Similar to a smoky, peated Scotch whisky, rye whiskeys aren’t for everyone. If you prefer your whiskey velvety smooth and full of corn sweetness than you should just stick to your tried and true bourbon expressions (we won’t hold it against you). But if you like a whiskey that balances smoothness with a peppery bite, look no further than rye whiskey.

This style of whiskey — made with at least 51% rye grains — has seen a bit of a resurgence in the last decade, with myriad expressions hitting shelves from some of the largest whiskey producers, as well as craft distilleries throughout the country (and the world). Since the market is now flooded with rye, we figured that the best course of action was to once again ask the experts. So we hit up our favorite bartenders and asked them to tell us the rye whiskeys they wish more people knew about.

E.H. Taylor Straight Rye

Ellen Talbot, lead bartender at Fable Lounge in Nashville

I’m going to go a little higher priced with this one. EH Taylor Rye. It brought out all of the things I love about rye whiskey. It’s spicy, peppery, and well-balanced. It tastes straight-up otherworldly.

Whistle Pig Boss Hog V

Matt Shields, bartender at The Bay Restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

This one hits a little in the heart for me. Whistle Pig Boss Hog V. I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Pickerell a few years back. It was a random encounter that turned into a fun and personal whiskey education night. He truly was a rock star in the whiskey world. Still, one of the best ryes I’ve ever had.

Wild Turkey 101 Rye

Jessi Lorraine, bartender at Elda in San Francisco

I really love Wild Turkey 101 Rye because it has a great mixture of spicy pepper and velvety smoothness. It starts with a kick of spice upfront but ends with the proper amount of sweetness at the back end.

Standard Proof Golden Rye

Kelly Gable, bar manager at Josephine in Nashville

That’s an easy one. I’m a huge fan of Standard Proof Whiskey Company. They started off initially infusing coffee in rye whiskey (Red Eye Rye), which is so versatile as an aperitif, digestif, for brunch–you name it. I was intrigued by them at first because they’re local to Nashville, and I’m a big fan of lowering carbon footprints. Then they blew me away with their new full line of infused ryes. My favorite is probably their Golden Rye which is infused with pineapple. In the age of the tiki comeback, this rye is the perfect base to get creative and fun. I think their whiskey is amazing for people at home, too. Don’t have fresh mint or ginger? Don’t have an in-depth range of syrups like the bar does? No problem: easy at-home juleps and mules. Boom.

Rittenhouse Rye

Blake Jones, bartender and director of beverage at The Kennedy in Pensacola, Florida

I have to go with Rittenhouse Rye here. It’s just a great whiskey, that’s all there is to it. It makes for a mean cocktail and just has that punch you want in a rye at a great price.

Dad’s Hat Rye

Danielle Becker, bartender at the Aspen Meadows Resort in Aspen, Colorado

Dad’s Hat Rye out of Bristol Pennsylvania, one of the largest rye producers in the country. This rye is absolutely divine; using both malted and un-malted rye really creates a phenomenal sweet citrus to complement that rye spice. I love this whiskey and the small local name behind it.

Basil Hayden’s Caribbean Reserve Rye

Freddy Concepcion Ucan Tuz, bartender at JW Marriott in Cancun, Mexico

Basil Hayden’s Caribbean Reserve Rye. It’s a perfect rye whiskey for the summertime, a spirit that is compatible with rum. A blend of Basil Hayden’s Kentucky straight rye whiskey with a 4-year-old Canadian rye whisky. The blend is then finished with the addition of blackstrap rum. So it’s a rye with gentle spice, toasted oak, and vanilla with some sweet notes of brown sugar and molasses. Perfect to drink straight or mix it into a mai tai cocktail.

Lot No. 40 Rye

Wesley MacDonald, owner of Caña Bar and Kitchen in Curaçao

Lot No. 40 from Hiram Walker Distillery in Windsor, Ontario. Simple, but well-executed rye whiskey, great for cocktails such as a Manhattan and old fashioneds or as a tasty sipper. Also, the master blender, Dr. Don Livermore knows his craft and you can tell by tasting his whiskeys.

Copper Fox Rye

Melissa Mickles, manager of King of Clubs Brewing Company in Williamsburg, Virginia

My favorite rye whiskey is from Copper Fox Distillery. It’s spicy, sweet, and perfect for sipping or in cocktails. We use it in our Clara Bow cocktail. We add a shot of our espresso and oat milk, the milk helps the coffee and whiskey flavors blend.

