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Bally Sports Files Paperwork To Reduce Payments to 3 MLB Teams

BSM Staff
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Bally Sports Files Paperwork To Reduce Payments to 3 MLB Teams

In the latest developments with the ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings involving Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of the Bally Sports regional sports networks filed paperwork seeking to restructure the contracts with a few of the MLB teams they serve.

The Cleveland Guardians, the Minnesota Twins and the Arizona Diamondbacks would receive less than what Diamond Sports contractually owes. At the moment, Diamond Sports has ceased rights payments to all three teams but continues to broadcast their games.

“What is extraordinary is that the debtor RSNs now, for the first time … allege that they have some ‘right’ to pay less than the contract rate for those games,” attorneys for the league, the Twins and Guardians responded in a motion. “This is not the law.”

Since Diamond Sports decided to not pay the Diamondbacks prior to filing for bankruptcy, Arizona is in a different situation. The team has filed its own motion asking for full payment of what Diamond Sports owes or to terminate the contract.

The company’s argument in trying to pay less is that it’s possible to restructure the debts as part of the bankruptcy process. The league is calling the company’s bluff.

“Only after defaulting on their payment obligations do the debtors even raise the fanciful argument that they can choose to not pay the agreed upon contractual rate,” the league’s motion read. “The debtors are coming up with any and all reasons they can to delay such payment, including by asking the court to take the extraordinary measure of rewriting the terms of agreements that were freely negotiated and entered into.”

“Major League Baseball and its clubs are not going anywhere. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the debtors,” the league added.

Arguments in the case are scheduled to be heard on April 19, but the company is reportedly pushing to have the date pushed back into next month.

Ike Reese: There’s Only One ‘Big Dog’ Show on 94 WIP

BSM Staff
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Ike Reese: There’s Only One ‘Big Dog’ Show on 94 WIP

94 WIP has experienced some changes after the retirement of Angelo Cataldi, and host Ike Reese says his afternoon program with Jon Marks is the top dog on the block for the Philadelphia station.

During Marks & Reese Wednesday, the former Eagles linebacker took issue with some of the show’s regular callers now calling into the station’s new midday show with Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas.

“We built a nice little culture here with the afternoon that’s a safe haven for callers. It wasn’t necessarily always that way with the station. I know the morning show had their ‘Dirty 30’ or whatever, but after that, we pretty much have set a culture in place where callers have an identity,” Reese said. “So here’s what I would say to the callers that want to spread their wings and call other shows: God bless you, we would love to have you, but all you’ve done is open up room for other people that want to be a part of the show.

“If that’s what you want to do…feel free to call wherever you want to call. There are people that take pride in being identified with this show, and they want that same space that we’ve allotted to you all these last few years. Don’t bite the hand that has fed you. A lot of biting of the hand has been going on.

“I know my big brother (Douglas) is on the midday show, and it’s like it’s a shiny new car that everyone wants to take a test drive with, and treating us like we’re an old ’80 Cutlass Supreme. I understand Hugh is here and everybody loves Hugh and is happy he is back, I get it. I’m just saying ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds you’. There’s only one big dog show at this station. Understand that. There’s one big dog show, and then the other shows are nice shows, I don’t want to make Rod Lakin upset, he cares about all the shows, but I just want the callers to know where their bread is buttered.”

Marks joked that the callers are “dipping their toes in the water”, which Reese argued that “it’s not our job to keep our kids in the house”. He added they’re “spreading their wings”, but there are “more kids to be birthed” with the show. He asked callers that are moving to other shows to not bad-mouth the afternoon program.

Headliners With Rachel Nichols Premiers on Showtime Thursday

BSM Staff
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Rachel Nichols has a new show debuting on Showtime this week. Headliners debuts Thursday night. It will run until May 4. The show will take a break for the playoffs before returning in June.

Each week, Nichols will talk to stars in and around the NBA. Joel Embiid will be the guest on the premiere episode. Steph Curry, Dwyane Wade, and Jason Kidd are all signed up for the season as well.

“The idea is that we’re getting the best of the best, the most interesting people, the guys who have accomplished the most in the sport of basketball,” Rachel Nichols told Deadline.

