SBJ Media: ESPN Everywhere

This is a busy week in New York, starting with tonight’s Sports Emmy awards and ending with Wednesday’s Sports Business Awards. Tomorrow morning, I will interview Gary Bettman on stage at the Leaders’ Sports Business Summit.

PITARO LOOKS INTO ESPN'S CRYSTAL BALL

Pitaro said of UFC prelims on linear TV: "A great promotion engine to drive people to the ESPN+ service."

• The ESPN of the future will look a lot like the ESPN of 2019, as the company will keep putting its programming on as many consumer platforms as possible. “We are providing multiple entry points for the consumer,” said ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro, who was the sole sports media speaker at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival today in Manhattan. WSJ’s media and marketing bureau chief Amol Sharma interviewed Pitaro on stage for about 30 minutes. Here are three areas I found most interesting:
  
  
• Cord Cutting -- When asked if the traditional cable bundle still will be around in 10 years, Pitaro answered, “I believe so.” Traditional cable/satellite operators still are important to ESPN’s business, so much so that ESPN has started to look into making its ESPN+ streaming service available through cable set-top boxes. “We’re not there yet, but we are starting to think about those opportunities,” Pitaro said. When Sharma referenced dwindling distribution numbers, Pitaro shot back with ESPN’s ratings for MLB, “Monday Night Football,” NCAA basketball and UFC -- all of which have seen recent increases. “In a world that is challenged and flat is the new up, for us up is the new up. Our live events are growing.”
  
  
• Sports rights -- Pitaro said he would be surprised if one of the big tech companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) picked up significant sports rights packages by 2025. “There’s much more competition today than there was yesterday,” Pitaro said. “It’s not just the FAANGs. It’s the smaller sports start-ups as well that are well-funded and are sitting at the table right now competing with us.” The truth is that ESPN already has gobbled up many those rights for ESPN+. “We’re running parallel paths,” Pitaro said. “We’re investing in acquiring rights through third parties for live event sports for that traditional bundle. At the same time, we’re making a significant investment in the direct-to-consumer business. We want to provide multiple access points to our content. That includes linear television, ESPN the app, ESPN.com, ESPN+.”
  
  
• ESPN as a barker channel -- It’s hard to view ESPN as a barker channel for ESPN+, a service that has more than 2 million subscribers. But that’s how Pitaro described the linear channel when he talked about showing UFC prelims on linear ESPN before showing the main event on ESPN+. “That serves as a barker, a promotion engine, for ESPN+,” Pitaro said. “Not only are we seeing solid ratings during that preliminary window, but it’s also a great promotion engine to drive people to the ESPN+ service.”
  
  
  

SPORTS EMMYS 

• A few years ago, John Skipper grew so dissatisfied with the Sports Emmys that he looked into pulling his ESPN's involvement. He grew particularly upset when some of his network's best work failed to win because -- in his view -- it did not have the same long-standing reputation as other channels. This particularly miffed him when "30 for 30" documentaries lost out to those from HBO Sports. He also was upset when “SportsCenter” was not recognized in the studio show category. ESPN insiders derisively called them the “Reputational Emmys.”
  
  
• This year’s version of the Sports Emmys are happening tonight at the Lincoln Center in New York -- probably as many of you are reading this. It’s easy to bash the Emmys as yet another back-slapping event where the TV business gets together to congratulate itself. But I am glad that Skipper’s push to diminish the awards never took hold. For me, these awards are about the usually nameless and faceless people who typically work behind the camera. I find myself more interested in the categories like Post Produced Graphic Design or Camera Work than Studio Analyst or Play-By-Play (Charles Barkley and Doc Emrick again?!)
  
  
  
  

ART OF THE LONG VIEW

• Now that Chris Long has retired from the NFL, he’s expected to be a sought after on-air analyst, following in the footsteps of his father, Fox' Howie Long. I'm hoping Chris sticks to the small screen if he does pursue a role -- we don't need a repeat of his father's roles in movies like "Firestorm" or "Broken Arrow." Chris was named the 2018 Walter Payton Man of the Year and has been a vocal leader for social causes. He defended Colin Kaepernick, provided support for teammates who decided to kneel and even donated his entire 2017 salary to educational causes.
  
