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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 Crisis averted. Wednesday morning, we posited the Fox-YouTube TV carriage dispute would likely end sooner rather than later. Wednesday afternoon, right at the 5 p.m. deadline, the two sides reached a short-term resolution to keep the network’s channels available to subscribers. Breathe easy, YouTube TV subscribers, you’ll be able to watch football this weekend.

🏈 The Great McAfee-Day War Ends. One day after voicing his displeasure about Ryan Day only appearing on his show when he wasn’t around to host it, Pat McAfee and the Ohio State head coach have cleared the air. And just as Kirk Herbstreit and A.J. Hawk insisted in real-time, the entire situation stemmed from a misunderstanding. “I thought he hated us. So that means, by default, I have to hate you,” McAfee said. “That is just how I am. That is how I operate.” Healthy stuff.

🌐 Rung out. Ryen Russillo has been very open about his contract situation and employment future in recent months, so it’s not entirely surprising to hear he is reportedly leaving The Ringer. Somewhat surprising is the news, according to Ryan Glasspiegel at Front Office Sports, that Russillo will launch his own production company with the financial backing of Dave Portnoy and Barstool Sports.

🎤 Skip enters The Arena. Have you been eagerly anticipating the return of Skip Bayless to major media? No? Well… too bad. Bayless told The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand that he is joining forces with Gilbert Arenas on a new podcast called The Arena: Gridiron, which will feature Bayless, former NFL cornerback Aqib Talib, and former NFL coach Jay Gruden. “I’m telling you, the God’s truth, I’m more on fire for this than I have ever been,” Bayless said. Sure, bud.

🏀 Don’tcha wanna Fanta. Fan-favorite college basketball announcer and personality John Fanta is on the move, leaving Fox Sports to join NBC Sports as the lead play-by-play voice of Big East basketball. He will also work in a studio role on Big Ten basketball broadcasts and Notre Dame football games.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

If we were in charge, here’s how Big Noon Kickoff would beat College GameDay

Let’s be honest about something right up top. Regardless of the jolt Dave Portnoy gave to the rivalry between the two college football pregame shows, FS1’s Big Noon Kickoff is not going to catch ESPN’s College GameDay in the ratings.

Two years ago, BNK had a shot. There were weeks when they were neck-and-neck with their more established counterpart. Last year, however, they seemed to downshift, focusing more on Big Ten games they were broadcasting, even if the matchups were mediocre. GameDay, meanwhile, posted all-time best numbers thanks to the force of nature that is Pat McAfee, the aura of Nick Saban, and its weekly appearances at the biggest games in the country.

This year, Fox broke the seal on mainstreaming Portnoy and Barstool. The objective seems clear: Make enough noise to challenge CGD on Saturdays, or at least disrupt their success enough to make it seem like a fight.

We’ll get a good look at this new and improved(?) BNK on Saturday when it literally goes head-to-head with GameDay in Columbus. And they won the PR battle this week thanks to the Portnoy ban (that might not be a ban, but that’s semantics now). Still, we don’t expect the ratings to be too close. This being Lee Corso’s final GameDay makes them a juggernaut impossible to overcome.

If we had to guess, Fox will want to have it both ways with BNK, and in doing so, they won't get the full bang for their buck. They’ll straddle the line between Portnoy’s brash Barstool antics and the buttoned-up stoicism of Urban Meyer and Brady Quinn, while sacrificing the most strategic weekly locations for “best for business” ones. And by the end of the season, CGD will have eaten their lunch.

Now, I’d say that we’re not ones to impose how we’d handle a situation like this, but that’s basically what we do here at Awful Announcing. And while I couldn’t promise anything, we do have some thoughts on how BNK could get a lot closer to CGD this season.

Everything is Wrestling - My apology to non-wrestling enthusiasts, but there are a lot of similarities between BNK vs. CGD and the Monday Night Wars of the ‘90s. One of the golden rules of that era was to ensure that you didn’t give viewers a reason to change the channel to the other show during boring segments or commercials. This week’s “ban” drama was a good start, but BNK would be wise to figure out how to mine that kind of attention again next week. Play up personal preferences. Pit conference against conference. Get heated on set. Lean into being heels. And as Steven Godfrey pointed out, next time, don’t give the school time to refute your angle.

Go Full McAfee - Portnoy was obviously brought in to be BNK’s answer to Pat McAfee. While the Barstool boss is, in some ways, what McAfee strives to be, there’s no denying the cult of personality Pat brings to GameDay. The CGD crowd adores McAfee, and he makes a meal out of it. To match that, Portnoy needs to be in the crowd, handing out cash, kissing babies, reviewing local pizza chains, etc. He can’t just show up, sit behind the studio desk, talk smack, and call it a day. Also, there’s bad blood between these guys, and McAfee is easy to bait. Use that!

Shadow GameDay - FS1 seems to have a directive to value games they’re broadcasting when it comes to picking BNK’s location. We’d love to see the data that supports doing that. But if the goal is to bump BNK’s numbers, it makes more sense to send them to that weekend’s biggest showdown regardless of whatever’s on Fox. Even better, be the literal thorn in GameDay’s side and shadow them all season long. Make noise, bang your drums, and take up real estate. It’s a little brother move, but you might as well own it, forcing big brother to recognize and react to you. In doing so, you become their rival.

