiards, tennis, basketball, soccer, curling(?), gymnastics, biathlon (“The guns make it sexy”), field hockey, speed skating, luge (“uncomfortably sexy”)

Not sexy sports: Bowling, hiking, cross country, golf, football, table tennis, wrestling, cricket, competitive weightlifting, chess (unless it’s chess boxing), squash, pickleball (“too many olds”), quidditch (“unsexy to consider it a sport”).

In between: baseball (“only if you’re into dadbods“), equestrian sports (“I don’t want to call a sport with a horse sexy” vs. the outfits), ice hockey (“if you like no teeth“), rugby (“incredible thighs” vs. bleeding ears), water polo, fencing (“inherently sexy, but unsexy uniforms”).

(Sports are not ranked by sexiness, just listed in the same order they came up in our bonkers conversation.)

If you have thoughts on which sports are sexy and which aren’t, I beg you to email me about anything else at freeagent@reason.com.

In all seriousness, to answer the original question of why skiing gets more media coverage than bowling, I suspect it’s because skiing happens in ski-specific resort towns and other centralized areas that have newsworthy stories connected to economics, politics, environmentalism, and travel. Bowling just happens down the street from everybody.

Replay of the Week

You’re going to want to see this one from multiple angles.

WHAT DID WE JUST WITNESS? pic.twitter.com/EKguhwjeFA

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 13, 2026

That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to join the bracket groups! Click here for the men’s bracket group, and click here for the women’s one. Enjoy watching the real game of the week in an even older bracket competition, Detroit City F.C. against the Michigan Rangers on Tuesday night in soccer’s U.S. Open Cup.

The post Should Every Sport Have Some Kind of World Cup? appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, President Donald Trump advocated on behalf of asylum seekers—though only in one very specific situation.

Before an Asian Cup match in Australia, Iran’s women’s soccer team declined to sing their country’s national anthem, though they “sang the anthem and saluted in later matches,” according to Bloomberg.

Supporters of the Iranian regime called for reprisal. “This is the pinnacle of dishonour and lack of patriotism,” said Mohammad Reza Shahbazi, a presenter on Iranian state TV, according to The Athletic. “Both the people and the officials should treat these individuals as wartime traitors, not as if they just had a protest or performed a symbolic act. The stigma of dishonour and betrayal must remain on their foreheads, and separately they must be dealt with properly.”

The New York Post reported that after playing their final match and facing a return trip home, some of the players “appeared to flash a ‘help’ hand signal” to the press.

Thankfully, their story so far has a happy ending: CNN reported Monday that five members of the team “have sought asylum in Australia and and [sic] are currently safe with police.”

Perhaps the unlikeliest supporter of their cause: President Donald Trump.

“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, in a post shared by the White House’s official X account, while the situation still seemed tenuous. “Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t.”

“Australia is making a terrible humanitarian mistake by allowing the Iran National Woman’s Soccer team to be forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed. Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM. The U.S. will take them if you won’t…” – @POTUS pic.twitter.com/OTIsmVavJR

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 9, 2026

“I just spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, of Australia, concerning the Iranian National Women’s Soccer Team. He’s on it!” Trump added in a post less than two hours later. “Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way. Some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return. In any event, the Prime Minister is doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation. God bless Australia!”

Trump’s willingness to advocate on the players’ behalf is laudable—and completely at odds with his position on the subject in nearly every other scenario.

“In October 2025, the Trump administration slammed the door shut to the world’s most miserable, slashing the annual cap of refugee intake by 94 percent, to an all-time low of 7,500,” Matt Welch wrote in the current issue of Reason.

Asylum is a similar process, and Trump has been just as vocal in his condemnation—frequently invoking mental institutions and the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter to inveigh against those seeking asylum in the U.S. from other countries.

In recent months, the administration has dismissed asylum cases for applicants who applied between 2019 and 2022, and it paused all asylum decisions, effectively preventing any new asylees from entering the country. It is also now arresting refugees who have been in the country a year but don’t yet have a green card.

