Many of the viral moments that break through from The Pat McAfee Show do so because they are controversial or critical. McAfee might be calling an ESPN executive a “rat,” or going off-script on a tabloid story about college kids. Maybe Aaron Rodgers is ranting about big pharma for the millionth time. For most of the…

In 2003, “Moneyball” took MLB by storm. The book, which chronicles how the 2002 Oakland Athletics won 103 games using a data-driven approach, became the template for how baseball would be played for decades to come. Many of that Athletics team’s core “sabermetrics” tenets still drive strategy in MLB today: prioritizing on-base percentage over batting…

ESPN has a strong chance of holding onto the College Football Playoff as its exclusive rights holder, even if the event doubles to 24 teams, according to longtime college football insider Ralph Russo, whose prediction runs counter to the widespread assumption that a much larger bracket would open the sport’s most valuable postseason property to…

Sydney Colson is uniquely suited to address the most recent spate of controversies around the Indiana Fever. The recently retired point guard not only played for the team last year, but also for Indiana’s playoff opponent, the Las Vegas Aces, for the three seasons before that. Now, Colson hosts a podcast covering the WNBA and…

Clint Overby and Kurt Dargis have spent a combined 56 years at ESPN, but will be taking retirement packages as Disney continues to downsize.

A version of this originally appeared in the Thursday edition of The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter, which features the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis. Sign up here to be the first to know what’s happening in the sports media world. Saban, a six-part ESPN Original docuseries, premieres at 6 p.m. ET…

Just as sports streaming platform DAZN prepares to make its biggest splash in the U.S. market yet by partnering with 10 NBA teams for local in-market streaming deals this season, the company’s chief executive says its sights are set on national deals in the future. Speaking with Derek Futterman of Sports Media Watch earlier this…

Kenny Albert was called out of the bullpen to sub for Joe Davis during the NLDS in the most unusual of circumstances.

Rece Davis says College GameDay doesn’t root for teams, but he’d make an exception for North Dakota State. On the College GameDay Podcast, Davis floated the possibility of bringing ESPN’s flagship pregame show to Albuquerque for New Mexico’s Oct. 24 home game against the Bison. GameDay has never set up shop in New Mexico, and…

Ahead of a widely anticipated lockout, MLB is taking measures to ensure its official channels will have no trace of the players once the current collective bargaining agreement with the MLBPA expires on Dec. 2. According to a report by Evan Drellich in The Athletic, MLB is instituting a plan to “scrub player images from…

Mike Breen shared what he thought was a positive anecdote about LeBron's impact on his new team, but wound up making the wrong kind of headlines.

Hurricane Isaias is pushing College GameDay off the quad and indoors for the weekend’s biggest game. ESPN announced Thursday that, because of expected inclement weather, Saturday’s show ahead of No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama will originate from Coleman Coliseum, the Crimson Tide’s basketball home. Forecasters say Hurricane Isaias could make landfall late Friday…

The NFL has an epidemic of yellow flags and Scott Van Pelt has seen enough. Officiating has been the story far too often so far this season. It could be the bizarre ruling in Week 1 with Jared Goff’s “intent” to throw a forward pass reversed a defensive touchdown. It could be the fact that…

Tony Dungy says he expected NBC's decision not to bring him back and that TV networks don't always welcome talent who speak about their faith.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are into their 8th National League Championship Series in the last 11 years. But don’t tell that to the biggest spenders in baseball, who were still partying like there’s no tomorrow in the locker room after beating the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. One person who isn’t used to all those…

There is no athlete who is in a bigger spotlight than Caitlin Clark. But every time she speaks, she continues to impress with the weight of the world on her shoulders. The latest issue facing Clark and the Indiana Fever is the future of superstar player Kelsey Mitchell. Although Clark gets the vast majority of…

Disney+ will livestream ESPN's Super Bowl LXI telecast in English and Spanish and simulcast two Monday Night Football games this season.

No. 2 Georgia and No. 6 Alabama meet in Tuscaloosa on Saturday for an SEC showdown that leads the Week 6 college football action. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will provide the commentary on ABC (7:30 p.m. ET). In Dallas, No. 1 Texas and Oklahoma will battle in the 122nd edition of the Red River…

A day after insisting he’d been misconstrued, Stephen A. Smith opened Thursday’s First Take by saying something he rarely says on air, which is that he was wrong. Smith spent nearly four minutes at the top of the show apologizing to Lane Johnson and the Philadelphia Eagles for his comments Wednesday, when he made light…

The Volume is adding to their stable of podcasts with two big names in Erin Andrews and Charissa Thompson. The two NFL and Fox Sports personalities began collaborating on a podcast together, Calm Down with Erin and Charissa, in February 2021 with iHeartMedia. Since then they have hosted episodes regularly, touching on both their professional…

Patriots quarterback Drake Maye admitted on WEEI that the one conspiracy theory he endorses is that man didn't land on the moon.

If the controversy Stephen A. Smith fomented over his comments about Lane Johnson and mental health felt familiar, it’s because it is a defining pattern of the modern take economy. And there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it. Johnson abruptly retired from the Philadelphia Eagles this week and decided to walk away…

The New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream played out a classic Game 2 in their WNBA Playoffs semifinal series on Wednesday night. But the ending left everyone wondering what actually happened. It was a tense, tight affair through the fourth quarter before New York’s Marine Fauthoux hit a three-pointer to send the game to overtime.…

The dramatic breakup between Dan Le Batard and longtime cohost Jon “Stugotz” Weiner played out across nearly a year and threatened the future of their long-running show until this past summer, when Stugotz’s name was formally removed from the show and the hosts parted ways. The show’s loyal audience went from confused to agitated at…

Stephen A Smith briefly apologized for being insensitive toward Lane Johnson and mental health before claiming he was "misconstrued."

