Sweden's Maja Stark claims first major title with U.S. Women's Open victory
Sweden's Maja Stark is now a major champion after winning the 80th US Women's Open on Sunday at Erin Hills in Wisconsin. The 25-year-old is the first Swede to win a U.S. Women's Open since Annika Sörenstam earned her third title in 2006. She's been speaking to CNN Sports' Carolyn Manno.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
27 minutes ago
- New York Times
In 2025 FCS football, the Dakotas or everybody else? Plus CFB news
Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic's college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox. Today in college football news, 'Return of the Jedi' might be the funniest post-'Andor' rewatch of all. With everything that's been sacrificed and everything at stake, your plan is to … demonstrate some sick backflips in front of Jabba? Everyone here, except the warrior-hearted Ewoks, would drive Luthen berserk. Around this time each year, every college football outlet begins some sort of season preview series, and Until Saturday is no exception. There will be no consistent outline to these, and if I were to start handing out superlative categories, I'd forget to do them at some point. I do not have any Phil Steele-style acronyms yet, but maybe I'll invent some. We're just gonna wing it. Let's start it off by going a little broader than just FBS, even though there isn't exactly space to dig into each Division III conference's 2025 schedule. (Then again, this parenthetical is now the newsletter's third mention this year of Middlebury College.) Just to have it all in one place, here are the defending champs in these NCAA levels — and as you can see, repeats would not be shocking: Beyond the who's-gonna-win basics, though: Considering the amount of national attention usually paid to college sports outside of Division I's upper levels, it feels urgent to check in on the big-picture status of small schools in The NIL And Portal Era. So I asked a couple-ish questions to Matt Brown (no relation to The Athletic's Matt Brown, though they have hung out at Big Ten media days, per sources), the proprietor of Extra Points, an excellent newsletter digging into loads of off-field stories about college sports from the NAIA on up. (This includes Matt's extensive coverage of the video game.) Over the past five years or so, how has life generally changed for athletic directors in levels outside of FBS? Matt: 'Being a small-school AD has always been a tough gig, because smaller staff sizes require you to be more involved in everything from fundraising to hiring and coach development. In the NIL era, the job had become even harder — because now you have to pretend you have the donor support to justify a meaningful collective, and your players can leave faster. That isn't to say it's all bad, but a lot of folks aren't sleeping as well as they used to.' What about when it comes to football in particular? 'The thing that's tougher about football is that the roster is so much larger. If a third of your basketball roster transfers, that really sucks, but that's four people. In football, that's like 28 dudes, people who then have to be replaced during a very truncated recruiting cycle. That puts even more pressure on your coaches and donors, and makes sustaining success much harder. Winning the league is awesome, but if it means seven of your starters bounce for the ACC, it takes a toll on everybody.' If you had to take either The Dakotas or Everybody Else to win the FCS title this year: Who ya got? 'Few people have ever gone broke betting on the Dakotas to win a national title.' Hey, follow Matt on Bluesky here. Poll time! Same question for you: Dakotas or non-Dakotas for this season's FCS title? As for me and my house, once again we will ride with the pride of the beautiful Big Sky Conference, the Montana State Bobcats, who fell just short of the title in Frisco, Texas last year. They're No. 2 behind NDSU in the early FCS top 25s by Hero Sports and Flo Football, with 2023 champ South Dakota State and the rapidly emerging South Dakota right behind. (North Dakota unleaded is currently the local straggler.) Up next week: Conference USA and the MAC. 🎮 Who's gonna be the first College Football 26 team you try out? Fifteen recommendations here. (In Dynasty Mode, I'm eying either Pitbull Stadium's FIU or Missouri State, likely the weaker of the two FBS newcomers, as my fixer-upper. Delaware, you're too powerful to be considered.) ⏰ 'Three-fourths of the players taken in the draft over the last five years played for only one college program. That number, however, is decreasing.' Manny Navarro with lots of things 2020s NFL Drafts can teach us about modern college football. Advertisement 🐶 'We thought we were on the same page. What was that?' The Big Ten and SEC: currently the dogs that both caught the same car, by Ralph Russo. 💎 Texas Tech softball pitcher NiJaree Canady, a legit breakout star. Final game of the Women's College World Series against Texas is tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. 