As sports stadiums built in the 1990s show their age, many professional sports teams are looking for new facilities — and public money to pay for them.

“We are just in the heating up phase of the next stadium construction wave,” said J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economics professor who has researched the issue. “That’s part of the reason why you’re seeing a lot more stadiums happen.”

Across the country, pro sports teams are gearing up to improve or build new stadiums and arenas. In Chicago, both the NFL’s Bears and the MLB’s White Sox are exploring moves. Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals are all working toward new or improved stadiums. So are the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers.

Elected leaders continue to shower tax revenues on stadium and arena projects with the aim of recruiting or keeping teams and boosting local economies. But public debate is growing, as decades of research shows that taxpayers don’t see a positive return on their investment.

“This is without exception,” Bradbury said. “It’s really across the board that these are really poor public investments.”

That hasn’t stopped the deals from getting larger. Adjusted for inflation, stadium subsidies have risen to a median of about $500 million from a 2010 median of $350 million, Bradbury said.

In 2022, New York officials approved a record $850 million subsidy to finance a new stadium for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.

Then, last April, the Tennessee Titans landed more than $1.2 billion in state and local funding for a new professional football stadium in Nashville.

The momentum is only growing, with governments benefiting from pandemic aid and strong economies, said Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies.

“Stadium deals tend to beget other stadium deals,” he said. “When the Bills got their money from New York, that made it easier for the Titans to get their money from Tennessee.”

Super Bowl and schools

Las Vegas just hosted Nevada’s first Super Bowl at Allegiant Stadium, which was supported by a $750 million public subsidy in 2016 to lure the Raiders from Oakland, California. Now, Oakland’s baseball team, commonly called the A’s, is seeking its own stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

But Nevada teachers are challenging a 2023 law authorizing up to $380 million of public funds to relocate the A’s to Las Vegas.

A political action committee backed by the Nevada State Education Association filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging the law’s constitutionality. The group also is pushing for a ballot initiative that would allow voters to veto a portion of the public funding.

“These are billionaires, right? They could do it themselves if they wanted to,” said Alexander Marks, director of strategy for the teachers union.

“There’s a lot of folks who at the end of the day want to see their government dollars going towards responsible things like public education, roads and hospitals,” he said. “And any dollar we take away from that and put into a stadium is a misguided use of that dollar.”

Nevada ranked 48th in per-pupil education funding, according to the National Education Association’s 2022 rankings. The same report ranks the state’s student-to-teacher ratio as the largest in the nation.

Marks said state leaders frequently tell educators there isn’t enough funding available to tackle issues such as classroom sizes. He pointed out that Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed legislation last year that would have continued funding a universal free lunch program in schools.

“Where are our state’s priorities?” Marks said. “The stadium is great but the school lunch bill has to get vetoed? We don’t quite understand that.”

Jeremy Aguero, a Nevada consultant hired by the Raiders and the A’s to work on the football and baseball stadium projects, said the NFL stadium already is a mathematical winner. A 2023 audit of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority showed a dedicated hotel tax was collecting more money than was needed for debt payments on Allegiant Stadium.

And he said bringing in major sports events has boosted state revenues.

Aguero noted that Nevada’s legislature last year passed a record budget for K-12 education for fiscal year 2025, increasing per-pupil funding by more than 25%.

“So from that standpoint, our schools have more money because of Allegiant Stadium,” Aguero said. “Our police and firefighters have more money because of Allegiant Stadium. Our state and local governments — for everything from social service to higher education — have more because of major events that are taking place in major event centers.”

A matter of economics, identity

While public subsidy amounts are growing larger in terms of dollars, they are actually growing smaller as a share of overall stadium and arena costs, said Judith Grant Long, an associate professor of sports management and urban planning at the University of Michigan who has studied the issue.

Team owners and developers are increasingly pitching stadiums and arenas as wider developments that include entertainment, apartments and hotels. And elected officials are increasingly dedicating public funding toward expenses such as infrastructure and transportation, which theoretically can deliver a larger community benefit than just a venue.

That dynamic, though, can put wealthy team owners in the powerful position of holding some of the most valuable real estate in their markets.

Long said professional sports remain a small sliver of the overall economy. And mounds of peer-reviewed academic research shows that stadium and arena investments cost more than their economic benefits.

“The prevailing economic wisdom is that, generally speaking, the economic impact, measured in jobs and taxes, does not cover the average public investment,” Long said.

But these decisions aren’t always about pure arithmetic.

Maintaining a major sports franchise is a point of civic pride for many leaders, particularly in smaller markets.

Oklahoma City Republican Mayor David Holt said the city’s economy and identity has transformed since the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics relocated there in 2008 and changed the team name to the Thunder.

“Oklahoma City was nowhere on anybody’s radar until we got the Thunder,” Holt said. “Our identity as a big-league city has become so intrinsic to how we see ourselves and so much a part of our momentum these last few decades.”

Oklahoma City is among only a few cities outside of the nation’s top 40 media markets with an NBA, MLB or NFL team, Holt said.

