The Sports Media Thread

[Marcos Flamengo]

IMO, I think ESPN Deportes and ESPN Latin America could also launch a Spanish-language edition of ESPN League, a U.S. sports-themed show broadcast on ESPN Brasil.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

1 hour ago, Sport said:

 

The growth of design departments in sports combined with hard internal usage guidelines has made for some funny inappropriate usage social media bloopers. 

 

That's still not better than my favorite example of this phenomenon. 

 

 

 

 

Not every tweet needs an accompanying graphic.

 

But if you're a graphic designer, you're laughing your ass off as you're submitting this, right? Like, there were probably other stock photo options but the pointing Darnold was someone's choice for maximum absurdity.

[Sport]

13 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

But if you're a graphic designer, you're laughing your ass off as you're submitting this, right? Like, there were probably other stock photo options but the pointing Darnold was someone's choice for maximum absurdity.

 

That's possible, but this came straight from the Jets and I doubt the designer was trying to make the team look silly. The more likely thing is that It was probably item #20 on the to-do list of a 23 year old making 28k a year in hour 11 on the job that day. They didn't really question or think too hard about the context, found a graphic with a Darnold photo, and replaced the words in the template. The funny thing is that someone said "we need a Darnold mono graphic" (why?) and at least two people gave it approval to post without going "hahah no LOL absolutely not". 

[OnWis97]

20 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

That's possible, but this came straight from the Jets and I doubt the designer was trying to make the team look silly. The more likely thing is that It was probably item #20 on the to-do list of a 23 year old making 28k a year in hour 11 on the job that day. They didn't really question or think too hard about the context, found a graphic with a Darnold photo, and replaced the words in the template. The funny thing is that someone said "we need a Darnold mono graphic" (why?) and at least two people gave it approval to post without going "hahah no LOL absolutely not". 

But when you look at how bad the Jets are, why are they even worried about making graphics like this and designing new uniforms a few years ago when they need to be drafting and coaching better?

(Just to be clear, I'm kidding; somehow this reminded me of that statement fans like to make, as if designing uniforms actually gets in the way with sportsball operations).

 

I tend to agree with you that I doubt a graphic designer would do this intentionally for giggles. It's probably not a good way to keep your job for a long time to be sliding stuff like this past the team, thereby making the organization look bad. I'd bet graphic designers working for sports teams are pretty replaceable as many people would love to work for a team.

[DrAwesomeberry]

The Sam Darnold graphic aired on Monday Night Football and then subsequently blew up on Twitter

 

[CS85]

 

 

 

 

[Sec19Row53]

8 minutes ago, CS85 said:

 

 

 

As a ticket holder, I'm way curious how flexing into and out of MNF works. Travelling to road games also comes into play, if a game gets moved from Sunday to Monday - travel can't always be changed on short notice.

[BBTV]

1 minute ago, Sec19Row53 said:

As a ticket holder, I'm way curious how flexing into and out of MNF works. Travelling to road games also comes into play, if a game gets moved from Sunday to Monday - travel can't always be changed on short notice.

 

As a former stadium employee, the idea sucks - both for event-staff management and personnel.  

 

I guess if you're traveling, going to have to book until Tuesday unless you know you're going to a total crap game that can't be moved.

[RyanMcD29]

So a week after thinking we were going real OITGDNHL with no word on the B package and the ESPN announcement leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouths to the point that they still only would have one broadcast partner, the NHL manages to get above their asking price and get 7 years/225M per from Turner.

 

On one hand having every other year's Stanley Cup Final on cable after finally landing every game OTA for the first time on ABC is a bit of a step back, but man at that price it's hard for the NHL to balk at that, especially with NBC lowballing and Fox not wanting to go that high. Also with the Winter Classic on Turner and them under the same umbrella as HBO, we could see a revival of 24/7 coming next season

[BBTV]

I'm assuming the ESPN TV deal is why they started including it again on the header bar of their site like a real league and not in the ... menu next to darts and topless bullriding.

