On Long Island, Neil Best notes former Mets SS Jose Reyes' decision to sign with the Marlins “figures to diminish the Mets' already faded relevance as a media attraction.” But Best notes MLB is different than the NFL or NBA, in that it is "dependent more on market size and local fan bases than on stars and standings.” The Mets with or without Reyes “are not about to disappear from the national scene as they rebuild or regroup or refinance or whatever it is they are doing.” SNY President Steve Raab, whose company broadcasts Mets games, yesterday said, "I have never been able to peg a rating in baseball to a player. The one thing I am reasonably certain of is when a team is a winner, you are going to do better than when it isn't” (NEWSDAY, 12/6).
DELICATE DECISIONS: In the latest entry for ESPN.com as part of the Poynter Review Project, sportswriter Jason Fry noted on consecutive shows in October, ESPN's newsmagazine "E:60" included interviews with subjects “whose speech wasn't always easy to understand.” But the network “made different choices in how it presented those interviews: the words of Jamie Convey, a 10-year-old white child with cerebral palsy from Philadelphia, weren't subtitled; those of Ernest Willis, an impoverished black man from Tennessee, were.” Fry: “When subjects are speaking English, subtitling defies blanket policies or sweeping generalizations, and there's rarely an answer that's clearly right or wrong.” Producer Beein Gim said, "You just have to make sure that the point people are trying to make gets through. It's about making sure voices that need to be heard get heard" (ESPN.com, 12/5).
HOOP IT UP: The Bulls announced a five-year extension of their radio broadcast agreement with ESPN Radio 1000 Chicago. The deal ensures that all regular-season, playoff and three preseason games, halftime, pregame and postgame shows will air on the station through the '16-17 season. ESPN Raido 1000 has been the team's flagship station since '96. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed (Bulls)....The NBA, Raptors and TVA Sports announced a two-year deal for the French-language broadcaster to air the team's games in Quebec. The net will also broadcast matchups of marquee teams like the Celtics, Lakers and Bulls. Paul Rivard and Pascal Jobin will serve as broadcasters for the games (Raptors).
TIME TO PLAY THE GAME: Major League Gaming said its recently concluded '11 Pro Circuit Season drew more than 3.5 million unique video stream viewers, 225% above last year. The online consumption also includes more than 15 million hours of video viewed during the season, and a peak rate of 241,000 concurrent viewers for its National Championships held Nov. 18-20 in Providence. "Our viewership numbers this year have been staggering and MLG now pulls in larger audiences than several traditional television cable networks," said MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni. The National Championships also pulled online viewers from 175 countries, another company record (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal).
