by Julian Spivey
It occurred to me recently with the 2022 NASCAR season beginning this weekend that there has been an influx in celebrities joining NASCAR as team owners lately. This is something that I’m not sure many novice followers of the sport really knew about so I wanted to profile some of the big names owning teams within the sport. 

Joe Gibbs
Joe Gibbs isn’t new to NASCAR. He’s been around so long and so successful that he’s actually already been inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame making him the only person on this list to appear in two professional sports hall of fames, as he’s also enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Gibbs led the NFL’s Washington football franchise to three Super Bowl titles during the ‘80s and early ‘90s and is one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. Gibbs created his NASCAR team Joe Gibbs Racing in 1992, one year before his first retirement from the NFL, and hired future Hall of Fame driver Dale Jarrett as his first driver. Jarrett would reward Gibbs with the 1993 Daytona 500. Gibbs has won five NASCAR Cup Series championships with three different drivers (Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch) and likely isn’t done winning titles as a NASCAR owner. He currently fields four cars in the Cup Series driven by Busch, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. 

Brad Daugherty
Brad Daugherty is another celebrity team owner that has been involved with NASCAR for a while now as co-owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, which fields the No. 47 Chevrolet driven by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The team began racing in the 2008 Cup Season and has been active ever since with one win as a team coming in 2014 with A.J. Allmendinger at Watkins Glen Raceway. Daugherty may not be as big of a household celebrity name as the other celebs on this list, but he was college basketball star at the University of North Carolina and the No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick in 1986 for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Daugherty was a five-time All-Star for the Cavs and his jersey No. 43, which he selected as a lifetime fan of Richard Petty, is retired by the organization. 

Michael Jordan
Speaking of All-Star NBA players from the University of North Carolina, Michael Jordan entered the NASCAR Cup owner fray in 2021 after being a life-long fan of the sport, which calls North Carolina its center and home, when he joined NASCAR Cup superstar Denny Hamlin to form 23XI racing. The 23 in the team, of course, comes from Jordan’s retired Chicago Bulls jersey number. The XI being the roman numeral of 11, Hamlin’s career-long car number. The team enlisted Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., the Cup Series only African-American driver, as its driver for its inaugural season and he rewarded the team with its first win (and the first of Wallace’s Cup career) late in the 2021 season at Talladega Superspeedway. 23XI racing has added veteran and former champion Kurt Busch as a second car for the 2022 season in the No. 45 Toyota. No. 45 was the second jersey number Jordan wore in the NBA when he returned from his first retirement in 1995. 

Pitbull
Pitbull, the Miami-born Latin hip-hop star known as “Mr. Worldwide,” signed on as a co-owner of the Trackhouse Racing Team with former NASCAR driver Justin Marks before its inaugural season in 2021. The hitmaker with known for No. 1 songs like “Give Me Everything” and “Timber” co-owns the No. 99 Chevrolet driven by Daniel Suarez, the Cup Series’ only active Hispanic driver. In late 2021 Trackhouse Racing Team bought assets from the folding Chip Ganassi Racing Cup team and have added the No. 1 car driven by Ross Chastain for the 2022 season. 

Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. is one of the greatest boxers of all-time and known for his perfect 50-0 career record. The 44-year old is also known for his love of making money, which has earned him the nickname “Money” Mayweather and has become the name of his NASCAR Cup Series team The Money Team, which is making its debut in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 20 with driver Kaz Grala who’s making his second career Daytona 500 start after a 28th place finish for Kaulig Racing in last year’s event. The Money Team has been rumored for multiple years now, but never got things together until formally announcing a run for this year’s Daytona 500 title just 15 days before qualifying for the event. TMT Racing plans a part-time schedule in 2022 with hopes of becoming a full-time Cup Series team for the 2023 season.  

