ESPN will get real competition from Comcast-NBC merger
Thursday, 20 January 2011 14:26
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/espn-will-get-real-competition-from-comcast-nbc-merger
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
If you thought you heard a groan from the Walt Disney offices in Bristol, Conn., Manhattan and LA on Tuesday afternoon after the Federal Communications Commission approved the planned merger between the Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal, you weren't imagining the sounds. The suits at Disney probably aren't too pleased with the FCC's decision to allow Comcast and General Electric's Peacock network and other holdings to go to the altar and be wed.
After all, Disney's cash cow, the so-called "World Wide Leader in Sports" will more than likely get real competition since the folding of CNN Sports Illustrated in May 2002. FOX Sports does program local regional cable sports networks but really has never been an outright competitor to ESPN. Neither CNNSI nor FOX successfully challenged ESPN SportsCenter but that could change as Comcast has the ability to put on a national cable TV sports show as they are doing that locally with some of the company owned regional sports cable TV networks.
Comcast, the largest multi-system operator in the country (with systems located in New Jersey) owns Versus, an all sports channel, the Golf Channel, a piece of the Major League Baseball and a boatload of regional sports networks around the United States, including SNY (a venture that includes Time Warner and New York Mets ownership in the partnership) and in Philadelphia. NBC has deals with the National Football League, the National Hockey League, Notre Dame football, and the 2012 Olympics among the network's sports properties. NBC has not had Major League baseball, the NBA or NASCAR in years. The network does have golf and tennis events.
Versus, or whatever the Comcast owned cable sports network will be called, could become a much bigger player in sports. Right now, Versus has the NHL, some cycling events, the United Football League (if that league makes it into a third season next fall) and some other events. Versus has not be able to get nearly 100 percent penetration onto cable TV's basic expanded tiers thorough the country as of yet.
But that could be changing.
More than likely, in the short term, there will be integration of Comcast sports programming with NBC's sport programming and some of that will end up on cable TV networks which including USA.
Comcast NBC may be too late to the table to bid on some events in the short term.
Disney is talking with the National Football League about extending ESPN's contract with the league for the Monday Night Football package which might bring as much as $2 billion annually to the NFL through 2022 or 2023. (NFL owners are complaining that they cannot afford to continue giving players 59 percent of the league's revenues because of tough economic times. If the reports that Disney is ready to pay billions — which would come out of cable TV subscriber's pockets whether they watch Monday Night Football or not and most of ESPN's potential audience does not watch the channel — it makes it hard to believe the NFL is in dire economic straits as a March 3, 2011 deadline looms as a possible lockout date if the owners and players do not agree to a new collective bargaining agreement.)
The Monday Night NFL package may be a done deal for Disney, but Comcast has NBC's Sunday Night NFL package through 2013 as part of the merger. NBCUniversal was cash strapped prior to the announcement that Comcast was buying 51 percent of the company. Sunday Night Football has been the top rated prime time series on over-the-air network TV in 2010. It stands to reason that Comcast-NBC will attempt to throw as much money as possible to the "cash-poor" NFL owners to keep the franchise.
The big prize, or the "perceived perception" big prize, in TV is the International Olympic Committee's pride and joy events — the Summer and Winter Olympics. NBC Universal has the rights to the 2012 London Games. The IOC, an entity which believes that it is an international entity with the power to dictate to countries policy and has permanent observer status at the United Nations, waited for the FCC to act before it opened up contract negotiations with American TV networks for the rights to the 2014 Sochi (Russia) Winter and the 2016 Rio (Brazil) Summer Games. The IOC can now go ahead and start a bidding war or what they hope is a bidding war between Brian Roberts's Comcast-NBC, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Sumner Redstone's CBS (and possibly Redstone's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament partner Turner Sports) and Disney for the rights to future Olympics.
NBC lost money on the 2008 Beijing Olympics and American networks, particularly in an economic recession and recovery might not want to spend every last Swiss franc to satisfy IOC President Jacques Rogge and his band of merry men for the big prize.
Future Olympics will be seen over a multitude of platforms including over the air TV, cable TV and broadband. All of the US bidders have the wherewithal to provide that type of coverage to the IOC.
Disney has the rights to the Bowl Championship Series through January 2014. Disney and Turner share NBA rights until 2016. MLB's TV deals with Rupert Murdoch's FOX, Time Warner and Disney's ESPN are done in 2013. ESPN's non-exclusive deal with Major League Soccer is done in 2014. The MLS is currently trying to negotiate a new deal with Murdoch's FOX Soccer Channel and is reportedly asking for a 700 percent increase in rights fees. Reportedly Murdoch's channel wants to just slightly more than double payments from $3 million annually to $7 million.
Cable TV sports networks negotiate with other people's money — subscriber fees — and the subscriber is at the mercy of the network or multiple systems operators. It is either all or nothing for basic expanded tier customers.
Comcast and NBC have National Hockey League national cable and over-the-air TV rights. Disney, according to reports, would like to get a piece of the NHL's cable TV deal. This could be the first bidding war between ESPN and Comcast. Comcast owns a team in the NHL, the Philadelphia Flyers. Comcast also has the cable TV rights of a number of NHL teams including the Flyers on Comcast Sports Net, Philadelphia.
There is also another aspect of this deal that could impact local news operations at various NBC owned and operated stations including those in New York and Philadelphia. SNY and Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia already have sports staffs and Comcast could decide to drop the local sports anchors on WNBC in New York and WCAU in Philadelphia to save money.
There was a report in 2010 that WPIX, Channel 11 in New York was considering outsourcing the station's local sportscast to the Comcast-owned SNY but that never materialized. Local news operations around the country have been marginalizing or dropping sports reports within the news show.
Critics of the merger contend Comcast will simply be too big, too controlling of content (critics have ignored how cable TV has been set up, this is nothing new) and that a multiple system operator cannot also be a programmer and that Comcast could muscle out competitors like ESPN by simply dropping the channels from Comcast systems. It is unlikely that Comcast would drop ESPN since the channel makes them money. But there will be disputes. Comcast and the NFL have been fighting over the NFL Network for years. Comcast might have played hardball with the NFL after the multi-systems operator thought it had a deal with the league for a small Thursday-Saturday night package for the Versus network. The NFL decided to keep the games in-house and put them on the NFL Network. After that, Comcast decided the NFL Network charged too much money for programming for their subscribers.
There will always be skirmishes between the multiple system operators and cable networks over money. That will not change with the Comcast-NBC merger.
The merger probably will not be in the best interests of consumers as rights fees, retransmission costs and other fees will continue to go up. The question that needs to be answered is whether Comcast can make the merger work because big media deals over the past 15 years including the AOL Time Warner agreement have been failures. Clear Channel bought out thousands of radio stations following the 1996 Tele Communication Act passage by Congress which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and that has been a disaster for the company. And for those who are worried about the direction Brian Roberts might take NBC News, here is a question. What kind of job did General Electric do in covering the news? One of GE's properties is MSNBC, a so-called news channel which like FOX News Channel and CNN doesn't cover news but is long on shrill and fake confrontational arguments led by carnival barkers. NBC Dateline once blew up a General Motors truck in 1992 in a staged report called "Waiting to Explode" which questioned the safety of GM trucks.
