In his 2005 hit "Gold Digger," Kanye West raps the lines," You see him on TV any given Sunday, Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai."

10 years later, the NFL and Hyundai could be near a deal that would make those lyrics come true, Bloomberg reports.

Two people close to the matter told Bloomberg's Scott Shoshnick and Jamie Butters that Hyundai Motor Company is close to signing a sponsorship agreement with the NFL.

With the deal, Hyundai would become the league's automotive sponsor and supplant General Motors, which ended its association with the NFL this past season.

This is would also mean that instead of winning the Super Bowl and driving off in a Corvette or an Escalade, the game's MVP could take home a Hyundai Sonata or a Genesis.

Thus making Kanye West truly prophetic in his songwriting. 

In addition to the NFL, Hyundai Motors' Kia subsidiary is already an official sponsor of the NBA — with its cars featured prominently in ads starring the league's stars such as LeBron James and Blake Griffin.

A spokesperson for Hyundai had no comment on the matter. 

SEE ALSO: The Koreans have built an all-American luxury sedan fit for LeBron James

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In one of the more surprising NBA stories of the summer, tensions between DeMarcus Cousins and the Sacramento Kings appear to be escalating.

On Monday there was a report that the Los Angeles Lakers wanted to trade for Cousins. The NBA world generally scoffed at the rumor (who wouldn't want to trade for a 24-year-old All-Star center?), and it came after Kings vice president Vlade Divac told the Sacramento Bee, "That is not happening," when asked about a potential trade on Sunday.

But late Monday night Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski dropped a bombshell report that suggests the Kings are closer to trading Cousins than we realize. According to Wojnarowski, it is "increasingly unlikely this coach-star partnership can peacefully co-exist next season."

Coach George Karl wants to trade Cousins, Wojnarowski reports, and has been trying to build a coalition of front office people to convince owner Vivek Ranadive to sign off on it. To make matters worse, Cousins has gotten wind of Karl's plan to trade him through his teammates.

Jason Jones of the Bee reports that Karl and Cousins haven't talked to teach other since April.

After the Woj report got published, Cousins posted an emoji-based tweet depicting a snake in the grass — an apparent reference to the Karl scheming described in the Yahoo report:

As Tom Ziller of SB Nation points out, star players seemingly calling Karl a snake on Twitter after having a falling out with him is a weirdly persistent trope in the NBA. Carmelo Anthony and Andre Iguodala, both of whom left Karl-coached Nuggets teams under less-than-cordial circumstances, did it before Cousins:

While it's surprising that things are blowing up like this in public, there were signs that Cousins was unhappy during the season. After starting 5-1, the Kings lost eight of their next 10 games while Cousins battled viral meningitis. Ranadive then fired coach Mike Malone out of nowhere. Cousins found out about the firing on Twitter and didn't seem happy about it.

After hiring Karl the Kings continued to struggle. In March, Cousins told Michael Lee of the Washington Post about the season, "It’s been a circus, man. It’s been a complete circus."

All things considered, it'd still be a shock if they traded Cousins. Not only is he an All-Star who hasn't hit age 25 yet, he's on one of the best contracts in the league. He's only one year into a four-year, $62 million contract extension. In 2016-17 and 2017-18, when the salary cap will explode because of the league's new TV deal, Cousins will only be making around $16 million per year — well below what he'd make if he got a max contract on the open market as a free agent.

If it's a choice between the best young center in the NBA and a journeyman coach with a seeming inability to coach star players, it's hard to imagine them picking Karl.

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Sean "Diddy" Combs was arrested at the athletic facilities of UCLA on Monday and charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of making terrorist threats, and one count of battery after an alleged assault of a coach for the school's football team, the school said in a statement.

Combs' son Justin is a defensive back on the UCLA football team.

The incident occurred when Diddy allegedly confronted UCLA strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi, according to ESPN.

During the summer, players are limited to strength and conditioning sessions rather than full practice, and it is the strength and conditioning coach who is in charge.

Alleged details of the incident, cited from "sources who were in the locker room," have emerged in a report from Bruin Report Online. According to the report, Diddy allegedly confronted Alosi after his son was kicked out of a workout session.

The details:

At approximately noon, Combs and Diddy came to UCLA's athletic facility, the Acosta Center, while Alosi was in his office, which is adjacent to the weight room. Combs entered Alosi's office while Alosi was on the phone, and Alosi asked Combs to wait a moment while he finished the call. Many sources who were in the locker room witnessed an angered Diddy enter Alosi's office, rattling off expletives at the coach. Alosi then instructed interns who were immediately outside his office to alert campus security. A still incensed Diddy then came around Alosi's desk, saying that he would get campus security on Alosi's desk phone. Alosi, then, according to witnesses, put up his hand in a non-threatening way, and instructed Combs to get his father out of the office. Diddy then walked into Alosi's hand, and told Alosi not to put his hands on him.