Hillrock Double Cask Rye

David Powell, brand ambassador for Hudson Whiskey

Outside of Hudson (which I’m working on making more and more people aware of every day!), I’d probably say Whistlepig and Hillrock, because those two whiskeys say so much about Dave Pickrell as a distiller, and I consider him to have been (and he continues to be) an absolute titan in our industry. I only wish that he was still with us to keep pushing the envelope.

K-O Distilling Bare Knuckle Rye

Amber Davis-Sato, manager of Dog Street Pub in Williamsburg, Virginia

K-O Distilling Bare Knuckle Straight Rye Whiskey. I can and do drink this year-round, but the extra spice from the rye helps keep you warm as cooler spring weather fades to summer.

Major League Soccer took a small step toward resuming its season on Wednesday when it announced that beginning on May 6, players will be able to use outdoor team training fields for individual workout sessions. These workouts will be voluntary and in compliance with local public health official and government protocols.

By only allowing voluntary individual workouts and restricting access locker rooms, team gyms, and team training rooms, the league is hoping to adhere to social distancing and maintain the well-being of players and staff. The league also mandated that each team must submit a plan detailing how they will implement health and safety protocols at their facilities before any players can begin using them for individual training.

In addition to banning access to other team facilities like locker rooms and gyms, the league wants to stagger player and staff arrival and departures, ask players to use protective personal equipment when they go from the parking lot to the soccer field and divide the field into quadrants with no sharing of equipment to completely adhere to social distancing guidelines. Yahoo Sports’ Doug McIntyre noted that the league did not include any information about testing in its statement, and cited a source as saying that MLS officials do not want to take tests away from front-line medical workers and patients for whom tests are more important.

MLS, along with the NWSL, NBA, WNBA, NHL and MLB, has been sidelined since mid-March due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. According to Friday’s statement, “the league-wide moratorium on small group and full team training remains in place through, and including, Friday, May 15.” However, players are expected to remain in-market to prepare for the possibility of the season resuming at some point.

According to Sports Business Journal, MLS and the MLS Players’ Association are still discussing ways to reduce player salaries during this uncertain time, and how to proceed given that there is no current ratified CBA to follow. It remains to be seen if and how the league can resume the season without fans, and whether it’s worth doing so when the health risk remains so large.

---

View Entire Post ›

Live sports are at a standstill as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic but, as the world of sports content pivots as necessary, audio products continue to provide valuable information and entertainment in a number of different avenues. One source is sports podcasting, which can break down game content but also serves as an excellent way to catch up on news and transactions in breezy form, all with the capability of deeper dives into relevant topics of the past and present.

Commutes may not be rolling along as they used to be but, as many have hours to kill in their homes without games to flip on, sports podcasts are a fantastic resource. With that in mind, here is a look at the best podcasts available right now, each with their own value to specific audiences.

Note: Podcasts are listed in alphabetical order.

30 for 30

Many shows on this list are covering the ins and outs of specific sports in a present-day context but, much like the 30 for 30 television series, the podcast production is top-notch. The quality of the storytelling is elite and, even if some of the tales aren’t exactly mainstream, the presentation is fantastic to the point where listeners are captivated. At present, there are six seasons of content, including full-season looks at the Donald Sterling affair in the NBA and a deep dive into Bikram Yoga. In short, there is something for everyone.

Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast

As the title explains, Effectively Wild is a baseball-driven show, but it is much more than that. Hosts Ben Lindbergh (The Ringer), Sam Miller (ESPN), and Meg Rowley (FanGraphs) are fantastic in breaking down the everyday topics that make baseball great, from in-game analysis to overarching themes and advanced analytics. In addition, Effectively Wild is able to cover ground in off-the-wall fashion, with famously great mailbag segments tackling wild subjects to simulations, book reviews and much more. Listeners looking for a baseball podcast that covers just about everything should land here.

ESPN Daily

Many podcasts, in sports or otherwise, are centrally devoted to one subject matter, and that allows for extensive analysis in that particular lane. ESPN Daily doesn’t quite do that, but it brings the best of all other worlds. Mina Kimes hosts the program and, while she has a background in the NFL world specifically, she brings a fantastic element that leads to elevated discussion. She is joined by experts in various fields, from reporting to analysis, to glance at different sports subjects, and the format of a Monday through Friday, bite-sized product is perfect for many consumers.

ESPN On Ice with Wyshynski and Kaplan

Hockey podcasts aren’t quite as prevalent, at least in the wide pockets of the United States, as some other endeavors in this space, but this is a quality product. Greg Wyshynski is a fixture in the space (including another podcast venture in Puck Soup) and he is one of the best hockey personalities in the business. Emily Kaplan is also a strong voice in the hockey world, and the pairing works well to keep listeners up-to-date on the latest in the NHL, with room to maneuver beyond that.

