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John Ourand • November 21, 2024

About That Tyson-Paul Netflix Number…

The broadcast guys are calling bullshit on Netflix’s Tyson-Paul ratings. But Nielsen isn’t unbiased, either. Alas, as streaming reorients the industry toward self-reported data, the only constant is that nobody’s numbers really add up.

John Ourand • November 18, 2024

The Shape of Silberwasser

A candid chat with TNT Sports chairman and C.E.O. Luis Silberwasser on losing the NBA, winning back some concessions in the afterbidding market, and the mediaco’s realistic expectations for their accumulating grab bag of new rights—Roland Garros, Mountain West football, NASCAR, etcetera.

John Ourand • November 14, 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 • November 11, 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 • November 7, 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.

Eriq Gardner • November 5, 2024

The NBA-Amazon Prenup Contains a Legal Time Bomb

Courtside seating for C.E.O. Andy Jassy is just the cherry atop a highly redacted 35-page contract that gives Amazon the right to adopt future technologies for broadcasting basketball games—a mistake similar to the one the league made with TNT in failing to anticipate streaming. Isn’t that what the lawyers are for?

John Ourand • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 • October 17, 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 • 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 • October 10, 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.

Eriq Gardner • October 8, 2024

The Sad Case of Jack Nicklaus vs. “Jack Nicklaus”

Fifteen years after signing away his life rights to a business partner, golfing legend Jack Nicklaus is fighting a messy, potentially precedent-setting legal war to reclaim his name and image—including from an A.I. double.

John Ourand • October 7, 2024

ESPN & MLB Prepare for Couples Counseling

ESPN, understandably miffed by the league’s much cheaper deals with other platforms, wants it both ways—to decrease the cost of its current rights package and also get its mitts on local broadcasts to power its forthcoming streaming service. Can both sides coexist happily?