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Victor Wembanyama offered his perspective on living in the United States in a preview of his interview with Jon Wertheim for CBS’s 60 Minutes, airing Sunday. Asked about the positives and negatives, the French star pointed to the acceptance of ambition as something he values. “The good thing is how it feels you are never judged for being ambitious,” Wembanyama said.
Three sports figures running for Congress captured Republican nominations in the midterms—two for House races, and one for the Senate. Former NFL kicker and broadcaster Jay Feely is running in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District; former Rangers and Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is running in Texas’s 21st Congressional District; and former NBC and ESPN sideline reporter Michele Tafoya is running for Senate in Minnesota. Their former colleagues in the sports world are injecting money into their races. More than a dozen active team owners donated to one of the three. Other high-profile names include: * NFL commissioner Roger Goodell: $7,000 to Feely * CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz: $3,500 to Feely * Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill: $7,000 to Tafoya and an additional $10,000 to associated PACs * 10-time NBA All-Star John Stockton: $3,500 to Tafoya * Texas Rangers owner Ray Davis: $7,500 to Teixeira
Ernie Johnson spoke openly about his cancer diagnoses. He spoke about the tribulations of his son Michael, who suffered from Duchenne muscular dystrophy and died in 2021 at 33. He, Barkley and Smith were there to console O’Neal in 2020 after the death of Kobe Bryant, who was one of nine people aboard a helicopter flying to a basketball tournament in Newbury Park, Calif. Bryant’s daughter Gianna was on the helicopter with him. Johnson spoke eloquently at the funeral of Craig Sager, the brilliant sideline reporter for Turner’s NBA coverage, who died of leukemia in 2016. Wednesday, Johnson, now 70, spoke alone. “It’s just time,” he said, putting his “brothers,” as he put it, out front for praise. The long hours preparing for every show, along with his recovery from bypass surgery 14 months ago, told him he had to take some things off his plate. He will still do the NCAA basketball tournament for TNT and CBS and said he’ll lean into his production company, 32 Bowties, which will tell, as he put it, “feel-good” stories about sports.
The Big3 averaged 558,000 viewers last summer and reached a peak of 850,000 viewers during the playoffs, a 48-percent increase from 2024. This season, with games televised on CBS and BET, Big3 games are averaging 565,000 viewers, according to league representatives. How has the Big3 managed to stick around, mostly without full NBA support? Much of that involves Cube, and how he’s attracted fans via his music and movies since the 1980s.
Florida’s Thomas Haugh is expected to be the highest-paid player in college basketball next season after he withdrew from the 2026 NBA Draft despite being projected a first-round pick. Matt Norlander of CBS reported Haugh’s earnings could exceed $10 million this season with the Gators, which is more than double what James will make. Following discussions with multiple college coaches, general managers and NBA scouts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect competitive interests, we know these 18 players will all be making at least $3.9 million.
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With NBA and NHL teams now laser-focused on offseason business, Scripps Sports — with local rights to five hockey teams and one basketball team — is in acquisition mode. Scripps already locked up the Pistons last month and was in the running for the Heat. “We have a business model that’s working really well for us ... in markets that we’re already doing business where we have typically an NBC, ABC, CBS or Fox station,” Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor said. “We’re in 40-something markets. There’s still other NHL and other NBA markets that check that box, and we’ve gotten a lot of calls from other teams that aren’t in our in markets [where] we might own an ION but we don’t own like an ABC, NBC, CBS.”
The WNBA has significantly increased its record-setting media deal. The WNBA’s 11-year deal is worth $3.1 billion with partners Disney (ABC/ESPN), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock), Amazon (Prime Video), Paramount (CBS), Scripps (Ion), USA Sports (USA Network), and NBA TV, a source familiar with the league’s deals confirmed to Front Office Sports. The average annual value of the new media deal is $281 million, about 6.5 times more than the previous deal’s AAV of $43 million. The WNBA added CBS, Scripps, and Amazon as partners over the last few years, bringing its total media revenue to around $60 million last year.
Kevin Garnett: “I’m still friends with Sam Cassell, Spreewell, Gary Trent, T-Hudson, and Trenton Hassell. Those are my guys. Whenever I see any of the guys — Wally, too — I haven’t seen Wally since he’s been doing his CBS stuff, but I see he’s killing it on podcasting and broadcasting. That doesn’t surprise me. Wally always spoke well and knew how to do great interviews. Whenever I see any of the guys, man, it’s all love. Steph — when I see Steph, I said... I went to China, ran into Steph, saw him. We did an event together. It was dope. It was dope to kind of go to the side. We went to dinner, chopped it up like some real ones, cleared a lot of space, a lot of dead air that needed to be cleared, and got on the same page.
The debut of “Sunday Night Basketball” on NBC just felt big, from Mike Tirico to Caitlin Clark to Reggie Miller to Luka Doncic to LeBron James to Spike Lee to “Roundball Rock.” This didn’t feel like game No. 50 of the regular season — it felt like opening night. Getting Lakers-Knicks at MSG was great scheduling by the league and NBC, especially on a night with little to no competition on the sports side outside an NHL Stadium Series game on ESPN. Lakers-Knicks won’t beat the Grammys, but it had the same big-time feel. Sources are telling me that we’ll be getting an announcement on the Mountain West’s new TV deal on Tuesday. It wouldn’t surprise me if The CW and CBS are partners with the conference, as well as another partner or two.
Over his career, Scoop has worked with leading media outlets such as ESPN, CBS, Bally Sports and The Source Magazine. But, every great story includes a plot twist, and for Scoop, that came in 2023. After two and a half years at a major television network, he found himself part of a massive layoff — a blow that could’ve stalled his momentum, but instead reignited it. “When I got that call, I was sitting in L.A.,” Scoop recalls. “I went straight to the beach. I wasn’t panicked — I was peaceful. Because I already knew God wasn’t closing a door, He was redirecting me.”
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With LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne failing to comply with the Low Remuneration Level requirements, Euroleague Basketball officially confirmed measures to be enforced, according to the Competition Balance Standards regulations. More details on the compliance report of Euroleague Basketball were announced on Monday. Per the press release: “After the enforcement of the ‘Competition Balance Standards (CBS)’ rules, part of Financial Sustainability & Fair Play regulations, at the start of the 2025-26 EuroLeague season, Euroleague Basketball made public a compliance report on participating teams.
Kidd saw shades of another former Duke star in Flagg's game: Grant Hill, who shared the Rookie of the Year award with Kidd in 1994-95, when the 6-foot-8 Hill ran the point a lot for the Detroit Pistons. Kidd saw the same phenomenal blend of feel and force in Flagg that Hill had coming out of Duke. "I saw that, too," Hill, who as managing director of Team USA invited Flagg to join the program's select team and called some of his college games for CBS, told ESPN. "He tries to play the complete game. You look up and he's got 22 points and it doesn't even feel like he looked to score. He's so unselfish. He defends. He just tries to do what's necessary to win games."
She will continue as a studio analyst for the NCAA championship, broadcast jointly with CBS, and will also work as lead analyst for TNT’s inaugural seasons of Big East and Big 12 basketball. Parker continues as a lead studio analyst for TNT’s coverage of the Unrivaled women’s basketball league, and as a Bleacher Report contributor.
Brian Lewis: After Jeremiah Fears and Kon Knueppel - the latter of whom has a workout scheduled with Brooklyn - Nique Clifford is the next highest-rated prospect known to work out for the #Nets. He’s mocked 13th by CBS, 17th by Tankathon and 20th by Bleacher Report. #NBA