Sports briefs
MLS owners predict sport will pass MLB
Three days ahead of the Major League Soccer’s 25th season, owners, executives and players gathered for a day of unbridled optimism and hyperbole.
Los Angeles FC lead owner Larry Berg predicted MLS will surpass Major League Baseball in popularity during the next 10 years and Inter Miami managing owner Jorge Mas maintained it will be of higher quality than the Premier League by 2045.
MLS anticipates soccer’s status in the U.S. will be boosted when the Americans co-host the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada.
“We definitely have the demographics in our favor, both in terms of youth and diversity. So I think we’ll pass baseball and hockey and be the No. 3 sport in the U.S. behind football and basketball,” Berg said.
Sharapova retires
Maria Sharapova was a transcendent star in tennis from the time she was a teenager, someone whose grit and groundstrokes earned her a career Grand Slam and whose off-court success included millions of dollars more in endorsement deals than prize money.
And yet, Sharapova walked away from her sport rather quietly Wednesday at the age of 32, ending a career that featured five major championships, time at No. 1 in the WTA rankings, a 15-month doping ban and plenty of problems with her right shoulder.
Penn placed on probation
Former Penn coach Jerome Allen was hit a 15-year show-cause penalty after he accepted $300,000 in bribes to get a wealthy Florida businessman’s son into the University of Pennsylvania.
The Quakers, out of the Ivy League, also were slapped by the NCAA with two years of probation, fined $5,000 and given recruiting punishments. Allen’s show-cause penalty is meant to limit a coach’s ability to work in college sports after breaking NCAA rules.
Allen played for the Quakers between 1992-95 and coached the team from 2009-15. He went 66-104. He was hired by the Boston Celtics in 2015 and remains on the coaching staff.
Allen was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay a fine last July in the college bribery case. Allen received a lenient sentence after testifying for prosecutors against Philip Esformes in a $1 billion Medicare fraud trial. Esformes was convicted in April of 20 counts including money laundering and obstruction of justice and awaits sentencing.
In the NBA
Collin Sexton scored 28 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers rolled to a 108-94 win Wednesday night over the Philadelphia 76ers, who lost All-Star center Joel Embiid with a sprained left shoulder in the first quarter.
• Jerome Robinson’s 3-pointer with 8.4 seconds left lifted the Washington Wizards to a 110-106 win over the Brooklyn Nets, snapping a three-game losing streak.
• Terry Rozier scored 26 points, and the Charlotte Hornets handed the New York Knicks their fifth straight loss 107-101.
The slumping Devonte Graham returned from a team-mandated night off and scored 21 points. P.J. Washington and Bismack Biyombo each scored 12 points for the Hornets, who snapped a two-game losing skid.