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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

⚾ Devers or Doncic? Everyone, including Sunday Night Baseball announcer Karl Ravech, called out the similarities between the Mavs’ surprise trade of Luka Doncic to the Lakers and Boston’s shock move on Sunday evening to trade Rafael Devers to San Francisco. “Holy f*ck,” wrote former ESPN writer Molly Knight on Bluesky.

😳 Cody Decker slams Stephen A. Smith again. A week after Smith stole his and Michelle Beadle’s afternoon timeslot on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, Decker kept his metaphorical knife to Smith’s throat. “Those that empowered this little b*tch,” Decker wrote on X.

⛳ Rory McIlroy finally explains himself. For years, Rory has caught flak for skipping out on press conferences while wearing the crown of golf’s savior and spokesperson. At last week’s U.S. Open, he answered for his actions. “It’s more of a frustration with you guys,” he said before adding, ““I feel like I have earned the right to do whatever I want to do.”

️‍🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

ESPN's ego trip

Whether we’re talking about Stephen A. Smith being caught playing iPhone solitaire (and then lying about it), Kendrick Perkins going overboard embracing the fans wearing Dumb N’ Dumber shirts with him and Smith on them, or Pat McAfee cutting a promo during a key moment of Game 4 on Friday night, there has been a whooooole lot of ESPN during this year’s NBA Finals.

Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann wrote all about it this weekend at the site. Here’s a key snippet from the piece:

The entire thing has become so self-aware that it’s now bleeding into the crowd. Pacers fans showed up to Game 4 in “Dumb and Dumber” tuxedos, mocking Smith and Perkins. If that wasn’t enough, it was the same day that Smith got caught wearing his pajamas on live TV, fiddling around with his computer to the point that ESPN nearly showed his emails, and then being caught playing solitaire.

It’s not a new trend. ESPN has long encouraged its on-air talent to become stars in their own right. But during these Finals, they’ve taken that idea to a new level, no longer just driving the conversation around the games but actively becoming characters within the narrative. And while the basketball itself has offered plenty to break down, a significant portion of the attention has focused on… the broadcast talent.

It also lets ESPN dodge some of the criticism that might otherwise be directed at its coverage. Do you want to ask why they’re not spotlighting more basketball voices? Why does their analysis get so shallow during the biggest games? Why the halftime show still feels like a first draft? You could, but by the time you’re done watching Stephen A. brush off those solitaire allegations, the moment’s passed.

And the worst part is that this isn’t just filler. These are choices.

Read the whole piece now at Awful Announcing!

🗣️THE AWFUL ANNOUNCING PODCAST🗣️

On the latest episode of The Awful Announcing Podcast, Noah Eagle of NBC, Netflix and YES Network joined the show to discuss:

• Joining NBA on NBC and his feelings on the network’s hires so far

• The craft of broadcasting, from Marv Albert to his father Ian

• His career so far, including Olympic basketball and the NFL playoffs

The Play-By-Play is available wherever you find your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

📈💰INDUSTRY INSIGHTS🧐

• Scripps re-upped its deal with the WNBA for a Friday night double-header on ION after an initial three-season partnership. Strong viewership has led to greater investment by the national TV network, giving the W a new opportunity for further broadcast rights revenue in what commissioner Cathy Engelbert calls “tranche two.”

• Brian Rolapp, the longtime chief media and business officer at the NFL, is leaving to become commissioner of the PGA Tour. Most reporters received the move as a further indication that 66-year-old Roger Goodell is not going anywhere. Rolapp joins the PGA at a time when the tour is still in talks with LIV Golf to finalize an investment and partnership between the two companies following Saudi Arabia’s incursion into the sport earlier this decade.

• ESPN is hiring Anthony Slater from The Athletic to add to its NBA reporting team. Slater covered the Golden State Warriors for the New York Times-owned outlet for many years. Before that, he covered the Kevin Durant-era Oklahoma City Thunder for the Oklahoman. It is unclear what Slater’s beat will be at ESPN, as the Worldwide Leader already has Kendra Andrews covering the NBA from the Bay.

• As if ESPN didn’t have enough concerns around its NBA broadcasts, it is losing longtime lead producer Tim Corrigan after this season. Corrigan is moving to a management role overseeing all NBA and WNBA broadcasts starting this fall. Corrigan has been on a media tour to discuss the NBA Finals and his move this month.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Sports media takes on Trump 2.0

When Donald Trump was voted out of office in 2020, the political chatter that had seeped into sports media largely subsided along with his term.

After John Skipper left ESPN and the temperature in the country got turned down, there was a far less combative relationship between the Worldwide Leader and the White House. Without a villain to fight back against, sports talking heads mostly stayed in their lane.

Spurred on by anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles and around the country last week, prominent anti-Trump voices in media came roaring back. Dan Le Batard accused the administration of working to make the country “whiter” with its immigration crackdown. Mina Kimes critiqued media and tech companies for failing to meet the moment with truth and clarity.

At the same time, an online argument between Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines opened the floodgates back up for the transgender athlete debate. After Biles called out Gaines for bullying a high-school softball pitcher in Minnesota, Gaines responded with graphic details around USA Gymnastics and Dr. Larry Nassar, likening a transgender woman competing in women’s sports to Nassar’s presence around the Olympic women’s gymnastics team last decade.

Perhaps it was the vile nature of that comparison or that certain sports commentators were simply feeling the crosswinds against Trump this month, but Gaines got more push-back on the disagreement with Biles than her typical coverage at Outkick. From Jemele Hill to USA Today columnist Nancy Armour to SiriusXM podcast host Katie Nolan, Gaines got hammered. Elsewhere, Meadowlark Media host Pablo Torre joined Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe’s podcast to discuss the issue in-depth.

All of this adds up to the first clash between the administration and sports commentators to date. From immigration to gender, there are numerous issues with which sports directly intersect. They are also some of the most hot-button topics from the last election.

Without quite so many obvious places to fight back this time around, something flipped for sports media on those two fronts last week. As Trump backpedals on immigration policy and Gaines moves on to her next target, these issues may disappear as quickly as they arose. But five months in, the seal has been broken for sports media to go after Trump and the conservative movement once again.