Home Blog Page 2242

Major League Baseball Creates Economic Reform Council to Assess Local Media Rights Model

BSM Staff
-
0
Major League Baseball Creates Economic Reform Council to Assess Local Media Rights Model

It is widely assumed that Diamond Sports Group will be filing for bankruptcy after the company missed a payment to its largest creditor last week. The company owns the 19 Bally Sports regional sports networks. Those networks control the local broadcast rights for 14 Major League Baseball teams.

As a result of the speculation, Major League Baseball has formed an economic reform committee. It is charged with assessing the long-term financial health of baseball.

Commissioner Rob Manfred says that it may behoove the league not to rely on teams’ local media rights deals so heavily.

“We’ve got to find a new model,” he said to The Athletic. “Maybe we ought to be driving the boat, what that model looks like.”

Major League Baseball has been dealing with major revenue and spending disparities between its teams for years. Some team owners have favored implementing a salary cap for a while. Short of that, Manfred believes rethinking broadcasting contracts could be part of the solution.

“We have businesses that are literally not similar in terms of the overall revenue that they’re generating,” he said. “And to the extent that you could find a new distribution model that actually helped on that disparity side, that would be the daily double. So people are having conversations that haven’t been had in baseball, and it’s really been owners talking to owners, which is a good thing.”

Manfred said that the committee was not created specifically to address what may or may not happen with the Bally Sports networks, but it was a significant motivation. It is made up of team owners.

Dan Le Batard: Nick Wright is the Best of ‘the Evolution of Gasbags’

BSM Staff
-
0

Compliments from Dan Le Batard sound a little strange. That certainly was the case on Wednesday as he complimented Nick Wright for what he thought was a fair and smart take on why NBA players do not value the All-Star Game or the regular season.

Le Batard said he was astonished and delighted by “the greasy ascent into gasbaggery stardom of Nick Wright”. He said that nothing about Wright is manicured for television and that makes him unique in the sports media.

“I am saying he’s a guy on television that you would find at the horse track proudly,” Le Batard said of Wright. “Proudly at the horse track. He is not trying to clean up to be whatever your version of television is. He doesn’t mind crazy hair. He is going to do it on force of personality. It is actually artistic to watch.”

Nick Wright has never shied away from discussing issues others may want to dance around. It is a level of authenticity that Le Batard says he appreciates.

“He is proudly a gambler and proudly a crazy person and proudly doing some of the better work in this field in the evolution of gasbags as a young man.”

He ended his commentary on Wright by noting that the person least surprised by the FS1 host’s success is probably Wright himself.

“He is a grinder and he makes good stuff and he makes good points. His substance is very strong and he knows how to make people mad and agitate. His hustle has been fascinating to watch from Kansas City when he was promising us as a young man and a radio gasbag that he would get here.”

WFAN Tabs Justin Shackil to Replace Sweeny Murti on Yankees Beat

BSM Staff
-
0

After the departure of Sweeny Murti last month, WFAN is looking to Justin Shackil as his replacement.

The 36-year-old Shackil is in the final stages of a contract negotiation with the Audacy-owned station, The New York Post reports.

Shackil has worked as a host and reporter for YES Network and also hosts a podcast for Jomboy Media.

Shackil would call roughly 25 games this season for WFAN under the agreement. 85-year-old John Sterling originally planned to scale back his schedule as the Yankees primary radio play-by-play announcer last season, but the American League home run chase by Aaron Judge altered those plants.

WFAN was in need of a steady fill-in game caller for its Yankees coverage. Previously, Brendan Burke and Ryan Ruocco had filled in, but with both seeing their national profiles with TNT and ESPN grow, Shackil is a natural to step into the booth.

Murti worked as the station’s Yankees beat reporter since 2001.

2023 NBA All-Star Game Hits Record Low Ratings

BSM Staff
-
0
2023 NBA All-Star Game Hits Record Low Ratings

The game was not competitive, but even if it had been, people may not have been interested. It is hard to know what positives the NBA can take away from the All-Star Game in Salt Lake City last weekend.

The game continued an unfortunate trend for the NBA, setting new record lows for ratings and viewers. The game averaged a 2.2 rating across TNT and TBS. That is a 29% drop from 2022.

An average audience of less than 4.6 million also represents a drop. It is down 27% from last year. It is also significantly lower than 2021, which saw the smallest audience ever to that point, with an average of under 6 million tuning in.

There was also bad news on Saturday night. The audience for the NBA’s All-Star Saturday Night festivities also experienced a major drop. Ratings fell 19% from 2022. This year’s Saturday night ratings were the lowest the event has drawn in over two decades.

Plenty of explanations are available for the continued ratings drop. The game is not interesting, this year’s game was missing LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo for much of the action and missing Steph Curry entirely, and the Daytona 500 delivered more than 8 million viewers. The explanations don’t solve the bigger problem though.

