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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

⛳ A wild Ryde. It was a rough weekend at Bethpage for the Americans and for NBC Sports, whose broadcast of the Ryder Cup on USA Network was slammed by viewers, particularly on Day 1. Between the deluge of ads, a huge focus on President Donald Trump, and the strange mix of one American and one European analyst, it was all too much for viewers. Reaction to the rest of the weekend was more positive, however.

🎤 Bad Bunny gets the nod. The Puerto Rican rapper will be the halftime act for Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara next February, ending (again) major speculation that Taylor Swift would finally take the stage following the release of her upcoming album.

🏀 Cheryl Reeve goes off. The longtime Minnesota Lynx head coach and future Hall of Famer exploded on the referees late in Game 3 of the WNBA semifinals on Friday night in Phoenix, then excoriated the league office at a postgame press conference after finding out her superstar was injured on the final play of the game — a no-call. Reeve was suspended for Game 4 as the Lynx were eliminated.

🏈 The last of Phil Simms? The Super Bowl champion quarterback and longtime NFL game analyst called his first big game in a while this weekend, on the ground in Iowa City as the Hawkeyes hosted Indiana on Peacock. Not only did Simms talk over The Wave at Kinnick Stadium, but fans complained all day as he struggled on the call.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

The ACC is changing football TV forever

The scorebug. The first-down line. The K-zone.

Every few years, some genius at a network or league office has an idea that changes sports television forever. And the ACC just may be the latest with its Game Day Operations Center camera.

The new feature, deployed on ESPN by way of its ACC deal, got major shine this weekend for the first time during Virginia’s incredible upset over Florida State. On the second-to-last play of the game, the ACC offices in Charlotte overturned a potential touchdown by FSU. While fans in the building were stunned, viewers at home were treated to audio and video of conference officials deliberating.

The feed provided genuine insight not only into the potential highlight play, but the overall decision-making process for remote video reviews.

Immediately, sports commentators online praised the ACC and demanded more of this kind of footage on other broadcasts. The great SportsCenter host Scott Van Pelt was the most prominent to declare this the future of football broadcasts, calling it “the next great TV idea.”

The argument for the replay booth cam to stick is twofold. First, it is far more compelling than watching the in-stadium officials put headphones over their ears and wait around while the network’s replay plays on repeat. Second, it offers a level of transparency that is massively important in the age of legal sports betting.

Big in-game decisions being made by mysterious officials far away was going to become untenable. A not-insignificant portion of NFL fans already like to argue the season is scripted. People bet massive sums on betting all around the country every weekend. Offering this level of insight also protects leagues from any doubts or accusations when it comes to game results.

Other leagues are taking note. This month, the Big 12 followed suit, announcing it would provide full audio and video access for football starting next season.

Not every college or pro sport is big enough to have off-site replay reviews. And even fewer are big enough for it to financially make sense to rig a live camera and for the networks to hook up to that feed.

However, for big-time basketball, football and even baseball, this figures to be the next arms race among leagues and broadcasters over the rest of the decade.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Nothing like a September baseball collapse:

Here’s the epic rant from Cheryl Reeve:

Not a great look from new Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson after a fairly innocuous question from a sideline reporter:

With Bad Bunny getting the nod for 2026, an interesting graphic breaking down Super Bowl halftime performers by network:

👏 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🗣️

• After a star turn in Paris last year, Snoop Dogg is slated to return to NBC Sports for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics this coming February. NBC also confirmed the fan favorite “Snoop’s Greatest Hits” segment with Mike Tirico will be back for the Winter Games.

• WFAN morning host Boomer Esiason all but predicted the return of his former cohost Craig Carton to the station after leaving in 2023. The two hosted a show together in New York until 2017.

• The success of the American League-favorite Seattle Mariners will shake up the Seattle Seahawks’ schedule next month, starting with Week 5 of the NFL season. The Seahawks could push kickoff back by as many as 150 minutes to make space while the Mariners play Game 2 of the ALDS. Then on Oct. 20, the two teams face a conflict with a potential ALDS Game 7 and Monday Night Football scheduled for the same night.

• Who says ESPN doesn’t make stars anymore? NHL reporter Emily Kaplan will transition from a rink-side reporter role for broadcasts to become an insider for the studio show. Quite a rise for Kaplan, who transitioned from covering the NFL less than a decade ago.

• Speaking of the Seattle Mariners, the team will become the latest to shift local games from television to an MLB-owned streaming product starting in 2026. Mariners games had aired on Root Sports Network since 2023.

🎺 THE PLAY-BY-PLAY🎺

Our sports media talk show, “The Play-By-Play,” is back and better than ever with three weekly live streams breaking down the biggest stories and trends in the industry.

Last Friday, our Ben Axelrod and Brendon Kleen broke down a strong start to the season for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football coverage. With impressive tech, strong chemistry in the studio and a big-time feel, Prime is cutting through.

You can watch and subscribe here, and follow on Spotify or Apple!

️‍🔥THE CLOSER🔥

Finally someone calls out NFL kickoffs!

This past Thursday night, the Seattle Seahawks kicked off Week 4 of the NFL season by beating the Arizona Cardinals on the road with a last-second field goal.

This field goal was largely made possible because, before an impressive catch by Jaxon Smith-Njigba along the sideline, Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland broke the rules. On the kickoff after Arizona tied the game, Ryland missed the “landing zone” between the opposing goal line and 20-yard line. As a result, the Seahawks got the ball at their own 40, setting up the Smith-Njigba catch and Jason Myers’ game-winning field goal.

The mistake was not just some kind of heat exhaustion from playing in the desert. It was merely the latest example of how much kicking is affecting NFL games under the new rules. And until this weekend, it felt as if nobody in sports media was picking up on it.

So a big salute to Kurt Warner, who stated that the new rules were “skewing things even more for the offense.”

Indeed, beyond the landing zone penalty giving the receiving team the ball at the 40, touchbacks now deliver the ball at the 35. And of course, if teams return kicks as the NFL wants, they are doing so from shallower position than ever with less distance to cover for favorable field position.

This feels like the type of trend that should have been the story of the early NFL season. Has the league simply futzed with the kickoff rules so much in recent years that fans don’t notice the new changes? Are people just bored by kicking? Hard to say.

But this feels like an overcorrection by the NFL, and the type of thing that commentators are supposed to call out. The analytics types can surely suss out just how big of an advantage it is giving teams this season, and perhaps that data will make the headlines pop more.

In the meantime, Warner is fighting the good fight.