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Welcome back to The Varsity, my twice-weekly private email on the power and the money and the egos behind your favorite sports teams. Happy Memorial Day!
I am back home in Washington, D.C., after an incredible week manning Puck’s lush Costa Rican bureau. My week away saw precious little movement in my two sports media obsessions of the moment: The NBA talks are inching forward, and Comcast’s R.S.N. talks with Diamond Sports have stagnated. Today’s email features a back-and-forth on the industry’s most pressing topics, particularly the growing importance of sports in the streaming business, with Julia Alexander. Nobody’s more clued into the streaming world than Julia, and her contention that Netflix isn’t going to be a big sports bidder, like Disney or NBCUniversal, should provide a dose of harsh reality to every rights owner that is dreaming of a money bath.
One more reminder to stop forwarding this email to colleagues who can clearly afford to subscribe on their own. The worst transgressors will be forced to listen to Marchand’s dissertation on 17th century romantic poetry.
Let’s get to it…
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| The Starting Five: Memorial Day Edition |
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- Paramount’s Charter saga: Just as Paramount Global, with its portfolio of little-watched cable channels, went into renewal talks with the country’s largest cable operator, its debt was downgraded and its C.E.O. was fired. Paramount was also in the middle of...
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
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The first-ever MLB regular season game in the state of Alabama will be held at Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ballpark in the United States and former home of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues on June 20, 2024. “MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues” will feature the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, and fans not in Birmingham can witness history on FOX.
This experience, scheduled around Juneteenth, will include a variety of activities as a tribute to the Negro Leagues and its greatest living player – Hall of Famer, Giants Legend, Birmingham native, and Birmingham Black Barons outfielder Willie Mays.
Opened in August 1910, Rickwood Field has welcomed many of baseball’s most legendary players into its hallowed grounds. It was the site of the final Negro League World Series game in October 1948 and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Learn more about this historic event.
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| Does Netflix Really Need the NFL? |
| Streaming analyst Julia Alexander joins John for a brutally honest conversation about the state of streaming in its sports rights era, and why Amazon, not Netflix, is going after the biggest deals. |
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| A decade after I first started writing about the promise of tech companies like Facebook and Twitter getting involved in sports, some digital platforms have become legitimate players. Amazon, of course, has taken the biggest step into the arena, with multibillion-dollar deals for Thursday Night Football and, potentially, the NBA too. Now we’re seeing Netflix (WWE, the NFL Christmas games), Google/YouTube (Sunday Ticket), and Apple (MLS, some MLB) making significant... |
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| FOUR STORIES WE’RE TALKING ABOUT |
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| Zaz Game Theory |
| Envisioning David Zaslav’s internal monologue. |
| WILLIAM D. COHAN |
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| The Ron Revival |
| Chronicling Ron DeSantis’s post-’24-campaign revival. |
| TARA PALMERI |
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