Home Blog Page 1975

Howard Kurtz: Rupert Murdoch is the Reason Democrats Watch Fox News

BNM Staff
-
0

Fox News Media Buzz host Howard Kurtz talked about the legacy of Rupert Murdoch, who announced that he will be stepping down from his position as the head of both Fox and News Corp. boards.  

In a letter released last week, the 92-year-old media mogul explained that his son Lachlan will replace him as the sole chairman of both companies. While Rupert Murdoch will retain the title of chairman emeritus, his son will take over the reins of the two media giants. 

“Rupert Murdoch started out 70 years ago after inheriting a small Australian newspaper from his father,” said Kurtz on Sunday. “He acquired other papers over the years, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal, whose character he pledged to preserve and did.”  

Kurtz said it’s hard to overstate the scope of the industries that Murdoch transformed. Murdoch created a fourth TV network, which was the Fox Broadcast Network.  

“Which such iconic hits as The Simpsons,” Kurtz said. “Stunning the sports world by outbidding CBS to air NFL games, and of course, the creation of Fox News.”  

Murdoch also got into book publishing by purchasing Harper Collins and became a movie mogul by buying 20th Century Fox before selling the studio to Disney four years ago.  

“The billionaire leans right, but he’s a pragmatist, supporting politicians of different stripes from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair to Ed Kotch of New York,” Kurtz continued. “He often spoke to President Trump but distanced himself after the tragedy of January 6th.”  

“While the Fox haters have been out in full force, it’s no accident that Fox News is watched by plenty of Democrats and independents.”  

Kurtz added that in the decade that he’s been at the network, he’s only talked to Murdoch a handful of times, which he says undercuts the notion that tells his hosts what to say.  

Marcus Spears is One of One

Demetri Ravanos
-
0
Marcus Spears is One of One

Paychecks for the likes of Stephen A. Smith and Troy Aikman make headlines. The hiring and promotion of Pat McAfee started an industry-wide conversation. They all matter to ESPN, but none of them are as valuable to the network as Marcus Spears.

If that was something you didn’t know, it should be clear after last week when he took an entertaining moment on First Take, and turned it into the central conversation on social media just by naturally reacting to Chris Russo’s weekend plans.

Sports media is the entertainment business. Knowledge and insight are great, but they are useless if you are not interesting enough to hold the audience’s attention. Even the most successful and seasoned veterans in our industry can lose sight of that reality. Spears never does and more importantly he regularly delivers in both areas.

Marcus Spears’s strength is his emotion. The man has absolutely no pokerface and that’s a good thing for the audience. His laugh is infectious. His facial expressions are memorable. He just makes for good TV.

Coaches and producers are looking for the same thing. They need players and performers that are difference makers. They are stars and they can make stars out of the men and women around them. That is Spears to a tee.

For a man who earned a spot in the NFL Draft and banked millions by making quarterbacks’ lives hell, Spears has been heaven sent to the quarterbacks at ESPN. His partnership with Dan Orlovsky on NFL Live is the heartbeat of the show. Sure, Mina Kimes’s breakdowns are awesome and Adam Schefter’s information is what makes the show essential for so many fans, but it is the interplay between Spears and Orlovsky that makes the show entertaining. 

Spears is a Louisiana foodie from Baton Rouge. Orlovsky drinks red win with ice in it and thinks any spice beyond salt and pepper is too much. The fact that they not only get along, but genuinely love one another, makes the frustration Spears can feel for Orlovsky better than anything else in ESPN’s day time lineup.

The first time I met Spears, it was on the set of Thinking Out Loud, the show he did on the SEC Network with Greg McElroy and Alyssa Lang. Within five minutes of his arrival on set (he was dressed like Kiss’s Gene Simmons for the show’s Halloween 2018 episode), it was easy to see that he was the glue. 

I’m not the world’s biggest McElroy fan outside of game analysis, but Spears softened him and made the former Crimson Tide quarterback downright likable. That was the emotion shining through. Spears is insanely likable and he is fun to be around. You don’t have to be in the same room with him to know that. It comes through your TV screen when he is on. If he is cool with Greg McElroy, then the audience knows it can be too.

My mom adores Marcus Spears. She wants him to come to her home in Alabama so she can cook Greek food for him and listen to his stories. I told Marcus this when we met in 2018 and he responded “That’s not a surprise. Mamas love me.”

