Here is this week's dose of “5-Point Friday”. A weekly round-up of the sports news and stories that I find most interesting and enjoyable.
Soccer action I have been appreciating -
"I would like to make the actions of those fans who do boo the taking of the knee completely irrelevant," Colchester United chairman Robbie Cowling said.
Cowling took the stance after a minority of the 1,000 fans in attendance booed when players took the knee before their win against Grimsby Town.
In a powerful and heartfelt statement Cowling explained why players take the knee for racial inequality, encouraged supporters to applaud the gesture, and says fans who boo are "not welcome" at the club.
Cowling even offered to give refunds to season ticket holders who feel they cannot attend games because of their feelings about the gesture, later confirming that one fan had taken him up on that offer. "It would be very disappointing if anyone does decide to boo again," he said.
Baseball news I was paying attention to -
What has long been rumored has begun in MiLB, with 120 clubs being invited to be part of a greatly reduced and realigned structure, as part of MLB taking over MiLB.
MLB has been looking to control more of their prospect pipeline, address issues with travel and ballpark concerns, while also cutting the number of affiliates from 162 to 120. MLB has cited better scouting and analytics as another reason to lower the number of affiliates, all of which the MLB clubs pay player payroll. In other words, the moves are largely cost-cutting in nature.
As to how the minor leagues will now be structured, each of the 30 MLB clubs will have one Triple-A, Double-A, High Single-A, and Low Single-A affiliate for a total of four each.
How clubs on the outside looking in received the news that they will not be receiving invites has created some scorn within baseball.
Olympics news that caught my attention -
Breakdancing is to make its Olympic debut at the 2024 Games in Paris, the IOC announced.
The sport, referred to as ‘breaking’, is confirmed as part of the event program along with skateboarding, climbing, and surfing, which will be retained after debuting at the Tokyo Games that have been delayed until next summer.
The IOC also said the Paris program will see exactly 50% male and female participation, following 48.8% female participation in Tokyo, that mixed gender events will grow from 18 to 22, and that there will be reductions in the overall athlete quota and number of events, to 10,500 and 329 respectively.
IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement, “With this program, we are making the Olympic Games Paris 2024 fit for the post-corona world.
“We are further reducing the cost and complexity of hosting the Games. While we will achieve gender equality already at the upcoming Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, we will see for the first time in Olympic history the participation of the exact same number of female athletes as male athletes. There is also a strong focus on youth.”
Motorsports news I am following -
All-female single-seater racing championship, W Series, will be on the undercard of next year’s British Grand Prix. The series recently announced it is set to dovetail with a number of Formula One races in 2021, confirming an eight-race calendar, starting in France on 26th June.
The British round at Silverstone will be staged a day before the Grand Prix on 17th July. The other countries included on the provisional calendar are Austria, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, the U.S., and Mexico.
W Series chief executive Catherine Bond Muir (@bondmuir) said, “The prospect of seeing W Series race alongside Formula One, the world’s premier motor racing series, has become even more tantalizing as a result of today’s announcement of our 2021 race calendar.
“The eight races will allow our fast and fearless female racing drivers to showcase their skills on some of the world’s most iconic racing circuits, in Europe and the Americas, and literally follow in the tyre tracks of the greatest racing drivers in the world today.”
New sport I am learning about -
I stumbled across Vox's video explaining the professional sport of World Chase Tag. The competitive parkour game was created in 2011 by brothers Christian and Damien Devaux, and now holds championship events all across the globe and has been broadcast on channels such as ESPN, BBC, and Fox Sports.
The "Chase Off" format, the sports' most popular format, is played by two teams with two teams consisting of a maximum of five athletes.
A match consists of a predetermined number of chases, usually 10-16, which are 20 seconds in length.
A Chaser and Evader, one from either team, compete, with the winning athletes staying on as the Evader. The loser is replaced by a teammate who becomes the Chaser.
A team is awarded one point when their athlete successfully evades their opponent for the entire duration of the chase and the team with the most points after the chase wins the match.
Have a wonderful weekend, all!
Jonathan