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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🎙️ Beadle and Decker canned. The ripple effects of SiriusXM’s Stephen A. Smith hire didn’t take long to settle in. On Thursday evening, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported that Michelle Beadle and Cody Decker would be let go from their eponymous show, which is in the same hours that Smith will eventually take over. It’s unclear what Mad Dog Radio will do in the interim; Stephen A. doesn’t start until September.

⚕️ Jay Harris shares health news. The longtime SportsCenter anchor revealed on Thursday that he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and will undergo surgery next Tuesday. He plans on taking about a month to recover before returning to his anchor seat. Get well soon, Jay!

🏈 Vilma arrested. Fox NFL analyst Jonathan Vilma was arrested on Wednesday for driving with a suspended license, per Miami sports reporter Andy Slater. Vilma has spent five seasons calling NFL games for Fox alongside play-by-play voice Kenny Albert.

📺 CHSN on Comcast. At long last, the Chicago-area regional sports network has made its way onto Comcast’s cable systems. The network has been dark on Comcast since launch. Perhaps FCC chair Brendan Carr had something to do with the consummation?

️‍🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Rob Manfred is having regrets

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has learned a tough lesson. You can’t always get what you want.

As baseball’s head man continues to negotiate with various television networks and streamers interested in scooping up some of the media rights ESPN is relinquishing after this season, he seems to be learning the hard way that sometimes, the grass isn’t always greener.

At the time of ESPN’s opt-out, which was initially reported as “mutual,” though anyone paying attention knows it was about as mutual as when a team “parts ways” with its head coach, MLB was outwardly adversarial. Manfred criticized the Worldwide Leader for treating baseball as second-class, nixing programming like Baseball Tonight, and not giving the sport its due on SportsCenter.

Now, Manfred is coming to terms with the realities of being a Tier 2 sport in the year 2025.

During an owners’ meeting at MLB headquarters on Wednesday, Manfred said, “We liked the deal we had. You know, looking backwards, do I wish I wasn’t in a position to sell three years, so we can line our rights up to 2028? The answer to that is yes.”

But that’s the very situation MLB now finds itself in. Without ESPN, MLB is stuck bringing Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby, and select early-round playoff games to market for a short-term, three-year package as to align with the expiration of its other media deals with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery in 2028. And the $550 million void left by ESPN? Recouping that is pure wishful thinking.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Manfred confirmed that the league has been in talks with NBC and Apple TV, along with a mystery third partner. If MLB wants to maximize revenue, it’ll probably strike multiple deals. Perhaps Sunday Night Baseball to NBC and some additional regular season inventory for Apple.

As for that third partner, it’s anyone’s guess. The one true wildcard in all of this? Well, it’s the very network Manfred was railing against just a few months ago.

Per prior reporting, ESPN was willing to retain MLB rights… at a price of $200 million per year as opposed to the $550 million it currently pays. Thursday night, Puck’s John Ourand reported “many still suspect that Manfred will reengage with ESPN at some point this season.” That would be a true tail-between-his-legs moment for the commissioner, but his comments on Wednesday may signal just that.

For its part, ESPN has displayed a willingness to stay in the baseball business, just at the right price.

Whatever happens, it seems like we’ll know where everything will settle prior to this year’s All-Star Game. “I’m hopeful that in the next few weeks, prior to the All-Star Game, we get something done,” Manfred said, per Front Office Sports. “But when you’re having three different sets of conversations, it’s a lot. Each set of conversations involves a different group of content. We’re talking to three people about different packages.”

While nothing is certain, it sure seems like the next three years are headed towards more fragmentation in MLB rights, not less. That’ll be the primary focus for the league come 2028, when Manfred tries to streamline local rights onto one platform. But for now, MLB finds itself facing a lot more uncertainty than it bargained for.

👀AROUND AA📰

The sports media rising stars of 2025

It’s that time once again for Awful Announcing’s annual list of the sports media rising stars.

Each year, we poll our staff and others throughout the industry to honor those individuals who are moving toward a bright future in sports media. With there being more sports content than ever before on television, streaming, podcasts, and everywhere else, there are more names to consider and nominations than ever before.

See who cracked the list for 2025 here!

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Shaq and Stephen A. Smith had some fun interplay on their respective studio shows before Game 1 last night.

📈DATA DUMP📺

• TNT Sports is off to a cold start with the Stanley Cup Finals. Game 1 of the rematch between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers drew just 2.42 million viewers on Wednesday, the least-watched Game 1 for any Stanley Cup Finals series since 2008 when you exclude the COVID-impacted years. For reference, that 2008 series between Detroit and Pittsburgh aired on the long-defunct cable channel Versus. The telecast is down 22% year-over-year from the same matchup on ABC last season (3.12 million viewers) and down 12% versus the last Stanley Cup Finals on TNT (2.75 million viewers for Panthers-Golden Knights).

