The San Diego Gulls, American Hockey League affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks, have expanded away game coverage across San Diego’s KSWB (Fox) and KFMB (CW) and streaming platforms by using a Dejero EnGo mobile transmitter for live broadcasts made possible with resilient, high-bandwidth wireless internet connectivity. The EnGo was initially implemented by […]
The third iteration of the XFL has found a TV home. The league and Disney have struck a global rights deal that will see all XFL regular season and playoff games running on ESPN, ABC and — in its first sports rights deal since becoming part of Disney — FX. The spring football league is set to begin play in 2023.
Three huge matchups to kick off the college football season, a new Australian Open agreement and two new 30 for 30 documentaries will be announced Tuesday by ESPN as part of its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman have been working together since 2002 when they became Fox’s top crew. The new ESPN NFL team will match Pat Summerall and John Madden for the longest NFL booth pairing at 21 seasons when Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos visit Wilson’s former team, the Seattle Seahawks, on Sept. 12.
Amazon Prime Video is pleased about its slate of games for its first season as the exclusive carrier of Thursday Night Football. The Los Angeles Chargers-Kansas City Chiefs matchup on Sept. 15 was announced two weeks ago, while the remaining 14 games were unveiled on Thursday as part of the full rollout of the NFL regular-season schedule.
Exclusives
In addition to a slate of originals for TPlus and the broadcast network, Telemundo is also planning a 24-hour streaming news service.
Ad sales chief Jon Steinlauf sees demand for streaming, but “linear moves products off the shelves.”
The company’s senior vice president of digital sales now will add oversight of revenue and sales strategy for Tennis, Stadium and Bally Sports.
Joe Buck, who previously led U.S. Open coverage when it was on Fox Sports from 2015 through 2019, will host the show with Michael Collins of ESPN. Peyton and Eli Manning will be guests at some point during the tournament, and other guests include Couples and Barkley, Troy Aikman, Josh Allen and actor Jon Hamm.
The network, which previously televised two playoff games, and CBS will handle TV duties on Dec. 25 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The Super Bowl champion Rams will host the game, which also will be streamed by Paramount+.
Fox and NBC got more than a quarter of their primetime audience this season from live sports, while ABC and CBS are less dependent.
Streaming sports fans are significantly more engaged in livestreaming than viewers tuning in for news, concerts or other live events, according to new data from Parks Associates. Of the 43% of U.S. households that have streamed live content online in the past three months, 61% had recently watched a live sporting event. That comes in well above the second most popular livestreamed category of newscasts, which captured 36% of streamers, followed by concerts at below 30%.
After serving nearly a decade on NBC Sports’ Kentucky Derby production crew, Lindsay Schanzer takes the Kentucky Derby reins for the first time this weekend. Although the new senior producer of NBC’s Triple Crown coverage has served as lead producer of the broadcaster’s Preakness Stakes, Breeders’ Cup and Royal Ascot productions since 2020 and produced last year’s Belmont Stakes, tomorrow’s race at Churchill Downs marks her first time leading production of horse racing’s most iconic event.
With Turner Sports and ESPN picking up the playoffs after 16 years, Turner hopes to continue the momentum from a successful regular season in the playoffs. Its games, mainly on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons, averaged 361,000 viewers. That’s an increase of 29% over last year on NBCSN (280,000) and 24% compared with 2019-20 (292,000). Above: Wayne Gretzky takes a break during the pregame show on Oct. 13, 2021, in Atlanta. TNT and TBS are in their first season broadcasting the NHL and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. (Jeremy Freeman/Turner Sports via AP)
The broadcaster makes a number of big moves ahead of the big DTC launch it says is happening “later this quarter.”
Prime Video‘s exclusive hosting of Thursday Night Football will kick off Sept. 15 with Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers visiting their AFC West rivals, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
SportsCenter co-anchor Sage Steele has sued ESPN and corporate parent The Walt Disney Co. for allegedly violating both her contract and her free speech rights, according to multiple reports. Steele is reportedly claiming that the network “sidelined” her last year after she made remarks about ESPN’s COVID policy and former President Barack Obama’s ethnic identity.
