Great @EliKronenberg story: Terry McAulay and John Stockton gave to Michele Tafoya, and an incredible list of sports figures gave to Jay Feely's campaign: John Harbaugh Kevin O'Connell Jim Nantz Kevin Harlan Trent Green Charles Barkley Roger Goodell Tony Finau And way more!

NFL owners spent about $18 million on the midterms, with the huge majority of that going to Republicans. And then you have Arthur Blank, who donated to AOC

Kevin O'Connell donated $500 to former Jets teammate Jay Feely. Terry McAulay gave over $2,000 to former NBC colleague Michele Tafoya. How three congressional candidates are leaning on their sports networks for campaign cash:

The Atlanta Dream are blaming the WNBA for a scheduling mess that forced Game 6 of the Finals into a midday Thursday slot. “Playing a midday game on a Thursday is not what we would have chosen and not what we fought for,” the team said in an open letter to fans.

Sports fans' reception to AI-generated content has been tepid at best, but data from a new @FOS survey shows sports leaders are embracing the practice anyway. Our study fielded responses from more than 200 sports industry leaders who operate teams, oversee athletes, or conduct competitions. Forty percent of respondents said their organizations already use AI for content or media-production purposes, while another 24% said they plan to begin doing so in the next 12 months. More:

Pat McAfee regularly gets threatening messages—including death threats. One source says the FBI advised him to wear a bullet-proof vest after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

This quote about athletic departments "still waiting to see ROI from their [AI] investments" doesn’t surprise me. Frankly because, AI adoption in sports has mostly been a high-cost & low-reward effort... for two main reasons: 1) Using AI to replace the wrong things. AI should support human judgment and creativity, not replace it. So the backlash against replacing SIDs, writers, and graphic designers with AI (most of this article), IMO, is largely warranted. 2) Thinking that buying an enterprise Claude subscription, or having IT turn on Copilot in the M365 Portal, counts as "adopting AI." It doesn't. After doing 1 & 2, and seeing no results or backlash or both, Departments turn to what they love: ~ Consultants ~ (or familiar software incumbants) Who see $$$ in selling AI consulting or software add-ons. This compounds the issue: slapping AI onto legacy software still is not AI adoption. The real opportunity is using AI to get more valuable work done with the people you already have. But that part is hard, because it requires: • organizing your data so these tools can actually use it • connecting AI to systems where it actually *does work*, beyond writing blogs or emails • letting data actually drive decisions--including challenging what’s already been decided But once you do that... you'd start asking much harder questions about the department itself. Why does this process exist? How should responsibilities change when work that used to take a week takes an afternoon? And who actually needs to be involved? The hard questions. TL;DR this article doesn’t surprise me. Too many departments are throwing AI at the wrong problems: replacing the work people value while leaving the processes that waste their time (the real opportunity) untouched. A proper implementation forces them to rethink how they operate. And I think a lot of departments still haven’t reckoned with how much that might have to change.

Quite a quote from an anonymous athletic director in response to a survey on AI use in sports: "We don't want to even spend money on [painting] a room; I can't imagine being willing to spend money on an AI system" @EllynBriggs @FOS

"[Joe Lacob] was like, 'okay the goal is going to be 5 years. You gotta bring home a championship.'" Natalie Nakase tells FOS how the Valkyries owner set a five-year championship deadline in her job interview. She's now one win away from hitting it in year two.

Tom Brady's criticisms of the officiating during Fox's Packers-Lions broadcast Sunday are drawing attention, as @sportsrapport reports. The NFL's restrictions on Brady, stemming from his role as a Raiders part-owner, include a limitation on how far he can go in criticizing the officiating. It's subjective. But the indication always has been that Brady can criticize a call that's made during a game in his Fox role, but he can't take it to egregious levels.

LIV Golf CEO "was paid $13.67 million from Sept. 12, 2025, through Aug. 28, 2026" including a $6.37m "retention payment" in June. CFO got $3.36m retention payment; global chief people officer got $1.04m🪂🪂🪂 @_DavidRumsey in today's @FOS AM Memo:

From last week's bankruptcy filings: 7 LIV Golf execs were paid "retention payments" this summer ranging from $331,000 to the league's chief communications officer to $6.375 million to CEO Scott O'Neil. More details @FOS ⬇️