1. This week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina features an outstanding interview with the legendary Brent Musburger.

We discussed several topics, including Musburger finally making the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year, his upcoming appearance in Week 3 on CBS’s The NFL Today to celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary, what’s going on with Las Vegas tourism these days, his bar fight with Jimmy The Greek and the upcoming NFL season.

Of course, we also talked about sports betting. Musburger and The Greek famously would pick games with the point spread without mentioning the point spread on The NFL Today because back in those days everyone had to pretend betting did not exist.

On the podcast, Musburger shared, though, that the time he got in trouble for referencing betting came during his tenure at ESPN. Musburger would often make sly references to a point spread or over/under, much to the delight of viewers who had a financial interest in the game.

However, there was one night he took things too far in the eyes of the ESPN higher-ups.

“There was an instance at ESPN,” Musburger explained. “I was doing a Fiesta Bowl. Notre Dame was playing Ohio State and the Buckeyes were dominating in the fourth quarter and I said to myself, ‘Ya know, now’s the time.’ And I I gave the specific over/under number because we were approaching it late.

“I didn’t get the phone call. I got called into the office and sat down in front of a monitor and they played it back for me. I told them the truth. I said, ‘Listen I was just trying to keep a few folks hanging around.’ My goodness, how things have changed.”

How times have changed, indeed, with point spreads and over/unders appearing on screen during every studio show and sportsbooks being allowed to exist inside NFL stadiums.

You can listen to the full interview with Musburger on SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

2. I absolutely believe this Ohio State-has-banned-Dave Portnoy is a work because I just can’t believe the school would actually bar him from doing the Fox pregame show before Saturday’s Texas-Ohio State game. The school is preventing him from doing a show because he's a Michigan guy? It's deranged.

It’s also just unbelievably stupid and petty and just helps Portnoy create buzz in the end.

3. I knew when I saw this tweet that I shouldn’t click and read the story because I would get irritated.

Sure enough, it took me until paragraph four to get irritated when the owner of the Savannah Bananas said, “This isn’t the Globetrotters. We’re building a sport.”

Sure, this is a sport.

4. One of the up-and-coming sports television stars is John Fanta. NBC is going all-in on Fanta, bringing him over from Fox.

The network will use Fanta as the lead play-by-play voice on Big East basketball. He’ll also call Big 12 games for NBC. In addition, Fanta will contribute to NBC’s college football coverage and its NBA coverage.

5. When you have to pull out a nose hair, you have to pull out a nose hair, as Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman showed us last night.

6. Here’s what I wrote in Tuesday’s Traina thoughts regarding the YouTubeTV-Fox carriage dispute:

“If you have YouTubeTV, my advice is simple: Calm down. Don’t worry. YouTubeTV and Fox will absolutely make a deal before the NFL season starts. There is a zero percent chance Fox will be dark on YouTubeTV on that first Sunday of the season.”

My advice paid off because the sides announced a “short-term” extension on Wednesday. Big shock! Whenever there are these carriage disputes, both sides love to scare the daylights out of viewers, but then everything works out in the end. Nobody who has YouTubeTV will miss Texas-Ohio State on Saturday or Week 1 of the NFL next week.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Here is one of those vintage MLB manager meltdown clips that all baseball fans should listen to once a year.

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 X and Instagram.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as How a Notre Dame-Ohio State Game Got Brent Musburger in Trouble at ESPN.