SBJ Media: NBC Has Decisions To Make With Jim Bell Exit

I will be in College Park tomorrow night to watch my alma mater take on my daughter’s university, Holy Cross. Let’s Go Terps!

OLYMPICS CREATE URGENCY FOR NBC TO FILL JIM BELL ROLE

• When I heard this morning that Jim Bell would be leaving NBC and his role as president of production & programming for the Olympics, my first question was, "who will replace him?" After all, the Tokyo Games -- a mammoth production undertaking -- are only nine months away, which lends an urgency to filling that position. The short answer: nobody knows yet. In a prepared statement emailed to reporters, NBC's Mark Lazarus and Pete Bevacqua said, “Fortunately, we have a large number of experienced and talented people who have worked alongside Jim in the NBC Sports Group, and we will be making decisions about structural changes to the team in the coming weeks.”
  
  
• Traditionally, the Olympics has operated as its own island at NBC, overseen by Bell and Gary Zenkel, President of NBC Olympics & Business. A likely scenario would have Executive Producer Sam Flood expand his responsibilities to include the Olympics -- a move that would put all of NBC Sports Group’s content under one roof. If Flood is tapped to be Bell’s replacement -- a big if; remember that Lazarus and Bevacqua say they haven’t made a decision -- Flood still would need to bring someone on to run the day-to-day operations of the Olympics. Given the complexity of producing the event, that almost certainly would involve internal promotion. NBC’s has several strong execs who could fit that role. The names I’ve heard most frequently are Senior VP/Olympic Production Joe Gesue and Senior VP/Original Productions & Creative Mark Levy.
  
  
• As for Bell’s decision, via a prepared statement, he made it sound like the decision was all his. “What has emerged for me is a strong desire to delve into something new -- to build on my experience in news, sports, and entertainment so I can broaden and deepen my leadership role in the content universe.”
  
  
• Neither Bell nor NBC would comment beyond their statements. Most of the press focused on Bell’s recent stint at the helm of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” like this piece from the N.Y. Times’ John Koblin. My sources also suggested that "The Tonight Show" played a bigger part in Bell’s decision than the Olympics.

ESPN LIKES BACK HALF OF MONDAY NIGHT SCHEDULE

• “Monday Night Football” is poised to post its best viewership in years thanks to an unusually strong lineup over the final eight weeks of the season. The strength of the schedule is significant because the NFL always has designated ESPN’s package as the “cable” package, which means that the quality of games is not as strong as you find in the broadcast TV packages. This season-closing stretch is filled with high-quality games starting tonight with Cowboys-Giants, a rivalry game that generally delivers ratings even when one team is not playing well. It ends Dec. 23 with a Packers-Vikings game that could decide the NFC North. “The last eight games, starting tonight, there’s not a bad one in the bunch,” said ESPN Exec VP/Programming Burke Magnus. “This is the strongest I’ve seen in the five years that I’ve been in this role.”
  
  
• Viewership for "MNF" is up 3% even though it suffered through several clunkers earlier this season, including two from the Jets, who have been outscored 56-3 on “MNF” this year. The closest game during Weeks 2-5 was when the Bears led the Redskins 28-3 at half; the Bears won by 16 points. “The average margin of victory so far this season is 16 points, and at this time last year, it was 12,” Magnus said. “We haven’t gotten too many close games. Some matchups haven’t panned out.”
  
  
• Some luck is involved with the schedule, of course. Before the season, nobody would have predicted that the 49ers, who host next week’s “MNF” against the Seahawks, would be undefeated heading into Week 10. For Magnus, though, that’s a happy benefit. ESPN execs were happy when they first saw that matchup. “That was a great division game, so we were happy to get it,” Magnus said. “Give me Dallas-Giants any day of the week. Give me Giants-Eagles. Give me Packers-Vikings.”
  
  
• Magnus also expressed relief that so much less attention is focused on ESPN’s booth this year as compared to last season, when analyst Jason Witten was a lightning rod and Booger McFarland provided his analysis from a mobile contraption that roamed the sidelines. “You haven’t seen nearly as much reporting on the booth like you saw last year, which to me means that they’re doing a good job,” Magnus said. “That’s what our production guys would tell you. If they can have a clean night and an interesting game with a good performance by the booth, that’s what we try to do week in and week out.”

