A six-pack of media notes on a Friday:
▪ The NFL has never pocketed more money from television revenue than it does now. And it has never been more expensive to watch the NFL on television or on your phone than it is now.
That was reinforced this week when the NFL announced that A). Peacock will get the Friday night Week 1 Brazil game (involving the Eagles against an undetermined opponent) and that B). Amazon will get a wild card playoff game on top of its Thursday night package.
Here’s what this means for your wallet:
You’ll need to spend more than $100 a month simply to watch the NFL games that are available nationally and on your local affiliates. (That doesn’t count the additional $449 to get Sunday Ticket if you don’t subscribe to YouTube TV).
Costs for cable and satellite packages vary, which makes the $100 an imprecise number. Some will pay far more.
But to get the game on Peacock, you’ll need to pay $5.99 per month. Amazon Prime costs $14.99 per month and ESPN Plus — which gets a couple of exclusive Sunday morning NFL games — costs $10.99.
Also, the two Christmas games will be put up for bid, and there’s no telling where they will end up.
Incidentally, a study by Antenna indicated that 71 percent of the people who signed up for Peacock in order to watch the Dolphins-Chiefs wild-card game remained subscribers seven weeks later.
The NBA reportedly is exploring a deal with a streaming service as part of its next TV contract, with ABC/ESPN and Turner also expected to renew their packages. Whether the NBA gives any playoff games to a streaming service will be fascinating.
One thing is already clear: You’ll need to pay at least four different streaming services and cable/satellite providers to watch NFL TV games again this season.
▪ The Marlins have one game on national television this season — in prime time on June 8 against Cleveland on Fox. But most of the country will get Yankees-Dodgers instead.
Bally Sports Sun will carry the other 161 Marlins games, and the network will stick with its rotation of analysts (Tommy Hutton, Rod Allen, Gaby Sanchez and Jeff Nelson) alongside Paul Severino.
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Bally’s only on-air change: Former big league catcher Alex Avila will appear on some pre-game and postgame shows.
At some point this season, Amazon Prime is expected to begin streaming games of the Marlins and four other teams in their broadcast territories. That will supplement Bally Sports Florida’s television coverage.
In the meantime, Bally will continue offering streaming coverage of Marlins, Panthers and Heat games for those who don’t subscribe to a cable or satellite provider.
Bally Sports Plus launched Season Pass recently. It costs $105.99 for all Bally Sports Florida programming (Marlins, Panthers, etc.) through Sept. 29 or $29.99 a month for all Bally Sports Sun and Bally Florida programming.
Here are more details.
▪ Random stuff:
Apple TV’s “The Dynasty,” — chronicling the Patriots’ two decades of dominance — has drawn criticism from several former Patriots who say it casts Bill Belichick in an unnecessarily negative light. Julian Edelman and Matthew Slater were the latest to express that sentiment, to NBC Sports Boston.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft told reporters at the NFL owners meetings this week, via The Boston Globe, that he “wished the 10-part series was a little more positive…. I felt bad that there was so much emphasis on the more controversial, and let’s say challenging situations over the last 20 years. A little disappointed that there wasn’t more of a real positive approach — especially for Patriot fans who have lived the experience with us.” …
Fox is adding a Friday night prime time college football package, featuring Big 10, Big 12 and Mountain West games…
As The Athletic noted, ESPN, CBS, NBC and Amazon are pursuing retired Eagles center Jason Kelce…
ESPN “SportsCenter” anchor John Anderson is retiring after a long career of weaving witty lines into narration of highlights…
If you missed it, Netflix will livestream a boxing match between Jake Paul, 27, and Mike Tyson, 57, on July 20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Netflix continues to dabble in outside-the-box sports programming; earlier this month, it streamed an exhibition match in Las Vegas between Spain’s two biggest tennis stars, Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz.
▪ The in-season version of HBO’s Hard Knocks now will feature four teams in one division – a change designed to make filming less intrusive for teams and remove the burden from a single team.
The Dolphins were showcased on the 2023 in-season Hard Knocks, and NFL Films said Miami sometimes exercised its right to remove elements of the show that it thought would put the team at a competitive disadvantage.
NFL Films cameras were ubiquitous in the Dolphins locker room throughout the final two months of the season, and several players allowed access inside their homes.
▪ Greg Gumbel – who gave up NFL play-by-play duties last season but retained his NCAA Tournament host role — isn’t working the Tournament because of a family health issue…
With Jim Nantz relinquishing college basketball duties this season, Ian Eagle will call the Final Four (with Bill Raftery and Grant Hill), and Andrew Catalon was promoted to second-weekend assignments, with Eagle, Kevin Harlan and Brian Anderson handling play-by-play on the other games this weekend, on CBS and TBS…
Nantz attended tournament games as a fan last weekend, cheering on his alma mater Houston.
▪ Congratulations to former NBC-6 sportscaster Ruthie Polinsky, who last weekend married Chicago Bears director of research and analysis Harrison Freid, who previously worked for the Dolphins.
South Florida sportscasters Will Manso and Giselle Espinales were among those in attendance at the wedding in St. Louis, where Polinsky grew up.
Polinsky is now a sportscaster in Chicago.
2024-03-29 17:26:25
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