Welcome to The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter, where you’ll always find the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis.

Did someone share this newsletter with you? Sign up for free to make sure you never miss it.

🏈 Fox’s fears. Fox Corp. chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch reportedly pitched President Trump directly about the threats of an increase in NFL rights fees as the company braces for negotiations that could end its relationship with the Shield for good.

🏀 Dray, Chuck respond. Both Draymond Green and Charles Barkley addressed their Inside the NBA clash on Friday, with Green backing down (“disrespect wasn’t my intent”) while Barkley mocked the Warriors star, saying, “I never punch down.”

📺 ‘First Take’ reunion. The return of Skip Bayless to First Take on Friday was admittedly fantastic by the standards of daytime sports television, and while Bayless flexed his chemistry with Stephen A. Smith, the host himself described the reunion as more of a send-up to a mentor.

🏈 Fox Fridays. As college football continues to expand its presence on Friday nights, Fox Sports unveiled its 11-game slate for the 2026 season, headlined by Indiana’s Big Ten home opener and the Mountain West championship game.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

College sports easily survived the first steps toward professionalization, which saw transfer rules loosened and the implementation of NIL payments and pay-for-play, as well as major conference realignment and a 12-team College Football Playoff.

While realignment reshaped the regional identities within the sport and decimated certain rivalries, national attention surged. The stakes of the CFP gave casuals something to glom onto; each of the past two title games averaged over 30 million viewers.

And though the old guard of coaches and leaders lamented the end of their chokehold on the sport as athletes began earning money and gained agency to choose where they wanted to play, the media largely came down on the players' side. Aside from the incessant use of the phrase “Wild West” and the many pleas for order in the college sports system, commentators seemed to understand that the change was long overdue and necessary.

Momentum was strong.

The latest steps and the ones coming next don’t appear to be going over as smoothly. Seemingly driven in large part by the Big Ten, a 24-team CFP seems close to an inevitability at this point. And within the past week alone, everyone from Paul Finebaum to Kevin Clark to Josh Pate has railed against the move. Deeper than a simple disagreement, these voices have called out college football leadership they see as aloof and greedy. A larger postseason could be cause for celebration, but listen to college football media and you’d believe the spirit and competitive structure of the sport are under attack.

Likewise, the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments are each adding eight more teams. Almost nobody seems to support that move, either.

“The one thing that nobody was saying was, ‘Let’s expand the NCAA Tournament,’” said CBS’s Jon Rothstein.

FS1’s Colin Cowherd said the sport was “backpedaling.”

In both the CFP and March Madness, the media are calling out the weakening of the regular-season product. The lower stakes take meaning out of conferences, regional rivalries, and the bulk of games. Every sport has expanded its postseason over time, but college sports are uniquely beloved for their regular season. The damage to these games is damage to the sport.

Yet the biggest reason college sports leaders are losing the PR battle over these capitalist power moves lies in their explanation. Many argue that widening the postseason pool is necessary to offset the costs of paying players. Basically: If you wanted pay-for-play, you were asking to dilute the schedule.

Similar to the arguments around athlete movement and compensation, athletic departments tend to forget the salaries they pay fired coaches or the huge expenses on training facilities when they cry poor. Now, they need more TV revenue from championship events to fund players.

Faced with an evolving financial landscape, leaders appear dead set on scaling the same model rather than acting more responsibly. And to justify their path, they insist it is the natural byproduct of consumer habits.

This type of thinking is all too common in 2026, but one sharp contrast in the battle over the future of college sports is that the majority of the media are strongly opposed to the powers that be. Even among media partners and typically friendly or neutral voices, the NCAA, the conferences, and the CFP are getting hammered.

Because the postseason expansion is so antithetical to why people love college sports, and because the changes are being forced through with little feedback, the media has the green light to push back as hard as they want. Will it be enough to stop anything? Probably not, but the backlash will give college sports a far gloomier outlook than it had just a year or two ago.

In one week, Draymond Green reminded NBA fans why he has such a long way to go before he can be a TV star the way he was expected to be a decade ago.

Between his unfunny barb toward Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA and his petty social media beef with Austin Rivers, it all showed that Green remains far too self-serious and rude to lead a major sports show.

Andy K. Liu of the Light Years podcast joined The Play-By-Play LIVE to break down Green’s eventful week.

Watch the episode on YouTube, or listen on Apple or Spotify.

“…this is one of the most unpopular proposals of any magnitude in the history of college football among the consumer base.” - Josh Pate, as part of a much longer screed against a potential 24-team College Football Playoff.

“It’s like a 2026 gold rush, and everybody’s out here mining for their nugget, trying to strike it rich.” - Jim Rome, describing the onslaught of photos and videos of Dianna Russini and Mike Vrabel, which he believes will not stop any time soon.

“I was disappointed because I thought that this was gonna end my career.” - Laura Rutledge on the mixed feelings she experienced after discovering her surprise first pregnancy, just as her ESPN career was taking off.

“Shit happens. My bad. Really hope you can forgive me…” - Bill Simmons, apologizing (somewhat) for forgetting that OKC Thunder star Jalen Williams had not, in fact, played in their Game 2 against the Lakers.

“I would go so far as to say, if the Kings win the lottery, I think he will pull an Eli Manning.” - NBA analyst Tom Haberstroh, predicting that BYU’s AJ Dybantsa would not report to the Sacramento Kings if they won the No. 1 pick and the right to draft him.

“…umpires have a two-way microphone and they can talk to the ABS operator and can be told that ‘Hey, you’re calling strikes a little bit off the plate today. Bring it in a little bit.’” - Jeff Passan, revealing the extent to which the ABS system has led to increased feedback for MLB umpires overall.

Bringing Skip Bayless back to First Take may have felt like a novelty or a stunt from afar, but he and Stephen A. Smith quickly rediscovered their old form as they sparred over familiar topics and storylines.

Bayless feels like a lock to rejoin the show in a recurring role, writes Awful Announcing’s Brandon Contes:

Take any one of the recycled segments from Friday’s reunion, and you can probably find 10 much better videos on YouTube featuring Bayless and Smith arguing the same topic from a decade or two ago. The same thing happens anytime Mike and the Mad Dog have a reunion. Because they’re just happy to be in the same room again, there isn’t the same level of tension that existed when they were competing every single day for years.

But now that the pleasantries have been exchanged and the nostalgia itch has been scratched, the gloves should be off the next time Bayless returns to First Take. And make no mistake about it, there will be a next time, and a next time, and a next time.

Read the full column here.