Sports
LIV Golf had a big opportunity Sunday. Did it take advantage?
LIV Golf was given an opportunity on Sunday.
The PGA Tour’s final round was pushed off due to some truly gnarly weather conditions at Pebble Beach, giving LIV’s first event of the 2024 season the full stage. And it was Jon Rahm’s first event as a LIV golfer, with Rahm in contention for the win at Mayakoba, Mexico. As much money as LIV has spent to get off the ground and fill its 54-man roster, sometimes luck still brings the greatest chances you’ll get.
So how did the 3-year-old product do? I had some thoughts.
Legion before me
Rahm did not win Sunday — he finished bogey-bogey, dropping off the shared lead and ceding the stage to Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia for a four-hole playoff, dramatically won by Niemann with the only light on the course coming from the leaderboard overlooking the 18th green.
Rahm was dejected, as anyone who has ever watched Rahm play golf would imagine, and took some cajoling from the LIV broadcast team to acknowledge that his Legion XIII team had won the team competition. It’ll be interesting moving forward to see how Rahm handles that push and pull. Most of these guys are still hardwired to only care about their performance, and LIV asks for a reset of priorities.
Jon Rahm finished third at his first LIV event. (Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)
Rahm’s LIV Golf impact
Rahm’s biggest impact on the league so far is that his presence seems to have tilted the scales for LIV regarding relevancy.
The initial roster was so full of has-beens and those who never will be that Dustin Johnson felt like a total outlier. Well, Brooks Koepka made it a bit better. So did Bryson DeChambeau. Then Cameron Smith. It still wasn’t enough to shake the feeling that every week an established star didn’t win the LIV event was a missed opportunity, and if two or three of those guys had an off-week it was easy to scoff at the leaderboard.
But Friday’s first round felt different with Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton. There were more guys that you want to watch play golf, not out of sentimentality or curiosity but because you want to watch the best of the best.
The top 10 from Mayakoba included Niemann, Garcia, Rahm, Johnson, Koepka, Hatton, Smith and Louis Oosthuizen. You’re telling on yourself if you dismiss that.
Niemann wants into Augusta
Not sure what to take from Niemann dropping in the winning putt and making much of his victory interview about his exclusion from the major championships. “I’m not in the majors,” was the first thing he said when given a mic. Is it a sign of his competitiveness that his mind immediately went to the next thing, or something else?
The 25-year-old Chilean has competed in the last 12 majors but is currently on the outside looking in for the Masters at No. 66 in the world, per Official World Golf Ranking. (He’s ranked 27th on DataGolf.com, which takes into account LIV results.)
Niemann is into the Open Championship thanks to his Australian Open win in December. Still, he’ll have to work on Asian Tour events and hope to accumulate enough points to get into the OWGR top 50 before April.
While sympathetic to his plight, we all understood the deal here. LIV has had an OWGR problem since Day 1.
LIV on TV
Let’s talk about the broadcast.
First, the positives: Most of what is put on the screen is quite good. The leaderboard is a plus, relevant stats are at the ready, and the putting line graphic helps the viewer to understand what they are watching. They also did a nice job of laying out and letting us hear the player and caddy discuss shots, and that’s the good stuff. There are also just a lot of golf shots shown, which should not feel so revolutionary, but for a public subjected to NBC’s PGA Tour broadcasts it just does.
As for everything else? It leaves a lot to be desired.
The biggest problem with an LIV Golf broadcast is that it’s constantly trying to convince us of something, instead of just letting events speak for themselves. There’s a constant barrage of Tweets, which as a storytelling mechanism feels stolen out of a 2012 game broadcast anyway — and they’re all about the same. That player is great. This is exciting. I’m watching right now. They don’t add anything, and if Arlo White isn’t reading them for us they’re scrolling along the bottom of the screen.
White is often in this position, more pitchman than broadcaster. There’s a three-man booth and two on-course reporters, and plenty of time for them to talk. But precious little insight is offered, and it often feels like they’re all just passing the baton of who is going to repeat the company line this time.
Whether that’s how they feel or just what is being asked of them, it has the same impact. When you are constantly telling me everything is awesome and normal rounds of golf are something more, then when the truly high-level moment comes along there’s no higher level to go. It’s why newspapers didn’t run the Pearl Harbor font size every day. It would stop getting your attention.
So on Friday as Niemann hunted down a 57, which would have been the lowest round ever on a major pro golf tour, the broadcast could not sufficiently rise to the moment. It had nowhere else to go.
LIV has a chance to get more eyeballs this year. The on-course product is miles better than when it started. The rest just needs to grow with it.
(Top photo of Joaquin Niemann: Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)
Sports
New York Attorney General Letitia James joins FIFA investigation into possible ticket price gauging
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New York Attorney General Letitia James has joined New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport to launch an investigation into FIFA’s high World Cup ticket prices on Wednesday, the New York Post reports.
