CHEERS AND JEERS FOR THE SPORTS MEDIA WORLD IN 2012 / The Big Dozen Sports Media Stories of 2012

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http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/december/cheers-and-jeers-for-2012-in-the-sports-media-world.html

Written by Joe Lucia on Friday, 28 December 2012 19:32.

2012 has been one of the most interesting years to ever cover the
sports media world. There's been plenty to like in terms of new deals,
innovations, and trends... and of course, plenty to not like. With a
nod to the classic TV Guide staple, we've put together this list of
the good (cheers!) and bad (jeers!) for this year. At the end of the
day, I'm sure there's some stuff we've missed out on... if not, don't
worry. There's still plenty of time for a couple year-end lists before
the year ends. This really has been a landmark year in the world of
sports media, and these were just some of the highlights and
lowlights.

JEERS to...

"Embrace debate." ESPN has done a great job at turning every panel-
type discussion into a frenzied firestorm of people yelling at each
other, overexaggerating points, and quite frankly (no pun intended,
Stephen A Smith), choosing to emphasize the volume of your voice and
quantity of your words over the quality of your argument. This has
turned people like Smith, Skip Bayless, and Rob Parker into trolls of
the highest degree on national television every day.

ESPN's editorial staff. Sarah Phillips. Lynn Hoppes. The Lukas
Podolski interview. And then, there was John Walsh's response to this
giant mess of editorial sloppiness/plagiarizing/whatever you want to
call it. ESPN has numerous talented writers, yet the unabashed
laziness of ESPN's editors in these three situations is something that
could bring a lesser organization to its knees.

NBC's Olympics coverage. Yes, there was live online streaming of every
event. Yes, there was daytime coverage of events on multiple networks
under the NBC Universal umbrella, including channels dedicated to
nothing but soccer and basketball. However, the lack of live
television coverage of some events rubbed a lot of people the wrong
way. Due to the time difference between the states and London, NBC
didn't air popular swimming, track, and gymnastics events live on
television. This made people rely on an oftentimes buffer-heavy stream
in the middle of the afternoon to watch Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt,
and Gabby Douglas before the results were spoiled everywhere online.
Oh, and they didn't even air the opening and closing ceremonies live,
instead showing a hacked up version in primetime.

CHEERS to...

The NFL Network and Time Warner agreeing to a carriage agreement.
Finally, after many years of a lack of carriage and legal disputes,
the NFL Network agreed to a deal with Time Warner Cable as well as
Bright House Networks. The second and sixth largest cable companies in
the United States were the last two major hurdles for the NFL Network
to achieve (essentially) national carriage on all major providers in
the country. Considering the smashing success of a full slate of
Thursday Night Football this season, the next round of negotiations
between providers and the NFL could get a little more dicey and lead
to even more money for the league.

The launch of the Pac-12 Network. Following in the footsteps of the
Big Ten, the Pac-12 created their own network that launched this
summer. The network took a different path towards success in
comparison to BTN, inking carriage agreements with many major cable
providers (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House) before launch, and
getting Dish on board less than a month after the launch. However, the
Pac-12 Network still doesn't have deals with DirecTV, Charter, AT&T,
and Verizon yet. But compared to where BTN was, with carriage on just
DirecTV, AT&T, and Dish for the first year, the Pac-12 Network is
still ahead of where a lot of people thought they should be.

The return of 30 for 30. This is something that caused the staff at AA
to dance in the streets. When the six new films in the 30 for 30
series were announced in the fall, everyone became ridiculously
excited based on the first 30 documentaries being one of the best
things ESPN has ever done. The new batch delivered in spades with You
Don't Know Bo one of the best, in spite of the difficulties in trying
to record it.

JEERS to...

ESPN's sourcing issues. There has been a lot written this year about
ESPN refusing to credit reporters from other outlets when they break
news. We've seen it with Sports by Brooks, we've seen it with Chris
Broussard, we've seen it with Jay Glazer... when is this madness going
to end? It's not going to kill ESPN to cite "Ken Rosenthal of Fox"
when talking about an MLB free agent signing or to mention "Mike
Florio of Pro Football Talk" on Countdown when talking about a
player's injury. This is something that a lot of casual fans seem to
not even think about, but is becoming an issue at the worldwide leader
as more and more competitors publicly and loudly air their grievances.

