Bayer Leverkusen’s long-suffering fans had waited 120 years for their team to win a league title. On Sunday, with their first Bundesliga crown just seven minutes away, their patience finally ran out.

When Florian Wirtz’s second goal gave Leverkusen a 4-0 lead over Werder Bremen in the 83rd minute of a game it had to win to clinch the championship, supporters began poring out of the stands and onto the pitch. On the bench, players danced and hugged one another.

When Wirtz scored again moments later, the stands again emptied and referee Harm Osmers abandoned the match. What more did anyone need to see?

Not only had Leverkusen at long last shed its Anglicized nickname “Neverkusen,” but it had done so in dramatic fashion, running its German-record unbeaten streak to 43 games in all competition to secure the title with five weeks left in the season.

“Finally, we can say Bayer Leverkusen is German champion,” said coach Xabi Alonso, who took over early last season when the team was facing relegation. “The first title is always special for everyone. So to be part of this history feels incredible.”

With Sunday’s win, Leverkusen ended Bayern Munich’s 11-season reign as Bundesliga champion — a run Alonso helped start by leading Bayern to three straight championships as a player a decade ago. And there may be more history to come since Leverkusen (25-0-4) is bidding to become the first team to finish a Bundesliga season unbeaten.

With 13 points in its final five games, Leverkusen would break Munich’s record of 91 points in a season, set in 2013, and it also has a chance at a treble since it leads West Ham 2-0 after the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinal and will face second-division Kaiserslautern in the German Cup final in Berlin on May 25.

“We are not focusing on record numbers,” said Simon Rolfes, a former Leverkusen player and academy manager who, as managing director of sport, was the architect of the championship roster. “We are focusing on the [two] running competitions. The season is not over. Jobs have to be done still.”

The title didn’t come cheaply, with Rolfes spending more than $96 million on six players in last summer’s transfer window. But he got what he paid for with the newly acquired pair of Victor Boniface and Alex Grimaldo combining for 20 goals and 20 assists while longtime goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky led the league in shutouts (14) and save percentage (78.7%).

Yet Leverkusen’s payroll, estimated at $70 million a year, remains just a quarter of what Bayern Munich is spending. Leverkusen wins because it is more a team than a collection of stars, with four players — led by Boniface and the 20-year-old Wirtz, a product of Leverkusen’s development system — contributing at least eight goals and seven assists each.

“We’re proud of the style of play we’ve shown on the field this year,” Rolfes said in an email interview. “Balance and depth is crucial. When Boniface went down with an injury, others were there to secure our results. There are many players in the team that have strong offensive skills — but they put the group in front, not themselves.”

Bayern Leverkusen players celebrate after winning the Bundesliga title on Sunday.

(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

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Vanquishing Bayern Munich, the richest club in Germany and the sixth-richest in the world, is a major achievement, not just for Leverkusen but for the Bundesliga and all of club soccer.

Europe’s top five leagues have long been dominated by super clubs, meaning most teams — and their supporters — had little reason to aspire to a championship when the season began. That power structure may be crumbling, however. Juventus, which won nine consecutive titles in Italy’s Serie A, will finish short of the summit for a fourth straight season this year. And Spain’s La Liga hasn’t had a repeat winner in five years.

“Perhaps it’s healthy for the Bundesliga, also for German football, for another team to win,” Alonso said.

But doing that takes more than just the team on the field, said Fernando Carro, the team’s Barcelona-born CEO.

“Of course, the squad mainly constructed by Simon Rolfes is excellent. Xabi Alonso’s work as a head coach is outstanding. That is apparent,” said Carro, who joined Leverkusen in 2018. “But the truth is you need many parts of the organization delivering up to 100%; efforts that might be invisible to the outside, but [are] important factors for sustainable growth and success.

“Last you need, very simply, a bit of luck — because sports will never be predictable.”

Bayern Leverkusen fans hold up a banner depicting coach Xabi Alonso during a match against Werder Bremen on Sunday.

(Martin Meissner / Associated Press)

The challenge now is for Rolfes and Carro to take advantage of the opportunities Leverkusen’s historic season present. Even if the team falls short in its two remaining competitions, it is the German champion and the only unbeaten team in a major European league. That will mean millions of dollars in additional sponsorships, money that can be spent to pay the many players who are now likely to listen to the team’s offers.

