Harrison Butker didn’t have a fun night at the ESPYs, thanks to this brutal dig on his commencement controversy.
During Thursday night’s 2024 ESPYs ceremony, show host Serena Williams and Abbott Elementary mastermind Quinta Brunson absolutely roasted Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker while he was in the room.
As Venus Williams talked about how fans can enjoy women’s sports without reservation, Serena Williams chimed in that Butker isn’t needed in this important push. Brunson quickly agreed.
This was particularly devastating since Butker was most likely in the room since he was on the event’s red carpet.
"So, go ahead and enjoy women's sports like you would any other sports, because they are sports." – Venus Williams
"Except you, Harrison Butker. We don't need you." – Serena Williams
Here’s proof that Butker, indeed, was at this year’s ESPYs and most likely took this burn from Serena Williams and Brunson from his seat in real time.
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Whew. That’s absolutely brutal. We’re sure Butker wasn’t thrilled about that very pointed dig, but then again, airing your feelings in a public space is how Butker landed in this situation.
Venus Williams should never leave tennis. Plus, thoughts on Jonathan Taylor’s sticky situation.
This is the online version of our daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Here’s Mike Sykes.
Watching Venus Williams lose in the US Open was hard. It’s something that I’ll simply never be used to.
Williams has won 79 percent of her games at Flushing Meadows and played in more of these tournaments than anyone. That’s why it was so weird watching her barely be able to compete in her 100th US Open match against Belgian qualifier Greet Minnen on Tuesday.
Williams lost to Minnen 6-1, 6-1 in the first round of the tournament. It was the most lopsided defeat of her career, according to ESPN. Of course, the knee injury she suffered at Wimbledon has been hampering her throughout the summer. But still, this was just painful to watch.
Naturally, people brought up retirement as an option for Williams here. When asked about playing for the rest of the year, Williams said, “I don’t know what I’ll do this fall. Definitely too soon to say.”
Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the end of the Williams era. Obviously, Serena has already retired. It’s too soon to say Venus will, but it seems like she could be next.
If she is finished, it’s been a pretty great run.
Between Venus and Serena Williams are 30 Grand Slam singles titles (with Venus holding seven of them), 14 doubles titles, and hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money from the wins they’ve both racked up.
Bigger than all of that, though, is the legacy they’ve both created in real-time. That legacy lies in every little Black girl who watched these two play tennis and thought, “Maybe I can do that someday, too.”
We don’t get Coco Gauff without getting Venus and Serena. We don’t get Naomi Osaka without them. Sloane Stephens. The list goes on and on and on. Tennis just isn’t the same game if they don’t run through it the way they did. I’ll forever be grateful for their presence here. We should all be.
That’s why, selfishly, I hope this isn’t it. I hope there’s enough gas in the tank for Venus to keep going. Not just for one last big run, but forever. The game just won’t be the same without her. So I hope she never leaves.
The clock ticks for the Colts
(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The only place Jonathan Taylor was moved on Tuesday was to the Colts’ Physically Unable to Perform list.
That’s certainly not what he was expecting when he demanded a trade a few weeks back in his search for a contract extension. That trade never came, though. The Colts had until Tuesday at 4 p.m. to move Taylor before he officially hit the PUP list and couldn’t make it happen.
This isn’t over, though. This trade can still happen. In the end, that 4 p.m. deadline was a self-imposed Colts deadline. Sure, Taylor will still be on the PUP list if he’s traded. But the NFL’s true trade deadline isn’t until October 31. A deal can still be done between now and then.
UNC was locked down for three hours with an active shooter on campus. The student-staffers of the Daily Tar Heel collected texts sent throughout those three hours and put them on the front page to show us just how horrifying this is.
I shed many tears while typing up these heart-wrenching text messages sent and received by UNC students yesterday. Our campus was on lockdown for more than three hours.
“When I heard about the 1971 Women’s World Cup, I couldn’t believe this incredible story was erased from our history books”
The 1971 Women’s World Cup is an event that really happened, and Venus and Serena Williams want to make sure it gets the spotlight it deserves.
The tennis icons have announced they will be executive producers on the upcoming documentary “COPA 71,” a feature-length movie produced by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios.
The film will document the mostly forgotten tournament in Mexico that drew massive crowds, including an estimated 110,000 fans for the final at the Azteca Stadium.
The six-team tournament was not affiliated with FIFA and would be the last of its kind until the first FIFA Women’s World Cup took place in 1991.
Picture taken on August 7, 1971 at Le Bourget airport, near Paris, showing the players of French women’s football national team during their departure towards Mexico for the World women’s football cup. (Photo by Marcel BINH / AFP)
“’Copa 71’ tells the story of one of the most inspirational and significant moments in women’s sports history,” Serena Williams told Variety. “It’s an honor to partner with my sisters and Westbrook Studios to help bring this magical story to light, which has been buried for far too long.”
Venus Williams added: “When I heard about the 1971 Women’s World Cup, I couldn’t believe this incredible story was erased from our history books. I’m excited to team with my sisters and Westbrook Studios to help elevate and empower fellow female athletes and their accomplishments, and to make sure these women have their voices heard through this inspiring documentary.”