Fox's usage of Gus Johnson. Johnson is an internet darling, a man who
has had so many memories tied to his announcing in the NCAA tournament
over the years. Yet, Johnson was far from the national consciousness
in 2012. Gus announced one college football game per week in the fall
with Fox's new TV deal and the largely Pac 12/Big 12 schedule offered
few memorable moments. He didn't start announcing NFL games for the
network this year until the college season was done in December, and
those games were low down the totum pole. As for Johnson's basketball
work... well, it was largely tied up in regular season Big Ten action.
Johnson called around 30 games on BTN last year, and will likely do
the same again this year. Regardless, it still feels like we need more
Gus in our lives. Thankfully, Fox did put together this video of some
of Johnson's best calls of the 2012 college football season.

The potential death of the NHL. You know, the NHL delivered a pretty
solid set of Stanley Cup Playoffs this spring, despite a disastrous
ratings performance in the Finals between the Kings and Devils. There
hasn't been an NHL game played in over six months. Additionally, NBC
Sports Network hasn't filled the gaping NHL slot in their schedule
with anything worth watching. Regardless of how you feel about hockey,
it's sad that we're in yet another work stoppage after all of the work
the league did to build itself up with after the lockout six years
ago.

CHEERS to...

Twitter... and Twitter Wars! Social media has changed sports for the
better in so many ways. From a community experience, to the speed of
breaking news and increased interaction between all of us who follow
sports. The best facet of Twitter in these parts though are the
Twitter Wars that provide way too much entertainment than they should.
Out of the 11 Twitter Wars we followed this year, Darren Rovell was
involved in five of them (three with Richard Deitsch of Sports
Illustrated). I do believe my favorite was comedian Norm MacDonald's
savage burial of Rick Reilly, but really, can you pick just one? A
brief selection:

Darren Rovell v Richard Deitsch III
Darren Rovell v Bomani Jones
Tim Brando v Buckeye Nation
Michael Smith v Dave Dameshek

Saying goodbye to "The Next Erin Andrews." For the longest time, the
most famous woman in sports media was Erin Andrews. It seemed that
nobody who took on a sideline reporting role could escape her
significant shadow and every attractive female ESPN hired was
immediately compared to EA. This year, that mold was finally broken.
Andrews moved on from the sideline reporting role that had defined her
career at ESPN. In her new role with Fox, she added more studio work
to her resume hosting the Fox college football pregame show and a role
on Fox's MLB and NFL coverage. Michelle Beadle, the SportsNation star
rumored to have a "rivalry" with Andrews, left ESPN for NBC and became
an even bigger household name. She not only took on a job at Access
Hollywood, but anchored Olympic coverage and will soon have her own
NBCSN show.

But ironically enough, the replacements for Andrews and Beadle at ESPN
may have had even better years. Charissa Thompson blossomed as the new
co-host of SportsNation and Samantha Steele brought a fresh
personality to ESPN's college football coverage. They proved there was
success in being themselves and not trying to fit some sort of
preordained mold. It was an encouraging sign for the entire industry
to move beyond "the next Erin Andrews" and appreciate the actual
talent these individuals have. Getting more smart, entertaining women
on camera is definitely a good development for the future.

ESPN and Fox handle tragedy with respect. The Jovan Belcher murder-
suicide that left Kasandra Perkins dead, the Josh Brent DUI that
killed Jerry Brown, and the horrific school shooting in Newtown. All
three of these events happened in quick succession near the end of the
year. And to their credit, ESPN and Fox handled all three very well.
CBS did a terrible job handling the Belcher tragedy before rebounding
with the way they covered the Brent incident. Bob Costas' essay on NBC
about gun control after Belcher shot and killed Perkins and himself
resulted in a firestorm of criticism towards him and NBC. ESPN and Fox
covered all three tragedies with the sensitivity and perspective
needed, and did a great job keeping their composure and drawing
attention to the severity of the situations. In these terrible
incidents, ESPN and Fox acted like responsible news outlets as opposed
to the morning zoo type atmospwheres that tend to populate NFL pregame
shows. Hats off to the producers and talent from both networks for
their coverage.

