A look at bad aggregation, particularly around three NFL missteps. A look at bad aggregation, particularly around three NFL missteps.
Bleacher ReportESPNFoxInstagramNFLTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

We’re back again to examine more bad aggregation. This edition of the column will cover aggregation missteps (poor/no sourcing, misrepresentation, and more) from Oct. 14-20.

4. Bleacher Report lists Tom Brady restrictions as new

In August, before this NFL season, ESPN’s Seth Wickersham reported on an NFL PowerPoint presentation to owners on the restrictions Tom Brady would face as a broadcaster, given his quest to buy part of the Las Vegas Raiders. As NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy noted in comments to the Associated Press shortly after Wickersham’s piece, those restrictions kicked in immediately, even with Brady’s bid for a minority stake in that franchise only pending (he agreed to it in May, but the league finance committee only approved it this week). But they got much more attention after that bid was approved, and a lot of that was thanks to this Bleacher Report graphic:

Yes, that post did credit Wickersham. But it didn’t include a link to his story, and with that being months old, it would be almost impossible to find it from just that tag. Beyond that, the B/R post here made this seem like this would provide new hurdles for Brady, especially with “going to impact.” that isn’t the case, with these restrictions in effect for Brady throughout his broadcasting career to date due to his pending deal to buy part of the Raiders. Many noted that, including CBS’ Jonathan Jones:

So, yes, this wasn’t the greatest attribution from Bleacher Report.

Rating: ***

3. NBA Central cites no source for Zaire Wade reentering G-League draft

An interesting story this week came around Dwyane Wade’s son Zaire.

The senior Wade has been discussed a lot as a potential broadcaster for ESPN, NBC, or Amazon following his work for NBC at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and that got some further attention this week with Andrew Marchand specifying ESPN might target Wade for studio shows. But perhaps the larger news still around the Wade family was Zaire announcing he plans to reenter the G-League draft.

The “reenter” there deserves discussion. Wade entered that draft in 2021 following a post-high school year with Brewster Academy, choosing the G-League over college offers. He was selected 10th overall by the Salt Lake City Stars and played with them that season, but suffered what wound up being a season-ending knee injury in March 2022. That ended his time in the league, and he went to South Africa, playing with the Cape Town Tigers of the Basketball Africa League in 2023.

This year, Wade played with the Macau Black Bears in The Asian Tournament. Now, he’s looking to return to the G-League, and players can submit their names for that draft if they’re unsigned. And GTV Hoops (formerly G-League TV), which has posted some notes on Wade in the past, announced that news on their Instagram page Thursday:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by GTV HOOPS (@gtvhoops)

However, NBA Central then put that news out on X with no attribution:

No attribution is problematic enough when it’s not citing a team or player announcement (as we saw with the Devin White news last week), but it’s worse still when it’s an actual person or outlet outside of the team or player not credited for their reporting.

That seems to have happened with NBA Central’s lack of citation for GTV Hoops here.

Rating: ***

2. “Dov Kleiman” doesn’t cite source for Antonio Brown sitting in suite with Donald Trump:

On Saturday, former NFL player Antonio Brown appeared with former U.S. president (and 2024 Republican presidential candidate) Donald Trump at an event in Pennsylvania. Around that, the Pittsburgh Steelers PR team announced that Trump would be attending their Sunday Night Football game as the guest of an individual suite holder.

And Olympia Sonnier, Jake Traylor, and Megan Lebowitz of NBC News noted on an NBC News live blog of Trump’s appearance Saturday that Brown and fellow former Steeler Le’Veon Bell would be in that suite with the candidate and others Sunday. Their NBC colleague Allan Smith relayed that on X later Saturday:

On Sunday, “Dov Kleiman” put that out with no attribution.

Yes, by the point “Dov” tweeted this, it had been spread around quite a bit. But any level of source citation would have been appreciated here. Instead, this was presented as information obtained by “Dov.”

And while we don’t know who he is, it seems unlikely he got that himself (and certainly unlikely he got it himself before those reporters did, a day before his tweet).

Rating: ****

1. ‘Fox NFL Kickoff’ takes local reporter’s video sans credit, crops out watermark

On the Fox NFL Kickoff pregame show Sunday, Peter Schrager had a nice little segment on Chiefs’ players (including Patrick Mahomes and Chris Jones) and coaches (including Andy Reid) showing up for a high school game featuring the sons of offensive coordinator Matt Nagy and defensive backs coach Dave Merritt.

But the problem is, as X’s Community Notes showed, this video not only included no credit for the person who shot it (Matt Foster of local NBC affiliate KSHB 41) but specifically took out the watermark on it:

The #Chiefs spent their Friday night supporting Matt Nagy’s son’s high school football team 👏@PSchrags has more ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/rG2YNKjeDw

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 20, 2024

Foster called them out for that on X, including noting to someone who asked a follow-up question that Fox had cropped out the watermark:

The lack of credit is problematic enough, but going so far as to remove a watermark? That’s very strange and very poor.

Rating: *****

Aggregator standings (these are bad):

@NFL_DovKleiman: 28
@_MLFootball: 27
@SKProFootball: 15
@NFLRookieWatxh: 10
X/Grok: 10
@jasrifootball: 10
Barstool Sports: 9
@TheDunkCentral: 8
Bleacher Report: 8
Fox Sports/Fox NFL Kickoff: 5
@ESPNNFL: 5
@macrodosingpod/Barstool Sports: 5
@FansofCFB: 5
Ben Verlander: 5
@mymixtapez: 5
Colin Cowherd: 5
Redditor @thefortitude: 5
@GolazoAmerica: 5
@Spotify_Swift: 5
Fan Recap: 4
@GinoHard_: 3
@BR_OpenIce: 3
@theScore: 3
@ThePlayersTV: 3
@SleeperNFL: 3
@PHLEaglesNation: 3
@DiscussingFilm: 3
@CBSSportsGolazo: 3
@BR_Betting: 3
@SportsCenter: 2

Aggregation subject standings (these are not bad):

The San Francisco Chronicle: 10
Fox Sports: 6
Matt Foster/KSHB: 5
Washington Commanders: 5
Colten Bartholomew/The Wisconsin State Journal: 5
@EthanHullihen: 5
@deionsandersjr on YouTube: 5
@TheABinKC: 5
@TheDunkCentral: 5
Kent Babb/The Washington Post: 5
Pat Brennan/The Cincinnati Enquirer: 5
AFP: 5
Reuters: 5
The U.S. Sun: 5
Mark Craig/The (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune: 5
Mike Florio/Pro Football Talk: 5
Susan Slusser/The San Francisco Chronicle: 5
Mike Silver/The San Francisco Chronicle: 5
NBC News: 4
Ian Hartitz: 4
Bucky Brooks/Fox Sports: 4
DenverSports.com: 4
TWSN: 4
Seth Wickersham/ESPN: 3
GTV Hoops: 3
Jake Fischer: 3
@uSTADIUM: 3
@bryceshockeylife on Instagram: 3
@morning_skate: 3
@AryePulli: 3
Big Play Slay: 3
The 25/10 Show: 3
Deadline: 3
Ryan Michael: 3
Tom Fornelli/CBS Sports: 3
Philadelphia Eagles: 2
@ActionSportsJax: 2
Kansas City Chiefs: 2
Ben Fischer/Sports Business Journal: 2
Jay Glazer/Fox Sports: 2
Natasha Dye/People: 2
Clarence Hill/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram: 2
@AZCardinals: 2

Thanks for reading This Week In Bad Aggregation! User submissions are always welcome via e-mail or Twitter.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz