Sports
What Michael Jordan is like as a NASCAR boss, according to his star driver
Michael Jordan bestowed the honor of driving his NASCAR team’s signature car, one that bears his own number 23, to Bubba Wallace for the last three years.
After joining Jordan in 2021, Wallace earned his first career win at Talladega Superspeedway and earned three top 5 and three top 10 finishes in just his first year as part of Jordan’s team 23XI Racing. He has gone on to become one of the sport’s most famous and polarizing figures and has carved a unique spot for himself in its history as the highest-finishing Black driver in the Daytona 500.
Now, he is also a new father. Wallace welcomed his son, Becks Hayden, with his wife Amanda on Sept. 29.
As a first time father, Wallace said Jordan is checking on him to make sure he is getting enough sleep.
“He just keeps asking if I’m getting enough sleep, and surprisingly enough, we are getting sleep. Becks sleeps pretty good, most nights,” Wallace told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.
Bubba Wallace, driver of the #23 Toyota Genuine Parts/Mobil 1 Toyota, waits on the grid during practice for the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sept. 20, 2024 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)
For Wallace, it is one of the more empathetic ways his NBA Hall of Famer NASCAR boss manages his top talent. On the other side, however, working for Jordan comes with a lot of verbal insults.
“He’s competitive,” Wallace said of Jordan as a boss. “He’s a lot of fun, he’s a guy that you can take jabs at, and he’ll dish it right back, so you have to have thick skin. That’s how I was brought up and raised, and trash talk is half the game, and he’s probably one of the best to do it.”
During his NBA career, Jordan developed a reputation as one of the most belligerent and unfiltered trash talkers in the entire game, and it did not stop with opponents. Jordan had a reputation of absolutely verbally obliterating his own teammates.
In the famous ESPN docuseries “The Last Dance,” the former Bulls star and his teammates recounted stories of Jordan bullying his own younger teammates.
Jordan justified his treatment of these younger teammates in the series as a means to win.
“When people see this, they might say ‘well he wasn’t really a nice guy, he might have been a tyrant!’ Well that’s you, because you never won anything,” Jordan said in the docuseries. “I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well.”
WHY NASCAR STAR BUBBA WALLACE ISN’T MAKING POLITICAL STATEMENTS THIS YEAR AFTER BRASHING TRUMP IN 2020
Michael Jordan, left, talks with teammate Isiah Thomas during the NBA All Star Game played on Feb. 9, 1992 at the Orlando Arena in Orlando, Florida. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
One of Jordan’s other drivers has even said the NBA legend told him he was “terrible” at his sport.
Fellow 23XI driver Tyler Reddick said in an interview on Fox Sports’ “Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour,” in September that Jordan berated him while the team was at the Dayton 500 in 2023.
“He [Jordan] turned to me and said, ‘Man, you don’t have any room to talk. You’re terrible at speedway racing.’ He just kind of took a shot at me, and I wasn’t expecting it,” Reddick said. “When MJ calls you out about not being very good at it, it’s easy to find motivation to get better.”
Wallace, as a part of Jordan’s team that is trying to compete to win in the competitive landscape of NASCAR, has bought into that method. Jordan, as a former transcendent athlete, has offered personal and professional advice to Wallace, and they go out of their way to compare their respective situations to each other for strategic means.
However, Wallace questions Jordan’s actual knowledge of NASCAR as a sport.
“What it was like for him coming through the league, and try to compare similarities to what it’s like here. And then I just got to school him on his racing knowledge, because he thinks he knows a lot, but there’s a lot to be learned in this sport for sure,” Wallace said.
For Wallace, this relationship has not extended too far outside the racetrack, yet. Wallace says he has not even golfed with Jordan in the three years since they started working together.
Bubba Wallace, driver of the #23 23XI Racing McDonald’s Toyota, drives during the NASCAR Cup Series Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Circuit on July 7, 2024 in Chicago. (Ben Hsu/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“We like to talk about racing,” Wallace said of his interactions with Jordan.
Wallace said he has not engaged in any competitive activity that includes stakes of any kind with the NBA legend.
