Bristol’s D.T.C. Mania, The CAA Grail, Ted Cruz’s Terrordome

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon compendium of Puck’s latest reporting.

Today, we lead with Bill Cohan’s dissection of a titillating M&A hypothetical: Is Bob Iger setting the table to flip ESPN to Brian Roberts? Plus, fresh reporting around the D.T.C. obsession in Bristol.

Then, below the fold: Julia Ioffe annotates Ukraine’s troubling inch-by-inch battlefield woes. Dylan Byers chronicles a provocative leadership shakeup atop Politico. And on The Powers That Be, Peter Hamby rings up Abby Livingston to detail the most surprising races playing out on Capitol Hill, while Ben Landy and Lauren Sherman discuss what fashion mogul François-Henri Pinault might do with CAA.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

Ever since Iger’s stream of consciousness confessional in Sun Valley, M&A bankers have been fantasizing about the structure (and price) of a possible ESPN divestiture. Here’s the most compelling possibility.

JULIA IOFFE

The much hyped “spring offensive,” now well into July, hasn’t been the blitz that was hoped for in the West, but rather a low morale, high casualty battle for every muddy inch.

DYLAN BYERS

The return of John Harris to the top of Politico signals that the scrappiness and the ambitions of the old days may be back again—and now turbo-charged by Axel Springer’s war chest, and their own deep desire for influence.

PETER HAMBY, ABBY LIVINGSTON, BEN LANDY and LAUREN SHERMAN

Abby Livingston joins Peter to discuss the most surprising races playing out on Capitol Hill. Then Ben Landy and Lauren Sherman discuss what fashion mogul Francois-Henri Pinault might do with CAA.