The Jacksonville Jaguars are again making their annual pilgrimage to London, playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 11 and the Houston Texans at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 18. Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s effort to make London a second home for the team also made the franchise a test case for several…

Among the numerous changes industry experts are anticipating for the freshly merged Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery company, now dubbed Skydance, are opportunities to better leverage the former CBS Sports and TNT Sports portfolios by mixing and matching inventory across the associated networks where it seems fit. A couple of possibilities have already been floated.…

The departure of Jon Rahm is the latest in a long line of damaging blows to LIV Golf as it looks to come out of bankruptcy.

But who is Nick Saban, really? That’s the question college football fans have been asking themselves for decades. We all know he’s the Terminator-like coach who won seven national titles and carved a path through the sport unlikely to be topped in our lifetimes. We know he has an unhealthy desire for his team to…

On this week’s episode of the Awful Announcing Podcast, host Brandon Contes is joined by Mike Ryan Ruiz of The Dan Le Batard Show. They discuss Mike’s start with the show, his current role and future. The also discussed Stugotz leaving the show, the importance of being ESPN, the breakup with ESPN, how The Dan…

The Los Angeles Dodgers are producing some of MLB’s strongest postseason audiences in years, but the league’s broader playoff viewership remains less impressive. Overall, the Division Series is averaging 3.27 million viewers through Monday, down 3% from the same point last year. Game 1 of the Dodgers-Atlanta Braves Division Series averaged 5.37 million viewers on…

LIV Golf 2.0 may eventually come to life, but it will be without one of its biggest stars in Jon Rahm. The renegade golf tour is attempting to emerge from bankruptcy as a lighter and leaner world tour and try to find a way to survive without the billions of dollars of Saudi government funding…

The Las Vegas Aces defeated the Indiana Fever and superstar point guard Caitlin Clark 2-1 in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. The star-laden series, and Game 2 in particular, was not lacking in tense moments, with reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson getting into a heated exchange with an Indiana fan in the fourth…

What is it about NFL quarterbacks and embracing conspiracy theories? Move over Aaron Rodgers, you’ve got company in New England Patriots star Drake Maye! Now to be fair, Aaron Rodgers is the Michael Jordan of NFL quarterbacks and conspiracy theories. His dedication to conspiracy theories in both the vast number and fringe obscurity goes far…

The NBA regular season hasn’t even started yet, but we already have our first bit of drama out of the Philadelphia 76ers in their inaugural year of the LeBron James experience. Announcer Mike Breen shared an anecdote during the 76ers’ preseason opener against the New York Knicks that he believed was a telling bit of…

Fox was forced into a broadcasting change for Game 3 of the NLDS between the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night as Kenny Albert took the place of lead play-by-play man Joe Davis. Davis was scratched from the lineup after losing his voice while being under the weather. But getting Albert into…

Two longtime executives at ESPN have accepted retirement packages as a part of the latest round of cost-cutting moves at Disney. According to On3’s Brett McMurphy, VP of ESPN Events Clint Overby and ESPN senior director of programming Kurt Dargis both will be leaving the Worldwide Leader. “Overby oversaw 35 annual collegiate events, including ESPN’s…

Charles Barkley is insisting that this will be his final season on Inside the NBA. Last month, he claimed it would be Ernie Johnson’s last season on the beloved NBA studio show, adding that he’d be leaving as well, telling Bill Simmons, “Me and Ernie are a package deal.” Barkley then doubled down on his…

Pablo Torre’s reporting on Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers is historic. In addition to the numerous fancy journalism prizes it won and the acclaim it generated for the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, the ultimate evidence of the value of the reporting is that it led to one of the most significant penalties toward…

On last week’s College GameDay from Iowa City, ESPN analyst and former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban declared the Georgia Bulldogs the team to beat in college football. “I think Georgia is the most complete team that I’ve seen this entire season,” Saban said on Saturday. “Gunner Stockton’s playing very well. They can…

The NFL world was shocked Wednesday morning by the news that Philadelphia Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson was retiring four games into the season. Johnson announced his decision with a statement on social media, noting that “right now, it is critical to focus on my mental health.” For the media, this meant reacting to league-altering…

Ryen Russillo said that the outsized trolling over his recent Reese's and Raising Canes show people wrongly see him as a "huge f*cking loser."

In April 2024, Tara VanDerveer, then the NCAA’s all-time leading women’s basketball coach, retired after 38 seasons as Stanford’s head women’s basketball coach. Kate Paye, a longtime assistant and associate head coach, took over as VanDerveer’s successor shortly thereafter. Under Paye, the Cardinal missed the NCAA Tournament in each of the past two seasons, shrouding the historically successful…

Charles Barkley still has to retire to need a replacement on Inside the NBA, but if he does walk away, he knows who his replacement should be.

Julie Stewart-Binks revealed Wednesday that she has been off the air for the past two weeks after undergoing surgery to remove skin cancer from her nose. The veteran broadcaster shared the news in a pair of posts on X, explaining that the procedure was Mohs surgery to treat squamous cell carcinoma, and that what she…

Fox’s answer to a Dodgers announcer who keeps getting accused of rooting for the Dodgers is, for at least one night, the Braves’ announcer. Brandon Gaudin will call Game 4 of the National League Division Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night, according to Richard Deitsch, with Joe Davis still…

Rob Manfred believes MLB Network’s production muscle, not just its cable channel, will be a key piece of baseball’s next big media deal. In an interview with Sports Business Journal, the MLB commissioner said the league’s ability to produce its own games and programming has already paid off during the regional sports network meltdown. He…