That’s why he strongly supported an initiative last year to extend a one-cent sales tax to fund a new publicly owned, $900 million arena for the Thunder. The arena will cost taxpayers about $1 billion once interest costs are factored in, the mayor said. The team has committed $50 million to the project, about 5% of the public commitment.

The NBA franchise is worth more than $3 billion, according to Forbes. Its seven-member ownership group is led by Clay Bennett, a wealthy venture capitalist.

In December, more than 70% of voters approved the tax extension, ensuring the team’s presence in Oklahoma City until 2050.

Holt said not building the new arena — and potentially having the Thunder leave the city — would have been a gut punch not seen in the area since the oil bust of the 1980s.

Wisconsin state Rep. Rob Brooks, a Republican, acknowledged the difficulty in assessing the true value of a pro sports team.

Last year, as lawmakers considered legislation to fund upgrades at the Milwaukee Brewers’ American Family Field, he focused on the tangibles, particularly how much the team and visiting teams contribute to state income taxes.

“I really just tied it to the tangible stuff … because everything else is hard to measure,” he said.

Legislation sponsored by Brooks made about $500 million in state funds available to the stadium project, which aims to keep the team put until 2050. But that cost will be funded specifically by the team’s income tax collections, Brooks said.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed the legislation in December.

“It just made sense that as long as we have a facility that has more than half of its useful life left, let’s maximize our investment that we’ve already made,” Brooks said. “Had we been making an entirely new investment, that would have been a whole different argument.”

A flurry of stadium deals

Justin Wilson, the Democratic mayor of Alexandria, Virginia, is well aware of the studies criticizing stadium and arena deals.

A plan championed by Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin calls for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns both teams, to invest $400 million upfront and pay ongoing lease payments to a new stadium authority. Wilson noted that the public portion of the funding will come from user fees and taxes collected within the new arena development — not from taxpayers across the city or state.

“That was one of the things that we focused on from the beginning, really learning from the litany of bad sports arena and sports stadium deals that are all around the country,” Wilson said.

But the plan faces political opposition — from leaders in D.C. and some lawmakers in Richmond. While legislation backed by Youngkin made it through the state House last week, it faced a setback in the state Senate, where a key committee leader said the bill was “not ready for prime time,” The Associated Press reported.

The effort also faces organized opposition in Northern Virginia, where residents worry about the subsidy and local complications such as traffic and mass transit.

Indiana Democratic state Rep. Earl Harris Jr. wants to lure the NFL’s Chicago Bears, who are aiming to leave longtime home Soldier Field, to northwest Indiana. Harris filed a bill that would create a new taxpayer-funded sports development commission charged with attracting a pro sports team to the area.

“Maybe we can draw them over,” Harris said. “And if we can’t draw them over, maybe we can bring some attention to the area and attract another team.”

The Bears, a team valued at over $6 billion, purchased and demolished hundreds of acres of property in the Illinois suburb of Arlington Heights last year. But recently the team has shifted its focus to lakefront property in Chicago.

“The timeline has to be in 2024,” Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren told WGN-TV last week. “In a perfect world, I would like to have clarity in this legislative session that is coming up.”

In Indiana, the legislation sponsored by Harris didn’t make it out of committee. But he said there’s still interest from state and local leaders in luring a professional team to northwest Indiana.

“I’m actually still having people reach out to me,” he said. “They want to help and support this initiative. So I will bring this back next year.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Las Vegas Raiders backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was suspended by the NFL on Friday for the first two games of next season for violating the performance-enhancing drugs policy of the league and NFL Players Association.

ESPN also reported the Raiders are expected to release Garoppolo next month before an $11.25 million roster bonus kicks in.

Garoppolo’s days in Las Vegas appeared over at midseason when then-interim coach Antonio Pierce replaced him with rookie Aidan O’Connell for the rest of the season. Pierce became the Raiders’ full-time coach last month, and the Raiders also hired Tom Telesco as their general manager.

The Raiders signed Garoppolo last offseason to a three-year, $72.75 million contract when coach Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler were in charge. He previously quarterbacked the San Francisco 49ers to a Super Bowl LIV appearance and two NFC Championship Game berths.

But Garoppolo threw seven touchdown passes and nine interceptions this season with a 77.6 quarterback rating, opening the way for O’Connell to take over.

Garoppolo said after the season he wanted to be able to play again somewhere.

“I’m pretty open,” Garoppolo said at the time. “A lot of things are out of my control. I’ve had situations like that before, so as a player, you’ve got to roll with the punches a little bit. Whatever happens, I think it all happens for a reason. You’ve got to make the best of your situation.”

The Raiders still have major decisions to make at quarterback.

O’Connell could keep the job after going 5-4 under Pierce, or Las Vegas could look to upgrade through free agency, a trade or this year’s draft.

“There hasn’t been a lot of years I’ve been the unquestioned starter going in, so I’m used to competing,” O’Connell said on Jan. 25. “I had to compete to get to this spot that I’m in. I also think it would be right to have competition in this league. It’s the NFL. It’s the best of the best, so it’s my job to try to keep my job.”

