Sports
The top NFL media stories of 2024: Tom Brady debuts, Netflix steps in and more
If you want some long-term relationship advice, I offer you this: Find someone who loves you as much as news outlets love end-of-the-year content.
The New Yorker did a piece 11 years ago on why our brains love lists, and it holds up today. Among other reasons: It spatially organizes information and promises a story that’s finite.
The NFL story will, of course, continue in 2025 and beyond, but in the space below, we offer eight NFL media stories that captured our interest in 2024.
1. Tom Brady begins his NFL broadcasting journey
Fox has the broadcast rights to the Super Bowl this year, which means Brady will call the league’s most important game in his rookie season as a TV analyst. He is 15 games into a 10-year, $375 million deal with Fox, a journey that has prompted plenty of commentary on his performance, including multiple pieces from this author.
Brady’s broadcasting work has improved during the season — not to the point of being an elite TV analyst, but the progress is noticeable. Still, the long-term prediction here is that Brady’s juggling act as Las Vegas Raiders owner and TV analyst, and the restrictions that come with that, feels unsustainable for Fox and Brady.
Tom Brady has improved as a game broadcaster, but February’s Super Bowl looms as the ultimate test of his progress. (Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
2. Netflix lands an NFL package of games
Netflix and the NFL announced in May a three-season deal for Christmas Day games through 2026. That deal becomes even more magnified given Netflix securing the exclusive broadcast rights in the United States for the 2027 and 2031 editions of the Women’s World Cup. These are significant signals to the marketplace (along with its WWE rights deal, given its live element) that Netflix has shifted from being interested in sports-adjacent properties to being a legitimate sports rights holder.
The streaming giant aired the Kansas City Chiefs–Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens–Houston Texans games on Christmas Day and largely succeeded in avoiding a glitch-filled rerun of its Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight event.
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3. Peacock airs a regular-season game from São Paulo
The Philadelphia Eagles–Green Bay Packers game on Sept. 6 was the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in South America and aired exclusively on Peacock, the streaming network’s third exclusive NFL game following the Buffalo Bills–Los Angeles Chargers regular-season game in December 2023 and the Miami Dolphins-Chiefs AFC wild-card playoff game last January.
The result was a significant viewership win for the league and the streamer. Peacock delivered 14.2 million viewers for Eagles-Packers, well above the 7.3 million for Bills-Chargers and Peacock’s second-best NFL streaming audience ever only behind the Chiefs-Dolphins game (23 million viewers). The numbers include figures from the over-the-air markets in which the games ran.
The NFL will play eight international games in 2025, including in Madrid, as Spain will be the sixth country to host an NFL regular-season game. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Chiefs owner Clark Hunt have talked openly about playing 16 games overseas annually in the near term, per this report from SBJ’s Ben Fischer. It’s clear we will soon see a Sunday morning window with a new international media-rights package.
4. Super Bowl LVIII sets TV ratings record
We live in an apples-to-pomegranates world when it comes to comparing the sports viewership of today versus yesteryear, due to factors including new out-of-home viewership data and cord-cutters and cord-nevers. Using today’s metrics, via Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, the Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in February’s Super Bowl averaged 123.7 million viewers across television and streaming platforms. That makes it the most-viewed program in history, shattering the previous mark of 115.1 million for Kansas City’s last-minute win over Philadelphia in the previous Super Bowl.
Fans watch Super Bowl LVIII outside Chase Center in San Francisco. The game was the highest-rated program in television history. (Loren Elliott / Getty Images)
5. The rise of alt-broadcasts
The alternate broadcasts of NFL games launched into a new stratosphere in 2024 with a “Simpsons” animated alt-cast of “Monday Night Football” airing on ESPN+ and Disney+, and NBC Sports making its NFL alternate broadcast debut on Peacock with last week’s Texans-Chiefs game. It follows alt-broadcasts on Nickelodeon and ESPN’s now long-standing Manning Brothers broadcasts and one using “Toy Story.”
6. The ‘New Heights’ podcast blows up
The popular podcast — hosted by brothers Jason Kelce, the Eagles’ center from 2011-2023, and Travis Kelce, the current Chiefs tight end — inked a deal with Amazon’s podcast network, Wondery, in 2024 to be the program’s new home.
