Category: Worldwide

Trying to figure out how this college football season is going to work is quite difficult, in large part because it seems like gigantic dominoes keep falling. Whether it’s been smaller schools canceling their seasons, major conferences opting to go to 10-game schedules without non-conference games, or an FBS school in UConn kicking the can down the road, dominoes have been falling in recent weeks.

The biggest domino so far fell on Saturday, when Brett McMurphy of Stadium reported that the Mid-American Conference has opted to forgo a football season altogether. This report was confirmed by Heather Dinich and Adam Rittenberg of ESPN, who mentioned that this cancelation applies to all fall sports and also confirmed McMurphy’s report that the conference plans to try and give it a go come spring.

On a call with reporters, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher indicated that the road ahead involves coming up with plans for all of the sports impacted by this decision to play in spring 2021. He did, however, indicate that this is not guaranteed to happen.

“This fall our presidents will get updates on a monthly report,” Steinbrecher said. “By mid-fall, hopefully we’ll have plans in place that will have been approved. And then, somewhere later this fall, whether that’s November or December, I think the virus will have a big determination on our ability to ultimately say it’s a go or a no-go. At some point, we’ll make that determination that we can move forward with these plans.”

With the move, the MAC became the first FBS conference to announce the cancelation of all fall sports, including football. Now, all eyes are on the rest of college football and how it responds, with one individual in Power 5 football ominously telling McMurphy that the “college football season is done.”

Robert Pattinson has been on furlough from London set of The Batman, which was in the middle of filming when the pandemic forced much of the world into quarantine. But the Twilight alum hasn’t been idle. One thing he’s been doing has been giving hilarious interviews, filled with amusing anecdotes. The latest comes in a new chat with Irish Times (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), and it involves him trying, and failing, to keep a secret from the exacting Christopher Nolan.

When Pattinson got the job as the Caped Crusader, he was in the middle of filming another blockbuster, Nolan’s Tenet. He needed do sneak away from the set to audition for the role, thinking he could keep a Batman secret away from the director of three Batman films. And, well, it didn’t go so well.

“It’s funny because Chris is so secretive about everything to do with his movies,” Pattinson told the publication. “And then I had to be really secretive about Batman stuff. So I had to lie to Chris about having to go for a screen test — I said I had a family emergency. And as soon as I said ‘it’s a family emergency’ he said: ‘You’re doing the Batman audition, aren’t you?’”

So lesson learned: Don’t lie to Christopher Nolan. Elsewhere in the interview, Pattinson talks about how Tenet — and co-star John David Washington — helped him get in Bruce Wayne shape.

“When I’m running on screen I’m generally paired with John David, who is an ex-NFL player so it was the most unfair thing in the world,” Pattinson said. “The maximum workout I do most of the time is a casual stroll. John David can run all day long. It was good that I ended up being pretty fit. But definitely, at the beginning, there were days I just could not walk afterwards.”

Anyway, who knows when The Batman will re-commence shooting? And who knows when Americans will see Tenet?

(Via Irish Times and EW)

When it comes to using your voice and speaking up for your community, you can count on Cardi B. The rapper has spoken up time and time again about topics like the coronavirus, politics, social injustice, artistic diversity, and more. An avid supporter of Bernie Sanders and his presidential run earlier this year, Cardi has now shifted her attention to Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Fresh off her “Wap” single with Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi took to The Breakfast Club to force her support for the former Vice President.

The conversation began when Cardi was asked how she felt about being “stuck with Biden” after Sanders ended his campaign for president. She replied, “I’m salty but I’m okay.” She then revealed that she spoke to Biden, and after a bit of persuasion from the hosts she went in detail about their conversation.

What I’m saying is that I know him. I always felt like Biden balanced Obama because I thought he was conservative and that’s what swayed the conservative votes, the ones in the middle. Knowing him and everything, I think he’s getting it and I think he understands the people’s pain. He’s getting what we want. People think we want so much, but we want really simple things if you really think about it.

Cardi said she stressed to Biden that the people “don’t want no false promises,” adding, “We don’t want no fake sh*t to get people voting. This is what we want. Please make it happen.” Cardi then took a shot at those who complain about being “stuck with Biden” but failed to show their support for Sanders during his campaign. “When I interviewed Bernie and I kept telling people to make sure y’all do your research on these people and vote, and they were like, ‘Shut up, b*tch. You don’t speak no English.’ And now you’re mad!”, she said.

You can watch Cardi’s sit-down with The Breakfast Club in the video above.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music.

