The World Cup draw show was the world’s worst, most embarassing, sycophantic mess

The 2026 FIFA World Cup draw aired on Friday, and I’m envious if you didn’t waste your time on the worst sports-adjacent broadcast of all time. It somehow managed to have everything, and nothing — with a two-hour run time which found a way to be devoid of entertainment, and overflowing with cringe embarrassment, culminating with a fake, made-up award so FIFA president Gianni Infantino could curry favor with President Donald Trump in front of a global audience.

It all kicked off with two hosts who had zero chemistry. Heidi Klum, who we assume was picked because she’s a German-American, and Kevin Hart who was chosen because he will accept any job that pays him money. Klum did her best to carry the broadcast, while Hart quipped about not reading the script, forcing sad jokes, and plugging his Netflix special in the middle of the damn draw.

We then got the anthem of the World Cup, which could have pulled from the incredible musical legacies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Instead we had Robbie Williams perform “Desire” with Nicole Scherzinger. I was going to embed the video of the song here, as my way of sharing part of the pain — but FIFA has blocked embeds. Now you have to click here to find it and punish yourself with this ass song.

Was it time for the draw? Hell no, because the moment one man was waiting for had arrived: Giving Donald Trump a fake, made-up FIFA Peace Prize award to make him feel better about not getting a Nobel.

What ensued was a solid 20 minutes of Infantino bragging about what a wonderful man Trump was and how he’s changed the world. Trump credited himself with saving “10 million lives” by brokering peace between The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, which he said has led to “10 million deaths” before he intervened.

There have been 3,000 deaths since the conflict began in 2022, which is a number fewer than 10 million.

Then Trump got a medal, which he picked up the same way I carry a bag of dog poop after a walk.

The FIFA Peace Prize trophy, which was larger than the World Cup itself, appeared to be a shriveled, damaged globe being supported by the wisened hands of the dead thrusting their arms from the grave.

It was then speech time for Trump, who asserted that the NFL should be forced to change its name, because soccer is the true football. He also said he used to watch Pelé play for the New York Cosmos, who he “assumed was a great.”

Assumed.

Pelé.

With that block of garbage over we then had a totally meaningless photo op for Infantino, who brimmed with excitement like a toddler that he got to take a selfie with Donald Trump as the U.S. president, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney ceremonially drew balls for their own teams in an utterly pointless waste of time. Even Trump mocked the proceedings and how worthless it all was.

Next up was Lauryn Hill, which was the only part of this worth a damn. It was great. And she was on time!

Then a “skit” featuring Rio Ferdinand, Matthew McConaughey, and Salma Hayek. I use quotation marks around “skit,” because it was so painful to watch. I would have rather had a root canal. Though Salma did tease a special guest to help Rio with the complicated draw process, which could be ANYONE — nah, it was some children in another prerecorded sketch that was painful.

FINALLY it was time for the actual draw. The highlight was Wayne Gretzky struggling to pronounce almost every nation’s name. The man was sweating bullets and not sure how he drew the short straw of announcing all the playoff teams.

To close the show was The Village People, who I assume were only booked so Trump could do his little child dance, but they only cut to him once and he didn’t dance. It’s entirely likely this was the first time he ever saw The Village People or realized they were LGBTQ icons.

So, there you have it. A sports show that had 15 minutes of sports and almost two hours of pointless crap. I’m going to leave now and get some fresh air. I need to remember there’s actual beauty in the world.

Conor McGregor's sexual-assault lawsuit stemming from 2023 NBA Finals dismissed in Florida

JIM WATSON via Getty Images

Content warning: This story contains depictions of alleged sexual assault.

A sexual-assault lawsuit filed against MMA fighter Conor McGregor stemming from an alleged incident at the 2023 NBA Finals was dismissed in Florida on Wednesday, according to The Athletic. 

The plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit against McGregor, filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. That was granted Wednesday, as a judge in Florida dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, cannot re-file the case. 

The lawsuit stemmed from an alleged incident at the 2023 NBA Finals, where the plaintiff claimed she was sexually assaulted by McGregor during Game 4 of the Finals between the Miami Heat and the Denver Nuggets. 

The woman claimed she was “violently” assaulted by McGregor in a men’s bathroom after the game. The woman accused McGregor of forcibly kissing her and making her perform oral sex against her will. McGregor was also accused of trying to sodomize the woman.

Days after those allegations became public, video emerged appearing to show McGregor leading his accuser into the bathroom at the Heat’s stadium.

McGregor and his reps called the accusations “false” at the time. 

McGregor was in attendance at Game 4 of the NBA Finals, which were held at Kaseya Center in Miami. During the game, McGregor was involved in a promotional stunt in which he punched the Heat’s mascot. The stunt took a turn after the person in the mascot costume was taken to the emergency room after taking two punches to the head. 

The plaintiff filed a police report after the alleged incident. After an investigation, McGregor did not face criminal charges. 

McGregor, 37, has faced multiple sexual-assault allegations over his career. Last year, McGregor lost a sexual assault civil case in Ireland, and had to pay $259,149.36 to a woman after a jury determined McGregor sexually assaulted the woman in a Dublin hotel in 2018.

Skechers World Champions Cup is great golf happening this week

The Skechers World Champions Cup is going on this week and it is some seriously awesome golf.

If you love things like the Ryder Cup, President’s Cup, or Solheim Cup then this is right up your alley. The Skechers World Champions Cup is a bit different those in that it pits three teams against one another (United States, Europe, and an International group), but the level of intensity and competition is the same.