http://fangsbites.com/2013/01/the-big-dozen-sports-media-stories-of-2012/

Time for the look back at the Year in Sports Media in 2012. Lots of
great stuff. The year has been very interesting and we have seen a lot
of things.
Just doing a Top Ten is never enough for the Year in Review. It’s
always an even dozen with some honorable mentions mixed in.
Let’s go over what were the Sports Media Stories of 2012.

12. Embrace Debate Leads To Rob Parker Suspension

One of the silliest stories in 2012 was ESPN’s commitment to debate
programming. Two shows were revamped to accommodate more debate among
ESPN personalities, First Take and Numbers Never Lie. Due to
outrageous statements made on First Take, mostly by Skip Bayless, the
show received lots of attention and increased ratings. But the
pressure to stand out may have caught up with Rob Parker who
questioned whether DC NFL Team quarterback Robert Griffin III’s
authenticity.

It led to Parker’s suspension and allegedly more oversight over the
shows. We’ll see if it leads to some more control and fewer outrageous
statements.

11. Steve Sabol (1942-2012)

One of the pioneers in sports television passed away in 2012. Steve
Sabol’s impact on the National Football League’s popularity through
NFL Films cannot be measured. With his father Ed, the Sabols brought
fans closer to the game by thinking outside the box. Games weren’t
just regular contests, they became movies with Hollywood production
values and full orchestrations. Instead of showing games from high in
the stadium, NFL Films went to field level and made extreme closeups
of the players. In addition, Ed and Steve introduced slow motion
photography to sports.
In 2011, Ed Sabol was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It
would behoove voters to induct Steve sometime soon to join his dad.

10. Big Media Taps Into New Media

2012 saw Turner Sports purchased the much-criticized and now-improving
Bleacher Report, USA Today buying Big Lead Sports and NBC Sports
aligned itself with Yahoo! Sports. This is more than getting pageviews
and improving comScores, this is about expanding portfolios and
attracting younger audiences. According to comScore, Yahoo! has been
the most popular sports news site for several years outpacing
ESPN.com. Bleacher Report may get criticized for its multiple and
questionable slideshows, but its hiring of some respected editors and
writers have increased the quality of the site to the point where
Turner Sports purchased the site for beaucoup bucks. And I have to
make this disclaimer, Fang’s Bites is an independently-owned blog that
is affiliated with USA Today Media Group. We will see more purchases
in 2013.

9. NASCAR Renews with Fox

Fox Sports was the first of NASCAR’s TV partners to renew its ties
with the sport taking the first half of the Sprint Cup season. For an
estimated pricetag of over $2.4 billion through 2022, Fox remains with
NASCAR in a relationship that dates back to 2002. Fox is expected to
put some of its races on its new all-sports channel, but we’ll get to
that later. And expect live on-streaming in this new contract.
However, NASCAR’s ratings are a question-mark, but bidding for the
second half in 2013 is expected to bring even more money. It’s all
going to be quite an interesting year for NASCAR.

8. NBC Steals English Premier League and Formula One From Fox

October turned out to be a good month for NBC Sports Group as far as
acquisitions were concerned. It first obtained the rights to Formula 1
as Fox gave just a nominal bid. Then a couple of weeks later, it
emerged as the frontrunner to the English Premier League and then won
out over a concerted combined bid from ESPN/Fox. While NBC Sports
Network won’t be known as a college sports destination or for MLB,
perhaps it can become an international sports channel with the EPL,
Formula 1 and Olympic Sports. NBC Sports Network will have some sports
to watch year-round with the English Premier League, Formula 1, MLS
and the NHL (when it finally returns).

