There was a weird, I don’t know, kerfuffle this week. Actually, I wouldn’t call it a kerfuffle. It was a blip. But it tugged at the seams of some important stuff.
Here’s how it went:
Michael Wilbon became exasperated on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” while discussing how analytics were employed in two-point decision made by Tampa Bay during the Lions-Bucs NFC divisional game.
Wilbon’s point was quickly dismissed as a grandpa rant. (It wasn’t.)
Greg Olsen responded on Twitter/X by noting that this sort of conversation is why network broadcasters need to be able to explain analytics and how they’re used by NFL teams.
Olsen was absolutely, 100% correct.
This is just further proof how vital it is that announcers continue to educate the viewers on the current approach to NFL football.
It isn’t announcers being “lazy”. It’s the way the game is being played and is here to stay. The game evolves. Not sure why people push back? https://t.co/X174e5wA6W
And that brings us to Tom Brady, because — well, because you knew it would.
Next NFL season, it’ll almost certainly be Brady, not Olsen, in FOX’s No. 1 broadcast booth opposite Kevin Burkhardt. That has been in the works for the better part of two years, and there’s no element of surprise there, and nobody’s getting knotted up over it. It’s happening.
But here’s hoping that Brady, the future Hall of Fame quarterback, is able to take his 23 seasons of pro experience and actually translate them into language that football-watchers understand and can appreciate. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
And to the point of this discussion, it’s going to fall to Brady — and the color analysts in most of the other NFL network partner broadcast booths — to break down analytics (“football math,” if the term analytics irritates you) into bite-sized morsels that fans can handle. Because Olsen has it right in almost every regard.
Wilbon was responding to Bucs coach Todd Bowles’ decision to go for two points with the Bucs trailing the Lions 31-23 in the fourth quarter. “The analytics say go for it,” Wilbon said. “Do the analytics say go for it no matter who’s going for it? So if you and I were on the field, the analytics say go for it?
“It’s the stupidest, laziest, lamest thing I’ve heard for reasoning in competition. And I hate when announcers just buy it without questioning it.”
Olsen’s response on social media was measured. “This is just further proof how vital it is that announcers continue to educate the viewers on the current approach to NFL football,” the analyst and former Pro Bowl tight end said, noting Wilbon’s remarks. “It isn’t announcers being ‘lazy.’ It’s the way the game is being played and is here to stay. The game evolves. Not sure why people push back?”
That last question is essential. Because even if some folks think Mike Wilbon was hitting Old Man Yells At Cloud levels of frustration (hey, he’s on TV; that’s showbiz), he was really putting out the same question as millions of fans.
Good rule of thumb: If you figure that most people are wondering the same thing that you’re wondering, you should probably discuss it right then and there — on the air.
Wilbon was asking whether the math on going for two in such situations works the same for every team in the NFL. In other words, do analytics constantly apply evenly across the board in sports? If they don’t, how do coaches or coordinators or play-callers determine which risk is acceptable and which isn’t?
That isn’t statheads taking over a sport; it’s a game that uses numbers all the time to help inform decisions. Any responsible NFL broadcast is going to include somebody who can understand how numbers are currently being used and to what end, and be able to explain the basics to a curious viewer. That’s pretty much what Greg Olsen was saying.
We didn’t used to have rules interpreters on broadcasts, either. NFL productions evolve.
The math on Bowles’ decision isn’t horribly controversial. It’s also not hard to explain, if you keep it simple. During this NFL season, teams going for two points were successful 55% of the time, producing 1.1 points per attempt. When they kicked the extra point, the conversion rate was 96%, but the points per attempt went down (obviously) to 0.96.
Long story short, Bowles wanted to go for two in order to position his team to beat the Lions in regulation, and he knew he was going to need two TDs to get there either way. One two-point conversion — again, with a solidly better than 50-50 chance during the season — could tip the scale. That was a factor worth discussing. Bowles clearly didn’t want to ask the Bucs to go to overtime against Detroit’s offense, playing at home, so the math on two-point tries suddenly swung into view.
That’s cool. That’s sports. It is using numbers to put a team in position to win, and without question it is informed by the Bucs’ assessment of their own offense and their ability to actually make a two-point try stand up.
Tom Brady experienced and helped make that sort of calculation many, many times in the course of his career. Beginning next season, it’ll be his job to explain football thinking to casual viewers in a way that helps them enjoy a broadcast and want to stick around.
