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What is a brand extension? 'Jeopardy!' attempts to answer TV's questionable future
"Jeopardy!" is TV's most-watched entertainment show — and its median viewer is 70. Inside Sony's push onto ESPN, Netflix and YouTube to find a younger audience.
Arkansas basketball press conferences: Previewing Bahamas exhibitions
JJ Andrews, Cooper Bowser and Abdou Toure answered questions ahead of the Razorbacks' four-game trip to Nassau.
Why Democrats Won’t Stop Forcing Votes On Trump’s Iran War Powers
Even after winning approval of a measure calling on President Trump to end the war, they continue to call votes to force Republicans to answer for it.
Faith is back in Democratic politics
After decades of watching Democrats dodge the God question, I think they finally have an answer.
Senators press Treasury for answers on plans for Harriet Tubman $20 bill
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed earlier this month the department had abandoned plans to put Harriet Tubman’s image on the new $20 bill
Science & PINS Prize recognizes work that could prevent blood pressure crises after spinal cord injury | American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Jan Elaine Soriano asked a question that researchers had struggled to answer for decades: What if the nervous system could be retrained to stop these dangerous blood pressure surges before they begin?
Consumer Reports: Should you trust AI chatbots with your health questions?
More people are turning to ChatGPT and other AI tools for health questions. The answers are fast, and they often sound reassuring and trustworthy, but Consumer Reports warns they aren’t always accurate.
Vikings Get Intriguing Message Involving Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield
The Minnesota Vikings are having a QB battle between Kyler Murray and J.J. McCarthy to determine their starter for the 2026 NFL season. In a perfect world, one of McCarthy or Murray emerges and solves the Vikings’ issue under center for the foreseeable future.Nonetheless, there’s also the possibility that neither is the answer after having […] The post Vikings Get Intriguing Message Involving Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield appeared first on HEAVY.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 30, 2026, puzzle No. 675
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for July 30: Tips to solve Connections #675
Everything you need to solve Connections Sports Edition #675
Yahoo Sports' Jori Epstein on Training Camp, Vikings Quarterback Competition, Expectations for 2026
Yahoo Sports' Senior NFL Writer Jori Epstein joined Vikings Entertainment Network's Tatum Everett to discuss the start of 2026 Training Camp, the quarterback competition with J.J. McCarthy and Kyler Murray, other questions for the Vikings to answer during
Scientists Discovered ‘Zombies’ With ‘Immortal’ Body Parts. This Could Redefine What We Think Life Is.
A “gray zone” form of living could help scientists answer long-held questions about regeneration, aging, and how tissues survive under tough conditions.
Why Anthony Fauci might not be safe after pleading the Fifth
By now in American politics, we’ve become accustomed to high-profile figures pleading the Fifth to avoid answering questions they believe could be used to incriminate them. That includes President Donald Trump doing it more than 400 times in a civil case in 2022.
Akron hospitals to host free family health fair with experts, entertainment
Akron Children’s Hospital and Summa Health are hosting a free Mother, Baby and Family Health Fair on Saturday, Aug. 1. The free event will feature professionals from both hospitals who will offer information and answer questions about a variety of specialties.
Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in heated COVID-19 Senate hearing
Physician declines to answer Senate questions as Republicans like Rand Paul accuse him of covering up COVID's origins.
Should you trust AI to answer your health questions?
More people are turning to ChatGPT and other AI tools for health questions. The answers are fast, and they often sound reassuring and trustworthy, but, as Consumer Reports says, they aren’t always accurate.
Anthony Fauci Finally Turns Down an Interview Request
The doctor, not known to shy from a spotlight, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights rather than answer loaded questions from Senate Republicans.
