Month: September 2024

The WNBA will be having an expansion draft in each of the next two years, as the Golden State Valkyries are set to join the league in 2025, while new franchises in Portland and Toronto will bring the league to 15 teams in 2026.

For months, the WNBA had not offered any details on what the expansion drafts will look like, but on Monday we finally got the details on how the league will handle the 2025 version that the Valkyries will use to build out their inaugural roster. It’s possible that there will be different parameters used in 2026, as there will be two teams picking players, but we can at least know how the Valkyries roster will be built and what avenues they’ll have to add players and make moves. Here, we’ll go through everything we know from the WNBA’s release on the upcoming expansion draft.

When is the Valkyries expansion draft?

Friday, December 6, and it will be broadcast on ESPN.

How many players can each team protect?

The 12 current teams can protect six players on their roster, meaning half of each team’s roster will be available for the Valkryies to choose from. Teams will have to decide who to protect from their full list of players they have rights to as of the final day of the regular season. The teams will have to submit their list of protected players approximately 10 days before the draft starts.

How many players from each team can the Valkyries draft?

The Valkyries will only be able to select one player from each team, meaning they cannot pick all six players eligible from the Aces to fill out their roster.

Can the Valkyries draft free agents?

Yes, but they would only get the rights to that player that their current team has. The Valkyries can also only select one unrestricted free agent in the expansion draft, provided they have not been on a Core contract for two or more seasons. If they do select an unrestricted free agent, they can use the Core Player provision on them in January, which gives them exclusive negotiating rights with that player — while guaranteeing an offer of a 1-year, max contract for the player.

Can the Valkyries make trades before the expansion draft?

Yes. Once the roster lists are submitted, the Valkyries will be able to negotiate trades with other teams up until a designated time on expansion draft day. They will be allowed to make trade agreements to select a certain player in the expansion draft and trade them to another team, or to make deals to select (or not select) certain players from a team they’re making a trade with.

Do the Valkyries have to build their full roster from the expansion draft?

No. They can pick a player from each team if they wanted to fill out a 12-player roster, but they’ll also have draft picks (still TBD on where they’ll be picking) and can sign players in free agency. The most likely scenario is the Valkyries leave the expansion draft with just a portion of their roster filled out.

Sydney Sweeney’s “female Rocky” movie is coming together.

Black Bear Pictures announced that Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Ethan Embry, Jess Gabor, and Chad L. Coleman have joined the biopic about Christy Martin, the most successful female boxer in the 1990s. Another new addition to the cast is Katy O’Brian, who was so good (and so ripped) in Love Lies Bleeding. It’s unclear who she — or anyone else, other than a jacked Sweeney as Martin — is playing, but it’s probably safe to say that it’ll be someone intimidating.

Here’s more on the movie, which is directed by director David Michôd, who also co-wrote the script with Mirrah Foulkes:

A naturally gifted fighter, Christy’s life transformed in 1989 when she met her manager, and later husband, Jim Martin. Breaking boundaries, she became the first woman to sign with iconic promoter Don King, and the only female boxer to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Christy’s charisma, good looks and unwavering resilience in the ring won her a wide fan base and propelled her to become welterweight champion. Behind this well-honed public persona, Christy tackled personal demons, toxic relationships, and an attempt on her life, proving that a fighter’s hardest won victories aren’t always in the ring.

The film doesn’t have a release date, but luckily, Sweeney is plenty busy.

Anybody who thought the vinyl resurgence was just a fad was mistaken: The industry has experienced a legitimate revival. As a result, music fans are interested in physical media in ways they may not have if the decades-old medium hasn’t made a comeback. That doesn’t mean everybody is listening to just their parents’ old music, though. That’s part of it, sure, thanks to rereleases that present classic albums in new ways. A vital part of the renewed vinyl wave, though, is new projects being released as records, of which there are plenty.

Whatever you might be into, each month brings a new slew of vinyl releases that has something for everybody. Some stand out above the rest, naturally, so check out some of our favorite vinyl releases of September below.

Black Star — No Fear Of Time (Reissue)

For the first time ever, Black Star’s 2022 sophomore album No Fear Of Time is available on vinyl. The Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli project has come a long way from its initial podcast-only release.

Get it here.

Perfume Genius — Too Bright (Reissue)

Perfume Genius just wrapped up a brief tour, and the occasion was the anniversary of his beloved album Too Bright. He just dropped a vinyl reissue, pressed on a special edition crystal-clear LP, while the project’s streaming edition got three new bonus tracks.

Get it here.

Built To Spill — There’s Nothing Wrong With Love (Reissue)

There’s Nothing Wrong With Love is now 30 years old. Built To Spill is celebrating their classic second album with a new vinyl pressing, on “Up Records Blue” vinyl. Like Perfume Genius, Built To Spill also just wrapped up an anniversary tour in celebration of the album.

