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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏛️ Football is back! Football fans got their first glimpse of a significant change to NFL broadcasts and games starting in 2025 regarding the league’s implementation of the new virtual measurement system, which made its debut during Thursday’s Hall of Fame Game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Detroit Lions. Reactions were surprisingly mixed, as some opined for the simpler times and others wondered what conspiracy theories lie ahead.

🏛️ Sharpe sued…again. After settling a $50-million sexual assault lawsuit that led to his ESPN ouster, Shannon Sharpe is in legal limbo once more. According to The US Sun, Sharpe, Nightcap co-host Chad Johnson, and Shay Shay Media are being sued for spreading a false narrative about a woman who went viral after being brought on stage at a Usher concert. The $20-million lawsuit alleges that Sharpe and Johnson shared a false narrative that she was married and her husband was filing for divorce, which was untrue. Shades of Pat McAfee and Mary Kate Cornett here…

🎤 Getting Port-annoyed. Sophie Cunningham officially launched her new podcast on Wednesday. But before Show Me Something landed with The Volume, Dave Portnoy says she initially tested the show for Barstool, only for the potential deal to fall apart ultimately. “Her focus wasn’t going to be the podcast,” he said. “It was just one amongst 9,000 things she was doing, so it felt like we were getting screwed.”

⚖️ Taylor strikes back. Former Stanford Cardinal football coach Troy Taylor filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday, targeting ESPN and reporter Xuan Thai over a March story that he claims was both false and professionally damaging. Taylor, who was dismissed less than a week after the article ran, says the narrative surrounding his exit has been misleading from the outset. The lawsuit accuses ESPN of pushing a damaging narrative built on false claims, intending to wreck Taylor’s career.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Sports television in the de-information age

I was struck by two podcasts that I listened to on Thursday that couldn’t have been more different, yet both spoke to something I had been feeling about the state of sports media.

The first was the latest episode of Michelle Obama’s IMO Podcast, featuring Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers. The discussion that caught my attention was around the similarities between watching sports coverage on ESPN and the latest Real Housewives episode on Bravo.

“If I listen to ESPN for an hour, it’s like watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you know?” said the former First Lady. “It’s the same drama, and they’re yelling at each other and they don’t get along, you know? I mean, Stephen A. Smith, he’s just like every other…”

“He’d be a great Real Housewife,” said Rogers.

The second was the latest episode of The Ringer’s The Press Box, hosted by Joel Anderson with guest Bomani Jones. The two discussed the media news of the day, starting with a conversation about Shannon Sharpe and where First Take goes next, before evolving into a discussion around the future (or lack thereof) of sports television.

Bomani, who knows a thing or two about how the sports TV business works, saw a parallel between the recent FS1 show cancellations and the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Jones noted that both situations shared a commonality: they’re not being replaced by new versions of what they were. Instead, the networks are moving away from that kind of “informative” content.

“I felt like that wing of shows, and we're going to separate me from any of them,” said Jones regarding the sports talk shows and debate shows of yesteryear. “I found them to be informative, and I found them to be largely done by interesting people with a pretty deep knowledge of the sports and things that they were talking about. And it was kind of a prerequisite, if nothing else, in ESPN, for example, that there's a baseline of knowledge and expertise that you had to be offering.

“That's not what McAfee’s show does, for example. That's not the basis of it. And for what it's worth, that's not the basis of what Dan Le Batard does either. So I'm not saying this is any sort of judgment of Pat or his acumen or his show or anything else. But I do think that the idea that you need to have these people with certain measures of expertise to talk about this stuff, particularly if they're non-athletes, I think that's over. Even, like the athlete pods that you watch are primarily them just kind of shooting the shit, right?

“So maybe what's happened is the consumption pattern has changed, and people are not coming for knowledge anymore or information. They're just coming for entertainment. And maybe they use the Internet for the knowledge stuff.

“…You know what else don't come on TV no more? Soap operas. You didn't notice it because you just don't watch them, but they're basically gone. The Young and the Restless is still there. I think there may be one more, but overwhelmingly…i f you were ever at home flipping channels, which I still do from time to time, you don't come across a soap opera, you don't notice it, but they're gone, man. These things happen.

“Like, there was a time when the radio was full of dramas, then one day they stopped doing that, man.”

I don’t know if those two things connected for you, but I’ve been mulling them both over all day as I think about why I feel the way I feel about the state of sports television, and television in general.

