In a stunning reversal, the Tush Push has survived a seemingly certain ban by NFL team owners.

After a formal proposal from the Packers was previously passed by two separate committees, NFL owners voted to keep the oft-debated play. Multiple reports and sources said there were 10 votes against the ban, with the 22 votes for it coming in two below the needed 75% threshold for it to be enacted. That suggests the subject will likely be revisited in the months to come. 

Still, the vote is a surprising rebuke of commissioner Roger Goodell, who was said to have favored a ban, though he denied that Wednesday. Despite no specific incidents of player injury last year from Tush Push plays, advocates of a ban have repeatedly cited health and safety concerns, as well as aesthetic ones in which the play has been likened to rugby. 

A vote to outlaw the accentuated quarterback sneak was previously tabled in early April at the league’s annual meeting. The Packers then presented the proposal again for this week’s spring meeting in Minnesota with slightly adjusted language.

A key swing in sentiment, however, could have emerged Wednesday morning from both Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and former center Jason Kelce, who each spoke passionately before the other team owners in defense of keeping the play legal. The pair made arguments regarding the safety concerns, as well as making a point as to how seldom the play occurs over the course of all NFL games, with it happening less than 0.3% of the time.  

The Eagles then made their views known publicly within minutes of the vote, releasing a social media post reading simply, “Push On.” The team followed that up by posting a 26-minute video reel of Tush Push plays on YouTube.

Coincidentally, the 22–10 vote for the ban was also the same score by which the Eagles defeated the Packers in last year’s playoffs. 

“We took all the necessary vote counts and realized this was not a rule that was ready to be passed,” said NFL competition committee chairman Rich McKay. “Twenty-four [votes] is a high bar, and it should be.”

Playoff Withdrawal

Goodell’s influence, meanwhile, also faltered somewhat regarding a proposed change to playoff seeding. Another previously tabled proposal, issued by the Lions, would have eliminated guaranteed home games for division champions and instead seeded conference playoff participants strictly on win-loss records.

The impetus behind this potential change was to bring more importance to late-season games, and keep teams from resting starters in the final weeks of the regular season—in turn aiding television viewership. Ultimately, though, the Lions withdrew the proposal as team support remained far short of the necessary 75% threshold, and it, too, could be revisited later.

Among the issues likely to still be sorted out is whether this change will require a companion one to the NFL’s current and carefully calibrated method of determining the schedule each year.

The NHL has entered the conference finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs with a massive dip in U.S. postseason TV ratings.

Through the first two rounds, games on ESPN platforms are down 28% compared to the 2024 playoffs, averaging 886,000 viewers per broadcast, while games on TNT Sports platforms are down 19% year over year, averaging 882,000, according to Nielsen ratings cited by Sports Media Watch.

Second-round games were down 25% to 1.2 million on both ESPN and TNT Sports platforms. That mirrors an early playoff trend that saw the U.S. TV ratings down 27% after the opening slate of Round 1 games.

One major variable to consider when analyzing playoff viewership in the U.S. is that five of the 16 postseason participants were Canadian franchises, up from four last year. ESPN and TNT Sports broadcast only to U.S. viewers, as the NHL has separate media-rights deals in Canada.

Three teams north of the border reached the second round, and the Oilers are the lone Canadian squad in the final four. Per the NHL, second-round games averaged 2.2 million viewers in Canada, up 45% from last year. When factoring that in, combined U.S. and Canada TV audiences for the playoffs so far are up 5% from last year, averaging 2.8 million viewers per game.

Final Acts

The Oilers begin their Western Conference finals series against the Stars on Wednesday night. Edmonton, should it win, could end up in a Stanley Cup Final rematch against the Panthers, who beat the Hurricanes in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday night.

Despite the Oilers hailing from Canada and the Panthers not being in a traditional hockey market, the two teams ended up in a Stanley Cup Final Game 7 last summer that was the NHL’s most-watched game on any network in five years. Florida’s championship-clinching victory drew 7.7 million viewers on ABC.

Caitlin Clark is the WNBA’s biggest needle mover, but the pro debut of Paige Bueckers showed the Bueckers Bump exists.

Friday’s opening-night game between Bueckers’s Dallas Wings and the Minnesota Lynx drew 639,000 viewers on Ion, the network announced Tuesday. The back half of Ion’s Friday doubleheader—the first official game of the Golden State Valkyries, who faced the Los Angeles Sparks—drew 581,000 viewers. 

The average of the two games is 612,000 viewers, a 121% increase from the 277,000 comparable window last year (Washington Mystics vs. Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm vs. Lynx), though that was not on opening night.

Ion averaged 677,000 viewers for the 43 games it broadcast in 2024, a 133% increase from 2023. However, excluding broadcasts that included Clark and the Indiana Fever, Friday’s doubleheader would be the second- and third-most-watched games ever on Ion, according to Sports Media Watch. 

One day later, Clark and Fever drew 2.7 million viewers against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky on ABC, the most-watched game ever on ESPN platforms, regular season or playoffs. WNBA regular-season games on ESPN platforms last year averaged 1.2 million viewers.

The first Wings game on ESPN platforms will be June 3 on ESPN against the Storm. They have two games on ABC this season: July 13 against the Fever and Aug. 17 vs. the Las Vegas Aces.

Bueckers did not have a particularly good game in her debut, scoring just 10 points and grabbing 7 rebounds on 3-for-10 shooting. But the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft bounced back Monday with 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists on 50% from the field in a Wings loss to the Storm.