Eye on College Basketball

For some, College basketball is a sport reserved for March but it’s a year-long endeavor on this particular podcast. Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander of CBS Sports co-host the show and they have a tremendous rapport on the air. That makes the show fun and, even beyond the various inside jokes and entertainment, the content is informative and consistent. Both have genuine expertise, experience in the field, and they can jump from analysis to big-picture topics and even recruiting. It’s a gold standard in a field that has many quality podcast options. Shout out to Devan Downey.

Fantasy Football Today

Like the Eye on College Basketball podcast, CBS Sports gets the nod here with a tremendous fantasy football show. Any avid sports podcast listener is likely familiar with the fact that there are almost endless options in the fantasy football space, but this show combines the best of many worlds. It could be argued that other shows have higher production value or segments that are more purely entertaining, but this is a quality show for die-hards and amateurs alike. Host Adam Aizer guides the proceedings, but the group of experts, headlined by Jamey Eisenberg, Dave Richard and Heath Cummings, brings real quality.

No Dunks

Sports podcasting has come a long way but, for more than a decade, these guys have been talking about the NBA in audio form. Originally dubbed The Basketball Jones, J.E. Skeets and Tas Melas were firing off quality podcast content as far back as the mid-2000’s and, after a stint at NBA TV under the name The Starters, the OG’s are back as No Dunks. This time, they are a part of The Athletic but, unlike some of their colleagues, this is a non-paywall operation. Skeets and Melas are joined by Trey Kerby, Leigh Ellis, and producer JD to bring wildly entertaining and informative NBA analysis just about any day. It’s a must for any basketball fan.

No Laying Up

It might be a surprise to some, but there are a number of golf podcasts and that area of the industry seems to be growing. No Laying Up brings a nice mix to the table, with things that should appeal to casual fans as entertainment, as well as the ability to lure some quality guests and get serious about the game. One’s preference in golf podcasts, like any sport, may vary, but this is a very good option that blends many tastes.

PAPN and Shutdown Fullcast

Unfortunately, furloughs from VOX Media have impacted this pair of Banner Society podcasts, with hosts on hiatus for months and real uncertainty surrounding both shows. Still, it would be fantastic if the shows returned and, with that in mind, they should be included under that hope. And regardless, it is hard to do a list about sports podcasts without these two, which are two of the best and most beloved among an entire generation of sports podcasting fans.

The original PAPN (aka Podcast Ain’t Played Nobody) was excellent, with Steven Godfrey and Bill Connelly mixing the machine-like qualities (Connelly) with reporter instincts (Godfrey) and everything in between on the college football side. Connelly moved on to ESPN, but Godfrey and company are more than capable of carrying the load. Richard Johnson was a staple of the franchise and, while this podcast is capable of discussing just about anything in the college football world, it is well-known for its propensity to go off the beaten path by throwing a bone or two to smaller programs.

Shutdown Fullcast had high-end talent with Jason Kirk, Ryan Nanni, and Holly Anderson and, while they weren’t always dedicated to extremely serious college football analysis, they had a great deal of fun. It may not be for everyone but, if a listener enjoys light-hearted sports talk and engaging personalities, it’s a great listen.

The Bill Barnwell Show

It shouldn’t be surprising to see this show here. The NFL is the biggest sports entity in the United States. ESPN is the largest sports media outlet in the world. Bill Barnwell is the most visible NFL writer that works for ESPN. More seriously, though, Barnwell is (very) smart and he brings informed guests in to discuss the pressing issues in the league. You might long for the Grantland NFL Show and Barnwell’s fruitful partnership with Robert Mays (now of The Ringer), but this is a good place to consume NFL content.

The Lowe Post

This is quite similar to the description of The Bill Barnwell Show in that Zach Lowe is perhaps the best sportswriter on the planet and he is also backed by the machine that is ESPN. There are seemingly a million NBA podcasts, but Lowe brings the combination of legitimate expertise, top-shelf guests and intelligent discussion without some of the nonsense on other platforms. Oh, and you can digest his trademark “WELCOME TO…” greeting to make you feel right at home.

The Press Box

It might be cheating to call The Press Box a “sports” podcast but, in the ever-interesting world of sports media coverage, it certainly qualifies and, if you want another example, Richard Deitsch of The Athletic hosts a very strong program in his own right. It’s fair to point out that Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker don’t always stick to sports by any measure, but Curtis is one of the best evaluators of sports media in the country and Shoemaker has been around the block in his own right. The show is buoyed by their very clear friendship that has bloomed for decades, but both are smart enough to carry the day even without that, and you can also grab overall media coverage — including politics, writing and more — in the same space as your sports media intake.