In the next moment, according to many on the scene, Diddy attacked Alosi, until interns and other personnel pulled off Diddy. The celebrity broke free again at one point and struck Alosi. The personnel were then successful in getting Diddy out of the office and into the weight room, where Diddy picked up a kettlebell, which is a type of barbell, and then swung it at one of the interns.

The school said in a statement that there were no major injuries.

According to the Bruin Report Online, Diddy's sources declined to comment but "paint a different picture of the events off the record." UCLA campus police also told Bruin Report that there was a video of the incident, which has yet to be released.

UCLA coach Jim Mora release the following statement:

I'm thankful that our staff showed the level of professionalism that they did in handling this situation. This is an unfortunate incident for all parties involved. While UCPD continues to review this matter, we will let the legal process run its course and refrain from further comment at this time.

Diddy was eventually released on a $50,000 bond, according to ESPN.

Alosi previously made headlines as a coach for the New York Jets when he was suspended after being accused of intentionally trying to trip a Miami Dolphins player during a game in 2010.

We've reached out to Combs Enterprises for comment.

[UPDATE] A representative for Diddy issued a statement to the Associated Press (via USA Today).

"The various accounts of the event and charges that are being reported are wholly inaccurate," Nathalie Moar, a rep for Combs Enterprises, said. "What we can say now is that any actions taken by Mr. Combs were solely defensive in nature to protect himself and his son."

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This year's Tour de France, as with most Tours, will see the rolling out of new bikes, wheels, tires, helmets, sunglasses, shoes, apparel, and more. Because it's the world's largest annual sporting event, it's an ideal time for manufactures to show off all their new stuff.

One bike that seems to be getting more attention than all the others is the just-revealed Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS. The company recently invited Business Insider to check it out in person, but because it was under embargo until now we didn't get to take it for a spin. Yet during our brief meet-up with a Specialized rep we got to snap a few pics and learn a bit about it. Specialized claims it is "the fastest bike in the world," which is a bold statement considering how many fast bikes are out there.

The carbon Venge is actually one of five new products Specialized is unveiling this week as a "complete aerodynamic ecosystem." Along with the Venge, there's a new skinsuit, helmet, shoes, and wheel-and-tire system. All together, the project is dubbed "5 Minutes," which is how much time you'll save over 40 kilometers, or about 25 miles, if you're riding this bike and wearing the gear, the company says. That is, compared to its previous similar bike and gear.

There will be limited availability beginning in August, the company said. The price for the Venge: $12,500. See more photos below, along with further details.

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Meet the road bike that's getting lots of attention right now, just ahead of July's Tour de France: the new Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS.

Although we didn't get to ride the bike — not yet anyway — it does look impressive. The first thing we noticed was the headset, stem, and handlebar; it looks like a super-stiff setup. Then the new proprietary brakes; they're integrated, behind the fork and seat tube. Third, there are no cables showing — they're all internally routed. The company says this bike, ridden with a Roval CLX64 wheelset, will save 120 seconds over 40km. Overall, as a first impression, it might be the best-looking aero road bike we've ever seen. Hopefully we'll get to test-ride one soon.

Here's what Specialized's Chris Riekert said in a statement sent to Business Insider:

The all-new S-Works Venge ViAS Di2 was developed with one objective in mind—to be the fastest bike in the world. The design for this bike started with building our own Win Tunnel, and with more than 1000 hours of testing, prototyping, and refining, we can say with confidence that we nailed our objective. The high level of performance starts with a Rider-First Engineered frame and fork that feature a new level of aerodynamics. This is coupled with the added benefit of the Roval CLX 64 wheelset—the fastest wheels we've ever made. Along with the zero-drag brakes and Aerofly ViAS cockpit, the S-Works Venge ViAS Di2 is, quite simply, the fastest bike in the world.

Up front things look stiff and fast with the new stem and headset and the new proprietary "zero-drag brake" tucked in behind the fork and out of the wind.

And here's what Specialized says about the new wheelset:

Roval CLX 64 wheelset provides the ultimate in speed and performance. Optimized for both head- and crosswinds, the CLX 64 wheelset is tubeless-ready and features a 21mm internal rim width for enhanced traction, minimal rolling resistance, and improved aerodynamics.

A view of the cockpit and the Aerofly ViAS handlebar from the rider's point of view.