 

 

[The_Admiral]

'90s New Yorker sitcoms, a cartoon about how great New England is, and hockey; the ol' Atlanta station really ain't what it used to be. 

[Digby]

I still don’t understand why some sports are on TBS and some are on TNT. Pick one. Or make CBS Sports Network actually useful.

[kmccarthy27]

17 minutes ago, Digby said:

I still don’t understand why some sports are on TBS and some are on TNT. Pick one. Or make CBS Sports Network actually useful.

Forces cable companies to carry both channels 

 

They dont own CBS Sports, Viacom does. That is MTV, Nick, VH1......

[GDAWG]

So do we know how much money the NHL has lost due to the Pandemic?  And how much of it was recouped via the new TV deal?

[Ridleylash]

17 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

So do we know how much money the NHL has lost due to the Pandemic?  And how much of it was recouped via the new TV deal?

Bettman said it was "out of the M-range and into the B-range" back in January before the season started, so probably a pretty heavy amount like many other leagues have, especially since the NHL is much more gate-reliant than your NFLs which can rely on fat as TV deals.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if losses overall were anywhere from 2.5-4b.

[Digby]

I think NBC has done a pretty good job with their non-NFL sports so it’s too bad they’re losing them all (except shunting EPL to a pay service lol). I hope American Ninja Warrior and auto auctions do well for them instead.

[schlim]

2 hours ago, GDAWG said:

So do we know how much money the NHL has lost due to the Pandemic?  And how much of it was recouped via the new TV deal?

At some point, doesn't it just become a loss and 'recouping' it becomes immaterial? Otherwise, are they going to take 10% of every revenue stream going forward to 'cover' their losses until its made back?

 

I have no idea what the union and management agreed to going forward, so maybe things are complicated with escrow accounts, lower salary caps in the near future,  etc.

 

From what I've read, Bettman looked at the split TV packages the NFL and NBA got and negotiated similar deals that pay them more per year going forward. Seems like that worked out decent for the league, despite having 3 Cups on cable.

[Ridleylash]

17 minutes ago, schlim said:

I have no idea what the union and management agreed to going forward, so maybe things are complicated with escrow accounts, lower salary caps in the near future,  etc.

The cap's not lowering, but it is staying flat for the next four years. I think escrow's also been bumped up a bit, IIRC?

 

But I can't imagine all of it was recouped by the ESPN+TBS deals, especially since the losses are still being accrued now as the season rolls along with so many teams being unable to host fans. It's probably still going to be rough going for a while, which is why I think we might see talk about expansion down the line, like we've been seeing in the NBA and MLB; it's a nice influx of cash to have new expansion teams come in.

[The_Admiral]

10 hours ago, Digby said:

I still don’t understand why some sports are on TBS and some are on TNT.

Probably just tradition at this point, mostly. Baseball in one form or another is about the only continuity the old Braves-'n'-Andy-Griffith Superstation has with TBS as we know it now.

 

I know that TNT was always intended to be the somewhat more upmarket alternative to TBS: while TBS was always Atlanta's UHF channel 17 writ large, Turner launched TNT as a national channel for movies, dramas, and mildly ambitious original programming. I think Turner always had high aspirations for TNT, it just took them quite a while to get there -- precisely the AOL merger and the retooling as "We Know Drama." Consider that when the Time Warner executives gave WCW the boot despite putting up what were still in losing efforts very impressive ratings for basic cable, they did it for two big reasons: 1) the ratings did not translate to billing because professional wrestling did not attract desirable sponsors, and 2) the audience for wrestling didn't carry over to core programming anyway. TNT was essentially running a free-french-fries promotion at a steakhouse where no one bought the steak. On the other hand, the NBA, as the preferred league of America's cultural elite (or at least high-middlebrow), fits the prestigious-but-not-too-prestigious vision for TNT like a glove. 

[neo_prankster]

Now that the NHL is (finally) coming to TNT, who will join Ernie Johnson on Inside the NHL?