NowLoop

If José Mourinho bringing a printout of questionable fouls from the Madrid derby to a press conference was an objectively funny maneuver from the Special One, the resulting fallout is bewildering, convoluted, and a little bit pathetic from everyone involved. It seems that Mourinho's actions did what he meant them to do: They grabbed the attention of La Liga. Mourinho, however, may not have wanted the attention specifically of league president Javier Tebas. Tebas, who grew up a Real Madrid fan but who has turned out to be a thorn in the club's side, has never been one to keep his opinions to himself, whether that's about racism in Spanish soccer or about FIFA president Gianni Infantino. On that note, bright and early on Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m. Spain time, Tebas decided to drop a response to the idea that there is some form of conspiracy against Real Madrid from La Liga's refs, in the form of a long-winded, strangely combative rant on his personal Twitter account. It's really worth translating and reading in full: Here they go again, the mouthpieces and the regime's television, building the same old narrative: the permanent conspiracy. When it's not Negreira, it's the referee; when it's not that, it's that they're not international. All clubs can be officiated by international referees and by those who aren't. None has the right to on-demand refereeing. But this article goes further: It claims that referees harm "the business that feeds them." What exactly is it asking for? Refereeing based on revenue, viewership, or the badge? What a way to understand equality in the competition. Real Madrid is crucial to La Liga. But claiming that "La Liga is worth nothing" without it reveals the disdain for the other clubs, their fans, and their history. The competition belongs to no one. Claiming that referees are directed against Real Madrid is living in another galaxy. That narrative serves as an excuse to cover up other shortcomings that are plain to see in these first matches of the season. It's more comfortable to point to a conspiracy than to explain what's happening on the pitch. And my stance doesn't depend on any position: A refereeing error doesn't prove a conspiracy, nor does repeating it for years turn it into truth. GET THE BLINDERS OFF! It's September, and they're already calling the League adulterated. No one with common sense buys that old excuse anymore.

Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. You can also read Drew over at SFGATE, and buy Drew’s books while you’re at it. Today, we're talking about flawed domes, office condiments, life on one leg, and more. Your letters: Baron:

This week on Nothing But Respect, Harry and I were joined by returning champion Eamon Whalen. Eamon just published a big profile of Nick Shirley in New York magazine, and we spent the first half of the show talking about the particulars of the story, the broader implications of letting 24-year-old prank YouTubers dictate policy decisions, and the uncomfortable position people like Shirley put supposed right-wing intellectuals like Chris Rufo into. We then transitioned into some Minnesota Timberwolves chat, with particular attention paid to the bizarre robot-driven ghost kitchens Marc Lore is investing in now that he's pumped and dumped an NBA franchise. This was a fun one! You can find Nothing But Respect in Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. Follow the show on Instagram, and contact the Broke Jumper Tip Line at (347) 380-6426. Thanks for listening!

Adam Wingard opens his new movie, Onslaught, with a brainrot history of the military industrial complex, a slipshod compilation of combat footage, political speechmaking, and behind-the-headlines conspiracizing that (semi-)convincingly situates the origins of the American century in Operation Paperclip and the importation of Nazi scientists at the end of the Second World War. It rules. Set to a pounding synth score and employing the kind of queasily associative quick-cuts that would make even a 9/11 truther blush, this sequence anticipates something hard-hitting and sharp-edged, the sort of action movie that weaponizes its gristly bad taste for subversive means. I wish I could see the movie that this credit sequence foretells. Instead, I saw Onslaught. The set-up is blessedly simple: Celeste (Adria Arjona) once served in the U.S. Army as a killer sniper; now, she manages a trailer park in the New Mexico desert. Every day, a helicopter flies overhead, triggering her PTSD as it ferries third-generation Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens) to the secret defense industry laboratory where he has spent six years transforming a trio of GWOT casualties into unstoppable super-soldiers. Tested on the battlefields and perilously refined in a lab, they are the image of confidence without thought, force without purpose. Once they’re set loose, we’re told, nothing on earth can stop them. With their glowing eyes and rippling physiques, these killers act like a cross between American Sniper and The Terminator—and the same might be said of Onslaught. Produced and distributed by A24, this is meant to be a superior sort of action flick, marrying the low register of sadistic violence with the high of well-taken (if well-worn) political commentary. Celeste’s trailer park is a home for loners like Josiah, a Vietnam vet played by Die Hard cop (and sit-com dad) Reginald VelJohnson, people screwed over by their government and abandoned by society. Kammler’s super soldiers were chosen for their legacy of overseas brutality, and then engineered to reorient their violence towards the home front. After killing their captors and escaping the base, they assault a truck stop, a sequence that Wingard stages as a combination military raid/mass shooter incident. The results are uncomfortable—some might say tasteless—but they are undeniably potent. No American has to go to the movies to know what this looks like. 

The Detroit Tigers announced Monday that their ballpark will henceforth and forever, or until the naming-rights deal runs out or some more banks merge, be known as Fifth Third Park. "When you look around, it's so much more than where the Tigers play baseball," Ryan Gustafson, CEO of Ilitch Sports and Entertainment, said at the unveiling. So much more. It's not merely a "Tiger" "stadium." It's Fifth Third Park. Fifth Third! Ol' One and Two-Thirds Field. The Fraction. Hey, you wanna catch a game down at The 1.6̅? Tigers fans surely can't wait to embrace the new name for what used to be Comerica Park, which opened in 2000 but never truly felt like home because they could pronounce it without difficulty. Comerica was purchased by Fifth Third earlier this year, and now the branding has been set to rights. "Many names were recommended to us by customers and citizens here in Detroit," said Tim Spence, chairman, CEO, and president of Fifth Third, and all of them were presumably ignored in favor of Fifth Third Park.

