Kia ora, Talofa, Ma’lelei, Bula, Aloha and Welcome to Season 10 Episode 10 of Breakfast Bites, by TEIVOVOdigital.com – a wrap of Pasifika people’s sports news, on Thursday morning 11 July 2024 where it is exactly the same as yesterday, mostly cloudy and a cool 22 degrees Celsius at 5am.
 
Coming to you with tons of hanisi from the 180th meridian, in the middle of the blue continent.
 
In Rugby Union: Rugby New Zealand has announced a BIG change for the All Blacks vs England Test II at Eden Park:
 
“NZ Rugby can confirm that there will be a shot clock shown on the stadium big screen and TV broadcast for this weekend’s Test match in Auckland. This will also be in place for all home Test matches in 2024,” a New Zealand Rugby statement said.
 
In Rugby League: Two-thirds through the 2024 NRL season with nine rounds remaining and the usual sprint to the finals.

Just six points separate the fifth-placed Bulldogs on 22 and the 15th-placed Gold Coast Titans.
The Fox Sports Lab has crunched the numbers to produce every team’s Top 8 and Top 4 chances as follows:

1.    Melbourne Storm
2.    Penrith Panthers
3.    Sydney Roosters
4.    Cronulla Sharks
5.    Dolphins
6.    Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs
7.    Manly Sea Eagles
8.    North Queensland Cowboys 

In Football: As per our World Famous tip for the second semifinal in EURO2024 in Germany this morning, England beat the Netherlands 1-2 with Harry Kane and Ollie Watkins scoring.
 
Yesterday Spain 2-1 France but could be sweating on the availability of Captain Alvaro Morata after a bizarre incident at full-time, when a pitch invader ran at him, prompting security to rush in and Spain’s first-choice striker was caught up in the chaos and collided with a steward.
 
Morata walked away clutching at his right knee.
 
At Wimbledon: Novak Djokovic advances through to the semi-finals without having to play after ninth seed Aussie hope, Alex De Minaur pulled out with a hip injury.
 
The Serb legend will face either the American 13th seed Taylor Fritz or 25th-seeded Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the final four.
 
In Combat Sports: Australian Sam Goodman won an excellent unanimous decision over unbeaten rising star Chainoi Worawut from Thailand - 117-111, 117-113, 119-109 in Woollongong last night.
 
But the Aussie star suffered a potential broken hand, revealing after the fight that he injured it perhaps as early as the fourth round.

Now for arguably the best pound-for-pound boxer on the planet, undisputed and undefeated Super Bantamweight megastar Naoya “The Monster” Inoue.

And in the Paris Olympic Games: Watch out world, Team USA Basketball mean business.
 
Their 12-man squad will have every other nation shaking in their Nikes.

Led by LeBron James, the squad also features Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, Jayson Tatum, Kawhi Leonard, Bam Adebayo, Anthony Edwards, Tyrese Haliburton, Devin Booker and Jrue Holiday.

Their combined annual NBA contracts comes in at US$545.4Million.

To put this into context, the entire Australian Boomers squad NBA contracts total US$54.6M annually.

In the WNBA: The WNBA has seen 11 games this season top 1 million viewers, and Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever has played in 10 of them
 
Here’s the kicker – it’s been 16 seasons since the WNBA topped 1 million viewers for a game, before 2024.

A new study from the National Research Group, conducted last month among 1074 US sports fans aged 18-64, digs deep into the “Caitlin Clark” effect, generating the following key points:

• §  59% of Black fans watch the WNBA on at least an occasional basis, compared to just 26% of white fans.
•  64% have heard of Clark, compared to 46% for the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese, who ranked No. 2.
• §  66% have an overall positive impression of Clark, with 4% negative. That is better than most NBA stars.
• §  72% who follow Clark say that they sympathize with her because of the press attention she’s received (60% say the media treats her unfairly).
• §  81% of fans say Clark is the main reason they’ve watched more WNBA this year than they normally do.
• §  20% of those planning to watch the Paris Olympics said that Clark’s absence would make them less interested in watching women’s basketball.

You go girl!
 
That’s a wrap peeps!
 
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Mahalo and Ka kite; for TEIVOVOdigital.com, I’m Culden Kamea tanking you all too mass for all your love and support.
 
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