My father-in-law, Bill, and I watch sports differently. Picture Clint Eastwood sitting in front of the TV with Jesse Eisenberg. When a college football game is on, Bill becomes serious, and my surface-level commentary'things like 'Not looking good,' when Arizona State is trailing'is usually met with silence. I wasn't raised a college-football fan; casually saying terms like 'Big Ten' or 'Ole Miss' still seems unnatural to me. But as I've tried to get closer to Bill over the years by trying to understand the sport, I've learned important lessons about my own relationship to fandom. For me, the most essential broadcast on live television has always been the Oscars. As a kid, the ritualized, fanfare-laden process for announcing the year's best movie evoked a grown-up world I was excited to inhabit one day. But over time, Oscar angst has overshadowed my pure enjoyment of my 'sport.' Like many movie fans, I experienced a blow to my sense of reality when I grew up and realized that terrible movies often win at the Oscars. The more I learned about the flawed nominating process, and the misconduct and exclusion tacitly sanctioned by the Academy and the wider movie industry'as crystallized by the #OscarsSoWhite and #MeToo hashtags'the more I struggled to maintain the idea that the ceremony 'mattered.' And I don't seem to be alone. The ratings trend for the Academy Awards has shown a decline for much of my adult life....

But for the men's England team, perhaps some of the shine has come off. Captain Harry Kane has openly criticised his fellow players for excusing themselves from international duty before matches in November 2024 against Greece and Ireland. Yet data suggests that fans ' and Kane ' should maybe give those players the benefit of the doubt. For the demands of the modern game in an overloaded football calendar are having a serious impact on players' wellbeing and performance. For example, one official review indicates a rise of 11% in player injuries in the Premier League during the 2023-24 season compared to the previous one. And aside from the physical damage, those injuries (most of which occur during the first half of the game) cost Premier League clubs '266 million on salaries for players who were unable to play. The new Champions League format has also introduced controversy in terms of the additional number of games it demands. Under the new system, teams are required to play eight first-round matches instead of six. Some will then need to play additional play-off games to reach the round of 16....

When the UEFA Euro 2024 football tournament kicks off tomorrow, the all-seeing eye of artificial intelligence (AI) will be glued to the action stronger than the eyes of even the most ardent fans. Referees will be able to track any slight motion made by the ball and players thanks to the latest video assisted referee (VAR) technology. Since its introduction in 2016, VAR has been hotly debated among football fans. Inconsistencies in the way referees apply the technology, and the time they sometimes take to make decisions has fueled discontent. The English Premier League even held a vote last week on whether to scrap VAR altogether ' clubs ultimately voted 19 to 1 in favour of keeping it, but the opposition highlighted the need for improvements. An upgraded, semi-automated version of the technology incorporating more-advanced AI and a real-time location-tracking chip embedded in the ball was first used in a major global tournament in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Euro 2024 will feature its latest iteration. Nature spoke with John Eric Goff, a sports physicist at the University of Lynchburg, Virginia, about how far VAR has come and what the future holds for it....

There's some data behind the breathless headlines: According to the NFL's official flag football program, since 2015 the number of kids ages 6 to 12 who play flag football has risen by 38%, to more than 1.5 million. In my recent book, 'Emerging Sports as Social Movements,' I explore nontraditional sports like flag football and disc golf. One of my key findings is that splashy headlines about trendy sports rarely capture a sport's true reach and staying power. It's considered a no-contact sport. A 'tackle' involves snatching one of two flags that hang from the hips of the ball carrier. While players face injury risks, they sustain far fewer head impacts than athletes who play tackle football. The International Olympic Committee announced in October 2023 that flag football would be headed to the Summer Games in Los Angeles in 2028. It's not clear yet if active NFL players can compete, but if they are eligible ' and if the U.S. assembles a 'Dream Team' like the Olympic men's basketball team of 1992 that included superstars Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson ' flag football could get on the radar of millions of casual sports fans in 2028....