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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

✂️ Barber cut. Shortly after news broke that Tiki Barber was departing for WFAN radio coverage of the New York Giants, CBS revealed its full lineup of NFL talent for the 2025 season. Highlighting the changes, of course, is J.J. Watt, who will move from The NFL Today studio to a full-time game analyst role alongside play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle and sideline reporter Evan Washburn on the network’s No. 2 broadcast team. As was reported earlier this year, Watt replaces Charles Davis, who will slide into Barber’s former spot alongside play-by-play man Andrew Catalon and analyst Jason McCourty before becoming CBS’s lead college football analyst next season.

💪 Hulking down. A few days after WWE wrestler Chelsea Green left social media over backlash to praising Hulk Hogan, popular fitness influencer Joey Swoll is doing the same. Swoll praised the Hulkster after his passing and then doubled down with a defense that included a reference to “colored people.” Not great! While he eventually released an apology video, he announced he was leaving social media (for now) following threats to himself and his family.

🎲 Arenas arrested. Former NBA All-Star and current podcast host Gilbert Arenas has been arrested on a federal indictment and accused of running an illegal gambling business. Arenas was charged with operating the business with five others, including a suspected Israeli crime figure. According to prosecutors, Arenas allegedly rented out his Encino, CA, mansion to host high-end, illegal poker games believed to have been conducted between 2021 and 2022. No word yet on how that will impact Gil’s Arena podcast, though it sounds like the former NBA player has bigger things to worry about.

⚽️ Sally sails to the Atlantic. While departures from the Washington Post have become commonplace amid buyout offers, the newspaper now finds itself without one of its signature voices. Legendary sports columnist Sally Jenkins has accepted a buyout and announced that she is joining The Atlantic Monthly. She joins longtime sportswriter Dan Steinberg, who left the Post to become the NFL managing editor at The Athletic, as well as Washington Commanders beat writer Nicki Jhabvala, who made the same jump earlier this week.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Shannon Sharpe’s time at ESPN is over

If you were paying attention to the way ESPN discussed (or didn’t discuss) Shannon Sharpe when the $50 million sexual assault lawsuit was filed against him, it should probably come as no surprise to learn that the former NFL star’s time with the Worldwide Leader is over.

The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand was first to report the news, but it dropped with an air of expectancy, even if Stephen A. Smith tried to put in a good word about Sharpe’s return.

While Sharpe eventually settled the lawsuit, and an agreement was reached that concluded “Both sides acknowledge a long-term consensual and tumultuous relationship,” the First Take co-host’s shock-and-awe blitz and public shaming strategy didn’t seem to sit well with ESPN, whose silence spoke volumes. That they laundered Jimmy Pitaro’s statement through Stephen A. Smith’s podcast, which is unaffiliated with the network, told you just how far they wanted to run away from all of this.

The logical question for Sharpe is… now what? And there’s probably a logical answer. He has his budding podcast empire with Club Shay Shay and Nightcap, the latter of which was where he reacted to the ESPN news, saying he was “at peace” with the decision, though he wished it didn’t overshadow his brother’s Hall of Fame enshrinement this weekend.

There was a time not too long ago when Sharpe would have had to figure out a new network to revive his career. He’d have to grovel at Fox Sports to let him return, see if CBS or NBC might need some help, or figure out if there’s an opportunity with a streamer like Netflix or Amazon.

He may still kick some of those tires, but he no longer has to. Indeed, his podcasts don’t pull in the numbers they used to when he was on ESPN multiple times a week and making headlines, but there’s nothing to prevent him from getting back on track now that all of this is behind him.

Sharpe is ahead of the game, but would do well to heed Cam Newton’s advice and invest in himself, especially at a time when it’s unlikely any major company will want to invest in him. Cancel-culture commentary aside, we actually live in a golden age of reinvention and reinvestment. People with far worse records than Sharpe have received their second chance (or third), and the ball is in his court to play the game as he sees fit.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

• "When people try to argue that she's not the face of our league or if our league would be where we're at without her, you're dumb as sh*t. You're literally dumb as f*ck.” - Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham on Caitlin Clark on her new podcast, Show Me Something.

• “Money paid back and lesson learned.” - Former NBA player and sometimes ESPN NBA analyst Marcus Morris, addressing his arrest on felony fraud charges out of Nevada for writing bad checks to cover outstanding gambling markers.

