I like my current combination of NFL+ and Redzone without subscribing to YouTube TV. I’m sure whatever happens with this merger/equity stake/whatever it is, it will end up making it worse.

Sports Illustrated officially died today. The group that owns the license for the name just pulled the license and everyone that worked for SI was let go. End of an era.

Ah, the SI Swimsuit editions from the 80s and 90s.

Let's give them a salute.....not with that Ed!

I didn't even know SI still existed.

Seeing a lot of people chanting the "Go woke, go broke" mantra about Sports Illustrated, namely, their decisions to put a plus size woman and a woman (who is trans) on the cover of the swimsuit issue. Of course, the real lesson is that 'Be old-school and fail to change with the times means you'll die off like the dinosaurs" will go RIGHT over the CHUDlets heads at about Mach 2.1.

It's a magazine. Is there a single magazine which has persevered or successfully evolved?

Maybe National Geographic. They have a whole thing going on.

AARP, People, Cosmo, Vogue, Golf Digest etc.

All have migrated to online, digital to adapt, but still doing okay.

I haven't considered SI a "magazine" - in the traditional physical sense - in years. Hell, I don't know that I've seen one in years.

It existed in recent memory to me simply as a brand applied to often questionable content generation online.

Consumer Reports.

Got an email yesterday from ESPN+ with new subscriber agreement terms, and just got another one from Disney+. Waiting for the trifecta from Hulu.

Anyway, this is one of the terms in both:


Interestingly, when clicking on the Agreement link, I was unable to highlight any section to easily copy it. Instead, I had to pretend like I was printing it to highlight it. This is what it says:

Curious if they are going to start policing this in some way, or just added it for possible future use. Also curious if they are going to go the Netflix route of deeming a college student as outside a household.

Looks like its back:


Sports Illustrated lands new publisher as Minute Media obtains rights with plans to continue printing - The Athletic

I don't see an Olympics thread yet so I'll put this here. I'm not a fan of the Olympics at all (just in general), but I end up having to watch it (a) because of other family members or (b) because there's usually nothing else on. Apparently this year we won't get stuck with only having tape-delay airings - as long as you subscribe to Peacock! But at least an option exists.

However it's the regular NBC coverage that I just read about that sounds absolutely horrid:


Just shoot me - seriously, I'd rather watch reruns of a 20-year old David Spade comedy show. I also can't wait until NBC is flooded with social media doctors warning that a parental heart attack is imminent, or questioning the character/love of a parent because their heart rate is so low they must not care about their kid - or worse, perhaps it's not even their kid and mom must have had an affair or they're adopted and don't know it. The possibilities are endless!

Also, please keep trying to force-feed late night TV on us because it's not dying and irrelevant, and we need more celebrities and promo-tie-ins because we don't get enough of that already.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but... take me back to the good ol' days of a 20 minute feature on Peekaboo Street while live events are going on rather than this shlock.

Who doesn't want to see Snoop Dog comment on the form of a javelin thrower?

Glad to see CFB is finally adding the 2 minute commercial break to games. They move too fast as it is.

Article I just read said the addition of a two-minute warning in both halves will not result in a commercial break. Did you misspeak or maybe the article I read is wrong?

It will be a commercial break, just a fixed/planned break. Similar to the under 4 basketball TV timeout. The claim is that it will hopefully stop broadcasters from overloading "commercial/kick-off/commercial"-type situations earlier in the quarters. Color me skeptical.

Also, having the 2 minute warning AND stopping the clock on first downs during the last 2 minutes seems like overkill. But they want crazy endings to games, similar to the stupid advance the ball to half court in basketball which is just designed to try to create chaos at the end of games and not really tied to anything from the actual game of basketball.

I saw a couple notes of interest yesterday - one, Jason Kelce is joining ESPN MNF Countdown. I assume someone has or will be let go. Two, CBS finally dumped Simms and Boomer and hired Matt Ryan. This is going to revolutionize the way I don't watch pregame shows!

Someone (Klosterman I think) wrote an article on how we all grew up with this rule and take it for granted, but when you stop to think about it, it is really weird.

I saw that about Simms and Boomer. Over the last few years I feel like I'd assume it was one of them on TV, then find out it was the other. They seem like basically the same guy to me, so I guess it's only fitting that they leave at the same time?

The sad part for the networks is if they came to me personally, asked me what they could do to get me to watch their show, I have no clue what that thing or things would be.

For me, there isn't anything. I feel like it's an age thing. I just want to watch games. I no longer need analysis and over-analysis because I just don't care like I used to. I still enjoy watching the games, I just don't need the deep-dive or extraneous BS.

And, in terms of breaking news, it's all on social media so I don't need to be tuned in to hear Mort or Schefter tell me something I can't get anywhere else.

Yep, that's mostly me too. I used to eat up the pregame shows, oh, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Of course we had less information available then, and I cared more.

I don't know if the "cared more" is a youth thing or not. But if it is, it makes sense to keep the studio assembly line moving. Like I've said before, if you're below a certain age, you don't give a rat's ass who Simms or Esiason are. One hasn't played since '93, the other '97. So bring in Matt Ryan, who never struck me as someone with much studio charisma, but at least everyone has seen play.