Comcast has been a major player on the sports scene for a long time. The company owns the Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers and has partnerships thorough Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association, golf and limited National Football League team business arrangements. NBC Sports has properties; a combined Comcast NBC is stronger and has some money to spend. That is music to the ears of sports owners and promoters but not necessarily the sound that makes Mickey Mouse and Disney too happy as ESPN is no longer alone as the undisputed heavyweight champion of sports programming.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Comcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comcast. Show all posts
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
New Jersey might have shot at New Orleans Hornets when N.J. Nets move
WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 2011 11:55
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/new-jersey-might-have-shot-at-new-orleans-hornets-when-nj-nets-move
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There was a rather interesting sports business interview on WWL Radio in New Orleans last week that occupied some of my time during the drive from New Orleans to Daphne, Alabama. Doug Thornton, who is SMG's senior vice president and de facto head of the New Orleans Superdome and New Orleans Arena, was talking about the $85 million publicly funded expansion of luxury seating at the Superdome (which is designed to put more money into New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson's pockets despite NFL owners claiming they need to reduce expenses and players salaries because they need to cut salaries and expenses — the NFL seems to be awash in money) and the future of the New Orleans Hornets and the NBA's need to find a new financial model so that New Orleans and other small markets can survive.
It is a conversation that you will never hear on the sports radio talk shows in New York or Philadelphia or read about in area newspapers. It is an issue that never gets discussed on cable TV sports talk shows. The NBA's big market teams are in decent financial shape; the New York Knicks have to be rolling in dough with sellout crowds, not paying New York city property tax and owning a cable TV regional sports network. Mikhail Prokhorov must think the New Jersey Nets will be a goldmine once the franchise moves to Brooklyn and it would be fascinating to take a look at Comcast's real books when assessing the Philadelphia 76ers finances given that the country's largest cable TV multi systems operator owns the team, the arena and the regional cable TV network in Philadelphia.
The National Basketball Association now owns the small market New Orleans Hornets.
There are reports that the Maloof brothers are thinking about moving their Sacramento Kings franchise after failing to secure a new arena in the California capital and having financial problems with their core businesses. Indiana's ownership claims mounting losses despite playing in an Indianapolis arena and paying virtually no rent. There are similar stories in Charlotte, Memphis and other NBA outposts. Louisiana is pumping money into the Hornets operation. The state is used to handing out paychecks to major league sports owners.
The Saints Benson received in the neighborhood of $185 million in state handouts between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving the team. Benson has a new deal with the state that lessens the amount of direct handouts (from about $23 million to as much as $6 million annually) but includes other perks like giving him an office building (the Benson Tower which is across from the Superdome) for a small amount of money (the building has been renovated) and a guarantee of a number of leases for office space for state agencies.
Benson is not getting quite the same state bailout under the new deal but Louisiana is paying him in other ways to keep him happy through 2025. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of these let's cut everything to the bone including laying off municipal employees and not raise any taxes to pay for services, boasted that the new deal saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars. What Jindal should have said is simple, we are moving money around and we are still paying. NBA Commissioner David Stern knows the Saints deal and since he and 29 NBA owners run the Hornets, he probably will try to get Jindal to give him a "deal" that will "save" Louisiana millions of dollars before attempting to sell the team to an owner who will decide whether to stay in the Crescent City or take the business elsewhere.
The NBA has run out of North American cities to move franchises. The Las Vegas arena that was supposed to open in 2010 was nothing more than a mirage in the desert, San Diego has no arena, and Pittsburgh has no interest in an NBA franchise. Seattle has no arena, Louisville has an arena but it would be just a small market and most small markets in the NBA with the exception of San Antonio are in bad financial shape.
Newark is "hosting" the New Jersey Nets until a Brooklyn arena is open. Newark might be the best open market the NBA will have but that will not happen for a few years.
The New Orleans situation is dire. The former owner George Shinn reached a deal with Louisiana that included an attendance clause and if certain benchmarks are not hit by the end of the month, the Hornets former ownership and presumably the NBA can tell Louisiana that they plan to move the franchise to another city. The team has a clause in the lease that allows the franchise to pay $10 million to Louisiana at the end of March and leave if the attendance does not average 14,735 per game. The team needs an average of 14,915 people per game by January 24 to insure that the Hornets franchise will be in the city in 2011-12. But the Hornets-Louisiana lease is done in 2014 and presumably Prokhorov's Nets will be in Brooklyn by that time leaving Newark open as a relocation possibility.
The New Orleans business community is buying up tickets to make sure the Hornets attendance meets the benchmark but according to Thornton even if this year's version of the Hornets does exceed the benchmark there is a serious question as to the financial viability of the team going ahead in a small market without help from the NBA. That help would be a new collective bargaining agreement, which would reduce salaries and significant revenue sharing from the big market owners (the Knicks-Dolan family) to the lesser revenue generating markets like New Orleans.
New Orleans is a small market with limited cable TV revenues and that is a major problem for the franchise. Shinn could not get Knicks TV money or Los Angeles Lakers TV money.
The NBA owners and players are trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. NBA Commissioner and more than likely chief negotiator David Stern has left open the possibility of contracting teams. If the owners and players do not come up with a collective bargaining agreement by July 1, the owners will more than likely lockout the players, which means that all NBA business will stop.
The free agent market will close, which is why there is pressure on Carmelo Anthony to get a new contract now instead of going into an uncertain free agency period where he might find different rules and lose millions of dollars.
The NBA has been given a free ride by the sports media who seem to love to bang on Gary Bettman and NHL financial problems in Phoenix, Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville and other cities. Stern has not received the criticism that has been directed at Bettman even though like Bettman he has been forced to take over a franchise, New Orleans (Bettman ended up with Phoenix and presided over bankruptcies in Ottawa, Buffalo and Pittsburgh). Major League Baseball took over the Montreal Expos in 2002. Stern has a good number of problem franchises, which is why he will play hardball in talks with the players although he has not taken care of the revenue sharing issue that has been floating around for years at owners meetings.
If New Orleans can no longer support a franchise and Sacramento fails, where do those franchises go? There is a suggestion that the Maloofs will look at Anaheim and San Jose but the problem in those cities is the NHL. The Amaheim Ducks ownership and the San Jose Sharks ownership get the lion share of the revenues out of the arenas in those cities and the ownership groups probably would not welcome an equal partner in the buildings unless they become part of an NBA ownership group.
Louisville is college basketball country. Does the area have the financial wherewithal to support what really is elitist entertainment for the people who like to watch games in an arena? Neither Seattle nor Las Vegas have an NBA state of the art building, Kansas City doesn't seem to be a viable option even though the city has a new arena. Vancouver had an NBA team and might be more viable financially with the Canadian dollar on par with the US greenback but no one is pushing for an NBA return in western Canada, at least not yet.