For years, the Pro Bowl was seen as an inconsequential exhibition game that wasn’t valued by either the players or the fans. The NFL decided to overhaul the proceedings. Whether or not it is now a better product is subjective, but it did outdraw the NBA All-Star Game this year.

Might that be something the NBA considers when evaluating the future of All-Star Weekend?

Justin Myers: Getting Eyeballs on Pac-12 Has Been A Problem Long Before Apple Deal

BSM Staff
-
0
Justin Myers: Getting Eyeballs on Pac-12 Has Been A Problem Long Before Apple Deal

Apple is viewed as the leader to land the upcoming Pac-12 television rights, and while that might be viewed as a problem for the conference as moving to a strictly streaming-based model would be ahead of its time for the average college football viewer. Rip City Radio 620 morning host Justin Myers says it’s been a problem for the conference for decades.

“Outside of the West Coast, especially here in Portland and in Oregon, everyone has to have some sort of cable outlet because that’s how you get Pac-12 Network and that’s how you get the Blazers on TV,” Myers said. “Whereas every other sports bar, at every hotel bar, every airport bar across this big giant country of ours, they all have DirecTV. So nobody is walking in and watching Pac-12 Network, even if there’s a pretty good game in the Pac-12. It’s just not available.

“Now you take that and now you add it to a streaming service on your phone. I know bars were already struggling to get Thursday Night Football on, and I know YouTube TV is going to have Sunday Ticket so maybe that changes the mentality, but it is a significant thing. If you can’t get Washington and Utah in an absolute barn burner in the middle of the country … that’s just eyeballs lost on your conference, which has been a problem since putting games on cable and satellite has become a thing.”

A potential deal between Apple and the Pac-12 would reportedly feature the streaming platform holding the rights to all of the conference’s games. Through the 2022 season, the Big 12 has been the only Power 5 conference to air a portion of its games on a streaming platform, with the conference airing games sporadically on ESPN+. The Big Ten reportedly turned down an offer from Amazon Prime Video due to its apprehension of offering a large package of streaming exclusive games. However, its deal with NBC Sports is expected to offer some games airing exclusively on Peacock.

The Pac-12’s current deal with ESPN and FOX Sports — who are reportedly described as being “lukewarm” on re-signing with the conference — runs through the conclusion of the 2023 football season.

Apple Viewed As Leader For Pac-12 Rights

BSM Staff
-
0
Apple Viewed As Leader For Pac-12 Rights

With ESPN, Amazon Prime Video, and Fox Sports reportedly passing on the upcoming television rights package for the Pac-12, Apple has entered the fray.

According to a report from The New York Post, Apple as viewed as the leader in the clubhouse for the Pac-12 rights. Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff could present a proposal from the streaming platform to member schools over the course of the coming days.

In the potential deal, Apple would expect to hold the rights to all of the conference’s broadcasts.

Kliavkoff has been outspoken in his belief that the conference will secure a rights deal in the same neighborhood or even larger than that of the Big 12. That contract between the league, FOX Sports, and ESPN will pay each member school roughly $31 million per year after the six-year contract was struck in October of last year.

A deal with the Pac-12 would be a continuation of Apple’s foray into the sports landscape. It currently broadcasts a Friday Night Baseball package of MLB games. Apple was also long considered the front-runner to secure the NFL Sunday Ticket package that ultimately went to YouTube. The streaming platform is also set to embark on a 10-year, $2.5 billion contract with Major League Soccer that gives Apple the global rights to all the league’s contests.

The Pac-12’s current television rights deal with FOX Sports and ESPN runs through the conclusion of the 2023 season.

Spokespeople for both the Pac-12 and Apple declined to comment on the potential deal.

Shannon Sharpe: Skip Bayless Asked Me to Do Undisputed With Him After Our First Meeting

BSM Staff
-
0

Before being a co-host with Skip Bayless on Undisputed, Shannon Sharpe was known for his Hall-of-Fame career in the NFL and being on The NFL Today on CBS for about 10 years. While Sharpe can analyze and debate football easily, he wanted to do something that would allow him to cover all sports once he no longer was at CBS. 

Sharpe was a guest on The Adam Schein Podcast during Super Bowl week. He was asked by Schein whether or not talking about all sports with anyone he came across with helped make the transition into doing a debate show easier.

“I’ve always wanted to do that. When CBS told me they were not going to redo my contract, I remember calling my sister. She said ‘God got a bigger plan for you’. I told her I just want to be on a platform where I talk about something more than football. I said I got so much knowledge, I can talk about any sport, I just need somebody to give me an opportunity.”

Sharpe mentioned that one week when Stephen A. Smith was going on vacation, he was asked to fill in for him alongside Bayless.

“Stephen A’s going on vacation. I’ve been tweeting at this person who works for First Take and he’s like would you like to come in and fill in for Stephen A.? I said, I would love to.”