It was maybe the second or third thing we said to each other after “hello” and he already had me laughing and feeling like we were best friends. Not just anybody can do that.

But Spears does so much more than just make people feel good. Look at this clip of him on NFL Live in 2021 talking about the video of Urban Meyer receiving a lap dance from a woman that is not his wife at a restaurant in Ohio. 

Spears drew on his experience as a player in the league and on the opinions he had of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who Meyer had coached to an 0-4 record at that point, to deliver a scathing take down of a guy that is rightfully remembered as the worst coach in the history of the NFL. 

His thesis was clear. He was careful to note that he took his time to arrive at his conclusion, and his belief could not be shaken. That is then kind of conviction I want from a talking head demanding a coach should be fired.

Few people can communicate the way Marcus Spears can. He is clear with his opinions and finds the right balance between boldness and brevity. He is willing to answer any question you ask, but he answers in a way that is easy for the audience to digest and remember.

I just think the world of Spears as a TV presence. There are some people that are so entertaining as their authentic self that I could listen to them talk about anything and be captivated. Most of them are comedians. In the sports media world, Spears is one of one.

Chad Johnson Won’t Make Inside the NFL Sound Like Algebra

Peter Schwartz
-
0
Chad Johnson Won’t Make Inside the NFL Sound Like Algebra

During his 11-year NFL career, Chad Johnson always seemed to be a natural in front of the microphone. He was so comfortable around the media and so entertaining with what he had to say, that one would think the six-time Pro Bowl wide receiver always had his sights set on eventually being involved in the media. 

“No, I never really thought about it honestly, but it’s something that I enjoy doing,” said Johnson who is now an analyst on the new season of Inside the NFL on The CW Network Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET.

The show was launched 47 years ago and was a staple for many years on HBO and Showtime. Inside the NFL takes a look at the previous week’s action captured by NFL Films with a behind the scenes look how at how the games unfolded.

The long-running show has always been prime real estate when it comes to sports television, and Johnson is honored to be a part of it.  

‘It means a lot to me,” said Johnson will be enshrined into the Cincinnati Bengals Ring of Honor at halftime of Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Rams. “Obviously, this is something that I would never have thought I would ever be a part of so to be a part of something that is iconic and has great tradition behind it and something that was started a long time ago by Steve Sabol has been a tremendous honor.”

Johnson is part of a star-studded cast on Inside the NFL.

Ryan Clark, who spent 13 years as a safety in the NFL, including a Super Bowl XLIII title with the Pittsburgh Steelers, is the new host of Inside the NFL. He is also an analyst on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown and has been a regular contributor for ESPN shows including NFL Live and Get Up.

Being able to work with Clark has been very important to Johnson, who admits he is still getting his feet wet in broadcasting.

“Ryan is probably one of the best in the game at what he does,” said Johnson. “He’s very sharp, very smart and very media savvy. My expertise was being savvy with the media in front of the microphone more for entertainment purposes. Having Ryan and trying to follow behind him and what he does and how to do it the right way has been awesome.”

Channing Crowder spent six seasons in the NFL as a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins and now hosts a sports radio show in South Florida.

Jay Cutler, who spent 12 seasons playing in the NFL, was a Pro Bowl quarterback and spent time playing for the Denver Broncos, Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins.

And the cast is rounded out by Long, an 11-year NFL veteran who played defensive end for the St. Louis Rams, New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles.

It’s a cast that Johnson is very familiar with.

“Seeing the cast and seeing the people behind the scenes that I was going to have the opportunity to work with made my decision (to join the show) much easier,” said Johnson. “The chemistry is much better when you’re working with people you have certain things in common with and the fact that we all played makes it that much easier.”

While Johnson enjoys breaking down a game that was already played and looking ahead to the following week’s action, there is one aspect of being an analyst that has difficult for him.

As a former player, Johnson does not like having to criticize players who had a bad game. While other former players have found it easy to do, Johnson struggles with it but hopes to find a happy medium.

“It’s the nature of the beast so I’m going to find a way to navigate it and critique in a way that’s positive and not being so critical,” admitted Johnson. “I remember feeling bad and I don’t want to be the one on TV having to do the criticizing when I know what it feels like. It’s just something I have to deal with and I’ll find a way to navigate through it.”

Johnson does feel like he brings something special to the table in how he can break a game down, especially from an offensive perspective. He doesn’t want to confuse the audience so he has found an approach that he believes can help football fans understand what happened during a particular play or during an entire game.

