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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏀 Breen goes to bat for Burke. Ahead of Game 7 of the NBA Finals, ESPN announcer Mike Breen appeared to put his support behind Doris Burke continuing in her role. Burke’s future had been a subplot throughout the series after a report in The Athletic that ESPN was considering demoting her after two seasons in the top booth. Breen said the Finals broadcasts were “far and away our best together.”

🟠 Reeve vs. Brennan. The head coach of last year’s U.S. Olympic women’s basketball finally spoke out against the chief critic of USA Basketball’s decision not to include Caitlin Clark on the team. In dueling radio appearances this week, USA Today columnist Christine Brennan said Cheryl Reeve displayed “stunningly bad behavior” for suggesting fans watch her Minnesota Lynx over Clark’s Indiana Fever in a post on X last season; Reeve responded by suggesting Brennan was not a “legitimate reporter.”

🫢 DeMita out. Sports content creator Rachel DeMita was fired from her role as sideline reporter by the Big 3 league after being caught sharing WNBA highlights of Caitlin Clark during a game she was covering for the Big 3. In a video responding to her dismissal, DeMita said she wished she could have had a chance to talk with management before leaving.

️‍🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

The “complicated” story of Game 7 of the

2025 NBA Finals

It’s complicated.

That’s how ESPN NBA reporter Brian Windhorst put it during his postgame hit with Scott Van Pelt on SportsCenter after a Game 7 that featured historic triumph and true adversity.

Early on the same night the Oklahoma City Thunder won their first NBA championship after years of knocking on the door, breakout Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton ruptured his Achilles’ tendon. The injury was the downside of braving it for your team, gritting through pain. And it was impossible for it not to distract from OKC’s title win.

Quickly, ESPN had to pivot to telling the story of a hurt Haliburton in real time while still charting a game that the Thunder ultimately dominated.

Many took issue with the network overdoing its replays of the injury. The textbook “pop” of the lower calf, coming off a lingering calf strain for the star guard, will go down as the defining clip from the series. But like with any major sports injury, a segment of the audience will believe the replays are self-indulgent.

Because Haliburton’s injury was not gruesome, it’s hard to make a big argument against showing it. The clip told a story by itself: of Haliburton processing the weight of the injury in real time, of the narrative around his injury last week, and of a worsening injury crisis in the NBA. The network told the story of the game by incorporating footage that illustrated it.

Bigger picture, the next challenge became how not to let Haliburton’s injury distract from the bigger story of the Thunder’s championship. Game analyst Richard Jefferson did an adept job describing why Haliburton’s will to play would outmatch what any trainer, executive or coach told him this week. Sideline reporter Lisa Salters was able to glean from Haliburton’s father that the injury was in fact to his Achilles.

All of that was out of the way in time to properly crown Oklahoma City. As the buzzer sounded, Breen brought the audience into the history of the unusual franchise and its speedy rebuild. Van Pelt wove through both sides of the story postgame, both with Finals MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and reporters across ESPN.

With a complicated task in front of them, ESPN talent and producers put together a detailed and celebratory broadcast. They struck the right chord with both stories and made a complicated task feel smooth for a major audience.

💬 AROUND AA 💬

Is YouTube ready to be a big player in live sports?

As YouTube sucks up NFL rights and fights a legal battle over its hire of a new global head of sports, the Google-owned streamer is acting like a major sports distributor.

In a new column at Awful Announcing, our Drew Lerner questions what the business model and user experience would have to look like for YouTube to actually compete with ESPN or Fox Sports in the future:

“All of these moves would seemingly signal that YouTube is ready to be a big player in live sports. In a world where leagues are obsessed with reach, YouTube has the most. It’s also free, ubiquitous, and seamless. Any league that struck a deal with YouTube would immediately sport the most fan-friendly broadcast distribution possible. No cable or satellite subscription. No paid streaming platform. Just a device that connects to the internet and the YouTube app. It’s a fan’s dream.

“It’s clear that league’s would love to have their games on YouTube, assuming the platform paid a market rate for them. The question is, does it make sense for YouTube to pay for expensive sports rights when they already have such a stranglehold on people’s attention?

“Given their recent moves, they seem to think so. But the business model isn’t as clear for YouTube as it is for other streamers…”

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Going away from the NBA for a moment, Cincinnati Reds announcer Chip Caray delivered quite the awkward soundbite during a promo over the weekend…

An early manager ejection had everyone talking, including ESPN announcer Karl Ravech:

Can’t help but laugh at this one:

🔥LEADING OFF 🔥

Alexi Lalas is ready for more

Alexi Lalas couldn’t have timed it better.

The Fox Sports soccer analyst is out with comments from The Varsity podcast at Puck stating he is interested in crossing over into political commentary. Well, duh. If his social media feeds and news hits aren’t enough, Lalas talks about a sport that is inherently geopolitical and “outside the lines.” That lends itself to chances to discuss the wider world, which Lalas did last week on FS1’s First Things First.

Amid a rough start to the Concacaf Gold Cup for the USMNT, Lalas went back to the well to go against the grain and argue diversity is the team’s big issue. According to Lalas, dueling styles of play and clashing cultural backgrounds are making it harder for the team to gel. It’s a point he’s made for about a decade.

The right-leaning former USMNT center back may be consistent with that view, but viewers couldn’t help but associate his argument with the Trump administration’s active dismantling of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives in the government and corporate world. Lalas had to have known what he was doing.

And he likely did, because within days he was gladly pitching himself for a “Clay Travis-type” role at a network like Fox based on a question from Varsity host John Ourand.

Rather than hyping up his political bona fides or news talk qualifications, Lalas got to the point: He is an entertainer. Certainly, he has strong political opinions. But the main reason Lalas believes he is qualified to cross over into news talk is that, dating back to his USMNT days, he has viewed his job as to entertain.

Lalas could have, for example, broken down why the USMNT system does not work without Christian Pulisic at left wing. Instead, he zagged into culture and demographics — and went viral.

Heading into a World Cup in North America next year with a growing comfort dancing into politics, expect to hear more from Lalas in the coming months and years. And don’t be surprised if he takes off in that ecosystem.