However, it will be one of the announcers who helped pave the way for Burke to eventually become the first woman to serve as a game analyst on TV for a championship final in one of the four major professional U.S. sports leagues who will be watching with pride Thursday night.

Before calling Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics, Burke said Robin Roberts was one of her biggest influences when she was starting out as an analyst calling women’s college basketball games.

Roberts, the co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” said Burke’s acknowledgement of those who came before her has been among her best qualities.

“What I really appreciate about Doris is that she is respectful and acknowledging those who came before her and who helped pave the way. She knows how her being there is going to make a difference, as I and others have made a difference, for her to be where she is,” Roberts said.

Burke, who joined ESPN in 1990, has covered the finals since 2009. She was a sideline reporter for ABC’s coverage from 2009-19 before serving as an analyst on ESPN Radio for the past four finals.

Burke knows this year’s assignment is different.

“My focus is in preparing for the games in front of me. … But I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I am sort of mindful that there is something meaningful here, right,” she said. “And the meaning for me would be if, in some way, this assignment makes life for women in sports easier or somehow aids in their process, then nothing could be more meaningful.

“Anybody calling their first NBA Finals game would probably be nervous, and I think if I allow my mind to drift too much into that space, it will make that nervousness a little bit worse.”

Ann Meyers Drysdale, the first woman to work an NBA game for one of the broadcast networks in 1997 for NBC, said Burke has deserved this opportunity.

“She’s worked hard. Somebody has given her an opportunity, she’s taken it and been productive,” Meyers said.

Burke has also acknowledged she feels “fortunate to be operating at the point in history within which I’m operating.” Quite simply, she saw the experiences Roberts and Meyers went through breaking barriers while also forging their own path. But Burke is also in a position to mentor analysts and announcers who are coming up.

“I say it every time I see her and Ann Meyers Drysdale. I wouldn’t have the role and the position that I have without them not only having done the job, but doing it with so much competence and diligence,” said Sarah Kustok, an analyst for Brooklyn Nets games on YES Network. “How she has thrived in that role has set the table for so many of us.”

Burke’s influence goes beyond basketball. Jessica Mendoza said she pushed management at ESPN to start doing baseball after seeing Burke call a game. Mendoza started doing MLB games in 2015, was part of “Sunday Night Baseball” from 2016 to ’19, and has done the World Series on ESPN Radio since 2020.

“When I heard Doris on an NBA game as an analyst, not a reporter, it just completely changed my thoughts about my own position but also women in general that have played the sport,” Mendoza said. “She has helped me out with advice and how to approach things like she experienced her first few years. You know, all the questions that I can only ask a handful of women in the world.”

During a conference call this week, Burke did not get emotional discussing her milestone, but in praising her teammates — announcer Mike Breen and analyst JJ Reddick.

Breen will be calling his 19th finals, but his first since 2006 where Jeff Van Gundy hasn’t been an analyst. Van Gundy and Mark Jackson were laid off last July as part of job cuts by the network. Breen, Van Gundy and Jackson called 15 finals together.

Last August, Breen, Burke and Doc Rivers were announced as ESPN’s main NBA team. Those plans changed in late January when Rivers left to coach the Milwaukee Bucks.

“He’s never said it’s been difficult, but knowing Mike and the position he’s been put in, you know, this probably has not been easy, necessarily, throughout the course of the year,” Burke said. “There’s points at which Mike has navigated us through spaces, and I am incredibly appreciative. JJ has been as good a teammate on the air and off as I could possibly hope for.”

The CFP announced its entire schedule Wednesday. The four first-round games will be on Dec. 20 and 21. ABC and ESPN will televise games on Friday and Saturday night with 7 p.m. CST kickoffs, while TNT will have the Dec. 21 day games at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The day games will go up against two NFL games: Houston-Kansas City at noon and Baltimore-Pittsburgh at 3:30 p.m.

Mike Mulvihill, Fox president for insights and analytics, thinks there will be room to accommodate both audiences. Fox has the Ravens-Steelers game as it goes up against a CFP late afternoon matchup.