If the Hornets franchise is sold and the new ownership is forced to stay in New Orleans until 2014 under the terms of Shinn's lease but wants out when the agreement ends, would New Jersey be a viable option if Prokhorov's Nets are finally in Brooklyn? That's a good question. David Stern's three legged stool theory of being financially successful requires a city to provide government support (an arena, tax breaks, etc.), a strong cable TV money deal and corporate support.
Newark and New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek built an arena. So there is government support and Vanderbeek is now housing the Nets. The New York area has three regional cable TV networks. An owner could come into New Jersey and get a large cable TV deal with SNY. Why SNY? Because the Comcast-Time Warner-New York Mets owned entity does not have an NBA or NHL presence in the late fall-winter-early spring. The Dolan's MSG Network has the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and college basketball. The YES Network has Prokhorov's Nets.
The third leg of the stool is the problem. Corporate support. Neither the Nets nor the Devils have been able to get a high level of support (if attendance figures are a true barometer) of corporate backing over the decades that the franchises have been in the Garden State. Would New Jersey business leaders embrace a new NBA team in Newark in 2014 if that scenario plays out?
Would the Dolans and Prokhorov want a third team in the New York area? The NBA could block any attempt by a prospective New Jersey team owner to put a franchise in Newark in 2014 even though there is the Los Angeles Clippers precedent. Donald Sterling moved his team in 1984 without league permission. Eventually Sterling and the NBA resolved their differences. The NBA blocked the sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves to boxing promoter Bob Arum and his group in 1994. Arum wanted to move the franchise to New Orleans.
The NBA owners and players have to get a new collective bargaining agreement and after the dust settles, there will be assessments. If the owners cannot get rollbacks in salaries, some owners may throw in the towel and sell off money losing franchises. Newark might be in line for a failed franchise under the right set of circumstances.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY 2011 11:55
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/new-jersey-might-have-shot-at-new-orleans-hornets-when-nj-nets-move
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There was a rather interesting sports business interview on WWL Radio in New Orleans last week that occupied some of my time during the drive from New Orleans to Daphne, Alabama. Doug Thornton, who is SMG's senior vice president and de facto head of the New Orleans Superdome and New Orleans Arena, was talking about the $85 million publicly funded expansion of luxury seating at the Superdome (which is designed to put more money into New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson's pockets despite NFL owners claiming they need to reduce expenses and players salaries because they need to cut salaries and expenses — the NFL seems to be awash in money) and the future of the New Orleans Hornets and the NBA's need to find a new financial model so that New Orleans and other small markets can survive.
It is a conversation that you will never hear on the sports radio talk shows in New York or Philadelphia or read about in area newspapers. It is an issue that never gets discussed on cable TV sports talk shows. The NBA's big market teams are in decent financial shape; the New York Knicks have to be rolling in dough with sellout crowds, not paying New York city property tax and owning a cable TV regional sports network. Mikhail Prokhorov must think the New Jersey Nets will be a goldmine once the franchise moves to Brooklyn and it would be fascinating to take a look at Comcast's real books when assessing the Philadelphia 76ers finances given that the country's largest cable TV multi systems operator owns the team, the arena and the regional cable TV network in Philadelphia.
The National Basketball Association now owns the small market New Orleans Hornets.
There are reports that the Maloof brothers are thinking about moving their Sacramento Kings franchise after failing to secure a new arena in the California capital and having financial problems with their core businesses. Indiana's ownership claims mounting losses despite playing in an Indianapolis arena and paying virtually no rent. There are similar stories in Charlotte, Memphis and other NBA outposts. Louisiana is pumping money into the Hornets operation. The state is used to handing out paychecks to major league sports owners.
The Saints Benson received in the neighborhood of $185 million in state handouts between 2002 and 2010 as a thank you for not moving the team. Benson has a new deal with the state that lessens the amount of direct handouts (from about $23 million to as much as $6 million annually) but includes other perks like giving him an office building (the Benson Tower which is across from the Superdome) for a small amount of money (the building has been renovated) and a guarantee of a number of leases for office space for state agencies.
Benson is not getting quite the same state bailout under the new deal but Louisiana is paying him in other ways to keep him happy through 2025. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, one of these let's cut everything to the bone including laying off municipal employees and not raise any taxes to pay for services, boasted that the new deal saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars. What Jindal should have said is simple, we are moving money around and we are still paying. NBA Commissioner David Stern knows the Saints deal and since he and 29 NBA owners run the Hornets, he probably will try to get Jindal to give him a "deal" that will "save" Louisiana millions of dollars before attempting to sell the team to an owner who will decide whether to stay in the Crescent City or take the business elsewhere.
The NBA has run out of North American cities to move franchises. The Las Vegas arena that was supposed to open in 2010 was nothing more than a mirage in the desert, San Diego has no arena, and Pittsburgh has no interest in an NBA franchise. Seattle has no arena, Louisville has an arena but it would be just a small market and most small markets in the NBA with the exception of San Antonio are in bad financial shape.
Newark is "hosting" the New Jersey Nets until a Brooklyn arena is open. Newark might be the best open market the NBA will have but that will not happen for a few years.
The New Orleans situation is dire. The former owner George Shinn reached a deal with Louisiana that included an attendance clause and if certain benchmarks are not hit by the end of the month, the Hornets former ownership and presumably the NBA can tell Louisiana that they plan to move the franchise to another city. The team has a clause in the lease that allows the franchise to pay $10 million to Louisiana at the end of March and leave if the attendance does not average 14,735 per game. The team needs an average of 14,915 people per game by January 24 to insure that the Hornets franchise will be in the city in 2011-12. But the Hornets-Louisiana lease is done in 2014 and presumably Prokhorov's Nets will be in Brooklyn by that time leaving Newark open as a relocation possibility.
The New Orleans business community is buying up tickets to make sure the Hornets attendance meets the benchmark but according to Thornton even if this year's version of the Hornets does exceed the benchmark there is a serious question as to the financial viability of the team going ahead in a small market without help from the NBA. That help would be a new collective bargaining agreement, which would reduce salaries and significant revenue sharing from the big market owners (the Knicks-Dolan family) to the lesser revenue generating markets like New Orleans.
New Orleans is a small market with limited cable TV revenues and that is a major problem for the franchise. Shinn could not get Knicks TV money or Los Angeles Lakers TV money.
The NBA owners and players are trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. NBA Commissioner and more than likely chief negotiator David Stern has left open the possibility of contracting teams. If the owners and players do not come up with a collective bargaining agreement by July 1, the owners will more than likely lockout the players, which means that all NBA business will stop.
The free agent market will close, which is why there is pressure on Carmelo Anthony to get a new contract now instead of going into an uncertain free agency period where he might find different rules and lose millions of dollars.
The NBA has been given a free ride by the sports media who seem to love to bang on Gary Bettman and NHL financial problems in Phoenix, Atlanta, Columbus, Nashville and other cities. Stern has not received the criticism that has been directed at Bettman even though like Bettman he has been forced to take over a franchise, New Orleans (Bettman ended up with Phoenix and presided over bankruptcies in Ottawa, Buffalo and Pittsburgh). Major League Baseball took over the Montreal Expos in 2002. Stern has a good number of problem franchises, which is why he will play hardball in talks with the players although he has not taken care of the revenue sharing issue that has been floating around for years at owners meetings.
