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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 Gillis goes for it. You probably already knew how you were gonna feel about Shane Gillis’s monologue at the 2025 ESPYS before they happened. The comedian certainly went for it with double-take-worthy jokes about Caitlin Clark and Black WNBA players, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson. We still give the nod to Norm MacDonald for best ESPYS hosting performance.

✈️ Mad Dog, innit! They don’t call him Mad Dog for nothing. During a recent trip abroad, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo got so mad that he almost had the police called on him. For more than 10 minutes Wednesday morning, Russo ranted about the trials and tribulations of his recent trip to Great Britain and how lost golf clubs almost led to a run-in with the law. Say what you want about Russo, but we’ll take this over another Dallas Cowboys segment any day.

🏈 Soft landings. After it was reported that FS1 was canceling three shows, including Breakfast Ball, the question arose: Which of those hosts would remain with Fox Sports? It sounds like both Mark Schlereth and Danny Parkins will stick around, with the former continuing to call NFL games and the latter likely to end up on another show.

🎤 The state of media in 2025. This week, the anonymous host of The r/BillSimmons did an interview with Tom Ley at Defector in which he joked about his own parasocial role in the sports media industrial complex and spilled some takes on why Simmons is “objectively worse” as a podcast host in 2025 than he was a decade ago.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Of course, Fox is where Barstool could eventually go mainstream

In retrospect, we feel a bit silly that we didn’t see it coming.

Fresh off the news that FS1 was cutting loose all of its Charlie Dixon-related properties, Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reported that Fox was targeting Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy for a multi-pronged role, coupled with further Barstool-related programming on the channel (H/T to X account BackAftaThis for teasing the news).

Portnoy downplayed the report as “rumors,” but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported that Barstool is expected to produce its on-site pregame show, which will air before Big Noon Kickoff during select weeks of the season. How convenient.

Presuming all of this falls into place, not only will Barstool content finally find its way to a significant and legitimate network, but it will also position Portnoy to become FS1’s version of Pat McAfee.

This experiment was a failure eight years ago when ESPN’s Barstool Van Talk was canceled after one episode following complaints about the Worldwide Leader cozying up to the crass and oft-offensive boys-will-be-boys brand.

But we live in a very different world now. “Boys will be boys” might as well be America’s motto at the moment. Portnoy has grown his status to include being a figure of note in the worlds of politics and finance. And as ESPN gives over tons of real estate to Pat McAfee and his shenanigans (which we have often referred to as Barstool-lite), it makes too much sense that Fox, of all companies, would look to Barstool with arms wide open.

It is perhaps no coincidence that these reports dropped the morning of the 2025 ESPYS, featuring host Shane Gillis making jokes about Black WNBA players and Jeffrey Epstein live on ESPN.

Very little of this would have been allowed on ESPN or FS1 even two or three years ago. Now, we’re about to cross the Rubicon and have Dave Portnoy on live TV, where he’ll be tasked with talking about Ohio State a whole lot (not exactly his favorite subject). What could go wrong? And even if it did go wrong, would it matter in 2025?

All due respect to McAfee, but something tells us that he’s not going to be a match for Portnoy once they start going head-to-head on Saturdays (and you know they’re going to get into a war of words at some point).

McAfee is brash and presents a give-no-f**ks attitude, but Portnoy embodies that mantra. McAfee rails against “suits,” but Portnoy has proven he’s no one’s company man. McAfee threatens legal action that never seems to come, but Portnoy isn’t afraid to get in the mud (or know when to offer a mea culpa). McAfee commands a loyal audience, but Portnoy commands a bro/pizza legion. Most significantly, McAfee lets critics and feedback get to him, while Portnoy lets it all slide off his back. For better or worse, Dave Portnoy is what Pat McAfee aspires to be.

So let that sink in as you prepare for the mainstream Barstool experience. We’ll leave it to you to decide how that sounds.

📈 DATA DUMP 📊 

• Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game, which ended in a “swing-off” after the AL and NL finished knotted up at six runs each after nine innings, averaged 7.2 million viewers on Fox and Fox Sports’ streaming services, according to the network’s PR. That figure is down slightly from last year’s All-Star Game, which averaged 7.44 million viewers, but is up compared to 2023, which finished with 7.01 million viewers. The audience peaked at 8.1 million viewers in the 9:15 p.m. ET quarter-hour.

• Despite some early round upsets that saw several marquee players make early exits, Wimbledon viewership hit multi-year highs for ESPN. According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, Wimbledon telecasts averaged 721,000 viewers across ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC, up 6% versus last year’s average audience and the highest tournament average since 2019 when both Roger Federer and Serena Williams made the finals. It’s the fourth-highest audience ESPN has earned for Wimbledon since it began exclusively airing the tournament in 2012.

• The Ocho lives! ESPN announced that 30 new sports will make their ESPN8: The Ocho debut as the ESPN family of networks prepares for wall-to-wall coverage of unconventional sports competitions from Thursday, July 31, to Sunday, August 3. It’s the ninth year ESPN has set aside a chunk of summer programming to pay homage to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the film that introduced ESPN8: The Ocho to the world.

🗣️ THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🗣️

On the latest episode, Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen and Ben Axelrod discuss the newest shakeup at FS1 and the most under-covered sports media stories of 2025.

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

📊 AROUND AA 📈

It’s time to grade the 2025 local MLB announcers

With the Major League Baseball season emerging from its All-Star Break, we want to hear your perspectives on how the various local TV broadcast booths are performing so far this year.

Many of the local MLB booths are essentially the same as last season, but will the rankings turn out the same way?

Submit your grades for as few or as many 2025 local MLB booths as you like. The poll will be open through 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Sunday, July 20. The rankings will be announced at Awful Announcing next week.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

What’s next for Joy Taylor’s media career?

Despite her messy, protracted exit from FS1, Joy Taylor figures to be a fairly significant sports media free agent, starting now.

News broke Monday that Taylor is out at FS1 after a decade, as her show Speak was canceled along with 60 percent of the network’s daytime studio lineup. The writing was on the wall as Taylor navigated a messy lawsuit, and now she will look to reset her career away from the only place she has ever been a national commentator.

Fortunately for Taylor, she got a head start. Since relaunching her Two Personal podcast as a solo venture earlier this year, she is in a prime position to capitalize as digital media networks continue to invest millions in star talent and flashy new shows. Already, Gilbert Arenas is teasing that he has discussed hosting an NFL show for his company in partnership with Underdog.

In 2025, this is what it means to be a sports media free agent. Launch a podcast independently, grow it with your social media following and the strength of your celebrity, then monetize it with a distributor, publishing partner, or sponsor.

The informal, argumentative flair of Gil’s Arena would figure to be a strong fit for Taylor. On the show, Two Personal, sports arguments are nowhere to be seen. The former Miami radio host-turned-FS1 talking head instead chimes in on everything from incels to the internet to cancel culture. Those interests could combine with Taylor’s extensive background as a sports host to create a no-holds-barred NFL talk show that would draw an audience.

That doesn’t mean Taylor is a lock to partner with Arenas. Click here to read about some other potential landing spots for the now-former FS1 host.