• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    Down and Distance

    What the NFL means to the debt ceiling, and other broader context sports speakfrom Down and Distance

    Dan Solomon
    Aug 20, 2011 | 4:30 pm
    • Mario Williams
    • Matt Schaudb

    Football captures the imagination of Americans more than almost anything else. We may love Hollywood and obsess over pop stars, but walk into any bar and you will have an easier time striking up a conversation with a random stranger about Owen Daniels and Tony Romo than you will aboutTransformers: Dark Of The Moon — and that movie grossed a third of a billion dollars.

    Hipsters and bros, Tea Party types and artsy intellectuals, society-minded rich kids and people whose favorite Mexican restaurant is Taco Cabana — representatives from all of those groups and more can come together and agree that they can’t wait to see Vince Young’s career get a rebirth in Philadelphia under the tutelage of Andy Reid. Even in Texas, they’ll say that. They may agree about nothing else, but this they have in common: We are Americans, and we give a shit about football.

    Not all of us, of course — there are people who are uninterested in the game, who get a little itchy when they hear even the most obvious football metaphor, who fake a big smile and hope they guess the right sport when someone expects them to know who Matt Schaub and Mario Williams are. But a love of football spans all demographics, all social groups, all other cultural identifiers. There will be any number of impeccably dressed young men out on any given Saturday night this fall who can’t wait to wake up the next morning and watch their teams take the field. This is Texas.

    Oh, okay, another football column on the Internet

    There are a lot of places, online and in print, to read post-game analysis, training camp reports, locker room gossip and free agency hype. But football is bigger than just those things. The game is part of the same culture as Presidential campaigns, political activism, underground hip-hop, dog-whistle sexism, Thursday night NBC comedies, Oscar bait film season, etc. All of these things are on the forefront of culture, and they’re all interconnected. It’s like The Wire.

    This is the first edition of Down and Distance, a new weekly column on CultureMap. It’s a place to consider each week of football in a context larger than the locker room. We’re going to talk about the social, political, and pop-cultural implications of the game, because any activity that holds a nation’s attention like NFL football does have those implications. This is sports talk with a broader context.

    Get to it, then

    We’re 39 days out from the start of the NFL season, when the Saints will travel to Wisconsin to face the Packers in the first of the week’s games. Normally, this isn’t much of a time to speak of – the anticipation has been ebbing and flowing for months, usually, and four weeks of pre-season games hold our attention less than off-season highlights like free agency, training camps and the draft.

    But this is hardly a normal year, so what the hell? Let’s start talking football in August, since there wasn’t anything to say from March until the end of July, when the labor drama and lockout ended. At the time, everyone was infuriated at the notion that a group of billionaires were fighting about money with a group of people whose annual salaries start in the mid-six figures – but look where we are now.

    It’s said that Americans have short attention spans, and that’s never proven more true than over the past week. Who even remembers the months of labor strife and the gnawing uncertainty over whether there would even be an NFL season in 2011, now that we’ve had nearly a week of free agency, training camp, trades, roster cuts and undrafted rookie signings, all at the exact same time.

    In the end, the lockout was just a weird time where we all relaxed, discovered new interests, hung out with our families, played a little more Words With Friends, complained about the heat and even got really into women’s soccer for a couple of weeks. We’d never have found time to give a shit about women’s soccer if we’d been consumed with a normal NFL off-season. But we all know Hope Solo’s name now, and we are better people for it.

    Hope Solo for Senate Majority Leader!

    Mostly, though, the NFL labor situation threw into sharp relief something that isn’t particularly NFL-related, which is: Gosh, American politics suck, don’t they? Six months ago, the notion that DeMaurice Smith and Roger Goodell, both of whom appeared to be utterly incompetent, might actually be better at their jobs than the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House seemed downright silly.