Yet one play later, after Montana scored against Cincinnati on a quarterback sneak, John Madden and the CBS crew introduced a new wrinkle that changed sports broadcasting forever. As the production team showed the replay of Solomon’s grab, Madden drew over a freeze-frame of the play, diagramming how Solomon sprung open.

It was the first time a sports broadcast had used a telestrator.

“Bad circles,” Madden quipped about his penmanship during Super Bowl XVI.

Fast forward 42 years. During the 49ers’ eighth Super Bowl appearance this Sunday in Las Vegas for the 58th edition, the broadcast will feature augmented reality, cameras inserted into the uprights, drones and more TV magic. But it all stems from the telestrator, which was invented by a NASA scientist and revolutionized how football games are seen and understood by fans watching at home.

“When John Madden first started using the telestrator, he fell in love with it,” said Dennis Deninger, a Syracuse University sport management professor and longtime ESPN production executive. “Madden’s description of (the telestrator) was that it helped make the fan smarter. You can just show the fans what it is you know as a coach and illustrate it for them.”

Madden was such a passionate educator that he once taught an extension course at the University of California, Berkeley, titled “Man To Man Football.” There he drew plays on a chalkboard for his students, just as he later did for America with the telestrator.

Deninger traced the history of football productions back to the first Super Bowl in 1967. The networks then treated the game as simply an “extension” of the regular season, he said. Production crews went from about seven or eight cameras to 11 and 12 for the main event.

Then Monday Night Football began in 1970, and every other broadcast had to catch up. ABC, the Monday game’s home until 2005, valued the production quality and used double the number of cameras as the Super Bowl did back then, Deninger said.

“And that was it until you got to the telestrator era,” Deninger said. “What happened then was the whole concept of television sports changed. When it first began, it was, ‘We will bring the game to you at home.’ It was a vestige of radio. And then, when (ABC executive) Roone Arledge put Monday Night Football on the air in 1970, it turned into, ‘We will bring you to the game.’”

That trend has continued — in excess. Broadcasts now do more than bring fans to the game: They bring an enhanced, theatrical viewing experience to them. And they do it for more fans. The 1982 game remains the highest-rated Super Bowl ever, with a 49.1% household share, but that meant roughly 85 million Americans watched. This Sunday could set a record with 115 million.

This year, CBS has 165 cameras — well more than they could feasibly use in one telecast. There are a record 48 4K cameras with super-slow-motion capability. The crew has 24 robotic cameras, 20 pylon cams, 23 augmented reality cameras and three drones. There’s a camera at the highest point in Vegas, at the top of the 1,149-foot Stratosphere Hotel.

For the first time ever, they have “doink” cameras built into the uprights. The idea came to CBS executives last year when Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker missed a field goal off the left goalpost. CBS earned the NFL’s approval by testing the groundbreaking technology in the preseason. On Sunday, three cameras on each goal post with 4K zoom and slow-motion capabilities can capture not just missed kicks but other scenes that unfold on the field from a unique perspective.

“It’s all about the storytelling,” said Harold Bryant, CBS Sports executive producer and executive vice president of production. “We’re not going to force any elements. We’re going to find out what works to help tell the story of the game. The story of the moment.”

When the 49ers defeated the Bengals for their first Lombardi Trophy, there was no score bug at the bottom of the screen. When each offense broke the huddle, the down and distance would flash in yellow block font. Now there are three-dimensional and augmented reality graphics.

Comparing the production of this Sunday’s broadcast to 1982 would be like comparing a Martin Scorsese film to a grade-school theater production. The scale is just so different.

CBS and parent company Paramount have 115 hours of programming planned for the week leading up to the Super Bowl across multiple platforms. Both CBS and Nickelodeon are broadcasting the actual game, the latter for the first time ever in an effort to appeal to young fans. Augmented reality versions of cartoon icon SpongeBob SquarePants and his buddy Patrick Star join two traditional broadcasters, and animations of slime will fill the screen after touchdowns.

CBS chairman Sean McManus described the technological evolution through the years as “quantumly.”

“Every time technology changes, creative people find ways to use that technology,” said Deninger, who wrote a forthcoming book about the Super Bowl’s impact on society.

All advertising time slots are already sold on both channels, CBS executives said. A single 30-second ad goes for roughly $7 million; for Super Bowl XVI, that figure was $324,300, per USA Today.

McManus declined to detail how much production costs, but the advertising revenue of more than $500 million will more than pay for it.

“The investment that we’re making is the best use of our Paramount dollars that I could imagine,” McManus said. “Because so much of the image and the prestige of Paramount Global will be determined by how good a job we do.”

Even in the broadcast booth, where commentators have more or less the same job now as they always have, it’s hard to draw parallels from Super Bowl XVI to LVIII. Madden, who died in 2021, was a former coach who is regarded as the greatest football announcer ever for his ability to both educate and humor fans. Tony Romo, this Super Bowl’s color commentator, is a former quarterback who initially impressed audiences by predicting plays before they unfolded with uncanny accuracy.

More recently though, some fans have soured on Romo’s schtick, tiring of his enthusiasm with partner Jim Nantz and occasional word salads.

