We Bumped Into Beyoncé...

…He’s a little bit pick ‘N’ roll. Adrien Nunez is a former Michigan hooper turned overnight country music sensation. The NYC-born artist sure contains multitudes. Do they have cold beer and dirt roads and truck beds in Brooklyn? I guess we’re gonna find out. 

What do you want for Christmas? What’s that? You want a rom-com filmed all over Buffalo, including at Orchard Park? You’re in luck, because Hallmark made that exact movie. 

Chris Paul is retiring, and that stinks! But he deserves it. But we hate it! But good for him. Now, everyone’s feeling happy and sad at the same time, and taking to social to pay homage. 

With the Dallas Wings securing the number one pick in the WNBA draft lottery (for the second year in a row, by the way), Paige and Azzi just might play on the same team soon. 

The Milwaukee Bucks opened the “most extensive customization shop in any NBA arena,” and it includes designated merch stations with embroidery, engraving, heat presses, and more. It’s also the only merch shop run by a deer, which makes sense, because the hooves certainly would complicate things. 

@stephencurry30

5 PM in Los Angeles #stephencurry #stephencurrybook #shotready #shotreadybook

Would you believe me if I told you that the latest edition of “The Chat” from WhatsApp was another to remember? This week, we had Philly’s Princess Kylie Kelce and pal slash comedian Caleb Hearon in the group chat to explain football to the more casual of fans, and it proved to be very educational. 

At one point, Kylie explained a false start in “Mean Girls” terms via video message.

The whole chat (including Kylie’s producer on her pod “Not Gonna Lie,” Queen Emma) pondered why the Cowboys get to be America’s team. 

No surprise that they all crushed the analogies and made football understood in ways that have never been done before.

It wasn’t all learning, though. Some of it was thirsting about the Buffalo Wild Wings Buffalo.

Also, this had me on the floor. 

If you don’t know, now you know: it’s been a blast to be a part of WhatsApp’s exclusive group chats with some of our favorite athletes and personalities. Follow, subscribe, and stay tuned for future editions of “The Chat” from WhatsApp!

What’s up, everyone? It’s Dan here, the editor of Ashtyn’s amazing OffBall Daily newsletter and the writer of SportsVerse. You all know by now that where there’s a sports culture event happening, OffBall jumps on a plane and gets right into it. And nothing screams sports culture showcase more than the Las Vegas Grand Prix.  

As someone who recently moved to this country from the UK, my first time in Vegas was a pure sensory overload. And as a guest of American Express for the weekend, I got to go behind the scenes in one of the biggest sporting events on the calendar. Please brace yourselves for some heavy name-dropping, starting now. 

I started off strong by kicking it with Aaron Paul (you know, the dude from Breaking Bad), who hosted us at an intimate party for his latest venture, “The Only Caviar,” where he showed me how to bump caviar for the first time (true story). The good folks of Amex then got us into the opening night party at Carbone Riviera, where the likes of Dwight Howard and the entire cast of “Love Is Blind” were casually hanging out. 

I got to hang out in the F1 Academy paddock with Canadian driver Nicole Havrda, who boasts the best car on the grid, wrapped in a shiny Amex Platinum Card livery, which shimmered under the Vegas lights around the track. 

I then paid a visit to the Amex-sponsored official F1 merch hub inside The Venetian, which had at least 1,000 people waiting to enter the entire weekend, in a queue that stretched out the building. F1 merch is in its golden era, and the store had people lining up for hours to get their hands on F1 Vegas collabs with the likes of Disney, Hello Kitty, Malbon (my personal favorite), and many more. I’ll be writing all about that in SportsVerse tomorrow. Lewis Hamilton’s Mission 44 pop up also had thousands lining up for a sneak peak inside all weekend long. 

Saturday night is when things got wild. I was escorted onto the actual track to watch just meters away from Louis Tomlinson’s (you know, the guy from One Direction) “Grid Gigs” performance. Then, as the drivers lined up on the grid to start the race, I got up close with the most eclectic who’s who of the F1 Vegas VIP world. Travis Scott, friend of OffBall Tara Davis-Woodhall, Damson Idris, Gordon Ramsey, Magic Johnson, Terry Crews, and friend of Dan and friend of OffBall, F1 legend Toni Cowan-Brown — you name it, they were all there.

After all that excitement, I ran down to get my first-ever In-N-Out burger right in the empty Paddock area, which had cleared out after the race started, where I quite literally bumped into Beyoncé and Jay Z, who had waited for a quiet moment to sneak into the Ferrari garage (another true story, DM for photo evidence). 

Despite all that, hands down the wildest moment of the weekend was witnessing a shotgun wedding at the F1 Paddock Chapel, officiated by an Elvis impersonator, of course. True. Story.