Media Circus: A conversation with Tiffany Greene and Meghan McPeak, pioneering sports broadcasters

The Athletic is honoring Black History Month with a series of stories about pioneering subjects making an impact in sports.

One grew up in Tampa dreaming of playing for the Bucs before switching her long-term goal to sitting in the same seat occupied by Pat Summerall and Al Michaels on NFL broadcasts. The other wanted to be the Canadian Doris Burke before falling in love with play-by-play broadcasting. Today, Tiffany Greene and Meghan McPeak are pioneering sports broadcasters whose voices will become more familiar to you this decade.

Greene is the first African-American woman to serve as a play-by-play commentator for college football on a major network. She calls HBCU football games for ESPN as well as other play-by-play assignments for ESPN including college basketball on the SEC Network.

McPeak, who is interracial, is a play-by-play broadcaster for the Capital City Gogo, the NBA G League affiliate for the Washington Wizards. (The games air on the Monumental Sports Network streaming service). In October 2018, McPeak joined the very short list of women who have done play-by-play for an NBA game when she called a Wizards-Pistons preseason game.

That made her the first female play-by-play broadcaster in 30 years to call an NBA game. In a career of firsts, McPeak was the first female play-by-play broadcaster in the National Basketball League of Canada and called 75-90 games over three seasons for the Raptors 905 in the G League.

Even in 2020, the number of women working as play-by-play announcers is minute and especially for women of color. Greene and McPeak recently got together with me for a podcast on their passion for play-by-play, their career arcs, how they view themselves in the larger sports media landscape, their professional hopes for the future, and the issues of racism, sexism and inequality. The conversation has been lightly edited.

Why do you love doing play-by-play?

Greene: I think just being able to be THE voice, carrying the broadcast, and knowing that when you have that moment to have what could be a legendary call or a game-winning moment, you are the soundtrack for that game, for that sport, for those two teams. I like being in control in my personal life and that carries over into my professional life as well. And I like to be a team player. I enjoy sitting next to individuals who have played the game, who have coached the game, and just setting them up so that I can help them shine in any way possible.

McPeak: Piggybacking off what Tiffany aid, I too like to have control in my life (laughs). It carries over to my professional side of things. For me, it comes back to being a former point guard (at Humber College in Toronto) and being able to control the floor. Being the point guard in the broadcast, being able to set up my broadcast partner as well as telling the story the cameras are showing. I like being part of the story the players are telling on the floor. Being able to do that is an absolute blast.

I mentioned that there’s a lot of firsts with both of you. Tiffany, you are the first African-American woman to serve as a play-by-play commentator for college football on a major network. Because you are the first of something, do you feel pressure in that?

Greene: I would be lying if I said I didn’t. Of course I do. I feel like a lot of eyes are on me, and perhaps maybe some people are looking in with more pride. But it’s the pressure that I put on myself to try to make them proud and to try to walk in these shoes knowing that I am the first. I watched women like Robin Roberts growing up. I know she did play-by-play more so for basketball, but she was courageous to me. She was smooth. She’s so good at what she does. I was just like, “OK, like, I’m just trying to breathe the scent of her air. I’m just trying to be a portion of that.” I know that in my first season of calling football I was nervous as hell. Because I felt like there were so many eyes on me and was I going to be criticized or under a microscope if I said this or that. What I found was after just about every game, whether it was through email or social media or running into people, it was more of, “I am so proud of you. Thank you for what you’re doing. This means a lot. Keep it up.” I think that helped me to change my focus from the pressure that I put on myself. I don’t believe in pride too much, but proudly standing in those shoes as the first.

Meghan, can you relate to what Tiffany said?

McPeak: I most definitely can. For me, it’s interesting because when you see me, people automatically just assume I am a woman of color, which I am, but I’m actually an interracial woman of color. So I’m mixed race. When Tiffany talks about the pressure, I 100 percent can understand where she’s coming from. I don’t want to speak for her, but I feel like she may agree with me on this point. That being a woman in this business is hard enough because you have the pressure and you feel the pressure of being a woman and having to be perfect every single call. But then you add in the fact that we’re also women of color, it almost makes it seem like our margin of error is even more narrow.