If New Orleans can no longer support a franchise and Sacramento fails, where do those franchises go? There is a suggestion that the Maloofs will look at Anaheim and San Jose but the problem in those cities is the NHL. The Amaheim Ducks ownership and the San Jose Sharks ownership get the lion share of the revenues out of the arenas in those cities and the ownership groups probably would not welcome an equal partner in the buildings unless they become part of an NBA ownership group.
Louisville is college basketball country. Does the area have the financial wherewithal to support what really is elitist entertainment for the people who like to watch games in an arena? Neither Seattle nor Las Vegas have an NBA state of the art building, Kansas City doesn't seem to be a viable option even though the city has a new arena. Vancouver had an NBA team and might be more viable financially with the Canadian dollar on par with the US greenback but no one is pushing for an NBA return in western Canada, at least not yet.
If the Hornets franchise is sold and the new ownership is forced to stay in New Orleans until 2014 under the terms of Shinn's lease but wants out when the agreement ends, would New Jersey be a viable option if Prokhorov's Nets are finally in Brooklyn? That's a good question. David Stern's three legged stool theory of being financially successful requires a city to provide government support (an arena, tax breaks, etc.), a strong cable TV money deal and corporate support.
Newark and New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek built an arena. So there is government support and Vanderbeek is now housing the Nets. The New York area has three regional cable TV networks. An owner could come into New Jersey and get a large cable TV deal with SNY. Why SNY? Because the Comcast-Time Warner-New York Mets owned entity does not have an NBA or NHL presence in the late fall-winter-early spring. The Dolan's MSG Network has the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and college basketball. The YES Network has Prokhorov's Nets.
The third leg of the stool is the problem. Corporate support. Neither the Nets nor the Devils have been able to get a high level of support (if attendance figures are a true barometer) of corporate backing over the decades that the franchises have been in the Garden State. Would New Jersey business leaders embrace a new NBA team in Newark in 2014 if that scenario plays out?
Would the Dolans and Prokhorov want a third team in the New York area? The NBA could block any attempt by a prospective New Jersey team owner to put a franchise in Newark in 2014 even though there is the Los Angeles Clippers precedent. Donald Sterling moved his team in 1984 without league permission. Eventually Sterling and the NBA resolved their differences. The NBA blocked the sale of the Minnesota Timberwolves to boxing promoter Bob Arum and his group in 1994. Arum wanted to move the franchise to New Orleans.
The NBA owners and players have to get a new collective bargaining agreement and after the dust settles, there will be assessments. If the owners cannot get rollbacks in salaries, some owners may throw in the towel and sell off money losing franchises. Newark might be in line for a failed franchise under the right set of circumstances.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Big Ten Conference expansion on hold keeps Rutgers in Big East for now
WEDNESDAY, 08 DECEMBER 2010 21:35
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-conference-expansion-on-hold-keeps-rutgers-in-big-east-for-now
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
For the foreseeable future, Rutgers University will not be dropping out of the Big East and join the 12-school (along with the University of Chicago — which doesn't field big time football or basketball teams) Big Ten. The Midwest-based conference announced on Monday that their "expansion" mode has been put on hiatus and the conference isn't looking to add any school for the time being.
"I think, we will continue to look for expansion for another year," said Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez. "I think everybody was thing (last May) as schools were moving and looking that may be the direction (a 16-team conference). Our commissioner and our league decided to study it for a year."
There seem to be some whispers that college presidents and chancellors are becoming gun shy about conference expansion and that the industry wants to see the issue quiet down somewhat. The Big Ten seemed to have Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland, Missouri and Notre Dame as targets along with Texas. The Big Ten did take Nebraska. The Big East added Texas Christian University, the Pacific-10 plucked Utah from the WAC and Colorado from the Big 12, which now has ten schools after losing Colorado and Nebraska.
Of course as television needs programming and is ready to throw money into big-time college sports, there will be further realignments to please the barons of TV. Television runs the show no matter what college officials say, at least in football.
"I'm thrilled we have Nebraska," said Alvarez who oversees a 23-team, $90 million enterprise at the Madison, Wisconsin school. "It's a great fit for us and the thing that is exciting for me being a Nebraska graduate and having some many friends in Nebraska, how excited they were and how open they were to come to the Big Ten. You think there is loyalty there but as they say it is not the Big 8. The Big 12, they don't play Oklahoma every year, there is not that tradition, they weren't losing anything. So they are very excited to come and it really is a good fit for us."
Alvarez wasn't surprised that the Fort Worth, Texas-based TCU took a Big East spot despite not being close to any Big East schools.
"TCU has to look for what is best for them," said Alvarez. "Obviously getting into a (Bowl Championship Series) BCS Conference, it makes sense. If it makes sense for them, I have no problem with it. I don't think it is all about TV (the Big East has some major markets in New York and now the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and some midsized markets in Tampa, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for football). TV is part of it. Aligning yourself in a conference with an automatic berth in the BCS is important. You have to balance the budget. If you are in charge of it, you make decisions that are best for your school. In my case (Wisconsin), I have 23 sports and football is the engine so whatever you can do in football to allow everyone else (the other sports at the school) to compete. You make the best decision for your program."
The Big East was a basketball conference that morphed into a football conference because that is where the money is. Seton Hall, Villanova, Providence, Georgetown, St. John's, Marquette and DePaul don't have big time football programs and Notre Dame remains an independent even though the school competes in basketball and other sports in the Big East. Former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is helping the conference with expanding the football playing schools. TCU will be the ninth football playing school and in all probability, the Big East will add a 10th school in the very near future.
Wisconsin will not play Rutgers in the Big Ten anytime soon, but that doesn't mean Alvarez is ruling out any New York metropolitan contests. Alvarez has had some conversations with the New York Yankees brass about playing a game at Yankee Stadium under "the what's best for the school financially" guise.
"I have talked to the Yankees, we have a great alumni base here (in the New York-New Jersey area)," said Alvarez. "If it makes sense and it would have to be early in the year, it would have to be in September that's the issue. I have talked to them about that and the Commissioner of Baseball (Bud Selig, Wisconsin alum) told him he can arrange them to be out of town for 10 days.
"We are looking at those (neutral site games) but I have to have seven home games and that is a mandate from my people. We have to have seven home games and if we can do something on a neutral site that makes sense and helps us in recruiting and satisfy some of our alums, we would look into that."
So is the turmoil of earlier this year with conferences beefing up over? "It appears to be," said Alvarez.
The key word there being "appears". But no one has shut the door on additional movement. Television money is flooded Big Ten schools as each is getting more than $23 million annually because of various deals. The Big East despite having some big markets is getting about one-third of the television dollars going to Big Ten schools.
