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

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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏀 Bang! Bang! Bungled! Wednesday afternoon, a parody account of ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania posted a fake scoop that Breen was retiring. Ignoring the fact that the post came from an account called “Scam Charnia” that shouldn’t have been so deceptive, fellow ESPNers Ramona Shelburne and Marc J. Spears — among many other NBA fans on X — fell for it. As a reminder, Breen signed a contract extension in 2023.

🏒 NBC, Rejoice! NHL players are officially back in the Olympics. On Wednesday, the NHL, NHLPA, and IIHF finalized their previously agreed-upon deal to send players to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina. No one is happier about this news than NBCUniversal, which saw declining ratings around Olympic hockey without NHL stars.

🏈 Kelce on the Mic. It’s no secret that Travis Kelce has big plans after his NFL retirement. During an appearance on Bussin’ With the Boys, the Chiefs’ TE admitted that he’d like to give broadcasting a shot (“I want to see what calling a game feels like”) though he did acknowledge that tha table reading for his SNL appearance was difficult as “a guy that can’t really read that well.”

🗽 Mamdani ain’t played nobody, Pawl! A debate focused on Tim Tebow and Arch Manning led Paul Finebaum to compare himself to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on ESPN's airwaves. Kudos if you saw that coming.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

ESPN’s ‘Vibe Check’ is a long time coming, and a fresh hang for women’s sports lovers

Hannah Storm joined ESPN in its heyday. The move to Bristol was more than worth it, as the Worldwide Leader offered the star reporter many of the biggest opportunities in sports. In 17 years with the company, Storm has hosted the NBA Finals, NFL Sunday pregame, Wimbledon, and the morning SportsCenter.

What ESPN did not offer was any other Hannah Storms. Bristol wasn’t unique in that way. Storm was used to covering men’s sports alongside male colleagues. But it was a noticeable change, after Storm spent time next to luminaries like Julie Chen and Ann Meyers before joining ESPN.

“I had like one female friend who was on the air, and that was Chris Evert because she was a tennis analyst,” Storm told Awful Announcing. “There just weren’t other women doing what I was doing.”

Recently, this has changed. Not with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the $800 million NCAA championships TV deal, Livvy Dunne, or NiJaree Canady.

Starting around the time of the WNBA Bubble, ESPN talent saw a wave cresting around women’s sports. Working for the dominant broadcaster for college and pro competitions, they rode it. As TV deals for the WNBA and NWSL grew, so did franchise valuations and sponsorships.

Like an avalanche of FOMO, fans took interest. Covering women’s sports was suddenly a more viable career path at ESPN.

The achingly long wait for some hosts and analysts meant they were ready when the dam opened. For studio coverage of the 2023 NCAA women’s basketball tournament, the network tried the trio of Elle Duncan, Chiney Ogwumike, and Andraya Carter. All three were on the rise in Bristol, but had little experience working together. They more than met the moment of a March that saw Clark take Iowa to the title game, then find her foil in Reese.

Vibe Check, the new women’s sports studio show from ESPN and Disney+, was born slowly, then all at once. Although it is the brainchild of Duncan, Ogwumike, and Carter, it belongs to Storm and Evert, as well as all the women who preceded them at ESPN. The name is derived from a segment on the NCAA tourney show, but could just as well be a mission statement. In internet parlance, a vibe check gauges energy. But it can also be a sudden disruption, a confrontation of the existing equilibrium.

Read more about how Vibe Check has the chance to make good on what came before it and chart a new path forward for women’s sports coverage.

📈 DATA DUMP 💰

• The WNBA continues to prove its growth is real, even outside of superstar guard Caitlin Clark. Ion’s Friday night doubleheader, which featured a Clark-less Indiana Fever taking on the Dallas Wings, averaged 1.14 million viewers. The window was Ion’s most-watched WNBA telecast of the season and the seventh-most watched on the network ever. It was also Ion’s most-watched game in which Clark did not play.

• Wimbledon, which began on Monday, earned record viewership for ESPN. Monday’s audience averaged 539,000 viewers, up 37% versus last year’s Day 1 audience (393,000 viewers), and notching the most-watched first day of Wimbledon in the network’s 22 years airing the tournament. Given some of the early upsets, however, it might be an uphill battle from here.