NBA Players Association Executive Director Michele Roberts has made it clear that, unless the United States’ bungled handling of the COVID-19 pandemic changes, the league might need to play the 2020-21 campaign in a bubble. Obviously this would a gigantic headache for the league — both because of the sheer logistical nightmare that would come from tossing 30 teams into a bubble and the loss of gate revenue from playing fan-less games — but according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the league is considering an idea that takes this concept and decentralizes it.

Via ESPN:

This time, ideas center on regional sites and windows of participation that would extend a month for teams, sources said. After that, teams would go home and train — perhaps for two weeks — and move onto the next regional bubble against a new pod of teams. Orlando is a consideration, and Las Vegas — a finalist for this summer’s restart — would reemerge as a possible site too, sources said.

An idea in this vein sounds somewhat similar to what NHL is doing with its restart, where 24 teams were divided into bubbles in Toronto and Edmonton. Of course, the NBA would then take this idea a little further, using them as ways to play out the entire season with all 30 teams and giving squads the opportunity to shuffle around and travel from one place to the next. While not everywhere is able to be turned into the ideal sort of home for basketball like Disney has been so far, the fact that only a handful of teams would go down instead of the 22 that are currently in the bubble would assuredly make the task of figuring out lodging and facilities easier.

Still, the concept of multiple bubbles to hold games is hardly new. The NBA has plenty of time to figure out how this can work — Wojnarowski mentioned that while the league’s telling teams it plans to start on Dec. 1, there are scenarios in which starting the 2020-21 campaign could be pushed as late as March if fans can safely attend games, something that has been reported in the past.

Award shows, including the Billboard Music Awards and BET Awards, were forced to alter their plans to this year in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. And now so has this year’s MTV VMAs. Originally set to air on August 30 at The Barclays Center, it will now have to relocate elsewhere, as large crowds in indoor environments isn’t a good idea right now.

The orders came in part from New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who in June announced that the award show could proceed with plans so long as there was “limited or no audience present.” A little over a month later, a report from Page Six revealed that representatives for The Barclays Center and MTV revealed the award show would no longer be held at arena due to safety concerns.

The 2020 VMAs will be held on Sunday, Aug. 30 and pay homage to the incredible resiliency of New York with several outdoor performances around [NYC] with limited or no audience, adhering to all state and city guidelines. In close consultation with state and local health officials‎, it became clear at this time that outdoor performances with limited or no audience would be more feasible and safer than an indoor event. The VMAs will highlight the boroughs in an exciting show and return to Barclays Center in 2021. MTV will continue to work closely with the Department of Health, state and local officials, the medical community, and key stakeholders to ensure the safety of all involved.

The announcement comes after Keke Palmer announced that she would be hosting the upcoming award show. With just a little over three weeks left until the show’s schedule date, it remains to be seen what plans will be put in place, especially since nominees and performers have already been announced.

The Philadelphia 76ers lost Ben Simmons earlier this week, as the All-Star guard/forward left the team’s game against the Washington Wizards with what was eventually described as a subluxation of the patella tendon in his left knee. On Saturday, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported that Simmons will undergo a procedure on his knee, with Wojnarowski mentioning that the goal is to remove a “loose body.”

Wojnarowski went on to say that Simmons needs to leave the bubble in order to undergo this procedure, something that Charania confirmed. He’s previously been ruled as out indefinitely, although that was before word hit the Twitterverse about needing surgery, and Wojnarowski says that a timetable will be announced soon.

The Sixers will, obviously, hope that Simmons is able to return from injury as soon as possible, although needing to go under the knife seems like the sort of thing that will quash those hopes. Wojnarowski went on to report that Simmons returning might be dependent on Philly’s ability to make a run this postseason.

Philadelphia played its first game in the bubble without Simmons on Friday evening, picking up a 108-101 win over the Orlando Magic. Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Al Horford — which will need to be the team’s big three if the Sixers are to go on any sort of a run — combined for 67 points and 37 rebounds in the victory.

Last week Hulu cancelled one of their reboot of High Fidelity, which reimagined the Nick Hornby book — and its beloved John Cusack movie, from the year 2000 — with a female woman of color protagonist. It was a surprise, given how much press the show received, and given the current focus on gender and BIPOC issues. In fact, one critic of the move was star, Zoe Kravitz.

Soon after news of the cancellation broke, Kravitz took to Instagram with a simple tribute to her High Fidelity family, thanking everyone for “all the love and heart you put into this show.” The post received many well-wishes, including from fellow actress Tessa Thompson, who wrote, “I will miss you alllllllllllll so much.” Kravitz had a pointed reply: “it’s cool. at least hulu has a ton of other shows starring women of color we can watch. oh wait.”

