The Sports Media Thread

[pmoehrin]

3 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

Ten years, $375 million. That's almost QB money.

 

I look at that and then look at my insurance out of pocket maximum and it's all so stupid. How can Tom Brady possibly provide almost $400 million of value talking football?

 

Forget Brady's salary. How in the hell is Jim Rome getting paid $30 million a year?

 

Michael Strahan makes roughly half that amount, and he's on Good Morning America. Jim Rome's show got canceled this past fall for having poor ratings.

 

I thought it was dumb when Fox gave Skip Bayless a boatload of money for a morning show that barely cracks 100k viewers. CBS' response was apparently hold my beer. We're going to treat Jim Rome like he's the modern day Howard Cosell.

 

Put in another way. As much as I hate Tucker Carlson, his salary is $35 million. But he draws around 3 million viewers a show. I'd be shocked if Jim Rome's pulls in even 1/10th of that audience on his best day.

 

I can only think of two explanations that makes any sense. One is that CBS meant to pay him $3 million a year, but their legal department made a mistake on his contract and added an extra zero.

 

The other is that Jim Rome has some serious dirt on CBS executives and this is the amount of money he needs to stay quiet.

 

If neither of those are the case, then I suspect some combination of drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or Alzheimer's played a big role in coming up with that number.

 

At least your average person knows who Tom Brady is. I don't think any non-sports fan could pick Jim Rome out of a police lineup.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Jim Rome is still on television somewhere?

 

$30 million?!?!

 

 

[Digby]

Brady has been so milquetoast and reserved his entire career that it's impossible to see him being a good TV guy. Perfectly at the sweet spot between spotlight-hogging but totally uninspiring. It'll be Brees's TV career with the smarm turned up. Oh well, at least we won't have to deal with it til Brady retires at 50 years old.

[Sport]

The difference between those aforementioned personalities and Brady, besides personality itself, is that they're the "draw" of their show. Brady will be doing NFL games and the draw of the NFL is the NFL, not the guys in the booth. Are 375 million dollars worth of extra people going to tune in to the Fox game he does every week versus whatever replacement level analyst they could throw in the booth? Seems like they're paying him just to say "hey look at us, we have Tom Brady on our team!" I actually can imagine him being good at it, though, and I wouldn't have said that four years ago.

 

Speaking of hall-of-famers in the booth, it brings me joy to say this because he was my all-time favorite athlete growing up, but Barry Larkin is awful as the Reds home game color analyst. It actually makes me think less of him as a player because he's got so little to add to the game. I suspect he's one of those guys who was just naturally great and didn't have to think about the game too hard, which means articulating the little minutiae of major league baseball isn't one of his skills. 

[Sec19Row53]

20 minutes ago, Sport said:

The difference between those aforementioned personalities and Brady, besides personality itself, is that they're the "draw" of their show. Brady will be doing NFL games and the draw of the NFL is the NFL, not the guys in the booth. Are 375 million dollars worth of extra people going to tune in to the Fox game he does every week versus whatever replacement level analyst they could throw in the booth? Seems like they're paying him just to say "hey look at us, we have Tom Brady on our team!" I actually can imagine him being good at it, though, and I wouldn't have said that four years ago.

 

Speaking of hall-of-famers in the booth, it brings me joy to say this because he was my all-time favorite athlete growing up, but Barry Larkin is awful as the Reds home game color analyst. It actually makes me think less of him as a player because he's got so little to add to the game. I suspect he's one of those guys who was just naturally great and didn't have to think about the game too hard, which means articulating the little minutiae of major league baseball isn't one of his skills. 

I mean, that's it right there, isn't it? Nobody (pretty sure on that absolute) tunes in because of who is broadcasting a game, unless you go back to mid-70s MNF when people would pay to throw a brick at a TV when Howard Cosell was on.

[Sec19Row53]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/media/2022/05/15/drew-brees-nbc-legendary-qb-out-after-one-season-analyst/9787442002/

 

Drew Brees out at NBC. No loss, as I didn't think he added anything.  

 

Tom Brady and FOX  -- take note.

[who do you think]

Is it just me or are Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo completely unwatchable lately when discussing basketball together? I think Bill is doing his part, but Russillo seems like he's fighting just to stay awake. He seems fine on his own though (Russillo).

[The_Admiral]

On 5/10/2022 at 7:52 PM, infrared41 said:

 

He can't. Brady is the next Joe Montana of broadcasting and that isn't a compliment.

I don't know if you've listened to Monday Night Football on the radio recently, but for years they would hype up Jim Gray's halftime show with Tom Brady as the centerpiece of the entire broadcast. It was Brady calling in on a normal civilian phone like Lou from Parsippany giving Mike Francesa a piece of his mind, couldn't even be bothered to ISDN in or do a Skype call, and it would just be five minutes of "we need to play our kind of game and have a good attitude." No one has ever had less to say than Tom Brady.

