Just the life of a couple of showgirls. A sports podcast through a pop culture lens. Culture critic and novelist Zan Romanoff and journalist and Scamfluencers senior producer Sarah Enni discuss Taylor's pending major announcement; the crypto memelords behind neon dildos on WNBA courts; the ESPN deal with the NFL; are the Savannah Bananas a threat to baseball?; the first woman to umpire an MLB game; and we talk to The Athletic's Michael-Shawn Dugar about his new book, The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks: A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era.

Links:

• Taylor Swift's Life of a Showgirl Reveal Easter Eggs (E! Online)

• WNBA fan accused of throwing sex toy faces multiple charges (ESPN)

• WNBA Player Admits Her Request To Stop Throwing Dildos On The Court 'Didn't Age Well' (Yahoo!) Sports)

• Crypto group says it orchestrated sex toy tosses in WNBA games (ESPN)

• The Social Media Trend Machine Is Spitting Out Weirder and Weirder Results (Bloomberg)

• ESPN is acquiring NFL Network, rights for RedZone in a deal giving the NFL a stake in the network (AP)

• Sports Journalism Is Dying — And ESPN and the NFL Are to Blame (Wide Left / Substack)

• Arif's post about ESPN, the NFL and sports betting (BlueSky)

• ESPN's Streaming Era Will Start on Aug. 21 (NYT)

• What can MLB learn from the Savannah Bananas? A lot, it turns out

• The Savannah Bananas Make Baseball Boring (Defector)

• MLB's first female umpire set to debut; Jen Pawol to be promoted for Saturday's Marlins-Braves games (The Athletic)

• jen pawol's path to making mlb history (Out of Your League / Substack)

• The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks: A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era (Bookshop)