Total Soccer Show

You should obviously never just a book by its cover, but in the case of this podcast, the title sums everything up here. Total Soccer Show, with main hosts Taylor Rockwell and Daryl Grove, is the best in-depth soccer podcast that you can listen to, if only because everything is on the table. If you want a detailed breakdown of major leagues around the world, you can find an episode about that. The same exists for breakdowns of various international squads — including, of course, America’s national teams — or Major League Soccer. There are interviews, there are breakdowns of Netflix series about footy, and just about everything else you could want in a podcast about a singular sport. And if you’re new to the game, the TSS crew are as good of an entry point as possible.

Social distancing continues this weekend amid the global pandemic, and several new TV seasons are here for the binging. If nothing here suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Betty (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — Skate Kitchen director Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack) brings back her O.G. crew for this funny and freewheeling series about a group of young women who simply want to skate. Their street-level adventures are gorgeously (and authentically) shot, and these ladies are much cooler than all of us.

Billions (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — The fifth season begins with Chuck struggling to hold onto his bearings, Bobby Axelrod tackling a milestone, and tensions rising to a fever pitch at Axe Cap.

Trying (Apple TV+ series) — This British comedy stars Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a thirty-something couple who’s struggling to grow up and settle down (while “trying” for a baby), and Imelda Staunton is along for the ride.

Upload (Amazon Prime series) — Greg Daniels (Parks and Recreation, The Office) created this sci-fi romantic satire series about a man who gets to select his own afterlife.

Hollywood (Netflix series) — Ryan Murphy’s latest brainchild follows an alt-history vibe in post-WWII Tinseltown that aims to put unfair systems and power dynamics, along with biases (race, gender, and sexuality), on blast. The show stars David Corenswet, Samara Weaving, Darren Criss, Jeremy Pope, Dylan McDermott, and more.

All Day And A Night (Netflix film) — Jeffrey Wright stars as a father who’s crushed to see his son (portrayed by Ashton Sanders) become his fellow prison inmate, especially since his son now has a newborn baby in the mix. The film’s written by Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole and explores whether this family can break an ill-fated cycle.

Beastie Boys Story (Apple TV+ film) — Both diehard and casual fans can dig director Spike Jonze’s intimate and personal story of the collaborative adventures of Mike Diamond, Adam Horovitz, and Adam Yauch. The pioneering trio’s hybrid documentary-live stage performance film is hilarious, sad, and something you won’t want to miss.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Charmed (Friday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — The Charmed Ones are attempting to avert some new variety of demon disaster, but Maggie’s finding a double-edged sword within her newfound powers.

Friday Night In with The Morgans (Friday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton are back (from home), hopefully with more motorcycle stories.

Real Time With Bill Maher (Friday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Virtual interview guests include Nancy Pelosi, Dr. David Katz, and Jay Leno.

Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children (Sunday, HBO 8:00 p.m.) — Part V of HBO’s unraveling of a shameful legacy airs. Read our interview with two of the filmmakers, and then tune in to watch Wayne Williams’ odd behavior make no sense.

Batwoman (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — Alice receives a surprise visit, while Batwoman’s looking for an undercover favor from Julia and Luke.

Supergirl (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — Will Supergirl fall in line with Lex’s plan to have her square off against Leviathan? He’s attempting to get closer to Lena in the process.

Westworld (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Just think, this is only Season 3 with three more to go. This week, hosts and humans must face the music.

Killing Eve (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Eve is (for some reason) still attempting to make things right with the long-suffering Niko. Meanwhile, Villanelle’s thinking about her promotion, but she’s still got it, meaning that she’s still hooked on Eve, and vice versa.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Sunday, NBC 9:00 p.m.) — A not-so-cheery song prompts Zoe toward a scramble to change the future.

Insecure (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Issa’s struggling to finalize her block party details, and Tiffany’s adjusting to life with a baby.

Run (Sunday, HBO 10:30 p.m.) — The new show from Fleabag and Killing Eve dynamic duo Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge barrels further down the train track as Ruby and Billy try to figure out whether this is all a huge mistake.

Paul Giamatti was hot and knew he was getting his photo taken. That’s his explanation, at least, for the viral shot of the Billions star (on an MTA train) that’s circulated online far longer than his New York City commute to wherever he was going.

