Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Tom Brady’s Netflix roast features lots of humor and reunions
INGLEWOOD, Calif. | Three months before Tom Brady gets roasted by critics as FOX Sports’ top NFL analyst, he took his share of barbs from comedians, former teammates and his longtime coach Sunday night during a made-for-streaming comedy live event on Netflix.
And it is safe to say after the one liners and jokes Brady heard during three hours of “The Greatest Roast of All Time” at The Forum, he will do just fine.
“It’s like a football game. You run with a game plan, and then you get to see kind of how the strategy goes, and then you adjust on the fly,” Brady said before the event. “This is what a locker room has been like for me for all these years. So it’s not like I’m used to people not making fun of me.”
Comedian Nikki Glaser, whose monologue was among the funniest of the night, termed the roast as “the comedians’ Super Bowl” and how the competition level was ramped up because everyone wanted to one-up each other.
Brady sustained more blitzes and pressure than he did during an average NFL game as an impressive lineup of comedians, former teammates and opponents took the stage . Host Kevin Hart said before the event that no topic was off limits, and Hart went on the offensive early with jokes about Brady’s ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen.
“Gisele gave you an ultimatum. She said you retire or we’re done. When you got a chance to go 8-9 and all it will cost you is your wife and your kids, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Hart said, referring to Brady coming out of a brief retirement in 2022 for one more season.
The only time Brady objected to a joke was when Jeff Ross made a reference to Patriots owner Robert Kraft and massages. In 2019, Kraft originally received a misdemeanor charge that he paid for sex at a Florida massage parlor. Prosecutors later dropped the charge after courts blocked the use of video from cameras installed by police inside the massage parlors.
Brady walked up to Ross and said in his ear “don’t say that (stuff) again”, but it was clearly caught on the microphone and heard by those watching the roast at home. It was not heard by those in attendance.
Later, Kraft and former Patriots coach Bill Belichick did a shot together on stage after some coaxing from Hart.
Belichick was fired in January after 24 seasons with the Patriots, and a lot has been written about friction between the six-time winning Super Bowl coach and owner over the past couple years.
After joking about this being like a reunion and “unlike many family reunions there are some people I am desperately trying to avoid”, Kraft praised Belichick for what the two accomplished.
“I want to say this is the greatest coach in the history of the game that did what no one else has done. And having Tom Brady and him was the greatest honor the good Lord gave me,” Kraft said.
It wasn’t the first shot (of alcohol) that Belichick took. Rob Gronkowski got Belichick and Brady to do a shot together after his monologue. Gronkowski celebrated by spiking his shot glass.
Belichick appeared at the beginning of the roast during a pre-taped segment when he told Brady that he was “starting the roast” instead of Drew Bledsoe. Brady replaced Bledsoe in 2001 when Bledsoe was injured in a Week 2 game against the Jets and led the Patriots to their first Super Bowl title that season.
“For all of you out there who think about who’s responsible for the Patriots success during the time Tom and I was together — was it Tom or me — in reality the truth of the matter was it was both of us because of me,” Belichick said.
Brady did have some fun at Belichick’s expense though near the end of the show.
“I’ve been out of the game for a minute, so I’m curious, how many Super Bowl rings have you won since I left?,” Brady said. “Maybe it’s not just the guy on the sideline. When I go to the Indy 500, I don’t ask the winning driver, ‘Hey, you gassed up your car?;”
Hart said before the show that he thought Brady was in a great mindset going into the event. Brady did come in well prepared, going over his monologue with a group of people, including those at Fox Sports.
“You have to be able to laugh at yourself and I love that he is doing in this forum,” Hart said. “I love that he is embracing the things that some people think he runs away from. It is a celebration of greatness and we are doing it in a fun way.”
Bledsoe also said that Brady has had a sense of humor, but that this was a different stage.
“I thought he was very brave. There’s plenty of material to make fun of him on,” Bledsoe said. “The truth is when you’re a professional athlete, roasting each other is kind of what we do every day in the locker room. And so, you better have thick skin going in. Now, people get to laugh along with it.”
NBC will stick with dual announcers and analysts for the U.S. Open
NBC Sports has been without a permanent analyst in the 18th tower all year, and that’s not going to change for the U.S. Open.
