The calendars have been flipped for a few days now, but before we dive headlong into the 2026 sports media scene, your semiloyal scribe (that's me) wanted to jot down a few national and local people, places, and things that I enjoyed or appreciated from the past year on this beat. Twenty-six of them, in fact ... · NBC Sports Boston's "Quick Slants," especially Tom E. Curran's good-natured "Irrelevant Questions" segments with Patriots players. · Phil Perry's knack for good-naturedly shutting down Felger-generated Patriots hot takes with facts and insight. · Lou Merloni's #walkthedog social media clips that never fail to offer clear-eyed assessments of the state of the Red Sox.
Born in Cumbria, Helen Skelton, 42, began her broadcasting career at BBC Radio Cumbria and Newsround. From 2008 to 2013, she was a Blue Peter presenter. Her other credits include reporting on the London 2012 Olympics and presenting Countryfile and BBC Morning Live; she also voices Annie in Fireman Sam. In 2023, she published her autobiography, In My Stride. A new series of her show Lost and Found in the Lakes starts on 5 January on BBC One.
Gabon vs Ivory Coast will be shown live in the UK on 4seven and the Channel 4 streaming service, with kick-off at 19:00 GMT. It will also be available for free on the Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel. Channel 4 has the rights to AFCON this year, so you can watch every game free in the UK. Coverage is geo-restricted, but you can use a VPN to get your usual access if you're away from the UK right now
Iceland has become the fifth country to boycott next year's Eurovision song contest after Israel was given the go-ahead to compete, deepening the crisis facing the competition. The board of the national broadcaster, RUV, voted on Wednesday not to participate, meaning Iceland will join Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Ireland in neither participating in nor broadcasting the event, which is scheduled to take place in Vienna.
Fifa has yet to reveal the venues, which may have an effect on ticket sales. Arsenal, Corinthians (the Copa Libertadores holders) and Gotham FC (the Concacaf champions) have qualified for the semi-finals. The Chinese club Wuhan Jiangda beat Auckland United in October to progress to this month's playoff against the Moroccan side AS FAR for the right to face Arsenal. The second semi-final will be between Gotham and Corinthians.
Newcastle United ran riot on Merseyside on Saturday, beating Everton 4-1 thanks to goals from Malick Thiaw (two), Lewis Miley and Nick Woltemade. That's now eight goals for summer signing Woltemade, who continues to make quite the impression during his debut season in England. Spurs boss Thomas Frank is facing huge pressure after his side lost yet again on home soil, going down 2-1 against Fulham.
Watch the 2025 FIFA Arab Cup for an international tournament between teams in the Middle East and North Africa this December, with all the broadcast information right here in this guide. FIFA Arab Cup: Key information Dates: December 1-18, 2025 Location: Qatar Broadcasters: beIN Sports, Abu Dhabi Sports TV, AlKass FREE stream: Abu Dhabi Sports TV via StarzPlay Watch from anywhere: Grab this NordVPN deal
The Clarets lost back-to-back games against Arsenal and West Ham before the two-week hiatus, with another London club now standing in their way. Chelsea beat strugglers Wolves to extend their unbeaten record to four games and arrive in Lancashire looking to build on a decent start to the campaign. After 11 games, the Blues are third in the table and are only six points behind leaders Arsenal.
The 41-year-old made 313 appearances for Arsenal between 2002 and 2018, in addition to spells at Birmingham City and in the United States at the Boston Breakers. Scott also represented England 140 times and played five times for Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. Following her retirement from football, Scott began a full-time media career, having regularly appeared as a pundit during her playing career. Scott has been the presenter of Football Focus since 2021.
Norway striker Erling Haaland leads the way in European World Cup qualifying with 14 goals (Image credit: Getty Images) Watch Italy vs Norway in World Cup qualifying, with the hosts having to settle for a place in the playoffs.. FourFourTwo provides all the details on TV and streaming information for viewers anywhere in the world.
Group I is flirting with a thrilling conclusion in Milan on Sunday afternoon but both Italy and Norway have obstacles to pass before they meet at San Siro. Norway are flying. They haven't dropped a point, have scored 29 goals in six games, and have conceded only three. Yet the Azzurri are technically still in touch with the highly unlikely possibility of automatic qualification.
"It would be a shame for you to check out by yourself when you like people so much," Bob Trumpy told her, according to an Associated Press story about the call. "This is a cry for help, and I'm not going to let that go unheard." Sugar's son finally came on the line and revealed where they lived. Emergency workers were able to reach her before she harmed herself.
I was working for a company building apartment blocks during the World Cup. We got into work one morning and we turned straight back around and went into an early house to watch the semi-finals. Our problem wasn't that - our problem was we got greedy. You've a few drinks and your confidence gets up. It gets to 5 o'clock and we thought we should ring Enrique to clock us out of work again. And one of the lads says, let's wait and we'll get someone to clock us out in a few hours and we'll get overtime.
The San Francisco 49ers face division rivals the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, Nov. 9 at 1:25 p.m. PT at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. The 49ers won this season's first meeting with the Rams in Los Angeles last month, 26-23 in overtime. Since that shorthanded victory, they have lost more players to injury, including rookie defensive end Mykel Williams last weekend to an ACL tear, the same injury that befell Nick Bosa earlier this season. The defense has thus far held up despite the attrition, but coordinator Robert Saleh must continue to plug the holes.
The broadcaster reported revenues of $773 million and booked a $1 million net loss in the three months that included Kimmel's September suspension, according to Variety, a sudden reversal from the $94 million profit Sinclair posted in the same quarter of 2024. Advertising was the engine of the decline, down 26% to $321 million year-over-year. Political spending largely evaporated with just $6 million this past quarter compared to $138 million a year ago which was, of course, an election year.
ITV plc notes the recent press speculation and confirms that it is in preliminary discussions regarding a possible sale of its M&E business to Sky for an enterprise value of £1.6bn,
The first round of the 12-team College Football Playoff will start at 8 p.m. ET on Dec. 19 on ABC and ESPN, followed by a tripleheader Dec. 20 that starts at noon, the CFP, ESPN and TNT announced Tuesday. ESPN, which has owned the exclusive rights to the playoff since its inception in 2015, is in the second year of its current expanded package, which includes all four games of the CFP first round with two of the games sublicensed to TNT Sports.
