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🦚 Tirico ‘as good as it gets.’ NBC Olympics host Mike Tirico delivered a flawless live essay to close out the Milan Cortina Games on Sunday morning after the USA gold medal win over Canada in men’s hockey. The monologue, in which Tirico encouraged unity and inspiration through sports, drew praise from the industry and fans alike.

✍️ Boardroom blues. Boardroom, the online sports outlet founded by Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman, laid off three writers last week. In a statement, Kleiman (Durant’s business manager), said the decision would allow Boardroom to invest in its members club, live events, and original video.

📱 ‘Athlete Rights Window.’ The Mountain West Conference made history on Saturday when, in partnership with Creator Sports Network and Opendorse on what it is calling an “Athlete Rights Window,” a men’s basketball game was distributed through five athletes’ personal social channels.

🏈 ‘SportsCenter’ slip-up. During a breaking news segment on Scott Van Pelt’s midnight SportsCenter covering the death of former NFL wideout Rondale Moore, a photo of the wrong Vikings player was displayed on-air. Van Pelt re-recorded the segment with the correct image for subsequent re-airs.

🏒 Commercial-free hockey. Speaking of that gold medal match, NBC aired the early-morning (for the U.S.) game entirely commercial free — and with no presenting sponsor. An interesting decision, but one that of course went over great with viewers.

The simpler the score bug the better. Nobody can beat John Madden or Charles Barkley. Always lay out after a big home run.

And: NBC does sports presentation better than anyone.

These are a few simple truths of sports broadcasting. Such praise for NBC Sports certainly belongs on this list.

The Milan Cortina Olympics were merely the latest example. With an impassioned live essay on Sunday morning after the gold-medal hockey game, Mike Tirico punctuated what has been an ace hosting job for him in his third go-round. Beyond Tirico’s stellar work in the cozy studio, NBC’s incredible four-person ice skating broadcast became stars. Kenny Albert reasserted himself as one of the top announcers in sports. Mary Carillo delivered offbeat, efficient features as always. Even Snoop Dogg added some personality and back story with athletes and events, despite being more in the background than he was at Paris.

Olympic athletes are largely unknown. The challenging part of broadcasting the Games is setting the stage for each event and getting viewers invested. This is where NBC excels with its storytelling.

We learn of a character and their backstory moments before they compete. If there’s time, a featurette shows home videos and yearbook photos. Family members explain what made the athlete special. In a crunch, the flourish of an announcer does the trick.

By the time the athlete are shooting down a mountain or racing across the ice, we can feel what it will mean for them to succeed or fail. America learned the name of Ilia Malinin through failure, but NBC helped ensure he will not be forgotten. We saw the lake he skated on growing up, heard how his talent surpassed the rest of the world’s. Millions will be waiting to see how Malinin redeems himself in 2030.

As soon as Tirico wrapped Olympics coverage, Sunday Night Basketball offered another reminder. The entire Sunday night franchise is NBC showcasing its storytelling chops, setting and meeting a high bar as a weekly check-in for each sport.

Bob Costas was back (“out of mothballs” as he quipped) this weekend with a classic intro video for classic Celtics-Lakers game. The historic matchup offered plenty of story, as did a pregame tribute from the on-site studio show honoring Julius Erving on his 75th birthday.

The same figures to be true for Sunday Night Baseball later this year. With Ahmed Fareed in as studio host alongside Costas and three media newcomers in Clayton Kershaw, Joey Votto and Anthony Rizzo. The younger panel, more connected to the modern game, should give fans a greater appreciation for this new era of baseball.

Of course, NBC also boasts renowned production, great talent, high picture quality and even killer theme songs. This is why Costas and Sunday Night Football are the winningest personality and program in the history of the Sports Emmys.

NBC Sports is embracing sports arguably as much as ever, faced with a need to grow Peacock and keep the value of its networks high. But as they take over properties like MLB and WNBA and the rest of this year and continue to build on an incredible 2026, we at least shouldn’t act surprised.

NBC is the best at this.

As the U.S. faced a rash of depressing headlines to start 2026, the Milan Cortina Olympics became even more politically charged than usual for Team USA.

