Inside field hockey's frustrating fight for popularity, plus an unfortunate Mets-ing

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Quandaries: Field hockey’s extremely popular problem

There has arguably never been a better time for women’s sports in this country. The WNBA is exploding in popularity. The NWSL is on the rise. Weeks ago, women won the majority of America’s medals at an especially high-profile Olympics.

These spikes in popularity have largely been driven by recognizable stars. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Marta and Debinha in the NWSL. Track stars like Sha’Carri Richardson and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Etc., etc.

So why isn’t field hockey joining the wave? As Brendan Quinn wrote in a spectacular feature today, the sport’s stardom problem is thorny and contentious, and it centers around one person: Erin Matson. 

Matson is a talented — and wildly popular — lightning rod:

• Matson, just 24, won four national titles and three player of the year awards at North Carolina. She graduated in 2022 and was immediately hired as North Carolina’s head coach, a stunning move for the country’s best program.
• Matson followed that by winning a national title in her first year as coach last season. Not bad.
• Here’s the rub: She still wants to play for the national team and is plenty able. The sport’s infrastructure barred her from doing so, denying her a tryout.

The American women’s field hockey team went 1-3-1 in Paris. The cruelty is that Matson, the face of the sport, was there for a meeting of the world’s most influential female athletes. Instead of helping the American national team try to win a medal, Matson was busy palling around with Megan Rapinoe and Serena Williams.

There is so much more complexity to digest in Brendan’s full story, which is absolutely worth a read today. The issue comes down to a choice: Why is American field hockey shunning the face that could bring the sport into the limelight?

Matson fully intends on playing for her country in the 2028 Games. Whether she’s allowed on the team is another question.

Things You Need to See: Not the double-oopsie

Monday night, the Mets crushed. Francisco Alvarez’s swaggy walk-off dinger gave the catcher — and the team — plenty of hope heading into baseball’s last stretch. Then last night happened, when the team briefly forgot how to use gloves:

Safe to say the Mets have had better days fielding the ball 🙃

🎥 @MLB pic.twitter.com/9eQ0xoqzOL

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) August 21, 2024

Both were costly errors, but the boof from Brandon Nimmo on a routine flyball unleashed a display of errors seen more at the Little League level than here. Two runs scored and the game was put away. 

The Mets are 2 1/2 games out of the playoff picture. Losing games like that won’t help.

News to Know

No. 1 player hit with PED sanction
Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1 men’s tennis player, received an anti-doping sanction yesterday after testing positive twice for a banned substance. Interestingly, an independent tribunal found that Sinner bears no fault or negligence for the positive test, but his ranking points, prize money and results from Indian Wells in March — when he tested positive for the banned substance — have been stripped. Our full report is worth a read.

Backyard Sports is back, baby
We are in a full-on millennial nostalgia era, it seems, as the Backyard Sports franchise — a staple of my childhood — is returning to video game platforms “in the coming months,” per an announcement. The franchise began in 1997 and last appeared online in 2015, which closely mirrors the 1993-2013 run by EA Sports’ NCAA Football franchise before its return this summer. I will be playing this game with my daughter.

Williams signs with Seattle
Gabby Williams is back in the WNBA after all, just a day after we mentioned the thorny legalese involved with her return: She signed a rest-of-season contract with the Seattle Storm yesterday, providing key guard depth on both ends of the floor. Williams was last seen leading France to a silver medal — and almost tying the gold-medal game at the buzzer — in this summer’s Olympics.

More news

• The Yankees are celebrating their 2009 World Series title this weekend. One name curiously absent: Brett Gardner. Brendan Kuty tried to find out why.
  
• Any NFL team need a capable backup QB? The Browns are open to trading second-year man Dorian Thompson-Robinson.
  
• A fire broke out at the Cowboys’ training camp hotel. No one was injured.
  
• The Seattle Kraken signed Matty Beniers to a seven-year deal worth nearly $50 million. It’s worth the risk.
  
• ESPN named Mike Greenberg the new host of “Sunday NFL Countdown,” The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reports.