In 2014 former Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals running back Rashard Mendenhall retired at age 26, walking away from millions in potential earnings. While Mendenhall may no longer be playing, he's still drawing on his NFL experience as a part of his new job.

Since retiring Mendenhall, who made more than $13.8 million during his six-year career, joined the Writers Guild of America and worked as a writer on the first season of HBO's "Ballers," which aired its series premiere last Sunday.

"Ballers" is about an ex-NFL player who transitions to life as an agent. It stars Dwayne The Rock Johnson, and has been widely compared to "Entourage."

While a former NFL player seamlessly transitioning from football to screenwriting may come as a surprise, Mendenhall told USA Today's Lindsay H. Jones he knew this is what he always wanted to do once his career ended:

"I've always known I wanted to write. It was always a passion of mine — it was peace, a getaway. It was also, even while I was playing, it was kind of an artist mentality. You have a day job, but the art that you're working on is what you really want to do. ...I knew that when I was done playing, that's what I was going to do. It was kind of always a thing behind [football], I just didn't know what to what extent in television or see how it was going to shape up."

Many athletes have a hard time transitioning to their new lives once their retire, but Mendenhall wrote in a blog post for The Huffington Post that hasn't been the case for him:

"I wasn't supposed to walk away from the NFL, but I did. I wasn't supposed to be writing television, but I am. I'm supposed to be lost after football. I'm not. I've reinvented myself. This is my first transformation. I'm supposed to be broke right now, or maybe the statistics say five years from now. Either way, I'm not even close. I'm not supposed to be anything but a football player. But really, I'm just a guy who used to play football. There's a reason I'm doing this."

Mendenhall is a part of a trend of under-30 players retiring in their primes. Jake Locker, Chris Borland, Anthony Smith, Patrick Willis, Anthony Davis, and Jason Worilds all retired this offseason. He told Jones he hopes to keep working on "Ballers" in the second season.

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In the last few years there has been a movement away from asking "brainteaser" questions in job interviews.

Six or seven years ago companies like Google were famous for stumping candidates with questions like, "Why are manhole covers round?" and "How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?"

Google has since banned the practice. In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, Google senior vice president for people operations Laslzo Bock called them "a waste of time."

"How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart," he said.

The research backs him up.

Apparently, one unnamed NBA team did not get the memo that brainteasers are no longer regarded as a useful interview tactic. Ex-Duke guard Justise Winslow told Nina Mandell of USA Today's ForTheWin that during his pre-Draft interviews, a team asked him the golf ball question.

From FTW:

“[One team asked] how many golf balls could fit in this [small conference] room,” he said. “But mostly the questions are a lot more sports related or about me and my family or something like that. They don’t really try to throw you off too much with the questions. I just did get the one question about the golf ball.”

His answer? “I just said ‘a million.'”

Since questions of this nature don't mean anything, "a million" is a perfectly fine answer. But if you're curious about the actual answer, check out the formula that reader Matt Beuchamp gave BI in 2009.

If we assume a small conference room is 6 feet by 6 feet with 8-foot ceilings, the volume of the room is 288 cubic feet. The volume of one golf ball is 2.5 cubic inches. There are 1,728 cubic inches in a cubic foot, so the volume of the room is 497,664 cubic inches. When you divide the volume of the room (497,664) by the volume of a golf ball (2.5), you get ~199,000 golf balls.

For Winslow's "a million" guess to be right, he would have needed to be in a 13-by-13 conference room with 8-foot ceilings. That's possible, but I don't know if it'd call that a small conference room. More of a medium one.

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The Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals have been two of the biggest surprises in Major League Baseball this season and they are both doing it with an unconventional approach to starting pitchers that could soon become the norm.

Despite making it to Game 7 of the World Series a year ago, most expected the Royals to regress in the tough AL Central division, with just three of 88 ESPN.com experts predicting the Royals would win the division this year. Likewise, only one of the 88 experts predicted the Rays to win the East and that was before sending 17 different players to the disabled list at various points this season.

The key to the success of both teams has been an unusually high usage of relief pitchers, or maybe more accurately, a minimized usage of starting pitchers. However, unlike the trend in recent decades of using starting pitchers less in an attempt to avoid injuries, the Rays and Royals are not limiting the number of pitches being thrown, but rather, they are limiting the number of batters the starting pitchers are facing to in order to increase their effectiveness.

This strategy of limiting the number of batters a starting pitcher faces is based on the simple concept that hitters get better the more times they face a pitcher in a game. While an opposing hitter's OPS increases slightly from the first at bat to the second at bat, it shoots way up in the third at bat.

By recognizing this trend, the starting pitchers for the Rays and Royals lead the American League in the fewest batters faced per start, something never seen by successful teams.

