A great stadium can be the difference between a fan base becoming the 12th man. A dumb stadium means an uncomfortable environment for both fans and players alike. No one wants to sit three hours in a refrigerator or be placed in jail for rooting too hard. Players don't want to be a move away from an ACL injury. From Major League Baseball to World Cup soccer, some unfortunate teams call the world's worst stadiums home. Whether the stadium fits 21,000 or 100,000, here are the 25 dumbest stadiums ever built.

What do newspaper headline type and the New Deal have to do with the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles? Here are the stories behind the nicknames of the NFL’s 32 teams—and what they were almost called.

Ask yourself whether you'd do this: Leave home. Walk 20 minutes to the train station. Take a 70-minute train ride to Penn Station in New York City. Weave for 10 minutes over to the subway station. Take a half-hour D train ride to Yankee Stadium. Navigate the vendors and chaos to get to your seat. Now ask yourself: Would you do all that blind? Jane Lang does it, accompanied at most games by only her Seeing Eye golden retriever, Clipper. Thirty times a year. At 67 years old. Which is why she was so gobsmacked Tuesday when she set out from her home in Morris Plains, N.J., only to find Yankees manager Joe Girardi and four current and former Yankees waiting on her doorstep. They didn't have a limo. They didn't have a fleet of Suburbans. They had only sneakers. They were going to make the journey with her. "Oh my God!" Jane said. "We think you're amazing," Girardi said. "Follow me," Clipper seemed to say. You have to understand what a two-hour, one-way journey to a baseball game takes for somebody like Jane. She's been blind since birth, and these trips have not always turned out well. Once, some kids decided it would be fun to spin her around a few dozen times. Another time, she fell onto the subway tracks and was nearly killed. But ever since she got a guide dog, she's been intrepid. The whole bizarre troupe: Jane, Clipper, the Yankees, their security guys, the PR men and the media -- paraded past the florist, Tony's pizza parlor and the little barbershop where one of the customers came out to wave and holler at Jane with the apron still around his neck. Jane and Clipper walk at we-just-robbed-a-bank speed, which caused current Yankees pitching star Joba Chamberlain to holler, "Hey! Slow down!" Soon Yankees fans figured out what was going on and joined in, along with nearly everybody in town. By the time they reached the train station, it looked as though Clipper was leading a marching band. They crammed aboard the train, whereupon ex-Yankees star Tino M read more »

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I am standing outside the gym feeling a little uneasy. I only know two people here, my nine-year-old "little brother," whom I've been mentoring for a little over a year, and his father. His father is talking with Curtis Johnson Sr. only a couple of feet away. They are laughing and joking but I can't quite hear what they are saying. I am standing next to Curtis Johnson Jr. but we aren't really talking. I just stand there and smile. After a few minutes, Curtis Johnson Sr. sends my little brother off for a jog. He shuffles off reluctantly, barely lifting his feet. Someone asks me if I'm going to go jog too. Everyone laughs. It is close to 100 degrees. Curtis Johnson Jr. and I just stand there sweating. Curtis Jr., who goes by C.J., is lean and muscular, has taken off his shirt. He is getting ready to jog. I am tall and lanky and have not taken off my shirt. I'm not going anywhere. We just stand there sweating. He is shining in the sun. I just sort of dampen. That's what happens in Mississippi, you either take off your shirt or you become damp. "So, you're going to have a fight soon?" I ask. "Yeah." "Your professional debut?" "Yeah." "Cool." C.J. isn't exactly what I had expected when I decided to go to my brother's boxing practice. I had heard all about him before I got there of course, such is my brother's admiration of the young fighter. My only previous exposure to serious boxing had been seven years earlier in Italy. I was in Rome studying art and had wandered into one of the city's famous piazzas only to find a crowd surrounding a boxing ring. I watched two boxers dance and jab at each other, both boys under the large headgear that amateur boxers wear. There was some shouting. The boxers made noises when they swung at one another that sounded like air escaping from bike tires. There were fighters from France, Spain, and Germany all milling round in the crowd. They wore their national colors. They all looked mean and knew it, staring down everyone who w read more »

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Within the next couple weeks, UFC fans will be tuning in into another season of hit reality show The Ultimate Fighter. This season will feature 28 aspiring lightweights competing for a contract in UFC. The show will also feature UFC Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and Welterweight contender Josh Koscheck as opposing coaches, and both men will square off following the conclusion of this season for UFC Welterweight Championship at UFC 124. In past seasons of TUF, we have witnessed all sorts of things that keep us interested and watching every week. Whether it's drama between teammates, injuries or a heated confrontation between the opposing coaches, this season will be no different and it will certainly keep us entertained for the hour that it is on television. Here are the 10 Reasons To Be Excited For The Ultimate Fighter 12.

