Booking guests for sports media programs takes stellar planning in advance and ensuring that people can be accommodated within the overall schedule. For his weekly podcast, Stugotz welcomes various guests from around the world of sports and media, some of whom are set to appear on the next edition include Austin Ekler and Marcus Spears. As it usually goes for a typical week, things can be planned but there needs to be adaptability to shape the show into something that is timely and enjoyable for the audience.
Stugotz has an obligation on Thursdays that prevents him from taping the podcast that day, but various segments are compiled throughout the week. The show is published at 6 AM ET every Friday, a difficult time slot to book guests around the country. Therefore, pre-recording segments in advance is necessary to put together the best program. Yet sometimes, the changes happen quicker than anticipated, leaving people associated with the show scrambling to try and effectuate all of the projects in motion.
“We hang up the phone, and three hours later, things have changed and Spagnola is in play and we’re talking to some coach from some team and then it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m going to reach out to Jimmy Johnson; see if you can get the boat captain on and maybe we follow up with Nitro again this week and the fantasy guy,’” show producer Billy Gil said on Tuesday morning’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz.
“What we agreed to being a lighter week – which still isn’t light because it’s like six interviews – has now turned into potentially 13 and it’s all, ‘Can you see if they can do tomorrow or the next day?,’ and it’s like, ‘Well, no. They can’t do tomorrow or the next day.’”
Gil asked Stugotz when he thinks everyone will have time to record the conversations, especially considering he is unable to record the program on Thursday. Recognizing the error of his ways, he stated that it was a fair point and apologized.
“You throw out a bunch of requests and you get a couple; that’s the game,” Stugotz expressed. “That’s the game.”
Greg Cote, a contributor to the program and venerated columnist for the Miami Herald, wanted to know why the guests did not acquiesce to the request from the program so it could effectively flow. Le Batard immediately responded to the assertion.
“This is Greg Cote,” Le Batard said. “Greg Cote does believe that the world lives to serve at his every whim, so too does Stugotz.”
Bill Koenig, the president of global content and media distribution for the NBA, recently stated during an appearance at Sports Business Journal’s Media Innovators Conference that the league will likely pursue a “hybrid” approach for its local sports rights.
Namely, teams would sell the local linear television rights and the league would combine the digital rights into a package it would be able to sell to a streaming company. This follows a similar model to the NHL, which allows viewers to watch various out-of-market games using the NHL Power Play feature with any standard ESPN+ subscription.
While making these remarks, Koening stated that the plan is more of a “longer-term approach” and something in which various digital companies, such as Amazon and Apple, have already demonstrated interest. Moreover, traditional media companies that operate direct-to-consumer services, such as existing rightsholders in The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, have also expressed interest in such a package.
“They’re not as interested in negotiating team by team when a particular team comes available,” Koenig said. “But if we can deliver scale or deliver a critical mass and maybe even include it as part of a national arrangement we’re negotiating right now, those opportunities are very intriguing.”
The NBA recently reached an agreement with Diamond Sports Group that will keep games on the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks through the end of the 2023-24 season. After that, the Association will regain control over the 15 local media rights for its teams one year ahead of negotiations for a new media rights deal. Several teams outside of that cluster have unveiled over-the-air broadcast television functionality and direct-to-consumer options as consumers continue to engage in cord-cutting at a hastened rate.
Although the league is in agreement, it is prepared to broadcast games similarly to what Major League Baseball did through its local media department to continue presenting and disseminating regional broadcasts for the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. Diamond Sports Group reportedly expects to retain 10 of the 12 rights packages within Major League Baseball for the 2024 season, an outcome of which the league wants to gain insight as soon as possible.
Koenig underscored the league’s commitment to local television and divulged that it has had talks with broadcast station groups and distributors in the event it forgoes the utilization of regional sports networks.
According to John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, the deal between the NBA and Diamond Sports Group reduces rights fees for 2023-24 by 16% to end contracts in April, something that is pending approval at a hearing that will take place next week.
The league also reportedly has an opt-out should Charter Communications choose to drop Diamond Sports Group in its upcoming carriage negotiations.