“Naturally having an attractive squad on the field and historic results benefits the business side of the organization,” Carro said. “We need to take advantage of the momentum.

“Coming from a business background, I found it important from the beginning back in 2018, to look at the organizational and personnel tasks in order to professionalize Bayer. We invested in brand building and digital projects in tailored international content for our core markets. We played two games in the USA and Mexico in 2022 and plan on diverse projects globally for the near future.”

But Carro cautioned against making Leverkusen’s success solely about the bottom line.

“Nobody working in sports should take decisions just because of possible revenues,” he said. “I love my job. I love to help lift an organization and its people to another level.

“Success on the field and rising attention then almost automatically will make it easier to increase your resources.”

Whether that will make Leverkusen perennial contenders or a one-season flash in the pan remains to be seen. After all, the team has won just one title in 120 years. Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga 17 times this century alone.

“Bayern has resources that other clubs in our league do not have and they can keep their team together while others in the Bundesliga need to transfer their players for revenue generation,” Carro said. “But we’ve always known that we could put a team together to challenge and possibly even overtake them.

“Myself, I always want to win, no matter how good the chances might be. You have to believe that you can do it.”

On Sunday they did.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the Corner of the Galaxy podcast.

Of course, you know the calls. Verne Lundquist provided the soundtrack for so many iconic sports moments, from Jack Nicklaus’ 17th-hole birdie putt at the 1986 Masters (“Yes, sir!”) to Christian Laettner’s jumper at the buzzer in the 1992 NCAA Tournament (“Yes!”) to Tiger Woods’ famed chip at No. 16 at the 2005 Masters (“In your life, have you seen anything like that?!”) to Auburn’s kick-six in the 2013 Iron Bowl (“An answered prayer!”). So many more, too.

But here is something you may not know: On the night of Nov. 22, 1963, Lundquist was just a 23-year-old weekend sportscaster on television and afternoon disc jockey at KTBC-AM-FM-TV, an Austin, Texas, radio-television station owned by Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird. That evening, he volunteered to drive CBS News correspondent David Schoumacher and two other CBS staffers the 60 miles from Austin to Johnson City so they could interview friends, relatives and high school classmates of Johnson, who would soon become President of the United States. He never forgot that night. How could you?

But my favorite Verne story is how he met his wife, Nancy. It’s one he told me many years ago for a Sports Illustrated piece. Here it is, in his own words:

We met in a bar — and I hasten to add it was an upscale bar in Dallas. It was a place called Arthur’s. I walked in after I did the 10 o’clock news (at WFAA-TV in Dallas) and I just didn’t want to go home. Nancy and her date were at the bar and her date recognized me from local television and invited me over to have a drink. He introduced me to his date and her name was Nancy Miller. It was their first date, a blind date. So we sat and chatted and her date, Raymond Willie, said to me, “Listen, I know you are single. I’m going to fix you up with a friend of mine and we can all go to dinner.” He looked at Nancy and asked her, “What are you doing Thursday night?” She said, “Nothing.” He said, “Good, you’ll be my date and we’ll fix Verne up with this schoolteacher friend of mine and we’ll go to dinner.” Meanwhile, I’m looking at Nancy thinking she is the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my life. So, Raymond finally left to take care of his business and I asked Nancy, “So, how involved are you with Raymond?” She said, “Oh, this is our first date and it’s a blind date.” So I said, “Well, forget what he is talking about on Thursday night. What are you doing on Saturday night?” She said, “I think I am doing whatever you are doing.”

On Sunday afternoon, Lundquist signed off the air for the final time at CBS Sports after working his 40th Masters, a nice round number that he felt, at age 83, was the way to go out.

“(CBS Sports chairman) Sean (McManus) and I had a conversation a couple of years ago about what would be the proper time to exit stage left, and he and I agreed that 40 had a nice round feel to it and that we would exit from the Masters and CBS at the end of the second week in April this year,” Lundquist said on a recent conference call. “I’ve got so many wonderful memories tied up with our visits to Augusta.”