Greg Olsen is right — analytics are here to stay. And Wilbon is right to want to know more. If the analysts themselves want to stay around as well, they need to be able to explain the numbers, and to tell folks why they matter.
The essentials to good journalism? “Listening. Empathy. Curiosity. And check it out,” Ann Alquist told Barrett News Media over a Zoom call. Alquist has dedicated her entire career to Public Radio and earlier this year became Director of Radio at Prairie Public in North Dakota.
Her venture into the industry started in 1999. “I took a tour of Minnesota Public Radio, and there was a guy at the front desk at the tour and he said you should check out this radio station in Minneapolis. It’s called KFAI.” Alquist attended a volunteer orientation where, “They put me in the newsroom — this is before the term citizen journalism was a thing — and put a recorder in my hand and sent me to a press conference with then-House Majority Leader Tim Pawlenty and he was my first interview.”
Alquist volunteered at the station while attending a post-baccalaureate program for international journalism. “I did my apprenticeship at KFAI. I already had a relationship with them, and then they were hiring for a news director. My friend said we should apply, it would be fun to apply. And I was like, no, they’re not going to interview us. We’re like kids, like 22, 23 years old. And I got an interview and she did not, and our friendship ended. And I got the job in November of 2001.”
From KFAI in Minneapolis, Alquist worked at public radio stations across the country including, Alabama, Alaska, Rhode Island, Maine, Missouri, and at the National Center for Media Engagement based out of Madison, Wisconsin. In a Prairie Public Press release about her hiring, Alquist said “The best way for me to make an impact, and act on the mission of public media, is in rural media.”
Expanding on the idea Ann Alquist added, “I think that a lot of what we get fed in terms of information and news is from the coasts and a lot of our problems are local or regional, and it’s hard to solve problems from the coasts.” She added, “I see public media’s role as institutions to help solve public problems. And that can only be done locally. So that’s why I think all media is really important.”
Originally from California, her family moved 30 miles north of Frankfurt, Germany where Ann Alquist said she spent her youth. “The only English language broadcast that we had access to was AFN, the Armed Forces Network, which is NPR. And so having that connection it was important for my parents to know what was going on because they were voting in elections absentee.” Alquist believes this had some influence on her work today.
Passionate about local media, Alquist expressed concern about the shrinking media footprint in rural areas.
“You know, it’s interesting to observe because newspapers are now able to tap into a non-profit model thanks to Report for America. Report for America acts as a fiscal agent.” She added, “Condé Nast is a good example. They own all of the major news outlets in Alabama, Alabama Media Group, AL.com. They got a grant from the Ford Foundation. Those are billionaires and they’re being able to tap into philanthropy.”
With competition for funding increasing Ann Alquist said, “There’s a conduit now for [commercial] to be sort of non-profit. Public radio is a good example of this. They’ve had to get better at corporate sponsorship, business sponsorship.” She went on to say, “I remember a time when public radio would say, ‘We’ll never take underwriting or advertising,’ you know, ‘we’ll never do sponsored content.’ All these ‘we’ll never.’ Today Public Radio has taken underwriting, advertising, and sponsored content.”
Alquist sees another “we’ll never” happening in the near future. “The one that they’re hanging on to right now is paywalls. ‘We’ll never have a paywall.’ I wouldn’t be surprised at some point if there was a station that commanded enough appetite for their content. I can see it happening.” She added, “So I think it’s going to be I think it’s going to be a mix. It’s going to be a mix of, I guess, what I would call transactional revenue streams, audience revenue models and business sponsorship, business support and foundations, of course.”
Ann Alquist believes in order to save local media we need to take a look at the beginnings of the country. “I think the government should do what it did for newspapers starting in 1794. It had a postal subsidy. [Newspapers] never paid full freight. There’s always been a government subsidy for media in this country. That’s George Washington. That’s a founding father. One of the first acts of Congress to pass was that postal subsidy because they recognized that they needed an inform citizenry. So I’d like to see a modern version of that.”
Expanding more on this Alquist said, “We sort of have it with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Although it’s a private corporation funded by the American people.” She noted, “There are state legislatures that are providing subsidies and some for a long time. Minnesota does. North Dakota has state funding. Alaska used to. And then they zeroed it out. I wouldn’t be surprised if within my lifetime Congress identified tax credits, as a way to incentivize, support for news media.”
More than 20 years after starting in the industry, Ann Alquist credits her ‘values as a professional’ to her first mentor in the industry.
