Welcome to The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter where you’ll always find the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis.

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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

📺 Disney returns to YouTube TV. The Alphabet-owned MPVD service is carrying Disney cable networks once again after an agreement late Friday. That means YouTube TV subscribers were able to watch SEC games on ESPN and ABC on Saturday and will be able to catch Monday Night Football after two blackout weeks in a row amid the carriage dispute between these two giants.

🏀 Beverley arrested. Defensive pest and outspoken Barstool Sports host Patrick Beverley was arrested in Richmond, Texas, for third-degree felony assault. Beverley posted bail and was released from jail, while his attorney said in a statement on his behalf that he disputes the charges.

🏈 BTN eats a big game. The biggest Big 10 game of the weekend was hidden on the conference’s cable network because of its own broadcasting rules. A big Trojans home win had to air on the Fox-owned Big Ten Network because each program is required to air two games there per season, along with other commitments to Fox, NBC and CBS.

🎤 Minihane steps away. Longtime Boston sports radio host turned Barstool provocateur Kirk Minihane announced a hiatus from his eponymous show, citing mental health troubles. In frustratingly typical Barstool fashion, Minihane’s longtime adversary at the company, Brianna LaPaglia, kicked the host while he is down.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

Disney-YouTube agreement takes us closer to post-cable

The future of cable doesn’t look a whole lot like cable.

The agreement between Disney and YouTube TV struck late last week was the latest among recent carriage deals that erase the edges of the old-fashioned cable bundle and take these companies’ offerings into a far more wide-ranging and customizable assemblage of content libraries.

Faced with the continued diminishment of cable subscriptions, video distributors are now approaching content companies differently. YouTube TV will now not only allow authenticated access to the new ESPN “Unlimited” App, but it will make App-exclusive content available on its own platform. Most notably (for now), that will include WWE Premier Live Events. YouTube TV will also have the flexibility to put together more “skinny bundles” centered on ESPN sports content.

Something similar played out under NBC’s deal with YouTube earlier this fall, in which we first became hip to the idea of “ingestion.” Just as YouTube will make ESPN App content available natively to its platform, it will eventually do the same with Peacock content under its agreement with NBC Universal.

For now, Peacock will be available as a “channel” within YouTube. Amazon runs a similar service within Prime Video. By offering other streaming services and video products within its app, Prime Video and YouTube are competing to become the go-to home for all streaming video. The advantage that YouTube has is YouTube TV, its cable alternative for live television programming.

Arguably the first of these newfangled carriage deals was between Disney and Charter in late 2023. Charter was the first major distributor to negotiate membership to ESPN+ into its offering for subscribers as part of its partnership with Disney.

After that deal, we quoted Octagon executive William Mao with a hopeful tune:

“The big takeaway for me is that the sky is not falling, the TV ecosystem is not dead. In fact, this resolution demonstrates the ongoing value that it provides to everybody in the ecosystem. And its potential place in the transition and continued migration of some customers towards a streaming focus or direct-to-consumer future.”

In the same story from AA contributor Daniel Kaplan, a separate media consultant described the function that cable providers are effectively serving these days as “curating.” Perhaps this is the best way to understand what YouTube TV is aiming to do, as well as Charter or Spectrum to a lesser degree. Rather than being the singular destination audiences go to for premium video programming, these companies are using the infrastructure and scale they’ve accumulated to be a curator for this content, which comes from many more sources now than it did even a decade ago.

While curation typically hints at some kind of artistic sensibility or taste, what curation means in this case is that cable companies act as tough intermediaries. Audiences yearn for the re-consolidation of the live events and shows they watch. Most assume this will come through mergers and acquisitions.

Instead, or at least in the meantime, cable distributors are filling this void. The more successful they are at doing so, the more believable it is that cable will continue to be the best deal for the most people.

📺 INDUSTRY INSIGHTS 🎬

• Fresh off signing monster new contracts with both ESPN and SiriusXM while also teasing a run for president, a listener asked Stephen A. Smith whether he ever worries he will “turn off” his First Take audience by espousing strong political opinions in TV hits and his weekly political radio show, Straight Shooter. Smith isn’t pressed because in his words, he is not “one of those dogged, rabid ideologues” who won’t listen or compromise with critics.