“I think it will be fine for the NFL and college football to coexist on that date. I think both events will rate just fine,” he said.

The four first-round matchups, which will be played on college campuses, will be announced on Dec. 8. TNT has two games through a sublicense with ESPN.

ESPN’s $7.8 billion deal with the CFP, which was announced in March, allowed it to sublicense games to other networks. Financial terms of the sublicense were not announced.

The quarterfinals, semifinals and championship game will air on ESPN.

The top four conference champions will receive first-round byes. The quarterfinals will begin on Dec. 31 with the Fiesta Bowl at 6:30 p.m. CST. New Year’s Day will kick off with the Peach Bowl at noon, followed by the Rose Bowl in its traditional 4 p.m. spot and the Sugar Bowl at 7:45 p.m.

The semifinals are the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 and Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10. Both have 6:30 p.m. CST start times before the championship game takes place on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

ESPN will announce its schedule for most of the bowl games Thursday.

The 12-game schedule includes nine Big Ten matchups. Oregon, USC, UCLA and Washington will have at least one Friday night home game. The Ducks, Bruins and Huskies, along with Rutgers, Michigan State and Purdue, will make two appearances.

Washington — which got to the College Football Playoff title game before losing to Michigan — visits Rutgers on Sept. 27 in its first conference road game and hosts UCLA on Nov. 15.

The Bruins are the only team playing on back-to-back Fridays. They host Iowa on Nov. 8 before their trip to Seattle to face the Huskies.

Oregon hosts Michigan State on Oct. 4 before going to Purdue two weeks later.

USC will host Rutgers on Oct. 25 at 10 p.m. Central. The kickoff is late because Fox has Game 1 of the World Series.

With the exception of the USC game, the other Big Ten games on the West Coast will start at 8 p.m. Central.

Five Big Ten schools — Indiana, Penn State, Ohio State, Minnesota and Wisconsin — are not scheduled for Friday night. Ohio State and Michigan have been among the most vehemently opposed to Friday games since the conference started holding them in 2017 with a limited slate on Big Ten Network and FS1.

“It did take us some time and a lot of collaboration between us, the conference office and all the athletic directors to finally get to where we are,” said Mike Mulvihill, Fox president for insights and analytics. “I think our expansion partners, especially Oregon and Washington, understand that Friday night represents an opportunity for them to be in a window and have a chance to have a prime-time game without that much direct college football competition.”

The other Big Ten matchups are Illinois at Nebraska on Sept. 20, Northwestern at Maryland on Oct. 11 and Purdue at Michigan State on Nov. 22. All three start at 7 p.m. Central.

Though the package is predominantly Big Ten, it will kick off with a Big 12 matchup on Sept. 13 when Arizona travels to Kansas State. It won’t count as a conference game, even though this will be Arizona’s first year in the Big 12, because a home-and-home series between the schools already was scheduled before the latest wave of conference realignment.

Fox also will carry Utah at UCF on Nov. 29 and the Mountain West championship game on Dec. 6.

The only Friday that Fox does not have a game scheduled is Nov. 1 because of the possibility of a World Series Game 6.

The college football package will fill a void for Fox on Friday nights during the fall when WWE’s “Friday Night SmackDown” moves to USA Network. The final “SmackDown” on Fox airs on Sept. 6.

It will not be the first time Fox has tried to stake a claim to what is considered an underutilized time slot. It launched “Big Noon Saturday” in 2019. Last season’s package averaged 6.74 million viewers on Fox, an 8% increase over 2022.

Networks are expected to announce their complete schedules for the first three weeks of the college football season next week. Fox already announced that “Big Noon Saturday” will open the season with Texas at Michigan on Sept. 6, followed by Wisconsin at Alabama one week later.

The five-year agreement announced Wednesday gives TNT two first-round games the first two years. Beginning in 2026, it expands to two first-round games and two quarterfinals.

ESPN’s $7.8 billion deal with the College Football Playoff, which was announced in March, allowed it to sublicense games to other networks. Financial terms of the sublicense were not announced.

