SPORTS & MEDIA
Dylan Byers
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May 28, 2025
When the Leavy Breaks
Once a member of Zaz’s WBD brain trust, David Leavy was dispatched to right the mid-Licht ship at CNN, staying on as C.O.O. for nearly two years. Now, he’s taking on an unspecified role that almost certainly doesn’t exist.
YouTube’s Disney War
The video platform’s surprise acquisition of a high-level Disney executive is the latest, and most poignant, strategic advance in its high-stakes, ongoing battle to become the go-to hub for the burgeoning sports media multiverse.
John Ourand
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May 22, 2025
MLB’s Sophie’s Choice
The current market for new sports media deals suggests that we’ve entered an era of belt-tightening for everyone besides the NFL. Now Major League Baseball, in particular, will have to choose between awareness and pure cash.
Dylan Byers
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May 21, 2025
McMahon Overboard
With the high-wire tensions between Paramount and the tormentor-in-chief at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s easy to view the exit of CBS News C.E.O. Wendy McMahon as fourth-estate martyrdom. But maybe she just wasn’t very good at her job.
Jimmy on the Spot
ESPN hopes its new D.T.C. streaming service… err, app… will become the first stop for sports fans looking to watch a game, place a bet, play fantasy, and anything else sports-related. But it’s a lot harder than it looks—just ask Netflix.
John Ourand
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May 19, 2025
Shanks’ Redemption
As its parentco finally commits to streaming, I had a candid chat with Fox Sports C.E.O. Eric Shanks to discuss the network’s bundled past, its sports and news future, and why the Indy 500 hits different for a Hoosier.
Julia Alexander
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May 16, 2025
Laz and Zaz Ponder Life After Cable
To survive as solo companies, Versant and the seemingly inevitable WBD spinco will need to transform their news media brands—MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, etcetera—into something more than mere cable channels. Is the New York Times playbook already obsolete?
John Ourand
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May 15, 2025
The N.I.L. M.B.A.
Once the domain of backslapping good ol’ boys who excelled at shaking alumni down for donations, big-time college A.D. jobs are increasingly being filled by actual business executives.
Dylan Byers
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May 14, 2025
The Hunter Biden-Tapper Face-Off
Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, Bidenworld’s cover-up, and the dire consequences for the Democratic Party, as reported in ‘Original Sin,’ have stirred up the Beltway blame game and dragged the former president out for a sad redemption tour, while raising the question of what exactly went down between Jake Tapper and Hunter Biden at Super Bowl LII.
Zaz’s Less-With-Less Strategy
As Versant prepares for liftoff and David Zaslav prepares his own spinco, the prenup between sports leagues and cable companies is being renegotiated on the fly. And while cable will no longer vie for the largest packages, there is a path forward for a new strategy.
John Ourand
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May 12, 2025
Upfronts & Downs
Live sports may be the last programming category coveted by both linear networks and streamers equally, but given the miasma of confusion on tariffs and the economy, not even the NBA and NFL can get advertisers to throw caution to the wind.
Dylan Byers
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May 9, 2025
The CNN Endgame
The latest news regarding Zaz’s desire to spin out his cable assets, including CNN, raises all kinds of existential questions for the iconic news network as it prepares to walk the plank. Plus, news and notes on Tapper’s battle with the Bidens.
Dylan Byers
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May 7, 2025
A New ESPN Chapter & Versant Notes
At next week’s upfronts, NBCU’s Mark Lazarus will be selling the synergistic post-linear potential of Versant, formerly known as SpinCo, while ESPN prepares Flagship for its maiden voyage.
Test Fubo Baby
If Disney’s struggling Fubo TV can figure out how to be the destination aggregator for sports, and attract a significant portion of the 50 million-strong customer base still addicted to cable, it may yet be a viable business.
John Ourand
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May 5, 2025
Is There Life After ‘30 For 30’?
Connor Schell, the former Bristol content wunderkind and co-creator of ‘30 for 30,’ has heeded the higher calling of private equity–financed production company glory. With Words + Pictures, which he founded with Chernin Entertainment, he masterminded a new age of sports docs—‘Celtics City,’ ‘Court of Gold,’ ‘Full Court Press,’ etcetera—and figured out a new model in the process.
Dylan Byers
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May 2, 2025
Passing Redstones
Facing a Trump lawsuit, massive debts, and a $400 million kill fee if the Skydance sale falls through, Redstone has privately discussed settling with the president for as much as $20 million. In fact, according to sources close to the company, she’ll likely have to pay much more. “Shari has to make this deal,” said one source close to the principals. “There is no plan B.”
John Ourand
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May 1, 2025
NBA TV Unsolved Mysteries
Like other league-owned channels, the 26-year-old NBA TV was ravaged by cord-cutting, and left with little bargaining power in a bundled and streaming world. Now, without any exclusive games of its own, its future is a mystery.