The Sports Media Thread

[monkeypower]

19 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I don't know if you're joking - I know you're Canadian so you don't get American networks - but, just in case you aren't, NBCSN now is what OLN used to be two names ago. 

 

Yeah it was a joke about when hockey was on the Outdoor Living Network for a bit. But no I didn't know that OLN is NBCSN.

[Sport]

On 9/9/2020 at 3:11 PM, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I signed up for Defector today. I'll let you know if it's awesome or not in the coming weeks.

I signed up for it a couple weeks ago. Very pleased so far. It’s like I have old deadspin back. Better even because every other article isn’t a direct shot at their parent company. 

[Digby]

20 hours ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I just took a look at the TV listings for NBC and NBCSN for this weekend...I'll tell you what - if this ends up reoccurring beyond this weekend, I'll think you're onto something. As it is, this weekend is the final stages of the Tour de France and also the third and fourth rounds of the US Open. Things that, in normal years and normal circumstances, would never conflict with the Premier League. Fox ditched their US Open deal because they couldn't reconcile it with the NFL. 

 

So I understand the optics, and some of their MD1 shenanigans don't give them much benefit of the doubt, but this weekend looks like they have other properties that, I'm guessing, have higher priority/contract stipulations that force their hand. Why not just use USA Network? Good enough question and one I can't really answer. But I can see why their national network and sports network have their hands tied. For this weekend. I haven't looked any further ahead than that.

 

Mystifies me. We have no problem putting soccer on unrelated channels when they do the last matchday of the season thing and want to show it all. It's Saturday morning! Why not? We'll see, I get that the Tour is a big draw and a weird conflict. But my local regular NBC affiliate is rolling with Vets Saving Pets and some travel show early in the morning on Saturday. Come on!

 

I have no idea what is even on USA Network anymore. I'm sure my Hulu would be able to find it for me if there was soccer on, though.

[Seadragon76]

17 minutes ago, Digby said:

I have no idea what is even on USA Network anymore. I'm sure my Hulu would be able to find it for me if there was soccer on, though.

 

USA usually has Law and Order: SVU marathons, NCIS marathons, reruns of the Chicago series, WWE Raw and NXT, a few reality shows involving said WWE talent and it has been home for a few of the games in the NHL Playoffs and, for this week only, it'll have the South Florida-Notre Dame game.

[JayMac]

2 hours ago, Seadragon76 said:

 

USA usually has Law and Order: SVU marathons, NCIS marathons, reruns of the Chicago series, WWE Raw and NXT, a few reality shows involving said WWE talent and it has been home for a few of the games in the NHL Playoffs and, for this week only, it'll have the South Florida-Notre Dame game.

I don't have any numbers in front of me but I'm sure a random 2006 episode of NCIS or SVU would outdraw a current PL match...good job NBC Universal. 

[Sec19Row53]

21 minutes ago, JayMac said:

I don't have any numbers in front of me but I'm sure a random 2006 episode of NCIS or SVU would outdraw a current PL match...good job NBC Universal. 

You say that sarcastically (I assume), but I bet you're right in this sense. It may cost them less to air that old episode than to air a live sporting event. Losing less money means the same as making more in this case.

[Luigi74]

21 hours ago, Digby said:

 

Mystifies me. We have no problem putting soccer on unrelated channels when they do the last matchday of the season thing and want to show it all. It's Saturday morning! Why not? We'll see, I get that the Tour is a big draw and a weird conflict. But my local regular NBC affiliate is rolling with Vets Saving Pets and some travel show early in the morning on Saturday. Come on!

 

I have no idea what is even on USA Network anymore. I'm sure my Hulu would be able to find it for me if there was soccer on, though.

Those Vet Saving Pets type of shows are so the local affiliates can reach their FCC mandated E/I content hours, stations usually run them later in the morning since those 7AM to 10AM local newscasts and network morning shows bring in revenue. 

[Digby]

Vets Saving Pets counts as E/I???

 

...explains a lot of things, actually.

[Luigi74]

3 hours ago, Digby said:

Vets Saving Pets counts as E/I???

 

...explains a lot of things, actually.

It counts and so does that Postal Inspector show that CBS runs Saturday mornings. 

[JayMac]

1 hour ago, Luigi74 said:

It counts and so does that Postal Inspector show that CBS runs Saturday mornings. 

So does Saturday morning airings of Saved By the Bell. Don't ask me what channel though. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

On 9/16/2020 at 6:14 AM, Sport said:

I signed up for it a couple weeks ago. Very pleased so far. It’s like I have old deadspin back. Better even because every other article isn’t a direct shot at their parent company. 