📰 Legal news: Remember a few months ago, when CFB social media erupted for a few hours with stories of UNLV allegedly being unable to actually pay new head coach Dan Mullen's contract? Not quite, per AD Erick Harper in our new story on the Rebels: 'Harper responded (to a question) that the school had the funds to pay the first two years of Mullen's contract, then watched national reports fixate on that answer as an implication that the school had promised Mullen more than it could afford to pay over the final three years. 'Harper shoulders the blame for not being more direct in his explanation, saying he has 'zero fear' the athletic department will have trouble fulfilling any coaching contracts on the books. '… 'What was missed is the fact I said, 'and we also generate ticket sales, donor contributions, multimedia rights partners with Learfield, all those self-generated revenues that pay for salaries.'' UNLV, long considered college football's biggest sleeping giant outside the power conferences, has been in a lot of news over the last year. Plenty more in that story, along with all the details about the Rebels' geography that make you wonder all over again: Why has this football program so rarely succeeded? Thank you for reading, as always, and hit me up at untilsaturday@ 📫 Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
LIV Golf CEO on his tour's successes, obstacles and ‘purity of mission'
Scott O'Neil started as LIV Golf's new CEO in January, taking over from Greg Norman, who helped launch the breakaway tour and guided it through its first three seasons. The Saudi-funded circuit has made headway in some areas but has faced headwinds in plenty of others. O'Neil spoke with The Washington Post Friday, as LIV's Virginia event prepared to tee off at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, to discuss the state of the league, its successes and its challenges. Some answers have been edited for brevity. Question: When you started this job six months ago, you talked about the headwinds turning into tailwinds. Now that you're halfway through the season, what's surprised you the most? Are the obstacles bigger than you expected? O'Neil: The biggest surprises are, No. 1, we're the good guys. I think I've been really impressed with our players, with our executive team, with the way we approach the world. You know, it's such purity of mission. Second surprise is how cross-cultural golf is. Music, actors and athletes — you cannot turn around without finding somebody else was falling in love with the game of golf. And the numbers would play that stuff out. In terms of the headwinds and the tailwinds, I mean, you know, sports leagues are pretty simple, right? It's competition. Television, marketing, branding, communications, sponsorship, how do you pay for it? Competition side, good strength of field. You know, good young, emerging talent, which has been a wonderful surprise. It looks like young talent emerging will be a good storyline for us going forward. Everybody talks about the guys on top — the [Bryson DeChambeaus] and Jon Rahms — and we should celebrate them and talk about them. But that next tier is pretty wonderful. Question: And the business side? O'Neil: Better than what I thought. Sponsorship's off the charts. We have a good base there with Aramco and Riyadh Air. Our first wave of deals we did with Bahri and Ma'aden, and then we had the [golf-related companies] come quicker than what I've expected — Callaway and Ping, of course. We've announced two more that are coming, Salesforce and MGM. You see the boards out there. Just an unbelievable impact in a year — year-over-year growth is going to be like 10 times. It's a pretty dramatic increase. But yeah, things are in a good place. I feel more bullish today than I did when I walked in the door in January. Question: How urgent is all of this? Any concerns about funding slowing down? O'Neil: I came in really eyes wide open as to what a three-year-old business should look like. And it is — it's a three-year-old business, and that can be a really tough space. So from a pressure standpoint, I've never in my career felt any more pressure externally than I put on myself and the team. And so are expectations high? Yes. I've worked in and around private equity for 12 years now. It's my third project in, and there's a certain expectation when you come in, and it's very consistent [with] my last two opportunities. So this isn't any different than that. But if you're asking me, do I have a sense of urgency? I have a very high motor, and I have a lot of urgency. Question: Do you receive updates on the negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the LIV financier, and the PGA Tour? Does that impact your short- or long-term planning? O'Neil: No updates. I would say, there's no impact or influence. I mean, the PGA Tour seems to be going through a transition of their own, up top, and that will once again provide a new face and