Month: March 2021

The NFL announced its new TV rights deal two weeks ago, as the league will rake in around $10 billion per year thanks to their new agreement with Fox, CBS, ESPN, NBC, and Amazon. That’s a lot of money, and part of the reason TV networks were so willing to fork over big-time cash in the deal was the understanding that with a new media rights deal would come an expansion to the NFL schedule.

When the league and players association agreed to some CBA tweaks back in August to deal with the financial realities of the pandemic, the players were given the assurance that the salary cap wouldn’t dip below $175 million and the league was given the go-ahead to expand the schedule to 17 regular season games, provided they locked in a new TV deal that would boost revenue and give the players more money — as they are allocated 48 percent of all league revenue. As such, the NFL can now move forward with plans to expand to 17 regular season games.

As for how the league will add a game for each team, the answer is fairly simple, per Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport, each team will add an out of conference matchup that will rotate each season.

Each team would play an extra interconference matchup — AFC vs. NFC — based on divisional standings from the preceding season and on a rotating divisional basis.

This is what that is expected to look like in 2021.

The NFL’s schedule should come out within the next month or so, which will provide official confirmation of all of this, but the league will get its desired schedule expansion while cutting the preseason by one or two games.

As confusing and head-scratching as it might be from afar, NFTs continue to become more popular in the digital world. From the sports world to the music and art world, creators and consumers are taking advantage of the opportunity to respectively sell and own a digitally exclusive piece of art. For those who are still trying to grasp the new concept of NFTs, however, Saturday Night Live tapped Pete Davidson and recent musical guest Jack Harlow to give an explainer about the growing form digital cryptocurrency.

The sketch takes place in a fictional classroom where students have just finished listening to a lecture from the Secretary Of Treasury Janet Yellen, who is played by Kate McKinnon. Pete Davidson takes advantage of her presence to ask a question. Soon, the beat from Eminem’s 2000 hit, “Without Me” begins playing in the background and, just like the Detroit rapper did in the song’s music video, Davidson is seen rocking a Robin superhero costume.

He asked what an NFT is through a rapid-fire rap that, all in all, left everyone in the room confused. Despite help from Chris Redd, who was an obvious Dr. Dre lookalike, they failed to receive an answer to the question. Thankfully, Jack Harlow, who played a nosy janitor, stepped into the classroom to give a more digestible explanation of NFTs with some raps of his own.

Check out the sketch in the video above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

SNL‘s Weekend Update is where the show tackles the news of the week that was, and unfortunately that hasn’t been very good news lately. While vaccines continue to go into arms, coronavirus cases are rising in many places and news outside of the disease has been just as harrowing. A number of mass shootings and attacks against Asian-Americans have had many calling for change, and SNL added to that call on Saturday night.

The segment started with Colin Jost and Michael Che talking about Joe Biden’s calls for gun control after more mass shootings, blasting Republicans for not caring about human beings after more senseless deaths due to lax firearm regulations and Second Amendment advocates.

“Republicans please stop calling this a Second Amendment issue and just admit that you love guns more than people you don’t know,” Jost said showing off political ads from Republicans holding various weapons. “Look at them. You look like you’re running for president of ISIS.”

The segment also addressed Joe Biden falling up the stairs of Air Force One, which is fitting considering the show made a meal of Gerald Ford’s similar mishap decades earlier. Ford, however, didn’t get a dance remix in reverse. Other jokes during the segment include a riff about Peeps Pepsi, and diversity among the Sesame Street puppets.

Cecily Strong also appeared to play former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for so much money she’s claiming no one should trust anything she says as a legal defense.

In another powerful segment, Bowen Yang spoke openly and honestly about the recent rise in very public anti-Asian hate crimes in America and what needs to be done to make life for Asian-Americans better amid racism and hate.

Alternating between funny, heartbreaking and inspiring, it was a good note to end the segment on and a good reminder that we can all be a bit better in an effort to help others who are experiencing suffering around us.

There’s no denying the success of Jack Harlow. The Louisville spitter took the music world by storm at the beginning of 2020 thanks to the success of his “What’s Poppin” and closed out the year with the release of his debut album That’s What They Say. In between it all, he peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart, landed multiple guest features, and proved that he was here to stay in the industry. While his 2020 success is behind him, Harlow continues to deliver impressive moments and the latest example came through his debut performance on Saturday Night Live.

Harlow began the night by giving an energetic rendition of “Tyler Herro” and “What’s Poppin.” Dressed in all black under purple and blue and supported by a talented live band, the rapper’s sheer confidence was on full display on stage to start the night. Later on in the show, he returned with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine to perform “Same Guy,” another highlight from That’s What They Say. This performance came with a much lighter atmosphere as the duo sang about recognizing their bad qualities as men and expressing their desire to change and improve.

The SNL set comes after Harlow brought his talents to NPR’s Tiny Desk for a soulful performance of multiple songs from That’s What They Say. He also recently shared a video for “Route 66” off the album.