“The executive director, Janis Lane Ewart, who hired me. She tasked me with basically a mission statement. She’s like, ‘You really need to focus. I don’t care what they say. Figure out what your thing is. What’s your North Star going to be like?’” Alquist added, “She was a really good mentor to have in those formative years.”
Looking forward, Alquist is looking to expand the reach of Prairie Public. “Launch a digital engagement platform and a series of partnerships to spur participation so we can really map community information needs and some of those really small towns in western North Dakota, because we don’t have boots on the ground there.”
She later added, “That’s where the oil boom is still and that part of the state has changed dramatically. So that’s one of my, one of my plans is to boost our, our partnerships and our digital engagement so that we can reveal community agendas in western North Dakota, especially in an election year.”
The apparent downfall of Sports Illustrated has shocked the sports media world, but Jessica Smetana felt like this was a not so shocking outcome.
On The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Monday, Smetana pulled back the curtain some on the situation. She helped launch the SI union, which has been impacted hardest by the recent decision to lay off the vast majority of the publication’s remaining staff. But she noted that the union kept SI going.
“Because of the union, I think Sports Illustrated has existed longer than it probably would’ve after the initial sale in 2019,” she said. “Because a huge chunk of the staff was laid off in 2019, and it’s almost like incredible that the magazine has been able to exist since 2019.”
Smetana got the impression that Authentic Brands Group never cared about SI as a sports media outlet and institution. The same could be said for Arena Group, which operated Sports Illustrated.
“It was just very unorganized and messy from the start because I do not believe that ABG cares or even wants to pretend to care about journalism or any of the stories that made Sports Illustrated an iconic brand,” she said. “I think that they simply want to put the sports illustrated name on things that they can sell like vitamins, a hotel, a throw blanket, whatever the thing is.”
Jessica Smetana continued that Arena Group management was threatened by the union. She said the issues between Arena Group and Authentic Brands Group compounded the situation.
“I think this really comes down to a power struggle between these two groups of people and really trying to figure out how they can continue to make money off of Sports Illustrated without giving any sort of a shit about quality work and quality journalism and the things that made Sports Illustrated a valuable brand name to begin with,” she said.
Jessica Smetana added that while previous management of SI deserve some blame for never finding a way to make the publication profitable in the internet age, the point still stands that ABG and Arena Group should shoulder the brunt of the blame.
“I do believe that the current owners and operators of Sports Illustrated deserve a ton of blame and honestly should be ashamed of themselves,” she said.
Name a journalist who has interviewed four presidents and close to 100 candidates. Name one who interviewed Nikki Haley more than a dozen times and Ron DeSantis almost as many during this election cycle. Name someone who has sat down with Donald Trump about a half dozen times over the years.
Still thinking?
What if I told you that one person did all of these things?
Savannah Guthrie? No. David Muir? Please be serious. Anderson Cooper? Nope. Sean Hannity? Sorry. Leslie Stahl? Hard no.
Chris Ryan? Yes!
Of course, you’re asking who in tarnation (always wanted to work that phrase into a column – thanks Yosemite Sam) is Chris Ryan?
It’s a fair question because outside of New Hampshire media, you may only hear from him or see him once every four years. However, every four years, he may be one of the most impactful journalists in the country (not to take away from the fine work he does the other three!).
Chris Ryan has been in New Hampshire news radio for 22 years. He looks young, so if you meet him, you’re probably thinking, “When did he start, 15?!?!” Well, you would not be far off as Ryan’s radio career began when he was 19-years old.
Currently, he hosts NH Today on New Hampshire’s iHeart radio networks from 6-9 in the morning. He also can be seen making TV appearances ranging from the Boston NBC station to Fox News. Oh, and on the side, he also covers the New England Patriots for WBZ Radio out of Boston.
I first met Chris in 2020 when I spent parts of six months in New Hampshire for a show I wrote and hosted for New England Cable News on the television side. Chris came on the show all the time. Back then, we struggled with Skype and really could have benefitted from the wide acceptance, usage and approval of remote internet-based interviews that were normalized during the pandemic, but that’s a story for another day. Chris also gave invaluable guidance to our staff about the geography, culture and people of the quirky yet amazing state of New Hampshire. The show was awesome, and a lot of it had to do with his knowledge, input and generosity (he was not paid).
“One of the best parts of my job is having consistent conversations with the major candidates,” said Chris Ryan who is now covering his sixth presidential cycle.
If you want a true sense of the people who may take the job as the world’s most powerful person, Chris is the guy to talk to.
“I’ve learned a lot about the human side of politics,” he said. “It is rough, mean and vicious. But seeing the candidates in lighter and tense moments allows you to see the fragility, and self-doubt of these individuals.”