“Well, it’s a normal arc of someone’s career,” Romo said when asked about the criticism. “Honestly, I think a lot of people were rooting against (Patrick) Mahomes just because he’s been there. They want to see people new. It’s just part of an arc when you do something at a high level, I think that’s normal.”

With all the new gadgets and gizmos, doink cams and slime, Madden’s beloved telestrator has remained a constant. When Romo draws on the screen, he’ll be explaining a play by Mahomes or Purdy, not a Montana pass. But after all these years, the broadcast will still bring about half of America to the game.

He even helped secure Super Bowl LVIII, which was awarded to the city in December of 2021. Wouldn’t you know it? The two teams playing in Allegiant Stadium Sunday are the Raiders’ sworn enemy in the Kansas City Chiefs and their former geographical rival in the 49ers.

“I guess there’s bad and there’s good,” Davis said late Tuesday night. “The bad is one of these teams is going to win the Super Bowl in our stadium. The good is one of them isn’t.”

The Chiefs are training at the Raiders’ state-of-the-art facility in nearby Henderson (all Raiders logos are covered) and it’s getting rave reviews.

“It’s really fantastic,” Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker said. “And it’s going to be nice to see a red end zone with `Chiefs’ on it.”

Davis is kidding when it comes to the 49ers and Chiefs playing in his stadium. It’s a small price to pay for the exposure his franchise will get.

Allegiant Stadium, financed with the help of $750 million of public money from a hotel tax, is one of the NFL’s most stunning venues and a fixture on the Las Vegas strip. The value of the franchise has skyrocketed to $6.2 billion according to Forbes, the sixth-highest in the NFL.

Davis is living large in a city the Raiders have called home since 2020 in a way he never did in the Bay Area. Unable to secure a stadium deal, Davis was looked at as more of an oddity after taking over in 2011 following the death of his Hall of Fame father Al Davis.

In January of 2021, Davis purchased the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces from MGM Resorts International and the team has won the last two league championships.

Las Vegas hosted the NFL Draft in 2022 and concerns about legal gambling at an NFL venue are now embraced instead of shunned. He began lobbying for a Super Bowl not long after groundbreaking began on Allegiant Stadium in 2017.

Unlike his late father, Davis is even on good terms with the commissioner who called Las Vegas “Sports Town USA” at a Super Bowl event in December.

“He believed this would be a great Super Bowl location, so when he got the relocation approval that was one of the first things he was talking about, ‘When are we going to get a Super Bowl?’” Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday at his state-of-the-NFL press conference. “I said ‘Mark, we’ve got to play a regular season game here first.”

All that’s left is to build a winner with the Raiders. It has been a challenge since Davis took control.

He has had four head coaches in four seasons in Las Vegas — Jon Gruden, Rich Bisaccia, Josh McDaniels and Antonio Pierce. Gruden resigned in an email scandal. Interim coach Bisaccia was bypassed despite leading the Raiders into the playoffs. McDaniels was a disaster from the outset and was fired in November. Pierce was recently named head coach after rebuilding the team’s psyche when McDaniels was let go.

The Raiders will be recognized at the Super Bowl with the lighting of the Al Davis torch that takes place every game. It will be lit by the three Raiders Super Bowl Most Valuable Players — wide receiver Fred Biletnikoff (XI), quarterback Jim Plunkett (XV) and running back Marcus Allen (XVII).

I sought out Davis to get his thoughts on the Super Bowl, the Raiders’ relocation and the state of his teams including the Aces. Here is what he said in an exclusive interview:

Thoughts on a 49ers-Chiefs Super Bowl

“When you look at it, these two teams deserve to be here in this game, and I truly believe it, and when you look at, this is a hell of a matchup. Both organizations are class organizations in what they do and we have to suck it up for a week and see a lot of red.”

Las Vegas as a Super Bowl venue

“There is no question Las Vegas is the best city for infrastructure for a Super Bowl. The people here really know what to do, how to put one-off events like they did with Formula I a month and a half ago. It’s quite an undertaking, but it’s not just the local community that does the lifting. The NFL comes in with an army for Super Bowls. There’s a lot of things the host team does, but the majority is the Las Vegas Convention Bureau and the NFL putting the actual nuts and bolts together.”

Commissioning Bo Bernhard of UNLV and the International Gaming Institute for a study in 2016

“I told him he might be the most important person in this whole thing to determine why Las Vegas is a safer place for gambling than any place else in the country . . . Las Vegas watches everything in gambling, any kind of aberration. It’s been such a whirlwind the last six years. When the Supreme Court in 2018 allowed states to make their own determinations about sports betting, that had a big part in the gambling aspect as well.”

Owning the Aces

“I had a vision when I purchased the team from MGM. I was a fan and I was continually telling them that they had to pay the players more money and they told me if you want to pay them more money then you pay them. So I did. The goal was to build a championship organization, But there was so much more to it than that. it was also about building an infrastructure for women so they can eventually economically participate on a greater scale.

A WNBA team in San Francisco

“Joe Lacob and Peter Guber are going to be competing with us. People should be excited because those guys know how to build teams. I’m not as excited because they know how to win. All of a sudden there’s competition for players in this league. I’m so proud of these women it’s ridiculous and I enjoy the heck out of it.”

