The Sport Superlatives - Issue No. 52

January 5, 2024

🏆 The Superlatives 🏆

The Best Community: The Sport Superlatives Community 

Y’all… we’ve been rocking together for a full year! This community of readers means the world to us and you all certainly make it fun. Y’all are truly everything. Sport girlies taking over for the ‘99 and 2000. 

Thanks for all the support, engagement, laughs and tolerance of the slightly to more than slightly delayed issues. We can’t wait to explore new ways to connect and engage with all of you!  We are excited to continue to grow and see where this journey takes us all. Cheers to 2025! 

P.S. Do we need a community name??? Like the Supers? Too cheesy? We’ll workshop it.

🏈 Merry Football: Week 17 of the NFL kicked off with two Christmas-day games. Kansas City Chiefs beat the Pittsburgh Steelers while Houston Texans were defeated by the Baltimore Ravens on their home turf… Thank God Blue Ivy was gracious enough to let her mom (Beyoncé) perform on Christmas day. We’re sure it made Houston feel a little better that they gave up Christmas dinner to watch their team lose… just kidding, we all know they only came to watch Queen Bey anyway. Anywho, on to the last week of the NFL season… tear

During week 18, NFL games are sometimes hit or miss. Teams that did not make it to the playoffs play like they have given up all hope, and the teams that have solidified their playoff spots usually bench their stars to avoid pre-playoff injuries. While we’re seeing some of that, division titles and playoff spots are still up for grabs! On Saturday evening, in a not so shocking turn of events, the Baltimore Ravens beat the Cleveland Browns 35-10 to secure the AFC North Division Title. On Saturday, we also saw the Pittsburgh Steelers fall short and lose to the Cincinnati Bengals. Looks like Coach Tomlin and his boys have some work to do ahead of the playoffs.  

Check out the current playoff picture here.

🏀 Christmas Hoops: While “Santa” may (or may not) have been delivering presents to the kiddos for Christmas, all NBA fans (and Disney execs) were hoping for were competitive Christmas games that weren’t upstaged by Beyoncé. Well, 1 out of 2 ain’t bad….The games were competitive. Wemby went off in his Christmas loss debut at the Garden…Maxey and the Sixers held off the Celtics…Bron Bron and Chef Steph put on a show (carried…per usual)...Luka got injured (yikes)…and we’re not sure why or how the Nuggets keep making their way onto our TV screens, but that happened too. And while keeping up with the Jones’ is hard, competing with Beyoncé is, well, impossible. The good news (for the NBA) is that viewership for NBA Christmas was up when compared to the last 5 years. An average of 5.25 million viewers with a peak of 8.32 million (Lakers vs Warriors…told you they carried) is nothing to scoff at. Oh unless, of course, you compare it to the 27 million people that tuned in to watch the Beyoncé Bowl for 15 minutes. Ahh well, you can’t win them all…and hey, maybe next year, the NBA will add in a performance or two…just for a little razzle dazzle.

It’s also worth mentioning that since the New Year has been rung in…the NBA is now looking towards All-Star weekend. The initial round of fan voting has already been tallied, and if your faves aren’t on the list, you might wanna start casting your vote. Also, it may be just us, but seeing those results seems to have lit some fires ‘round the league…we love when [perceived] haters become motivators. If you’d prefer to do a bit of research before casting your ballot (we love an INFORMED vote), here are some games we suggest:

• Celtics vs Thunder 1/5 at 3:30pm (1-seed in the West coming for the crown? We’ll see)

• Suns vs 76ers 1/6 at 7pm (Injury prone, star-spattered teams on the rise…why not?)

• Lakers vs Mavericks 1/7 7:30pm (the LeBron effect; 40 is the new 25.)

• Thunder vs Knicks 1/10 at 7:30pm (Oh the youth, gotta love it!)

🏈 New Year, New NCAA Football Tournament: The NCAA Football quarterfinals were definitely an upgrade from the first round in a few ways: 1. The quality of the games was raised, ever so slightly (2OT has entered the chat) and 2. All of the higher seeded teams lost *womp* womp. Hey, it’s finally giving the March Madness…uh January Jumble ™ …vibes that we think the NCAA was intending with this new format. Maybe they can work on the spacing next time; we know the wee footballers need their rest, but drawing these games out like this isn’t really creating the frenzy and angst we like to see…but not experience. Oh, and don’t get us started on these mid-week games. 

