ICE HOCKEY 🏒 MEME | SNOOPY

 This comic first appeared December 5, 1980.

VERY RATE EDITION OF 'RAQUETBALL ILLUSTRATED'

Very rare edtion of 'Racqetball Illustrated' showing the cast of the very polar sitcom Diff'erent Strokes.

Diff'rent Strokes ran for eight seasons from November 3, 1978, to March 7, 1986. The show originally aired on NBC until May 1985, and then moved to ABC for its final season. 

The stars Gary Coleman and Todd Bridges with Dana Plato.are on the cover

TEAMS TO TAKE 20 SPIN WICKETS IN A TEST: PAKISTAN'S 60/60 RUN SETS NEW WORLD RECORD

Pakistan secured a 127-run win over West Indies in the first Test in Multan, taking all 20 wickets through spin to set a new world record.

On day three of the first Test, after Pakistan set a target of 251 runs in the first Test against West Indies, off-spinner Sajid Khan removed West Indies' top five batters, adding to his tally of four wickets in the first innings.

Noman Ali chipped in with one wicket, trapping Justin Greaves lbw after he had taken five wickets in the first innings. Abrar Ahmed then took four wickets, demolishing the lower order in a hurry to help the hosts wrap up a 127-run win. He finished with five in the match.

20 wickets via spinners in a Test: Pakistan set new world record

In their last home series, Pakistan had hosted England for a three-Test series. After losing the first Test on a flat track by an innings, courtesy of a triple century by Harry Brook, the Pakistan management shook up their formula of seamer-friendly tracks and deployed extremely spin-friendly pitches in the remaining two Tests. Their spinners then ran riot, taking 40 out of 40 wickets in those two Tests to help the hosts win the series 2-1.

With another 20 wickets taken by spinners in this Test, Pakistan have now achieved the feat of taking 20 wickets via spinners for three straight home Tests, and five times in total including two instances from the 20th century. India held this particular record previously, with four instances.

The unique 60/60 wickets to spin record in Pakistan's last three home Tests has been led by Noman Ali and Sajid Khan, who have taken 26 and 28 wickets respectively. Abrar Ahmed has taken five, and Zahid Mehmood one.

Full list: Instances of a team taking 20 wickets through spin in a Test

Apart from the last three Test matches at home, Pakistan took 20 wickets via spinners against West Indies in Faisalabad in 1980 where Iqbal Qasim, Mohammad Nazir, and Abdul Qadir completed the rout.

In November 1987, it was England who fell victim to Pakistan's slow bowlers as Abdul Qadir took 13 wickets, Tauseef Ahmed took four, and Iqbal Qasim struck thrice in the second innings.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have done this three times each, and England once. India are the only team ever to achieve this away from home, against New Zealand in Auckland, in 1976.

On that occasion, Erapalli Prasanna took 11 wickets, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar eight and S Venkataraghavan one to complete the set.

BILL BELICHICK REACHES 5-YEAR DEAL TO COACH NORTH CAROLINA

In one of the most stunning and compelling moves in college football history, six-time Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Belichick was named the new head coach at North Carolina on Wednesday night.

UNC officials said the sides agreed to a five-year deal pending approval by the board of trustees, which is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Thursday.

Belichick, 72, worked in the NFL in some capacity from 1975 until his divorce from the New England Patriots after the 2023 season. This will be his first college coaching job.

Belichick's father, Steve, served as an assistant coach for the Tar Heels from 1953 to 1955.

"I grew up around college football with my dad and treasured those times," Belichick said as part of a release announcing the move. "I have always wanted to coach in college and now I look forward to building the football program in Chapel Hill."

Belichick's hiring at North Carolina, which hasn't won an ACC football title since 1980, was spearheaded by board chair John P. Preyer, who had homed in on Belichick in recent weeks. Sources told ESPN that the sides met multiple times at length, including for five hours Sunday, and those talks culminated with Belichick finalizing the deal Wednesday.

For a program awash in apathy and mediocrity, this marks a distinct and compelling shift from Mack Brown, as Belichick gives the Tar Heels an unprecedented jolt of star power for 2025 and beyond.

Tar Heels athletic director Bubba Cunningham said hiring Belichick positions the program well amid the changing landscape of college sports.

"Bill Belichick is a football legend and hiring him to lead our program represents a new approach that will ensure Carolina Football can evolve, compete and win -- today and in the future," Cunningham said in the school's news release. "At Carolina, we believe in providing championship opportunities and the best experience possible for our student-athletes, and Coach Belichick shares that commitment."

Michael Lombardi, a former NFL executive who also was an assistant under Belichick with the Patriots from 2014 to 2016, said Wednesday night he would serve as the general manager of the Tar Heels' program.

The Patriots' six Super Bowls under Belichick are an NFL record. (He won two more as an assistant coach with the New York Giants.) He enters college football with 333 NFL wins, behind only Don Shula's record of 347.

