Jack Harvey tells young racing fans the 'smallest dreams can become true life'
This first-person essay is part of a special series leading up to the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 25 on FOX in which INDYCAR drivers penned letters about what the historic race means to them. Read them all here.
To the young fans of racing,
Whether it's your first race or the latest of many you've attended, whether it's your first time racing or you've been around the track many times, if you have a dream you are chasing, no matter how unrealistic it may seem, I am an example of living that dream.
I come from a very small town in northern England, but with the support of my family and a childhood dream to compete in the Indianapolis 500 at the highest level of motorsport, I have now somehow found a way to be driving in my eighth 500.
The smallest dreams can become true life. The sliver of chances can become reality. You just have to have the passion and drive and dare to believe it can happen to you.
I am that example, so I know it can happen to you too.
- Jack
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Crystal Palace Transfer DealSheet: Summer window latest, key targets and likely exits
Crystal Palace will enter the summer looking to prepare and build a squad for the Europa League next season and seeking to atone for errors made this year. Manager Oliver Glasner repeatedly referenced the late arrival of players, both returning from international competitions but also transfers, as a factor behind the club's worst start to a Premier League season, before it was turned round into an FA Cup-winning campaign in which they achieved their highest Premier League points total. Advertisement He will look to have additions earlier than last year and Palace will have to improve their strength in depth to account for the extra fixtures. They have several key players who will likely be in demand and decisions will have to made on whether to sell and how much they can realistically expect to command for those talents. Those decisions will heavily influence what happens this summer. This is up in the air after the departure of former sporting director Dougie Freedman in March, with Palace having considered replacements and a possible restructuring of their recruitment department. Chairman Steve Parish will be at the head of decisions, setting the budget and having the final call on the strategy. Freedman's assistant, Ben Stevens, who has been with the club since 2015 — originally as head of performance analysis before stepping up alongside Freedman last July — has stepped in to partly fill the void. Iain Moody, who has worked as a consultant at the club for several years and who worked closely alongside Freedman, albeit more in the negotiation process for new and existing players rather than identifying new talent, will also provide some sense of consistency. Freedman built a team working behind him that remains in place and will continue. Freedman will inevitably be consulted to some extent as well, despite his new role in Saudi Arabia. This depends on outgoings. The initial plan is to sign a goalkeeper as back-up to Dean Henderson. There has been a desperate need to sign another left wing-back to provide cover and competition for Tyrick Mitchell. There is no obvious cover for the 25-year-old. Should Marc Guehi, who has only a year left on his contract, leave this summer, Palace will look to sign two centre-backs. Chadi Riad, originally seen as a possible successor, should return in the early part of the season from rupturing his ACL. Advertisement Regardless of whether Eberechi Eze is sold, they will look to bring in another No 10, with Matheus Franca having struggled to make an impact and Romain Esse inexperienced. They could add a second No 10 if a club meets Eze's release clause, but they will also target a centre-midfielder. Cheick Doucoure is expected to be available for pre-season after his meniscus injury, and adding another midfielder would provide Palace with cover and depth. There is hope Jean-Philippe Mateta will stay, given he has two years remaining on his contract, but if he does depart another striker would be a necessity, with only Eddie Nketiah available. Glasner's preference is for players who can come in and make an impact quickly, or adapt with relative ease over a short period of time. He pushed last summer for the signings of Maxence Lacroix and Daichi Kamada, both of whom he had worked with at Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt, respectively. Glasner wants a squad that is quick to acclimatise to each other and to the hefty physical demands of his system. That does not automatically discount young players, and he is not against promoting youth — Justin Devenny's progress this season is testament to that, even if he was a player bought from Scottish side Airdrieonians — but his priority is for more experienced players. Palace are primarily looking for younger players who have the potential to improve but already have some experience. 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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Jack Grealish is at a career crossroads. Which club could reignite his best?
