The Sports Media Thread

[Marcos Flamengo]

On 4/28/2024 at 4:26 PM, Germanshepherd said:

Ugh this is the worst option. 
 

ESPN’s studio show is beyond awful and they insist on having virtual ads on the floor for PLAYOFF GAMES. 

However, it seems like the Association has a good relationship with the House of Mouse. So for that, they apparently are giving to Disney the "A" package.

[Marcos Flamengo]

On 4/28/2024 at 3:01 PM, BBTV said:

 

I think you are correct, and they license it out.  AEW Wrestling on TNT/TBS has rights to it for some reason.

It's curious to see how John Tesh sublicenses Roundball Rock to outlets such as Fox Sports (College Hoops) or TNT Sports (AEW Wrestling).

[TBGKon]

3 hours ago, Marcos Flamengo said:

It's curious to see how John Tesh sublicenses Roundball Rock to outlets such as Fox Sports (College Hoops) or TNT Sports (AEW Wrestling).

How so?  He composed it and can do with it what he pleases.  Just because it's commonly known as the NBC theme, we've clearly seen that its not a lock for them alone.

[Digby]

 

Victory for the "Roundball Rock" campaign.

 

I might be the only person who doesn't really like Inside the NBA, so, oh well. I'm not sure why we are so ga-ga for a show that gave Shaquille O'Neal and then Draymond Green TV roles.

 

Sure hope Peacock's functionality gets better between now and then.

[TBGKon]

“Roundball Rock” Revival on NBC? John Tesh Re-recording Hoops Classic As NBA Rights Hunt Heats Up

[BBTV]

I thought NBC no longer had the rights and would have to acquire them from Fox. 

[Cujo]

34 minutes ago, BBTV said:

I thought NBC no longer had the rights and would have to acquire them from Fox. 

 

That's not how licensing works. Tesh owns it. Not FOX.

[TBGKon]

34 minutes ago, BBTV said:

I thought NBC no longer had the rights and would have to acquire them from Fox. 

Since it sounds like a new recording, it may not be the same as the original.  

[GDAWG]

NBA games going to Amazon?  Hopefully that means NBA games on Twitch, which would be free for those that don't want to pay for a subscription (if you want to go through 7 ads as you enter a stream that is).  

 

Also, NBA expansion is imminent once these deals are announced. The NBA should just go out and say "we've added expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas" and don't go through the process to have places like Mexico City, Louisville, Kansas City and Vancouver believe that they have a shot for 31 and 32 when they actually don't.  

[who do you think]

9 hours ago, Digby said:

 

Victory for the "Roundball Rock" campaign.

 

I might be the only person who doesn't really like Inside the NBA, so, oh well. I'm not sure why we are so ga-ga for a show that gave Shaquille O'Neal and then Draymond Green TV roles.

 

Sure hope Peacock's functionality gets better between now and then.

 

Losing TNT but getting NBC is a slim gain, but a gain nonetheless, assuming NBC sticks to the same production philosophy that made their NBA and (in my opinion) NHL coverage so good. TNT might end up ghost-producing the Amazon games anyway.

 

Inside the NBA is whatever. Every entertaining moment gets uploaded to YouTube immediately, other than that it's mostly the same captain-obvious analysis you can get anywhere else, just with better chemistry. They had a good run, I'd rather see it end a little prematurely than die a slow, shameful death with Barkley retiring, something happening to EJ, :censored:ing Draymond Green getting a full-time role or god knows what else.

[BBTV]

6 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

That's not how licensing works. Tesh owns it. Not FOX.

If someone pays for an exclusive license, then  the rights are  theirs until that period is over, as long as they’re adhering to the terms of the agreement. Tesh can’t simultaneously license it to someone else, unless the terms say he can. Maybe it’s not an exclusive license, or maybe it’s over. 

[The_Admiral]

Pretty good read here: https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/05/how-espn-failed-nba-critical-comparison-nbc/

 

This article kind of gets to a point that I made recently in this thread, which is that ESPN has abandoned both earnest, love-of-the-game sports coverage and snarky "you don't get the shoooooowwww" meta-commentary in favor of...some sort of product that's joyless and dumb at the same time, and this lack of direction has most obviously manifested itself in its NBA coverage, which has been disappointing and irritating everybody for the better part of the last 20 years at this point. 

 

Quote

The “Gee Whiz” school of sportswriting was met with no shortage of resistance, and an “Aw Nuts” alternative emerged in opposition. This model was marked by a more cynical eye, per Enriquez, “making fun of the vices of athletes, coaches, and owners, acknowledging the realities of gambling and greed … and suggesting that participants and spectators took sports altogether too seriously.” It would not be fair to suggest ESPN occupies this position — which is more along the lines of the “Deadspin”-era blogosphere and “The Dan Le Batard Show” — but the network is clearly more detached.

 

For ESPN, the games are not immortal. The players certainly are not; ESPN has spent LeBron James’ entire 20-year career questioning his skill, mettle and worthiness. (NBC sought to create the next Michael Jordan, ESPN uses Jordan as a cudgel with which to diminish every player who came after.) ESPN is a new kind of sports journalism entity, one that has turned the “Gee Whiz” model inward. For ESPN, it is Stephen A. Smith who is immortal, and every “NBA Countdown” rant that is legendary — the kind of self-possession that would have been impossible to imagine when sportswriters were having to moonlight as umpires and statisticians to get by in the 1920s.

