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‘Rocket League’ Is Going Free-To-Play And Leaving The Steam Store ‘Later This Summer’

Rocket League is the sports game of choice for a lot of people who like juggling a giant ball with a car while flying through the air, and now the audience for that game will get a lot larger. Psyonix announced Tuesday that Rocket League will become a free-to-play game “later this summer” and will leave the Steam store for the Epic Game store as well.

Rocket League has seen a considerable evolution since it was first released on PlayStation 4 and PC in 2015. The game is on every console now and has become a big hit online. The game’s makers said on Tuesday that anyone who bought and played the game online before it went free-to-play will get “legacy status” and a number of bonuses, including an “Est. 20XX’ moniker that displays when they first started playing the game. Common items collected in the paid game will also become “legacy” quality and players will get a special boost, set of wheels and a player banner at no extra charge.

Psyonix teased some changes to its Tournament and Challenge systems and more details about the change to free-to-play, which wasn’t given an official date just yet, either. But it’s big news for a vibrant online community that’s likely to get a lot bigger now that it’s an extremely cheap game to get started with.

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The Most Over-Hyped IPAs On The Market, According To Bartenders

If you’re a beer drinker, chances are you’ve enjoyed a fair number of IPAs in your time. You’re probably able to distinguish some of the stylistic riffs on the genre — English, West Coast, East Coast, New England, Double, Triple, and Session — but maybe not all of them. This is a sprawling section of the beer family tree, after all, with each sub-style varying in hoppiness, bitterness, and flavor profile. It’s a lot to get your head (and palate) around.

Since India Pale Ale is still hanging on as the most popular craft beer style, there’s never a shortage of options crowding the fridges of your local beer shops or the taps of your favorite breweries. As with most any creative output, a few will be fantastic, many will be solid, and a handful will stink. Where that gets interesting is when the public favor (or popularity) of a beer doesn’t match its actual quality. It happens in music, movies, TV, and spirits — so of course, it happens in beer, too.

Nestor Marchand, director of food and beverage at Plunge Beach Resort in Lauderdale, Florida actually thinks the whole style fits that description. “I think all IPA’s are overrated,” he says. “Originally, the bitter taste was only so they wouldn’t spoil.”

Few bartenders would take things quite that far, but they still recognize that sometimes there’s a disparity between quality and hype. We asked some of our favorite folks behind the bar to share their opinions on which IPAs don’t deserve the praise they get heaped on them.

Cigar City Jai Alai

Shawn Brown, general manager of Wine World in Miramar Beach, Florida

Cigar City’s Jai Alai is maybe the most well-known Florida IPA and it’s a great beer. But there is so much quality out there now that others are catching up. Some of the up and coming smaller breweries are now just as good.

Lagunitas IPA

Reniel Garcia, bar director of Havana 1957 in Miami

Lagunitas was one of the first well known IPAs. It’s harsh on the palate and the finish is mostly bitter but balanced, with a slight lingering bitterness. All in all a good beer, but it has not improved itself among the new IPAs that showed up after that.

Alchemist Focal Banger

Seamus Gleason, bartender at Hotel Jackson in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Pick one. Any over-hopped, over-hyped, bitter bomb gut-buster from your local craft brewer. If I had to pick a more well-known IPA, I’d say Alchemist Focal Banger. Great beer, but not really worth the hype.

Goose Island IPA

Kurt Bellon, general manager and beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis

The Goose Island brand is taking over taps across the country and has me exclaiming, “look at all those chickens!” when I am looking over draft lists and want to throw in a solid Vine reference.

Russian River Pliny The Elder

Tim Wiggins, co-owner and beverage director of Retreat Gastropub in St. Louis

Pliney The Elder. I had it on draft in San Francisco years ago, it tasted like a solid IPA. As far as IPA’s go, I used to get super hyped to try the newest, hoppiest, and dankest beers. Now that I have blasted my palate with far too many hops, I just want a well-balanced IPA with low sweetness and sharp bitterness.

Elysian Space Dust

Alfredo Arroyo, bartender at Joe’s Café in Santa Barbara, California

I’m not a big fan of Lagunitas IPA. For a bitter beer, it’s fairly high in price. But if I had to pick an overrated beer it would be Elysian Space Dust. It’s okay, just more bitter than I would prefer.

New Belgium Ranger

Jeremy Allen, beverage director of MiniBar Hollywood in Los Angeles

If I was to make a list of overrated IPAs it would include Goose Island, New Belgium (Ranger IPA), and seriously any beer at Trader Joes. The cans look good, the beer lets down. But for this, I’ll stick with Ranger IPA. If you enjoy IPAs, you can do a lot better than this.