The show has found itself on measurement lists of the biggest podcasts in the United States and has nearly 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube. One of the interesting notes in the deal is Wondery’s plans to translate the podcast to different languages to increase its global audience, including in NFL-strong markets such as the United Kingdom and Mexico. That’s a blank space for NFL fans.
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The Kelce brothers and the ‘Heights’ of podcast popularity
7. New broadcast rules for increased access
It was not an accident that you saw more in-game interviews during NFL games this season. Last May, the NFL broadcasting department outlined access changes for the NFL’s television partners after a review between the league and its media rights holders. The shared goal? To enhance the game content that we see as NFL viewers. The new rules included in-game coach interviews for all games, pregame player interviews for all games, network pregame locker room coverage, preseason player interviews, and coaches’ booth network cameras. Look for it to continue.
8. NFL ordered to pay $4.7 billion in “Sunday Ticket” antitrust trial … only to see it overturned
In August, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles overturned a $4.7 billion verdict against the NFL for colluding to raise prices for its “NFL Sunday Ticket” television package. The judge disqualified expert testimony used by the jury to determine damages. (The jury’s verdict had threatened to upend the league’s strategy of selling exclusive television packages to broadcasters.) Next up: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Per Sportico’s legal writer and sports law professor, Michael McMann, a decision is likely many months, if not longer, away.
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Imagining NFL on TV in the year 2030: Tom Brady out, Travis Kelce in?
(Top photo of a Netflix “Christmas Gameday” banner at Wednesday’s Chiefs-Steelers game: Mark Alberti / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Sports
It’s Game 7, and we have a bet locked in as the Cavaliers and legacies are on the line against the Pistons
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The NBA takes a lot of flak for having meaningless games, and I can definitely understand it, watching on a random Wednesday in January. However, the playoffs have delivered over and over to viewers and rewarded us for putting up with garbage regular-season games.
This will be the fourth Game 7 of the playoffs. Three series have been sweeps, and the other three have been six games. That shows competitive hoops. Now, how do we bet this Game 7 in the Eastern Conference?
The Cleveland Cavaliers blew it. After not winning a road game all postseason, they took Game 5 in surprising fashion. It looked like they were going to win in six games. After all, they hadn’t lost a game at home in the postseason.
Instead, Detroit came out and blitzed the Cavs, never giving them a chance to get their footing. They lost in an ugly fashion and now have to figure out a way to win a game on the road.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden drives to the basket against the Detroit Pistons during the second half of Game 5 in the second-round NBA playoffs in Detroit on May 13, 2026. (Duane Burleson/AP)
It isn’t just the Cavs’ fate that rests in this game. It is also the legacy of James Harden and, to a lesser extent, Donovan Mitchell.
We know that Mitchell is a very good player, but he isn’t regarded as one of the best players ever. Harden is. Unfortunately, Harden has struggled in Game 7s. He’s averaged 19.1 points, 7.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds. That’s not terrible, but looking at his shooting percentages, he is at 35.3% and 22.2% in those games. He actually is 4-4 overall in the games, but in his past three, he has scored a combined 34 points over 113 minutes.
The Detroit Pistons seem to like playing with their backs against the wall. They are a gritty team, so I suppose it makes sense.
Detroit Pistons’ Jalen Duren reacts after allowing a pass to go out of bounds in the second half of Game 4 of the second-round NBA playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland on May 11, 2026. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
Cade Cunningham continues to deliver for the team, and he finally got some help in Game 6 from Jalen Duren. This was never going to be an easy series for Duren, but it feels like he is taking more time to mature than others. He definitely improved this year, but the consistency they need from him just isn’t there yet.
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Now as the team goes home they will need Duren to be a beast on the glass. If he can keep the Pistons in the rebounding battle, they should win this game with ease. They won Game 6 by just three rebounds, but that takes away a big dimension of what Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley do for the Cavs. It isn’t everything, though, as the Pistons won the rebounding battle in both losses in Cleveland.
I don’t see this being a runaway game for the Pistons. Mitchell and Cunningham likely will cancel each other out with scoring. Harden needs to establish himself as the third-best player on the floor. I haven’t seen him do that in the postseason, yet.
