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🏈 Two No. 2’s. ESPN is reportedly “zeroing in” on two separate play-by-play announcers for its secondary NFL booth: Dave Pasch and Bob Wischusen. In recent years, that booth has been led by Chris Fowler. However, with ESPN’s non-Monday Night Football inventory largely taking place overseas following its acquisition of NFL Network, Fowler is no longer an option due to his college football duties.

💰 Manning Money. After reports earlier this week tabbed Pat McAfee’s future ESPN contract at around $60 million per year, we’re now getting some context for another quasi-ESPN talent’s compensation. Per Andrew Marchand, ESPN pays Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions in the same “neighborhood” as the proposed McAfee deal.

⚽ Honoring Grant. As part of the lead-up to the opening World Cup match between Mexico and South Africa yesterday, Fox honored late American soccer journalist Grant Wahl, who passed away while covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. “Grant Wahl’s loss is still being felt given his remarkable dedication into his craft,” Fox’s Rebecca Lowe said.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

As the saying often goes, first impressions can mean everything. And yesterday, Fox imparted viewers with a first impression of the World Cup coverage that will be part of our lives for the next five weeks. So far, the experience has left viewers wanting.

Fox began yesterday’s telecast two hours before Mexico would kick off against South Africa in the famous Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. By all accounts, the atmosphere around the stadium had been buzzing the entire day, but Fox viewers wouldn’t have any idea for quite some time. Instead, the network opted to begin its coverage from an antiseptic-feeling SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, where the U.S. Men’s National Team will begin its World Cup campaign Friday night. The telecast began with all the energy a cavernous and empty stadium can provide, which is to say, an energy that did not at all match the magnitude of the moment.

It was a surprising decision considering Fox’s history covering the World Cup. Recall the studio sets from the last two World Cups — the 2023 women’s tournament in front of the Sydney Opera House, and the 2022 men’s tournament on the Corniche in Doha — and Fox kicking things off from an empty football stadium felt like a substantial step down from an atmosphere perspective.

Eventually, the network did transition to Mexico City, where Jules Breach, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, and Peter Schmeichel delivered on-site coverage, a bright spot for the two-hour pregame show. But even then, the production felt small-time until the trio transitioned to its pitch-side location.

Speaking of the small-time feel, Fox may have generated a bit of an own-goal with its “U.S. Soccer House,” where it parked host Rob Stone, studio analyst Clint Dempsey, and match analyst Stu Holden throughout the pregame show. The Venice Beach location amounted to a cramped event space that still managed to look half-empty from aerial shots that only served to make viewers at home question whether or not people actually care about this World Cup.

Another perplexing decision came about halfway through the two-hour show, when Fox opted to keep rotating between its three-panel setup rather than showing Shakira’s live performance during the Opening Ceremony. Again, the decision kept with the theme of failing to capture the electric atmosphere inherent to an opening game in the World Cup.

Content-wise, the show was what we’ve come to expect from Fox at a World Cup. Coverage was light on tactics and heavy on casual-friendly segments like “What group excites you the most?” or “Give me a name that you’re looking forward to [seeing] this summer?” That’s well and good, we can’t blame Fox for programming to the masses. But if you’re going to keep it light, the chemistry has to be there to carry the show. So far, the new faces haven’t had a ton of time to mesh. Zlatan Ibrahimović, Thierry Henry, and Alexi Lalas didn’t have a ton of interplay with one another. Chicharito and Schmeichel showed promise, but will need more time to develop anything worthwhile. It’s Day 1, there’s an entire tournament left to build rapport, but we witnessed some of the shortcomings of bringing in a bunch of ringers on Thursday.

As for the game broadcast, match commentator Ian Darke does much of the heavy lifting in his pairing with USMNT legend Landon Donovan. That’s expected given the duo’s history together; Donovan hasn’t shown an ability to break through as a broadcaster despite his status as one of the best Americans to ever kick a ball.

Perhaps the most notable element of the game production wasn’t anything said by Darke or Donovan, but how Fox opted to handle the FIFA-mandated hydration breaks in each half. We learned early-afternoon Thursday that Fox would show full-screen advertisements during the three-minute stoppages during each half of play. That decision wasn’t all that surprising, although Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo has opted not to show any advertising during the breaks. What irked fans further, however, was Fox’s abrupt cuts back to play.

Per FIFA’s guidelines given to broadcasters in March regarding commercial inventory during hydration breaks, broadcasters are supposed to return to live coverage at least 30 seconds prior to the resumption of play. Fox’s first-half hydration break during Mexico-South Africa returned in time, but not a full 30 seconds before play resumed. But during the second-half break, Fox committed the cardinal sin and returned to coverage after the ball was already back in play. Fans took notice, and given this is the first time mid-game advertising has been sanctioned during a World Cup, having the commercials impact the actual game broadcast isn’t a great sign.