“Our strategy has always been to try and round out our portfolio and continue to add the right set of rights whenever there is a possibility,” TNT Sports Chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser said to The Associated Press. “When we look at the landscape and what can really bring in massive levels of audience that is in the popular culture and must watch, the College Football Playoff is at the top of the list.”

TNT Sports was one of the companies that bid on the CFP rights package before ESPN retained it.

Rosalyn Durant, ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and acquisitions, said TNT approached ESPN after the renewal deal was announced and things progressed from there.

As to which quarterfinal games TNT might carry when the deal expands in two years, Durant said that remains to be determined.

Even though TNT does not air regular-season college football and basketball games, it will carry the two biggest tournaments. TNT has been a partner with CBS in airing the NCAA Tournament since 2011 and has a deal through 2032.

This will be the first season of the 12-team playoff. ESPN has carried the College Football Playoff since it started in the 2014 season. It replaced the Bowl Championship Series.

Four first-round games will take place Dec. 20-21 on the campuses of the higher seeds, followed by the quarterfinals Dec. 31-Jan. 1 in the Fiesta, Peach, Rose and Sugar bowls. The semifinals are the Orange Bowl on Jan. 9 and Cotton Bowl on Jan. 10 before the championship game on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

Kickoff times for the CFP are expected to be announced June 6, when ESPN releases its bowl schedule.

It’s another instance of ESPN and TNT teaming up. The two work closely together because they have rights to the NBA and NHL.

CFP games on TNT also will be streamed on Max, while the entire playoff will be on Venu Sports — the streaming platform planned by ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery that was announced in February.

Besides adding the NHL three years ago and NASCAR next year, TNT’s future carrying the NBA remains up in the air as discussions continue with the league on a new rights agreement.

Silberwasser said the CFP was something TNT was looking at independent of how NBA discussions are going.

“We continue to be optimistic about it and are working with them on different scenarios,” Silberwasser said about the NBA talks. “We continue to have productive conversations with them, and we hope to make a deal that is good for both.”

ESPN’s rights to the College Football Playoff run through the 2031 season. The title game moves to ABC in 2026.

However, the biggest competition and most attention when it comes to formulating the schedule each year is the late afternoon window for Fox and CBS.

The 3:25 p.m. CST Sunday spot is the most-viewed game of the week. Last season for the first time in many years, CBS edged Fox in the showcase window.

CBS averaged 24.64 million viewers in their 10 doubleheader weeks while Fox averaged 24.62 million.

With the importance of that spot, it isn’t a surprise the Kansas City Chiefs and Dallas Cowboys will be showcased often.

Fox received the most-desired game on the schedule with the Chiefs visiting the San Francisco 49ers on Oct. 20. It will mark the first time since Fox started carrying the NFL in 1994 that it has a Super Bowl rematch.

It is also the only regular-season Chiefs game Fox will carry.

“We think a lot about having one good Kansas City game, and we got the best one of them all,” said Mike Mulvihill, Fox president for insights and analytics.

With the league shying away from putting rematches on the same network that aired the Super Bowl, CBS made Chiefs-Bills its top request.

The Nov. 17 game in Buffalo, a rematch of last season’s AFC divisional round game, marks the fifth straight year Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen will meet in the regular season.

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“We felt like as the home of the AFC, we should continue to tell that story,” CBS Sports CEO and President David Berson said.

CBS will also feature Kansas City’s Sept. 15 game against Cincinnati and Sept. 29 at the Los Angeles Chargers.

Dallas gets the top treatment on Fox three times the first six weeks. The Cowboys’ Sept. 8 opener at Cleveland marks the first time since 2019 Fox has had them in Week 1. It also has them hosting Baltimore on Sept. 22 and Detroit on Oct. 13.

Fox also returns to having the exclusive Week 1 doubleheader as the Cowboys-Browns game will be Tom Brady’s debut as an analyst.

“I just feel like with what we’ve got for our showcase window in the first half of the season, that’s about as close to a best-case scenario as it could be for us,” Mulvihill said. “We made it a point with the league that we wanted to establish a stronger narrative in September.”