It’s funny. I don’t know Tiffany if you remember this, but I actually e-mailed you in 2015 to connect and get advice. She is a woman that does play-by-play but also being a woman of color that does it. She was gracious enough to converse with me. So this moment for me is kind of coming full circle that a woman I looked up to and I was able to connect with and get life advice and career advice from, I’m now able to be alongside her doing this podcast. It’s crazy because I think we put all the pressure on ourselves and we’re putting the pressure more so than what society and what others may put on us. This has been something that I have had to learn and have struggled with. There is a younger generation, both men and women, looking up to me and what I do and what Tiffany does. That is scary for me, knowing that someone is looking at me as a role model and I’m just trying to live my life and do a job that I love and do it to the best of my ability. But it’s become a good scary for me.

Greene: I want to interject there. Of course Meghan I remember that. It was (sports broadcaster) LaChina Robinson who put us in contact with one another and we shared emails back and forth and some phone calls as well. So shout out to you and what you’re doing and I’m excited to watch your growth. There are a lot of people who reach out and say, “I want to do this and I have a passion for this. How do I get there?” But very rarely do you see the follow-through to this point. So that to me speaks to the type of person that Meghan is. Yes, she had talent but she had that stick-to-itiveness as well to get to this point.

It’s nice that I can look to someone else similar to me as a woman of color. Her doing her thing is what you want to see, and we continue to open doors. But the pressure piece of it, I look at it as on Sunday morning when you get ready to go to church. My Mom would dress us in our Sunday best. Whatever you do, you’d better not mess it up. Like you have to have the nice frilly socks and the pretty shoes, the bows in their hair, but whatever you do, don’t mess it up. Don’t mess up the outfit. Don’t run around too much. Don’t drop any food on it because you just have to kind of be perfect. That’s really how I felt coming in. I felt I have to be perfect.

But you understand that you’re human and you have to drown out how much to allow the outside influences to affect you. So it’s nice now to kind of have had that shift and you hear athletes talk about this all the time – you just don’t let the moment get too big for you. Just be wherever your feet are and do the absolute best knowing that you have done your preparation. I have learned from athletes and coaches and the games that I call to not let any moment get too big. I believe to a degree that we are carrying a generation with us and helping them to come up. But you don’t hang on to that with every call. You can drive yourself crazy with that.

If I have not heard your play-by-play as a viewer or listener, how would you describe your style?

McPeak: Probably different than most people would be used to. Because I played, I would typically be sitting alongside Tiffany doing a game. That is originally what I actually wanted to get into. I wanted to be the Canadian Doris Burke. I originally started out that way. While I was playing in college, I would be the analyst for the men’s game after my game. I have that experience of being able to analyze it and break it down. I include that in the way I call games. I’ll do the traditional call and set up my partner and then once they’re done with their thought, if I have something to add or if I saw something different than what they saw, I may add that as well. I wear not only the play-by-play hat when I call games, but I also kind of give my own opinion and my own analysis because I have the playing experience and my producers have empowered me to give my experience and what I’m seeing. It’s allowed me to be successful to this point in my career and I hope it continues to allow me to be successful.

Greene: Youthful, fun, informative. I am a mother so I probably come with some references there, but pop culture as well. I’m listening to a lot of what the kids are listening to these days. If I see something that’s nice and someone’s silky down the lane and they came through drip, drip, drip, like, let’s use it. I want you to feel like you’re having a good time and you’re talking with your homegirl. I think when I started out, I was trying to kind of be straight-laced and just kind of down the middle. I feel like I’ve departed from that over the last several years. My husband would tell me — just be you. Everyone enjoyed the interaction personally, but I did not always carry that over in a broadcast. Then finally, I gave myself permission to just call a game the way that I would want to hear it or how I would talk about it with my friends.

(Courtesy of Meghan McPeak)

You have not had many people in the business to emulate who looked like you. Who was there for you to see that this career was possible?

Greene: I wanted to be the first woman in the NFL until my parents crushed that dream pretty quickly. I was ready, like shoot it and boot it. However, I think you just imagine yourself in the shoes of Pat Summerall or Al Michaels. I tried to copy what they were doing. I tried to do it in their voice and their tone so I could have some form of practice. But who really made me feel like it was possible was Pam Oliver. For as much as I love Robin Roberts and thought she was like the greatest and still do, it was Pam Oliver because I saw her on the sidelines. She at least made it to a football game. She was on the broadcast and did a phenomenal job. It was really cool that we were both FAMU graduates and I got a chance to meet her. So not only do I see you on TV and have I seen you growing up, now I get to like touch you, ask you questions, fawn in your presence. This was one of those really cool meetups.