New data from Cumulus Media/Westwood One’s Audio Active Group has been released, showing AM/FM Radio rose 13%, which is an eight-year high for the medium.
Since 2016, AM/FM Radio has seen fluxations between 37.6% and 43.9% of time spent listening, according to the data. However, that figure rose to 45% compared to the 38.2% it saw in the final quarter of last year. That 45% number is tied for the fourth quarter of 2019 as the highest percentage in recent years.
Late last month, new information from the Edison Research Share of Ear study showed that 37% of daily audio consumption was spent with terrestrial radio and streaming audio. Podcast listening has reached its highest levels, with 11% of total audio time spent listening to on-demand podcasts.
While the news is positive, data shows that 82% of marketing professionals have returned to working in an office setting, which lags behind the 94% of other Americans who report working in the office.
Fox Business Network has announced Kelly Saberi as its newest Chicago-based correspondent.
Before joining the network, Saberi served as a reporter for Good Day Austin, the FOX affiliate in the Texas capital. She also previously worked as a weekend evening anchor at the NBC affiliate in Topeka.
It isn’t Saberi’s first intro to Fox News. While attending the University of Miami, she worked as a college associate for The Story with Martha MacCallum in 2017.
Saberi will step into the role vacated by Grady Trimble, who moved to a Washington D.C.-based correspondent role for Fox Business earlier this year.
Earlier this year, reports surfaced that the contract between Spotify and Joe Rogan was set to expire in 2023. The company denied those reports. New details claim the contract expires next year.
According to a report from The Verge, the licensing deal between the digital audio company and The Joe Rogan Experience ends in 2024, and neither side has agreed to an extension.
The report featured a quote from Arete Research founder Richard Kramer, who said Spotify is in a difficult position with the often controversial host.
“It’s a situation where you are damned if you do, and you are damned if you don’t,” Kramer said. “If you do keep him, Spotify will be locked into paying Rogan as much or more than before, at a time when they need to contain costs. If you don’t keep him, then it’s really tough because your biggest property and source of sales within the ad business — walks.”
One could infer that Rogan has tested the waters of what his podcast reach would be outside of his Spotify partnership. Last week, Rogan published a podcast episode to X, formerly Twitter, that featured an interview with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. As of publication, the video has garnered 33 million views according to X’s publicly available metrics.
It was widely reported in 2020 that Rogan and Spotify had agreed to a three-year deal valued at $200 million.
According to former CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter’s forthcoming book, “Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy,” Fox News host Jeanine Pirro was described as a “reckless maniac” by her own executive producer. A preview of the book shared in the Daily Beast’s Confider newsletter on Monday revealed details about Pirro’s tumultuous relationship with Fox News management.
The book discloses that Fox News management initially considered Jeanine Pirro’s transition to a regular co-host on The Five a demotion. This move followed the cancellation of her weekend show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, which had played a significant role in promoting the false claim that the 2020 election was manipulated, partly due to Dominion Voting Systems. Fox News ultimately reached a settlement of $787.5 million with Dominion in the aftermath of these allegations.
According to two unnamed sources cited by Stelter, Jeanine Pirro was considered a troublesome figure at Fox News due to her unwavering loyalty to Trump and her confrontations with Fox executives weary of her dramatic antics.
Allegedly, when Fox News management suggested modifications to the opening monologues of her weekend show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, Pirro accused them of “censorship.”
Stelter’s book reveals that Pirro’s behavior had become so difficult to handle that even her own executive producer labeled her as a “reckless maniac.” Consequently, because “nobody wanted to deal with her,” as one of the sources noted, Pirro was reassigned to The Five, where she no longer had control over crafting monologues or selecting her own guests.
Although Pirro’s move to The Five resulted in a significantly larger viewership, Stelter pointed out that this transition might not have been the most comfortable role for a former prosecutor in her seventies. This change was more convenient for “the managers and lawyers.”
KNBR’s search for a new program director is over. BSM has confirmed the Bay Area Sports Leader is promoting Adam Copeland from within, filling the vacant role previously held by Kevin Graham who left the station in late August. He’s expected to oversee KNBR 104.5/680, KNBR 1050, and 810 The Spread.
Copeland moves into the role despite no prior programming experience. He does however have a number of believers inside the company who feel he’s ready for the challenge.