During her conversation with Baron Davis on stage at the BSM Summit in Los Angeles, Nichols said that the rise in athlete-produced media has given viewers plenty of options, but it has also allowed athletes to present their stories focused exactly how they want. The goal of Headliners is to give viewers a fuller, more authentic view of her guests.

“We spend so much time saturated with professional athletes on our TV and on our phones and everywhere else that getting quiet time, when you can actually find out who this person is, is kind of rare amid all of the bright lights and the big motion,” she said in her conversation with Deadline.

New episodes of Headliners will air Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern. They will be available to stream starting at midnight.

Judge Sanctions Fox News For Withholding Evidence in Dominion Case

BNM Staff
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Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis has sanctioned Fox News after the network failed to disclose recordings of a conversation between host Maria Bartiromo and Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, lawyers for former President Donald Trump.

According to a report from The New York Times, Dominion Voting Systems was only made aware of the recording a week ago. The reported conversation shows that Giuliani claims that “I can’t prove that” Dominion’s software altered votes as he previously claimed.

Powell asked Bartiromo if on-screen graphics could help push potential donors to a fundraising campaign to help Trump’s legal team, which producer Abby Grossberg — the fired Fox News producer who claimed the network pressured her into providing false testimony in her deposition — said the network couldn’t do.

“I am very concerned… that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious,” Davis said.

The judge also ruled that a special master would investigate Fox for its “handling of discovery of documents and the question of whether Fox had inappropriately withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s role as a corporate officer of Fox News”.

Murdoch’s role at the network has been a sticking point in the pre-trial process. Fox disclosed that Murdoch is the “executive chair” of the network, which drew the ire of the judge.

The network alleges that Murdoch has been listed as the executive chair of the company in all of its SEC filings since 2019.

ESPN VP: YouTube ‘Not Cannibalistic’ To Podcast Downloads

BSM Staff
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ESPN VP: YouTube ‘Not Cannibalistic’ To Podcast Downloads

Nearly every study about podcasts shows listeners discover podcasts more frequently on YouTube, and many podcast consumers are just as interested in watching as they are in listening. ESPN has started providing more of its podcast episodes on YouTube, and says it is only helping.

During an interview with Nieman Lab, ESPN’s Vice President of Digital Production Mike Foss said that even after the network has grown its podcast presence on YouTube, it hasn’t seen a dropoff in its audio metrics.

“We’re seeing this is not cannibalistic to audio,” Foss said. “No one’s audio numbers have dropped as a result of them being available on YouTube. It’s maintained and grown so I think everybody recognizes the opportunity to grow their footprint.”

Foss added podcasts also did well with the YouTube Shorts feature the platform introduced as a competitor to TikTok in 2021.

“What we saw pretty quickly was that podcasts — 30 minutes, 40 minutes, even hour-long shows — had high retention rates,” Foss said. “The result has been a really healthy, happy ecosystem where we have short-form clips that are driving scale with YouTube Shorts. And we have longer-form content, including podcasts, that are driving retention and total time spent.

“I don’t think we could have predicted that it would work so linearly,” Foss concluded. “But we’re happy that it did.”

In total, ESPN now provides 28 different podcasts on YouTube in addition to its traditional audio-only versions.

Boomer Esiason: Rick Wolff ‘Was Part of My Sunday Routine’

BSM Staff
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The passing of Rick Wolff has hit listeners and staffers at WFAN hard. Wednesday morning on Boomer & Gio, the two hosts talked about the impact the weekend host had on them long before they became his co-workers.

“He was a guy that, way before I worked here, I knew the name and knew the show and put it on,” Gregg Giannotti said. “Then when I worked here, worked on that show a few times. Always just a great gentleman.”

Sports radio is a business filled with a lot of ego. Giannotti said that ego could make some co-workers hard to deal with, but Wolff was just the opposite.

“When you hear about how nice of a guy he was, every bit of that was true in the interactions that I had.”

“He was part of my Sunday routine, every Sunday morning,” Boomer Esiason added.