Of course, fewer batters faced means fewer pitches thrown. The starters for the Royals and the Rays both average fewer than 90 pitches per game. That's a number that would seem absurd to those baseball traditionalists who lament the loss of an era when starting pitchers regularly threw 110+ pitches and 130-140 was not unheard of.

Again, these are not starting pitchers who are being taken out of games early because they are getting shelled. Rather, they are pitching well and are still being taken out early. These are two of the best pitching staffs in the AL on two teams leading their divisions.

So far in 2015, there have been 209 games in which a starting pitcher has completed fewer than 6.0 innings despite giving up two or fewer runs. Of those, 37 (18%) have been by Rays (25) or Royals (12) starters.

While not addressing the strategy directly, Rays manager Kevin Cash touched on the issue in May after taking starting pitcher Nathan Karns out of a game after five innings against the Orioles despite not allowing a run and giving up just two hits.

"We factor in a lot of things and turning over this [Orioles] lineup is extremely difficult," Cash told the media, referring to the idea of the Orioles hitters getting a third look at Karns.

Of course, the fewer batters a starting pitcher faces the more batters a team's relief pitchers must face. So in order for this strategy to be effective, a team needs a strong bullpen with plenty of arms that are capable of working more than one inning.

While this sounds simple, many of today's relief pitchers are not used to warming up, coming into a game, sitting in the dugout, and then going back out for a second inning. It is a lost art, but one that the Rays and Royals excel at. Despite such a heavy workload for the bullpens, both the Rays and Royals each only have one pitcher among the top 30 in the American League for innings pitched by a reliever (No. 11 Wade Davis, No. 20 Kevin Jepsen), suggesting the teams are able to spread the work around and don't rely on a single "long reliever" to throw multiple innings.

Almost nobody picked the Rays and Royals to make the playoffs this season and both are in position to do so. If this keeps up, look for more teams to start emulating this model which is redefining how starting pitchers are used.

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The US women's national team will have to rely on depth in its Women's World Cup quarterfinal match against China on Friday.

The US won their first knockout game against Colombia 2-0, but they suffered two key losses in the process. Starting midfielders Megan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday both received their second yellow cards of their tournament. Under FIFA rules, players that accumulate two yellow cards before the semifinals are suspended for a game.

Before 2010, yellow cards were wiped clean at the end of the group stage, and a player could only get suspended if they got two yellows within the knockout rounds. For the 2010 World Cup, FIFA changed the rule in order to keep players from missing a World Cup Final due to yellow card accumulation. Now at the 2015 Women's World Cup yellow cards from the group stage carry over to the knockout stage, and getting two yellow cards over the first five games of the tournament leads to an automatic one game suspension.

The same rule was in place at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and a lot of people hate it.

Losing Rapinoe and Holiday will hurt. They're first and second on the team in chances created, according to ESPN. Rapinoe has two goals and one assist, while Holiday has played every minute of the tournament so far.

After the game, both Rapinoe and Holiday told the media they didn't think their fouls were worthy of a yellow card.

"I felt [the yellow card] was a little undeserving, I think [Holiday] would feel the same way — hers even more than mine — but that's the way it is," Rapinoe told FOX Sports.

Holiday told ESPN's Graham Hays she agrees with Rapinoe's assessment:

"It was unfortunate that it happened, and I think it was a weak yellow card, in my opinion. But I think we have a great team, [and] we have a lot of people that can step up."

The player who was most critical of French referee Stephanie Frappart's officiating was Abby Wambach. She questioned whether the fact both Rapinoe and Holiday entered the match with a yellow card could have influenced Frappart's decision to give them each a second.

"I don't know," Wambach told Hays. "That's definitely a great question. I don't know if [the fouls] were yellows. It seemed like she was purposefully giving those yellows to maybe players that she knew were sitting on yellows. I don't know if that was just a psychological thing, who knows. Who knows."

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Jordan Spieth has a deal with Under Armour that includes "Tiger-like numbers" and "an eight-figure guarantee annually." It turns out, Spieth's earnings on the course go far beyond what Tiger was making at a similar point in his career.

So far this season, Spieth has already won nearly $8 million on the PGA Tour. If we compare that to the seasons during which Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods won their first majors we can see just how much more money is up for grabs these days.

Nicklaus earned an inflation-adjusted $490,000 in 26 events (3 wins) on the PGA Tour in 1962. Woods took in slightly more than $3 million in 2015 dollars during the 1997 season. He played in 21 events that season with four wins. Meanwhile, Spieth has taken in nearly $8 million in just 17 events including three wins.

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With the NBA Draft only days away, ex-Syracuse power forward Chris McCullough remains an enigma.