WATCH: Fauci invokes 5th Amendment, declining to answer questions in GOP-led hearing on COVID-19
The Science Behind the AI Panic Is Shakier Than You Think
A column by Sascha Lobo Is AI making us dumb? So asked DER SPIEGEL on its cover a while ago. After a few weeks of recovery and a therapeutic intervention with the help of my AI, I feel able to respond. That’s a bit unfair, of course; the article itself is more nuanced than the loud cover, the image of a schoolkid with dull prompt questions, or the subtitle: “AI is conquering the schools, and educators fear a disaster.” The short answer to “Is AI making us dumb?” is: no. The long answer is more interesting, and even carries a preliminary glimmer of the spectacular. Unfortunately, it requires a detour into the sphere of artificial intelligence, into the mogul-field terrain of technology assessment, the attention economy, and the destructive virus of cultural pessimism. Along with narrowing the scope to AI’s effects on education and work rather than on intelligence. Because the honest version of the question would be: Does AI help us learn and work, or not? Generative AI, which set off the still-ongoing hype with ChatGPT, has only existed in relevant distribution since late 2022, early 2023. For a technology-driven transformation of people and society, that is extremely short. For that reason alone, research is still in its infancy. And technology assessment is not a fast discipline anyway. Prominent voices from Elizabeth Eisenstein to RAND to Tom Wheeler say we still cannot conclusively judge the consequences of the printing press. Its invention is a mere 580 years back, and some scholars would rather not circulate assessments that might have to be retracted in two or three hundred years. We’re Going Through Growing Pains A phenomenon that already caused upheaval in social media research makes serious assessment of AI’s consequences even harder: the “moving target” problem of LLM-ology, as the linguist Sean Trott called it in 2025. AI develops so quickly and so unpredictably that researchers often end up studying snapshots of the past. There are concepts, from morphological analysis to anticipatory governance, for keeping research, planning, and regulation halfway meaningful anyway. But even with those, universally valid statements are rare. DER SPIEGEL - The German View is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe We should therefore treat findings about the interplay between humans and AI as far more procedural and situational. Unfortunately, this challenge comes at the worst possible time. We are going through growing pains: AI’s everyday impact has grown very large very fast, and with it the longing for guidance. Annoyingly, the body of solid knowledge has not exploded along with it. Experts cannot be moved to broad consensus on even banal statements about AI. Sascha Lobo, born in 1975, is an author and strategy consultant focusing on the internet and digital technologies. Together with Jule Lobo, he explores the debates of the day in the podcast “Feel the News – Was Deutschland bewegt” (”What Moves Germany”). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says software developers are dying out. Bill Gates considers coders one of only three professions that will survive the AI tsunami. Top tech economists find virtually irrefutable arguments both for and against an AI bubble. The same naturally applies to the structurally youth-hostile debate over whether AI is good or bad for young people. The gap between the demand for insight and the supply of solid knowledge creates an orientation vacuum. This vacuum of AI cluelessness is filled, as the attention economy described by Georg Franck in 1998 would have it, with half-knowledge (funnily enough, often AI-generated), marketing, and self-marketing. After all, infinite money is at stake, along with academia’s best current shot at global fame. But this iridescent froth of interpretation operates more by the algorithmic principles of the digital public sphere than by seriously earned insight. That is why dramatized, fear-feeding claims about AI are so promising. It tempts parts of academia into distorted drivel, and parts of the media then sensationalize the published drivel once more. Was the Research Aimed at a Desired Result? How badly this can influence academia and public perception is demonstrated by one of the most-discussed studies on AI’s effects: “Your Brain on ChatGPT.” The MIT study by Nataliya Kosmyna also gets plenty of space in the SPIEGEL cover story. What was measured and interpreted: lower brain activity in people who write with AI assistance, compared to people who only google or write without any tools. As is common with preprints, the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, and it contains substantial weaknesses that experts have sharply criticized. The first round had 54 participants in three groups, the second only 18, who reportedly also came from MIT’s own orbit. There was no preregistration (committing in advance to what you want to find out with which data). In their analysis, Stanković et al. even discovered an opposite effect that the study does not further explain. Some measurement data has not (yet) been published. And the EEG analysis method used is considered too imprecise to support such far-reaching conclusions. The biggest criticism, though, is the suspicion of an activism-driven study. In an interview with Time, lead author Kosmyna said she published the study immediately, rather than after full peer review, because she feared politicians might