The Sports Media Thread

[miami_fan]

ESPN, NFL in advanced talks on agreement that could give league equity in TV giant

[albionmoonlight]

I like my current combination of NFL+ and Redzone without subscribing to YouTube TV. I’m sure whatever happens with this merger/equity stake/whatever it is, it will end up making it worse.

[GrantDawg]

Sports Illustrated officially died today. The group that owns the license for the name just pulled the license and everyone that worked for SI was let go. End of an era.

[Edward64]

Ah, the SI Swimsuit editions from the 80s and 90s.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Ah, the SI Swimsuit editions from the 80s and 90s.

Let's give them a salute.....not with that Ed!

[Ksyrup]

I didn't even know SI still existed.

[SirFozzie]

Seeing a lot of people chanting the "Go woke, go broke" mantra about Sports Illustrated, namely, their decisions to put a plus size woman and a woman (who is trans) on the cover of the swimsuit issue. Of course, the real lesson is that 'Be old-school and fail to change with the times means you'll die off like the dinosaurs" will go RIGHT over the CHUDlets heads at about Mach 2.1.

[molson]

It's a magazine. Is there a single magazine which has persevered or successfully evolved?

Maybe National Geographic. They have a whole thing going on.

[Edward64]

AARP, People, Cosmo, Vogue, Golf Digest etc.

All have migrated to online, digital to adapt, but still doing okay.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by molson

It's a magazine. Is there a single magazine which has persevered or successfully evolved?

I haven't considered SI a "magazine" - in the traditional physical sense - in years. Hell, I don't know that I've seen one in years.

It existed in recent memory to me simply as a brand applied to often questionable content generation online.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

AARP, People, Cosmo, Vogue, Golf Digest etc.

All have migrated to online, digital to adapt, but still doing okay.

Consumer Reports.

[Ksyrup]

Got an email yesterday from ESPN+ with new subscriber agreement terms, and just got another one from Disney+. Waiting for the trifecta from Hulu.

Anyway, this is one of the terms in both:

• We're adding limitations on sharing your account outside of your household, and explaining how we may assess your compliance with these limitations.

Interestingly, when clicking on the Agreement link, I was unable to highlight any section to easily copy it. Instead, I had to pretend like I was printing it to highlight it. This is what it says:

n. Account Sharing. Unless otherwise permitted by your Service Tier, you may not share your subscription outside of your household. “Household” means the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein. Additional usage rules may apply for certain Service Tiers. For more details on our account sharing policy, please visit our Help Center.

We may, in our sole discretion, analyze the use of your account to determine compliance with this Agreement. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated this Agreement, we may limit or terminate access to the Service and/or take any other steps as permitted by this Agreement (including those set forth in Section 6 of this Agreement).

You will be responsible for any use of your account by your household, including compliance with this section.

Curious if they are going to start policing this in some way, or just added it for possible future use. Also curious if they are going to go the Netflix route of deeming a college student as outside a household.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Sports Illustrated officially died today. The group that owns the license for the name just pulled the license and everyone that worked for SI was let go. End of an era.

Looks like its back:


Sports Illustrated lands new publisher as Minute Media obtains rights with plans to continue printing - The Athletic

[Ksyrup]

I don't see an Olympics thread yet so I'll put this here. I'm not a fan of the Olympics at all (just in general), but I end up having to watch it (a) because of other family members or (b) because there's usually nothing else on. Apparently this year we won't get stuck with only having tape-delay airings - as long as you subscribe to Peacock! But at least an option exists.

However it's the regular NBC coverage that I just read about that sounds absolutely horrid:

Making events available live, as they happen in France, means that NBC will need to have different Olympics programming during primetime — a curated show that will combine event highlights with entertainment and stars commenting on the Games in the hopes of luring sports fans and channel surfers. In short, NBC’s primetime Olympics coverage may at times feel more like a variety show filmed in Paris.

To pull that off, NBCU has turned to a deep bench of talent — from [Jimmy] Fallon to [Kelly] Clarkson to a variety of social media influencers. Snoop Dogg will deliver man*-on*-the-*street observations as he brings his blunt humor (and maybe even some blunts) to help enliven the primetime coverage . . . In something that might seem more at home on “America’s Got Talent” or “The Voice,” the network even plans to deploy five heart-rate monitors among the parents of athletes. The results will be shown on-screen as moms and dads watch their kids compete — something that test audiences have loved. Will the medical devices have an on-screen sponsor? “We are talking about it.” says Dan Lovinger, the NBC ad-sales executive who is responsible for snaring hundreds of millions in ad support.

Just shoot me - seriously, I'd rather watch reruns of a 20-year old David Spade comedy show. I also can't wait until NBC is flooded with social media doctors warning that a parental heart attack is imminent, or questioning the character/love of a parent because their heart rate is so low they must not care about their kid - or worse, perhaps it's not even their kid and mom must have had an affair or they're adopted and don't know it. The possibilities are endless!

Also, please keep trying to force-feed late night TV on us because it's not dying and irrelevant, and we need more celebrities and promo-tie-ins because we don't get enough of that already.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but... take me back to the good ol' days of a 20 minute feature on Peekaboo Street while live events are going on rather than this shlock.

[Lathum]

Who doesn't want to see Snoop Dog comment on the form of a javelin thrower?

[Ksyrup]

Glad to see CFB is finally adding the 2 minute commercial break to games. They move too fast as it is.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Glad to see CFB is finally adding the 2 minute commercial break to games. They move too fast as it is.

Article I just read said the addition of a two-minute warning in both halves will not result in a commercial break. Did you misspeak or maybe the article I read is wrong?

[Ksyrup]

It will be a commercial break, just a fixed/planned break. Similar to the under 4 basketball TV timeout. The claim is that it will hopefully stop broadcasters from overloading "commercial/kick-off/commercial"-type situations earlier in the quarters. Color me skeptical.

Also, having the 2 minute warning AND stopping the clock on first downs during the last 2 minutes seems like overkill. But they want crazy endings to games, similar to the stupid advance the ball to half court in basketball which is just designed to try to create chaos at the end of games and not really tied to anything from the actual game of basketball.