Weekly Roundup – March 17th, 2025

"ESPN executives already fear it’s coming: the inevitable backlash of customer confusion when Disney formally announces the launch of the long-awaited ESPN “flagship” streaming service in the fall – likely before the start of the NFL season.
ESPN already has a streaming service in the market in ESPN+, which costs $11.99 per month and can be bundled with Disney+ and Hulu for $16.99 per month.
When ESPN launches whatever it decides to call its flagship platform, it will need to clearly explain to customers what they’re getting in the more expensive service (which will cost either $25 or $30 per month, I’ve been told)."

"A new proposal seeks to ban push notifications that try to entice gamblers to place more sports bets in pings and flashes tailored by artificial intelligence that reach gamblers' cellphones even when the apps are shut off.
The push notifications match the powerful urge of some gamblers to bet on sports during events such as the upcoming NCAA March Madness basketball tournament with an ever-present means to do it, sponsors of the bill state.
But the new proposal faces well-financed opposition by some of the nation’s most popular sports gambling sites, which say the bill would eliminate the freedom of choice for gamblers. The industry has used top lobbyists and campaign contributions to key legislators to make their case, state records show."

"One of the biggest stories stateside is the future of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) domestic rights and what the situation says about the wider market.
The NFL has long been an outlier in the US in that virtually all its games have national appeal. Indeed, the league’s current broadcast deals are worth more than US$120 billion over ten years, reflecting its unparalleled popularity – and relatively short schedule. Even college football, with its huge national deals and marquee matchups, has a large volume of games that have only regional appeal.
While MLB, the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) all have arrangements with national networks and are capable of drawing good ratings in the postseason, interest in most regular season fixtures is predominantly local, meaning individual teams are free to negotiate contracts for in-market matchups.
This model has been extremely lucrative, with regional sports networks (RSN) willing to pay huge licence fees on the basis they could extract significant carriage fees from cable providers who believed local sport was crucial to their proposition. However, the shift away from linear television to streaming has undermined the economics of this model, as evidenced by the upheaval in the RSN space."

"Artificial intelligence powerhouses OpenAI and Google are aggressively lobbying the U.S. government to classify AI training on copyrighted data as "fair use." Their objective, framed as a matter of national security, is positioned to secure a competitive advantage against international rivals, particularly China. However, this proposal raises profound legal, ethical, and economic questions, illustrated sharply by recent high-profile cases involving companies like Meta and recent lawsuits by French publishers."

"South By Southwest launched in the 1980s as a music showcase, a Southern companion to New York City’s New Music Seminar. But over the decades, the event has ballooned into a multi-disciplinary conference involving tech, film, comedy, and more, to the point that music started to feel like an afterthought. Now the music portion of SXSW might be significantly scaling back, if not going away entirely.
Attendance for music events has also reportedly lagged, a notion underlined by social media footage of 6th Street — formerly a bustling center of activity during the fest — looking like a ghost town last weekend. The American-Statesman notes that some music venues were largely empty during this year’s event. Artists from Benson Boone to Band Of Horses reportedly needed free public RSVPs to fill up their venues, while even that tactic did not lead to full houses at the concert hall ACL Live for artists such as Megan Moroney and Ivan Cornejo."

"...Nearly half of U.S. adults (47%) say the way people behave in public these days is ruder than before the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes 20% who say behavior today is a lot ruder. Another 44% of adults say public behavior is about the same, while only 9% say people are behaving a lot or a little more politely in public.
...
The concept of “rudeness” can involve many kinds of behavior. So, as part of our survey, we explored a variety of behaviors involving social etiquette in public spaces. These behaviors range from using technology around other people to displaying profanity, and they are just a few examples of what Americans might experience in public.
Of the eight actions included in our survey, two in particular draw the widest disapproval: 77% of adults say it’s rarely or never acceptable to smoke around other people, and 74% say the same about taking a photo or video of someone without asking for their permission.
Around two-thirds of adults or more say that it’s rarely or never acceptable to bring a child into a place that’s typically for adults, such as a bar or upscale restaurant (69%); to visibly display swear words, such as on a T-shirt or sign (66%); or to curse out loud in public (65%)."