Figure Out What It Is You Do - In the I Think You Should Leave sketch “Chunky,” a game show host gets increasingly infuriated with a mascot who doesn’t seem to know what his “deal” is. “You have to figure out what Chunky does before you come out here,” the host berates him. When you think of GameDay, they have a lot of memorable bits. Lee Corso’s headgear. McAfee’s kicking contest. The commercial break meal. What does BNK have? We need several authentic, recurring bits that can bridge the divide. Not goofy one-offs or GameDay mimicry.

Loosen Up Urban - One of GameDay’s biggest strengths is the balance that all of its analysts bring to the table. Saban is the guru, Herbstreit is the rock, and McAfee is the buffoon, but if you lost one of them, the center would hold. BNK’s center is Urban Meyer, at least until Portnoy arrived. And he remains the figure that brings the most gravitas and credibility to the show. But whereas Saban has loosened up, Meyer still has that head coach stick up his butt that keeps him from being a magnetic presence. If we’re gonna go toe-to-toe between championship coaches, we need Urban to get excited and remember he’s on television now, not the sidelines. Put him in a mascot costume or band leader uniform and get silly!

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• ESPN announced that it has signed Cam Newton to a new multiyear deal, which will see him expand his role on the morning debate show. After previously being a staple of Friday episodes throughout the football season, it’s now expected that Newton will appear on First Take multiple times each week.

• According to a new report by Anthony Crupi of Sportico, commercials during NFL games are significantly more impactful than standard primetime television commercials. A 30-second ad during an afternoon NFL game is 23 times more valuable than a 30-second ad during a broadcast network’s primetime programming.

• The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch reported that Ian Darke will join Fox Sports as a play-by-play broadcaster for the 2026 World Cup in North America. The veteran broadcaster will return for his ninth World Cup assignment, bringing his legendary voice back to the tournament that made him a household name among American soccer fans.

• The New Orleans Saints announced that former SportsCenter anchor Stan Verrett will host the team’s new pregame show, which debuts with the 2025 season and will air across all official Saints digital platforms.

• Two weeks after announcing it would debut a new digital-only Sunday morning NFL pregame show, CBS has revealed who will be taking part. NFL studio analysts Matt Ryan, Antonio Pierce, and Kyle Long will join host Amanda Guerra on The NFL Today+. Ryan will also continue his role on the flagship The NFL Today show on CBS.

• Per NFL Media, the league saw its highest preseason television audiences since 2018 this year. An average of 2.2 million viewers watched the nationally televised preseason contests across NFL Network and the league’s other broadcast partners (which air one preseason game each). That figure is up 17% versus last season’s preseason viewership.

• According to a report by Alex Silverman in Sports Business Journal, the NHL’s national media partners at TNT Sports and ESPN will broadcast an additional 16 national windows compared to last season. The league can thank the NBA and MLB for freeing up all that real estate.

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

There aren’t many football analysts who have been critical of Arch Manning. But for Jordan Rodgers, the opportunity to be on an island is an opportunity nonetheless.

With days to go until the highly anticipated Week 1 matchup between Ohio State and Texas, the ESPN college football analyst provided a boost to the network’s in-house news cycle. Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of Get Up, Rodgers strayed from most Manning-related analysis, claiming that the Longhorns’ starting quarterback has yet to prove he’s as good as advertised.

For a rising star like Rodgers, filling such a void could prove to be a double-edged sword. Awful Announcing’s Ben Axelrod explains why. 

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Rules are only as strong as our desire to enforce them

Whenever we would write about the so-called Brady Rules last season, we would see our fair share of eye-rolls. “Who cares?” was a common refrain. “This is stupid, do they really think he’s gonna cheat?” was another.

And those responses are valid. The restriction that Brady, in his role as a Fox broadcaster, couldn’t attend production meetings with teams seemed silly when you considered that everyone at Fox he works with would be attending them and sharing what they’d learned. And there were plenty more loopholes and areas of lax oversight that made those rules toothless. And when it seemed like he had violated them, the NFL didn’t much seem to care.

So it’s not a big surprise that, after that whole song and dance, the NFL is effectively getting rid of them for Year 2.

It still doesn’t change the fact that Brady is a minority owner of an NFL franchise, one he will presumably call a game of at some point. It doesn’t change the fact that he has access to coaches and players, many of whom will be free agents, that most owners or front office folks will never have.

Ultimately, from our standpoint, the concern is less about how Brady might cheat to the Raiders’ advantage and more about how his dual roles will dampen the audience’s experience during games. He’s already got a lot to work on as a broadcaster, so the added presumption that he’s holding back on bad calls or refusing to criticize a coach he might want to hire one day only hurts the viewing experience. It harms the audience’s ability to trust they’re getting the best and most honest version of a broadcaster.

Maybe that still warrants a “Who cares?” from you, but, at a certain point, you gotta care about something.

The real takeaway here, of course, is that the rules are always different for certain people. This is not news, certainly not in the world we live in right now. However, we all know that the NFL would not be bending over backwards to set aside ethical concerns like this for Greg Olsen, Mike Tirico, Kirk Herbstreit, or Drew Brees. Tom Brady gets special treatment because he’s Tom Brady. It’s as obvious and simple as that.