Emmitt Smith
There are many athletic legends and even a globally popular hip-hop superstar owning rides in the NASCAR Cup Series, but there are also big names giving love to teams in the Xfinity Series, which is kind of a minor league feeder series to the Cup Series. This season NFL Hall of Famer and the league’s all-time rushing leader Emmitt Smith is partnering with Jesse Iwuji Motorsports for a full season run in the No. 34 with Iwuji, a Navy man currently serving in the Navy Reserve, behind the wheel. The team initially wanted to run the No. 22 in recognition of Smith’s Dallas Cowboys jersey number, but the number was owned by another team. But with Iwuji being the only full-time African-American driver in the Xfinity Series the team decided the No. 34, which was the number driven by Wendell Scott when he became the first African-American driver to win a NASCAR race in 1963, was a fitting option. 

by Julian Spivey
The NASCAR Cup Series 16-driver playoff field is always nearly impossible to predict in its entirety because of the “win-and-you’re-in” qualification that can lead to surprises. For instance, I didn’t predict Michael McDowell in the playoffs last season (who honestly did?) but he was the first to clinch a spot by winning the 2021 Daytona 500. This season is particularly hard to predict because of the new car introduced into the series that all teams are having to get used to on the fly and there’s no telling which drivers and teams will adapt the quickest. 

1. Kyle Larson
Kyle Larson absolutely curb-stomped the competition in 2021 in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports on his way to winning 10 races and the Cup Series title. It was the best season for any NASCAR driver in more than a decade. With the new cars this season I don’t know if that success or even half of it will transfer to 2022, but I do know Larson has had wide success driving multiple different kinds of cars and if anybody can adapt to a new car quickly it could likely be him. We might be looking at the first repeat champion of the sport in more than a decade. 

2. Chase Elliott 
Chase Elliott surprisingly struggled in defense of his 2020 Cup Series title last season. Yes, he won multiple races, but both came at road courses where he honestly might be able to win some of those blindfolded (he’s on pace to become the greatest road racer in NASCAR history). He’s averaged three wins a year over the last four seasons, so I’d probably expect him to be around that number again in 2022. 

3. Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin has been to the Championship 4 in the last three seasons, but thus far has not won a championship in his career. I don’t really know what that says about him, but I do know he’s averaged five wins a year over the last three seasons. He should be a threat to win another handful or so races in 2022. 

4. Martin Truex Jr. 
Martin Truex Jr. has averaged almost five victories per year over the last six NASCAR seasons and has been Mr. Consistent. He’s appeared in the Championship 4 in four of the last five seasons with a championship in 2017 and three runner-ups, including last year when he won four races. I don’t see any reason why Truex would be taking a step back at this point. 

5. Ryan Blaney
I had been waiting for Ryan Blaney to really bust through in the Cup Series. He had one a race in each of the four previous seasons before 2021 but had never had more than one win in a season until scoring three last year. I think he’s going to be a threat for at least that many wins in 2022 and could be a championship caliber threat. 

6. Joey Logano 
Last season was a bit of a struggle for Joey Logano, certainly more than he’s used to. His only win came in the inaugural dirt track race at Bristol Motor Speedway, which was a bit surprising in itself. He’s now the veteran at Penske Racing and primed for a big year. 

7. Kyle Busch 
Kyle Busch found Victory Lane twice in 2021 after having gone most of the 2020 season without winning until the end of the year. He still appeared to be scuffling more than one is used to seeing from Busch, but he was always vocal the lack of practice time affected him greatly. Now that NASCAR is back to weekly practices, I think we’ll see a bit of the old Busch again. 

8. Alex Bowman
Hendrick Motorsports has been so dominant lately that all four of its drivers feel like automatic locks to make the playoffs. Alex Bowman had a career year in 2021 with four wins but struggled in the playoffs and failed to make it out of the first round. I think he can make it two rounds further in 2022. 

9. William Byron
There were times in 2021 when William Byron was the most consistent driver in the Cup Series. He posted 12 top-5s and 20 top-10s during the season. His one win came early in the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the third race of the year. His consistency will get him to the playoffs, but he’ll need to find his way to Victory Lane more often to be a real title threat. 

10. Kevin Harvick
It was quite shocking when Kevin Harvick went winless last season, especially after having led the Cup Series with nine wins the year before. He still pointed his way into the playoffs last season. Keeping Harvick out of the playoffs seems impossible and I’m sure he’ll find his way back to Victory Lane soon. 

11. Tyler Reddick
I bet Tyler Reddick gets his first career Cup Series win this season in his third full-time season. The two-time Xfinity Series champion seems to be getting better the more he runs in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and pointed his way into the playoff field last season. 

12. Christopher Bell 
Christopher Bell won his first career Cup Series race in his sophomore season last year and he surprised people by doing it at the Daytona road course (which, unfortunately, won’t be on the schedule this season). Bell is bound to get more comfortable at the Cup level and I think he’ll have multiple wins this season. 