Midway through high school, McCullough was ranked as high as the seventh-best prospect nationally by ESPN. But after playing for three different high schools, his stock dropped to the mid-to-high twenties by 2014. McCullough then bounced back in the beginning of his freshman season at Syracuse, and was widely viewed by experts as an NBA lottery pick.

Things then took another turn. After a string of poor performances, he tore his ACL — putting his NBA future in doubt. In the immediate aftermath of McCullough declaring for the NBA Draft, many scouts saw him as a second-rounder and questioned his decision.

"The decision hasn't been thought through,'' one scout told Syracuse.com's Mike Waters. "He tore his ACL. He should be staying in school, getting healthy and coming back next year and having a big year.''

Yet, over the past few weeks his stock has risen, once again, and McCullough is now predicted to be drafted in the late first round, according to ESPN, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, and SB Nation. The one-time top-10 high school recruit is now being called "a classic boom or bust NBA Draft prospect" — someone with "lottery talent" who is still raw and comes with plenty of weaknesses. 

"Any time I leave him a little bit of space this dude was going to shoot it and he’s going to make it, he’s not going to miss," his teammate Doyin Akintobi-Adeyeye told Business Insider. “If he’s going for the shot he’s not missing it. He’s not missing. Even if I put a hand in his face, he’s not missing. It was usually kind of like that. Not matter what I did, he’s making it."

McCullough showed exceptional promise at the beginning of the season, where in his first eight games he averaged 14.4 points, shot 56% from the field, grabbed nine rebounds, and nearly two blocks. Most importantly, he showed he's a big men who can score from the perimeter.

When asked, he's able to shoot the deep-ball:

He also has a solid mid-range game:

Up close, he has the athleticism to finish around the rim with dunks like this:

However, as with any boom-or-bust prospect, McCullough certainly has his share of weaknesses. In addition to a torn ACL, scouts are also concerned about his thin frame (he's only 199 pounds) leading many to question whether he can succeed defensively in the NBA. Draft Express' Jonathan Givony describes McCullough's defensive limitations as such:

"McCullough still has a long ways to go before he can be considered an adequate defender at the NBA level. ...His rail-thin 199 pound frame hasn't developed much over the past few years, as he's added just four pounds of weight since the first measurement we have on him three years ago, which is somewhat concerning. His lower body in particular needs a lot of work, as he gets pushed around frequently on the interior, giving up deep position, and not looking overly physical or tough trying to deny stronger players from asserting their will on him inside the paint."

Just a slight bump here allows the California offensive player to get an easy bucket on McCullough (via DraftExpress):

Scouts also question his intensity, believing he can sometimes take plays off. Here his lackadaisical transition defense results in him giving up an easy alley-up dunk:

ESPN's basketball analyst Jay Bilas described McCullough as someone who if you're drafting you're "betting on his future":

"I tend to think that coming out is kind of a mixed bag. You'll have some people that think, 'We don't know' but you have other people that think if the knee is sound, he could be worth it. ...Chris McCullough hasn't bloomed yet. We don't know when he'll bloom or how brightly he'll bloom. It's a roll of the dice."

While experts constantly refer to McCullough as a boom or bust prospect, Akintobi-Adeyeye remains fairly confident in his belief that McCullough will thrive in the NBA.

"Me personally, I'm going to say he's a 'boom' because I know the type of work ethic he has," he told BI. "And I know he’s not going to give up. This is his dream. He has the type of drive where he’s going to get better, no ifs ands or buts."

In his latest mock draft, ESPN's Chad Ford has McCullough going to the Brooklyn Nets at 29.

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Whether it's 10 miles on a bike or a round of heavy lifting, you absolutely have to take care of yourself after a workout. But what's the best post-workout routine? We talked to Gatorade's top sports scientist to get some answers.

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The catch of the year in Major League Baseball may have been made by a young Tampa Bay Rays fan on Tuesday night.

The play came in the eighth inning when Asdrubal Cabrera hit a home run to give the Rays a 4-2 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Sitting with two other young fans, flanked by adults on both sides, a little girl is oblivious to what is going on as Cabrera's home-run ball heads straight for her. Then, out of nowhere, the boy two seats to her left reaches over with his glove and grabs the baseball just before it hits her (via Rogers SportsNet).

That fan is a hero.

He was showered with applause and high-fives from the other fans in the section.

Here is video of the catch via Sun Sports Rays.

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Oscar De La Hoya hasn't fought since 2008, when he was knocked out by Manny Pacquiao in the eighth round. Seven years later, De La Hoya told ESPN's Dan Rafel he's now "very serious" about making a comeback at age 42.