Get it here.

Schoolboy Q — Oxymoron (10th Anniversary Edition)

Schoolboy made his major-label debut with 2014’s Oxymoron, so it’s a major release in his discography. He’s marking the occasion with a new 10th anniversary edition, which comes in exclusive clear and silver vinyl versions that are only at Target. But we particularly love the picture disc double-vinyl offerings, which feature Q’s face both masked up and clean shaven. This is a landmark album and essential to any collection.

Get it here.

Bob Dylan And The Band — The 1974 Live Recordings

Uproxx’s Steven Hyden wrote of the expansive new Bob Dylan box set, “A sprawling data dump of music, The 1974 Live Recordings collects every known professionally recorded show from the tour, amounting to 431 tracks (all but 14 never before released) spread across 27 discs. This mountain of material attempts to make a small but nevertheless crucial point: The ’74 Tour represented a fascinating crossroads for the musicians in the spotlight. For Dylan, it marked a return to live performance after an extended hiatus, and the beginning of perhaps the most rigorous year-in and year-out tour schedule for any rock star in the past 50 years.”

Get it here.

Madonna — Like A Prayer (The Silver Collection)

Like A Prayer is iconic, even still as the crucial release celebrates its 35th anniversary. As part of Madonna’s “Silver Collection” of reissues, Like A Prayer is now available in a limited-edition edition opaque-silver vinyl release. If you order through Rhino.com or Madonna.com, it even comes with an exclusive poster of the black-and-white photo from the album’s back cover.

Get it here.

10,000 Maniacs — MTV Unplugged (Expanded Edition)

MTV Unplugged was an institution in its time, and 10,000 Maniacs had one of the more memorable appearances back in the ’90s. Now, that performance, including three tracks that didn’t make the original release, have been pressed on vinyl for the first time ever. For many, it was their introduction the the Bruce Springsteen/Patti Smith classic “Because The Night,” while also help solidify Natalie Merchant as a star before she launched her solo career.

Get it here.

Cass McCombs — Not The Way EP (Reissue), A (Reissue), and Prefection (Reissue)

For McCombs, it all started with three releases: Not The Way EP, A, and Prefection. Now that the projects are all hovering around 20 years old, they’ve gotten a fresh reissue. This marks the first time these projects are back in print since their original release in the early 2000s.

Get it here.

Marvin Gaye — In The Groove (Reissue)

Motown has been crushing it with the monthly series of reissues that has been underway over the past few months. Among September’s offerings is Marvin Gaye’s In The Groove, featuring the iconic single “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.” Other highlights for the month include a Mono edition of Meet the Temptations and The Supremes’ Love Child.

Get it here.

The Get Up Kids — Something To Write Home About (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

Something To Write Home About is among the more iconic emo albums, and now it has gotten the reissue it deserves on its 25th anniversary. This edition is remastered and expanded, as it comes with a bunch of demos, including original four-track acoustic recordings by Matt Pryor.

Get it here.

Gus Cannon — Walk Right In (Vinyl Me, Please Reissue)

Cannon is an icon of American roots music, and Vinyl Me, Please is honoring that with a reissue of 1963’s Walk Right In. The album’s original release was just a run of 500 copies, but now it’s been lovingly remastered for a new generation to enjoy.

Get it here.

Michael Hutchence — “One-Way” and “Save My Life”

Found in the vault were a pair of unreleased songs from late INXS singer Michael Hutchence, which have now been pressed on a 10-inch vinyl. The picture disc is particularly striking with its stark black imagery.

Get it here.

Damian Lillard is going into his second season in Milwaukee as a member of the Bucks, after he was traded there in a stunning deal two summers ago. The pairing of Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo was supposed to create one of the most formidable tandems in the East, but the 2023-24 season didn’t go according to plan, as the Bucks got bounced in the first round by the Pacers, with both Giannis and Dame finishing that series watching from the sidelines with injuries.

This summer, the Bucks stayed pretty quiet, making a couple additions on the margins with Gary Trent Jr. and Delon Wright, but will mostly hope that they can stay healthy and challenge the Celtics, Knicks, and Sixers for a Finals berth. On Monday, Lillard and the rest of the Bucks met with the media, and the toughest question he faced wasn’t about what the Bucks need to do to take down the defending champs or make strides in a full offseason with Doc Rivers at the helm.

No, the toughest question came when someone asked Lillard about GloRilla shooting her shot at him at All-Star Weekend last year and whether anything was going on between the two stars.

Lillard has previously shot down questions about GloRilla, but this time was willing to divulge a bit more and have some fun with the question. “We know each other. She’s an artist, I’m an artist, but as far as anything else, it ain’t nothin’ goin’ on. That’s what I can tell you,” Lillard said.

