Weekly Roundup – Week of October 16th, 2023

"In early 2019, an analyst asked Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger if sports betting could coexist with the House of Mouse’s brand. He said he didn’t see the company facilitating gambling in any way.
Just four years later, the world’s most beloved name in family entertainment is going all-in on sports betting.
In August, the company struck a 10-year deal with sports-betting company Penn Entertainment to bring gambling to Disney’s ESPN sports network. Sports fans will be able to wager on games on their phones through a new app called ESPN Bet that accepts bets through Penn’s sportsbook."

"The NFL is serious about expanding the American version of football’s influence to the international market. So serious, it’s seriously thinking about a Super Bowl in London
Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke to a fan forum in London last week to promote the Baltimore Ravens/Tennessee Titans regular season game in the city. While admitting such a move is not happening soon, he said it has been considerered."

"For decades it wasn’t easy to be an avid fan of your favorite basketball, hockey or baseball team without cable or satellite TV.
Outside of the NFL, which provides every game on free television, the other leagues presented a vast majority of their matchups on regional sports networks. Unless you had a pay TV subscription, your options were heading to a sports bar or listening to the radio.
Cable cord-cutting, driven by the audience’s shift to streaming video, is shrinking the number of households regional sports networks can reach. Games seen locally on cable are now available in 40% of homes or less in many markets — half of what it was 10 years ago. National networks such as ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Turner networks are facing the same challenge and are looking at ways to supplement the subscriber losses with streaming."

"Dayna Drake turned 24 on the day we spoke. Friends planned a birthday dinner, but she wasn’t sure whether she’d get there. Although she was producing the 5 p.m. newscast, the nightside producer wasn’t feeling well, and if he didn’t make it in, Drake would have to produce the 11. That would mean another 15-hour day.
...
“The news industry is not what I thought it would be,” Drake observed. “There’s less storytelling and more crime coverage. I’m not doing what I thought, and I don’t go home delighted at the end of the day.”
She’s not alone.
While the TV news industry focuses on declines in advertising and audience erosion, there’s a crisis inside the newsroom that’s threatening the whole system.
The latest RTDNA/Syracuse University Survey found that more than two-thirds of TV news directors say there’s more evidence of staff burnout than ever before. The problem is worse in small markets, where more than three-quarters of news directors say they have a real problem. But even in the biggest markets and biggest newsrooms – the top 25 markets – nearly 60% say burnout is a growing problem."

"It looks like Spotify’s rumored “Superpremium” offering is gearing up for a launch. According to references discovered in the Spotify app’s code by Chris Messina, the Superpremium service now has a flashy logo and a longer list of features beyond the 24-bit lossless audio we’ve been anticipating. In fact, the broader feature set appears to be set to include the recently discovered AI playlist generation tools, advanced mixing tools, additional hours of audiobook listening and a personalized offering called “Your Sound Capsule.”
Messina had also uncovered Spotify’s development of AI playlists earlier this week, which would allow users to create unique playlists using prompts. Spotify declined to confirm the development at the time, noting it wouldn’t comment on possible new features."

"Paramount Global chose iSpot.tv as a currency option for linear and streaming TV in the U.S., with measurement and trading on the measurement company’s data expected to begin in the first quarter, the companies announced today."

Crowd React Media, a division of Harker Bos Group, is proud to present 2023’s The State of Sports Media. This year's report delves into industry trends, tracking everything from sports preference to sports betting habits, viewership methods to social media consumption, and more. We aim to surprise by revealing that the headlines in the press may not always reflect the full picture about the sports media industry.