“It’s been very exciting,” said Johnson who once competed on Dancing with the Stars. 

“A lot of people can relate because I can break it down in such a way where people will understand what I’m talking about and it’s just not X’s and O’s and it’s doesn’t feel like calculus. I break it down in simple terms using analogies that people will understand and that makes the game much easier to those that are watching.”

Johnson also likes bring out his crystal ball.

Once known as “Chad Ochocinco”, Johnson has his own segment on the show called “Ocho Predicto” where he picks the winner of one game each week.

He is 3-0 after Week 2 this season.

“Being the fact that I’m always right when it comes to picking games, it just made sense,” said Johnson. “I will probably go 17-0 this year and be able to guess the playoffs as well.” 

Chad Johnson has accomplished a lot during his football career and now he’s on the other side of the microphone and camera as an analyst. Now, as part of Inside the NFL, the entertaining and flamboyant Johnson appears to be on his way to excelling as part of the football media.

Robin Bertolucci Knows KFI’s Place in Talk Radio Isn’t Specifically on the Right

BNM Staff
-
0
Robin Bertolucci Knows KFI’s Place in Talk Radio Isn’t Specifically on the Right

Considering the many options and genres available to listeners, it’s quite an accomplishment for KFI-AM 640 in Los Angeles to be the top-streamed station on the iHeartRadio app. The station’s Program Director, Robin Bertolucci, has a unique approach to running a news/talk station.

Unlike many other stations that focus on political divisiveness, Robin Bertolucci recognizes and values each host’s distinct skill sets and personalities. She believes that listeners are more interested in hearing life experiences shared than having a particular point of view sold or forced upon them. 

KFI has a unique presence in Southern California. Over two decades ago, when Robin Bertolucci joined the station, she aimed to introduce more live and local content. Her goal was to provide Californians with a reliable platform to stay updated about their community at any time.

Fortunately, she had the advantage of being surrounded by exceptional talent on and off the air. However, the industry has undergone significant changes since she started. Nowadays, running a radio station involves competing against various factors, not just one station with a similar format. 

KFI has a significant advantage in its experienced newsroom and remarkable storytellers. Recently, reporter Steve Gregory traveled to Maui to report on the wildfires. Los Angeles serves as a primary entry point for travelers heading to Maui. Furthermore, the two places share strong economic ties through trade and business connections. Many families from Southern California also have personal connections between the two places.

For Robin Bertolucci, growing KFI is a constant balancing act. She understands that the station needs to work hard to promote itself and reach out to potential listeners. KFI has been broadcasting reports on the FM stations that belong to the iHeartMedia Los Angeles cluster to increase its audience.

In addition, all the shows aired on KFI can be accessed on-demand. The station’s recipe for sustained success involves being present and establishing a strong KFI presence wherever the big stories are. 

In an interview with Barrett News Media, Robin Bertolucci talks about the changes that have taken place in the station since she became the head, the importance of gaining the trust of KFI’s listeners, the individuals who can benefit from her coaching, how ratings influence her programming decisions, the one thing that defines her career, and what sets her news department apart.

Ryan Hedrick: KFI has been a staple in LA media. What changes have occurred during your tenure? 

Robin Bertolucci: The biggest change is that we are all live and local. When I first came here, we did have some syndicated programs; we have more and more just really become the live, local Southern California news and talk station.

RH: When competing for the listener’s attention in LA, what challenges does KFI face? 

RB: There is a lot going on, but everybody would say there’s a lot going on everywhere. Even on your phone, there’s a lot going on. We are just trying to continue to stay relevant and interesting and be the place where people want to know what’s going on in the community so that they can come and have big, larger than life interesting, smart personalities that they can count on to bring them the latest and the greatest. Everybody’s life is busy, and we’re just trying to fit into it.

The key for us is having smart talk show hosts who can analyze, entertain, explain, and make things fun and interesting. Also, having a great news department that can bring the facts and let people know what’s going on.  

RH: John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou (John and Ken) have been popular hosts on KFI radio for decades. What do you attribute their success to? 

RB: Their chemistry is amazing, and they have great instincts for the issues that are going on in Southern California that people really care about. They have a laser-focused vision about what people want to know, and more often than not, they get it right.  

RH: How do you approach coaching talented individuals, and who benefits the most from coaching?

