SPORTS & MEDIA
John Ourand
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July 24, 2025
The ESPN-NFL Media Deal Is Happening
The NFL is finally close to a deal with ESPN that would give the league an equity stake in the network, and offer ESPN total control over NFL Network and NFL RedZone. I know regular readers of The Varsity have been reading that sentence for the past 18 months now. But, really, the two sides are closer than ever.
Dylan Byers
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July 23, 2025
Only Murdoch in the Building
After successfully shaking down Disney and Paramount, Trump has targeted ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ whose proprietor may not roll over so easily.
Netflix’s Sports Scorecard
With two full years of Netflix audience data, we now have a clear sense of how its series perform. So what’s still working, and what absolutely isn’t? And when it comes to sports, is it better to be “adjacent” or in on the action?
Eriq Gardner
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July 22, 2025
Murdoch’s Trump-Epstein Game Theory
The president’s attorneys could seize on the mogul’s advanced age for expedited examination of his dealing with ‘Wall Street Journal’ executives. For their part, the defendants might welcome discovery—especially if it involves Epstein-related D.O.J. files.
John Ourand
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July 21, 2025
Stream Weaver
A candid conversation with Michael Nathanson, the exalted media analyst and MoffettNathanson namesake, who offers some scintillating hypotheses and observations about the NFL’s next auction winners, ESPN’s economics, and Apple’s sports media portfolio.
Dylan Byers
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July 18, 2025
Colbert in the Bardo & Substack’s Next Chapter
News and notes on the latest media industry talking points: The timing, optics, and insider drama following CBS’s abrupt decision to cancel ‘The Late Show’ as the Paramount deal approaches the finish line; and what to make of Substack’s $1.1 billion valuation in a round led by The Chernin Group.
John Ourand
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July 17, 2025
How Portnoy Got to Fox
Talks between Barstool Sports’s Dave Portnoy and Fox Sports kicked off with horse racing, but soon moved to something more ambitious: a deal that would give Portnoy and his buds a new platform, bequeath the Big Ten a true-blue booster of their own, and offer Fox the kind of trouble that they could use right now.
Dylan Byers
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July 16, 2025
There’s Something About Bari
Times defector Bari Weiss has become everybody’s favorite center-right public intellectual: principled, pro-Israel, not about to get pushed around by the progressive mob, and a damn good hang. So when she sat down with David Ellison (and lawyers) at Sun Valley last week, it set off the usual rumors that her Free Press might be Skydance’s next acquisition. But is it sound business or just savvy virtue signaling in a Trump 2.0 world?
YouTube’s Full Swing
From viewership to participation, golf is having one of its best seasons in recent memory. And as it becomes cool(er) again among young people, YouTube is at the center of how it’s connecting with top players.
John Ourand
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July 14, 2025
Commissioners in Cars Getting Coffee
While Formula 1 seems to be grabbing all the headlines these days—from the wildly successful Hollywood movie to a rich new potential rights deal with Apple—NASCAR has quietly reinforced its position as the dominant domestic motorsport. Not gonna lie, as the kids say, it’s not even close.
Dylan Byers
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July 11, 2025
Apple Is Offering $150 Million to Stream F1
With ESPN unwilling to match Tim Cook and Eddy Cue’s offer, the U.S. rights to Formula One are almost certainly headed to Apple’s streamer, trading cable TV’s reach for Big Tech revenue. Here’s hoping Cupertino will be a better, more creative, partner to F1 than it was to MLS.
John Ourand
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July 10, 2025
F1’s ESPN-Apple Bake-Off
Cupertino has its highest-grossing theatrical release ever in Brad Pitt’s ‘F1,’ and F1 execs think it’s time for ESPN to double the racing series’ rights deal. But Bristol doesn’t seem inclined to merge into the fast lane.
Dylan Byers
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July 9, 2025
All Ellison’s Men
With its capitulation to Trump complete, Paramount’s merger with Skydance can finally proceed, leaving CBS News unmoored, if a little relieved, and questioning if its new owners secretly sweetened the settlement deal. Naturally, there are already rumblings about what David Ellison wants and expects from his news division.
A Room of One’s DAZN
With its quixotic, billion-dollar investment in the FIFA Club World Cup and subsequent acquisition of Serie A rights, the niche streamer is doubling down on soccer to penetrate the U.S. market. Unfortunately, it’s too little, too late.
John Ourand
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July 7, 2025
The NFL-Skydance Billion-Dollar Question
Everyone in the sports-media industrial complex has been trying to game out the NFL’s strategy for exercising its change-of-control option in its CBS/Paramount deal. But the current idea gaining traction will throw everyone for a loop—especially the NHL and MLB.
Julia Alexander
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July 2, 2025
Google Zero Dark Thirty
Traffic is collapsing for publishers as the web reorients around A.I. The market is responding, too, with U.S. advertisers expected to spend over $25 billion, or about 14 percent of their search budgets, on A.I.-powered search by 2029. The good news is that people are making and consuming more media than ever—even if the business itself becomes unrecognizable.
John Ourand
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June 30, 2025
MLB in the Post-Peak TV Era
Sports may be the last remaining jewel of live TV, but the era of the 10-figure rights deals is a thing of the past for everyone besides the NFL and NBA. The current marketplace tells the story.