[Sec19Row53]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

I don't know if you've listened to Monday Night Football on the radio recently, but for years they would hype up Jim Gray's halftime show with Tom Brady as the centerpiece of the entire broadcast. It was Brady calling in on a normal civilian phone like Lou from Parsippany giving Mike Francesa a piece of his mind, couldn't even be bothered to ISDN in or do a Skype call, and it would just be five minutes of "we need to play our kind of game and have a good attitude." No one has ever had less to say than Tom Brady.

Yes I have, and you are right.

[Sport]

On 5/18/2022 at 11:29 PM, who do you think said:

Is it just me or are Bill Simmons and Ryen Russillo completely unwatchable lately when discussing basketball together? I think Bill is doing his part, but Russillo seems like he's fighting just to stay awake. He seems fine on his own though (Russillo).

 

 

Russillo's probably tired of Bill's Aspbergian rankings of random basketball events like "Ryen, is this in your top 10 conference finals game 3 performances of the last 20 years or just top 50?" The Ringer discusses all sports like they're "The Bachelor" and that's why I stopped following any of their content years ago. The thing that broke me of The Ringer for good was when their MLB podcast, which I didn't even like because both hosts had what I call Eli Manning voice*, did a season preview episode a few years back where they were spent 5 to 10 minutes on every team and straight up forgot to cover the Reds. I know the Reds weren't a contender or even interesting that season, but I sat through 10 other teams who weren't contenders or interesting either. 

 

The funny thing is some of the people who've left The Ringer because they didn't fit that mold, and I would say Russillo doesn't fit their mold, have some of my favorite coverage going. Robert Mays' NFL podcast is one example. That's the kind of sports nerdery I'm looking for.

 

 

*This is when your voice sounds like you're talking while smiling and also like you just drank a large glass of 2% milk.  

[Digby]

NESN purportedly the first RSN to jump into direct-to-consumer streaming, including live streams of Red Sox and Bruins games. Notably, they're not on YouTube TV or Hulu Live TV ... maybe on some of the other streaming services but I haven't checked in a while.

 

That price point is... wowza.

 

 

[TBGKon]

I read this article earlier in May, but Bally is close to releasing theirs (end of June is stated) and the price point is similar (Initial reports are suggesting it will be priced in the neighborhood of $20 a month or $190 annually)

 

https://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays/2022/05/06/finally-a-streaming-app-for-lightning-and-rays-wallet-not-included/

 

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

These people are crazy.

[Digby]

I'm ostensibly the target market for this, as a cord-cutter, but there's no way I can rationalize paying $30 a month. Luckily my top sports interests locally are NBA and MLS whose affiliates are on most of the live streaming services. If $60-70 a month gets me live basketball, soccer, and football, not to mention all the other live TV channels AND the entire regular Hulu library, there's no way I can increase my budget 50 percent for only baseball and hockey. (And that's all this is really for, with all due respect to uh, the Red Sox dating show and that obnoxious fishing guy that's been on for 30 years and whatever other originals NESN's got for me.)

 

Actually just noticed that the annual $330 plan includes 8 unspecified Red Sox tickets -- gotta love state-run media! I'm sure those will be bleacher seats for Tuesdays against the O's or Royals or something. Throw in a voucher for a $14 Narragansett tallboy can and maybe we'll talk.

[who do you think]

Oh my god, Sox Appeal is still a thing?

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

I'm ostensibly the target market for this, as a cord-cutter, but there's no way I can rationalize paying $30 a month. Luckily my top sports interests locally are NBA and MLS whose affiliates are on most of the live streaming services. If $60-70 a month gets me live basketball, soccer, and football, not to mention all the other live TV channels AND the entire regular Hulu library, there's no way I can increase my budget 50 percent for only baseball and hockey. (And that's all this is really for, with all due respect to uh, the Red Sox dating show and that obnoxious fishing guy that's been on for 30 years and whatever other originals NESN's got for me.)

 

This is me as well. It's a decent value for everything I get, though having access to Root Sports (Blazers basketball, M's baseball and Kraken hockey) would be nice. However, my max for that package is $10.  And even then, I can't really see that happening. Maybe $5/month as an add-on.

[Digby]

48 minutes ago, who do you think said:

Oh my god, Sox Appeal is still a thing?

 

I actually have no idea if it still is, but I can't ever extract it from my memory from when it did, unfortunately. 

[neo_prankster]

Have you guys read this now two year old article? This, in my opinion has a "get off my lawn" sting in the author's tone.

 

Sports has a Gen Z problem. The pandemic may accelerate it. - The Washington Post

[DG_ThenNowForever]

34 minutes ago, neo_prankster said:

Have you guys read this now two year old article? This, in my opinion has a "get off my lawn" sting in the author's tone.

 

Sports has a Gen Z problem. The pandemic may accelerate it. - The Washington Post

 

Cable is $100/month, tickets are the same, and Gen Z is drowning in student loan debt, unaffordable housing, and a poor job market.

 

Get bent.

[The_Admiral]

20 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

Have you guys read this now two year old article? This, in my opinion has a "get off my lawn" sting in the author's tone.

Which parts do you disagree with?