Sports
Thomas Muller's first-half brace leads Vancouver to rout of Toronto
Feb 28, 2026; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Vancouver Whitecaps FC forward Thomas Muller (13) celebrates scoring on a corner kick from midfielder Sebastian Berhalter (16) (not pictured) against Toronto FC goalkeeper Luka Gavran (1) during the first half at BC Place. Mandatory Credit: Simon Fearn-Imagn Images Thomas Muller scored a first-half brace, leading the Whitecaps to a 3-0 victory over visiting Toronto FC on Saturday night in Vancouver.
Brian White also scored a first-half goal, while keeper Yohei Takaoka made three saves for his second consecutive clean sheet to open the MLS season.
With the victory, Vancouver (2-0-0, 6 points) improved to 4-0-1 in its last five regular-season matches against Toronto.
The Reds (0-2-0, 0 points) are now 6-9-4 in 19 MLS meetings against their Western Canadian rivals.
Trailing 3-0, Toronto had an excellent chance to cut into the lead early in the second half. Djordje Mihailovic thought he’d put Toronto on the board in the 55th minute, but the midfielder was caught offside.
Then in the 74th minute, Takaoka made a diving save off Toronto midfielder Jose Cifuentes – the Reds’ first shot on target of the match.
Vancouver controlled possession in the first half with five shots on target.
Aziel Jackson was awarded a penalty kick after being taken down in the area by Walker Zimmerman in the 24th minute. On the ensuing penalty kick, Muller opened the scoring, putting his right-footed strike in the bottom-left corner past Luka Gavran.
Muller added his second of the half 12 minutes later as Sebastian Berhalter’s corner was headed across to Muller by Mathias Laborda, and the German midfielder ripped his left-footed shot into an open goal.
In first-half stoppage time, off another Berhalter corner, Gavran was caught out of position, allowing White to score on a right-footed strike.
Up next, Vancouver travels to Portland for its first away match of the season next Saturday. Toronto visits Cincinnati next Sunday to wrap up a three-game road trip to open the season.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Athletics place OF Denzel Clarke (foot) on 10-day injured list
Apr 17, 2026; West Sacramento, California, USA; Athletics center fielder Denzel Clarke (1) attempts to catch the ball during the first inning of the game against the Chicago White Sox at Sutter Health Park. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images The Athletics placed outfielder Denzel Clarke on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday due to a bone bruise in his right foot.
In a corresponding move, the Athletics recalled outfielder Colby Thomas from Triple-A Las Vegas.
Clarke, 25, last played on Monday as a defensive placement in center field in the eighth inning of a 6-4 road victory over the Seattle Mariners.
A native of Canada, Clarke is batting .170 (9-for-53) with six RBIs and two stolen bases in 22 games. He has struck out 24 times and walked four times.
Last season as a rookie, Clarke hit .230 with a .274 on-base percentage, three home runs, eight RBIs, eight doubles, two triples, six steals, six walks and 61 strikeouts in 47 games.
The Athletics selected Clarke in the fourth round of the 2021 MLB Draft.
Thomas, 25, made his major league debut in 2025 and hit .225 (27-for-120) with six homers and 19 RBIs in 49 games. He hit .309 with five homers and 19 RBIs in 17 games for Las Vegas this season.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Record 216 WNBA games to be broadcast nationally this season
Aug 31, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; A Wilson EVO Nxt WNBA basketball on the court at the Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images A record 216 WNBA games and tentpole events for the upcoming 2026 season will be broadcast on national television.
The league announced its full slate of nationally televised games for the first year of its new media rights deal on Wednesday. It includes games being broadcast by returning partners in the Walt Disney Company (ABC/ESPN), Amazon Prime Video, CBS/Paramount+ and Scripps (ION).
New television/streaming partners for the 2026 season are NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock/NBCSN) and USA Network.
With two new expansion teams starting play in the upcoming season, the league will put on a record 330 regular-season games, with all 15 teams playing 44 games.
Disney will distribute 30 games this year for the league’s milestone 30th season. ABC will broadcast 13 of those — tied for its most ever — including a season-opening doubleheader May 9 which will see the Indiana Fever face the Dallas Wings and the defending champion Las Vegas Aces face the Phoenix Mercury in a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals.
