Lance Armstrong left this year’s Tour de France failing to match his own expectations.

Yes, Stage 20 of the Tour de France 2010 was his final appearance as he rode down the Champs Elysees in Paris. It was a sad day for Armstrong, aged 38, and for his many fans, to see the great man’s exit.

In Stage 19, the time trial, RadioShack rider Lance Armstrong finished in 67^th. And for the Texan cyclist who has an amazing legacy at the Tour de France after seven titles, finishing 67^th was embarassing. This time last year he came out of a four-year retirement and came close to making it 8 wins, but this year, his final year, it was not to be.

He had misfortune in many of the first few stages. In Stage 8, he suffered three crashes, effectively ending his chances. It was a sad and emotional day as he said graciously afterwards, “My tour is finished. No tears from me. I’ve had a lot of years here where it’s been very different, so I’m not going to dwell on today.”

We cannot ignore though, that the fight to defend his legacy in the sport still continue with a federal grand jury in Los Angeles still investigating illegal doping in the sport, that includes Floyd Landis, disgraced former Tour de France winner, continuing to make allegations against Armstrong.

Both Armstrong and his lawyer, Tim Herman, have referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt,” and no doubt many of Armstrong’s most ardent fans will be hoping for the best.

For now though we have to remember the skills and…

Plain and simple, Mayweather feels Pacquiao doesn’t deserve a date with him yet.

Yes, you read it here, Floyd Mayweather is after all, the best pound for pound fighter in the world and Manny Pacquiao STILL has a lot to prove to earn a date with Money May.

In case you haven’t heard, Manny Pacquiao is now desperate in getting in the ring with Mayweather primarily because the guy needs a fighter with Mayweather’s talent to solidify his career.

Unlike all those other jobbers that Bob Arum has been throwing in Pacquiao’s way, Mayweather is THE best in the world and Pacquiao knows a fight with a guy like that will make his career.

Oh, and in case there are still some of you who are still in doubt whether Mayweather actually is the best in the world at what he does, well, ESPN already proclaimed him as such, giving him the title as the Fighter of the Year.

Yep, the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. beat the biggest joke in boxing, that’s Many Pacquiao as “Fighter of the Year” in the recently concluded annual ESPN awards held at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

The ESPY Awards is an annual awards event created and broadcast by American cable television network ESPN to celebrate their legacy as a sport channel. Athletic awards are given as well. Begun in 1993 , the event confers eponymous awards, fully styled as Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards , for individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performance during the calendar year preceding a given ceremony, according to Wikipedia.

Mayweather got his award for “Best Fighter ESPY Award” (Fighter of the Year…)

Football has long been America’s most popular sport.

While baseball is the American pastime and holds a special place in the hearts of sports fans, it has yet to surpass football in terms of either broad appeal or revenues especially now with the 2010 NCAA college football season just around the corner.

Nor is the National Football League the only beneficiary of football’s enduring popularity. Indeed, in parts of the country with unsuccessful NFL teams (or no NFL teams), college football is just as popular – and just as lucrative. Likewise, an accomplished head coach at a prestigious college program can easily command several million dollars per year in salary, and the football teams themselves figure prominently in the entire cost structure of their universities.

So what are these teams you ask?

Let’s start with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Valued at $108 million and boasting profits of $38 million – the Fighting Irish have long been one of the most widely followed teams in NCAA football. Seven Heisman Trophy winners have played for Notre Dame, as well as 95 consensus All-Americans.

Furthermore, Notre Dame Stadium (where the team plays its home games) seats more people than some NFL stadiums do – 80,795 at last count. The team has also won eight national championships, and owes much of its current value to consistently being a contender year in and year out.

Another highly valued NCAA football team with a rich history is…

College football is back baby.

And for the first time in quite a while, the Alabama Crimson Tide will come to the 2010 NCAA college football season as the national champions, looking to defend that title in the BCS title game come January.

