State Iowa Showbiz Latest News and Updates

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor The University of Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark are set for consecutive trips to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Game as the team prevailed in a nail-biter Final Four faceoff against University of Connecticut. The final matchup finishes out a dream March Madness tournament for NCAA Women’s Basketball, as star players such as Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese and others have grabbed the spotlight.

Brian Teta, the executive producer of The View, has signed a new contract for the show that will keep him at the often buzzy daytime talker for the next four years.

With the popularity of women’s basketball on the rise, Prime Video and the WNBA have reached an extension of their current rights deal through the next two seasons.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Women’s pro hoops are coming back to Amazon‘s Prime Video for at least two more years. Prime Video and the WNBA on Friday announced a rights renewal deal under which Prime Video will continue to be the exclusive U.S. streaming partner for a package of 21 games each season, including the Championship Game of the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The outsized audience for this week’s highly-watched women’s NCAA basketball match between Iowa and LSU may also have noticed that many of the commercials seen during the game belonged to AT&T, State Farm, Home Depot and Gatorade. There was good reason. Optimum Sports, a media agency that specializes in sports properties and is part of ad giant Omnicom Group, had quietly snatched up 35% of advertising time during the game, a record setter in terms of viewership for women’s sports and the latest example of how interest in female players and the leagues in which they play is booming.

Once again, the Iowa Hawkeyes are leading ESPN to record audiences for women’s basketball.

Almost exactly four years ago now, Ashton Kutcher went on Hot Ones and downed ten very spicy chicken wings while talking about his incredibly close relationship with Diddy.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor No matter who prevails next Sunday at the NCAA’s championship game, 2024’s March Madness will go down in history as a milestone moment for women’s sports. Not just in the college basketball realm — but for female athletes overall. In a perfect storm, the annual bracket-bonkers frenzy around the NCAA college basketball tournament has conferred a level of respect to the women’s game that is rarely been seen across sports media, but for the quadrennial exception of the Women’s World Cup.

Women’s basketball is heating up on ESPN.

Smashing Pumpkins have announced a huge run of North American tour dates – see the full list of dates and cities below.Last night, Billy Corgan and co. took to social media to announce their tour, which apart from their own headline shows, will include festival appearances and shows as part of Green Day‘s The Saviors tour.

ESPN’s list of top 25 players to watch in the NCAA Women’s Tournament are two outstanding Latinas that are aiding in the successful post seasons during 2024 March Madness.With Caitlin Clark (Iowa) and Paige “Buckets” Bueckers (UCONN) and topping the charts on the #1 and #2 players to watch in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, the list hosts two Latinas as well, freshman Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame) and senior Kamilla Cardoso (South Carolina). Bueckers has suffered multiple injuries throughout her college career, but as Dawn Staley recently said, “Paige is great.

Harry Smith is moving on. After 12 years at NBC News, veteran correspondent Smith is leaving the network and will begin teaching at his alma mater this fall.

Barack Obama loves to share a list. The former President of the United States is known for them, whether he’s sharing his favorite books, his favorite songs, or his favorite films. Today, he’s shared his March Madness picks, a basketball tournament that pits Division I college basketball teams against eachother.

The brackets for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — aka “March Madness” — were revealed today, bringing joy and tears in equal amounts to teams selected and shunned.

Slipknot – has revealed that the re-recording of ‘Mate. Feed. Kill.

Slipknot frontman Anders Colsefni has shared his new version of ‘Mate. Feed. Kill.

The real story begins long before you know it in Desert Road, a very smart, trippy chiller that plays with the conventions of survival horror and takes them in a wholly unexpected and, ultimately, really quite moving direction. Making her directorial debut, Shannon Triplett shows a sophisticated grasp of genre dynamics, with a bold use of space — a stretch of the Mojave Desert doubling for Death Valley — that proves more and more gripping as the film’s mysteries unfold. At which point, its boundaries begin to blur, slipping between horror and sci-fi in a way that recalls a hypnotic blend of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s The Endless and Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy and his fiancee Jenna Brandt are married!

UPDATED, with first results: As the first polls closed on Super Tuesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump were projected to be the winners of Virginia’s Democratic and Republican primaries, on a night where he and Donald Trump are expected to solidify the chances of a November general election rematch.

The suspense this Super Tuesday may be in watching how all of the networks try to make the night suspenseful.

Caitlin Clark has made history!

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. Selection Sunday, the official kick-off of March Madness, takes place on March 17, which means there’s more than a couple weeks left of conference play before the 68 teams battle it out during the highly anticipated NCAA tournament. College basketball broadcasts are spread out across many channels including ESPN, CBS Sports, TNT and FOX Sports.

Wake Forest‘s Demon Deacons’ took a 83-79 upset victory over the No. 8 Duke Blue Devils Saturday afternoon, but the big story came after the final buzzer.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have announced details of an extensive new North American tour to take place this summer.The tour will be titled ‘Can’t Let Go’, and will kick off on June 2 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and run for 30 dates, wrapping up in Vail, Colorado on September 1, with some more dates also expected to still be added. See below for full details.Tickets for the shows went on pre-sale today (February 14), with the general sale taking place at 10am local time on Friday (February 16) here.The duo last toured together in 2022, which itself was their first complete tour in 12 years.

Fox News has scheduled another town hall with former President Donald Trump, this time a pre-taped event February 20 in South Carolina and hosted by Laura Ingraham.

2024 Super Bowl starting quarterback Brock Purdy has had quite the story with his rise to becoming star QB of the San Francisco 49ers, but we’re taking a moment to highlight his dating life!

All eyes will be on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy during the NFC Championship Game today against the Detroit Lions.

While watching the NFC Championship Game today, you’ll probably be hearing San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle‘s name quite a bit!

Slipknot drummer Jay Weinberg has announced his first show since being fired by the band late last year.Yesterday (January 24), Weinberg took to Instagram to announce that he will be back behind the drum kit with Infectious Grooves, a supergroup consisting of members of Suicidal Tendencies, Faith No More, and Metallica, for the band’s appearance at the Byron Bay, Australia festival, Bluesfest.A post shared by Jay Weinberg (@jayweinberg)“I’m honoured and thrilled to head to Australia with the legendary Infectious Grooves for a special performance at Bluesfest,” wrote Weinberg in the caption, before suggesting that he had other projects yet to be announced: “Stay tuned for more.” The poster depicted in the Instagram post states “Australian Tour ’24”, suggesting that Weinberg may be joining the band for a full-length tour of the country.Infectious Grooves is a funk metal supergroup consisting of vocallist Mike Muir and guitarist Dean Pleasants of Suicidal Tendencies and Rob Trujillo of Metallica. Weinberg will be filling in for original drummer, Brooks Wackerman of Avenged Sevenfold, who will supposedly be unavailable to play the Bluesfest date.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer Former President Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire primary, according to the Associated Press, as he continues to cruise toward his third nomination to lead the Republican Party in the coming election. The AP called the race immediately once all polls were closed at 8 p.m. local time.