Cleveland Cavaliers All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and James Harden talk during Game 2 in the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs vs. the Toronto Raptors at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Ohio. (David Dermer/Imagn Images)
This is the second Game 7 of the playoffs for both of the clubs, so it isn’t like either will be caught off guard about what this entails.
If I look at it objectively, I think the Cavs have the better players. However, the Pistons have looked significantly better this season, and definitely in the playoffs overall. Both are prone to issues and slipping. The Cavs shouldn’t be as they are a veteran team.
This game has to be won by Cleveland, though. There is too much riding on the franchise and legacies of guys for them to not prepare properly for it. Maybe that’s weak analysis, but I’m taking the Cavs with the points and I do think they win outright. I expect a monster game from Mitchell, and Harden should get 10+ assists.
Either way, whoever wins will lose to the New York Knicks.
For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024
SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS
FRIDAY’S RESULTS
FIRST ROUND
DIVISION 1
Murrieta Mesa 10, Valley View 0
Orange Lutheran 10, Millikan 0
Chino Hills 2, El Modena 1
Etiwanda 14, Agoura 13
Palos Verdes 3, Riverside King 2
Cypress 4, Fullerton 2
Ayala 11, Charter Oak 1
Riverside Poly 7, California 3
Norco 2, Marina 1
DIVISION 3
Rancho Cucamonga 9, Paloma Valley 1
Great Oak 5, West Torrance 2
Edison 8, El Segundo 5
El Toro 9, Colton 0
Murrieta Valley 9, Redondo Union 8
North Torrance 5, Beaumont 0
West Ranch 7, Trabuco Hills 6
San Juan Hills 8, Riverside North 7
Oak Park 10, Cerritos Valley Christian 4
Highland 7, Northview 2
La Serna 4, Carter 0
Dos Pueblos 5, Crescenta Valley 0
Liberty 10, Arcadia 3
DIVISION 5
Anaheim 11, Flintridge Sacred Heart 0
Patriot 11, Arrowhead Christian 9
Temple City 9, Rancho Christian 6
Grace 11, Buena Park 0
Crean Lutheran 3, Alemany 2
Shadow Hills 8, Cerritos 3
San Marcos 10, Leuzinger 0
South El Monte 7, Long Beach Wilson 5
Covina 11, Garden Grove Santiago 1
Muir 8, Rio Hondo Prep 7
Santa Monica 6, Katella 5
Ontario 6, Norwalk 2
Northwood 18, Duarte 11
DIVISION 7
Bloomington 9, Fillmore 8
Miller 11, Savanna 3
Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 11, Riverside Springs Magnolia 4
Faith Baptist 18, St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy 4
Twentynine Palms 16, Rancho Alamitos 15
Riverside Notre Dame 12, Costa Mesa 2
Firebaugh 9, Pioneer 8
Chadwick 6, Desert Christian Academy 1
Cathedral City 2, Artesia 1
Orange 9, Bellflower 3
Santa Ana 10, Hawthorne 0
Culver City 9, Temecula Prep 8
DIVISION 8
Banning 20, Redlands Adventist 3
SATURDAY’S SCHEDULE
(Games at 3:15 p.m. unless noted)
SECOND ROUND
DIVISION 1
La Habra at Murrieta Mesa, noon
Chino Hills at Orange Lutheran
Etiwanda at Westlake
La Mirada at Palos Verdes, noon
Garden Grove Pacifica at Cypress, noon
Ayala at JSerra
Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Oaks Christian, 1 p.m.
Norco at Riverside Poly
DIVISION 2
Bonita at Ganesha, 11 a.m.
Whittier Christian at Warren
Simi Valley at St. Paul
Moorpark at Lakewood St. Joseph, 11 a.m.
Temescal Canyon at San Clemente, 12:30 p.m.
Huntington Beach at Camarillo, Monday
Saugus at Vista Murrieta, 12:30 p.m.
Mater Dei at Gahr, noon
DIVISION 3
Great Oak at Rancho Cucamonga
Edison at El Toro, Monday
Murrieta Valley at North Torrance
West Ranch at San Juan Hills
Riverside Prep at Oak Park, 12:30 p.m.