Jack Grealish is at a crossroads. Just two years after being one of the main characters in an unforgettable treble-winning season for Manchester City, the 29-year-old started just seven Premier League games in 2024-25. While niggling injury setbacks have not been kind to him this season, it is clear that Grealish has fallen out of Pep Guardiola's plans. The writing was on the wall when he was an unused substitute when City required a goal in their FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace. Then for City's final game of the Premier League season away to Fulham, Grealish failed to make the matchday squad. Advertisement 'It's nothing personal with Jack,' Guardiola said after the Fulham match. 'I'm the person who fought for him to come here and the person who fought for him to stay here this season and the next season. I'm the one who said I want Jack Grealish. 'Now he didn't come (on) because he didn't come (on), but not something else. What happens in the future is a job for Txiki (Begiristain, City's director of football), Hugo (Viana, the club's sporting director) and the agents.' However you want to rationalise it, Grealish simply has not played enough football in recent seasons. He has played less than one-third of the available league minutes for two consecutive campaigns. It is worth noting that Grealish's drop-off in minutes has not come at the expense of his creative numbers when he does get on the pitch. A single assist in each of his last two Premier League seasons is a poor return whichever way you look at it, but a closer look at Grealish's expected assists (xA) — which denote the expected goals value of the shot that is assisted — suggest that his underlying output per 90 minutes has remained far more consistent (red dots below). Put simply, you cannot legislate for a team-mate missing an opportunity, whether you put the ball on a plate or not, and Grealish might feel hard done by, given the quality of chances he has created. There is the widely held view that Guardiola's disciplined positional play has been the antithesis of Grealish's off-the-cuff style, which is based on freedom and fluidity. There are countless other examples, but one of Grealish's typical behaviours within Guardiola's possession-dominant style is shown in City's game against Leicester City this season. Grealish receives the ball on the touchline with a stubborn 5-3-2 block facing him. After a few strides forward, he turns back and plays a simple ball backwards for Josko Gvardiol to circulate possession. City's general attacking structure has not helped at times this season, where a reluctance to make off-ball runs in behind has often left wingers isolated and forced to come back inside. Nevertheless, when zooming out, it is clear that Grealish's final season as a No 10 at Aston Villa was drastically different to his subsequent three seasons at City. His pass sonar below — which denotes the direction, frequency and distance of his passes — makes clear how much of Grealish's profile descended into playing a simple pass backwards within a positional Guardiola system. Grealish has had spells as a deeper-lying midfielder this season, most notably in their home victory over Nottingham Forest in December, when Guardiola praised Grealish's ability to control the tempo and accelerate the game. That 'pausa' is a trait highly regarded by Guardiola, but Grealish's free-spirit style sees him thrive in transitional moments — a rare occurrence in east Manchester. Give him space to run into, and he can punish opponents in the blink of an eye during transitional moments, as shown below when driving forward to assist Erling Haaland against West Ham United in 2023. 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Elsewhere in the Premier League, it is not financially realistic, but the style profile of Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth would all be an exciting prospect for Grealish to thrive in transition with greater freedom, with two of those teams able to offer European football next season. As the graphic below highlights, that trio were among the highest teams for their share of first passes forward during attacking transitions — the polar opposite to City. Grealish need only look at England international team-mates Morgan Gibbs-White or Eberechi Eze to see how similar profiles of players have thrived in such a style. In a slightly more realistic world, Tottenham's return to the Champions League would provide a good bargaining tool to attract Grealish's attention. Spurs have primarily focused on signing players under the age of 23 under Ange Postecoglou and sporting director Johan Lange, so Grealish's age and wage demands would likely count against him — even if there is tactical value to be indulged. While not as transitional in attack, the declining form and fitness of Son Heung-min means that a spot on the left side of Postecoglou's attack is up for grabs. Spurs are still well-stocked at left wing but Grealish's versatility to operate as a winger or an inside No 8 could act as a mirrored version of Dejan Kulusevski on Spurs' right side. With Grealish's penchant for a dribble, there is a strong case to be made that the 29-year-old would thrive when attempting such take-ons in wide areas, with underlapping runs from full-backs to drag opposition markers away. For context, only Barcelona and Real Madrid have attempted more take-ons than Spurs across Europe's top five leagues this season. Advertisement In continental Europe, there is justification why Grealish has been linked with Serie A champions Napoli this summer. As shown in The Athletic's team playstyle wheel below, Napoli's route to the Scudetto was built on a solid defensive foundation (chance prevention, 97 out of 99) but would benefit from further creative dynamism going forward (chance creation, 62 out of 99). They also have an attacking style that does look to make the most of transitional moments (patient attack, 41 out of 99). While Giacomo Raspadori performed admirably as a left-sided attacker after Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's January move to Paris Saint-Germain, Napoli do remain a little light on their