When Comcast does take over NBC, the Philadelphia-based cable TV giant could rebrand the Versus network as some sort of NBC cable sports network and then go after major conference contracts and any conference that is adding or has added key markets could help pry more money out of ESPN, FOX or whatever Comcast plans to call Versus in the future. Rutgers may be a New Jersey school, but the football team's TV market is the New York metropolitan area, the nation's top market. That alone makes Rutgers a major player in the conference shuffle.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
WEDNESDAY, 08 DECEMBER 2010 21:35
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/big-ten-conference-expansion-on-hold-keeps-rutgers-in-big-east-for-now
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
For the foreseeable future, Rutgers University will not be dropping out of the Big East and join the 12-school (along with the University of Chicago — which doesn't field big time football or basketball teams) Big Ten. The Midwest-based conference announced on Monday that their "expansion" mode has been put on hiatus and the conference isn't looking to add any school for the time being.
"I think, we will continue to look for expansion for another year," said Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez. "I think everybody was thing (last May) as schools were moving and looking that may be the direction (a 16-team conference). Our commissioner and our league decided to study it for a year."
There seem to be some whispers that college presidents and chancellors are becoming gun shy about conference expansion and that the industry wants to see the issue quiet down somewhat. The Big Ten seemed to have Rutgers, Syracuse, Maryland, Missouri and Notre Dame as targets along with Texas. The Big Ten did take Nebraska. The Big East added Texas Christian University, the Pacific-10 plucked Utah from the WAC and Colorado from the Big 12, which now has ten schools after losing Colorado and Nebraska.
Of course as television needs programming and is ready to throw money into big-time college sports, there will be further realignments to please the barons of TV. Television runs the show no matter what college officials say, at least in football.
"I'm thrilled we have Nebraska," said Alvarez who oversees a 23-team, $90 million enterprise at the Madison, Wisconsin school. "It's a great fit for us and the thing that is exciting for me being a Nebraska graduate and having some many friends in Nebraska, how excited they were and how open they were to come to the Big Ten. You think there is loyalty there but as they say it is not the Big 8. The Big 12, they don't play Oklahoma every year, there is not that tradition, they weren't losing anything. So they are very excited to come and it really is a good fit for us."
Alvarez wasn't surprised that the Fort Worth, Texas-based TCU took a Big East spot despite not being close to any Big East schools.
"TCU has to look for what is best for them," said Alvarez. "Obviously getting into a (Bowl Championship Series) BCS Conference, it makes sense. If it makes sense for them, I have no problem with it. I don't think it is all about TV (the Big East has some major markets in New York and now the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and some midsized markets in Tampa, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati for football). TV is part of it. Aligning yourself in a conference with an automatic berth in the BCS is important. You have to balance the budget. If you are in charge of it, you make decisions that are best for your school. In my case (Wisconsin), I have 23 sports and football is the engine so whatever you can do in football to allow everyone else (the other sports at the school) to compete. You make the best decision for your program."
The Big East was a basketball conference that morphed into a football conference because that is where the money is. Seton Hall, Villanova, Providence, Georgetown, St. John's, Marquette and DePaul don't have big time football programs and Notre Dame remains an independent even though the school competes in basketball and other sports in the Big East. Former National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is helping the conference with expanding the football playing schools. TCU will be the ninth football playing school and in all probability, the Big East will add a 10th school in the very near future.
Wisconsin will not play Rutgers in the Big Ten anytime soon, but that doesn't mean Alvarez is ruling out any New York metropolitan contests. Alvarez has had some conversations with the New York Yankees brass about playing a game at Yankee Stadium under "the what's best for the school financially" guise.
"I have talked to the Yankees, we have a great alumni base here (in the New York-New Jersey area)," said Alvarez. "If it makes sense and it would have to be early in the year, it would have to be in September that's the issue. I have talked to them about that and the Commissioner of Baseball (Bud Selig, Wisconsin alum) told him he can arrange them to be out of town for 10 days.
"We are looking at those (neutral site games) but I have to have seven home games and that is a mandate from my people. We have to have seven home games and if we can do something on a neutral site that makes sense and helps us in recruiting and satisfy some of our alums, we would look into that."
So is the turmoil of earlier this year with conferences beefing up over? "It appears to be," said Alvarez.
The key word there being "appears". But no one has shut the door on additional movement. Television money is flooded Big Ten schools as each is getting more than $23 million annually because of various deals. The Big East despite having some big markets is getting about one-third of the television dollars going to Big Ten schools.
When Comcast does take over NBC, the Philadelphia-based cable TV giant could rebrand the Versus network as some sort of NBC cable sports network and then go after major conference contracts and any conference that is adding or has added key markets could help pry more money out of ESPN, FOX or whatever Comcast plans to call Versus in the future. Rutgers may be a New Jersey school, but the football team's TV market is the New York metropolitan area, the nation's top market. That alone makes Rutgers a major player in the conference shuffle.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Tiger Woods and Broken Journalism
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2009m12d6-Tiger-Woods-and-Broken-Journalism#
Tiger Woods and Broken Journalism
By Evan Weiner
The United States must not be conducting two wars or trying to get out of a severe recession or trying to figure out how to solve the health care crisis. You see two big name so-called journalists, Bob Schieffer of the CBS television network and the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd have decided to comment on the golfer Tiger Woods personal problems which means all is well with the world and America.
Schieffer on his CBS-TV Face the Nation public affairs program and Dowd in her New York Times column.
The fact that Schieffer, the one time CBS Evening News anchor, and Dowd are throwing on their two cents on Woods shows just how far journalism has sank. Schieffer, if he has to weigh in on Tiger Woods, should just go back to his Friday night dinners and discussion of fantasy baseball with his brother Tom, the former Texas Rangers President and Rangers Managing General Partner George W. Bush like they did in the 1990s and Dowd, well someone at the New York Times likes her. Hopefully for the columnist that like will still be on display in the future as later this week the New York Times plans lets go of a number of employees.
The Times is hemorrhaging money and has to lay off personal.
The times are a changing and the New York Times is not what it once was nor is CBS News, the home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Murrow helped bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy on the See It Now show back on March 9, 1954 and Cronkite concluded the Vietnam War was not winnable on February 27, 1968 during a CBS news program which set into motion a series of events that might have had a heavy influence on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968.
To be fair, both Murrow and Cronkite did preside over a lot of fluff programming as well with Murrow hosting People to People and Cronkite was an anchor at the 1960 Winter Olympics and did the narration of the Violent World of Sam Huff as part of the “The Twentieth Century” series on October 30, 1960.
There is a lot going on in the world. A global climate conference in Copenhagen, more troops will be headed to Afghanistan, unemployment at 10 percent, the on going health care debate and in the sports world, head injuries in football. All of that is significantly more important than whatever is going on between Woods and his wife.
The tearing down of an idol is nothing new in American journalism and now it is Tiger Woods turn to feel the wrath of the jock sniffers who report on sports. Somehow Tiger didn’t level with them, as if the reporters who follow golf deserve an explanation of his exploits. Of course Tiger has never palled around with sportswriters types anyway and now they can even the score since he is not their friend. Hell hath no fury like a sportswriter or sportswriters scorned.
There will be fewer reporters following Tiger Woods around in 2010 as the newspaper industry continues to bleed red ink and the radio/TV industry cuts back on news programming. The funny thing about the entire Tiger Woods coverage is that newspapers, radio and TV are giving the people what they want.
Scandal.
