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🎰 Don’t bet on it. We’ve seen plenty of fake insiders and parody accounts post fake news for engagement, but we never figured we’d see a “legitimate” account try it. All bets are off now that BetMGM posted a fake report that UNC had hired Phil Jackson as its new men’s basketball head coach. The post went viral, as expected, but got absolutely trashed, which was perhaps not. They ended up deleting the fakery soon after, but not before torching their reputation.

🏈 Week 00. The 2027 college football season could start one week before we’re all accustomed to. According to a report by Seth Emerson and Ralph D. Russo in The Athletic, administrators and coaches are “moving toward making a recommendation” to shift the start of the college football season up by one week, to what is now colloquially called Week 0, within the next couple of months.

🏀 Getting it (media) right. The WNBA has finalized what will seemingly be the last of its media rights deals for at least the next couple of years. On Wednesday, Paramount announced that it has reached a new “long-term” media rights agreement with the WNBA, under which CBS will broadcast up to 20 regular-season games, beginning in 2026. The announcement described the deal as an expansion of a partnership that now dates back seven years. The exact length and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

⚖️ Barton sentenced. Kirk Barton, a former Ohio State offensive lineman and Buckeye Scoop owner, was sentenced Wednesday to 5 to 7.5 years in a Franklin County court after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated vehicular homicide in the June 2025 crash that killed 24-year-old Ethan Perry of Columbus. A second aggravated vehicular homicide count and two counts of driving while impaired were dropped as part of the plea.

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

“Netflix arrived at Oracle Park on Wednesday night with 73 kayaks in McCovey Cove, a shirtless comedian, two WWE tag team champions, the all-time home run king, and the first pitch of the 2026 Major League Baseball season. It was exactly as chaotic as that sentence suggests, and somehow more,” wrote Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann following Netflix’s MLB debut.

“There was a lot to like about what Netflix put together for Opening Night,” he added. “There was also a lot that won't survive contact with a normal Monday in July when the streamer airs its next baseball event. The challenge of reviewing this broadcast is that both things are equally true, and they sometimes happened within minutes of each other.”

In a way, that was the only logical outcome for the streaming service, which wants to spare no expense in showcasing what it can do while also using live events like these as a springboard to everything else it has to offer. It’s not as nakedly overt about it as Amazon’s Prime Video and their in-game QR codes, but at no point do you stop thinking you’re being pitched at in between each pitch.

Nowhere was this clearer than during the pre-game coverage, where Netflix was very eager to remind you that you were watching on Netflix. A who’s who of Netflix-adjacent celebrities, including John Cena, Bert Kreischer, and WWE superstar Jey Uso, showed up. And the whole thing felt less like a preview of a baseball game and more like an infomercial for what you can watch after it’s over.

In perhaps the most unfortunate moment of the broadcast, while Lauren Shehadi was interviewing Giants manager Tony Vitello, Netflix entirely missed the first Automatic Ball-Strike challenge in regular-season history. Given the impact and conversation around that technology, it was a damning error, and one that the broadcast barely acknowledged even after the fact.

“You do not get to cover a historic first and then explain that you were busy with something else,” Neumann wrote.

There were good things, too. Elle Duncan stole the pre-game show, no small feat considering she was sharing a set with Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Anthony Rizzo. Speaking of Bonds, he offered the kind of candid thoughts you rarely get from former players-turned-broadcasters. Matt Vasgersian was excellent on the call, even as analysts Hunter Pence and CC Sabathia needed a few innings to find their rhythm. And the picture quality was, for the most part, crisp, clean, and cinematic in a way that few baseball broadcasts have ever looked.

If you needed a metaphor for the evening, the scorebug is a great example of what Netflix got right and wrong at the same time.

“The concept is strong — it sits in the bottom-right corner, built around a near-three-dimensional basepath layout that shows runners on base in a way that feels modern and visually distinctive. At a glance, it looks great,” wrote Neumann. “The problem is that a scorebug isn't supposed to be looked at; it's supposed to be processed instantly, in the peripheral vision, while the eyes are on the game. And the moment you actually try to read it, the whole thing falls apart. The pitcher and batter information and the ball-strike count are rendered in a font so small that finding them mid-at-bat requires active effort.”

