Latest news with #AndrewMarchand
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Climate
- Hindustan Times
NBA Finals: OKC vs Pacers Game 2 takes first hit from tornado warning in Oklahoma - Here's what's happening
NBA Finals: Game 2 between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers was affected by a tornado warning affecting the Paycom Center area on Sunday. The game wasn't canceled, but the ABC and ESPN broadcast was shifted to remote locations, meaning broadcasters will not be at the venue for the big game. ESPN/ABC were forced to produce the broadcast remotely, according to the Athletic's Andrew Marchand. He said that Mike Breen and company will still be at the courtside. 'ESPN/ABC may have to produce Game 2 of the NBA Finals remotely because of a tornado warning in OKC. Mike Breen & company will still be commenting from the court side, but the production trucks outside the arena may not be available. ESPN would control the pictures and productions from either Bristol or LA,' Marchang posted on X, platform formerly known as Twitter. Read More: Tyrese Haliburton claps back with brutal comeback after NBA Finals heroics, sheds 'most overrated' label On Sunday, forecasters issued a tornado warning for Oklahoma City and surrounding areas, with severe thunderstorms, large hail, and possible embedded tornadoes. The warning, active during game preparations, followed a similar event on June 3 that diverted the Pacers' flight to Tulsa. Paycom Center implemented safety protocols, directing fans to shelters if needed. No reports indicate player evacuations at the moment. Oklahoma City will look to avenge the close loss in Game 1 vs the Indiana Pacers. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is on the brink to reach the 3000-point mark this season, would like to get his first finals win. 'I said this so many times, I don't play for the individual stuff,' Gilgeous-Alexander said. 'I don't play for anything else besides winning. I never have in my whole life.' The Thunder, the NBA's top overall seed entering the playoffs after going 68-14 in the regular season, lost Game 1 to the Pacers on Thursday night 111-110. If the Pacers win Game 2, they'll likely become overwhelming favorites. The series will shift to Indianapolis for Games 3 and 4 on Wednesday and Friday.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Will Steph Curry move to TV? Will ESPN's booth sputter? Will fans watch? NBA Finals Media Preview
Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand are sports media writers for The Athletic. They converse every couple of weeks on sports media topics. Today, they discuss the NBA Finals from a media perspective, with thoughts on the future of ESPN's NBA Finals booth; the expectation of the NBA Finals drawing low viewership (Indianapolis is the 25th-largest media market in the country and Oklahoma City is No. 47). Plus, they discuss 'Inside The NBA' moving to ABC/ESPN next season and whether viewers should expect changes from ESPN management to the show. Advertisement Richard Deitsch: Let's start with what you reported on Wednesday: ESPN is planning to reevaluate its entire NBA on-air game roster outside of Mike Breen, including Doris Burke's spot as a Finals announcer not guaranteed for next season, and Richard Jefferson's contract expiring and his broadcasting destination next year still up for grabs. What's been clear is that this booth lacks great on-air chemistry. Each broadcaster individually has shined elsewhere. They know the sport cold. But it's not a symphony. It's a three-piece band, each doing its own thing. It is also an issue of ESPN's own making. What I wrote in July 2023 remains true today: ESPN laying off Jeff Van Gundy was a brutally bad decision. Andrew Marchand: I think what gets lost is it takes time. Joe Buck left Fox for ESPN because the contract was for so much and he would work less, but another part of his calculus was staying with Troy Aikman. It is hard to build chemistry quickly with a new partner, and Buck did not want to start over. Breen is an all-time great, but the play-by-play broadcaster is most responsible for making a new team work. It's not easy, and it has shown these past two years. The NBA Finals is a hard place for on-the-job training. Deitsch: Management has a decision: Do we once again change our booth, or ride this one in the hopes of the booth naturally growing? The turnover over the past three years has been disjointed for ESPN viewers. Some of this is on ESPN management. Some was out of its control. Could they have anticipated Doc Rivers bailing out of that deal so early? I think the gamble on J.J. Reddick was logical. If Danny Hurley had taken the Lakers job, maybe this is Year 2 of that booth, and who knows? But can you turn this booth over yet again? We probably won't get into this, but I also guarantee that, internally, ESPN is worried that NBC and Amazon Prime Video are going to come out of the box strong, and people are going to make comparisons. Advertisement Marchand: I think you just hit on the most interesting subplot: Neither Prime nor NBC have hired a No. 1. Amazon has Stan Van Gundy as its top analyst so far, while NBC has Jamal Crawford or Reggie Miller. (Now, I'm