La Serna at Highland
Dos Pueblos at La Salle, Monday
Villa Park at Liberty, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 4
St. Bonaventure at Harvard-Westlake, 11 a.m.
Apple Valley at Oxnard
Don Lugo at Monrovia, 1:30 p.m.
La Quinta at Mira Costa
Rio Mesa at Mission Viejo, 10 a.m.
Oak Hills at Sunny Hills
Ramona at Paramount
Burbank Burroughs at Rosary, Monday
DIVISION 5
Anaheim vs. Santa Clara at Beck Park
Temple City at Patriot
Crean Lutheran at Grace
Viewpoint at Shadow Hills
San Marcos at Irvine University, noon
South El Monte at Covina
Santa Monica at Muir, 10:30 a.m.
Northwood at Ontario, 1 p.m.
DIVISION 6
Irvine at Lakeside
Alhambra at Heritage
Eastside at Granite Hills, noon
El Monte at St. Genevieve
Sierra Vista vs. Southlands Christian at Brea Canyon Cutoff Rd
Hesperia Christian vs. St. Monica Prep at Memorial Park, 2 p.m.
Arroyo at Lancaster
San Jacinto at Jurupa Valley
DIVISION 7
Bloomington at Ramona Convent
Miller at Santa Ana Calvary Chapel
Faith Baptist at Twentynine Palms, Monday
Firebaugh vs. Riverside Notre Dame at Ramona
Chadwick at Cathedral City
Orange at Victor Valley, 11 a.m.
Santa Ana at Culver City, Monday
Windward at Edgewood, Monday at 3:30 p.m.
DIVISION 8
ACE at Avalon
Bolsa Grande vs. San Bernardino, Monday at San Bernardino College
Workman at Glendale
Cobalt at Santa Rosa Academy
Bell Gardens vs. Brentwood at John Anson Ford Park
Pomona Catholic vs. Capistrano Valley Christian at Laguna Hills, 2 p.m.
Fontana at Banning
Hawthorne MSA at Arroyo Valley, 1 p.m.
Note: Quarterfinals May 20; Semifinals May 23; Finals May 28-30 at Bill Barber Memorial Park, Irvine.
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After a slow first round at Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia on Thursday, pace of play was a point of emphasis at the PGA Championship on Friday.
However, when an official approached Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley, they became animated.
Thomas, a longtime Team USA Ryder Cup member, and Bradley, last year’s United States captain, were on the fourth hole when they were approached by an official in a cart, and the conversation quickly turned into finger-pointing.
Justin Thomas and Keegan Bradley watch from the tenth green during the second round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 2026. (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Thomas said after the round that he, Bradley and fellow USA Ryder Cupper Cameron Young, who won the Cadillac Championship earlier this month, were put on the clock, with the official telling them to pick up the pace. However, both Bradley and Thomas appeared to point at the group in front of them.
“We just didn’t really agree with it,” Thomas said, citing course conditions, high winds and tough pins. “We were behind. That wasn’t our issue… It’s just the fact that we weren’t holding up the group behind us.”
Thomas said they were caught up with the pace on the very next hole.
Justin Thomas plays his shot on the 15th tee during the second round of the PGA Championship in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 2026. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)
GARRICK HIGGO SHARES BAFFLING COMMENTS WHILE REACTING TO TWO-SHOT PENALTY AT PGA CHAMPIONSHIP
Thomas had a lengthy conversation with the official, while Bradley appeared to make his point short and sweet — though he was definitely not happy with the call.
It is a large PGA Championship field, with 156 golfers at the course and groups even starting their rounds on the back nine. The scores have also been rather high, with just 25 players below par at the time of publishing.
Aronimink also features a shared tee box on 1 and 10, holes 9 and 17 crossing paths, and a lengthy par-3 eighth hole that’s causing problems. Three par-3s are over 200 yards on the course, and there is also a 457-yard par 4 on the fourth.
Keegan Bradley prepares to putt on the 14th green during the first round of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, on May 14, 2026. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)
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As Chris Gotterup put it on Friday, “You’re not going to get any four-and-a-half hour rounds out here.”
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