Dopers get their day

In their heydays of the 1970s, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders had a saying: “Cheating is encouraged.” At the Enhanced Games, held late May in Las Vegas—ironically the Raiders’ current home—what most sports governing bodies call “cheating” wasn’t just encouraged, it was required: In three sports—track and field, swimming, and weightlifting—50 athletes who openly use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) competed for millions of dollars in cash prizes.

Prize money exceeded what an athlete earns by medaling at the Olympics. For instance, World Athletics, track and field’s international governing body, awarded sprinters Noah Lyles and Julien Alfred $50,000 each for winning gold in the men’s and women’s 100 meters in Paris in 2024. Had they not competed clean, they’d have been stripped of their medals and gone home with nothing.

By contrast, the Enhanced Games offered $250,000 to its individual event winners. Fourth-place finishers would take home the same amount as an American who won Olympic gold. Athletes could even earn additional millions as a bonus for breaking a world record, though the original record would still stand.

Such outrageous sums might have been necessary to attract participants. An athlete who uses such PEDs as testosterone, anabolic steroids, and human growth hormone could earn multiyear or even lifetime bans.

Benjamin Cohen, the director general of the International Testing Agency, which spearheads drug testing for the Olympics along with multiple individual sports, objected in the strongest possible terms. So did World Aquatics, swimming’s international governing body.

“History has shown us time and time again the grave dangers of doping to human health,” World Aquatics told LADbible.com. “This is a sideshow to those who compete honestly, fairly, and respect the true spirit of sport.”

Taking on youth sports

Any parent whose child competes on a youth sports travel team knows how expensive participation can be, with team fees, uniforms, equipment, live­stream app fees, and hotel, gas, and food for long road trips.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) want to change that and have co-sponsored a bill targeting private equity firms that have turned youth sports into a $40-billion-per-year industry.

The Let Kids Play Act would require private equity firms to remove themselves from the youth sports business after two years, give partial refunds to families, and donate to community-based sports programs.

Murphy and Deluzio said at a press conference that families often pay more than $5,000 per child for a single youth sports season, pricing many families out of participating entirely.

The bill arrives on the heels of investigations in Michigan and Texas of anticompetitive practices in youth hockey. And in Texas, the Dallas Stars—the state’s sole NHL franchise—own a monopoly on youth hockey in the state. —R.H.