North Carolina fired Brown, 73, on Nov. 26 after a 6-6 season, ending his second stint at the school with a 44-33 record over six years. He coached the Tar Heels' regular-season finale, a 35-30 loss to NC State, then said it was a "great time for me to get out."

The hiring of the famously aloof Belichick, who joked Monday on "The Pat McAfee Show" about his news conference aura, represents a significant shift from Brown's syrupy Southern charm.

Belichick has spent his year away from the sideline doing multiple media jobs while making it clear he wanted to return to coaching. After exploring multiple NFL positions last year following his departure from New England, it was expected Belichick would explore the NFL market again.

But sources told ESPN that a return to coaching in general had been paramount for Belichick. He spent a lot of time around his former assistant, Washington Huskies coach Jedd Fisch, and talking to friends and former assistant coaches around college football. Belichick's son Stephen is the Huskies' defensive coordinator and is expected to be involved with the North Carolina staff in some way.

At 72 years old, Bill Belichick is now the oldest head coach in the FBS. The previous oldest entering this season was Mack Brown (73), whom Belichick is succeeding at North Carolina:

Through the NFL draft every year, Belichick has built up a reserve of college coach confidants, and he has popped up at places such as Washington, Rutgers and LSU this year for college games.

Belichick also spent recent days familiarizing himself with the transfer portal and NIL, and he spent a lot of time on how the organizational chart of a college system would work.

He made it clear in his interview with McAfee on Monday that he would create an incubator for NFL talent if he were a college coach.

"If I was in a college program, the college program would be a pipeline to the NFL for the players that had the ability to play in the NFL," Belichick said. "It would be a professional program: training, nutrition, scheme, coaching and techniques that would transfer to the NFL."

He concluded a lengthy portrait of what the program would look like by saying: "It would be an NFL program, but not at the NFL level."

If talks between Belichick and North Carolina had broken down, Cleveland Browns passing game specialist and tight ends coach Tommy Rees was considered the favorite to land the Tar Heels job, league sources told ESPN. Rees interviewed for the job twice, and he had Nick Saban as an advocate.

Other names that had emerged in the search included veteran NFL coach Steve Wilks, Tulane coach Jon Sumrall, Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann, Army coach Jeff Monken and Pittsburgh Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.

Smith indicated he would stay with the Steelers, and Tulane reached an agreement in principle with Sumrall on a contract extension.

- Pete Thamel, Adam Schefter, Chris Low

LOS ANGELES DODGERS BASEBALL ⚾ ICON FERNANDO VALENZUELA DEAD AT 63

Los Angeles Dodgers legend Fernando Valenzuela died on Tuesday aged 63. (MARIO TAMA)

Former Los Angeles Dodgers star Fernando Valenzuela, one of the sport's most loved figures, died on Tuesday at the age of 63, the Major League Baseball club said in a statement.

The Mexican pitcher played 17 seasons in MLB for six clubs but was best remembered for his time with the Dodgers, particularly for his role in the 1981 team who beat the New York Yankees in the World Series.

His performances in that season and the excitement it caused became known as 'Fernandomania' and attracted a large Mexican fan-base to the Los Angeles team.

"On behalf of the Dodger organization, we profoundly mourn the passing of Fernando," Dodgers president and CEO Stan Kasten said.

"He is one of the most influential Dodgers ever and belongs on the Mount Rushmore of franchise heroes," he added.

Remembered for his 'wind-up' pitching style, he had been part of the team's Spanish language commentary team until recently and his passing led to a tribute from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.

"Fernando Valenzuela was one of the most impactful players of his generation. His 1981 season ranks among the most decorated pitching years of all-time as Fernando was the National League Rookie of the Year, the NL Cy Young Award winner, a Silver Slugger and a World Series champion," Manfred said in a statement.

No cause of death was given, but the Dodgers announced earlier this month that Valenzuela would not commentate the rest of the season due to an unspecified health problem.

Born in Etchohuaquila, Sonora, Mexico as the youngest of 12 children, Valenzuela made his Major League debut at age 19 with the Dodgers in September 1980, throwing 17.2 innings without allowing an earned run for the remainder of the season.

In 1981, beginning with a 2-0 opening day shutout of the Houston Astros in an emergency start, he went on an unprecedented career-opening run, with complete games in his first eight career starts and a 0.50 ERA launching the wave of popularity that surrounded him.

His death comes ahead of Friday's opening game of the first World Series between the Dodgers and the Yankees since the 1981 triumph.

"We will honor Fernando’s memory during the 2024 World Series at Dodger Stadium. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I extend my deepest condolences to Fernando’s family, the Dodgers, his friends across the game, and all the loyal baseball fans of Mexico," said Manfred.

- AFP

The miracle of 1984: How Los Angeles saved the dying Olympics

 Four decades ago, Peter Ueberroth transformed the Games from an unwanted burden to a coveted entertainment behemoth.

