5-POINT FRIDAY, JUNE 21st, 2019

This article was originally published on June 21st, 2019.

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.

Baseball news that is interesting me -

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that “the executive council approved Tampa Bay going ahead to explore the possibility of a split season.” This could see the Rays play half of the season in Tampa and the other half in Montreal. The plan is in its early stages, the Rays have embraced the two-city solution as the most feasible to saving baseball in the Tampa Bay area after years of failed attempts to build a new stadium in the region.

Soccer news that I have been following -

La Liga has received a $280,000, from the Spanish data protection agency, for using its mobile phone app to spy on fans as part of a ploy to catch venues showing unlicensed broadcasts games. The app which was downloaded over 10 million times, used geolocation data to turn on phones’ microphones to record audio upon entry to bars, using Shazam-like tools to scan for illegal streaming.

Rugby news I am interested in -

World Rugby has abandoned plans for a new Nations Championship starting in 2022 after failing to gain the required support from unions. The governing body needed unanimous approval from the 10 unions that make up the southern hemisphere's Rugby Championship and Europe's Six Nations. The Nations Championship would have seen a top division of 12 teams from both hemispheres play each other once in a calendar year, either through traditional competitions like the Six Nations or the Rugby Championship or in summer or autumn Test windows. The top two teams would have then met in an end-of-year showpiece final. However, a major sticking point was the concept of promotion and relegation, with Six Nations unions such as Scotland and Ireland believed to be unconvinced on the sustainability and vibrancy of the second division. New sport I have been learning about -

A new sport I have been learning about is 3-sided soccer. The sport was developed from Danish artist and philosopher Asger Jorn’s concept in his 1962 book The Natural Order (Naturens Orden). The basic concept is three teams of 5 players try to score into the goals of the other two teams. The winner however, is not the team who scores the most but the team who concedes the fewest goals.

Quote I'm pondering -

“Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.” - Marv Levy

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Jonathan