otherwise decide to put ChatGPT in kindergartens. She considers that absolutely harmful. It is legitimate to hold such a view. It just seems unscientific to approach a study with it, and then to design the setup so that the chance of a fitting desired result remains as high as possible. Ideologies Collide It is not easy to separate genuine AI insights from studies that trivialize and weaken well-founded AI criticism. The same goes for the opposing, AI-enthusiastic narratives, because the pro-AI side works against it with billions in resources. Ideologies collide, fed by egos, PR strategies, moral posturing, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Doomsday marketing makes the search even harder: AI companies can profit from warnings about the dangers of AI, whether through the notoriety of apocalypse narratives or because, in some target groups, danger translates into power. Some seemingly negative findings are therefore quite welcome in the AI industry. If you try to get at the findings presumably less influenced by interest groups, the picture in education seems relatively clear: AI can improve educational outcomes when the right AI is used the right way, namely pedagogically. Simply dumping an AI chatbot into a classroom, by contrast, accomplishes little. Huge surprise. But something else is also obvious: whether they are allowed to or not, kids use AI for school, which is why the controlled integration of AI tools into education is, in the medium term, entirely without alternative. In the world of work, the landscape of findings is more complex and requires more differentiation. A series of serious studies points to an AI effect that suits neither the alarmists, regulation fetishists, and AI opponents, nor the trillion-dollar corporations with their armada of paid scientists, PR professionals, and ecosystems: working with AI helps the inexperienced (at least for now) considerably more than it helps the pros, in certain fields of work, and provided they know how to use it correctly. Missing Domain Knowledge Among the experienced, the professionals, and the high flyers, by contrast, despite frequent time savings, partially negative effects and new problems are emerging. Take the jagged frontier problem: AI solves task A brilliantly and fails completely at task B, even though both look similar even to professionals. Or the verification-cost problem, in which AI’s greater productivity gets eaten up by the enormous effort of checking its output. Or the illusion of competence, because AI makes new domains seem easily penetrable, until you painfully discover that deep domain knowledge is missing. Taken as a whole, the effects of working with AI do lean positive. But the promise that AI works as a turbocharger for everyone and boosts practically everything simply refuses to materialize. The AI magic the world has been feeling since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022 has so far barely shown up in most companies’ numbers. The consulting firm McKinsey has coined a term for this, the “gen AI paradox,” and believes that work processes and corporate structures would have to be rebuilt quite fundamentally to realize AI’s benefits at scale. Reuters just reported that only 3.3 percent of Microsoft’s customers have subscribed to the AI package Copilot. That may be down to the product; in other areas we continue to see soaring successes and new AI triumphs. But after the first quarter of 2026, disillusionment is the word for all too many AI projects at traditional companies: because the promised revolution of AI agents has so far failed to arrive or been postponed, and because of the leveling effect that many of the studies cited here suggest. Against Inequality The societal effects, on the other hand, appear rather encouraging. Many previous technologies operated on the Matthew principle, named for the Gospel verse about giving to those who already have: they tended to reward the more competent and more privileged. AI, however, seems more often to have an equalizing effect once a threshold of access and education is crossed. Some anecdotal insights point in this direction, for example, how an unemployed man in Leipzig successfully defended himself in court in 2025 against fraud accusations from Germany’s federal employment agency — without a lawyer, armed only with ChatGPT. The AI made mistakes and cited invented court rulings, but in the end the man walked away unpunished. And a key capability of artificial intelligence is its capacity to learn: set up correctly and fed with data, it can keep getting better. It is a question of time, or more precisely of AI innovations and training data, until even free AI chatbots write better legal briefs than law graduates with perfect exam scores. Whether that will make anyone dumb is something the world’s press will surely inform us of in due time. Subscribe Leave a comment
‘Slap in the face': San Diego labor, business leaders want answers on DACA delays
Leaders from San Diego’s labor unions and business community came together Tuesday to sound the alarm on months-long delays in processing for DACA renewals that have caused some recipients to lose their jobs as their status expires while they wait.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 29, 2026, puzzle No. 674
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Folk singer Linda Perhacs, 82, has been missing for 8 months
Linda Perhacs, the psychedelic folk artist known for her rediscovered album "Parallelograms," has been missing for nearly eight months as her loved ones seek out answers.
