With the NBA Playoffs coming to an end, I have no doubt there’ll be an uptick in productivity from the Australian workforce. No longer will basketball fans be silently riding the highs and lows of the finals between 10:30am and 1:00pm every second day.

In serious basketball news, the offseason trades began on Sunday with Kevin Durant being traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Houston Rockets. It dramatically improves the outlook for the Rockets next season, who were upset by the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the recent playoffs.

3
The number of wickets England bowler Josh Tongue took in four balls against India overnight. The match is the first of a five-Test series between the two sides. England bowled India out for 364 in the third innings of the match. With 10 wickets in hand, England needs to score 350 runs on the fifth and final day in Leeds to win. Tongue said yesterday: “I don't see why we can't chase that down."

"The agreement is very clear. It says that Test players have to be released to play in the fixtures leading into that Test series, and so that's our expectation. I think it's really important that these games are competitive.”
British and Irish Lions chief executive Ben Calveley speaking ahead of the British and Irish Lions' first Australian fixture against the Western Force this weekend. The Force will field five Wallabies squad members in Nick Champion de Crespigny, Dylan Pietsch, Tom Robertson, Darcy Swain and Nic White, but Carlo Tizzano, Harry Potter, Jeremy Williams, and Ben Donaldson will remain in the Wallabies camp as they prepare for a warm-up fixture against Fiji on 6 July. The Lions have arrived in Perth after losing 28-24 to Argentina in Dublin on Friday night. The side’s tour of Australia, which has happened every 12 years since 1989, will feature nine matches, with three of the final four being played against the Wallabies.

70% of Australians say they would travel domestically this year to watch or take part in a sporting event, according to research from YouGov. The research also showed Millennials (which YouGov defined as people between the ages of 30 and 39) seem to be the most willing to travel for sport, with 78% having done so in the past six months. 

🎾 Australia’s second-ranked women’s tennis player, Maya Joint, beat former Wimbledon champion Ons Jabeur in the opening round at the Eastbourne Open. It comes after the 19-year-old won her first WTA title in Rabat, Morocco, last month. Joint is one of four Aussie players still in the draw at Eastbourne, alongside Kimberly Birrell, Aleksandar Vukic, and James Duckworth. World # 16 Daria Kasatkina, who switched her playing allegiance from Russia to Australia in March, was upset by New Zealand’s Lulu Sun in the first round after winning the tournament last year. Wimbledon begins on 30 June.

⛳ American golfer Keegan Bradley won the Travelers Championship on Sunday. In a dramatic finish, Bradley started the final hole one shot behind Tommy Fleetwood and hit a birdie to overtake the Englishman, who hit a bogey. It marked Bradley’s eighth career win on the PGA Tour while Fleetwood remains one of the best players on tour to have not won a title, with 42 top-10 and six runner-up finishes. 

⚽ After ten days of the FIFA Club World Cup, five teams have secured their place in the Round of 16. Brazil’s Palmeiras is set to take on Italy’s Botafogo in the opening match of the knockout stage on Sunday (AEST). A blockbuster clash between Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami (U.S.) and Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain (France) is set to be played on Monday. Brazilian club Flamengo, which caused a shock upset in the group stages by beating England’s Chelsea, have also qualified for the knockout stages and will play whichever team finishes second in Group C. 

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Former AFL player Josh Hill has pleaded not guilty to seven child sexual abuse charges. The alleged incidents happened in 2015 and 2016 when Hill was playing for the West Coast Eagles. 

Hill appeared in a Broome court on Monday via video link and pleaded not guilty to three counts of indecent dealings with a child aged 13-16 and four counts of sexually penetrating a child aged 13-16. 

Police have alleged the incidents took place in Broome in December 2015 and Perth in January 2016. Broome Magistrate Deen Potter said the incidents allegedly involved a 15-year-old as he read the charges to Hill. 

Hill will face court again on 19 August. 

Hill is a Western Australian who played 173 games in the AFL, across the West Coast Eagles (107 games) and the Western Bulldogs (66). He played in the West Coast Eagles team that made the 2015 AFL Grand Final and lost to Hawthorn.  

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Australia’s sports streaming landscape looks set to shift again, with the Nine Network’s Stan reportedly in talks with Optus Sport regarding the acquisition of streaming rights for the English Premier League (EPL). 

According to reports, the announcement is expected to be made in the coming weeks as the two parties finalise a deal. 

Stan Sport already has the streaming rights to all UEFA football which includes the Champions League and Europa League, Europe’s top club football competitions. 

Optus Sport launched in 2016 after outbidding Foxtel for the English Premier League streaming rights. It currently holds the exclusive streaming rights to the EPL, which also includes the UK’s Women’s Super League and the FA Cup. 

If the deal with Stan goes ahead, Optus would be exiting the sports streaming market. 

Nine executive Matt Stanton told Capital Brief earlier this year: “We obviously want to get as much sport as we can, because two really big genres that work [are] news — news is massive for us, publishing and news, because as a local player, itʼs difficult to replicate — and then sport are the two.”

For Stan, it would add to its suite of existing rights which includes the Australian Open (tennis), rugby union, and UEFA’s European club football competitions such as the Champions League and Europa League. 

With Optus potentially relinquishing its sports streaming service, Stan would remain as the only Australian-based sports streamer in the market. 

British sports streaming and entertainment platform DAZN acquired Foxtel in April. Foxtel (and its dedicated sports platform, Kayo) hold rights to the AFL and NRL among other sports.

DAZN has its own streaming deal with FIFA, which means the FIFA Club World Cup is being streamed on Foxtel and Kayo. 

Australian football fans need several subscriptions if they want to catch every game. After subscribing to Optus, Stan, and Kayo, for the English Premier League, European football, and the Club World Cup, fans also require a Paramount+ subscription in order to watch the men’s and women’s A-League, and Matildas and Socceroos matches.