Larry Blumhagen, Regional Vice President//Market Manager, Cumulus San Francisco and Los Angeles, said: “We are excited to have Adam Copeland as Program Director for these iconic stations. In his active role as a KNBR on-air personality, Adam has a connection with our listeners and a unique grasp of what they want from our platforms. We believe Adam will lead these great Sports stations to new heights.”
Adam Copeland added: “For a kid who grew up in the Bay Area listening to KNBR, being named the station’s Program Director is beyond any dream and opportunity I could’ve imagined. I could not be more excited. I want to thank Cumulus and Larry Blumhagen, as well as Dave Milner and Bruce Gilbert for their confidence in me. I started at KNBR as an in 2009, but I wouldn’t have found the love and success in the various roles I’ve held since without so many colleagues and friends who have helped me along the way. The KNBR brand has been a pillar of the Bay Area sports landscape for decades, and I look forward to providing our listeners with the most informative and entertaining content that best represents us, Bay Area sports fans. I can’t wait to get started.”
During his time at KNBR, Copeland has worked his way up the ladder. He joined the station in 2009 as an intern in the promotions department and was later hired as a part-time board operator. In 2017, he was promoted to full-time producer of “KNBR Tonight,” was then named host of “The Leadoff Spot,” from 5am-6am, and served as producer/board operator of the “Murph and Mac Show.” In 2018 he added co-hosting duties on the San Francisco Giants pre-game show and joined KNBR’s coverage of 49ers pre- and post-game shows before landing the coveted co-host role in afternoons opposite Tom Tolbert in February 2022.
The promotion for Copeland doesn’t signal the end of his on-air run. He’s expected to remain in his current role of afternoon co-host. Reaction to the move locally was mixed. Some were excited to see what Copeland could do with the increased responsibility. Others wondered why management would elevate a talented but inexperienced individual and put them in a situation that requires co-hosting a four-hour drive-time show.
KNBR bounced back last quarter after a subpar spring book. The station finished ahead of its local competition 95.7 The Game in mornings but trailed in middays and afternoons. Getting that reversed becomes top priority now for Copeland.
Over the weekend college football fans were treated to the final regular season edition of CFB Primetime with The Pat McAfee Show, and this time College GameDay host Rece Davis joined McAfee, Tone Diggs, Ty Schmidt, Boston Connor, and Darius Butler in the Thunderdome in Indianapolis.
The alternate broadcast took on an NFL RedZone feel, and got promoted as the college football version of RedZone in the days leading up to it, as the group bounced from game to game on ESPN platforms. On The Pat McAfee Show on Monday, Pat said Rece took their vision for the production to another level.
“Love Rece Davis. We would like to tell Rece Davis thank you,” McAfee said. “And for all those that watched alongside of us on Saturday night, thank you too. That was a brand new concept that got thrown together. Didn’t even know it was possible.”
“Rece Davis was the perfect person, because he has all the information, all the time, about everything,” Pat McAfee continued. “And then also he can host, guide, play-by-play and knows where the hell we’re going. He was phenomenal, I will say. So thank you to Rece. Can’t thank you enough.”
He also praised the ESPN folks in Bristol on the technical and production side for making everything go and go smoothly.
McAfee did say he found it interesting that at one point in the middle of their broadcast, they received a call from CBS saying they were too quick in providing updates on the air of the LSU/Alabama game.
“Excited to see what the contract actually reads to what’s too quick in whose eyes if we ever do that again in the future,” he said. “But like great work by everybody.”
As the 2023 NBA Finals reached their conclusion, viewers may have noticed the Ball Arena crowd inundated with people wearing shirts that had the letters “DNVR” printed across the front. These articles of clothing were not made by the team, nor were they perpetuated by a traditional apparel brand or given away by a company looking for media attention. They were produced by ALLCITY Network, a startup media venture making waves in the digital space and implicitly challenging the existing paradigm.
The streaming-first media company focused on the intersection of sports and lifestyle, has held several funding rounds and received investor-backed capital to catalyze its expansion. The platform enables sports fans to consume daily podcasts about local teams in select cities with a wide array of credible voices to appeal to the audience.