Rick Wolff did a show focused on issues in youth sports. Esiason said he always found the subject matter interesting, but as his kids got older and started playing in more competitive baseball leagues, Wolff’s Sports Edge became appointment listening for him.

“I enjoyed it,” Esiason said. “Every weekend I looked forward to it. It was only an hour. It was the perfect time. Driving around with the bagels and the coffee and all the different things I would do on a Sunday morning, I made sure I left most mornings at the start of his show.”

Wolff died Monday morning. He had been fighting brain cancer. He was 71 years old.

“71, for me, too young as a healthy person,” Giannotti said. “Unfortunately, getting struck with brain cancer is as bad as it gets.”

Rick Wolff is survived by his wife of more than 40 years, Trish, as well as son John, daughters Alyssa and Samantha, and three grandchildren.

Live Sports Rights Expected To Reach $30 Billion By 2025

BSM Staff
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Live Sports Rights Expected To Reach $30 Billion By 2025

The way people watch television has changed. People no longer have to work on the networks’ timelines. Instead, thanks to on-demand streaming options, people can watch their shows whenever is best for them. That is why the exclusive rights to event programming, like live sports, have become so valuable to linear and digital TV networks.

Pro leagues and major college conferences have already enjoyed massive paydays, but S&P Global Market Intelligence thinks it is just the beginning. According to their data, live sports rights will generate more than $30 billion annually by 2025.

In recent years, major new deals have been signed by the NFL, the Big Ten, and the NHL. The Pac-12 is currently searching for its next TV deal while negotiations on new TV contracts for the NBA and NASCAR are expected to begin soon.

Streaming platforms entering the fight for these rights have increased their value in a major way. The NBA, for instance, would reportedly like to generate $75 billion with its next TV deals.

While that is good for the leagues, Axios’s Tim Baysinger wonders how good it is for linear networks. If they cannot justify the costs, could fans be asked to open their wallets to follow their teams?

“It’s getting harder for media companies, especially those tied to the fading cable TV bundle, to justify these high prices,” he writes. “This threatens to push sports into a subscription-based environment.”

Jared Carrabis: I Almost Joined the Marines Before Being Discovered By Barstool

BSM Staff
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In the sports media business or any business in general, the path to get to the ultimate destination can be completely different compared to another person. Sometimes, it is the decisions you end up not making that end up being the best ones. For Jared Carrabis, the host of the Baseball Is Dead podcast, fans can still listen to him based on a decision he didn’t make a decade ago.

Carrabis was a guest on the Rise and Schein podcast with Adam Schein this week and Schein asked him how he emerged onto the scene in the industry. He went on to talk about how in 2012, he was able to get paid to write about the Boston Red Sox for the first time, but there were things that got him to consider not doing it anymore.

“In 2012, that was the first year that I got paid to do what I do. I got paid to write for, there was a magazine that kind of adopted my blog and they paid me weekly to do it. 2012 was a horrendous season for the Boston Red Sox.

“I know it sounds dramatic, but I fell out of love with not baseball or the Red Sox, but wanting to do this for a living because it was so toxic, it was really bad. I butted heads with the people that adopted the blog because they were print and they were just ‘What is blogging?’ They were trying to give me writing assignments and I was like the whole point of blogging is I want to write about something, I write about it. It’s an elongated tweet in a way.”

The butting of heads made Carrabis consider going to join the Marines and it almost happened, but one person ended up causing him to reconsider.

“I was like, I’m going to join the Marines. I took the written test, I took the physical test. I knew that if I wasn’t going to follow through with my intended career path of being in sports media and covering baseball and the Red Sox, I at least want to do something my parents are proud of. That was the only other alternative for me.

“My mom ended up writing me this letter begging me not to go. I was going, that was it. I read the letter, reconsidered, and 2013 happens. The Red Sox won the World Series and it kind of reinvigorated me.”

Due to that decision, Carrabis ended up bringing the blog he had back, but he went in a different direction that allowed him to get noticed by Barstool Sports.

