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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏈 I don’t feel well, Jim. Tony Romo tried to put Sunday’s messy Wild Card broadcast behind him Wednesday morning, revealing to SiriusXM’s Adam Schein that he was sick during Bills-Jaguars but wouldn’t let illness keep him from calling playoff football. “You’re not going to miss a playoff game,” Romo said. “It’s too much fun.”

🏀 That’s Rich. Rich Paul made headlines this week when the NBA super agent suggested on his podcast that the Los Angeles Lakers should trade star guard Austin Reaves. That not only reportedly has the Lakers mad, but star client LeBron James distanced himself from the comments, saying, “Rich is his own man and what Rich says is not a direct reflection of me and how I feel.”

🎙️ How bout that cowboy. Netflix is launching its first original sports podcast, and it’s going with Michael Irvin as the host. The White House with Michael Irvin debuts Jan. 19 with two episodes per week. The name comes from the legendary party house near the Cowboys’ practice facility during the 1990s dynasty.

🏀 Unwatched. Unrivaled, the nascent 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, is off to a shaky start in its second year. According to a report by Front Office Sports, Unrivaled’s opening slate of games on Jan. 5 averaged just 175,000 viewers across TNT and truTV. The numbers haven’t been much better since and show a steep drop-off compared to last season, when Unrivaled averaged 221,000 viewers on TNT between the regular season and playoffs.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

Does the ManningCast still matter?

Now in its fifth season, the Monday Night Football ManningCast might not be the viral sensation it once was, but Peyton and Eli Manning are still attracting some of the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and even politics to talk football with them on ESPN2.

This NFL season alone, they brought on Bill Murray, Glen Powell, Charles Barkley, Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, and former president George W. Bush. Previous years have included appearances by The Rock, Will Ferrell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Adam Sandler, LeBron James, Tom Brady, and former president Barack Obama.

Next season, Peyton and Eli will even get to call their first Super Bowl from the comfort of their couches.

Both Manning brothers have become celebrities and media moguls beyond football, and the question has long been whether they want to commit to doing the ManningCast in perpetuity. That’s especially relevant given the drop in audience this past NFL season.

Including this Monday’s NFL Playoff broadcast of the Texans-Steelers game, the ManningCast failed to crack one million viewers at any point this season, according to Nielsen's Big Data measurements. Only two ManningCasts cracked 900K viewers, and three failed to reach 600K. The Wild Card game garnered 810K.

Compare that to the second season (2022-23), when every ManningCast broadcast on ESPN2 exceeded 1.1 million viewers.

The writing has been on the wall for a bit as the third season saw a couple of episodes dip into six-figure averages. By the fourth season, ESPN stopped including ManningCast numbers in its weekly MNF ratings updates for most weeks.

None of this should be too shocking. The uniqueness and absurdity that made the early ManningCast seasons so exciting have faded over time. There are also so many times Peyton and Eli can trot out the same schticks. Spontaneity has given way to slickly produced showmanship. And by the time you're dabbling in the kind of corporate synergy that includes having the Disney CEO on as part of a PR offensive, you're not the cool kids anymore. 

It’s still a fun hang, but the novelty is gone.

Not to mention the ubiquity of alternative broadcasts these days. The ManningCast’s popularity led to a surge in altcasts, robbing them of their freshness as they became just another expected aspect of a network’s offerings.

There’s also a case to be made that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have turned the main MNF feed into must-see TV for football fans who were more easily swayed away from the previous booth. While things looked rough during the Disney-YouTube TV standoff, the season ended up the second-most-watched in ESPN/MNF history. Clearly, most of those people were watching the main booth.

So what, if anything, do the Mannings need to do to right the ship? The most obvious answer is… nothing.

Pat McAfee, never one to shy away from offering his opinion about other ESPN shows and talent, said in 2024 that he felt the future of the ManningCast was “to become clips for a lot of people.” And that’s probably right. It’s already a program that few people watch live, but they still digest its content on social media. Given the ratings trajectory, that's likely to continue. 

ESPN would tell you that ratings aren’t the point of the broadcast. Its power is in its virality and its ability to continue attracting A-list guests to ESPN2 airwaves. It’s a way to keep Peyton and Eli in the ESPN family while their business and acting careers blossom. It’s the perfect complementary altcast for their Super Bowl programming next season.

After that, who knows? ESPN recently extended its contract with Omaha Productions through 2034, which implies they’re willing to see the ManningCast through as long as Peyton and Eli are, even if the returns keep diminishing.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“If Cignetti wrote on a napkin that ‘Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard’. ‘Oh my God, it’s the greatest quote in the history of the world.’ We’d literally would be like ‘Cignetti’s the biggest genius I’v’ve ever seen.’” - David Pollack, who thinks Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is being overhyped.