Some city homeowners blast pied-à-terre tax rollout
The city did not answer a question about how many owners got letters from the Department of Finance asking them to prove their residency status.
Car Crashes Into Lafayette Business
Police are looking for answers after a car crashed into a Lafayette business
Jonathan Grennard's Exit Leaves Vikings Dangerously Thin at Edge Rusher
The Vikings fully report to training camp this week, and there are a lot of storylines that could converge in Eagan as the team has had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers this offseason. One such example of uncertain elements of the team that could become more and more urgent as the season gets closer is the Vikings' edge defenders and the depth at that position in particular. To the untrained eye, the Vikings had a plethora of edge rushers last year, but in reality it was actually a facade masked by the star power of their two starters, Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard, who were coming off a season in which they combined for 23.5 sacks and 36 tackles for loss.
Senate Democrats Press Blanche on Times Subpoenas
Days before a committee vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination to be attorney general, Democrats demanded answers about the since-withdrawn subpoenas.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 28, 2026, puzzle No. 673
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Three Position Groups To Monitor Early In Packers' Training Camp
The Green Bay Packers kick off training camp on Wednesday, July 29, as the start of the 2026 NFL season rapidly approaches. The Packers are looking to bounce back from yet another premature playoff exit in 2025, with stars throughout the roster facing elevated expectations coming into the year. Green Bay's coaching staff will have several position battles to monitor, answering questions that will present themselves early in training camp.
Boyle Gives History Lesson, Advice For Fellow Democrats and Insight Into Political Future At PA Press Club
Left to his own devices, Rep. Brendan Boyle would rather talk sports. But the six-term congressman from Philadelphia thought it more appropriate to give a little history lesson and answer questions about politics and his political future at the Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon on Monday in Harrisburg. Boyle, the ranking…
As Zelenskyy Meets Trump, Ukraine’s Political Crisis Reveals a Silver Lining
Zelenskyy arrives in Washington carrying a political crisis of his own making, after the ouster of his popular defense minister triggered protests across Ukraine. But by forcing him to answer for it, Ukraine’s civil society has once again demonstrated the strength of Ukraine‘s democracy.
My spouse is spending all our money
Therapist Jordan Alam answers a question from a reader: "My spouse is spending money needlessly and depleting our nest egg. What should I do?"
Flutter Entertainment to Announce Second Quarter 2026 Update on August 5
Flutter Entertainment will announce its Q2 2026 results on August 5, with a management conference call to follow.Quiver AI SummaryFlutter Entertainment has announced that it will release its second quarter 2026 financial update on August 5, 2026, at 7:00 a.m. EDT. The results will be available on its website, and management will hold a conference call at 8:30 a.m. EDT to discuss the results and answer questions, accessible via both webcast and te
Aviate, Android’s answer to Flighty, is now available to download
Aviate, the flight tracking application that aims to be a full rebuttal to iPhone's Flighty tracker, is now officially available on Android.
How Much Red Meat Should You Eat a Week? Dietitian Reveals Answer
In TODAY.com’s Expert Tip of the Day, a dietitian shares her weekly recommendation for healthy red meat consumption.
Community searching for answers after several business burgarlized
Savannah police are seeking help identifying a suspect after a string of burglaries hit Starland Strange and Bazaar.
