Sports

5:15 PM BST London — Rugby is the antithesis to COVID-19 protocols. It is a sport built on contact and little regard for social distancing. So, as the 2,700 supporters watched their Harlequins lose 41-27 to Bath Rugby, if you allowed your mind trick itself for the briefest moment, it felt like life was back

7:14 PM ET Authentic dueled with Tiz the Law in the final turn and upset the heavy favorite to win the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Ridden by John Velazquez, Authentic led from start to finish and gave trainer Bob Baffert his record-tying sixth Derby champion. Authentic covered 1¼ mile in 2:00.61, the seventh-fastest time ever

11:46 PM ET Alistair Overeem showed that he’s still a championship-level fighter on Saturday night. Overeem stopped up-and-comer Augusto Sakai early in the fifth round in the UFC Fight Night main event in Las Vegas. The win was the fourth in Overeem’s past five fights, keeping him in the hunt for the UFC heavyweight title

6:09 PM ET Steve KimESPN After testing positive twice for COVID-19, Jamel Herring will finally get in the ring to face Jonathan Oquendo in the main event of a Top Rank card at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas on Saturday. Herring (21-2, 10 KOs) will defend his WBO junior lightweight title against

7:44 PM ET ATLANTA — Rory McIlroy can keep a secret. Same for his caddie, Harry Diamond. They sat on the exciting news that McIlroy’s wife, Erica, was expecting a baby for a good bit of the PGA Tour’s restart of tournaments. Keeping that bottled up could not have been easy. It certainly didn’t help

8:44 AM ET D’Arcy MaineESPN.com As one of the most highly touted junior tennis players in the country, the coaching staff at UCLA didn’t know what to expect from incoming freshman Jennifer Brady when she started at the school in the fall of 2013. She had been ranked as high as No. 36 in the

6:00 AM ET Eric WoodyardESPN Eric Bledsoe has heard the talk. How he was outplayed by fill-in starter Terry Rozier, who rankled Bledsoe on and off the court, causing him to average just 13.6 points per game on 44% shooting in the Milwaukee Bucks‘ seven-game loss to the Boston Celtics in 2018. How a year

Aug 28, 2020 The Jacksonville Jaguars will have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft, according to the preseason 1-32 order projections from the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI). Could the Jags target Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence next April? That’s who ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay had them picking in his early

7:00 AM ET College football is no stranger to controversy when it comes to crowning a national champion, but this season could be unlike any other. In an unprecedented year, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 postponing their seasons, coaches from those leagues question whether there can actually be a real champ. “If everybody’s not

7:09 AM ET Sachin Chandan Only one game on the docket for tonight, but if it is like every other game in this series, expect some high-scoring action from the Dallas Stars and the Colorado Avalanche. A popular pick to win the Stanley Cup, the Avalanche will be fighting for their playoff lives in Game

7:00 AM ET MLB InsidersESPN Just over a month since the 2020 MLB season began, the 60-game sprint to the finish has already raced past the halfway point and into the final month with tight races both in the standings and for awards. Now that we’ve all had a chance to see powerhouse teams such

10:44 AM ET The problem with analyzing the future of Lionel Messi is that, after 20 years, his relationship with Barcelona lies somewhere between the professional and the romantic. You can use reason and logic on the first part to come up with plausible scenarios. You can’t account for the second, partly because it’s intensely

1:39 PM ET Associated Press LOUISVILLE, Ky. — D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer, is back at his Churchill Downs barn after recovering from COVID-19. Lukas, who turns 85 on Wednesday, said he got “really sick.” “I couldn’t get any air and I felt like I was drifting away,” he said. “You just

4:07 AM BST Reuters with ESPN staff SANZAAR has dismissed reports that world champions South Africa are to join an eight-team competition in Europe later this year rather than play in the Rugby Championship. World Rugby vice-president Bernard Laporte told French newspaper Le Progres that the Springboks would replace Japan in the European tournament, which

12:35 AM ET While it’s common for fighters to call for title shots after key victories, it would be hard for observers to not at least think that Aleksandar Rakic will get one at some point after his performance on Saturday night. Rakic, who is ranked eighth by the UFC, dominated Anthony Smith throughout their

10:48 PM ET Associated Press DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Jimmie Johnson‘s final season as a full-time driver will end without another title. The seven-time NASCAR champion missed the playoffs in the Cup Series regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway after being involved in a multi-car crash with five laps to go. Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick