Welcome to the 42nd media mailbag for The Athletic. Thanks for sending in your questions via the website and app. There were nearly 100 questions, so this is Part 1 of the series.
(Note: Some questions have been edited for length.)
Why does Fox hate college football? – Brent W.
I see you share my feelings on having Urban Meyer as a sports television analyst. However, seriously, Fox at a corporate level does not hate college football. Quite the opposite. Fox loves the revenue that comes with college football, and it loves being a player for the second-most-popular sport in the U.S.
Fox Sports has invested significantly in the product over the last five years, including making the noon Eastern Time window a significant event for college football fans. It has invested money in studio talent (whether you like that talent is a different question) and the operational resources to send its pregame show on the road. It heavily pursued Rece Davis to jump from ESPN, a big college football play. Also, the Big Ten Network (of which Fox is a significant equity and operating partner) does excellent work on college football. That shows commitment to me.
Now, Fox Sports is heavily invested in the business of Big Ten football, so your feelings about the network’s college football coverage probably align with how you feel about that conference (which may be the genesis of this question). If you are an Ohio State fan, you are understandably upset about the Buckeyes start times.
A very fair criticism of Fox is how the company and ESPN have inserted themselves into college football’s realignment, consolidation and scheduling. Plenty of The Athletic’s college football writers have hit on that topic. Like most major networks that cover college football, in my opinion, they deify coaches during their coverage far too much.
However, they’ve invested significant money in the sport, and they employ a lot of people who care about it.
Going off the Lakers sale, how dangerous do you think it is for one owner to own two teams from two different professional leagues in the same city? The billionaire could hold the city hostage to obtain tax breaks and/or infrastructure upgrades around stadiums and/or new stadiums. — Brian S.
It’s a great question. I am fervently against pro sports teams receiving corporate welfare from taxpayers, and you can find me on social media from back in the day expressing my opposition to New York City hosting the Olympics when I lived there. However, owners in many cities know they have lawmakers and the public over a barrel because of the cultural importance of professional franchises.
The Bills — a team I care about a lot as a former Buffalonian— are a perfect example. The stadium is being funded in part by taxpayers, but the Pegula family holds the cards because nothing is more important culturally to Western New Yorkers than that football team. So, yeah, Mark Walter has a ton of power in L.A. right now (though he’d never move either team, given the lost valuation among other reasons).
What’s the basis for the media’s fascination/obsession with Kevin Durant? Granted, he’s had a long and successful career, but I can’t think of any other player whose trade demands and dissatisfaction with his situation are discussed as frequently by TV sports talking heads. — Brian W.
First, he’s one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA. That alone will get him a lot of coverage. He’s been a dominant figure in the sport for two decades. He’s played on high-profile teams, including Team USA. Much of the NBA’s coverage is about transactions, and Durant has been traded three times.
All things Durant are easily monetized by sports talkers, especially those of a dubious nature, and he has been a target for some of the biggest blowhards at ESPN and Fox Sports. One thing about Durant: I love that he claps back on social media. He understands that big sports media have used him in many ways, and he’s one of the few athletes at that level who calls out the game.
What sport do you think is leaving the most viewership on the table? How could they improve? — Matthew S.
Interesting question. Several sports and leagues come to mind. First, MLS is leaving a significant amount of viewership on the table, given the Apple TV+ deal, but that was the tradeoff for Apple’s investment. (The Athletic’s MLS anonymous executive survey suggests the tradeoff might not be worth it.) I think the college football postseason could improve if it played the quarterfinals and semifinals on the weekend, rather than on weekdays. Women’s college basketball continues to leave viewership on the table by not having a primetime Sunday night title game and for that game not airing on ABC.
I wonder if the NBA/NHL playoff series are just too many games for the average fan. The season drags on too long. The biggest global TV sporting events are a one-match final (World Cup, Super Bowl, Champions League, ICC cricket). Could we see a one-game final for the NBA or NHL? — Aqeel H.
I’d bet big we will never see this in America in our lifetimes, and the simple answer is money. The NHL and NBA can’t generate the same audience as the NFL during the regular season, so they need significant postseason game inventory for the financials to work. The appeal of both sports to media companies lies in the prospect of the length of playoff series and selling advertising during those games (or, in the case of a streamer, selling subscriptions). The NFL can have a one-game championship because it can draw 100 million-plus viewers for the Super Bowl. Neither the NBA nor the NHL could come within an area code of that for a single-game title game.
Will NBCUniversal put more Premier League games on Peacock now that USA and NBCU’s other cable channels have been spun off into Versant? — Tim B.
It will largely remain unchanged, given that the Premier League agreement was finalized before Versant. NBC Sports president Rick Cordella has stated that they will fulfill their cable obligations.
I feel like you have developed a set of beliefs about how things should be done, and it’s hard for you to consider other points of view. For example, Pat McAfee. You like how he’s different, and you’ve fully bought into the agreement he has with ESPN, and so you’re unwilling to consider how wrong it is what he did with the rumor about the student from Mississippi. — Mark G.
I absolutely think McAfee and others amplifying a false rumor was awful, and Katie Strang ran an important story on it. Respectfully, your assessment of how I think about that issue is incorrect. I don’t reflexively agree with everything McAfee has said or done. I do admire that he built an organic audience and crafted a deal with a major legacy sports media player where he controls the content. I also appreciate people who push back against the ESPN top management machine because I’ve seen decent on-air talent get screwed.
There is nuance in all of this, and you can think multiple things about a media person or media company depending on the issue. Big picture: If you’re interested in sports media, I would recommend taking in as many different content sources as possible. Like art, film, and many other things, it’s subjective when it comes to opinion.
SportsCenter from L.A. seems to have died a quiet death. I happened to catch the last show by accident. If there was any PR about it being the last show, I must have missed it. Was it canned to save money? What has happened to Linda Cohn and Stan Verrett? Linda was a stalwart at ESPN for decades. — Richard T.
You may have missed it, but there was a lot of press on ESPN about ending its Los Angeles edition of “SportsCenter” and relocating the show’s production to its headquarters in Bristol. The move was totally about economics. Verrett is leaving ESPN this summer; Cohn is under contract with ESPN. I asked ESPN about her future assignments and a spokesperson said, “That is still being determined, but we should know soon.”
Will Fox provide any journalistic coverage of the U.S. hosting of the World Cup next year (e.g., covering topics such as travel bans on fans from certain countries), or should we expect the usual bland fanboy coverage? I appreciate Mike Tirico for his courage in discussing human rights issues at the Beijing 2022 Olympics while at NBC, but don’t expect the same at the World Cup. — Chris D.
Fox Sports doing extensive journalism when it comes to FIFA? Fox Sports is hitting on these topics during the World Cup? It took some reporting, but I was able to procure a clip that should explain how the coverage will go.
(Photo: John E. Moore III / Getty Images)
Richard Deitsch is a media reporter for The Athletic. He previously worked for 20 years for Sports Illustrated, where he covered seven Olympic Games, multiple NCAA championships and U.S. Open tennis. Richard also hosts a weekly sports media podcast. Follow Richard on Twitter @richarddeitsch
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