For me, Pam helped to foster the idea this is legit and I can do it. I was always kind of different, perhaps different from what my mom had for me in her mind. I kind of always believed that I could buck the system or walk in my own path and be totally cool with that. None of my friends were really loving sports like I was loving sports, or loving video games or putting Big League Chew and fruit roll-ups in their mouth and practicing batting stances for the Chicago Cubs, my favorite team. My friends weren’t doing that and I was okay with being different in that regard because I had like this burning desire in me to do something different.

What also helped me was my father was in television well before I was born or could see him, and then he moved over to radio. He too was a first and he offered encouragement along the way. He was like, “Okay, you are a young African-American woman. That’s great. Go get the interview. Go set up this story. Write a letter to the editor as a 10-year-old if you have a feeling about the offense or defense that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should run. Give your opinion. Get involved.” There were a lot of different forces that helped shape and form me into who I am today. Even though I talked about Pam and Robin Roberts, I can now speak to people like Meghan or Maria Taylor or LaChina Robinson or Jemele Hill or Beth Mowins. Now it’s cool because there are many women, and women of color for young people to choose from and to look at and say, “OK, I kind of want to be like her.” Do I feel like there needs to be more? Absolutely. But at least I feel like we’ve gotten to a greater start and I’m glad to be a part of that wave.

McPeak: Growing up in Canada, it’s completely different. Even today, the broadcast rights are very different. It was only when the national games (from the U.S.) were on Canadian television when I would see someone. So I grew up on Jerry Howarth, who was the longtime voice of the Toronto Blue Jays. I grew up on Chuck Swirsky, who was the longtime voice of the Raptors. (Raptors broadcasters) Matt Devlin, Paul Jones. For me, being in Canada, it was all male. I’m kind of jealous in a way or envious of today’s generation because you now have things like NBA League Pass where you can see the different faces and genders of people covering sports leagues. When I was growing up, that didn’t exist. Like I said earlier, I wanted to be the Canadian Doris Burke because that was the only woman that we really saw touching the NBA and covering the NBA. That was all I knew. I, unfortunately, didn’t get to see the time when Hannah Storm was covering the NBA as closely as she was. I only knew her as the Hannah Storm that was on SportsCenter. Same with Robin Roberts. It wasn’t until she was anchoring Sports Center and stuff like that that I saw Robin Roberts. So I was in a different position than Tiffany and today’s generation where you have access to all these faces.

I look at a woman like Doris Burke who for whatever reason – and I will never understand this – is scrutinized night in and night out by society because she may not be the person they want to look at on TV. But when you can walk into a room and people like Adam Silver, the late David Stern, LeBron James, Gregg Popovich, Mike Krzyzewski, the late Kobe Bryant, want to pick your brain about the game of basketball, I hope that I can have the type of career where I can have a quarter of the respect that the players and coaches around the game of basketball, both men and women, show to a woman like Doris Burke. That’s why I always wanted to be the Canadian Doris Burke.

How did you ultimately land where you are now?

Greene: I am a proud graduate of Florida A&M – fourth generation. It was in my blood. I started out as a part-time production assistant with a startup station here in Tampa. Then I took a one-man-band position in Savannah, Georgia, and that was my first on-air experience. For the first three months, I was a photographer — a certified live truck operator. I was shooting stories for other reporters, just hoping and waiting for my chance. I spent about three and a half years there as a general assignment reporter. I felt like I paid my dues there through the local side of things, and then I was able to move to Orlando to work with News 13. They then opened up a 24-hour sports network called Bright House Sports Network. It was there that I really felt like I began to fly.

My career began to blossom because I got to do so much more. First of all, I was covering sports. Hallelujah. I had been waiting for that moment for nearly a decade. I did play-by-play, sideline, I produced, I hosted, and I could anchor literally anything that they needed me to do. I felt like I had learned to be versatile enough to be able to do those things and then kind of started knocking at the door of ESPN with a relationship that I tried to build over time and through the National Association of Black Journalists. They had ESPN Wide World of Sports in Florida and I started doing AAU basketball tournaments, softball classics, you name it. Then I was able to do a little bit more for ESPN, including college football sideline. I was like, “Yeah, OK, I’m going to make it like, this is it. This is like 13 years in the making, like, let’s go.” But it was actually Fox Sports 1 former executive (Roy Hamilton) who saw my work at an NABJ conference and gave me the opportunity to do play-by-play for their inaugural women’s basketball package for the Big East. There I got my big step, my bright lights and big stage and continued to grow from there. In 2015, ESPN brought me on full time to be able to call basketball, volleyball, softball, and I just added football a couple of seasons ago.