• Despite pleas from the players’ union to avoid midday starts in heat-impacted locations during next summer’s FIFA World Cup, it seems as if soccer’s governing body is planning to play its most important game in sweltering conditions. According to The Athletic, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy believes FIFA will kick off the World Cup final at 3 p.m. ET in his state’s MetLife Stadium.

🗣️ THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🗣️

On the latest episode, Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen and Ben Axelrod discuss the LeBron James news complex, Bill Simmons vs. Kendrick Perkins, and coverage of the NBA’s gambling scandals.

Click the video above to watch or find The Play-By-Play wherever you listen to podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“When I hear Yankees fans complain, I’m like, ‘Shut the f*ck up’… Would you rather be a Yankees fan or a Pirates fan?” - ESPN’s Jeff Passan on the plight of championship-or-bust NY fans.

“He wasn’t invited to our parade last year, that is true, because he had been giving people a lot of sh*t.” - Outgoing Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck confirming the hard feelings between the franchise’s players and ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins.

“You needed a white guy. Problem is, as T.O. told you and told the world, Max is Blacker than you! And whether you agree with that or not, I don’t believe in that stuff, but I do know one thing. Max knew more Black culture than you. And you got mad!” - Marcellus Wiley’s theory on why Stephen A. Smith didn’t like Max Kellerman.

“The Mets going out with a whimper.” - SNY’s Gary Cohen on the Mets’ lack of hitting in Game 1 of a Wednesday double-header. By Game 2, they clearly heard him.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

5 things we learned from DeMaurice Smith’s new book

DeMaurice Smith led the National Football League Players Association from 2009 to 2023, guiding the union through a lockout, two contentious collective bargaining agreements, and numerous arbitrations and lawsuits against the league.

So it’s no surprise he’s got some interesting things to say.

Awful Announcing’s Daniel Kaplan got a chance to read his upcoming 354-page book, “Turf Wars,” which includes some juicy quotes and details about the players, owners, and a certain commissioner that he worked with. Here are five big takeaways…

1. He pulls no punches on Roger Goodell. Smith and Goodell often had to pose for pictures together, but it doesn’t sound like their relationship was very cozy. Smith refers to the NFL commissioner as a “cold, dark void.” He also says Goodell “was in the employ of madmen.”

2. He seems to prefer Robert Kraft over Jerry Jones. Of the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Smith says, “If Jerry Jones saw a dollar bill on the ground, I truly believe he’d stop and pick it up.” Meanwhile, he included the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots in his acknowledgements, saying, “Despite our occasional fights and disagreements, you have been a good friend and provided wise and indispensable counsel.”

3. He’s no fan of Aaron Rodgers. The now-Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback publicly opposed the 2020 CBA, which narrowly passed 1,019-959 in part because of opposition to the addition of a 17th regular season game. “The god of Cheesehead Nation was isolated and dismissive,” reads Smith’s description of Rodgers in a players meeting. “He sat in the back row of the meeting room, issuing loud sighs before standing for a dramatic exit. An incredible quarterback, to be sure, but an even more impressive antagonist.” Smith also added that he once saw a text from Rodgers asking him to call and wondered if he could just “run into traffic instead.”

4. Kirk Cousins isn’t spared. The current Atlanta Falcon and former Minnesota Vikings quarterback reportedly shared his concerns during a meeting with union staff, players, and owners to discuss kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality. After Cousins commented that the protests might be hurting the league’s revenue, union official Don Davis, who is Black, asked him ‘Do you know what the Black players hear when you say that? That the n*****s need to shut up.'”

5. He would likely handle the collusion case differently. While he doesn’t comment on his successor, Lloyd Howell, Smith does imply that he would probably handle things differently in the wake of an arbitrator’s decision that, while the NFL encouraged teams not to guarantee contracts, there was no proof of collusion especially since he was the one who filed the initial complaint with the arbitrator.

You can see what else Smith had to say about topics such as Deflategate, the 2011 CBA, and the NFL’s poor record of hiring Black coaches. “Turf Wars” will be published by Random House on August 5.