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CBS Sports Reveals 2022 NFL Broadcast Teams

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The 2022 lineup of broadcast teams for NFL on CBS games has been announced.

In less than four weeks, Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson will be together for their sixth season and will call the network’s top game each week as well as CBS Sports’ Thanksgiving and Christmas game, the AFC Playoffs and the AFC Championship.

Ian Eagle, Charles Davis and Evan Washburn will command the No. 2 announce booth and will team for their third season together.

Kevin Harlan, Trent Green and Melanie Collins will team.

Greg Gumbel, Adam Archuleta and AJ Ross will be a crew as well.

KayRod Broadcast Grabs Highest Ratings Yet With Derek Jeter

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On Sunday, the latest KayRod broadcast surrounded the Yankees/Red Sox game for the second time of the season. However, it was the first time that Derek Jeter appeared on the show, That addition paid big dividends in the ratings.

The simulcast of the Yankees/Red Sox featuring Michael Kay, Alex Rodriguez and this week with a guest appearance from Derek Jeter, drew 336,000 viewers. That’s the best yet for the KayRod broadcasts. It topped the 264,000 that tuned in for the debut of the KayRod feature. That game also simulcast a Yankees/Red Sox game. There have been seven KayRod games, three with those two teams featured.

Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal did an interesting comparison. He noted the KayRod audience was around 15.5% of the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball main broadcast (2.17 million). That’s also the most in the KayRod era. It topped the Mets/Phillies matchup on May 1 which featured a 11.2% audience portion.

Paul Finebaum: If I Saw Chris “Mad Dog” Russo Again, I Was Going To Go Crazy

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ESPN’s First Take rejoiced in the triumphant return of Stephen A. Smith on Monday. On Tuesday, Paul Finebaum was adamant that he had seen enough of Smith’s frequent co-host, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, during Smith’s absence.

Appearing on First Take, Finebaum began his segment by saying that he was ready for Smith to return.

“I don’t want to insult people that have been here in his absence, like Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo,” Finebaum started, “but if I saw Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo one more time on my screen, I was going to go crazy!”

Finebaum would also add, “I don’t like that guy on my screen! I want Stephen A. Smith on this show every day.”

Smith responded with respect to Russo but also pointed out one very important truth: “I love ‘Mad Dog’ Russo so I’m not gonna be as harsh about him as you,” Smith noted. “But I will say this about Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo, I love ya bro, but he’s not Stephen A.”

Miami Heat Moving To WQAM

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Miami Heat Moving To WQAM

Basketball fans will hear the Miami Heat in a new place next season. The team is sticking with Audacy, but moving from 790 The Ticket to WQAM.

“We’re excited to extend our longstanding broadcasting partnership with the Miami Heat and bring the team back to WQAM for the first time in nearly three decades,” Claudia Menegus, Regional President and Market Manager of Audacy South Florida, said in a press release. “The HEAT is one of the premier franchises in the NBA today, and we’re proud to continue to deliver year-long coverage to its loyal fanbase.”

The Heat follow Jonathan Zaslow down the hall. He moved his show from 790 The Ticket to WQAM last year.

As Mengus mentioned, it is something of a homecoming for the team. WQAM was the original flagship when the team launched in 1988. It will be the first time the station has carried Heat games since 1993.

“We are thrilled to announce the continuation of our fantastic and long-standing affiliation with the Audacy station groups here in Miami,” Ted Ballard, Vice President and Executive Director of Heat Broadcasting, added. “For more than a decade, they have provided Heat basketball fans with an unparalleled home and incredible support for our championship-level product. We now look forward to a new era in this relationship where we can take advantage of the programming power of the premiere sports radio presence in South Florida.”

The Heat join the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes in calling WQAM their radio flagship.

Pac-12 Network/DirecTV At the “Goal Line” Before DirecTV’s Demand

BSM Staff
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There has always been one major lingering issue with the series of Pac-12 regional networks and it was present from the very beginning, carriage. The conference struggled to get subscriber numbers to a fruitful and respectable level in large part because the channels weren’t carried by DirecTV. However, the two were once very close to a deal.

In 2015, the Pac-12 Networks‘ decision makers and those from DirecTV had gotten to the “goal line” as described by former Pac-12 Networks programming manager Mark Petix. He recalled being at the end of a negotiations that would have seen the Pac-12 Networks added to DirecTV as soon as that weekend before DirecTV added one further demand.

“It felt like we were an announcement away from being on DirecTV,” said Petix in an oral history by the Athletic about the networks.

The demand from DirecTV was that as part of the deal, all twelve universities would be required to spend in the seven figures annually on AT&T (the parent company of DirecTV) telecom services and AT&T would become a “preferred” provider.