Robin Bertolucci: Everybody benefits by being coached. It’s not because I’m smarter or have anything other than just a different perspective on the landscape. I have often used the analogy that our hosts are pilots, and they are flying the plane, and I don’t know how to fly a plane. I have the greatest respect for what they do, but at the same time, I am the air traffic controller, I am a professional listener, and my perspective is different.

They should listen to me for their sake, and for my sake, I should listen to them. It’s a symbiotic relationship. I really learned a lot from them, and I hope together my perspective makes them better.  

RH: Bill Handel is an exceptional personality with a unique talent for connecting with people. Tell me more about his abilities. 

RB: He is just himself. He is smart, weird, and wonderful and has had an interesting life with a lot of experience, and he brings that to the table. Our listeners really connect with him, know him, and feel that they genuinely trust him.

That is a powerful thing. He has lived with them through many big news stories and given his perspective, and there’s a lot of trust and confidence in him. That’s why he’s the number show in the morning drive in Los Angeles.  

RH: What does it take for KFI to get and keep the trust of its listeners? 

RB: To me, we are all bombarded with people who are consistently and constantly trying to sell us something. Whether it’s a way of looking at the world that they want us to have, whether it’s a product or service. When you are constantly sold, you get skeptical of everybody. Even news networks people perceive as peddling a point of view. Trust, for me, is the most important thing.

To me, trust does not mean that you do not have a bias. Trust is knowing that the person you’re listening to will tell you the truth as they see it and explain why they see it that way. That you trust not that you’re going to have the same opinion as them but that you’re going to trust the process by which they arrived at it. 

You’re going to trust their intelligence, their experience, and maybe you’ll walk away and say, ‘Hey, I trust them, but I don’t agree with them at all.’ I like people on the air, whether it’s John and Ken, Handel, Mo Kelly, Gary and Shannon, Tim Conway Jr., or whoever it is.

If you have an opinion, I don’t care what it is. We have people with a variety of opinions on a variety of issues. I hope they will not have a certain perspective because I don’t think, as a station, we should sell anybody anything; we should sell them the truth as we perceive it.  

My goal is that everybody with an opinion about anything can explain to me their opinion and why they have it. To say I’m a conservative, or I’m a liberal, or I’m a blank… is not an answer. I really want to understand why you believe what you believe and how you arrived at that conclusion.

To me, it’s all about showing your math, and when you can explain to someone how you arrived at a conclusion, even if I don’t agree with the conclusion, at least I trust you as a person.  

RH: What state do you think the news/talk format is in two years after the death of Rush Limbaugh? I believe the format may be in more flux than people believe. What are your thoughts?

Robin Bertolucci: I would approach it very differently than you might. My format is not conservative talk radio. I have a lot of respect for what Rush did and what Rush felt over the years. I am trying to super-serve a local community. My goal is not to be a political station with KFI. KEIB is (The Patriot AM 1150).

For KFI, I just want to have smart, interesting people, and I am not trying to be in that genre. To me, that genre is news and talk. It’s not conservative talk. Live, local talk is what matters to me. That’s where our successes lie.  

RH: Do you consider KNX News 97.1 FM to be KFI’s main competitor? 

RB: We compete against damn near everyone and everything. We compete with apps on your phone and anything that draws your attention. We compete with KNX, but we also compete with KISS (102.7 FM), with a call to your mother; we compete with silence. We are competing with everything because we aim to have your attention. If you’re on the radio and you’re not listening to us, your competition. So that could be anything. 

RH: Do you make programming decisions solely based on ratings?  

Robin Bertolucci: No, because ratings are always in the past. I definitely make decisions based on data, and ratings are part of that data, but then again, some things are intangible, and sometimes you can have great ratings or horrible ratings, but you know there is something there, and you’ve got to weather the storm, push through.

Ratings are great, data is great, research is great, and experience and instinct and marketplace and the listeners a great things, too. They are all important; they all play a role.  

RH: Have you had a defining moment or experience in your career that led you to where you are now? 

RB: One thing that has defined me is that I have had the luxury of only working at three call-letter stations for my whole career, which is kind of a funny thing. I started at KGO (San Francisco), then I went to KOA in Denver, and now I’m here at KFI (laughs). That’s a corny fact about me.  

A thing that defines me is that I have been able to have a career and do it the way I want to and find a path that is uniquely my own. When you help craft a station or help build a station that feels perfectly right for a community and would only work there and is unique to that place, that’s one of the things I am most proud of. KFI is a very special station, and I feel honored to work there and work with the people and continue to make it uniquely Southern California.  