Besides the Chiefs, Berson also has some strong NFC matchups for the late window, including Dallas at Philadelphia on Nov. 10 — one of three Eagles appearances in CBS’s doubleheader window — and Green Bay at the Los Angeles Rams on Oct. 6.

Both networks will have doubleheaders on Dec. 15 — instead of Week 1 — and the last week of the regular season on Jan. 5.

“Is it better to do it later in the season when you have a better sense of where all the teams are and how to get the right teams into those windows?” said Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of NFL Media. “We continue to tweak and evolve. If teams play their way on, we have a chance to look at that we wouldn’t have in Week 1.”

Early Cousins

After Aaron Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury on the first drive of the season, the league might have learned its lesson when it came to scheduling appearances for the top quarterback in free agency.

Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons will make four prime-time appearances — three in the first five weeks. The Falcons are at Philadelphia on Monday night on Sept. 16, host Kansas City on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” six days later and face Tampa Bay on “Thursday Night Football” on Oct. 2.

Last year the Jets had six prime-time games, including the Monday night opener when Rodgers was hurt on the fourth snap of his debut with New York.

Prime division?

Amazon Prime Video’s third season has division matchups for 12 of its 16 games, up from five last season.

Six teams will appear twice on “Thursday Night Football” after the league adjusted its policy last year. When Thursday night games became a season-long package in 2012, the league mandated all teams would play at least once.

The schedule begins with Bills at Dolphins on Sept. 12, Patriots at Jets on Sept. 19 and Cowboys at Giants on Sept. 26.

This year’s Black Friday game is Las Vegas at Kansas City on Nov. 29.

“In general, there’s a lot of upside with divisional matchups,” said Jeff Kaiser, Amazon Prime Video’s head of sports programming. “It’s nice to see the balance and the way it’s spread across the season. There should be intrigue with teams within divisions fighting for playoff spots.”

Monday night highlights

San Francisco bookends the “Monday Night Football” package. The 49ers host the Jets in the season opener on Sept. 9 and then host Detroit on Dec. 30 in a rematch of the NFC championship game.

Six teams will make multiple Monday night appearances. Of the 25 games on ABC, ESPN and ESPN+, 11 are interconference matchups but Rosalyn Durant, ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and acquisitions, likes the strength and depth of the schedule.

“We have the Chiefs twice, we have the Cowboys twice in Dallas. We have strong matchups throughout the schedule,” she said. “There are plenty of storylines that should have broad appeal.”

ESPN also has the Harbaugh Bowl three days before Thanksgiving on Nov. 25, when John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens take on Jim Harbaugh’s Chargers in Los Angeles. Many thought that might be a Thanksgiving night or Christmas game.

Due to last year’s writers strike, ABC carried most of the Monday night schedule, but it returns to four simulcasts and three exclusive games. ABC also has both Week 18 Saturday matchups.

Sunday night surprise

Last year, the odds of a Bears-Texans matchup being on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” would have been staggering. But with the Bears taking Caleb Williams with the top pick in this year’s draft and C.J. Stroud leading the Texans to the divisional round of the playoffs last year, it will get the prime time treatment on Sept. 15.

“That’s a matchup any football fan wants to take in and look at maybe the future of the league,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said.

NBC’s first six games feature strong quarterback matchups, especially the three in Week 1 with Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson visiting Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes in the Sept. 5 Kickoff Game; Green Bay’s Jordan Love taking on Philadelphia’s Jalen Hurts in Brazil the next night on Peacock; and the Rams’ Matthew Stafford facing Detroit’s Jared Goff on Sept. 8.

The streaming giant will carry two games this year and at least one game in 2025 and ’26. Netflix announced during a presentation to advertisers that it will have defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City at Pittsburgh followed by Baltimore at Houston.

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“Last year, we decided to take a big bet on live — tapping into massive fandoms across comedy, reality TV, sports and more,” Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, said in a statement. “There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We’re so excited that the NFL’s Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix.”