Illustration by Michael Domine/The Washington Post; Getty/AP/iStock)

When the International Olympic Committee met in 1978 to pick a host for the 1984 Summer Games, it had just one candidate, Los Angeles, after the only other bidder, Tehran, dropped out during the early days of Iran’s Islamic revolution.

No one else wanted the Olympics.

The costs were seen as prohibitive — and with good reason. Financial problems forced Denver to give back the 1976 Winter Olympics, and Montreal’s 1976 Summer Games left the city a then-astronomical $1.5 billion in debt.

The Games’ ideals of peace and unity had frayed as well. Terrorists had attacked the 1972 Munich Olympics, leading to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Two years after Los Angeles landed the Olympics by default, the United States led a boycott of more than 60 nations at the 1980 Moscow Games to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Many of the Soviet countries threatened to do the same in 1984.

Two months before the Olympics, a Newsweek cover story asked what then felt like an appropriate question: “Are the Games Dead?”

“The general view was that the Olympics had been good for the 20th century but were too big and too costly to continue,” said sports consultant Michael Payne, who had been hired by the IOC in 1983 to revise its marketing strategy.

Approximately 1,200 helium balloons were released at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as part of the Opening Ceremonies for the 1984 Olympics. (Dave Tenenbaum/AP)

Benita Fitzgerald-Brown won the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles, part of a huge haul for the United States. (David Cannon/Getty Images)

Steve Lundquist set a world record in the 100-meter breaststroke in Los Angeles. (Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

Mary Lou Retton became one of the breakout stars of the Games. (Bob Thomas Sports Photography/Getty Images)

The L.A. Olympics were the first to truly benefit from 1972’s Title IX ruling (Georges Bendrihem/AFP/Getty Images)

Then came Los Angeles with an Olympics run by a young travel executive named Peter Ueberroth, who brought new funding ideas built on television deals and corporate sponsorships.

The success was transformative. For two weeks in the summer of 1984, the Los Angeles Games boomed as a nonstop celebration of the United States. Without the Soviet Union, East Germany and other eastern powers that did indeed boycott, the United States won four times as many gold medals as anyone else, turning the first Summer Games in the country since 1932 into a chest-pounding demonstration of American might.

Ueberroth’s financial model was a runaway success, not only covering the costs but yielding a $233 million profit.

Other cities around the world watched what happened in Los Angeles and decided they, too, could pay for their own Olympics. Instead of being one of the final editions of a moribund movement, the 1984 Olympics ignited a four-decade explosion that has turned the Games into biennial extravaganzas that only recently have shown signs of flagging, placing this summer’s Paris Olympics at a similar inflection point

The L.A. Coliseum, which had been constructed for the 1932 Summer Games, underwent an extensive renovation. (Bob Galbraith/AP)

Ueberroth reinvents the financial model

California was in the middle of a tax revolt around the time Los Angeles was awarded the Olympics. In June 1978, the state’s voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a groundbreaking initiative that limited property taxes. Later that year, Los Angeles residents — afraid the Games would be another Montreal — passed their own referendum, Proposition N, that blocked the city from using public funds for the 1984 Olympics.

Into this climate walked Ueberroth in March 1979. The newly elected president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee was 42 and had little experience with sports aside from being a college water polo player. He, too, had voted for Proposition N. Though he ran one of the country’s largest travel companies, most people in the Olympic world had never heard of him. On his first day, he was handed a cardboard box with bills costing $300,000. He used $100 of his own money to open a checking account for the committee.

The official Olympic report from 1984 would note that Ueberroth was “disheartened” to learn that 90 percent of the previous two Summer Olympics had been state-funded. But he had one advantage: While much of Montreal’s debt came from the construction of an elaborate Olympic stadium, Athletes’ Village and facilities, Los Angeles already had stadiums, starting with the Coliseum, which had been constructed for the 1932 Summer Games. The LAOOC would have to build only a swimming facility, velodrome and shooting center.

Still, without government money, Ueberroth had no traditional way to pay the bills in the cardboard box, let alone for an entire Olympics. It soon became clear to him and his core group of leaders — attorney Harry Usher, marketing director Joel Rubenstein and television executive David Wolper — that they would need to commercialize their Olympics.

To get started, Ueberroth and Wolper attacked the way television rights were sold for the Games. Host cities always had negotiated their own broadcast deals but hadn’t been savvy about it. In 1976, ABC paid just $25 million for the Montreal Games.

The Olympics elicited a wave of patriotism amid the Cold War. (Georges Bendrihem/AFP/Getty Images)

Certain the American networks would spend far more for the country’s first Summer Olympics in 52 years, Ueberroth and Wolper attempted to stage a bidding war among ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN (then a fledgling cable channel) and Tandem Productions (a production company co-founded by sitcom creator Norman Lear), requiring each to deposit $750,000 for a seat at the table. This gave the LAOOC more than $3 million that Ueberroth invested in short-term funds that generated nearly $1,000 per day in interest.

