College football's talking season goes quiet. Plus: Clase on leave amid MLB gambling probe
Good morning! Be mindful of upcoming deadlines.
The major college football conferences' 'media days' wrapped up last week. Did you notice?
Media days have long been a rite of passage to the season, the ultimate sign that fall camp is about to start and Labor Day weekend will arrive before you know it. They've quietly lost primacy in recent years, and I think media days' slippage tells a story about how college football has changed.
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Do you remember what a massive deal the SEC's media days used to be, roughly a decade ago? The annual news conference by the league commissioner was akin to a college football State of the Union address. Coach speaking spots were enough of an event that their adversaries planned around them, like the time a former Ole Miss coach sued his successor immediately before the latter took the podium. Paul Finebaum's SEC Network set was a cauldron. Who could forget the Saban-Finebaum Heated Interaction of 2016?
You are rolling your eyes, hopefully. But people did pay attention to media days as a proper event. It's hard to quantify, but I think this Google Trends chart, showing that interest in 'SEC media days' peaked in the early or mid-2010s and has been sloping down since then, is on to something.
One problem? 'Talkin' season' is now year-round. The conference commissioners rarely go more than a few weeks without speaking into a microphone and making news about playoff expansion, scheduling models, NIL or some other governance issue. There can't be a SOTU every month.
I put the issue to my pal Chris Vannini, a national college football reporter at The Athletic and a veteran of many media days: Are media days dying? And if so, should anyone miss them?
💬 Yes and no. For ESPN and the broadcast partners, media days are when you get the b-roll content on film you use throughout the season. They'll always need that.
But from a news perspective, SEC media days have become a waste of time for writers. There is essentially no opportunity for one-on-one conversations. It's mostly just a TV and radio show event at this point. Other leagues' media days are more useful for writers, because they provide individual time with coaches and players. That can be useful down the road.
The biggest issue with media days is that the college football offseason isn't about football anymore. It's been that way since COVID. The pandemic, conference realignment, transfers, playoff expansion and now politics have been the most pressing topics. The No. 1 thing most people were looking for going into the Big Ten's media days was the commissioner talking about his playoff idea. We see the numbers. We know what people are reading and listening to, and it's less about football and more about the machinations. I hope it flips back, but I don't know if it will.
Let's talk more ball together this year.
Guardians' Clase on leave amid gambling probe
Cleveland's Luis Ortiz went on non-disciplinary paid leave July 3, as MLB began a probe into abnormal betting around two of his pitches. Now another Guardians pitcher is under the same designation, and it's a notable one: Emmanuel Clase, one of baseball's best relievers. The Guardians say they've been told that no one else in the organization is 'expected to be impacted.' Amid broader concerns for baseball, Clase going on leave throws a wrench into the Guardians' trade deadline.
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Sanders 'cured' of bladder cancer
Deion Sanders had his bladder removed in May after doctors discovered an 'aggressive' cancerous tumor, he revealed yesterday, as his health has been a subject of uncertainty throughout the football offseason. 'He is cured from the cancer,' one of his doctors said at a news conference featuring an upbeat Sanders. He'll continue to lead Colorado. More here.
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Our Jacob Whitehead — whose Tour de France coverage was excellent — wrote this in his deep-dive into Tadej Pogacar's dominance last weekend: 'Cycling is a sport where suspicion (of doping) is natural, because those at its heart have been burned before.'
And that stuck with us. Is Pogacar — a four-time Tour winner headed toward GOAT status — now going to endure a lifetime of suspicion? We checked in quickly with Jacob:
💬 Invariably, yes. In many ways, this exists outside Pogacar's control — cycling has such a checkered past that suspicion is a default rather than a side avenue.
Pogacar, 26, has set all sorts of records in terms of watt/kilo efforts — yet his best times up several climbs, such as the Hautacam, still lag behind those set in the zenith of the blood-doping era.
The main issue, in terms of optics, is the presence of Swiss former rider Mauro Gianetti as team manager. During Gianetti's career, two doctors filed a criminal complaint against him over alleged drug use, while as a DS (head coach), his rider Juan José Cobo was stripped of his 2011 Vuelta a España victory after a doping test found abnormalities in his biological passport. Gianetti has always denied wrongdoing.
For now, as Jacob points out, Pogacar's dominance appears legitimate. Onward:
📺 MLB: Mets at Padres
9:40 p.m. ET on MLB Network
Both teams are in tight races, with the Mets just holding off the Phillies in the NL East and the Padres right on the fence for the last wild card.
📺 WNBA: Aces at Sparks
10 p.m. ET on NBA TV
As mentioned above: This is Cameron Brink's season debut for L.A. and first game since June of last year, when she tore her ACL.
Get tickets to games like these here.
A really fresh angle from Andy McCullough, who canvassed MLB executives to understand their interpersonal dynamics as the trade deadline approaches — and sorted them by personality in the first installment of the three-part series this week.
Broad-based index funds are a better investment than sports bets — unless, I suppose, you spent the past few years betting on Scottie Scheffler. This Neil Paine story is fun (and not investment advice).
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This report on Mario Lemieux angling to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins back from Fenway Sports Group filled my Pittsburgh heart with optimism.
Antonio Morales took stock of how all of the blue-chip quarterbacks in last year's college football recruiting class are doing. The results are sobering.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Once again, Ichiro's 'wool sock' comment.
Most-read on the website yesterday: Deion Sanders' health update.
Ticketing links in this article are provided by partners of The Athletic. Restrictions may apply. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
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