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⚽ Another record. Preliminary numbers are in for the USMNT’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they’ve set another record for soccer viewership in the United States. Fox’s telecast on Wednesday night averaged 24.43 million viewers, peaking at 31.88 million during the 9:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour, marking the most-watched soccer telecast in English-language U.S. history. The audience blew past the previous record of 18 million for the USMNT’s opener against Paraguay.

🎙️ Eisen calls it quits. NFL Network stalwart Rich Eisen revealed in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated that he’s likely done calling games as a play-by-play announcer. Eisen was a regular voice on NFL Network’s coverage of International Series games alongside Kurt Warner, but that job appears to be headed Dave Pasch’s way this upcoming season.

🏈 The Insider remains. NFL Network insider Mike Garafolo, one-third of the channel’s evening show The Insiders, is reportedly “closing in” on a contract renewal with ESPN. Garafolo would join colleague Ian Rapoport as the second person on the NFL Network program to receive a new contract from ESPN, leaving Tom Pelissero as the only member of the show awaiting a potential renewal.

Read more of today’s top stories at Awful Announcing.

Just a few days following Comcast’s announcement that it plans to spin off NBCUniversal, the media conglomerate it acquired from General Electric some 15 years ago, there has not been an expert consensus about the company’s future.

Occasionally, these things are more straightforward. Think back to when Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would split its company in two — one company for the streaming and studio assets that had growth potential, and another company filled with declining cable networks — and it was pretty clear that Warner was putting a big “For Sale” sign on its front lawn.

But there’s no such consensus when it comes to Comcast’s decision. Sure, initially the market indicated it thought a merger between Comcast (minus NBCUniversal) and Charter seemed imminent. But it didn’t take long for some prominent media analysts to pour cold water on that possibility. For NBCUniversal, some analysts immediately pointed to companies like Netflix, which lost out on the Warner Bros. Discovery sweepstakes, or other tech giants like Amazon and Apple as possible landing spots. Yet other prominent media analysts argued that it would be NBCUniversal doing the buying as a standalone company, rather than it being absorbed by a competitor.

It all amounts to a rather murky picture. Where NBCUniversal ultimately ends up is anyone’s guess. And as you would imagine, whatever happens to NBCUniversal in the next year or so will have massive implications on sports media.

Perhaps the most straightforward implication centers on NFL rights. The NFL, of course, is the most expensive league to be in business with, but also the most important for major broadcasters. Taking NBC out of Comcast, and thus removing the corporate backing of a diversified connectivity business that sells internet to tens of millions of homes across the country, instantly makes NBC much more dependent on the NFL. Whereas Comcast offered the scale and capital necessary to afford NFL rights regardless of the particulars of NBC’s financials, a standalone NBC would need to afford the NFL on its own merits, through retransmission fees and advertising. It’s not too dissimilar to the position Fox finds itself in, which inspired the company to launch a behind-the-scenes political pressure campaign against the NFL. Though, Fox’s recent acquisition of Roku changes that equation a bit.

As we know, the NFL is looking to up its rights fees by several billion per year by reengaging its current broadcast partners early, before its contractual opt-out options hit at the end of the decade, the period most initially assumed the NFL would bring its rights to the open market. Should a separation happen, NBC will go from a network whose parent company can conceivably float some of the cost for expensive NFL rights, to a company that has to go it alone.

In other words, leverage is firmly shifting into the hands of the NFL. Without NFL programming, NBC would be unable to secure the distribution revenue necessary to keep its business afloat. When owned by Comcast, NBC at least had the credible threat that its parent company could choose to exit the declining linear television business entirely, leaving the NFL with one fewer broadcast network to bid up rights in future negotiations. Now, there’s no threat of exit. Walking away from the NFL means walking away from existence.

There’s also another reason NBC might find itself with less leverage when entering negotiations with the NFL after its proposed spinoff. If NBCUniversal is sold, a change-of-control provision similar to the one Skydance’s purchase of Paramount last year triggered would allow the NFL to exit its deal with NBC entirely, bringing Sunday Night Football to the open market for any number of prospective buyers to bid on. Of course, one would imagine that any company able to purchase NBC and trigger the contractual provision would have the scale necessary to pay up for NFL rights. After all, what’s the point of buying NBC if it doesn’t have Sunday Night Football?

But even that scenario plays right into the NFL’s hands. The league would be met with a new NBC owner ready to pay whatever is necessary to retain rights to the league’s premier weekly package.

Big picture, Comcast’s announcement makes it more likely the NFL is able to get its deals done early, as it would prefer. Paramount already needs to, or risks losing the league entirely. Now, NBC has strong motivation to get a deal done. Fox, even with its pressure campaign and recent acquisition of Roku, still has a business heavily reliant on the retransmission fees and advertising that the NFL, and NFL alone, can deliver.