It was an emotional week at Augusta for the CBS Sports staff because of the retirements of Lundquist and McManus, and Lundquist got so many flowers from various places over this weekend, including Augusta National, ESPN, The Washington Post, and Golf Digest. CBS Sports ran a tribute featuring Verne and Nancy standing on the hole where we often heard him — No. 16.

“In your life have you seen anything like that?”

When it comes to the legendary career of Verne Lundquist, the answer is no.
After 40 years at Augusta National, he says a fond farewell to the Masters. pic.twitter.com/9ZQSaKtPd5

— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 14, 2024

“They celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary this week at the Masters,” host Jim Nantz said of the couple as CBS came out of the video tribute. “And we will be celebrating you for as long as there is a Masters Tournament, Verne Lundquist.”

Lundquist already had a successful career before reaching the network level. He was the radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys from 1972-84 and the sports director for WFAA-TV in Dallas. The “SEC on CBS” job was the first as a lead broadcaster for Lundquist, who has worked for ABC Sports and Turner Sports in addition to CBS. McManus offered Lundquist the play-by-play role for SEC football in 2000, which soon became a big deal because of the SEC’s explosion nationally. It changed how sports fans saw him too.

“(CBS) lost the NFL to Fox in 1994, and I stayed at CBS for one year after that, and then a wonderful guy, the late Mike Pearl who was our executive producer of the Olympics, went to Turner Sports and invited me to come over there and I did for two years,” Lundquist said. “I’ll never forget we were in Nagano, Japan, and CBS had reacquired the rights to the NFL. Sean came up to me … before the men’s (figure skating) championships. We had about six or seven minutes to chat, and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Are you ready to come home?’ That’s probably the greatest question I’ve ever received in my life. So I came back, and of course, got back in the Masters rotation. It’s been a great run. Hey, I’m 83 years old. I’ve been blessed to have a sensational professional life and a wonderful personal life. I wasn’t the first to say this, but thanks for the memories.”

In 2016, I traveled to Baton Rouge to watch Lundquist and the CBS SEC football group work in Lundquist’s last season. What I saw in person was how much the people around him cared for him. He was 76 at the time, and the crew looked after him as if he were a father figure.

“He’s the exact same Uncle Verne that I knew back in 1985, the first time I met him,” said Nantz. “Of course, I was very familiar with him before I joined the CBS team. We were assigned to a Christmas Day football game (the Blue-Gray Football Classic) in 1985. I was in my mid-20s, and I found myself working a show with Verne Lundquist. That’s really big. I was nervous about it. The night before the game, Verne and Nancy invited me to join them for dinner, which meant a lot. In a lot of ways, I think that kind of showed me what the CBS culture was about, how you act as a teammate. … Verne unknowingly was mentoring me even back then on how to be inclusive, be kind, be caring, treat people like family. It meant a lot.”

It was lovely to hear Lundquist’s call one last time as Ludvig Åberg, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Scottie Scheffler each hit No. 16 in the 6 p.m. ET hour. At 6:30 p.m., as Morikawa and Scheffler received large applause from the crowd walking No. 16, Nantz said, “And Verne, that crowd could just as well be standing for you.”

There was Verne with one last birdie call when Scheffler took a 4-stroke lead.

“The hour belongs to Scottie Scheffler,” Lundquist said as the eventual Masters champion left the hole, but he really could have been talking about himself.

Verne, thank you for the memories. pic.twitter.com/pUB5nTPWk9

— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) April 14, 2024

In the post-Caitlin Clark era, how can women’s college basketball keep TV momentum? Here’s my piece on it.

A trio of sports media podcasts that might interest you:

• A conversation with ESPN’s vice president of brand strategy and content research Flora Kelly. Kelly explains her role at ESPN, how that informs the company, how her research team works, and the macro trends she sees in sports in 2024.

• A conversation with James Andrew Miller, the best-selling author of books on CAA, ESPN, “Saturday Night Live,” and HBO. Miller discusses ESPN’s Norby Williamson, who had his hand in almost all parts of ESPN’s content and business areas, from programming, production and news during his nearly four decades at ESPN.

• A conversation with Jon Lewis, the founder and editor of Sports Media Watch. Lewis discusses viewership for the women’s and men’s tournaments.