Some say New Hampshire was a bit of a dud in this election cycle, and there are concrete reasons for that. First of all, the incumbent, President Joe Biden, wasn’t even on the primary ballot in New Hampshire because he chose to recognize South Carolina as the nation’s first primary.
Secondly, and more politically relevant, the race for the Republican nomination is truly rare in American History, and it has nothing to do with the number of court cases surrounding Donald Trump.
You see, in 2024, the Republican frontrunner already has been the party’s nominee twice, and he’s been president once. There’s no grassroots growth to a campaign that’s already huge.
I mean, he’s already been President.
The impact of this rare dynamic is that Trump doesn’t need to do roll up his sleeves and politics at the hand-to-hand level.
“He hasn’t taken a voter’s question this cycle, no local media interviews, and not much retail campaigning,” Ryan said. “In other words, he hasn’t gone through the type of vetting that makes this primary pivotal.”
All of Ryan’s interactions came in 2016 when Trump ran for the first time – and won the White House.
This odd situation – a former President running as a challenger who is already a household name and massive favorite – also means that that his competition has been muted; very few candidates in New Hampshire even set up multiple campaign offices this time around.
Also, technology continues to evolve its influence on the campaign.
“Campaigns rely much less on a traditional ‘ground game’ (door knocking, etc) and much more on digital ads,” Ryan said. “Smartphones and Twitter (X) weren’t really a thing in 2003-4, so candidates were less concerned about viral moments and voter interactions going wrong.”
Despite the changing elements of the primary, Chris Ryan still relishes that his state remains a major part of the political calendar.
“It’s truly a privilege to ask questions of newsmakers and provide background on who these individuals are. I’m a huge student of history and it’s remarkable to play any role in this process,” he said.
I can attest that, yes, New Hampshire demographics do not necessarily reflect the whole nation’s demographics (i.e. it’s wicked white). But the “Live Free or Die” state takes this stuff seriously. All you have to do is attend a candidate appearance at a random diner at 7 am on a Tuesday, and you will see for yourself. The citizens of New Hampshire want to test candidates – for all to see.
The question now: What happens next with New Hampshire and its first-in-the-nation status? Does it lose its stature and status for good when 2028 could be an open race on both sides?
“This is an interesting time for our primary,” admitted Chris Ryan. “A Trump victory here will both enhance and diminish our first-in-the-nation status.
“First off, the RNC will vote to keep New Hampshire first in 2028 with Trump’s blessing at the convention, if he’s the nominee and he wins here Tuesday,” Ryan said. “The democrat’s situation will be even more interesting. Joe Biden and the DNC aren’t recognizing our primary and are saying South Carolina is the start of the primary calendar.
“This has been a strategic blunder, but will it be corrected, or will the DNC double down? Then, how will the candidates react? Will they visit here and hope to get some early momentum, or stay away and not risk the ire of the national democrats?”
Let’s hope not.
Anyone who’s been to New Hampshire understands why, and to be honest, it’s awesome when great career-long radio journalists get to take center stage every four years.
Today’s edition of Social Studies features my conversation with the Director of Social Media at Front Office Sports Mason Burgin. If you missed any of my prior conversations during this series, click here. We’ve picked the brains so far of social stars from Jomboy Media, The Volume, and AM 570 LA Sports.
Mason Burgin got his start in sports media in college doing photography and videography for the University of Tennessee. Jobs in “social media” were just becoming a thing while he was at UT. Upon graduating, he began his career with the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans as a social media associate. When COVID hit, Mason was looking for new opportunities which is how he got connected with Front Office Sports.
As another publisher covering a subsection of sports, I really wanted to dive in on FOS’ approach to content and audience building on social media. We got into the weeds on engaging sports fans on various platforms, balancing organic posts with revenue-driving content, and growth strategies. If you’re in publishing this is the conversation for you.
Be advised our 30+ minute conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. For the full conversation, check out the Barrett Media YouTube page.
Alex Reynolds: Take me through a typical day in your world.
Mason Burgin: I have one alarm set for 5:45 where I do an initial scan to make sure nothing absolutely insane happened while I was asleep. Then I’ll get up around seven and try to have two or three, what I feel like are solid posts scheduled for that 7am to 8am window which is a big opportunity for us. From there, we have an editorial meeting around 9am with our writers, editors, social staff, and podcast team. We kind of align where we feel the headlines are for the day. From there, it’s really all content creation in the morning
I meet with the social team (of three) around noon to map things out for the next few days. Then afternoon is a little slower for the most part. Usually meetings, and scheduling things for busier future events.
