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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📻 Smith surprise. The news that ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith signed a deal to host two shows for SiriusXM was surprising. No one was more surprised than Michelle Beadle and Cody Decker, who had no idea Smith was replacing their show. “It’s a reminder we’re all pieces of sh*t to someone,” Beadle told Front Office Sports. “If you forgot, there it is.”

⚖️ Conflicting interests. Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner was the first to report that a judge denied Disney’s request for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction against former distribution executive Justin Connolly, who left to take an executive role as YouTube’s global head of sports last month. The trial will move forward as scheduled, and in the meantime, Connolly will be able to serve in his new role at YouTube as planned.

🥊 Barstool Brouhaha. This week’s episode of Barstool’s "The Unnamed Show” devolved into a shouting match over Dave Portnoy overruling Kirk Minihane’s decision to have a content creator named Beyond Average Mick on the show. You can get all the details here if you dare. The only positive aspect of the drama was co-host Ryan Whitney's disassociation during it.

🏀 ESPN feeling leaky. The day before ABC/ESPN begins coverage of the NBA Finals, a report dropped that ESPN is evaluating its top broadcasting team, and Doris Burke’s spot in it isn’t guaranteed. Meanwhile, Tim Legler was floated as a possible addition or replacement. One wonders what messages were being sent with these conveniently timed news drops.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

All Stephen A. Smith, all the time

According to the announcement of his new deal with SiriusXM and Mad Dog Radio, Stephen A. Smith will host a new daily satellite radio show from 1-3 p.m. ET, as well as a weekly social commentary show on a non-sports channel.

His obligations and attention span vary, but it’s entirely possible that Smith will soon have a lot of days that look like this:

• 10:00 a.m. - noon: “First Take” on ESPN

• 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.: SiriusXM show on Mad Dog Radio

• 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.: SiriusXM social commentary show.

• 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.: “The Stephen A. Smith Show”

• 9:00 - 9:30 p.m.: “The Sean Hannity Show” on Fox News

That schedule doesn’t take into account appearances on ESPN NBA programming, other late-night appearances on conservative news networks, acting gigs, and anything else Smith can squeeze into a day.

Credit due to the 57-year-old. He has proven himself capable of many things thus far. So we’re not going to sit here and doubt his stamina. However, that certainly feels like a schedule ripe for overkill and burnout. We wish him the best.

What we’re more interested in is the topic of oversaturation. Your first thought when you heard about his new radio programs might have been, “Who wants this much Stephen A. Smith in their life?” It’s a fair question. So many people bristle at having Smith show up in their lives once or twice a day; how can they handle four or five?

Well, the truth is that they probably won’t have to worry about it.

How many people watch ESPN in the morning, listen to Mad Dog Radio in the afternoon, tune into Smith’s live podcast in the early evening, and then watch him on a cable network at night?

What Smith is rightly banking on is that all of these audiences are different segments of the populace. And even if you’re someone with access to all of those entertainment options, if you don’t enjoy listening to Smith, you can tune him out on each of them. He can afford to lose you.

What’s the larger goal here? Is Smith trying to ingratiate himself to as many people as possible to make his presidential dreams more of a reality? Is he attempting to solidify himself as a ubiquitous presence in American culture beyond sports? Or is he just really, really bored?

Regardless, Smith has made his ambitions clear for some time now. Honestly, we wouldn’t be surprised to see him add another show or opportunity to his plate soon. Despite the adverse reactions he receives from so many people, he’s still pulling in ratings and sucking up all the oxygen of whatever room he’s in. Until proven otherwise, he has to assume that what he’s doing is working.

And so he’s gonna keep on working, too.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

• “I think a lot of the ratings decline stuff is driven by people’s political beliefs, where if you’re really, really right-wing, you love the idea of the NBA being a dying product because it’s probably the most progressive league.” - The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo sending a message to certain outlets about to take a victory lap over low NBA Finals ratings.

• “When I first saw it, I thought it was one of those fake AI things,” - Indiana Pacers coach Rich Carlisle on learning the Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau.

• “I wouldn’t try to negotiate it. I would do what I could to empower us, I don’t want to give Ukraine unlimited funds, but I know that Russia’s ultimate quest is to recapture Europe and I don’t want that to happen. Therefore, I would help out Ukraine.” - Stephen A. Smith explaining how he would handle the Russia-Ukraine conflict on First Take.

