🗓 This Past Week in Sports & Entertainment

📽 R.I.P. Betty White… The “First Lady of Television” passed away on Friday at the age of 99. A planned 100th-birthday cinema special – a 100-minute film called "Betty White: 100 Years Young" – will now become a tribute to the Hollywood icon and is set to play in theaters on her birthday (January 17).

🏈 It just means more… No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia will face-off for the second time this season in the CFP National Championship Game next Monday; other major bowl winners include Ohio State (Rose Bowl), Baylor (Sugar Bowl), Oklahoma State (Fiesta Bowl), and Michigan State (Peach Bowl).

📅🥳 New Year’s Rockin’ Eve… Despite cutbacks around the world due to Covid, about 15,000 people still gathered in Times Square for the annual ball drop ceremony. Eric Adams was sworn-in as the new mayor of NYC in the aftermath.

🤷‍♂️ Um... what?... Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians announced that wide receiver Antonio Brown would not be a part of the team moving forward after Brown stripped off his pads and shirt in the middle of Sunday’s game vs. the Jets and walked off the field.

🍿 Spiders… why couldn’t it be ‘follow the butterflies’?... Spider-Man: No Way Home became the first film of the pandemic era to clear $1 billion globally, a feat it accomplished without China. 

• Another notable return to the screen: The new Harry Potter special, Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, premiered at midnight Saturday on HBO Max. (Ten points to Gryffindor for getting the intro reference.)