Amazon Prime will also broadcast 30 regular-season games for 30 years of the league’s existence, along with the championship game of the Commissioner’s Cup tournament.
NBC, which broadcast the first WNBA game in 1997, is back as a media partner this season and will broadcast seven Sunday games throughout the season. Peacock, in addition to streaming regular-season games, will stream every WNBA Finals game, which will also be broadcast on either NBC or USA.
USA will broadcast 48 regular-season games, trailing only ION, which will broadcast 50 games through its “State Farm WNBA Friday Night Spotlight” series.
After broadcasting the first primetime broadcast television WNBA game last season, CBS will air eight primetime games this season.
NBA TV, which is in its 24th year distributing WNBA games, has a 15-game slate it will be broadcasting.
WNBA League Pass will deliver select live games throughout the season (local blackouts may apply), along with next-day access to every matchup through the WNBA app or at WNBA.com.
–Field Level Media
Sports
LPGA stars get another shot at major title at Chevron
Nov 13, 2025; Belleair, Florida, USA; Nelly Korda hits a shot on the ninth hole during the first round of The ANNIKA golf tournament at Pelican Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images The top five players in the women’s golf world rankings have something in common. All five have won at least one tournament since the 2026 season began, whether on the LPGA Tour or elsewhere.
Actually, that quintet of Jeeno Thitikul, Nelly Korda, Hyo-joo Kim, Charley Hull and Hannah Green shares another attribute: They’ve collected zero of the sport’s last nine major championships.
As major season kicks off at the Chevron Championship on Thursday in Houston, the world of women’s golf waits to see if one of its star players can reassert her dominance under the brightest lights the sport has to offer.
Four of the five major winners in 2025 were first-time champions, including Mao Saigo of Japan, who birdied the first hole of an unprecedented five-way playoff (featuring Kim, among others) to win the Chevron.
That was the event’s final year at the widely-panned Club at Carlton Woods in the Houston suburbs. Formerly played in the Coachella Valley and known as the Dinah Shore, Kraft Nabisco Championship and other titles, the Chevron will make a new home at Memorial Park Golf Course.
The municipal course near downtown Houston is the current home of the PGA Tour’s Houston Open, renovated less than 10 years ago with consulting from Brooks Koepka. It will play as a par-72, 6,811-yard course for the ladies this week.
“It’s definitely a second-shot golf course,” Korda said. “Greens are pretty tricked out. Just depends on how it’s going to play with all the rain that they got. It can play really long where (drives are) not going to go run out or play really soft.”
Korda is the most recent major winner of the world’s top five, having taken the Chevron crown in 2024. But in nine major starts since, she has mixed two T2s with two missed cuts and an array of also-ran finishes.
She began 2026 with a win at the season-opening Tournament of Champions, weather-shortened from 72 to 54 holes. World No. 1Thitikul won the next event in her native Thailand.
Though only 23, Thitikul has been gunning for her first major for close to five years, collecting nine top-10s without a victory.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Thitikul said. “If you in contention, if you without a win as well but you in contention for like maybe four, five week in a row, which mean your game is there. …
“If you were in contention every week, you saw your name on the top in every week, which mean your game is there and then just matter of time.”
England’s Hull has yet to capture a major, while Kim, a South Korean veteran who won back-to-back tournaments in March, hasn’t added to her major mantle since the 2014 Evian.
Green will be a popular pick this week as the Australian rides white-hot form into Houston. She’s won four tournaments since March 1, including a two-week sweep of the Women’s Australian Open and Australian WPGA Championship. On Sunday outside Los Angeles, Green putted her way into a playoff and then won her third LA Championship.
She said Tuesday that she plans to “ride this wave for as long as possible.”
“My putter has been very kind to me, so it’s nice to feel like all aspects of my game have actually been able to turn on at the same time, as to where last year I felt like one thing would go well and something would be really off,” Green said.
“That’s probably been the biggest difference, but obviously the inner belief has definitely been different, too.”
Green’s lone major title came when she won the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship.
–Field Level Media
Athletics place OF Denzel Clarke (foot) on 10-day injured list
Record 216 WNBA games to be broadcast nationally this season
