Football Has Always Been a Battleground in the Culture War
The NFL has become increasingly central to how America perceives itself, which means that sport and politics can never be divorced.
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Kevin Mazur / Getty for Roc Nation The Sleek Truth in Rihanna’s Halftime Show
Her performance was all heat, no-nonsense.
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Stan Tekiela / Getty Superb Owl Sunday VII
A special Sunday event: a photographic essay celebrating such magnificent birds of prey. These nocturnal hunters hail from Europe, Asia, North America, and South America and are depicted here in photos from recent years.
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The Atlantic; Kevin Sabitus / Getty The Quiet Desperation of Tom Brady
There’s a reason it was so hard for him to retire—he knew the void it would leave.
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Bettmann / Getty Sports Offer More Than Winning
Female athletes have been subject to harmful expectations for years. They want to bring back the joy.
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Getty; The Atlantic Angry Football Fans Keep Punching Their TVs
And shooting them, and knifing them, and running them over with trucks
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Getty; The Atlantic When Good Pain Turns Into Bad Pain
Lauren Fleshman’s memoir, Good for a Girl, recalls her life as a runner—and the culture she says the sport needs to change.
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The Atlantic; Bryan M. Bennett / Getty ‘You Get to See Violence’
The radio host Garrett Bush discusses the country’s tortured relationship with football, and what the NFL could do to treat players better.
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Amy Kaplan / Icon Sportswire / Getty The Sports Scandal Almost Nobody Is Talking About
UFC’s Dana White faces almost no consequences for publicly slapping his wife.
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Getty; The Atlantic 17 Readers Weigh the Risks in Sports
“A life of risks not taken is not a life worth living,” one writes.
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Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty I Saw Horrific Things When I Played in the NFL
Half of football is enduring pain. The other half is inflicting it.
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Ben Stanstall / Afp / Getty; Megan Briggs … Damar Hamlin’s Tragedy, Anti-vaxxers’ Gold
Opportunists used the cardiac arrest of an NFL player to promote deadly disinformation.
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Getty; The Atlantic The Inflated Risk of Vaccine-Induced Cardiac Arrest
Damar Hamlin’s collapse on Monday Night Football calls attention to a medical myth that will not die.
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Patrick Smith / Getty Are Sports Worth the Risks?
Plus: A clue to life on Mars
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Michael Allio / Icon Sportswire / Getty The Dark Pageant of the NFL
If football is about to undergo some hint of a reckoning, it will be only partial.
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Ben Hickey What It’s Like to Retire in Your Early 20s
Some former college athletes face the existential crisis of a career ending at a young age.
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Rodrigo Abd / AP Photos: Argentina’s World Cup Victory Celebration
Images from Buenos Aires, where so many fans came out to cheer for their champions that they had to cancel the parade midway through
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Joel Rogers / Getty Against Skiing
This beloved winter pastime is not for everyone. And especially not for me.
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Chris Brunskill / Fantasista / Getty The Lionel Messi Guide to Living
Like any great artist, the aging soccer phenom showed a youth-obsessed world the potential glory of a late-style triumph.
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Richard Heathcote / Getty The Qatar World Cup Is History
The tournament lent itself to moments of drama that also fit into broader historical narratives.
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Fabrice Coffrini / Getty Qatar Won
For its hosts, this World Cup has already delivered on its PR potential.
