Sports Media

[Lawman]

Scott Lauber (ScottLauber)

[andyb]

Has ESPN completely dropped their "Cities" coverage. They only had about 5 then lost interest. I think they still have NFL beat reporters but not sure they have much else in terms of dedicated beat writers.

[zambonir]

I think ESPN had a lot more than that. Even w/o the Cities rubric they had an NFL beat writer in every city at one point. Cuts started in those areas around the same time as all the other ones I think.

Man, time flies, I certainly remember reading Lauber in during the World Series seasons. That's a good get for the Inquirer, I figured they'd end up with some cheap young guy.

[zambonir]

I guess because Disney bought MLBAM there will be one MLB game per day available on this service. NHL (next season) too. Still subject to blackout. You'll also be able to integrate your MLB.TV or NHL Center Ice.

If I subscribe it will be for MLS, which has moved its entire out-of-market package over to this. I guess there will be a fair amount of college sports but mostly second-tier (especially considering so much is on Fox and CBS too). This does not include any stuff that is already on regular ESPN TV channels.

Disney kicks off its streaming future today with ESPN+

[andyb]

Noticed today that ESPN has merged their insider subscription with ESPN+ which makes the latter a bit more interesting. I had dropped the Insider for the Athletic when it came out. That $3/month was better spent on the Athletic. Now is it worth $5 for ESPN+?

[phillychuck]

Athletic, for me, is the best possible sports coverage for the least money. ESPN is very shallow and agenda-driven.

[andyb]

I think they realized that. The only way to save it was to add their web content to the $5 a month plan to make ESPN+ a bit more valuable.

[zambonir]

I've been tempted to get ESPN+ for the MLS package and other things but I was never big on the Insider content to begin with.

I just wonder if they will eventually take away NHL and MLB games from the Extra Innings/MLB.TV and Center Ice package, so that one game per day is only on ESPN +.

[andyb]

Time to fire up this sad thread one more time:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2019/10/03/sports-illustrated-shaken-by-major-layoffs-massive-reorganization/

Sports Illustrated fires half their newsroom. I am sure some will find their way to the Athletic, but this is yet another hit for journalism.

[zambonir]

It's really bad. The Athletic doesn't really do what SI does (especially now, as they stopped being weekly/doing as much stats and game/series-driven coverage). Maybe they'll do more longreads and yeah I'm sure they will hire some folks. On the one hand the people who bought SI really screwed this up (it appears Fansided and video is all they really value) but on the other hand nobody knows how to make money (which remains to be seen with the Athetic too. They will ultimately probably be sold and experience layoffs as well, once the VC money runs out and they have to adjust their scope to reflect actual revenue.

[el-pietro]

The Athletic have made a big push in the UK since the start of August, mostly focusing on the Premier League, but also some of the bigger clubs outside the top tier as well as national writing Overnight they hired about half of all the big names in football writing in the UK.

[andyb]

A little progress on baseball streaming. It looks like we might be able to stream the MLB package within market now. Whether this means I could get the Phillies broadcast in DC where I am is unclear.

https://sports.yahoo.com/the-pen-mlb-owners-vote-could-be-big-news-for-baseball-fans-cutting-the-cord-200214832.html

[zambonir]

Kind of unclear to me what that means but it says there will be no change to MLB.TV.

Seems like all it means is teams will now be able to make their own in-market digital rights deal, whereas before they could only do a TV deal (but their TV rights holder could then offer digital packages to their subscribers, including a la carte). Definitely not going to help out of market fans who are still blacked out though maybe they will eventually reform some of the more ridiculously drawn maps.

And in Philadelphia, probably fundamentally won't change anything; it's not like they are going to go to talk to Verizon or some start-up about it, they are too intertwined with Comcast.

[andyb]

Progress for me would be to finally get MASN available on streaming services. No idea if this means anything there, though it does look like the Nationals lawsuit against the Orioles is close to the end (with the Nats getting $96 million for 5 years of undervalued rights fees).

I really don't care much about the blackouts as long as I could actually get the Nats telecast without having Comcast.

[andyb]

The Yankees are starting to explore the possibilities:

Yankees teaming up with Amazon to stream games

[bkeich]

The Yankees are starting to explore the possibilities:

nypost.com

Yankees teaming up with Amazon to stream games

The Yankees may soon become a major-league thorn in the side of New York’s cable providers. The Bronx Bombers, working with tech giant Amazon, are gearing up to become the first Major League Baseba…

Clearly the way the world is going, but if someone works for the YES station they must be updating their resume pretty fast. I know this isnt the "end" for that type of station, but it isnt a sign of a strong future.

[andyb]

Except Amazon bought a stake in YES last year. I think rights negotiations will change a bit. Rights for telecast could be sold to YES that include both the telecast and streaming rights. Where this gets tricky is if teams can reclaim some sort of sellable streaming rights from MLB. One of the less publicized things that Bud Selig did was to get MLB to share national streaming rights evenly. This seems to be an effort to break apart local streaming rights and sell them nationally.

You are right that in 10 years YES may not exist. The big question is whether local TV rights to telecasts exist,

[el-pietro]

Amazon are streaming Premier League games for the first time this week. They bought the rights to two full rounds of games. One this midweek and one over the Christmas period.

What is interesting is that they are streaming all 10 games in both gameweeks. That usually doesn't happen in the UK/Ireland. No UK channel is allowed to show games between 3pm and 5.15 pm on Saturdays in order to protect attendances in lower leagues, so in a normal weekend game week there might be 3-5 games on TV. This leads to strange quirks like big Spanish or Italian games not being broadcast in full if they start at 5pm UK time.

They are able to broadcast all 10 by picking a mid week series and the Christmas series which has no games on actual Christmas day.

The other interesting thing is they have chose two series within a month and are actively encouraging people to sign up for a free months trial of Prime and to cancel after the games. Its clear that they are using the football to influence people to take advantage of shipping with Prime so that they can increase Christmas sales, and also hoping some users keep Prime beyond the month.

It will be interesting to see what they do going forward. This won't be their last foray into live sports.

[schillingfan]

We finally cut our cable ties to Comcast/Infinity and went to a streaming service -Fubo, which is more sports oriented than Sling. I have resisted for years because Comcast would not give Satellites Comcast Sports and I couldn’t see the Phillies. But streaming services do get MSNBC sports. I notice that Xfinity is now offering streaming, which is where entertainment is going. I find streaming pretty cool, because I can watch TV and put a game streaming on my iPad at the same time through Fubo. Streaming also lets you buy channels you like, such as Acorn. More and more we will get to pay for only what you want. I still use Comcast for my internet.

[BaseballCat]

I have never heard of Fubo - I will check that out. Have been wanting to cut the cord with Comcast for years, but have not had the courage to do so. Let us know how it goes in a few months. I would still have to have Comcast internet as well. I would potential miss MLB network as that is the way I see Phillies games, but I can still hear them with At Bat audio. I do have far too many channels I never watch. I still have a Comcast digital landline to give to companies versus my cell phone number. At some point that cord will need to be cut as well - added it with a package years ago, but the price of triple play really is not worth it. Good luck - thanks for the info.