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rantnrave:// When will sports rights become a digital-first property? News that Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube are bidding for NFL Thursday night games isn't groundbreaking. Twitter won those rights in 2016 and the user experience was unsatisfying -- watching the games on my phone meant I couldn't also see my timeline. The big news will be when the NFL or NBA or MLB or NHL finds a digital home with a tech company that can create a true home for experiencing games. As progressive as these leagues are, they are still thinking TV-first. That's where they get their big money from, but that will change at some point, as we explore in our REDEF SportsSET "Ball in Its Court: How Sports Media Needs to Evolve." Which league will be the first to take the leap and make Facebook or YouTube its primary rights partner? Many fans think of their phones as their home for content, and their TVs as secondary platforms. Netflix has disrupted Hollywood. What will that look like for sports? ... We're going into the Final Four with momentum. OMG, that Kentucky-UNC ending! South Carolina is the Cinderella that has become a Goliath. UConn is a win over Oregon away from making its 10th straight Final Four in the women's tournament. Stanford is there already with a great comeback, and South Carolina is a win away from having two teams in college basketball's last weekend. Next weekend is going to be great. ... Tom Ziller wants to kill the NBA draft and it's a brilliant thought experiment. The draft is flawed and it promotes losing. It's wonderful theater but has legitimate issues that nag at teams and the league. Ziller's idea will never happen but he tugs at our imagination and it's a fun read. ... Is Peloton a hardware or software company?. ... Italian soccer player Mathieu Flamini runs a green chemical company and is going to build a biorefinery in the U.S. that will make plastic without using fossil fuels. That's a sentence I didn't think I'd write. But the breadth and vision of athletes these days is growing. For every one who wants to be an actor, there seems to be one who wants to be an entrepreneur or CEO. ... Because we all look at our phones too much.

Ten years after his death, Charlotte and Emmitt Ray still mourn but they also celebrate their son Jason Ray, the gifts given by the young man who wore the Rameses costume at UNC Tar Heels sports events. There is peace in knowing Jason Ray's death provided life, but there will never be closure.

Andrew Carter | Charlotte Observer

The wildest rock-climbing event in the world happens annually in the Ozarks of Arkansas, in a U-shaped canyon with enough routes for 24 straight hours of nonstop ascents. They call it Horseshoe Hell, but don't be fooled: For outdoor athletes who love physical challenges with some partying thrown in, it's heaven.

Eva Holland | Outside Online

The oversized heads that fans wave around behind baskets during college basketball games were once one of fandom's great ideas. Now they're just part of the landscape.

David Roth | Vice Sports

The Michigan football coach is no fan of proposed cuts to legal aid for poor people.

Daniel Strauss | POLITICO Magazine

I hadn't paid much attention to UFC until I was asked to write a book with fighter Dan Hardy. The sport won me over, but boxing will always be my true love.

Paul Gibson | The Guardian

"It's not enough to be smart. You have to be curious."

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