University of Minnesota men’s basketball coach Niko Medved has announced the addition of Nehemiah Turner (Auburndale, Fla.) to the 2025-26 roster. Turner comes to Minnesota after playing his freshman year at Central Arkansas. 

“Nehemiah is a terrific addition to our program,” Medved said. “He has size, strength and skill with great finishing ability. Nehemiah has good paint presence and a high ceiling. We’re looking forward to having him in a Gopher uniform.” 

Turner, a 6-foot, 10-inch forward, saw action in all 33 games his freshman season, including the starting nod at the end of the year. Playing 18.1 minutes, Turner averaged 8.5 points and 4.2 rebounds, but averaged 17 points the final two months of the year. In the final 10 games of the season, Turner averaged 18.5 points and scored in double figures in all 10 contests. In the opening round of the ASUN Championship, Turner led the team to a 77-72 win over Stetson when he had career-high 37 points, 11 rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. Turner’s 37 points also marked the best by any UCA player last season as did the 13 field goals made that game. In his rookie campaign, he scored double-digit points in 12 games and three double-digit rebounding games. 

Before Central Arkansas, Turner played prep basketball at Williston Northampton where he earned All-WNEP and All-NEPSAC honors. He transferred there from Auburndale (Fla) High School. He averaged 13 points and nine rebounds and was a two-time All-District selection. 

2025 Spring Signees (Hometown)
BJ Omot (Mankato, Minn.)
Jaylen Crocker-Johnson (San Antonio, Texas)
Bobby Durkin (Darien, Ill.)
Robert Vaihola (San Mateo, Calif.)
Langston Reynolds (Denver, Colo.)
Chansey Willis Jr. (Detroit, Mich.)
Nehemiah Turner (Auburndale, Fla.)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A Triple-A arm with wipeout stuff has joined the Kansas City Monarchs’ pitching staff. Tyler McKay, a Kansas City area native, is joining the Monarchs from the Phillies organization. 

The former Kansas State Wildcat earned a 2.28 ERA in 2024, splitting the season between Double-A Reading and Triple-A Lehigh Valley in the Phillies system.

The right-hander used his five-pitch mix to get plenty of swings and misses, tallying more than a strikeout per inning across 43 appearances in 2024. 

“Tyler McKay is a big-time signing,” Monarchs manager Joe Calfapietra said. “He’s a guy with great strikeout numbers in Triple-A; he can play multiple roles for us; he’s a local product. We’re really excited to have him in Kansas City.”

McKay and the Monarchs open their 2025 season on Friday, May 9 from Legends Field in Kansas City, Kansas. Tickets are on sale now.

Born in Lee’s Summit, McKay attended Blue Springs South High School. He played at K-State his freshman season before transferring to Howard College, where he was a starting pitcher in 2018. 

The Phillies drafted McKay in the 16th round in 2018; he made his pro debut later that year. He made his High-A debut in 2021 and reached Double-A for the first time in 2022. 

McKay’s first Triple-A appearance came in 2023. Across 52 appearances at that level (all in relief), he owns a 2.97 ERA and 8.3 K/9 across 60.2 innings of work. 

The Monarchs now have 30 players signed to their spring camp roster. See the Monarchs’ full roster here. The team is allowed to carry a maximum of 25 players for Opening Day on May 9. 

The NCAA will start selling data from its championship events to sportsbooks around the country, part of an expanded partnership between the college sports governing body and Genius Sports.

The move, announced Friday, represents a notable departure from the NCAA’s prior arms-length relationship with legal sports betting. While the major pro U.S. leagues have built lucrative commercial partnerships in betting—including data deals like this one—the NCAA has stayed almost entirely on the sidelines. Instead, its executives have been outspoken about the industry’s effect on athletes, and pushed legislation that would limit the types of college bets that are permitted.

Under the new partnership, Genius Sports (NYSE: GENI) will have the right to sell live data from all NCAA championships through 2032. That includes the men’s and women’s March Madness basketball tournaments, the most valuable assets in the NCAA’s portfolio. Regular season contests, and FBS football postseason games like the College Football Playoff, are not included.

Genius is not paying an additional fee for the sportsbook rights, according to someone familiar with the details. The two sides will continue under the revenue share laid out in their original 2018 agreement, said the person, who was granted anonymity because the details are private. Genius announced the deal in a filing on Friday morning; a representative for the NCAA didn’t respond to a request for comment on the financial terms.