"It's got to be worth my while but this is very serious," he said. "I have to make sure I am fighting the very best. I don't have to come back for financial reasons or the lights or the glamour. The only reason I would come back is because I miss the competition of fighting the very best."

When pressed on who specifically he wanted to face, De La Hoya said he would fight either Gennady Golovkin or Floyd Mayweather Jr. De La Hoya lost to Mayweather by split decision back in 2007, which at the time was the most lucrative boxing match in history at more than $120 million in pay per view revenue.

"I want to fight one of them because they are the best and I always fought the best," De La Hoya told ESPN. "That's what boxing is all about — fighting the best... I think my two front-runners are Floyd and triple G"

In an Instagram video published by Black Sports Online's Kel Dansby last Thursday, Mayweather says he's ready to "rock and roll" with De La Hoya if the 42-year-old is up for the challenge:

"I seen that little thing Oscar's talked about, he's coming back. I mean you know, I mean if he wants to we can rock and roll in September. ... He said he wanted a rematch, so if Oscar wants it he can get it."

 Since his retirement, De La Hoya told Rafael he's remained in top shape and is still able to run for eight miles, work the punching bag for 12 rounds, jump rope, and do the speed bag.

While a rematch between the two historic fighters is plausible in theory, it's still no where near a forgone conclusion. De La Hoya, himself, told ESPN he would need a few months of training before getting back into the ring — meaning his comeback won't happen until 2016 at the earliest:

"I do need a few months of training. I want to do this right. And whoever is there early next year, first quarter, I'm going to challenge. So we'll have to wait and see who's out there – whether it's Floyd, whether it's triple G. I'm thinking about Canelo [Alvarez] because he's a very dangerous strong puncher. I'm not counting him out, but my two front-runners would be Floyd and triple G."

It appears that it's less of a question of "Will De La Hoya come out of a retirement?" and more of a question of "Will Mayweather wait for him, or fight again after his September bout, if De La Hoya does in fact come back?" 

Mayweather has said multiple times that his last fight will be in September. He has also said that he wants his final fight to be a non-title match.

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Blaze Pizza is on fire.

The Chipotle-style pizza chain, backed by celebrities including LeBron James and Maria Shriver, hopes to be as big as Starbucks one day, and it's well on its way there.

Blaze Pizza opened 50 restaurants across the US in 2014, and it is opening a new location every five days.

Cofounder Rick Wetzel told QSR Magazine he expected the Southern California-based chain to deliver a "big blow" to major delivery chains such as Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut in the same way Netflix killed Blockbuster.

We recently visited Blaze Pizza's Fremont, California, restaurant to see whether the pizza really was fit for a king. King James, that is.

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During a recent weekday dinner hour, I stopped by Blaze Pizza's sunny Fremont, California, location.

The chain's modern architecture was influenced by fast-casual competitor Chipotle, Blaze Pizza president and COO Jim Mizes told Business Insider. The restaurants have a sleek, urban feel with lots of stainless steel and reclaimed wood.

Executive chef and cofounder Bradford Kent greeted us at the door. Blaze Pizza's founders enlisted the help of the so-called "Pizza Whisperer" at the start.

After consistently being listed as the favorite to win the Women's World Cup, the United States women's national team has been replaced by Germany as the favorite heading into the quarterfinals, according to the latest model by Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.

The US, who were a slight favorite prior to the tournament, opened up a 33%-25% lead over Germany entering the knockout stage. But with the US team looking shaky at times and losing Lauren Holiday and Megan Rapinoe for their quarterfinal matchup against China due to an accumulation of yellow cards, Germany is now the slight favorite.

Germany's lead would likely be much greater if the two teams had equal paths to the final. But while the US gets to face 16th-ranked China, Germany must face 3rd-ranked France in their quarterfinal matchup thanks to FIFA's efforts to maximize attendance and television ratings.

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Take: when the Philadelphia 76ers decide they want to start winning, it'll be a much quicker process than people think.

They have more cap room than anyone and a few players who would be useful role players if they were, say, seventh-men rather than top scoring options. As shamelessly as the Sixers have tanked since GM Sam Hinkie took over in 2013, they still ranked 13th in the NBA in defensive efficiency last year, which was better than six playoff teams, including the Cavaliers.

If Hinkie woke up tomorrow and said, let's try to be good, he has enough cap space and trade assets to put together a borderline playoff team in the East in short order. Look no further than the 2012-13 Houston Rockets to see how a team with nothing can turn into a team with something really, really quickly. 

The 2015 NBA Draft is going to be a good barometer of how far along the Sixers see themselves in this radical rebuilding process. Are they still in pure asset-collection mode? Or are they trying to put a good team on the court by 2017, even if it means drafting a player based on need rather than value?

