Welcome back to The Varsity, my twice-weekly private email on all the money, power, and influence sloshing around the sports media business. I spent the long weekend on one of the smoky mountains somewhere in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in a cabin with no electricity, no running water, no cell service, no Wi-Fi, and no Marchand.

Thanks for all the kind words on last week’s launch of Puck’s sports podcast, The Varsity. We’ve had a rollicking start, featuring provocative, in-depth conversations with fledgling media mogul Peyton Manning and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro. This weekend, WNBA commish Cathy Engelbert will make her Varsity debut. Tomorrow morning, Jon Kelly, who John Heilemann recently described as “Puck’s editorial Boban Marjanović,” and I preview the NFL season media subplots and try to resolve the DirecTV-Disney battle.

Let’s get to it…

1. Amazon on year three: While streamers have deeper pockets and younger audiences than their linear TV counterparts, they can’t compete on domestic reach—at least not yet. That’s why I’m intrigued by the third season of Amazon Prime’s...