Dave Portnoy and other Barstool Sports personalities will no longer appear on Fox “Big Noon Kickoff”; the Milwaukee Bucks announce the Bucks+ streaming service through the NBA App; and the Portland Trail Blazers fire their new play-by-play announcer after inappropriate social media posts surfaced. Plus news on Sling, Skydance, NBC Sports Network and the Indiana Pacers.
Barstool personalities to no longer appear on “Big Noon Kickoff”
Dave Portnoy and members of Barstool Sports will no longer appear on Fox “Big Noon Kickoff,” according to a report by Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. The Barstool contingent did not mesh easily with the more traditional pregame show format, per Marchand, and there was the added complication of Portnoy’s apparent ban from Ohio Stadium. Fox Sports declined comment to Sports Media Watch.
Portnoy confirmed the news in a social media post Friday night, pinning the blame at least in part on Ohio State and head coach Ryan Day for complaining to the Big Ten Conference and threatening “Fox [until] they had no choice.” Portnoy, a noted Michigan fan, told Marchand that Ohio State threatened to cut off access to Fox Sports if he was part of the show last week.
Fox Sports inked a content deal with Barstool Sports last year that also includes the “Wake Up Barstool” morning show on FS1. Barstool also has its own college football show, which served as a lead in for “Big Noon Kickoff” starting last season. Outside of college football content, Barstool Sports was also part of the company’s college basketball coverage last year, including its College Basketball Crown tournament.
The decision to place Portnoy and other cast members of Barstool Sports on editions of “Big Noon Kickoff” was widely seen as a response to ESPN’s addition of Pat McAfee to the cast of “College GameDay.” The two on-site college football pregame shows air directly against each other for two hours every Saturday during the season.
Bucks games to stream through NBA App
Milwaukee Bucks games will stream on a new direct-to-consumer service accessible through the NBA App, the team announced Thursday. Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal reported that the team inked a one-year deal for the platform, to be named “Bucks+,” which aligns with the reported timeline around the league launching a local streaming hub.
The Bucks join the Oklahoma City Thunder as the only two NBA teams to join the league-owned direct-to-consumer option rather than another platform. Most of the NBA teams affected by Main Street Sports Group winding down its operations inked deals with DAZN, some of which are exclusive pacts with limited, if any, linear distribution. Other teams around the league already have their own team-branded streaming services, such as the Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns and New Orleans Pelicans
The Bucks+ platform broadens the distribution of Bucks games, which will also broadcast over the air on Rincon Broadcasting Group’s MY24 Milwaukee. Bucks games previously aired on MY24 for a six-year stretch starting in 1988, after which the team has primarily been on regional sports networks. The Bucks are working with Good Karma Brands for media and advertising sales, along with creating a statewide affiliate network.
Several affiliates are already in place for the new season across Wisconsin, which will be the first since trading all-star F Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat. Friend reported that the team might have considered moving to DAZN if the team still held Antetokounmpo, but instead opted “on a more familiar and seamless route.”
Trail Blazers fire play-by-play announcer on same day organization announced hiring
The Portland Trail Blazers hired and fired play-by-play voice Braiden Bell in a single day Thursday after a local reporter dug through social media posts he wrote as a 15-year-old. Bell had been announced as a member of the broadcast team earlier in the day, but the decision to hire him was reversed hours later after KGW reporter Devon Haskins noticed tweets Bell wrote in 2012 and 2013 that contained offensive language.
“The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments,” the organization said in a statement. “Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations. Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster.”
Bell, who had been hired to replace longtime play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro after he left over the summer, is a graduate of Arizona State University and called WNBA and NBA G League games since his graduation. Joe Freeman of The Oregonian reported Thursday that former Sacramento Kings broadcaster Kyle Draper, who departed NBC Sports California after last season, was the other finalist for the role. It remains unknown which direction the Trail Blazers may pivot with the role remaining vacant just weeks before the regular season begins.
Trail Blazers games on television feature returning analyst Lamar Hurd and reporter Brooke Olzendam. Games are distributed locally through the Rip City Television Network, which was established in 2024 under a partnership with Sinclair after the team had previously aired on the now-defunct ROOT Sports Northwest. The organization also has the BlazersVision direct-to-consumer component that allows fans to watch without a traditional pay television subscription.
Plus: Sling, Skydance, NBC Sports Network, Indiana Pacers
- Sling has discontinued its daily and weekly pass subscriptions that gave users access to channels for a preset amount of time, according to a report by Matthew Keys of TheDesk. The passes, which had been the subject of lawsuits by The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, granted consumers the ability to subscribe and view content on pay television channels. “Sling was built to give our customers the ultimate control over their entertainment, and Sling Passes delivered on that promise for millions,” the company wrote in a note obtained by TheDesk. “Though Sling Passes are no longer available, we look forward to continuing to innovate and showing our customers new ways to experience the content they love.”
- Paramount chairman/CEO David Ellison announced Friday that the combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will be called Skydance, taking the name of Ellison’s film production company. Skydance will function as the banner for all of the assets under its purview, including the sports divisions of CBS and TNT. The company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SKYD” after previously being listed as “PSKY” since last year.
- NBC Sports Network has struck a new distribution deal with Verizon, NBCUniversal chairman Matt Strauss said at Puck & MoffettNathanson’s “In The Arena” event on Thursday, with access on Fios beginning in early 2027. The cable sports network, which televises most sporting events exclusive to Peacock — though not the streamer’s exclusive NFL game — had been distributed on Comcast Xfinity and YouTube TV since last year (along with Fubo since June). “I give a lot of credit to Rick Cordella, who runs NBC Sports,” Strauss said regarding NBCSN. “This is something he was really advocating for, and here we are, where we now have multiple different outputs for how we’re able to both scale our sports rights, monetize our sports rights, and give viewers choice around how they want to access the content.”
- The Indiana Pacers have signed a deal to distribute 15 regional games over the air on Nexstar television stations in central Indiana, it was announced Thursday. The games, and seven others, will also be available for free on the DAZN App, the exclusive streaming home of the Pacers. The remainder of the regular-season inventory will be behind a paywall, which begins at $20/month or $120/year.