7. NFL Network Picks Up Its Last Two Holdouts

Since 2010, NFL Network has been gaining momentum in picking up
carriage agreements with the major cable providers. It finally was
able to sign deals in 2012 with its last two remaining holdouts, first
Cablevision in August and then the very last one, Time Warner Cable in
September. Thanks to the increased audience, NFL Network’s Thursday
Night Football package had record ratings for its new 13 game
schedule. It was a struggle for NFL Network to get all eight major
cable and satellite providers on board, but after eight years, it
finally got it done.

6. MLB New TV Contracts For A Lot of $$$

It started in August when ESPN renewed rights for its three nights of
baseball games, a return to postseason and an increased amount of
games for a total of $5.6 billion over eight years. Then in October,
MLB announced deals with Fox and Turner for a combined $6.8 billion
through 2021, providing them with TV Everywhere rights, postseason
deals and a package of regular season games. For Fox, it allows the
network to put games on its anticipated all-sports cable channel, but
again, more on that later.

5. CBS & NBC Announce New Sports Radio Networks

2012 brought two new national networks to the sports talk radio scene.
Within two days of each other, NBC Sports Radio and CBS Sports Radio
were announced by both companies and with respective partners Dial
Global and Cumulus Radio. NBC Sports Radio has been airing limited
weekend programming since September, however, CBS Sports Radio chose
to wait until this month to begin full operation with a 24/7 lineup.
Both have a long way to go to match the firepower and the reputation
of ESPN Radio that has been on the scene since the early 1990′s,
however, CBS has hired familiar names like Jim Rome, Doug Gottlieb,
John Feinstein, Scott Ferrall and Dana Jacobson. NBC will wait until
the NCAA Final Four to finalize its weekday lineup. No matter the
case, ESPN Radio finds itself with some formidable competition to join
Yahoo! Sports Radio and Fox Sports Radio for listeners.

4. ESPN Free Agency

We had some big names leave the ESPN nest, Erin Andrews, Steve
Berthiaume, Michelle Beadle, Cindy Brunson, Doug Gottlieb, Dana
Jacobson, Michael Yam to name a few, but many stayed including Scott
Van Pelt. This seemed to be quite the year for free agency for ESPN.
In some cases, the network chose not to renew and wave goodbye to
those departing, others decided not to return for other opportunities
while in others, ESPN went out of its way to make sure its desired
talent stayed. For the first time, ESPN was transparent in making
statements about its free agency signings or departures. In the past,
it had issued terse statements when media inquiries were made.

3. Fox Spending Spree

As the year-end was approaching, Fox Sports through its parent, News
Corp., went on a spending spree unlike any other in sports media. It
not only set up an all-sports cable channel for operation in 2013
(again, more on this later), but it bought into the YES Network which
will eventually lead into a majority share of the New York Yankees
regional sports network and fully purchased Sports Time Ohio for the
Cleveland MLB Team. In addition, Fox is reportedly close to signing a
long-term deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for its media rights. News
Corp. had money to spend with the company splitting off its publishing
holdings into a separate company and of course, the proverbial fiscal
cliff where tax credits were about to change. Will we see more of
Fox’s financial muscle in 2013? I think that’s a safe bet.

2. The Emergence of Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2

While NBC Sports Network was attempting to bid for major sports
properties, Fox Sports was quietly forming its cable sports strategy
for 2013 and beyond. We began hearing rumblings about Fox rebranding
Speed into an all-sports channel that would be named “Fox Sports 1″
then at the end of the year, the company’s Fuel channel would also be
rebranded as “Fox Sports 2″.
In its new contracts with MLB, NASCAR, the Pac-12, UFC and other
sports properties it signed in 2012, Fox had a provision to put games
and events on Fox Sports 1. As part of its new contract with Major
League Baseball, Fox Sports can place 40 regular season games on cable
as well as several postseason games. We should expect a number of
NASCAR Sprint Cup races on FS1 and most likely see some UFC events as
well.

The strategy is in place. Let’s see how it’s enacted in 2013 and
beyond.

