sports

Amid much commentary about the negative impact high-valued sports streaming initiatives could have on local TV stations and MVPDs there’s another much more optimistic view emerging from the ranks of several publicly traded station groups. In sharp contrast to those who feel threatened by sports rights owners’ surging embrace of streaming, these station owners contend they are making significant headway with opportunistic adjustments to the new reality.

The city of Oakland plans to present MLB‘s Athletics ownership with an offer to extend the team’s lease for five years, with an opt-out after three. The Athletics have announced plans to move the franchise to Las Vegas, where a proposed stadium is scheduled to be completed by 2028. The current Athletics lease in Oakland ends this season, leaving a substantial gap in their home schedule.

Fierce media rivals like ESPN and Fox Sports aren’t often eager to see the other do well. But the competitors may be cheering one another this weekend. Fox and ESPN will this weekend each broadcast two games from the new — depending on how one looks at it — UFL, a league that has been built out of the former USFL and its rival, the XFL.

On opening day Major League Baseball said it has taken over production and distribution of all local Colorado Rockies games this season, following the shutdown of AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain by Warner Bros. Discovery. DirecTV, Comcast’s Xfinity, Charter Communications’ Spectrum and Fubo have all set up channels where subscribers can watch Rockies games on Rockies.tv.

The Saturday games will air in at least 34 markets where Gray has stations beginning April 27.

ESPN is planning another Monday Night Football pregame shake-up, according to executives with knowledge of the network’s plans. A year after a complete makeover of the set under the stewardship of Scott Van Pelt, Robert Griffin III’s spot is in jeopardy, while the network is aggressively pursuing retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce for Monday nights. (Matt Rourke/AP)

Major League Baseball set up a DTC streaming platform for the team after its RSN went belly-up, but no local linear deals have emerged yet with the Rockies’ regular season starting Thursday night.

WPP’s GroupM unit this morning announced plans to double its annual media investment in women’s sports-related media, and has created a new, dedicated marketplace to focus on it. As part of the initiative, GroupM said it is looking for “first-to-market” opportunities for its roster of clients including Adidas, Ally, Coinbase, Discover, Google, Mars, Nationwide, Unilever, Universal Pictures and others in its 2024-25 upfront media-buying negotiations.

In addition, the insurance company has invested in the National Women’s Soccer League Saturday Night Soccer on Ion with primary brand positioning and in-game sponsorship.

Through the first five days of NCAA “March Madness” averaged 9.0 million Nielsen-measured across CBS, TBS, TNT, and TruTV, according to the NCAA — the best results ever for the tournament over that period.

The NFL is breaking new ground this season with a September game in Brazil, the first time a regular-season contest will take place in South America. The Week 1 game will be exclusively streamed on Peacock, giving NBCUniversal three stand-alone games in the first week of the season.

Fox Sports is pulling out all the stops on production tech to make sure that its vision for the United Football League coverage is realized.

As the viewing landscape continues to get more complex in the streaming era, ESPN is aiming to streamline things for sports fans by integrating video feeds from regional sports networks into its main app and website. Starting this week, subscribers to NESN, which carries Boston sports teams including the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics, will be able to tune into games via ESPN’s app or on ESPN.com. In May, timed to the start of the WNBA season, Washington, D.C.’s Monumental Sports Network will also be integrated. SportsNet Pittsburgh, which is operated by NESN, is also part of the ESPN agreement, though its coverage will be added down the line.

In August 1993, Angelos led a group of investors that bought the Orioles. The group included writer Tom Clancy, filmmaker Barry Levinson and tennis star Pam Shriver. The price tag of $173 million — at the time the highest for a sports franchise — came in a sale forced by the bankruptcy of then-owner Eli Jacobs. Angelos assumed a hands-on approach to running his hometown team. His reputation for not spending millions on high-priced free agents belied his net worth, which in 2017 was estimated at $2.1 billion. He was 94.

Disney’s ESPN is at a crossroads. For more than 40 years, the world’s largest all-sports network has grown annual revenue by increasing cable subscription fees. ESPN first charged pay-TV distributors less than $1 per month per subscriber in the 1980s. In 2023, ESPN’s monthly carriage fee was $9.42 per subscriber, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That business model is eroding.

Over the past few months, the streaming giant has aired exhibition events in golf and tennis. It is also slated to air the July 20 bout between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. Beginning next year, Netflix will start carrying World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship show, Raw. So there’s been speculation about whether Netflix’s recent forays into live sports are a precursor to becoming a major player for live sports rights. While having another competitor for rights would certainly be welcomed, it is unlikely to happen soon.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said its television stations will be carrying Tennis Channel’s T2 network on virtual channels available using the NextGen broadcast standard. T2, aimed at younger adult viewers,  will be available free, over the air in 43 markets where Sinclair stations are broadcast using ATSC 3.0 technology.

Warner Bros. Discovery has acquired television rights to the Bellator Championship Series mixed martial arts franchise, adding to its lineup of live sports content. Max will stream Bellator’s first event under the new deal on March 22 from Belfast, one of eight Bellator Championship Series events taking place during the year, according to WBD. Each event will take place from various locations around the world and highlight the best fighters from each region.

Financial terms were not announced Tuesday, but as previously reported the new six-year agreement will pay the CFP and participating conferences $1.3 billion annually. An agreement in principle between the CFP and ESPN was reached weeks ago, but first the college conferences that participate in the playoff had to sign a deal to continue their partnership for another six years. That agreement and a new revenue-sharing plan was finalized last week.

The former Apple and Hulu Executive is tapped to lead the new joint venture from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Deadspin has laid off its existing staff after G/O Media agreed to sell the sports news site to European startup Lineup Publishing. G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller revealed the update in a company-wide email on Monday.

The schedule of games, which will include matchups from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Mountain West conferences, is likely won’t be announced until late May or early June after conferences and the networks hold their selection meetings.

A mix of live sports, original sports programming and ancillary sports content will start appearing on TruTV next Monday, March 11, under the banner TNT Sports on TruTV. The block will start at 6 p.m. ET and run through latenight. The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, aka March Madness, gets under way the following week. WBD, which shares in March Madness rights with Paramount, often makes use of TruTV as a home for early-round tournament games.

The July bout between Tyson, the former world champion, and Paul, the influencer turned boxer, is part of Netflix’s push into “sports-adjacent” live events.

In the span of a decade, Netflix has helped decimate linear TV, not only gobbling up series that once would have anchored a network lineup but also taking discarded network series — from You to Manifest— and making them hits. That’s left traditional TV clinging to live sports like a life raft: 98 of last year’s top-100 broadcasts were sports (overwhelmingly, NFL). Now Netflix appears to be coming for them, too.

The forthcoming sports streaming venture backed by Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery will reach 5 million subscribers in its first five years, according to a projection shared Monday by Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch. Speaking at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley, Murdoch cited the forecast in responding to questions about whether the new venture would threaten the company’s existing pay-TV business.