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WWE Announces NIL Program To Recruit College Athletes

“The WWE NIL program has the potential to be transformational to our business.”

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There have been many crossover between college athletes and the WWE once those students’ playing careers are over. Now, the WWE is taking advantage of the new NIL rules in the NCAA. It could be a huge advancement for the company to recruit new talent.

WWE has constructed a comprehensive program to recruit and develop potential future Superstars. Dubbed “Next In Line,” the NIL program aims to enhance the talent development process through collaborative partnerships with college athletes from diverse athletic backgrounds.

“The WWE NIL program has the potential to be transformational to our business,” said Triple H, WWE’s Executive Vice President. “By creating partnerships with elite athletes at all levels across a wide variety of college sports, we will dramatically expand our pool of talent and create a system that readies NCAA competitors for WWE once their collegiate careers come to a close.” 

Athletes who take part in the NIL deal will have access to the WWE’s performance center in Orlando as well as access to the resources that the athletes at the WWE receive including brand building, media training, communications, live event promotion, creative writing and community relations.

WWE dipped their toe into NIL deals this past September when they signed heavyweight freestyle wrestler Gable Steveson, who won both a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and a national championship at Minnesota. The deal allowed Steveson to return to Minnesota for his senior season while also beginning his training at the performance center to become a WWE Superstar.

WWE plans to unveil its first class of NIL deals in the next few weeks.

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Damien Harris Joining Yahoo Sports NFL Draft Coverage

The former NFL running back will contribute to “Yahoo Sports Draft Live,” a show that will air on the Yahoo Sports YouTube channel during the first three rounds of the NFL Draft.

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Courtesy: New England Patriots

Yahoo Sports has announced Damien Harris is joining their team as an NFL Draft analyst.

The former NFL running back will contribute to “Yahoo Sports Draft Live,” a show that will air on the Yahoo Sports YouTube channel during the first three rounds of the NFL Draft. The show premieres Thursday night at 8 p.m. ET.

Harris will team up with Jason Fitz, Charles Robinson, Matt Harmon, and Adam Gorney on the show.

Harris, who played for both Nick Saban and Bill Belichick, played five seasons in the NFL prior to retiring from the league last month. In stints with the Patriots and Bills, he rushed for 2,188 yards and 21 touchdowns. He was a third-round draft pick by the Patriots out of Alabama, where he won two national championships.


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    Dan Le Batard: NBA Broadcast Studio Shows ‘Exist to Get to the Next Batch of Commercials’

    “You’re there giving 90 seconds of analysis and getting out. It seems like a waste of time.”

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    Dan Le Batard

    As playoff contests around the NBA started over the weekend, fans from around the world tuned in for coverage of the action on national platforms, including ABC, ESPN and TNT. Dan Le Batard watched some of the NBA Playoff games over the weekend, including the studio shows that preceded them, and made mention of a storyline that has emerged pertaining to former center and ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins.

    Perkins, who appeared this weekend on NBA Countdown, conjectured that the Miami Heat could shoot 100% from the field and still get swept by the Boston Celtics in the best-of-seven series.

    This point, which co-host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner claimed was ridiculous, led Le Batard to elaborate on ESPN’s coverage of the games. Despite an early audio glitch in the Orlando Magic contest against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Le Batard believes that the game coverage was great. Shoulder programming surrounding those broadcasts, however, was an entirely different matter.

    “I’m talking about the games, but the studio shows in general – that’s something that Adam Silver and the NBA has had a problem with, almost the entire time that I’ve known of ESPN and that they’ve had studio shows, because it’s always compared against the standard, which is [Charles] Barkley and TNT, and it always pales compared to that,” Le Batard said, referring to Inside the NBA.

    “But you’re just filling a lot of studio shows with noise and noise in tight spaces, and so some dumb things are going to be said because you just exist to get to the next batch of commercials. You’re there giving 90 seconds of analysis and getting out. It seems like a waste of time.”

    This season marks the first year with host Malika Andrews and analyst Bob Myers, who stepped in after Mike Greenberg focused on his other ventures and Jalen Rose was laid off by the company. Prior to that, NBA Countdown had included personalities such as Michelle Beadle, Paul Pierce and Jay Williams.

    “It’s an unfair comparison or standard, isn’t it, from Adam Silver, to compare what ESPN is doing against TNT,” Weiner said. “It is the greatest pregame show in the history of pregames.”

    “I’m just telling you the reason they’ve had so much turnover over the years with those studio shows is at least in part because of the NBA’s dissatisfaction with those studio shows,” Le Batard said. “They’ve wanted something better.”

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    Emily Austin Named Social Presenter for Haney-Garcia Fight on DAZN

    The Haney-Garcia PPV bout will be broadcast by DAZN on Saturday night live from Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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    Emily Austin
    Courtesy: Emily Austin on Instagram

    There has been considerable anticipation surrounding the upcoming fight between WBC junior welterweight championship Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia, which has resulted in engagement across multiple platforms. Garcia is coming off a knockout win against Oscar Duarte and arrived to Friday’s weigh-in 3.2 pounds over the 140-pound limit, which disqualifies him from winning the super-lightweight world title. Nonetheless, the card will still take place from Barclays Center broadcasting live on DAZN and PPV.com. It will also mark the DAZN event debut for sports reporter Emily Austin, who has reported on a variety of boxing fights in the past.

    Austin has been working with DAZN throughout the week, contributing to its social media coverage as the matchup’s social presenter. During the broadcast itself, DAZN will air content created by Austin showcasing the event as a whole. Outside of DAZN, Austin also hosts The Hoop Chat podcast where she has interviewed several NBA players, including Monte Morris, Zach Collins and Miles McBride. Additionally, she appears on news programming and is the owner of People’s Beauty, a skincare company that sells several consumer products.

    The main card for Saturday’s DAZN event, which is being presented by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, is available to watch online for $69.99 utilizing the DAZN platform and on PPV.com. Earlier in the week, Fuse Media announced that it had agreed to a partnership with Golden Boy Promotions and the El Rey Rebel FAST Channel to commence a new Friday Night Fights series beginning on Friday, May 3 at 8 p.m. EST.

    “We couldn’t be more excited that 10-time world champion Oscar De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions are bringing some of the most epic fights in modern boxing history to El Rey Rebel, Miguel Roggero, chairman and chief executive officer of Fuse Media, said in a statement. “With these thrilling matches, ‘Friday Night Fights’ will be a cornerstone franchise for El Rey Rebel, unleashing the types of raw emotion and adrenaline that the channel’s growing number of viewers are craving.”

    The series will look back at memorable fights, beginning with the review of a matchup between De La Hoya and Luis Ramon “Yori Boy” Campas that took place on the same day in 2003. This doubleheader fight presentation concludes with the 2009 matchup between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton. Some of the other fights that will be showcased as part of the series will include bouts part of other partnerships from Fuse Media, including Hispanic Mixed Martial Arts franchises Combate Global MMA and BYB Bare Knuckle Fighting.

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