In the sport of mixed martial arts there have been fighters who have been lethal with their hands and are able to utilize the bob and weaving and the feints thrown in boxing. The boxing skills of even the average mixed martial arts fighter have come a long way since the early days of the sport. Nowadays you would be hard to find one mixed martial artist who doesn't focus on the boxing aspect. Many boxers have bad mouthed the hands of a mixed martial arts fighter, but I believe if these mixed martial arts fighters decided to only focus on boxing, they could potentially make a name for themselves. With the level of talent on this list, I believe you could theoretically put almost any of these fighters in any order. These are the top 10 boxers I believe that could make the transition from mixed martial arts to making potentially noise in the world of boxing.

Since Usain Bolt gained world-wide fame for being ridiculously fast at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he's been able to mix in visits to his favorite club, Manchester United, his other favorite club, Real Madrid, and more between running ridiculously fast. In the past, he's talked about playing as a "left-sided defensive midfielder" when he was in high school, but now he's seriously talking about his future as a footballer and not just his past. Says the 24-year-old in his autobiography: "Ideally, if I was to play football, I'd sign for my favorite team -- Manchester United. People say it's not realistic but nobody has seen me play so you never know. If Alex Ferguson saw me in one of those charity matches he might think I could replace Ryan Giggs." You might laugh at that last sentence, but considering Sir Alex just bought a player for £7 million sight unseen, picking the next Ryan Giggs out of a charity match could be possible. But according to the Guardian's Simon Hattenstone, Bolt isn't just spouting off to sell books: I ask about his ambitions. Ultimately, he says, he'd love to make a go of playing football professionally. He's being deadly serious. One of the perks of being Usain Bolt is that sporting stars love to meet him, so whenever he's travelling and there's time, he tries to train with a top football team. Last year it was Manchester United, a few days ago it was Bayern Munich. He's still carrying a copy of the French sporting newspaper L'Equipe, which features a spread on his football skills and praise from Bayern manager Louis van Gaal. He shows me a photo of himself with his arm wrapped round the dwarfed 6ft German forward Miroslav Klose. "If I keep myself in shape, I can definitely play football at a high level," he says. Presumptuous? Yes. Impossible? Maybe not. His speed and celebrity would certainly get him a trial somewhere -- whether he has any skills on the ball or not. All this will have to wait until at least after the read more »

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Roger Federer's second moment of genius at the US Open left Telegraph Sport pondering 10 of the greatest plays and shots of all time. Have we included the best of the best? Have your say below ...

The first generation of UFC fighters have come and gone. The second generation is well under way and the third generation is starting to poke its head into the octagon. The first fruits of this battalion is a 23 year old prodigy by the name of Jon "Bones" Jones. The following slideshow will list 5 reasons why he is destined for glory in the world of MMA.

