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An investigation of sports’ biggest conspiracy theories, starting with the 1985 NBA draft: “I believe in the fix. I believe in the hidden hand, that sports have a secret, redacted history. I believe that Game 6 of the 2002 NBA Western Conference Finals was a sham, that Spygate was a cover-up of a cover-up, that […]

The story of a mysterious sports writer, her business partners, and an alleged plot to co-opt an NBA fan’s Facebook page: “Phillips kept up her correspondence with Ben, the 19-year-old college student and creator of the NBA Memes Facebook page. She said he could make up to as much as $1,000 per post as a […]

How the introduction of stats into MMA (mixed martial arts) will change how the matches are fought: “For all that enthusiasm, however, the sport has had a weak spot: It can be surprisingly difficult to say with any specificity what makes a mixed martial artist great, or what makes one fighter better than another. In […]

Forty years after Title IX, the number of female college athletes has soared, but the number of female college coaches has dropped. What happened? “Some blame the dropoff on a shallow pool of female candidates, who often aren’t as eager to apply for jobs, let alone pack up and move, as men. But there are […]

Two of the world’s best tennis players meet for a match 1912, just weeks after they both survived the Titanic disaster: “Now consider a scenario in which two of the survivors were dashing, world-class athletes in the same sport, destined to face off against each other many times. The hype surrounding those matches would be […]

A former Major League Baseball No. 1 draft pick battles alcoholism. He’s now in jail, charged with three felonies: “In a sport where alcohol plays such a massive part in all social settings—on the same day Bush was arrested, Boston reliever Bobby Jenks, another player with alleged alcohol issues, was charged with a hit-and-run DUI […]

Inside the making of the social network for programmers—which now has 1.3 million users and more than 2 million source code repositories: “At first, GitHub was a side project. Wanstrath and Preston-Werner would meet on Saturdays to brainstorm, while coding during their free time and working their day jobs. ‘GitHub wasn’t supposed to be a […]

A trip to John Madden’s man cave, and whether sports video games can ever be described as “art”: “Clearly, the way sports games are played, and the way Madden in particular is played, is ripe for some massive paradigm shift. Why doesn’t the quarterback position feel as visceral and pinpointy as firing a rifle in […]

On the encouraging signs of change in Burma—from the end of press censorship to the release of some political prisoners. A report from inside, and questions about why the government is doing it: “Ever since the country’s longtime dictator, Than Shwe, stepped aside early last year, a remarkable thaw has appeared to be underway in […]