The biggest star in college basketball is still no match for capitalism’s excesses.

That’s because this is a city of workers. A city of strivers. A city that sees where it is today, and determines to be somewhere better tomorrow. The reason this city never sleeps, is because it’s never satisfied. Maybe that’s why this city loves fighters who just won’t quit. Or men who refuse to sit on the sidelines. This is a city for those who make guarantees, instead of excuses. It’s a city for champions. It’s a city for challenges. It’s a city for those who can take whatever life dishes out, and never forget how good they’ve got it.

“Maybe there’s no such thing as ‘safer’ football, because at this point, we’ve got one hundred plus years of evidence that the savagery, the brutality, the devastating impacts that give any reasonable person pause all appear to be baked right in. What if, in fact, violence is one of the ‘essential features of the game’, and once we’ve grappled with that, the game doesn’t seem so essential anymore?"

Yes, this is the same smile that Nawrocki called “fake” back when Newton entered the league, and all these years later, it’s still not any easier to figure out what the hell that was even supposed to mean. If a player refuses to let the grueling nature of competition, the violent aspects of the game, the invasive gaze of the media, if he won’t allow any of it to rob him of his smile, is that “fake?” Or is it the sort of optimism and determination that we all should strive for? The burden continues to fall on Cam Newton to prove himself in a way most observers find acceptable, and undoubtedly this constant need to prove himself has more than a little to do with the color of his skin.

A little less than a year ago, Daniel Murphy made a lifestyle choice. You might remember it, because it got a good bit of attention in the sports world, particularly in and around New York City. Around the start of the 2014 season, his wife gave birth to his first child, and Murphy made the choice, the understandable, logical, eminently reasonable choice, but the choice nonetheless, to miss a couple of games to be with his wife and new son.

Derek Jeter made it in New York. But New York also made him. Without the pride, and the prestige of the Yankees, there’d be no special patch, no elaborate corn maze. There’d be no kayaks, and paddle-boards, and inflatable baseball furniture. Without the aura, and the limelight, provided by the greatest city in the world, Jeter’s Gatorade commercials would be 30 seconds long just like everybody else’s. Derek Jeter was chosen 6th in the 1992 MLB Draft, which means that five teams passed on Derek Jeter,the player, so that Derek Jeter, the legend, might live. One of the most iconic athletes of our generation took his place in our national pastime at least in part, by pure happenstance. As a wise man once said, “that’s baseball, Suzyn.”

What are we to take from this, other than a clear realization that in the eyes of those who wield power, Colin Kaepernick’s speech wasn’t “free” at all? To our ruling class, one that can’t afford to acknowledge that the scars of our past are in no small way responsible for the way things remain today, it was wrong, it was dangerous, it was worthy of an apology. It was, dare I say, criminal.

That, ultimately, is how Suárez will spend the remainder of the season. Learning, and driving, and presumably, letting his success speak for itself. While the head of the sport sorts through the consequences of a problematic step into the political realm, while NASCAR continues to wrestle with its troubling lack of diversity, and its need to broaden the fanbase, while all this is happening, Daniel Suárez is moving things forward, if only slightly, with every fast lap. "Like I said," explained Suárez, "I'm very proud to be Mexican and whatever is going on with the politics that doesn't change anything."

Today, given the incredible female talent at their disposal, the WWE has a real chance to become a more equitable, inclusive, forward-thinking space. To steal a phrase from WWE Vice President and current World Champion Triple H, it would also be “best for business,” given that providing women’s wrestling a bigger and better platform can only help broaden the fanbase. But to really get there, the company needs to discard the strands of chauvinism, degradation, and sexist humor that still bubble to the surface far too frequently.

Ask any boxing connoisseur, any trainer, any expert in the sweet science. They’ll tell you that one of the biggest keys to any fight is closing the distance. The fight game is all about angles, and space… being able to sneak in, do damage, and then create separation. On the eve of the biggest boxing match of our generation, “separation” has become a key term, and it has nothing to do with the action in the ring. Discussions of history, and legacy, have given way to one big question, in the run up to this fight. How do you separate Floyd Mayweather, the boxer, from Floyd Mayweather, the man. It’s simple really. You can’t.

It is a saying, among people who say things like this, that all good journalism begins with a question. For the better part of a week, as I watched FIFA crumble amid unsealed indictments, a resounding re-election, and then its despot's sudden resignation, a question came together and looped endlessly through my brain: "Who on earth is going to go see United Passions?"

According to sources close to the NFL, “all options are on the table” when it comes to punishment for Tom Brady. Which means he could be fined, or suspended, or, one supposes, burned at the stake for football heresy. But whatever it decides, the NFL will then get to exhale, because this is the sort of injustice they can handle, the kind they know what to do with. If there’s one thing the league knows, it’s gravitas, and self-importance, how to treat football, like the center of the world.