The popularity of the Alabama Crimson Tide is hard to exaggerate. According to Forbes, the team’s “waiting list to obtain season tickets for the Crimson Tide is currently 15,210 names long.”

Furthermore, simply being next up on the list is no guarantee of getting tickets. The only thing coming up on the list entitles you to do is “make a donation to the athletic department ranging from $5,000 to $500,000″ depending on the location of seats you wish to buy tickets for.

Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is the fourth highest paid coach in college football, raking in about $3.9 million per season. No wonder the guy was determined to bring the title to Alabama since bamboozling Dolphins fans into thinking that he’ll stay with them for the long haul.

With everything going for the Tide, just who can challenge these guys heading to the season in terms of being the most valuable commodity on the gridiron? Of course, one team comes to mind and that’s last year’s runners-up, the Texas Longhorns.

The Texas Longhorns is the most valuable college football team right now…

Looks like T.O. might finally have a home.

You read it, the St. Louis Rams have intensified discussions in hopes of signing free agent Terrell Owens for the coming 2010 NFL football season, according to sources close to the player and team.

The Rams asked Terrell Owens through his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, if he would consider a serious contract proposal, even though they are not considered a playoff contender. Rosenhaus told the team Owens would definitely consider it, sources said. A high-ranking Rams official said a formal offer for Owens could come soon.

The St. Louis Rams believe Owens would take heat off their young wide receiver corps that includes Donnie Avery, Laurent Robinson and rookie Mardy Gilyard, as well as loosen up opposing defenses from focusing on running back Steven Jackson.

The Cincinnati Bengals, as reported by ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, are also engaged in talks with Owens. The Bengals signed free-agent receiver Antonio Bryant during the offseason but Bryant has struggled so far. According to a team source, that has motivated the Bengals to take another look at Owens.

One source said the Rams have gotten very aggressive in their pursuit of Owens, however, the Bengals still have given no indication they’re ready to offer a contract. They want to get a good look at their young wide receivers and have five preseason games to do it. They need some of those guys to play special teams.

Chad Ochocinco, Bryant and Owens would not be special teams-type…

The New York Knicks have had the 2010 NBA free agency period in their sights for quite a while.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh, among other superstars, were set to become free agents, and the New York Knicks are supposedly the ultimate free agent destination before the 2010 NBA basketball season starts.

The reality is, the New York Knicks failed to land LeBron James and couldn’t get Wade or Bosh either. The back up plan was to get Stoudemire and Johnson, but that failed, too. The Knicks ended up with only one big-name free agent, Amare Stoudemire. Stoudemire is a great player, but it is definitely not what the Knicks had anticipated.

The question now is, is Amare Stoudemire that much of an upgrade over David Lee? It’ll be interesting to see what he gets, but we’ll guess it’ll be somewhere in between $8-$12 million a year (especially if scrubs like Drew Gooden and Amir Johnson are getting $5-6 million a year).

Lee is only six months younger than Amare, and let the record show that while we like Lee, he posted 20-11 and 16-11 the last two years mostly because the Knicks had nobody in the frontcourt. Somebody has to collect those rebounds and score those garbage points. This is not to say Lee will be a bust at his next stop, but if he goes to a team with actual talent, we expect that scoring to be cut in half and then you basically have Troy Murphy without the range.

With the addition of Raymond Felton, the Knicks got a…

Yep, nobody has… YET.

For the second-consecutive year, Terrell Owens, the notorious wide receiver, is on the market as he remains unsigned with only a couple of months before the 2010 NFL football season begins but according to agent Drew Rosenhaus that will definitely change.

Rosenhaus said that Terrell Owens, who played for the Buffalo Bills last season, will have a new team “within the next few weeks.”

He added that five teams were interested in Owens. However, the San Diego Chargers aren’t one of them, despite Vincent Jackson being suspended three games by the NFL and threatening to hold out over his contact situation. “We’re all set right now with our receivers,” general manager A.J. Smith said in an interview.