Some things I read over the last week that were interesting to me (Note: there are a lot of paywalls here):

• The best piece I have read this month — Forsaken: 14 years, 140 officers and a dark secret that consumed a small Ontario town. How the Lucas Shortreed case was solved. By Jon Wells of The Hamilton Spectator.

• Kentucky accused of “complicity” as former swim coach allegedly committed sexual violence. By Katie Strang of The Athletic.

• A narco revolt takes a once-peaceful nation to the brink. By Samantha Schmidt and Arturo Torres of The Washington Post.

• Masters of the Green: The Black Caddies of Augusta National. By Latria Graham of Garden and Gun.

• O.J. Simpson’s Hall of Fame spot may be assured, but there’s no rule against some context. By Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports.

• What happens if a generation of sports fans is swallowed up by gambling? By Steve Buckley of The Athletic.

• Inside Amazon’s Push to Crack Trader Joe’s — and Dominate Everything. By Dana Mattioli of The Wall Street Journal.

• To Build Muscle, It’s the Sets That Count. By Alex Hutchinson of Outside.

• America’s Next Soldiers Will Be Machines. By Jack Detsch of Foreign Policy.

• Fifty years later, Henry Aaron’s legacy lives on in Atlanta and beyond. By Michael Lee of The Washington Post.

• A Vigilante Hacker Took Down North Korea’s Internet. Now He’s Taking Off His Mask. By Andy Greenberg of Wired.

• Test Your Exercise I.Q. The New York Times

• The Key Detail Missing From the Narrative About O.J. and Race. By Joel Anderson of Slate.

• Caitlin Clark delivered a winning segment on “Saturday Night Live.”

• Did One Guy Just Stop a Huge Cyberattack? By Kevin Roose of The New York Times.

• How AI could transform baseball forever. By Josh Tyrangiel of The Washington Post.

• What Happened to Damages That O.J. Simpson Owed to the Victims’ Families? By Anna Betts of The New York Times.

(Photo of Verne Lundquist at Augusta National Golf Club in 2012: Augusta National / Getty Images)

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice is being sued for $1 million in damages by two victims involved in the Dallas car crash this month. 

Rice and SMU cornerback Teddy Knox are being sued by Edvard Petrovskiy and Irina Gromova, whose attorneys filed a lawsuit in Dallas County court on Thursday, per FOX 4 News.

Petrovskiy and Gromova were in a 2022 Lexus 350 SUV when they were struck by Rice and Knox. An affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News found that the Lamborghini Urus, believed to be driven by Rice, was traveling at 119 mph just seconds before the March 30 collision.

Knox, who allegedly was driving a Chevrolet Corvette, was traveling 116 mph but slowed down to 91 mph just one second before the accident.

The lawsuit in Dallas County court stated that Petrovskiy and Gromova were “severely injured by the tremendous force of the high-speed impact.”

It also pointed out how Rice, Knox and other passengers in the crash allegedly walked away from the scene without showing any support for those injured.

CHIEFS’ RASHEE RICE DROVE NEARLY 120 MPH JUST SECONDS BEFORE SIX CAR-CRASH: AFFIDAVIT

“Despite innocent victims calling for emergency help and desperately trying to exit their destroyed vehicles in a state of shock, Defendants intentionally, knowingly evaded assisting injured commuters and absconded from the scene,” the lawsuit said, per FOX 4 News.

Brain trauma, lacerations to the face that needed stitches, bruises and internal bleeding were among the injuries suffered, per the lawsuit.

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice runs with the ball after catching a pass against the Cincinnati Bengals, Dec. 31, 2023, at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. (Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Petrovskiy and Gromova are seeking damages for medical care, physical pain and suffering, mental anguish and property damage, among others.

Rice, 23, turned himself in on Thursday at the Glenn Heights Police Department. He is facing one count of aggravated assault, one count of collision involving serious bodily injury and six counts of collision involving injury. 

Knox, who is a sophomore at SMU, turned himself in on Friday and is facing the same charges as Rice. He has been suspended from the football program but declined to comment further.

Rice apologized last week and took full responsibility for his part in the incident.

Rashee Rice took responsibility for his role in the recent car crash. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

“I take full responsibility for my part in this matter and will continue to cooperate with the necessary authorities. I sincerely apologize to everyone impacted in Saturday’s accident,” Rice wrote. 

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