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 ✍️

📷 Bill Belichick, Cover Model? At any point before this year, you could have predicted Bill Belichick might end up on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health, heck, even Time. But US Weekly? The oft-scowling 78-year-old is all smiles on this week’s cover alongside girlfriend Jordon Hudson.

⚖️ Bill Belichick, Criminal Mastermind? It wasn’t all glossy magazine covers for Belichick on Wednesday. News also broke of a lawsuit that accuses UNC-Chapel Hill of using secretive practices to hire the six-time Super Bowl champion head coach illegally. According to a former university provost, the university’s board of trustees demonstrated a “systematic misuse of closed sessions to hide policy debates from public view.”

⚾ Gio Guts Gary. Mets announcer Gary Cohen drew the ire of WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti after questioning Cubs third baseman Matt Shaw for skipping a game to attend a memorial service for right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk. “I quite frankly didn’t like his commentary,” said Giannotti. “I thought it was completely unnecessary.”

🏛️ Congressional Disapproval. In the wake of ESPN agreeing to high-profile deals involving the NFL and MLB, prominent U.S. Senate and House Democrats are expressing their concerns. In a letter obtained by Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel, Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, along with U.S. House members Pat Ryan and Joaquin Castro, shared their concerns about how these deals could hurt consumers.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

ESPN’s Magnus effect is in effect

We here at Awful Announcing spend a lot of time listening to sports media podcasts, hoping to suss out any nuggets that might be of interest to our audience. Often, we can find one, maybe two, pieces of valuable information worthy of writing in a post or sharing in this newsletter.

And then there was this week’s episode of Sports Media with Richard Deitsch, featuring ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus, which we might still be aggregating three weeks from now.

ESPN is consistently generating news and interest, but the last few months have been particularly buzzy for the Worldwide Leader. And Magnus, unlike some of his sports media executive counterparts, is usually good for worthwhile soundbites and insight into their decision-making, even if he’s gotta keep things above board.

We highly encourage you to listen to the podcast (we love Deitsch and don’t want him to get mad at us!), but here are some of the most interesting nuggets we heard while listening.

When it comes to Inside the NBA, “It will be as close… as we can possibly get” to the version everyone loves, and their schedule will include “literally every playoff night for us through the Finals."

When it comes to Stephen A. Smith, Magnus likes how his new SiriusXM political show will help draw “clear lines between what he’s doing for us, and what he’s doing outside of us,” though we’re not sure we agree with that notion.

He defended the hiring of social media influencer Katie Feeney, saying it’s “totally additive” to changing audience needs and that she’s been so “remarkable” that “we might [hire another social media influencer] in the not-too-distant future because of the great start that Katie is on.”

If you don’t like Pat McAfee, too bad, because Magnus LOVES him. “As we sit here today, I could not imagine our daytime schedule without his show,” he said, adding, “We’re talking all the time about all kinds of things with him.”

Regarding Molly Qerim’s abrupt exit from the company, he opined that while it was understood that she would leave “First Take,” the hope was that they could agree on new roles for her. However, the two sides were unable to reach an agreement before things broke down. “The one thing that was unexpected was the timing of all this,” Magnus said. “She [Qerim] put out a statement because there was a report on it, so it kind of got out of our respective controls once that happened.” He added that ESPN expects to spend the next 30 to 45 days auditioning potential replacements.

As for Doris Burke’s demotion from the top NBA broadcasting team, Magnus walks a fine line, saying “we honestly believe that, now with a little experience in the top team in a three-person arrangement, that the best manifestation of Doris' work is actually alone with a play-by-play person.” He also heaped praise on her top-booth replacement, Tim Legler (“What a story.”) and summed up the situation by saying, "I think it was the right decision because we were still searching for the perfect combination.”

Seriously, though, there’s still a lot more Magnus has to say about the state of ESPN, so listen to the pod!

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

Who doesn’t like a good drug-smuggling documentary series?

The latest incredible saga comes from filmmaker Jody McVeigh-Schultz. Prime Video’s Cocaine Quarterback: Signal-Caller for the Cartel is the infamous story of Owen Hanson, a former USC football walk-on turned convicted drug cartel smuggler. It will be available to stream starting today, Sept. 25.

Check out Awful Announcing’s Michael Grant's thoughts on this “fun watch over three breezy episodes.”

