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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏈 Saudi return. Tom Brady announced he's "coming out of retirement" to play flag football in Saudi Arabia next March, joining Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and others for the Fanatics Flag Football Classic. The 48-year-old Brady guarantees he'll "bring home the trophy" while Fox Sports broadcasts his return to competition.

👋 Qerim out. Molly Qerim, the longtime host of ESPN’s flagship morning show First Take, is leaving the network at the end of the year, according to Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal. Qerim was offered a contract renewal, but chose to move on. She has been with ESPN since 2006.

🤕 Network nightmare. Joe Burrow's turf toe injury couldn't have come at a worse time for broadcast partners, with the Bengals scheduled for four consecutive national windows starting Week 4: Monday Night Football, Fox's late Sunday game, CBS's late Sunday game, and Thursday Night Football. The Thanksgiving primetime game against Baltimore was supposed to feature an elite quarterback matchup with Lamar Jackson.

🤼 Streaming mess. ESPN's Wrestlepalooza launches Saturday as the first WWE Premium Live Event under their new $1.6 billion deal, but major providers like Comcast and YouTube TV still don't have access to ESPN's streaming app. Customers who were promised "All of ESPN. All in one place" will discover they need to pay an additional $30 monthly to watch John Cena face Brock Lesnar.

📺 Two-game verdict. Colin Cowherd declared Ben Johnson the wrong coach for Caleb Williams after watching the Bears' first two games, arguing Williams "doesn't" anticipate throws or see "stuff before it's wide open" while Johnson's system demands precision timing. The most hyped coach-quarterback pairing of the offseason is already getting divorce papers filed.

⚾ Apology tour. Ken Rosenthal apologized for his viral staredown of Brewers photographer Scott Paulus after accidentally knocking him over during a postgame celebration. Rosenthal said he was "surprised at how upset I appeared" in the video, but had to continue his live interview while Paulus remained on the ground.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

College GameDay destinations have never been less about the fans

College GameDay picked Miami-Florida over Illinois-Indiana, and the choice says everything about what these shows have become.

ESPN passed over two undefeated, ranked teams meeting in primetime for a rivalry where one side just threw five interceptions. Florida is 1-2. DJ Lagway's meltdown against LSU happened three days before GameDay announced Miami as its destination. The Gators lost at home to South Florida two weeks earlier.

The network had actual options. Illinois and Indiana are both 3-0 and ranked, meeting for what NBC deemed worthy of primetime coverage. Both teams are averaging over 45 points per game while allowing fewer than eight. Illinois is having its best start in years under Bret Bielema. Indiana hasn't been this relevant in football since the 1960s, thanks to Curt Cignetti. Oklahoma and Auburn are both ranked. Utah and Texas Tech are both undefeated in their Big 12 opener.

Instead, ESPN picked the choice that keeps conference partners happy. Three straight weeks at SEC games meant the ACC was due for its turn, regardless of what was happening on the field. The pattern isn't subtle.

Fox sends Big Noon Kickoff to Utah-Texas Tech, which at least features two ranked, undefeated teams in a conference opener. Utah averages 53 points per game. Texas Tech has topped 60 in consecutive games. The corporate reasoning is just as obvious— Fox owns Big 12 rights and needs content for its noon window — but they picked a game that merits attention.

The contrast is stark. One network chose a legitimate matchup between breakthrough programs. The other chose a game where half the participants are having a historically bad season because it was the ACC's turn in the rotation.

College GameDay used to be appointment television because it followed the energy of the game. The show built its reputation by identifying where the stories were most compelling and the crowds were the loudest. Conference marketing departments didn't coordinate those crowds. They were organic expressions of fanbases that had something to celebrate.

Illinois-Indiana represents exactly what these shows used to chase. Two programs nobody expected to be good are having breakthrough seasons. Passionate fanbases are finally having something to get excited about. The kind of energy that creates the moments people remember years later.

Instead, ESPN chose conference quota balancing. The network has been visiting SEC schools for three consecutive weeks, so basic fairness demands the ACC get its turn. Never mind that fairness has nothing to do with finding the best television or serving the audience.

Both shows still work as television. GameDay and Big Noon Kickoff generate buzz and deliver solid programming. However, they've stopped being about finding the best stories and started being about ensuring every business partner receives their contractually obligated visit.

