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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

♣ ESPN personalities get paid. Earlier this week, ESPN star Stephen A. Smith became an official ambassador for Papaya Gaming’s solitaire app called Solitaire Cash. NFL analyst Mina Kimes, NFL Live host Laura Rutledge, and NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins all joined him on Wednesday. What makes it extra weird is that Papaya is currently facing a lawsuit that alleges it defrauded customers. Guessing the payouts for posting ads must be pretty good.

📺 McAfee reverses the bus. Pat McAfee wants everyone to know he wasn’t throwing his ESPN colleagues under the bus. After calling out the network’s strategy of having on-air talent record promotional videos during the ongoing YouTube TV blackout, McAfee clarified Wednesday that his frustration was aimed at corporate decision-makers, not the personalities who appeared in the spots.

🏀 The Kennyssance. In addition to his role on Inside the NBA, Kenny Smith is expanding his presence on ESPN programming. On Wednesday, the company announced that the former NBA point guard has reached a multiyear agreement to make regular appearances on the network. According to ESPN, Smith’s primary role will be as a guest on First Take.

⚾ FanDuelin’. A trio of MLB clubs is opting in to at least one more season with FanDuel Sports Network. Main Street Sports Group, the owner of the FanDuel-branded regional sports channels, announced on Wednesday that the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and Milwaukee Brewers have all exercised options in their local media rights agreements to renew with FanDuel Sports Network.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

Drew Brees gets his shot. Again.

Drew Brees has been telling anyone who’ll listen that not only does he deserve another shot in the NFL booth, but this time he’ll prove just how good he can be.

The former New Orleans Saints quarterback has gotten his wish.

The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported on Wednesday that Brees will start calling games a week from Sunday for Fox Sports. He’ll be paired with play-by-play voice Adam Amin, who had been working with Mark Sanchez before, you know…

It’s been a long, hard road back to the booth for Brees. He seemed like a can’t-miss hire when NBC brought the Super Bowl champion on board in 2021, immediately after his retirement. However, after just one year working on the Football Night in America studio show and calling Notre Dame football, he and the network parted ways. Brees’ downfall was a disastrous turn, calling NBC’s broadcast of the Las Vegas Raiders–Cincinnati Bengals playoff game. It also didn’t help that he came aboard in the wake of Tony Romo’s revelatory debut with CBS.

Even before NBC cut ties with him, there were rumblings that Brees could end up at Fox, though that didn’t materialize. In the years ahead, the former QB would tell anyone who would listen that he could be elite at the gig if only given another chance.

While both Fox and ESPN gave him chances to prove his worth in the studio (not to mention a First Take gig), the booth eluded him… until Netflix came calling. Brees called Netflix’s international feed last year and got bumped up to the main broadcast this Christmas.

Finally, four years later, Brees is where he set out to be, in an NFL booth for a major network.

“I have so much respect for a lot of the guys in the booth right now, but I would step in the booth right now and be a top-three guy,” Brees told Dan Patrick in August. “Like, without question. And then you give me a few years, I could be the best.”

That’s a bold claim, but now he’ll have the chance to prove it, working on the same network as Tom Brady and Greg Olsen.

For his sake, we hope he lives up to his own hype, cause he’s sure set the bar high for himself.

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

The Disney-YouTube TV dispute shockingly continues and shows no signs of ending anytime soon. If you’re confused about why this is happening, what Disney and YTTV want, and what it will take to ensure that subscribers don’t miss yet another weekend of college football and NFL action, let Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner be your guide.

Drew joined co-host Brendon Kleen on The Play-By-Play to explain the situation and offer some answers to those burning questions. Click the video above or look for The Play-By-Play wherever you find your podcasts.

Meanwhile, Drew also penned a great piece on the site titled, “Who is to blame for the ongoing Disney-YouTube TV dispute?” No spoilers, but the answer is “Neither, but also both of them?”

Basically, make sure you’re listening to or reading what Drew has to say!

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

“That has been their goal for nearly a decade: debate and argue. All you have to know is how to debate and argue. Do you have to know your information? No, actually, the more ignorant you are, probably the better you are gonna be in debating and arguing. And so they chose that.” - Former ESPN personality Merril Hoge on the company’s Embrace Debate era.

“You can always count on him for a good at-bat. But it was a shocking swing from a guy who, while he hits the ball hard, it’s usually line drives.” - Joe Davis, explaining how Miguel Rojas’s World Series Game 7 homer surprised him.