You can watch the performances in the video above.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Maya Rudolph warned during her opening monologue that she would be wearing lots of wigs and doing impressions on Saturday Night Live, and thankfully for us that meant bringing back her Beyonce impression. The former cast member had hosting duties in its latest episode, and thankfully for us that meant a throwback-feeling segment about a very modern concept: Beyonce appearing on the web show Hot Ones to eat some very spicy chicken wings.

The sketch is a throwback to the era in which Rudolph thrived. It’s an absurd concept to begin with: the most famous musician in the world showing up on a show where you eat spicy wings and promote something while answering softball questions. But it’s a sketch that actually critiques not just the thing it’s parodying — an incredibly popular YouTube show — but Beyonce’s notorious attempts to control her image in the media.

Seeing Beyonce struggle with absurdly-named hot wing sauces and curse out the host, played by Mikey Day, is a departure from anything we’ve seen from the actual singer in years. At one point, Rudolph’s Beyonce is so overcome by the heat of the wings that she asked her stylist to take her wig off, put ice cubes in it and put it back on. Her “publicist” then stepped in to refuse to let that happen on camera.

The joke here is, after years of carefully cultivating her image in the public eye, Beyonce would never do anything like this. Or at least we’d never find out about it. Later, realizing just how many more wings she still needs to endure, she has her manager step in to call the whole thing off, with non-disclosure agreements all around to make sure no evidence of it ever happening.

It was great to see Rudolph play a character that’s not Kamala Harris and be free of the political news cycle that brought her back to the SNL stage at various points over the last year. And it was a strong start to an episode that reminded many viewers of the kind of sketch that was more common when Rudolph was a more permanent member of the show’s cast.

The Walking Dead is obviously Robert Kirkman’s most famous comic-book, but among his other creations is Invincible, which premiered the same year as TWD and completed its run only a year before. The animated adaptation of Invincible, meanwhile, kicked off this weekend on Amazon Prime, and it couldn’t not drop at least one The Walking Dead Easter egg, what with the fact that TWD gave at least a couple of nods toward Invincible over the years.

Take, for instance, the Science Dog T-shirt that Carl occasionally wore early on in the series.

Science Dog is the favorite comic book of the lead character, Mark Grayson, within Kirkman’s Invincible comic-book, so this Easter Egg is two layers deep. There’s yet another layer because in the animated series, Kirkman changed the name to Seance Dog so that he could retain the rights, should he decide to turn Science Dog into its own series.

The other Invincible Easter Egg on The Walking Dead was a little more obvious. In Sam Anderson’s bedroom, there were several action figures from Kirkman’s Invincible comic, including Invincible himself, Mark Grayson, as well as Allen the Alien, Atom Eve, and Omni-Man.

It would only make sense, then, that Invincible would repay The Walking Dead with a nod of its own, beyond the number of TWD cast members participating on Invincible, that is. Besides Steven Yeun providing the voice of the lead, Khary Payton (Black Samson), Ross Marquand (Aquarus), Chad L. Coleman (Martian Man), Michael Cudlitz (Red Rush), Lennie James (Darkwing), Sonequa Martin-Green (Green Ghost), and Lauren Cohan (War Woman), also provide voices in the series.

However, the Invincible premiere also made a subtle but obvious nod toward The Walking Dead in its premiere episode. In the episode, Mark Grayson is trying to come up with a superhero name for himself before he finally settles on Invincible. However, while dealing with a bad guy, Grayson — played the Yeun, who used to play Glenn on TWD — asks him what he thinks his superhero name should be? After pummeling the bad guy, Grayson offers a suggestion to himself. “Huh, what about Ass Kicker? No … that sounds willfully childish. What are you thinking?”

Lil Ass Kicker, of course, is the nickname that Daryl once gave to “childish” Judith Grimes on The Walking Dead, which brings the mutual exchange of Easter eggs full circle, although I doubt it will be the last of The Walking Dead Easter eggs we see in the Amazon series.

In the meantime, Invincible airs Fridays on Amazon, and The Walking Dead airs Sundays on AMC.

Excessive partying despite a still-ongoing pandemic forced Miami Beach into a state of emergency last weekend, and this weekend Saturday Night Live used its cold open to address the wild spring break scene many fear will help contribute to a fourth wave of coronavirus cases.

The sketch itself was a parody of MTV Spring Break coverage. Called “Snatched! Vaxed! or Waxed!” a show “where the party don’t stop until the government-mandated curfew.” In it, three dopey men picked out of the party scene have to decide if the woman on the show has the vaccine or something else is going on in their backstory. Hosted by former SNL cast-member Maya Rudolph, as Cece Vuvezela, the sketch made light of the actually-alarming scene that’s unfolded in Florida as cheap flights and loose pandemic mitigation rules have caused wild scenes to unfold as people looking to party have flooded the region in recent weeks.

“We are so close to the end, let’s ruin it,” Vuvuzela said.