When you're explaining why 1-2 Florida deserves the spotlight over two undefeated ranked teams, something fundamental has shifted. The shows exist because fans made them culturally relevant, not because networks needed conference-balancing content. The magic happened when producers trusted their instincts about where the best football was being played. The calculation shows when they don't.

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

The most expensive broadcaster in sports history might finally be earning his paycheck by staying out of the spotlight.

Awful Announcing's Ben Axelrod examined how Tom Brady has transformed from the center of attention to just another voice in the booth during his second season at Fox. After a rookie year where his presence overshadowed the games themselves, Brady now blends into broadcasts rather than dominating them. The shift represents a welcome change from last season's uncomfortable dynamic, though it raises questions about whether Fox is getting its money's worth from a 10-year, $375 million investment.

Click to read more on how Brady's evolution from superstar distraction to competent analyst might be precisely what Fox needed.

👏 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🗣️

• Thursday Night Football delivered a record 17.76 million viewers for Commanders-Packers, marking Amazon's largest audience since taking over the package in 2022 and attracting the youngest demographic of any opening week NFL game with a median age of 46.9.

• The WNBA sees regular-season viewership increase despite Caitlin Clark missing significant time due to injury, with ABC and ESPN averaging 1.3 million viewers across 25 games, up 6% from last season, proving sustainable growth beyond its biggest star.

• Kirk Herbstreit launches weekly live football podcast Nonstop with Joey Galloway on his personal YouTube channel, featuring NCAA and NFL game footage and produced through Nashville-based Lagos Creative rather than ESPN or Amazon properties.

• NBC taps Stanley Tucci for 2026 Winter Olympics coverage from Milan-Cortina, leveraging the Emmy-winning host of "Searching for Italy" to bridge the gap between sports fans and cultural viewers following Snoop Dogg's successful run at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

"To win games, you have to win the game, not lose the game. Honestly, and that is how you lose the game." - Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, explaining his team's Week 2 loss to the Patriots with the kind of analysis any fan watching at home could have provided.

"This is not OK. He would never do this. Something's wrong." - Tony Romo expressing concern after Josh Allen left the game for two plays with a bloody nose, treating the brief exit like a medical emergency before Allen returned with his nose plugged.

"I think every time we eliminate a chair, it looks cleaner." - Dave Portnoy on continuing to overhaul Wake Up Barstool after reducing his Monday panel from four to three people, with T-Bob Hebert calling the comment "ominous."

"I've texted with Mike and offered my apology to him for the way I handled the questioning." - LSU coach Brian Kelly apologizing to WBRZ reporter Michael Cauble after calling his questions about offensive struggles "ridiculous" and telling him he was "spoiled" during Saturday's postgame press conference.

"I expect some fines.” - Jon Gruden roasting Greg Olsen for sleeping through his second Wake Up Barstool appearance, saying he wanted to "shred Portnoy" and everyone else "for allowing this" from "a grown man."

"It feels like Joe Burrow is trending towards becoming this generation's Andrew Luck." - Dan Orlovsky, warning about Burrow's injury trajectory after the quarterback's turf toe surgery, drawing parallels between two talented signal-callers constantly under pressure behind porous offensive lines.

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Boxing scheduled its comeback for after bedtime

Boxing's biggest problem happened at 12:56 a.m.

The one must-see and actually accessible fight of 2025 started when most of America was already in bed. By the time Canelo Álvarez and Terence Crawford finished fighting around 2 a.m. ET, two-thirds to three-quarters of the country was asleep.

Dana White had promised this event would be different. "Let's go: Boom, boom, boom," he said about cutting through boxing's endless padding. Instead, viewers got celebrity footage, Mario Lopez chatting with Mark Wahlberg about boxing, five minutes of ads, and a countdown clock that meant nothing.

The average American goes to bed at 11:21 p.m. This fight on Netflix — free to tens of millions of subscribers — could have been boxing's chance to reconnect with casual fans. Instead, it followed the sport's stubborn tradition of making itself unwatchable for anyone with a regular sleep schedule.

Click to read more from Awful Announcing's Ben Koo on how boxing continues to sabotage its own comeback by refusing to start fights when people are actually awake to watch them.