“I really believe that football, the reason it is the best thing television has ever been built with, is because even a bad football game is weirdly watchable in a way that isn’t true for other sports.” - Chuck Klosterman explaining why football is so watchable on TV.

“People don’t realize what a bad dude he is. He is a guy that will shake your hand and stab you in the back. He’s one of the worst people out there.” - ESPN Chicago host Marc Silverman, going off on Bulls play-by-play voice Chuck Swirsky 

“I don’t see it, but I’d be willing to watch it… I just don’t think he would be built for that.” - Pittsburgh media member Mark Kaboly, the one person who doesn’t think Mike Tomlin is a fit for TV.

"It as pressure-packed of a job and with a hotter seat and a media microscope than any in the NFL, and I include those head coaching jobs." - ESPN’s Peter Schrager on the Eagles’ offensive coordinator job.

🎙️ THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🎙️

College football fans told The Athletic they are tiring of Pat McAfee on "College GameDay." Meanwhile, all of NFL media is abuzz that Mike Tomlin is leaving the Steelers for a TV job. Brendon Kleen and Drew Lerner discuss both stories on the latest edition of The Play-By-Play!

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• CBS is starting the search for Matt Ryan’s replacement early. The network announced on Wednesday that Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins and CBS NFL analyst Kyle Long would be joining The NFL Today studio show for the remainder of the postseason. CBS will air two more games this season, a Divisional Round game between the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos on Saturday afternoon, and the AFC Championship Game the following Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

• Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks, sent revised offers to clubs across MLB, the NBA, and the NHL as the company looks to remain operational past the current NBA and NHL seasons. The offers are contingent on Main Street finding a buyer for the company within weeks. If not, the FanDuel Sports Networks will cease operations after the current NBA and NHL seasons, and the 29 teams currently under contract with Main Street will be back on the market for local broadcast partnerships.

• Bryson DeChambeau is giving Kalshi its biggest — and most controversial — co-sign yet. The LIV Golf star signed on Wednesday as Kalshi’s first-ever athlete partner, lending a mainstream face to a prediction market platform currently facing multiple lawsuits alleging it operates as an unlicensed sports betting platform.

• Paul Bissonnette signed a multi-year contract extension with TNT Sports on Wednesday, keeping the former enforcer in the studio for NHL coverage while adding a new wrinkle to his role. Bissonnette made his in-game debut Wednesday night between the benches for Flyers-Sabres.

• Apple TV announced it will produce a multi-part documentary series on tennis legend Andre Agassi, sixteen years after the publication of his acclaimed memoir “Open: An Autobiography.” The series will be directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Chris Smith.

️‍️🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

One last thought on the Liam Coen press conference story

“The Liam Coen press conference discourse has reinforced one major thing,” wrote ESPN Bengals reporter Ben Baby on Sunday night. “We've reached the point where media should not discuss media ethics publicly. Even if the overwhelming majority of media members agree, the public will not get the media's viewpoint.”

If there is any sentiment that has stuck with me from the discourse of the last several days, it’s this one.

You know what happened. I refuse to believe anyone reading this newsletter on Thursday isn’t aware of what Lynn Jones of the Jacksonville Free Press News said to Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen. I also can’t imagine any subscribers aren’t aware of the commentary, arguments, backlash, and the backlash to the backlash.

It was the perfect storm for our current culture. Journalists, already seen as a scourge by many, were primed to be pounced on over any complaints. Some media members offered well-reasoned responses while others went a bit overboard in defending the sanctity of the press conference. Meanwhile, social media platforms like X have essentially fine-tuned their algorithms to turn something like this into a tsunami of reactions and anger. And that’s how we got here.

Pat McAfee’s dumbassery aside, the prevailing takeaway many seem to want to end this saga on is that what happens at an NFL coach press conference is not worth all this mishegoss.

“What we do, it ain’t that serious,” said ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt on his podcast. “No one’s solving the issues of the world. We’re not feeding the hungry. We’re not healing the sick. We’re not curing disease. We’re talking about a football game.”

That’s… true. But even now, I can feel some of my hackles rising defensively.

I do think it’s fair for journalists to say that they have a responsibility to maintain professional boundaries with the people they cover. And you do have to consider the flip side of what happened. If a reporter went into a press conference and told a coach he sucked and was a loser, you better believe everyone would be against it.

But… this is when I return to what Ben Baby said. The public has no appetite, especially right now, for conversations around media ethics. Whether that’s because they’ve been poisoned by agitators or truly don’t care is a story for another time.

“The public will not get the media's viewpoint,” said Baby. And unfortunately, he’s right. At least at this moment in time. And for the sake of letting this particular argument end, that’s just where we need to leave it for now.