The brand refers to itself as a lifestyle company and also holds events and sells merchandise, the latter of which is, by itself, a multi-million dollar business, the second-largest driver of revenue for the company. Brandon Spano serves as the company’s chief executive officer, overseeing the development and expansion of the brand he co-founded in the mid-2010s.
“It’s incredibly important for us to have brand affinity,” Spano told BSM. “We have player ambassadors that wear our merchandise – we don’t even ask them to. You might go to a press conference one day and a player’s wearing one of our shirts or hats, and so we obviously love that.”
Throughout the calendar year, the company delivers nearly 40,000 shipments of merchandise and continues to work on bolstering its revenue in the space. Yet the largest driver of revenue comes from advertising, with six minutes of commercials encompassing a standard hour-long program.
The sector comprises 70% of ALLCITY Network’s total revenue, a steep figure because of the rapid audience expansion taking place across its conglomerate of networks. As a result, it can be an onerous task for other sources of earnings to keep up, a relatively advantageous problem to have between funding rounds.
Some professionals working in traditional areas of sports media, such as radio, television and print outlets, view ALLCITY Network and other brands akin to it as a threat. The initial premise of the business contained Denver team-specific podcasts that took place a few times per week, gradually moving to daily broadcasts as consumers craved more.
“We took it to market and sold directly against radio and RSNs and everyone else,” Spano said. “That was unique because we essentially had a podcast network that was on a traffic log that I had built that was similar to what I would build for radio, and we took our podcasts straight to market.”
Spano himself worked in sports media as a featured columnist with Bleacher Report and a contributor for NBC Sports. During that time, he began hosting his own weekend radio show on a brokered station, meaning that he paid a monthly studio fee to broadcast and solicited his own advertising revenue. His goal was to operate in the green, attaining more earnings and limiting operating costs, and he found himself particularly skilled in the practice.
Once the station moved to the FM dial and his show entered the weekday schedule, he sold more inventory and purchased other Denver media properties. He had a deluge of commercial inventory across different networks and operated in all spaces except digital, prompting the creation of BSN Denver. The website provided his clientele potential ventures in the digital space and a canvas of creativity for Spano to try and revolutionize the way sports media is consumed.
“It started as just a website, but then we launched podcasts, and then podcasts went daily the next year, and we kind of added a thing each year,” Spano said. “I went to market and sold it and created a program for it, just like I did all the other years when I was buying and selling media. To me, that idea [of] you can create anything and sell it and package it; that stayed with me forever, and so that was a constant.”
Spano claims that ALLCITY Network in Denver, known as DNVR Sports, is the largest sports network in the locale and has the most influence among local fans. Moreover, he states that more fans engage with the platform than anyone else covering the city’s sports, something that can only be done by delivering informative, entertaining and compelling content.
“This model was fully put together by 2019, we added live video in 2020 and I think by 2021 is when you saw this thing become exactly what it is now,” Spano said, “which is a daily show, in-studio for every team, every day; written content around those teams; merchandising; events [and] everything really firing on all cylinders.”
ALLCITY Network has been labeled by some as a disruptor to sports radio. Spano believes that is a “big misconception” about his brand. Previous transactions demonstrate that the aural medium in general has been evident throughout its recruiting efforts, underscored by its purchase of existing podcasts and the addition of network personalities Adam Hoge and Olin Kreutz for the CHGO Sports launch in Chicago last year. Since then, the company has raised approximately $5.3 million, adding to the total of $8.3 million that it received through venture capital and investors.
CHGO was preceded by the addition of PHNX Sports, which was unveiled in the fourth quarter of 2021 and marked the company’s first foray outside of Denver. The platform added talent such as Craig Morgan, Greg Esposito and Lindsey Smith, and has been able to capitalize off of successful seasons by the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks. None of the individual networks are facsimile per se, but they all helped generate a combined audience of 17 million people last quarter.
“I think there’s a lot of ways that we could help radio, but they’re so territorial and they’re so predatory that they refuse anyone’s help because old media has to own everything,” Spano said. “That’s an old media concept, and they can’t collaborate with anybody else and they have to own everything.”