That’s a professional answer from Dame, but it also provides the closest thing to clarity on whether there’s any relationship between he and the Memphis rapper.

Is Prison Break the new Suits? Not quite.

It’s true that 2023 gave us the Summer of Suits, which led to NBC putting the Suits: LA spin off into rapid development with a first season coming soon. Will Prison Break receive the same treatment or another season, even? One of those will come true.

First, it’s worth remembering that Prison Break debuted in 2005 and ended with a fifth season in 2017. The series returned to Netflix earlier this month, and the first three seasons are now occupying three separate slots on Netflix’s current Top 10 English-Speaking TV Shows list. Let’s just say that interest in the Fox series has been reignited, and it’s fair to assume that — out of the around 120 million hours viewed during the week of Sept. 16-22 — plenty of eyeballs are on this show for the first time.

Those are more than respectable numbers, although not full-on Suits numbers, for a concluded series.

However, there’s no chance for a sixth season starring Wentworth Miller, who declared in 2020 in a now-deleted Instagram post (via Entertainment Weekly) that he would not portray Michael Scofield again, or any straight character for that matter: “I’m out. Of PB. Officially. Not [because] of static on social media (although that has centered the issue). I just don’t want to play straight characters. Their stories have been told (and told).”

To hammer that point home, he followed up with this definitive statement: “No more Michael. If you were a fan of the show, hoping for additional seasons… I understand this is disappointing. I’m sorry.”

However, some good news does exist. In November 2023, Deadline revealed that Hulu has a reboot in the works. The show will be written by Mayans M.C. co-creator and showrunner Elgin James. Here’s a tiny bit more from Deadline:

Described as a new chapter, the new installment is set in the world of Prison Break, sources tell Deadline. Details are being kept under wraps but it is not expected to involve the characters who were at the center of the original series and its followups on Fox, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) and Lincoln Burrows’ (Dominic Purcell), we hear.

This reboot will arrive as part of James’ overall 20th Television deal following the conclusion of Kurt Sutter’s biker-drama saga. Meanwhile, Sutter is hard at work on Netflix’s The Abandons, and between the two of them, there will be plenty of violently soapy TV coming soon.

Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan reportedly have an “on and off” relationship. As of now, it appears to be on.

Over the weekend, director Alfredo Flores shared a batch of photos on Instagram, including a selfie where he’s sharing Erewhon‘s expensive “Short N’ Sweet” smoothie with Carpenter, who has a straw next to her open mouth. In the comments, the Saltburn actor replied, “Im the cup.”

As one fan of them both put it, “a match made in freakville.”

Speaking of horniness, Carpenter has dropped the NSFW outros to “Nonsense” on her Short N’ Sweet Tour (including one about Keoghan). But she told Cosmopolitan that she’s “learned a lot more about sexuality through writing [the outros] than people think. I think people think I’m just obnoxiously horny when in reality, writing them comes from the ability to not be fearful of your sexuality as opposed to just not being able to put it down.”

Carpenter continued, “But, in a real way, my advice is: Do whatever feels most comfortable to you. You can be curious and ask questions, but a lot of it is just going to be you learning yourself. So do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable and safe. Boring answer.”

For most of the NBA, the 2024-25 season officially kicked off on Monday with the annual media day extravaganza. That meant the yearly parade of quotes from players about what’s to come this season, as well as our first look at some big names on new teams.

Among those putting on a new uniform for the first time was Chris Paul, as the future Hall of Famer is now in San Antonio on a one-year deal to help the Spurs take a step forward. The biggest reason the Spurs pursued CP3 this summer was wanting to pair a high-level passing point guard with Victor Wembanyama for his sophomore campaign. Wemby and the Spurs started slowly last year, as they were in experimentation mode, but once they moved Victor to center and Tyus Jones into the starting lineup at point guard, Wembanyama took off and looked like at top-20 player in the NBA already on his way to a ROY win and DPOY runner-up. Adding Paul should give the Spurs 48 minutes of solid point guard play, which is a considerable upgrade from a year ago, and Wemby figures to benefit from having another player that can get him the ball in his spots and toss him lobs.

On Monday, Paul and Wembanyama were together in a Spurs uniform for the first time as the team snapped media day portraits, and while Paul (39) is nearly twice Wembanyama’s age (20), it’s CP3 who looks like a kid next to Wemby as the height discrepancy between the young center and veteran guard is really hammered home when they stand side by side.

Chris Paul is listed at 6′ tall, and while that’s maybe generous by an inch or two, he’s still above-average height for a man and yet, looks like a toddler next to Victor. NBA players standing next to Wembanyama really is an incredible genre of sports photography right now, whether it’s him making guards look like children or 7-footers like Rudy Gobert look normal.

