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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 RedZone creep. NFL RedZone viewers noticed a dramatic increase in commercials during Sunday's Week 7 broadcast, with some on social media counting at least 10 ads compared to the four 15-second spots initially promised when commercials became permanent this season. Scott Hanson can no longer accurately promise "seven hours of commercial-free football," and the ad creep is only expected to worsen when ESPN takes over operations as early as 2026.

👩‍💼 Intentional respect. Mike Vrabel explained why he always gives the first question at press conferences to a female reporter, saying "This is a tough business, I think, for females, for women. Breaking in." The Patriots coach started the tradition in Tennessee with AP's Teresa Walker and continued it in New England with MassLive's Karen Guregian, who covered him during his playing days.

🎙️ No regrets. Troy Aikman defended his Monday Night Football commentary after Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson publicly criticized his analysis during Chicago's win over Washington. "I was kind of caught off guard Tuesday night when I first heard about it," Aikman said on The Ticket in Dallas. "It's not something that I really lose much sleep over."

💣 Instant karma. Jason McCourty explained Josh McDaniels has a "last shot mentality" and wouldn't go fast before halftime during Sunday's Patriots-Titans game. Drake Maye immediately threw a 40-yard touchdown bomb on the very next play.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Five questions that will define the NBA's media revolution

The NBA tips off the most significant broadcasting transformation in league history Tuesday night, ending TNT's 40-year relationship and ushering in a new era split between NBC, Amazon Prime Video, and ESPN under an 11-year, $76 billion deal. New platforms, untested talent, and unprecedented fragmentation will define how basketball is consumed for the next decade.

Here are the five questions that will determine whether this revolution succeeds or becomes an expensive mess.

Can Blake Griffin become the next Charles Barkley?

Amazon won the Blake Griffin sweepstakes after both NBC and ESPN pursued the six-time All-Star who retired in 2023. Griffin joins Taylor Rooks and Dirk Nowitzki on Prime Video's studio coverage, with Steve Nash rotating alongside Stan Van Gundy, Dwyane Wade, and Candace Parker.

Everyone around the league knew Griffin had the personality and comedic timing to succeed in media. He's built a production company, made Forbes 30 Under 30, and demonstrated the self-awareness that makes great studio analysts. Now he gets the platform to prove he can generate the viral moments that built Inside the NBA into appointment television.

Draymond Green was supposed to be that guy. Five years ago, Green had the TNT contract, the podcast infrastructure, and the obvious media trajectory once he retired. But with TNT losing NBA rights after this season, Green's path suddenly looks uncertain. He's still playing, which means Griffin jumped the line and claimed the role everyone assumed would be Green's. Unless Inside the NBA's move to ESPN creates space when Green eventually retires, or NBC carves out a position for him, the window might close before he gets his shot.

As for Griffin, the former Los Angeles Clippers star said he wants to bring "analysis that's current" rather than "just talking sh*t" positioning himself as someone who can balance entertainment with substance. Whether Amazon figures out how to use him — and whether he can deliver Barkley-level entertainment — will determine if Amazon's NBA coverage becomes destination viewing or just another expensive streaming experiment that never finds its audience.

Will Michael Jordan's NBC segments matter at all?

NBC revealed Monday that Jordan's involvement amounts to a pre-recorded segment called "MJ: Insights to Excellence," featuring Mike Tirico conducting taped interviews that will air sporadically throughout the season. The network announced Jordan as a "special contributor" back in May, generated months of speculation, and delivered occasional content that may or may not engage with the current NBA.

NBC won't say what these segments will actually cover. Will Tirico ask Jordan about the current league? Will LeBron James' name come up? Or is this generic motivational content about greatness that could apply to any era?

The vagueness is the issue. Jordan hasn't been meaningfully involved in basketball media since his playing days ended in 2003. His stint as Hornets owner from 2010-23 didn't exactly suggest someone plugged into the modern game.

The first segment airs Tuesday night. Based on everything NBC has carefully avoided revealing, expect something closer to a Nike commercial than actual basketball commentary.

Can Inside the NBA survive on ESPN?

Inside the NBA will air on 20 nights throughout the regular season, mostly around ABC Saturday primetime coverage, debuting Oct. 22. ESPN announced that pregame shows on ESPN will begin one hour before tipoff, with postgame shows starting immediately after game coverage concludes, while pregame shows on ABC will begin 30 minutes prior to tipoff.

Here's the problem: Postgame shows following NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC will start immediately after the game on ABC and continue on the ESPN App. Fans on linear television won't get the full postgame experience without an ESPN subscription.

ESPN committed to maintaining TNT's music, graphics, producer, director and support staff, with TNT continuing to produce the program from Atlanta. Charles Barkley says ESPN promised not to rush Inside the NBA off-air, noting "we always go to 2 a.m." on TNT, and ESPN president Burke Magnus told The Athletic the network's "goal" is to give Inside the NBA as much airtime as it had with TNT.

But Kenny Smith admitted to The New Yorker he's "uncomfortable" with the move, questioning whether the show will be "a half hour now? Forty-five minutes? Fifteen minutes?" even as ESPN insists nothing will change.