McPeak: When I was in college I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach and do that at the NBA and WNBA level. I didn’t start out in broadcasting right away. School wasn’t always my thing and the program just wasn’t working for me. My athletic director made a decision based on the fact that I didn’t shut up, he said I was going to go into radio. In his office, the summer of 2007, he looked me dead in my eyes and said, “You don’t shut up. You’re going into radio.” I will forever be grateful to Doug Fox for making that decision for me. We had one of the best broadcasting programs in the country and part of that was getting on-air reps right off the bat versus having to just fake it and record it and then get critiqued on it. We broadcast men’s and women’s basketball and volleyball games. I would play and then thankfully my coach would have a quick postgame chat and I would shower quickly, grab my notes, and then go and be the analyst for the men’s game. Upon graduation in 2009, I was working retail like most college grads and trying to figure out how I was going to get my first gig in the business and what I was going to do. A friend slash coworker got an alumni email from the university she went to in my hometown, which is McMaster University, and they were looking for broadcasters for their men’s and women’s basketball games.

She forwarded me the contact and I reached out to them. I told then I didn’t graduate from there, but I would still love to come in for an audition. They brought me in for an audition and after a couple of weeks, they let me know that I was going to join the broadcast. There were four of us that did it. I started out as an analyst for the women’s games. A couple of weeks into the season, the gentleman who did the play-by-play unfortunately fell ill. They asked if I could fill in on play-by-play and it was there I fell in love with play-by-play. I have not looked back. It led me to the National Basketball League of Canada and making history with that league. That led me to make connections with some amazing people that work at MLSE and cover the Toronto Raptors. I got the heads up that a G- league team, the development league, was coming to Toronto and the Raptors. A mentor,

Duane Watson, who works at NBA TV Canada, let me know who I should speak to and he thought I should go after it. I reached out to Aaron LaFontaine, who was the decisionmaker and the person in charge at NBA TV Canada. I met with him, had my interviews, a grueling, long process. I was offered the role as the first voice of the Raptors 905 in the NBA D-League in the summertime.

I was able to see a team go from the ground up and in their second season, they went on a run that was absolutely phenomenal. It was capped off with a D-League title and Pascal Siakam named the Finals MVP. It is a time that I’m forever going to be grateful for, being able to learn from one of the greatest players to play the game in Jerry Stackhouse (the team’s head coach) and learn from the assistant coaches like AJ Diggs, who’s now with the New Orleans Pelicans alongside WNBA Teresa Weatherspoon. That allowed me to do some radio pre and postgame with TSN for the Raptors and covering an entire season of NBA coverage. Ultimately, that led me to be in Washington, D.C. I met Pops Mensah-Bonsu in Toronto and running into him led to a professional relationship that allowed me to pick his brain about being a professional scout and working in player personnel and understand why teams go after certain players.

Then two summer leagues ago, after an Achilles rupture, I had just begun walking again prior to the Summer League when I ran into Pops again. He let me know he was the new GM for the Capital City Go-Go. It had not been announced yet. I kind of made a joke but as we all know, every joke has a bit of truth to it. I said to him, “Hey, you guys are looking for a broadcaster on a play-by-play side of things? Let me know. I can send you my stuff.” He looked me dead in my eye and said, “You have my email. In case you don’t, here’s my card again. Send it to me and I’ll pass it on and they can take it from there.”

Fast forward later on in the summertime. I am in Washington, D.C., having an interview with my now bosses. Just the amount of people that have had my back since Day One and have empowered me and encouraged me to keep fighting for my dream, I went into that interview with the most confidence that I’ve ever had in my life. I went in it with the mindset that this is my job to lose and nobody else is to take from me. I am now in my second season with the Go-Go and I also had the absolute honor to call one of the most historic WNBA seasons in history that was capped off with a WNBA title for the Washington Mystics.

How much racism or sexism or inequality exists today in the sports media?

