GREG COTE'S RANDOM EVIDENCE BLOG: MIAMI. SPORTS. AND BEYOND
1) It's SATURDAY, JUNE 3. Le Batard Show 24-hour marathon broadcast was noon Friday through noon today/Saturday on Le Batard And Friends YouTube channel. Watch a live Greg Cote Show podcast from 4 a.m. to 5 a.m! 2) Follow the Greg Cote Show podcast on Twitter and Instagram. 3) In The Previous Blogpost (ITPB): Hot Button Top 10, Heat get swept, new Greg Cote Show podcast & more. 4) Join me on Twitter and Instagram.
THE PIRATE SHIP SAILS! DETAILS, GUESTS FOR LEBATARD SHOW'S 24-HOUR MARATHON RELAUNCH: Dan Le Batard is sitting in the chair behind the microphone in the cramped studio that is his second home. It is on the second floor of The Clevelander hotel on South Beach, the ocean his backdrop. He is about to set sail on one of the biggest events of his career. The waters are uncharted. “There’s a pirate ship upstairs being built,“ he mentions casually. “With confetti cannons.” Le Batard doesn’t do subtle or understated. There was none of that when he left ESPN in January, forsaking the comfort of the mothership, turning the ultrapopular “Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz” into a free agent seeking new partners and a new future. Seeking freedom from corporate constraints. Neither was it subtle nor understated when Le Batard and John Skipper, his partner in the new content company Meadowlark Media, agreed to a three-year, $50 million sponsorship offer from DraftKings. Le Batard’s self-described “pirate ship” had found safe (and lucrative) harbor. He bet on himself — and won. Now comes the party, also with zero indication of subtlety or understatement: A continuous 24-hour marathon broadcast airing from noon Friday through noon Saturday on the Le Batard And Friends’ new YouTube channel, or via the show’s Twitter or Instagram on social media. The show has hosted massive Mas Miami street parties and done a show live from the Beacon Theater in New York City — but this is its grandest undertaking. Said Le Batard: “This is our family business’ first symbolic step into freedom and being our own boss and working with a non-conventional partner to try and change the way that we do all of this.” For our full latest column: The Pirate Ship Sails! Details, Guests For Le Batard Show's 24-Hour Relaunch.
WHY NAOMI OSAKA'S FRENCH OPEN WITHDRAWAL IS A CURIOUS, COMPLICATED DRAMA: As a vital starting point: When someone tells you they struggle with depression, do not doubt them. I know folks who do. It is a mental health condition both invisible and real. So when tennis star Naomi Osaka wrote on her Instagram this week, “I have suffered long bouts of depression ever since the U.S. Open in 2018” — even though she had not publicly revealed that before — we can only trust that is true and hope she is being treated for the condition. That tournament, her first of four major wins by age 23, of course, was fraught with controversy because Serena Williams — whom Naomi is replacing as tennis queen — bitterly argued with the umpire and incurred a game penalty. Booing continued during the match and into the award ceremony, marring Osaka’s big moment. “It wasn’t necessarily the happiest moment,” Osaka described it. That’s the backdrop to Osaka’s abrupt and stunning withdrawal from the French Open this week, after the tournament fined her $15,000 for refusing to partake in a postmatch media session and threatening to default her from the tournament if that boycott continued. For our full recent column: The Curious, Complicated Drama Of Naomi Osaka's French Open Withdrawal.
GREG COTE SHOW PODCAST: NEW EPISODE WITH MIKE RYAN OUT NOW!: Our 21st episode of 2021 and 63rd overall is out now! A new pod drops every Monday at 7 a.m. ET on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon, Stitcher, Megaphone, iHeart -- wherever you pod, and of course at MiamiHerald.com. You can find all 63 we've done so far HERE for free. Our latest episode features Le Batard Show producer Mike Ryan on the upcoming 24-hour marathon broadcast, the joy of Chelsea and agony of Inter Miami. Also, Greg and Chris on Heat and Panthers' early playoff exits, Greg mourns a death in the family and much more. Thanks as always for the support, pod family. Please listen, rate, review and follow! (Our pod now simulcasts on Sirius XM, too, every Monday 5-6 p.m. ET on Channel 145).
