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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 Barkley is back. A noticeably thinner and admittedly “nervous” Charles Barkley joined the Inside the NBA crew for their premiere on ESPN. Don’t worry, the show brought its trademark trouble-making and relaxed format over to the Worldwide Leader as well.

🏈 More NFL overseas. We could get as many as nine international games in 2026, as SBJ’s Ben Fischer reports the NFL wants to play two more next season. Previously reported games in Melbourne and Mexico City will add to the schedule, which is expected to include Brazil and the United Kingdom once again. Playing nine international games would put the league at its collectively bargained cap.

📕 A book everyone saw coming. Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy announced that he is writing a memoir called, yes, “Cancel Me If You Can.” The book will tell the story of Portnoy’s career and Barstool’s climb to the mountaintop. It is slated for release next June.

🏀 It means more. The NBA caved to popular opinion and will finally bring back the cursive NBA Finals logo and the Larry O’Brien insignia on teams’ home courts for the championship series next spring. Internet backlash works!

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

‘Inside the NBA’ is back like it never left

We waited 20 years for the return of the NBA on NBC this week, but it felt like we waited a lifetime for the premiere of Inside the NBA on ESPN.

First it was Charles Barkley teasing retirement not once but twice, claiming he would be done at age 60 and then, after signing a new contract with TNT, again threatening to retire rather than working for a different network. Then there was the season-long farewell tour of the show, and the many goodbyes it gave us from the NBA All-Star game through to the conference finals. And don’t forget the long summer of maybes, including new contracts for the rest of the crew and a bunch more complaining from the Chuckster.

All of that faded away when the clock struck 6:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday and Ernie Johnson welcomed us back to Inside. Aside from the stronger shade of red in the logo and an extra letter in the network’s name, nothing felt much different at all.

When Barkley tried to open the show with a word of appreciation to ESPN, there was Johnson to interrupt him and tease him. Later, while Barkley tried to give his NBA Finals pick, Shaquille O’Neal changed the subject to Barkley’s lithe figure. Everyone had a laugh about the show’s over-the-top branding for its top sponsor, Popeye’s.

In between, Barkley and O’Neal found time for a typical evisceration of an underperforming NBA big man, with the Lakers’ Deandre Ayton the latest target.

The underlying hope that got the Inside crew to set aside their concerns and roll back their threats was that ESPN promised, all along, to let the show cook. The network was not making a lucrative trade with TNT Sports just to pare Inside back or ruin the beloved show. For more than a year, ESPN told everyone who would listen that they would leave well enough alone.

For the duration of Wednesday’s show, ESPN showed they meant it.

The bigger question will be whether Inside will solve the bigger issues that fans have leveled at the NBA’s most prominent broadcast partner for several years now. The network is rolling out another new top broadcast booth this season, and its digital and daytime coverage lacks a popular face. Even with less of Stephen A. Smith, fans are desperate to find something to like about ESPN’s NBA coverage.

Despite everything we know about how broadcasters do not strongly affect viewership, having Inside is a game-changer for ESPN. The pure, unadulterated version of Inside generates energy for games and is a bona fide hit online.

Without Scott Van Pelt’s SportsCenter at midnight on Wednesday, the Inside guys even got to stretch out late at night like usual. It may be harder to find the postgame show later in the season or on ABC game nights, but everything felt perfectly normal for the first go-round

Inside has proven it remains intact, as irreverent as ever. With that wind in its sails, ESPN ought to be able to market and publicize its NBA broadcast product better than it has in years, and viewers are likely to respond.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Bill Simmons had the best take on Michael Jordan’s NBC debut:

The almost-Chris Webber Moment by Kevin Durant is worth revisiting (with an excellent call from Mike Tirico):

Back on ESPN, Charles Barkley had some jokes about Kawhi Leonard and the ongoing investigation into his partnership with Aspiration:

🎺 THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🎺

Wednesday on The Play-By-Play LIVE, our Drew Lerner and Brendon Kleen broke down every angle of the return of the NBA on NBC:

• Why the studio crew, led by Maria Taylor and Carmelo Anthony, needs time

• Michael Jordan could talk about anything and it would be compelling

• How NBC makes games feel big

• Mike Tirico was right at home calling hoops again

Tune in LIVE on YouTube at 2p ET every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday… and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

The complete history of ping-pong tables in NFL locker rooms

When Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh became the latest to publicize his team’s attempt to discover new life by playing ping-pong in the locker room, it awoke something deep in our Matt Yoder.

The result is an exhaustive and fascinating history covering the intersection of table tennis and NFL camaraderie.

Make sure to stick around until the end for the wrench that Harbaugh’s brother, Jim, threw into the tradition when he got to the Los Angeles Chargers.