The image, which was taken in 2017 during the MTA’s Summer of Hell, was included in a fairly robust list of celebrities who also seemed miffed by the delay-filled transit nightmare that was a big story in New York at the time. Things haven’t gotten much better on the trains in the years since, but these days, it is kind of nice to imagine traveling places and being inconvenienced by mass transit.

Anyway, Giamatti has definitely seen this photo and, what’s more, knew it was happening. In a GQ interview, he was asked about the viral photo and explained that, while yes it was a miserable commute because it was “hot” that day, he mostly made that annoyed face because he knew the moment would be captured forever by someone with a camera phone:

“My demeanor is really because I knew the guy was taking my picture and it was pissing me off. That’s actually what’s going on in that picture. I was like, “really dude?”

That’s what I thought was funny about that picture. I was like, “did it not occur to anybody that actually I’m pissed off ’cause I know a guy is taking my picture?” What’s funny when people do that is they think you don’t see them doing it, and it’s like, “I’m an actor, dude. I notice everything. That’s what I do for a living. I see everything going on around me.”

Giamatti makes a good point here: many of these ‘on the train’ moments feel like snapshots of everyday life because people aren’t used to having their photo taken. But Paul Giamatti on an MTA train is putting someone used to being noticed in close proximity with people who will likely notice him. And during the Summer of Hell in New York, pretty much everyone is going to look like that if they knew it was about to be captured forever.

(Via GQ)

Previously on Total Bellas: Nikki Bella dealt with accusations of the crime of Aunt Favoritism and Brie Bella dealt with the fallout from the much realer crime of someone stealing her car.

Was There Anything About Wrestling On This Week’s Episode Of Total Bellas?

Yes, almost everything in this episode was connected to wrestling! The drama mostly revolved around the Bellas heading back to the world of WWE for the premiere of Smackdown on Fox. Nikki dealt with the neck issues that drove her to retirement and considered non-wrestling options in WWE, Brie and Bryan’s marriage problems were again exacerbated by his touring schedule, and there was a moment of Hulk Hogan dialogue that nobody asked for. But let’s start with the storyline the least connected to wrestling.

Bellavision, Part 1

Remember how Artem got cut from the cast of Dancing with the Stars at the beginning of this season? Well, he and Nikki both do, and this week Nikki decides to get very involved in her boyfriend’s post-DWTS career choices through arts and crafts. Artem says he’s been dealing with things in his own way, but Nikki thinks he hasn’t been doing enough. Her ideas for him seem to come from a good place – maybe too good! – where she thinks he can do anything and that he’s the hottest man in the world, but her methods, as Brie puts it, show she “might be a nightmare girlfriend.”

The best scene of the episode by far is when both couples and Birdie are sitting around and Nikki brings out the borderline deranged vision board she made about Artem’s future. Artem is deeply uncomfortable and Bryan cackles at everything – a key highlight of this whole franchise that we lost for a while. The only downside is that we never get to see the part of the board where Nikki cut off Demi Moore’s head and glued it on the picture of a hot blonde cooking with Leo DiCaprio because she didn’t want Artem to picture his future with a blonde.

Bellavision, Part 2

You barely have to dust off your armchair psychology degree to deduce that Nikki is probably getting more controlling of Artem’s career because of the lack of stability in her own, especially the part connected to wrestling. This week, she explores the possibility of a “ringside” role in WWE, but is thwarted when her doctor tells her “the wear and tear is becoming faster than normal” with her neck, and if she took a bad bump she might not be able to walk again. This might be the only reason Nikki isn’t managing, like, Dana Brooke right now.

Nikki also has a less life-threatening career barrier that Total Bellas doesn’t explicitly address: she is not a good talker! There’s a shot of Paige as Smackdown GM while Nikki talks about non-wrestling roles in WWE that’s just long enough for any wrestling fans watching to imagine how awful a Bella GM situation would be.

We don’t see the outcome of her audition for WWE Backstage this week, but I think even people who don’t keep up with who’s on that show can tell Nikki tanked it. I salute her ability to pull off that Ariana Grande Nike campaign look, her delivery of “The Fiend scares me” is hilarious, and she does, in a very Nikki Bella way, sum up the issues people were starting to have with Seth Rollins as a babyface around this time, but you can instantly see why she isn’t on the show. The Bellas are good at Health magazine shoots and reality TV shenanigans; they are not great at fake sports analysis. That is completely fine, but Nikki probably won’t be fine with that, and that’ll be a story for another episode.