13. Austin Cindric 
Austin Cindric is a rookie in the NASCAR Cup Series this year as he takes over the No. 2 Roger Penske Ford left behind by Brad Keselowski, who moved over to co-own Roush Racing. It’s always risky to predict a rookie into the playoff field, but the Cup Series has six road course races these days and five of those come before the playoffs and Cindric is a road racing ace. I think he’s going to win at least one road race this season and clinch a playoff spot. 

14. Kurt Busch 
Kurt Busch is the definition of consistency. He has won exactly one race in each of the last six seasons. So, why not win one this season? The only issue might be warming up to a new team as he moves over from the defunct Ganassi Racing to a second car added to the 23XI Racing team. I don’t think it’ll be a hard transition for him and his addition to the team will most likely make the whole organization better. 

15. Darrell Wallace Jr. 
This the one of the 16 drivers I’m predicting to make the field that I’m the least confident about. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. got his first Cup Series win late last season at Talladega Superspeedway in a rain-shortened event, but he looked prime to win that race even if it went to the finish. He’s become quite the superspeedway driver and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win one of those four races this season in his second year with 23XI Racing. 

16. Brad Keselowski
This is going to be the hardest season Brad Keselowski has had since his rookie year in the Cup Series. It’s not going to be easy for him and he may not win a race. Roush Racing had been behind the field for quite a while now when it comes to performance – and that might change this year with the new car, but it might also continue. If the team struggles to keep up with the field Keselowski will have to focus on pointing his way into the playoff field, but I think he can and will do that. 

I had this idea to come up with the all-time greatest Daytona 500 starting grid. When the idea hit me I didn't realize that there have been exactly 40 different winners of the Daytona 500. In today's NASCAR Cup Series there are 40 cars to start each race. So, it was truly perfect timing. I didn't have to worry about either dropping any winners of the Great American Race or fill the field out with non-winners. So, while I'd rather have Tony Stewart, who got around Daytona very well but never won the big race, in my car at the track if I were an owner than say Derrike Cope that's not the way this grid played out. I set the field by number of wins in the Daytona 500 - so the front row are the two drivers who have won the race the most times. Rows two and three are the three-time winners of the race - set by track record at Daytona. Rows four through six are the two-times winners. Row six on back are all the singular winners of the race lined up by track record. 

*I hope this doesn't look like complete crap for phone users. Stuff that looks good on a PC sometimes looks rough on phones. 

Julian: Super Bowl LVI between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will take place Sunday, February 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., which happens to be the Rams home stadium. Both teams were the no. 4 seed in their respective conferences this postseason and according to the books the Rams are a 4.5 favorite. Let’s go position-by-position, Eric, and see which team has the advantage before we make our predictions. Let’s start with quarterback. Is it Matthew Stafford or Joe Borrow and why?

Eric: Both Stafford and Burrow are playing in their first Super Bowl. I feel like the advantage goes to Burrow because the bigger the games are, the cooler and calmer under pressure he is. While at LSU in 2019, he won big games on the road, at Texas and at Alabama and then in the playoff games, he turned it up a notch. Look at what he has done this year and during the playoff run win big games, won playoff games on the road. So, the biggest game of the season will not faze him. Stafford is good too but he is under big pressure because if the Rams, this might be the best and only shot to winning it all.

Julian: Joe Burrow sure does seem cool under pressure in the big games going back to his college days. He's also the most talented of the two QBs in this big game and he’ll wind up having the best career of the two. But, for this Super Bowl I'm giving the advantage to Matthew Stafford and he's the guy I'd want under center. There are two main reasons I'm giving Stafford the advantage: 1) his veteran leadership. Burrow may be cool under pressure, but I still want the vet in the Super Bowl. I could find out come Sunday night that I was completely wrong about this, but I feel like Stafford will be the less frazzled of the two. My second reason is truly the big reason I'd rather have Stafford over Burrow and that's the Bengals offensive line. All season long people were talking about how bad the Bengals O-Line was and how it's amazing Burrow wasn't getting hurt. Now that same O-Line is being tasked with stopping the best defensive player in the league in Aaron Donald, as well as Von Miller and Leonard Floyd. Good luck with that!

