College football:
Defending champion James Madison ranks No. 1 in both the coaches and media preseason polls for the Football Championship Subdivision.
Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski will have total knee replacement surgery this weekend, leading the team to cancel this month’s exhibition trip to the Dominican Republic.
■ UCF extended the contract of coach Johnny Dawkins after a successful first season. Dawkins’ sixyear contract has been extended by a year through 2023. The Golden Knights went 24-12 in 2016-17 and reached the NIT’s Final Four.
In a thrilling duel among Americans, two-time Olympic champion Christian Taylor edged Will Claye in the triple jump at the world championships in London. Taylor won his third world title with a leap of 17.68 meters — 5 centimeters more than Claye, runner-up to Taylor in the last two Olympics . ... Kori Carter led an American 1-2 in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing in 53.07 seconds. Dalilah Muhammad took silver.
The United States climbed nine spots to 26th in the FIFA rankings after winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Brazil regained the top spot from Germany, with Argentina third.
■ Mexico’s national team and club Atlas issued cautious statements Thursday backing embattled star Rafael Marquez but also apparently distancing themselves somewhat after he was sanctioned by the U.S. government for alleged drug trafficking ties. Marquez did not practice with Atlas for a second straight day Thursday. The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Wednesday against 22 people, including the 38-year-old defender. Marquez categorically denied any links to drug trafficking.
College basketball: Track and field: Soccer:
Colin Kaepernick isn’t currently in the NFL, but the free-agent quarterback’s saga might be the most talked-about topic in the league.
J.D. Power released a report Thursday saying protests during the national anthem, for which Kaepernick is well-known, are the No. 1 reason NFL ratings and game attendance fell last season.
The finding is part of the J.D. Power 2017 Fan Experience Study, measuring customer satisfaction among fans of major pro sports teams. According to the report, 30 percent of football fans said protests during “The Star-Spangled Banner” were the main reason their NFL watching declined.
Compared with 2015, NFL TV ratings fell during the regular season and 6 percent in the playoffs.
Among the other reasons cited were game delays — including penalties, excessive commercials and presidential election coverage — and off-field player issues, such as domestic violence. The findings are broken down by 11 markets. Fans in Miami (38 percent), New York (37 percent) and Washington, D.C., (32 percent) took most offense to protests during the national anthem.
Replay’s new look:
Alberto Riveron, the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, sounds genuinely excited about the league’s decision to use Microsoft Surface tablets for referees to watch replay.
That procedure began in
Jimmie Johnson, in an admission that he’s near the end of his driving career, has opened the doors to his life to a few professional photographers for all-access looks at select race weekends.
He started with the 2016 finale at Homestead, where photographer Liz Kreutz chronicled his run to a record-tying seventh NASCAR Cup championship, and he continued allowing photos at Daytona, Talladega, Pocono, Sonoma and Indianapolis this season.
“As I’m getting toward the end of my career, it was just one of those things where I wanted to capture more images,” said Johnson, 41.
Some of the photos have been posted on Johnson’s social media accounts, “but just for my own archives ... I know some day I’m going to be flipping through all these images and just love earnest with last week’s Hall of Fame game between Dallas and Arizona. The technology worked well, with the one coach’s challenge settled in quick order by referee Jerome Boger and the officiating staff in New York.
“It offers an opportunity after the referee signals there is a review to expedite the process of getting to the video,” Riveron says. “We’re not hurrying the process of reviewing the videos or of the decisions.”
Unlike in the past, the referee no longer will be charged with making that final decision; Riveron and his crew at league headquarters will do so in consultation with the ref.
“The only thing that’s changed about the process, that instead of the final decision being with the referee on it,” Johnson said.
He plans another shoot at Homestead this season if he makes the cut to the final four drivers vying for the championship.
Amateurs also have shot races, and Johnson will select the one with the best image for a $10,000 grant.
Last season at Homestead, Johnson let Kreutz in his car the field, it’s now with New York,” he said. “The consultation process, the way we look at the film, the plays we show him, the angles, that hasn’t changed.
“Microsoft has been very sensitive to our needs to get the job done,” Riveron adds. “They have worked hard to make this process work.”
Surface tablets were being used by coaches and players on the sidelines to download photos of the action. Troy Vincent, who oversees football operations for the league, says the NFL is moving carefully on the use of video by coaches.
Goodell watches Pats:
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was in Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s luxury suite as the Thursday night game against the Jacksonville Jaguars started. It for a few laps during which he explained the car and track. Johnson also has let the photographers in on team meetings, family time with his wife and two daughters and his long bicycle rides.
Earnhardt on Harvick:
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he found “hurtful” comments Kevin Harvick made that Earnhardt has stunted marked Goodell’s first visit to Foxborough, Mass., since the Deflategate scandal erupted in 2015 during the playoffs.
The Fight for L.A. finally has some punch.
A handful of skirmishes broke out Wednesday when the Los Angeles Chargers visited the Los Angeles Rams’ training camp for the teams’ second joint practice in five days.
The fights mostly arose between the Chargers’ offense and the Rams’ defense during a scrimmage.
Battle for L.A.: Panthers 27, Texans 17 (late Wednesday):
Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, who led Clemson to the national title in January, shined in his NFL preseason debut, completing 15 of 25 passes for 179 yards and running for a score. NASCAR’s growth because he is the circuit’s most popular driver even though he hasn’t won a championship.
“I still respect him as a champion and ambassador for the sport,” Earnhardt said in Detroit, where Chevrolet unveiled its 2018 Cup car Thursday. “That’s just the way it is, I guess. I hate that’s how he feels.”
Harvick, the 2014 Cup champ, spoke on his radio show on SiriusXM, saying Earnhardt has “these legions of fans and this huge outreach .... but he’s won nine races in 10 years at Hendrick Motorsports and hasn’t been able to reach outside of that. Imagine how popular he would have been if he won two or three championships?”
Harvick succeeded Dale Earnhardt Sr. at Richard Childress Racing after Earnhardt was killed in a crash in 2001, and he drove an Xfinity Series car for the family’s JR Motorsports from 2014 to 2016.