• “He’s working Schefty to get Schefty to put a story out there that is favorable to Christian Wilkins.” - PFT’s Mike Florio on his claim that ESPN’s Adam Schefter is doing some quid pro quo on his reporting of Christian Wilkins.

• “We’ll see, yeah, we’ll see.” - Aaron Rodgers, demurring on if he’ll make weekly ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ appearances this season.

💬 AROUND AA 💬

Verne Lundquist was thrilled to return for “Happy Gilmore 2,” nearly 30 years after his original cameo helped make the first film a cult classic. But before he was trading lines about “gangster sh*t” with Post Malone, Lundquist almost missed out on the role altogether, one he’s since become inseparable from.

Nothing was going to stop him from making time for the sequel. Not when he almost didn’t make it into the first one.

Lundquist first heard about the “Happy Gilmore” role from his longtime agent, the late Bob Rosen, a man who seemingly represented every golf voice at CBS. Rosen told him there was a cameo spot for a sports announcer in a new Adam Sandler movie, and that they wanted Verne to fly to Vancouver to shoot it.

“So I did,” Lundquist recalled to Brandon Contes on an upcoming episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast. “When they handed me the script — they had to hand-deliver it to my hotel room — I looked at the top right-hand corner. They’d tried to erase the name, but I could still see it. It said Pat Summerall.”

Click here to hear the rest of Uncle Verne’s anecdote and make sure you’re subscribed to The Awful Announcing Podcast so you can listen to his whole appearance, which drops Thursday morning.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s long-gestating Hulk Hogan project is officially not happening. According to TMZ, the duo quietly shelved development on “Killing Gawker” months ago, well before Hogan’s sudden death last week at age 71. Netflix, meanwhile, had been developing a Hogan docuseries before his death and streamer reportedly filmed over 30 hours of footage, including more than 20 hours of interviews with Hogan himself.

• As soon as Kurt Warner was announced as the analyst for YouTube’s exclusive NFL game this season, everyone wondered if fellow NFL Network announcer Rich Eisen would join him. To the surprise of few, The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand is now reporting that Eisen is the frontrunner for the gig. The game’s location (Brazil) and timing (Friday) make it hard for the streamer to consider many other contenders from other NFL partners.

• Brent Musburger is headed back to the NFL booth, if only for a night. The 2025 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award will be honored in a pregame interview with Maria Taylor before joining Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth in the broadcast booth for the second half.

• According to a report by Mollie Cahillane in Sports Business Journal, DAZN has reached a deal with the NHL to be the global home of NHL.tv, the service that grants international fans access to all of the league’s games. The service will be available as a standalone subscription or add-on package in almost 200 countries that don’t already have active NHL media deals.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

We would never say ESPN’s top talents are anti-union…

We are defintely not saying that ESPN’s biggest stars, Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee, are anti-union. We have no info on that, and we certainly aren’t reporting it here.

That said…

We do have eyeballs and ears. And we watch a lot of ESPN. And we notice things. Things that come up around the fact that the current CBA between Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association expires on Dec. 1, 2026.

Things like Stephen A. Smith, someone who is very quick to demand better pay and job safety for himself but just as quick to absolve himself of that concern for others, calling for Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper to be suspended for getting in the face of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred when it sounded like he might start talking about a salary cap.

Things like Pat McAfee, hater of “suits,” doth protesting too much when the topic of a work stoppage came up on his show on Tuesday.

“The die-hards will be there on the other side,” he said. “They'll be jaded, they'll be pissed, but they'll be here on the other side. Everybody else gets jus,t like, ah, f*ck off… We got billionaires and millionaires fighting each other…

“The work stoppage thing, not good for sports fans.”

McAfee then chastised UFL quarterbacks (misidentifying them as the XFL) for holding out after receiving a “negligible” salary bump from the league in Year 2.

“Let's go ahead and shut the f*ck up and just be happy that we're playing football for a living,” he said.

Now that’s the kind of talk about workers and work stoppages that “the suits” must absolutely love.

Again, we’re not saying ESPN’s biggest stars, Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee, are anti-union. We wouldn’t say that.

We’re just watching.

And listening.

And noticing.