Latest news with #trades
Associated Press
8 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Mike Rowe to Headline BuildOps Forge 2025: Champion of Skilled Labor Joins the Premier Event for the Trades
Iconic 'Dirty Jobs' Host to Inspire Commercial Contractors at Premier Industry Event in San Diego LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESS Newswire / July 23, 2025 / BuildOps, the all-in-one platform built for commercial contractors, today announced that Mike Rowe-Emmy Award-winning TV host, New York Times bestselling author, and CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation-will headline BuildOps Forge 2025, the company's flagship conference for the trades. BuildOps Forge is set to take place October 13-15 in San Diego. BuildOps Forge 2025 brings together the professionals who maintain and build America's critical infrastructure-from HVAC and electrical contractors to plumbing and fire safety experts. Attendees will experience three days of practical education, peer-to-peer learning, and industry-shaping dialogue, now energized by one of the most recognized voices championing the trades. 'Mike Rowe has done more to dignify the trades than anyone in modern media,' said Alok Chanani, CEO of BuildOps. 'He understands that building a great career doesn't require a desk or a degree. It takes skill. It takes grit. And it takes someone to tell that story. That's exactly why he's joining us at Forge.' Through his mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Rowe has awarded millions in scholarships to aspiring tradespeople and led national efforts to close the skills gap. His message-that a career in the trades can offer purpose, prosperity, and a path to ownership-continues to resonate with workers and employers alike. 'The next generation isn't being told the full story,' Rowe said. 'The trades aren't a fallback. They're a way forward-for families, for businesses, and for the entire country. I'm excited to join BuildOps Forge to speak directly with the builders and makers of the world-the men and women who keep our systems running, our lights on, and our economy moving. They deserve not just appreciation, but opportunity.' From shifting regulations and surging energy demand to workforce shortages and new technology, commercial contractors are navigating an industry in flux. BuildOps Forge offers a vital platform to regroup, retool, and collectively take control of the future. The event combines tactical training and exclusive BuildOps roadmap access with big-picture insight from industry leaders and peers. It's a high-impact experience designed to sharpen skills, strengthen networks, and move the trades forward-together. 'There's never been more pressure-or more possibility-in this industry,' said Steve Chew, BuildOps Co-Founder. 'Forge exists to meet that moment. It's where contractors come to level up, lead boldly, and build what's next.' BuildOps Forge has a history of bringing extraordinary voices to the trades, including leadership expert Jocko Willink, Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Colonel William Swenson, and boxing legend Mike Tyson. In 2025, Mike Rowe continues that legacy-spotlighting the people who keep America's infrastructure moving and the future of skilled work alive. For more information about BuildOps Forge 2025, including the agenda, speaker lineup, and registration details, please visit About BuildOps Forge BuildOps Forge is the premier conference for commercial contractors. Designed for business owners, operations leaders, and field professionals, it provides expert-led training, invaluable peer insights, and an exclusive look at the future of the trades industry. About BuildOps BuildOps is the only all-in-one business platform built exclusively for commercial contractors. By combining project management, service, dispatching, invoicing, and AI-powered automation, BuildOps helps contractors work smarter, grow faster, and stay ahead of the competition. To learn more about BuildOps and how we're driving innovation in the trades, visit Media Contact Justin Mauldin Salient PR [email protected] 737.234.0936 SOURCE: BuildOps press release
Fox News
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Fox News
Cowboys' George Pickens takes swipe at former team
George Pickens is preparing for his first season with the Dallas Cowboys after he was traded there from the Pittsburgh Steelers following a tumultuous 2024 season. As Pickens got started in camp, he expressed optimism about having a "fresh start" with the Cowboys and had a subtle jab at the Steelers. "I'm definitely excited to run better plays," he said, via Pickens had 59 catches for 900 yards and three touchdowns under head coach Mike Tomlin and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. He will be playing for new Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer and offensive coordinator Klayton Adams. Schottenheimer served as the offensive coordinator for the Cowboys last season under Mike McCarthy. He also likened himself and CeeDee Lamb as the "Mario Bros." "Oh yeah, for sure. Just different type of styles of play," Pickens added. "A lot of people over the years got different styles of play, but CeeDee's a certain type of guy, then I'm a certain type of guy. So, when you mesh that together, it's like Mario Bros. "We definitely can do something special." Lamb had 152 targets last season – 66 more than Jake Ferguson. Lamb's role increased as Dak Prescott went down with an injury and Cooper Rush was left to run the offense. Adding Pickens is expected to open up the offense a bit, which could only be beneficial for the Cowboys moving forward.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bill Simmons shreds Nets for ‘one of the worst trades of the decade'