Bengals owner Mike Brown not answering questions at media luncheon
The Cincinnati Bengals are switching up the lineup of speakers at the annual season-kickoff media luncheon with owner Mike Brown not taking questions.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 27, 2026, puzzle No. 672
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Which Falcons Linebacker Room Addition Will Step Up in 2026?
The Atlanta Falcons had an eventful offseason, marked by staff changes, new additions, and the departure of several impact players from the last few seasons. As training camp continues, Atlanta has a multitude of questions to answer surrounding many positions, including quarterback, linebacker, and offensive tackle. Although the biggest question on Falcons fans' minds is who will start at QB, the linebacker position is anything but set in stone.
7 Key Garmin Cirqa Questions Answered By Garmin
Garmin clears up some FAQs about the Garmin Cirqa, its latest tracker, including exactly who should consider buying one. And it is not absolutely everyone.
A Taylor-made comeback helps Mets defeat Dodgers 8-3
Emmet Sheehan goes five solid innings, but the bullpen gives up seven unanswered runs in 8-3 loss to Mets.
Eye On Politics: Paxton's unanswered questions, Talarico expands outreach
Transport BPO Launches First-Week-Free Dispatch and Call Answering Service for Transportation Businesses
Transport BPO has launched a first week-free program giving taxi, towing, trucking, courier, and NEMT operators one-week of 24/7 live dispatch and call answering at no cost, with agents answering in each client's company name across four countries. ...
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 26, 2026, puzzle No. 671
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for July 26: Tips to solve Connections #671
Everything you need to solve Connections Sports Edition #671
George Answers Your Questions: The War, the Oil Crisis and American Politics
The War, the Oil Crisis and American Politics July 20, 2026 Question: In today’s email, you mention 2 options for the US in dealings with Iran- 1) expand
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 25, 2026, puzzle No. 670
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
Political Science Professor on Paxton's refusal to answer questions, Talarico and Black Texan voters
Political Science Professor on Paxton's refusal to answer questions, Talarico and Black Texan voters
‘Interview With the Vampire’ sheds ‘The Vampire Lestat’ title for season 4 renewal: ‘She is the answer’
‘Interview With the Vampire’ is officially renewed for season 4, and the series is changing its title once again to mark the special occasion.
3 unanswered questions before training camp: Denver Broncos edition
The Broncos' offense still belongs to head coach Sean Payton, but what can be injected now that Davis Webb is taking over play-calling?
Faith is back in Democratic politics
(RNS) — After decades of watching Democrats dodge the God question, I think they finally have an answer.
Does a surrogate change the baby? Here's what science says
A curious reader asked us: Does a surrogate actually contribute something to the baby she's carrying? The answer is yes—but probably not in the way you're thinking.
Whole Hog Politics: Ready or not, 2028 field is taking shape
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Hill Insider members can join us live today at 9 am ET as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news and answer questions from a live…
Confirmed: Samsung's new foldables have major battery health downgrade
The Galaxy Z Flip 8, Fold 8, and Fold 8 Ultra are now official, but how quickly will their batteries degrade? We now have an answer.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 24, 2026, puzzle No. 669
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
WATCH: Brandon Gill corners law school gatekeeper with DEI question she won't answer
Rep. Brandon Gill pressed ABA president on whether diversity principles would justify rejecting a third Black Supreme Court justice nomination.
Language radiologists use in reports is crucial, new research shows
Indeterminate reports can leave ordering providers with unanswered questions that could potentially delay care, authors of a new paper caution.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 23, 2026, puzzle No. 668
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
China fires up powerful particle accelerator to unlock secrets of atoms
Facility in country’s south will help scientists answer some of the biggest questions in nuclear physics, according to its chief designer.
Answer for Rising Costs of Club Sports? Involvement inEducation-Based Sports in Schools
Back in May, a bill entitled “Let Kids Play Act” was introduced by several members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The bill targets certain groups that, according to the sponsors of the bill, have priced kids and their families out of youth sports. Sponsors of the bill note that the cost […]
Y! Sports Biz: Time to take the cap off?