    Regardless of what you thought about Barack Obama or John Boehner, it would have been awfully hard to argue that these tone-deaf, useless executives, who seemed utterly unable to bring the millionaires and billionaires they represented to any sort of consensus, were competent leaders. But look at it now: 32 NFL teams have reported to training camp and the only casualty was one lone irrelevant pre-season game, with a fair deal and ten years of labor peace on the horizon.

    Meanwhile, the country has pushed impossibly close to defaulting on its debt, and while it appears a last-minute deal on the debt ceiling has been reached, the end result there appears dire. Social services long thought to be vital to the function of American society, under this deal, will be slashed. There's still a strong chance that the full faith and credit of the United States government will be reduced to a concept about as reliable as Brett Favre in a retirement press conference, even if we don't default as a nation, since both the long- and short-term economic benefits of the deal are specious, at best.

    If you extend the NFL labor negotiations comparison, it's roughly the same deal the players would have received if they'd gotten the 50 percent of total league revenues that they wanted, but only if they'd allowed the owners to yank the broadcast rights from their 10-figure packages on the networks and instead sell 'em off to some German-language channel only available in Fredericksburg, Texas, for a fraction of the price. Nobody wins, everybody's unhappy, and people who just want to be able to get through their Sundays are completely screwed.

    Now, I’m not exactly arguing that we’d be better off if DeMaurice Smith and Roger Goodell sat in for Barack Obama and John Boehner at the negotiation table, but if someone else made that argument, it’d be a lot harder to cast that person as an idiot today than it would have been six months ago. And that is a damn shame for America.

    It’s good for the NFL, though, and that’s important. When things are as bleak in the real world as they appear to be, we need our bread and circuses more than ever.

    unspecified
    news/sports

    pucker up

    Growing pickleball franchise smashes into Houston with 2 locations

    Jef Rouner
    Apr 29, 2025 | 5:30 pm
    Two men play pickleball on a Picklr court.
    Photo courtesy of The Picklr
    A Picklr court campus similar to the ones soon to open in Houston.

    Pickleball is one of the hottest sports sweeping the nation, and one of the biggest names in the game is setting up two new facilities in Houston. Picklr is scheduled to open indoor sports campuses in Cypress and The Woodlands in the coming months.

    “Bringing a pickleball facility to Cypress will not only provide a fun and engaging recreational outlet for residents of all ages, but will also foster a sense of community and promote a healthy and active lifestyle,” said Steve Nguyen, owner of The Picklr Cypress.“This facility will serve as a vibrant hub for social interaction, skill development, and friendly/competitive competition, enhancing community bonds and offering a welcoming space for everyone to enjoy.”

    Although the game is approximately 60 years old, pickleball saw a massive spike in popularity following the pandemic when people were looking for fun group activities with easy points of entry. Though a racket sport like tennis, it is far easier and slower thanks to using perforated balls, smaller courts, and lighter paddles. This means the game is open to players of all ages, and was originally most popular with retirees. Now, there are roughly 5 million players across America, with players under 24 making up the majority. Houston even has its own professional team, the Hammers (not the Texas Hammer; that's this guy).

    The court in Cypress will be located in the old ASI Gymnastics building at 8920 Barker Cypress. It's a relatively modest facility with only six courts including a practice court. By contrast, The Woodlands location will be much more opulent. At 66,517 square feet, it will have 20 courts, 4 private event spaces (one with an exclusive viewing area), as well as a shower, changing room, dry bar, and kitchenette. Picklr The Woodlands will be located at 16590 Interstate I-45 South.

    These locations are the first for Picklr in Houston. They have twelve locations all throughout Texas, including in Round Rock and McKinney, and many more nationwide. Picklr locations operate on a membership model similar to a gym. Memberships run $159 a month for adults and $89 for minors, with unlimited access to open play, league play, and tournaments , as well as four free clinics a month. Additional coaching is available.

    There is currently no set opening date for the two Houston-area Picklrs. Players interested in learning more may sign up for updates at ThePicklr.com.

    pickleballopenings
    news/sports
    Loading...