putting up my Brian Windhorst two fingers). Why have they done that? There is an upcoming class of analysts these platforms are eying for their new 11-year deals: LeBron James, Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Steve Kerr will all potentially go into broadcasting in some fashion. James and Curry as game analysts would cost hundreds of millions, while Green seems more of a studio guy. If Kerr stepped away from coaching, all three NBA national partners would likely want him on games. Deitsch: Onto another topic. It has no impact on whether NBA fans will enjoy the finals or whether the finals will produce great basketball, but in our world, viewership metrics are always a significant story. Heading into the finals, the NBA has a good viewership story to tell. Sports Business Journal's Austin Karp reported that the 2025 NBA postseason is up 3 percent across NBA TV, ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, TNT and truTV. One individual highlight: The Eastern Conference finals averaged seven million viewers across the six games. That's up three percent from the corresponding Western Conference finals on TNT the year before. With Indianapolis and Oklahoma City being small media markets and lacking a fundamental star such as Steph Curry or LeBron James, there is an expectation: That this series is going to struggle to draw viewership unless it goes very deep. My bold prediction: If the series goes to Game 7, which most people do not expect, it will draw 22.5 million viewers, more than this year's college football title game. It's a prediction based on momentum, as well as Nielsen capturing better out-of-home measurement for sporting events (which means higher reported data for televised sporting events). Alas, I don't expect it to get to Game 7. How do you look at this? Advertisement Marchand: I think the world has largely changed with us all being more connected. The idea of the big market vs. small market is not the issue with these teams. They just are nameless to the casual fan. If OKC becomes a dynasty, I think that changes, and they may become more interesting. To me, it is less that the markets are small, but rather the stars are not as well-known. Deitsch: Let's hit on one more topic of great interest to sports viewers: 'Inside The NBA' moving to ESPN next season. I have witnessed your media tour on this topic, and we agree that ESPN isn't going to tinker with the show. They literally gave up game inventory for it. (Sure, the game inventory wasn't SEC football, but they outlayed money.) We already have proof of concept here. Jimmy Pitaro and Co. have let 'The Pat McAfee Show' run essentially untouched. Same with anything out of Omaha Productions. I don't worry about ESPN trying to censor Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith on any third-rail topic. But I am concerned about Inside the NBA getting the same kind of length in the postgame that it got on TNT. The ESPN programming grid is far more rigid. That's where I think the essence of the show could be hurt. Marchand: We'll see, but ESPN executives have eyes and ears. Pitaro made this deal to have 'Inside The NBA,' the most iconic studio show of all-time. Why would he or ESPN water down or ruin it? I can't promise that your fears won't be realized, but there is no way of knowing, except what they have said. I think the examples of what you said are accurate, and Pitaro has shown he's willing to outsource programming if he thinks it is additive. I think this column still holds true.
NBC Sports
6 days ago
- Business
- NBC Sports
Report: ESPN acquisition of NFL Media is "progressing"
One of these days, ESPN will buy NFL Media. The deal has been in the works for months. Last May, it was close to being done. And then it wasn't. Negotiations finally resumed in February. Now, Andrew Marchand of (via Brandon Contes of reports that the deal is progressing. 'There is optimism on both sides,' Marchand said on his podcast. 'Nothing is completed as of yet. If you're ESPN, you want to do that deal because you have your direct-to-consumer. Fantasy is a big aspect of it. They could be the official home of fantasy football, which you can put that NFL logo on everything, and that helps you.' The key is this. The people who run the show want to dump the asset. 'The NFL owners, they want to do this,' Marchand said. 'They've been trying to unload NFL Media for a while it feels like a good thing for ESPN to have that further relationship with the NFL going forward.' The league seemingly spent much of 2024 cutting costs at the in-house network, ditching an evening studio show for a much cheaper all-remote program and bizarrely moving a popular morning show from New York to L.A., where it starts each weekday at 5:00 a.m. local time. Marchand previously reported that the deal will include a price tag in the range of $2 billion. Whatever the number, it'll likely be more than the property is worth, because that's the power the NFL has. There's a strategic reason for ESPN to overpay. It will cement the company's status as a broadcast partner beyond 2029, when all deals will be up for bid — and when one of the existing networks that televise NFL games could find itself without a chair.