Hiring Pierce as head coach of the Raiders

“He brought the culture back. He grew up in Compton when the Raiders were in Los Angeles. He was near the L.A. Coliseum. He knew NWA and all that. He knew who the Raider greats were. He knew what the culture of being a Raider was. That came across strong to me when I was interviewing him for the interim role. I felt, ‘Wow, this guy could be something.’ ”

The theory that Pierce was a makeup for not hiring Bisaccia in 2022

“That’s never been the case and I’ve never said that. (Bisaccia) did a phenomenal job for the Raiders as the interim head coach, but after the interview process he was not the person I was going to hire. I respect him for what he did for us and I’ll be forever grateful. But he was not going to be head coach of the Raiders.

The way the week is going and chances of another Super Bowl in Las Vegas

“What I’ve been saying is you only get one shot at a first impression, so let’s knock it out of the park. I think they’ll be begging us to come back.”

The possibility of the A’s joining the Raiders with a new stadium on the Las Vegas strip

“I think I’ll stand by what I said in November. I have no idea if they’ll get a stadium built.”

Note: On Nov. 15, Davis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the A’s ruined their prospects of a Bay Area stadium by squatting on their lease for 10 years and making it impossible. He also mocked the A’s “Rooted in Oakland” campaign when attempting to get their own stadium.

“The slogans they’ve been using have been a slap in the face to the Raiders, and they were trying to win over that type of mentality in the Bay Area. Well, all they did was (expletive) the Bay Area.”

Just under half of that money would go to Oakland, which co-owns with Alameda County the facility at 1150 Harbor Bay Parkway in Alameda, atop the flatland that leads to the scenic ocean harbor.

It would be a much-needed financial boost for a city dealing with a budget deficit of historic proportions. But the larger impact would be to the property’s current tenant and one of Oakland’s fastest-growing cultural institutions: the men’s soccer franchise Oakland Roots SC.

Should city and county officials approve the purchase this month, Prologis intends to continue leasing the compound to both the Roots and its new companion women’s team, the Oakland Soul.

The soccer fields may also continue to serve as a training ground for European soccer clubs seeking a warmer region during the winter months, including potentially a role in the 2026 FIFA World Cup, some of which is set to be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

“The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world, and this use would shine a global spotlight on Oakland and the East Bay,” the report states, before noting that the facility would need significant maintenance, including a $3 million upgrade to the roof of the building that once served as the Raiders headquarters.

Team officials had anticipated that they might be booted from the property when the city and county decided to sell, especially if the new owner was more interested in, say, building new housing on the property rather than hosting sports franchises there.

Ahead of key dates this month, including a City Council vote next Tuesday, Roots officials have declined to comment on the pending sale.

The Raiders facility is where the Roots practice, but it will play home games during the entire 2024 season at Cal State East Bay in Hayward — the second season at the soccer field there, after the team ditched Laney College over a turf issue.

The Roots’ goal is to play the following season in a modular stadium built on the parking lot of the Coliseum complex, plus a longer-term stadium in a large adjacent space, the Malibu Lot.

Ongoing negotiations between the Roots and Coliseum officials over a stadium at the giant East Oakland property have mainly centered around scheduling games on nights when A’s baseball — perhaps in its final season — isn’t already using the property.

The team’s temporary agreement with the Coliseum would constitute a “special event,” which would require the team to be there for no more than 60 days in 2025 — a stopgap measure while the team tackles the complicated task of finding a semi-permanent home.

“I’m hoping we are nearing the end,” said Henry Gardner, the head of the Joint Powers Authority, which oversees the Coliseum site on behalf of the city and county.

NEW YORK — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing-off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

Weathers was as comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as he was joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development,” Weathers was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers has starred in the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” appearing in all three seasons.

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroided-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. Before he entered the ring, James Brown sang “Living in America” with showgirls and Creed popped up on a balcony in a Star-Spangled Banner shorts and waistcoat combo and an Uncle Sam hat, dancing and taunting Drago.

A bloodied Creed collapses in the ring after taking a vicious beating, twitches and is cradled by Rocky as he dies, inevitably setting up a fight between Drago and Rocky. But while Creed is gone, his character’s son, Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis Creed, would lead his own boxing trilogy starting in 2015.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson,” where he trains his flamethrower on a bad guy and asks, “How do you like your ribs?” before broiling him.

He later added a false wooden hand to play a gold pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017 and in Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” earning an Emmy Award nomination in 2021.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News 2023. “I guess I’m just a lucky guy.”

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

“When I found football, it was a completely different outlet,” says Weathers told the Detroit News. “It was more about the physicality, although one does feed the other. You needed some smarts because there were playbooks to study and film to study, to learn about the opposition on any given week.”

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing up his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.” He also lied that he had any boxing experience.

Later in life, Weathers developed a passion for directing, helming episodes of “Silk Stalking” and and the Lorenzo Lamas vehicle “Renegade.” He directed a season three episode of “The Mandalorian.”

Weathers introduced himself to another generation when he portrayed himself as an opportunistic and extremely thrifty actor who becomes involved with the dysfunctional clan at the heart of “Arrested Development.”