Writer’s Picks:

Stone IPA

Yes, this seems like a crime against beer to not be hyped up about Stone IPA. Maybe it’s the rise of lagers or even the hazy, juicy quality of New England IPAs, but many West Coast IPAs come off has a bit harsh and bitter nowadays, Stone included.

Ballast Point Sculpin

Sculpin definitely had its day in the sun. But it’s been a few years since the craft beer world seemingly passed this seven-percent, citrus-filled hop bomb. A decent beer to sip on a hot day. There are just many better beers available now.

Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale

Dale’s Pale Ale is another beer on this list that isn’t bad. We’ve mentioned Oskar Blues in many articles and drink a ton of their beers. It’s just that Dale’s Pale Ale is a little overhyped. Brewed since 2002, it seems to be stuck in a time when drinkers palates were more accustomed to bitter, hoppy brews.

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Kevin Garnett Issued A Statement On His Attempt To Buy The Timberwolves

On Tuesday evening, word broke from Sportico that Glen Taylor is examining a potential sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves after owning the team since 1994. In short order, the focus of that report widened to include Timberwolves legend Kevin Garnett, who reportedly has a group that is preparing a substantial and serious bid to present to Taylor.

Later in the evening, Garnett issued a statement via his personal Twitter account, speaking on his passion for the franchise and his affection for Minneapolis.

It is highly notable that Garnett indicates he is “trying to work with” Taylor in the process, especially with previous comments from the Hall of Fame big man about not wanting to see his jersey retired by the franchise while Taylor is still the owner. Still, this is the kind of statement that would be wise to make under the circumstances, especially with Garnett acknowledging that being a part of the new ownership group would be a landmark occasion in fulfilling a dream.

Without financial details, it is difficult to know just how these discussions and negotiations may go in the coming hours and days. Still, there is more than enough smoke to make things interesting, and Garnett operating as the face of a new ownership group would undoubtedly excite fans in the Twin Cities that have a passion for the Timberwolves.

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Donald Trump Reportedly Tried To Move The British Open To His Golf Course In Scotland

Donald Trump cheats at golf, and now it seems he tried to use his presidency to help move one of the sport’s biggest events to his own golf course. According to a report in the New York Times on Tuesday, Trump asked an ambassador to help move one of golf’s majors to his Scottish golf course.

The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that President Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, according to three people with knowledge of the episode.

The ambassador’s deputy, Lewis A. Lukens, advised him not to do it, warning that it would be an unethical use of the presidency for private gain, these people said. But Mr. Johnson apparently felt pressured to try. A few weeks later, he raised the idea of Turnberry playing host to the Open with the secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell.

It’s important to note that Robert Wood Johnson IV is better known as Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets. It’s a wildly inappropriate use of power for the president, who has long entangled his own real estate holdings with the power of the presidency. He was apparently told this by others, but that person soon saw themselves forced out and Trump tried to make it happen, anyway.

Still, the episode left Mr. Lukens and other diplomats deeply unsettled. Mr. Lukens, who served as the acting ambassador before Mr. Johnson arrived in November 2017, emailed officials at the State Department to tell them what had happened, colleagues said. A few months later, Mr. Johnson forced out Mr. Lukens, a career diplomat who had earlier served as ambassador to Senegal, shortly before his term was to end.

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s instructions to Mr. Johnson, as did the ambassador and the State Department.

The Open is held at a number of golf courses in the UK, with 10 currently in the active rotation while four have been retired from active use. Given the history of the game and its established courses, announcing a new location would certainly have caused a stir, let alone a course owned by the president of the United States.

Trump has already been impeached by the House of Representatives, though with a reelection vote in November and a lot of more important crises currently unfolding, it seems unlikely that anything will come of the report. But it’s yet another example of Trump trying to force his will on the sports world, and using an NFL owner to try making it happen in the process.

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The NFL Will Reportedly Have Zero Preseason Games In 2020

The NFL season is slowly slipping away as the realities of trying to make a 32-team football league happen amid the COVID-19 pandemic make the league’s traditional schedule impossible to safely execute. The league remotely carried out a draft in the spring and already had canceled the annual Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, and half the preseason schedule was cut before teams even assembled mini camps.

On Tuesday, however, the NFL reportedly told its union that all preseason games would be canceled as concerns mounted about the safety protocols the league would have in place to keep players from contracting and spreading COVID-19.

It’s not surprising that the league decided playing meaningless games in August would be unnecessary given the circumstances, but it is notable how quickly the league eliminated the exhibition schedule altogether given how long it’s been a public stance that it’s necessary for both revenue and player/team development and evaluation. Shortening the preseason has long been a labor issue, but with COVID-19 cases rising in many US states where NFL teams play and alarming concerns from players about a testing plan for the season, it quickly became a negotiating position the league and owners couldn’t hold.