I try to wrap up by 5:30 CT. We schedule posts across all the platforms half hour or so through the day, through like 8 or 9pm. We’ll check back in, keeping an eye on things. That’s kind of the nature of the job. But we’ll check later in the evening, and maybe fire off one or two more things.
AR: What are those types of stories that you see come across the site that you’re like, alright, this will make great social content?
MB: That’s one of my favorite things about what we do. What FOS does is a pretty clear lane of content, where I feel a lot of brands in the sports media space now, the lines blur on what they cover. Or they just try to cover everything. That feels difficult to me and makes the space really clouded.
Initially, a lot of that had to have a dollar figure in it. But we were able to expand it a little bit to where we started to include things adjacent to the business of sports. So you know, directly that’s money. Indirectly, that’s innovation, historical hires, and achievements of any kind from an organization.
At the root of it, it’s always, what are people responding to positively or what’s getting engagement? I’m not going to keep posting something, even if I feel like it’s important, if no one cares about it or it feels like no one cares about it.
I think the biggest one for me, that I’m able to point back to is athlete-driven human interest stories. I think people are always interested and want to see more of what athletes are doing. They like hearing more of their stories off the field. It’s easy to talk about teams as a whole or giant billion-dollar corporations but I think when I’m able to be like, ‘Tyler, Lockett is an all-pro wide receiver for the Seahawks but he also has his own real estate firm, and he’s now the official real estate agent of the Seahawks,’ people don’t know that stuff. It’s extremely fascinating.
AR: What’s your sort of strategic approach to growing that audience on different platforms?
MB: I wish there was an easy 30-second to minute answer where I could say, ‘This is what we do. And this is how you add followers.’ I think my approach has always been to just build up a stockpile of interesting content. We try to get to the point where someone says, ‘Okay, I have to see what’s next. And I have to see it from FOS.’ And that’s strictly from a social perspective, we have an incredible editorial staff that is like almost doing that for us.
We’re trying to become a place where people are like, ‘all of this is really interesting and no one else is covering it well enough.’ I think women’s sports are an easy place to point to in terms of lack of coverage. Those posts do incredibly well. The audience is there, and when you give them the platform, they respond. That’s a roundabout way to get to growth. From a content perspective, it’s building up all of that to a point where people don’t really have a choice but to follow FOS.
AR: So when you’re getting all this unique content from the site, how do you then determine what’s going to be a good play on Instagram, TikTok or Twitter(X)?
MB: A lot of other brands in the space will take something and distribute it across every platform. And if it’s a big enough story, that’s great. But we have always really prided ourselves, on curating things to each audience on each platform because they’re so different.
[For example Dickie V’s recovery] That’s something that at the root of is not an insanely strong business story. It’s more of a human interest story. I know a LinkedIn audience or our Facebook audience is going to appreciate that more than a Twitter (X) audience. So we were able to that and curate it for LinkedIn, where stories there are rooted in personal success, personal comeback and cool stories around people.
On Twitter everyone’s updating. ESPN Bet launches today, here’s the news around an offensive coordinator getting fired, things like that. Sometimes it can feel almost like you’re out of the loop if you’re posting something that doesn’t fit in that news cycle.
Instagram is so aesthetically driven and it’s also much easier to pull evergreen content for. If done incorrectly, it can feel like you’re digging up an old viral clip and recycling it. But me and Jeremy my coworker is really, really good at this. We like to dig back to find old things that maybe people have forgotten about it and tell the story in a new way.
AR: How do you strike the balance between doing organic content, stuff that’s eye-catching and easy to engage with versus things that drive revenue, like the newsletter, podcasts and website and story links?
MB: I approach it almost like I’m trying to maintain a live audience. I think about it as like, ‘Okay, they just saw this really cool thing. That’s great. I’m glad they liked it. Now I need to incorporate editorial from today.’ We almost try to alternate editorial content and organic content.
I should not be able to get on our platform and see that our timeline is just 10 links in a row. Because then it’s going to annoy people and they’re going to leave. At this point it has become almost 50/50.
AR: Overall, how do you measure success on social with FOS? What metrics are you looking at? And how do you take that, internalize it, and then develop a growth strategy from it?
MB: We have three or four annual goals that the social team is aspiring for. The first is cross-platform followers, trying to establish the audience, across every platform. We’re trying to hit a million [cross-platform followers] by the end of this year.