left flank. Grealish's dribbly style aligns with the Georgian's profile. British expatriates have enjoyed successful moves to Italy in recent seasons, most notably Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour's hero status since arriving in Naples — but also Kyle Walker, Fikayo Tomori, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Tammy Abraham (Milan), and, to a lesser extent, Dele (Como). The English contingent at Milan would be an attractive prospect to Grealish, but the best tactical option in Italy would surely be the newly crowned Serie A champions. If it were a transitional style that Grealish was looking for, then a glance over at the Bundesliga would certainly be worthwhile. Some might point to a potential Florian Wirtz-shaped hole that could need filling at Bayer Leverkusen, but Eintracht Frankfurt might actually be a more tactically interesting destination for Grealish's skillset. Dino Toppmoller's side finished third in Germany's top division — their highest for more than 30 years — to secure Champions League football next season, with one of the most transitional styles in Europe, as shown below by their volume of direct attacks. Frankfurt might vary their formation used, but the principles have largely remained the same. However, while Toppmoller's side have thrived in open spaces, they have had struggles against opponents who sit in a deep block — meaning Grealish's ability to unlock defences in either phase of the game would be warmly welcomed. Advertisement Grealish need only look at fellow Englishman Jadon Sancho as a player who found solace in Germany after difficulties on and off the pitch, returning to Borussia Dortmund following struggles at Manchester United. With an English contingent of Harry Kane, Eric Dier, Jamie Gittens and Carney Chukwuemeka all having success in Germany this season, Grealish should not turn his nose up at a move to the Bundesliga. Of course, if any club were to take a gamble on Grealish, they would do so knowing that a deal would come with its own caveats. Given his current contract — believed to be £300,000 per week — runs until 2027, a move would require any club to go deep into their pockets. Doing so would also be accepting that Grealish's resale value is rapidly diminishing, given that he turns 30 in September. With his public socialising remaining a bone of contention, many clubs do not have the time to wait for Grealish's fitness and form to return organically. 'Do I want the Jack that won the treble? Yeah, I want it, but I try to be honest with myself,' Guardiola said in January. 'I fought a lot for him, fought a lot to be here. I know that he can do it because I saw him. I saw his level and I want that, every single training session and every single game.' If a prospective manager can tease out that treble-winning version of Grealish, any deal would be well worth making.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Why has there never been a challenger to the Premier League like LIV Golf or the XFL?
The Premier League has established itself as the most popular football league in the world. Billions of pounds flow into its coffers through the sale of international broadcast rights. Its stadiums have become tourist attractions, bringing in visitors from around the world. While some of Europe's other leagues are home to huge clubs and superstars players (Kylian Mbappe at Real Madrid in La Liga, for example), they all fall considerably short of the Premier League when it comes to eyeballs and money. Advertisement There have been attempts to bridge the gap. Some Spanish and Italian clubs tried to disrupt English football's financial dominance with the proposed European Super League (ESL), an alternative to the Champions League, which became public in April 2021. A22 Sports and Florentino Perez, Real Madrid's president, were at the forefront of the plans, with the backing of Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Milan and Inter. Six Premier League clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur — agreed to join it too, seemingly attracted by the improved financial proposition compared with the Champions League. But condemnation from other clubs and supporters led to their withdrawal within days. That was the only time the Premier League's supremacy has been seriously challenged. Why? The Premier League itself could be described as a model challenger league. At the beginning of the 1990s, English First Division clubs decided to pursue wholesale changes. That led to the 22 top-flight teams resigning from the Football League and seeking independence from the Football Association so they could control their own commercial and broadcast income. They formed the Premier League, which cranked into life on August 15, 1992. The number of clubs was then reduced from 22 to 20 at the end of the 1994-95 season. The wealth of this season's clubs is underlined by the table below, which shows the estimated final earnings of each team But in the eyes of Richard Scudamore, the former chief executive credited with turning the Premier League into the global behemoth it is today, describing the English top flight as a challenger league is wrong. 'Nothing changed, right?' Scudamore tells The Athletic. 'It's not like LIV Golf, the IPL (cricket's Indian Premier League) or the proposed European Super League. The Premier League didn't come along and say they were going to compete head-to-head with the existing structure of English football. Advertisement 'The smartest thing about it was that it was all change, but nothing changed. It was really just a marketing arrangement. When the Premier League season started, 92 teams in England all lined up, so it disrupted only in a governance sense — it didn't disrupt in a footballing sense. But it certainly disrupted the economics of the sport.' Charlie Stillitano disagrees. In the Italian-American executive's eyes, the Premier League certainly is the 'ultimate' challenger league — especially in how it has usurped the other major leagues in Europe, including Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Stillitano is the president of TEG Sport for North America, the former executive chairman of Relevent Sports, and he is known as football's 'Mr Fixer' when organising and promoting games for European sides in the United States. One of the reasons Stillitano doesn't believe a new competitor league to the Premier League is plausible is down to the money that has been poured into England's top flight via broadcast deals, including in the U.S., where NBC pay $450million (£332.4m) a year for exclusive rights. 