The NFL had months longer than every other North American sports league to prepare for and plan a safe way to play football in the coming months. That time appears to have been squandered, and the scramble to find a way through this that works might cost the league far more than two more exhibition games.

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‘The Legend Of Korra’ Will Join ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ On Netflix In August

Netflix will officially have two Avatars starting next month, as Avatar: The Last Airbender will see its water-bending successor join it on the streaming service come August 14. One of the service’s Twitter accounts announced on Tuesday that The Legend Of Korra will join Ang’s Avatar on Netflix, welcome news for fans of the Nickelodeon series.

The Legend of Korra is a notable cartoon in a number of ways, starting with the fact that it takes place decades later in the same universe as Avatar and has some characters return from the original series. What’s more, though, is it’s fairly easy to predict that Korra will be a popular target for people to stream on Netflix given the success The Last Airbender found earlier this year.

Netflix finally telling you what’s popular on the streaming service over the last few months has been an interesting experimentation in drawing renewed attention to some nostalgia-fueled shows like Avatar. The Nick cartoon was beloved back in the day, and it hitting Netflix caused a resurgence of people re-watching or finally seeing it all in order for the first time. It would consistently be in the site’s Top 10 as fans churned through Ang’s three seasons as the Avatar, and social media lit up with Avatar tweets and Tik Toks as a new generation got to see the cartoon for the first time. When those viewers finished with Ang, of course, the next logical step would be to look for The Legend Of Korra, which ran four seasons from 2012 to 2014.

Both series are far more well-liked than the Avatar movie, which was much easier to find streaming than either cartoon until this year. Given the enthusiasm Netflix found for Avatar the first time around, prepare to see a lot of Korra’s face on the Top 10 come August.

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Mac Miller’s Estate Asks Fans To Contribute To A New Project Celebrating His Life

Mac Miller’s team has set up a new website for fans to contribute to an upcoming project celebrating the late rapper’s life and legacy. A toll-free phone number has been set up for fans to share stories, thoughts, and well wishes, according to a press release from Mac’s label, Warner Records.

At the time of his passing, Mac was reportedly recording a trilogy of albums including Swimming and Circles, but there is no indication that the upcoming project is the third album in the planned trilogy — or even what it is.

While Circles was completed and released earlier this year with the help of Miller collaborator Jon Brion, progress on Mac’s purported third project is currently unknown. Circles was extended with a deluxe version in March.

The link provided by Warner Records leads to a form for fans to fill out with a talent release, implying that the project will have a commercial release. While it’s not clear whether this project will be musical in nature, it was also recently reported that a Mac Miller biopic is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand unproduced scripts.

Find more information in the embedded tweet above.

Mac Miller is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

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Kevin Garnett Is Reportedly Part Of A Group Of Investors That Wants To Buy The Timberwolves (UPDATE)

UPDATE: It turns out the interest in buying the Timberwolves that is held by Kevin Garnett and a group of investors is more than exploratory. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, that group plans to submit a bid to purchase the team from current owner Glen Taylor.

EARLIER: Some huge news came out of Minnesota on Tuesday afternoon. According to a report by Sportico, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is exploring selling the team. Taylor has been the organization’s majority owner since 1994, and while the Wolves have had plenty of success under his ownership, there have been plenty of bumps in the road. Most notably, the team has made the playoffs once in the last 16 seasons, and there has been plenty of bad blood between Taylor and the most beloved player in franchise history, Kevin Garnett.

As it turns out, Garnett is motivated to expedite the process of Taylor selling the team. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Garnett is a member of a group of investors that are interested in exploring a bid for the Timberwolves.

Of course, it would be really cool to see Garnett — who has said he does not want his jersey retired by the team while Taylor is its owner — in this role, but things are still rather early in the process. There is, however, some amount of momentum towards a move, as Taylor told Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic that there’s more than just Garnett’s group involved right now.

Taylor is, per Krawczynski, steadfast in one thing: Whomever takes over the Timberwolves has to keep them in Minneapolis, and negotiations aren’t going to make it very far if a potential buyer wants to move the squad.

Basketball has been taken from the city in the past — the Los Angeles Lakers spent 12 years in Minneapolis before moving out west — and it’s good that Taylor doesn’t want that to happen again. Now, all eyes are on whether the potential ownership group that wins out will be the one that features Garnett or someone else.

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Report: Timberwolves Owner Glen Taylor Is Exploring Selling The Team

The Minnesota Timberwolves may have a new owner for the first time since 1995, as Glen Taylor is reportedly exploring a sale of the team.

According to Sportico’s Scott Soshnick, Taylor has retained the services of The Raine Group to seek private bids for the franchise — rather than hold a public auction — and is hoping to get an offer of $1.2 billion for the team.

