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📻 IHSXM? Numerous reports indicate SiriusXM could soon merge with iHeartMedia, either by buying its terrestrial radio competitor or through both being purchased by an outside buyer such as entertainment mogul Irving Azoff. A combined company would create an even more competitive outfit to compete in a future built around podcasting and digital video.

📷 Russini-Vrabel photo details. The people who sold the original photos to Page Six showing Dianna Russini and Mike Vrabel at an Arizona resort together were reportedly a couple who were also staying at the resort, not a paid private eye. And according to Sportico, the couple could be in legal jeopardy for invading the reporter's and the coach’s privacy.

📺 FNIA on the road. NBC announced new NFL studio hire Mike Tomlin during its NBA pregame show on Sunday night, while also confirming reports that the network will take Football Night In America show on the road all season this fall.

🏈 Media McDermott? Former Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott told Rich Eisen that he has multiple meetings lined up to potentially work for an NFL broadcast network this season, after nine years coaching in the AFC East.

📺 Stephen A. steps in it. First Take host Stephen A. Smith somehow turned a breakdown of Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert by Chiney Ogwumike into an episode of workplace harassment, which ended by Smith stating that Ogwumike’s French-infused commentary “kind of turned me on.”

In the spring of 2024, at the height of Caitlin Clark pandemonium in women’s college basketball, Stephen A. Smith posted a video to his YouTube account titled “I’m pissed off.”

You’d be forgiven if you got that mixed up with the countless other similarly entitled and nearly identically expressed missives that Smith has put out since his career began, but in this case, Smith was responding to his ESPN colleague, Monica McNutt, after the two got into a fairly big argument that week on First Take. While discussing Clark and the explosion around women’s sports that came along with her rise, McNutt challenged Smith over his claim that he covered the WNBA more than competing shows.

“You could have been doing this three years ago if you wanted to,” she said.

The fallout-filled headlines for weeks, but McNutt’s point clearly landed. So Smith posted his video, but while explaining why he was so “pissed,” he dug himself a deeper hole than he was already in.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am the executive producer of First Take,” Smith said. “You ever heard of Monica McNutt? You have now. Because she’s on First Take a lot.

“Chiney Ogwumike, absolutely wonderful, spectacular basketball analyst… ask her how it’s been to be on First Take. How about Andraya Carter? Who’s a rising star in this business? How much do you think First Take helped that? What about Kimberley Martin? What about Molly Qerim herself?”

Smith added that while he can ignore most criticism, he couldn’t stomach McNutt’s because it came from in-house and because nobody can “find a show on sports television that discusses women’s issues, that discuss the WNBA, or women’s sports that highlights and profiles female analysts more than First Take.”

These quotes ended up being the most telling from the entire saga. Where Smith saw himself as a star-maker who promoted women analysts at ESPN out of a sense of equity, his comments diminished the women's talents. The debate star seemed to believe that his role in furthering the careers of his women colleagues in an industry that does not do them many favors meant that he was immune to the criticism that he was still not doing enough.

In essence, Smith was arguing that, by doing slightly better than his competitors in reaching the woefully underserved women’s sports audience, he stood above them in a meaningful way.

Unfortunately, Smith reminded us on Friday that he does not, in any meaningful way, stand above these competitors after all.

During a segment in which Ogwumike was breaking down Minnesota center Rudy Gobert’s bounce-back defensive performance in the first round of the NBA playoffs, she embraced the show's playful spirit. She riffed through a couple of French phrases for effect. After Ogwumike’s bilingual flourish, Smith jumped in with a remarkably forward response:

“I gotta get a little personal for a second here,” Smith admitted. “I’m living a good life, I’m pretty damn happy to say the least, but I must admit, in all my years on this Earth, I’ve never dated a woman from France or anything like that. But after hearing Chiney, I was like, ‘What have I been missing?’ That verbiage right there, that kinda turned me on.”