Netflix began airing NFL programming last year with the series “Quarterback.” A series on wide receivers will premiere this year.

Netflix began airing live sports last year, but they were exhibition events in golf and tennis. It is also slated to air the July 20 bout between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul and next year will start carrying World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship show, “Raw.”

The NFL has played a total of 30 games on Christmas Day since 1971, including three last year. It has stayed away from midweek games, though, until this year.

In keeping with the NFL’s longstanding policy on games that are carried on cable or streaming platforms, Netflix’s Christmas games will air on broadcast TV in the competing teams’ home cities and will be available on mobile devices in the U.S. with NFL+.

ESPN announced its major matchups for Week 0 and Week 1 on Tuesday as part of its presentation to advertisers in New York.

The Aug. 31 matchup also marks Mike Elko’s first game as Texas A&M’s head coach. Elko was the defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Texas A&M from 2018-21 before being hired by Duke, where he was 16-9 in two seasons.

Before his first stint with the Aggies, Elko was the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame in 2017.

“College GameDay” also will originate from College Station, Texas, that day for the first time since 2018.

Notre Dame’s Week 3 game at Purdue on Sept. 14 will air on CBS at 2:30 p.m. CDT, with USC at Michigan — the Trojans’ first road game as a Big Ten member — in that slot the following week.

The Irish and Boilermakers will meet for only the second time since their annual rivalry ended after running from 1946 to 2014.

CBS also announced it will broadcast the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis at 7 p.m. CDT on Saturday, Dec. 7.

ABC’s other Saturday Week 1 games include Clemson facing Georgia in Atlanta at 11 a.m. CDT and Florida hosting Miami at 2:30 p.m. in the first SEC telecast on the network. ABC takes over the late afternoon SEC game from CBS, which now has the Big Ten.

The Sunday, Sept. 2, game between USC and LSU also will be on ABC with a 6:30 p.m. kickoff.

ESPN announced in December that “College GameDay” will make its first international trip on Aug. 24, when Florida State faces Georgia Tech in Dublin, Ireland. That game will kick off at 11 a.m. and is one of the Week 0 marquee matchups. ABC will carry the MEAC/SWAC Challenge Kick-Off between Florida A&M and Norfolk State at 6:30 p.m.

ESPN’s Aug. 31 games include Alabama hosting Western Kentucky at 6:30 p.m. in Kalen DeBoer’s Crimson Tide debut.

Texas and Oklahoma, which join the SEC this season, will have their openers on ESPN. The Sooners host Temple on Friday, Aug. 30, at 6 p.m. and the Longhorns face Colorado State on Aug. 31 at 2:30 p.m.

ESPN also will carry North Dakota State at Colorado on Aug. 29, TCU at Stanford on Aug. 30 and Boston College at Florida State on Sept. 2.

ESPN’s unveiling follows announcements Monday by NBC and Fox of some of their matchups.

NBC’s first two “Big Ten Saturday night” games are set with defending national champion Michigan hosting Fresno State on Aug. 31 and Colorado at Nebraska on Sept. 6.

Fox also has finalized its first two “Big Noon Saturday” matchups. It announced the Sept. 6 game between Texas and Michigan during the Wolverines’ spring game three weeks ago and on Monday added the Sept. 13 matchup between Alabama and Wisconsin.

The Pac-12 also announced Tuesday that Oregon State’s and Washington State’s home games will be on the CW Network or Fox. Most will be on the CW, including the Beavers hosting the Cougars on Nov. 23 at 5:30 p.m.

Fox or FS1 will carry Texas Tech at Washington State on Sept. 7 and Oregon at Oregon State on Sept. 14.

Oregon State and Washington State remain committed to rebuilding the Pac-12, but it will be a two-team league for 2024 and possibly 2025.

The CW Network also has a package of ACC games.

And it is safe to say after the one liners and jokes Brady heard during three hours of “The Greatest Roast of All Time” at The Forum, he will do just fine.