NBC Sports
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC Sports
Report: Shannon Sharpe was under consideration for the Around The Horn time slot
This week, ESPN's Around The Horn goes dark, after more than 22 years. The move has been coming for months, and ESPN will be filling the time slot with, well, something. Andrew Marchand of reports that, before Shannon Sharpe took a hiatus after being sued for sexual assault and other claims, Sharpe was considered for 'a potential Stephen A. Smith project' in the 5:00 p.m. ET window. There are no further details regarding what Sharpe's role would have been, or whether others (including Smith) would have been part of the on-air cast. Sharpe, despite exiting ESPN's First Take and planning to 'devot[e] this time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me,' has continued to produce podcasts on a regular basis. ESPN has still not announced its plan for the show that leads into Pardon The Interruption. The lawsuit against Sharpe was filed on April 20. Sharpe has denied the allegations. His lawyer, Lanny Davis, admitted two days after the filing of the lawsuit that Sharpe had offered 'at least' $10 million to settle the case before it was filed.
New York Times
10-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
NFL on YouTube, Caitlin Clark, Nick Saban: This week's sports business case studies
The Athletic reported out and published more than 60 stories this week covering the universe of sports business, across every sport. Each week, sports business editor Dan Shanoff picks out a few that intrigued him most. Don't miss any of The Athletic's sports business coverage — if you have the app or are logged into the website, 'follow' the sports business category. Or simply bookmark this page to your home screen for easy access. Advertisement Our Andrew Marchand got the scoop: When the NFL announces its international games Tuesday, it is highly likely the Week 1 Friday prime-time game in Brazil will exclusively air on YouTube, the platform that eclipses every other video consumption/distribution network around the globe. The game will be free for viewers. (Presumably, Google will be paying the NFL for the right to exclusively stream the game, as NBC did last year to get the Week 1 Brazil game on Peacock.) Last year's Week 1 game on Peacock had 14 million viewers, so imagine how many YouTube might be able to drive with virtually no barriers to viewing. Why it's interesting to me: Industry observers have been waiting a long time for Google/YouTube to enter the exclusive live sports arena (and separate that from Google's deal with the NFL for rights to distribute the 'Sunday Ticket' package). You can understand why the NFL would be eager to do this — another deep-pocketed bidder for NFL rights only helps the league when those new rights come up for sale. It is one thing for Caitlin Clark's WNBA games to top a million viewers during the regular season. It is another to top a million viewers for an otherwise anodyne Sunday afternoon preseason exhibition against a Brazilian national team with little to no name recognition among U.S. basketball fans. As noted in Richard Deitsch's coverage, that tops any NBA preseason game except two from LeBron James. That made this game an incredible experiment for the preeminent sports media thesis: 'The Caitlin Clark effect is real.' The main (if not only) reason to tune in last Sunday was to see Clark. Weird time slot. Not a ton of promotion. Anonymous opponent. And fans still sought it out. Now imagine a game in prime time against an opponent with an enthusiastic fan base of its own, like the defending champion New York Liberty or Angel Reese's Chicago Sky or A'ja Wilson's Las Vegas Aces. It is an open question whether a network could air an Indiana Fever intra-team scrimmage and draw half a million people watching Clark. I'd take the over. College football coaching legend Nick Saban (along with Texas Tech board chair Cody Campbell) would chair a new commission on college athletics that President Donald Trump is interested in forming. Saban has been outspoken about the state of college sports, and Texas Tech has been at the forefront of tapping high-net-worth boosters to bolster its sports programs through new name, image and likeness rules (or lack thereof). Advertisement Will this commission have any actual formal power to create legislation? No. Will it be able to traverse the current gridlock to get Congress to agree on a national bill to adjust the college sports landscape? Again, almost certainly not. Will it add new complexity to an already-complicated college sports landscape? Surely! I'm a branding enthusiast, so this week's reveal that Utah Hockey Club would be known as the 'Mammoth' was a notable development. I'm a fan: Love that they went with the singular ('Mammoth') over the plural ('Mammoths') … love the logo (including, as others have noted, that subtle image of the state outline on the left side near the ear) … love the instant rallying cry, 'Tusks up!' (I am imagining a corresponding hand gesture that looks not unlike the way USC fans curl their index and middle fingers, although I'd flip it so that the fingertips are pointing toward your face.) I also love that the team was so open to including fan sentiment in the decision-making. Dan's branding grade: A- 1. Why tennis players and the ball disappear from your screen when watching matches (and what networks can do about it). 2. This behind-the-scenes look at how F1 partnered with Lego to create life-size versions of its race cars, made from Legos.