“Those were the kinds of brains we were working with,” said Rich Perelman, who ran the Los Angeles Games’ media operations. “With the money paid from the TV deposits and [later] ticket deposits, we operated off the interest all the way into 1983.”

In the fall of 1979, ABC agreed to pay $225 million for the rights to broadcast the Los Angeles Olympics and another $100 million to handle television production for the rest of the world — a cost host cities had absorbed previously. The $325 million was so far beyond what the IOC had imagined that it had negotiated in advance to take just $33 million of Los Angeles’ TV money.

“That was a blockbuster,” Richard Pound, a longtime IOC member who at the time was among a small group trying to modernize the organization.

Ultimately, Ueberroth and Wolper got another $61.7 million in rights from the world’s other broadcasters.

Ueberroth, now 86 and largely out of public view in recent years, did not respond to multiple interview requests made through intermediaries. But in his memoir, “Made in America,” he writes that he believed he would need at least a half-billion dollars to run the Games, so he looked toward corporate America.

Much like with television rights, the IOC had no marketing strategy. To that point, Games organizers cut tiny sponsorship deals with hundreds of companies, who paid almost nothing for the right.

Rubenstein came up with an idea: Instead of making small deals with several sponsors pitching similar products, why not seek higher fees for the exclusive rights? He and Ueberroth set a minimum bid of $4 million, far more than the companies were accustomed to spending for Olympic sponsorships. But Coca-Cola and Budweiser quickly agreed to be the official soft drink and beer companies of the Games. McDonald’s soon followed.

Brazil's Joaquim Cruz, in blue, won the 800 meters over a talented field. (Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

When others balked, Ueberroth stood firm. In his book, he tells of how Kodak, long affiliated with the Olympics, offered just $2 million, so he gave Japanese rival Fuji three days to present a better offer. Fuji did, eventually agreeing to pay $7 million. Kodak was irate.

“Time and time we went back to [sponsors] and asked for more,” Ueberroth writes. “They always gave. We had them. They knew it.”

Though Ueberroth was an Olympic outsider, he had a remarkable understanding of exactly what the Los Angeles Games needed. Those who were around him describe a buttoned-up and reserved man whose sharp stare and slightly ajar nose, broken in his water polo days, made him quietly intimidating.

“An intense guy,” said Terrence Burns, a sports marketing consultant who has worked for the IOC and has co-written several cities’ bid proposals in recent years. “Very good at eye contact. He’s creative. He’s a very precise guy. He doesn’t have a lot of time, to be honest with you, for chitchat or wasting anyone’s time. He gets right down to business.”

“There were people who were absolutely afraid of him,” Perelman adds. “Most people, I think, found him to be demanding.”

Ueberroth’s frugality became an obsession. He boasts in his memoir about delaying the first $25 million television rights payment to the IOC for a day to get an extra $9,000 of interest. He pushed corporate sponsors to help pay for upgrades to existing facilities such as the Coliseum and convinced McDonald’s to fund the construction of an outdoor swimming stadium. He convinced 7-Eleven to come up with money for the velodrome. Both companies got to put their names on the new facilities — the kind of naming-rights deals that are now commonplace.

Renata Simril, the CEO of the LA 84 Foundation, a nonprofit started with the Games’ surplus, said Ueberroth told her years later that he required Usher to approve any expense more than $1,000.

They “were certainly frugal and checking every dollar,” Simril said.

But Ueberroth surprised employees with cash rewards when they did something especially well and often walked around the offices chatting with workers at day’s end.

Edwin Moses, then the world’s best hurdler and a member of the IOC’s Athletes Commission, said Ueberroth was the first official related to the Olympics who urged athletes to market themselves.

Perelman said Ueberroth was “ahead of his time” for believing diverse office staffs make businesses better and actively seeking women and people of color for leadership positions. He also instructed his staff to use contractors and vendors from underserved and often ignored south Los Angeles.

“He wanted the Games to look like the city and the surrounding neighborhood,” said David Simon, who ran government relations for the Games.

With so much money pouring in, Ueberroth decided to sell the torch relay as well. Ueberroth hoped a circuitous 9,300-mile run from New York to Los Angeles would ignite nationwide enthusiasm for the Games. He convinced AT&T to pay the operational costs and got each runner to donate $3,000 to charity for their one-kilometer segment carrying the torch.

Ueberroth’s great plan was actually working.

Swimmers Chris Cavanaugh, Robin Leamy, David McCagg and Rowdy Gaines celebrate their 4x100 relay victory. (Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

A Soviet boycott spurs a patriotic response

Two hours after the torch relay began, the Soviet Union announced it was boycotting the Olympics.

“That was a gut punch,” Simon said.

