NPR Sports

Violent protests are breaking out in Egypt, just two years after a massive uprising led to the fall of the former dictator. One of the unexpected driving forces is soccer. Host Michel Martin talks to Dave Zirin, sports editor at The Nation about how the sport affects Egypt's political landscape.

There's always a question surrounding San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Years ago, people wondered whether the talented athlete would be good enough to start in college.

Then there was the question of what role he would play in the NFL. And after the 49ers took him, fans questioned whether he could throw enough to be more than a backup.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. And we swear this is not a headline from 2009 or 2005 or 2003. Several Major League Baseball players have been linked to performance enhancing drugs again. And one of those players is New York Yankee star Alex Rodriguez, again. But what really caught our eyes about this latest revelation is the Miami anti-aging clinic where the players allegedly go their drugs.

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The Los Angeles Lakers beat the New Orleans Hornets last night, 111-to-106. It was a normally forgettable late January game. But every victory means something to a Lakers team suffering through a dreadful first half of the season. Last night's win was the Lakers' third in a row. It means there are signs of life for a team that was expected to dominate this year. And the big reason for that: L.A.'s best player has taken on a new role.

NPR's Tom Goldman reports.

When Secretariat won what was certified to be his last race, I went down onto the track at Woodbine, and gauging where he had crossed the finish line, snatched up the last grass that perhaps the greatest thoroughbred ever had laid hooves to in his career.

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And now it's time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF THEME MUSIC)

MARTIN: OK. This week, we are going classic, like classical. Like, really old school, you know, Rome, Cicero, Latin. We're talking Latin this week. Specifically we want to talk about interregna or interregnum, if you please, which is a fancy way of saying a gap. Because the NFL is in the middle of a big old interregnum at the moment.

And for more, we are joined by, who else, but our own Marcus Aurelius, NPR's Mike Pesca. Hey, Mike.

Robert Siegel talks with Mike Pesca about the NBA season. It's nearing the midway point and the Los Angeles Lakers are surprisingly bad — but a few other teams are surprisingly good.

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In recent years, regional cable TV sports networks have been a financial windfall for pro sports and college teams. And now it seems to be the turn of the Los Angeles Dodgers to make a record haul here.

There are reports the Dodgers and Time Warner Cable are close to announcing a deal for a Dodgers channel that would pay the team around $7 billion over at least 20 years.

But NPR's Tom Goldman reports it may be one windfall too many in a crowded Los Angeles market.

LeBron James is arguably the best player in the NBA. His salary is $17.5 million a year. He's worth much, much more.

"He's getting hosed," says Kevin Grier, an economist from the University of Oklahoma.

James used to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers. When he left, the value of the team fell by tens of millions of dollars — and the value of his new team, the Miami Heat, rose by tens of millions. The economists I talked to said James should be making closer to $40 million a year.

Finally, I have a word about Manti Te'o, the star Notre Dame linebacker, Heisman trophy runner up, who says he was the victim of an ugly hoax where someone — probably a male friend of his — created an online identity of a young women, with whom Te'o says he fell in love, although he never met her.