Of course if scandal really did sell, the National Enquirer would not be reeling. The New York Post would be selling millions of papers daily instead of seeing plunging circulation and the Gannett newspapers would not be laying off reporters, closing down printing presses and furloughing employees. The Gannett papers including USA Today, the New York suburban papers including the Journal News and others have ceased to be legitimate publications.
Newspaper executives and newspaper owners like Rupert Murdoch can scream all they want about how Google and the internet have inflicted a great deal of damage on their circulation and advertising but the truth is simple. Newspaper owners, publishers and managers sat snug while people like Craig Newmark came up with a better idea, Craig’s List, which took millions of dollars away from papers by charging far less for classified ads.
It is true advertisers are cutting back because of the economy yet marketers are willing to spend more on web advertising.
Tiger Woods is not going to sell any more newspapers or even more National Enquirers. But don’t tell that to various executives.
At one time, newspapers provided the backbone of publicist for sports. Notre Dame owes a great deal to the writers of the 1920s who sold the public on the mythology of George Gipp, the Four Horsemen and Knute Rockne. Newspapers made Babe Ruth and Red Grange household names in the 1920s and sports has embraced newspapers and sportswriters have gained a sense of entitlement which includes voting for various sports hall of fames and for individual players and manager or coaches awards which impacts on the earnings power of athletes, coaches and sports executives.
Today college students don’t read newspapers and young people get sports information from team websites, league websites, blogs, TV and radio. The golden age of the newspaper in America is gone and AARP members are the last generation that depends on newspapers for information. That is an undisputed fact.
Tiger Woods is a genuine 14 carat superstar with major ability in his field which is golf. Tiger doesn’t need sportswriters around because the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t say very much and his talent is always on display and people who follow Tiger don’t need a sportswriters’ analyst of his ability. They can listen to the former professional golfer who is part of a television network’s presentation of a golf tournament.
By the way, Tiger is not in trouble with the law. The case is closed and done with Tiger playing a small fine. But the media is not done with Tiger, the story they created about Tiger has come undone and it is payback time. Yet Tiger is not going to add to the media bottom line with scandal. It doesn’t work, if it did Confidential magazine would still be in circulation.
Tiger Woods never really sold newspapers but he did draw eyeballs to the TV screen whenever he played in a tournament. Woods sponsors are not fleeing and the Professional Golf Association’s media partners whether it is Summer Redstone’s CBS, General Electric’s NBC (soon to be merged with the Philadelphia-based Comcast, the multiple systems operator which owns the Golf Channel and Versus, which carries PGA shows), Disney’s ESPN and ABC in the US or the Disney-owner TSN in Canada along with RDS and CanWest north of the border and the numerous televisions partners globally can’t wait for Tiger to play in the tournaments they are showing. XM Satellite Radio, another financially struggling entity, is not dissolving its partnership with the PGA because of Tiger’s car accident or apparent National Enquirer fodder lifestyle.
Schieffer should keep his CBS Face the Nation program focused squarely addressing important American issues and Dowd, well she should go back to the Breck Girl (John Edwards) type columns on politics. Tiger will get more viewers for Redstone by playing golf; Tiger will not bring Redstone or Schieffer any new viewers. Dowd’s columns on Tiger will not help bring readers back to the New York Times.
As soon as Tiger is back on the golf course, all will be forgiven. Tiger is just another jock, another human being; although he is a superior golfer and he will make his money which is more than can be said for the New York Times or the National Enquirer.
Tiger Woods and Broken Journalism
By Evan Weiner
The United States must not be conducting two wars or trying to get out of a severe recession or trying to figure out how to solve the health care crisis. You see two big name so-called journalists, Bob Schieffer of the CBS television network and the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd have decided to comment on the golfer Tiger Woods personal problems which means all is well with the world and America.
Schieffer on his CBS-TV Face the Nation public affairs program and Dowd in her New York Times column.
The fact that Schieffer, the one time CBS Evening News anchor, and Dowd are throwing on their two cents on Woods shows just how far journalism has sank. Schieffer, if he has to weigh in on Tiger Woods, should just go back to his Friday night dinners and discussion of fantasy baseball with his brother Tom, the former Texas Rangers President and Rangers Managing General Partner George W. Bush like they did in the 1990s and Dowd, well someone at the New York Times likes her. Hopefully for the columnist that like will still be on display in the future as later this week the New York Times plans lets go of a number of employees.
The Times is hemorrhaging money and has to lay off personal.
The times are a changing and the New York Times is not what it once was nor is CBS News, the home of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Murrow helped bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy on the See It Now show back on March 9, 1954 and Cronkite concluded the Vietnam War was not winnable on February 27, 1968 during a CBS news program which set into motion a series of events that might have had a heavy influence on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election in 1968.
To be fair, both Murrow and Cronkite did preside over a lot of fluff programming as well with Murrow hosting People to People and Cronkite was an anchor at the 1960 Winter Olympics and did the narration of the Violent World of Sam Huff as part of the “The Twentieth Century” series on October 30, 1960.
There is a lot going on in the world. A global climate conference in Copenhagen, more troops will be headed to Afghanistan, unemployment at 10 percent, the on going health care debate and in the sports world, head injuries in football. All of that is significantly more important than whatever is going on between Woods and his wife.
The tearing down of an idol is nothing new in American journalism and now it is Tiger Woods turn to feel the wrath of the jock sniffers who report on sports. Somehow Tiger didn’t level with them, as if the reporters who follow golf deserve an explanation of his exploits. Of course Tiger has never palled around with sportswriters types anyway and now they can even the score since he is not their friend. Hell hath no fury like a sportswriter or sportswriters scorned.
There will be fewer reporters following Tiger Woods around in 2010 as the newspaper industry continues to bleed red ink and the radio/TV industry cuts back on news programming. The funny thing about the entire Tiger Woods coverage is that newspapers, radio and TV are giving the people what they want.
Scandal.
Of course if scandal really did sell, the National Enquirer would not be reeling. The New York Post would be selling millions of papers daily instead of seeing plunging circulation and the Gannett newspapers would not be laying off reporters, closing down printing presses and furloughing employees. The Gannett papers including USA Today, the New York suburban papers including the Journal News and others have ceased to be legitimate publications.
Newspaper executives and newspaper owners like Rupert Murdoch can scream all they want about how Google and the internet have inflicted a great deal of damage on their circulation and advertising but the truth is simple. Newspaper owners, publishers and managers sat snug while people like Craig Newmark came up with a better idea, Craig’s List, which took millions of dollars away from papers by charging far less for classified ads.
It is true advertisers are cutting back because of the economy yet marketers are willing to spend more on web advertising.
Tiger Woods is not going to sell any more newspapers or even more National Enquirers. But don’t tell that to various executives.
At one time, newspapers provided the backbone of publicist for sports. Notre Dame owes a great deal to the writers of the 1920s who sold the public on the mythology of George Gipp, the Four Horsemen and Knute Rockne. Newspapers made Babe Ruth and Red Grange household names in the 1920s and sports has embraced newspapers and sportswriters have gained a sense of entitlement which includes voting for various sports hall of fames and for individual players and manager or coaches awards which impacts on the earnings power of athletes, coaches and sports executives.