• “I was nervous and I was terrible because I wanted to be Bryant Gumbel" - Shaq on his early Inside the NBA days.

🗣️ THE PLAY-BY-PLAY 🗣️

On the latest episode, Awful Announcing’s Brendon Kleen and Ben Axelrod discuss the official end of the NBA on TNT, the latest on MLB’s media rights negotiations, and Bill Simmons vs. Pablo Torre.

Click the video above to watch or find The Play-By-Play wherever you listen to podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

📈 DATA DUMP 📺

• TNT Sports enters its second week covering the French Open, and little in the way of viewership data has trickled out. However, the clearest picture comes from The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, who reported TNT has averaged 292,000 viewers so far. According to the network, that’s an increase in the audiences that Tennis Channel and NBC attracted during the same period last year. However, until we understand what those numbers truly mean, the jury is still out.

• The Canada-heavy Stanley Cup Playoffs have not been friendly for viewership in the United States. Through the Conference Finals, NHL playoff viewership is down significantly across both of the league’s media rights partners. Playoff games across TNT, TBS, and truTV have averaged just 947,000 viewers, a 20% decrease compared to this point last season.

• CEO David Zaslav, who has overseen a transformation in how WBD approaches its live sports portfolio, is set to earn $51.9 million this year as he leads his company through the challenging landscape of legacy media in 2025. On Monday, during WBD’s annual meeting, shareholders voted to reject Zaslav’s eye-popping salary by a margin of nearly 300 million votes. Alas, the vote was merely symbolic, so he’s still getting paid.

💬 AROUND AA 💬

Weird ‘First Take’ pitching rant embodies why MLB and ESPN are breaking up

If you’re wondering why MLB grew disillusioned with ESPN, look no further than what played out on First Take Wednesday morning. One of the biggest shows on the network, which once paid $550 million per year for baseball rights, turned around and used that platform to complain that teams didn’t trot out their most expensive starters to satisfy TV matchups in June.

Sam Neumann explains why MLB probably doesn’t want to be the punching bag that fills ESPN’s dead time between the NBA Finals and NFL training camps.

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

Who is Adam Silver kidding?

The ratings for the 2025 NBA Finals are likely to be poor. There’s really no getting around that. It doesn’t mean we need to hold referendums and figure out solutions. When you’ve got the Oklahoma City Thunder hailing from the 45th-largest media market and the Indiana Pacers coming from the 25th-largest, it is what it is. The league, ABC, and ESPN were probably hoping for New York, but putting your trust in the Knicks is never a wise business decision.

Unfortunately, the NBA is somewhat sensitive regarding its ratings, and with good reason. Bad-faith commenters and outlets love to belittle the league when the ratings look unfavorable, and they’re going to have their claws out for this one. 

Knowing this, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is making his case for why the Thunder-Pacers Finals is a good thing. During a Wednesday visit to FS1’s Breakfast Ball, the commish tried to make the case that if we were talking about the NFL instead of the NBA, no one would be complaining.

"If we were going into a Super Bowl and it was Packers vs. Steelers, you guys would celebrate that,” he said. “People wouldn't talk about Pittsburgh being a small market. It's been intentional to create a CBA that allows more teams to compete."

Silver’s back is against the wall, so we’re gonna cut him a little slack, but it should go without saying that this is a losing comparison. It’s apples to oranges, something that the NBA’s lead executive surely knows.

Yes, a Green Bay-Pittsburgh Super Bowl would feature smaller markets, but the Packers and Steelers are national teams. All NFL teams are, really, given the league’s national broadcasting setup. A smaller market doesn’t matter when the team in question is in front of a national audience all the time, something the NBA can’t match.

Plus, you’re talking about storied franchises with huge followings that go well beyond their respective cities and markets.

In fact, the Steelers and Packers played in Super Bowl XLV in 2011. With an average audience of 111 million viewers, this was the most-watched Super Bowl and the most-watched program of any kind in American television history at the time.

There are several cases that Silver could make to defend the Thunder-Pacers showdown and portray it in a positive light. One of them would be highlighting the ways the new CBA incentivizes smaller-market clubs, making it possible for them to compete with Boston, Los Angeles, and New York squads.

Using the NFL as a way to showcase how your small-market teams aren’t getting a fair shake? No one’s buying that.