We measure a lot of our posts by impressions. That’s something that partners really care about. We’re able to go to partners and tell them that last month we did 200 million monthly impressions across social and internally that’s what we use as a barometer for success.
Another one of our annual goals is establishing social franchises, recurring series that we can sign partners to. So we just launched, with a lot of help from our creative strategy team, a series called Under Review with Adam Breneman, essentially weekly recaps around college football that we’re hoping to launch with a partner here in the next couple weeks.
We’ve kind of almost hit that first step of audience established, engagement established, now we’re able to roll out stuff that we feel like is still organically interesting, but also that we can marry partner dollars into on a weekly basis.
I personally incorporate engagement rate into a lot of what I consider to be successful or important. I think there are a lot of names in the industry with large audiences that get way more engagement. And so that’s great. But I like to think that almost every post that we put out is fascinating to our readers and audience. We pride ourselves on having an audience that’s really engaged and loyal to what we do.
AR: What do you feel the biggest keys are in developing text-based material into strong social content?
MB: You don’t want your readers to feel click-baited when you’re plugging a story. There are sites that will do that. You know, “click here for the answer” and things like that. We try to avoid that.
When we try to drive people, and I actually got this from Mr. Beast of all places, he always talks about delivering whenever he says he’s going to do something. He has thumbnails and headlines, “This time I filled my house with a million marbles.” And then he will actually fill his house with a million marbles versus accounts that say something and then you watch the video, you’re like, ‘Where’s the part where they did this is what I clicked for.’
When we build stuff, I want people to leave feeling like they got what they came for. Scroll through and learn about this thing for the first time. But also if I say ‘Hey, link bio,’ and they’re like, ‘Okay, I will go to your bio and click this post’ they get to the story. I’m not overpromising on something. I’m actually giving them valuable information about something that they feel like they’ve been rewarded for following, engaging and reading.
AR: For FOS, the money is in traffic, right? That’s how you pay your bills. Do you see social as almost like a sort of different approach? Like it’s not always about driving traffic, it’s more about like building a brand identity?
MB: Yes. For some platforms I’d even argue that it’s not at all about driving traffic. TikTok, I think is a good example. For the most part, people are not on TikTok to read articles. We’re not getting traffic dollars from that directly. But maybe we build a really cool franchise that lives on TikTok and that franchise has a partner. Now we are getting dollars.
We know that people aren’t getting on TikTok to see commercials. So we want to make it feel like something that would live on TikTok organically.
Over time, people follow, and you establish an audience. Then you’re able to do almost whatever you want with the audience. But it’ll never come if you’re obsessed with prioritizing the wrong things on the wrong platforms.
For several years, one singular question has persisted in media circles: When will Netflix get into the sports game? I don’t know that anyone ever pegged the WWE as its first partner.
So it was quite a shock to see the announcement that Monday Night Raw would begin airing on Netflix in 2025 as part of a massive $5 billion deal.
Make no mistake about it: this is an absolute win for the wrestling promotion. There is simply no other way to view it. You could argue it might be a bad thing for the WWE to put its marquee TV product on a streaming-only platform, but this isn’t your average streaming service. This is Netflix. Thee streaming service. By the time the contract begins, Netflix will be in as many — if not more — homes than cable.
But the intrigue will be there from non-sports entertainment fans, too. I’m sure the WWE doesn’t have much negative to say about USA Network, but it is one of those channels you have to go specifically find. On Netflix? Monday Night Raw is absolutely going to be featured front-and-center on the preeminent streaming platform, which will make it drastically easier to draw in new fans.
However, I think it’s important to view this deal from a 1,000-foot view and look at where things looked headed before the Netflix deal. After it was announced FOX Sports wasn’t going to retain its rights for SmackDown and the show would be moving to USA, there were major questions about what players were going to be interested in shelling out the money that Monday Night Raw would command.
The WWE’s biggest TV property — outside of its standalone pay-per-view events like the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania — was hitting the market at one of the worst times in recent memory. The NBA TV deal is coming up, NASCAR recently struck a new deal, the College Football Playoffs are expanding, and not to mention a college conference with more than 100 years of history just collapsed explicitly because it didn’t get the television revenue it expected.
No one had any reason to expect Netflix would be a major player or a potential savior for the promotion. It had shown lukewarm — which is probably being kind — interest in being a home for sports content outside of a documentary series here and there.
