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LONDON—Words can barely describe the jaw-dropping season finale staged by England's Premier League last weekend, but that didn't stop every pundit, Twitter wag and pub crawler in Britain from searching many beers into Sunday night for new ways to say "best season ever." The day started at 3 p.m. with seven of the league's 20 teams still playing for something important: not just the championship, but also to secure berths in a prestigious Europe-wide competition and the right to stay in the Premier League at all, under rules that annually demote the weakest teams. It wasn't settled until minutes before...

The playful jabs started from five, maybe six, lockers away. New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott began digging into quarterback Tim Tebow, pestering him in a style that sent a jolt of hilarity through those close enough to witness the exchange. The first round didn't last long -- still long enough for Scott to win with a Baby Jesus reference and a request for a baptism in the cold tub. But a few minutes later, as recounted by a present member of the New York media, Tebow walked past Scott, who was outstretched on the floor of the locker room...

Two weeks after NFL linebacker Junior Seau committed suicide, the Mission Valley restaurant that bares his name closed, a trustee announced Wednesday. Bette Hoffman, who formerly was the director of the Junior Seau Foundation and former vice president of Seau’s of San Diego LLC, announced the closure of the popular sports bar. Without Seau’s charismatic leadership, it was felt that the future profitability of the restaurant could be in question,Hoffman released in a statement. All employees will be paid accordingly along with their accrued vacation commitments, she said.

The first time the United States Football League was established in 1983, it gave a quick scare to the NFL. The USFL owners signed players like Reggie White, Steve Young, Jim Kelly and Herschel Walker, players the NFL actually wanted, by giving them big-time contracts.

Whoa, that was a close one. Leave it to some penny pinching Minnesotans to make a couple of billionaires sweat it out. If Zygi and Mark Wilf had known it was going to be this hard to get a new stadium built in Minneapolis, they might have gone looking for some other taxpayer-funded trough to guzzle at. They're going to get their new stadium, though, and what a place it should be. A billion-dollar palace downtown, smack on the same spot the Vikings play today, and loaded with the kind of amenities that make owning an NFL team so much...

The Minnesota Senate has approved a financing plan for a new Vikings stadium. By a 36-30 vote the afternoon of Thursday, May 10, senators passed the bill to fund a new $975 million stadium. The bill now heads to Gov. Mark Dayton for his signature. Dayton has been a ardent support of the bill. The Senate vote came hours after the Minnesota House gave its support to the plan. The deal is a compromise bill after a conference committee ironed out differences between earlier versions. A key change was requiring the team to pay an additional $50 million than first...

The Minnesota House passed the conference committee version of the Vikings stadium bill early Thursday, May 10, leaving Senate approval as the last obstacle before the bill would head to Gov. Mark Dayton's desk. The bill passed 71-60 after about two hours of debate on the floor. The conference committee bill raises the amount the team would pay by $50 million. The team's contribution is now $477 million, up from $427 million. That drops the state's contribution from $398 million to $348 million. Minneapolis' contribution remains unchanged at $150 million.

>BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number 24. Snerdley, listen to this. This is ABC's This Week. It's the roundtable on Sunday. Jacob Tapper was sitting in for George Stephanopoulos, who's sitting in for -- or no. Stephanopoulos, I guess, is permanent now. And Jake Tapper says to George Will, "George, is football in trouble, or is this just the media making a muck?" WILL: It's in trouble for two reasons. First of all: The human body is not built for the violence that is inherent in football at the highest level. Second: People are gonna watch football differently...

These phony bastards do not care about the health or well being of football players. They care about total domination of American's. They care about crushing American traditions. They care about subjugation AND OF COURSE - They care about opening the door to lawsuits because they are the party of, for and by the trial lawyetr SCUM of the Earth... (video)

With the apparent suicide of NFL great Junior Seau, who played 20 years in the world's most violently glamorous sport, American football is dying. It's about time. The nationally televised gambling and meat-rendering factory cannot survive without new players. And the parents of future players are asking themselves this: Is football worth it for my child?