The search for answers in college sports continues.
🏫 Y! Sports Biz: Time to take the cap off?
The search for answers in college sports continues.
Meet the Western states making the case that money isn't political speech
Who should have more power — the people or corporations? For legislators in Hawaii and Montana, the answer is most definitely the former.
Cowboys Oxnard training camp roundtable discussion
Here is our latest roundtable with a panel of BTB writers giving us their answers to this week’s questions
Inside the "We Buy Houses" Business
Have you ever gotten a text asking if you'd sell your house? Or maybe someone called out of the blue wanting to buy a property you didn't even know was connected to your name. In this episode of Entrepreneurial Shades of Gray, Dani and Chelsey sit down with Rhen Bartlett, CEO of Heartland Buys, to answer the questions so many homeowners have. How do these companies find you? Why do they target certain properties? And when does selling directly to a home buyer actually make sense? From inherited homes and rental properties to fixer-uppers and probate, Rhen pulls back the curtain on an industry most people know very little about. He also shares red flags to watch for and practical advice to help homeowners make informed decisions when they're approached about selling.
At NVIDIA, Kshitiz Khatri Is Learning the Business Behind AI
At NVIDIA this summer, Kshitiz Khatri (Class of 2027) is getting a close-up look behind the answer box in between his first and second year at The University of Virginia Darden School of Business.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 22, 2026, puzzle No. 667
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
On Iran, a $37 billion price tag and no answers on how it ends
“We need some hard answers and some straight talk.”
Harrisburg business owners raise concerns after 15-minute parking spaces removed
A Downtown Harrisburg business owner is seeking answers after 15-minute parking spaces that she says were approved outside her business were later removed.
Health: Searching For The Source Of Cyclospora
You may have heard of a parasite that’s causing some gastrointestinal distress.Cyclospora has sickened thousands of people across 34 states this summer – more than six times the number reported at this point last year. The CDC has linked a major cluster to shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell in some states. And Taylor Farms de Mexico has now pulled all of its iceberg lettuce from the U.S. market despite an FDA finding that reports that its product contained the parasite were a false positive.We answer your questions about what cyclosporiasis is, how you get it, and why investigators have had such a hard time finding the source.Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.
Garmin Finally Made A Screenless Fitness Tracker
The Cirqa Smart Band is Garmin’s answer to Whoop and the Fitbit Air.
Quest for research answers takes undergraduate student to Japan
Kaylin Lamaute has been spending the summer finding answers to her fascinations in materials science and engineering through the Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem (ASPIRE) program, an international initiative primarily driven by the Japan Science and Technology Agency.
Tesla investors want answers about a potential merger with SpaceX
Tesla investors are responding to rampant speculation about a mega-merger with SpaceX, which raised $86 billion in a blockbuster IPO last month.
Connections: Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for July 21, 2026, puzzle No. 666
Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.
