Home Blog Page 2645

John Skipper: ‘Charles Barkley Is The Only Broadcaster Fans Tune In To See’

BSM Staff
-
0

John Skipper has a very high opinion of Charles Barkley. He joined Dan Patrick on Thursday to talk about Tom Brady’s new deal with FOX. The Meadowlark Media boss made it clear that he thought Barkley was in rarified air amongst his broadcasting colleagues.

“I think there are only three or four people in the history of broadcasting that you can genuinely say people tune in to see them. The late, great John Madden, who just recently passed, was one of those guys. Barkley is the guy right now in all of sports that you can say people will tune in to see him.”

Dan Patrick asked Skipper if that meant ESPN ever tried to sign Barkley while Skipper was in charge.

“There’s almost nobody who’s really, really good that we didn’t try to get,” Skipper said adding that the problem was that ESPN asks its employees to work too much.

He said this same problem came up when he talked to Shaquille O’Neal about coming to Bristol. Skipper pitched Shaq on being the star of ESPN’s NBA coverage instead of “playing second fiddle to Barkley on TNT.”

Skipper says Shaq told him that he had already talked to Charles Barkley, who had said that at TNT there were no rehearsals, no First Take appearances and no SportsCenter hits. The Inside the NBA crew gets to just show up and talk basketball. That was all Shaq was looking for.

John Skipper acknowledged that the workload can be a disadvantage for ESPN in those situations. ESPN has a lot of programming to fill though and the model they use has worked for them. It wasn’t for Shaquillel O’Neal or Charles Barkley, and Skipper says that is okay. TNT created a show that stands out above other studio shows because it plays to its cast’s strengths.

“It’s because they look like they’re having fun,” Skipper said, explaining why Inside the NBA is his favorite sports studio show. “They know what they’re talking about. They’re willing to be provocative, they’re willing to mash it up, and it’s great.”

FanDuel CMO: ‘We Will Never See All 50 States Legalize Sports Betting’

BSM Staff
-
0

Every year a group of new states decides to legalize sports betting. FanDuel CMO Mike Raffensperger doesn’t think that means there will be a day when his company can take bets from wherever it wants in the United States.

“I don’t think it will ever get to 50,” he told Pat McAfee on Thursday.

There are still 15 states where betting on sports is illegal. Raffensperger cited Utah as an example, saying that in some places, the opposition to gambling is built into the state constitution. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect progress to continue elsewhere.

“I think you’ll see a continued, steady pace for the next few years and then you’ll get close to a critical mass, but my hunch would be no. You won’t get all 50.”

McAfee theorized that the Covid-19 pandemic, while not a good thing, was beneficial in the effort to legalize sports gambling across the country. He asked Raffensperger if it created a culture where more people became used to connecting to the rest of the world on their phones.

Raffensperger answered that it certainly helped. Plus, it was a time when state governments needed to find new sources of income. Sports betting created a whole new tax revenue stream in a time when large sectors of the economy were shut down. That is why he is confident that a good chunk of the 15 holdouts will eventually embrace sports betting.

“This is really common sense legislation,” he said. “Everybody pretty much wants this to happen. It’s taking a black market that is unregulated and unsafe into a safe and regulated environment and it creates new revenue for the state.”

Ros Gold-Onwude Lands Contract Extension From ESPN

BSM Staff
-
0

ESPN is hanging onto Ros Gold-Onwude. The network has agreed to a multi-year extension with its NBA reporter and analyst.

Gold-Onwude has been all over the place for ESPN’s NBA coverage. She has served as a sideline reporter on television for both that league and the WNBA. She has also been on the radio, serving as the studio co-host for the NBA Finals.

On Twitter, she expressed her gratitude and excitement.

Previous stops for Ros Gold-Onwude include TNT and NBC Sports Bay Area. Her next assignment will be in the studio for ESPN Radio during Game 6 of the series between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics.

NFL Putting All 14 Playoff Teams On Thursday Night Football

BSM Staff
-
0
NFL Putting All 14 Playoff Teams On Thursday Night Football

The NFL wants Thursday Night Football on Amazon to be a success. The league will do all it can to help. That is why the streaming giant’s first full season of Thursday games may be the best midweek schedule the league has ever put together.

The entire 2022 schedule will be released on Thursday night with primetime specials on both ESPN2 and NFL Network. According to Mike Florio, when it is, fans will see that all 14 playoff teams from 2021 will have at least one appearance on Amazon this season.

During the NFL Draft, Roger Goodell announced that the Chargers and the Chiefs will meet in Week 2, the first game on Amazon’s schedule. That is a pretty good start to the company’s 11-year deal with the NFL that reportedly pays the league $1 billion per year.

The commissioner is excited about what is possible with the deal. “Amazon’s platform is going to allow us to do things that we’ve only dreamed about to date,” he said last week at an Amazon conference according to Front Office Sports.