less scar tissue and more opportunity at the table. I think that's wonderful. We're wholly focused on our business. It's so different. Question: LIV golfers are still not being recognized by the Official World Golf Rankings, but talks have at least resumed. What's the latest with those discussions? O'Neil: So I've been spending regular time with Trevor Immelman, who's the new chairman [of the OWGR]. I found him very engaging, very smart, very hardworking, very balanced, fair, reasonable. And we've had several discussions, some spirited, some more plain Jane. But I will tell you, when I talk about the ecosystem and all of us wanting what's best for the game of golf, I think I would put Trevor and the board members in that category, and some of them are direct competitors to us, which does add a bit of a complexity. But I think that we're all optimistic that we'll find a way to work within the system to make sure that we have the best, most accurate ranking system we could have. Question: The OWGR has taken issues with some of the things that make LIV unique: smaller fields, 54-hole tournaments, no cutline. Are you considering any changes to the format? O'Neil: We've had so many discussions. I'd rather keep those between me and Trevor. But generally, we love the format. We think, in particular, the shotgun start, I just — I've been reading about pace of play for 15 years in the media; we could do a round in four hours and 35 minutes. So I like the shotgun start quite a bit. But are we stuck in cement on any of our changes? We're a three-year-old league. We're evolving and changing every day. I think we love the format. The players love the format. We're pretty comfortable there. Question: And the team component? That is still core to what LIV wants to be? O'Neil: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Question: LIV has never shared specifics but there's a wide belief that the first wave of contracts might be expiring soon. Player recruitment has certainly slowed, but I wonder if you have any concerns about either retaining players or enticing new ones to join? O'Neil: We don't have any concerns about our players. You know, I would say that we're in a wonderful spot with players, and we don't have any fear that this will continue to be a place that players want to come. Question: What do we make of the Fox deal midway through the season? You'll be head-to-head against the PGA Tour this week, but most of your events have been played abroad and the time difference didn't put you in prime TV spots. Five of your last seven events will be in the U.S. — will that give us a better picture of what the audience appetite is? O'Neil: As you know, Fox is an extraordinary partner. As is ITV in the UK, as is KC Global out in Southeast Asia. So we spent a lot of time with them figuring out how we can invest [to] get the best ratings. With Fox in particular, we're in the U.S. and it's a much better measuring stick as to how we're doing. It's just, there's a complete picture, and that's one important slice of the pie that we're addressing and working on. But yeah, hopefully in the U.S., you'll see it. We're happy to be measured and judged, like everybody else, you know? But … we look at the global view, like the global audience, how many people are watching us around the world? I mean, we're in 872 million homes. If you'd have told me that on my first day here, I would've thought you'd lost your mind — more than double from last year. We're in 120 countries. We're actually testing some technology that takes our broadcasters in their own voice and puts it in other languages. So we're testing that the next two weeks. It'll be really fun. Arlo White in Spanish, you know? Or Korean. Or Chinese. I guess the way we look at television is, we get somewhere between 2½ [million] to 3½ million people watching our events around the world. It's pretty good. Question: You'd mentioned the strength of field being a positive. Obviously some guys are finishing consistently up high, but in the standings, we see some big drops, particularly after the top three and again after the top 10. That doesn't concern you? O'Neil: The numbers would say — we spend quite a bit of time using AI and other tools at our disposal to take a look at our strength and feel good. As you can imagine, strokes-gained analysis and other tools we have at our disposal. We're pretty comfortable with where the strength of field is.
Fast Company
an hour ago
- Fast Company
Innovation Illuminated: How the Intuit Dome Makes Everyone Feel Like VIP
The Intuit Dome opened last year in Los Angeles, setting a new standard for arenas with a number of staggering features including 86,000 square feet of training facilities, 300 charging stations for electric vehicles, underground suites, and a double-sided display board that stretches almost a full acre. Gillian Zucker, CEO of Halo Sports and Entertainment, takes you behind the scenes of the Intuit Dome, highlighting her mission to make everyone feel like VIP.