• Longtime Fox Sports studio analyst Terry Bradshaw took a sick day away from Fox NFL Sunday. Because it was also a scheduled off-day for Rob Gronkowski, the Fox desk was a little empty for Week 11.

• A report from the Daily Mail states that MASN analyst and beloved former Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer was accused of racial discrimination by a colleague in 2022. The alleged accuser, Rob Long told the outlet that he did not make any such complaint and still considers Palmer a “friend.”

🎺 AROUND AA 🎺

How Tracy Wolfson has redefined the role of an NFL sideline reporter

With CBS calling four straight Kansas City Chiefs games this holiday season, Tracy Wolfson is once again at the center of the biggest story in the NFL.

Watch Wolfson working alongside Jim Nantz and Tony Romo on the broadcast or reporting with the generation’s defining stars in Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, and you see her work coming to life.

Wolfson talked with Awful Announcing’s Sam Neumann about her career and how she does her job to become perhaps the best game reporter working in sports TV:

She’ll catch an official talking to Dak Prescott during a break, send it up to the booth with no context, and Romo will immediately know what it’s about. They’ll bring in Gene Steratore for a rules discussion that becomes a segment. She’ll hear something in an offensive line huddle and relay it to Nantz, who works it into his next setup. Romo will mention a player rotating in and out, and she’ll sprint to the opposite sideline to find out why.

This is how the best sideline reporter in football actually works, not by maximizing her airtime, but by serving as the connective tissue between what’s happening on the field and what Nantz and Romo can explain in the booth.

Read the full story here.

📣 THE AWFUL ANNOUNCING PODCAST 🗣️

Joe Davis is quickly becoming one of the defining announcers of his generation.

Fresh off calling a second straight Dodgers championship as the voice of the World Series for Fox Sports, Davis joined The Awful Announcing Podcast to discuss L.A.’s run. Davis also provided insight from his work as the lead local Dodgers announcer on Spectrum SportsNet as well as the No. 2 play-by-play man for the NFL on Fox.

Don’t miss this conversation with the man of the hour!

Watch the interview on YouTube or listen on Apple and Spotify!

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Paul Finebaum’s successor

As Paul Finebaum reportedly continues to mull a U.S. Senate run ahead of a January deadline to file as a candidate in Alabama, most around sports media seem to believe he will ultimately depart ESPN and enter politics.

So much so that last week, Front Office Sports put out a list of 11 hosts who could replace Finebaum on his daily college football radio show (simulcast on SEC Network) and ESPN’s slate. Among the names were radio stars like Bobby Bones, outsiders like Josh Pate and the up-next ESPN rising stars like Greg McElroy.

The difficult aspect of ESPN and SEC Network’s choice here is that nobody can replicate Finebaum as a radio host. The relationship Finebaum has nurtured with his callers and the eccentricities of his surly on-air character are unique to him. They are why he will enter the Alabama Senate race as likely a favorite to head to Washington next November.

I do like the idea of Marty Smith and Ryan McGee getting a bump from their Saturday morning variety show to the big leagues on SEC Network television and daily radio. Both hosts are popular and growing at the Worldwide Leader, in tune with Southern college football culture, and versatile talents.

As far as TV hits on ESPN’s daytime lineup go, though, ESPN can fill those in-house beyond Smith and McGee or whoever fills Finebaum’s hosting slots. Laura Rutledge should get a look, if she has the time beyond her busy schedule. Pate feels like a shoo-in to soak up reps as a tag-team partner insider to Pete Thamel.

It would be fun to see ESPN replace Finebaum by committee. But as FOS notes, if the network wants a one-to-one substitute for his radio show and SEC Network pregame duties, Peter Burns is the man. Burns is an SEC Network vet who replaced Rutledge as the pregame show host last year.

The departure of a stalwart like Finebaum is sure to already be generating whispers among agents and ESPN execs about a replacement plan.