The Soviet government said it was pulling out over security concerns and the threat of anti-Soviet protests in the United States, but the move was understood to be retaliation for the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games four years earlier. Soon, other Soviet-bloc nations joined the boycott. A clause in the ABC deal allowed the network to renegotiate if there was a boycott. Ueberroth was worried.

He and Simon worked frantically, even flying to Havana in hopes of convincing Cuba to attend the Games despite Soviet pressure. Ultimately, 14 countries, including Cuba, skipped the Olympics. Romania was the only Soviet-affiliated country to defy Moscow. ABC did not ask for money back.

The boycott did a strange thing, however. It didn’t cause Americans to lose interest; it made them want the Games even more. The Cold War was at its peak, and President Ronald Reagan had packed his 1984 reelection campaign with anti-Soviet rhetoric. Movies such as “WarGames,” “Red Dawn” and “The Right Stuff” stoked a patriotic fever. And as the torch began moving across the country, people filled roadsides and highway shoulders just to catch glimpses of it.

When the torch finally got to Los Angeles in late July, it seemed as though the whole country was talking about the Olympics. Pound, who carried the torch for a segment in the Los Angeles enclave of Pacific Palisades, was overwhelmed by the size of the crowds, several rows deep on the sidewalks who watched him run. Many held their hands over their hearts. Pound, a Canadian, choked up at the site.

“It was an emotional experience,” he said.

The Games began July 28 with Opening Ceremonies, orchestrated by Wolper, designed to show all of America’s technological might. A man in a jetpack flew around the Coliseum, dozens of doves were released, and the more than 101,000 in the stands at one point held up colored cards that turned the stadium’s stands into a sea of flags from the participating countries.

Rafer Johnson, the 1960 decathlon gold medalist who had been a college star at UCLA, was the last to carry the torch, running it up a mechanical staircase that rose from the stadium’s east plaza, so he could light the cauldron atop the Coliseum’s gothic peristyle.

From the stadium’s press box, Reagan declared the Games open. Later, he told ABC the Soviets “are the losers” for their boycott.

American runner Joan Benoit-Samuelson, who a week later would win the first Olympic women’s marathon, remembers many of the world’s athletes rushing to embrace the Romanian athletes as they waited to walk into the Coliseum.

“To thank them for coming,” she said.

After winning the gold medal, the U.S. women's basketball team carried off Coach Pat Summitt. (Pete Leabo/AP)

Gold medals all around

Then the United States started winning. And winning. And winning. Carl Lewis was the biggest star, taking gold in the 100 and 200 meters, the 4x100-meter relay and the long jump. Moses won his 105th consecutive 400-meter hurdles race. Mary Lou Retton became the first non-Eastern European to win the gymnastics all-around competition. Greg Louganis won two diving golds.

Most of them probably would have won with the Soviets or East Germans competing, but dozens of other American took golds they might not have otherwise, such as the nine U.S. boxers who won their weight classes, the seven American wrestlers who took gold in a sport usually dominated by the Soviets or even the men’s basketball team, a unit of college stars led by Michael Jordan, who had just been drafted by the Chicago Bulls.

Chants of “USA! USA!” filled the venues as American athletes paraded to the top of medal stands.

Synchronized swimmer Tracy Ruiz, center, enjoyed the Closing Ceremonies with her coach, Charlotte Davis. (Tony Duffy/Getty Images)

The Los Angeles Olympics were the first to truly benefit from 1972’s Title IX ruling as a generation of girls who had more equitable opportunities to play sports reached adulthood. In addition to Benoit-Samuelson, U.S. women such as cyclist Connie Carpenter-Phinney and swimmer Tracy Caulkins won gold. The U.S. women’s basketball team took the first of its nine golds in 10 Games.

When she ran through the Coliseum’s tunnel at the end of the marathon, Benoit-Samuelson was stunned to find more than 77,000 people roaring as they watched on the stadium’s video boards.

“I just didn’t think there’d be a lot of people wanting to spend their Sunday morning watching a bunch of women run 26.2 miles,” she said. “And there are a lot of pundits who thought that women really couldn’t handle that distance.”

All of it played out as a prime-time television drama in the golden late-afternoon California light known in Hollywood as the “magic hour.”

“It was the beginning of the television sports empire, so it was huge [and] live,” Moses said. “People didn’t have to stay up late at night. It was in L.A. Hundreds of thousands of people had the opportunity to go. My family was there. My high school track coach was there; friends were there. And people were just enthusiastic about it.”

Many in Los Angeles, including Ueberroth and the Games organizers, had worried the Olympics would be marred by the area’s usual summertime ailments: traffic, smog and heat. But amazingly, most residents stayed home for those two weeks, easing congestion on the freeways. Without so many cars, there was little smog, and the ocean breezes kept the temperature down.

