ESPN collects hundreds of millions of dollars in rights fees from cable subscribers, before selling a single advertisement. In The Game to Show the Games, Morgan Wick exposes how this lucrative revenue stream and the competition between media conglomerates has become a billion-dollar boon for sports leagues across the nation and the world, and how this has shaken up the rest of the television industry. Whether you’re an avid sports fan, an active sports hater, or just someone wondering why your cable bill is so high, The Game to Show the Games is a must-read.
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Further reading
I’ve been writing about the battle for sports on television on this site for nearly nine years. Here are some of the more relevant and important posts I’ve written on the issue in the past, expanding and providing more information on points made in the book, as well as additional content that didn’t make it into the book, sorted by the chapter they most relate to. I’m still writing about these issues today; you can keep up on them by following my Game to Show the Games category.
Chapter 1: Rags to Riches
- I’m actually tempted to find the e-mail address of a BCS commissioner and e-mail this to them. (November 17, 2008)
Chapter 2: Follow the Leader
- The most pivotal day in “Versus” history? (June 7, 2007)
- The post we don’t want ESPN to read (March 9, 2009)
- The prospects of the unholy union of Comcast and NBC from a sports perspective (December 5, 2009)
- Belated Notes on the NCAA Tournament’s New Contract (May 4, 2010)
- Let the sports television wars begin! (June 9, 2011)
- The war for TV sports supremacy, one year in (March 2, 2012)
- Say hello to the Fox Sports Network? (March 28, 2012)
- A Closer Look at Fox’s All-Sports Network Plans (October 15, 2012)
- Why ESPN effectively created a Fox Sports network – and why NBC was never going to compete with either of them (October 25, 2012)
- 2 years of the Sports TV wars, and the coming Year of Fox (January 18, 2013)
- The Fox Sports 1 Gambit (August 16, 2013)
- Does Sports Explain Why Fox Wanted to Buy Time Warner? (July 16, 2014)
- TGTSTG Bonus Content: How Comcast Went from Cable Company to Sports Power (January 10, 2016)
Chapter 3: Printing Money
- The UFC’s new TV deal and its impact (August 18, 2011)
- More dispatches from the Wars (October 18, 2011)
- Catching up on the sports television wars (December 16, 2011)
- What Arab oil has to do with the Premier League – and the sports TV wars (August 9, 2012)
- The major-league-baseball contract post-mortem (October 4, 2012)
- The Premier League is headed to NBC (October 29, 2012)
- The Hunt for Your Favorite Team’s Games (December 4, 2014)
- TGTSTG Bonus Content: How European Soccer Conquered America (With Fox’s Help) (January 11, 2016)
Chapter 4: Big Man on Campus
- As the Realignment Turns (June 11, 2010)
- The realignment wheel keeps on turning… (November 30, 2010)
- College football’s moment of truth (September 30, 2011)
- Could the BCS Save the Bowl System – by Destroying It? (April 5, 2012)
- The Mountain West Conference comes crawling back to ESPN (May 3, 2012)
- Is ESPN the Godfather of college sports? (May 4, 2012)
- Could the SEC Launch Its Own Network? (May 22, 2012)
- Quote of the Day: (October 29, 2014)
- TGTSTG Bonus Content: The Saga of the Longhorn Network (January 12, 2016)
- Will an ACC Network Be Obsolete Before It Launches? (July 29, 2016)
Chapter 5: King of Sports
- The twilight of the National Football League (October 19, 2009)
- Handicapping the Thursday Night Football race (September 6, 2011)
- Breaking down what the NFL’s new TV deals mean (December 19, 2011)
- What does the NFL Network’s expanded schedule mean for the NFL’s efforts to sell some of it? (February 3, 2012)
- Making sense of the Thursday Night Football deal (February 10, 2014)
Chapter 6: All Sports are Local
- The local sports television wars (March 29, 2012)
- Cox, the Hornets, and the local sports TV wars (May 30, 2012)
- What can baseball do to save itself? (August 13, 2014)
- When and how did broadcast television lose the battle to cable? (August 18, 2014)
- An Open Letter to Steve Ballmer (September 28, 2015)
Chapter 7: Fighting for Scraps
- Read on for a SPECIAL OFFER on Television(r)! (August 19, 2008)
- I delayed four weeks for THIS? (September 18, 2008)
- What does the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger mean for you? (February 14, 2014)
- Is Aereo Legal? Should It Be? (March 5, 2014)
- Report: WGN America to Drop Chicago Sports (June 1, 2014)
- Cable Network Musical Chairs and TNA on Destination America (Huh?) (November 20, 2014)
- Incentive Auction FAQ (April 11, 2016)
Chapter 8: Breaking Free
- Let’s look at the big picture. (June 4, 2009)
- I like a la carte too, but let’s not get too excited. (September 11, 2009)
- The Future of Content, Part II: The End of Television (Or, Has ESPN – And Everyone Else in the Sports TV Wars – Already Lost the Future?) (February 16, 2012)
- The Future of Sports and Broadcast Television (August 20, 2013)
- In Defense of Broadcast Television (August 28, 2013)
- Breaking Bad and the future of scripted linear television (September 16 ,2013)
- The Problem With Internet Companies Getting Major Sports Rights (November 4, 2013)
- Against the Tyranny of Nielsen (October 9, 2014)
- The Other Threat to Net Neutrality (November 13, 2014)
- How Broadcast TV is Like a Bus (November 25, 2014)
- SlingTV Isn’t Breaking Up the Cable Bundle. It’s Preserving It. (January 5, 2015)
- What the Mayweather-Pacquiao Distribution Problems Say About the Future of Linear Television (May 4, 2015)
- Binge On and Stream TV: Showing Why Net Neutrality Isn’t Enough (January 1, 2016)
- Does ESPN LIKE the “Competition” from Fox and NBC? (January 5, 2016)
- Towards a New Broadcast Television Compact (January 13, 2016)
- The Sling TV-style service ESPN really fears (and why Sling TV has what it has) (February 3, 2016)
- Does ESPN Have a Fixed Cost Problem? (February 5, 2016)
- TGTSTG Bonus Content: Inside the Future of Video (February 26, 2016)