Anywho, next week (on a Thursday and Friday…we’re trending in the right direction) Notre Dame will face off against Penn State and Ohio State (no “the”) will take on Texas. The winners will advance to the NCAA Finals…finally. It’s been quite the journey, but the end is in sight. Stay tuned (if you’re into that sorta thing):

• Notre Dame vs Penn State 1/9 on ESPN at 7:30 pm ET 

• Ohio State vs Texas 1/10 on ESPN at 7:30 pm ET

🎾 USA USA! USA!: If you’ve been having Olympic withdrawals, you should’ve been watching the United Cup tennis tournament. What’s that, you ask? Well, pro tennis is obviously a solo sport, but occasionally there are tournaments where the players work in teams. The United Cup was created in 2022, and is a team tournament between 18 different countries. The USA won the inaugural tournament, and ran it back early this morning by defeating Poland in the finals, 2-0. Now, you know this was coming down to us bringing up our girl Coco Gauff. Big Coco won all her singles matches in straight sets to catapult Team USA into the Finals. She then ended the tournament with a straight sets win against her Achilles heel, Iga Świątek. Now, Iga still leads the head to head matchup 11-3, but between you and us, Iga hasn’t beat Gauff since her lil melatonin (read: doping) incident. We’re sure that’s all a coincidence, though. 

Either way, Coco led the way, and Taylor Fritz finished up by defeating his opponent in three sets. But wait, there’s more…Coco was also named MVP of the tournament. Look at her, just toting the team around on her back.  All this to say, congrats Team USA, and good luck in the upcoming Australian Open.

⚽️ … And Another One: The girlies said “give us more” and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was like… “ok say less, but pay more”. Denver was awarded the 16th NWSL franchise. According to Sportico, the record-setting $110M expansion fee doubles the prior NWSL record set at $53M by Boston and the Bay area for their NWSL teams in 2023. Both Denver and Boston will debut in 2026 while Bay FC will debut later this year in 2025. Can’t wait to watch more women athletes killing it in sports and getting the platform (and pay) they deserve!

🗣 I Quit; No, You’re Fired: Either way, Jimmy Butler doesn’t want to be in Miami. Jimmy Buckets has been talking a lot about wanting to move on from the Miami Heat, and it seems like Pat Riley heard him loud and clear. So loudly and so clearly that they suspended him for 7 games. It’s giving petulance, and we love it. The reasoning for the suspension? They essentially said that he was bad for team morale and they were open to trading him (after they JUST said they weren’t trading him). You want it, you got it. Into the corner you go, baby. No but really, after handing out that suspension, you’d think the team would have the decency to back it up with a win. You know, really show him that they don’t need him anyway. Alas, they lost to the 8-25 Utah Jazz by 36 points. Way to show Jimmy what he’s missing out on.

♟ They’re Playing Checkers, He’s Playing Chess: After Victor Wembanyama’s amazing Christmas Day debut, he decided to chill with the locals and play some chess. Maybe he’s just completing side quests, or perhaps he was looking for a W after that L he took at Madison Square Garden. Either way, Wemby took to the Twittgram to let NYC know that he was in Washington Square Park and he was ready to mingle. Rain be damned, the people showed up and got a chance to play with the young star (or just bask in his presence). What a cool Christmas experience…core memory unlocked.

Your sports term of the week is: Targeting

IRL Example: It’s like when you’re engaging in friendly banter with someone you know, and then, because your wit is failing you,  you intentionally say something to hurt them…Next thing you know you’re blocked on all devices and accounts. Serves you right.

For those that have been rocking with us since Issue 1, you know that our first fashion break down was 2023 Christmas game day looks by NBA players. Well, we’re going back to our roots! This time we will look at how both the NBA and the NFL players showed up and out with their Christmas game day ‘fits. 

NFL’s Russell Wilson, better known as Ciara’s husband, leaned into what some are calling the color of the season with his outfit. Decked out in varying shades of brown, we can’t help but to admire the way that Russ elevated a simple pair of brown slacks and button down + tie combo with his Frére letterman jacket. Although, after checking out the near $4,500 price tag of the jacket, we would be elevating every outfit with that particular piece as well. 

Over in the NBA tunnels we love how Nickeil Alexander - Walker rocked his winter off whites. It’s giving “oh I just threw this together”, but it actually took an hour plus to get the look just right. 

We found some similar jeans in case you’re as obsessed with his off white baggy pants as we are:

Do you love sports? Want to find a way to fit more sports into your week? We’ve got you. From keeping up with your work colleagues to impressing hot dates, our newsletter aims to keep you in the know regardless of your fandom level or the reason. That’s your business, sis!

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