Sports
Sabrina Ionescu joins Bay FC ownership group: It’s ‘like a pinch-me moment’
The last 12 months for Sabrina Ionescu have been like a movie.
Last February, she lit up the NBA All-Star stage in a one-on-one 3-point shootout with her role model and friend Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors. In June, the Sabrina 2 dropped, the second edition of her signature Nike shoe — embraced by men and women hoopers. In August, she won a gold medal in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In October, she won a WNBA championship with the New York Liberty, a run that included an epic game-winning 3-pointer in Game 3.
Now, she’s a team owner. Ionescu is the latest investor in Bay FC, the NWSL’s franchise in her home area.
“I feel like I was just in high school not that long ago, playing in that community,” Ionescu told The Athletic. “When I sit back and think about how young I am and how fast everything has come, it is pretty crazy. Especially on this side of things, being an investor in a professional league. A lot of people do that so much later in their career. For me to be a part of the business side of things so early on, I think it kind of set me up for the future.
“Now being able to impact a franchise, that is pretty crazy to think about. It’s kind of like a pinch-me moment and, obviously, very humbling.”
Ionescu becoming an investor in Bay FC makes sense because of where she’s from. The Bay Area’s own. The pride of Miramonte High School. And, with apologies to the Liberty, the hope of many to be the near-future face of the new Golden State Valkyries.
Ionescu is also taking on the role of Bay FC’s official commercial advisor, which makes sense because of her place in this modern landscape of sports and business that’s carving out space for women. Her desire to be hands-on with helping Bay FC maximize that potential is a coup for the Bay Area’s NWSL squad.
Loyal to the soil.
We’re excited to welcome 2024 WNBA Champion, Olympic Gold Medalist, 3x WNBA All-Star and the Bay’s own, @sabrina_i20 to the family as Investor & Commercial Advisor.
📰: https://t.co/utesbXJOmy#BayFC x #BayAreaUnite pic.twitter.com/RdsCcQVaFD
— Bay Football Club (@wearebayfc) March 3, 2025
Conceptually, it’s an ideal marriage. A Bay Area-bred superstar joining the Bay Area franchise in the mix of the changing landscape of Bay Area sports. With Bay FC established, the Valkyries coming, and even the Oakland Soul — of the USL W League — growing, this region is increasingly a flex of the viability of women’s sports.
Bay FC — which set the NWSL record with 11 wins by an expansion club and made the playoffs in its inaugural season — finished top three in the league in ticket revenue and No. 1 in merchandise sales. After selling out the home opener last March, creating a moment in Bay Area history, it’s been a steady uptick.
“It’s been pretty cool to see,” Ionescu said, “just being a Bay area native, seeing how many season tickets they’ve been selling. Seeing 18,000 people at the home opener was insane. So many things go on in the Bay area, so you really understand (that was a display of) how many people really want to watch women’s sports.”
Adding Ionescu to the ownership — along with Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Andrew Luck and Manu Ginobili — suggests the growth potential. A young pioneer is now in the mix. The college basketball phenom has turned into a big dog.
Ionescu was the first women’s basketball player to have a unisex signature collection with Nike. The Sabrina 2 became the most worn among current basketball shoes across the NBA. She was also mentored and validated by the late Kobe Bryant.
“Having someone like Sabrina brings more attention,” said Jen Millet, Bay FC’s COO. “It sends the message that this is a real thing. It’s growing. It’s significant. We’re on a rocket ship. And if you get in now and you’re a part of this, you’re going to over-index. You’re going to out-punch whatever your investment is right now. This is a big win. She’s essentially entering her prime. She’s youthful. She’s on the upswing. We’re on the upswing.”
This is just the beginning of Ionescu’s growing stature in the Bay Area. Ionescu is set up to be a pillar in these parts: with her strong roots in the community; with Curry as a role model; and now, with the Bay FC’s Founding Four as her co-workers. And maybe one day — she’s an unrestricted free agent after this WNBA season — calling Chase Center her home.
“Seeing 18,000 people at the home opener was insane,” Sabrina Ionescu said of Bay FC’s debut last March. “… you really understand how many people really want to watch women’s sports.” (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
Ionescu is bringing a different paradigm. One where ballers are ballers and sports are sports and where quality matters more than identity.
It’s been one of the elements bolstering the claims of Bay FC’s potential. Brands that formerly just associated with women’s sports for the sake of looking good no longer need to make those overtures. More and more, those who do invest in women’s sports do so because they believe in its promise.
Part of Ionescu’s Bay Area legacy will be helping shift that paradigm. To where game recognizes game.
“It’s been fun to finally kind of see everyone else come along to seeing that as well,” Ionescu said. “These are all such monumental moments in what now is taking place in the rest of society, of being able to give individuals their flowers no matter if it’s a women’s sport or not. There have been so many steps that people have taken and continuously take to create that equality amongst sports. It’s fun to see the point that we’re at now, but it’s even more exciting to see where it’s going. We’re scratching the surface of where we want to go in terms of salary, respect, viewership and sponsorships.”
Ionescu has yet to make her debut at San Jose’s PayPal Park for a game. That will likely happen next month when Bay FC starts its 2025 NWSL campaign. But she’s already official like a referee whistle. Stamped with the swaggiest seal. A letterman jacket, luxuriously thick. Navy blue like the peacoat of a longshoreman with white trim and a white Old English B on the left chest. And BayFC on the back.
It’s coveted merchandise in these parts. It’s given exclusively to investors of the franchise and VIPs. Ionescu is both.
“Of course, I’ve got my jacket,” she beamed. “You know I got one.”
(Top photo of Sabrina Ionescu during the New York Liberty’s WNBA championship parade in October: Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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