Overall, like with the drama in last week’s episode, the Artem and Nikki storylines stay in well-trod reality show territory (with some wrestling-related specifics), and it’s fun to watch in the way the best of Total Divas/Bellas has been fun to watch. It’s what the franchise knows how to work with! And then we have the more complicated issues between Brie and Bryan.

I’m A Business, Man

The Brie and Bryan storyline this week is interesting to think about and weird to watch because, like some of the other family drama this season, their conflict feels basically true to life, but some of its scenes seem so fake they strain the reality show kayfabe, making them more difficult to get into. Things start out pretty light, with Brie looking at her sister’s honeymoon phase relationship and wanting more PDA with Bryan. But it comes back around to the issue of Brie wanting to take care of Birdie as much as possible and have a career at the same time, and how that conflicts with Bryan being on the road 300 days a year and what he wants for their family.

It all builds to a car argument (a cargument) between Bryan and Brie in traffic in which Brie delivers some bizarre lines (“I love business!”), but the conflict can still be followed. Brie asks if Bryan would take Birdie back home to Phoenix while she deals with work stuff in L.A. for a few days, but Bryan points out that means she’ll be coming back home just as he’s leaving – and didn’t she bring up them getting more affectionate like the day before?

The ensuing fight includes the most interesting wrestling-related details of the episode when Bryan says that Brie wanted him to “sign the contract” (probably when he re-signed with WWE in September 2018) when he had been looking to work a schedule with fewer dates. It sounds like he might have been looking at options outside of WWE too when he says “I had other options” and Brie answers “It was not a guarantee.” So if those discussions were happening in the summer and fall of 2018, they could be talking about Bryan working anywhere in Japan, having an indie or ROH or Impact run, or signing with AEW, which was getting ready to be a thing at the time but was not yet a sure thing.

From just a human drama standpoint, without zooming in on the wrestling details, it’s easy to understand where both Brie and Bryan are coming from here. At least from the Total Bellas cut of the events, though, I think Brie comes out looking better even if she doesn’t always communicate that well. Their drama still continues to have a theme of Bryan expecting her to center life even more around his wrestling schedule while Brie wants the ability to experience parts of life besides her family. It’s a compelling and kind of stressful conflict because as unusual as both of their careers are, their dynamic and the core of this argument are both familiar. The episode when Brie finds out she’s pregnant again could be pretty tense.

Bella Line Of The Week

Aside from Nikki’s delivery of “The Fiend scares me,” I enjoyed her teasing Brie for not getting a Backstage audition with “Maybe they just think I’m hotter. Oh wait, maybe they just think I’m more accomplished in the ring.” This is also very much the discourse around most major pushes in Stardom and why Ishii hasn’t been made IWGP Heavyweight Champion.

Natalya Revelation Of The Week

In a Total Divas/Bellas crossover moment, we see Nattie appear on the Bella Twins’ podcast, and because I have never listened to it, Natalya saying “I want to be Mae Young” was news to me. Natalya legitimately might be having random singles matches on Raw until she’s seventy, so that’s something to look forward to, wrestling fans!

Like most other sports leagues on the planet, the English Premier League is on an extended hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that the league has all but decided who will be its champion, and despite two major footballing leagues in Europe ending its seasons altogether, the Premier League is motivated to pick up where it left off, giving teams the opportunity to play the final nine or 10 games on everyone’s schedules.

Premier League Shareholders held a meeting on Friday, one which which they mapped out how the rest of this season could potentially look. In a statement, it was announced that while the top priority is making sure those involved in the league are healthy, everyone is in agreement that the goal is to conclude this campaign.

No decisions were taken at today’s Shareholders’ meeting and clubs exchanged views on the information provided regarding “Project Restart”.

It was agreed that the PFA, LMA, players and managers are key to this process and will be further consulted.

The clubs reconfirmed their commitment to finishing the 2019/20 season, maintaining integrity of the competition and welcomed the Government’s support.

The news comes days after France’s Ligue 1 called its season and crowned Paris Saint-Germain champions and a week following the Dutch Eredivisie opting to cancel this year and not name a champion. England is in a spot where it could afford to do the former — currently, Liverpool sit in first place on 82 points, while Manchester City are in second on 57 points. The Reds are two wins away from securing a title, and seeing as how an unparalleled catastrophe is assuredly not going to happen, it would be hard to fault the Premier League for opting to just name them champions if they go that route.

Things are a little more complex with spots in Europe — the top-4 automatically qualify for Champions League, Nos. 5 and 6 automatically make Europa League, and No. 7 goes to Europa League qualifying. The clubs in 18th, 19th, and 20th are also relegated to the Championship, another gigantic can of worms that would need to be dealt with.