When ALLCITY enters a new market, it purchases a six thousand to 10,000 square-foot office space that houses sales, production, social media and management departments. Additionally, it constructs studios on par or exceeding regional sports networks. Last month, the company launched PHLY Sports in Philadelphia, a sports market Spano believes has the potential to collect $10 million in revenue. The projection is predicated on reaching full maturity and a point within a larger goal to bring the network to cash flow positive inside of the first year.
“We don’t pay license fees; there’s no rights fees; there’s no signal cost,” Spano said. “We own our distribution, so we don’t do any marketing; we pay no marketing. Everything we do is through social media, so the model makes sense.”
The company also recently unveiled a national network featuring trusted voices in the sports media space. Its hire of Anthony Gargano, which coincided with the start of the Philadelphia network, was viewed as controversial since the sports radio host violated the non-compete clause in his contract with Beasley Media Group to ink the deal.
The former 97.5 The Fanatic host was sued by his former employer for breach of contract, but came to terms on a preliminary injunction that prohibits him from working on the PHLY Sports platform or contributing to sports media content specifically targeted to the Philadelphia marketplace, as defined by Nielsen for six months. Gargano was looking to work at both outlets simultaneously, but for now, he is restricted to the national platform while continuing his work with FOX Sports Radio and starting a sports betting podcast with Parx Casino.
“We are not trying to go wide and shallow on this, which means that we’re not trying to just have the cheapest people and spin out a million shows and try to aggregate as much of an audience as we can that isn’t very engaged,” he stated. “We’re going the opposite [way] – we want the absolute most important people in their communities when it comes to these teams, and we want to hire them full time and have them cover and create content for these teams full time to where every fan has a 24/7 touchpoint with that team through these people.”
The ALL NFL podcast, which premiered last week, also features Brian Baldinger, a former NFL offensive lineman and current host and analyst for NFL Network. ALLCITY Network’s vice president of creative content and former Nuggets reporter Adam Mares is joined by ESPN analyst and SiriusXM host Tim Legler on the ALL NBA show. For the launch of the Philadelphia network, Spano hired several former writers from The Athletic and took to the marketplace 20 total employees, all of whom are full time.
Introducing ALLCITY National!
A new lineup of national shows featuring some of your favorite personalities… with more to come soon ???? pic.twitter.com/82L1SRz5dZ
The company says it was about to hit profitability prior to the introduction of PHLY Sports and ALLCITY National. Although ALLCITY Network originally had non-compete clauses in its contracts because it was the industry-standard, Spano states that 95% of his employees entering 2024 will be at will.
“I have a real problem with this idea that these major corporations are laying off dozens, if not hundreds of people, quarter-over-quarter, and then the people that they don’t lay off, they say they cannot look for jobs or work anywhere else,” Spano affirmed. “That’s just not good business, and it’s giving sports media a bad wrap. Sports radio right now, because of those actions, is giving sports media a bad look. It’s a very dangerous game.”
Spano articulates that traditional media brands view the marketplace as being territorial, whereas ALLCITY Network is interested in forging partnerships. The brand is focused on its own growth as it plans for the future, but it is open for opportunities to collaborate and innovate in an effort to help enhance other brands as well.
“I don’t think that there’s a long runway for radio, but as far as we’re concerned, we are not trying to shorten that; we’re not trying to be divisive,” Spano said. “We would love to work with radio stations and RSNs and anybody else who wants to collaborate. We do not look at sports media, whether it’s local or national, as a territory to be won.”
WE ARE LIVE ????
Philadelphia Eagles’ @LaneJohnson65 joins our first show and breaks down A.J. Brown’s playmaking & his epic Jason Kelce costume.
With the ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group and uncertainty surrounding the future of regional sports networks, an opportunity exists for ALLCITY Network to cut through and grow. The company is focused on bringing fans as close to the game as possible through its content, something that, in the future, could include the contests themselves.
“We were in talks with multiple teams this year about being the exclusive digital broadcast partner of their audio,” Spano revealed. “We have other potential partnerships on content for digital as well. That’s something we’re really interested in.”