The Weathers character likes to save money by making broth from discarded food — “There’s still plenty of meat on that bone” and “Baby, you got a stew going!” — and, for the right price, agrees to become an acting coach for delusional and talent-free thespian Tobias Funke, played by David Cross.

Weathers is survived by two sons.

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Attorneys for the National Football League and Jon Gruden made their cases today before a three-judge panel of Nevada Supreme Court justices.

At issue is whether the panel will let stand a 2022 ruling by a district court judge that said Gruden’s lawsuit against the league could move forward.

During the oral arguments before Supreme Court Justices Elissa Cadish, Kristina Pickering and Linda Marie Bell, each side had 15 minutes to present.

It’s unknown when the panel might hand a decision down.

Gruden is accusing the NFL of intentionally leaking the emails — which contained racist, homophobic, and sexist language — that led to his resignation from the Raiders in 2021. He is seeking monetary damages for the leak, which he claims destroyed his career.

Gruden’s emails went from 2011 to 2018 to former Washington Commanders executive Bruce Allen and were found amid emails the league obtained during an investigation into the workplace culture of the Washington team. The emails were sent when Gruden was an ESPN announcer.

The league wants the court to reverse a state court judge’s decisions in May 2022, letting Gruden’s lawsuit proceed, and not to order out-of-court talks that could be overseen by Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Click here for updates on this story

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If I were to write a farewell column I would expect one of the following reactions:

1) We thought you left years ago.

2) Who are you anyway?

For the past 17 years, I have worked behind the scenes as Executive Sports Editor. Before that, I was a sports columnist best known for a feature that ran every Saturday morning for 17 years. Before that, I was a baseball beat writer.

February 9, 1985, was my first day here. Today is my last day, the last of a 50-year career.

In my time as a writer, I covered 11 Super Bowls, 13 World Series, five NBA Finals, and every major golf tournament except the British Open. I was on the scene when Kirk Gibson hit the home run off Dennis Eckersley, when Michael Jordan hit his last shot (the first time), when Joe Montana threw four fourth-quarter touchdown passes in Philadelphia, when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record by playing his 2,131st consecutive game, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa staged the great home run race of 1998.

Suddenly I have found myself at retirement age. I am retiring.

While I’d like to be remembered as an extraordinary writer, it was a column of one-liners that most people remember. It was called In the Wake of the Week, but the working title was the Saturday Smartass.

• Arrested for bumping his sports car into that of his ex-wife on a Miami highway, Jose Canseco said in that situation you’re just looking to make contact.
• The Giants have a Pole, a Hook, and a Lake on their roster. All they need is a Fish.
• 49ers’ victory song after New Orleans Saints coach Jim Mora mismanaged the clock to blow a late lead: “When a team throws the ball when it should run the ball, that’s a Mora.”

Ah, literature. Extraordinary stuff.

This story began at age 14 with a high school journalism teacher who wrote something on the first story I turned in. I can’t remember the words she wrote, only that they were encouraging and they were written in green ink.

Through the wonders of social media, I found her recently, thanked her and confirmed that she wrote in green ink. I edit in green ink. Red ink is jarring, discouraging, a stop sign. Green means keep going.

“It makes me feel really old to have a former student retiring,” she wrote last month (not in green ink, but on Facebook), “but it also makes me really proud to have read your very first stories and watched from a distance as you so ably achieved your dreams.”

The teacher knew the sports editor at our hometown weekly and before long I was writing a weekly story for The Brookfield (Wis.) News. My first byline – autumn 1974 – paid $5. Every Sunday night I pounded away on a small manual typewriter — a hammer and chisel wouldn’t have required more effort — because deadline was Monday morning. It was on those Sunday nights that the hook was set.

Making something from nothing but words, creating a tapestry that told a story, produced a feeling in me that I hadn’t known before and still haven’t found in any other endeavor. It was a warm feeling deep inside, a mellow glow. It didn’t come until after I had typed -30-, journalism code for the end of a story, but it could last for days.

I went to college at the University of Wisconsin. My first day on campus, I found the office of The Daily Cardinal, the student newspaper. I did not receive the welcome I was expecting. Yeah, just leave your name and phone number with that guy over there. As a 17-year-old freshman, I thought a lot more of myself than they did.

One afternoon a couple weeks later, the phone rang in my dorm room. It was the sports editor. Could I get over to the football team’s practice pronto? Could I ever!

I arrived in time for coach John Jardine’s post-practice press briefing. There I was, standing among the people whose bylines I had been reading for years. All of them, come to life, like a field of dreams.

“Everyone got what they need?” I heard Jardine ask.

The pros nodded and closed their notebooks. I looked down at mine. I hadn’t written a word. Panic. Failure. Career over.

“Are you sure you got everything you need?” Jardine asked, pulling me back from the other reporters.

He took me up to his office and filled my notebook.

Through the wonders of social media, I found John Jardine’s son a couple of years ago and shared this story.

“That sounds like my Dad,” he said and he thanked me.

