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John Ourand & Eriq Gardner
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Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (Thursday is an Inner Circle exclusive)
A professional-grade rundown on the business of sports from John Ourand, the industry’s preeminent journalist, covering the leagues, players, agencies, media deals, and the egos fueling it all. Plus, the latest intel from Eriq Gardner on the sports legal beat.
THE LATEST ARTICLES
John Ourand
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November 15, 2024
Is the NFL Falling Hard for Amazon?
For the first time, a streaming service outdrew one of the NFL’s top TV partners in same-week viewership. Now, TV execs are grumbling that the NFL is setting up a future rights battle by giving streamers a taste of potential glory with the choicest matchups.
John Ourand
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November 12, 2024
Will Zaz’s Prayers Be Answered?
Media C.E.O.s are hoping against hope that Trump 2.0 will usher in a new M&A permission structure allowing them to, among other things, finally offload those linear TV assets they should have bailed on 10 years ago, like Rupert did. But, as LightShed Partners’ Rich Greenfield argues, nothing is easy and everything takes forever.
John Ourand
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November 8, 2024
Republicans Buy ESPN Subscriptions, Too
During his six years in Bristol, chairman Jimmy Pitaro has carefully pivoted ESPN away from a network that condones political expression to a business-friendly safe space for sports. And he’s not changing his tune now.
John Ourand
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October 31, 2024
Dude, Where’s My NASCAR
How America’s homegrown motorsport is branching out: to new countries, new venues, and most importantly, more broadcast partners. NASCAR president Steve Phelps explains how they plan to grow without pissing off their faithful. (Michael Jordan is another story.)
John Ourand
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October 28, 2024
ESPN’s Streaming Squeeze
TV distributors are struggling to play hardball with the likes of ESPN, Peacock, and Paramount+ as sports programmers move their best content to streaming. But distribution executives also realize how much ESPN needs affiliate fees to compete against the deep-pocketed tech streamers that are piling into this space. And they’ve got their own ideas for how to use that leverage to their advantage.
John Ourand
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October 24, 2024
Late Night With Jason Kelce?
As ESPN wrestles with attracting younger audiences away from YouTube and TikTok, and fortifying its forthcoming streamer, Jimmy Pitaro is talking to Jason Kelce about helming his own late night show—a decidedly last-decade solution to a very modern dilemma.
John Ourand
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October 21, 2024
A Serious Manfred
A candid chat with the commish about Major League Baseball’s evolving local media predicament, its strategy of pooling games, and the challenges inherent in iterating a national pastime.
John Ourand
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October 18, 2024
Is Goodell Picking Favorites?
The NFL’s decision to allow ABC to simulcast six extra ‘Monday Night Football’ games from sisterco ESPN has enraged executives from rival networks, prompted some pretty vicious phone calls and accusations of favoritism, and led to animus and chit-filing. It’s also the latest example of a familiar trope in the industry: The Shield can do whatever it wants.
John Ourand
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October 14, 2024
CAA’s International Sports Bet & The Talent Murky Middle
Sports media agent Matt Kramer extemporizes about the agency’s shifting strategy and the overall evolution of the industry, in which the on-air talent market increasingly resembles the sports media rights economy writ large, with huge salaries for premium pundits and insiders (Stephen A., McAfee, Woj) and belt-tightening everywhere else.
John Ourand
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October 11, 2024
The War of the Rosenthal Column
The silly and petty saga of a column, a pissed-off Major League Baseball team, and a strange power-sharing agreement between the Times and Fox—none of which will matter one iota if the Dodgers and Yanks make it to the World Series.