He did not elaborate on what some of those things may be. Certainly technology for covering a game will be in play, but the reality is that the things Goodell has “only dreamed about to date” may have more to do with advertising and revenue generation. Amazon is one of the world’s top retail sellers after all.

ESPN+ Tops 22 Million Subscribers

BSM Staff
-
0
ESPN+ Tops 22 Million Subscribers

ESPN has to be happy with the performance of ESPN+ thus far. During Disney’s latest quarterly earnings report, the company revealed that the streaming platform added another 1 million subscribers during the second quarter of 2022. That brings the total to around 22.3 million.

Disney generates an average of $4.73 from each ESPN+ subscriber in monthly revenue. It is part of the cash cow that streaming has been for the entire Walt Disney Company. Disney+, the company’s flagship OTT streamer, added 7.9 million subscribers during the same time period.

Don’t expect this to mean that Disney and ESPN are ready to abandon traditional cable. Bob Chapek, Disney’s CEO, described linear networks as still being “cash generators”. He added that “the hesitancy to move too fast away from those is really a cashflow situation.”

“At some point, when it is going to be good for our shareholders, we will be able to fully go,” Chapek said. “It will be the ultimate fan offering that appeals to super-fans of sports, and it is really only ESPN that could pull that off.”

Mark Esper: Donald Trump’s Style Is “Unnecessarily Coarse and Divisive”

BNM Staff
-
0

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper went on the offensive, declaring former President Donald Trump’s style as “unnecessarily coarse and divisive.” A video published by Mediaite shows Esper appearing on Tuesday’s “Fox & Friends” to promote his new book.

Some pundits describe Esper as a “never Trumper” or a guy who left the administration and profited from speaking out against his former boss. Esper prefers to describe himself as a “Regan Republican.”

“And if you’re Republican like I am, you want somebody that can grow the base. And the only way you can advance core Republican policies is if you grow the base, win the country, and win elections. You have to win elections.”

Esper served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy at the Pentagon During the President George W. Bush administration before he was named Defense Secretary under Trump.

Esper has called Trump a threat to democracy and said he would not vote for the former president were he to run in 2024.

“I hope that the Republican base can figure out that while President Trump pushed a lot of traditional Republican ideas,” Esper said. 

“There are other candidates out there who could run that could do it without dividing the people, without creating such tension within the country, and do it by growing the base as well.”

Joy Reid: Religious Right Grew Out of “Segregationist Movement”

BNM Staff
-
0

MSNBC’s Joy Reid is drawing criticism from right-leaning pundits after she referred to some of the Supreme Court Justices as “Christian nationalists on the court” victimizing “black and brown folks.”

According to a transcript published on Breitbart, the “ReidOut” host berated the “religious right” for making abortion their main issue. Her comments come on the heels of a leaked draft opinion by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would purportedly overturn Roe v. Wade. 

“The reality is that this movement grew out of a deeply segregationist movement and then belatedly latched on to abortion because it was better PR, to be blunt,” said Reid. 

“What does it mean that the victims of this ruling are going to be disproportionately the very same people who were subject to segregation, black and brown folks, indigenous people, people who have been beaten down over the course of the history that they no longer want us to learn?” 

Reid compared Alito attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade to the Plessy ruling that said black people get to have no rights because they never had rights. 

Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Mark Jackson Already Has One Of The NBA’s Best Jobs

Andy Masur
-
0

Why would he ever go back? Why would he want to leave a good job in television to get back on the sidelines? Those were the questions facing Mark Jackson as he was a finalist for an NBA head coaching job again. Jackson interviewed for both the Lakers’ and Kings’ vacancies in the last few weeks as he looked to get back into the coaching ranks. 

Following his playing days, Jackson got involved in television, then left the media gig for the head coaching spot with the Warriors. Jackson coached at Golden State for three seasons winning 12 more games than he lost. He led the Warriors to the postseason twice, but after losing a Game 7 first round playoff game in 2014, he was fired and headed back to television. 

He is currently an ABC/ESPN analyst working on the top broadcast team with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy. Jackson is at the top of his game, carving out a great niche for himself alongside Van Gundy. The two make a terrific pair, playing off each other extremely well, with the traffic cop being Breen. There is a chemistry between the three that’s pretty much evident in every broadcast. There is a unique bond between the two analysts as well. 

As I wrote about a year ago, the banter and comradery between them go back to when all three were with the Knicks. Because of their familiarity, the disagreements at times could sound heated on the air. But what you have to understand is that friends can take these liberties with each other and know exactly where that line is, and never cross it. In other words, Jackson is in a good spot and working with good friends. It seems to be a great situation for him, but the coaching bug hasn’t left his system.

Jackson’s time in Golden State was not without its bumps in the road. There are many who feel like the fallout from his first, and so far, only head coaching job, is keeping him from the next opportunity. There was a perception that Jackson couldn’t get along with anyone in the Warriors front office. Some felt like he pushed his religion on his players as well. Whatever the case, he hasn’t gotten another chance since. 

