A primer on all the changes on NFL, college TV coverage. And Barkley rips into Durant

There were five enormous football media stories this offseason:

1) Amazon landing Thursday night NFL games and hiring Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit to call them;

2) ESPN luring Joe Buck and Troy Aikman from Fox to call Monday Night Football;

3) Fox promoting Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen to replace Buck and Aikman on the lead team, while securing Tom Brady as its lead analyst in waiting;

4) NBC promoting Mike Tirico, as his contract required, to succeed Michaels on Sunday Night Football;

5) The Big 10 striking huge TV deals with NBC (which will carry a prime-time game beginning next season), CBS (which will carry games at 3:30 p.m. beginning in 2024, replacing SEC games, which are bound for ESPN/ABC) and Fox (which keeps the noon Big 10 games, among other assets).

Here are several lower-profile football developments:

▪ Beginning this season, ABC will get one “Monday Night Football” game different from the game being carried by corporate partner ESPN. This season, that happens on Sept. 19.

Buffalo-Tennessee will air at 7:15 p.m. on ESPN that night, with Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Dan Orlovsky announcing. Minnesota-Philadelphia will air at 8:30 on ABC, with Buck and Aikman on the call.

Beginning in 2023, ABC and ESPN will air different Monday night games three times each season.

ABC also will continue simulcasting a few ESPN Monday night football games and two ESPN games on the final Saturday of the regular season.

ABC and ESPN will both air Super Bowls in 2026 and 2030 (the first live Super Bowl broadcasts ever on ESPN), plus a divisional playoff game, in addition to the wild card game that ESPN already has been carrying for years.

“You can expand the reach of your game and expand viewership,” NFL media chief executive Brian Rolapp said of the increased ABC involvement. “Broadcast still reaches really well and we were under-utilizing ABC and their ability to reach. Disney was clearly hungry to do more.”

▪ Sean Payton, who resigned from the Saints to take a break from coaching, will be a studio analyst on the 11 a.m. Fox pre-game show and occasionally fill in for Jimmy Johnson on the main Fox pre-game show.

▪ NBC hired former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett to replace Drew Brees on two jobs – in the Sunday night studio with Tony Dungy, and in the Notre Dame booth, where Jac Collinsworth (Cris’ son) replaces Tirico, who will now focus entirely on Sunday night football.

Brees stepped away from broadcasting after one season.

▪ With Michele Tafoya leaving the industry to work in politics, NBC bypassed in-house candidate Kathryn Tappen (who was assigned to Notre Dame games) and hired Melissa Stark as sideline reporter, a job she last held on ABC’s Monday Night Football from 2000 to 2003.

▪ CBS hired Jason Jones to replace Jason LaCanfora as its NFL information man - a losing battle against ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen and Fox’s Jay Glazer.

▪ ESPN promoted Robert Griffin III to a studio analyst role on Monday Countdown, joining Booger McFarland and Steve Young as the main analysts, with Suzy Kolber still hosting.

Randy Moss, who had been on the Monday show, will shift his attention to the Sunday pre-game show, joining Matt Hasselbeck, Tedy Bruschi, Schefter, Chris Mortensen, Rex Ryan and host Sam Ponder.

▪ Fox promoted Daryl Johnston to its No. 2 analyst role to replace Olsen, who was promoted to succeed Aikman until Brady retires. Johnston has gone up and down the depth chart in 22 years at Fox.

Joe Davis, who replaced Buck as Fox’s lead baseball announcer, also becomes Fox’s No. 2 NFL announcer, replacing the promoted Burkhardt.

Also new: Robert Smith, the former college football analyst, joins Chris Myers on Fox’s No. 6 team.

▪ Former Marlins TV voice Rich Waltz is the new lead voice of college football on CBS Sports Network, alongside Aaron Taylor.

Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson remain CBS-TV’s team on SEC teams and are expected to move to the CBS Big 10 package in 2024, when the Big 10 replaces the SEC in that 3:30 p.m time slot.

Los Angeles Clippers announcer Noah Eagle, son of CBS’ Ian Eagle, got some CBS games last season but will work college football for Fox this season.

▪ Jason Benetti is Fox’s new No. 2 college football announcer, paired with Brock Huard. Gus Johnson and Joel Klatt remain the lead team.

▪ Fox re-hired Urban Meyer, who had a miserable experience in less than one season as Jacksonville Jaguars coach, for its college football studio.

▪ Jenny Dell is CBS’ new SEC college football sideline reporter, replacing Jamie Erdahl, who replaced Kay Adams as host of NFL Network’s morning show.

▪ ESPN’s Jorge Sedano, who grew up and worked in South Florida, will call his first regular season college game on the TV side when he announces UM-Bethune Cookman with former FSU offensive lineman Forrest Conoly at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on ACC Network. He called UM’s spring game.

THIS AND THAT

▪ WQAM-560 hired former Canes quarterback Malik Rosier as its new postgame analyst, paired with Alex Donno.

Pregame analyst Brian Monroe (who’s paired with Danny Rabinowitz) is very good, and Rosier should be too, based on his candor and smart, substantive responses in interviews.

▪ TNT’s Charles Barkley, in an appearance with Bickley & Marotta on Arizona Sports, let loose on Kevin Durant.

“All the old guys, he get mad we say it, [but] he piggybacked on the Warriors to win his first two championships,” Barkley said. “But if you go back and look at his career, as the best player and being the leader that all goes with that, he’s been an abject failure. Every time he’s had to be the leader and best player, he has not had success. That’s what us old guys think about him.

“He seems like a miserable person, man. I call him Mr. Miserable, he’s never going to be happy. Everybody’s given him everything on a silver platter. He was the man in Oklahoma City, they loved him, he owned the entire state. He bolts on them and wins back-to-back championships (with Golden State), and he’s still not happy. Then he goes to Brooklyn, they give him everything he wants and he’s still miserable.”

▪ Heat and Panthers games will be available on the new Bally Sports Plus direct-to-consumer service that allows viewers to pay to receive the channel if they don’t otherwise wish to pay for cable or satellite service. Marlins games were made available on the service during the launch earlier this summer.

The cost: $19.99 per month or $189.99 per year. Other Bally Sports Florida and Bally Sports Sun programming - including college football and basketball, high school games and studio shows - also is available on the service.

Incidentally, Bally Sports Florida will launch its new weekly Dolphins magazine show, Dolphins Today, next Friday, after a Marlins game. Kimberly Bell hosts. Also, the network will replay CBS-4’s Mike McDaniel show at 11:30 a.m. Sundays beginning Sept. 11.