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🏀 RIP Stacey King. The beloved Chicago Bulls role player turned local broadcaster passed away suddenly over the weekend at age 59. King played five seasons in the Windy City and has been the team’s lead game analyst since 2008, most recently alongside Adam Amin on Chicago Sports Network.

⛳ LIV on the fritz. As LIV Golf attempts to play out its season before funding from the Saudi Public Investment Fund goes away, the league reportedly is “on the fence” as to whether if it can make it through the final four events on its calendar, with no guarantees each monthly payment from the PIF will come through.

🏛️ UFC Freedom 250 faces lawsuit. Two Virginia residents have reportedly filed a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the UFC card scheduled for next weekend on the White House lawn, claiming it violates National Park Services permitting requirements.

⚽ Fox books World Cup booths. Fox announced the top booth of John Strong and Stu Holden will call USA-Paraguay on June 12; Brazil-Morocco on June 13; and England-Croatia on June 17 to open the FIFA men’s World Cup this month. Former USMNT stars Landon Donovan and Maurice Edu are among the other commentators working the tournament this year.

President Donald Trump is never one to miss a major sporting event in his old stomping ground of the Big Apple, and the NBA Finals are as big as it gets.

But Trump’s decision to attend Game 3 of the finals is setting up to be quite divisive separate and apart from New Yorkers’ feelings about the administration. That’s because by bringing his traveling party and security into the famed lower Manhattan gym, Trump may be preventing fans from gathering outside to watch the game, as they have done throughout the Knicks’ dazzling postseason run. (MSG has denied Trump’s visit led to the cancelation of the watch party.)

“He’s coming to Game 3 of the Finals, and I don’t want him there,” said native New Yorker and the voice of sports takes, Stephen A. Smith, last week. “It has nothing to do with politics, policy, or anything like that. It has everything to do with him disrupting and contributing at the same time to the chaos that’s going to be existing at Madison Square Garden.”

Of course, Trump carries quite a different political worldview than most of his old neighbors these days. If we were talking about the SEC championship game, the story would be different.

Trump’s attendance is also drawing the ire of many who see his presence as an obstacle to the enjoyment of the average fan. The throngs of fans outside MSG have become entertainers in their own right, as much a part of how the country is consuming the Knicks’ run as the best Jalen Brunson or KAT highlights.

“Thousands of fans have waited for Game 3 their whole lives and now they’re priced out of entering the game and can’t even celebrate outside because one billionaire gets to attend the game for free,” wrote Andscape’s David Dennis Jr. on X.

In the past, networks faced a decision on whether and how to cover Trump’s arrival and fans’ reaction when he is shown on the jumbotron. Even if ESPN and ABC keep Trump talk out of the main broadcast, it is impossible for it not to be a huge story coming off the game. The crowd is almost sure to boo him, a message that will be heightened given his long history with the city.

Trump has been even more omnipresent as a sports spectator in his second term than his first, attending everything from the U.S. Open tennis slam to the Super Bowl. This week figures to become the biggest spectacle yet, starting with Game 3 at MSG and leading into the opening matches of the FIFA World Cup and a UFC card Sunday on his birthday, at the White House.

Trump’s role at each event will be very different. The president will merely be a fan at Game 3, while he is the leader of a host country for the World Cup and, effectively, a regular in the UFC crowd.

Since the term sportswashing became popular to understand the efforts of government officials to improve their nations’ standing through hosting and investing in sports, the embrace of sports by a figure like Trump is seen as a net positive. By cozying up to the Knicks or UFC or a communal event like the World Cup, the thinking goes, someone like Trump gets a bump by association.

In this case, the negative headlines around the Finals appearance and the UFC Freedom 250 event have already seeded the ground for negative PR. Of course, Trump’s approval rating is already down at 35 percent, weighed down by inflation, the job market and foreign policy.