RH: How does your news department manage to provide such extensive coverage of such a large city? 

RB: We try and focus on what we feel are the most important things. We have incredibly talented people who work in our news department. Our goal is not to cover everything but to cover the most important things.  

RH: What does KFI Reporter Steve Gregory mean to Los Angeles, and what sets him apart from other reporters in the business? 

RB: I think Steve is one of the best, if not the absolute best in the business. I love what he does. He takes you to a story and makes you feel like you are there with him. He takes you there and makes you feel the story and not just know the facts about the story, which he does exquisitely well, but he also makes you feel what is going on. He is an incredibly talented storyteller.  

(Last month, we wrote about Steve Gregory’s reporting in Maui on the devastating wildfires. We asked Robin about the decision to send him there and why it was important for Southern California) 

Robin Bertolucci: A lot of people in Southern California go to Maui for vacations or weddings. A lot of [Californians] have been there, it’s not that far away, it’s closer than New York City. I think there was a connection, and we’ve faced horrific and tragic fires. So, Steve said let me go, and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I was delighted and grateful that he could get there and tell their story, and he did a remarkable job.  

RGIII to Danny Kanell: ‘Do Some Research, You’re Embarrassing Yourself’

BSM Staff
-
0
RGIII to Danny Kanell: ‘Do Some Research, You’re Embarrassing Yourself’

The Deion Sanders-coached Colorado Buffaloes got another taste of top-ranked college football on Saturday and were humbled in a 42-6 blowout loss.

To some, including SiriusXM College Sports Radio host Danny Kanell, seeing Sanders, his sons and their team embarrassed on a national platform was good because it will quell some of the buzz around the program as a potential national power on the rise. There has been much hype and fanfare surrounding the program in Boulder since hiring Sanders as their head coach in the spring.

Oregon head coach Dan Lanning went viral ahead of the Ducks game, telling his team in their locker room pre-game that Sanders and the Buffaloes were out trying to get clicks while the Ducks were trying to get wins.

ESPN’s Robert Griffin III on Saturday evening tweeted that Lanning was just trying to do his job in the moment, which was hype his kids up to play a high-profile game and folks were eating it up. He wondered why Sanders was getting hate for essentially doing the same thing.

Kanell quote tweeted RGIII saying ESPN had grown an affinity for Sanders, and people loved what they saw from Oregon because they were tired of so much coverage of Colorado.

Griffin laid out some recent facts about the Buffs since Sanders arrived and chalked the former ESPN Radio host up as a hater.

Danny responded asking why Griffin hadn’t jumped on the bandwagons of other turnaround programs like Tulane, Duke and Kansas, before RGII posted a screenshot from 2021 of him showing support for the direction head coach Lance Leipold was taking the Jayhawks. Griffin mentioned the fact that he was on the broadcast of Tulane’s upset win over USC in the Cotton Bowl in January and that he has given his stance on Duke.

The back and forth continued into Sunday, where Kanell posted some screenshots of his own tweets where he has not been overly critical or hating on Sanders.

But Griffin appeared to get the final word, posting a clip of Kanell throwing an interception on Monday Night Football back in the day when he was quarterback of the New York Giants.

What Do Clay Travis, Mark Levin, and NPR Have in Common?

Dr. Ed Cohen
-
0
What Do Clay Travis, Mark Levin, and NPR Have in Common?

Among all the positive summit topics at the inaugural BNM Summit in Nashville (and you should make plans to attend next year’s event), there was a small one that lent itself to misleading data. When Jason gave his introduction, he showed some Nielsen data about the news/talk format, including the likes of Clay Travis, Buck Sexton, and other conservative radio hosts. 

Later, Pierre Bouvard gave a strong presentation for more political ad spending in radio that used Scarborough data and showed the political leanings of news/talk listeners. If I didn’t know better, I’d be amazed at how many Democrats listen to news/talk according to Scarborough.

There’s a small fly in that ointment, which is that Nielsen (and Scarborough) does not differentiate between the commercial news/talk format and the non-commercial or NPR version. Long ago, this didn’t matter because the talk component of most NPR affiliates consisted of Morning Edition and All Things Considered. 

