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🏀 Drama in the NBA world continues as Jeanie Buss' lawyer called out Shams Charania over his reporting on the Lakers ownership saga. Shams is standing by his work.

⚾ Some not-so-great news for Netflix and MLB as viewership for this year’s Field of Dreams game fell hard.

📻 WFAN radio host Craig Carton will be launching a new show on Outkick.

🦚 Peacock is raising prices for the fourth time in four years. Someone has to pay for that new NBA TV deal, right?

🏈 The NFL is at an impasse with DraftKings and FanDuel over the cost of in-app streaming of games.

🦾 Bill Simmons listeners are not happy with his embrace of ChatGPT and AI as a sponsor.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

Past and present ESPN figures paid tribute to network founder Bill Rasmussen upon the news of his passing at the age of 93. Rasmussen, along with his son Scott, will go down in history as the ones to bring the first 24/7 sports network to life.

Ironically, Bill Rasmussen did not have a long tenure at ESPN. After founding the network, he sold a majority stake to Getty Oil. Soon thereafter, he parted ways with the company in 1980. It wasn’t until the network’s 20th anniversary in 1999 that he reconnected with ESPN. He was celebrated with a documentary that aired on the network this year.

But among the tributes to Rasmussen, it was naturally one of the most iconic, trusted, and poignant voices to ever grace ESPN that summed up his legacy in the best and most impactful way.

Bob Ley joined SportsCenter to speak about Rasmussen and, in doing so, credited him with helping to sow the seeds for what the sports world has become today.

The Los Angeles Lakers wouldn't be worth $12 billion if early ESPN, this acorn, had not flowered, creating the genesis of the sports culture that is now so important for this country and this world. And so much of that comes back to Bill Rasmussen." Ley said.

It seems like a remarkable statement, but it is 1000% true.

Before Rasmussen, the thought of an all-sports round-the-clock cable network was a crazy notion. And in ESPN's early days, there were likely many skeptics. It’s hard to think of it now, but ESPN was once the underdog. They were the Little Engine That Could of television networks. And slowly but surely, they not only built up their programming, but their rights portfolio. Australian Rules Football soon gave way to the National Football League. And with a dual income stream of advertising revenues and accelerating cable fees, ESPN was off to the races.

It’s easy to take for granted now, but ESPN was revolutionary in so many ways. The network has nationalized the daily sports conversation and made it possible for fans to follow all kinds of live sports in ways that were not possible before. Whether it’s the expansion of the NCAA Tournament or the advent of the College Football Playoff, ESPN has been a key driving force in putting sporting events on the map.

But it’s not just the technical or structural things that ESPN has given the sports world. Yes, SportsCenter became the flagship program for highlights. ESPN’s game broadcasts became the gold standard. Their pregame shows broke boundaries in traveling around the country. Production values, studio shows, star personalities - the list goes on and on. It is unfathomable to think about what our existence as sports fans would be like without ESPN.

But the biggest legacy of ESPN and the dream of Bill Rasmussen is how he brought the love of sports into the living rooms of the masses. For decades, sports were a very regional or local endeavor. You listened to games on local radio and read about your team in the local newspaper. But ESPN helped turn it into a national obsession. Thanks to ESPN and its growth, fans could access teams, leagues, and sports from across the country and even across the world. And because of that accessibility, sports have become an integral part of the American fabric over the last 45 years. And we are now in our second or third generation of individuals who will be part of a culture where sports is at its heartbeat.

No matter what you do or where you go, you’re never too far from a sports debate, a shared highlight, or a story about a game or a team you love.

And for that, we all have Bill Rasmussen to thank.

There wasn’t a dry eye anywhere in Queens or beyond when Howie Rose and Gary Cohen shared this touching moment in the Mets booth.

You really wouldn’t expect a tennis player, or any pro athlete, to be drinking a beer during a competitive match. Right? Unless we’re talking darts in the 1980’s in England, perhaps.

While there were a lot of touching tributes to ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen, the First Take one, abruptly cut off by The Pat McAfee Show, was a little too on the nose for everything happening at the moment.

“When this show was at its best, I'll put it up against any show, not just in sports talk, but in radio. That's how good I felt about this show.” - Matt Chernoff and Chuck Oliver ended their 25-year run together at the top of Atlanta sports talk radio. Chernoff will host a new show with the returning John Kincade on 680 The Fan while Oliver will focus on his college football program.

"I think when you get done playing, you think of yourself only as an athlete who's getting a chance to say a couple of things. And then you realize, No, this is actually what I do now. I enjoy it. It's been fun. I have a lot of pride now in saying, 'I am a media guy.'" - Andrew Whitworth is fully embracing his transition from the NFL to the media.

"There is no one in sports right now who is more moronic than Jayden Daniels. Jayden Daniels and his team, they have absolutely embarrassed themselves. I have never seen anything quite like this.” - Adam Schein didn’t hold back on Jayden Daniels throwing away any good karma coming his way.

When Michael Lombardi was placed on administrative leave by the University of North Carolina, it sparked a ton of reactions across the football universe. And almost none of them were sympathetic towards Lombardi.

Nothing made that more apparent than viral comments from The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, one of the most long-respected voices covering the college game. On The Audible podcast, Feldman said, “He is without question the worst general manager in college sports. He should be getting his paycheck with a ski mask on. I’m sorry. This is such a staggering amount of ineptitude in the job he’s had for Bill Belichick.”

Of course, Feldman wasn’t alone in his assessment of the situation, but his comments were widely circulated as others offered similar perspectives.

In an interview with Awful Announcing, Feldman spoke with our Michael Grant about his Freaks List, one of the annual highlights of the college football season spotlighting the most compelling athletes in the sport. But he also addressed those Lombardi comments. And in case you were wondering, the reactions he received were just like those shared across social media.

“So many people came up to me, texted me, or DM'd me—people I want to say came out of the woodwork. They're people I haven't talked to in five years, NFL coaches, or media people I worked with at ESPN, NFL Network, or Fox, each with their own stories. A lot of people in the NFL, agents.

“He's left quite a trail. And I can't remember ever writing or speaking about somebody who was that polarizing, and not just that polarizing, because polarizing makes it seem like it's 50-50, but everybody has strong opinions. This was, like, I don't even know if it was 99-to-1 in terms of negativity versus positivity. It was kind of remarkable to hear from so many people. I cannot remember ever writing or talking about anyone that people were so strongly kind of disgusted by.”