Kaylee Pofahl

Europe loves soccer, Canada loves ice hockey, the U.S. loves American football and for whatever reason, India and Australia really love cricket — it’s the same old song. Health concerns and MIA Russians aside, the next 16 days of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics will mark a rare time when the world is watching the same sporting spectacle. But not all Olympic sports are created equal.

The Indiana Fever may have beaten the Liberty for the first time this season on Thursday at the Garden, but the biggest statement of the game came before the opening tip. The Liberty and the Fever, along with the Phoenix Mercury, were hit with hefty fines by the WNBA for wearing all-black warm-up T-shirts in the wake of the recent police shootings of black men across the country — Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, to name two — and a sniper’s assassination of five Dallas cops.

With the 2016 NBA Draft on tap for Thursday night in Brooklyn, The Post’s Kaylee Pofahl ranks the league’s 10 greatest draft classes since 1976, when the NBA and ABA merged:

While the ESPYs were celebrated for activism and altruism and awkward red-carpet humor, perhaps the most meaningful awards of the evening may have gone relatively unnoticed: The winners of Best Female and Male Athlete with a Disability were Tatyana McFadden and Richard Browne.

Leonard Williams, the Jets’ sixth-overall selection in the 2015 draft, finished last season as one of the top rookies in the NFL — and now he says his growing pains are over. “It is different because last year I just kept thinking, ‘rookie, rookie, rookie,’ but now … I know that I’m a pro now,” Williams said during last week’s training camp.

That’s the unavoidable reality of sexual assault on campus, according to a prominent college sports administrator. Big 12 Conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby, before any questions were asked at Monday’s media day, waded into the topic of the sexual assault scandal at Baylor, one of the league’s members. Football coach Art Briles, athletics director Ian McCaw and school president Ken Starr lost their jobs in the fallout — though Baylor failed to release the complete findings of the law firm hire

When Kimberly Rhode won bronze for the United States in women’s skeet shooting on Friday in Rio de Janeiro, she became the first woman to win an individual medal in six consecutive Olympics, a streak that began in Atlanta in 1996. She won her sixth medal in a shootoff against China’s Wei Ming to become the most decorated female shooter in Olympic history. Apparently, when Rhode tweeted, “there’s always room for one more” after the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, she was serious.

Marcus Williams played just 27 percent of the Jets’ defensive snaps in 2015, yet the ball-hawking backup cornerback led the team in interceptions with six. This season, with Antonio Cromartie gone, the 25-year-old undrafted free agent from North Dakota State is working on becoming more than just a replacement.

The Mets let the Diamondbacks run Citi Field’s bases like track stars Thursday afternoon, not only with nine unanswered runs but also four stolen bases, pushing Arizona’s series total to an unlucky number — 13. That total tied the most by a team in any series in Major League Baseball, exceeding Arizona’s previous series-best by three, and it broke the Mets’ franchise record for most steals allowed, previously set in 1990. Starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard made it clear he was not concerned wit

Every natural law of sport is violated when someone scores an own goal. The culprit finds himself caught between the desire to knock himself unconscious and the urge to crawl into a hole. Fans don’t know what to do with themselves. Coaches are at a loss for words. Referees are probably chuckling to themselves when no one is looking. The sports gods are cringing. In soccer, own goals are not particularly rare — and there have been multiple examples, some particularly devastating, in this month’s

When Derrick Rose takes his career to the Garden this coming season, he will wear the same No. 25 jersey that he wore back in high school at Simeon Career Academy. The jersey is in honor of  Ben “Benji” Wilson, who was ranked the No. 1 basketball player in the country in 1984 when he played at the same school. Wilson, called Chicago’s basketball “messiah” at the time, died the day before he was supposed to start his senior season after being shot while walking down the street. He was 17 years o

The minor league version of the Mets-Yankees rivalry produced a 20-inning game in front of a sold-out crowd at MCU Park on Friday in the second longest game in Brooklyn Cyclones history. The two teams matched 16 scoreless frames dragged out over almost six hours of baseball and 553 pitches before the Staten Island Yankees finally dispatched of their rivals 3-2 thanks to a sacrifice fly in the top of the 20th by Ricardo Ferreira off Brooklyn infielder Dionis Paulino. The squads combined for 41 s

With four of their starters and their head coach suspended, New York City Football Club brought the thunder to follow the lightning that loomed within The Bronx, taking a dominant 5-1 victory over the Colorado Rapids Saturday at Yankee Stadium. Despite a 40-minute weather delay, New York won by the largest margin of victory in team history. The win snapped the Rapids’ record-setting 15-game undefeated streak dating back to April. Against the best defensive team in the league, which had allowed

Evander Kane may be the most toxic player in the NHL. The Buffalo Sabres winger’s offseason has been spent denying repeated, disgusting allegations of violence against women. Kane’s lawyers confirmed this week the 25-year-old is being sued by a woman accusing him of assault. The suit being filed is in connection with an incident from last December that originally was described as a possible sexual assault. In court documents, per the Associated Press, Kane’s actions are described as “unwanted,

The song “Smack My Bitch Up” shouldn’t be blared through the speakers of any MLB stadium — and especially not as accused domestic abuser Aroldis Chapman is walking off the mound.

Greg Schiano has been implicated in the Penn State football program’s decades-long silence about child sexual abuse perpetrated by predator Jerry Sandusky. In addition to containing revelations about what head coach Joe Paterno knew and when, documents unsealed Tuesday by a Pennsylvania court include a deposition given by former Penn State graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who became a key witness in Sandusky’s prosecution.

Liberty forward Swin Cash announced Tuesday that the current WNBA season will be her last via a post on the Players’ Tribune website. Cash’s 15 years with the league are decorated with three WNBA titles and two Olympic gold medals. In addition, she won two NCAA titles at Connecticut. “Basketball has allowed me to live a life that I am fiercely proud of,” she said in her statement. Cash, 36, has just 27 regular-season games left, and the veteran said she is determined to make the most of them.