In the end, Netflix’s MLB debut played out about as one might have expected (or, in the case of our Drew Lerner, literally predicted earlier in the day). On one hand, it was visually arresting, filled with celebrity cameos, and occasionally above and beyond what we’re used to. On the other hand, it made rookie mistakes seasoned MLB broadcasters would never let happen, overdid it on the internal promo material, and hasn’t yet figured out if it wants to showcase MLB because that’s what subscribers want or because it’s just another tool to promote Stranger Things.

“Netflix treated Opening Night as a Netflix event that happened to include a baseball game,” wrote Neumann. “And the broadcast was better when it remembered which one people tuned in to see.”

“First time in our relationship history, didn’t answer my FaceTime last night.” - Pat McAfee, who made it clear he loves Dan Orlovsky even though the ESPN NFL analyst might be bitter over his Tuesday appearance on the ‘progrum.’

“The fragmentation is concerning. Especially for older fans. Baseball should not forget that a big part of their audience are older fans.” - Yankees announcer Michael Kay on MLB’s fragmented media rights.

“Steve, they just had Hubert Davis, who was an assistant for Roy Williams for nine years, and it didn’t work out. They’re not bringing Kenny Smith in, who’s 61 years of age, who’s never coached a game in college basketball. They’re not doing that.” - Chris Russo calling BS on Stephen A. Smith’s push for Kenny Smith to get the UNC job.

“Mike Tomlin, I would say NBC may have moved ahead of Fox. I’m not saying that’s definite, that anything’s definitely going to happen. But I think NBC might have, might might might, have the inside track over Fox if he does it.” - Andrew Marchand reading the tea leaves on Mike Tomlin’s broadcasting future.

“When I debated Skip on Undisputed, it was a real debate show. It’s me versus him. I’m literally trying to win. I’m building my case to beat him. And if I can’t beat him, I’m gonna punch holes in his argument and then have his fall flat. Stephen A. is more conversational. I’m not trying to beat Stephen A., I’m not trying to beat them guys.” - Shannon Sharpe on the differences of sitting across from Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith.

Outside the Super Bowl, most of the largest sporting events have an exclusive long-term media-rights partner. For many, it’s been such a long-term relationship that it’s hard to imagine what those events would be like on another network or streaming partner.

In the coming weeks, we’ll see CBS’s 45th year handling the presentation and production of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four (which, for the past 16 years, has been done in partnership with TNT Sports). On the women’s side, ESPN will air its 31st consecutive Final Four. The final rounds of The Masters will once again return to CBS, a streak that has been intact since 1956. Last month, NBC aired its seventh straight Winter Olympics, a streak that dates back to 1998. This summer, we’ll see Fox air its third consecutive Men’s World Cup. Meanwhile, ABC/ESPN will air its 24th straight NBA Finals.

This all got us to thinking, which major events are you most happy with from a broadcast standpoint, and which events do you believe would benefit from a new media rights partner?

We took eight major sporting events that have had the same broadcast partner for over a decade and created a poll asking you how happy you are with the current arrangement and if you’d like to see something change. Click here to vote in the poll and offer some thoughts on what changes, if any, you’d like to see.

“Hot take: Most sports journalists get worse at analysis when they stop writing and go full podcast/video mode,” wrote Yahoo! Sports newsletter editor Kendall Baker on X Wednesday. “And it makes sense why. Writing forces you to slow down and organize your thoughts. Writing is where you pressure-test your ideas. Podcasts let you just… say stuff.”

Baker’s unprompted take struck a nerve in the sports media world and set off a cascade of quote posts that agreed or offered further thoughts.

It makes sense why. What Baker’s talking about is an all-too-common career path these days for so many sportswriters and reporters building their brands and attempting to stay relevant in an industry that often seems to be actively working against them.

As media giants crumble, layoffs become the norm, AI takes away jobs, and conglomerates eat one another, sacrificing journalism and integrity in the name of shareholder value, so many sports media members have to become one-person bands, stretching their brands across multiple platforms, to keep doing what they love.

And so often, writers become writers for very specific reasons and with specific skill sets that don’t translate to other media. But the algorithm demands video, podcasts, and #CONTENT, so you need to feed it, even if it’s not your strong suit. Which is where things end up as Baker describes them above.

What was most interesting about the responses to the post was the different examples sports media folks offered about the space between, showcasing how there is no perfect answer to solve for what Baker’s saying, only the opportunity for journalists to find the solution that works for them.