It's been an offseason of troubling moves for the Brooklyn Nets, and it hit fever pitch last week. After trading two-way wing Cam Johnson to the Denver Nuggets for Michael Porter Jr. and a 2032 first-round pick, Bill Simmons crushed Brooklyn for the deal. 'Did they have to even put Cam Johnson in the trade?' the Ringer honcho said on his eponymous podcast. 'I just think that trade, the more I thought about it over the last five days, is one of the worst trades of the decade. You have to attach a pick to get rid of Porter, and I also didn't get anything for Cam Johnson? Nothing?' Simmons added that the Nets are among the 'bleakest' situations that any team is facing in the NBA right now, along with the Raptors, Bulls and Pelicans. Porter Jr. has dealt with numerous injuries in his career, dating back to the 2018 draft, which led to him falling to No. 14 despite expectations he would be selected in the top five. 'It's bad. I thought it was a miracle trade for the Nuggets when it happened… Porter, I didn't think was tradable unless you took like a Bradley Beal. You know, $78 million for two years. He has a bad back. He has a f–ked up shoulder… For [the Nuggets] he was a complete impediment to making their roster better… here comes Brooklyn, and they're like, 'We just need one pick.' It's f–king crazy.' It goes beyond the trade for Simmons, who also took aim at the Nets entering the 2025 draft with five first-round picks and making all of them to much criticism. 'I continue to think they did an awful job,' Simmons said. 'Like really bad. I didn't like their draft… I just don't understand anything they did.' Johnson averaged a career-high 18.8 points per game on 39 percent shooting from 3 to go along with 3.4 assists and 3.4 rebounds per game while being known as a plus defender. Porter Jr. put up 18.2 points per game on 39.5 percent from 3-point range with seven rebounds and 2.1 assists for the Nuggets and helped them win a title in 2023.
New York Times
12 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
NHL offseason concern-o-meter: Erik Karlsson trade market, Connor McDavid contract, more
After weeks and months of teasing an exciting summer, the NHL offseason fizzled out quickly. Trade buzz rarely came to fruition, free agency underwhelmed and there are few legitimate offer-sheet candidates left. With little NHL news and excitement coming out, the dog days of summer can become the prime time to debate, dissect and overreact. So why not add to the discourse? Let's dust off the concern-o-meter™️to analyze a few red flags that have emerged this summer. Concern-o-meter: 5/10 It's never easy to take a step back and start looking toward the future, so the Bruins deserve credit for making that decision at the trade deadline. Trading for draft picks and prospects such as Fraser Minten will help this team replenish its prospect pipeline. Bets on reclamation projects such as Casey Mittelstadt at the deadline, along with Viktor Arvidsson this summer, could pay off, too. Advertisement As promising as that all is, the real question is whether Don Sweeney has the vision to retool the Bruins into a contender around David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy. His track record of drafting and developing players is suspect at best, and this summer's direction emphasizing hard-nosed players and size only adds to that concern. The Tanner Jeannot contract may not be that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, since it only carries a $3.4 million cap hit. However, it represents Sweeney's willingness to commit to a five-year deal with a player who brings size, but not nearly enough skill. It's too early to sound the alarms in Boston, but there are some concerning trends worth keeping an eye on. Concern-o-meter: 6/10 The Blackhawks may have gone into the offseason with a ton of cap space, but the reality is that the team isn't in the position to land a big-name free agent just yet. As tempting as it could have been to offer Mitch Marner $14 million AAV, his timeline doesn't line up with Chicago's. There is a difference between accelerating the process and rushing it, and that would have fallen into the latter category. Taking the slow and patient approach isn't perfect, either. Sometimes teams don't build the right support system to ease their young guns into a lineup. It can put too much pressure on franchise cornerstones to jump into meaningful roles, which can derail their development. While the Blackhawks already have some veterans on the roster, including Jason Dickinson, Nick Foligno and Connor Murphy, management has to be sure those players can provide enough support to their rising core. That starts at the top with Connor Bedard — who still looks to be on the Jack Eichel