The Sports Illustrated website had an editor who was an apostle of lists and predictions. The data always backs him up, and he expressed what such content means for site traffic: Rank and register with your bank.
The rank is clear. The bank mentioned page views. In the editing world, stories and staff come and go, and the world becomes more complex every day. But List columns and articles, from power rankings to mock drafts to predictions, remain perennially popular.
The latter is why I’m here.Since joining the company, I have not done many prediction columns in this field. The Athletic, but at the beginning of 2024, I thought it would be interesting to offer some thoughts on what’s going to happen this year in sports media. Check back in December to see how I did.
1. Tom Brady will appear in the Fox booth during Week 1 of the NFL season
Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch announced in May 2022 that Brady had agreed to join Fox Sports as chief NFL analyst when he retires from the NFL. His contract was for 10 years and included a role, in Murdoch’s words, as “an ambassador for us, particularly in relation to client and promotional activities”.
Given Brady’s various interests (owning two production studios and sports ownership), there was obviously speculation as to whether he would eventually join the booth. What else is at stake? Well, Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen have developed into a top-notch NFL team. But I think he will be in office in September, confirming what Mr. Brady said in February 2023. That’s what the Fox Sports football people believe, too. Brady has been talking a lot lately about broadcasting on his own platform, so this is also kind of a story. Olsen’s interest in the Carolina Panthers’ head coaching job also indicates Brady is on the path.
Do you think Brady will be on Fox for 10 years? I’d bet big on that. But I think he’ll do the first season and see how it goes. You’ll either fall in love with the journey, the camaraderie of the crew, and the prep work, or you’ll decide it’s not for you. Brady will know the answer in his first year.
2. Brady will get good reviews for his work as an analyst.
I think Brady will be a better player than conventional wisdom suggests, especially as the season progresses. He was never Charles Barkley in his public press conferences, but this is true of most of the NFL’s famous quarterbacks. There are many ways to become a competent game analyst. Tony Romo is different from Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman is different from Charles Davis. Brady’s lead producer and director has his 60 years of experience with sideline reporters with tons of broadcast mileage. It’s a talented group that can help him. They will also benefit from more candor from players and coaches. The first few games will probably be a mixed bag for him – everyone will have an opinion about him as a broadcaster – but by Week 9-10, he’s a decent listener. It will be like this.
The past two Olympics were a ratings disaster. The Beijing Olympics, held in February 2022, will be the least-watched prime-time event in NBC history, with an average of 10.7 million TV viewers per night, including all other viewing platforms. The number of people increased slightly to 11.4 million. The number of prime-time TV viewers in Tokyo in summer 2021 was 15.1 million, the lowest average viewership ever.
NBC said that considering the politics and human rights abuses in China, a global pandemic, Asia-based competitions in a non-ideal time frame, and Olympic fatigue, including the American public, who do not support politics and human rights abuses in China. , it is clear that the broadcasters heading to Beijing were treated badly. The Tokyo Games ended just six months ago. In short, it’s a mess.
But then comes the Paris of 2024 with a beautiful backdrop (i.e. the beach volleyball venue is the Champ de Mars, a park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris). This time zone is six hours ahead of Eastern Time, so it’s not perfect, but it’s much more viewer-friendly than Beijing. I think this Olympics will be pop.
4. NBA gets shade with 50 percent increase in media rights deal
The NBA’s current agreements with ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery expire at the end of the 2024-25 season. By then, the league will have been paid a total of $24 billion in contract fees. Like most people writing about this, I believe the NBA is more than ready to add media partners other than ESPN/Disney and WBD/Turner, both with lower inventory than last year. I predict the league will continue.
Given their interest in expanding their sports portfolio, I think Amazon Prime Video will be their media partner. Would Apple be interested in owning some of the rights instead of owning everything like they wanted in MLS and the Pac-12? I’d bet no, but one thing’s for sure: Given the economic climate, the NBA needs a major streaming company as a long-term media partner. NBCUniversal is interested in the NBA, and the NBA has made it clear that it wants to increase the broadcast exposure that NBC can provide.
How it works in Peacock will be the key. Can NBA inventory increase Peacock’s subscriber base? I’m skeptical. Unless NBC puts a marquee event on the NBA calendar, I don’t see how it will work. Another legacy brand with reach would be valuable to the NBA, but the NBA is so core to ESPN that I think they would increase their bid to prevent the NBA Finals from being shared.
Experts such as Michael Nathanson, co-founder of research firm Moffett Nathanson, believe it’s only a matter of time before Netflix moves into sports, and that the NBA also fits into Netflix’s global goals. So I think it will be rolled out as WBD, ESPN, and Amazon Prime Video. And let’s say Netflix comes in, aiming for the big picture. However, in the betting window, it is better to choose NBC as the fourth partner.