 

 

[infrared41]

7 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

That's not how licensing works. Tesh owns it. Not FOX.

 

Licensing works in all sorts of ways. For example, Tesh could have sold the song outright. He could have sold the publishing rights. He could have given someone an exclusive license to the song for a period of time. He could have done a combination of things with the license. It's possible NBC paid Tesh a one time fee for the song,  NBC owned it from the start, and they sold it to FOX. Point being, writing the song doesn't automatically mean you own the song.  Artists sell the rights to their material all the time.

[who do you think]

Quote

The trio of Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson had worked together almost continuously since 2007, and while the comedy stylings of “Jeff and Mark” were not always well-received, the broadcast team had taken on the air of an institution

 

 It bugs me how people are acting like this was some golden trio now that they're gone. JVG started out good but became an insufferable grouch/rambler sometime during the mid-10s (I partially blame the network itself for this), Jackson was always awful with his forced catchphrases and that growly-voiced gimmick he would break out from time to time. People had wanted them replaced for years, but now they're an institution?

 

Quote

 its “Fastbreak” theme by Non-Stop Music had gained familiarity in the nearly 20 years

 

Sucked. Worst big-four national TV music of the 2000s. I'll take the current theme any day.

 

Quote

The nostalgia-fueled anticipation for the new NBA on NBC is no doubt misplaced. The new version, if it comes to fruition, is much more likely to resemble NBC’s Sunday Night Football than the NBA on NBC of old. That is not such a bad thing given the quality of NBC’s SNF production — a spiritual successor to the ABC era of Monday Night Football — but this media rights deal is not going to make it 1997 again through science or magic.

Quote

Yes, the Tesh theme will almost certainly return, but Jim Fagan passed away years ago, Marv Albert is retired, and Bob Costas and Dick Ebersol have not worked for NBC in years. Many of the accoutrements that made the NBA on NBC special — from the lasers forming the NBC peacock to Fagan’s voice-of-God introducing the participating teams (“TO-day, it’s the Chicago Bulls versus the Or-lan-do Magic!”) — had been shortened or phased out by the end of the network’s run and are unlikely to return in the new iteration. There will undoubtedly be more ESPN NBA alums on the new version than veterans of the original NBC run, if any return at all. Yet it is hard to blame viewers for retreating into the past given what ESPN is doing in the present.

 

Half right half crap. All the old voices of NBA on NBC are gone, but NBC itself, as far as I know, is still putting the game first instead of treating the game as a vehicle for personalities that no one cares about. If they just keep that approach and plug in people who know the game and are skilled at their jobs, everything will be fine. If JVG were to join NBC, I think he would be much better than he was during the second half of his ESPN run.

[infrared41]

40 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Pretty good read here: https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/05/how-espn-failed-nba-critical-comparison-nbc/

 

This article kind of gets to a point that I made recently in this thread, which is that ESPN has abandoned both earnest, love-of-the-game sports coverage and snarky "you don't get the shoooooowwww" meta-commentary in favor of...some sort of product that's joyless and dumb at the same time, and this lack of direction has most obviously manifested itself in its NBA coverage, which has been disappointing and irritating everybody for the better part of the last 20 years at this point. 

 

 

 

 

This sums it up perfectly.

 

Quote

ESPN is not a platform for the game, the game is a platform for ESPN.

 

[infrared41]

17 minutes ago, who do you think said:

 its “Fastbreak” theme by Non-Stop Music had gained familiarity in the nearly 20 years

 

When I was still "in the business", Non-Stop was basically the Kohl's of production music - decent quality for the price. (To give you an idea, I used Non-Stop's music for High School sports highlight tapes because I could afford it.)   It may be different now, but FirstCom used to be the gold standard in sports production music. In fact, ESPN used FirstCom for a lot of their stuff.

[The_Admiral]

24 minutes ago, who do you think said:

Sucked. Worst big-four national TV music of the 2000s. I'll take the current theme any day.

 

Let's not say things we can't take back. The 2006-2022 ESPN NBA theme was always too plodding for basketball, but if that's my problem with the old one, what can I say about the current one, which sounds like a cross between the Rock's entrance music and a hip-hop beat based around the theme song from Matlock? The first two themes they used (which I think overlapped at some point) were good.

[GDAWG]

 

 

[who do you think]

9 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

Let's not say things we can't take back. The 2006-2022 ESPN NBA theme was always too plodding for basketball, but if that's my problem with the old one, what can I say about the current one, which sounds like a cross between the Rock's entrance music and a hip-hop beat based around the theme song from Matlock? The first two themes they used (which I think overlapped at some point) were good.

 

I'm not enough of a musicologist to debate the finer points (and I'll be damned if I'm Youtubing Matlock and letting that into my already-trashed algorithm), but the 2006 theme always sounded like some second-rate news network crap. The current theme seems more befitting of the sport and I enjoy listening to it a lot more.

[The_Admiral]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L6EsFXh2O8 versus 

 

Honestly I would have just cut out the middleman and used the Matlock