The Seattle Seahawks are also out of the picture. “No, you know, I go way back with T.O.,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “I was there [as an assistant coach] when he showed up with the 49ers when he was a rookie and nobody knew he had any initials or anything. And I really liked Terrell. But we won’t be able to do that this time around. I think at our time in our program development, we’re going to continue to work with the guys that we’ve got and go in a different direction than that. We’re really looking to get the young guys going as much as we can.”

Owens said recently that he believed teams are swayed by the perception he’s a troublemaker. It’s a perception he believes he disproved with his agreeable behavior in Buffalo during a disappointing season in 2009.

“There were a number of times where prior I probably would…”

Any time UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar fights, people watch.

Simply because he’s a freak of nature. Brock Lesnar possesses more size, power, and athleticism in one body than we’ve ever seen combined in MMA.

What’s more, he talks a lot of junk and has the ability to hype a fight, via his professional wrestling background. In fact, his pro and collegiate wrestling experiences have also brought a tremendous amount of fans to MMA, simply so they can continue to watch him.

All wondered aloud how Lesnar would do against a man with supposedly similar size and athleticism in Shane Carwin coming into their UFC 116 encounter. Beyond the fact that Lesnar was able to win, so the biggest question now is who can stop this guy?

Here’s a look at the top fighters in the division and where they might stack up.

Cain Velasquez. Fresh on everyone’s mind is the California native’s knockout over legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Velasquez continued his unbeaten streak and did so in impressive fashion. He is now 8-0 and has catapulted himself into the heavyweight title discussion.

Prior to UFC 110, president Dana White admitted that the winner between Nogueira and Velasquez would be considered as a possible opponent for Lesnar if they earned a convincing victory. Check. Now Velasquez will wait to see how the rest of the division shakes out, but his relentless style and punishing attack have not gone unnoticed by the UFC’s fight makers.

Frank Mir. Mir is the only man to defeat Lesnar in the UFC but…

Yep, this is the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon.

After last week’s hour-long reality program in which LeBron James announced he would be joining fellow Class of ’03 draftees Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, many fans and analysts were quick to crown the Miami Heat as the favorites to not only come out of the Eastern Conference, but to also win an NBA Championship in the 2010 NBA basketball season.

The Miami Heat has undoubtedly one of the best core groups in the NBA, anything less than the championship in the coming season would be considered a failure. Winning a championship takes a lot of things, including luck with injuries and a few bounces to go your way. It’ll be awfully hard, even with a team with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

They are a long way from a title this year. Even with three of the best players walking the planet on one team. The Heat, having sent Beasley to Minnesota for draft picks, have four players under contract and two second-round draft picks on their roster. After spending the vast majority of their salary cap to sign two superstars to join Dwyane Wade, it will be very difficult to sign quality role players to fill out the remainder of the roster.

Taking a look around the rest of the league, the other top teams with multiple All-Star quality players still have other role players on their team who can make strong contributions to their respective teams.

Looking at just the East, one would easily pick Miami to…

For the sake of the sports fans in Boston, let’s hope not.

There seems to be a problem in the contract negotiations between the New England Patriots and superstar QB Tom Brady coming to the 2010 NFL football season.

Yep, rumors say that there is a growing sense of disconnection between the New England Patriots and Tom Brady’s representatives as the sides try to strike out a deal to keep the three-time Super Bowl winner in New England.

The deal Tom Brady has, like that of four-time MVP and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, is set to expire at the end of the 2010 season. He declined comment for the story, but the reports said that there has not been substantial talks between the sides on a new contract.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft said last week that the team want Brady “to be our quarterback for a long time into the future.” He had said in March that Patriots would not allow Brady to leave via free agency.

But after watching LeBron James betray the city of Cleveland on national TV, nothing is really certain until the guy in question signs on that dotted line.

Brady’s current deal was worth $60 million when he signed it in 2005. A new deal would likely thrust him into the stratosphere of the highest-paid players in the NFL.

But the negotiations for Manning’s contract with the Colts and…