 

They had the initial "why this site exists" that hopefully closed that book for good. It was an interesting read, but I'm glad not every article has to be about why G/O sucks.

 

Why Your Team Sucks is like a comforting security blanket, even if it's running into the season instead of wrapping up prior. No matter; it's all good stuff and nice to have back.

[CS85]

As soon as I saw Julie DiCaro tweeted a typo blurb about Dan McNeil's firing and subsequently linked to a pity shower article at her new home of Deadspin, I realized how well and truly deceased that site is.

 

Julie is a fine example of somebody who makes an interesting guest and has some fairly decent thoughts in writing, but has woven the unique banner of "I'm a larger woman, a lawyer, and a true sports fan" into an obnoxiously woke victim complex that gives the modern Deadspin an at-a-glance virtue polish that falls through the moment you hear her talk.  She's not at all talented at being a professional radio personality, and I hate that she constantly gets hired because she checks all the boxes except the ones that make for a good product.

 

It looked bad for the already kind of terrible WSCR to make her part of the pandemic firings, but just because Dan McNeil is an idiot doesn't mean she gets to dance on the corpse of his career.  I doubt he had anything to do with her firing, and I have doubts that sexism or other similar prejudice resulted in her losing her job.  I think she's an objectively poor radio host.

 

But hey, the poster child for compulsive gambler/alky/depressed sports buffoon tweets an idiotic thing, it's time to text Les Grobstein to sleepily send you the internal memo so she can wheel out the shell of Deadspin, plunk a few ad click opportunities in there, and look like an insider for a day or three.

[Sport]

20 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

They had the initial "why this site exists" that hopefully closed that book for good. It was an interesting read, but I'm glad not every article has to be about why G/O sucks.

 

Why Your Team Sucks is like a comforting security blanket, even if it's running into the season instead of wrapping up prior. No matter; it's all good stuff and nice to have back.

 

Truth. It's been an epic time waster at work this week. This was the first time in a few years that my submission did not appear in his Bengals entry. 

 

I know the entire thing is tailor made for the NFL where everyone really does hate their own team, but i would read one of those every year about every team in North American sports. 

[The_Admiral]

10 hours ago, CS85 said:

It looked bad for the already kind of terrible WSCR to make her part of the pandemic firings, but just because Dan McNeil is an idiot doesn't mean she gets to dance on the corpse of his career.  I doubt he had anything to do with her firing, and I have doubts that sexism or other similar prejudice resulted in her losing her job.  I think she's an objectively poor radio host.

 

But hey, the poster child for compulsive gambler/alky/depressed sports buffoon tweets an idiotic thing, it's time to text Les Grobstein to sleepily send you the internal memo so she can wheel out the shell of Deadspin, plunk a few ad click opportunities in there, and look like an insider for a day or three.

 

Julie is an interesting case in that she doesn't seem to be well-liked by co-workers (she shares in her piece that she's been compiling a dossier of everything everyone has ever said or done at the office to offend her sensibilities) nor by listeners, but in the abstract she seems to be absolutely adored by her colleagues in Chicago media. She seems to attain this by saying "this is NOT a good look" at people, exposing her hate mail, and generally engaging in the mutual-admiration-society behavior of media members on Twitter. The work itself has been unremarkable; her radio show was pre-empted by live games more often than not and her Deadspin posts are all riddled with typos and grammatical errors. But she has the right opinions and the right friends, so someone will always find a place for her as long as she wants it.

 

Whether or not McNeil should have been fired for what he said is debatable (suspension and apology should have been sufficient), but the way everyone stabbed him in the back on the way out was shameful. I know that that's media in 2020, everyone has to look out for themselves, but having all his old co-hosts and producers go on about how unacceptable his heinous act was and how he needs to be left behind so that AM sports talk radio can finally center marginalized voices was all such a bunch of crap. But hey, AM sports talk radio is dying, let them be the ones to see it off.

 

I knew nothing about Maria Taylor before this, but I've immediately come to find her detestable. A better person would have settled the matter with dignity, not leveraged her victimhood for professional gain, being presented with bouquets of flowers on live television as if she'd just been diagnosed with cancer, or had a death in the family, or received death threats, or any number of things worse than having a radio host make fun of the dress that wardrobe picked out for her. A constant stream of retweets of people telling her how awesome she is so that we can all know that she knows how awesome she is. What a narcissist! She and Julie would get along.