During a production meeting with Bayless, the two of them clicked and that led Bayless to ask him to join him on his show.

“I remember seeing Skip and we are doing production. He’s throwing stuff out and he’s looking at me like ‘Are you going to say that on air?’ I said ‘Absolutely’. He’s like ‘Ok, we will do this topic’. I guess his contract was going to be up and he asked me do I know who such and such is? I’m thinking about doing my own show and I want you to do it with me. This is our first meeting. He said ‘You are really good at this, you are a natural at this’. We hit it off. Two executives came down to interview me and one of them said ‘We are not interviewing anyone else. You are the guy’.”

While Sharpe admits that he will never have the relationship that Bayless had with Stephen A, he thinks it helps them connect well on television because none of them know what the other one is going to say.

“I’m more of a homebody. I’m more of a loner. I’m more to myself….I think it helps that our relationship on-air that we are not that close. He doesn’t know what I’m thinking and he doesn’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I think it helps us television-wise. It might have hurt our personal relationship,  but I definitely think it has helped our on-air relationship.” 

Mark Titus Leaves FOX For Barstool

BSM Staff
-
0

Another young talent has left a more traditional sports media outlet for Barstool. Mark Titus announced on social media that he will join the company to create college basketball content. The move comes less than a month after Titus announced that he and co-host Tate Frazier would end the Titus & Tate podcast.

“Perfect fit for me for 1000 reasons, both professional and personal,” Titus tweeted.

He will follow Big Cat to Chicago to work out of Barstool’s new offices there. He joked that it brings him “one step closer to realizing my dream as head coach of Chicago State.”

Mark Titus played college basketball as a walk-on at Ohio State. He kept a blog during that time called Club Trillion. It clearly impressed Bill Simmons, because when Titus’s playing days were over, he was hired to write for Grantland and then followed Simmons to The Ringer.

His podcast with Tate Frazier started while at The Ringer under the name One Shining Moment. The duo moved to FOX in 2020 and renamed the show Titus & Tate.

Frazier is not following Titus to Barstool.

The new Barstool Sports college basketball show will be called The Mark Titus Show. It launches on March 6. New episodes will be released three times per week.

Daytona 500 Viewership Down 8%

BSM Staff
-
0
Daytona 500 Viewership Down 8%

The 2023 Daytona 500 was the longest in the race’s 65-year history, going to a second overtime period. The exciting finish, which saw Ricky Stenhouse Jr. capture his first Daytona 500 victory, drew less viewership compared to last year’s event.

A reported 8.181 million viewers watched the event on FOX, which is down 8% from the 2022 edition. The 2022 race saw a three-year high in viewership at 8.868 million.

The 2023 race peaked with more than 10 million viewers during the final portion of the event.

While the decline in viewership could be viewed as a negative, the broadcast was the most-watched program of the weekend on any network, beating the NBA All-Star Game on TNT. FOX Sports claims the gap between the Daytona 500 and the NBA All-Star Game was 78%, an eight-year high.

In comparison to the Indianapolis 500 — INDYCAR’s most prestigious event — the 8.1 million total for the Daytona 500 is more than double the annual Memorial Day event for INDYCAR.

The top five markets for the Daytona 500 were Knoxville, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Greenville/Spartanburg, Charlotte, and Birmingham.

Howie Carr: I Got Kicked Out of Sensitivity Training

BNM Staff
-
0
Howie Carr: I Got Kicked Out of Sensitivity Training

CNN This Morning anchor Don Lemon will undergo “formal training” after his recent comments about 51-year-old Nikki Haley being “past her prime” as she embarks on a campaign to become the 2024 Republican Presidential nominee. Radio host Howie Carr detailed his experience in sensitivity training Tuesday.

Carr joked that he was simply pigeonholed into attending the sensitivity training and that he hadn’t actually done anything wrong to warrant an appearance in the class.

“I was just dragged in as a round-up of ‘the usual suspects’. I can tell you it’s pretty irritating to go to Diversity University,” Carr said. “Whether you were guilty or not. I can imagine how Don Lemon — a legend in his own mind for 56 years — has taken his sojourn to Diversity University.”

Carr added that his sensitivity class instructor resembled former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, but was quick to catch onto Carr’s plan to miss the class.

“I got my phone to start ringing — my cell phone — so I could keep leaving. And about the eighth time it happened, the guy threw me out of the class. The next day I got suspended by the station for a week. Then the Union filed a grievance … Then they said ‘Ok, Howie can come back and they said ‘Here’s a check for all the days you got off’. They didn’t want to go through discovery.

“That’s the one time the Union has helped me out,” Carr joked. “I’d like to thank the Screen Actors Guild for standing by me in my moment of need when I was expelled.”

1...2,2412,2422,243...2,774Page 2,242 of 2,774