5. Viewer ratings for women’s college volleyball continue to rise
Also worth reading is Chantel Jennings and Nicole Auerbach’s excellent commentary on the NCAA reaching an eight-year deal to televise 40 college sports championships each year, including the Division I women’s basketball tournament. is. One of the terms of the new deal includes a guarantee that the national championship games for women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s gymnastics will be broadcast annually on ABC.
I have written for many years that women’s college volleyball is a stage for great growth. Smart sports-focused media companies are going to move in, and the ones that do (like ESPN and the Big Ten Network) could reap the benefits if they get it right. This was the first year that women’s college volleyball received a great program slot. Look at the results. The Texas vs. Nebraska championship match, the first NCAA volleyball championship to be broadcast on ABC, set a TV ratings record for women’s college volleyball with an average of 1.7. Million viewers. (That game was played against an NFL program on a Sunday in December.) The telecast exceeded last year’s championship game viewership of 786,000 viewers by 115 percent. ESPN said. Female viewership increased by 151% from 2022, accounting for 51% of viewers.
what else? Fox aired regional coverage of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State and Michigan adjacent to NFL coverage, drawing 1.659 million viewers. In August, Nebraska Volleyball hosted the University of Nebraska at Omaha inside Memorial Stadium, drawing a crowd of 92,003. This is the largest audience ever to watch a women’s sporting event in the United States. Please pay attention to this sport.
6. There will be another sports outlet using AI-generated content for sports coverage – once discovered, there will be no stopping.
This was stolen from Chad Finn of the Boston Globe. He predicted this on a recent podcast. You’re probably familiar with Futurism’s coverage of Sports Illustrated articles being published by fake AI-generated writers, and the fallout. From human staff who were understandably outraged.. Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper, has been accused of trying to use artificial intelligence to automate its coverage of high school sports across the country.
In an industry where job losses continue and human labor is often prioritized as part of cost-cutting efforts, it seems inevitable that some parts of the publishing industry will continue to suffer in exchange for cost-cutting.
7. Laura Rutledge re-signs with ESPN and is promised some prominent roles in the NFL
Rutledge’s contract runs through this summer, and given how much time she’s logged as a seasoned NFL and college football host and reporter, she’ll likely attract interest from outside of ESPN. ESPN management has let some very talented young staffers retire in the past, but Rutledge, who is still only 35 years old, is looking to deepen his contract, which includes a super program, with top-tier NFL and college football teams. I think he’s smart enough to realize that there are people who can host a show like this. 2027 and 2031 bowls.
even deeper
Laura Rutledge Q&A: About her time at ESPN, NFL vs. college reporting, and more
An interesting ratings battle continues between CBS and FOX for the most-watched slot on television in 2023. During the 2023 NFL season, CBS entered Sunday with a narrow lead over Fox in the ratings in the 4:25 p.m. ET time slot. CBS averaged 24.992 million viewers for the game. Fox has an average of 24.93 million games.
Fox has owned this slot forever and is likely to win again this year given Sunday’s late window games between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Commanders and the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. The game was a great inside baseball race to watch. CBS really benefited from its allocated schedule of NFC games this year.
The NHL’s Winter Classic has been swallowed up by the College Football Playoff. The Las Vegas Golden Knights vs. Seattle Kraken game averaged 1.1 million viewers on TNT and truTV, 300,000 more viewers than the all-time low for the event. The final minutes of the game were head-to-head in the college football semifinals between Michigan and Alabama.
There is one piece of good news for WBD. NHL on TNT is up 17% from last year.
— Of the top 100 most-watched television broadcasts in the U.S. in 2023, 93 were from the NFL, according to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp. Karp said this number easily beats the NFL’s previous record of 82nd place, set in 2022. The NFL still occupied 24th of the top 25 spots in 2023 (Karp said the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was 23rd).
— Fox Sports NFL reporter Pam Oliver has long garnered attention from the LA Times.
— Curt Menefee has been named co-host of FOX 5’s Good Day New York. ” He will co-host the show Tuesdays through Fridays from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. ET and will continue to co-host Fox NFL Sundays during the NFL season.
Former Sports Illustrated staffers Mark Muravich and Alexander Wolff are co-editors of an anthology of the work of the late soccer writer Grant Wall. The book “World Class” will be released on June 4th.
Dear members of the press, this is the NFL television schedule for Wild Card weekend.
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NFL Wild Card Matchups, Schedule, and Playoff Brackets
(Top photo of Tom Brady: Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