'That that created, at least in the U.S., a bit of a vacuum for everyone else,' Stillitano tells The Athletic. 'What people forget is we had the economic crisis in 2008 and then financial fair play kicked in, so all those things conspired to make the Premier League, with the money they had, the main league. 'The only league that could really compete was La Liga in Spain. They had the two best teams (Barcelona and Real Madrid) with the two best players (Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo) in the world for 10 years, but a lot of that was when they were on BeIN and there were only eight million viewers over here. 'And when you look at the Premier League now, the economics have gotten so out of whack and they become so incredible in the Premier League relative to the other leagues. Advertisement 'What's changed dramatically is the actual figures involved in the Premier League. They have created the 'super league' in England. 'You would need to create a league as rich as they are, and the only way that can happen is if you try to cobble together all the teams that tried to join the European Super League.' In other sports, challenger leagues are much more common. Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. is about to have a rival on its doorstep, with the United Soccer League (USL) set to launch a new first-division men's professional league in 2027-28. The USL already has two professional leagues, the second-tier USL Championship and the third-tier USL League One. But it has plans to have a 12- or 14-team first division in place for the 2027-28 campaign, which would operate as a direct competitor to MLS. The NFL, America's biggest and most popular sport, has grown massively in recent years and now hosts multiple games abroad every year, but even they have been subject to other leagues trying to muscle their way into the conversation, though ineffectively. In 2001, Vince McMahon, best known for his role as a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), created the XFL, which operated as a joint venture between the WWE and NBC. The plan was that it would be another American football league that would begin at the end of the NFL season. The first match attracted more than 15 million viewers, but that number quickly plummeted, leading to its demise after only one season. In 2018, McMahon returned and had another crack at entering the American football market by reviving the XFL with new rules to help speed up the game and differentiate it from the NFL. There were eight teams across the U.S. and the season would run from February to May, with each side playing 10 regular-season fixtures before four teams entered a play-off to eventually crown a champion. Advertisement ESPN reported that McMahon expected to spend around $500m on reviving the XFL. It attracted sponsors such as Gatorade and the Anheuser-Busch company, and had more than three million TV viewers, as reported by the LA Times, on the opening weekend. But only months into the 2020 season, its first one back, the Covid-19 pandemic led to the rest of the campaign being cancelled. On April 10, the XFL filed for bankruptcy. 'The challenge for XFL was that the NFL had the billionaires, and there wasn't enough money to dislodge the NFL,' Stillitano says. Marc Trestman, a successful American football coach who most recently worked with the Los Angeles Chargers as a senior offensive assistant in 2024, signed up to coach the Tampa Bay Vipers, one of the now-defunct XFL teams. 'The XFL was an opportunity for me to lead, I was in a great place and I was impressed by Oliver Luck (the XFL's CEO) and his presentation and how the league went about doing things,' Trestman told The Athletic. 'We never approached the XFL as being in competition with the NFL, and we never looked at it that way. From a leadership standpoint, we never tried to say we were going to be the NFL. 'The fact they would take a whole year to ramp up the league, and not jump into it immediately, was a green flag that said they were trying to do it the right way. 'All the flags were positive. We traveled first class, our training facility was first class and we had the resources we needed to do the job. When we left in March 2020, we really felt that we were going to be a good team, but we really felt good about the league — and most of the coaches felt the same way.' Although Trestman said the pay for coaches was 'very, very good', there was a chasm between what players in the NFL were earning compared to those in the XFL. One left tackle in the XFL was being paid 'around $125,000' a year, while 'the best tackles in the NFL may earn $20m' a year, Trestman says. Advertisement Players' earnings were not an issue for LIV Golf, a breakaway golf competition bankrolled by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF). It entered the fray in 2021, causing a metaphorical earthquake in a game that the PGA Tour had dominated. The aftershocks are still being felt. Golf's most successful players were targeted, with some accepting nine-figure sums to leave the PGA Tour behind. Dustin Johnson, a former world No 1 who had already amassed more than $70m in career earnings, was reportedly given a $150m signing-on fee to join LIV Golf. Yet while money was never an issue, credibility was — and the PGA Tour remains the dominant organiser of golf events, with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, arguably golf's biggest names, choosing to stay. 'LIV Golf is interesting because golf is made up of individuals,' says Scudamore. 'Individual sports are going to be more vulnerable to somebody coming along and going, 'Right, I'm going to pay you more than you've been paid before as an individual'. 