Inside the NBA thrived because TNT had no other programming competing for airtime. The show could run until 2 a.m., and some of its best content happened when Barkley stopped caring who was watching. ESPN has SportsCenter to protect, local affiliates demanding their time slots back, and a history of over-producing everything it touches.

The talent remains the same. The constraints are completely different.

Will NBC's nostalgia play work in 2025?

NBC announced that John Tesh's "Roundball Rock" will return when coverage begins Tuesday, with Mike Tirico, Reggie Miller, Jamal Crawford and Zora Stephenson calling the Thunder-Rockets season opener.

NBC's complete lineup includes play-by-play voices Tirico, Noah Eagle, Terry Gannon and Michael Grady, with analysts Reggie Miller, Jamal Crawford, Grant Hill, Derek Fisher, Brad Daugherty, Brian Scalabrine, Austin Rivers and Robbie Hummel. Vince Carter and Carmelo Anthony anchor studio coverage alongside Maria Taylor and Ahmed Fareed.

NBC is betting heavily on 1990s nostalgia: "Roundball Rock," Michael Jordan segments, and Reggie Miller returning to the booth where he made his name. The network is marketing this as a return to basketball's golden age, hoping fans who grew up watching the NBA on NBC will tune in for the memories.

Those fans are now in their 40s and 50s. The NBA's core audience skews younger, and they have no emotional connection to "Roundball Rock" or the days when NBC last aired basketball in 2002.

Nostalgia is a marketing strategy, not a substitute for compelling coverage. NBC needs to prove it can be relevant in 2025, not just remind people it was relevant in 1998.

How much fragmentation will fans tolerate?

Amazon Prime will stream 66 regular-season games annually, plus NBA Cup and playoff coverage, with recurring Friday night broadcasts and Thursday night doubleheaders after the NFL season concludes. NBC's coverage includes Tuesday and Sunday games following the NFL season, with Peacock streaming Monday doubleheaders. ESPN retains Finals rights and Wednesday coverage.

Watching a single team's season now requires subscriptions to Prime Video, Peacock, a cable package for ABC and ESPN's linear networks, and potentially a subscription to a regional sports network.

The NFL learned that fragmenting content across platforms comes at a cost when fans decide convenience matters more than watching every game. The NBA is about to run the same experiment.

Tuesday night will answer whether the NBA's $76 billion bet on streaming can deliver what traditional broadcasting couldn't. But the real test comes when fans realize they need five different subscriptions just to follow their favorite team, and start deciding which games they can live without watching.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Tua threw a pick during a CBS update... about another Tua pick:

Michael Strahan channels Tweety Bird after Terry Bradshaw can't say "great.”

Matt LaFleur handles an awkward reporter exodus with grace when Micah Parsons becomes available:

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

"One of the secret scouting reports that a couple people told me about Mac Jones was when the game's on the line, he's sneaky." - NBC's Cris Collinsworth reaching for the classic white quarterback stereotype after Jones scrambled for a first down late in the 49ers' 20-10 win over the Falcons. Might as well have added "gritty" and "lunch-pail guy" while he was at it.

"The reason you give the ball back is there's chips in those footballs... the NFL wants to keep their data to themselves and give you a ball that doesn't have chips in it." - CBS's Tony Romo explaining why officials swap footballs with fans who catch them in the stands, revealing the tracking technology that's become essential since the league eliminated chain gangs this season.

"I think it's absolutely hilarious how you guys cover coaches. I think, three weeks ago, I was getting fired. Now, I'm getting hired." - Texas A&M coach Mike Elko dismissing Penn State speculation, using nearly identical language to what he said at Duke two years ago before leaving for Texas A&M two weeks later.

"I do think he's got a target on his back. I think people have seen him win for a long time and now in typical society, they like that he's kind of down and they're gonna kick him." - Fox's Greg Olsen defending Bill Belichick amid leaked footage showing his girlfriend's influence on his coaching show, arguing people are finally getting their chance to root against the six-time Super Bowl champion.

"Obviously in hindsight, the brother's right because we see all the conspiracy theories that came out. And props to him for having the foresight to see that." - ESPN's Stephen A. Smith endorsing Kyrie Irving's anti-vaccine stance on the 7PM In Brooklyn podcast, claiming conspiracy theories prove Irving was correct despite the CDC still recommending COVID-19 vaccines for most adults.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• Meadowlark Media promoted Bimal Kapadia to CEO, filling the void left by John Skipper's departure in May. The former ESPN and Players' Tribune executive had served as COO since the company's 2021 founding by Dan Le Batard and Skipper. Kapadia told The Hollywood Reporter his goal is to free Le Batard from business duties to focus on content creation, building off recent distribution deals with DraftKings and The Athletic.

• NFL Media head Hans Schroeder admitted concurrent Monday Night Football games have "not delivered yet," with ESPN and the NFL moving away from the model starting next season. The network will gain flexibility to swap MNF doubleheader games with Saturday nights or early Sunday international windows, ending an experiment that consistently produced lower ratings, including an ESPN+ exclusive last October that drew fewer than 2 million viewers.