“People were just giddy, like, ‘How cool is this?’” said longtime ABC and later NBC broadcaster Al Michaels, who has lived in the Los Angeles area for much of his life and did all the track and field television commentary. “So L.A. looked a little different then, just for those two weeks, and [that] obviously had a lot to do with the spirit of the Games and the enthusiasm and the excitement that surrounded those Games. It was a different time. It was almost like nirvana in Los Angeles.”

Rafer Johnson lit the cauldron during Opening Ceremonies. (Eric Risberg/AP)

The Olympics’ new world, for better and worse

When the Olympics were over and the LAOOC determined it had made $232.5 million, Ueberroth took the profits and started what first was called the Amateur Athletic Foundation, known now as the LA84 Foundation. The nonprofit gave 60 percent of the Games’ surplus to the U.S. Olympic Committee and used the remaining $93 million to help fund and expand youth sports in Southern California, something it continues to do today.

“I think Ueberroth believed in the city, and he believed he could do it,” Burns said. “The ethos of California in the ’80s was optimism. He ran [the Olympics] like a business. The IOC didn’t understand this; they had no choice but to go along with it.

“L.A. basically created Olympic marketing. It became a business — a very professional business.”

The $325 million the LAOOC wrangled from ABC had stunned the IOC and its president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had been elected in 1981 with the mandate to modernize the Olympics. About a year before the Games, Adidas chairman Horst Dassler told IOC members, “You, the IOC, are the most valuable and sought-after trademark in the world, yet the Olympic rings are the most-exploited trademark in existence.”

For IOC officials looking for ways to make the Olympics work financially, Ueberroth essentially gave them a blueprint.

“Once we saw the L.A. [television] number, we said, ‘This is the way we can finance the Olympic movement, and we need to take control,’” Pound said. “We had to evolve in the sponsorship business, and we had to figure out what was the Olympics brand? What assets did we have? How do we get ourselves off the companies’ donation budgets and into the C-suite?”

Payne later wrote a book about that time called “Olympic Turnaround.” In it, he tells how Samaranch quickly took away the television rights from the host cities and put them in the IOC’s control, overseeing the bidding for the 1988 Winter and Summer Games broadcast rights months before the Los Angeles Games even happened.

For two weeks, the Olympics stoked a fervor and celebration among U.S. fans. (Getty Images)

Samaranch also led the creation of the IOC’s own exclusive corporate sponsorship program, much like Ueberroth did in Los Angeles. The program still exists, guaranteeing the IOC a significant amount of money from a small group of companies, separate from the sponsorships each Games’ host sells as well.

The IOC now uses some of this money to help hosts pay for their Olympics. In the ensuing four decades, several cities have held Games that either made money or helped revive their images, including Barcelona, Salt Lake City, London and Beijing, whose 2008 Summer Games were seen as the opening of China to the rest of the world.

Ueberroth and his Olympics were the inspiration for all the Games have become.

But at what cost?

Commercialization might have saved the Olympics and even democratized them by funding sports in countries that might never have been able to afford Olympic teams, yet the costs of the Games have soared, leading to an arms race in which hosts willing to spend heavily have built new facilities that since have been orphaned. The 2014 Sochi Winter Games cost $55 billion. And while Paris 2024 Olympic leaders expect to have raised enough money to cover their bills, the Games still will cost over $9 billion.

Though the Los Angeles Games are widely portrayed as uniting the vast and divergent sprawl of communities for two weeks, the city’s police accumulated an arsenal of weapons to secure the Olympics that it would use in those same south Los Angeles neighborhoods that Ueberroth tried to involve in his Games. Some have connected aggressive law enforcement tactics in south Los Angeles to the police department’s preparations for the 1984 Olympics.

Ueberroth, himself, was never bigger than in the summer of 1984. Time magazine named him its man of the year, and Major League Baseball hired him as commissioner weeks before the Games started, though he didn’t start until after the Olympics. The frugality that worked so well with the LAOOC didn’t translate to baseball. He urged team owners to spend less on players, a mandate that helped teams become more profitable but also led to sloppy collusion cases designed to suppress free agent markets. A series of arbitration rulings against baseball led to the owners having to pay the players $280 million in damages.

Ueberroth resigned as baseball commissioner in 1988, months before the end of his first term. He then served as head of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s board for four years and ran unsuccessfully for governor of California. Even his financial savvy drew some criticism in the aftermath. In his book, Payne writes that several of the sponsors whom Ueberroth cajoled to spend heavily were irked when the Games wound up with a profit, saying they felt tricked into writing bigger checks to promote Ueberroth’s image.

But at a time when the Olympics looked to be done, the Games that Los Angeles won by default had a transformative effect.

“You can’t overestimate how important those Games were to the [Olympic] movement,” Burns said. “They saved it.”

