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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

👀 Shannon Sharpe (seemingly) settles. In a statement last Friday, the attorney representing Sharpe’s accuser announced that the two sides had settled the lawsuit against Sharpe. In April, a former romantic partner accused Sharpe of rape and secretly recording their sexual encounters. Tony Buzbee wrote on X that his client and Sharpe “reached a mutually agreed-upon resolution” and that the case would be dismissed with prejudice. Now, the question is whether he will return to ESPN…

🏈 J.C. Tretter out at the NFLPA. Keeping it rolling with news stemming from PTFO, former NFLPA president turned chief strategy officer J.C. Tretter is resigning from the union. In a terse interview with CBS Sports, Tretter claimed he has not pursued the executive director job, contrary to Torre’s reporting. Tretter also clarified that the installation of recently resigned executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. was not any sort of quid pro quo, and in fact was not the preference of the executive committee of players at the time. Tretter did not, however, elaborate on the strange nature of his newly developed role of CSO.

📺 Michael Wilbon negotiating? As if the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast hasn’t made enough news this summer, Dan Le Batard let it slip in Friday’s “Share and Tell” episode with Michael Wilbon that Wilbon’s ESPN contract is up in August. And it sounds like Tony Kornheiser’s deal is up too, meaning talks are in progress for what could be the final chapter of Pardon the Interruption.

🤸 Livvy Dunne calls out the Times. The star NCAA gymnast and NIL trend-setter joined WWE heiress Stephanie McMahon’s podcast last week and took the opportunity to rip the New York Times for an infamous 2022 report on NIL that included the phrase “sex sells” in its headline. “You know what you’re doing,” Dunne said in part.

️‍🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Sports take center stage for the first time in Trump 2.0

Fresh off a slate of headlines that may have won the tight competition for worst of his young term, President Donald Trump is traipsing into the world of sports in need of a distraction.

He didn’t have to look far from his residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to find it.

After teasing toward a policy on the name of the Washington Commanders NFL team in recent weeks, Trump posted online over the weekend with a more fervent demand:

“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this.

“Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!”

The president later added that he may block the team’s plans to build a new stadium in Washington, D.C, if they do not acquiesce to his wishes around the team name.

As AA editor Sean Keeley covered in-depth over the weekend, this is just the latest chapter in the team’s strange flirtation with its old, offensive name. Trump’s demand to return the team’s name to a phrase that is a literal slur is just forcing the team to make a decision.

More notably, this is the most high-profile example of Trump’s anti-DEI agenda intersecting with sports. Already, the Trump administration has enacted trans athlete bans while the Department of Defense attempted to literally rewrite the history of MLB trail blazer Jackie Robinson. These efforts with the Commanders represent Trump taking the spotlight in sports news while also putting his thumb on the scale.

Will it work? If recent settlements with Disney or CBS are to be taken seriously, it will. Then again, demanding that a team embrace its racist past and brand itself with a slur is another level.

Maybe the distraction from Epstein and other bad headlines is enough for Trump, but we all know him well enough by now to know he wants a win. What a win would look like short of a name change, at this juncture, is unclear.

📺 AWFUL ANNOUNCING PODCAST 🎧

Howard Megdal on Caitlin Clark and beyond in the WNBA

Howard Megdal, the longtime WNBA reporter and author of “Becoming Caitlin Clark,” joined The Awful Announcing Podcast last week to discuss his book and the explosion of the WNBA.

Megdal also talked about the other Clark book from Christine Brennan, which has been the talk of the industry this summer.

Watch the interview on YouTube or listen to the podcast on Spotify or anywhere else you get podcasts!

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES (BARSTOOL-FS1 EDITION) 🗣️

• “But I will have no problem walking into Columbus, Ohio, or Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Madison, Wisconsin, or anywhere that the Big Ten pervades its football wares. I will have no problem walking on the stage, looking Dave Portnoy in his 5’6 eye and saying, well, I probably won’t be able to say, f*ck you. I’ll have to amend the language, but I’ll look him dead in the eye and tell him, ‘This right here is nothing compared to the SEC.’ I have no problem doing that.” - Mostly Sports host Brandon Walker

• “They’re embarrassed by it [Barstool Sports]. They didn’t want to touch it. They didn’t want to admit they were associated with it. Fox is the exact opposite. They’re embracing everything we do. They’re embracing why people like us. They’re basically gonna be a true partner.” - Barstool owner Dave Portnoy

• “You can even love this. You can love Dave Portnoy. You can love Pat McAfee. These guys can be for you. I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t exist. I acknowledge that that audience exists, I acknowledge that it’s the one that sports often caters to. Again, I’m not dumb. I just, I also exist. And it’s just strange to me how mad the other audience gets when you’re like, ‘Could we have half an hour for our little show?” - former FS1 host Katie Nolan

• “It’s gonna be an ensemble. So PFT will be on it from time to time. I’ll be on it from time to time. But it’s not going to take away from what we do here.” - Pardon My Take cohost Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

WNBA CBA talks heat up

Just like the WNBA players’ association hoped, its negotiations with the league became a major talking point online and across the media during All-Star weekend.

Unlike it may have hoped, the message got a bit twisted.

After bringing the dozens of players in Indianapolis for the festivities to its bargaining meeting with the league, the players determined to wear shirts with the phrase “Pay Us What You Owe Us” emblazoned on them for pregame warmups. With the CBA expiring in October and talks reportedly not off to a great start, the shirts generated attention inside the arena — where fans chanted “Pay Them” at the commissioner — and across the country.

Then, the plot got a little lost.

Los Angeles Sparks star Kelsey Plum made a point of highlighting how Clark’s selected All-Star squad was not present in the conversations around the shirt. It was a strange and pointed comment, far from the type of unified message a union should want during collective bargaining talks.

Then, bad-faith commentators online questioned the “Owe” element of the shirt. Critics love to point out that the WNBA has been unprofitable for most of its history, though that has changed in recent years thanks to major sponsorship deals and a new media rights package.

Jemele Hill pointed that out in a post on Bluesky over the weekend.

“The WNBA is adding multiple franchises because there are a line of investors wanting in. The financial trajectory is high,” she wrote. “You think billionaires want to be in on bad products? The NBA lost money for over 40 years. Do you think player salaries stayed the same for 40 years? (Hint: They did not).”

An unlikely ally in Dave Portnoy later agreed with Hill.

Reasonable thinkers can all agree the WNBPA is in position for an improved deal. Reports pin the players’ share of Basketball-Related Income (BRI) around 10 percent, compared with closer to 50 percent for the NBA or NFL. Anything in that stratosphere would get the max salary closer to $1 million and the minimum closer to a fair pro athlete’s income.

Still, this is not 2020. The growth of the league and the scrutiny it is getting appear to have created small cracks in the unity they are showing publicly. That is not to say they can’t get a “win” with the new CBA. But it’s going to be a tumultuous year, and the deal will likely go down to the wire.