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Morning Edition

October 1, 2025

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The Packers and Cowboys have not quite met expectations on the field in 2025. But that did not prevent the two teams from pulling the third-largest audience of any NFL game this season. Elsewhere, following a busy afternoon of WNBA news (Napheesa Collier publicly questioned commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s leadership [[link removed]], and the Wings fired their coach [[link removed]]), the Aces held on in overtime to beat the Fever. The WNBA Finals matchup is set: Aces vs. Mercury, tipping off Friday.

— Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Margaret Fleming [[link removed]], Amanda Christovich [[link removed]], and David Rumsey [[link removed]]

Packers-Cowboys Draws 26.9M Viewers, NFL’s No. 3 Game of ’25 [[link removed]]

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

NBC Sports treated last weekend’s Sunday Night Football game a bit like a mini–Super Bowl and was rewarded with massive viewership.

The network said late Wednesday that the 40–40 tie in prime time between the Packers and Cowboys averaged 26.9 million viewers. The figure for the Sept. 28 contest represents the third-most-watched NFL game so far this season, trailing only a Week 2 game between the Eagles and Chiefs [[link removed]], a Super Bowl rematch on Fox that averaged 33.8 million viewers, and the league’s kickoff game on Sept. 4 between the Cowboys and Eagles [[link removed]] on NBC that averaged 28.3 million viewers despite a 65-minute weather delay.

The big-game feel was further codified as NBC Sports buttressed its coverage [[link removed]] of the Green Bay–Dallas game by bringing its Football Night in America pregame show to AT&T Stadium in Texas to broadcast on-site, and it did the same with a separate fantasy football and betting show hosted by Matthew Berry.

NBC Sports also leaned heavily in to the subplots surrounding star defensive end Micah Parsons, traded in the preseason from Dallas to Green Bay. The game itself, though ending in a tie unsatisfying to some, still lived up to the hype with seven consecutive lead-changing touchdowns. Before the late drama, though, the game peaked with an average audience of 29.9 million during the second quarter.

The Packers-Cowboys game was also the most-watched overtime game in 19 such contests in NBC’s SNF history.

Through the first four weeks of the season, NBC is averaging 25.5 million viewers for SNF, up 6% from a year ago, the best four-week start in its 20-season history with the primetime showcase, and part of broader audience increases seen across the league. Through Week 3, the NFL was off to its best overall viewership start in league history, averaging 20.5 million viewers per game, and that number will be updated later this week once figures from Monday Night Football on ESPN and ABC arrive.

Last Sunday night’s broadcast will likely fall in the NFL season-long rankings somewhat once other marquee matchups later in the season happen, such as the Chiefs-Cowboys game on Thanksgiving [[link removed]].

The figures speak to the enduring and unrivaled popularity of the NFL, by far the most-watched programming in all of U.S. television, as well as enhanced measurement arriving from Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel process [[link removed]].

SPONSORED BY PEPSI

Buffalo’s Wildest Game Day Eats

Bills Mafia [[link removed]] doesn’t mess around when it comes to food. In the debut episode [[link removed]] of Stadium Eats presented by Pepsi, Front Office Sports’s Derryl Barnes teams up with viral food creator Chef Cuso to taste everything that makes Buffalo legendary on game day. From a dry-aged tomahawk ribeye grilled at the Hammer’s Lot tailgate, to sausages cooked on the hood of a car, and the city’s iconic beef on weck [[link removed]]—this food lineup is as bold as the fans themselves.

Watch Episode 1 now. [[link removed]]

Wings Fire Coach After One Season, Opening Fifth WNBA Vacancy [[link removed]]

Kevin Jairaj/Imagn Images

Chris Koclanes is out as head coach of the Dallas Wings after one season, the organization announced Tuesday.

Koclanes joined the Wings from USC, where he served as an assistant to Lindsay Gottlieb, and before that worked with Wings GM Curt Miller in Connecticut and Los Angeles. His roster included the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft, Paige Bueckers, plus four-time All-Star Arike Ogunbowale.

Despite the talent, the Wings sat at the bottom of the WNBA throughout the season and finished with a record of 10–34.

“As we enter a pivotal point in our team’s future, we felt a change in leadership at this time was best for our organization,” Miller said in a statement. “The Dallas Wings remain dedicated to their pursuit of WNBA Championships and building upon the strong culture established on and off the court.”

Earlier this week, the Wings held a groundbreaking ceremony for their new practice facility [[link removed]], which the team says will be ready before the 2026 season. With the anticipated start of the new collective bargaining agreement, nearly all veteran WNBA players are slated to become free agents [[link removed]] after this season. A new facility could help attract talent to Dallas to build around Bueckers.

The departure marks the fifth head coach opening in the WNBA. The Seattle Storm did not renew Noelle Quinn’s contract [[link removed]], and the New York Liberty parted ways with Sandy Brondello [[link removed]] just one season after winning the league title. Toronto and Portland, the two expansion teams slated to join the WNBA in 2026, have also not yet announced their inaugural head coaches.