🗣️ NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

• “If I listen to ESPN for an hour, it’s like watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta, you know? It’s the same drama, and they’re yelling at each other and they don’t get along, you know?” - Michelle Obama, comparing ESPN to the Real Housewives franchise.

• “Since when is Jeff Passan allowed to be on TV and not give breaking news?” - ESPN MLB analyst Eduardo Pérez after MLB insider Jeff Passan showed up on Baseball Tonight just to share his thoughts.

• “I don’t have anything left to give that show.” - ESPN’s Peter Schrager opening up about why he left Good Morning Football. 

• “I might surprise people with what the next move is.” - Joy Taylor teasing where she might land post-Fox.

🎙️THE AWFUL ANNOUNCING PODCAST 🎧

On this week’s episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast, host Brandon Contes interviews broadcasting legend Verne Lundquist. Brandon and Verne discuss a wide range of topics, including Verne’s time on the Happy Gilmore movies, the behind-the-scenes details of his iconic calls over his nearly 60-year career, his various broadcast partners, and more.

Listen and subscribe to The Awful Announcing Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get our podcasts.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• Fox and IndyCar have seemed happy with their partnership in year one of their new television rights deal. And that partnership is about to get much, much stronger. Fox announced Thursday it is acquiring a 33 percent stake in the American open-wheel racing series from Roger Penske and Penske Entertainment.

• While there has been plenty of speculation about the future of the UFL, this much is clear: changes are coming. That includes Thursday’s announcement that it has added billionaire Mike Repole to its group of investors, with the Vitaminwater co-founder set to take over the league’s business operations. In addition to confirming that multiple teams will relocate, he also revealed that he envisions the UFL expanding from its current eight teams to 10-12 teams within the next five years and ultimately 16 teams within the next 10 years.

• Nikola Jokić’s agent made headlines this week when he posted a photo from a boat alongside LeBron James and Maverick Carter. It turns out that the trio was meeting to discuss potential plans for an international basketball league. While the specifics of the meeting are currently unknown, the prospect of James and/or Jokić being involved with the league is certainly notable.

🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥 

Boomer Esiason: Many things, never boring

Few athletes were better prepared for life after football than Boomer Esiason.

The former quarterback and 1988 NFL MVP for the Cincinnati Bengals has built a long and distinguished broadcasting career. He currently co-hosts the Boomer and Gio show alongside Gregg Giannotti on WFAN Radio in New York City. He was a longtime studio analyst for CBS’s The NFL Today and game analyst for ABC’s Monday Night Football.

Esiason recently chatted with Awful Announcing’s Michael Grant and shared some insights into several opinions of his that made headlines recently.

First, Esiason has always been more than happy to call out Tom Brady when needed. He hopes that the Fox NFL broadcaster starts to feel the same way in Year 2.

“Hopefully, in year two, he’ll feel more comfortable and more confident and understand exactly what the viewers are looking for,” said Esiason. “I would also say most analysts these days are very careful. They’re not nearly as critical as some have been in the past.”

Derek Jeter got mad at Boomer for calling him “elitist” when he skipped Yankees Old Timers’ Day, and the WFAN host later doubled down and accused him of lying about why. Esiason is okay with Jeter being mad at him, as he’s said plenty of positive things to offset it.

“Well, for 18 years on this radio station, I’ve been talking about how great he is. What a great leader he is. What a great example he is for younger players,” said Esiason. “He never called me to say thank you, so if I got under his skin one time—and I prefaced it by saying if there’s a family event he has to be at that can’t be cancelled, then I can totally understand. So, that’s all I heard. I heard it out of Tiki’s mouth. I don’t worry about it too much. I don’t lose too much sleep over stuff like that.”

Finally, Boomer blasted new Yankees radio announcer Dave Sims for missing several games during his inaugural season. Sims later explained to Awful Announcing that he was spending time with his son. Boomer says that the two have since talked it out and moved on.

“Dave called me, and when I answered the phone, I said, ‘How’s vacation going? I didn’t realize you were taking off 40 games into the season. I’m sorry.’ He told me again that there was a personal reason. (It) was very important to him, and he worked it out with management,” said Esiason. “I said, ‘Well, nobody told me that. I was just wondering why you were off 40 games into the season when you replaced a guy who never took a day off.’ I think we both had a laugh at it, and that’s where I left it. I don’t know where he is with that.”

Read Esiason’s full interview, which includes how he transitioned from NFL player to broadcaster, whether he misses being on NFL Today, and more.