The network announced its commentary team Monday: Dan Hicks and Mike Tirico will share play-by-play duties with an analyst assigned to each. The four-wide booth will have Hicks calling even-numbered holes with Brandel Chamblee and Tirico calling the odd-numbered holes with Brad Faxon.
NBC also said Roger Maltbie would return as an on-course reporter, while Gary Koch would be a booth analyst alongside Steve Sands during early coverage. The contracts of Koch and Maltbie were not renewed after 2022.
And the “Happy Hour” with Smylie Kaufman, a popular addition in which Kaufman has a set on the course Friday, will be at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina for the U.S. Open, which will be played June 13-16.
Golf traditionally has a lead announcer and an analyst. Johnny Miller was the voice of golf on NBC for nearly 30 years. He was succeeded by Paul Azinger, whose contract was not renewed after the Ryder Cup last year.
The idea of four in the booth was conceived during the Ryder Cup, and NBC has stuck with it while searching for a permanent replacement for Azinger.
“The play-by-play person should be telling you what’s happening,” said Sam Flood, NBC’s executive producer. “The why it’s happening and how it’s happening is the analyst.”
He said the depth of play-by-play personnel at NBC allows for more analysts and “opens up the opportunity for analysts to go back and forth.”
Flood also said Luke Donald, Europe’s winning Ryder Cup captain who spent 56 weeks at No. 1 in the world in 2011 and 2012, would be the analyst alongside Hicks at the British Open.
NBC plans 47 hours of live coverage from Pinehurst No. 2 through a combination of Peacock, USA Network and NBC. Other announcer-analyst partnerships for early coverage includes Terry Gannon and Notah Begay III, Rich Lerner and Curt Byrum, and Tom Abbott and Arron Oberholser.
Jim “Bones” Mackay, who recently split from his caddie duties with Justin Thomas, returns to NBC as an on-course reporter along with Kaufman, former caddie John Wood, Byrum and Paige Mackenzie.
Directing traffic is Tommy Roy, NBC’s golf producer who has been working with the revolving door of analysts since the split with Azinger: Chamblee, Faxon, Donald, Begay, Byrum, Kevin Kisner and Paul McGinley.
Roy said having twice the number in booth has not been a challenge because he feels it works well to have them take odd- and even-numbered holes.
“What’s been a little bit of a challenge for me is a new analyst week after week, because there’s a lot to teach them when they’re in this role for the first time. The good news is because we have the Olympics, we have many new analysts for these sports and I’ve been used to tutoring them.
“It’s actually been a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s been fresh. Those guys brought great energy.”
Kaufman’s “Happy Hour” was derived from having a set on the raucous 16th hole at the Phoenix Open alongside Kisner. The original plan was to bring in a celebrity until Roy heard a podcast with Kaufman and Kisner.
He said it was Flood’s idea to do it every Friday and call it, “Happy Hour,” building a special set and creating a logo. It started with the Florida swing and Kaufman has had players like Jordan Spieth join him after they finish their rounds.
“We love Smylie because he has this incredible relationship with the players and we think for the audience it’s been a godsend because you get to know the guys and their personalities,” Flood said. “That environment is perfect for it. The golfers have leaned in, the PGA Tour has leaned in. The USGA is excited to have us at the U.S. Open.”
Roy said he was considering the par-3 15th at Pinehurst for the set because it’s a hole “where a lot of good things can happen and a lot of bad things can happen.”
As for the four-man booth, that appears to be the plan at least through this season. The concern has been analysts talking over each other — or talking too much.
Roy did not think it diluted the value of a single analyst — Miller for all those years, just as Ken Venturi and Nick Faldo were longtime voices at CBS — and it bought NBC time.
“I’m glad we’re going down this road so that we’re 100% sure when we do name the analyst that’s going to be leading our team that it’s the right guy, instead of jumping right in and naming somebody and then maybe they didn’t pan out,” he said.
“We’re going to go through the U.S. Open and The Open Championship and then make a decision on the (FedEx Cup) playoffs, and once we get through the playoffs and the Tour Championship, then we’ll see.”