“It’s like a football game. You run with a game plan, and then you get to see kind of how the strategy goes, and then you adjust on the fly,” Brady said before the event. “This is what a locker room has been like for me for all these years. So it’s not like I’m used to people not making fun of me.”

Comedian Nikki Glaser, whose monologue was among the funniest of the night, termed the roast as “the comedians’ Super Bowl” and how the competition level was ramped up because everyone wanted to one-up each other.

Brady sustained more blitzes and pressure than he did during an average NFL game as an impressive lineup of comedians, former teammates and opponents took the stage. Host Kevin Hart said before the event that no topic was off limits, and Hart went on the offensive early with jokes about Brady’s ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen.

“Gisele gave you an ultimatum. She said you retire or we’re done. When you got a chance to go 8-9 and all it will cost you is your wife and your kids, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Hart said, referring to Brady coming out of a brief retirement in 2022 for one more season.

The only time Brady objected to a joke was when Jeff Ross made a reference to Patriots owner Robert Kraft and massages. In 2019, Kraft originally received a misdemeanor charge that he paid for sex at a Florida massage parlor. Prosecutors later dropped the charge after courts blocked the use of video from cameras installed by police inside the massage parlors.

Brady walked up to Ross and said in his ear “don’t say that (stuff) again”, but it was clearly caught on the microphone and heard by those watching the roast at home. It was not heard by those in attendance.

Later, Kraft and former Patriots coach Bill Belichick did a shot together on stage after some coaxing from Hart.

Belichick was fired in January after 24 seasons with the Patriots, and a lot has been written about friction between the six-time winning Super Bowl coach and owner over the past couple years.

After joking about this being like a reunion and “unlike many family reunions there are some people I am desperately trying to avoid”, Kraft praised Belichick for what the two accomplished.

“I want to say this is the greatest coach in the history of the game that did what no one else has done. And having Tom Brady and him was the greatest honor the good Lord gave me,” Kraft said.

It wasn’t the first shot (of alcohol) that Belichick took. Rob Gronkowski got Belichick and Brady to do a shot together after his monologue. Gronkowski celebrated by spiking his shot glass.

Belichick appeared at the beginning of the roast during a pre-taped segment when he told Brady that he was “starting the roast” instead of Drew Bledsoe. Brady replaced Bledsoe in 2001 when Bledsoe was injured in a Week 2 game against the Jets and led the Patriots to their first Super Bowl title that season.

“For all of you out there who think about who’s responsible for the Patriots success during the time Tom and I was together — was it Tom or me — in reality the truth of the matter was it was both of us because of me,” Belichick said.

Brady did have some fun at Belichick’s expense though near the end of the show.

“I’ve been out of the game for a minute, so I’m curious, how many Super Bowl rings have you won since I left?,” Brady said. “Maybe it’s not just the guy on the sideline. When I go to the Indy 500, I don’t ask the winning driver, `Hey, you gassed up your car?;”

Hart said before the show that he thought Brady was in a great mindset going into the event. Brady did come in well prepared, going over his monologue with a group of people, including those at Fox Sports.

“You have to be able to laugh at yourself and I love that he is doing in this forum,” Hart said. “I love that he is embracing the things that some people think he runs away from. It is a celebration of greatness and we are doing it in a fun way.”

Bledsoe also said that Brady has had a sense of humor, but that this was a different stage.

“I thought he was very brave. There’s plenty of material to make fun of him on,” Bledsoe said. “The truth is when you’re a professional athlete, roasting each other is kind of what we do every day in the locker room. And so, you better have thick skin going in. Now, people get to laugh along with it.”

The difference, though, is Olczyk flipped with nearly 15 million people watching.

Leading up to the Run for the Roses, Olczyk told friends and fans whom he ran into after calling NHL games that he liked Mage. However, when it came time for the final picks segment on NBC’s coverage, Olczyk went with Verifying.

Mage won, while Verifying finished a distant 16th in the 18-horse field.

“Sometimes you change and you win, and sometimes you lose,” Olczyk said during a telephone interview. “But last year probably was the most dejected that I’ve ever been walking out of the Kentucky Derby. Win or lose, you walk out of there feeling good about yourself and the experience because there’s nothing like it. It still burns, and it probably will for a long time.”

