A world without sports is a dour one, and for organizations like ESPN it’s also an existential crisis. Sports networks have scrambled to keep airtime filled as the NBA, NHL and MLB continue to stay on pause as coronavirus spreads throughout the United States and the world at large, and the network has

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ESPN has asked its top 100 on-air commentators to take a pay cut during the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to save jobs and keep from furloughing others working at the network. The network issued a statement about the decision to THR that said the measure lines up with what executives at the company have already done to their own salaries.

“We are asking about 100 of our commentators to join with our executives and take a temporary salary reduction,” the company said in a statement. “These are challenging times and we are all in this together.”

The commentators are expected to take cuts of approximately 15 percent of their salaries, likely for about three months.

The network’s executives took pay cuts earlier this month, corresponding to level of seniority at the network.

Sports Business Journal reported that the effort was stressed to agents and on-air talent that the paycuts would “deter furloughs for ESPN employees who may be in more precarious financial positions than some of the on-air commentators,”

It’s shaping up to be a difficult 2020 for ESPN, which in 2019 saw layoffs and other efforts to cut costs as the cost of live sports packages increase while cable subscriber rates sag in the wake of new technology and the rise of cord-cutting. Moreover, ESPN’s parent company, Disney, is expecting heavy losses across its companies as coronavirus not only impacts sports but the production of movies, television and keeps movie theaters closed.

It’s a difficult time across nearly every industry and there’s nothing many can do but wait until things blow over and industries can pick up the pieces. But it’s clear ESPN is anticipating some tough decisions, and this may just be the first of them.

When Megan Thee Stallion pointed to fans as the source of beef between female rappers, she had a point; many past feuds were fueled by rumors and hearsay from fans and press. In recent years, though, there’s one fan base that has been at the center of most of the controversy though: Nicki Minaj’s Barbz, who have tried to pit their favorite against Cardi B and are now apparently trying to do the same with burgeoning star Doja Cat.

After Doja Cat shared a fan’s drawing of herself, Megan Thee Stallion, and Nicki Minaj on the cover of Rolling Stone, a Doja fan suggested a minor change only to be challenged by one of the Barbz. Although it seemed to only be an innocent question on the face, Doja was clearly aware of some of the account or the tactics, advising her own supporter to “stop responding to them” because “they’re Twitter gangsters and they have nothing kind to say about you or anyone.” According to Doja Cat, Barbz “live and breathe being f*ckin immature.”

It didn’t take long for the tweet to garner the attention of the Barbz as a whole, who set about throwing a #DojaCatIsOverParty, which quickly trended on Twitter. However, Doja — who is no stranger to being “canceled” after taking flack over old tweets in the wake of her viral hit “Mooo!” — turned the tables on her critics, as many of the tweets in the hashtag are now dominated by Doja Cat supporters defending her from the “toxic” attacks from Nicki’s fans.

For her part, Doja seems to be ignoring the controversy, focusing instead on making “dank memes” and posting goofy TikTok videos eating Band-Aids.

Check out the tweets above.

In the run-up to its arrival on April 6, there was a lot of speculation over whether Quibi — the new, short-form streaming service founded by former Dreamworks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg — would succeed. Do people really want to binge short content? Do they really want to watch things on their phone? Is it perhaps terrible timing to have a quick bite service when much of America suddenly has gobs of time to kill while quarantining? Well, according to its CEO, Quibi defied the skeptics and had a great first week.

According to Deadline, Quibi head Meg Whitman claimed the service had seen 1.7 million downloads since dropping last week, which “exceeded company expectations.” She also noted 80% of viewers actually finished at least the first episode of any show they started. Earlier, preliminary data showed that 300,000 users had downloaded the app on its first day, and by day two, the total of users had grown to 530,000. (To put things in perspective, 4 million people installed Disney+ on its first day, though Disney was already, to put it lightly, an established brand.)

Right now, Quibi isn’t making money off its subscribers; rather than delay release till after the pandemic slows down, they offered a 90-day free trial. (After that, subscribers can either pay $4.99 a month with ads or $7.99 without.) It’s also worth noting that, as with Netflix, who claims huge viewership on certain titles without supplying any data, Whitman’s claim of 1.7 million downloads is just that. We also have no other figures to compare that to, especially since there’s never been a streamer whose content was as short as Quibi’s. Whatever the case, it appears that the streamer was not, as some expected, dead on arrival.

(Via Deadline)

A bunk room fit for queens.

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Deals to keep you cozy, full, and clean from Madewell, Sur La Table, Wayfair and more.

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A classic quarantine move.

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“Let’s all buy stamps and save the Post Office.”

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There have been hundreds of confirmed coronavirus cases and dozens of deaths at nursing homes in Michigan, the Detroit Free Press has found.

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Despite the philanthropic purpose and uplifting mood of his Team Love Dance-A-Thon Fundraiser Sunday, Diddy drew heat from the easily-offended denizens of social media when an excerpt of Diddy cutting off Lizzo‘s twerking session migrated from the livestream the wider social media ecosystem. At the time, Diddy said it was because the livestream was on Easter Sunday and he wanted to keep it “family-friendly.” Today, he explained exactly what he meant by that, hoping to appease the hundreds of accounts accusing him of fat-phobia.

Many on Twitter felt that Diddy exercised a double standard in requesting Lizzo put a pause on her dance session, pointing out that model Draya Michele was allowed to twerk it out to her heart’s content. However, it seems those folks overlooked some important context in projecting on Puff’s reasoning: The difference in the ladies’ respective song choices. As it turns out, Diddy objected more to the lyrics from Moneybagg Yo and Blac Youngsta’s “123,” which Lizzo used to as her own background music.

As he explained in a video at the end of the stream, “There’s one thing that I wanna make clear. My queen, my sister, Lizzo, when I stopped the music, it’s because it had a lot of curses in there. Not because she was twerking. She’s one of the best twerkers in the world, okay? So let’s keep that clear. It wasn’t about twerking. You’re allowed to twerk on Easter. There was a lot of cursing on the record and I don’t need child services knocking on my door right now, you understand?”

Specifically, the portion of the song Lizzo threw her backside to contains the lyrics: “She a bad b*tch, eat the p*ssy like a spinach / She’ll suck d*ck on the way to the dentist.” Meanwhile, Draya’s dance to Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” did contain the uncensored version, in which Juvenile rhymes “You a fine motherf*cker,” which has some Twitter users skeptical about Diddy’s explanation (although if you count the asterisks above, it’s pretty clear that one requires way more censorship than the other).

In any case, it’s a prime example of how things can be taken out of context on the internet — or at least, interpreted in many different ways. Fortunately, there were many other moments that seemed positive to take away from the Dance-A-Thon, such as Drake telling Diddy about the new music he’s making while on lockdown.