There’s a contestant who claimed they “can’t wear a mask because it irritates my cold sores,” and there are a lot of statements about the kind of people who decide to throw caution to the wind and potentially spark a fourth wave of cases for their own personal party goals. Hopefully the trip to the “Versace Murder Steps” was worth all the risk in the end.

The best part of March Madness is someone hitting a three in the dying moments of a game that gives their team a win in stunning fashion. This year’s NCAA Tournament has been a bit light on those sorts of situations, but fortunately for those who love to see someone beat the buzzer, the Sacramento Kings are here to scratch that itch.

Sacramento took on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night and found themselves in a bind. Collin Sexton hit a shot with 1.6 seconds left to put the Cavs up by one, and Sacramento was stuck 94 feet away from their basket in need of a miracle.

In a pretty fun twist on a classic March moment, a Kentucky guy and a North Carolina guy came together to create their version of Duke’s game-winner scored by Christian Laettner. De’Aaron Fox fired a dart down the court into the arms of Harrison Barnes — seriously, Fox put some extra mustard on this thing — and the veteran forward was able to get off a reasonably clean look despite being swarmed by defenders. As a result, Barnes saw his shot go right through the rim.

The bucket gave Sacramento a 100-98 win. Barnes had 16 points on the night and only hit one three, but hey, at least that triple came at the best moment imaginable.

Francis Ngannou (16-3) knocked out Stipe Miocic (20-4) to claim the UFC heavyweight title from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas at UFC 260.

Compared to the first time they faced off, a significantly more patient Ngannou opened the first round with a deep leg kick, tracking the champ around the Octagon and looking for his openings. Ngannou landed a huge right hand behind Miocic’s ear, but the champ took it clean.

Miocic went for a takedown and Ngannou stuffed it. The contender defended it, jumped on Miocic’s back and dropped bombs. Back on their feet, Ngannou landed a big head kick, but was able to take it clean. Miocic connected on a slew of low calf kicks, but Ngannou kept his measured pace.

Miocic attempted to push the pace to open the second round, but Ngannou lit the champ up and put him to sleep to earn the win.

After closing out his trilogy with Daniel Cormier back in August, Miocic turned his attention to a slew of potential opponents ranging from Ngannou to former light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. But in the end, it was Ngannou’s stellar run that earned the contender another shot at UFC gold.

After dropping his first title shot to Miocic in what was a career-altering loss in 2018, it was fair to question the future for Ngannou. Miocic outworked Ngannou, using precise strikes and a heavy ground game to frustrate the rising star in their first bout. He stumbled through a decision loss to Derrick Lewis and had clearly lost his confidence. After that, Ngannou went on a tear, needing less than two minutes to knock out each of his last four opponents before his showdown with Miocic.

Ngannou knocked out top contenders Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos, and the formerly-unbeaten Jairzinho Rozenstruik in his last three fights heading into Saturday.

Up next for Ngannou is likely a showdown with Jon Jones as the former light heavyweight champ makes his jump to the heavyweight division, something that Jones seemed to cryptically mention in a tweet after the fight.

Don’t rule out a return bout with Miocic though. Regardless of who the next opponent is, the division is on notice with a new champ at the top.

Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, several of the public health officials that were part of the nation’s pandemic response have publicly detailed the struggles of working under him during the COVI-19 crisis. More than 500,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and complications caused by coronavirus, and while vaccines are saving lives now those lost are a tragic reminder of how poorly the pandemic was handled in several regards. And while Trump was in charge of the country, the response to the pandemic was about as scattershot as it could be. Between bizarre moments where he touted junk science, downplayed its severity or insisted the virus would simply go away, Trump drew near constant criticism and made even the simple act of wearing a mask a political issue.

CNN previewed a show that will premiere on Sunday called COVID War, which included interviews with both Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx about the nation’s response to the pandemic. While the triumph of the vaccine was discussed, one moment that stood out from that preview was when Birx admitted that thousands of lives were lost that could have been prevented if the government reacted differently.

“I look at it this way: the first time, we had an excuse. There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge,” Birx said in the clip. “All the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”

It’s a shocking disclosure from a medical professional that played a role in what the nation’s government did, or could have done, to mitigate those deaths. The former White House coronavirus response director clearly saying the government could have and should have done more to protect people and stop the spread of the deadly virus was a shock to many.

“Dr. Birx” was trending on Twitter as of Saturday, as video of her appearance circulated and drew a lot of comments on the social media network. Many lamented the terrible loss of life from coronavirus over the past year, feeling failures in the Trump administration and other governments making things much worse than they could have been.

Others, though, expressed frustration that Birx enabled Trump and others to create that response. Many simply wished she did more, while others were angry she is now attempting to distance herself from Trump after doing little to stop his uneven and deadly governing.

It’s just one comment from a much larger interview and reflection on the pandemic response, but it speaks to the frustrations many have had over the state of things under Trump and even today, as the vaccine rollout is now a race against time as new variants and strains of COVID-19 continue to make people sick and die. There’s a lot of blame to go around when it comes to all the pain and death America has experienced over the last year, but many wanted to make it clear that Birx bears some of that blame as well.