sports

WASHINGTON (AP) — Magic Johnson has joined Josh Harris’ bid to buy the NFL’s Washington Commanders, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The person spoke to The Associated […]

ESPN’s latest round of layoffs will have “no sacred cows,” meaning everybody from top on-air people to big-time executives are being scrutinized with the cuts expected to be finalized in the next four to six weeks. The moves are a part of layoffs that Disney’s CEO Bob Iger announced were coming across all of the company’s units. Last month, Iger said that 7,000 jobs would be eliminated across the board.

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s regional sports networks division, Diamond Sports Group, has officially missed the deadline for a $30.8 million TV rights payment to Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks, signaling that the restructuring plan Diamond entered into bankruptcy with earlier this week has more than a few outs to get before it retires the side. For now, with the Diamondbacks set to open their 2023 regular season on the road against the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30, it appears there will be no disruption to Diamond’s Bally Sports Arizona channel carrying the games.

Through five months of the NBA season so far — with the start of playoff action looming in four weeks — national TV advertising is 28% higher to an estimated $656.9 million so far, according to iSpot.tv. Total impressions are also comparably higher — 22% more to a total of 29.8 billion — from 136,448 airings of commercials this season.

The move came after it missed a $140 million interest payment last month. Diamond owns 19 networks under the Bally Sports banner. Those networks have the rights to 42 professional teams — 14 baseball, 16 NBA and 12 NHL. The company said in a release Tuesday night that it expects to continue to operate during the bankruptcy process and that coverage of games should not be affected.

Executives from the Las Vegas Golden Knights NHL franchise, Scripps Sports and leading sports rights analysts will weigh in on the leagues’ TV future in a highly fluid rights environment in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on April 16. Register here.

The baseball commissioner talks new rules, changing TV picture as the 2023 season gets underway.

AT&T will remain a top-tier sponsor of NCAA athletic events through the 2024-2025 academic year, having signed a deal to extend its pact with the massive college-sports league. AT&T has been an NCAA “corporate champion” since 2001, and unveils the extension just as the NCAA’s 2023 “March Madness” basketball tournament is set to kick off.

CBS Sports said it plans to launch the Golazo Network,  a free, 24-hour free streaming network dedicated to soccer, on April 11. The network will be available on Paramount+, Pluto TV, the CBS Sports App and CBSSports.com at launch.

March Madness is expected to rake in more than $1 billion for TV partners CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery as it plays out from March 14 until the winning team is crowned on April 3. “March Madness gives advertisers audience levels they cannot find anywhere else,” says one buyer.

Amazon announced Tuesday that the Black Friday game on Nov. 24 will be available for all fans to stream for free. The 2023 season will mark the first time the league has scheduled a game for the day after Thanksgiving. The teams for the 3 p.m. ET game will be announced later.

Comcast is not interested in running the regional sports networks Warner Bros. Discovery is planning to shut down, according to a published report. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League all have teams whose games are carried by WBD’s AT&T Sports Nets in Pittsburgh, Houston and Denver. Rather than seeing those networks shut down — and stop paying right fees — the league reached out to Comcast, which has TV stations in those markets and operates its own constellation of five regional sports networks, according to Sports Business Journal. Comcast a year ago sold its majority stake in another RSN, NBC Sports Washington, to Monumental Sports & Entertainment. Comcast declined the new overture, according to SBJ.

Using data from iSpotTV along with internal CW and LIV results, CW says LIV’s opening weekend at Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course in Mexico averaged more than 3.2 million total viewers across all linear and digital platforms from Feb. 24 to 26. Day one of the tourney streamed on the CW app. Days two and three aired on affiliates, as well as indie stations and diginets.

ESPN has talked with major sports leagues and media partners about launching a feature that would link users directly to where a live sporting event is streaming, sources said. The media partners haven’t yet been determined, and there’s no timeline on when such a feature would launch. It could involve global streaming services and direct-to-consumer regional sports network products, and would aim to make ESPN the TV guide of live sports.

ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro handed oversight of content and newsgathering to Burke Magnus as president of content, supervising studio shows, live events, newsgathering, investigative journalism, original content/ESPN Films, talent, audio, digital, and social media. Meanwhile, Rosalyn Durant, a Disney veteran who has been overseeing Disney facilities in its parks division, will return to ESPN as EVP of programming and acquisitions, the ESPN position that negotiates for the rights that keep a significant chunk of live sports on Disney’s media portfolio.

Doug Johnson was hired as senior vice president and executive producer of local media, Greg Pennell as senior vice president of local media and Kendall Burgess as vice president of local media technical operations, the commissioner’s office said Wednesday.

It tells the teams whose games are carried by three of its regional networks that it wants to stop operating the channels.

Earlier this month, The CW proudly trumpeted how the 2023 LIV Golf League season will air in 100% of markets across the U.S. The 14-event schedule kicks off Friday at the El Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course in Mexico, with the CW app streaming coverage on Fridays and linear CW broadcast picking up on Saturdays and Sundays. What was missing from the surprise announcement last week was the list of CW affiliates that declined to air the Saudi-funded tour that has deeply divided professional golf (and kept CBS/Paramount, NBCUniversal and Disney/ESPN on the sidelines when LIV looked to upgrade its media deal in year two after launching last year with free YouTube streams). Since CW affiliates are only contractually obligated to air primetime programming, all eight of the CBS-owned CW affiliates declined to air the weekend tourneys. So did the Weigel-owned CW affiliate WCIU in Chicago, and Tegna-owned CW stations like KFMB in San Diego and WCCT in Hartford-New Haven, Conn.

The old league’s reforms have its deep-pocketed rival sputtering again.

The slump in the advertising market didn’t stop Warner Bros. Discovery from selling out its inventory across the NBA’s All-Star Weekend. “We’re sold out,” Jon Diament, executive VP for ad sales at WBD, said. “This is the best year we’ve ever had.” Diament said that in addition to official league sponsors — big names long associated with the NBA like Kia, State Farm and AT&T, this year’s All-Star weekend has 20 new advertisers in the lineup.

After Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Diamond Sports Group skipped about $140 million in interest payments due Wednesday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said Diamond has told MLB it intends to pay its baseball teams, but he called it an “unfolding story” that could change. “In the event that MLB stepped in, what we would do is we would produce the games, we would make use of our asset with the MLB Network to do that, we would go directly to distributors, Comcast, Charter, the big distributors, and make an agreement to have those games distributed on cable networks,” he added.

Unlike many of its rivals, Netflix has not pursued showing live games. Instead, it has invested in series on professional auto racing, tennis and now golf.

Diamond Sports Group, the division of Sinclair Broadcast Group that runs the troubled Bally Sports regional sports networks, has a deadline of Wednesday to make a $140 million interest payment. How the day plays out could have a big impact on the future of local sports on TV. While most reports have indicated that Diamond — which now operates independently from Sinclair — will decide not to make the payment, a source familiar with the situation maintains that Diamond making the payment remains in play.

The CW said today that the LIV Golf’s first official full season of the Saudi-backed league will blanket the U.S. via some CW stations and on Nexstar owned and operated stations in key markets including Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Tampa and Hartford, Conn.

Comcast’s NBCUniversal is preparing to make a strong bid to win back National Basketball Association broadcast rights more than 20 years after the company lost them to Disney and Turner Sports, according to people familiar with the matter. NBCU executives have informed the NBA of their interest, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that would include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network, two of the people said. Some regular season games could be exclusive to NBCU’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also decide to force media companies to simulcast all games on streaming to increase reach, the people said.

While Fox Sports and Nielsen have yet to release their data for viewing during the big game, newly released data from AdImpact is providing a moment-by-moment analysis of viewing trends at key points in the game. Its data suggests that the 2023 Super Bowl viewing peaked at 124 million near the end of the second quarter and that viewing levels ranged from 98.8 million at kickoff to 113.4 million at the end of the game. About 123.5 million people watched Rihanna’s halftime show.

From analytics to incisive commentary, ESPN analyst Mina Kimes is shaping the future of NFL coverage.

“I think you should assume that if Diamond doesn’t broadcast, we’ll be in a position to step in,” baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday after an owners’ meeting. “Our goal would be to make games available not only within the traditional cable bundle but on the digital side, as well.”