A report early Monday morning revealed the NFL will replace the traditional Pro Bowl with a weeklong skills competition held in Las Vegas named “The Pro Bowl Games”.
At the Owners Meetings in May, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the Pro Bowl “doesn’t work. We need to find another way to celebrate the players.”
The Pro Bowl Games will continue to be the week before Super Bowl festivities begin, and many in sports media had strong reactions to the news.
FOX Nation host Sharon Osbourne is speaking out about her time on network television and her unceremonious exit from “The Talk.”
Osbourne appeared Sunday on “Fox & Friends Weekend” to discuss the behind-the-scenes drama at CBS. She said she was blindsided for defending Piers Morgan’s criticism of Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
“In the break, I was cursing, I was like ‘what the bleep are you doing to me?’” Osbourne said. “We didn’t rehearse this. Why are you doing this to me? And, boom, we’re back from the break, and they start again.”
On Monday, FOX Nation will debut a four-part series “Sharon Osbourne: To Hell & Back” documenting Osbourne’s experience in the spotlight and her reluctance to address the issues publicly.
“Everyone is entitled to their own position, their own opinion,” she said. “If it’s your opinion, fine. You don’t have to beat me up, fire me, try and destroy my life because of the way I feel.”
Syndicated radio host Jesse Kelly said Friday that he tries to limit the amount of television that he watches with his family.
“The Jesse Kelly Show” host described the “endless filth” across many networks and cable channels.
“You can’t turn on kid’s Nickelodeon without seeing drag show stuff,” Kelly said. “We’ve played the audio for you before. There’s no escape.”
Kelly said the trend extends to TV sports like football.
“You can’t just sit down and watch an NFL game because they will talk about how to end racism. So, as a parent, if you’re looking for something to watch for your kids, it’s hard,” he said.
Kelly said he relies on the cooking or travel channels to entertain his family.
“Nature shows are all c**p now, which is a shame because the video couldn’t be cooler, all the HD cameras and the drone coverage. But no matter what nature show you watch it will devolve into something about stopping fossil fuels.”
“I look around at what’s happened in our culture and the absolute insanity, and I am absolutely horrified at this communist takeover of our culture.”
“The Jesse Kelly Show” is distributed by Premiere Networks and broadcast on more than 200 radio stations nationwide.
Blaze TV host Jason Whitlock said there is an obvious sense of entitlement among current and former athletes these days.
“The Fearless” host directed his comments Friday toward former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III who posted a tweet reacting to a recent welfare scandal involving another former quarterback, Brett Favre. In the tweet, Griffin compares that scandal to a sex scandal involving Celtics coach Ime Udoka who was suspended for the entire upcoming season for having a consensual relationship with a team employee.
Griffin stated, “If you’re more upset with the Ime Udoka situation than you are with Brett Favre stealing millions in welfare money from the poorest people in our country in Mississippi, then you are part of the problem.”
Whitlock said that sports fans are fascinated by the Udoka story because the situation feels “unprecedented.”
“Based on what we’ve been told so far, we’ve never seen an organization torch a successful head coach over consensual sex a week before the start of training camp,” he said. “Add in Boston’s celebrated status within the NBA and the Udoka story captivates the way daytime soap operas and the daytime soap opera marriage of Luke and Laura did 41 years ago on General Hospital.”
Whitlock added that the daytime soap opera craze that ended more than a decade ago has been replaced by talk shows that rely on messy reality TV storylines.
“RG3’s real agenda is to deflect attention away from a black public figure caught with his pants down,” said Whitlock. “This is the national pastime of Twitter and corporate media pundits chasing likes, retweets, followers, and racial virtue courtesy of the app’s rigged algorithms.”
Whitlock asserted that Favre’s situation has much less to do with race than sheer weakness and entitlement.
“Look, Favre has hundreds of millions in the bank. He’s weak, he’s a man. There was an opportunity to take advantage of the situation and he jumped on it, weak dude,” he added.
The moment when Jordan Schultz breaks a story, it’s a feeling that takes him back to his days playing college basketball.
For Schultz, getting a scoop is just like draining threes.
“When it’s a sizeable story and you know you’re first and everyone sees it, I would equate that to hitting your fourth three-pointer in a game,” said Schultz.
“The competitive aspect of playing basketball in college is pretty parallel to the competitive aspect of trying to break stories. The foundation of playing sports and being on a team goes into that and makes it really exciting for me on a day-to-day basis. You can always find something. If there’s not a story to break, there’s still an angle to take.”
And Schultz has taken his story-breaking talents from ESPN and Yahoo Sports to theScore as an NFL insider and NBA analyst.
For Schultz, it was an opportunity too good to pass up.
“It was huge because I hadn’t had the level of support and infrastructure around me that The Score was able to offer,” said Schultz. “I was really excited to be a part of something that I could build my brand and they could build their brand around me.”
While Schultz has been able to build relationships within the NBA, his primary focus at theScore will be the NFL. He’s built up quite the collection of contacts and relationships, which has led to regularly breaking stories. Sports fans have certainly caught on to what Schultz has been doing as he has more than 145,000 followers on Twitter.
Schultz breaks a lot of stories but he doesn’t break all of them and he’s okay with that because he just moves on to the next story.
“You can only do so much,” said Schultz. “As my parents told me when I was a kid, you can’t dance at everyone’s wedding. You always want to be first and you always want to have the next story but there’s also always going to be another story. You can’t get held up in why you didn’t get this or what happened here. These relationships that are not transactional and are genuine whether it’s with an agent, a player, a coach, GM, scout…that’s where the success ultimately comes from.”