1. NBC’s Olympics Both Fail and Succeed

Up until the London Olympics begin in late July, NBCUniversal had been
downplaying both ratings and financial expectations stating that it
expected to lose money and the ratings for a tape delayed event would
not be as good as in 2008 when events were carried live from Communist
China. Somewhere along the way, something happened. NBC broke even
financially on the Olympics and they became the most watched event in
US television history. That was the successful part.

The failure was the tape delayed aspect when many viewers wanted to
watch events live. The #NBCFAIL hashtag on Twitter quickly spread like
wildfire during the first weekend of the Olympics. In addition, online
streaming was sluggish and haggard. But even with the delays and
streaming problems, Americans still watched in droves. When the games
were said and done, NBCUniversal could pat itself on the back.

Honorable Mentions:
Struggles of new regional sports networks to gain carriage agreements.
NHL Does Well; But Shoots Itself in the Foot with the Lockout
Tim Tebow Overload
ESPN Continues Dominance in College Sports

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2012-articles/december/five-takeaways-from-2012-in-sports-media.html

Written by Andrew Bucholtz on Sunday, 30 December 2012 22:31.

It's been an eventful year in the sports media world, but it hasn't
been an easy-to-summarize one. The year's top sports stories have run
the gamut from horrifying to exhilarating, with everything from the
Jerry Sandusky/Penn State scandal to the Olympics to the Lance
Armstrong saga getting plenty of attention, and there have been huge
developments on the media front as well. To sum it all up, here are
five themes from the year in sports media and what they might mean
going forward.

1. The appetite for sports television hasn't peaked yet:

When the Big Ten Network launched in 2007, there were significant
questions about if there was really enough demand for a network
focusing on just a single college conference. Five years later, the
landscape's rather different: the Big Ten Network has been so
successful (and gained so much carriage) that it's proven a driving
influence in conference realignment (hello, Maryland and Rutgers!),
and everyone else is trying to copy it. The Pac-12 went even bigger
this year with a collection of regional networks, and most of the
recent wave of realignment has been fueled by schools trying to get
even bigger shares of a pie of rights fees that seems to be
perpetually growing. That's becoming even a larger story now thanks to
college football's decision to go to a playoff (#6 on that AP story
list), which may be partly thanks to questions about the problems with
the BCS, but is likely thanks to the massive pot of money being
dangled for playoff broadcasting rights.

It's not just college sports, either. The money being paid for
everything from individual baseball teams' games to English Premier
League rights to NFL broadcast rights is getting astronomical.
Networks are also looking to bring in as much sports content as
possible, as evidenced by NBC Sports Network, CBS Sports Network and
Fox's soon-to-be-launched national sports network. Heck, even the
University of Texas has been trying with their own network, although
it's proven rather divisive and only a few still get it. (Carriage
debates form their own fascinating part of this discussion.)

That seems unlikely to stop any time soon. Much of the appeal of
sports programming comes from the numbers who watch it live; more and
more people have DVRs these days and use those (or other alternative
methods) to watch scripted and reality TV, so sports is one of the few
areas where networks can still offer ad spots that will be seen by
most viewers. That doesn't mean everything sports will instantly sell;
the struggles the remains of the Big East face trying to get a decent
TV deal are an illustration here, as are NBC Sports Network's ratings
struggles (which the NHL lockout has also played a factor in) and the
Longhorn Network's challenges. The live ratings for big-ticket sports
events remain strong, though, and you can't say that about much of the
rest of TV. When you also consider the amount of networks trying to
get in on the all-sports pie and convince distributors they're worth
decent carriage fees, we may see even higher bidding wars over premium
broadcast rights for games, teams and leagues in the next few years.
There may well be a sports television cliff, but we don't appear to
have reached it yet.