The announcement comes four months after NCAA president Charlie Baker spoke at a Senate hearing in Washington, D.C., urging Congress to reign in sports betting. He said the NCAA had to provide one team a 24/7 security detail because of a threat from a gambler, and added that hundreds of athletes have told him they’ve been approached to alter their performance. The NCAA in October released the results of a study conducted with Signify Group regarding online harassment of college athletes. The study found that “angry sports bettors” made up at least 12% of public social media abuse, making it one of the most common ways college athletes are harassed.

Paradoxically, the deal may help the NCAA build a larger bulwark against one of its major gambling concerns. Baker has been outspoken about a ban on athlete-specific prop bets, citing their impact on athletes and danger for match-fixing. Under this expanded agreement, Genius will establish an Authorized Gaming License (AGL), under which sportsbooks can access official NCAA feeds and logos. The operators in that program will also agree to limit “risky bet types,” the announcement says, though it is not specific on what it considers risky.

Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president for external affairs, said in a statement that the agreement will include a ban on “high-risk proposition bets, specifically underperformance wagers, negative outcome bets and wagers on injuries, officials’ decisions or fan-voted awards.”

“NCAA data will only be available to sportsbooks if they remove risky bets from their platforms and agree to fully cooperate with NCAA investigations and provide key information including geolocation data and device records,” he said. “The NCAA retains the right to terminate any sportsbook data license if integrity protections are violated.”

The NCAA added that this deal was not an endorsement of legal sports betting, and that it will maintain its restrictions on gambling advertising and sponsorships. The governing body also said it would use revenue from the data sales to further education around problem gambling and to monitor gambling-related harassment of athletes.

The NCAA reported $1.38 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024, the majority of it from its media contract with CBS and Turner to broadcast the men’s basketball tournament, and has been looking to diversify its income streams. It’s unclear how the revenue sharing works between the two sides.

Under the new Genius deal, the NCAA’s LiveStats platform will remain free for member schools, and the company will use its AI platform, GeniusIQ, to enhance the feed’s real-time analytics, coaching insights and fan-facing uses. It also includes integrity services that monitor betting patterns for potential fraud.

Data deals have been one of the more lucrative ways that sports leagues and governing bodies have profited off the growing legal betting market in the U.S. The NFL, for example, has a deal with Genius Sports that included cash and at least $450 million in stock at the time of signing. Sportradar’s deals with the NBA and MLB include equity as well.

In college sports, however, these deals have been harder to secure. It’s slightly less clear who actually owns all the data—is it schools, conferences, bowl games?—and it wasn’t until the NCAA clarified its position in April 2022 that anyone felt comfortable signing deals whatsoever. A few smaller conferences have gambling data partnerships, but the bigger ones have spent multiple years in conversations with companies like Genius Sports without any agreements being reached. As a result, the data powering much of college sports betting is collected via low-latency video feeds, or in-person scouting. Sportico examined this specific market, and the changing economics, in a story in October 2023.

The NCAA was one of the major sports entities that spent years fighting the more widespread legalization of sports betting in the U.S. When that fight ended in 2018, it kept the industry at arm’s length. For the past seven years, there’s been no gambling data deal, nor any “Official Sportsbook of the NCAA” type partnerships. A few colleges signed sponsorship deals with operators, but those were all unwound after public and political backlash. When the NCAA held the men’s Final Four at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans in 2022, it concealed all of the gambling company’s advertising.

More recently, the NCAA has been vocal about the harassment of athletes due to betting. In a related push, the organization has been encouraging state lawmakers to restrict the number of markets for college sports contests. In particular, Baker has called for a ban on athlete-specific prop bets.

“I despise the idea that we put these kids in the position where people would expect their individual performance to be more important than the performance of their team,” Baker told ESPN in October.

The NCAA has had a relationship with Genius since 2018, when it signed a 10-year deal to take NCAA data and package it for broadcasters and fan sites. That work will also now continue until 2032. The partnership put Genius in pole position if/when the NCAA ever decided to expand its data customers to include sportsbooks. The company’s other partners include MLB, the PGA Tour, the Premier League and the NFL.

Recent consolidation in sports data has left Genius and Sportradar as a near duopoly in the U.S. Genius stock has more than doubled in the past 12 months, and 22% so far this calendar year, bucking broader market volatility.

The NCAA does not control the College Football Playoff or the top bowl games, but it does organize almost every other major college championship. That includes men’s and women’s March Madness, of course, but also collegiate lacrosse, softball, baseball, ice hockey, volleyball and wrestling, just to name a few.  

(This story has been updated with comment from the NCAA.)

What makes someone paddle into a wave that could kill them… and smile while doing it?