Michael Crow, president at Arizona State said, “It was a terrible deal… they were basically not interested in doing a fair deal. No one saw that deal as fair.”

Ted Robinson, a network play-by-play broadcaster added, “Sadly, that was the last gasp”.

“That was the first time we all sort of realized: “We’re not getting on DirecTV,” said Ashley Adamson, network studio host and reporter.

The deal would have netted a projected $35 million in revenue in just the first year and the Pac-12 Network would have been on DirecTV’s “Choice” tier which would have given access to another 16.4 million households. The network’s peak was around 19 million households.

Rich Zeoli: Disney No Longer ‘Family Friendly’

BNM Staff
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Rich Zeoli: Disney No Longer ‘Family Friendly’

While discussing the recent decision by the CDC to no longer treat vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens differently, 1210 WPHT host Rich Zeoli brought back to light the problems ESPN’s Sage Steele had with agreeing to Disney’s vaccine mandate. Zeoli also mentioned the hypocrisy, in his eyes, that moving ESPN to a more sports betting focus had with Disney’s family-friendly brand that he believes no longer exists.

“ESPN has gone super woke over the years,” Zeoli surmised. “I think everyone can understand exactly what I’m talking about now. ESPN has put on some personalities over the years that have been completely woke and they push anybody out. Now there’s an investor, an activist investor, calling on Disney to spin off ESPN. Spin it off, they say.

“Disney has reportedly explored spinning off ESPN, so the latter could pursue sports betting without conflicting with Disney’s family-friendly brand. Although Disney isn’t family friendly anymore, in many different ways. ESPN, in order for them to survive, they gotta get in the sports betting racket. That’s what they gotta do. ESPN had a call with investors and they were saying right now this is where they need to go and Disney’s trying to push them off because they don’t wanna have to worry about having to worry about associating with sports betting, which they don’t view as family friendly.”

Zeoli then pointed out the CDC’s guidance no correlates with what Steele was mentioning last fall, while pointing out the lawsuit the SportsCenter anchor has with ESPN, before saying Steele was “benched” last fall for her vaccine stance.

“What a bastion of free speech they are at ESPN,” Zeoli said.

Pat McAfee: Hard Knocks Is Allowed To Have Fun And Not Be So Serious

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Pat McAfee: Hard Knocks Is Allowed To Have Fun And Not Be So Serious

Pat McAfee is far from the only person singing the praises of the new season of Hard Knocks. Episode one drew rave reviews from most fans and media pundits. On his show Tuesday, McAfee said a lot of the credit for that goes to Dan Campbell.

McAfee called him “the living embodiment of the sport of football” and said it is clear that his involvement gives this season of Hard Knocks potential to be the best we’ve ever seen.

“Behind the scenes, he’s a hard working guy that has love for his players, that wants to do something for a city that hasn’t had a winning season in a long, long, long time,” McAfee said of the coach. “The players all seem to be all the way bought in. It’s magical. It seems to be a recipe that seems to be created for for success for Hard Knocks majesticy. That is a real word.”

It hasn’t been universal praise though. Although he feels the exact opposite, McAfee says he has seen some backlash to all of the love that episode one received on social media. Some of it is coming from Detroit, where critics say the first episode didn’t show much that was meaningful.

“There has been people, I guess around town that has been judging Hard Knocks because they thought the first week was infomercial fluff for the Detroit Lions.”

Pat McAfee pushed back on the idea that nothing of importance was happening. Competing for a roster spot is hard, and every successful rep is a step closer to a guy achieving his dream. On top of that, football is wildly unpredictable. Any play can result in a season-altering injury.

That doesn’t mean everything needs to be presented with dramatic music and a somber tone McAfee said.

“I’m sorry we’re having entertainment! You’re allowed to have fun. Not everything has to be serious.”

The second episode of Hard Knocks will air Tuesday on HBO and HBO Max. A new deal with NFL Films will allow The Pat McAfee Show to use all of the video and audio the crew wants to from each episode. That means they will likely have plenty to say about the dramatic and the mundane moments on Wednesday, when Campbell is actually scheduled to sit down with McAfee on the show.

ESPN Re-Signs Entire ‘Sunday NFL Countdown’ Cast

BSM Staff
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ESPN Re-Signs Entire ‘Sunday NFL Countdown’ Cast

ESPN has announced the re-signing of several top talents as the network begins preparations for the NFL season, with Randy Moss, Matt Hasselbeck, Tedy Bruschi, Sam Ponder, and Chris Mortensen all agreeing to new multi-year deals.

“The Sunday NFL Countdown group has created such strong chemistry and has clearly built a connection with our fans,” said Seth Markman, ESPN vice president and executive producer.

“Our blend of perspectives and personalities is perfect for fresh, insightful on-the-field analysis and conversation, regardless of the storyline or breaking news in a given week. It was critical for us to maintain the momentum moving forward.”

