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SBJ Media: Kevin Mayer's Surprise Move


Allow me to answer a question that I’m sure to get this week: No, don’t look for TikTok to be active in the sports rights marketplace any time soon.

  

KEVIN MAYER MOVES FROM DISNEY TO TIKTOK

  • Once considered Bob Iger's heir apparent, Kevin Mayer now is leaving Disney altogether. Mayer, the exec overseeing the company’s streaming services, including ESPN+, will become CEO of TikTok. It appears that it was Mayer’s decision to leave; he was not pushed out the door. While the timing of Mayer’s announcement came as a surprise, the move did not surprise some insiders, who assumed Mayer would leave as soon as he was passed over to be Disney CEO in favor of Bob Chapek earlier this year.

  • Rebecca Campbell, a 23-year Disney vet, will replace Mayer as chair of the direct-to-consumer and international divisions. Campbell had been running Disneyland in Anaheim. She takes over a streaming service that has been one of Disney’s bright spots during the coronavirus pandemic. Since its launch in November, it has pulled in 54.5 million subscribers.

  • The N.Y. Times’ Brooks Barnes & Jack Nicas and the Wall Street Journal’s Shan Li & Erich Schwartzel have good write ups on the move. This L.A. Times story from March 6 is instructive, as it details efforts Iger was taking to try and keep Mayer at Disney. 

 

FOX NASCAR PRODUCTION A SUCCESS AT DARLINGTON

  • We saw more evidence of pent-up demand from sports fans yesterday when Fox pulled in the biggest viewership for a NASCAR Cup Series race (excluding the Daytona 500) in three years. An average of 6.32 million viewers tuned in to watch Fox produce one of the first U.S. sports to have no fans in attendance. The network's production largely went off without a hitch. “I was just proud,” said Fox Sports Executive Producer, Exec VP and Head of Production & Operations Brad Zager. “We all want sports back. We knew they weren’t coming back in the exact same way they left us pre-COVID. To see everyone at Fox embrace it and put NASCAR back at time same high level people expected, the first word that popped into my mind at the end of the race was ‘proud.’”

  • Producer Barry Landis was at Fox’s NASCAR studio in Charlotte; director Artie Kempner was at the track in Darlington. Graphics and replays came out of a Los Angeles studio. “Every aspect of our production yesterday was something that we’ve done before,” Zager said. “It’s just never been done on one show.”

  • I asked Zager what advice he would give to networks gearing up to produce events from empty stadiums and arenas. “Embrace it,” he said. “Out of this type of situation will come ways where we can improve shows. ... We are thinking about growing shows in the right way. Not everything needs to happen on site. Work flow long term could wind up enhancing a show by being able to add more to it because you’re not travelling more people to site anymore.”

 

 

NBC RELIES ON CELLULAR TECH FOR GOLF PRODUCTION

  • NBC Sports says that its total audience delivery of 2.35 million viewers yesterday for a charity skins game, which aired across NBC, Golf Channel, NBCSN and digital outlets, is comparable to the PGA Tour’s final round coverage on CBS and NBC during Q2 last year. That’s a good number for what was essentially stunt programming.

  • NBC and the PGA Tour had no remote production trucks on hand to produce the event. Instead, the Tour relied on what it referred to as bonded cellular tech it used to produce events for its streaming service, PGA Tour Live. “We wouldn’t have done this in 2020 if it weren’t for the pandemic,” said Tour VP & Executive Producer Greg Hopfe. “We would have a challenge covering a 144-man field with it -- it’s not ready for that. But we think it was a big success.”

  • I asked Hopfe about the production changes he used on Sunday that will become permanent once we get through the pandemic. He speculated that TV viewers may be more forgiving with some video glitches. “There’s a tolerance for television viewers as a whole to maybe not expect that most pristine pictures,” he said, pointing to the news networks’ current reliance on Skype interviews.

  • Hopfe: “We’re all moving so fast -- on to the next event and the next sport. This has given everyone a chance to take a breath and look at what we do. This is an opportunity to look at the newest things and figuring out how to try things differently.”

 

 


SPEED READS

  • "The Last Dance" finished its run as ESPN's most-watched sports documentary yet, per SBJ's Austin Karp. The 10 episodes rank as the network's top 10 documentary premieres on record. Last night’s 9pm ET episode averaged 5.9 million viewers, ranking third on that list. The 10pm episode averaged 5.4 million. As for me, I’m still waiting for Episode 11: The Wizards Years.

  • During the pandemic shutdown, "The Lowe Post" has been ESPN's most-downloaded original podcast, SBJ's Austin Karp reports. Since the beginning of March, the NBA-focused podcast, which records 2-3 times per week, has topped the list of originals, followed by "ESPN Daily," "Baseball Tonight" and "Jalen & Jacoby: The Aftershow." In terms of all ESPN podcast offerings, several shows that migrate from radio or TV lead the way, given that those shows publish a podcast for every hour of content and air daily. At the top of the list is "The Dan Le Batard Show," followed by "First Take" and "PTI."

  • TheMaven, which owns Sports Illustrated, has told its investors that "management has concluded that there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern," according to The Hollywood Reporter. TheMaven said that it "has cash to last through the end" of next April, but that it "may need to find more to keep going." TheMaven received a $5.7 million loan "through the Payroll Protection Program last month."

  • Storytelling has become the focal point for Thirty Five Ventures during the shutdown, the company’s Rich Kleiman tells SBJ's David Rumsey. That includes “The Boardroom” and documentaries like “Basketball County,” that was produced for Showtime with Kleiman's business partner, Kevin Durant, as a producer. Kleiman said the quarantine helped speed up the production process. “We've had the time to really focus and lock in and create,” he said. See more from Kleiman later tonight in the SBJ Unpacks newsletter.

  • The lack of live sports on TV has been a boon for TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé,” which is seeing a big uptick in male viewers. Discovery’s Catherine Frymark tells me that the Sunday night show’s current season is averaging a 1.67 rating in the male 25-54 demo. Last season, the show’s ratings for that typically sports-loving demo was just a 1.2.

  • Congrats to former ESPN and NBC Sports exec Rob Simmelkjaer, who was appointed as board chair of the Connecticut Lottery. It's an unpaid, volunteer role.

 

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR SBJ GAME CHANGERS!

 

 

 

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of college sports. Also check out SBJ Unpacks on weeknights, as we look at the day's events surrounding sports and COVID-19.

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