

Caitlin Clark had a hell of a 12 months.
Picture: Ron Hoskins/NBAE/Getty Pictures
Measured by sheer variety of viewers, this may need been the most well-liked sports activities 12 months in American historical past. Extra folks watched the Tremendous Bowl than ever earlier than; the World Sequence had its highest rankings in a decade; the Olympics drew almost double the variety of viewers the Tokyo Video games did in 2021; girls’s sports activities have grown so dramatically that, in basketball, girls are getting higher numbers than the lads. However I can’t assist however marvel if all these successes represent one thing of a blip — one we’ll look again at as a zenith slightly than the beginning of an unstoppable upward trajectory. 2024 was quite a lot of issues — boy, was it — however greater than anything, it was a 12 months when the necessity for escapism was paramount, and other people wanted a spot to cover their heads within the sand, if only for a short while.
There aren’t many higher locations to do this than on the earth of sports activities, for higher or, principally, worse. Simply ask the Kamala Harris marketing campaign:
Sports activities have been enormous this 12 months partially as a result of they weren’t wrapped up with politics, for probably the most half not even tangentially. What really occurred on the sector wasn’t almost as dramatic or momentous as we’ve seen in previous years, however that doesn’t imply it didn’t function a significant distraction anyway. We might have the distraction much more within the subsequent 4 years, however I’m wondering how lengthy the present dynamic can final. All these political controversies that engulfed the sports activities world in the course of the Trump period? They’re going to return with a vengeance.
Within the first of two items wrapping up the 12 months — we’ll take a look at the ten largest tales subsequent week — listed below are a very powerful sports activities figures of 2024. Some have been topped champions, some simply wouldn’t cease trending, and a few have been on the heart of each dialog whether or not they wished to be or not.
In 2023, Biles returned to the highest of her sport and established herself as maybe the best gymnast of all time. She had just one extra hurdle to climb: an Olympics efficiency that will erase, or at the very least rewrite, the summer time of 2021, when she dropped out of the 2021 Tokyo Video games. Biles leapt — and twisted, and spun, and landed completely — over that hurdle, successful 4 extra medals, three golds and a silver, and serving because the face of a USA Olympic staff that received all-around gold after falling quick in 2021 (and that has been via a nightmarish decade). The lasting picture of Biles might not be certainly one of her many particular person victories, however the pleasure she constantly had for her teammates, previous and current — girls who’ve been via among the most harrowing circumstances possible and have come via all of it as champions. You by no means know: Biles may do it once more in 2028.
Clark started the 12 months as some of the well-liked athletes within the nation, a transformative determine for a sport that was already increasing quickly earlier than she ascended to superstardom. As tends to occur for anybody who reaches the celebrity stratosphere, she discovered herself getting dragged into controversies she wished nothing to do with. All she did was shut up, attempt to study all the pieces a rookie in a brand new league must study, and, ultimately, dominate. It was solely then that she commented on all that was swirling round her, and did so in a manner that exposed her to be an empathetic, considerate human being in addition to a fierce competitor, alienating solely those that have been by no means desirous about what made her so nice within the first place. Clark is a transcendent American athlete who has already modified a lot about our sporting tradition. And he or she is, to remind, simply getting began.
With commemorated lions Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal leaving the game and ever-divisive Novak Djokovic probably approaching retirement himself, the way forward for males’s tennis has felt a bit up within the air. For some time, it appeared the younger Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz was the one actual inheritor obvious to the Huge Three. That’s why 23-year-old Jannik Sinner, the first-ever Italian to succeed in No. 1, is such a lifesaver. Sinner had his breakthrough 12 months in 2024, hovering to the highest of the rankings with dominant performances on the Australian Open, U.S. Open, and plenty of locations in between. (Alcaraz received the 12 months’s different two majors.) He has additionally performed so in a manner that’s really refreshing at the present time: Sinner stays off social media and retains his non-public life non-public, and the one actual subject he delves into is the significance of psychological well being. There was a doping scandal to complicate issues, however Sinner has been cleared of wrongdoing, even when not everyone seems to be satisfied. Tennis wants new stars and new rivalries, and Sinner delivers on each counts.
Whether or not it’s acting at halftime of the Tremendous Bowl or attempting to promote you T-Cellphones, Snoop Dogg is uniquely gifted at being extremely interesting on tv. That’s why it made a lot sense for NBC to make him a centerpiece of its Summer time Olympics protection this summer time in what turned out to be probably the most purely pleasant Video games in a long time. It helped enormously that NBC lastly found out learn how to broadcast them — primarily by utilizing the NFL RedZone mannequin of leaping round from sport to sport, the right option to expertise one thing as disparate and random because the Olympics. However Snoop Dogg’s presence was key, too. Aside from Biles, he was the face of the proceedings, simply flitting from occasion to occasion and searching as if he was having the time of his life. The Olympics are a grand world occasion, however they’re additionally slightly foolish to informal viewers. Snoop Dogg represented this high-low combine completely. That he’s the brand new Bob Costas says one thing in regards to the lengthy arc of American life.
Harbaugh is an avatar for what school soccer has grow to be: relentlessly mercenary, image-obsessed, maniacal, missing in self-awareness; more and more weird; and undeniably, irresistibly entertaining. Harbaugh — who, it ought to be stated, was fairly humorous on The Detroiters — was suspended for half of Michigan’s soccer season in 2023 however returned in time to information his alma mater to its first nationwide championship since 1988. He then returned to the NFL (the place he as soon as coached the 49ers to the Tremendous Bowl) as coach of the L.A. Chargers. The person is a complete lunatic, however what about school soccer isn’t anymore?
He ended 2023 by signing the largest contract in baseball historical past — an achievement that wouldn’t even final a 12 months — and rounded out 2024 by successful his first World Sequence. However a lot occurred in between. What was meant to be an excellent Dodgers launch in South Korea turned scandalous when it was revealed that Ohtani’s interpreter had misplaced hundreds of thousands of {dollars} playing. This raised alarms that Ohtani himself may need gotten caught up one way or the other, principally as a result of, for all his fame, we didn’t actually know him. Ohtani modified that this 12 months: He had an MVP season on the plate, however he additionally lastly gave the impression to be having fun with himself, main the Dodgers to a title with pleasure, awe, and a really cute new canine. Ohtani had one of the best 12 months of his profession, on and off the sector, and bear in mind: He didn’t throw a single pitch. He’ll be prepared to do this once more in 2025.
On Tuesday evening, Enigma, a self-produced documentary sequence about Aaron Rodgers, will premiere on Netflix. It was filmed earlier than the 2024 season, his first actual one with the Jets after an Achilles damage price him all however a couple of performs in 2023. That’s an necessary distinction, as a result of Rodgers’s 2024 season was a complete catastrophe, ayahuasca or not. Rodgers was a relentless divisive presence off the sector — finally pushing out his coach — and even worse on it, trying previous, gradual, and exhausted. Rodgers’s self-importance has long term apart his athletic brilliance, however this 12 months, it very a lot surpassed it. Now he’s simply an previous, washed-up athlete. I can’t put it any higher than I did the week after the election: “Final week, it regarded like a narcissistic, past-his-prime, science-denying, self-aggrandizing serial liar may lastly get the general public comeuppance he so clearly deserved. Okay, so it didn’t occur in politics, to the nation’s detriment. However at the very least it is occurring — albeit on a a lot smaller, much less consequential scale — in sports activities.” It’s okay to level and snort. He deserves it.