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• While most have been preparing for the NFL to renegotiate its media rights agreements in 2029-2030, when the league can exercise opt-outs in its current contracts that run through 2034, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is opening the door for earlier negotiations. In an interview with Alex Sherman of CNBC Sport, Goodell broached the possibility of negotiating new media deals “as early as next year” so the league can capitalize on an increase in rights revenue.

• Goodell is also opening the door for another significant change: a Super Bowl on streaming. Speaking with Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic, the NFL commissioner said “anything is possible” when prompted about a potential streaming-only Super Bowl in the 2030s. “With a changing media landscape, the way it changes as fast as it changes,” Goodell said, “it’s certainly possible.”

• UEFA could be on the precipice of revamping how media rights deals for live sports are done on a global scale. According to a report by David Hellier in Bloomberg, the governing body for European football is considering a new bidding process for its flagship property, the UEFA Champions League, that might include a “global offering” targeted at a prominent streamer like Amazon or Netflix.

• The relationship between the Kelce brothers and Amazon Prime Video continues to get stronger. The streaming giant announced Wednesday that select episodes from Travis and Jason’s “New Heights” podcast will be available to stream on Prime Video, most notably including their recent one with Taylor Swift, which broke all kinds of records.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“I think no matter what, I’ll always have a target [on me] in general…I have all my DMs off completely, like I don’t see anything.” - ESPN sports betting analyst Erin Dolan on how she blocks out the noise.

“I’m not making threats, because I don’t have any more control over it than anybody else, but I know some people that do. And if they screw this up, they will be paying for it.” - ESPN’s Paul Finebaum seemingly lobbing a threat at the CFP committee to pick more SEC teams.

“There’s one or two nuggets from every production meeting — on average — that really ever make a broadcast.” - Fox’s Greg Olsen on the value of pre-broadcast production meetings.

“I think Fran Brown’s the hottest coach in college sports.” - Fox’s Urban Meyer after Brown’s Syracuse defeated Clemson last weekend.

“The AP Poll is such a joke. Washington got zero votes in the AP Poll. Are you guys willfully ignorant, or just ignorant?” - Fox’s Joel Klatt, calling out AP Poll voters.

“He’s the most impressive young broadcaster to come along since Joe Buck… and he sounds as good as some Hall of Fame broadcaster at age 45 or 50.” - Bob Costas offering high praise to NBC’s Noah Eagle.

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Tom Brady doth protest too much

Tom Brady finally responded to the charges that his dual roles as a Fox NFL broadcaster and minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders create the potential for conflicts of interest. And boy was it a doozy.

“I love football,” Brady wrote in his Wednesday morning newsletter. “At its core, it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport; which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe.

“When you live through uncertain and untrusting times like we are today, it is very easy to watch a person’s passions and profession intersect, and to believe you’re looking at some sort of dilemma. Because when you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest.

“…People who are like that, particularly to a chronic, pathological degree, are telling on themselves,” Brady continued of his critics. “They’re showing you their worldview and how they operate. They’re admitting that they can only conceive of interests that are selfish; that they cannot imagine a person doing their job for reasons that are greater than themselves.”

As one of the many people who have questioned Brady’s ethical dilemma, including in this very newsletter last week, I feel a duty to offer a response.

I would say, much like my colleague Brandon Contes wrote Wednesday morning, the burden of proof is on Brady, not us.

It is entirely fair to wonder if a person with a vested, financial interest in the success of one team might use his unfettered access to every other team to improve his team’s chances in some way, however small or even subconsciously. And that’s especially true when we’re talking about someone who has shown themselves to be a ruthless competitor who was once at the center of a cheating scandal and recently showed us he’s willing to look the other way on ethical concerns for personal gain.

Brady’s status as the NFL golden boy puts the onus on him, fairly or not, to prove to us he’s worthy of being in a position few, if any, other people would be allowed to have. And if that makes him uncomfortable, heavy is the head that wears the crown.

It’s not unlike when Brady agreed to be roasted on Netflix. By all accounts, he expected to be able to handle the jokes. Instead, he ended up having to protect his billionaire buddy, and he regretted that his kids witnessed it. Like many people in his position these days, he wants to be able to do as he pleases without facing any critique, questions, or pushback.

Things don’t work like that, even if you’re Tom Brady.