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Media Notes

ESPN and Bill Simmons announced the first wave of writer and editor hires for his new website, Grantland.com, set to launch in June. The name of the site honors late sportswriter Grantland Rice. Dan Fierman, most recently a Senior Editor at GQ, will be lead Editor for Grantland.com, joined by Lane Brown and Jay Caspian Kang. Authors Chuck Klosterman, Malcolm Gladwell and Dave Eggers will be consulting editors to Grantland, with Klosterman writing exclusively for the site. Simmons and ESPN also announced seven writers as part of the staff, with more full-time contributors to be announced prior to launch (ESPN).

ONE BIG, HAPPY FAMILY: Versus.com is now fully integrated into NBCSports.com, a further outgrowth of the NBC-Comcast merger earlier this year. The integration began earlier this month in which all of the combined entity's hockey content, including the ProHockeyTalk.com blog and playoff analysis from Versus talent, was pooled into NBCSports.com. The latest step takes everything else from Versus.com and puts it within the NBCSports.com portal. The integration did not create any further staff reductions or relocations, NBC officials said (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).

BACK IN THE RING: Showtime announced Thursday that James Brown "will be added to its regular announcer crew to host" its Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley PPV bout next Saturday. Also for next weekend's bout, Showtime "will offer its first boxing coverage live online." The online feed "will carry the same $55 charge as TV coverage but will let online users choose between TV camera shots" (USA TODAY, 4/29).

AUSSIE RULES: The Australian Football League on Thursday "trumpeted its position as the most powerful sporting competition in the country by securing" a record US$1.37B broadcast rights agreement with Foxtel, the Seven Network and Telstra for the next five years. Per the deal, "every game will be televised live in every Australian state throughout the season." The $1.37B deal is up US$405.3M from the last broadcast deal (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 4/29).

HOOP IT UP: In New Jersey, Al Iannazzone notes the NBA "was criticized roundly for how last summer’s free agency went down," but this season national TV ratings "went through the roof because everyone wanted to see LeBron James and the Heat in good times and bad." As a result, "many are tuned into the NBA now because of these playoffs." Iannazzone: "You have to believe these playoffs are going to get better -- before things in the NBA potentially get worse" (Bergen RECORD, 4/29).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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