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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🎤 Richard Jefferson re-ups. According to The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, ESPN is officially re-signing Richard Jefferson. But while the ex-NBA swingman will remain on the network’s top broadcast team and call NBA Finals games alongside Mike Breen, Doris Burke’s future in the booth has yet to be decided.

🏀 Unrivaled announces new NIL deals. In what appears to be an indication of a bright future, Unrivaled has announced a new round of NIL deals. The 3-on-3 women’s basketball league’s newest signees include USC star JuJu Watkins — who was already an investor in Unrivaled — UCLA’s Lauren Betts, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, and UConn’s Azzi Fudd, among others.

🤼‍♂️ Real American Freestyle reaches streaming deal. Real American Freestyle, the freestyle wrestling promotion co-founded by Hulk Hogan, is set to host its debut show, RAF01, next month. And we now know that the Aug. 30 event — as well as a yet-to-be announced second event — will be available to watch on Fox News’ streaming service, Fox Nation.

⚽️ Ted Lasso returns. While a release date has yet to be revealed, we now have our first look at the fourth season of Ted Lasso. And not only that, but we also have new details regarding the season’s plot, which will see Jason Sudeikis’ beloved character coach a second division women’s soccer team, with characters including Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein), Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) also set to return, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

The life of Pablo

The recent leadership changes in the NFL Players Association are a really big story.

From a sports media perspective, how these changes came about is arguably just as important.

The entire ordeal started a month ago when Pablo Torre uncovered a previously secret document outlining an independent arbitrator’s ruling over a grievance the NFLPA had filed against the NFL. While the arbitrator ultimately ruled in the league’s favor, it also determined that the NFL’s Management Council had encouraged its teams to lower the contract guarantees they were giving their players.

As Torre and Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio presented it on Pablo Torre Finds Out, the league had effectively told its teams to collude against their players — even if the arbitrator couldn’t ultimately prove the teams acted on that advice. Nevertheless, the ruling was kept private until Torre obtained it last month, with the Meadowlark Media host and Florio theorizing that was because NFLPA chief strategy officer JC Tretter didn’t want it to be revealed that he had criticized Russell Wilson following his contract extension with the Denver Broncos.

As it turned out, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Last week, Torre and Florio published a sequel to the June podcast, with the show’s host uncovering yet another previously hidden arbitration ruling. This one centered around comments Tretter had made regarding fake injuries during a 2023 podcast appearance, with the arbitrator ultimately ruling in the NFL’s favor after the league filed a grievance over said comments.

As Florio explained on his website, it’s likely not a coincidence that both documents remained hidden from public view until Torre obtained them.

“Common sense suggests an obvious link between the NFLPA’s discretion as to the collusion ruling and the NFL’s discretion as to the fake-injury ruling,” Florio writes. “The NFLPA doesn’t hammer the NFL for getting its hand caught in the collusion cookie jar, and the NFL doesn’t hammer the NFLPA for the ruling arising from Tretter’s ill-advised comments about faking injuries.”

ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Kalyn Kahler added their own reporting along the way, revealing conflicts of interest and salacious strip club expenses involving NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. Torre and Florio’s initial episode also detailed the Game of Thrones-like maneuvering that resulted in Howell’s hiring, and a new role being created for Tretter after he was no longer eligible to be the NFLPA president following his retirement as an active player.

So, it was understandably a big deal when Howell announced his resignation last week, just hours after the second PTFO episode published. And it was also a big deal when Tretter announced his own resignation on Sunday, despite many considering him the frontrunner to replace Howell.

The NFLPA is also a big deal, as it’s the organization tasked with protecting the players who make America’s most popular sports league possible. And all indications based on the reporting is that it was being helmed by at least two individuals who appeared to be prioritizing their personal goals over the betterment of the union.

The NFLPA might currently be in chaos, but it’s hard to imagine that it won’t ultimately benefit from these leadership changes. And that likely wouldn’t have been possible if not for Torre, who doesn’t just deserve credit for obtaining the documents, but presenting them in an entertaining and digestible matter.

For as much reporting and content creation is spent focused on sports, very little of it actually enacts actual change the way Torre’s has in the last month. To think that we’re less than two months removed from Bill Simmons questioning whether the Harvard grad was performing real journalism with his coverage of Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson.

Torre was then. And he certainly is now.

🎤 MEDIA MOMENTS ✍️ 

• Stephen A. Smith made a rare July appearance on First Take on Monday. And while doing so, the ESPN star stated his belief that President Donald Trump called attention to the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians’ team names over the weekend, in part, to distract from the coverage of the Epstein files.

• Bill Simmons' stated on the most-recent episode of his podcast that he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of Jon Stewart resigning from The Daily Show on-air following the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And while Stewart didn’t ultimately resign on Monday night, Simmons — who shares an agent with Stewart and Colbert — still believes there’s more to the story than the amount of money The Late Show was losing.

• Colin Cowherd might not technically be co-workers with the personalities at Barstool Sports, but both entities are now a part of the Fox family. And on Sunday’s episode of his podcast, The Herd host addressed the news of Fox’s partnership with Dave Portnoy’s company, stating his belief that it’s a much better fit for Barstool than their short-lived 2017 deal with ESPN.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

All eyes on Columbus

On Monday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, producer/co-host Mike Ryan Ruiz noted that one of the ways Dave Portnoy could help boost Big Noon Kickoff is by improving the show’s atmosphere — especially when it finds itself in the same location as ESPN’s College GameDay.

And while it isn’t often that the two Saturday pregame shows wind up in the same place at the time as ESPN often goes to the biggest game each week and Fox typically favors its own showcases, it won’t take long for Ruiz’s theory to be put to the test.

After all, both Big Noon Kickoff and College GameDay have already announced that they’ll be in Columbus, Ohio, on Aug. 30 as defending national champion Ohio State hosts Arch Manning and Texas in one of the biggest games of the 2025 college football season. Week 1 will also mark a new era for both shows. For GameDay, it will be Lee Corso’s final episode, while for Big Noon, it will be Portnoy’s first.

The symmetry is pretty incredible and could prove to be fascinating inflection point to look back at years down the line. That’s not to say that Big Noon Kickoff is on the verge of supplanting College GameDay as the No. 1 college football pregame morning program anytime soon. But the hiring of Portnoy and Fox’s newfound partnership with Barstool Sports is, if nothing else, inspired.

We won’t know for months, if not years, how this newfound chapter in the rivalry will ultimately play out. But considering the historic nature of both shows’ Week 1 episodes, it will certainly be interesting to see the atmospheres that both sets outside the Horseshoe attract and what that might say about the future of each.