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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏈 Hard Knocks life. The HBO-NFL Films collaboration is expanding its list of eligibles. Earlier this week, we learned that the league was relaxing its rules regarding which teams are eligible to be forced onto the show. Now, we know what those rules are, and a whopping 20 teams could hypothetically be coerced to participate. See the full list of eligible teams and the new criteria here.

😡 “Bad faith” actor. That’s what Chicago Bulls president Michael Reinsdorf is calling Comcast amid a prolonged carriage dispute between the cable provider and the Chicagoland regional sports network Chicago Sports Network (CHSN). As per usual, Comcast would like to place CHSN on its more expensive digital tier, while CHSN wants placement on basic cable.

🏇 Race for the Crown. Netflix’s newest sports-focused docuseries is taking on the world of Thoroughbred racing. The six-episode run, produced by Box to Box Films, will feature behind-the-scenes access from owners, jockeys, and trainers as they gear up for horse racing’s Triple Crown.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

CBS and Augusta National: A partnership unlike any other

The Masters is less than a week away, which means one of the weirdest relationships in all of sports media will be on full display. That would be the relationship between CBS, the tournament’s broadcast partner for 70 years running, and Augusta National Golf Club, the green-jacketed hosts of golf’s most prestigious tournament.

For the uninitiated, it’s not only the sheer longevity of this partnership that makes it weird. It’s the media rights element. CBS doesn’t pay a dime to air the Masters. They also don’t have any sort of long-term agreement with Augusta National. The club awards CBS broadcast rights on a yearly basis under one simple condition: the tournament must be presented to their liking.

That gives the green jackets at Augusta National immense influence over what the broadcast looks, sounds, and feels like. Something as simple as referring to fans as “patrons” or the piping in of bird noises are some minor examples of the club’s influence that viewers have become accustomed to over the years. But Augusta National is much more hands-on than that.

The club also has say over where CBS places its cameras and what angles are used. They have strict conditions on the commercial load during the tournament’s broadcast. And this year, Augusta National has added a new restriction unique to this tournament: keep discussion of Hurricane Helene to a minimum.

Last fall, Helene ravaged the southeastern part of the United States, including Augusta, Georgia. As a result, a number of trees on some of Augusta National’s most iconic holes have been removed. Longtime Masters viewers will no doubt notice Helene’s impact on the course, but the club wants discussion of the hurricane kept to a minimum on the broadcast. That means no before-and-after images, and likely only discussing the impacts if it becomes relevant from a golf perspective.

“We’re covering the tournament the way it is presented to us and the way the club would like to present it. So [before-and-after images are] not in the cards,” CBS lead golf producer Sellers Shy stated during a press call earlier this week.

Shy’s answer gets to just how bizarre the CBS-Augusta National partnership is in the grand scheme of broadcast partnerships. Other leagues will certainly try to influence the way their television partners present their product, but no one, not even the almighty NFL, can exert the amount of influence over a broadcast that Augusta National exerts on CBS.

When asked by this writer about the unique nature of the arrangement, CBS Sports president David Berson touched on just how deep the network’s ties to the club are.

“This relationship is super deep. While we broadcast this event over the course of a four-day stretch, if you will, we are constantly in touch with the folks at Augusta National, our partners, our friends around the entire year to plan for this. The relationship is extremely, extremely deep.

“None of us take for granted one bit of this relationship. I think we all know it's far bigger than any one of us, and we're lucky to be the stewards during this moment in time to just make it even better, and we're thrilled that we can continue to honor tradition yet innovate, and that's something that Augusta National does so well.

“We love doing it with them, so this is not something you just kind of roll out each and every year but every year we're looking at every little angle, seeing how we can do it better, but it really is rooted in tremendous trust and respect that is far beyond those of us on this call. That goes back generations. There's just a tremendous respect and love of the game together.”

70 years on, there’s no signs of this partnership slowing down. So long as CBS continues to respect the club’s wishes.

👀AROUND AA📰

Sports media has no idea how to actually talk about the NBA

This feels like the third or fourth consecutive week that I’ve highlighted a Matt Yoder column in this section of the newsletter, and I promise it’s not because I’m trying to suck up to my boss.

