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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

⚡Power Down. A power outage at ESPN’s Seaport District Studios briefly impacted First Take on Wednesday. Notably, it forced Chris Russo from the main studio to a hallway to do his “What’s Mad Dog mad about?” segment. “If they didn’t pay Stephen A. $400 million, maybe they could pay their freakin’ bills, ESPN. Jimmy and the fellas,” Russo chided his First Take co-star.

❤️ Good Ol’ JR. Legendary professional wrestling announcer Jim Ross provided his fans with a positive update after undergoing surgery to deal with colon cancer. The 73-year-old Ross said Wednesday evening, letting people know that the surgery was “a success.”

🖕Fingers Up. Wednesday’s game between the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers was briefly delayed when someone in the Comerica Park grounds crew suffered an injury. When the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast eventually went to a camera angle directly in front of the injured crew member, he gave everyone the finger. Fair enough!

🏈 Noon or Bust. After it became clear that their season-opener against Texas would be part of Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, OSU wanted to move the game. However, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte blocked the move because doing so would give the Longhorns a short week against their next opponent.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

How badly are ABC/ESPN rooting for a Knicks comeback?

Tonight, the Indiana Pacers will attempt to close out the Eastern Conference Finals… and the New York Knicks.

If not for a thrilling late-game comeback in Game 3, they might have already done it. The fact that New York is just 3-5 at Madison Square Garden in the playoffs gives Indiana a good shot to make it happen, sending the Knicks and their celebrity fans packing.

Pat McAfee might be rooting for the Pacers, but behind the scenes, we can only imagine that many of the folks at ESPN and ABC will be pulling for the Knicks to right the ship and somehow pull off an epic comeback that could send them to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.

The reason is obvious and apparent. All you have to do is look at the ratings we’ve seen so far in this series and its Western Conference counterpart.

The Oklahoma City Thunder made good on their great regular season by defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday and advancing to the NBA Finals. All due respect to them and their MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but the rest of the country collectively shrugged when it came time to tune in and watch the series.

Game 1 of the WCF averaged 5.36 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2, the lowest-watched conference final opener since the Clippers-Suns game on ABC in 2021. Game 2 was the least-watched conference final game since Hawks-Bucks Game 5 in 2021. Game 3 split the difference between the first two, and it stands to reason that the numbers for Games 4 and 5 won’t significantly change the outcome.

Meanwhile, the Pacers-Knicks series has been a ratings boon. Game 1 was the most-watched Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 since 2018. Game 3 averaged 7.1 million viewers Sunday on TNT, making it the most-watched Eastern Conference finals Game 3 since 2015. It was also the second-most-watched game of the 2025 NBA playoffs.

With all due respect to the Pacers, it’s logical to assume that the New York market and the interest in the Knicks are driving a lot of that. And when you consider the lack of a national draw that the OKC Thunder is despite their talent and success, it stands to reason that national and casual audiences are likely to tune out a Thunder-Pacers Final and change the channel.

Thunder-Knicks, however, is a different story. Fairly or not, the Knicks would bring with them the No. 1 media market in the country and a national awareness that most NBA franchises can only dream of despite their lack of recent success (It’s downright Cowboys-esque). Compare that to Oklahoma City, the 45th-largest media market, and Indianapolis, the 25th-largest. We haven’t seen a small-market NBA Finals like that since the Ft. Wayne Pistons played the Syracuse Nationals in 1955.

So, know that Bob Iger and Jimmy Pitaro are undoubtedly pulling for the Knicks this evening (and from here on out). However that might inform your own rooting interests is up to you.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

• “It’s a safety net, and it’s unneeded, it’s unwarranted, and it’s greedy.” - Fox’s Joel Klatt on the Big Ten and SEC’s desire to have four automatic bids in a 16-team CFP.

• “What’s frustrating on that was that it was a little bit of irresponsible reporting. It was one anonymous source said that’s what our roster was.” - Texas coach Steve Sarkisian responding to a Houston Chronicle report that the school will spend “between $35 and $40 million” on their roster for the 2025 season.

• “It’s real easy for those of us in the media, especially journalists, we have this sometimes dominant ‘diva gene’ where we’ll think we’re doing the Lord’s work, and God forbid anyone encroached on our turf.” - Bob Ley on the state of modern journalism.

• “I apologized privately so I’m apologizing publicly to the young [king] for my comments on First Take yesterday.” - Kendrick Perkins, apologizing after saying Anthony Edwards needs a wife and kids to be considered the face of the NBA.

• "It’s just not the way it happens in New York. He should come to the Garden for Game 5." - Ben Stiller reacting to Pat McAfee’s WWE-esque performance before Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

🗣️ THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🗣️

On the latest episode, Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen and Ben Axelrod discuss ESPN's NBA broadcasting struggles, The news that Meadowlark Media and The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz have re-signed with DraftKings, and drafting play-by-play announcers under the age of 45.

Click the video above to watch or find The Play-By-Play wherever you listen to podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

📈 DATA DUMP 📺

• After a run of disappointing viewership figures, LIV Golf continues to struggle against the PGA Tour. Through seven head-to-head Sunday final rounds so far this season, the PGA Tour is averaging 3.10 million viewers per telecast across CBS and NBC, while LIV Golf is averaging just 175,000 viewers across Fox, FS1, and FS2.

• Amazon’s Prime Video made history on Sunday when it exclusively streamed a NASCAR Cup Series race for the first time in the circuit’s history. Viewership looks promising as the Coke 600 averaged 2.6 million viewers on Prime Video, down 16% versus last year’s race on Fox and broadcast TV. Not too shabby for a paid streaming service.

• The WNBA will begin receiving first-party data from audience measurement company Nielsen in a deal worth tens of millions of dollars. It’s reportedly the largest direct-access deal Nielsen has ever struck with a women’s sports league. The WNBA now joins the NFL, MLS, NHL, PGA, NCAA, MLB, UFC, WWE, LPGA, and Premier League as sports entities that have a direct relationship with Nielsen.

💬 AROUND AA 💬

Fox could be the big loser of College Football Playoff expansion

The craziness that has dominated college football for the past five years continues to trudge onward.

As reports surface that the 10 FBS conference commissioners, plus Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, who comprise the College Football Playoff Management Committee, are strongly considering expanding the sport’s postseason yet again, fans are left wondering how exactly any of this is making the college football season more enjoyable.

The new format the committee is leaning toward, reportedly spearheaded by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, calls for a 16-team playoff with four automatic berths for the Big Ten and SEC, two auto-bids a piece for the ACC and Big 12, one slot for a Group of 5 school, and three additional at-large selections.

Despite this format including an even 16 teams, it wouldn’t use a symmetrical bracket. The bottom four teams would compete in what is essentially a “play-in” round, while the top two teams receive double byes because the format wasn’t convoluted enough with 13 playoff slots already accounted for.

That right there is the crux of the issue. 13 out of 16 playoff slots under this format are preordained. Expanding the playoffs in this manner threatens to devalue the regular season to the point where games that traditionally carried massive postseason implications no longer hold that weight.

And one network stands to be hurt the most if these changes come to fruition: Fox.

Click here to read why Drew Lerner thinks that might be the case.