Today college students don’t read newspapers and young people get sports information from team websites, league websites, blogs, TV and radio. The golden age of the newspaper in America is gone and AARP members are the last generation that depends on newspapers for information. That is an undisputed fact.
Tiger Woods is a genuine 14 carat superstar with major ability in his field which is golf. Tiger doesn’t need sportswriters around because the truth of the matter is that he doesn’t say very much and his talent is always on display and people who follow Tiger don’t need a sportswriters’ analyst of his ability. They can listen to the former professional golfer who is part of a television network’s presentation of a golf tournament.
By the way, Tiger is not in trouble with the law. The case is closed and done with Tiger playing a small fine. But the media is not done with Tiger, the story they created about Tiger has come undone and it is payback time. Yet Tiger is not going to add to the media bottom line with scandal. It doesn’t work, if it did Confidential magazine would still be in circulation.
Tiger Woods never really sold newspapers but he did draw eyeballs to the TV screen whenever he played in a tournament. Woods sponsors are not fleeing and the Professional Golf Association’s media partners whether it is Summer Redstone’s CBS, General Electric’s NBC (soon to be merged with the Philadelphia-based Comcast, the multiple systems operator which owns the Golf Channel and Versus, which carries PGA shows), Disney’s ESPN and ABC in the US or the Disney-owner TSN in Canada along with RDS and CanWest north of the border and the numerous televisions partners globally can’t wait for Tiger to play in the tournaments they are showing. XM Satellite Radio, another financially struggling entity, is not dissolving its partnership with the PGA because of Tiger’s car accident or apparent National Enquirer fodder lifestyle.
Schieffer should keep his CBS Face the Nation program focused squarely addressing important American issues and Dowd, well she should go back to the Breck Girl (John Edwards) type columns on politics. Tiger will get more viewers for Redstone by playing golf; Tiger will not bring Redstone or Schieffer any new viewers. Dowd’s columns on Tiger will not help bring readers back to the New York Times.
As soon as Tiger is back on the golf course, all will be forgiven. Tiger is just another jock, another human being; although he is a superior golfer and he will make his money which is more than can be said for the New York Times or the National Enquirer.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Why Brian Roberts Wants NBC
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7574
Why Brian Roberts Wants NBC
By Evan Weiner
November 17, 2009
11:30 AM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – Nearly five and a half years after failing to gain control of the Walt Disney Company, Brian Roberts’s Comcast Corporation’s cable TV multiple systems operation is on the verge of reeling in NBCUniversal and gaining control of NBC’s various properties including the NBC network, a number of NBC owned television stations along with cable TV outlets including Bravo, MSNBC, the USA Network and CNBC and a movie studio.
General Electric is ready to give up 51 percent of NBC and remain a minority partner. General Electric purchased NBC’s parent company, RCA in 1986. NBC does not fit in with General Electric’s core businesses. Roberts wants to make Comcast bigger and perhaps rewrite communications history.
In February 2004, Roberts made a $66 billion offer to take over Disney but the Disney board refused to play ball with the Philadelphia-based cable TV CEO. By 2004, Comcast had become the United States biggest cable TV multiple systems operator. Roberts went after the ABC TV network along with the Disney film studio, ESPN and other Disney-owned cable TV networks, the various ABC radio networks and theme parks.
In 2004, Roberts had a rather weak cable TV sports network, the Outdoor Life Network and a number of other cable entities including E! Entertainment Television, the Golf Channel and ownership in the National Basketball Association’s Philadelphia 76ers and the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers. What Roberts really wanted was ESPN, which was a cash cow for Disney in 2004 and continues to be a major source of funding for Disney to this day.
Disney rejected Roberts’s overtures and in April 2004, Roberts gave up on the bid.
Comcast is a major player in the video distribution industry whether it is through cable TV or broadband. Roberts is also a major player in the American sports industry and capturing NBC would substantially increase what presently is a large sports company.
Among Roberts’ holdings is Comcast Spectacor (the Flyers, 76ers, the company manages the teams’ arena along with skating rinks in the Philadelphia area and the company’s Global Spectrum manages more than 20 arenas and stadiums in the United States, Canada and Croatia including the new soccer stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, the Arizona Cardinals stadium in Glendale, and the Glens Falls Civic Center in Glens Falls, New York which houses the Flyers’ American Hockey League affiliate. Comcast also owes Ovations Food Services, a concessions company that provides food and drinks to various arenas and other facilities in the US and has a sports and events ticketing company.). Comcast also produces figure skating shows on NBC.
Roberts and Comcast have a number of regional sports networks including Comcast Sports Net in Chicago featuring the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox; Philadelphia (Roberts’s 76ers and Flyers along with Phillies baseball and local college sports), CSN Washington (Capitals, Wizards and DC United games along with Washington Redskins programming), Roberts has a partnership with the San Francisco Giants and Rupert Murdoch’s FOX in San Francisco in the Comcast SportsNet Bay Area channel which features Giants, Golden State Warriors, San Jose Earthquakes and college sports. Another regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet California is fully owned by Roberts and has the Bay Area sports teams that are not on the Bay Area channel, the Oakland A’s, the San Jose Sharks, some Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers programming along with the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs.
Roberts is also part of the jointly owned SportsNet New York with Time Warner Cable and the New York Mets, which features Mets games and programming, New York Jets programming and some college sports. Comcast also owns a sports network in the Pacific Northwest that revolves around Portland Trail Blazers and Vancouver Canucks games along with college sports and in New England, CSN New England has the rights to Boston Celtics games.
Additionally, Comcast has a piece of the MountainWest Sports Network which is a joint venture with the CBS College Sports Network and the Mountain West Conference and the entire programming consists of conference related games and shows. Comcast also has a piece of Major League Baseball’s MLB Network.
So just why does Roberts want NBCUniversal?
It would make Comcast an even bigger player in the cable/broadband world. Comcast would add USA, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC to its assets and would get a piece of the broadband video streaming site Hulu.
Comcast and Roberts would get significant sports content as well. The 2010 and 2012 Olympics, the Sunday Night NFL package along with the NHL’s New Year’s Day game and the Stanley Cup playoffs. NBC also has the French Open and Wimbledon in tennis and a number of major golf tournaments including the US Open. That fits into Comcast’s sports strategy but more importantly, Roberts might be able to leverage his Versus network into a competition with ESPN for rights to the NFL, MLB, NBA to go along with his NHL agreement.
NBC’s deal with the National Football League ends in 2013. Most of NBC’s partnerships with sports leagues are revenue sharing ventures except the NFL and Olympics agreements. The International Olympic Committee has put off negotiating a new American TV rights deal until 2011 for the 2014 Sochi Games. Roberts could be at the table for those talks. It is not unknown if Roberts will keep NBCUniversal Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol around. Ebersol walked away from agreements with the NFL in 1997, Major League Baseball in 2000, the National Basketball Association in 2002 and the Belmont Stakes in 2005 because rights fees had escalated to the point where networks began losing money on the properties.