UFC Freedom 250 Fails to Knock Out The Ratings
(Welcome to my weekly streaming ratings report, the single best guide to what’s popular in streaming TV and what isn’t. I’m the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a former streaming executive who now analyzes business strategy in the entertainment industry. If you were forwarded this email, please subscribe to get these insights each week.) If UFC fans wanted one image to say, “Hey, Paramount+ is crushing it with their UFC rights deal,” I could provide that image. Here it is: (Reminder: this is my creation of the Nielsen Top 30, since Nielsen doesn’t combine the lists or include sports. I take all three lists and combine them. Some streaming TV shows probably have higher ratings than many of the films on this list.) Look at that! UFC Freedom 250 is number one! It topped the Nielsen “Top 30” list for shows and films that made the top ten the week of 15-June. So if you’re a UFC fan or supporter of Paramount+, that’s the good news for you this week. This program topped the ratings charts for one week. Everything else is bad news, or at least a huge caveat to that story, which I’ll explain today in the first part of this week’s Streaming Ratings Report—for the weeks of 8-June and 15-June—which is a double issue since I’ve been writing on a bunch of topics recently. UFC Freedom 250 is one of the biggest streaming events of the year, and super relevant to Paramount+’s strategy, so it merited its own article. Let’s dive in! (Reminder: The streaming ratings report focuses on the U.S. market and compiles data from Nielsen’s weekly top ten viewership ranks, Luminate’s Top Ten Data, JustWatch and Reelgood interest data, Samba TV household viewership, company datecdotes, Netflix hours viewed data, Google Trends, and IMDb to determine the most popular content. While most data points are current, Nielsen’s data covers the weeks of June 8th to June 21st 2026. You can find a link to my terminology here.) Subscribe Check Out My Interview on UFC 250 at MMA Draw After you read this article, if you want even more thoughts on UFC and Paramount-Skydance/Paramount+, I did a written interview with MMA Draw. They asked me to answer some questions about UFC Freedom 250, and I was happy to chat with them. Find it here: [ The MMA Draw Newsletter Did Paramount really overpay for the UFC? What the data tells us so far If you know the history of American television, you also know that combat sports is often a leading indicator of the future… Read more a day ago · 10 likes · 1 comment · Nate Wilcox and Zach Arnold ](https://www.themmadraw.com/p/did-paramount-really-overpay-for?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web) I never thought I’d need a combat sports newsletter in my life, but the good folks at MMA Draw publish an excellent one on UFC, MMA, pro wrestling, boxing and more, analyzing both the sports themselves and the politics, economics and antitrust issues that impact them. Check the article and their newsletter out! Paramount+ Has Its Best Sporting Event of All Time…But Was It Worth It? Before we look at the UFC Freedom 250 data in particular, let’s talk about what we can’t say. Namely, let’s start with the lack of comparisons. First off, I’d love to put a chart out comparing this fight to past UFC fights on Paramount+…but we don’t have the data. This is the first time we’ve gotten Nielsen data about a Paramount+ UFC fight. As far as I can tell, Paramount provided data for the first fight, but it was a proprietary datecdote (saying it had “an average minute audience” of 5 million “views”) and then, for two fights, we got the linear viewership numbers when they aired on CBS, but no streaming data. Everything else was crickets. We also can’t compare this fight to other fights/combat sports on streaming, in particular the MMA and boxing, because Netflix also didn’t use Nielsen to track those events, opting for TVision and VideoAmp, respectively. (This isn’t Paramount’s fault, but does still suck.) We also can’t compare to UFC’s fights that used to be on ESPN+, since we don’t have any data for that, plus Disney+ didn’t have marquee fights. The comparisons would not be apples-to-apples. Can we compare to past Pay-Per-View fights? Absolutely not. The comparisons would absolutely NOT be apples-to-apples. That didn’t stop Paramount+, though, who bragged that their UFC events have reached drastically more people than past PPV fights. Duh. Sorry, but I gotta make this point again. A basic tenet of economics is that the cheaper something becomes, the more people consume or buy it. That’s Econ 101. (Sometimes pundits call things “Econ 101” that are actually like Econ 210 or even PhD-level economics, but no, this is really like first or second class basic economics.) Yet I still see one analytics firm consistently say that more people watch films on streaming than PVOD proves streaming which means that the streaming window is more valuable than the PVOD window. No, it’s not! Same thing here. Pay-Per-View events back in the day could be really, really, really expensive! So whole groups of people