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≡ THE 5-RING CIRCUS ≡
● Transgender ● The tug-of-war over the inclusion of transgender men on women’s teams continues in court, as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday (22nd) a suit in Texas State Court against the NCAA for “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”
Said Paxton in a statement:
“The NCAA is intentionally and knowingly jeopardizing the safety and wellbeing of women by deceptively changing women’s competitions into co-ed competitions.
“When people watch a women’s volleyball game, for example, they expect to see women playing against other women – not biological males pretending to be something they are not. Radical ‘gender theory’ has no place in college sports.”
The suit asks for “[p]ermanent injunctive relief prohibiting the NCAA from permitting biological males to compete in women’s sporting events in Texas or involving Texas teams, including championship and tournament events, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop using the term ‘women’ in relation to its women’s sporting events where biological males are permitted to compete that take place in Texas or involve Texas teams,” and $10,000 damages per violation of the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
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At San Jose State, whose women’s volleyball team has included transgender outside hitter Blaire Fleming for the past three seasons, seven players have entered the NCAA transfer portal and intend to go to another school.
The San Jose State team was engulfed in controversy this season over Fleming, who had played two seasons with the Spartans with little notice. Opponents forfeited six matches this season, and a lawsuit was filed in November to keep Fleming from playing in the Mountain West Conference tournament; she was allowed to play. The team finished 14-7 this season and lost in the finals of the conference tournament to Colorado State, 3-1.
● U.S. Center for SafeSport ● The Associated Press reported that investigator Jason Krasley of the U.S. Center for SafeSport was fired “last month after learning he’d been arrested for stealing money confiscated after a drug bust he was part of during his previous job as a police officer.”
Krasley came to the Center in 2021 after serving with the Allentown (Pa.) Police Department for 20 years as a detective/task force officer. He is alleged to have stolen $5,500 from a seizure of drugs and related items in a 2019 action. SafeSport chief executive Ju’Riese Colon told the AP: “We take this matter seriously and are assessing the situation to determine what, if any, additional vetting could have prevented this individual from being eligible for hire.”
Krasley’s cases have to be re-assigned, and the Center has been criticized for already taking too long to resolve its cases.
● Alpine Skiing ● In an interview with SnowBrains.com, recovering U.S. star Mikaela Shiffrin explained that she works through about 80 pairs of skis each season!
She has had a long-term relationship with the Austrian manufacturer Atomic for her skis.
● Curling ● Yes, betting – also known as “fan engagement” – is coming to curling. World Curling announced last week a partnership with London-based FeedConstuct to provide “Exclusive International Betting Rights” for the federation’s World, European and Pan Continental championship events.
FeedConstruct explains its mission as “to bridge the gap between federations, leagues, and betting operators to widen the exclusive coverage offer.”
● Football ● FIFA’s interesting choice of Netflix as the U.S. rights-holder – in all languages for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup events – will be fascinating to watch, given that its reach is currently around 55% of all Americans.
Nielsen estimates that the U.S. has about 125 million households (97%) with at least one television, serving about 315 million people. In 2024, Netflix had 66.7 million U.S. accounts, not more than 53.6% of the U.S. household total and about 179.4 million U.S. users, or about 56.9% of the U.S. population with in-home television.
Those are, of course, much larger numbers than the U.S. viewership of the prior FIFA Women’s World Cups.
For the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Fox Sports averaged 669,000 viewers across all 64 matches – in a difficult time zone – down 60% from 2019 in France (1.66 million average). In Spanish, Telemundo and allied streaming platforms averaged 147,000 viewers per match in 2023, down 44% from France 2019 (302,000).
● Snowboard ● A tragedy at the Arosa ski resort in Switzerland, where 26-year-old Olympic snowboarder Sophie Hediger died in an avalanche on Monday (23rd). She competed in Snowboard Cross at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, eliminated in the round-of-32, and in the Mixed Team event with Kalle Koblet, reaching the semifinals.
She was riding with another person on a closed slope, got caught in the avalanche, but her companion was able to go for help. Hediger was found under the snow about two hours later and could not be revived.
Hediger won two World Cup medals in the 2023-24 season, at St. Moritz (silver) and Gudauri (bronze).
● Wrestling ● USA Wrestling posted its annual report for 2023-24 and noted that the organization set an all-time membership record with 344,494 members, rolling past the prior-year’s record total by more than 47,000!
Consider that in 2015, USAW membership was 229,889 and has increased by 49.85% in those 10 years, and rebounded from just 142,147 in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The “Living The Dream Medal Fund” increased its donor Stewards to 17 and in conjunction with USA Wrestling and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, distributed $735,000 in bonus payments to medal winners at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and UWW World Championships.
The federation’s financial report showed an impressive increase from revenues of $14.60 million in 2021 to $25.36 million in 2024, against $20.60 million in expenses for a surplus of $4.77 million. In the 2021-24 quadrennial, USAW had a surplus each year and added $10.36 million to its total assets during the quadrennium.
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