Everyone from figure skating gold medalist Alysa Liu to WFAN’s Boomer Esiason to Vice President J.D. Vance got in the mix. At the same time, Olympic organizers including the IOC intervened on a handful of occasions as athletes and staffers used the opportunity to protest conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

Awful Announcing contributor Katie Lever wrote about the dynamics in Italy this winter:

“Ultimately, the IOC has the final call on what constitutes an inappropriate political expression, making it risky for athletes to speak out in competition. And, considering the IOC’s inconsistent history of punishing athletes combined with the reality that only half of recent American Olympians reported receiving compensation for their efforts, and only 10% have sponsors, the Olympics have proven to be a risky battleground for athletes who want to speak out. One false move could spell the end of an athlete’s career.”

Click here to read the rest of Lever’s column on politics at the Milan Cortina Games.

“The talent in pro basketball is obviously exponentially better. The game itself, that is, college basketball, is more intriguing, more compelling.” - Stephen A. Smith, famously known for his avid interest in college hoops, making quite the claim on First Take.

“It strikes at the heart of the production of ethical sports journalism.” - St. Bonaventure sports media professor Brian Moritz, analyzing the new partnership between Polymarket and Substack.

“Fortunately everybody is cool, so blessings. God is great.” - Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball, in a postgame press conference addressing his return to the court following a car accident last week. Ball ended the appearance after a few questions about the incident.

Fast-rising college football host Josh Pate was the latest online content creator to interview President Donald Trump in recent years, in a 10-minute conversation posted Sunday as part of a longer video on Pate’s YouTube feed.

The conversation around Pate’s decision to sit down with Trump got hot before he ever released the interview. Pate said it would be a no-brainer to interview any president, and insisted the interview would not get political.

In response, some accused him of helping to give cover to Trump as his immigration policy and involvement with Jeffrey Epstein create havoc in the White House. Others called out the previously aggressive anti-politics stance within his show.

Listening to Pate’s interview with Trump, elements of these arguments turned out to be true. Trump certainly was using his association with college football, as well as a popular host like Pate, to look good at a public event in Georgia. And he definitely appeared to appreciate an easy conversation that did not touch on anything politically toxic for him.

As with most Trump appearances, the president also made references to the 2020 election as well as his political successes and popularity. The same thing happened when Trump joined The Pat McAfee Show and an NFL on Fox broadcast around Veteran’s Day last year.

There is no way to have an apolitical conversation with any politician. Every public appearance is calculated, and adds in the way people view an elected official or candidate. Even a conversation focused on sports or pop culture inevitably is done to craft a certain image to voters and constituents.

With Trump, it is even more impossible. In an appearance on the Flagrant podcast with popular comedian Andrew Schulz during the 2024 campaign, Trump attempted to spin the conversation into favorable terrain so often that when Schulz called him out for it, it became a viral meme.

The president does not display much interest in things that do not benefit him. He does not answer questions that do not serve him. And as we have seen with all his sports-related interviews since taking office, Trump has a handful of pet topics that invariably enter into every conversation he has.

Pate explained in the same video that he originally agreed to a 30 or 40-minute conversation with Trump. With more time, Pate said, he would have asked Trump about potential Congressional action on NIL and the transfer portal. And to Pate’s credit, he did not in fact ask any questions about ICE or Iran or the midterms.

Even though Trump predictably steered the short interview toward politics anyway, the full interview shows Pate was being truthful.

The far bigger indictment of Pate’s failed attempt to wrangle Trump into a coherent conversation about college football is that it was boring. Trump appeared like someone who had never once contemplated any of the issues facing America’s college sports system, despite bragging in the interview about his close relationships with Nick Saban and Urban Meyer.

So Pate not only took a big risk by politicizing his show and agreeing to engage with a polarizing president at the nadir of his popularity, but he got very little out of it. Pate’s opponents online may have been hoping to find Trump dog-walked Pate into Jan. 6 lies and a staunch defense of deportations. Their point would have been made.

The reality is far more disappointing. Pate set up the interview, took all that heat, and changed how some portion of how college football fans online see him, and Trump couldn’t give him one measly soundbite about the sport for all his effort.