What they do with the No. 3 pick could answer a lot of these sorts of questions. In all likelihood Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor will be off the board. The consensus top two players left would be Ohio State point guard D'Angelo Russell and Latvian forward Kristaps Porzingis. Russell is the clear fit. The Sixers don't have a point guard after flipping Michael Carter-Williams for a potential lottery pick in a trade that seemingly extended the tanking window. They already have two big men who were top-10 picks in Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid. Adding Russell would give the roster some balance and create the impression that Hinkie's grand plan is starting to produce a coherent on-court product. It would, in theory, draw the team closer to the point at which Hinkie tries to start winning.

Drafting Porzingis would create a very different impression. The Latvian 19-year-old is getting an almost absurd amount of hype right now. Some think he'll end up being the best player from this draft. But everyone agrees that he's raw and will need a few years to develop.

The Sixers have Noel, Embiid, and Dario Saric (who won't come to the NBA until 2016-17). Twenty-nine of 30 NBA GMs in this situation would say they're all set on raw big men who need a few years to develop. But Hinkie has consistently doubled-down on his philosophy over the last two years. In every situation in which he was confronted with a choice between immediate on-court impact and long-term value — drafting Embiid and Saric, trading Carter-Williams and KJ McDaniels — he has made value decision. If he thinks Porzingis is the best player available at No. 3, it's hard to see him picking anyone else. The pick would deepen the team's commitment to tanking and extend the light at the end of the tunnel even further into the distance than it already is, but it'd be completely consistent with what they've done so far.

The Sixers also have five (!) second-round picks on Thursday, two of which are in the top-40. What they do with those picks will also be an indication of how far along they see themselves. Do they package some of these picks together and move into the late-first round to get a player who can contribute immediately? Do they draft a multiple foreign players and stash them in Europe until 2018? Do they trade them for future picks?

Hinkie has said he's not interested in being a 6-seed that loses in the first round of the playoffs every year. He wants to build a championship-level team, and he's going be patient until he's confident that one is within his grasp. After Thursday night, we'll have a much clearer idea of just how many short-term sacrifices he's willing to make for his ultimate goal, and just how long this phase of his plan will last.

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The United States women's national team is winning ugly at the 2015 Women's World Cup.

Despite advancing to the quarterfinals, the US and coach Jill Ellis are facing significant criticism from fans, commentators, and even former players. One of the most pointed criticisms came from US legend Michelle Akers.

In an interview with SiriusXM after the US's 2-0 win over Colombia in the Round of 16, Akers called out Ellis for saying she was content with how the US is playing.

"When I say, 'Hey man, I'll take an ugly World Cup win," I'm dealing with the now. And the now is, we don't have all our pieces together, we aren't performing at our best, some of our coaching decisions are unexplainable," she said. "If [Ellis] is pleased with the way we played tonight then what the hell is she doing coaching our US team, you know what I'm saying?"

Akers is referring to an interview after the Colombia game where Ellis said, "I’m pleased with where we are."

The US has failed to generate a high volume of chances outside of set pieces in this World Cup, often opting to boot long balls to Abby Wambach or stand and watch Megan Rapinoe try to make something out of nothing on the wing rather than playing through the midfield. Against Colombia, a 28th-ranked team that played half the game with 10 players, the US generated few legitimate goal-scoring opportunities:

Ellis has tried to get all of her best attack-minded players on the field at once. She's played with two forwards in addition to Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, and, at times, Christen Press as well. As a result, there's a lack of balance and a void in the midfield.

"Teams playing with numbers advantages in the middle of the park – Australia, Colombia and, next up, China – have had a distinct advantage against the US at this World Cup," wrote Equalizer's Jeff Kassouf.

The US will be without Megan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday in the quarterfinal match against China, which will make it that much tougher to create chances:

The US has only allowed one goal in four games, but with the No. 1-ranked Germany looming in the semifinals, time is running out for the US to find some balance.

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In an interview with Fox Sports, US women's national team captain Abby Wambach apologized for suggesting referee Stephanie Frappart "purposely" gave two US players yellow cards in the Colombia game knowing they would result in one-games suspensions.

In the US's 2-0 win over Colombia in the Round of 16, both Megan Rapinoe and Lauren Holiday picked up their second yellow cards of the tournament. They'll now be suspended for the quarterfinals. After the game, Wambach wondered if the ref went out of her way to get Rapinoe and Holiday suspended.

Wambach has since backtracked. Her statement on Tuesday: 

"I’m not in the referee’s head, and that’s something I definitely take ownership of and apologize for because I don’t know what the referee is thinking. She is doing the very best job she can, so are the players.