A gray-haired woman in a green floral dress is screaming the worst moment of her life in front of the entire world. Luisa Seau stands in front of microphones, in front of cameras, on televisions across the country wailing the sometimes incoherent words of every mother’s worst nightmare. “I pray to God,” she screams, “please take me, take me and leave my son, but it’s too late. Too late.” You might’ve seen the heartbreaking video already. If you watched television at all Wednesday, or opened up a web browser, it was hard to miss and harder to stomach that Junior...

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics. That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times. Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there...

While meeting with the media Thursday, new Jets offensive coordinator Tony Sparano naturally was asked about his new quarterback, Tim Tebow. Quite naturally, the idea coach Rex Ryan presented in March that Tebow could get into a game for 20 plays was broached by those reporters with Sparano. And very naturally, Sparano decided not to expand on Ryan's explanation. ........................................................ Sparano, who coached Tebow in the Senior Bowl, can see the improvement in his passing as well. “That has been eye-opening,” Sparano said. “I thought fundamentally Tim has gotten much better. You could see the amount of time he spent...

An 11th-hour Republican Vikings stadium plan that would have paid for the state’s share with general obligation bonds was declared dead late Thursday morning, and in its wake House GOP leaders pledged to hold a long-awaited floor vote next Monday on the stadium bill authored by Rep. Morrie Lanning and Sen. Julie Rosen. House leaders said they also hope to vote on their 2012 bonding bill Monday. GOP leaders said that serious questions about using general obligation bonds to pay for the state’s portion of a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings have forced them to drop the plan, which...

Professional football should come with a warning label. Like cigarettes, football can be hazardous to your health ... and all too frequently lately it can be fatal. If the sad truth of Junior Seau’s tragic death yesterday is that it came by his own hand, as Oceanside, Calif., police believe was the case, he is only the latest example of the ravages of a sport whose concussive demands seem to be regularly destroying its own. Only a week ago, Ray Easterling, a former defensive back with the Atlanta Falcons, took his life in similar fashion — with a handgun that...

TMZ first reported that retired NFL star Junior Seau was found dead Wednesday morning, and that the police were investigating after his housekeeper found the NFL legend with a fatal shotgun wound to the chest. He was 43 years old. The report has been confirmed by the North County Times: Pro football great and Oceanside sports legend Junior Seau has apparently committed suicide, found by a housekeeper with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to multiple sources.Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood said he learned of the death from police Chief Frank McCoy.Police responded to Seau's home on The Strand on...

NFL legend Junior Seau was found dead in his home in Oceanside, CA ... and a law enforcement source at the scene tells us cops believe he shot himself. Seau was 43-years-old ... and leaves behind 3 kids and an ex-wife. Cops are currently at Seau's home -- located in San Diego County -- and were seen talking with a man who was inside the house and appeared distraught.

BOSTON (CBS) — Former NFL linebacker Junior Seau was found dead in his home in Oceanside, Calif., on Wednesday, according to TMZ. TMZ reported that Seau shot himself. The report said that police and the coroner’s office were called to Seau’s home to investigate a possible shooting. The report says that police and the coroner’s office are investigating a scene inside Seau’s home, though the details are still unclear. Seau was in the news in 2010 for driving his car off a cliff after an alleged domestic dispute. Seau, 43, spent 20 seasons in the NFL, most recently playing for...

SPANISH SOCCER GIANT FC Barcelona has had a disappointing season, failing to repeat as Champions League winner and facing an all but certain second-place finish in La Liga. But the team's underachieving results are not from a lack of spending. For the second straight year, Barcelona is paying its players the highest average salary in the world at $8.7 million. The findings were revealed in the second annual ESPN The Magazine/SportingIntelligence Global Salary Survey. Full results will be released in conjunction with The Magazine's Money Issue, on sale May 4. The poll encompassed 278 teams, 14 leagues, 10 countries, seven...

NFL quarteback Tim Tebow and NBA star Dwyane Wade took in the Yankees-Angels game Sunday night (April 15). They were not there together, but were sitting near each other and did stand up at one point to say hello. But when Tebow's face was flashed on the jumbotron he was met with a loud chorus of boos, despite wearing a Yankees cap. D-Wade was booed briefly as well, but the boos turned to cheers when he put on his Yankees hat. ESPN reports that Nick Swisher, outfielder/first baseman for the Yankees, was asked about Tebow's reception from the fans after...