Sunday NFL Countdown will continue to air from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM on ESPN during the football season, with it’s 2022 debut scheduled for Sunday, September 11th and will run through Super Bowl Sunday on February 12th, 2023. Special Saturday episodes will also air during week 18 and the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Bruschi has been with the network since 2009. Ponder joined in 2011. Moss and Hasselbeck began their tenures in 2016. Chris Mortensen has been an ESPN staple, working in Bristol for more than 30 years. Rex Ryan is already in the midst of a multi-year deal. The network also reiterated Adam Schefter would continue to contribute to the program, after he agreed to a new deal in March.

Dan Abrams: No ‘Home’ For Rational News Opinions

BNM Staff
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A study from the University of Pennsylvania recently concluded cable news is more polarized now than it was 10 years ago, and Dan Abrams of NewsNation says he’s seen that first hand.

In an interview with MediaVillage‘s News On-The-Record, Abrams said he has experienced first hand the polarization described in the study.

“My frustration is that you’re on one team or the other,” the Dan Abrams Live host said. “I am constantly accused of being dishonest, wrong, or portrayed as a villain by one side or the other because they only watch one segment. They’ll watch one segment where I will say something that that person disagrees with. ‘What happened to Dan Abrams?! He’s become crazy. He’s become this,’ and it’s hard to get people to put everything into context and look at the totality and see I’m trying to look at things issue by issue and that’s not the business model that has typically worked on cable news.”

Abrams pointed to a recent show where he disagreed with students at George Washington University for refusing to take a constitutional law class taught by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in one segment, while then criticizing the Attorney General of Indiana for trying to find information for possible criminal charges of a doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim in another.

“I don’t view that as radical. I view that as probably where most of the country is on a lot of this stuff. But in the cable news world, there isn’t a home for those views that don’t necessarily align. You’d expect to see the Clarence Thomas segment on Fox (News) and you’d expect to see the abortion doctor on segment on MSNBC and not the other.”

Keith Olbermann: Joe Scarborough ‘One Of The Worst Human Beings I’ve Ever Met’, Worrisome of Alex Wagner

BNM Staff
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While detailing his history with new MSNBC primetime host Alex Wagner Tuesday, Keith Olbermann laid into MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough with some of the harshest criticisms imaginable on his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast.

“The entire morning of MSNBC’s programming features — and is ruled with an iron fist by — one of the worst human beings I have ever met,” said Olbermann. “The man who, in every day in 2015 and the start of 2016, tried to mainstream Donald Trump to the MSNBC audience and only stopped when he realized Trump was not going to offer him the Vice Presidency, ‘Joey Scars’ himself, Joe Scarborough.”

Olbermann’s sentiment came after he detailed his desire for Alex Wagner, whose new MSNBC show Alex Wagner Tonight debuts this evening, to be a guest host on his MSNBC version of Countdown during the late 2000s, but in his eyes, her lack of work ethic doomed her candidacy.

“I, along with the last executive producer of MSNBC version of Countdown, Richard Stockwell, all saw Alex Wagner from Politics Daily with The Huffington Post on, I’m pretty sure, Hardball with Chris Matthews. As we TV fatheads say, she popped. Jumped right off the screen. In many ways, not unlike Maddow did, before and after all the MSNBC geniuses who claimed credit for her success now fired her in 2006. Alex Wagner was well spoken, intelligent, informed, and vivacious, and you can teach any of those things but you cannot teach all of them to the same person.”

Olbermann then noted there was just one problem with Wagner. Just like Rachel Maddow, Wagner struggled to read the teleprompter. But unlike Maddow, Wagner, according to Olbermann, wasn’t willing to put in the work to fix the issue.

“When Stockwell and I lit upon the idea that Alex Wagner might be the next great guest host of Countdown and maybe someday, like the others (Maddow and O’Donnell) host her own MSNBC show spun off from ours, we invited her up for an audition and a meet-and-greet. Stockwell handled the audition and he came back to me that night crestfallen. It wasn’t only that Alex Wagner could not read the teleprompter, Stockwell told her ‘I told her we can teach her the teleprompter. She could become as good as Maddow in 30 minutes but she said how hard could it be? I can pick it up. Anyway, I gotta go to a dinner party’. Now, I didn’t hear that. That’s what Stockwell told me. I doubt he had the imagination to make it up.

“We talked to our people at Countdown and other MSNBC shows who had produced her segments and the same message came back each time. ‘Nice person, very intelligent, mails it in.’ “

Olbermann then went on to point out the amount of shows and career stops Wagner has had over the last 12 years since her Countdown audition, while saying while it may not sound like it, he wishes her success in her new role.

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