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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺️ Michael Strahan gets a new deal. Fear not, fans of Good Morning America: Michael Strahan is here to stay. According to Max Tani of Semafor, Strahan is expected to extend his contract with ABC’s daily morning show, although it appears the Hall of Fame defensive end will lessen his schedule to fewer than five episodes each week.

🎤 Stephen A. Smith teases major announcement. During Monday’s episode of First Take, Stephen A. Smith teased that he’ll be making a “very important announcement” on Wednesday. The ESPN star didn’t give any hints as to what his announcement pertains to, but did add, “the train don’t stop.”

🏈 Bjork backs Fox. While many Ohio State fans have expressed dissatisfaction with the Buckeyes constantly being featured on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff, Ross Bjork doesn’t share that sentiment. Speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, the Ohio State athletic director praised the Big Ten’s relationship with its top media rights partner, but also admitted that he’d like to see more variety in the Buckeyes’ schedule moving forward.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

The Pablo Torre piece

One of the biggest sports media feuds of 2025 began on a podcast about a 47-year-old movie and stems from the reporting on a relationship with a 49-year age gap.

During an episode of The Rewatchables that was released last week, Bill Simmons took aim at Pablo Torre’s recent fixation on Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson. The Sports Guy’s jabs, however, largely went unnoticed until they were amplified by an X account dedicated to the Bill Simmons subreddit.

Are you following?

During the episode focused on the 1973 classic “Heaven Can Wait,” co-hosts Chris Ryan and Van Lathan discussed one of the film’s subplots. That, apparently, opened a lane for Simmons to take aim at Torre’s reporting on the Belichick-Hudson relationship, as well as his subsequent media appearances focused on the topic.

“Pablo Torre would’ve done a long podcast about Leo Farnsworth trying to practice with the team, and then done a media tour about it afterwards,” Simmons said. “I’ve never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you’re a journalist. What the f*ck was that? Seriously.”

The former ESPN columnist later added: “Belichick’s dating a girl. ‘Oh, let me do nine shows about it.’ Settle the f*ck down.”

Even Ryan and Lathan appeared astonished that Simmons was going after Torre with such animosity, with Ryan questioning whether The Ringer founder would have had the same reaction if Belichick wasn’t the former head coach of his favorite football team. The Boston native, however, insisted that his biggest issue with Torre’s reporting was the ensuing “media tour,” which included various interviews and features in Vanity Fair and The Athletic.

As news of Simmons’ comments spread, Torre didn’t take them lying down. Reposting an article from Awful Announcing (hey, we know them), the Meadowlark Media host issued an invitation/challenge for the fellow ex-ESPNer to join him on an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out.

We’ve yet to find out whether or not Simmons will accept Torre’s offer, although we aren’t holding our breath. Still, it will be interesting to see how — or even if — he replies in any form, in what has already emerged as one of the stranger sports media beefs of 2025.

📱 SOCIAL MEDIA POST OF THE DAY 🏆️ 

One potential option for a Bill Simmons response

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️ 

• “Very cool and normal replies lol” - Mina Kimes on the reaction to Ryen Russillo’s “weird joke” about her replacing Kenny Smith on ESPN’s version of Inside the NBA during an episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast.

• “We taped a pilot about a month ago and it was the stupidest sh*t I’ve ever seen in my life.” - Charles Barkley to Dan Patrick on TNT’s plans for its new weekly basketball show.

• “The guy is a loser. He’s a losing player. He complains. He’s soft.” - WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti on Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns.

🗣️ AROUND AA 💬 

The 2024-25 Awful Announcing local NHL announcer rankings

Which NHL team had the best local announcing team this season? Which one had the worst? Find out where our readers slotted each team’s broadcast duo with our annual local NHL announcer rankings.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

The smallest market Finals in NBA history

Obviously, an NBA Finals that travels between Oklahoma City and Indianapolis isn’t exactly a big-market affair.

But just how “small time” is the upcoming championship series between the Thunder and Pacers? Like, the smallest in NBA history.

Taking a look at the average DMA market ranking of the two teams involved, the series measures as the smallest market NBA Finals since 1982 (the year after CBS famously stopped airing the Finals on tape delay). It’s rare for the Finals to not include at least one team from a top-10 market. It’s unprecedented for it to not include a single team from a top-20 U.S. market.

What will this mean from a ratings perspective? It’s tough to say, especially considering that such a matchup has never happened before. And any potential comparison featuring the Thunder, San Antonio Spurs or Cleveland Cavaliers in past years has typically also been anchored by the presence of LeBron James or a big-market opponent.

It’s also worth noting that NBA Finals ratings have generally been on a downward trajectory in recent years, although there has yet to be a Finals series that utilizes Nielsen’s new (and friendlier) measurement methods. Even without knowing how competitive the series will be, expectations should still be tepid, although the potential Nielsen bump could surprise some folks.

But whether the 2025 NBA Finals exceeds expectations or falls short, the big-picture impact will be minimal considering that the league’s new 11-year media rights deal won’t even go into effect until next season. Still, it’s worth wondering whether the NBA’s current collective bargaining agreement will continue to pave the way for small-market matchups, and what that would mean for the league — and its Finals ratings — moving forward.