Greene: I remember my first season of calling college football. It was before I got the new HBCU package. I went to a school in Alabama and I think the crew was shocked to know that I was the play-by-play announcer. It was just the commentary like “who?” There was a lack of respect immediately when I walked up, or they kind of just didn’t want to work with me. I don’t know if that was because I was a woman or because I was a woman of color or they just didn’t know me. I don’t know what it was, but I was just like, “Oh, that didn’t feel good.” Like everybody kind of comes onto a crew and you see some new faces, but you say, “Hey, how’s it going?” You kind of put on the facade and they did not there. For the most part, I would say that I certainly feel it subtly. I had an experience most recently with a coach and I was asking about a player and her status because she seemed to be healthy when we were watching her practice, but she had not played in the last couple of games. I said, “What can you tell me about her?” And he was like, “Oh, she’s a bitch. She’s a bitch.” I was like, wait a minute. “Bruh I just met you, OK? I don’t know you. We don’t know each other like that.” I felt it highly inappropriate that he even referred to his player in that way. She was also an African-American student-athlete. So I think sometimes it comes directly at you and sometimes you are tested with situations where it’s like how are you going to react or how are you going to respond. I try in my best way to address it, but I try to also not let it get to me when I have that experience.

There are people with snide remarks about what do you know or why are you here. I mean, it is there and it is real. While I hope it will get better, it hasn’t gone away yet. That being racism and inequality and discrimination. So you just try to operate within it and focus on what it is that you can control and check those things where you feel like it comes at you incorrectly.

McPeak: I would agree with Tiffany that it does still exist. I really hope that I’m wrong and proven wrong down the road but for some reason, part of me always believes that there will always be a piece of racism and sexism in the sports world, which is really disappointing. If past behavior is an indicator of future behavior, it doesn’t seem like it will change. I’m terribly sorry that you, Tiffany, had to experience things like that.

For myself, it more so comes from social media. There was an incident when I was back with the 905 in Toronto. Luckily the team security and team personnel had my back on how to handle it and what to do. It was taken care of. That situation was sad because it’s social media and people like to hide behind monitors. Based on the person’s profile picture, and I can only go off of that, the sad thing about that interaction was that it was a man of color if it was the person who was in the picture. Unless that person stole the picture. I don’t know. But I can only go based on the picture of the profile, which was very jarring. I was verbally attacked by someone in our own community. I haven’t experienced anything since then luckily. But hearing stories like the one Tiffany just told and stories from other people, I at least am equipped mentally on how to react and handle it. I’d like to think that the way my parents raised me and the person that I am would allow me to react properly in a situation if I was to ever experience it.

People like to think in Canada racism and sexism don’t exist. For me it’s interesting when I hear that now living in the U.S. and in this climate, especially being in sports. I might catch flak for this but I don’t really care because I know that it’s happened. It’s been evident on social media. Canadians have this persona that we’re polite and we’re not mean. I like to tell people like it’s there and we’re just more passive-aggressive and sneaky about it, which is really sad to say as a Canadian, but it’s true. There is racism in Canada, there is sexism in Canada, and outside of that one incident, I’m thankful that I haven’t had to experience it more and my heart breaks for people that do and are experiencing it because it’s unfair and it shouldn’t happen.

How often do you hear from women of color who are interested in getting into sports broadcasting?

McPeak: It’s kind of sad. I don’t really hear from them that often and I don’t know if that is because I do play-by-play. They might be interested in hosting or being an analyst or doing sideline. Maybe it’s because I primarily cover basketball and they might not be interested in that sport. I can probably count in the last three years on both hands how many women of color who might be fresh into the sports market or are in college or university that have reached out to me for advice. That’s kind of disappointing. I don’t know if it’s me. I don’t know if it’s them. I don’t know if they’re just not as many women of color that are wanting to get into sports broadcasting. I don’t know what the reason may be but I haven’t had many reach out to me.

Greene: Meghan, don’t worry, we’re going to change that. We are going to have more aspiring women and women of color going towards you because I would say on a weekly basis, I need more hands and toes to count the number of both young women and men who are interested in getting into the business, particularly of color, reach out to me. I think that is perhaps because I am with ESPN, but also I like to be involved and remain involved with my j-school back at FAMU, community organizations here in Tampa, plus my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and The Links, Incorporated. They all have some form of youth groups.