There’s no set date for when the league would start back up, but reports out of England indicate the target date is June 8.

What does a music festival during a global pandemic look like? Turns out, it looks a whole lot like your kitchen, or living room, or bathroom — whichever room you decide to place your laptop in while you tune into a livestream of your favorite performers. During the first weekend of April, independent electronic music brands Proximity and Brownies & Lemonade invited people to do exactly that, as they linked up for a charity stream that managed to raise $300,000 to benefit the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a 501 c nonprofit supporting out of work musicians. In the process, they created Digital Mirage, one of the world’s first post-COVID-19 online-only multi-day music festivals.

Digital Mirage was a three-day electronic music festival live-streamed on Proximity’s YouTube channel that brought together some of the genre’s best producers and performers like TOKiMONSTA, Kaskade, Alison Wonderland, Louis The Child, and A-Trak. All proceeds from the stream went towards providing financial support for musicians who make their incomes through performing and other industry professionals who are now experiencing hardships in the face of COVID-19. Though it was designed to generate funds, via sponsorships and other revenue-generating opportunities, the festival was completely free to stream for the at-home audience, a decision that was baked into the concept from the outset.

“I think it’s really important that we try to do as much as we can in this current situation to help not only people that are displaced in our community, but also to help people that are just trapped in their homes, and to keep them in their homes, ” Kush Fernando, co-founder of Brownies & Lemonade explained over the phone, last week. He was joined by creative director Chad Kenney and Proximity head Blake Coppelson.

“It just goes back to our genre of electronic music and what our community really embodies,” Coppelson added. “When we threw this event we knew that wherever people were enjoying it, they were making the best of it.”

So can a livestream ever live up to the tangible experience of a real festival? In truth, probably not. But the reality is that this is the new normal for all of us and we’re just going to have to make the best of it. Digital Mirage passed that test with flying colors, and the interface of streaming brought about some of its own unique connective benefits,

“One of the things that made it feel like a communal experience was that a lot of the artists were engaging with the fans on an eye-to-eye level through Discord and YouTube chat and other areas where there wasn’t an even playing field before,” Kenney said. “It created a level for fans, members of the community, the people producing the event, and the artists themselves to all connect.”

Some “festival-goers” even took it upon themselves to rock their favorite festival fashions to the digital event.

Contrary to common assumptions, putting on a festival experience online isn’t as easy as throwing some performers in front of a webcam and pushing play. Right now, the scene is a Wild West of best guesses and experimentation.

“One of the biggest challenges of throwing an online music festival is the fact that this is really our first time doing it,” said Kenney. “The biggest hurdle that we’re running into is being able to plug-in artists from all different time zones and places around the world live and for them to stream into this central hub. The technology isn’t really at that point yet where it ideally could be to make this stuff efficient and pretty seamless.”

Those growing pains gave Digital Mirage a distinctly charming lo-fi aesthetic that matched well with the DIY moment that we’re all collectively experiencing. For the festival organizers, it harkened back to their upstart roots, throwing small scale shows in the LA area.

“Everything that we do has always kind of felt DIY,” Fernando said. “We’re an independent event producer, so everything that we do is very much based on our relationships, our connections to the industry, and that people we’ve come up with.”

While states nationwide are gearing up to reopen by mid-May, life isn’t going to go back to normal for some time — a widespread COVID-19 vaccine likely won’t be commercially available until Spring 2021, at the earliest — which is why festival organizers across the country are scrambling to figure out how to foster a digital iteration of their events for an audience hungry for quality content and connective experiences. Burning Man is taking the leap to digital, though they’ve been openly vague about what that will look like, but other big festivals are having less success transitioning, like California’s Lightning In A Bottle, which is canceling this year and asking ticket holders to consider donating the money for their ticket refunds to ensure the festival can bounce back in 2021.

How long COVID-19 will prevent us from experiencing music festivals is anyone’s best guess, which puts the idea of a physical Coachella in October in question. In the event that we still can’t gather in large groups by October of 2020, will the technology and online infrastructure be there to deliver an experience that ticket holders will feel adequately meets their expectations?

“I think that the model is ever-changing,” Kenney said. “It’s obviously a time of global crisis but also a time for certain models and schools of thought within our industry to be tested, revised, and changed. It’s not really clear cut whether it’s sustainable per se, but I definitely see that given the projections of where the world is going to be in the next six months to a year, this is definitely going to be a very very regular thing, no doubt.”