While recent history, including Trump’s prominent role in last year’s FIFA Club World Cup trophy ceremony, suggests Trump can be very visible and it still go largely ignored, the noise will be hard to tune out this month. Perhaps the anger around key issues is so strong that even detractors will keep their eye on the ball (or away from it, as it were). But no matter how Trump’s involvement in these events manifests or however harmless it may be, the stick to sports mantra tends to typically win out.

People tend to see politics (and even pop culture) as a distraction from the experience they want as sports fans. Trump’s critics want to watch sports so that they don’t have to see him or think about him. For some reason, he and his administration seem to be going the other direction.

But if there is backlash among fans to players protesting, sports talking heads opining on the state of the country, or even Taylor Swift becoming a subplot to an NFL season, how do we think a whole bunch more Trump is going to land on the screens, feeds and algorithms of sports fans for the next several weeks?

Awful Announcing recently caught up with longtime college basketball reporter Dana O’Neil, who is back covering sports as a national columnist for CNN.

Here’s a sampling:

What prompted you to return to journalism?

I missed writing. I’m one of the weird people, I guess, in journalism who actually likes the miserable craft of writing. I can relax and lose myself in it. I missed writing stories. I missed talking to people and finding interesting angles. I missed that feeling you get in your belly when you talk to somebody, and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is going to be great. I can’t wait to write this story.’ I just missed all of that. So, yeah, this was a great opportunity.

Read the entirety of the Q&A right here.

CBS’ Jim Nantz pays tribute to a production assistant who died while covering the Memorial Tournament for the network

Speaking of McDonough, he was killer all night in Game 3, especially on the game-winning goal in double overtime

Is there a worse anti-analytics messenger than an MLB star on the wrong side of 30 who is batting .172?

A great Stacey King moment to brighten your Monday

“It made me so proud that that guy is gonna be the face of our league for the next 20 years.” - Charles Barkley, getting deep in his response to Victor Wembanyama’s emotional outpour after winning Game 7 of the West finals last month.

“I was recruiting him. … I was recruiting all the top NFL players to come to CBS.” - CBS mainstay Nate Burleson, revealing he may have been a key force in quarterback Russell Wilson joining The NFL Today studio show after retiring last week.

“I was not good, to be quite candid about it, when we first started back five years ago.” - ESPN’s Sean McDonough, detailing the significant effort it took for him to become the standout voice of the NHL he now is for the Worldwide Leader.

“…the mental strain over the course of a season, it was awful, and I’m very happy with the pitch clock.” - SNY’s Gary Cohen, opening up on the toll of 162 long local MLB broadcasts prior to the implementation of the pitch clock in 2023.

“I would have seized on that opportunity, interrupted him, stopped talking about anything else, and just been blown away by the lack of political instincts to admit such an idiotic thing.” - FS1’s Danny Parkins, sounding off on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s shocking admission that he left last year’s home Bears-Packers game early because of the cold.

By the time Danielle Trotta went on air at the Coca-Cola 600 on Amazon Prime Video, she had a couple of days to process the emotions that came with the sudden loss on her SiriusXM show. Callers choked up while sharing personal Kyle Busch stories and reflecting on his impact on their fandom. A community grieved together.

There is inherent risk within motorsport. A driver takes their life into their own hands every time they get behind the wheel. But the NASCAR Cup series had not lost an active full-time driver since the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt at the 2001 Daytona 500. This was new ground for many members of the NASCAR community to cover.

Trotta and the Amazon Prime crew had to rewrite their show. Drivers and other members of the NASCAR community shared their memories of Busch. Dale Earnhardt Jr. narrated a beautiful video tribute. But Trotta couldn’t let herself get caught up in the emotion that night, so she could let the millions of NASCAR fans watching process their own feelings.

“I really needed to hold my stuff together and allow them to have their moment. I can do a pretty good job of that. At some point I just knew I have to make a TV show, I can’t be the one falling apart. I have to make sure I quarterback something that is not void of emotion, but keeping my emotions pretty close to the vest to get through that in a professional capacity,” Trotta said.

Click to read more from Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder on how Prime Video’s Danielle Trotta became the rock for both the streamer and the sport after the sudden passing of star driver Kyle Busch.