and Clayton Keller path, but could always slip to the tier below if Chicago doesn't play this right — and trickles down to the likes of Frank Nazar, Alex Vlasic and Sam Rinzel. Rebuilding can be a painful process, so taking this quiet of an offseason approach is somewhat risky. Advertisement Concern-o-meter: 6.5/10 There is time over the next year and a half for a Karlsson trade, so the Penguins don't have to rush anything this offseason. But how will starting the year in Pittsburgh affect his value? A few factors could influence that, including the aging process. Karlsson may have defied typical aging curves, but Father Time eventually comes for everyone — and that can be further exposed depending on his usage and the support around him. So moving Karlsson this summer could be the best path, if there is an available buyer. It's just that the options have dwindled over the last couple of weeks. The Hurricanes may not have signed a clear Brent Burns replacement, but management may not want to take another massive swing on defense after acquiring (and signing) K'Andre Miller. The Panthers are out after extending Aaron Ekblad. The Senators should probably see what Jordan Spence has to offer before committing to Karlsson's contract. Vegas appears to be a better landing spot for Rasmus Andersson. Concern-o-meter: 7/10 The league is right in one thing: the game can sell itself. At its core, hockey is an exciting sport that can attract even the most casual fans. The problem is that the NHL doesn't do enough to get eyeballs on the game, and the 2025-26 schedule is the prime example of that. The NHL is shifting more toward games starting at 7:00 p.m. local time, instead of on the half hour. That makes sense during the week, to ensure an early enough ending for fans on work/school nights. But when games are unevenly distributed throughout the week, with clusters on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it leads to a lot of overlap. It leans into the assumption that fans only want to watch their own team and aren't interested in a league-wide view. The data probably backs that up, but it's flawed because of the usual schedule structure. Fans can't bounce around to watch other games on busier nights. And lighter nights don't always have eye-catching marquee matchups. So if the idea is to have a standardized local starting time, there should be more balance across the week so there aren't seven or eight games starting at once every Tuesday and Thursday. Advertisement The 4 Nations Face-Off tournament proved there can be a lot of interest in hockey. But the league failed to build on that down the stretch and into the playoffs. Add in a discombobulated, drawn-out decentralized draft, and the season's TV coverage ended on a sour note. With the 2025-26 season opening up with a matchup between the Panthers and Blackhawks, since Chicago's market size and Bedard's star power were prioritized over actual rivalries, the league looks on track to repeat the same mistakes that keep it behind other major professional leagues. Concern-o-meter: 7.5/10 When the Kings' playoff window started to close a few years ago, management changed its approach. Los Angeles blended an aging core, led by Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty, with some up-and-coming talent. First, Adrian Kempe and Mikey Anderson emerged as key players. Then the next wave came, with Alex Laferriere and Quinton Byfield breaking out. And now Brandt Clarke, Alex Turcotte and Akil Thomas look poised to play more meaningful roles. But around that infusion of youth, the Kings opted to get older and slower this summer. That is especially glaring on defense, with Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin replacing Spence and Vladislav Gavrikov. Despite no changes in dollars and cents, this defensive swap cost the team 18 goals in Dom Luszczyszyn's model, which landed the Kings dead last in our offseason improvement round-up. Ken Holland's dealings were already questionable in his later years in Detroit. There were quite a few lows in Edmonton that outweighed some of the highs. So the Kings shouldn't exactly be surprised that this is the direction he's taking for his newest team. Maybe L.A.'s system will be strong enough to maximize Ceci and Dumoulin's defensive games, but maintaining that structure with weaker players operating within it could be a challenge. Concern-o-meter: 8/10 Two things held the Maple Leafs back this past season: their stars didn't shine bright enough in the playoffs and there wasn't enough bottom-six support. Matias Maccelli adds a middle-six playmaking presence to the Maple Leafs at a low cost. Nicolas Roy and Dakota Joshua add positional flexibility to the bottom six. If the Maple Leafs can channel the best from these three, after each experienced a tough 2024-25 campaign, that should solve one problem. But there is still a Mitch Marner-sized hole in the top six. As flawed as his Maple Leafs tenure was, and though his regular-season caliber didn't translate to a postseason environment consistently enough, he was still capable of putting up 100 points in the regular season. And there were some glimpses of that star potential in the playoffs. Advertisement That's something management has not replaced