Jordan had a reputation as a notorious gambler during and after his basketball career. It has even been reported through multiple accounts that Jordan would even bet with his teammates on the outcome of pre-recorded interactive races that were played on the jumbotron at the Bulls’ home arena during games.
Wallace does not seem to know anything about that side of his boss.
What Wallace does know is that Jordan is a great guy to talk about basketball with. When they are at the team facility, one NBA team gets priority in getting played on TV, that being Jordan’s Charlotte Hornets, a team he previously owned but sold in August 2023.
“With him being the owner for a while, the Hornets game was always playing at the racetrack,” Wallace said.
Jordan purchased the Charlotte-based franchise in 2010 for $275 million. Jordan made a healthy profit when he finally sold the team last year, in a $3 billion sale to a group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, and he even stayed on as a minority owner.
However, in 13 seasons under his leadership, the team went 423-600, made just three playoff appearances and did not win a single series. During the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, the then-Bobcats went 7-59, which is the worst record in NBA history.
Now, 23XI racing is the biggest sports team Jordan owns in the U.S. The pressure is on Wallace to make sure it does not end up like the Hornets.
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Sports
Conor McGregor’s long-awaited Octagon return cut short by apparent knee injury seconds into UFC 329
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Nearly five years after his last walk to the Octagon, Conor McGregor made his long-awaited UFC return Saturday night against fellow MMA star Max Holloway in the main event of UFC 329 in Las Vegas.
McGregor opened aggressively, attempting a running kick before throwing a head kick moments later. He appeared to slip on both tries. Holloway quickly capitalized after the second, taking top position and landing a right hand before McGregor was able to work his way back to his feet.
Moments later, McGregor hit the canvas again after trying to throw a kick with his right leg, which appeared to buckle underneath him.
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Conor McGregor of Ireland participates in the walkout before facing Max Holloway of the United States in their welterweight bout during UFC 329 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. (Ian Maule/Getty Images)
The official inside the Octagon waved off the fight moments later, giving Holloway a TKO victory.
During the broadcast, UFC CEO Dana White pointed to a first-round replay that appeared to show the moment McGregor suffered the injury. The apparent injury was not to the same leg McGregor broke during his 2021 fight against Dustin Poirier, which led to a lengthy absence from the Octagon.
The loss extended McGregor’s long winless drought, with his last UFC victory coming by first-round TKO against Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in January 2020.
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McGregor earned a unanimous decision over Holloway in a featherweight clash in 2013, when neither was an MMA megastar. In the blink of an eye, McGregor’s star rose.
Conor McGregor and Max Holloway face off during the UFC 329 ceremonial weigh-in at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 10, 2026. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
On Wednesday, he admitted he got caught up in his own stardom after winning UFC belts in two weight classes and becoming one of the biggest names in combat sports.
“I launched an Irish whiskey,” McGregor said. “I didn’t drink heavily, if at all, at that time of my life. I was an athlete at the top of my game. Next thing you know, thousands upon thousands of bottles (are) in my garage.
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“‘Sell this, Conor.’ OK, I’d leave my property with two bottles under my arm, and that was it. I was caught. And I wasn’t used to it. And that’s it. God gave me these lessons. That’s it. I was trapped and caught, and it is what it is.”
Conor McGregor jumps into the air for a kick as he fights Max Holloway in a welterweight bout at UFC 329 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (John Locher/AP)
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Easier said than done, perhaps, as the controversial former champion has been embroiled in multiple controversies and legal issues over the past several years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
LAS VEGAS — The door opened for Arthur Kaluma to show his worth for the Lakers in the NBA Summer League on Saturday night.
He did so in a big way.
Kaluma had 34 points and five rebounds during the Lakers’ 91-70 win over the Dallas Mavericks at the Thomas & Mack Center.
He was 11 for 16 from the field and six for 10 from three-point range.
With Lakers rookie guard Cameron Carr unable to play because of a right thumb contusion, Kaluma took over the scoring role. Carr, the 24th pick in the NBA draft, is averaging 17 points per game.