I was Sports Editor of the Daily Cardinal my junior year. One day the phone rang at a desk near mine. I picked it up. The guy on the other end said he was from United Press International, the newswire service that rivaled the Associated Press and counted among its alumni Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Helen Thomas and sports columnist Milton Richman. Did I know anyone who would be interested in working weekends – 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., $5 an hour — tracking down high school football scores? Did I ever!

One day, clearly in desperation, the editor-in-chief asked if I could cover something at the State Capitol. I didn’t know a damn thing about politics or anything else besides sports, but I said yes and did well enough to start getting assignments in sports. Wisconsin Badgers football and basketball games. Sunday drives to Green Bay to cover the Packers, the team on which I’d cut my teeth as a sports fan.

Bart Starr was the Packers’ quarterback when I was a kid, a god-like figure in Green Bay and throughout Wisconsin until he became head coach and proved incapable of returning the franchise to glory.

I was 23, only a few years removed from hero worship when I sat across from Starr in his office and asked the tough question. I was a professional journalist now, working full-time for UPI. Starr was failing as the Packers’ coach, and his job was on the line. Was it not?

“I’m not even going to dignify that question with an answer,” Starr said, staring holes through me.

Through the wonders of social media… nah, I didn’t.

At 24, I was named UPI-Wisconsin state sports editor. Impressive on its face, it ranks as the most bogus title I’ve had, even more than the one I’ve worn for the past 17 years. As UPI-Wisconsin Sports Editor, I managed a staff of 1.5 people — me and a part-time sports writer in Milwaukee.

One day the phone rang. It was the Sports Editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, the morning paper in my hometown, the one I’d grown up reading. Would I be interested in covering the Brewers? Would I ever!

The Brewers were defending American League champs – yes, they were in the A.L. then. I was in over my head, my first crisis of confidence, the first time that I thought I wasn’t cut out for a profession I’d chosen at age 14.

Still, I did well enough over two seasons for the phone to ring again. It was the Sports Editor of the San Jose Mercury News. Would I be interested in interviewing for a baseball job with them? You know what I said.

It was 1985. There was no such thing as the internet and I didn’t bother doing any research. San Jose, I assumed, was near the Mexico border. Must be a job covering the San Diego Padres. I was caught off guard when asked during the interview which team I preferred to cover.

“Whichever one you want me to cover,” I heard myself say.

And that’s how I came to cover the Oakland Athletics from 1985-88. (The other guy who interviewed that day got the Giants job.)

After a couple of seasons, six in all, I was worn out. The daily demands, the smoking, the drinking, the travel, the unrelenting anxiety – I finished the 1988 World Series at 137 pounds, about 30 pounds less than I’d started.

It might have been my physical appearance more than my performance that led the Sports Editor to grant my request to leave the beat. He even let me design my own job. A few months into it, he asked how I was liking it. I hated it. How would you like to be a columnist?

I wrote three columns a week for a couple of years, I offered a fourth column. It would run on Saturdays, down the left rail of the Sports cover, top to bottom, a series of one-liners in the wake of the week in sports. It became a sensation.

A friend of mine wrote a book on Pete Newell, and I found something I had in common with the legendary basketball coach. Consumed by stress, Pete Newell left coaching at age 44. Consumed by stress, I left writing at 42. (Pete lived to be 93. I’ll take it!)

I left writing to run a toy store, a shocking development to all except those who knew me well. Those people were merely stunned. The paper asked if I would stay on to write the Saturday column. Would I? Yeah, I guess so.

Four months later, the toy-store experience was over and I returned to the paper full-time. They let me come back as an editor, figuring I would ultimately return to writing. Someday I will, probably. Sprigs of green have been popping up through the ashes for the last couple of years.

I never set out to be a Sports Editor, never knew I wanted to be one. But in 2006, circumstances led to me being given the position on an interim basis. Now, I never want to be the “interim” anything. A career in sports writing will tell you that “interim” is a loser’s venue.

So I named myself “Acting Sports Editor.” That’s the title that appeared under my name every day in the Sports section.

In 2007, I got a new boss.

“What’s with this ‘acting’ thing?” he growled. “Change it, or I’ll find another actor.”

I went to the desk of my page designer to make the change. What did I want to change it to, he asked. I shrugged. How would you like to be Executive Sports Editor?

It’s a gag that has lasted 17 years, a gig that ends today.

This has been one blessed career, as you can see. Right place, right time, right answer when the phone rang. How many people get to be what they wanted to be at age 14? I wanted to be a sportswriter and for 26 years I was. When I couldn’t do it anymore, I got to be Sports Editor — Executive Sports Editor, no less. Who’s got it better than me, Jim Harbaugh?

I’ve been in a deeply reflective mood these past few weeks.

My late grandfather, Al Doss, took me to Wrigley Field at age 9, igniting my love of baseball, and he helped me through that first crisis of confidence. He traveled for a living and he sent me a note from the road.

“I’ve read a lot of sports pages,” he wrote, “and you don’t take a back seat to nobody.”

My late father introduced me to sports at age 7 — specifically the 1965 Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi — and he imbued in me a work ethic that has driven me for 50 years.