That leaves only ESPN, which is now partly owned by the NFL, and Prime Video. Should the league successfully reach early deals with CBS, NBC, and Fox, it’d likely only be a matter of time before the other two partners follow suit (perhaps at more favorable terms considering the league partly owns ESPN, and Prime Video currently pays a rate substantially lower than other partners for its Thursday Night Football package, but the NFL needs Amazon’s business long-term).

We’re back to a familiar position where it’s all coming up NFL. What’s new?

CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo joins the latest episode of The Play-By-Play to talk FIFA’s plans beyond television, Fox’s Roku acquisition, and Comcast’s NBC spinoff. Listen below:

Sam Neumann has an update on the ongoing situation involving ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into ESPN NFL Draft analyst Matt Miller, confirming to Awful Announcing in a statement that it has “an open investigation into this issue.”

Our Ben Koo and Brendon Kleen have spent the past week documenting a pattern of complaints tied to Miller’s fantasy football leagues, paid scouting lessons, and other charitable experiences going back nearly a decade. Koo and Kleen spoke to at least seven people who described paying entry fees for charity fantasy leagues Miller ran as commissioner, sometimes with buy-ins as high as $500, only to find him unreachable when it came time to collect winnings or confirm where the charitable portion of the money had gone.

Since publication, Awful Announcing has heard from over 40 more individuals with similar stories, many of whom have sent evidence supporting their accounts. According to the fantasy football platform Sleeper, the account associated with Miller was the commissioner of 91 fantasy leagues during the 2025 season alone.

Miller was critically injured in a car accident in Missouri earlier this month, an accident that resulted in the amputation of his left arm. His family launched a GoFundMe to cover medical costs, which quickly drew donations from sports media figures including Pat McAfee, Mina Kimes, and Adam Schefter. But the fundraiser also drew renewed attention to a Reddit thread cataloging the payment complaints of participants in Miller’s fantasy football leagues.

Multiple individuals told Koo and Kleen that they received overdue payments only after the thread gained traction and after ESPN employees had reportedly been contacted about the issue, raising questions about the timing of those repayments relative to the network’s own awareness of the situation. Awful Announcing has received evidence that Miller did make payments owed in both the days before and after the accident and the subsequent GoFundMe effort.

Much of the scrutiny of Miller centers on the framing of these leagues and other ventures as being tied to his charitable efforts. Miller has said his 417 Foundation started in 2013, inspired by his mother’s work with low-income preschoolers in Joplin. Public incorporation records instead show the foundation wasn’t formally established in Missouri until December 2018, and it received a cease-and-desist notice about a year later. The foundation has never filed a Form 990 with the IRS, its website is no longer active, and its social media account stopped posting in 2021, even though Miller continued advertising 417 Foundation fantasy leagues as recently as May 2022. In recent years, Miller has described his charitable efforts as being tied to a new nonprofit.

ESPN did not comment when Koo and Kleen asked about the GoFundMe, the surrounding allegations, or Miller’s future at the network. Miller, when contacted directly by Awful Announcing, asked that questions be sent to him by email as he continues his recovery, and AA held its original story a day to give him the chance to respond, though nothing came back before publication. ESPN again declined to comment for this story.

Despite weeks of accusations circulating on social media, local and national outlets have largely stayed away from the story, including since our own findings were published yesterday. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office is now soliciting complaints directly from anyone with relevant information, including those who are not Missouri residents. A consumer complaint can be filed online or by phone through the Consumer Protection team at 800-392-8222.

Among the busy week in sports media, a smaller story that likely flew under most people’s radars caught my eye. It was an announcement by the new-look Mountain West, absent the handful of teams exiting the conference for a retooled Pac-12 this upcoming season, revealing a streamer called MW+.

A college conference launching a paid streaming service for games not available via traditional broadcast partners is nothing new, practically every non-major conference worth their salt has one these days. What makes MW+ interesting is how it will dole out the revenues generated from its subscribers.

According to the conference’s announcement, “A majority of each subscription purchased through a member school’s dedicated page will directly support that institution, creating a scalable and sustainable revenue opportunity aligned with fan engagement.”

It’s a first-of-its-kind model, but one that is a sign of the times in college sports.

To be sure, unequal revenue sharing within a conference is gaining popularity in college sports. The ACC has famously created a model in which schools are rewarded based on a mix of factors ranging from on-field performance to television ratings. In that system, more television viewers equals a greater share of the conference’s revenue distributions.

MW+ is applying that logic to the digital age, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see a conference like, say, the Big Ten with BTN+ to replicate this model at a larger scale.

We’re entering the eat-what-you-kill era of college sports, and the schools that are able to drive the most media revenue will be rewarded with the spoils.