That’s the question we ask as we uncover the haunting true story of Marcio Freire – the Brazilian big wave pioneer known as “Mad Dog.”

On January 5, 2023, at the legendary Praia do Norte in Nazaré, Portugal, Márcio paddled into one of the world’s biggest, most terrifying waves – and never came back.

In this powerful video, you’ll discover:
How Marcio redefined big wave surfing at Jaws
Why he risked everything to surf Nazaré – without a tow
What makes Nazaré the deadliest surf break on Earth
And how Marcio’s life became a legacy of soul, silence, and sacrifice

“You don’t beat the ocean. You learn to listen.” – Márcio Freire

Márcio wasn’t in it for fame. He didn’t chase sponsors. He chased truth. The raw, wild, unforgiving beauty of the sea. And in the end, it claimed him – but never broke him.

He became the first surfer to ever die at Nazaré, reminding the world: This wave may be surfed… but it is never conquered.

Watch now to feel the force, the meaning, and the legacy of a man who paddled into death – not because he had to, but because he was called to.

He didn’t surf to impress.
He surfed to feel free.

Marcio Freire (1975–2023)

In this interview with Streaming Media contributing editor Jan Ozer, Gary Hunsberger, general manager of U.S. operations at NPAW (Nice People At Work), outlines the company’s approach to end-to-end quality monitoring, actionable data, and monetization support. Hunsberger, who joined NPAW seven weeks before NAB 2025, shares how the company differentiates itself in a crowded analytics market, discusses future AI integration plans, and previews growth initiatives in the U.S. and Canada.

With a presence spanning small houses of worship to global media platforms, NPAW delivers streaming analytics from the network probe level through to the end-user session, all within a single, customizable interface. Hunsberger explains how the platform helps customers retain subscribers, optimize CDN usage, anticipate churn, and make sense of overwhelming amounts of quality-related data—all while laying the groundwork for a greater North American footprint.

Below is a lightly edited version of the conversation.

From Bitmovin to NPAW

Jan Ozer: I’m sitting in the Nice People at Work booth with Gary Hunsberger, who’s going to talk about the products and services offered by NPAW. Thanks for joining me, Gary.

Gary Hunsberger: Nice to be here, Jan.

Jan Ozer: So, give us a few seconds on what you’ve been doing. Where’d you come from?

Gary Hunsberger: About seven weeks ago, I joined NPAW—formerly from Bitmovin—and I’m now the general manager for the U.S. and Canada.

Target customers and differentiation

Jan Ozer: We’re in your booth at NAB. What’s the big message here? Who are the companies you’re trying to reach, and how do you differentiate your products and services for those targets?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s any customer delivering streams to end users who wants to ensure a good customer experience. That could be anyone from small churches to the large organizations we all deal with.

Jan Ozer: Small churches? Is that really a market you serve?

Gary Hunsberger: We have customers that serve that market.

Jan Ozer: It’s a crowded market with several solutions. What’s different about NPAW?

Gary Hunsberger: What we’re doing from a network probe and network monitoring perspective—very early in the content lifecycle all the way out to the individual user session—is monitoring the stream throughout that entire process. Bringing that into a single window, or a single pane if you will, is something we’re doing that’s very unique.

Making data actionable

Jan Ozer: Maintaining quality is pretty complicated. There’s the merger of QoS and QoE. Describe your solution; what happens if I have a problem? How do you solve it before I even know it’s there?

Gary Hunsberger: That’s really where it’s at: making sure the data is there, but also that it’s actionable. Your teams need to get to that data quickly, understand the root cause of what caused an alarm or what’s going on with a CDN, and be able to act quickly.

We allow you to tailor the events that get triggered in a very granular way to suit your organization’s needs—and make that an easy process. We support customers with training and modeling, and in dashboard setup. The dashboards are highly customizable, and it’s important to have a simplified view when you need it. If you’re a network operator who just needs a simple view, customization is key—and we do that.

Live event support and root cause resolution

Jan Ozer: If I’m a live event producer, what am I watching during the show from a quality perspective?

Gary Hunsberger: It starts with your internal network. Then it’s the health of the CDN. When something goes wrong, how do you crack that open and figure out the root cause?

Issues usually show up on the player, and it’s guilty until proven innocent. It’s imperative that you can understand if it’s a DRM license server that’s not working correctly, or if you’ve got CDN caching issues. You must be able to quickly open that up and troubleshoot it.

Customer success stories and expansion strategy

Jan Ozer: What are your big plans for NPAW in the U.S.? I assume you’re here to increase presence, revenue, and profitability.

