Boxing Isn’t Only a Labor of Love—It’s Work

The Industry Will Require Collective Effort to Overcome the Challenges Champions Face in and out of the Ring

Boxing has big pictures (Raging Bull, Creed), big personalities (Muhammad Ali, the original G.O.A.T.), and big spectacles (pay-per-view fights adorned with flashing lights, raucous crowds, and stylized ring entrances). You might be forgiven for thinking that being a professional fighter translates into making big money.

But the challenges contemporary boxers face are not only physical and mental, but overwhelmingly financial. This begs the question: What does boxing owe its champions? This was the title of last night’s Zócalo program, presented in partnership with UCLA College, Division of Social Sciences and ASU …

by Talib Jabbar | May 24, 2023

Boxers Know the Power of an Entrance

The Way a Fighter Steps Into the Ring Communicates Everything From Pride to Protest

by Rudy Mondragón | May 22, 2023

The first time I really paid attention to boxing ring entrances—the long, celebratory walks fighters take from their dressing rooms to the ring before a bout—was in 1992, when I …

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods

Making the Pilgrimage to Bainbridge Island Connects Fans to the Sport’s Origins and to One Another

by Terry Shoemaker | November 10, 2022

Pickleball—an addictive mashup of tennis, badminton, and ping pong—is seemingly everywhere these days, and played by seemingly everyone.

There are now a whopping 4.8 million players in the U.S. (a number …

Why Are Our Sports Stadiums Becoming More Like Roman Amphitheaters?

Today’s Shift to Status-Based Seating Is an Unwelcome Return to the Rigid Social Divides of an Imperial Age

by Edward Watts | July 18, 2022

More than 230 amphitheaters, among the largest and most memorable monuments left to us by the Romans, survive in cities from northern England to the banks of the Jordan River. …

Where I Go: At the Ice Rink, My Feet End in Knives

An Adult Figure Skater Pivots Past Gendered, Classist, Racist Norms

by Erica Rand | February 16, 2022

When 25-year-old Mariah Bell competed in Beijing yesterday, she made history as the oldest U.S. women’s national champion in 95 years to step foot on Olympic ice. But “advanced age” …

What Women Athletes Won When Title IX Became Law

This Landmark Legislation Has Evened the Playing Field for 49 Years—In Fits and Starts

by Jackie Mansky | June 25, 2021

Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 decreed, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits …

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