Our Heat/Panthers playoff columns: Miami Heat, With No Answers, Put Out of Misery In Game 4 Loss To Milwaukee / Heat Fans Showed Up For Game 3. Their Team Did Not / Another Early Panthers Playoff Exit Ends An Encouraging Season Too Soon / Time For Heat Fans To Help Lift Their Team Back Into This Series / Heat Fall, Panthers Need Miracle On Ice As Both Lose On Big Day for Miami Sports / Panthers, Hopes Of Fans In Peril After Game 2 Loss, 2-0 Series Hole / Chasing Respect, Florida Panthers' 5-4 Home Loss A Crushing Start to Playoffs / This Looks Like Best Florida Panthers Team Ever. But The Proving Starts Now.
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ARCHIVES:
Other most recent columns: Hall of Fame Snubbed Chris Bosh Last year. Time To Make it Right / Aging Ex-Dolphins Reflect On Own Mortality One Year After Shula's Death / Aaron Rodgers' Packers Drama Involves Miami (Of Course). But Here's Why It Won't Happen / Grade-A Draft Feeds Momentum For Team-On-the-Rise Dolphins / Iffy Trades That Cost Them Pitts Mean Dolphins Better Hit Big With Waddle / Le Batard Bet On Himself And His Audience -- And Won Big / Justice For George Floyd Helps Heal Our Shaken Faith, But Fight For Equality Goes On / What Would Jackie Robinson Think About Race In America Today? / The Case For Dolphins Trading Up, Going All-In For Kyle Pitts / and It Won't Fix the World, But Matsuyama's Masters Win Lifts Japan In Time Of Anti-Asian Hate.
Select other recent columns: Talk Of U.S. Olympic Boycott A Reminder Sports, Politics Are Entwined -- And That's Good / How And Why the Miami Heat Landing Kawhi Leonard This Summer Could Happen / The Miami Dolphins' Six Can't-Lose Options For a Great No. 6 Pick in NFL Draft / Even After Playoffs In '20, Marlins Still 'Bottom Feeders' Fighting For Respect / Special Opening Day as Marlins Welcome Back Fans, Feeling Of Hope / In History And In Hearts, Howard Schnellenberger Will Matter For All Time / Beckham Keeps Name-Dropping Messi, Ronaldo For Inter Miami. Can He Deliver? / Women Keep Accusing Deshaun Watson of Sexual Misconduct. But Will It Matter to NFL Teams? / No-Splash Free Agency Indicates Dolphins Going All In On Upcoming Draft -- And Tua / Phil Reflects on 25-Year Rivalry/Friendship With Tiger As Honda Classic Tees Off / Reality, Loss, Comeback: How Sports Has Been Guiding Light In America's Awful Past Year / Heat Should Parts Ways With Meyers Leonard Over Anti-Semitic Slur / Beckham's Resolve Tested By Tumult As Inter Miami Nears 2nd MLS Season / Time-Travelling To 1960s And Childhood, When The Baseball Card Was King / Quit Lecturing LeBron On Activism And His Own Conscience / Michael Jordan, Pitbull Signal Needed New Era as NASCAR Returns to Homestead / Doesn't Matter If Tiger Woods Never Wins Again. We Are Lucky He's Alive / Loss at Aussie Open Leaves Serena's Legacy Firm Yet Still Unfinished / Marlins Stick With Youth As Rest Of NL East Spends Big / Inter Miami's Beckham Risks Stepping Into Massive, Avoidable Mess / Put Brady In Sports' All-Time Pantheon. But He Has Company / Final Herald NFL 2020 QB Rankings / Marlins Hit History-Making Home Run With Kim NG Hire As GM / In a Pandemic-Battered Season For FIU, Butch Davis' Love Of Coaching Survives / Don Shula, 1930-2020, R.I.P. / What Shula Meant to a Father & Son. The Boy Was Me.
Revisit this blog often because it updates regularly. The Associated Press Sports Editors writing awards ranked the blog's author a Top 10 national sports columnist in the major-outlet category. Greg is also a regular on the Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz. Finding Greg: Twitter. Instagram. Facebook. Columns. Podcast. Podcast on Twitter. Podcast on Instagram. LeBatard Show. Book: Fins At 50. Songs: Letting Go (audio only) and The Ballad Of 1440 (with video).
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