The Mercury News Weekend

Lynch’s indoor team reveals ticket plans for inaugural season

- Staff and wire reports — Jon Becker

The Oakland Panthers, who have pro football’s most unique boss in coowner Marshawn Lynch, revealed plans this week for their inaugural season in the Indoor Football League that begins in less than four months.

Now that they’ve taken over as the Coliseum Arena’s prime tenants, the Panthers announced plans to make their seven-game home schedule as familyacce­ssible as possible.

Starting with their season opener against the Iowa Barnstorme­rs on March 14, 2020, the Panthers will be offering tickets as low as $15 for general admission and $25 for “family-friendly lower bowl seats.” Tickets will go on sale beginning Dec. 9.

Games in Oakland will also be played on Saturday nights at 6:05 p.m.

The Panthers will open with three straight home games, including March 21 against the Duke City Gladiators (Albuqueque, N.M.) and the Arizona Rattlers on March 28.

While there’s little chance Lynch will come out of retirement to play for his teamin the 13-team league, his little brother, Davonte Sapp-Lynch, will keep the “Beast Mode” family tradition alive in Oakland.

Check out the team’s website, oakland-panthers. com, for the Panthers’ complete schedule and more ticket informatio­n.

AFL FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY » The Arena Football League, a staple on the U.S. sports landscape since 1987, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and ended its operations on Wednesday.

The leaguewas down to six teams for the 2019 season, down from as many as 19 during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The San Jose SaberCats were an AFL powerhouse during their 19 years in the league from 1995-2008 and 2011-15. The SaberCats had a regular season record of 198–98 and won the AFL championsh­ip in 2002, 2004, 2007, and 2015.

AFL commission­er RandallBoe said in a statement onWednesda­y, “We simply weren’t able to raise the capital necessary to grow the league, resolve the substantia­l legacy liabilitie­s and make it financiall­y viable. We’re all disappoint­ed that we couldn’t find a way to move forward, and we wanted to thank our fans, our players, coaches, everyone who loved Arena League Football.”

The league was known for its pass-heavy, highscorin­g nature, played indoors on a 50-yard field with much narrower goal posts than traditiona­l football and no punts. NATION’S WINNINGEST DIES AT 93 » John McKissick, whose 621 victories at South Carolina’s Summervill­e High made him the nation’s winningest football coach at any level, has died at age 93.

The longtime coach retired in 2014 after 62 seasons. McKissick had a career record of 621-155-13 at Summervill­e from 1952 through 2014. He won 10 South Carolina state championsh­ips, the last one coming in 1998.

MMA

MCGREGOR SET FOR COMEBACK » Former two-weight UFC champion Conor McGregor is set to return to the octagon on Jan. 18 where he will take on veteran American Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in a welterweig­ht bout at UFC 246, promotion boss Dana White has told ESPN.

McGregor, who has 21 profession­al wins and four losses in MMA and a single defeat to Floyd Mayweather on his profession­al boxing record, has not fought since losing his lightweigh­t title to Khabib Nurmagomed­ov via submission in October 2018.

The 31-year- old has previously fought twice at 170 pounds against Nate

Diaz, losing the first fight to a second-round submission but winning an epic rematch on points. Since losing to Nurmagomed­ov, McGregor has had several brushes with the law, and, in a court hearing on Nov. 1, pleaded guilty to assaulting a man in a pub inDublin earlier in the year.

College basketball

MICHIGAN UPSETS NO. 6 TAR HEELS » Eli Brooks matched his career high with 24 points and Michigan ran off 19 straight points in the second half to upset No. 6 North Carolina 73- 64 to reach the Battle 4 Atlantis championsh­ip game at Paradise Island, Bahamas.

Isaiah Livers added 12 points for the Wolverines (6- 0), who led by five early in the second half before pulling away with the big run for first-year coach Juwan Howard’s first marquee victory. Michigan will face No. 8 Gonzaga in the final Friday.

Drew Timme hit a free throw with 20.6 seconds left in overtime and Gonzaga survived Payton Pritchard’s shot for the win to beat Oregon in another semifinal. It was Oregon’s first loss of the season.

In women’s action, Ruthy Hebard had 30 points and 18 rebounds, Sabrina Ionescu added 18 points, and No. 1 Oregon survived a second- half challenge from Oklahoma State in an 89-72 victory in the Paradise Jam.

Motors

WILLIAMS GETS NEW DRIVER » Canadian driver Nicholas Latifi will make his Formula One debut for the struggling Williams next season as a replacemen­t for veteran driver Robert Kubica. Latifi finished the F2 championsh­ip this season in second place, winning four races with one race left. Williams has been the slowest car all season and scored one point, which was Kubica’s 10th-place finish at the German Grand Prix in July.

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