For Nielsen purposes, many classified their stations as “classical” or “variety”. No longer…with talk formats all day long, many NPR affiliates are now news/talk stations based on their self-reports to Nielsen.

Let’s look at it this way: If you work in news/talk and I asked you to give me a list of some major news/talk stations across the country, how many of you would include the following stations:

WNYC, New York

WAMU, Washington, DC

WGBH and WBUR, Boston

KQED, San Francisco

WBEZ, Chicago

KPCC, Los Angeles

WHYY, Philadelphia

KERA, Dallas-Fort Worth

Every station listed is registered with Nielsen as being in the news/talk format. Each is non-commercial and let’s face it, none of them will be running The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show any time soon. 

Given this situation, how do we get a true view of how commercial news/talk is doing? It’s not easy. 

When I worked at Cumulus, I used to do a set of format snapshots twice a year based on Nielsen’s National/Regional database (NRD). I wanted a legitimate commercial news/talk analysis, so this format always took the most time to analyze. 

Thankfully, NRD lets you sort by frequency, so I could eliminate all the stations in the non-commercial band. Then, I’d delete the public news/talk stations that are in the commercial band one by one (a handful). 

Finally, I would take out the public AM stations (there are perhaps 40 or so still operating), again, one by one. At that point, what was left was the commercial news/talk format. And yes, the Canadian news/talk stations and the Spanish news/talk stations were also removed from the analysis.

Even during my time at Arbitron, I requested that we add another format option so that subscribers could easily separate the commercial news/talk stations from the public ones. My question at the time was “How much audience does Rush Limbaugh share with All Things Considered?” The same question persists today with how similar the listener demographic is between Clay Travis, Mark Levin, and NPR listeners.

I brought the issue up again while a member of the NAB’s COLRAM committee. When you consider the number of different format choices available in Nielsen Audio (more than 50), how hard would it be to add one more? Call it “Public News/Talk”, “Noncommercial News/Talk”, or whatever. 

No other format has this issue at this level of magnitude. For example, a number of college radio stations list themselves as “alternative”. Again, it’s pretty easy to eliminate them from an analysis of the alternative music format, and even if you didn’t, the amount of additional audience would be small and the music would be similar.

When some of the NPR affiliates are number one in their markets on a consistent basis (Washington, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, etc.) and many are in the top five, this skews any sort of analysis of the format, including analyses that Nielsen releases. Let’s get it fixed. Let’s stop labelling a conservative news talk audience relying on Clay Travis, Dan Bongino, or whichever host you’d like, with public news/talk from NPR.

There are many things Nielsen Audio could do to improve the product and most will take time and investment. This fix is an easy one.  Nielsen Audio, just get it done.

Let’s meet again next week.

Fanatics Sportsbook Letting Gamblers Stream NFL Games They Have Money On

BSM Staff
-
0
Fanatics Sportsbook Letting Gamblers Stream NFL Games They Have Money On

NFL fans using the Fanatics Sportsbook in four states have the ability to watch the broadcast of some of the games they bet on.

Legal Sports Report writes that users who place at least $1 in wagers on the NFL in the app will get access to the stream of the corresponding bet. The only condition is that the game must also be available in the bettor’s local market.

This feature of the Fanatics Sportsbook app is available in Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio and Tennessee, and it’s been available since the start of the regular season.

Fanatics joins Caesars Sportsbook, DraftKings and FanDuel as platforms that have agreements with the league’s exclusive rights holder of official NFL data, Genius Sports. These agreements give the sportsbooks the ability to provide live streams.

So far, Caesars is the only other platform with stream access available, but Legal Sports Report noted that DraftKings and FanDuel will likely bring streams online later this season.

More Than 5000 Attend Barstool Pizzafest Amid Washington Post Controversy

BSM Staff
-
0
More Than 5000 Attend Barstool Pizzafest Amid Washington Post Controversy

With the remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia bearing down on New York City and a wave of buzz surrounding Barstool founder Dave Portnoy in the days leading in, some 5,000 people braved the elements to attend the One Bite Pizza Festival in Brooklyn on Saturday.

Portnoy went viral last week after he posted video of himself calling Washington Post food reporter Emily Heil to confront her and ask why she and the pave had been contacting festival sponsors and asking them how they feel about Portnoy’s past controversies.

Participating pizzerias and sponsors also faced pressure to back out from other food writers and Barstool critics. But Portnoy told FOX & Friends Weekend on Sunday that the festival was a rousing success.