Lionel Richie performed a nine-minute version of his song 'All Night Long' at the Closing Ceremonies. (Steve Powell/Getty Images)

- Les Carpenter

FRENCH OPEN AND WIMBLEDON WINNER IN SAME YEAR

 Carlos Alcaraz: The Newest Phenom on Grass and Clay! 🌟🎾

#CarlosAlcaraz #NovakDjokovic #RogerFederer #RafaelNadal #Wimbledon #Tennis #ATP

SCHEFFLER HOLDS ON TO WIN MEMORIAL FOR HIS 5TH PGA TOUR TITLE OF THE YEAR

AP

 DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) — Winning has become a habit for Scottie Scheffler, except there was nothing typical about his victory Sunday at the Memorial.

He made only one birdie. He closed with a 2-over 74, his highest final round in two years. And victory wasn't assured until Scheffler had the mettle to put a firm stroke on a downhill putt from 5 feet above the hole to take out the break.

It went right in the heart for a one-shot victory over Collin Morikawa, and a handshake with tournament host Jack Nicklaus. Their exchange said it all.

“You're a survivor,” Nicklaus told him.

“Thanks,” Scheffler said. “Yeah, you made this place brutal today.”

Scheffler endured more stress than he wanted and got the victory everyone has come to expect, his fifth of the season — one week into the month of June — as he heads for another tough test next week in the U.S. Open.

Muirfield Village was so demanding with its ultra firm greens and swirling gusts throughout the afternoon that only six players broke par and the average score was a fraction under 75.

Scheffler, who started four shots ahead, never lost the lead. He never felt safe, either, not with Morikawa and Adam Hadwin on his heels all afternoon, and on a back nine where making par felt like hard work. Par is what it took on the 18th hole.

“This is a tough place to close out,” Scheffler said. “I didn’t do a whole lot great today, but I did enough.”

Just barely.

Scheffler was leading Morikawa by one shot and both hit approach shots that bounced hard and high off the green and into the rough. Both chipped to about 5 feet. Scheffler buried his putt to win, and the force of his fist pump to celebrate showed how tough this day was on him, and practically everybody.

Making the day even more special was a recent memory with Nicklaus at the Memorial, and cradling month-old son Bennett at his newborn's first PGA Tour event.

Scheffler thought back to 2021, when he missed a 6-foot putt on the final hole that ended any chance of a playoff. Walking off the green, he recalls Nicklaus telling him one day Scheffler will make the putt on 18 “and I'll be walking off to shake his hand.”

“It was pretty special thinking about that as I was walking over to shake his hand," he said.

Morikawa, who played in the final group of both majors this year, holed a 30-foot birdie putt on the par-3 12th hole and stayed on Scheffler's heels the rest of the way. He shot 71, the only one from the final 13 groups to break par.

Adam Hadwin was right there with them until closing with three straight bogeys for a 74 to finish alone in third.

Scheffler finished at 8-under 280 and won $4 million from this signature event and its $20 million purse. That pushes him over $24 million for the year, breaking the PGA Tour season earnings record — and it's barely June — that he set last year in this era of rising purses.

He also become the first player since Tom Watson in 1980 to have won five times on the PGA Tour before the U.S. Open.

That's next week at Pinehurst No. 2, and Scheffler will go to the U.S. Open as a huge favorite. This was his 11th consecutive tournament with a top 10.

Morikawa picked up $2.2 million and now has a big cushion as he tries to sew up the fourth spot for the Americans going to Paris this summer for the Olympics.

Hadwin was within one shot of the lead until finishing the front nine with a pair of bogeys. He stayed in the hunt until closing with a pair of bogeys for a 74. Still, his third-place finish moves him ahead of Corey Conners for the second Canadian spot in the Olympics.

The world ranking after the U.S. Open determines who goes to Paris.

Scheffler had only one birdie — a 10-foot putt on the sixth hole — and he missed two birdie chances inside 10 feet on the back nine that could have provided a cushion.

But he made the biggest one on the par-3 16th.

Scheffler and Morikawa were both short of the super slick green some 90 feet away. Scheffler used putter and hit it weakly, coming up 15 feet short. Morikawa chipped from the collar and also hit a pedestrian chip some 20 feet short.

Morikawa missed his par putt, and Scheffler buried his for a two-shot lead.

Scheffler dropped his final shot on the 17th, however, and he was clinging again to a one-shot lead playing the tough 18th that he ended with one last putt.

Next up is the so-called toughest test in golf, and players felt like they just got finished with one at Muirfield Village.

“You could look at it one of two ways,” Hadwin said. “Either it's good prep for next week or we just got our butts kicked before going into next week.”

For Scheffler it's another victory, his 11th of his career and 12th worldwide. He has finished strong to win big or come from behind. He has pulled away when it was tight at the start. This time, he nearly lost a four-shot lead.

It was his highest closing round since a 74 in the British Open at St. Andrews in 2022. But it goes in the book as another big win against the strongest fields. He now has won three signature events (Bay Hill and Hilton Head were the others) to go along with The Players Championship and his second green jacket at the Masters.

