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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏀 Enjoy the Top 10 funniest moments in the history of Inside the NBA from Shaq’s gas mileage escapades to the Guangdong Tigers.

🏈 The looming deal between the NFL and ESPN seems to slowly be moving forward with the support of NFL owners.

⚾ Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter apologized after being caught on camera uttering a homophobic slur during an NCAA regional game against Tennessee.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Bill Simmons Finds Out

The feud of the week in sports media has been Pablo Torre and Bill Simmons trading shots over the former’s reporting into Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson and the latter’s issues with it. After some barbs back and forth, Torre went on Simmons’ podcast to hash out their differences.

After listening to the podcast, one thing was clear - Pablo Torre more than held his own. He took the invite from Simmons and it was a hanging slider over the plate that he smashed out of the park.

If there’s one thing Pablo Torre has shown, it’s that he has all of the receipts. The strength of his reporting in the Belichick episode was based on his conversations with a dozen sources. His Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast has won serious journalism awards and his unboxing style of reporting is breaking new ground in the industry.

Simmons has been the king of sports podcast vibes for years. He built an empire based off of being The Sports Guy, spouting his opinions on anything and everything for decades. And the episode with Torre was great. It was honest, open, funny, refreshing, and everything that a podcast about sports media should be.

But it was clear that Torre had an answer for every single question that Simmons threw at him during the podcast and looked as impressive as ever. He didn’t just answer Simmons, he answered all of the questions and skeptics of his work that anyone could have. And he built the case for why his podcast and style of journalism works so well in 2025. By the end, the two were even teasing a possible future collaboration!

Maybe it wasn’t a passing of the torch for sports podcasts as Torre and Simmons operate in vastly different realms. And maybe it wasn’t a torching along the lines of the famous Carmelo Anthony and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist meme because the two seemed to be on decent terms by the end.

But whatever it was that happened in this Bill Simmons-Pablo Torre podcast, it’s clear that Torre won the day. And his starpower and influence in the industry should only continue to rise from here.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

New York Giants legend Carl Banks continued his crusade against WFAN, calling out Gregg Giannotti for saying that Karl-Anthony Towns is a “loser.”

Why does LeBron James keep picking on Brian Windhorst? When is enough enough, Bron!

The infamous parody/troll account NBACentel somehow prophesied the Knicks firing Tom Thibodeau. We are through the looking glass here, people.

🔦 IN THE SPOTLIGHT ☀️

There has been a lot of concern that ESPN might tinker with Inside the NBA’s successful formula given the struggles of their NBA studio coverage. But ESPN has a proven track record of leaving their licensed programming alone, like The Pat McAfee Show.

🏄 _{CHANNEL SURFING} 🌊 

🍿 WBD head honcho David Zaslav faced the rejection of his massive compensation package from shareholders in a symbolic, but striking vote of non-confidence. [Wall Street Journal]

🏀 Before everyone panics about what NBA Finals ratings will be, NBA playoff viewership is up 3% through the conference finals. [Sports Media Watch]

🏊‍♀️ The “Enhanced Games” may be one of the most ridiculous ideas in the history of sports. [The Guardian]

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“I haven’t told anybody this, not even you. I want the world to know that me and the great Charles Barkley have no beef no more. We actually talked.” - Kendrick Perkins has called a truce on his ongoing feud with Charles Barkley.

“Without New York, nobody gives a crap about you, Tyrese Haliburton. You don’t run squat. Here’s what you better hope you run. You better hope you don’t run into a buzzsaw in the Thunder in the Finals.” - Sal Licata has maybe the most New York sports take ever after seeing Tyrese Haliburton beat the Knicks once again.

“You can’t tell the story of hockey without the 30ish years Don Cherry and Barry Melrose gave the game via National Television.” - John Buccigross made a passionate plea for Don Cherry and Barry Melrose to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

A small market mea culpa

One of the reasons why Scott Van Pelt is one of the most popular figures in sports is that he can effectively break the fourth wall and make sense when it comes to modern day sports and media. If there was someone that you would want speaking for the industry at large, SVP would be on the very short list.

And on his podcast, he absolutely nailed it when offering a mea culpa for the lack of attention given to the Indiana Pacers this season.

The sports media at large have treated the Pacers as plucky underdogs who made the NBA Finals out of nowhere. In each series they have played, the Pacers have been the supporting act. They took a back seat to Giannis potentially playing his last season with the Bucks, they took a back seat to the top-seeded Cavaliers, and they took a back seat to the Knicks. Pretty much the only thing the media has to say about them is debating whether or not Tyrese Haliburton is actually a star.

“I’ll bet money that First Take hasn’t done any segments on the Pacers during the season,” Van Pelt said. “But that’s not knocking them because I know, having done our show, we didn’t lead SportsCenter with the Pacers. Like, ever. Unless they were playing another star-laden team. They were the other team opposite the Lakers, the Bucks, whoever. That’s on all of us who missed it.”

People complain about the Thunder-Pacers finals having no superstars in spite of the literal MVP playing in the series. But they simultaneously gatekeep everything so that no new stars ever get created. We can’t just transplant LeBron and Steph Curry into the Finals every year like it’s the Undertaker or The Rock parachuting in for a WrestleMania cameo. How do players like SGA and Tyrese Haliburton become stars if people tune out their big moments because they aren’t stars?

Players like Haliburton and SGA are already stars, at least for those paying attention. For Haliburton specifically the track record is there. He led the Pacers’ run to the NBA Cup final in 2023. He led the Pacers to the conference finals just last year. He made the Olympic team. And sure, the Pacers were the #4 seed in the East, but Indiana has the second best record in the NBA in 2025 only to the Thunder.

The Pacers should not be a surprise. But likewise, it’s not a surprise to see them sneak up on the entire sports media. The question now is will the industry ever learn.