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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 Barstool Wake Up coming to FS1. We finally have some details on Barstool’s new daily venture with FS1, including a name, a start date, and a rotating cast of characters.

⛳ Tommy Fleetwood: ratings magnet? The popular Englishman’s maiden PGA Tour victory over the weekend saw Tour Championship ratings skyrocket this year. Perhaps it was helped by LeBron James' live-tweeting of the event.

🏈 Sunday Ticket goes monthly. Good news for NFL fans who may see their team fall out of contention early in the season. You can now subscribe monthly for the NFL’s premium offering so you can hit the eject button when your team starts tanking.

📺 ESPN DTC 101. ESPN is now giving video tutorials during SportsCenter on how to use its new app and DTC service. Does it have a problem when it comes to educating consumers?

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

Ohio State vs Dave Portnoy winners and losers

The Dave Portnoy melodrama involving the outspoken Barstool Sports founder (and dedicated Michigan fan) and Ohio State is totally insane for so many reasons. The question over whether or not he was actually banned from the Horseshoe for Saturday’s Texas showdown went back and forth more often than Michael Scott’s vasectomies. Finally, Portnoy himself said once and for all that he was indeed banned, and used it as another opportunity to gloat over the Buckeyes on behalf of his beloved Wolverines.

Now that the dust has settled, there are some obvious winners and losers here. It’s a dream scenario for one side… and a nightmare for another.

Winner: Big Noon Kickoff. Whether this is a shoot, a work, or somewhere in between, Fox Sports couldn’t have scripted it any better. Big Noon Kickoff goes into this season a decisive underdog against College GameDay, especially with Lee Corso’s farewell in Week 1. Fox added Dave Portnoy to try to generate buzz and attract younger fans. And this controversy is going to bring tons of eyeballs wondering what might happen next. It’s that kind of unpredictability and explosiveness that Portnoy brings that GameDay, even with Pat McAfee, may have a tough time matching.

Loser: Ohio State. If it is indeed true that Ohio State banned Portnoy from Ohio Stadium (and Barstool from doing their show on campus). In that case, it’s a horrible, inexplicable, preposterous, and asinine decision from the university. We’re talking about an institution with a $7.9 billion endowment, 500,000 alumni, and one of the largest football programs and athletic departments in the country. A university so big and so proud of itself that it has tried to trademark the word “the.” And yet they are acting so small and petty that they are going to ban an internet personality from their football stadium, because why? He hurt their feelings? He gave money to Michigan? Are they going to ban Desmond Howard next? Why give Dave Portnoy this kind of attention and power over you?

Winner: Dave Portnoy. The Barstool Sports founder could not have imagined a better scenario entering the college football realm in a million years. He now gets to play the underdog and victim card, going up against Ohio State, which has now confirmed essentially everything he has criticized the program for over the years, namely its perceived softness. Can you imagine the content he is going to be able to create, the merch he is going to sell, and how many more people he will win over in this saga? He might as well count the money he’s going to make off of it during his next emergency press conference video.

Loser: Ryan Day. You’re Ryan Day. You finally got the monkey off your back of not being able to win the big one by winning a national championship. You are going to open the season at home in front of your fans, not only celebrating that title, but hosting one of the biggest season openers in the history of the sport. And you have to deal with the distraction of Dave Portnoy? It’s tough enough being the head coach of Ohio State without something this silly being dragged into it.

Loser: Ohio State-Fox relationship. The big underlying story here is that this could be about something bigger than the Buckeyes banning Dave Portnoy. It could be Ohio State trying to do what it can to show its dissatisfaction with Fox Sports. Last year was filled with complaints from Buckeye Nation about OSU doing too much of the heavy lifting to carry Big Noon Kickoff, preventing the program from valuable primetime showcases for fans and recruits. Even a request to move the Texas game fell on deaf ears. Now Fox hires the most bombastic fan of the school’s heated rival to put front and center of their coverage? Ohio State and Fox Sports are going to be together for many years to come, thanks to the Big Ten television deal, and it might be a wise idea for both sides to get on the same page. And soon.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Elsewhere on the Dave Portnoy drama front, Fox’s Brady Quinn confirmed that Ohio State was not happy with his hire at Big Noon Kickoff before pleading to get the focus back on the Texas game.

WWE star Becky Lynch was called out by Kelly Osbourne for using her late father Ozzy’s name to generate heat while cutting a promo in his native Birmingham.

Sure, Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston is iconic, but are we sure this isn’t the new greatest sports photograph of all time?

🔦 IN THE SPOTLIGHT ☀️

YouTube TV was once a refuge for cable subscribers to greatly reduce costs and leave the headaches of carriage disputes behind. But after years of huge price hikes and its own battles with media companies, YouTube TV has become the very thing it was meant to replace.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“We got a directive that some powers that be, I guess for the institutions and perhaps from the conference, that weren’t big fans of that moniker of Farmageddon.” - Rece Davis on incomprehensible instructions given to ESPN not to use the popular rivalry name for the Iowa State-Kansas State Week 0 clash in Ireland.

“But I also say that knowing that our careers are now in the hands of people who don’t know us. ESPN might not need me, right?” - Steve Wyche gave voice to the very real sense of angst inside NFL Network with ESPN set to take ownership.

“When you talk about the games we’re heading into this weekend, Fox and Big Noon are getting exactly what they want out of Dave Portnoy.” - Dan Le Batard argues Fox has already won after adding the Barstool Sports founder to its talent lineup.

️‍🔥The Closer🔥

Singer marries football player

If you are living on a remote tropical island with a deflated volleyball for a best friend, you may be the only person in the known universe not to hear the news about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce getting engaged. Also, thanks for subscribing to the Awful Announcing Newsletter! We promise we will send for help.

With every publisher wanting to share the earth-shattering news with their readers, it was a chance for some to get creative. While we chose the timely “NFL podcast host announces engagement with recent guest,” there were also some local outlets that demonstrated impressive ingenuity and humor.

First off, WEWS tells us never to forget the Kelces are from Cleveland.

And Swift’s hometown, the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, was not to be outdone.

But the winner may just be the Detroit Free Press, which reminded us that there is always a local angle to any story; you just have to work hard enough to find it.