“It couldn’t have gone better,” he said. “It was our Woodstock moment with the rain. We had 5,000 people strong. Everyone had a great time. The vibes were actually probably higher because of the controversy surrounding it.”

Dave added that he owed the pizzerias a debt of gratitude for standing strong against those trying to shame them out of the event.

“The thing about the hit pieces, what they try to do, whether it’s those or the Washington Post, if you can get one sponsor to drop, one pizza place to drop – which none of them did so I owe them a huge thank you – that becomes a story in itself,” he said.

“They don’t deserve this,” Portnoy added. “They’re just trying to promote their small business, and they’re being put in this box.”

Kurt Warner to Join Parkins & Spiegel on 670 The Score Every Monday

BSM Staff
-
0

Despite the already top-notch coverage of the Chicago Bears and the NFL as a whole, 670 The Score hosts Danny Parkins and Matt Spiegel felt there were a few things missing that would take the station and Parkins & Spiegel to the next level.

Enter Hall of Famer and Super Bowl champion Kurt Warner.

On Friday’s edition of the show, Parkins announced that the Westwood One Monday Night Football analyst would be a recurring guest from the site of the Monday night game every week starting this week.

This was in addition to them announcing that Peter King of NBC Sports would also be a weekly guest on the show on Tuesdays at 4:30.

“We’ve still been looking for a couple other things,” Spiegel said of the areas of their show they could add featured interviews. “There’s some slots that have been kind of open – and peeling back the curtain – you start talking about this stuff over the summer and even in August. And then you really kind of get to chasing. And you have certain dreams. Like national news maker, news breaker. National football analyst of note is one of the spots we’ve been looking for and kind of wanting someone to slot in like on a Tuesday.”

So King will appear in addition to former Bears QB Chase Daniel on Tuesdays. Daniel does film breakdowns for the show.

Kurt will appear in addition to Bears reporter Mark Grote and Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who do their weekly check-ins with the show on Mondays.

Both Parkins and Spiegel jokingly viewed the addition of Warner as an upgrade compared to Trent Dilfer and Boomer Esiason, who used to be regulars on the show in the past.

“So we replaced Dilfer and Boomer with Chase Daniel and Kurt Warner,” Parkins said. “Pretty damn good!”

Danny added that he didn’t think it was possible that they would be able to land someone of Warner’s caliber as a regular, but they’re thankful for the opportunity because they noted that Dilfer told them that the only person he trusts more to talk the quarterback position than him is Warner.

They played a clip of Warner breaking down a Justin Fields play, and Parkins said how thrilled he was to have someone with that kind of analytical mind on the program.

“He’s so good. So good!” he said. “So the idea that he’s decided to come on the show every week from the site of Monday Night Football is just so exciting.”

Mina Kimes: Deshaun Watson ‘Bailed Out Our Entire Industry by Being Bad’

BSM Staff
-
0

Mina Kimes was not alone in condemning the Cleveland Browns for signing Deshaun Watson to a record guaranteed contract as he was facing dozens of accusations of sexual misconduct. This is the first full season Watson has played for the Browns and he has been less than impressive through the first two weeks of the season.

Kimes says that in a strange way, it something she and her colleagues should be happy about.

“This dude just bailed out our entire industry by being bad,” she said this week on Pablo Torre Finds Out.

She said that she has talked to a number of fellow NFL analysts and writers that feel “a little bit of relief” that there is nothing about Watson to celebrate right now.

It isn’t lost on Kimes that maybe not having to talk about Deshaun Watson like he is any other star in the NFL isn’t necessarily a good thing.

“We never had to reckon with, and maybe we will. You know, it’s been two weeks, but we certainly haven’t, so far, had to reckon with that cognitive dissonance in what it would have entailed,” she said.”

Winning and outstanding performance can scrub clean a lot of scandal in the minds of the public. Kimes noted that even mentioning the allegations against Watson would be met very differently if he weren’t struggling.

“Right now, because he’s playing bad, because he’s playing poorly, if you were to put a clip of me saying something about the fact that he was accused of all these sexual crimes and misdemeanors and whatnot, and if you put that out now, I would not get heat,” she said. “That’s what I want to drill down on here. Like, if you aggregated this and put it out, I would not get hate mails. If he was playing well, I would be inundated by hate mail right now because that’s what happens.”

1...1,9741,9751,976...2,883Page 1,975 of 2,883