Welcome back to The Varsity, my twice-weekly private email on everything that happens off the field and away from the court. I know the political world—and broader civilization, really—is focused on this week’s Republican National Convention and Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate. But it’s MLB All-Star week here at The Varsity! Happy Home Run Derby Day to all who celebrate.

I’m coming to you live from Arlington, Texas, the home of tonight’s festivities and tomorrow’s midsummer classic. Thus far, every conversation around here has coalesced around the slow but irreversible demise of the regional sports network business. Club executives are finally coming to the realization that the local media revenue they’ve long counted on is, with the exception of a few large markets, deeply imperiled. They need to find new ways to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile, a lot of the kibitzing at various sponsor parties yesterday pertained to the NBA board of governors meeting tomorrow, in Las Vegas, where the league is set to approve media deals with Amazon, Disney, and NBCUniversal. I’ll have more down below on David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery’s strategy for deploying the company’s matching rights.

One more reminder to stop forwarding these emails to your deep-pocketed friends and colleagues, who can certainly afford to subscribe to Puck. The next person caught red-handed will be forced to participate in a clinical trial for Marchand’s new semaglutide alternative.

1. Charter-Disney deal, redux: When Charter closed its contentious deal with Disney, last September, the distributor received a ton of praise for convincing the executives in Burbank to allow their ad-supported apps—Disney+ in Spectrum TV Select, and ESPN+ in Spectrum TV Select Plus—on to the company’s systems. But several sources have told me that...