Julian: Let's look at the running games now. Joe Mixon carries most of the load for the Bengals, while the Rams have been using Cam Akers and Sony Michel with Darrell Henderson injured. Which team has the advantage here?

Eric: Rams. They have a good running game. Neither of their guys will rush for over a 100 yards each but with the Rams having a decent offensive line, they can rush the ball when they need to. While I like Mixon, he doesn't have the offensive line the Rams have so I am taking L.A for the running attack.

Julian: Even though I acknowledged the Bengals have a rough O-Line I was thinking Joe Mixon as a no-brainer for running back just based on overall numbers and talent. I had to rethink things a bit and Cam Akers and Sony Michael combined do have more rushing yards this postseason than Mixon, but it’s not by a large margin. I think I’m going to stick with Mixon here and give Cincy the advantage.

Julian: On to the receiving corps. The Rams have Cooper Kupp, who’s likely to get some MVP votes this season. They added Odell Beckham Jr. mid-season and he’s played well for them. They also will have either Tyler Higbee or Kendall Blanton at high end spending on Higbee’s injury status. Cincinnati has Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd and CJ Uzomah. I think I know where this is going, but who has the advantage here.

Eric: Receiving is very close. I mean it is extremely difficult to choose because both corps are very good, very talented. Even though the Rams do not have Robert Woods, they are still great. But the loss of Woods hurts a little. The Bengals group is young and they will only get better. It is crazy to think Cincinnati let A.J Green go and still got better in the receiving position. Tough choice but I am going with the Rams because of Kupp and the rejuvenate OBJ.

Julian: I've got to give the nod to the Rams too. Cooper Kupp has had one of the all-time greatest receiving seasons in NFL history and if I had an MVP vote I would give it to him. The addition of Beckham, who some people thought was done when in Cleveland, has been terrific. He's shown he still has it. Ja'Marr Chase for the Bengals is an exciting receiver and I wouldn't be surprised to see some highlights from him in the big game, but I just can't look past Kupp and Beckman for L.A.

Julian: Do we even really need to discuss the better offensive line of these two teams as much as we've already talked about the Bengals O-Line? Am I being too hard on them, Eric?

Eric: You were fair for this. Joe Burrow was sacked nine times against Tennessee in the divisional playoffs. And he is over a year removed from a bad knee injury. The Bengals definitely need to upgrade their offensive line during the off-season and try to keep Burrow as close to clean as possible. It is already going to be tough for them to defend great defensive players such as Aaron Donald and Von Miller. I don't like the matchup for the Bengals in the trenches.

Julian: You mentioned two future Hall of Famers for the Rams in Aaron Donald and Von Miller. It’s time to discuss which team has the advantage when it comes to defense. Which team are you taking?

Eric: Rams. I know late in the season they had some tough games. But when you have the names of Donald, Miller, Ramsey, and Leonard Floyd. I don't know how the Bengals offensive line will hold against their interior rush. It will not be easy for Burrow and the Bengals offense to make plays. I think the Rams defensively will give Cincinnati problems.

Julian: The Rams defense gave up 21 points per game this season, which was 10th best in the league. Surprisingly the Bengals only gave up about 22 points per game, so there’s not a wide gap between the two. This could be why the Rams are only a four-point favorite. But those guys you named Donald, Miller, Jalen Ramsey, Floyd are just scarier than the opposition. I have to give the edge to the Rams here too.

Julian: Who has the special teams advantage?

Eric: Evan McPherson has kicked two game winning field goals in back to back games. He has ice water in his leg veins. He has come clutch for the Bengals all season. Matt Gay for the Rams is a decent kicker too. I feel both teams are confident in their kickers, but I am giving the advantage to Cincinnati in this one. It could come down to a kick for both teams.

Julian: Yes, it’s amazing to have so much confidence in a rookie kicker, but McPherson has proven his worth to Cincy this year. If I had to take one of these guys in a last second field goal attempt it would be McPherson.

Julian: Which team has the advantage when it comes to coaching? Rams with Sean McVay, who has been to the big game before, or the Bengals with Zac Taylor?

Eric: Zac Taylor was under Sean McVay with the Rams before becoming Bengals head coach. So, this will be student vs. pupil matchup. I have to give it to McVay. This will his second Super Bowl as a head coach. I believe he will do things differently than his first. I really think when McVay wins the Super Bowl, he is going to be in that top list of A coaches. He already is because his players love playing for him, but now all he needs is that Super Bowl title much like Andy Reid a couple of years ago.

