Speaking of Greenberg, his Get Up just posted its most-watched year ever. The weekday morning show averaged 387,000 viewers in 2024. That’s up 2.4% from last year—and 27% from its debut in 2018.  We asked the 25-year morning TV veteran for his thoughts on why Get Up has taken off. Greenberg credited his staff and rotating cast of analysts, ranging from his “crazy uncle” Rex Ryan, Domonique Foxworth, and Dan Orlovsky to Monica McNutt, Dan Graziano, and Kimberley A. Martin.

“The key to success [on a weekday morning show] is consistency. You can’t be good two days a week—and then mail in the other three. People will start to become habitual viewers of your show if you’re consistently good. They have to know you’re going to be good,” Greenberg told me. “You have to walk in there and do a good show five days a week, every week. Our group is really, really in a rhythm right now.”

To me, the biggest improvement in Get Up is its injection of humor. The cast is loose and seems to be having a blast. Bits like Jeff Saturday’s “Pancakes,” and Damien Woody’s helmet-smashing game picks, are just fun TV. Greenberg agreed.

“The operative word that we have been going for since the very beginning, literally since the inception of the show, is joy. The joy of sports. The coverage, in my opinion, is sometimes so serious. And there’s certainly instances where serious coverage of certain stories is warranted and appropriate. But by and large, people view sports as their escape,” he says. 

“They view sports as their ability to remove themselves from the serious and important and frightening and anxiety-ridden elements of their lives, whatever they may be. I think it is our job to provide them that. Those have been my mantras from the day we started this thing. We are going to lean in to the joy of sports. The reason people are watching these games in the first place is to be made happy. To enjoy them, to be excited, to invest so much of themselves emotionally into these games that don’t actually have any meaning in their lives—but somehow still mean everything,” Greenberg said.

“We try very hard to lean in to that. And lean as far away as we can from the more serious stuff. I just don’t feel like it’s what people want to wake up to. There’s plenty of space for that, and there’s plenty of places on ESPN where that stuff is being covered really well, but I always say to our audience, if we start your day with a smile, then we have accomplished our goal.”

Katie Nolan has been keeping a low profile. But the former Fox Sports and ESPN on-talent still has plenty of fans, given the reaction to us posting news of the launch of her new SiriusXM sports podcast, Casuals. 

“LOVE THIS,” wrote Jodee Storm Sullivan on X/Twitter. ”Needed this so bad,” tweeted Steven Guajardo.

• There was a lot of talk about the NBA’s lagging TV ratings before the league’s explosive Christmas Day performance, which shrank its year-over-year viewership decline to just 3%, rebounding from a previous 18% dip. But Taylor Rooks is not worried.
  
  We reported that Rooks will host Amazon Prime Video’s NBA studio coverage with analysts Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki. She says The Association will always be at the forefront of sports TV—and conversation. “People love the NBA. There are diehard fans that are watching it all of the time,” Rooks told FOS this week. “To me, it doesn’t feel like there’s a dip.

  “Obviously, because I’m so immersed in it and I’m watching it all of the time. These things ebb and flow. The NBA is an outstanding product. They are some of the best athletes in the world. And some of the best games—as evidenced on Christmas Day. Every single matchup was phenomenal. It was such a great day of basketball.”

• If you haven’t seen the Jerry Jones cameo in Paramount’s Landman, check it out here. Rich Eisen of NFL Network said the Cowboys owner deserves an Emmy Award. Jones “stole the show” from Hollywood heavyweights Jon Hamm and Billy Bob Thornton, tweeted Skip Bayless. As my FOS colleague Matt Tabeek messaged me: “I swear I thought this can’t be real, I thought it was A.I.-generated, it was so damn good. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like he really channeled. He was speaking from his heart, like it wasn’t just a line in the movie. I think they said, ‘Just be real, talk about your own experience or something like that.’ But it was so genuine, so authentic, I was blown away.”
• Fresh off scoring NBA rights, Prime Video’s Jay Marine told CNBC’s Alex Sherman the streaming giant is interested in bidding on MLB and UFC. (You can watch the interview here.)
• He’s baaack: Regional sports network operator Main Street Sports, formerly Diamond Sports Group, is hiring longtime ESPN executive Norby Williamson to oversee FanDuel Sports Network production, according to Awful Announcing. The near-40-year ESPN executive left last year after clashing with Pat McAfee, who attacked Williamson as a “rat” who was trying to “sabotage” his show.