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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺️ Rich Eisen returns to ESPN. More than two decades after first leaving ESPN, Rich Eisen is returning to the Worldwide Leader. According to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, the former SportsCenter star has reached a deal to license The Rich Eisen Show to ESPN beginning this fall.

🦊 Fox makes streaming move. During an earnings call on Monday, Fox made a few announcements regarding its upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service. Most notably, the product will be known as “Fox One” and will look to partner with other streaming services and offer the company’s full portfolio of platforms and brands.

🏈 Berman extends. While he hasn’t been one of the company’s higher-profile talents in recent years, Chris Berman remains a part of the ESPN family. And that will remain the case for the foreseeable future, with the network announcing that it has signed the longtime anchor to an extension through 2029, making him the Worldwide Leader’s first-ever 50-year employee.

🎙️ McAfee alludes to major moves. In a cryptic social media post on Sunday night, Pat McAfee seemingly reflected on various moves he’s made throughout his career. And in doing so, the 38-year-old teased that there’s another shoe to drop, ending the message with the hashtag #UpToSomethingSZN.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

He’s back.

NBC made several sports-related announcements at its upfront on Monday morning, most of which focused on its upcoming NBA package and continued push to Peacock.

None, however, garnered more attention than the news that Michael Jordan — yes, the Michael Jordan — will be a “special contributor” to the network’s NBA coverage, which will begin next season.

“I am so excited to see the NBA back on NBC,” Jordan said in a boilerplate statement provided by the network. “The NBA on NBC was a meaningful part of my career, and I’m excited about being a special contributor to the project. I’m looking forward to seeing you all when the NBA on NBC launches this October.”

At this point, details regarding Jordan’s official role have been few and far between. Will he be serving as a studio analyst? Will he be participating in pre-produced packages? Will he dare follow in Tom Brady’s footsteps and give it the old college try in the booth?

We don’t know the answers to any of those questions yet, as an NBC press release was filled mainly with the 62-year-old’s career accomplishments and reminders of the network’s nostalgia-based approach (have you heard they’re bringing back “Roundball Rock”?) But even the fact that we don’t know Jordan’s exact role yet — let alone how often His Airness will be on our airwaves — did little to detract from the excitement of Monday’s announcement.

After all, this is Michael Jeffrey Jordan, arguably the most famous athlete to have ever lived and someone who has largely avoided the spotlight since retiring for good 22 years ago. If it’s already a big deal when he can be bothered to merely show up to the NBA’s 75th anniversary at All-Star Weekend, just imagine what it will be like when he publicly opines the current state of the league he helped shape.

While some have understandably already tempered their expectations for the next chapter of Jordan’s career, the reality is that no one can truly know what’s coming. Although it’s plenty possible he’ll take the “Republicans buy shoes too” approach, as Bomani Jones has suggested, who’s to say he won’t go into Hall of Fame speech roast mode when given a live mic? (If that’s what this role even calls for).

Ultimately, Upfronts aims to generate excitement for advertisers, and if the reaction to the Jordan announcement is any indication, NBC succeeded in doing just that. In the meantime, we’ll wait for more details regarding Jordan’s role to emerge ahead of the most highly anticipated sports media debut since Brady began calling games nearly one year ago.

👀 AROUND AA 📰 

The future of sports broadcasting looks like iShowSpeed

If you aren’t familiar with iShowSpeed, now might be the time to change that. In a feature for Awful Announcing, Brendon Kleen explored the role that “Speed” and other YouTube stars and streamers are already playing in shaping the future of sports broadcasting.

🎤 MEDIA MOMENTS ✍️ 

• After largely ignoring the situation throughout last week, Dan Le Batard finally acknowledged the elephant in the room. During Monday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, the Meadowlark Media co-founder addressed reports that longtime co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner is stepping back from his duties with the company.

• There was no shortage of reactions in the sports media space after the Dallas Mavericks won Monday night’s NBA Draft Lottery. That included Bill Simmons, who kept his vow to be “morally outraged” if Dallas won the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes just months after the Luka Dončić trade.

• As Bill Belichick remains engulfed by controversy regarding his relationship with Jordon Hudson, some have begun to question whether he’ll even make it to his first game as North Carolina’s head coach. Appearing on The Domonique Foxworth Show, Pablo Torre expressed some skepticism of his own, stating that there is “an absolutely real chance” Belichick never coaches a game for the Tar Heels.

• Over the last decade, it has seemed like player-hosted podcasts and shows were the way of the future in the NBA. But during an appearance on The Press Box podcast, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst pushed back, noting that “player media largely has failed.”

• Appearing at an event for Life Surge in Columbus over the weekend, Urban Meyer revealed that he threatened to leave the Ohio State program at one point. In a video obtained by The Rooster, the Fox college football analyst recalled telling longtime Buckeyes athletic director Gene Smith that he’d want out of his contract if he wasn’t allowed to host church services and Bible studies for his players on Sundays. The two ultimately compromised on referring to such practices as “reflections.”

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

Pat McAfee is pro wrestling personified

I have a theory that of all Pat McAfee’s jobs, his favorite is the role he has with WWE.

I don’t have any inside info (and it’s not hard to tell how Pat feels about Awful Announcing), but it seems pretty academic. For all of the money he’s made as a sports media personality, there’s simply no reason other than his pure love of the industry for the former All-Pro punter to spend each Monday flying across the country (and sometimes, Earth) to commentate on WWE Raw, let alone for him to take a beating at the hands of pro wrestling’s biggest stars.

And yet, there McAfee was in the middle of the ring in St. Louis on Saturday night, absorbing openhanded slaps to his bare chest from former world champion Gunther. It wasn’t the College GameDay star’s best match, but it was his most high profile. And what it may have lacked in technical ability, it made up for with its storytelling.

Watching Monday’s episode of The Pat McAfee Show, I saw that the match clearly meant a lot to Pat, as did Gunther, who displayed a sign of respect after defeating him via a sleeper hold. Say what you will about McAfee — and we’ve said plenty — but he's a perfect fit when it comes to pro wrestling.

WWE clearly sees that, too, which is why the company treats McAfee the way he presumably believes a star of his stature should be treated. Sure, ESPN has made plenty of exceptions for the West Virginia product, too. But at WWE, he doesn’t have to worry about ruffling any feathers by interviewing Aaron Rodgers or calling Caitlin Clark a “white b**ch.” If he wants to spend a Premium Live Event in Toronto bashing the Canadian crowd for booing the United States national anthem, have at it.

I don’t know what McAfee’s cryptic social media post from Sunday night was intended to infer about his career, but I feel pretty confident that his relationship with WWE has never been stronger. If anything, it’s likely worth monitoring McAfee’s growing relationship with the pro wrestling giant’s parent company, TKO, moving forward, especially when considering TKO’s growing ties to Netflix and the implications that it could have in the sports media space.