Incidentally, international sporting events have long been an occasion for defections from authoritarian nations—most visibly, the Olympics. “In 1956, shortly after the Soviets crushed the Hungarian revolution, nearly half of the Hungarian team’s 100-member delegation to the games in Melbourne defected,” David Hejmanowski wrote in 2024 for the Delaware Gazette. “Several members of the Afghanistan delegation defected during the 1980 Moscow games, and four Romanians failed to return home from Canada after the 1976 games in Montreal.”

Baseball also has a rich history of players defecting from more onerous regimes. “Hundreds of Cuban players have defected over the years, many choosing to play American Major or Minor League Baseball,” Reason‘s Alyssa Varas-Martinez wrote in 2023. And yet during his first term, Trump made this more difficult, overturning an agreement between baseball organizations in the two countries that would have made it easier for American teams to sign Cuban players.

Indeed, American presidents should routinely make the case for those suffering under repression around the world to make their way to our shores. “I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong,” George Washington wrote in 1788.

Trump’s sudden advocacy on behalf of the Iran women’s soccer team is commendable. The only thing that could make it better is if he expanded that same magnanimity to asylum seekers from all across the world.

The post Trump Supports Asylum for Iranian Women's Soccer Team. His Immigration Policy Doesn't. appeared first on Reason.com.

Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! I hope you enjoyed your fair share of 1.5 billion chicken wings this weekend—I think I left about 1 billion for the rest of you.

Before we slide into the NFL offseason, let’s get one last football-filled newsletter in the books. Next week I’ll have plenty of Olympics content for you.

Locker Room Links

• Thanks a lot, NFL: Players on the Seahawks and Patriots face a huge tax bill for the week they spent in California leading up to the Super Bowl.
• “What the Bills Mafia Teaches Us About Resilience,” authored by my friend Carolyn Gorman.
• The medals at the Olympics keep breaking. “Don’t jump in them….It broke.”
• The NBA is “likely” to vote on expansion this summer, with Las Vegas and Seattle the most “favored” cities to get new teams.
• Athletes are always innovating and trying to find new ways to win within the rules—but ski jumping’s “Crotch-gate” goes too far.
• Nordic combined (ski jumping combined with cross-country skiing) has been in the Olympics for over a century, but still doesn’t allow female athletes for some reason.
• Vice President J.D. Vance was briefly booed at the Olympics opening ceremony, but the U.S. team got loud cheers.
• Elsewhere in Reason: “San Francisco Public Schoolteachers Make $79,468 for 184 Days of Work. Now They’re Striking for Even More.“
• Why do Olympians keep getting asked how they feel about Trump? Because you keep reading about their answers.
  

  the athletes are being asked political questions by the press because reporters know whichever way the athletes answer, people will be furious, and so they will click. this is not the athletes’ fault. this is the press’s fault. and your fault for clicking.

  — Mike Solana (@micsolana) February 8, 2026

Coaching Carousel Quotas

In the afterglow of the Super Bowl, the NFL’s annual head coaching carousel came to a stop when Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak confirmed that he would be taking the helm of the Las Vegas Raiders, the final vacancy.

Nearly a third of the league’s teams got new head coaches this offseason. It was, as ESPN’s Dan Graziano noted, “Not the *greatest* year the Rooney Rule has ever had.” None of the 10 new coaches is black, despite about 70 percent of the league’s players being black. Of the NFL’s 32 coaches, only three are black (Aaron Glenn, DeMeco Ryans, and Todd Bowles). For what it’s worth, new Tennessee Titans coach Robert Saleh is considered a minority by the NFL, because his parents are Lebanese.

The Rooney Rule, more than two decades old, has noble intentions: In the NFL’s words, it “encourages hiring best practices to foster and provide opportunity to diverse leadership throughout the NFL.” The rule at first required teams with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one minority candidate for the job. But this has led to some awkward situations, especially when teams start a coaching search with a particular coach in mind.

In 2003, for example, it was widely reported that Steve Mariucci was the top candidate for the Lions head coaching position. No one who would have fulfilled the Rooney Rule’s requirements was interested in wasting their time interviewing for a job they thought was already filled. The league fined the Lions $200,000 for failing to comply. Two decades later, Brian Flores sued the league for racial discrimination, claiming he was given multiple sham interviews where teams interviewed him for head coaching jobs without genuine interest in hiring him. (You may recall this lawsuit resulted from texts sent by Bill Belichick congratulating the wrong Brian.)

