The Sports Media Thread

[Digby]

The Times hasn't really had a great sports section in a while, and has never really been the paper of record locally as far as NY beat writers and such. I would say that the Athletic has been doing the sort of prestige longform reporting that the NYT sports section used to do more of, but I don't really know what the Athletic's mission is anymore, tbh. They do a good job breaking news in certain niches that they own at the national level, I find. Feels like the "local beat for everyone" thing never panned out no matter how many people they poached. For all of Boston's problems I'm glad the Globe at least still has strong sports pages (but take my Dan Shaughnessy -- please!)

[TrueYankee26]

 

No more Arizona Diamondbacks on Bally Sports. https://arizonasports.com/story/3526879/d-backs-tv-contract-no-longer-with-bally-sports-arizona/

[LMU]

So, pointing out statistics from club-issued game notes with on-screen graphics prepared gets you suspended apparently.

 

 

[Sport]

And they're getting rightfully hammered for it. You watch the video expecting him to say the F slur like Thom Brennaman and then nothing objectionable happens. Baltimore Orioles, allow me to introduce you to the Streisand Effect. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

The Yankees fired announcer Red Barber in 1966 for commenting on a late-season Yankee Stadium crowd that numbered in the hundreds. (But don't feel too bad. Barber, while a legendary talent, was an ornery coot, and one who gave Phil Rizzuto agita. The Scooter spoke ill of only two people in his life: Eddie Stanky and Red Barber. So it's all for the best, as Rizzuto was able to shine in the booth only after the removal of Barber.)

[Digby]

All the NESN guys trying their damndest to spin every Chaim Bloom move for the Red Sox are blinking twice in solidarity.

[TrueYankee26]

Free Kevin Brown chants from yesterday 

[Digby]

Penn struck a deal with ESPN to finally put ESPN's name on a sportsbook, and in the process handed Barstool back to Portnoy for a couple legal documents. What a piece of business.

[The_Admiral]

If it's true that Penn National got out of the Barstool business because Deadspin readers in the government were denying them gaming licenses out of loyalty to Drew Magary and Barry Petchesky, 

 

I don't even know how to end the post.

[Red Comet]

"It's a private company, they can do whatever they want."

 

-Someone, somewhere, probably making more than me

[BBTV]

10 hours ago, Digby said:

Penn struck a deal with ESPN to finally put ESPN's name on a sportsbook, and in the process handed Barstool back to Portnoy for a couple legal documents. What a piece of business.

 

For anyone that's confused, NOT University of Pennsylvania.

[The_Admiral]

Kind of unsavory that gambling companies can just use the names of William Penn and Abraham Lincoln (Neddy believes insurance is a form of gambling)

[Digby]

And now it’s “Penn Entertainment” to boot, no mention of gambling anywhere in the corporate name, just good wholesome entertainment for all.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Alrighty, then; I guess I will have to be the one to push back against the dusty old puritanical notion that gambling is not "wholesome".

 

Taking up this argument feels strange, as I myself don't gamble. When it comes to sports, I prefer that my rooting interest be determined by personal factors that are emotional and/or ideological, rather than by the potential for direct economic gain or loss.  And I don't do any other kind of gambling, simply because I wouldn't enjoy it.

 

Nevertheless, as with other activities in which I do not participate on account of a lack of enjoyment or a lack of interest (such as, for example, opera, skydiving, and various substances and intimate acts), I very much want a society where all of those things are readily available to people who do enjoy them.

 

What's more, insurance is a form of gambling. Indeed, just about every choice that a person makes, ranging from the monumental (where to live, where to work, whom to date) to the mundane, constitutes a bet.

 

An honest observer must acknowledge that the act of betting — the act of choosing one course of action over others, based on a projection of likely outcomes and on a weighting of the desirability of those outcomes — is fundamental to the working of the human mind. In other words, it is entirely normal.

 

Please understand that I'm the absolute last person to defend capitalism or the thieving private sector. Still, given the indisputable evidence that a great many people like to gamble (and that this has been true for the entire history of civilisation), we should accept the presence of gambling as unobjectionable — and, yes, wholesome.