FRESH POWDER FOR NBC SPORTS 

• NBC Sports Group has renewed its media-rights deal with U.S. Ski & Snowboard through 2021-22. There will be 12 hours of coverage this season slated for the broadcast channel, another 21.5 hours on NBCSN and 10 hours on Olympic Channel. This season's events, which get underway Nov. 30 with the HomeLight Killington Cup, also will be streamed on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app and NBC Sports Gold.
  
  
• The deal continues a partnership that dates back to 1998. Financial terms were not announced, but these deals typically carry a small rights fee, if any. I’d be surprised if NBC even agreed to foot the bill to produce the events. But it's an important pact for NBC that will help market the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Skiing and snowboarding typically are among the highest-rated events at the Winter Games. By having NBC showcase these U.S. Ski & Snowboard events, some of the athletes can become better known to U.S. audiences.

This season's events get under way Nov. 30 with the HomeLight Killington Cup

NBC SPORTS RSNs TACKLE MENTAL HEALTH IN NEW DOCUMENTARY

• Once a year, NBC Sports Regional Networks embarks on a programming initiative designed to be socially relevant. This week, it will roll out the documentary “HeadStrong: Mental Health & Sports,” produced alongside Religion of Sports, the company co-founded by Tom Brady, Michael Strahan and Gotham Chopra. The documentary tells the story of four athletes who struggled with mental health: the Heat's Justise Winslow, Ravens' Hayden Hurst, former NHL goalie Clint Malarchuk and former Oregon State soccer player Nathan Braaten.
  
  
• Last year, NBC’s documentary was called “Fair Play” and focused on youth sports; the previous year was called “Tomboy” and focused on gender issues. I asked the documentary’s executive producer Ted Griggs why this initiative was so important to him. Griggs, NBC Sports Regional Network’s president, group leader and strategy production & programming, said that it’s a chance for the RSNs to focus on something outside of live games. “Sometimes it’s nice to stop the conveyer belt a little bit and do something that not a lot of people can do,” he said. “All of these stories are extremely powerful.” Griggs pointed to comments from athletes like Michael Phelps, Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan on their mental health struggles as being the impetus for having NBC focus on that area. Another reason: November is Men’s Health Awareness Month.
  
  
• The documentary premieres Thursday at 10:00pm ET on NBC’s RSNs in Philly and D.C. The next night, it will be carried by RSNs in the Bay Area, Boston and Portland, with Sacramento and Chicago carrying it on Saturday. NBCSN will carry it Nov. 20 at 4:00pm ET. The documentary will be complemented by more than 85 short-form digital video features that will appear on web sites run by NBC and the RSNs. Some markets will host events focused on mental health.

(l-r) NBC's Ted Griggs; Celtics' Jaylen Brown; NBC Sports Boston’s Trenni Kusnierek; Celtics' Brad Stevens; Dr. Jonathan Jenkins; former NFLer Ted Johnson

SPEED READS

• AT DEADLINE: ESPN says that the Cowboys' Jaylon Smith is wearing the “Monday Night Mic” tonight.
  
  
• Every single media exec I contacted today -- 100% of them -- cheered Roger Penske's purchase of IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway from the Hulman family. They describe Penske as a top notch businessman who can bring that business acumen to a sport that has a ton of growth potential. NBC Sports still has two more seasons left on its three-year exclusive deal. Don’t expect a huge media-rights increase at that point. But the consensus is that Penske’s ownership gives the open-wheel racing series a better chance to reap media profits down the road.
  
  
• Tough going for the film "Inside Game" this weekend. The story of former NBA referee Tim Donaghy and the betting scandal which rocked the basketball world in 2007 "didn’t rock the specialty box office." Deadline.com reports the film "had 128 runs and double dribbled its way to an estimated low debut of $57,608 with a screen average of $450."
  
  
• SBJ's David Broughton breaks down the annual PwC Sports Outlook report, which notes revenue generated in 2019 by the North American sports market will increase by nearly 3% for the third consecutive year to a record $73 billion. Media rights continue to make up the biggest slice of the pie ($20.9 billion) and remain the industry’s dominant segment. PwC also expects that the monetization of other tiers of rights, such as OTT streaming, "will continue to increase."
  
  
• I met Jerry McKinnis back in 2002, when he tried to teach me how to fish on a bayou outside of New Orleans. I didn’t catch a thing. But McKinnis, who had hosted a fishing show on ESPN from 1980-2007, made an impression. He died recently at the age of 82. ESPN's internal Front Row blog has a nice tribute to him.

Jerry McKinnis, who passed away recently, hosted a fishing show on ESPN from 1980-2007

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