Five plaintiffs who have purchased Sunday Ticket from DirecTV have filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL and its teams, as well as DirecTV, CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC, claiming that exclusive distribution agreements have driven up the cost of pro football telecasts in violation of antitrust law.
A lot of viewers tuned in to see the Houston Astros topple the New York Yankees 3-0 during Tuesday night’s MLB matchup. The wild card game marks ESPN’s highest-rated baseball game in 12 years, delivering a 5.7 overnight rating among households.
ESPN has suspended its branded news segments featuring sports fantasy site DraftKings. The fantasy sports company has suspended virtually all TV advertising on the network. All this was in response to a DraftKings and FanDuel “insider trading” scandal that was revealed in a New York Times story on Tuesday. That story said a DraftKings employee used inside information to play on the competitor’s FanDuel site, winning $350,000.
Exclusives
Citing multiple sources, The Big Lead, a sports-news site, reported Monday the Disney-controlled sports-media giant could be preparing to lay off as many as “200 to 300″ staffers. ESPN is facing the same issues as other media companies –costly programming costs and losing viewers to streaming among them.
In the wake of losing rights to properties like the British Open, U.S. Open golf, NASCAR and the NHRA, ESPN is walking away from the French Open after 13 years. While media attention in recent months has focused on cost-cutting moves in Bristol, ESPN executives said the move on the event had nothing to do with saving money. Rather, they say the decision is based on the network’s position as the second or third TV outlet covering the tournament — behind NBC and Tennis Channel.
Fox Sports 1 and NBCSN won’t topple the No. 1 sports network anytime soon, but they are grabbing up TV sports rights, aiming to cut its lead. Bet they will.
Bill Simmons, Keith Olbermann and Colin Cowherd are leaving the sports network as it contends with increases in production costs and rights fees.
ESPN is looking to retain its primacy even as viewers disperse across a more distributed content landscape, and Derek Thompson reports on how it’s planning for that future. Mobile will be a big part of that picture.
While praising Olbermann’s latenight sports show on ESPN2, the network said Wednesday it has made “a business decision to move in another direction.” It provided no details or further explanation for the program’s cancellation, but wished him “nothing but the best.”
The peculiar credit appears at the end of NBA finals broadcasts on ABC. There is no reason for this single line to be shown publicly. The information it conveys is irrelevant to viewers and is an example of a major entertainment company speaking publicly to itself. But it tells you why NBA games are carried by ABC, whose once-dominant sports division was buried long ago. “The preceding program has been paid for by ESPN Inc.,” the credit reads after the announcer Mike Breen gives his end-of-game remarks.
The British Open will end a relationship that spans more than half a century with ABC and ESPN and move over to NBC and Golf Channel in 2017 as part of a deal that doubles the value of the golf tournament’s media rights, according to several sources. The move to NBC Sports Group is a huge win for Golf Channel, in particular, which long has coveted the rights to one of golf’s four major tournaments.
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor and talk-show host Joel McHale will be the host of the annual ESPY Awards show in July. The irreverent sports awards show, created by ESPN, […]
Furthering the ticket vendor’s goal of being a bigger destination for sports fans, StubHub has struck a content distribution deal with ESPN. The sports programming giant will feed scores, team stats and articles to StubHub’s apps.
WRC’s Dianna Russini Leaving For ESPN
John Walsh ends a nearly 30-year career at ESPN as one of the most influential executives in the company’s history and as a transformative figure in sports journalism.
ESPN To Share Programming With ABC
On Tuesday, ESPN introduced plans to expand two of its most valuable franchises, the ESPY Awards and the NFL playoffs, beyond cable to its sister network, ABC, which like ESPN is owned by Disney. ESPN said it will begin simulcasting the ESPY Awards, which air over the summer, on ABC. It will also simulcast one of its NFL wild card playoff games on the broadcast network, which has not had rights to the NFL since 2005.
NEW YORK (AP) — ESPN says that it is parting ways with Bill Simmons, one of its top personalities who created the Grantland website and was instrumental in the network’s […]
Both networks took home 11 trophies at Tuesday night’s 36th annual Sports Emmy Awards. Fox Sports trailed close behind, taking home eight statues, including the first ever for Fox Sports 1.
The complaint filed today in New York’s state Supreme Court alleges Verizon is breaching its contract with ESPN, owned by Walt Disney Co., by unbundling the sports channel from the main programming line-up of Verizon’s FiOS TV.