Schultz, who now lives in New York City, grew up in Seattle and enjoyed an outstanding high school basketball career. He was a four-year starter and earned all-conference and all-district honors before moving on to Seattle University which was just eight minutes from his home. He didn’t play very much so he transferred to Division III Occidental College right outside of Los Angeles.
He was known for being a terrific shooter, from anywhere on the court.
“That’s all I could do,” said Schultz. “I was not big. I was really a phenomenal shooter with unlimited range. They used to call me ‘Satellite’ in the parking lot.”
When Schultz was first getting started in the business of sports media, his agent at the time asked him if he was interested in meeting ESPN’s Adam Schefter, one of the premier NFL insiders in the business. Schultz, of course, said yes and a meeting was arranged at the Core Club in New York City.
“I just talked to him for a good thirty minutes and I asked him how did he get into the position he was in because that’s what I wanted to do.” Schultz. “I didn’t know if it was going to be an insider but I knew I wanted to be on TV and I knew I wanted to be considered one of the best.”
Schefter stressed to him that it’s a relationship business and he had to be genuine. The other lesson that Schultz learned from Schefter was that if you wanted information from someone, you may have to offer some information in return. For instance, if a General Manager was going to give you a story, you would have to reciprocate with some helpful information. As an example, a General Manager may want to know what another team is thinking about paying a player and how that may impact his team.
“And that’s something that really stuck with me,” said Schultz. “I’m not going to be able to do it at that level that Adam has given his experience in years but I’m trying to get to that point. I was at ESPN for three years and Adam has always been good to me and that was something that really stuck out.”
Jordan Schultz was known for shooting the lights out playing college basketball and was able to transfer his competitive juices to the media world. He’s still hitting treys all over the court today, the only difference is that he’s breaking stories and is on a new team with theScore.
WWJ 950 news anchor Jim Matthews was reportedly murdered Friday afternoon. According to TMZ, Matthews’ girlfriend and his two children were also injured in the attack.
Authorities are reportedly investigating the case as a “domestic situation” involving a murder and attempted suicide. Police said they had to force their way into the home where they found Matthews’ 10-year-old son tied up and beaten inside of a closet.
While details are still emerging, authorities said Matthews invited a man who lives nearby, into his condominium. Matthews lived in Chesterfield Township, about 34 miles outside of Detroit.
The alleged attacker was discovered in the basement overdosing on heroin and suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said they administered Narcan to reverse the effects of the overdose. Police are still investigating the relationship between Matthews and his attacker.
Matthews’ girlfriend reportedly escaped from their home along with his five-year-old daughter. She was able to flag down a neighbor who called the police. The girlfriend was reportedly suffering from stab wounds, the child was injured as well.
TMZ said both the girlfriend and his son are in critical condition while his daughter is listed as stable.
“Our investigation has determined this is an isolated tragedy that does not present a danger to our community at this time,” Chesterfield Township Police Chief Brian Bassett said.
WWJ issued a statement expressing extreme shock and sorrow.
“There have been many tears shed in our newsroom today and Jim will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jim’s family and friends during this difficult time.”
According to the brother of Jim Matthews, the WWJ news anchor may have came home to the attack already in progress.
“I talked to the lead investigator, and my brother probably came home to this. He comes home about 5:30 in the morning and was probably surprised and attacked,” Nicolai told WXYZ-TV. “I believe that [Matthews’ son] was trying to fight off this man that was attacking and trying to kill his father, and that’s how Hunter ended up injured and tied and put into a closet.”
A GoFundMe has been started for the children of Matthews. The sister of Matthews’ girlfriend has updated progress of the victims, saying “I am happy to say my older sister and my niece are both in stable condition. I am also happy to say that my niece is still acting like her normal happy self though she does somewhat understand the situation going on. My nephew has had a few victories of his own. Thankfully, his surgery was very successful, and after some tests and scans, his neck was deemed okay. He was able to take off his C-Collar which helped make the swelling in his face go down. He is still sedated while he heals, but he can move both sides of his body.”
WQAM midday host Jonathan Zaslow is no longer with WQAM in Miami.
The radio station has removed his show from the website and references to him and his normal 10a-2p ET midday timeslot program have been scrubbed from the station website.
Zaslow tweeted at 5:19p ET confirming the news.
Whether or not this has any effect on his involvement with the Miami Heat broadcasts is unknown as of now.
Barry Jackson, a veteran journalist with the Miami Herald, reports that 790 The Ticket morning hosts Brendan Tobin and Leroy Hoard will move to that 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. WQAM slot during the week of Oct. 3.
In more station movement, Joe Rose’s WQAM morning show with Zach Krantz now will be simulcast on The Ticket, replacing the Tobin/Hoard program. Audacy, which owns both WQAM and The Ticket, also simulcast Marc Hochman’s and Channing Crowder’s afternoon show.
Zaslow had been with 790 the Ticket since 2004. He was transitioned from Audacy-owned 790 to sister station AM 560 Sports WQAM last October. During his tenure he has worked with a number of established local voices including Joy Taylor, Amber Wilson, Brett Romberg, and Brendan Tobin amongst others.
WQAM has gone thru a number of changes, including a rebranding effort to call the station “560 The Joe”. That ended last year with the station returning to the AM 560 Sports WQAM brand listeners were more familiar with. What they have planned next in Zaslow’s timeslot is unclear but local listeners will likely get some answers next week.
