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Also in Traina Thoughts: Catching up; Fan’s questionable negotiations with Shohei Ohtani; Kudos to the Boss and more.
1. Hello, hello. Remember me? I hope you do. This is the first Traina Thoughts since March 21, so if you’re reading this, I appreciate you sticking around.
You may have read reports in recent weeks about some turmoil regarding Sports Illustrated. To make a very long and convoluted story short, SI now has a new operator, Minute Media, which is a GREAT thing. The transition from the old operator to the new operator was rough, but not because of the new operator.
I will spare you the details and just tell you that Sports Illustrated is not dead—by a long shot. The magazine is alive. The website is alive. Our social channels are alive. My column is alive and my podcast is alive. Any reports of SI‘s demise are 100% wrong.
We are doing our best to return to normalcy and part of that is me doing my thing in this space every day, so let’s get into today’s Traina Thoughts.
One of the many weird things about being sidelined the past couple of weeks because of turmoil above me was watching the same thing happen to Good Morning Football and not being able to write about it. That will change today.
Longtime Traina Thoughts readers know I’ve been a huge fan of GMFB since it debuted in 2016. The show is now, inexplicably with the NFL Draft coming up, on hiatus as it prepares to move from New York City to Los Angeles.
We also don’t know what the future is for three of the four hosts. We know that Jamie Erdahl is making the move out west. We still have no official word on Kyle Brandt, Peter Schrager and Jason McCourty.
However, all of the hosts said goodbye in recent weeks. What was strange is that they weren’t saying a goodbye to the show, but a goodbye to New York City. It felt as if the hosts were trying to convey that even if they remain with the show when it returns in the summer, it’s going to be completely different.
While we don’t know yet about changes to the on-air staff, we do know the production team for GMFB won’t be moving to L.A. So the NFL is taking a popular show that works extremely well and stripping it of its support staff and moving it from the exciting and gritty New York City to laid-back L.A. and making the hosts go live on the air at 5 a.m. local time.
Jared and Trent in L.A. at 5 a.m. just isn’t going to work.
“They’re a thrill ride. They’re exactly what Vegas should be.”
Trent and Jared say to 💲BUY💲 the #Raiders.. and if anyone knows Sin City, it’s these two #WallStreeters 💰💰 pic.twitter.com/QBMchfLm10
It was hard to watch the “farewell” segments from Schrager, Brandt and McCourty and not think it was the end of an era.
After 8 years and countless memories, @PSchrags bids farewell on his last “NYC Era” episode of GMFB. pic.twitter.com/RMOedpNjgA
❤️ 🗽 🏈 pic.twitter.com/KOmf5vbBWT
GMFB in NYC I freaking love you!
Forever grateful…
pic.twitter.com/2YYmrfdRLU
All you have to do is watch those clips to see why GMFB was a hit with so many viewers. The hosts are as authentic as it gets when it comes to sports television. They don’t talk down to you. They don’t do fake fights. They treat viewers with respect and have conversations that you and I have with our friends.
They have built something special with viewers, yet the NFL Network doesn’t care because they need to save a few bucks on renting a studio in New York. While the NFL Network and NFL Media are separate entities from the league and the owners, it’s hard to watch the league cry poverty at every turn and act like we need to hold a telethon for a league that gets $110 billion in television rights deals.
In fact, the NFL Network made talent cuts this morning.
NEWS: Andrew Siciliano, Melissa Stark, James Palmer and Will Selva are all out as NFL Network continues trimming, The Athletic has learned. https://t.co/ORtNrUSHY9
The news broke that the NFL was going to move GMFB from New York City to Los Angeles on March 6. It’s been a month and the move makes as little sense now as it did it then. And the only thing that has become a little clearer is the Good Morning Football we all loved is going to be very different. And that’s a bummer.
2. Since I haven’t written a Traina Thoughts in a couple of weeks, I want to post some things I saw over that time that is worth you checking out if you missed them.
• The Ringer‘s Bryan Curtis wrote an outstanding feature on the great Ian Eagle.
• Gayle King pulled a prank on Oprah and Charles Barkley that led to Barkley having an absolutely hilarious reaction.
• This dude replicated Roman Reigns’s entrance for his wedding.
• Since I didn’t tape a new SI Media Podcast last week, I appeared on Sal Licata’s WFAN podcast and we did our usual “Traina Thoughts” segment there.
3. I’m a big fan of Awful Announcing, but this I just don’t get. Ryen Russillo, and any other human being, is allowed to turn off or not watch anything he wants. There are a lot of horrible things about X, formerly Twitter, but near the top of the list is the “Sports TV Police” who question you about your sports viewing. Let people watch or not watch whatever they want in peace.
Ryen Russillo turned off Iowa-LSU to watch Trail Blazers-Magic: ‘I think that’s OK, and you should think it’s OK too’ https://t.co/NEuYO4B9hM pic.twitter.com/qUlY3odcFd
4. The fan who caught Shohei Ohtani’s first home run ball as a Los Angeles Dodger does not seem like a good negotiator.
Shohei Ohtani said he exchanged the home run ball for a ball, two caps and a bat. He also met the fan.
That ball is worth quite a lot. Good deal?
5. The New York Post has always given us the Tiger Woods coverage we need.
Tiger Woods abstaining from sex while training for the Masters: pal https://t.co/QdX5HvLJWj pic.twitter.com/wPG41qI6bH
6. Not only was the last Traina Thoughts column posted on March 21, but that was the date of the last SI Media Podcast.
Since I didn’t have the opportunity to promote it much, let me tell you the guest was The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis and he was outstanding. If you missed it, it’s out.
Brand new SI MEDIA PODCAST with The Ringer’s @bryancurtis
– Big Sports Illustrated news
– Stephen A. Smith $25 million man?
– ESPN/Rodgers/McAfee
– LeBron becomes a podcaster
– College football-ESPN deal
– Apple backlash RE Patriots serieshttps://t.co/ck0BFM7TyA
The episode before Curtis, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky was the guest and he was excellent as well.
Brand new SI MEDIA PODCAST with @danorlovsky7
– His crazy busy schedule
– NFL owns the sports calendar
– Free agency + Draft thoughts
– Can he be a lead analyst
– Sports should be fun
– Crazy food takes
Apple: https://t.co/ck0BFM7TyA
Spotify: https://t.co/diM3f0Z0wr
You can also listen to the SI Media Podcast on Apple and Spotify.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I’ve been dying to post this all week. I’m not even a Bruce Springsteen fan, but I was blown away by how great he was on last week’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. This was the best scene of the season.
It’s been a couple days now so if you haven’t seen the latest episode of Curb keep scrolling but I need to acknowledge how awesome and hilarious Springsteen was in this scene with Larry David and Jeff 🤣pic.twitter.com/bWkzSF7M6z
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
