SPORTS & MEDIA
Dylan Byers
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August 15, 2025
Ellison Island
Ellison has embarked on a marathon charm offensive to convey optimism toward his self-appointed quixotic task of scaling Paramount, taking on Netflix, and saving Hollywood. But, yes, there will be cuts—especially at CBS News, the least glamorous and most challenged corner of his new entertainment empire.
John Ourand
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August 14, 2025
The Berson Offensive
After a quiet decade of bidding activity—passing on the NBA, NHL, NASCAR, etcetera—CBS Sports president David Berson is ready to spend his Ellisonbucks. UFC was just the opening statement.
Dylan Byers
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August 13, 2025
Media’s Strange Bedfellow Era
As legacy companies bleed out and the uneven creator economy spills forth, the behemoths will be increasingly keen to eschew their own talent to partner with the entrepreneurs. A flurry of recent small deals presage the landscape.
Ellison, Ari & The Power of CBS
Paramount’s seven-year, $7.7 billion UFC deal gave David Ellison a more compelling pitch for Par+ users, while Ari Emanuel’s UFC now has exposure far beyond the ESPN+ app and pay-per-view’s walled garden. But who got a better deal?
John Ourand
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August 11, 2025
Ellison Goes on Offense
A couple days into his new gig, David Ellison announced his transformational $7.7 billion UFC deal. Sure, it won’t make Paramount+ profitable, but it will turn the service into a major player—as MLB and the NFL are likely taking note.
Dylan Byers
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August 8, 2025
Visible Man
Media coverage of David Ellison’s post-merger victory tour has largely focused on his plans for CBS News, looming synergies at Paramount, and his relationship with Trump. But all this may understate the true scale of Ellison’s ambition: to transfuse New Paramount with his dad’s tech and turn a legacy creative business into… a platform.
John Ourand
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August 7, 2025
Footnotes on the ESPN-NFL Deal
There may not have been a lot of suitors for the NFL’s media assets, but Disney found a way to get what it needed while the league preserved its optionality.
Dylan Byers
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August 6, 2025
And Then There Were Two…
Earnings season has thrown the disparate fortunes of The New York Times Company and Dow Jones into sharp relief with the worsening situation at The Washington Post. Hey Gemini, how many paywalled newsgathering businesses does this country actually need?
McAfee & Portnoy Walk Into a Studio…
The looming college football face-off between Pat McAfee and Dave Portnoy is the latest, hugely expensive attempt by aging networks to build brand loyalty among young audiences raised on a diet of clips, viral moments, and highlight reels. It’s a good idea in theory, but will it work in practice?
John Ourand
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August 4, 2025
The ESPN Endgame
Disney’s much-anticipated earnings call this Wednesday may finally reveal Burbank’s plans for the future of ESPN—Flagship, the NFL deal, and the balance between managing cord-cutting and building the next frontier.
John Ourand
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July 31, 2025
Major La Liga
Relative affordability—$250 million, anyone?—and some timely rule changes have opened up the market for Mexican soccer clubs to U.S. investors.
Dylan Byers
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July 30, 2025
Mothertucker
Not only has Emma Tucker completely revitalized the staid Journal with her suffer-no-fools attitude and upscale tabloid instincts, but her strategic bet to repopulate the D.C. newsroom (moving out a generation of retiring mentors in favor of pot-stirrers) has the paper eating the Times’s lunch in the second Trump era.
Comcast’s Back to the Future Sports Play
Brian Roberts and Matt Strauss’s plan to simulcast Peacock games on a new cable channel is a smart bet on a hybrid, skinny bundle strategy to monetize the stubbornly unconverted and squeeze more life from a dying platform. It may just work, at least for a while.
John Ourand
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July 28, 2025
Shell’s Bells
The questions and enigmas following Skydance’s finally approved acquisition of Paramount Global don’t seem to extend to CBS Sports, a no-drama zone amid a network in existential crisis. That’s largely because of David Berson’s even-keeled leadership, and Jeff Shell and David Ellison believe they can build around his CBS Sports
Dylan Byers
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July 25, 2025
Dirty Skydancing
While the media universe overanalyzes the free speech implications of the tediously drawn out Paramount-Skydance merger—the Colbert-Carr-‘South Park’ of it all—CBS rank and file are pondering a simpler question: Who’s gonna fix the evening news?
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.