In N.Y., Bob Raissman cited sources as saying that Mets flagship radio station WOR-AM “broke even this season, but is expected to make a profit with the Mets in 2016 as more advertisers want their products associated with the team.” The station in ’13 paid $6-8M per year for the team’s broadcast rights in a five-year deal. Meanwhile, WFAN-AM, the Mets’ former radio home, is “paying the Yankees an average” of $16-17M per year. The station “lost” $4-5M on the deal this season (NYDAILYNEWS.com, 11/7).
SELECTIVE MEMORY?: In N.Y., Phil Mushnick notes rapper Rick Ross was the guest picker on ESPN’s “College GameDay” Saturday and wrote his "kinship to football must lie in his multiple arrests -- guns, drugs, assaults, kidnapping -- and his violent, threatening, vulgar, women-degrading, N-worded, weapons-worshiping lyrics.” While Ross “meets ESPN’s standards, the network was insufferably violated by Curt Schilling, suspended and condemned for tweeting his history-supported opinion that today’s Islamic radicals were yesterday’s Nazis” (N.Y. POST, 11/9).
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: The WALL STREET JOURNAL’s Paul Sonne profiled Russia’s “new 24-hour sports network,” Match TV. The net “belongs to the media unit of state energy giant Gazprom.” To help “endow Match TV with the slick production values of American network sports, the company recruited” former NHL, NFL and ABC Sports exec Charles Coplin (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 11/7).
FALSE FINISH: SI.com’s Richard Deitsch noted that a report that Bill Simmons and sports documentarian Jon Hock “have teamed up for an HBO doc” on late pro wrestler Andre the Giant “are false.” The N.Y. Post's Page Six last week reported on the collaboration, but Hock said that he has “never talked to Simmons or HBO about such a project and he is not working on any Andre the Giant film" (SI.com, 11/8).
