This Season’s Vital College Football Statistic: Vaccination Rates

By BY ALAN BLINDER from NYT Sports With forfeits possible this year, teams see vaccinations as competitive advantages, prompting locker room campaigns to drive rates higher.https://nyti.ms/3BDPaWv

Knockout Punch

By BY EMMANUEL MORGAN AND GABRIELLA ANGOTTI-JONES from NYT Sports A pair of young men used an idea, social media and a pandemic to create a thriving underground fight club. Then the authorities got wind of it.https://nyti.ms/2WOiquX

A Very Strange Version of the Paris Night

By BY MATTHEW FUTTERMAN AND PETE KIEHART from NYT Sports The pandemic may be ebbing, but Paris still has a curfew, which feels completely unnatural in the City of Light.https://nyti.ms/3coUVx6

What to Know About the Yankees’ Coronavirus Outbreak

By BY JAMES WAGNER from NYT Sports Gleyber Torres is the eighth person (and the first player) from the Yankees organization to test positive for the coronavirus this week. All had been vaccinated.https://nyti.ms/3ogZeze

Texas Removes Restrictions, but Fans Show Some Caution

By BY JESUS JIMÉNEZ from NYT Sports The Rangers raised eyebrows by opening 40,300 seats at Globe Life Field for Monday’s exhibition. Only 12,911 fans showed up.https://nyti.ms/2O7N91W

It’s March. Is It Still Madness?

By BY GILLIAN R. BRASSIL from NYT Sports At the N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments this year, the intensity is on the court but not in the stands.https://nyti.ms/3rpn2RE

Yankees and Mets Get Word They Can Put Fans in the Stands

By BY BENJAMIN HOFFMAN from NYT Sports Both teams will be permitted to operate their stadiums at 20 percent of capacity, expanding New York’s reintroduction of spectators at sports events.https://nyti.ms/3tzskeW

The Pandemic Drove People to Tennis and Golf. Will They Keep Playing?

By BY MATTHEW FUTTERMAN AND BILL PENNINGTON from NYT Sports Recreational athletes flocked to accessible and safely distanced sports. Leaders in golf and tennis — both of which have had massive public investment — want to sustain their pandemic booms.https://nyti.ms/3rGGVoj

A Baseball Coach Sends a Drone to Help Ease Fans’ Fear

By BY JAMES WAGNER from NYT Sports Don Wakamatsu’s day job is bench coach of the Rangers, but his background in farming led to an interesting solution for how to sanitize a stadium.https://nyti.ms/2PhVujO

‘You’ve Got to Do as Best as You Can to Protect the Players’

By BY JAMES WAGNER from NYT Sports With spring training starting next week, the infectious disease expert — and Washington Nationals fan — weighs in on his optimism for the baseball season and whether he’d feel safe at a game.https://nyti.ms/3d7fXle

The N.F.L. Had Over 700 Coronavirus Positives. The Seahawks Had None.

By BY KEN BELSON from NYT Sports The only team to play the entire season without any confirmed positive cases did so with innovative thinking, vigilance to protocols and some Pete Carroll-style competition.https://nyti.ms/39QC1i1

To Wear Their Masks, the Beards (and a Tradition) Had to Go

By BY SHAUNA FARNELL from NYT Sports Members of ski patrols nationwide are known for their beards, but many have shaved them to wear masks in the pandemic, causing good-natured angst.https://nyti.ms/3nGjFV0

Canada’s Game Struggles to Return. And to Still Look Like Hockey

By BY STEPHEN SMITH from NYT Sports Because of concerns about the coronavirus, two of the three top junior leagues have yet to start their seasons. One of them may be allowed to resume only if it bans body checking.https://nyti.ms/2JeXPsP

Fear the Beard (Sweat): These N.B.A. Workers Keep the Court Dry

By BY SCOTT CACCIOLA from NYT Sports Dives for loose balls. Flops to draw fouls. Soaked facial hair. They all lead to sweat on the court, and that’s a problem when N.B.A. players are running up and down the floor.https://nyti.ms/3ju1hgg

Football’s Return Is Fodder for Mask Debates and an Enforcement Dilemma

By BY ALAN BLINDER from NYT Sports Leaders in the N.F.L. and in college sports have mandated masks for most people on the sidelines. What happens when the rules are not followed?https://nyti.ms/30u63Tz

Hockey’s Fights and Handshakes? Not Exactly Socially Distant

By BY STEPHEN SMITH from NYT Sports Home-ice advantage is gone and fans are locked out, but the games in Toronto and Edmonton still feel like playoff hockey.https://nyti.ms/2DiAhk8

Doctors Enter College Football’s Politics, but Maybe Just for Show

By BY BILLY WITZ from NYT Sports Universities have had mixed messages, competing agendas and a lack of transparency as they consider whether to hold college football in the fall, with billions of dollars at stake.https://nyti.ms/2YnKumA

Players to UConn Coach: ‘There’s No Way That We Can Play’

By BY BILLY WITZ from NYT Sports For Connecticut, the call to pull the plug on the college football season was clear. The Power 5 schools have been far less decisive.https://nyti.ms/3aaKn2l

N.F.L. Players Say #WeWantToPlay but Question Training Camp Safety

By BY KEN BELSON from NYT Sports The team owners and the players’ union are deadlocked on several questions governing coronavirus protocols, even as players are scheduled to report this week.https://nyti.ms/2OHhUaw

As N.B.A. Teams Arrive at Disney, Focus Turns to Keeping the Virus Out

By BY MARC STEIN from NYT Sports The league has spent months formulating a plan to keep its campus in Florida virus-free. Only now will it find out how effective that plan is.https://nyti.ms/3eank8r