"We’re all trying to do our very best, and that’s what I feel bad about. Because I think that’s what was taken a little bit wrong in what I said, because I don’t know what she was thinking, and nobody can. She’s doing the best she can. And for me, I have the utmost respect for all the referees who are refereeing these games, and for all the players because this is such a big event. No way did I intend to offend her, and my biggest apologies if it was offensive in any way.”

Under FIFA rules, if a player accumulates two yellow cards within the first five matches of the World Cup she receives a one-game suspension. Wambach originally suggested to ESPN's Graham Hays that the yellows were weak:

"I don't know if [the fouls] were yellows. It seemed like she was purposefully giving those yellows to maybe players that she knew were sitting on yellows. I don't know if that was just a psychological thing, who knows. Who knows."

Wambach's apology may not be enough to avoid discipline from FIFA. Ingrid Jonsson of FIFA's referees committee originally told USA Today's Martin Rogers that Wambach's comments could be "a question for the disciplinary committee." Some, such as the Toronto Sun's Kurtins Larson, are calling for Wambach to be suspended like Canada's Christine Sinclair was during the 2012 Olympic Games. Sinclair missed four games due to "unsporting behavior" for questioning a referee's integrity.

Due to time constraints – the US plays China Friday in the quarterfinals – Rogers believes it's unlikely Wambach will receive any discipline until after the World Cup.

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Following the 2012 season, the Marlins angered many in the baseball world when they traded away two of their key veterans, Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle, along with three other players to the Toronto Blue Jays in what was widely viewed as just the latest "salary dump trade" for the Miami franchise.

However, less than three years later, the deal is starting to look like a genius move for the Marlins.

The latest sign is the Major League debut of Justin Nicolino on Tuesday, when he pitched seven shutout innings in the Marlins win over the Cincinnati Reds.

At the time of the deal in November 2012, the Marlins were heavily criticized from people both inside and outside of baseball. The trade came only one year after moving into a new stadium that could end up costing local taxpayers $2.4 billion and here were the Marlins gutting their payroll, again. In addition, the trade was viewed by many as an unfair shift of power in MLB. Many felt the Blue Jays were handed several good players for almost nothing and the rest of the teams in the Marlins' division suddenly had a team with a $40-50 million payroll that they could pick on 18-19 times each season for the next few years.

Other owners in MLB were so angry, they refused to eat with Marlins owner Jeff Loria during the owners' meetings that winter.

Thirty months later, things are starting to look much different.

Three of the players acquired by the Blue Jays are no longer with the team and by the time Reyes and Buehrle are done in Toronto, the Jays will have committed $160 million for the five players combined.

Meanwhile, Nicolino was one of seven players acquired by the Marlins trade. Of those seven players, four have contributed to the 2015 Marlins and the other three have been traded for key contributors to the 2015 team. The total guaranteed financial commitment by the Marlins to these players is just $28 million.

Here is the trade:

The exact value of the trade gets a little more complicated. In addition to Anthony DeSclafani, the Marlins also traded a single-A catcher to the Reds for Latos. Also, Jake Marisnick and Jarred Cosart were just two of seven players involved in the trade with the Astros.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays used John Buck as part of the package to land pitcher R.A. Dickey from the Mets. However, Buck was not considered a key part of that trade and was later flipped to the Pirates in another deal.

The Blue Jays did receive solid production from the players acquired in the trade in the first two years following the deal, but that is starting to wane, and they have yet to make the playoffs. Meanwhile the Marlins are starting to reap the benefits.

On top of that, the Blue Jays committed a lot of money to making the trade.

The Marlins will almost certainly commit money to some or all of the players still with the club as contracts are renewed. But the key is the players are young and cheap and the Marlins have no guaranteed money tied into any of the players and can walk away at any time if needed. The Blue Jays still owe Reyes $48 million for the next two seasons (including a $4 million buyout of his option for the 2018 season).

Michael Hill, the Marlins president of baseball operations, recently reflected on the trade with Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald.

"A lot of our current team was put together through that [Toronto] trade," Hill told the Herald. "Now, hopefully, people will see what we saw when we had to make it."

Hill also noted that the trade was not about dumping salary but about recognizing that the Marlins at the time "weren't going to be successful" and that the team "had to redo it, hit the reset button."

It has taken a couple of years to start realizing the benefits. But with star slugger Giancarlo Stanton now locked up longterm (a contract that would have been more difficult to pull off if the team was still committed to Reyes and Buehrle), star pitcher Jose Fernandez nearing a return from Tommy John surgery, and several young players starting to contribute, the Marlins appear to have made the right move.

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