I am one of those stories from Tampa who is kind of like a hometown success story. So many people have seen me grow up and my parents laid an excellent foundation for me and they remain involved in the community. So they ask my parents if we can we reach out to Tiffany or have this, daughter or niece or cousin or this young lady that goes to my church reach out to her, and they all funnel their inquiries to me. I’ve had a little bit of a different experience, and I’m thankful for that. Then when I go out to call HBCU football that is another kind of untapped market. To have been an HBCU grad and a woman in the space of sports, a lot of people will say, “Hey, can I reach out or can you look at my reel or resume?” I go through resumes and reels or have phone calls or emails or projects. I go through that on a pretty consistent basis weekly.

What is your favorite moment so far that you’ve called as a play-by-play broadcaster and why?

McPeak: I’ve got two but it’s not an exact moment. I would say probably the two championship seasons that I’ve called. Just being able to witness that from start to finish. I’m going to give the recency bias to the Mystics because losing in the WNBA Finals the year before and then having the determination to get back there and finish it the way they wanted to was absolutely insane. I got to call the first-ever 50-40-90 (shoot at least 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from three-point range and 90 percent from the free-throw line for a season) for Elena Delle Donne which added her to a list of eight other players and her being the only female on that list. It was insane to watch her do that in a season with a broken nose and then to find out that she continued to do it with some herniated disc in the WNBA Finals. Selfishly, along with (ESPN’s) Ryan Ruocco, my voice is going to be attached to that history when it comes to the Mystics and that franchise. I’m going to be forever grateful for that because I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever experience that again.

Greene: I’m so bad with like the best or the number one, but I would say the Florida Classics (Bethune–Cookman University vs. Florida A&M University) over the last two years. Even though FAMU has come out on the wrong end of things, it’s still such a personal game for me because I grew up attending the Florida Classic when it was here in Tampa. Then when it moved to Orlando, there is such a big build-up and lead up. I do the coaches luncheons on that Friday and then the game itself, and doing Black College Live, which is something I do with my partner Jay Walker on social and YouTube. The last two times I have called that game it has ended in heartbreak. But I felt like I left everything out there. I just gave it my all. Now I was crushed both times, but I think it was great because it challenged me as a broadcaster. Yes, you have to be impartial and you want to put your homer-ish ways aside. I just felt like I gave everything that I could give in those games. That was incredibly satisfying.

I would say an honorable mention was experiencing the Women’s College World Series and being out there in Oklahoma City for that atmosphere. That is the biggest event that I’ve ever done. Being able to step in as a dayside reporter was awesome and also getting a chance to show even more of my personality on our 7innings podcast. The fact that I got to go on television and eat wings and that I could get out and sing “Shiny” from Moana and that be totally okay was just one of those enjoyable times as a broadcaster.

Where do you hope to be professionally ten years from now?

McPeak: I hope to be the successor to (ESPN/ABC’s) Mike Breen and the voice of the NBA Finals.

Greene: I would love to be calling an NFL package weekly. I want to be there. I want to be there.

The Ink Report

1. I wasn’t able to watch as much of the XFL as I wanted to this weekend but what was clear from the coverage I saw was how well the incorporation of sports gambling information worked in the graphic elements of the broadcast. ESPN/ABC’s graphic use of the over/under line as part of its score bug was unobtrusive and a valuable piece of information. (Fox showed the spread and over/under at times but not for the whole game.) It’s an addition I hope ultimately comes to NFL coverage. The same with the transparency for viewers regarding official replay reviews. This is something NFL broadcasters would really like (see this piece from The Athletic) and it’s a great vehicle for viewers who watch the XFL. While watching ESPN’s coverage of St. Louis and Dallas on Sunday, I found the microphone access I had as a viewer to Chuck Long, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the BattleHawks, a valuable add-on.

1a.The league is providing its television partners great sideline access, which will provide honest commentary such as this. When these games are on cable, it seems very silly to bleep for language.

1b. Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal reported that XFL broadcasters will be pleased if games average 1.5 million viewers across ABC and Fox and 800,000 viewers for games across ESPN and FS1. As always: Be careful about overvaluing the ratings for the opening week. The original XFL drew a monster 9.5 household rating for its debut. The following week’s games dropped 52 percent and then fell another 33 percent for Week 3. CBS averaged 3.3 million viewers for the debut telecast of the Alliance of American Football. The AAF eventually averaged 556,000 viewers for games across CBS, TNT and NFL Network before it folded, per Fischer. You’ll get a much better sense of the popularity of the XFL by Week 6. ESPN announced on Sunday that its first XFL broadcast – Seattle vs. DC on Saturday – drew 3.3 million viewers on ABC.