When I called up my grandfather Irwin Miller last fall, I asked him if he felt his age. “Uh, no, probably 94,” he said, laughing as he shaved off three years. “The body feels 97, the head doesn’t, thank goodness—I think my memory’s pretty good.” I call my grandfather Papa, and his memory was more than pretty good considering he was born before the Great Depression. Last November, I wanted to ask him about a big moment in his life: the year he graduated from his New Orleans high school and set out on his own. “Growing up in Louisiana, LSU was the only college I thought about,” he told me. His first day was unceremonious: “My folks drove me to Baton Rouge, they dropped me off and said, ‘Good luck and goodbye.’ That was the way things were in those days.”

This past weekend, Ed Sheeran performed his first concert since decrepit Patriots owner Robert Kraft stuck his hand up the singer's ass and made him respect Israel. The culturally Irish but politically English musician played with no openers and a new backing band Saturday night in Philadelphia, because all his previous supporting acts abandoned him after his craven decision to drop pro-Palestine rapper Macklemore from his U.S. tour, at the behest of Kraft and other NFL stadium owners. During Saturday's show, Sheeran read a prepared statement presented as an apology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OInyzsqLvKg Sheeran delivered everything you'd expect from a person in his position: equivocating, meaningless bullshit that was most likely written by someone else. A partial transcript:

Gable Steveson, the hottest UFC prospect in years who arrived at the promotion with a past marked by a sexual assault allegation, got knocked out by a nobody in 12 seconds on Saturday in Los Angeles. Dana White sure knows how to pick ‘em. Steveson, an NCAA legend and Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, was given a slot on the main card in just his second UFC fight. That fast-tracking now looks absolutely foolish. Mere moments into the fight, Steveson walked into a straight right hand to the chin from Sean Sharaf, previously winless as a UFC heavyweight, followed instantly by a nuclear left hook to the jaw. The precise and savage 1-2 left Steveson unconscious before he hit the mat. Steveson seemed on the verge of adopting the fencing response on the canvas before referee Frank Trigg jumped in to protect him. Steveson’s night, and his status as White's chosen one, were done.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heWhQrQb4Y

On July 13, California state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that he would lead a 12-state coalition in mounting a supposedly bold legal challenge to the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery mega-merger. The deal had cleared every previous legal hurdle, but the states had to try and stop the Ellison family from gaining control over the plurality of American media production because, in Bonta's words, that consolidation would represent a "death knell for the film and TV industry—and for our democracy." Two months later, the parties have settled the suit, with the states meekly submitting and getting nothing serious to show for it. What a waste of time. After a nine-month campaign, the Ellisons have won the right to dictate the future of American entertainment and media. It all began in December 2025, when Netflix agreed to pay WBD $72 billion in cash and stock for the latter's streaming and film-studio businesses. When WBD rejected Paramount's competing all-cash offer for everything it had, adding the TV arm to the assets in the Netflix deal, Paramount mounted a hostile takeover bid. The Ellisons' ominous pitch to WBD shareholders was: You better take our deal or our friend the President will reject your merger. It worked. When the WBD board offered Netflix a chance to match Paramount's offer, the streaming giant instantly said no, and David Ellison had his prize. All he needed to do was jump over a few regulatory hurdles, most of which have been lowered or removed for people like him under the second Trump administration. The Department of Justice approved the deal in June.

Laz Díaz has had enough of baseball. The veteran umpire will wrap up a three-decade career this week, will hang up the mask and the chest protector, and will bid good riddance to the sport. Major League Baseball offered buyouts to umpires earlier this season, and seven veterans, including Díaz and the dreaded C.B. Bucknor, raised their hands. Bucknor is already missing from the sport, having absorbed a deflected Jacob Misiorowski heater with his facemask back in May, and has not returned since. Díaz, meanwhile, has had the summer to make a farewell tour and reflect on his time in the game. His conclusion, per an interview with Bob Nightengale of USA Today: Baseball stinks now. Díaz will not miss it. "There’s just so much scrutiny and negative stuff now," Díaz said. "There are a lot of people I’m going to miss, and I made a lot of friends, but what I won’t miss is the game. Not one bit. It’s just changed so much. There’s so much more technical stuff. It’s kind of restricted us. I mean, everything is black and white now. You can’t manage the game." The not-fond farewell will largely be mutual, at least among the baseball-watching public. In any given era, casual fans might know the names and faces of just a handful of umpires, and never for any happy reason. Díaz is a known guy, and not only because he was the subject of the most theatrical of Aaron Boone's many, many meltdowns. He is not especially pugnacious or hot-headed, but his strike zone is subject to mood and influence. The adoption, in television broadcasts, of K-Zone technology has allowed the tracking and posting of umpire performance for decades now. Whether those efforts are reliable, they are influential, and for years they have said that Díaz has his own interpretive strike zone, which tends to be elastic and pitcher-friendly. The website Ump Scorecards says that Díaz is maybe not a Bucknor-level disaster back there, but that he tends to miss a lot: This season, for instance, Ump Scorecards says Díaz is worst in baseball in the cumulative Correct Calls Above Exp., which they describe as the difference "between actual correct calls and expected correct calls."