Super Bowl winning coach Sean Payton and Fox Sports are deep in negotiations to make the former Saints head coach an NFL studio analyst. Payton would be on Fox NFL Kickoff, the network’s Sunday morning show, and would contribute to its top pregame show, Fox NFL Sunday, according to sources. Fox and Payton have discussed only studio positions, not a job as a game analyst. Fox’s lead analyst spot is vacant because Troy Aikman left for ESPN.
ESPN, which already airs hundreds of college softball and women’s lacrosse games each spring, is set to become a destination for the pro versions of those sports as well. The Disney-owned sports brand set a two-year agreement with emerging pro circuit Athletes United that will see more than 160 games air and stream on various platforms. Of the full roster of games, 34 of them will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 and 56 will be on ESPNU. Others will stream on ESPN+, as will a four-part unscripted series, Going Pro: Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Actor Reese Witherspoon and Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry have joined the ownership group of Major League Soccer’s Nashville team ahead of the opening Sunday of Geodis Park, its 30,000-seat stadium. Witherspoon’s husband, agent and investor Jim Toth, also has joined the ownership group, the Nashville Soccer Club said Tuesday. […]
Global sports piracy costs media companies $28 million a year in lost revenue, according to a recent study. Companies are fighting back.
Several weeks into the baseball season, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network remains an outlier, keeping its announcers for the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals at home for road games. Instead of traveling, the broadcasters are calling the games from the broadcasts booths inside their local stadiums, a tricky task for play-by-play announcers Bob Carpenter with the Nationals and Kevin Brown with the Orioles. The effect on the broadcast has been noticed by fans, with delayed commentary a frequent frustration, such as when a key Oakland error was called several seconds after Orioles fans saw it on MASN
NASCAR delivered the most-watched race at Bristol Motor Speedway since 2016 on Sunday night when an average 4,007,000 viewers tuned in as the Cup Series raced on dirt for the second consecutive season.
With another attempted return of springtime professional football, the USFL (United States Football League) offered up decent results — 2.9 million average viewers, per Nielsen’s Fast National metric via an unusual joint NBC-Fox Saturday night simulcast. This is the third time in four years that a spring professional football league has attempted to be launched.
Melissa Stark will be NBC’s new sideline reporter for Sunday Night Football. Stark, 48, is currently at the NFL Network. She was the sideline reporter for ABC’s Monday Night Football from 2000 to 2003. She went on to be a correspondent for Today on NBC. She is replacing Michele Tafoya. Tafoya is pursuing a career in politics, which includes being a commentator.
Major League Soccer and Apple may soon be finalizing an agreement to bring the top domestic soccer league to Apple TV+, according to a report from Sam Stejskal, who broke the story on Twitter.
While several spring football leagues have popped up in recent years, none have come close to packing the production-technology punch that is expected in USFL broadcasts. All games will be produced in 1080p HDR with many up-converted to 4K. Regardless of the quality of play on the field, one thing is for sure: the broadcast will look unlike any football game you’ve watched before. Above: Eight cameras have been mounted inside the stadium in Birmingham, Ala., to serve the optical tracking system that automatically measures first downs.
The USFL kicks off Saturday night in Birmingham, Ala., when the New Jersey Generals face the Birmingham Stallions. Fox and NBC Sports will each carry 22 games, including Saturday’s opener. It is the first time since the 2007 regular-season finale between the New England Patriots and New York Giants that a game will air on multiple broadcast networks. (WBRC photo)
The league has renewed a deal with YouTube to carry 15 exclusive games on the platform this season. The renewal means YouTube will stream MLB games for a fourth consecutive season; the first contest of 2022 will be a Washington Nationals-Colorado Rockies matchup on May 5.
Advertisers Making Last-Minute Buys As USFL Opening Night Draws Near
The upstart professional football league’s April 16 season opener will see advertisers paying up to $35,000-$40,000 for a 30-second spot with some hard-sell tactics from NBC and Fox to move inventory.
Riding a hot sports market after a regular season in which ratings were up 19%, Disney Ad Sales and Turner Sports report high demand and near sellouts for the NBA playoffs, which started Tuesday night on TNT.