Yet after two decades of the Rooney Rule’s failure to bring about their racial utopia, the NFL doubled down. The league now requires teams to interview two minority candidates before hiring a head coach, general manager, or coordinator position (a quarterback coach requires just one minority candidate interview). Also, every team must have on staff one offensive assistant who is “female or minority.”

This year, John Harbaugh was obviously the hottest name on the coaching market. But before hiring him, the Giants still had to interview minority candidates to satisfy the Rooney Rule (they interviewed two: Raheem Morris and Antonio Pierce). In theory, those minority candidates could have wowed Giants leadership with their preparation and charisma. In reality, they stood no chance against Harbaugh’s résumé. (One wonders how much interviews really influence hiring decisions over a coach’s résumé in the NFL.)

I’m sure in a league as large as the NFL, there’s some racial discrimination in hiring—sometimes blatant, sometimes subtle. But competition can be the solution: If bad teams are discriminating against minorities, inclusive teams will win more often by just being open to the best talent. The Rooney Rule, with its good intentions, certainly isn’t fixing the problem. Instead, it leaves minority coaching candidates feeling like pawns.

Annual Outrage

The halftime show seems to spur a lot of right-wing complaints in recent history. With Spanish-speaking artist Bad Bunny’s history of anti-Donald Trump activism (he recently used one of his Grammy acceptance speeches to say “ICE out,” a reference to Immigration and Customs Enforcement), most of the outrage at this year’s halftime show felt preplanned.

Maybe Trump was expecting an “ICE out” t-shirt or some other kind of anti-Trump message from Bad Bunny, but in the end there was nothing overtly political, just a football that said “Together, we are America.”

Trump complained anyway, writing on Truth Social that the halftime show was “one of the worst, EVER!” and calling it “an affront to the Greatness of America.”

As Reason‘s Eric Boehm points out: “Over the past 20 years, the Super Bowl halftime show has featured performances by the Rolling Stones, the Who, Coldplay, Shakira, and Rihanna. Unlike Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican pop star who drew a record audience for his performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl LX, none of those performers are American citizens. Yet the conservative outrage machine cranked itself into high gear on social media to denounce Bad Bunny, ostensibly because he is somehow undeserving or insufficiently American.”

In Monday’s Reason Roundup, Christian Britschgi notes that: “It’s probably not a great signal for the health of the discourse if the country even threatens to split into red-team/blue-team Super Bowl halftime shows. The endless partisanship and culture-war bickering is tiresome.”

Eric wisely pointed out that the game itself isn’t about race or politics—just raw competition.

“The Super Bowl is a color-blind celebration of excellence,” he writes. “It is the exact opposite of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts that the Trump coalition opposes. [Kenneth] Walker did not win MVP because he’s black, and the Seahawks did not win the championship because they had a roster with a bureaucrat-approved mix of races. They won because they are very good at their jobs.” (As a Seahawks fan, Eric is a bit biased, though.) Between that and the Super Bowl being an awesome celebration of capitalism, conservatives should be embracing the event instead of complaining.

Super Bummer

Besides Bad Bunny, I have a lot of Super Bowl thoughts that don’t really form a cohesive narrative, so here’s a brain dump.

This year’s game was the worst Super Bowl since the Patriots beat the Rams 13–3 in Super Bowl LIII. That game was at least tied after three quarters, I suppose, whereas the Seahawks’ 12–0 lead after three quarters felt fairly insurmountable for the tepid Patriots offense (although the Pats scored 13 points in the fourth quarter, so I guess not!). Four touchdowns in the fourth quarter still saved this game from being even worse.

Maybe because they missed the playoffs last year and only barely won their division this year, the narrative seems to be that the Seahawks weren’t actually that great (they only beat Philip Rivers and the Colts by two points back in December!). But various analytics dudes show the Seahawks were clearly the best team this year, and possibly one of the best NFL teams in recent history (in spite of, not because of, Sam Darnold).