COVID-19 may indeed put a permanent end to some of our favorite festivals that are unable to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape, but while we may not always have a Coachella or a Lightning In A Bottle or... any one of our favorite annual festivals, the idea of gathering together in some form to share the experience of live music is never going to die.

“I do think that the future is going to really reshape for us what we think of as a ‘live’ festival experience,” Kenney said, near the end of our call. “There will be more interactivity that people are unaware of yet that will really make some of these experiences for some people just as real or transformative as live experiences were. It’s obvious everything is going to be different, but the world itself is different.”

Sometimes good R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm and blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the hottest R&B jams that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.

After being liberated from her former label and signing to Warner Records, JoJo has made her triumphant return with her fourth studio album Good To Know. Trey Songz also emerged after a long hiatus with his latest release “Back Home” featuring Summer Walker, who also happens to be on Khalid’s remix to “Eleven,” with the music video dropping today.

JoJo — Good To Know

JoJo had a huge moment when her 2004 hit “Leave (Get Out)” was released at the age of 13-years-old. Due to label complications, the then budding singer kind of disappeared into an abyss until recently. Now, her fourth album Good To Know is here nine songs deep and it is where JoJo relentlessly flexes her gracious vocals, like she usually does, as a soul-simmering diary of love and heartbreak with songs such as “Lonely Hearts” and “Comeback” featuring Tory Lanez.

Trey Songz — “Back Home” Feat. Summer Walker

Like Trey Songz says, “It’s been a long time.” Trigga has arrived with his first single of the year, “Back Home,” featuring Summer Walker and it borrows Cam’ron’s “Oh Boy” vibe with a New Edition melody. Summer shows up and equally does her part as she sonically answers Trey with her luxurious brand of vocalization. This week, the Grammy Award-nominated R&B singer recently pleased all of his longtime fans with two of his most popular mixtapes, Anticipation I and Anticipation II.

Khalid — “Eleven (Remix)” Feat. Summer Walker

Khalid tapped Summer Walker for the remix to his track “Eleven” and today the music video for the celebrated single has been released. Exactly how Khalid and Summer are cruising around the city in luxury whips, “Eleven (Remix)” is the epitome of romantic car music and was made to be heard while riding through the streets at night, with the windows down and the volume turned all the way up.

Joyce Wrice — “That’s On You”

Los Angeles-based R&B singer Joyce Wrice came through this week with the oh-so smooth “That’s On You,” as the first release off her upcoming album. Brimming with the robust bliss of string and brass instruments fusing together with the love and care of her sweet voice, “That’s On You,” is an expressive spiritual experience. Joyce was recently featured on Westside Gunn’s “French Toast” featuring Wale, off his critically-acclaimed album Pray For Paris.

HER — “Wrong Places”

After appearing as a guest on NBC’s songwriting competition series Songland, HER issued the release of her slow jam “Wrong Places.” Intertwined between the sounds of an acoustic guitar and sharp snares settled in the heart of a healthy bassline, HER sings what she means while improvising flowy ad-libs infused with passion.

Bryce Hase — “Language” Feat. Tory Lanez

Up and coming Dallas, Texas native Bryce Hase really delivers with his latest release “Language” featuring Tory Lanez. While Bryce provides a majority of the song’s cozy infrastructure, Tory furiously drops a fire verse that adds something special to the entire essence of the track. Though he’s new the scene, his recently released songs, “I Know U Been Stressed <3” and “Wonderland,” have accumulated over two million streams overall.

Brandy — “Baby Mama” Feat. Chance The Rapper

Brandy‘s new song “Baby Mama” is right on time for Mother’s Day and it includes a feature from Chance The Rapper. In a recent interview with SiriusXM, the Grammy Award-winning singer said, “It’s celebrating mothers out there who are out there doing their best for their children and striving in their independence, in their strength, in their power. I just wanted to come out with a powerful message like that.”

Rome Flynn — “Keep Me In Mind”

How to Get Away With Murder‘s Rome Flynn not only acts but he sings too, and he happens to be really good at it. Assembled by Grammy Award-winning producer Bizness Boi, the R&B crooner’s latest release “Keep Me In Mind” is a provocative love ballad emanating in close intimacy.

24kGoldn — “Unbelievable” Feat. Kaash Paige

Rising singers 24kGoldn and Kaash Paige connect for the (un)official dreamy live-action visual made to their collab single “Unbelievable.” The song’s infectious melody borrows from Drake’s 2011 fan-favorite “Marvins Room,” turning it into an ethereal vortex that’s hard to escape.

Check out this week’s R&B picks, plus more on Uproxx’s Spotify playlist below.