'When that happens, it is only the athlete, their agent and advisors who have to decide whether they want to switch. When someone comes along and asks whether they want to be paid a lot more for doing a lot less, guaranteed for three years, that is going to be attractive. 'When you look across the whole sporting landscape, you can just see sports that are ripe for disruption. But I don't think the Premier League is ripe for disruption.' Scudamore says the Premier League's competition still comes from other leagues, adding that 'the economics of a challenger league being set up to challenge its existence are just so difficult'. 'You would need the money to build appropriate stadiums capable of hosting matches, you then need to buy and pay the players, set up the teams, and build other infrastructure such as a training ground,' he says. 'To do that is so, so hard.' Advertisement The most recent attempt to draw away some of the Premier League's dominance has been the money being poured into the Saudi Pro League (SPL) by the nation's Public Investment Fund. Ronaldo, for example, left Manchester United to join Al Nassr on a money-spinning deal, worth more than £170m ($230m at current rates) a year, in January 2023. Riyad Mahrez, a five-time Premier League winner who was at Manchester City, left for the SPL a few months later, signing for Al Ahli. Two former Liverpool players, Sadio Mane and Jordan Henderson, were signed by SPL clubs (Al Nassr and Al Ettifaq respectively). Last summer, Brentford and England striker Ivan Toney left the Premier League for Al Ahli. Deloitte reported that in 2023, SPL clubs spent more than $950m on new signings. This also coincided with clubs investing in their infrastructure, with projects ongoing. Yet despite the significant investment, including infrastructure, it remains to be seen whether the SPL will become one of the most popular leagues in world football, with many political and environmental hurdles to overcome. Stillitano also points to the power of clubs as brands. 'You can create a new league and say you are going to be big because we have the money to be big, but you have to have the money and the brands,' he says. 'That's why the only league that could have competed with the Premier League was the European Super League.' The company behind the ESL rebranded and created a new concept called the 'Unify League', which would see 96 teams divided into four divisions with 16 teams each in the top two tiers and 32 in the second two. At a Premier League meeting in June 2022, the owners' charter was updated to include the following: 'We will not engage in the creation of new competition formats outside of the Premier League's rules.' Individual players may be tempted but for now, Premier League clubs themselves seem unlikely to take part in any new rival competition. 'The prospect of a challenger league is a pretty nebulous one — in the Premier League, each of the clubs is a single shareholder giving them an equal vote on all matters and a right to the distribution of broadcast and commercial revenues,' says Samuel Cuthbert, a sports and commercial law barrister at 4 New Square Chambers. Advertisement 'The FA has a special share in the Premier League — known as the golden share — which means that certain actions can only be taken with its approval. Any challenger league would likely need ratification from the FA, as the Premier League did, but that may be difficult to acquire given the clear stake the FA has in the Premier League.' Quitting the Premier League is not impossible, though. 'In terms of the mechanics of a club leaving, it's possible under rules B.7 and B.9 of the Premier League handbook for a club to resign from the Premier League, which would take effect at midnight on the last day of the third season following the season in which notice is given,' Cuthbert adds. 'There is an ongoing requirement that at some point in each March of those intervening three seasons, the club giving such notice shall notify the Premier League's company secretary in writing whether such notice is confirmed or withdrawn. If no such notice is given in any year, the notice under Rule B.7 is deemed to have been withdrawn.' Cuthbert's conclusion is that it is 'very difficult to foresee a successful challenger to the Premier League establishing itself at the top of English football'. Playing devil's advocate for a moment, Stillitano doesn't think it's impossible. 'Let's be honest, there are enough billionaires in the world, and they might say, 'Let's scrap this relegation and promotion thing in England',' he says of a rival league. He adds: 'You need to have a country that is really robust. One country that you could do it in is the United States. Players would come here, you can pay them the money and they will have a good life, and it's the biggest media market and commercial market in the world. 'But we also have sports fans who like football. You could get billionaires here together to do it, but you need the courage to do it.' Last week, a new global women's seven-a-side tournament — World Sevens Football (WS7) — took place in Portugal. Bayern Munich beat Manchester United 2-1 in the final, earning $2.5m in prize money. Six other teams, including Manchester City, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, also competed for a combined prize pot worth $5m. As seven-a-side football is not a recognised form of football by FIFA or UEFA, WS7 did not need permission from either governing body to kickstart the new concept and attract players and clubs to participate. Over the past few weeks, the Baller League has been broadcast in the UK. Its founder and chief executive, Felix Starck, described it as 'a new way to consume football'. It includes former professionals and social media influencers to attract a younger audience, and has been successful in Germany. But it wasn't set up to challenge the Premier League. Nor would it be able to. Advertisement At least for now, England's top flight will maintain its position as the most-watched football league in the world, scaring off potential competitors through its sheer popularity and the well-established history of its biggest clubs. The wait for them to be challenged goes on.