[Sport]

I agree with that. Her response should've been to shrug and say nothing and ignore it from there. Wear an even weirder shirt next time she's on air and make that your thing. She made it a bigger story too

 

Like many of these instances, I think the worst crime is saying something so stupidly unfunny. It didn't even make sense! It was a leather jacket top? What about that means she should be hosting the AVN awards? I've never watched the AVN awards, but I'd imagine the hosts tend to wear tight ball gowns cut to show off their assets, not couture biker jackets. Did he mean that it looks like some bondage/dominatrix stuff? If so, good joke from 1993, ya dingleberry. We turned that game on and my wife who probably has too good of a fashion sense said, "oh, honey, what are you wearing?". It was a weird outfit choice by whoever made it, his tweet was stupid, should've been end of story. 

 

 

[CS85]

2 minutes ago, Sport said:

I agree with that. Her response should've been to shrug and say nothing and ignore it from there. Wear an even weirder shirt next time she's on air and make that your thing. She made it a bigger story too

 

Like many of these instances, I think the worst crime is saying something so stupidly unfunny. It didn't even make sense! It was a leather jacket top? What about that means she should be hosting the AVN awards? I've never watched the AVN awards, but I'd imagine the hosts tend to wear tight ball gowns cut to show off their assets, not couture biker jackets. Did he mean that it looks like some bondage/dominatrix stuff? If so, good joke from 1993, ya dingleberry. We turned that game on and my wife who probably has too good of a fashion sense said, "oh, honey, what are you wearing?". It was a weird outfit choice by whoever made it, his tweet was stupid, should've been end of story. 

 

 

Most AM sports talk radio and it’s remaining listenership considers 1993 to be an incredibly progressive time to be stuck in.  McNeil was a meathead oaf who bridged or returned a lot of old guard listeners to the fold after being run out by Bernstein’s admittedly wearisome “I’m smarter than you and your politics are horrifying” schtick, as well as firing Jason Goff for being too black and too basketball-y.  Not that he was that great of a host, but I digress.   WSCR is one of the most juvenile, needlessly dramatic things I follow.  Maybe that’s all of sports talk radio simply is collectively that way. 

 

7 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Julie is an interesting case in that she doesn't seem to be well-liked by co-workers (she shares in her piece that she's been compiling a dossier of everything everyone has ever said or done at the office to offend her sensibilities) nor by listeners, but in the abstract she seems to be absolutely adored by her colleagues in Chicago media. She seems to attain this by saying "this is NOT a good look" at people, exposing her hate mail, and generally engaging in the mutual-admiration-society behavior of media members on Twitter. The work itself has been unremarkable; her radio show was pre-empted by live games more often than not and her Deadspin posts are all riddled with typos and grammatical errors. But she has the right opinions and the right friends, so someone will always find a place for her as long as she wants it.

 

 

Julie earned my checkout moment when she did the cringeworthy video of having men read mean tweets to her face.  

[The_Admiral]

3 hours ago, Sport said:

Like many of these instances, I think the worst crime is saying something so stupidly unfunny. It didn't even make sense! It was a leather jacket top? What about that means she should be hosting the AVN awards? I've never watched the AVN awards, but I'd imagine the hosts tend to wear tight ball gowns cut to show off their assets, not couture biker jackets.

 

I've also not watched the AVNs, but I have read, and treasure, this document of it, and I've sort of connected the dots that "a trashy person's idea of elegance" is kind of the aesthetic they go with. A dress that's also some kind of facsimile of a leather motorcycle jacket would certainly fall under that.

 

3 hours ago, CS85 said:

McNeil was a meathead oaf who bridged or returned a lot of old guard listeners to the fold after being run out by Bernstein’s admittedly wearisome “I’m smarter than you and your politics are horrifying” schtick, as well as firing Jason Goff for being too black and too basketball-y.

 

The thing of it is that McNeil isn't the oaf people imagine/want him to be (that's Mike North), and he'd made a conscious effort to get on board with the culture war the last two years. And what did that get him? Nothing. Who was there for him? No one, because we know they eat their own as a matter of course, but that doesn't even matter, because his real sin was that he was brought in to replace Saint Jason, and he could never ever be forgiven for that.

[The_Admiral]

The Maria Taylor story takes another weird turn, as Jason Whitlock told her she didn't need to wallow in victimhood to be a great broadcaster, Katie Nolan popped in with some "that's a yikes from me sweaty" because no one circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills people who work in media together, and then Whitlock had a full-scale freakout about how Katie Nolan is an untalented creation of Fox Sports executives, and then she quit the internet. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

This is disgusting: https://www.outkick.com/katie-nolan-represents-the-elimination-of-americas-meritocracy-and-exposes-the-fraudulence-of-her-supporters/

[waltere]

Man oh man Whitlock sucks