Perhaps it may seem deplorably flippant to couple no-balls with floods and terror. But these three elements - chicanery, tragedy and violence - today dominate the popular image of Pakistan in Britain. No matter that allegations of Test match bribery are still unproven. Pakistan's cricket reputation has been mud for decades because of its institutionalised corruption. Last month's floods were a natural disaster on a colossal scale. They have drowned 2.6 million acres of cultivated land, wiped out a quarter of the country's annual harvest, destroyed or damaged 1.2 million homes and threaten a huge region with destitution. Yet to date the world's response falls far short of the need. Some £600 million has been pledged, but vastly more money will be required to repair damage and save displaced refugees from starvation and disease. Why are not governments and private donors doing more? At the weekend, I heard a customarily compassionate woman declare: 'I'm sorry, but I don't feel like sending a penny in flood relief to a country where there are lots of people who seem to want to blow us all up.' That is a brutal thing to say about the plight of millions, few of whom have the least connection with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. They are merely victims of natural forces that frequently ravage the sub-continent. But although Britons have already raised £40 million for the flood victims, I suspect my friend is far from alone in refusing to reach in her purse for this cause, as she did after the Asian tsunami and many more such tragedies. Pakistan's international standing is at rock-bottom. The alleged cricket scandal makes headlines, but is, of course, relatively trivial. Corruption in the country is institutionalised on a vast scale, and its president - whose family owns a chateau in France - is often cited among the most shameless perpetrators. More serious still are allegations voiced by Britain's own prime minister: that powerful elements i read more »

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The Pakistani Cricket corruption allegations have taken a sinister twist after it emerged today that team captain Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal, and bowlers Mohamad Amir and Mohamad Asif face the death penalty in Pakistan if they are found guilty of cheating and aiding a betting syndicate. On Sunday, the News of The World broke the story that a match-fixing syndicate rigged the recent match between England and Pakistan at Lords. In their world exclusive, Mazher Mahmood and Amanda Evans met with Mazhar Majeed who indicated that he had an influence over the result of the match and predicted down to the minute "no-ball" deliveries by bowlers Asif and Amir. A televison audience of millions tuned in to watch the test between the two countries and were shocked to see Pakistan collapse and bowled out for just 74 in their first innings. As part of the betting coup, Majeed then pointed out that Salman Butt was the ringleader of a betting clique of 10 cricketers that had made huge money from accepting offers from betting syndicates. To further prove his influence, Majeed then proclaimed, "I'm going to give you three no-balls to prove to you firstly that this is what's happening. They've all been organised, okay? "This is EXACTLY what's going to happen, you're going to SEE these three things happen. I'm telling you, if you play this right you're going to make a lot of money, believe me!" Over the last couple of years, Internet betting on cricket in the Middle and Far East has grown to huge proportions with a multitude of different markets being offered. This would appear to be where Majeed has focused his attention and where "no-balls" come into effect as the syndicate's seem to be betting upon the exact amount of runs that batters will gain but also the amount of runs that bowlers will concede. The evidence against the four named cricketers looks incredibly compelling, to such an extent that MI5 contacted the News of the World the next morning so they could launch an read more »

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Betting in cricket is much like doping in other forms of sport, where the law-breakers are always one step ahead of the enforcers. Across the subcontinent in the 1990s, there were bookies dotted across every neighbourhood and their services could be accessed through a recommendation from an old and trusted punter who would act as the rookie's underwriter. The entire business worked on trust. Bets were placed over phones or scribbled into notebooks. Accounts were settled every month and in the event that punters did not pay up, a standover man turned up at the front door. The neighbourhood "chop shop'' was the lowest rung of a subversive ecosystem headed by a bigger, more powerful betting syndicate, some with links to the underworld. Reporters found out that the middle men between Gang Lord and Local Lowlife met the cricketers while posing alternately as "businessmen'' or "fans''. As part of the ploy, they would resort to extreme flattery while hoping for relatively minor pieces of information. Soon, naive players became entangled in the system. Now, gambling on cricket is still illegal, the chop shops still do business but computerised betting over the internet has created new frontiers both for the everyday illegal gambler and men like Mazhar Majeed, who was exposed in the News of the World sting. In the case of Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir, the middle man-businessman-fan had morphed into a "player's agent'', who struck good deals, but whose presence from the outside could be deemed suspicious. Odds on the internet are not fixed by wise individuals operating in isolation but by the thriving market itself, much like the stock exchange. The bear knows a stock is going to fall, so he sells just before it does and buys after the price crashes, making a killing on the margins. In cricketing terms, the fall of the stock translates into the pre-determined fall of a batsman's wicket which suddenly changes the odds around a match. Or it could be the sudden fl read more »
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's full speed ahead for the UFC in Asia. We've discussed the potential problems the UFC will encounter in depth here before. Now Zuffa has found the man they think can adapt and overcome. UFC President Dana White introduced the new Executive VP Mark Fischer who spoke briefly at the UFC 118 press conference: "It's great to be here back in my hometown. I'm delighted and honored to work with UFC president Dana White and the Fertitta brothers to build the Ultimate Fighting Championship and our other businesses in Asia. It's a fantastic market. I think we're just scratching the surface. A lot martial arts began their tradition there. We're very respectful of that... I was with the NBA in Asia for 12 years. Five or six of those were building the NBA in China. I think as successful as the NBA was there, what we were able to do with that, I think we can just as much with the UFC and more." Fischer was the front man for the National Basketball Association (NBA) in Asia and should have the contacts in place to help make things happen. While his credentials are impeccable, he clearly has some work to do getting up to speed. When questioned by reporters after his introduction, Fischer couldn't even answer a simple question about whether the company was targeting Japan as well as China for future shows. The Hollywood Reporter talked to Fischer in a less pressure packed environment and he seems to have some concrete steps in mind for the UFC's expansion into the region: Star-divide Based in Beijing for now, Fischer will try to build up local mixed martial arts talent and forge ties with regional sports federations, such as the China National Wushu Federation. In North America, the UFC’s primary business model is pay-per-view, and the company hosts about 12-14 events per year, which on average attract about a million subscribers, many of them public venues such as bars, Fischer said, adding that total viewership is considerably higher. In read more »