pitched in to buy them. That increased the perceived value of, say, the Mike Tyson fight. Or a UFC numbered event. So yes, the fact that Paramount+ makes numbered UFC fights essentially “free” if you’re already a Paramount+ member means consumption will go up. Obviously. Same for Netflix and their boxing matches. They’re talking about fights that used to cost consumers, in some cases, $50 in 1996…which is over $100 in today’s dollars. Over 1.6 million people paid that to watch the Tyson-Holyfield fight! Again, streaming is essentially “free”. Or $10 to $20, depending on what streamer we’re talking about and what tier you’re on. No wonder more people are “watching”. (Plus, Nielsen’s out-of-home viewing also helps these numbers.) UFC Freedom 250 Did Well…But I Have A Lot of Worries So what can we compare the fights to? Well, the good news is Nielsen put out that the fight averaged 7.0 million viewers for UFC Freedom 250, which is a solid number for a fight. We also know the length, at roughly 4 and a half hours. (I saw different run times, but this seems to be the consensus considering it started at 8 pm, had a delay and then finished after midnight on the East Coast. If you assume a shorter run time, then yes, the total hours viewed would go down.) That means I have the two numbers needed to add this to my Nielsen database. And then…I can compare this viewership to the NFL: And, uh, not great. But also within striking distance, mainly because the runtime for this event was so long. I’d also add that this event had viewership equal to a regular season NFL game on streaming, but if anything, it was more comparable to an NFL playoff or Super Bowl-esque event. And you can compare viewership to the top football games on broadcast, cable and streaming, and it’s not impressive at all: We can also compare it to other sports that week, including the NBA Finals and start of the World Cup: Again, not great. The NBA generated roughly four times as many average viewers each game for its NBA Finals. The World Cup has similarly big numbers. Also, that’s just a tiny fraction of the 25 most watched sporting events each week. The NBA, NHL and FIFA World Cup had many, many more games racking up hours. We could also compare this to other streaming programs to get an idea of “is this a good investment?” and here is how it ranks compared to other top Paramount+ programs: The worry here? Well, unlike scripted programming, which has rewatchability, older fights/sporting events have very little library value. Very, very few people are rewatching these fights, especially years from now. Paramount has also released datecdotes bragging about their subscriber numbers. Earlier this year, they claimed that the first UFC fight on Paramount+ brought in 1 million subscribers. Then, in their quarterly earnings report, they only ended up with 700K subs. Not great! They claimed they dropped lower-value international subscribers, but that’s why I tend to discount subscriber additions when they’re leaked to the press.1 I expect we may see a bump again for UFC Freedom 250, but I’d caution using subscriber growth so soon after these events to judge the success, since new subs with high churn (see Peacock) aren’t great either. Also, analysts often want to attribute all subscriber growth to their favorite/pet show, and that just doesn’t make sense. The biggest caveat for UFC Freedom 250 and Paramount’s very first UFC marquee event is that these could be high watermarks for the sport. UFC Freedom 250 had an incredible amount of earned media coverage compared to most UFC fights. I mean, it had wall-to-wall national news coverage in the lead up to the event. (The first fight also had a lot of promotion from Paramount since it was first.) Other fights could reach this bar—say the Conor McGregor return to the Octagon—but they’ll be fewer and far between. Was This Deal Worth It? All to ask: is this Paramount deal worth it? In this case, I think the UFC Freedom 250 numbers are more distracting than helpful. This fight did well and compares well to other top sporting events. But we know that the first marquee event was at least a third smaller, if Paramount’s own data is to be believed. And it’s likely the other fights are much, much, much smaller. And then you get to the paycheck that Paramount-Skydance paid. FIFA’s World Cup cost about the same for Fox, but clearly generated multiples more total viewership. (Though it’s only every four years.) The NBA is much more expensive, but until the playoffs, they likely didn’t pay for itself. Even still, Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video likely overpaid. So, in that context, the NBA may be an overpay that makes the UFC look not so bad. But two overpays don’t make an underpay, to paraphrase the old cliché about wrongs and rights. And looking at UFC Freedom 250 as the likely ceiling of MMA on Paramount+, Paramount-Skydance likely paid too much. Share 1 I would love regular reports on subscriber additions by programs, but as is, it’s mostly leaked or rumored in haphazard ways.
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