Kravitz wasn’t wrong. Of the streamer’s many original shows, only one, the Kerry Washington-co-starring Little Fires Everywhere, prominently features a woman of color. As per Entertainment Weekly, the page dedicated to “Black Stories” features few Hulu originals.

The Kravtiz-starring High Fidelity was a loose take on the Hornby novel, first published in 1995 and concerning a thirtysomething record store owner having a kind of early mid-life crisis after a devastating break-up. The movie version, with Cusack, relocated it to Chicago, while the Kravitz iteration moved it to the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, and swapped the genders of a number of characters. You can watch all 10 episodes on Hulu.

(Via EW)

The NBA announced the finalists for the six awards it will hand out based on everything up to the pause of the 2019-20 season. Each award has three finalists on the ballot, and while there is no set date for the awards to be handed out due to the lack of an NBA Awards show this year, the league said in a release that “TNT will announce the award winners during its coverage of the season restart.”

Here’s how the award finalists break down:

Most Valuable Player: Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, LeBron James
Rookie of the Year: Ja Morant, Kendrick Nunn, Zion Williamson
Most Improved Player: Bam Adebayo, Luka Doncic, Brandon Ingram
Defensive Player of the Year: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Rudy Gobert
Sixth Man: Montrezl Harrell, Dennis Schröder, Lou Williams
Coach of the Year: Mike Budenholzer, Billy Donovan, Nick Nurse

Some of these seem pretty easy to sort out. Antetokounmpo is the overwhelming favorite to win MVP for the second year in a row. While Williamson was sensational in the minutes he played, Morant was brilliant in his own right and played far more. Sixth Man seems like a safe bet to stay in Los Angeles, but go from Williams’ hands to Harrell’s. Regardless, this is a loaded field of deserving finalists, and we’ll see in the coming weeks who comes out on top in all of these races.

While talk shows and even SNL have adjusted to the pandemic, almost all narrative programs have had to go completely on hiatus, pausing until people can again be closer than six feet apart. (There are, of course, exceptions.) And while the news is, well, not good, some people are more optimistic than others. For instance, the minds behind Succession, HBO’s hit about a particularly evil rich family, are mostly confident that they’ll be filming the much-anticipated third season by year’s end. Maybe.

This comes from Variety, who reveal that showrunner and creator Jesse Armstrong has said that Team Succession is “trying to think about starting shooting in New York before Christmas.” Mind you, none of this is concrete, because there is no way of telling when this thing will end. Indeed, Armstrong says these plans are, right now, “just conversations,” and he admits that everything right now is “tough.” Boy, he said it.

Still, a pre-holidays shoot is, according to Armstrong, “the plan at the moment,” so if everything works out, you may not have to wait forever to see how Brian Cox’s Logan Roy reacts to what his son, Jeremy Strong’s Kendall, did to him in the Season 2 finale. In the meantime, Armstrong says the writer’s room (or whatever the Zoom version of that is called) has had plenty of time to hone the script, though he admits he’s made “no more progress than if I’d had six weeks instead of the six months that we’ve had.” Anyway, fingers crossed!

(Via Variety)

After appearing achieving mainstream success with “Ye,” off his 2018 album Outside, Burna Boy reached for the stars. His fourth album, African Giant, earning him his first Grammy nomination, and leading to performances on late-night TV and NPR’s Tiny Desk. Now he’s unveiling details about his next big step, namely his fifth album, Twice as Tall.

Burna Boy took to his social media accounts to reveal the album’s release date and tracklist. The project, which arrives August 13, is executive produced by himself, Diddy, and Bosede Ogulu, and it marks the first time Diddy has served as executive producer since Nipsey Hussle’s 2018 album Victory Lap. Loaded with 15 songs, the album will feature the likes of Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Stormzy, Youssou N’Dour, Sauti Sol, and Naughty By Nature, and it taps Mike Dean, Timbaland, LeriQ, Telz, and more for production.

Check out the album announcement above and scroll down to view the album’s tracklist.

1. “Level Up (Twice As Tall)” Feat. Youssou N’Dour
2. “Alarm Clock”
3. “Way Too Big”
4. “Bebo”
5. “Wonderful”
6. “Onyeka (Baby)”
7. “Naughty By Nature” Feat. Naughty By Nature
8. “Comma”
9. “No Fit Vex”
10. “23”
11. “Time Flies” feat. Sauti Sol
12. “Monsters You Made” Feat. Chris Martin
13. “Wetin Dey Sup”
14. “Real Life” Feat. Stormzy
15. “Bank On It”

Twice As Tall is out 08/13 via Atlantic.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music.