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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

⚾ Expansion gambit. Rob Manfred pitches MLB expansion as the solution to TV woes, promising better time slots and geographic alignment to sweeten media deals that networks are already walking away from.

📺 Kaep comeback? Spike Lee's Colin Kaepernick documentary could still find a new home after ESPN's exit, though the Trump-era media landscape makes platforms willing to touch polarizing NFL content nearly extinct.

🎭 Media takedown. Stephen A. Smith calls Dillon Gabriel's "entertainers vs. competitors" comment about media coverage "very idiotic," warning the rookie that he just painted a target on his back for future scrutiny.

🏈 Steelers bet. Jim Nantz circles Pittsburgh as key to CBS's NFL schedule success, banking on Aaron Rodgers turning around the franchise with a potential six-game stretch in the final seven weeks.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Dawn of the ESPN-NFL era

The NFL's 10% ownership stake in ESPN was always going to change things. We just didn't know what that would look like until now.

Three moves this week offer the first real glimpse into how this new partnership is taking shape. Ian Rapoport is guest-hosting The Pat McAfee Show on Monday. Rich Eisen returned to ESPN to anchor SportsCenter Monday night after years away. And ESPN officially announced it won't air Spike Lee's four-year Colin Kaepernick documentary project, citing "creative differences."

Each move makes sense individually. Rapoport is the NFL Network’s top NFL insider, so putting him on ESPN’s biggest NFL-adjacent show during the season feels natural. Eisen is a proven television talent with deep league connections, which is precisely what ESPN needs as they lean harder into NFL content. The Kaepernick doc, which has been in development for four years, could genuinely be about creative differences, though Lee can't even discuss it due to an NDA.

But together, they sketch the outline of something bigger. This is what the new ESPN-NFL relationship looks like in practice: more league-friendly voices in prominent positions, proven NFL evangelists securing prime real estate, and potentially controversial NFL content being shelved just weeks after the ownership deal was finalized.

It's not sinister. It's just business. When you're partners with the league you cover, certain editorial choices become easier to make. Why risk complications with complex stories when there's so much straightforward content to produce? Why not give your most prominent NFL insider the biggest platform available? Why not bring back the guy who made NFL Draft coverage appointment television?

The convenience here works for everyone. ESPN gets better access and more integrated content. The NFL receives friendlier coverage from its media partner. Viewers get more polished NFL programming from familiar faces.

What we're seeing is the natural evolution of sports media consolidation. The lines between journalism and promotion were already blurry. Now they're practically invisible.

This isn't the ESPN that built its reputation by taking on the leagues it covered. This is ESPN as the NFL's media partner, and that partnership may just start to show up in programming decisions, talent choices, and editorial priorities.

The funeral for completely independent sports journalism happened when the deal was signed. We're just now seeing what rose from the ashes: a more integrated, more efficient, and probably more profitable version of sports media.

Whether that's better or worse depends on what you valued about the old model. But there's no going back now. This is what the new era looks like, and it's just getting started.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Awful Announcing’s readers tabbed the San Diego Padres’ broadcast booth of Don Orsillo and Mark Grant as the best in baseball. For the booths that rank Nos. 30-2, check out the rest of AA’s rankings.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• WWE touts TripleMania XXXIII as the most-viewed and highest-grossing event in the promotion's history, with 4.3 million viewers in the first 24 hours and a record gate of 19,691 at Arena CDMX, showcasing the effectiveness of WWE's YouTube streaming strategy under its ownership.

• TGL debuts second season with first-ever ABC broadcast on December 28, counter-programming Week 17 NFL games as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's tech golf league moves from cable to broadcast television.

• USA and Golf Channel undergo minor rebrand with Versant launch, removing Peacock imagery when NBC spins off cable assets while maintaining core sports programming under new "USA Sports" division.

• Barstool Sports debuts first scripted series Les Mascots on YouTube's Out of Order channel, following Times Square street performers in seven-episode comedy with hopes Netflix might eventually pick it up.

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

The future of reality TV is… Barstool Sports?!?

Barstool Beach House has me completely hooked, and I've stopped trying to rationalize why.

For the uninitiated, it's exactly what it sounds like. Barstool threw a bunch of their employees — some you've heard of, others you probably haven't — into a Jersey Shore house with cameras rolling 24/7. Think Real World meets Jersey Shore, but everyone already works together and has to go back to the same office when this is over.

On paper, it's ridiculous. In practice, it's some of the most compelling content I've watched in years.

The thing that separates this from every other reality show cluttering up your streaming services is that these people actually know each other. They're not strangers picked by casting directors to create maximum drama. They're coworkers with genuine relationships, fundamental workplace dynamics, and real consequences waiting for them when the cameras stop rolling.

When tensions flare up between cast members, it's not some producer pulling strings behind the scenes. It's genuine workplace drama playing out in real-time, except the workplace happens to be a shore house and everyone's drunk half the time. The stakes feel real because they are, in a sense, real.

And here's where it gets interesting from a content creation standpoint: Barstool isn't treating this like traditional TV. There's no weekly episode format, no carefully edited storylines, no dramatic music telling you how to feel. Instead, they're flooding every platform with content — streams, clips, behind-the-scenes stuff, social media updates from the participants themselves. It's happening everywhere at once.

For more on why Barstool Beach House might be the future of reality TV, check out my piece on Awful Announcing.