• On the contrary, ESPN got off to a sizzling start for the Women’s College World Series. Wednesday’s Game 1 of an intrastate series between Texas Tech and Texas averaged a record-setting audience of 2.1 million viewers, made all the more impressive considering it went head-to-head with the Stanley Cup. The Longhorns’ win increased last year’s record-setting Game 1 audience by 11%. Overall, the Women’s College World Series is averaging 1.21 million viewers on the ESPN family of networks, up 21% from this point last year.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

NBA Finals press conference extravaganza

• “They were our partners for 41 years. I was with the league for 33 of those 41 years. Their coverage has been fantastic. And it’s not just the on-air talent. I want to share my appreciation and thanks with the literally hundreds, probably, over the 41 years, thousands of people who’ve worked on NBA production, wish them well and make sure we acknowledge them — since this past weekend, they went off the air.” — NBA commissioner Adam Silver expressing his “appreciation and gratitude” to TNT Sports as the network ends its four-decade relationship with the league.

• “I think about it a lot. On one hand … I like the fact that people are talking about us. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It seems a little unusual how much discussion there is around ratings in this league. … It’s just a thing about the NBA. It’s part of the culture of the NBA that we’re self-critical, that, sort of, our fans, it’s part of the culture around the league to be looking at what’s bad as opposed to what’s good. I think it seeps into our coverage, quite honestly, sometimes.” — Silver again, this time discussing the strange fixation NBA media has on television ratings.

• “I saw the things that were leaked yesterday about Doris Burke and I just wanted to say a couple of things. She has changed the game for women in broadcasting. Doris is a great example of courage and putting herself out there. It was just so sad to see the reports leaked, really unnecessarily, before such a celebrated event. Doris is a friend. I’ve asked her many times, when is she getting into coaching, because she has such great knowledge. There are many women who she’s paved the way for.” — Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle opening his NBA Finals press conference praising ESPN analyst Doris Burke amid reports that she could be replaced next season.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

ESPN’s NBA Finals coverage is the most auraless sh*t ever

I’m handing off The Closer to a familiar voice for loyal A-Block readers. Awful Announcing’s chief opinionist Matt Yoder, once again, wrote what everyone else was thinking during last night’s NBA Finals. Why the hell can’t ESPN get this right? Here’s Matt:

It’s another year of ESPN broadcasting the NBA Finals, and another year of disappointment for NBA fans.

There have been certain bones that basketball fans have had to pick with ESPN over the 20 years plus that they have been broadcasting the NBA Finals. Most of those have dealt with the revolving door studio show over the years and a deluge of ads.

But this year, everything feels off. And the entire presentation of the NBA Finals makes it feel like a Friday night in January.

Let’s start with the broadcast booth that we all know has been thrown together on the fly thanks to the layoffs of Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson have never truly replaced. Mike Breen, Doris Burke, and Richard Jefferson are all great on their own merit, but they are admittedly a brand new team still trying to figure it out. And the fact that it leaked that ESPN is considering replacing Burke for next season before the series even began tells you all you need to know about how much of a disconnect exists.

The studio and halftime show is the same thing it’s always been. Game 1 of the Thunder-Pacers series greatly expanded what the set was able to do last year by giving the studio crew a whopping three minutes. However, most of that was filled with Stephen A. Smith yelling about Tyrese Haliburton. Don’t worry though, there was still tons and tons of commercials.

But most troubling of all is the total lack of aesthetics and big-game feel. Gone is the Larry O’Brien trophy on the court. Gone is the national anthem. Gone is the starting intros. Gone is pretty much anything and everything that would make you believe this is the NBA FINALS save for a small miniature logo at the bottom of the screen.

If the NBA is wondering why fans aren’t excited about the Thunder-Pacers matchup, it’s not the size of the markets involved. Look no further than what the league and its leading broadcast partner are communicating about the importance of the series.

The most perplexing issue here is these are all simple fixes that have been done before. It’s not like we are asking ESPN to figure out how to broadcast the game from Mars or find a way to do a 7D telecast.

Show the anthem and the player intros. Allow us to be sucked into the incredible arena atmosphere in Oklahoma City. Put the Larry O’Brien trophy on the court instead of a bunch of CGI and YouTubeTV ads. Are basketball fans here to watch the NBA Finals or is it just an opportunity to hype the upcoming Fantastic 4 movie? Give your personalities some actual time to talk about the game.

Even the NBA Cup easily communicates that their regular season games are different with their crazy court designs. And yet for the NBA Finals we can’t have anything? Make it make sense!

ESPN’s NBA coverage during the season, especially in their studio shows, has left a lot to be desired in recent years. The network has a tendency to focus more on off-court drama and storylines than actual basketball. The Pacers probably got less time on ESPN airwaves than Stephen A. Smith’s feud with LeBron James this year. And the Thunder didn’t get much more than that in spite of building what may be the NBA’s next great dynasty.

But if ESPN is also struggling to make the NBA Finals feel like they matter during the NBA Finals itself, then we have even bigger problems.