at this point in the offseason. The bottom-six support helps. So will another year of progress from Matthew Knies, John Tavares at a much more reasonable price, plus Auston Matthews and William Nylander. But for a team facing the pressure to finally go on a deep run, the offseason feels incomplete with that glaring hole in the top six. Concern-o-meter: 8.5/10 In a vacuum, it isn't that concerning that McDavid hasn't signed his next contract just yet. Sure, he signed his last contract on July 5, four days after being eligible to extend for the 2018-19 season. But none of the stars heading the 2026 class of free agents have extended, either — Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Eichel and Kyle Connor all have yet to ink new contracts. Leon Draisaitl waited a couple of months after his eligibility opened up last summer, too. That situation wasn't without its own pressure points. Draisaitl, like McDavid, said he needed time to figure out what both he and the team wanted. But an extension was signed in September 2024. As much as teams may want to have certainty on their franchise cornerstones sooner rather than later, players should take the time to contemplate their next steps. While a short-term contract should be on the table more often for elite players, the assumption should be that this will be McDavid's career-defining contract. It will likely be his richest deal financially and tie him to a team for the rest of his prime. While trades are always a possibility down the line, players don't sign seven or eight-year contracts thinking about that. So it makes perfect sense for McDavid to take the time after another painfully disappointing finish to consider what is best for him moving forward. But there is something about his parting comments that hits differently. 'If I feel that there's a good window to win here over and over again, then signing is no problem,' McDavid said, as reported by The Athletic's Daniel Nugent-Bowman. Already, the team has Draisaitl extended for another eight years, four more years of Evan Bouchard, plus another season of Jake Walman to work around. It's a solid foundation for McDavid to be a part of in Edmonton, but it's far from the full picture. Advertisement The goaltending situation remains unresolved and volatile. While the team managed to clear out cap with the Evander Kane and Arvidsson trades, Edmonton also lost Connor Brown to free agency. Andrew Mangiapane appears to be a solid middle-six fit. Ike Howard and Matt Savoie also have long-term potential and should help balance the books with their entry-level contracts. But those changes may not be enough to replace what was lost and push this team further along. If not, does Stan Bowman have the vision and creativity to change that? Asking any general manager to build a contender in a cap world is a challenge. Navigating around core contracts such as those for Draisaitl, Bouchard and Darnell Nurse adds another element of difficulty. But Bowman's track record and decision-making don't inspire much confidence. The Trent Frederic extension shows some of the shortcomings in his cap management. The offseason is far from over, so while the alarm is not sounding for McDavid's contract situation just yet, the Oilers' future under Bowman is a growing concern. — Data via Evolving-Hockey, HockeyViz, Hockey Stat Cards, All Three Zones, Dom Luszczyszyn, The Stanley Cap and Natural Stat Trick. This story relies on shot-based metrics; here is a primer on these numbers. (Top photos of Erik Karlsson and Connor McDavid: Patrick Smith and Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bulls trade proposal sends Coby White to West contender for coveted 15.3 ppg forward
This offseason has been a quiet but wild ride for the Chicago Bulls. Over the past year, the Bulls' roster has changed dramatically. After finishing 2024 with a team built around the star duo of DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine, both of those wings have found themselves in Sacramento, with Chicago's youth movement taking over. This offseason has had plenty of twists and turns around the league, but the Bulls have mostly stayed out of the spotlight. However, as free agency has wound down, Chicago's lack of a deal with Josh Giddey has begun stealing headlines. Of course, the Bulls aren't the only team in that boat with a restricted free agent, and they could swoop in and make a deal with one of those other squads. As suggested by Bleacher Nation's Elias Schuster, the Bulls could make a deal for Jonathan Kuminga. A potential sign-and-trade could see Kuminga securing his desired contract while Chicago sends back Coby White on his $12.8 million deal. In the proposed trade, the Bulls would also get Trayce Jackson-Davis and a top-eight protected first-round pick. As Schuster mentioned, the Warriors simply need to get off of Kuminga before things get even worse in the Bay. While giving up Jackson-Davis and a future pick might not be ideal, getting back another proven scorer in White, who could be a perfect fit off the bench, would be hard for Golden State to turn down, especially at his salary. This deal won't necessarily solve all of the problems for either team, but it could be a step in the right direction for both franchises.
