Month: December 2012

Robert Griffin III talked about a former gay teammate Last week we brought you a list of some of the biggest LGBT sports stories of 2012. While some of them are represented on today's New Year's Eve list, these were the 20 most-read stories of 2012 on Outsports. The Summer Olympics, coming out stories, and […]

Russian professional soccer players Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamaev have turned some heads after some … interesting … photos surfaced from their holiday vacation in Miami. Soccer fans from Europe to the U.S. have taken to the Internet questioning if these two young athletes are a couple. I know if I were gay in Russia […]

Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo LGBT equality in the sports world has been two steps forward and one step back since we started Outsports.com in 1999. Jim calls it a zig-zag, never directly forward and never directly back. Whatever the analogy, 2012 offered a ton of hope and a bunch of setbacks. While there have […]

Brendon Ayanbadejo (from his Twitter feed.) Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has been perhaps the most outspoken pro athlete for gay rights and he continues to give great interviews. The latest is with Alex Marvez of Fox Sports, where Ayanbadejo theorizes that there are not as many gay NFL players as gay people in the […]

We’re so delighted to have three of our coming-out stories highlighted in Towleroad’s list of the 50 most important coming-out stories of 2012. We profiled gymnast and Olympic hopeful Josh Dixon last May as he was aiming for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. He spoke then of being multiracial and adopted, on top […]

The Federation of Gay Games has given the five bidding cities for the 2018 event permission to add as many as six new sports. The six are: archery, boxing, fencing, pétanque, roller derby, wheelchair rugby. Pétanque is basically lawn bowling on dirt and popular in France. Gay Games bid cities can request that certain sports […]

Suso (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) The English Premier League, unlike the NFL, takes gay slurs on Twitter seriously. It has fined Liverpool star Suso $16,000 for calling teammate Jose Enrique "gay" on Twitter. Suso sparked protests last month when he posted a photo on the micro-blogging website of Reds defender Enrique having his teeth […]

Axel Witsel is the only black player on Zenit St Petersburg. (Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images) Any gay person or person of color thinking about venturing to Russia for either the 2014 Winter Olympics or 2018 World Cup needs to realize they won't be a welcome in a country that is still quite racist and […]

Couple agrees to $3 million donation as long as visiting teams are made to feel gay

Athlete calls his anti-gay tweet a 'little mishap,' Mets take no action

Ryan Lochte Olympic-level swimmers were back in the pool for the first time since London with the FINA short-course swimming championships this past weekend in Istanbul, Turkey. We have a photo gallery below. Among the big winners was American Ryan Lochte, who won six golds and one silver. And in a totally cool gesture, Lochte […]

There’s a fantastic 5-minute video interview of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo from Dhani Jones and SB Nation. In their “In The Zone” series, Ayanbadejo talks about several issues, including the importance of physical education in schools: All those sports collectively made me what I was as a football player, you know? Gymnastics gave me […]

ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ spent half the show on Sunday talking about former North Dakota State College of Science football player Jamie Kuntz, who was kicked off his team in September for kissing his boyfriend (video below). I won’t rehash the whole story here, but essentially he was kicked off his team because his boyfriend […]

Chris Kluwe (Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn-US PRESSWIRE) Being regarded as an "activist" in 2012 was a new experience for me. I’ve never really considered myself an "activist" — basically I treat people the way I would like to be treated and expect them to do the same. I think if we all approached life that way […]

Minnesota Vikings punter brings his activism and passion

Jason Ball Jason Ball is a 24-year-old amateur Australian Rules Football player for Yarra Glen, a team located northeast of Melbourne. He came out in September as an openly gay player and now been invited by the professional AFL Players Association to talk to young players at the draftee induction camp in January. This comes […]

5 One of the joys of watching sports is seeing athletes and fans celebrate. The emotion is so raw, real and spontaneous that it makes for indelible images. In the season of celebration, here are some cool shots from the past month of jocks and fans letting it all out in sports ranging from college […]

The position coach for Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe wants his player to focus more on punting and less on activism. Kluwe is a very outspoken supporter of gay rights and also made news when he was fined for altering his jersey last Sunday to support the Hall of Fame candidacy of former punter Ray […]

With the NFL season in its final three weeks, talk has heated up about the NFL MVP Award. As they do every year, some in the media have anointed Peyton Manning as the favorite. But several others have a good shot at the award. While he’s not my pick right now, I think Tom Brady’s […]

Mike Alstott stands during the national anthem against the Philadelphia Eagles at Raymond James Stadium. (Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports) In the early years of Outsports, one of the most requested things we got asked for by readers were shirtless photos of Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Mike Alstott. The 11-year NFL pro was a […]