• Good Good Golf will host its own PGA Tour event starting in November 2026, with the Good Good Championship taking place in Austin, Texas. The YouTube golf channel founded in 2020 secured a multi-year agreement for the 120-player event offering 500 FedExCup points, marking the Tour's continued push to engage younger demographics. The tournament will air on Golf Channel, PGA Tour Live on ESPN+, Sirius XM and the World Feed.

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

The on-screen ticker has overstayed its welcome. In the year 2025, nobody needs a scrolling graphic taking up 10% of their screen to find out scores they can pull up on their phone in seconds. Yet networks like ABC and FS1 continue bombarding viewers with distracting, often irrelevant information during critical moments of games.

Awful Announcing's Drew Lerner breaks down the worst offenders from this past Saturday's college football slate. ABC flashed bright yellow "Score Alerts" during the Ole Miss-Georgia game to inform viewers about... the game they were already watching. Later, during Ole Miss's final drive with under two minutes left, another yellow alert interrupted the action to show a halftime score from Arkansas-Texas A&M. Nobody asked for that.

FS1 might be even worse. During Maryland-UCLA, the network ran the same "Upset Alert" graphic about Georgia's win over Ole Miss every single minute for 80 straight minutes. Between those reminders, viewers were treated to scores from the Saudi Premier League and Canadian Premier League. Because that's exactly what college football fans tuning into a Big Ten matchup want to see.

The solution already exists. Fox's main network doesn't use tickers for college football. Neither does CBS. And CBS has introduced a small, transparent graphic in the upper-left corner for NFL games that scrolls through scores without hijacking the entire bottom of the screen. It's cleaner, less invasive, and doesn't distract from the actual game.

Click to read the full piece on why networks need to ditch the ticker and stop treating 2025 like it's 1995.

️‍🔥THE CLOSER🔥

College GameDay's boring choice

ESPN announced College GameDay is heading to Vanderbilt for Saturday's matchup against Missouri. While the choice makes perfect sense from a business perspective, it's hard not to see it as a massive missed opportunity.

Look, nobody should be surprised. Vanderbilt is 6-1, riding high after beating LSU, and represents one of the better feel-good stories in college football this season. Diego Pavia has been fantastic. The Commodores are relevant for the first time in years. ESPN just signed a massive SEC deal. Of course they're going to Nashville.

But No. 1 North Dakota State at No. 2 South Dakota State is sitting right there.

This is a game between the two programs that have won 12 of the last 14 FCS national championships. It's a rivalry matchup with direct playoff seeding implications. It's elite-level football featuring players and programs that will never get this kind of platform again unless GameDay decides to give it to them.

And that's what makes this feel like a wasted weekend.

The best thing about College GameDay used to be that it would go to different places and teach us about programs and athletes we rarely hear about. It gave us reasons to care about games we wouldn't normally watch. It introduced us to players who weren't on our radar. It expanded what we thought college football could be.

NDSU-SDSU is exactly that kind of opportunity. How many people know the Bison have nine national titles since 2011? How many casual fans realize South Dakota State has become a legitimate powerhouse? How many great player stories exist in Brookings and Fargo that won't get told because ESPN decided to play it safe?

The Vanderbilt story is fine. We've already heard it. We've seen the Commodores on TV multiple times this season. GameDay going to Nashville doesn't teach us anything new or introduce us to anyone we don't already know about. It's just more SEC content in a sport already drowning in SEC content.

Nobody's saying ESPN should be obligated to cover FCS football every week. Nobody's saying Vanderbilt doesn't deserve attention. But when the choice is between telling the same story you've told a dozen times this season versus showcasing two of the most dominant programs in FCS history meeting in a top-two matchup, it's hard not to see this as the boring choice.

GameDay went to Fargo in 2019 and it worked. The show proved it could cover FCS football without losing its audience or its credibility. The infrastructure exists. The appetite exists. The story is sitting right there waiting to be told.

ESPN just isn't interested in telling it.

This isn't about hammering the network for making a bad decision. Vanderbilt-Missouri makes sense if your goal is promoting the SEC and keeping your business partners happy. But if your goal is actually showcasing the best of college football and using your massive platform to shine a light on programs that don't get national attention, then NDSU-SDSU is the obvious call.

The frustrating part isn't that ESPN made the wrong choice. It's that they consistently make the safe choice. They had a chance to do something different this weekend, to remind people why College GameDay became appointment television in the first place, and they passed.

Vanderbilt will be fine without GameDay. Missouri will be fine without GameDay. The SEC will continue dominating the sport regardless of where the show sets up on Saturday morning.

But North Dakota State and South Dakota State won't get this chance again. Their players won't get this platform. Their programs won't get this spotlight. And college football fans won't get introduced to a part of the sport that's worth celebrating.

That's the missed opportunity. Not that ESPN made the wrong call, but that they had a chance to make the interesting one and chose not to.