Gary Hunsberger: It’s an underserved market for us. We’ve got some very big names—lighthouse customers—but overall, it’s pretty underserved. I’m looking forward to perhaps putting out a U.S. office in New York, being closer to our customers, supporting them better, understanding their unique needs in this market, and growing the business that way.

Filtering the noise

Jan Ozer: One of the biggest problems in this business is that there’s almost too much information. You get so much data that you don’t know what to do with it. What’s NPAW’s solution?

Gary Hunsberger: That definitely happens. You can set a large number of filters and get a lot of errors. What we’re doing is putting an AI intelligence agent across the entire workflow—that’s going to help customers more quickly understand what’s causing those errors. We call it Sentinel.

Sentinel will make recommendations and allow customers, through a process of elimination and more training, to get to the root causes more quickly.

Jan Ozer: Who does the training?

Gary Hunsberger: We take care of that. We’re very strong in professional services—handholding customers, helping them set up dashboards. This is something that’s very new to a lot of customers, so we’ll be heavily involved in assisting them.

AI now and later

Jan Ozer: Where else are you seeing AI touch your products in the next 12 to 24 months?

Gary Hunsberger: This is a lot of work. I think we’re just going to get really good at this for now—and then we’ll see where it goes.

Helping customers monetise

Jan Ozer: We’ve been hearing “monetization” over and over. How does your product help customers monetise?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s about retention. Churn is an ongoing challenge for many of our customers. That gets to the heart of making sure the end user is having a good experience with their subscription or with the stream they’re watching.

We’re enabling customers to use the data we’re gathering to ensure that quality of experience is a good one. When it’s not, we help customers understand why and allow them to be more proactive.

For example, I had a meeting here with our friends over at Cleeng. They’re involved in subscription management. They can tell you how many customers churned last month—but they can’t tell you why.

When you couple a solution like Cleeng with what we gather, we can tell customers, “Everyone who churned last month was on Android.” That gives you actionable data. Let’s go take a look at our Android implementation and find out why that might be. Then we can be more proactive.

Jan Ozer: I want to prevent churn. How do you help me do that?

Gary Hunsberger: As you’re monitoring and tracking these issues, you can anticipate future problems. If you know you’ve had an issue with a DRM license server, that allows you to get ahead of it.

Maybe you reach out to those remaining Android customers, give them a free month, or just let them know you’re working on it. That proactive outreach can help keep them from churning.

Optimising multi-CDN delivery

Jan Ozer: What about multi-CDN? It’s something we hear about a lot. How are you helping customers implement that?

Gary Hunsberger: That’s really important. It speaks to cost. We all know there’s significant cost in distributing content.

Sometimes customers choose a CDN based on performance but don’t understand that there might be a more cost-effective CDN they could be using at any given time. Being able to monitor the performance of those CDNs—and switch actively, even mid-stream—is going to be a huge benefit.

Adoption rates and competitive differentiation

Jan Ozer: Looking at publishers in particular, how many of them currently have a QoS solution in place? Is it 100%? 50%?

Gary Hunsberger: What I’m seeing is that it’s about 100% in all cases. But when they take a look at the portfolio we’ve got and the holistic view we can give them, the lights go on.

Jan Ozer: What are the table-stakes features that differentiate you from other providers?

Gary Hunsberger: It’s that holistic view. There are a lot of siloed implementations out there. It’s important to be able to share and view data across the entire workflow.

If you’ve got data in one silo and data in another, you can’t share that. Organizations need to be able to share information amongst themselves.

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Zype Streaming Platform Partners with NPAW to Add Full Analytics Suite

Zype, an all-in-one video management and distribution platform, and NPAW, a leading provider of AI-driven video analytics solutions, have partnered to offer streaming businesses an all-in-one solution for optimizing content delivery, increasing user engagement, measuring quality of experience (QoE) and ultimately, driving revenue and customer satisfaction.

19 Dec 2024

MILWAUKEE — FBI agents arrested Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan on charges of obstruction after she allegedly interfered with a federal immigration arrest operation.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the arrest, stating Judge Dugan misdirected agents from detaining Eduardo Flores Ruiz, an undocumented migrant, after a court appearance April 18.

Multiple 12 News sources confirm the arrest happened Friday morning at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

According to reports, Ruiz managed to evade initial detention but was later apprehended after a foot pursuit. Federal agents claim the judge’s obstruction increased public safety risks.

Judge Dugan has been on the bench for nine years, and the incident has drawn scrutiny and prompted an investigation.