But to its credit, the WWE isn’t on a similar playing field as the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, college football, or whatever league you’d like to point out. The company’s brand is built around storytelling, which the streaming platform is obviously going to be interested in.
I’ve shared in this space before I’m the casualist of casual WWE fans. I’ll watch the Royal Rumble on Saturday (and likely say “Who the f— is that guy?” several times), and won’t watch again until Wrestlemania. But I can’t pretend that it won’t be significantly easier for me to engage with the company’s content going forward when it begins airing Monday Night Raw on Netflix in 2025.
My immediate reaction to seeing the news was questioning what the partnership means for the future of the WWE Network, which is currently housed on Peacock. There is still plenty of time to figure that out, but if things go well between Netflix and WWE in the first portion of the deal, could an expanded partnership be on the horizon?
Let’s not put the cart before the horse.
Ultimately, a Netflix and WWE partnership makes plenty of sense. Despite it not being a landing spot that jumped off the page over and over again, WWE brass deserve high praise for their ability to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the proverbial hat. At a time when it appeared as if options for Monday Night Raw were dwindling, the company’s executives pulled off a deal that not only gives the promotion a boatload of cash, but also puts it in one of the most envious positions in all of sports media — on the front page of the streaming revolution.
It’s a win for the WWE, as it now sees a massive expanded reach. It’s a win for Netflix, who can now justify an increase — and potentially a drastic one at that — in its subscription fees. The wrestling promotion will make a boatload of money in merchandise, branded segments, and other avenues with the deal, and the streaming platform will make boatloads of money from new subscriptions, advertising revenue (don’t think for one second that you’re about to get three hours of uninterrupted Monday Night Raw), and other avenues.
It’s a rare media rights deal that both sides and walk out of the meeting room feeling incredibly good about the deal just struck.
As the presidential race transitions from the Iowa caucus to the New Hampshire primary, the candidates are ramping up their public appearances to help garner support, with Nikki Haley making appearances, and Ron DeSantis dropping out of the race. However, one of the previously planned public events did not take place.
Following the Jan. 15 Iowa caucus, former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley declined an invitation to a scheduled Jan. 18 debate in New Hampshire (that had been slated to air on the ABC network), citing she would only participate if she were debating Donald Trump or President Joe Biden.
Republican frontrunner Trump has yet to take part in any of the debates thus far in this election cycle and was not going to be present for this one either.
Without Trump nor Haley, ABC canceled that debate.
Instead, on Jan. 18, Haley appeared for a New Hampshire town hall on CNN. Hosted by Jake Tapper, Haley’s town hall posted 819,000 viewers including approximately 171,000 (more exact data, to come) within the key 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research. In addition, CNN’s post-town hall analysis averaged 670,000 viewers and about 159,000 adults 25-54 from 10:10-11 PM Eastern.
Among the non-Trump town halls to air on CNN within the past calendar year, only one other town hall drew a larger total audience than Haley on Jan. 18: former GOP presidential candidate and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie from June 12, 2023, with 1.347 million viewers. The caveat for that summer night being more heavily watched was due to what was to come on the following day (June 13): Donald Trump arriving in Miami to be arraigned on federal charges for the possession of classified documents.
Nikki Haley outdrew even herself from June 4 (562,000 viewers).
Just two days prior to Haley’s New Hampshire event, the now-former Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis also held a CNN town hall (on Jan. 16) which drew 579,000 viewers but delivered a similar demo performance in 25-54 (~171,000) as Haley.
Even though these figures are above-average for CNN in primetime, Fox News Channel has drawn bigger total audiences for its town halls this year, as evidenced during the previous week, prior to the Jan. 15 Iowa caucus: the 6 p.m. town halls of DeSantis from Jan. 8 (2.166 million total/256,000 adults 25-54) and Haley from Jan. 9 (2.248 million total/241,000 adults 25-54), and the controversial Trump town hall at 9 p.m. on Jan. 10 (4.426 million total/576,000 adult 25-54) that took place directly opposite a CNN Haley-DeSantis debate that evening.
The Big Ten women’s college basketball game on Sunday between Iowa and Ohio State averaged 1.93 million viewers on NBC and Peacock with a peak of 3.9 million during overtime from 2-2:18 p.m. EST. Despite a strong effort by Iowa, led by reigning AP Player of the Year award-winner Caitlin Clark, the Ohio State Buckeyes claimed the 100-92 upset victory.
On NBC stations alone, the game averaged 1.86 million viewers throughout its broadcast window, which began at 12 p.m. EST/9 a.m. PST. The viewership figure places the contest as the most-watched regular season women’s college basketball game on any network since 2010.