Olczyk was reminded again last week while in Las Vegas for the Stanley Cup playoffs when a fan thanked him for the Mage pick. If there was a time to feel good about at least winning someone else money and bad about personal misfortune, that was it.

Olczyk, though, has been right more often when it comes to his picks. The best example was the 2018 Derby in which the former Chicago Blackhawks player recommended a trifecta of Justify, Good Magic and Audible, which ended up paying $141.40 for a $1 bet.

Olczyk — a part of NBC’s Kentucky Derby coverage since 2015 — remains a part of the network’s horse racing coverage even though it no longer carries the NHL. This is his third season doing hockey for Turner Sports, which gives him a couple of days during the NHL playoffs to cross over and return to the track.

“The landscape has changed, but I’m lucky that TNT and NBC were able to come to an agreement and that NBC still wants me part of the coverage,” he said. “Everyone around the league this time of year wants to talk Derby, and everyone at the Derby wants to talk hockey. I guess I’m the conduit that pleases both sides at this time of year.”

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Olczyk had been lobbying his NBC bosses for a couple of years to be part of the horse racing coverage. It wasn’t until he sat down to talk to analyst Randy Moss during the 2014 Sochi Olympics that things started to move forward. Olczyk worked some of the Breeders’ Cup challenge series races in 2014 and hit on a pair of long shots.

“I have been told by many people going back before Edzo started doing horse racing for NBC, you’ve got to meet this guy. This guy is a huge horse racing guy, big horse racing fan. At some point, you need to meet him,” Moss said during an NBC conference call earlier this week. “I was talked by friends of mine into going to one of the hockey games for the Olympics. … After the first period, Eddie comes up and introduces himself and sits down next to me. The guys I was with, I told them I know nothing about hockey, and they were aghast that Eddie would come up and sit down with me.

“All we talked about was horses, not hockey. After the second period, he came back up and sat down again, and all we talked about was horses and not hockey. It was obvious at that point that Eddie was not just a hockey guy. He knew a lot about horse racing, very knowledgeable about horse racing.”

Olczyk’s first experience with handicapping on television wasn’t for NBC. During an NHL lockout, he was the in-house simulcast handicapper at New Jersey’s Meadowlands racetrack in the fall of 1994.

Olczyk was paired with the late Bob Neumeier for the first two years. Neumeier, coincidentally, called Boston Bruins games on radio for five seasons in the late 1990s.

It has been Olczyk, Matt Bernier and Steve Kornacki for the past couple of years.

“Bob was a legend. I’m inspired because I watched him for so many years. I miss him, especially this time of the year,” Olczyk said. “To be able to have camaraderie with Matt, have some fun and teach the game has been great. Steve has great energy. When we’re up there, he’s a rock star. He’s brought a lot to the show. I think we all bring different things in, and it’s been great for horse racing.”

“Me and Matt coming up different ways and Steve having experience in the political world who is great with numbers and stats. I think people enjoy the camaraderie and disagreements.”

UConn’s 75-60 victory over Purdue in Monday night’s men’s final on TBS and TNT averaged 14.82 million, according to Nielsen. That was not enough to surpass the 18.87 million who watched South Carolina defeat Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Sunday afternoon’s women’s final on ABC and ESPN.

Monday night’s audience was a 4% increase over last year’s final between the Huskies and San Diego State on CBS. The number likely dropped off during the second half when UConn took control to become the first repeat champion since Florida in 2007.

The two men’s semifinal games averaged 12.8 million. UConn-Alabama attracted 14.18 million and the game between Purdue and North Carolina State averaged 11.45 million. Friday night’s women’s semifinal games averaged 10.8 million, with the Iowa-UConn game averaging 14.2 million.

The 67 games of the men’s tournament across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV averaged 9.9 million viewers, a 3% increase over last year. This year’s tournament benefited from more blue blood and power conference programs advancing beyond the first weekend.