It was a shame that fans couldn’t vote for special teams players like Seahawks kicker Jason Myers for MVP. He had 17 points in the game, more than the entire Patriots team. Punter Michael Dickson would have been another worthy candidate, too. Last week I said, as a Michigan State fan, that “Walker winning MVP is probably my best-case scenario,” so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

The ’90s nostalgia of the “Good Will Dunkin'” commercial was probably my favorite, although it didn’t make me any more likely to go find a Dunkin’ store. I was surprised by the heart-wrenching Lay’s potato chip ad—most snacks do comedic angles. There were plenty of commercials to not like, but I’ll award “least favorite” to the singing toilets that came on while I was trying to scarf down some wings. Some of my favorites of all-time remain the “It’s a Tide Ad” campaign from 2018 and Michael Cera’s CeraVe ad from two years ago.

I’m feeling chatty about the whole event, so feel free to send your thoughts about the game, halftime show, or commercials at freeagent@reason.com.

Replay of the Week

Defense won the day for the Seahawks, so it was nice to see them get a touchdown (even if it was probably a lucky deflection).

SEAHAWKS DEFENSIVE TOUCHDOWN FOR UCHENNA NWOSU OMG

Super Bowl LX on NBC
Stream on @NFLPlus + Peacock pic.twitter.com/9FPzCiciQt

— NFL (@NFL) February 9, 2026

That’s all for this week. Enjoy watching the real event of the weekend, the men’s pursuit race in biathlon (5:15 a.m. Eastern on Sunday). Did you know almost 10 percent of Winter Olympics medals are in biathlon?

The post The NFL's Rooney Rule Is a Well-Intended Failure appeared first on Reason.com.

In most years, the main controversy leading up to the Olympics has to do with team uniforms or which countries will take part in the games. For this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the hottest issue is security.   

On Tuesday, the U.S. announced it would include agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of its security detail. ESPN reported that any ICE personnel associated with the games would come from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an investigative unit that has supported Olympic security efforts before and typically focuses on transnational crimes such as smuggling operations, drug trafficking, and complex financial cases. This unit is distinct from ICE’s more widely known Enforcement Removal Operations division, which has dominated headlines amid President Donald Trump’s domestic immigration crackdown.

In a statement to NPR, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin clarified that ICE would be “supporting the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations.” Officials from Italy’s interior ministry have likewise emphasized that ICE personnel would work out of U.S. diplomatic facilities, such as the Milan consulate, and would not be deployed in public spaces or run security operations on the ground. On Friday, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee clarified that ICE will not conduct security or enforcement activity at the games and that Olympic security remains under Italian authority, as reported by Straight Arrow News. 

Despite these reassurances, the announcement that ICE would serve as security at the games has elicited a hostile reception from local officials. Calling ICE “a militia that kills,” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told Italy’s RTL radio, “It’s clear that they are not welcome in Milan, there’s no doubt about it. But I wonder, could we ever say ‘No’ to Trump?…We can take care of their security ourselves. We don’t need ICE.”

Opposition expanded beyond Milan’s city hall to include left-wing parties and activist groups, many of whom are already vocal critics of Italy’s center-right government, The Guardian reports. For these groups, ICE’s presence has become a symbol of Trump-era immigration enforcement and a focal point for broader criticism of Italy’s security arrangements. Organizers have circulated petitions and announced an “ICE OUT” rally timed to the February 6 opening ceremony.

Even if ICE’s role at the games is limited to support functions, significant questions remain unanswered. Officials have not specified how many agents will be involved, how information will be shared, or what limits exist to prevent a temporary Olympic assignment from evolving into a lengthier security campaign. In the absence of clear public detail—and given ICE’s reputation for opaque internal practices—it is unsurprising that the agency’s involvement has met resistance in Italy. That reaction, mirroring criticism in the United States, reflects a broader pattern: Enforcement agencies widely perceived as unaccountable tend to generate backlash wherever they appear, regardless of nuance or national boundaries.

The post ICE's Presence at the 2026 Winter Olympics Is Sparking International Backlash appeared first on Reason.com.