"How could he have three different injuries without even taking No. 1 reps all year long?" - ESPN Cleveland’s Tony Grossi questioning why Shedeur Sanders isn’t playing.

“I would love to see him have a farewell tour, then just walk away because he’s one of the three greatest players I’ve ever seen after Michael and Kobe.” - Charles Barkley, urging LeBron James to retire sooner than later.

“ESPN having a sportsbook blows my mind… I don’t understand how they get away with it, but it is what it is.” - SiriusXM podcaster Katie Nolan on ESPN Bet.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• The Wemby Flex is here. NBC has announced that it is flexing the Nov. 18 matchup between Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs and the Memphis Grizzlies into its Coast 2 Coast Tuesday window. As a result, the Western Conference showdown will air exclusively on NBC and Peacock, with the previously announced primetime game between the Detroit Pistons and Atlanta Hawks now set to air in their local markets. Tip-off in San Antonio is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET. The Portland Trail Blazers will host the Phoenix Suns in the second part of NBC’s Nov. 18 doubleheader.

• In announcing the cancellation of the Nov. 14 exhibition between Jake Paul and Gervonta “Tank” Davis, Netflix said it would still stream a Paul-headlined event in 2025. It appears we now know who Paul’s new opponent will be, with former UFC star Nate Diaz indicating that he’s reached an agreement for a rematch of their 2023 fight. The rematch has yet to be announced officially.

• Paramount+ has reached a five-year deal to become the primary home of the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) “Unleash The Beast” tour. The agreement, which will begin with the start of the 2026 season on Dec. 12, calls for Paramount+ to stream live coverage of the TKO subsidiary’s premier tour, which includes 20 events culminating with the PBR World Finals in Fort Worth, Texas (May 7-10 and May 14-17).

• In early September, we wrote about FS1’s Wake Up Barstool’s minuscule ratings out of the gate. That caused enough of a stir that Dave Portnoy publicly questioned the data's accuracy. It’s been a few weeks, but we checked back in on the Barstool morning show’s audience. The good news for them? Viewership is up! The bad news? They’ve gone from averaging 12.2K viewers in early September to 17K viewers last week. It’s something, we guess.

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Why does Tom Brady always have to have a thing?

My first thought when I heard that Tom Brady had cloned his dog was, “Why does this guy always have to have a thing?”

You know what I mean? Like, he’s always got something weird going on. Like a kooky financial scheme, or an unnecessary partnership, or a bizarre arrangement, or he’s just doing too much.

Why does he always have to have SOMETHING going on?

I admit I feel a bit like Andy Rooney on this, but given how much we cover him because of his Fox broadcasting gig, it feels as though the seven-time Super Bowl champion is always up to some scheme or thing.

Even the cloned dog thing, weird as it is, is actually a backdoor promotion for Colossal Biosciences, a genetics and biosciences company he personally invested in. On its own, that’s fine, but it’s seriously like the 48th “thing” that Brady has been involved with or promoted since retiring from the NFL.

Some others include, but are not limited to:

• Fronted a Saudi Arabian flag football tournament.

• Bought an EPL soccer club and made himself the face of a documentary about them.

• Co-founded an NFT startup that failed (obviously).

• Agreed to be roasted on Netflix for some reason. 

• Bought a stake in a cricket club and a Major League Pickleball team.

• Became a “strategic advisor” for Delta Airlines.

• Co-founded an entertainment and marketing studio.

• Merged his nutrition and apparel brands with training company Nobull.

• Bought an ownership stake in a sports collectibles company.

• Invested in Catena Labs, a crypto-adjacent startup.

• Founded an electric boat racing team.

On their own, most of these things are pretty standard for mega-rich former athletes, but it’s the never-ending breadth and scope of Brady’s comings and goings that we are constantly barraged with that gets so annoying.

Why does he need so many things? Is it because he craves relevance at all times? Is it because he wants to be the wealthiest man in the world? Does he have too much money to know what to do with it all? Is it because divorces to supermodels ain’t cheap?

Whatever it is, I just want to show up at whatever weird thing he gets into next, grab him, shake him, and say, “You’re Tom Brady! Fox is paying you $375 million to be mediocre! You were already stupid-rich! Stop doing things!”

In September, I wrote about why the Brady Rules piss people off. I feel like there’s some of that at play here, where he just keeps doing things just because he can and because no one will tell him he can’t.

Ultimately, I don’t have any grand takeaway from all this, other than to say I would appreciate it if Tom Brady could not have a “thing” for, like, a couple of weeks. That’s all I ask.