- DOUG FERGUSON

PREMIER LEAGUE CUT'S DEAL WITH FANATICS AS TRADING CARDS PROVIDER

 The English Premier League and Fanatics have announced that, starting in June 2025, Fanatics Collectibles will become the exclusive provider of EPL trading cards, trading card games and stickers in a multi-year deal.

"We are delighted to welcome Fanatics as the official sticker and trading card licensee of the Premier League from season 2025/26," Premier League Chief Commercial Officer Will Brass said in a statement. "They bring an outstanding track record and strong commitment to innovation, helping fans all over the world express their passion for the sports they love."

Financial details of the deal were not available.

"When you look at the IP that's out there, the Premier League is a property that we see a huge opportunity -- under-exploited opportunity really," said David Leiner, Fanatics Collectibles' president of trading cards told ESPN. "I think the Premier League was really intrigued by not only what Fanatics could do for the category of collectibles, but what we've been doing with player relationships: Tom Brady, Julio Rodriguez, Ronald Acuña Jr."

Leiner said that Fanatics will be emphasizing global distribution, business-to-business, working with UK-based hobby shops and breakers to give trading cards a bigger footprint on the other side of the pond, where stickers have been a dominant collecting force for decades.

"Panini's first World Cup [stickers were] in 1970, first Euro was 1980, and any fan -- the Panini sticker albums were a massive part of the preparation before any tournament [because] before the age of the Internet, you'd never seen these faces," Greg Lansdowne, the author of Stuck on You: The Rise and Fall...and Rise of Panini Stickers, told ESPN. "[They] enjoyed a renaissance when the '80s children became adults, the Germany 2006 World Cup, and from there it's snowballed. The World Cup album is as big as ever and in more countries than ever."

Topps was a Premier League partner from 1994 to 2019; Panini won the license in late 2018 and started producing EPL cards for the 2019-20 season. The EPL and Panini even renewed their license in late 2021.

"When you look at North America, we're all about trading cards, but we see stickers -- a great on-ramp for young collectors -- trading card games, and trading cards, especially in places like Europe, playing well together," Leiner says. "We're at 70 different hobby shows across the globe and many of those are in Europe. There are definitely dozens of stores [there[, but not hundreds or thousands like you see in the United States.

"But we're developing; our business in Europe, it's big -- you'd be surprised if you knew the numbers -- but we're seven minutes into the match. There's so much ahead of us."

Just months after Fanatics acquired Topps for roughly $500 million in January 2022, Topps replaced Panini as UEFA's producer of European Championship stickers for the 2024 and 2028 men's Euros -- as well as the 2025 women's Euros and Nations League Finals through 2028. Panini can produce NBA cards through 2025, but in 2026, Fanatics has deals in place with the NFLPA, NBA and NBAPA and acquired the MLB and MLBPA license early through its purchase of Topps.

Now they add the English Premier League, whose -- according to Nielsen ratings -- five highest-watched matches of all-time occurred in 2023, the same year the league opened a New York-based office. The EPL extended its broadcast rights with NBC for six years in 2021, a deal worth north of $2.5 billion.

"People don't like change [and] they're just coming to terms with losing European Championship rights [here]," Lansdowne says. "Potentially it will hit older collectors more than younger -- younger U.K. collectors are just as conversive with Topps as Panini -- but I'm sure Fanatics will do a great job as they've done with the Champions League."

- Daniel Hajducky

BERND HÖLZENBEIN, WORLD CUP WINNER WITH WEST GERMANY IN 1974, DIES AT 78

AP Photo 

 FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Bernd Hölzenbein, who won a crucial penalty in West Germany's victory over the Netherlands in the 1974 World Cup final, has died. He was 78.

Hölzenbein's former club Eintracht Frankfurt said in a statement Tuesday that he died Monday while with his family, without giving further details.

“One of the greatest we have ever had,” the club wrote on social media.

Hölzenbein played 40 games for West Germany but is best known for his role in the 2-1 comeback victory over the Netherlands to win the World Cup on home soil in 1974.

Playing in Munich, the Germans had gone behind to an early penalty from Dutch midfielder Johan Neeskens. Hölzenbein helped get his team back into the game when he dribbled into the crowded Dutch box and was brought down by a lunging tackle from Wim Jansen. Paul Breitner converted the penalty to level the score at 1-1.

West Germany went on to win thanks to Gerd Müller's goal just before halftime and some robust defending to upset the favored Dutch team.

Hölzenbein went on to play another major final with West Germany at the 1976 European Championship, where he scored in the final against Czechoslovakia to level the score at 2-2 before his team lost on penalties.

Hölzenbein spent most of his club career with Frankfurt, winning the UEFA Cup in 1980 and the German Cup three times. After retirement he served as Frankfurt's vice president and worked for the team as a scout.