The Wings announced the firing on a busy news day for the WNBA. Earlier Tuesday, Napheesa Collier blasted commissioner Cathy Engelbert in her end-of-season press conference, saying the WNBA has “the worst leadership in the world.” [[link removed]] Engelbert said in a statement that she was “disheartened by how Napheesa characterized our conversations,” but she did not deny any of the unfavorable comments Collier said she made.

College Sports Commission Sets Up ‘Snitch Line’ to Report Rules Violations [[link removed]]

The Register Guard

The College Sports Commission, which runs NIL Go, is creating an “anonymous reporting tip line” to share information about NIL (name, image, and likeness) rules violations across Division I college sports, a CSC spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports.

Some in the industry are calling it a “snitch line.”

The College Sports Commission [[link removed]] was established this summer to enforce the new rules of the House v. NCAA settlement. [[link removed]] Some of those rules include ensuring no school goes over the new revenue-sharing cap (at $20.5 million per school this year) and no school offers more roster spots than the new limits allow. The CSC also launched an NIL clearinghouse called NIL Go. Athletes must report all NIL deals worth $600 or more with the NIL Go tool to ensure they are being offered at fair-market value for a “valid business purpose,” rather than being used as pay-for-play in disguise.

The College Sports Commission has faced many issues since NIL Go officially launched in June: it flip-flopped [[link removed]] over which (if any) deals NIL collectives could offer and made errors [[link removed]] in its first public reporting deals. Millions of dollars worth of prospective NIL collective deals have been sitting in [[link removed]]limbo for weeks—and in some cases a month or more—without being approved or denied, and players have lost out on opportunities as a result.

The issues could continue if the College Sports Commission cannot adequately enforce its rules.

NIL Go only has four full-time employees to manually scrutinize every deal. It’s unclear how the CSC would be able to uncover rules violations among schools, collectives or other NIL entities.

Now, the CSC hopes to rely on the industry to partially police itself.

The CSC spokesperson said more information would be available about the tip line in the coming weeks.

LOUD AND CLEAR Owning Up

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

“That’s not indicative of who we are.”

—Colorado coach Deion Sanders, on the inappropriate chants from fans during Saturday’s 24–21 loss to BYU, which resulted in a $50,000 fine from the Big 12.

“On behalf of CU, on behalf of our athletic department, we would like to apologize to our opponents from a week ago for whatever derogatory statements were made by our fans,” Sanders said [[link removed]] at the beginning of his Tuesday press conference. “That’s not indicative of who we are, our student body, our kids are phenomenal. So don’t indict us, just based on a group of young kids that probably was intoxicated and high simultaneously.” Sanders added, “BYU, we love you, we appreciate, and we support you.”

In a separate statement Tuesday, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said, “Hateful and discriminatory language has no home in the Big 12 Conference. While we appreciate Colorado apologizing for the chants that occurred in the stands during Saturday’s game, the Big 12 maintains zero tolerance for such behavior.”

Conversation Starters Three weeks after the Bears abandoned plans for a $4.7 billion stadium on the Chicago lakefront to focus on Arlington Heights, the franchise has unveiled a new look at its proposed future stadium in the suburbs. Take a look [[link removed]]. Division III Lycoming College has a 58-year-old freshman defensive lineman, Tom Cillo, who just signed his first NIL deal [[link removed]], becoming the oldest college football player to do so. The brand: Aspercreme pain relief cream. Robert Kraft is selling 8% of the Patriots, marking the first time his family won’t own 100% of the franchise since buying it in 1994. Check it out [[link removed]]. Editors’ Picks Brian Flores Asks Court to Halt NFL Arbitration [[link removed]]by Daniel Kaplan [[link removed]]The war between Flores’s lawyers and an NFL arbitrator has heated up. NBA to Sell Franchises in Basketball Africa League [[link removed]]by Alex Schiffer [[link removed]]Suns rookie Khaman Maluach played in the BAL before going to Duke. USA Network to Air 50+ WNBA Games a Year After NBC Split [[link removed]]by Ryan Glasspiegel [[link removed]]The deal will bring more than 50 games to USA Network beginning in 2026. Question of the Day

Are you surprised by the quick hooks WNBA coaches have received this season?

YES [[link removed]] NO [[link removed]]

Tuesday’s result: 82% of respondents think the NFL should require all stadiums to use natural grass instead of artificial turf.

Advertise [[link removed]] Awards [[link removed]] Learning [[link removed]] Events [[link removed]] Video [[link removed]] Show [[link removed]] Written by Eric Fisher [[link removed]], Margaret Fleming [[link removed]], Amanda Christovich [[link removed]], David Rumsey [[link removed]] Edited by Matthew Tabeek [[link removed]], Or Moyal [[link removed]], Catherine Chen [[link removed]]

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