“The following year was when I relaunched my blog. Not only am I going to relaunch my blog, but I’m going to bring in a team of writers. I was kind of following other Red Sox fans on Twitter. If you are witty or funny or interesting on Twitter, you can blog because you can just expand on your tweets. I built on my team for 2014 and that’s when Barstool noticed me. It was kind of a weird path, but that’s how we got there.”

Carrabis has gone on to do work at other places such as 98.5 The Sports Hub, NBC Sports Boston, and now at NESN among other places. But, to think one decision almost cost baseball one of its most trending talents in multimedia, it’s safe to say listeners and readers are glad he decided to continue writing. 

Dale Arnold Retiring From Boston Bruins Broadcasts

BSM Staff
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Dale Arnold Retiring From Boston Bruins Broadcasts

Longtime NESN Boston Bruins studio host Dale Arnold has announced he is departing the franchise’s broadcasts.

Before serving as the network’s studio host, Arnold was the team’s play-by-play voice from 1995 to 2007. He also announced his retirement from WEEI’s midday program in 2021 after more than 30 years at the station.

“I majored in psychology at Bowdoin (College), because I wanted a backup plan,” Arnold said on the NESN broadcast as the network showed a farewell montage to Arnold. “But I knew the only thing I ever wanted to do was work Boston Bruins games on radio or TV. But the chances of a kid from a small town in Maine getting one of those jobs were pretty slim. Guess what? Whatever you want most wants you — and it worked.”

Before coming to WEEI and NESN, Arnold was the radio voice of the New Jersey Devils from 1986 to 1988. He also was the voice of the AHL’s Maine Mariners after graduating from Bowdoin College in 1979.

According to Boston.com, Arnold is the only person to serve as the play-by-play announcer of the five Boston professional teams (Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins, and Revolution). He also broadcast Boston College football and Hockey East games for NESN during his career.

Michael Kay: NFL Sunday Ticket Pales in Comparison to MLB.tv

BSM Staff
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Michael Kay: NFL Sunday Ticket Pales in Comparison to MLB.tv

YouTube TV announced the price points for NFL Sunday Ticket packages yesterday, and there was some surprise from former DirecTV subscribers at the cost of the service. Michael Kay shared he believes NFL fans would pay more than what YouTube TV is asking for, while adding the MLB streaming package is a much better value.

During a discussion on The Michael Kay Show on the topic, co-host Don La Greca said he has had the package since 1997 and has held onto his DirecTV subscription to continue having the service. He shared he thought YouTube TV had made the service too pricey.

“It does seem a little high. It’s about $100 more than DirecTV. I was paying $293 on DirecTV, and now it’s almost $400,” LaGreca said. “But if I’ve got DirecTV already, I just get the package with Sunday Ticket. But with YouTube, I’m not getting anything but the Sunday Ticket. I’m not getting a subscription to YouTube with this. So that would mean…it seems a little high.”

“It really is messed up that they don’t do what Major League Baseball does. Where you can get a package for your team,” Rosenberg said. “I literally have no interest except in a Commanders package. I can see everything else that comes nationally.”

“The other sports don’t do that, either,” La Greca countered. “The only difference is the other sports offer it to other platforms. I can get the Center Ice package on anything…football is the only one that’s got the exclusive.”

“Do you think they make more money now or would they make more if they offered a team-only package for like $200?” questioned Rosenberg.

“People will pay for this. Let’s say they are a Cincinnati Bengals fan, they’ll pay for this. So rather than having a lower price just for the Bengals, the NFL makes you buy this,” said Kay. “I think if you charged $500 for the season, people would pay for it. That’s why when you see prices like this for the new Sunday Ticket. The prices for MLB’s package is amazing. It might be the absolute bargain in any sports streaming. Every single game for — I think — it’s $150. Every single game. 162 games times 30.

“Major League Baseball, this year for their price, includes every minor league game, too” Kay concluded. “It’s just phenomenal, the price point for that and the bargain that you get.”

For early-bird purchasers, an NFL Sunday Ticket subscription will cost $349 if you are not a YouTube TV subscriber. That cost rises to $449 for the season after June 6th. For YouTube TV users, the cost is $249 before June 6th, and $289 after that date.

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