1c. Here’s an XFL review from The Athletic’s Bill Shea.

2. Two NBC college football games to watch out for next season that could result in significant ratings: Wisconsin will play Notre Dame at Lambeau Field on Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m. on NBC. The game marks the first meeting between the two schools in football since Sept. 26, 1964. On Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC, Notre Dame hosts Clemson in the first meeting between the two programs since the 2018 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Cotton Bowl.

2a. Per SBJ: Super Bowl LIV viewership in Germany grew nearly 30 percent year-over-year to 1.8 million viewers. The game also drew 9.5 million viewers on average in Canada across CTV (broadcast), TSN (cable) and RDS (French broadcast), a 79 percent increase from last year’s 5.3 million viewers. The Canada broadcast peaked at 12.1 million viewers during the halftime show.

2b. From The Athletic’s Daniel Popper: NFL Game Pass crashed for international fans during final three minutes of Super Bowl:

3. The NBA trade deadline has passed — it will be the NHL’s turn soon enough – and our site is filled with delicious reporting and analysis on the options for your favorite team.

In my corner of the cosmos, rare is the sports media trade. In 1948 the legendary baseball broadcaster Ernie Harwell was traded from the Atlanta Crackers of the independent Southern Association to the Brooklyn Dodgers in exchange for catcher Cliff Dapper. (Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey needed a broadcaster ASAP because Red Barber had been hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.) There is also the famous story of ESPN trading Al Michaels to NBC Universal for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

As I read all the trade deadline pieces by my colleagues at The Athletic, I was inspired to throw out nine prospective sports media trades, none of which will come to fruition but based (somewhat) in the reality of benefiting each organization.

3a. ESPN announced last week that Jessica Mendoza will no longer be working on Sunday Night Baseball and instead will be an analyst on weekday games as well as making appearances on SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. (Alex Rodriguez is expected to remain as an analyst.) The Mets also announced Mendoza will no longer be a special advisor to the team. Last month, I wrote that my skepticism with Mendoza’s commentary had extended into pretty much anything outside of game analysis given her role with the Mets, not to mention her anti-whistleblower take (a curious one for a broadcaster working for a news-gathering outlet) on former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers going public (in this case, to The Athletic) about the sign-stealing system that has blown up into a major cheating scandal in baseball. The piece is here if interested.

4. Sports pieces of note:

She was a running prodigy. He was the most powerful man in track. How her promising career unraveled. Remarkable reporting by Michael Doyle for The Globe and Mail.
From By John Branch, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Sarah Mervosh and Miriam Jordan of The New York Times: ‘Helicopter Went Down, Flames Seen’: Kobe Bryant’s Last Flight.
From an eviction notice to a Kobe Bryant tribute, how the Philippines’ Tenement became hallowed ground. By Wayne Drehs of ESPN.
How Elinor Kaine Penna became a pioneering pro football writer in an industry where women weren’t welcome. By Natalie Weiner of SB Nation.
The SiriusXM show – Bauer Hour – which airs twice a month on MLB Network Radio channel — recently spent an entire hour-long show focusing on anxiety.
Driven by loss, two of the world’s best mountaineers, Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison, set out to make history—and find answers—in the shadow of Mount Everest. By Chris Ballard of SI.

Non-sports pieces of note:

By Paige Williams of New Yorker: The wrong way to fight the opioid crisis.
Why the military needs immigrants. By Loren DeJonge Schulman, for The Washington Post.
The Danger of Befriending Celebrities. By Michael Musto.
The time I sabotaged my editor with ransomware from the dark web. By Drake Bennett, of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Via Esquire’s Dave Holmes: The Story of Huey Lewis Is Not a Tragedy.
How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election. By McKay Coppins of The Atlantic.
The Death of Iowa. By Tim Alberta of Politico.
We sent disposable cameras to 25 women across the U.S. Here’s what they captured. By Lena Felton of The Washington Post.
Read this thread:

A true flower story. In 2011, Clement was clearing out his Fathers flat after he died. He was surprised to find this old wooden box which had belonged to his Grandfather during war. Clement knew nothing about his Grandfather other than being wounded, captured & a prisoner in WW1. pic.twitter.com/h4Jofn4Jxi

— The Waltz Garden (@WaltzGarden) February 8, 2020

(Top photo of Tiffany Greene courtesy of Greene)

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