My mother, still kicking hard at 88, is the source of whatever amount of natural talent I possess. The valedictorian at a private high school, she became a wife and a mother to four. We were not well-to-do, but she found room in the monthly budget to make us a two-newspaper household.

And she bought the typewriter that started it all.

-30-

The two-vehicle crash occurred about 2 a.m. when a Chrysler 300, apparently “going very fast, high velocity,” ran the red light and collided with an SUV, Houston Police Assistant Chief Megan Howard said.

Five men and one woman died, including Hayden, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Four people were pronounced dead at the scene. Those killed included the driver of the Chrysler and a man who appeared to be homeless, Howard said.

Four people were taken to the hospital and two of them died, Howard said, while one female passenger was in critical condition with life-threatening injuries.

Police interviewed a male passenger from the SUV at the hospital. Investigators were working to identify the driver of the SUV, Howard said.

Hayden, 33, was born in Houston and starred at the University of Houston, according to his profile page on ESPN.com. A first-round draft pick in 2013, he played in eight seasons through 2020 for the Oakland Raiders, Detroit Lions and Jacksonville Jaguars.

“D.J.’s courage, perseverance, and dedication to his teammates will be fondly remembered by everyone who knew him,” the Raiders, now based in Las Vegas, said Saturday in a statement. “The prayers of the entire Raider Nation are with D.J.’s loved ones at this time.”

In 2012, Hayden survived and later recovered from a near-death tear to a major vein by his heart after he and a teammate collided during practice, requiring emergency surgery.

But McDaniels’ record actually was worse the second time around than it was with the Denver Broncos in 2009 and 2010, and late Tuesday night, the Raiders announced that owner Mark Davis fired McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.

“After much thought about what the Raiders need to move forward, I have decided to part ways with Josh and Dave,” Davis said in a statement. “I want to thank them both for their hard work and wish them and their families nothing but the best.”

The news broke with an email from the Raiders at 10:04 p.m. (Pacific).

Linebackers coach Antonio Pierce will serve as interim head coach, the team announced in an email at midnight. That was preceded by an 11:15 email announcing Champ Kelly as the interim GM.

In both cases, the Raiders said a “comprehensive search” for successors would begin “once the season is complete.”

Davis had hoped to bring New England’s success westward when he hired McDaniels, the longtime Patriots offensive coordinator. Ziegler worked in New England’s front office, and between the two, they transformed the Raiders into Patriots West by signing several players with ties to that organization.

But despite taking over a team that made the playoffs in 2021 before losing to the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild-card round, the success Davis so badly wanted never made its way to Las Vegas.

The Raiders under McDaniels went 6-11 in 2022 and are 3-5 so far this season for a .360 winning percentage. His record at Denver was 11-17 (.393 percentage).

Even so, Davis has stood by McDaniels, and the timing of this dismissal is surprising.

But McDaniels had some things working against him. The Raiders have failed to score at least 20 points in eight of their past nine games dating to last season, and offense is his specialty.

Perhaps just as damaging was the public displeasure some of his players have shown. Star wide receiver Davante Adams, in particular, has been vocal since the offseason about his concerns regarding the direction of the franchise. Running back Josh Jacobs when asked after Monday night’s loss to the Detroit Lions about what might spark the offense, said, “I don’t know, that ain’t my job.”

McDaniels was hired following the 2021 season when Davis opted not to keep interim coach Rich Bisaccia on for the full-time job even after he led the team to a surprising playoff run.

McDaniels and Ziegler were aggressive in their first offseason, trading first and second-round picks for Adams, giving a big free agent contract to defensive end Chandler Jones and extending the contracts of Derek Carr, Maxx Crosby, Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow.

But those moves didn’t lead to positive results on the field as McDaniels never was able to build the high-powered offense Davis expected when he hired him and struggled to win games.

The Raiders lost a record-tying five games after taking double-digit leads, including blowing a 20-0 halftime lead in his home debut against Arizona for the biggest collapse in franchise history. Las Vegas lost to Indianapolis in the Colts’ first game with Jeff Saturday as interim coach after he had never coached above high school level and then lost to Baker Mayfield and the Rams two days after Mayfield joined his new team.

McDaniels benched Carr late last season and eventually cut him in the offseason, giving the Raiders no return for a starting quarterback who ended up getting a $150 million contract from New Orleans.

McDaniels brought in his former pupil in New England, Jimmy Garoppolo, as the new starting quarterback and the offense severely regressed, becoming the first team since 2009 to score less than 20 points on offense in each of the first eight games of the season.

The last two weeks were particularly humbling as Las Vegas lost 30-12 to Chicago and undrafted rookie former Division II quarterback Tyson Bagent and then looked completely inept in a 26-14 loss at Detroit on Monday night.

McDaniels finished his tenure with the third-worst record of any Raiders coach with at least 25 games.

ESPN reported Champ Kelly, who was an assistant GM under Ziegler since 2022, will be named the interim general manager. Prior to joining the Raiders, Kelly worked in the Chicago Bears front office for seven seasons, where he was the assistant director of player personnel from 2017-21 after two years as the team’s director of scouting.

AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this report.