Recently the Tournament Chairman for the event, the great Peter Jacobsen, joined us to talk about the event as the opening round was underway on Friday. You can watch my entire conversation with him here.

This is an event that the world of golf has been looking forward to for some time now. Back in October we spoke with the United States captain in Jim Furyk and personally speaking I’ll be rooting him and our fellow Americans on. As Peter put it though, this is an event that features a lot of competitive drive from everyone involved, but it is great to see these players out there in general, especially at this part of the calendar/year.

Peter mentioned in our chat that part of the benefit of this event is the awareness that it raises for the Champions Tour at large. The Tour is one of great value and skill and that people have an opportunity to see that through this Cup is very cool indeed.

On the subject of seeing… you can watch the second round all day Friday and the final one on Sunday. Coverage is on ESPN+, ESPN, and ABC (final round afternoon session only) and you will surely enjoy it all.

Kon Knueppel, Cooper Flagg Named NBA’s Rookies Of The Month

Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg have been named the NBA’s Rookies of the Month for October and November. This marks the first time both winners played for the same college.

Knueppel averaged 18.4 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 41.3 percent on three-pointers.

Flagg averaged 16.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists.

What analytics predict about NFL’s contenders and pretenders

Nothing in the NFL makes sense this season. Down is up, up is down, the Browns are consistently down, while the Chiefs might be up, even though they’re down right now. If you’ve been trying to make sense of 2025 you’re not alone, because week-to-week it’s impossible to know what is going to happen in the league. That whole mess has snowballed into the spot we’re in now, where just a few weeks removed from the playoffs nobody has any idea which teams are good or not.

At times like this we have two options: We can either throw our hands up and say “none of this makes sense,” or we can look to the cold, steely embrace of analytics to give us some idea about who is actually good or not.

Over at RBDSM we have a fresh tier NFL list, which is a two axis graph that plots offensive EPA/play, and defensive EPA/play allowed to map how all 32 teams stack up. If you’re not familiar with EPA, it stands for “Expected Points Added,” an essentially boils down every single play in a game to a numerical value to see how well the play was executed in terms of adding points on offense, or preventing them on defense. It’s the only advanced metric we have which factors in success rate, penalties, turnovers, everything — all into one stat.

This is interesting to see, because it naturally factors in quality. An explosive play against the horrendous Bengals defense won’t be worth as much as one against the juggernaut Browns defense. Similarly, stopping Matthew Stafford and the Rams is more significant than intercepting a pass thrown by J.J. McCarthy. It’s for this reason that raw wins and losses often don’t match up with EPA rankings due to strength of schedule. Football is always unpredictable (ask the Panthers), but we can use EPA metrics as a predictor for how teams should fair when we hit the playoffs.

Tiering is read diagonally from top right, to bottom left. The perfect team would dominate in both offensive EPA and defense EPA allowed — but that’s rare. So the sliced tiers can account for true dominance in one area, while being sub-par in another. It’s for this reason the Cowboys can still be a high-tier team, because they’re one of the best offensive teams in football, and one of the worst defensively.

First a few general observations before we dive into separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to contenders and pretenders.

No. 1: There is no “elite” team this year

The Rams are about as close as you’ll get to a top tier team, but even so they sit at the cusp of the first and second tier. This isn’t that surprising in the scheme of things. It’s rare to truly have an ideal team, and since EPA tiering began in 2016 there’s only been one true “Tier 1” team that has dominated both offensively and defensively in the regular season, and that’s the 2019 Baltimore Ravens, who boasted the No. 2 offense in the NFL, the No. 4 defense, and dramatically crashed out in the playoffs to the Titans in the shocker.

No. 2: The Titans are legendarily bad

No need to rub salt in the wound, but my God that team sucks.

No. 3: The Chiefs are the most dangerous team outside the bubble

A defining factor of the 2024 Chiefs that made the Super Bowl was the number of one score games they managed to win. This year the coin has flipped to the other side, and they’re 2-6 in one score games this season. This incredibly small margin of error means that Kansas City is still very dangerous, and are easily the scariest potential playoff team — if they can get in.

Contenders vs. Pretenders

In order to do this we’re going to take a team’s ranking in the composite EPA and match it up with their current standing in their conference W/L record. If these match up in a high tier, the team is a bonafide contender. If there is a significant delta between division standing and composite EPA then we have a strong possibility the team is a pretender. A higher number indicates the team’s record is weaker than their EPA making them better than their record shows, while a negative shows the inverse, making a team’s record look much better than they’ve actually been.

AFC

Contenders: Patriots (-1), Bills (+4), Colts (+5)
Pretenders: Jaguars (+5), Ravens (+5) Broncos (+3)

The Patriots really are as good as their record shows, while the Colts are still very good — even if they’ve cooled off a little in recent weeks. Meanwhile we see the absurd weakness of the AFC South and AFC North shine through with the Jaguars and Ravens both being very mediocre teams (15th and 19th in the NFL respectively), but have very high seeding due to their divisions.

NFC

Contenders: Rams (-1), Seahawks (-2) Packers (-5)
Pretenders: Buccaneers (+5), Bears (+4)

We know how good the NFC West has been this year. Football’s most brutal division by a mile, it’s entirely possible we see three teams get to the playoffs out of the west — all of whom could win a playoff game or more. Where this gets interesting is the pretender side. The majority of the NFC has its current seeding match its potential, with two outliers: The Buccaneers, who are below average in both offense and defense this year. Also the Bears. As much as Chicago fans may bristle, their Charmin soft schedule has this team looking much, much better in standings that they do as an analytic team.