“Cam doesn’t play tonight, so he gets a little bit more minutes, gets a couple more touches,” said Lakers Summer League coach Ty Abbott about Kaluma. “But he’s done a really good job of making the most of it when he doesn’t have actions run for him. So the way that he’s been able to stay ready, find windows for himself has kept him in a rhythm. So, on a night like tonight, when we can run some actions for him, he knocks them down and just plays out of his mind. It was great.”
Kaluma said he was “a little nervous” but his three-point shooting said otherwise.
“When [teammate] Jon Elmore came down and he pitched it back to me for a three … I just knew when it came off my hand it was cash,” Kaluma said. “So I said, ‘Yeah, I’m hot.’ It went on from there.”
Late in the fourth quarter, Kaluma lined up a three-pointer, setting his feet and scoring from 29 feet out. He flashed three fingers and smiled. His teammates on the bench stood and cheered, as did the fans.
“We have such a great group of guys this year at Summer League and going through this it’s hard to get that camaraderie with a group,” Kaluma said. “But I feel like everybody wants to see everybody succeed and I felt that tonight. I’m not going to lie to you. They tell me to shoot the ball. I passed up a couple of shots and they were mad at me the other day.”
Kaluma played for the South Bay Lakers in the G League last season. He averaged 14.6 points per game, 4.9 rebounds and shot 55% from the field, 37% from three-point range.
“The G can get grimey, you know what I’m saying? It’s a time where everybody is trying to fight for a position and there is a certain hunger that you have to have in order to be successful in the G,” Kaluma said. “And I feel like that drive that I had my first year in it pushed me into this summer to really get better and work on my game and come here and have the opportunity to perform.”
Kaluma wasn’t alone in helping the Lakers improve to 2-0 in Summer League play.
Adou Thiero ran the court, took a lob pass from Chris Mañon and threw down a two-handed dunk. He had another solid outing with 15 points and four rebounds. He shot just four for 12 from the field, but was a plus-15.
But the night belonged to Kaluma.
“I pride myself on the defensive end,” he said. “I know I got hot offensively, but the shot was just falling today, you know what I’m saying? My game is three-and-D. I lock-up on defense and I know I can hit open shots. I just got hot today and I’m not going to try to let it get to my head.”
Sports
Golf star records lowest round in LPGA major history with astounding performance at Evian Championship
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There are good days on the golf course, and then there is what Haeran Ryu just did on Saturday.
Ryu, 25, recorded the lowest round in LPGA major history on Saturday with an 11-under 60 at the Evian Championship. With the South Korean golfer’s historic round, she holds a three-stroke lead.
Ryu’s round comes just two weeks after winning her first major at the Women’s PGA Championship. On the 18th hole, Ryu left a 30-foot eagle putt a few inches short, and instead settled for a birdie.
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Haeran Ryu of South Korea reacts on the 18th green after the third round of The Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France, on July 11, 2026. (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
She said after the round that she had no idea what she had done until she counted up her scorecard.
“But after the putt and I counted my score with my caddie,” she said. “Oh my God, it’s 11-under par today. It was so amazing. My caddie says, ‘Yep.’ I’m so happy right now.”
If Ryu had made the eagle putt on the 18th hole, she would have been just the second player to shoot a 59 in LPGA history.
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Haeran Ryu of South Korea celebrates a birdie on the 15th green during the third round of The Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club on July 11, 2026, in Evian-les-Bains, France. (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Her 60 broke the record for the lowest round in an LPGA major by one shot. Leona Maguire and Jeungeun Lee6 in 2021, and Hyo Joo Kim in 2014, each shot 61 at the Evian Championship, which was designated as an LPGA major in 2013.
The lowest round in a men’s major is 62, which is shared by four players — Branden Grace at Royal Birkdale in the 2017 British Open, Xander Schauffele and Rickie Fowler in the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, and Schauffele and Shane Lowry in the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla.
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Haeran Ryu of South Korea and Lottie Woad of England interact after their round on the 18th green during the third round of the Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France, on July 11, 2026. (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Ryu hopes her historic third round can help propel her to a second major win in three weeks.
“That is amazing, amazing dream,” Ryu said. “So I just want that one to come true, but we have one more day.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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