  
• He’s also shown a lighter side with the media and even penned some “Game of Thrones” recaps for Sports Illustrated (no, he didn’t like the finale). Check out his recent interview with Peter King, where he dished on retirement. He also gave this nugget to the NBC affiliate in his hometown of Charlottesville: "My pops does things one time a week, and he's in a very visual setting. I think I'd be on the less visual, more frequent, whether that's having a podcast, or building my own company."
  
  
  

THIS WEEK IN SBJ

• Fox and ESPN are both targeting the sports gambling market. For ESPN, it’s about programming and advertising. Fox Sports wants to help consumers actually make bets.
  
  
• ESPN is dangling the prospect of ABC telecasts during rights negotiations, and now the broadcast network likely will be in the mix when NFL talks heat back up.

SPEED READS

• NFL Network cut an interesting rights deal with Conference USA for 10 football games. The four-year deal starts this fall. The games may be part of a package that C-USA just wrapped up with beIn Sports (included 10 men's basketball, 10 women’s basketball, 10 football and 12 baseball games). The conference also is in middle of a TV/streaming pact with CBS, Stadium and Facebook through the 2022-2023 school year. It's not clear how much -- if anything -- NFL Net is paying as far as a rights fee.
  
  
• Some breaking news at The Athletic -- the subscription sports site is adding 14 WNBA writers -- all female -- to cover the league. Each team will have its own beat writer, and two others will cover the league nationally. Hannah Withiam will edit the WNBA vertical.
  
  

  NEW WNBA WRITERS AT THE ATHLETIC
  TEAM	REPORTER
  Atlanta Dream	Kelsey Russo
  Dallas Wings	Dorothy Gentry
  L.A. Sparks	Sabreena Merchant
  Phoenix Mercury	Alexis Mansanarez
  Chicago Sky	Maggie Hendricks
  Indiana Fever	MJ Slaby
  Minnesota Lynx	Katie Davidson
  Seattle Storm	Alex Coffey
  Connecticut Sun	Molly Yanity
  Las Vegas Aces	Maddyn Johnstone-Thomas
  N.Y. Liberty	Erica Ayala
  Washington Mystics	Lindsay Gibbs
  national coverage	Lyndsey D'Arcangelo, Tamryn Spruill

  Download the WNBA writers for The Athletic

  
  
  
• SBJ’s editorial office is at odds when it comes to James Holzhauer’s historic “Jeopardy!” run. Some think that we should write about the pro gambler’s game-show exploits; others are aghast that we are even thinking about covering him. For the purposes of this newsletter, I am happy to report that Holzhauer returns to the screen tonight following a two-week break to try for his 23rd consecutive “Jeopardy!” win. During Holzhauer's last full week on the show (April 29-May 3), it averaged 13.3 million viewers. The week before his run started (March 25-29), the program averaged 8.8 million.
  
  
• The L.A. Times' Stephen Battaglio has a good writeup on Jimmy Pitaro’s imprint on ESPN. The anecdote that caught my eye: "The New York Giants fan in him took over when he ran into 'NFL Primetime' host Trey Wingo. 'Tell me real quickly -- what are the Giants going to do?' Wingo told Pitaro that his fellow ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. was certain the Giants were targeting Duke quarterback Daniel Jones, a prediction that proved correct several hours later."
  
  
• ESPN's Bob Ley today had the honor of giving the commencement address at Seton Hall. He also received an honorary degree from his alma mater. Former Wall Street Journal columnist Ray Hennessey was in the crowd and noted Ley's speech focused on the "need for grace, particularly in the face of social media mobs.” Baseball America’s B.J. Schecter added of Ley's remarks to grads: “Wonderful address: nuance, critical thinking, grace.”
  
  
  
  

  Bob Ley gave the commencement address today at his alma mater, Seton Hall
  
  
  

SBJ Media will also be on break this Wednesday, returning next Monday, but keep an eye out for our All-Access newsletters around the Sports Business Awards.      

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Something on the Media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessdaily.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).