Matt, once again, had some excellent commentary about the complete disservice that is modern day NBA coverage. In the context of two epic individual performances earlier this week, one by Nikola Jokić and another by Steph Curry, what did the preeminent NBA television shows talk about? Nothing important, that’s for sure. Here’s a quick excerpt from Matt’s column:

With the NBA regular season winding down to its final weeks, ask yourselves what have been the most popular media storylines in the 2024-2025 campaign. Has it been the historic dominance of the Oklahoma City Thunder? Is it the stunning brilliance of the Cleveland Cavaliers putting it all together under Kenny Atkinson? The remarkable comeback of the Detroit Pistons? What about the renaissance of the Lakers and Warriors or the Celtics looking for back-to-back titles?

Of course not.

Instead, the basketball media is obsessed with real or made-up drama. It can seemingly only talk about things that happen outside the 94×50 feet. We’ve got all the time in the world to do exhausting GOAT debates, hypothetical trade talk, LeBron vs Stephen A., Bronny James, and fighting about why yesterday’s NBA was so much better than today’s NBA. But we don’t have time to discuss today’s great players or matchups. Bob Cousy, who was last an All-Star in 1963, has probably received more First Take mentions over the past year than 2025 All-Star Jalen Williams. It’s not hard to see what is wrong with this picture.

📈💰INDUSTRY INSIGHTS🧐

• TNT Sports basketball analyst Grant Hill has signed a long-term extension that will keep him at the network in a slightly different role. Hill, who currently serves as both an NBA and college basketball analyst for TNT, will drop the NBA portion of his job when the network loses rights to the league next season. Instead, Hill will be bolstering his college basketball portfolio, adding Big East and Big 12 games to his schedule. While Hill was seen as a prime candidate to jump ship for NBC or Amazon next year, the new deal will allow him to remain on the lead NCAA Tournament team alongside Ian Eagle and Bill Raftery.

• Thom Brennaman will be returning to Cincinnati airwaves nearly five years after he was caught saying a homophobic slur on a hot mic during a Reds broadcast. The broadcaster will join 700 WLW-AM to host its 5-9 a.m. morning news-talk show. The gig marks an interesting pivot from sports to news for Brennaman in the city he’s called home for most of his life. Last year, Brennaman returned to national relevance as play-by-play voice for The CW’s college football broadcasts.

• NFL schedule maestro Howard Katz will retire this May after the league’s upcoming schedule is finalized, per a report by Sports Business Journal. Katz has spearheaded the creation of the NFL schedule for most of the last 20 years and has played a crucial role in developing the league’s modern scheduling practices. It’s unclear who will take the reigns of this crucial position once Katz officially retires, but whoever it is will have great influence over how NFL Sundays play out for years to come.

️‍🔥THE CLOSER🔥

Has the PGA Tour’s rebound been exaggerated?

Apologies for the golf-heavy edition of today’s A Block, but it’s almost Masters week so please humor me.

Much has been made about the PGA Tour’s strong ratings so far this season. Heck, I’m probably one of the more guilty parties in that equation, having recently authored a headline that read “PGA Tour outdrew LIV Golf viewership 100-to-1 last weekend.”

The success narrative is partly based in truth. The final rounds for each of the last nine PGA Tour events have seen year-over-year viewership increases. That’s a pretty impressive streak. But when looking at these numbers through a lens that is just a hair more critical, the Tour’s ratings rebound isn’t exactly what it’s been made out to be.

If one looks back one additional year to the 2023 data, the PGA Tour’s ratings don’t look nearly as strong. Of the 13 events played so far this season, only two have increased their final round audiences versus 2023. Those two tournaments would be Rory McIlroy’s win at Pebble Beach, which was up 45% versus 2023, and last week’s Houston Open, which increased 55% versus 2023 with Scottie Scheffler in contention.

Of the other 11 events, 10 have seen viewership declines and one tournament (Tiger Woods’ event at Riviera) has remained essentially flat. Of the 10 events that have declined, seven of those have declined by a double-digit percentage. These are not insignificant losses.

I’m not trying to piss in the PGA Tour’s Cheerios. It’s good that they’re trending back up. But much of that trend is due to a pretty unlucky run of weather-impacted rounds last year that hurt viewership and have made this year’s audiences look good comparatively.

Eventually, the Tour is going to have to show a bit more oomph if it wants its feel-good story to sustain.