Which brings me back to the question. Why leave the relatively low stress life as a top analyst for the grind and high-stress that goes along with a head coaching position? A couple of years ago, before an NBA Finals broadcast, the question was posed to Jackson about whether he’d like to return to the sidelines. He appeared on Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe. 

“Well, obviously it’s an incredible job we have and we’re blessed and fortunate to be able to call another NBA Finals,” he said. “I think coaching is in both of our veins (he and Jeff Van Gundy), and we look forward to the day — I know I can speak for myself and say I look forward to the day that I’m coaching again, but I’m having a blast.”

During that interview in September of 2021, he was asked why he currently didn’t have a head coaching job in the NBA.  

”I don’t know. That’s the full answer I do not know. What I will say is that I look forward to the day that I am coaching again. It will happen, I truly believe that with everything in me.” 

Once it’s in the blood, I guess it’s always there, right? What else could explain it? I get it, but still, why? Is it the challenge? Is it a respect thing? It could be all of the above. But there’s another side to it. 

Of all the former players, coaches and managers I’ve ever worked with, they’ve all said pretty much the same thing. Something along the lines of, “wow, it’s great to put down the headset at the end of a game and just go home.” No hours of breaking down what went right or wrong in that particular game, no time figuring out tomorrow’s lineup, no worrying about that 0-for-15 slump, no watching hours of tape trying to game plan for those next hoops opponents.

It’s freeing to be in the booth. That’s the impression that I get.

All former players or coaches have to do in their role is rely on previous experience to describe what is happening. They aren’t responsible for wins or losses. They don’t have to worry about correcting players’ mistakes. As an analyst, you can try and predict a move, and not be responsible if it doesn’t work. You have no skin in that game. Analysts get paid a lot of money to second guess, not to be second guessed. Seems like an ideal situation, doesn’t it?

What could still be the lure? I’m sure in Jackson’s mind there is no way to compete with his desires to be back as a head coach in the NBA. He probably wants to prove that he can coach again, to show either that he’s learned from that first experience or that the common perception of his first experience is not accurate.

Well, he is great on TV. The partnership with Van Gundy and Breen works. There’s safety for himself in this current job. He’s guaranteed a trip to the NBA Finals every season. Isn’t that more appealing than coaching a team in need of a reboot? 

Ian Eagle Explains How He Learned About Steve Kerr’s Covid Diagnosis

BSM Staff
-
0

Ian Eagle was a guest on Papa and Lund on KNBR in San Francisco on Wednesday. The TNT broadcaster was asked how he goes about gathering information and understanding what new off-court stories are shaping conversations about the series.

He said that every game day starts with a full crew breakfast at 10 AM where stories and ideas are thrown out. That is just the beginning though because one meeting wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“If you’re doing paint by numbers in these series, if you just go in and say ’Oh, we’ll just report what we see on the court,’ that’s just not enough certainly in this day and age with information flying around the way it is,” Ian Eagle said.

Coaches’ meetings can be a big part of the preparation, as are check-ins with team PR staffs. He said the goal is to have an overflow of information.

He described being minutes away from he and analyst Jim Jackson meeting with Warriors coach Steve Kerr ahead of Game 4 when information about the coach’s Covid diagnosis came out. Instantly, he knew plans would have to change.

“We were supposed to meet with Steve Kerr at 5:30 local time. At 520, Jared Greenberg runs out of our room and we’re looking at each other like ‘what the hell is going on here? That’s the fastest I ever saw that dude move.’ And he clearly got some information and within 2 minutes there’s a tweet and two minutes after that we get a call from Golden State PR.”

Eagle said that in that situation, all you can do is think about how you are going to set the table for the game with the information you have rather than be frustrated with what you had prepared now being irrelevant.

“That means you’re changing your open. That means your changing your storylines to start the game and Jared’s hit. I think it’s just a full team effort to make sure you’ve got the narratives and what the audience needs to know.”

Elizabeth Warren Pushes Back that Dems are “Flatfooted” on Abortion

BNM Staff
-
0

Abortion is a hot topic on cable news shows. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren joined “CNN Newsroom” with Erica Hill to discuss the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that will purportedly overturn Roe v. Wade.

According to Mediate, Hill asked Warren why the Democrats looked “flatfooted” on the issue of abortion. Warren has been in front of the cameras on abortion since the leak became public.

“I have been raising this argument for a very long time,” said Warren. “And the reason is because I lived in an America where abortion was illegal. I lived in an America where women died, bled to death because of back-alley abortions.”

Warren said an “extremist minority on the Supreme Court” believes they can dictate what’s best for American women and their bodies.

“And understand this, they don’t get the final word. The final word rests in Congress. So, I think this is a galvanizing moment.”

“I think this is a moment we have this vote today to get everybody on record, and then, we hold everybody accountable for those votes,” Warren added. 

1...2,6442,6452,646...2,838Page 2,645 of 2,838