NBCUniversal is in the first year of its agreement with the Big Ten Conference, for which it is paying a reported $350 million a year to air football and basketball games. According to the original terms of the deal, Peacock will air 77 regular season men’s and women’s basketball contests. The network recently completed the first season of its B1G Saturday Night broadcasts featuring play-by-play announcer Noah Eagle, color commentator Todd Blackledge and sideline reporter Kathryn Tappen. The company also came to terms on a new contract with the University of Notre Dame, ensuring Fighting Irish home games remain on NBC platforms through the 2029 season.
Peacock will continue its slate of exclusive Big Ten women’s basketball games – which includes more than 20 games streaming live on the platform this season – this Thursday at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST. The featured matchup will include Ohio State, ranked No. 12 in the country, visiting Illinois to face the Fighting Illini.
Earlier today, CBS News announced the death of former anchor Charles Osgood. The former CBS Sunday Morning anchor and CBS News Radio host died to complications related to dementia at the age of 91.
In response, NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt released a statement honoring the life, memory, and career of the CBS News anchor.
“Charles Osgood was a true icon in the world of broadcasting. His distinctive voice and unique storytelling ability made him a beloved figure in homes across America, particularly through his work on CBS Sunday Morning,” said LeGeyt.
“As an inductee of the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame, Charles’ contributions to radio and journalism were extraordinary, leaving an indelible mark on the industry. NAB extends our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and the countless listeners and viewers who were touched by his remarkable work. Charles Osgood’s legacy will forever be a beacon of excellence in broadcasting.”
Last week, a report came down that the Los Angeles Times was looking at widespread layoffs, going as far as to ask the union to remove seniority restrictions to limit the damage.
Today, the layoffs began, with a reported 115 employees being let go in a widespread bloodletting.
Various reports claimed the publication’s entire Washington D.C. bureau was eliminated, with over various editorial, columnists, writers, and social media creators sharing on social media they had departed the outlet.
I was laid off today. Winning a Pulitzer was one honor of my life. Another, leading the Washington Bureau as its first person of color and only second woman. https://t.co/xYf3MyQNmZ
I’ve been laid off from my job as a columnist for the LA Times today, with 100 of my best colleagues. It’s a dark day. I was the only Latina columnist for the opinion desk. Trump is looming & I’m author of Hatemonger. If you're hiring, I’m at jeangue619@gmail.com
Last year, @meridak asked me to lead the @latimes' coverage of the 2024 election cycle.
The Times laid me off today, so someone else will have to take on that task. But I'm proud of the plan we put together and the work we've done. I will be rooting for LAT in the months ahead.
This isn't the kind of report I was planning to publish today: I'm among those laid off at the L.A. Times. I'm grateful for five-plus years at the best job I've ever had.
I’ve been laid off from my job covering food at the LA Times. If you’ve ever clicked on a piece I’ve written or watched a video I’ve made: Thank you. I will now delete Slack, which will feel amazing.
Well, I’ve been laid off from the @latimes today after 2+ years. Sending my best to the nearly 100 other staffers caught up in this. Proud of what I and my colleagues accomplished building the Fast Break team from scratch. Proud to have been a part of the @LATLatinoCaucus.
I’ve been laid off from the LA Times. It’s been my dream publication since J-school. Here’s to bigger things! I’m open to freelance and full-time positions. Reach out at svargascreative@gmail.com For more info on my work, check out my website https://t.co/wzCp0J1b7Y
The LA Times laid us off in an HR zoom webinar with chat disabled, no q&a, no chance to ask questions. As a colleague described it, “that was like a drive-by.” https://t.co/CYmSedLMRF
Well, unfortunately I'm among those who were laid off by LAT today, among many other brilliant and dedicated colleagues both inside and outside our union. If you're looking for a tech reporter with experience on the AI or social media beats, I'm at briancontreras42 'at' gmail
Sad to say I'm included in this layoff, and several members of my incredible team. The talent level of those who are leaving is sky-high, please read on if you want to make LAT's loss your news org's gain. https://t.co/XQ1VnU4VTQ
I have a lot to say about being an all-too-rare Indigenous leader at a legacy newsroom, about what I set out to accomplish with 404, the work we did and the community we built; making the unseen, seen.
Know this – this is not the last you'll hear from me.
I was laid off from the LA Times this morning with over 100 of my colleagues, the hard-working people who made this place great. It’s a blow to local journalism, Los Angeles and the West.