It all amounts to what could fairly be considered an early yellow card for Fox. The network did not get off to a hot start. Far from it. But there are 102 games to go after yesterday’s pair, and plenty of time to turn the ship around. That means better capturing the atmosphere of the host sites, broadcast teams meshing with one another, and, yes, figuring out how to shove a few more commercials down our throats without forcing us to miss any of the actual game.

A group of South African pundits were stunned silent after a pedestrian performance against Mexico

If for some reason you were tuned into Pat McAfee’s made-for-DraftKings game show on ESPN yesterday, you missed the grand finale as the show hit a hard out and was forced to cut to commercial

New York Knicks radio analyst and ESPN star Monica McNutt found herself on the wrong side of the Swifties after comments she made about pop star Taylor Swift’s attendance at Game 4 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden.

As one would expect for a story involving Taylor Swift, the incident took on a life of its own. Awful Announcing contributor Michael Grant took the incident as another example of why it is silly to gatekeep sports fandom. Here’s a preview of his column below.

What Monica McNutt said isn’t necessarily surprising or new. We’ve all done it. The difference is that McNutt said it about Taylor Swift, and on a hot mic.

The New York Knicks radio analyst and ESPN commentator went viral for doing something we’ve all done—questioning someone’s fandom. Unfortunately for McNutt, that someone was Swift, who was on Madison Square Garden’s Celebrity Row to witness the Knicks’ historic Game 4 comeback over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. McNutt told broadcast partner Tyler Murray, “Is that Taylor Swift down there? She’s not a Knicks fan! Get out of here, girl.”

Oh no.

Accusing Swift of being a fake or a fair-weather fan is one thing, but she turned up the heat by saying, “Get out of here, girl.” McNutt later apologized because you really don’t want to anger the Swifties. What made McNutt’s comments even more perplexing was that Swift showed more energy throughout the game than most of us. Who cares that she’s a Pennsylvania native? Who cares if this was a promotional tactic for her new single for Toy Story 5?

Swift sat in the front row with Este Haim and Alana Haim of the band Haim, exuding bachelorette-party vibes. That makes sense, since Swift’s wedding to Travis Kelce is reportedly set to take place at Madison Square Garden. They arrived wearing custom-made shirts with puns (“Stevie Knicks”, “Knickole Kidman,” and “Knickelback”). Law & Order star Mariska Hargitay joined in on the fun and put on a “Stevie Knicks” shirt. 

From a fan’s perspective, Taylor aced the assignment. She didn’t spend the entire evening staring at her phone. She didn’t look indifferent or bored. She was not only present but also enthusiastic. Swift looked like she was having more fun than almost anyone. The enduring images of the final minutes of that miraculous comeback were Swift, the Haim sisters, and Hargitay going crazy.

Years from now, if ESPN makes a 30 for 30 about this series, this is what we’ll see.

The NFL has found itself in the crosshairs of the federal government in recent months amid a not-so-subtle pressure campaign from Fox Corporation founder Rupert Murdoch.

The league, which recently began an effort to renegotiate its media rights deals several years early with the hopes of securing billions of dollars in fee increases from its broadcast partners, is now the subject of investigations from the FCC and DOJ. Both agencies are examining, reportedly at the behest of Fox, a company that is particularly vulnerable to a potential rights increase, whether the NFL is running afoul of 1960s-era legislation granting the league a limited antitrust exemption to pool its team’s broadcast rights together to sell in consolidated packages to networks.

That legislation, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, was the subject of a congressional hearing on Wednesday, where witnesses and elected officials alike teed off on what they almost unanimously viewed as anti-consumer practices by the NFL regarding the fragmentation of game inventory onto streaming services, and the lack of single-team out-of-market subscription options.

Now, it appears as if Congress is prepared to introduce legislation to address the issue.

According to a report by Puck sports correspondent John Ourand, “sources on all sides expect some sort of legislation to be introduced within the next few weeks” to address the Sports Broadcasting Act. It is unclear exactly what this legislation will aim to change regarding how professional sports leagues can sell broadcast rights.

The news comes in the weeks following the introduction of another bill aimed at making professional sporting events more accessible within local markets. In April, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) introduced a bill that would require all professional sports leagues to provide a free option to viewers within a team’s state for every game.

By the sounds of things, the upcoming legislation could be aimed towards a more fundamental change to how the Sports Broadcasting Act is applied. One possibility would be a guarantee that a certain number of games remain allocated to free, over-the-air broadcast networks. That’s clearly what Murdoch and Fox are angling for, and was a topic of discussion throughout the hearing on Wednesday.

Any legislation, of course, would likely take quite some time before making it to a floor vote. (Look no further than the various legislation aimed to address the issues facing college sports.)

Regardless, there is true bipartisan support on this issue. Making sporting events accessible to the masses is a popular policy position, no matter what party you represent. That means this could be one of the rare issues where there is alignment in Congress, which creates a credible possibility for a bill to eventually pass.

That’d be a ways off, but it’ll be in the background of any new deals the NFL is looking to strike in the coming years.