SPORTS & MEDIA
Sports Docs’ Drive to Survive
Since their pandemic-era Last Dance peak, sports documentaries have become harder and harder to get greenlit—even at Netflix. Superstars and monoculture nostalgia plays can still find a home, but the bar has been raised while the payouts have fallen. So what’s a sports doc producer to do?
Ben on a Wire
The Daily Wire is pitching investors on the dream of a conservative media empire in growth mode—but the company’s declining revenue, disappearing audience, and executive turmoil tell a very different story. Is anyone buying Ben Shapiro’s narrative that the Wire is 18 months from a $2 billion I.P.O.?
John Ourand
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June 23, 2026
Sports Betting Enters Its World Cup Era
FanDuel president Christian Genetski is only six weeks into his newly expanded role running the company, but he’s got plenty of thoughts about the state of the sports-betting business—from FanDuel’s move into prediction markets to the Sorsby headache and why this year’s World Cup is like March Madness on steroids.
Dylan Byers
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June 22, 2026
MacCallum of Duty
Amid all the Sturm und Drang at CNN as it shifts under the purview of the Ellisons, everyone inside the WarnerMount mothership seems to agree on one thing: Alex MacCallum, the C.O.O. of CNN, may be the one person with a vision for how to drag the global news network into the future.
Eriq Gardner
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June 22, 2026
Midnight in the Garden
An apparently massive cybersecurity breach at Madison Square Garden was all but lost in the chatter surrounding the Knicks’ NBA Finals win. But as the confetti is swept up and the offseason begins, here come the inevitable lawsuits.
Dylan Byers
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June 19, 2026
MS NOW & Later
Six months post-Comcast spinoff, Versant C.E.O. Mark Lazarus is working to turn the company’s portfolio of declining cable assets into a legit growth business. He’s got cash, and some time, but what’s the plan?
YouTube’s Skinny Sports Rights Diet
For a while, it seemed as though YouTube was coming to eat everyone’s lunch in the sports media business. But after its recent miss on a suite of NFL games, many media insiders are wondering how much the Google guys really want to be in on the actual game action—and if they need the league at all.
The Big Cibrowski
David Ellison’s search for the right executive to help Bari Weiss run her two-headed CNN–CBS News monster might require a unicorn—someone with solid television news experience, a pliable journalistic backbone, and the willingness to play the loyal number two. In other words, he needs a supersized Tom Cibrowski.
John Ourand
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June 16, 2026
Zen Garden
After decades of dysfunction, the Knicks won their first title since 1973 thanks to Jim Dolan, of all people, finally trusting the right basketball specialists and resisting the mistakes that defined the previous 25 years. Mike Breen, the voice of the team, and clutch ESPN analyst Brian Windhorst break it down.
Dylan Byers
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June 15, 2026
The Times’ Ruemmler in the Jungle
Weeks after the Kristof vs. Bibi kerfuffle, the Times newsroom is again in an uproar over an Opinion story, this time allegedly attempting to rehabilitate the reputation of an Epstein associate. Big deal? Little deal? No deal?
Eriq Gardner
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June 15, 2026
Five Hard Truths About NFL Inflation
As Congress tries to prevent streamers from taking NFL market share, they’ve increasingly homed in on the anachronistic Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which includes the antitrust exemption that allows the league’s teams to collectively market their games. But as the recent House Judiciary Committee hearing made clear, no one knows what they are talking about.
Julia Alexander
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June 12, 2026
The Wellness Wars
CNN is chasing The New York Times to tap into the wellness-obsessed world of peptides and GLP-1s as its next great subscription engine. Can legacy media compete with an army of TikTok doctors? And, perhaps more to the point, should they?
Can Fox Avoid the Skipper Tax?
As the NFL continues to draw congressional heat, it’s growing increasingly tired with Rupert Murdoch for instigating the fuss. With the league’s coveted antitrust exemption theoretically in the crosshairs, might Fox have bitten the hand that feeds it?
Dylan Byers
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June 10, 2026
The Bari Matchmaking Sweepstakes
By all accounts, Bari Weiss could use some help running CBS News. But hiring the right executive with the right skills will be tricky, especially when the usual suspects are probably too cautious, myopic, or smart to join the gang.
John Ourand
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June 9, 2026
YouTube’s NFL Discipline & NFL Partner Math
Rich Greenfield, the LightShed partner and sports guru, weighs in on the looming NFL rights renegotiation bonanza: who wins, who blinks first, and why the league still has all the leverage in the post-cord-cutting era.
Eriq Gardner
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June 8, 2026
Could Brendan Sorsby End the NCAA’s “Pay-for-Play” Era?
The University of Cincinnati is suing to collect $1 million in N.I.L. damages after Sorsby defected to Texas Tech—a ticking time bomb case that could imperil player contracts across all of college sports.
Julia Alexander
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June 8, 2026
All Tuckered Out
A conversation with Peter Rothpletz, founder of the newly launched Verbatim Media, which hopes to do for progressive creators what Fox’s Red Seat Ventures has done for Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.