Officials say the steep prices have sparked a “gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity, and impossibly high prices,” ahead of the soccer tournament next month.
FIFA FACES LAWSUIT OVER PLAN TO BAN IRAN’S PRE-REVOLUTION ‘LION AND SUN’ FLAG AT 2026 WORLD CUP STADIUMS
New York Attorney General Letitia James stands silently during a press conference at the office of the Attorney General in New York City on Dec. 15, 2025. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Both James and Davenport announced the joint probe — which includes subpoenas sent to FIFA by the two attorneys general — to focus on the myriad issues that stem from the soccer federation’s ticket sales for the tournament, including reports that fans were being misled about where their seats were located in addition to the exorbitantly high prices.
“Being honest about ticket sales is not complicated. But FIFA has turned buying a ticket to the World Cup into a gauntlet of confusion, fake scarcity, and impossibly high prices — all at the expense of consumers and hardworking New Jerseyans,” AG Davenport said in a statement.
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
The FIFA World Cup 2026 winner trophy is displayed at FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, as the draw for the 2026 World Cup European qualifiers begins on Dec. 13, 2024. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu)
The joint probe from both states makes sense when considering a number of World Cup games, including the final on July 19, are being played at nearby MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Sky-high ticket prices for the World Cup seem to be a bipartisan issue, as this probe comes in the wake of President Donald Trump also making disparaging comments regarding the high prices earlier this month, which were routinely rumored to be north of $1,000.
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President Donald Trump dances at the end of the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)
“I did not know that number,” President Trump said, “I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn’t pay it either, to be honest with you.”
The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11 between Mexico and South Africa.
Look, up in the stands — it’s J.K. Simmons and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!
The Academy Award-winning actor, who portrayed Daily Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson in director Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy, was reunited with his onscreen nemesis at the New York Mets game Tuesday.
After a clip from “Spider-Man” was shown on the stadium screen at Citi Field during the Mets game against the Cincinnati Reds, the camera cut to Simmons in the stands. In the row behind him was Jameson’s favorite masked menace, reading a copy of the Daily Bugle.
The “Whiplash” actor played along with the bit, turning around to face Spider-Man and waving his arms to express his displeasure. Channeling his inner Jameson, a spirited Simmons then motioned for Spider-Man to get tossed from the game. Photos and videos of the moment have been shared across social media.
(A devoted Detroit Tigers fan, Simmons repped his favorite team under the Mets jersey he wore at the game.)
After playing Jameson in Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy that wrapped in 2007, Simmons returned to the role for a mid-credits cameo in the 2019 film “Spider-Man: Far From Home” when the vocal Spider-Man critic revealed the hero’s identity to the world. Simmons’ incarnation of the character has since appeared in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” (2021), “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023).
The next installment of the webslinging superhero’s adventures is “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which hits theaters July 31. Simmons’ involvement has not officially been confirmed.
Sports
Thunder push Spurs to brink with dominant Game 5 win as Wembanyama posts series-low 20 points
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The Oklahoma City Thunder are just one win away from a second consecutive NBA Finals berth. The Western Conference Finals shifted back to Oklahoma City on Tuesday night, with the defending league champions pulling away in the second half for a 127-114 victory in Game 5.
The reigning two-time NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the Thunder with 32 points and nine assists Tuesday night.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder watches during the fourth quarter of Game Five against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Western Conference Finals at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City on May 26, 2026. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Stephon Castle led the Spurs with 24 points and five rebounds, while Victor Wembanyama finished with a series-low 20 points.
Entering Tuesday, the Spurs appeared to follow a relatively simple formula for success in the Western Conference Finals: When Wembanyama was the best player on the floor, they won. When he wasn’t, they lost.
San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama looks on during the Western Conference Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Wembanyama, who delivered 41- and 33-point performances in the Spurs’ two wins earlier in the series, never appeared to fully find his rhythm in Game 5. He was 4 for 15 from the floor, missing all five of his 3-point attempts.
He offered an impassioned speech to teammates during a timeout barely two minutes into the third quarter, after the Thunder opened an 18-point lead. And it worked — to a point. Oklahoma City scored again to get the lead up to 20, but the Spurs closed within eight later in the third.
Elsewhere, the New York Knicks will have to wait until at least Thursday to find out which team emerges from the Western Conference.
Jared McCain of the Oklahoma City Thunder celebrates during the fourth quarter of Game Five against the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Western Conference Finals at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on May 26, 2026. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Even before Game 5 of the Spurs-Thunder series tipped off, San Antonio coach Mitch Johnson was asked about Knicks fans in Manhattan chanting, “We want Wemby! We want Wemby!”
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“I know New York’s on fire. They won so that city is obviously enjoying it and they’ve had a heck of a playoff run,” Johnson said. “But unfortunately, I’ve been pretty locked-into what we’ve got going right here in front of us.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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