When a sobbing Michael Sam celebrated his selection by the St. Louis Rams by hugging and kissing his partner, another man, it made real and physical that an openly gay athlete had taken an unprecedented step toward an NFL career. Producer Seth Markman, who oversees NFL draft coverage for ESPN, said that in the extensive preparation for Sam’s possible draft, “we never had one discussion about, ‘What if he’s drafted, his partner’s there and they kiss?’ Honestly, it never came up.”
A watershed moment in Major League Soccer’s 18-year history will occur this week, as the league is poised to announce new media rights deals that will bring in far more revenue and lead to a consistent, streamlined television schedule. The eight-year deals with ESPN, Fox and Univision are priced five times higher than the average annual value of the league’s current media deals.
The cable network will televise one of next season’s wild-card games in January. The game will be the first playoff matchup aired on ESPN in the cable network’s 35-year history.
Exclusives
WatchESPN, the sports giant’s mobile app, is part of an aggressive push by ESPN into online services as pay television matures. ESPN pioneered sports TV on that medium and for three decades rode a steady rise in U.S. cable and satellite TV subscriptions. These now have leveled off and appear to be contracting. ESPN is at the forefront of the TV industry’s efforts to expand into Internet distribution. Wall Street Journal subscribers can read the full story here.
Critics of state tax incentives to ESPN, the multibillion-dollar sports media powerhouse, say the money would be better spent on smaller companies that are in greater need.
Some highly rated December games, including this week’s Atlanta-San Francisco matchup, has helped ESPN’s Monday Night Football finish its season with the franchise’s best numbers in three years.
The new, 193,000-square-foot home of SportsCenter is going to be equipped with the latest in Grass Valley production technology.
‘Monday Night Football’ Tops Cable, B’cast
ESPN’s Monday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers averaged 15.77 million total viewers, according to Nielsen, a season high and up from 10.96 million for last week’s contest between the Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It was the most-watched show of the night on broadcast or cable, topping ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, the night’s No. 2 show with 13.8 million. MNF also finished as the night’s top show in 18-49s, drawing a 5.8 rating, nearly two points better than the 3.9 last week’s contest averaged.
According to comScore’s Multi-Platform data, ESPN saw 47.4 million people using its mobile products — just a tad more than the 46.1 million accessing ESPN.com. This marks the first month that ESPN has seen more unique users on ESPN mobile properties than ESPN.com.
Will Dish Network Dare To Drop ESPN?
The Dish Network CEO is threatening to drop Disney-owned sports powerhouse ESPN from his satellite service because of its high cost. The possibility that the fourth-largest carrier could go without a key network is at the center of negotiations this week in Denver as the clock ticks toward a Sept. 30 deadline when the current Dish Network-Disney/ABC contract expires.
ESPN and Turner Sports are talking with NASCAR about getting out of their broadcast rights agreement a year early, a move that could allow Fox Sports and NBC Sports Group to become the sport’s broadcasters next year. It’s unlikely that the four TV companies will be able to reach a deal, sources say. But the fact that these types of talks are occurring is precedent-setting in an industry where live sports rights are held sacred.
Fox Sports 1, the new 24-hour all-sports channel of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, is taking on reigning sports media behemoth ESPN in a way that has never happened — with deep pockets, plenty of programming and an edge. Live events, viewers, sponsors — Fox wants them all.
Far beyond televising games, ESPN has become the chief impresario of college football. By infusing the sport with billions of dollars it pays for television rights — more than $10 billion on college football in the last five years alone — ESPN has become both puppet-master and kingmaker, arranging games, setting schedules and bestowing the gift of nationwide exposure on its chosen universities, players and coaches.
Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN sports network has held preliminary talks to offer programming on a Web-based TV service like those proposed by Google Inc., Sony Corp. and Intel Corp.
Dish chief Charlie Ergen says the satcaster is prepared to part ways with Disney if the two companies can’t agree on a contract renewal by a Sept. 30 deadline.
Nate Silver, the statistician who attained national fame for his accurate projections about the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, is parting ways with The New York Times and moving to ESPN, according to ESPN employees with direct knowledge of his plans. At ESPN, Silver is expected to have a wide-ranging portfolio. Along with his writing and number-crunching, he will most likely be a regular contributor to Olbermann, the late-night ESPN2 talk show hosted by Keith Olbermann that will have its debut at the end of August. In political years, he will also have a role at ABC News, which, like ESPN, is owned by Disney.
Pagano: ESPN Plans To Be The 4K Leader
The cable sports giant is building a brand new, massive sports production center that Chief Technology Officer Chuck Pagano says will be future proof — able to handle upcoming 4K and 8K production. And he’s also keeping an eye on what’s going on in the broadcast TV world, especially the development of ATSC 3.0 and the pending FCC spectrum auction.