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This whole controversy over the UFC vs Boxing shit is really getting old. There are way too many facets of both sports to try and compare them, and the guys who do, usually have never stepped in any sort of ring. Case in point, this weekends UFC fight between James Toney and Randy Cotoure or “Boxing vs MMA”. I see MMA fans as very “fad” oriented. They chant UFC, UFC, UFC, during the fight not even knowing what they’re chanting for. They’re chanting for the brand, UFC, not their sport, MMA. Hell they might as well been chanting PPV, PPV. So you put an extremely washed up boxer against a seasoned MMA fighter and despite my apparent bias towards boxing, we all know what was going to happen (I put a bet on Toney knowing I would lose but just couldn’t root for Cotoure). Randy shoots, takes him to the ground and it turns into a crappy ass ground fight. I guess the old saying “Stand up and fight like a man” doesn’t apply in MMA. One last thing, boxing is not a dying sport it’s simply in need of a fresh batch of fighters. Everyone jumped on the MMA bandwagon because it doesn’t take 20 years of training to compete and is something that even girls are in to watch. If there’s no immediate action the “fans” are booing in a minute…. With that said, whatever. I quit paying for any MMA/UFC fights simply because the fans, and the fighters annoy the hell out of me. In the end the boxers win no matter what. They’re not in some socialistic organization where their master, Dana White tells them every move to make. Boxers have free will, are capitalistic people, and therefore make the hundreds of millions of dollars that they do while MMA fighters complain about their low pay. The majority of MMA fighters just end up with a busted up mug for the rest of their life. Give MMA another 20 years to mature and I think boxers will give it the respect it deserves. When you have guys tr read more »
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AP The blow-off fight for The Ultimate Fighter's next coaching rivalry will coincide with the Ultimate Fighting Championship's return to Quebec. Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre will fight in his hometown of Montreal against Josh Koscheck on Dec. 11, UFC President Dana White told MMA Fighting. St. Pierre and Koscheck coached opposing teams for the upcoming TUF Season 12, which starts airing in September. It will be UFC's second show in Montreal this year, after the May 8 card that saw Mauricio "Shogun" Rua defeat Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida to capture the light-heavyweight title. That event also saw Koscheck earn the title shot with a win over Paul Daley. After the bout, Koscheck taunted the Montreal crowd by promising to defeat St. Pierre and vowing that the Pittsburgh Penguins would defeat the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL playoffs. Montreal defeated Pittsburgh in seven games. St. Pierre fought once before in Montreal for a title. The Quebec crowd saw him regain the 170-pound championship in April 2008 with a win over Matt Serra at UFC 83, which was UFC's Canadian debut. The promotion returned to Montreal in April of last year for UFC 97. Officials for UFC's parent company, Zuffa, have cited the Canadian market as their top growth area outside the United States.