About a month ago, tickets for the UK and European dates of the Oasis Live ’25 tour went on sale. Sales were through Ticketmaster, and they bungled it so badly that it prompted an investigation by the UK government.

The issue was Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing,” which changes the price of tickets in real-time based on demand. Well, US tour dates were just announced today (September 30), and Oasis has decided to go a different direction for ticket sales.

Oasis’ management shared a statement on social media today that reads:

“Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing model will not be applied to the forthcoming sale of tickets to Oasis concerts in North America.

It is widely accepted that dynamic pricing remains a useful tool to combat ticket touting and keep prices for a significant proportion of fans lower than the market rate and thus more affordable.

But, when unprecedented ticket demand (where the entire tour could be sold many times over at the moment tickets go on sale) is combined with technology that cannot cope with that demand, it becomes less effective and can lead to an unacceptable experience for fans.

We have made this decision for the North America tour to hopefully avoid a repeat of the issues fans in the UK and Ireland experienced recently.”

Ticket pre-sale registration is open until October 1 at 8 a.m. ET, via the Oasis website. The general on-sale begins October 4 at noon local time, via Ticketmaster.

Check out the full list of tour dates so far below.

Oasis 2025 Tour Dates: Oasis Live ’25

07/04/2025 — Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium
07/05/2025 — Cardiff, UK @ Principality Stadium
07/11/2025 — Manchester, UK @ Heaton Park
07/12/2025 — Manchester, UK @ Heaton Park
07/16/2025 — Manchester, UK @ Heaton Park
07/19/2025 — Manchester, UK @ Heaton Park
07/20/2025 — Manchester, UK @ Heaton Park
07/25/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
07/26/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
07/30/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
08/02/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
08/03/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
08/08/2025 — Edinburgh, UK @ Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium
08/09/2025 — Edinburgh, UK @ Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium
08/12/2025 — Edinburgh, UK @ Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium
08/16/2025 — Dublin, IE @ Croke Park
08/17/2025 — Dublin, IE @ Croke Park
08/24/2025 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Stadium
08/28/2025 — Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field
08/31/2025 — East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium
09/06/2025 — Los Angeles, CA @ Rose Bowl Stadium
09/12/2025 — Mexico City, MX @ Estadio GNP Seguros
09/27/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium
09/28/2025 — London, UK @ Wembley Stadium

Back in 2021, DaBaby was sued by the property owner of a Hollywood Hills rental house where he filmed a video without the owner’s permission after he allegedly sucker-punched the man, knocking out his tooth. The pugnacious rapper has one less legal worry after settling the lawsuit, two months after taking a plea deal to avoid a felony charge of battery, according to Billboard.

The plaintiff, Gary Pagar, said at the time that he rented DaBaby the mansion on the condition no more than 12 people would occupy it. However, DaBaby flouted the regulation, shooting a video at the location with over 40 people. Pragar said he saw all this taking place on the security cameras and drove over to poop the party; however, rather than capitulating, someone in DaBaby’s group allegedly punch Pragar in the face, took his phone, spit on him, and — to literally add insult to injury — stole some kitchenware.

They also did thousands in damage, including knocking out one of the security cameras, while only paying a portion of the rental bill. The terms of the settlement were not revealed. A criminal charge of felony battery was reduced to a misdemeanor with DaBaby’s July plea deal, while the rapper was ordered to pay restitution and given one year of probation.

Taylor Sheridan’s Tulsa King moved production to Atlanta for the currently running second season. That was the case because Sylvester Stallone literally cannot handle Oklahoma heat (and who can blame him because it’s frequently hotter than Hotlanta there), which stands separate from the heat that his Dwight Manfredi has been feeling from the ATF.

The multi-city influence extends in front of the camera for this season, too, with Frank Grillo entering the scene as Kansas City mobster Bill Bevilaqua, and with whispers about Sheridan considering a Tulsa King spin off set elsewhere, Hollywood Reporter couldn’t resist broaching the subject in a conversation with ex-showrunner and current writer Terence Winter.

Will There Be A Tulsa King Spin Off?

The Boardwalk Empire creator confirmed that a spin off set in New Orleans is in the works (“There’s been some talk of that”) although not greenlit yet (“That’s in the talking stages”) by Paramount+. He added, “I’m just looking forward to getting those beignets in New Orleans.”

Food talk aside, Showtime’s Your Honor, starring Bryan Cranston still breaking bad, recently received a boost in popularity on Netflix for a show that revolves around organized crime happenings in the Crescent City. Although calls for a third season have yet to lead to a statement from Netflix, that audience is certainly primed for NOLA-based mob antics in the sardonic style of Tulsa King. So, let that green light roll, and we’ll be waiting to see it happen.