Roberts funds a large number of sports teams and college sports conferences through his cable TV ventures. If Roberts gets NBC, will the network become a player for the NBA, MLB and perhaps the Bowl Championship Series or is network TV dead? That is a question that Roberts can only answer if he latches onto NBC?
Taking on ESPN will be a daunting task as the Disney Company is shifting into the broadband business with ESPN360 but an NBC deal might change the equation and allow Roberts to go after the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Olympics with the combinations of networks and a major broadband presence at hand should the Comcast take over of NBC be approved by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and other regulatory agencies.
Comcast, if the deal goes through with NBC, would control a significant portion of programming. In 2004, Roberts failed to gain control of Disney through a hostile takeover. This time, it appears that Roberts will have an easier time in gaining control of a major United States media company but it will not be easy.
The French-owned company, Vivendi, has to sign off on the deal as it owns 20 percent of NBCUniversal, and there are the various reviews from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. There also could be private citizens who file objections. But General Electric wants to get rid of NBC, which makes life a lot easier for Roberts in his bid to make Comcast an even more omnipotent communications force.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Why Brian Roberts Wants NBC
By Evan Weiner
November 17, 2009
11:30 AM EST
(New York, N. Y.) – Nearly five and a half years after failing to gain control of the Walt Disney Company, Brian Roberts’s Comcast Corporation’s cable TV multiple systems operation is on the verge of reeling in NBCUniversal and gaining control of NBC’s various properties including the NBC network, a number of NBC owned television stations along with cable TV outlets including Bravo, MSNBC, the USA Network and CNBC and a movie studio.
General Electric is ready to give up 51 percent of NBC and remain a minority partner. General Electric purchased NBC’s parent company, RCA in 1986. NBC does not fit in with General Electric’s core businesses. Roberts wants to make Comcast bigger and perhaps rewrite communications history.
In February 2004, Roberts made a $66 billion offer to take over Disney but the Disney board refused to play ball with the Philadelphia-based cable TV CEO. By 2004, Comcast had become the United States biggest cable TV multiple systems operator. Roberts went after the ABC TV network along with the Disney film studio, ESPN and other Disney-owned cable TV networks, the various ABC radio networks and theme parks.
In 2004, Roberts had a rather weak cable TV sports network, the Outdoor Life Network and a number of other cable entities including E! Entertainment Television, the Golf Channel and ownership in the National Basketball Association’s Philadelphia 76ers and the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers. What Roberts really wanted was ESPN, which was a cash cow for Disney in 2004 and continues to be a major source of funding for Disney to this day.
Disney rejected Roberts’s overtures and in April 2004, Roberts gave up on the bid.
Comcast is a major player in the video distribution industry whether it is through cable TV or broadband. Roberts is also a major player in the American sports industry and capturing NBC would substantially increase what presently is a large sports company.
Among Roberts’ holdings is Comcast Spectacor (the Flyers, 76ers, the company manages the teams’ arena along with skating rinks in the Philadelphia area and the company’s Global Spectrum manages more than 20 arenas and stadiums in the United States, Canada and Croatia including the new soccer stadium in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester, the Arizona Cardinals stadium in Glendale, and the Glens Falls Civic Center in Glens Falls, New York which houses the Flyers’ American Hockey League affiliate. Comcast also owes Ovations Food Services, a concessions company that provides food and drinks to various arenas and other facilities in the US and has a sports and events ticketing company.). Comcast also produces figure skating shows on NBC.
Roberts and Comcast have a number of regional sports networks including Comcast Sports Net in Chicago featuring the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox; Philadelphia (Roberts’s 76ers and Flyers along with Phillies baseball and local college sports), CSN Washington (Capitals, Wizards and DC United games along with Washington Redskins programming), Roberts has a partnership with the San Francisco Giants and Rupert Murdoch’s FOX in San Francisco in the Comcast SportsNet Bay Area channel which features Giants, Golden State Warriors, San Jose Earthquakes and college sports. Another regional sports network, Comcast SportsNet California is fully owned by Roberts and has the Bay Area sports teams that are not on the Bay Area channel, the Oakland A’s, the San Jose Sharks, some Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers programming along with the Sacramento Kings and Monarchs.
Roberts is also part of the jointly owned SportsNet New York with Time Warner Cable and the New York Mets, which features Mets games and programming, New York Jets programming and some college sports. Comcast also owns a sports network in the Pacific Northwest that revolves around Portland Trail Blazers and Vancouver Canucks games along with college sports and in New England, CSN New England has the rights to Boston Celtics games.
Additionally, Comcast has a piece of the MountainWest Sports Network which is a joint venture with the CBS College Sports Network and the Mountain West Conference and the entire programming consists of conference related games and shows. Comcast also has a piece of Major League Baseball’s MLB Network.
So just why does Roberts want NBCUniversal?
It would make Comcast an even bigger player in the cable/broadband world. Comcast would add USA, Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC to its assets and would get a piece of the broadband video streaming site Hulu.
Comcast and Roberts would get significant sports content as well. The 2010 and 2012 Olympics, the Sunday Night NFL package along with the NHL’s New Year’s Day game and the Stanley Cup playoffs. NBC also has the French Open and Wimbledon in tennis and a number of major golf tournaments including the US Open. That fits into Comcast’s sports strategy but more importantly, Roberts might be able to leverage his Versus network into a competition with ESPN for rights to the NFL, MLB, NBA to go along with his NHL agreement.
NBC’s deal with the National Football League ends in 2013. Most of NBC’s partnerships with sports leagues are revenue sharing ventures except the NFL and Olympics agreements. The International Olympic Committee has put off negotiating a new American TV rights deal until 2011 for the 2014 Sochi Games. Roberts could be at the table for those talks. It is not unknown if Roberts will keep NBCUniversal Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol around. Ebersol walked away from agreements with the NFL in 1997, Major League Baseball in 2000, the National Basketball Association in 2002 and the Belmont Stakes in 2005 because rights fees had escalated to the point where networks began losing money on the properties.
Roberts funds a large number of sports teams and college sports conferences through his cable TV ventures. If Roberts gets NBC, will the network become a player for the NBA, MLB and perhaps the Bowl Championship Series or is network TV dead? That is a question that Roberts can only answer if he latches onto NBC?
Taking on ESPN will be a daunting task as the Disney Company is shifting into the broadband business with ESPN360 but an NBC deal might change the equation and allow Roberts to go after the 2014, 2016 and 2018 Olympics with the combinations of networks and a major broadband presence at hand should the Comcast take over of NBC be approved by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice and other regulatory agencies.
Comcast, if the deal goes through with NBC, would control a significant portion of programming. In 2004, Roberts failed to gain control of Disney through a hostile takeover. This time, it appears that Roberts will have an easier time in gaining control of a major United States media company but it will not be easy.
The French-owned company, Vivendi, has to sign off on the deal as it owns 20 percent of NBCUniversal, and there are the various reviews from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission. There also could be private citizens who file objections. But General Electric wants to get rid of NBC, which makes life a lot easier for Roberts in his bid to make Comcast an even more omnipotent communications force.
eweiner@mcn.tv
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