Serena Williams and her husband Alexis Ohanian are also investors in the NWSL franchise Angel City FC.
The fourth and final Grand Slam tournament of the year will continue on Friday morning when the US Open returns to Flushing.
The 2022 US Open continues on Friday with the Third Round starting at 11 a.m ET from Flushing, Queens. We will see #23 Nick Kyrgios take on the American J.J. Wolf as well as the #1 Daniil Medvedev face Y. Wu in the Men’s Singles later today. On the Women’s side, we will have #12 Coco Gauff facing #20 Madison Keys as well as the late match between Ajla Tomljanović and Serena Williams.
This will be another great day of the tournament, here is everything you need to know to catch all the action.
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Serena Williams is set to begin what is widely expected to be her final US Open on Monday night. The tennis superstar announced her retirement earlier this month, so barring a Tom Brady-type situation, this will be her last time competing in New York City.
Williams — who currently ranks No. 59 in the world — will look to extend her perfect 20-0 record in first-round US Open matchups against 80th-ranked Danka Kovinic. Williams is a heavy favorite, but even if she’s eliminated, she won’t be done competing quite yet. She’ll also be participating in doubles with her sister, Venus.
With Williams’ unparalleled career likely drawing to a close, fans were naturally on-hand in droves to witness her first-round matchup.
It looks like we’re going to have a packed house as Williams begins the quest for her 24th Grand Slam singles title (and seventh US Open win). When doubles play begins on Wednesday, she will be seeking her third win at the US Open in that category.
It seems she’ll have no shortage of support on Monday night.
There seems to be no stopping tennis’s potential next great superstar.
The tennis world seems to run into a few unstoppable forces every so often. Over the last two decades, that has often been Serena Williams and Venus Williams. It appears the guard is now officially changing toward the future.
On Tuesday, reigning French Open champ and the current world No. 1 in Iga Świątek cruised through an opening match against Jana Fett during the first round of Wimbledon 2022. In the process, the 21-year-old Świątek teased the potential for more glory in the future.
How, you might ask? You see, Świątek’s win over Fett was her 36th consecutive victory. That is the most in the 21st century, notably surpassing both of the Williams sisters’ top-ever streaks:
Wow. For additional context, Świątek could soon possess the second-longest winning streak with two more wins. That would break Martina Hingis’s best mark (37), which ended in 1997. (Świątek still has a ways to go to challenge the longest streak of 74 — set by Martina Navratilova in 1984.)
Many consider the Williams sisters to be two of the best tennis players of all time. Hingis and Navratilova are no slouches in the greatness department, either. That Świątek surpasses some of their best achievements or is even being mentioned in passing alongside them probably portends great things for her future.
Like, say, her first title at Wimbledon.
Before it started, oddsmakers with Tipico Sportsbook gave Świątek the best odds to win Wimbledon (+125). She is +135 to win her second-round matchup against Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove on Thursday. In hindsight, with all we know now, both of those projections seem very low.
Świątek is already making tennis history. If she’s emulating living legends, she might be the safest bet to win a Grand Slam in a while.
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Cabe destacar que el vestido que eligió Venus era bastante arriesgado y un mínimo movimiento en falso podía resultar justo en lo que nos tocó ver.
Estamos lejos de superar la mega cachetada que le propinó Will Smith a Chris Rock después de que el comediante hiciera un incómodo chiste acerca de la calvicie de Jada Pinkett, su esposa, por motivo de la enfermedad autoinmune alopecia de la que sufre. Y mientras que la comunidad latina reaccionó con un montón de memes, parece que la sorpresa de Venus Williams llevó a otro tipo de impacto.
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La tenista, cuya historia llevó a que Will Smith ganara el Oscar a mejor actuación al interpretar a su padre Richard Williams, estaba entre los asistentes a los premios Oscar y al momento de la cachetada sufrió un mal funcionamiento de su atuendo. En redes apareció una imagen donde se ve cómo se le escapó una parte del pecho del vestido.
Cabe destacar que el vestido que eligió Venus era bastante arriesgado y un mínimo movimiento en falso podía resultar justo en lo que nos tocó ver.
Bueno, no sabemos exactamente cuándo sucedió esta falla en su vestuario. Pero tanto la cachetada como el nipslip sucedieron y nos vamos a discutir qué sucedió antes y qué después. Queda rato para que dejemos de hablar de Will Smith y lo que pasó a noche.
Working out with a Super Bowl trophy is a pretty solid flex.
Former New England Patriots tight end and three-time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski is returning to football in 2020, and tennis legend Venus Williams is helping him get back into football shape.
Williams has started a series of #CoachVenus Instagram Live workouts, and on Friday she led a workout with Gronkowski and his girlfriend, model Camille Kostek. In an incredible flex, Williams used one of her two U.S. Open trophies as a part of the workout, while Gronkowski used a replica Lombardi Trophy from the Patriots’ win over the Rams in Super Bowl LIII. Gronk recapped the end of that game as he was exercising with some help from Kostek.
Gronk and Venus working out with their Super Bowl and US Open trophies 😂