Judging from Smith’s tone and disposition, he clearly was trying to be funny. But as evidenced by the fact that his words quickly made Ogwumike put her head in her hands, it didn’t land the way Smith expected.

It goes without saying that Smith would never tell a man on First Take that they had turned him on. Smith watched a prominent woman on his network be performative in exactly the ways that he often is, making the most of an opportunity he has told us she would not have if it were not for him, and what he mustered in response was to flirt.

This is what Smith clearly missed when he responded to McNutt two years ago. Of course, their original debate was much more specific: the time and energy spent covering women’s sports on First Take. Still, it became a much larger debate over his role in promoting women on the network. And the reason he, like so many of the other men who occupy roles like his, is still so worthy of scrutiny and criticism is that they make it so easy for them to slip back into the mentality Smith inhabited on Friday.

When Undisputed anchor Jenny Taft pushed back on Skip Bayless over his cheap shot about Mike McCarthy’s weight, Bayless melted down, talking over Taft and doing everything he could to dismiss her perspective.

LaVar Ball tried openly hitting on both Molly Qerim and Kristine Leahy, back when the NBA stage dad was still getting attention from television producers.

ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser once called SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm’s outfit “horrifying” on-air.

Even if Smith evades the punishments that Ball and Korhneiser had to deal with, he certainly cannot evade consequences. Smith is well-liked and generally avoids incidents like these. Whether and how he addresses it publicly may depend on how Ogwumike handled it behind closed doors. Perhaps it will blow over sooner rather than later.

But what will inevitably change after the audience and the industry see how Smith spoke to Ogwumike is that he can no longer credibly claim to be any champion for someone he would so brazenly shame in the name of a cheap joke.

The next time someone tells Smith he can be doing better, there will be no question that they are right.

The talk of the first round of the NFL Draft last week was the shorter pick clock, as data from the league showed that Thursday’s event took half as long as it did during Roger Goodell’s first draft as commissioner.

Sportico reporter Jacob Feldman joined our talk show, The Play-By-Play, to discuss the trend, plus the use of AI among sports teams’ front offices, and the WNBA programming the Indiana Fever as “America’s team.”

Watch the episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple.

“I get my demeanor last night… But we’re excited about it.” - Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay, who spent the weekend explaining his bizarre press conference reaction to the team’s selection of QB Ty Simpson in the first round of the NFL Draft.

“…I’ve learned that in the end, both Vrabel and the team ultimately chose not to interrupt him and his family during Day 3 of the Draft.” - ESPN’s Peter Schrager, who may have flown a little too close to the sun, revealing the silliness of Mike Vrabel stepping away from the Patriots on the final day of the draft.

“There really wasn’t a lot of competition for Tomlin.” - The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, revealing that the top NFL media free agent of the offseason did not have as many suitors as we thought he might.

“No other major sporting event is tape-delayed like this. Can’t imagine seeing on Twitter that Mahomes threw a TD. Then seeing it on TV 15 min later.” - The Volume’s John Middlekauff, illustrating why fans and media were not pleased with the way that ESPN’s NFL Draft broadcast fell behind with the 8-minute pick clock.

Last week on Good Morning Football live from Pittsburgh, and the NFL Draft, NFL Network contributor and WWE superstar Seth Rollins staged a confusing disagreement with host Kyle Brandt — the latest of many recent on-air works that ESPN has played a part in.

The scene was enough for Awful Announcing’s Sean Keeley to write a plea to the Worldwide Leader to tone it down:

Obviously, this is all a bit. To what end? Who knows. All we know is, it’s incredibly corny, and it only gets sillier every time ESPN does this schtick.

Last week, when WWE’s Logan Paul did his whole routine on First Take, we were supposed to be left wondering if it was all part of the act or if he was legitimately upset. It’s hard to imagine anyone still taking the mental energy to do that in 2026.

This kind of thing was thrilling and exciting in the 1980s, when the lines were truly still blurred. It was still amusing in the early 2000s.

These days, it’s just trite and unentertaining.

Read the full column at Awful Announcing.