Spain’s Prado Museum confirms rediscovery of lost Caravaggio
MADRID | A painting whose auction in Spain was halted in 2021 on suspicion that it might be a Caravaggio has been confirmed as a work by the Italian Baroque master, Spain’s Prado Museum announced Monday.
The painting, once considered to have been lost, will be unveiled to the public for the first time in the museum later this month.
The Prado said in a statement the work titled “Ecce Homo” (Latin for Behold The Man) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio will go on display from May 27 until October as a special one-piece exhibition following an agreement with its new owner, who has not been identified.
After October, the work will be be moved to the Prado’s permanent collection for a further four months.
“Since its reappearance at an auction three years ago, Ecce Homo has represented one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art,” the museum said.
“Painted by the great Italian artist around 1605-09 and believed to have once been part of the private collection of Phillip IV of Spain, the painting is one of around only 60 known works by Caravaggio in existence, and thus one of the most valuable old master artworks in the world,” the Prado added.
In April 2021, Spanish authorities halted an auction of the work, which was then attributed to a disciple of a 17th-century Spanish painter, José de Ribera. They also put an export ban on it after the museum alerted the government it could be a Caravaggio.
The painting was due to be auctioned with a starting price tag of 1,500 euros ($1,600). The value of an authentic Caravaggio would stretch into tens of millions of euros (dollars), if not more.
Prado Museum Director Miguel Falomir said that since then the owners carried out studies and proceeded with the painting’s restoration, which led to the discovery “that it is, in fact, a work by Caravaggio and a work that arrived in Spain in the 17th century.”
The painting is not allowed to leave Spain without government permission.
Falomir said it had been in the hands of a family in Madrid since the 19th century. The family was allowed to sell it privately earlier this year following an agreement with the Madrid regional government. The new owner wanted the public presentation of the piece to take place in the Prado Museum.
“For our part, we are more than happy to be the stage to present this new unshown work of Caravaggio to the public and critics,” Falomir said in a video statement released by the museum.
The oil-on-canvas work depicts the Biblical passage of the Ecce Homo, in which Jesus Christ is presented to the crowds before being crucified. The work measures 111 by 86 centimeters (44 by 34 inches). The painting was known as early as the 1600s, but experts later lost track of it.
The Prado said four of the most authoritative experts on Caravaggio and Baroque painting “all share the same passionate certainty: that Ecce Homo is a masterpiece by the Italian artist.”
One of the experts, Maria Cristina Terzaghi, was quoted as saying, “The speed of consensus around the work being a Caravaggio upon its rediscovery was absolutely unprecedented in the critical history of the painter, on whom scholars have rarely agreed, at least in the last forty years.”
The Prado said that since April 2021, the work has been under the custodianship of the Colnaghi art gallery in collaboration with experts. The painting was restored by specialist Andrea Cipriani and his team under the supervision of experts from the Madrid regional government.
“In the last hundred years, no artist more than Caravaggio, with his adventurous biography and unmistakable style, has fascinated audiences of all ages and engaged scholars from halfway around the world. This work therefore presents one of the greatest discoveries in the history of art,” said Jorge Coll, CEO of Colnaghi, which co-signed the press release.
Snoop Dogg brand now attached to Arizona Bowl
TUCSON, Ariz. | Snoop Dogg is putting his name on the Arizona Bowl for what will be the first partnership between an alcohol brand and a college bowl game, the rapper and media personality announced Monday.
The “Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl Presented by Gin & Juice By Dre and Snoop” is scheduled for Dec. 28 at Arizona Stadium and will match teams from the Mountain West Conference and Mid-American Conference.
Barstool, the digital media company, previously sponsored the bowl.
Gin & Juice, named after Snoop’s 1994 hit, is the first product from Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s new premium spirits company.
“College football fans are exhausted by the constant talk around NIL, conference realignment, coach movement, transfer portal and super conferences,” Snoop Dog said in a video on social media. “So it’s time we get back to the roots of college football, what it was focused on — the colleges, the players, the competition, the community, fan experience and the pageantry. Being a fan, coach, supporter of all levels of the game, I’ve sent many players through my (Snoop Youth Football League) to colleges and the NFL, so it’s only fitting that I step up and help get this thing right.”
—From AP reports