Julian: So, we’ve given the Rams more advantages in the positional head to head matchups than the Bengals, does that mean the Rams are going to win the Super Bowl?

Eric: I believe the Rams will win the game but I think it will be close throughout. I don't want to bet against Joe Burrow, but the Rams are a better team overall than the Bengals. I will say the Rams defense will create a key turnover in the game that will the turning point in the game. Rams win 28-24.

Julian: I think you're pretty spot on with your prediction. I think the Rams will win Super Bowl LVI in a close, one possession game. It should be a fun game that goes down to the final minutes, if not seconds.

by Julian Spivey
American skier Mikaela Shiffrin shockingly skied out of her second straight event in three days early on in her slalom event on Tuesday, Feb. 8 (in America, it was Wednesday in Beijing) and it led to a lot of conversation.
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There are two topics I mostly want to discuss surrounding this surprising moment: how NBC covered the event and how we treat female athletes compared to their male counterparts.

A lot of viewers of NBC’s Olympic broadcast were angered by the network’s coverage. The network, of course, showed the event live. They showed multiple replays explaining what happened and they focused on Shiffrin’s response to her run, which was to sit on the side of the slope, head down in her arms and this went on for quite a while.

Many fans felt the NBC response was exploitative. I saw the word “private moment” written many places online.

Honestly, the fact that she didn’t immediately have microphones thrust into her face, as you’d see in most sporting events was about as private as an athlete ever going to get. Athletes know when they’re out competing there isn’t privacy. You’re being covered and when you’re an athlete of Shiffrin’s stature – that is to say the best – you’re going to be a major focus. This will happen whether you’re at the top of your game and winning gold medals and it’s going to happen when you make mistakes and ski off course just seconds into your run.

That’s just the way sports coverage and really any news coverage works. It literally is the old “Wide World of Sports” intro “The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of Defeat.” What we’ve seen from Shiffrin in the past was “thrill of victory” and tonight it was “agony of defeat.” You’re going to get both in sports.

I don’t know what NBC could’ve done differently. If they don’t cover Shiffrin’s response to her mistake, they aren’t doing their job covering the event in its entirety. Sometimes journalism, which sports broadcasting is, isn’t pretty. That doesn’t mean it should be avoided. If the event had continued right away the network would’ve certainly focused more on the skiers competing. I don’t know if the delay in competition was because of Shiffrin remaining on the slope or not.

It wasn’t exploitative. It was just the news.

Let’s get to the second part of the discussion in how it feels like how people discuss female athletes during bad performances is expected to be different than how they discuss male athletes. I don’t particularly like the term “choke” when it comes to sports, but it’s so ingrained in the sports lexicon that I don’t know if it’ll ever go away. Maybe it should? But it would just be replaced with something else that basically means the same thing. Despite not really liking the term I wanted to see what response I’d get on social media if I referred to Shiffrin’s disappointment in the slalom as a “choke.” It didn’t go over too well. I wasn’t really surprised, but I was a bit confused. Whenever I’ve seen the term used in similar fashion for athletes like Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers losing another NFL conference championship game or Greg Norman and Jordan Spieth losing big final round leads at the Masters Tournament it’s never been controversial. But using it in this example it certainly was. It led me to wonder if we’re supposed to treat female athletes differently from male athletes and if that’s the expectation then isn’t it a sexist one. If a male athlete can “choke” in a sporting event than a female athlete certainly can too.

Maybe the problem is so many people have ascribed Shiffrin’s issues over the last few days as being a part of the grief of her father’s death two years ago? But that’s just a theory folks have – in part because before her first ski a few days ago NBC aired a pre-taped segment with Shiffrin talking about how hard her father’s death hit her. There’s no proof this is why she’s struggled at these games thus far. She certainly (as of late Feb. 8) hasn’t said as much. In fact, she won a gold medal and three other medals at the 2021 World Championships last year just a year after her father’s death.  People are just assuming she’s struggling with mental health in much the same way American gymnastics star Simone Biles did at the Tokyo Olympics last summer. I certainly hope Shiffrin’s issues are merely athletic in scope. Until we know otherwise, I think we should treat her struggles as if they are. If that’s the case, her performance should be treated as any other athletes would be. That doesn’t mean we can’t feel bad for her.