Billionaire owner Glen Taylor has retained The Raine Group to sell the franchise he’s owned since 1995, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. There are several parties who have bid on the team, two of the people said. A deal could be completed within a month, one of the people said.

The Timberwolves saw a tremendous amount of success early in Taylor’s tenure, thanks in large part to the presence of Kevin Garnett, but since Garnett’s departure they have only made the playoffs once in 13 years. Garnett has long been critical of Taylor, explaining how he refuses to be part of the organization or involved in anything, including a jersey retirement, as long as Taylor is around. If the Sportico report is true, it appears he could get his wish much sooner than expected, as the Timberwolves may have new ownership before next season.

We will have to wait to see who emerges as a potential ownership group, but if someone new takes over, one of the first steps will be mending fences with the franchise’s most legendary star.

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What’s On Tonight: Jack Whitehall’s Newest Special Piles Onto Netflix’s Tuesday Comedy Lineup

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Jack Whitehall: I’m Only Joking — Jack’s back for his second Netflix original standup special filmed at London’s Wembley Stadium. This time around, he’s experiencing an awkward audience encounter while relating an awkward air-travel story (remember airplanes?) and reflecting upon awkward times with his dad.

Netflix has also dropped many other comedy specials over the past few months, and here are the highlights:

Eric Andre: Legalize Everything — This New Orleans-filmed special shows Eric Andre once again busting through comedic boundaries while taking on the wars on sex, drugs, and… fart jokes? Alright. Seriously though, It’s the best comedy special of the year and highly relevant to the U.S. police-related discussion today.

Jim Jefferies: Intolerant — The Aussie comedian (who remains notorious for his gun-control opinion) pulls a 180 from where he was five years ago. He’s less focused on issues these days and grows incredibly banal at times, but he’s still uproariously funny. While reflecting upon the state of comedy today, he manages to dole out some hefty insight on life while telling an epic tale of the pursuit of lactose at all costs.

Pete Davidson: Alive From New York — From SNL to a ton of upcoming movies, Pete Davidson’s doing everything, and now, he’s got his very first Netflix original comedy special. Yes, he’s dropping all kinds of unfiltered anecdotes on everything from his SNL-related discomfort to his Louis C.K. beef and Ariana Grande relationship.

Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything — The Emmy and Grammy winning comedian brings his newest comedy special to the streaming giant. Look forward to anecdotes involving a full-scale Millennium Falcon replica and how home buying gets tied to the term “suicide squad.” Stick around for the post-credits bonus, in which Patton introduces another one-hour comedy special, Bob Rubin: Oddities & Rarities.

Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours To Kill — The legendary Jerry Seinfeld has dropped his second Netflix special. Expect him to keep mining everyday life to unveil comedy in the commonplace. Although the title of this special feels Bond-esque, Seinfeld doesn’t disappoint those expecting his trademarked sharp perceptions about everyday life.

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas (Netflix stand-up special) — The newest Netflix comedy special arrives today with Hannah Gadsby following up on Nanette with a second turn named after one of her dogs. Gadsby’s hope was that Douglas would “inspire comedy disobedience,” according to Netflix, and this LA-filmed special promises to upend all expectations.

Marc Maron: End Times Fun — The long-time standup comic, GLOW star, and prolific podcaster unleashes his latest comedy special. Expect Maron’s thoughts on cell phones, vaccinations, and Tumeric. Oh, and he’s definitely talking about his ongoing beef with Marvel movie fans.

George Lopez: We’ll Do It For Half (Netflix stand-up special, Tuesday) — Somehow, this is Lopez’s first Netflix comedy special despite his storied stand-up roots. In one hour, Lopez dives into lessons that he’s learned from the Latino community, along with issues related to emotional support animals, gender reveal parties, and elevator etiquette.

Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis — Taylor Tomlinson has made a high-spirited appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, and Netflix now presents her first comedy special. Over the course of an hour, Tomlinson will discuss how she’s leaving the mistakes of her early 20s behind her (and tell us why why your twenties are not truly “the best years of your life”).

Tom Segura: Ball Hog — This special promises to not be for the faint of heart, and Segura is leaving no target-stone unturned. He tackles emotionally fragile people, arguments with one’s family, up-ending expectations, and he offers some common sense on following dreams, live from a recent performance in Austin, Texas.

Here are a few options elsewhere on TV:

Stargirl (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Family secrets threaten to topple Henry Jr.’s mastery of his own skills, and Courtney’s new squad gets real with an Injustice League member.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Greta Thunberg, Keegan-Michael Key

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon — Andy Samberg, Perfume Genius

Jimmy Kimmel Live — Nikki Glaser, Paris Hilton, Phoebe Robinson

Late Night With Seth Meyers — Chris Evans, Action Bronson, Elle King