The key to its expansion, which Spano projects to include doubling the size of the company and launching another local market, will be bringing each city to profitability as expeditiously as possible. At the moment, DNVR achieves substantial profits and PHNX has just hit the mark with CHGO being very close. Along with working on launching a free ad-supported television (FAST) channel in the future, the company has been able to sell advertising space prior to launch. Furthermore, consumers can purchase an annual membership for $79.99 that provides discounts on merchandise and events, along with access to an exclusive Discord server.
“We’re only going to get better and better and faster and faster,” Spano said, “and maybe one day we can get to a point where we can strategically open these at profitability each time. Who knows, but that’s a central goal for us.”
Most traditional broadcasting outlets have large amounts of programming inventory they need to manage, making it difficult to prioritize the production and selling of digital content. In focusing on their core product, some brands treat digital media as a secondary means of dissemination and do not appropriate the necessary budget to catalyze growth in the space. For ALLCITY Network, the central focus remains on cultivating an optimal digital experience and remaining committed to building micro-communities through its content.
“We’ve created something for our audience,” Spano said. “We have stayed digital; we have stayed true to our brand and what we are and what’s important to us. If other people change because of that or view that as a threat, that’s on them, but we have never tried to intentionally create something that either mimics or beats something else.”
The company sells a combined audience number based on engagement both on aural and visual platforms. Within its Chicago market, for example, Spano’s company touts a combined audience surpassing 1 million people per month. The brand also garners recognition and engagement through other sectors of its business.
“We should be working together; we should be making content together [and] we should be doing simulcasts and having our sales teams work together,” Spano said. “That’s what the message should be instead of them just holding on to their cash and trying to hope we go out of business before they do.”
ALLCITY wants to root itself as a cultural pillar within marketplaces. It has a strategy for raising capital that it will certainly need to infuse within given areas to attain that goal. Continuing to gear itself towards attaining cash flow positive while augmenting its cost per thousand impressions (CPM) metric is salient towards reaching sustainability. The company is not fixated on conquering traditional media; rather it is presenting itself as another option accessible to consumers through a variety of platforms.
“When we launch a market inside of a city, we’re not saying, ‘This is the new Bulls podcast in Chicago,’” Spano explained. “We’re saying, ‘This is CHGO – it’s your new sports network, and if you’d like to watch this postgame show instead of NBC [Sports] Chicago, you certainly can. If you’d like to listen to this Bears show instead of The Score, you certainly can.’”
Being able to prevent the effort from resulting in an evanescent run will require persistence and determination to keep the company on its upward trajectory. After all, it operated its inaugural DNVR Sports network for five years without any venture capital and had to do everything on its own. ALLCITY Network has discovered a formula to be able to monetize its content while minimizing its burn, a concept that is not going to change just because it has raised capital.
“We are no longer in a world where you can just carry a company for years that doesn’t generate profit,” Spano said. “The market demands that there is a path to profitability. We’ve proven that there is.”
ALLCITY Network will engage in another funding round at a point to be determined. Depending on its performance over the next 18 months, the company will adjust its allocations into growth accordingly. The immediate task at hand is earning more sales for PHLY Sports and ALLCITY National while continuing to build and maintain relationships across its other properties.
“Without sharing sales numbers, we would hope that if we do our jobs right, that we would be valued at well over $100 million next time that we raise money,” Spano said. “We have a lot of work to do.”
The Miami Dolphins played the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday in Frankfurt, Germany, and team color commentator and 560 WQAM host Joe Rose took part in the overnight trek back across the Atlantic after the game.
All told the flight from Frankfurt to Miami International Airport was around 10 hours. Rose was able to get back home in time to be live on the air hosting his weekday morning show Monday at 6 AM.
Rose did say that the long-haul flight back to South Florida dragged on.
“It took forever, man. I gotta tell you,” he said before mentioning that authorities at the airport in Germany were a bit more stringent than most Americans experience dealing with TSA.
“They got some serious security over there,” he said. “They make ours seem a little soft to be honest. And you know how that is, right, going through it.”
Joe also mentioned that the NFL and Frankfurt law enforcement were top-notch in keeping everyone safe while they were there.
“There was serious security around the team for sure,” he said. “It was a pretty safe place to be if you’re around the Miami Dolphins team.”