[BBTV]

The thing with gambling on sports as opposed to insurance is that people can become addicted (I think?) or at least make very poor decisions when it comes to gambling and end up not only ruining their life, but the life of those who depend on them, and if we want to go further, potentially turn to criminal activity to get by or end up requiring public support.  Obviously I'm going to extremes here to make the point, but I don't think it's too off base, given that I know personally someone who this happened to and is now divorced, completely cut off from his family after being bailed out time after time, and last I heard, had done (or is doing) time for drug selling (this, from someone with a legit great degree and who at one time had a very prestigious job.)

 

That being said, I'm also of the mindset that people are going to do it one way or another, so let's regulate it and at least make it safe, so they're not getting their legs broken by the bookie down the street (and where I live, that was a thing.)  I feel the same way about prostitution and other things of the sort.  I don't personally smoke marijuana, and I hate the smell of it (though I'll concede to enjoying the occasional edible), but I'd rather it be totally legal and safe as opposed to when kids would come to my high school all beat up because they went to the "bad part of town" (back when I lived in burbs) to get a dime bag.

 

 

[BBTV]

I'm not familiar with "Penn", and when I read that post last night, I legit had to look it up and make sure it wasn't "Penn".  I'd throw up if an ivy-league school was partnering with these operations.

 

One last point about sports gambling - there's always risk involved when the thing you're betting on can be rigged by the people involved, whether they're on the take (more likely in the case of college sports vs pro), or decide to take a "rest day" and not play in the game you bet on, or pull a Ben Simmons and simply not take a shot that may or may not have factored into it.

 

It's not like poker where you're playing what is a skill game.  Obviously there's some luck involved, but it's more a battle of skill against another opponent and in the long run, if you're good, you'll profit even if you run into bad luck occasionally.

 

 

[Red Comet]

Sports gambling is weird in general. At a casino, it's your own damn fault if you lose $100 playing poker, but if you bet $100 on the game and lose because of a dropped pass or a dodgy penalty then it's someone else's fault. Really it's your own damn fault still for betting $100 on something completely out of your control but let's not take it to it's logical conclusion. 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Red Comet

[Digby]

I don't care to debate whether or not sports gambling should be legal, but the way it's been "regulated" in America has been a joke, at best. Licensure is a joke. Mixing gambling sponsored content with ostensibly neutral analysis is gross, letting the media rights carriers also be involved with the gaming is gross, platforms giving "free money" (wink wink) to get people hooked is gross. Gaming kickbacks to ESPN rub me the wrong way, but I guess it's actually less bad than all the RSNs who beat them to this particular punch...especially with so many of the RSNs being owned by teams themselves.

[BBTV]

44 minutes ago, Digby said:

I don't care to debate whether or not sports gambling should be legal, but the way it's been "regulated" in America has been a joke, at best. Licensure is a joke. Mixing gambling sponsored content with ostensibly neutral analysis is gross, letting the media rights carriers also be involved with the gaming is gross, platforms giving "free money" (wink wink) to get people hooked is gross. Gaming kickbacks to ESPN rub me the wrong way, but I guess it's actually less bad than all the RSNs who beat them to this particular punch...especially with so many of the RSNs being owned by teams themselves.

 

keeping this on the topic of "sports media", from time to time the Phillies TV PBP guy reads the lines, and it's pretty obvious he has no idea what he's talking about, but he has to work it into whatever segment it's in as if it's natural.  I don't hear it every game, but when I do, it makes for a really choppy segment. 

 

Even worse is the commercial reads that the sports-radio guys do, where they have to tiptoe around actual names and pretend like they're actually betting  "the quarterback from Kansas City is really playing well, but the defense from that team up in Buffalo is tough, so I'm taking the points."

 

Worse than that is when the read has a local team involved.  So they'll literally be talking about the Eagles and Jalen Hurts one second, then the very next, they have to talk about "that quarterback from the Philadelphia team".

[Digby]

6 hours ago, BBTV said:

Even worse is the commercial reads that the sports-radio guys do, where they have to tiptoe around actual names and pretend like they're actually betting  "the quarterback from Kansas City is really playing well, but the defense from that team up in Buffalo is tough, so I'm taking the points."

 

 

It must be something about the licensing deals on whomever is the team's "official" betting partner or whatever. I've seen and heard on local broadcasts the usual talent just switching between "regular" analysis to sponsored betting talk without obvious barriers. Feels insidious to me.