2. Debate is being embraced:

ESPN's received plenty of criticism over the way they've pushed
"debate" (particularly the Skip Bayless-Stephen A. Smith First Take
brand), and deservedly so, but they have a reason. They think it's
what viewers want, and the ratings suggest they aren't entirely wrong.
The "debate" idea stretches well beyond just First Take, too; ESPN's
Michael Smith admitted at Blogs With Balls this fall that Numbers
Never Lie has gone from a stats show to something that "now is a
debate show, like most other shows on ESPN" (not surprising,
considering some of the conclusions they've used numbers for), and
we're seeing this with halftime shows like the Lou Holtz-Mark May
pairing. CBS has gone that way a bit at times too, so it's not just
ESPN, and it would not be surprising to see these kinds of argument
shows gain more traction on the various sports-only networks starting
up. The top stories of the year provided ample fodder for this kind of
stuff, too; apart from manufactured debates like the endless Tim Tebow
one, there have been plenty of other things for talking heads to argue
about, including Lance Armstrong and PEDs (#2 on the AP list),
BountyGate (#3), the college football playoff (#6) and the NFL's
replacement refs (#7). This isn't only a television thing, either; the
online sports marketplace is getting more crowded as well, and many
see strong takes as a way to stand out. We'll see if that trend
continues in 2013.

3. Online synergy with other platforms matters more:

One of the most notable trends in 2012 was various sports media
companies trying to expand their brand into other realms. The NBC/
Yahoo! partnership and Turner's acquisition of Bleacher Report
obviously stand out as the most prominent moves here, but there have
been plenty of other memorable ones: NBC further integrating their
online content with NBC Sports Network (Pro Football Talk Live in
particular stands out), CBS and Yahoo!'s moves on the radio front, USA
Today's sports expansion and the Sports On Earth launch, the moves
NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN have made with their online sports sites, the
growing emphasis SB Nation and Bleacher Report have placed on projects
like original video, and many more. Driven by the demand for sports
content and the crowded media landscape, everyone's looking to make
their own media empire bigger and more powerful, and cross-platform
synergy's certainly one way to do that.

4. The mainstream and blogging landscape has shifted:

It's not necessarily that there were more sports media fights in 2012
than there have been in previous years, but there does appear to have
been a bit of a shift in who's doing the fighting. When Boston Globe
hockey scribe Kevin-Paul Dupont went off on bloggers in October, it
felt charmingly quaint. It's not really blog/media fights as much
these days, but more big media-on-big media. Some of that's probably
spurred by the crowded marketplace and the desire to stand out, and a
lot of it's probably over the "embrace debate" philosophy. But another
part of it's how we communicate; it's much easier to fire off a quick
tweet blasting someone (and conversely, it's much easier to tweet
something that's seen as provocative) than it is to get approval for a
whole column on the subject. It's also much easier to directly contact
a rival or competitor simply by sending one 140 character message.
There's more media-on-media discussion in the public realm, and that's
led to more debate and more clashes. This happens over everything from
top stories (Armstrong, replacement refs, BountyGate) to tennis to
arguments on who created what, and we're unlikely to see the end of it
any time soon.

5. Errors and controversial decisions will be seen, and debated:

The aforementioned media fights aren't always over differences of
opinion on a sports topic. Many of the most notable ones this year
have been over behind-the-scenes journalism issues, such as
controversies over ESPN's sourcing protocols and ESPN's John Walsh's
erroneous comments about why Deadspin's John Koblin was going after
them. This is partly thanks to the debate atmosphere, but the growing
synergy and alliances between big players may be reinforcing an "us-
and-them" atmosphere. As Deadspin's Sean Newell points out, sourcing
debates matter from a standpoint of breaking news versus just
repeating it (and thus, they impact a network's reputation).

There are plenty of big players all eager to prove themselves now, and
that may come into some of the questionable decisions we've seen made
in 2012. What's really notable is that errors of judgement don't go
unnoticed now, though; we've seen that on the media issues side from
examples like Walsh's comments to a sports journalism class to CBS'
errant, initially-unattributed report of Joe Paterno's death (part of
the #1 AP story of the year), and we've also seen that in the sports
personality realm thanks to things like Jason Whitlock's tweet about
Jeremy Lin's um, endowment and Rob Parker questioning if Robert
Griffin III was a "cornball brother." This trend isn't new to 2012,
but it rose sharply this year and it should only be expected to rise
further. Mistakes and questionable decisions will be noted and
discussed far and wide going forward, regardless of if they were
initially for a small audience. The sports media world should keep
that in mind.