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Unsurprising sports TV war news

December 27, 2015November 14, 2012 by Morgan Wick

Of course CBS Sports Network would pick up the Arena League. It’s just one more tiny league to fill time on CBSSN.

Actually, the Arena League might be a pretty big get for CBSSN, and quite possibly the biggest non-college programming on the network (unless you count odd US Open tennis coverage). It wasn’t that long ago, before the ESPN experiment and bankruptcy, that the Arena League was considered on the level of MLS and the WNBA. The earlier moves by the CFL and UFL to find networks proved that it wasn’t the NFL restricting them to “NFLN or bust”, making it all but inevitable the Arena League would fall short, especially after the final indignation earlier this year when NFLN, Olympics-restricted into carrying an NFL preseason game the night of the ArenaBowl in New Orleans, had it played at the relatively ungodly hour of 9 PM CT with a three-hour time slot. Especially with NBCSN picking up the CFL, it wasn’t out of the question for the Arena League to return to its previous stomping grounds of NBC, so for CBS to pick it up is a pretty big deal and one of those “baby steps” needed to escape being a laughingstock. It’s telling that the ArenaBowl will be aired on the CBS broadcast network on a Saturday afternoon.

I’m not even adding the Sugar Bowl shacking up with ESPN now that it’s taking the Champions Bowl matchup, since we kind of knew that already.

					Sport-Specific Networks
10.5	14.5	7	6.5	1	1.5

Ugh.

November 13, 2012 by Morgan Wick

So, I’m theoretically working on a project where my current stage of research involves hanging out on TV Tropes, in hopes of it feeling less like work.

Today, I spent so much time doing completely unrelated things on TV Tropes that I didn’t even submit waiver claims for any of my fantasy teams.

I have no idea what’s wrong with me or how to fix it, but whatever it is I have it bad.

FF50 Challenge Power Rankings – Week 9

November 8, 2012 by Morgan Wick

I’ve been trying to refrain from abandoning teams until they fall below the Shark League team, and naturally it might be my single worst team. Of course, a lot of teams got really wonky this week because of the effect of Doug Martin’s big game, and the Shark team just so happened to go up against him, but it probably wouldn’t have won anyway. And now this week I have to bring in two new players to fill my running back spots because of byes and injury. Aargh.

On the plus side, I have two one-loss teams and my only one-win team has had two byes, and my median team is 5-4, so you could say I mostly have this fantasy thing beat. Well, not counting Fleaflicker, Yahoo, or the Shark leagues, and allowing for mediocrity on the NFL teams. My median ESPN team is actually better than my median Fox teams at this point, even though the only two 8-1 teams are Fox.

Rk	LW	Name	Identity	Rec	Str	Lg Rnk
1	2	Morgan’s Team	Fox 8	8-1	W 7	1^st of 10
2	4	Morgan’s Team	Fox 2	8-1	W 5	2^nd of 10
3	6	Team Wick	ESPN 2	7-2	W 2	1^st of 10
4	3	Single Wing	Flea 1	7-2	L 1	2^nd of 12
5	1	The Blue Eyes	CBS 2	7-2	L 1	2^nd of 12
6	9	Team Wick	ESPN 5	7-2	W 5	3^rd of 12
7	10	Team Wick	ESPN 9	7-2	W 3	3^rd of 12
8	15	Team Wick	ESPN 10	6-3	W 4	2^nd of 12
9	16	Team Wick	ESPN 8	6-3	W 5	2^nd of 12
10	12	Team Wick	ESPN 6	6-3	W 3	2^nd of 10
11	14	morganwick	NFL 6	6-3	W 2	2^nd of 10
12	11	Morgan’s Team	Fox 6	6-3	W 1	2^nd of 10
13	18	The Experiment	NFL 2	6-3	W 1	2^nd of 10
14	5	Morgan’s Team	Fox 5	6-3	L 1	3^rd of 10
15	8	Morgan’s Team	Fox 1	6-3	L 1	3^rd of 10
16	13	Morgan’s Team	Fox 4	6-3	W 1	3^rd of 10
17	7	Terrible Trios	Yahoo 3	6-3	L 1	3^rd of 10
18	17	Morgan’s Team	Fox 3	6-3	W 3	3^rd of 10
19	20	morganwick	NFL 1	5-4	W 2	3^rd of 10
20	27	Split Backs	Flea 2	5-4	W 1	3^rd of 6
21	22	The Lucky Ones	Yahoo 7	5-4	W 1	5^th of 10
22	19	Team Wick	ESPN 3	5-4	L 1	5^th of 10
23	24	The Green Eyes	CBS 3	5-4	W 4	6^th of 12
24	25	Morgan’s Team	Fox 7	5-4	W 2	6^th of 10
25	26	morganwick	NFL 5	5-4	W 3	6^th of 10
26	28	Team Wick	ESPN 1	4-4-1	W 2	6^th of 10
27	23	Team Wick	ESPN 7	4-5	L 1	6^th of 12
28	21	Single Bound	Yahoo 1	4-5	L 2	7^th of 10
29	35	morganwick	NFL 3	4-5	W 1	7^th of 10
30	36	The Red Eye	CBS 1	4-5	W 3	9^th of 12
31	33	Fantastic Fifteen	Yahoo 4	4-5	W 2	8^th of 10
32	29	Team Wick	ESPN 4	3-5-1	L 1	8^th of 10
33	32	Evil Twins	Yahoo 2	3-6	L 3	8^th of 10
34	38	Headed for the End Zone	Flea 6	3-6	W 1	10^th of 12
35	30	Quarters	Flea 4	3-6	L 1	7^th of 8
36	34	morganwick	NFL 4	3-6	L 1	9^th of 10
37	31	Nickel Package	Flea 5	3-6	L 1	11^th of 12
38	37	All-Star Squadron	Yahoo 5	2-7	L 1	10^th of 10
39	42	Number of the Beast	Yahoo 6	2-7	W 1	10^th of 10
40	39	The Infinite	Yahoo 8	2-7	L 1	10^th of 10
41	40	Green Lantern Corps	Shark	2-7	L 1	12^th of 12
42	41	Trips Wide	Flea 3	1-6	W 1	5^th of 5

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 9

November 6, 2012 by Morgan Wick

NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

Begins Sunday of Week 11
In effect during Weeks 11-17
Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
NFL schedules all games.
Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 18):

Selected game: Baltimore @ Pittsburgh.

Week 12 (November 25):

Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
Prospects: 6-3 v. 6-3; the Packers may have started out mediocre, but now this game might have the best chance to keep its spot.
Likely protections: Vikings-Bears or Rams-Cardinals if anything (FOX) and probably nothing (CBS) as Ravens-Chargers was their only real protection-worthy game and both teams have listed two protected games each, neither of which was this one.
Other possible games: Normally Thanksgiving Weekend means a paucity of good games, but here we have Vikings-Bears, Ravens-Chargers, Seahawks-Dolphins, and Falcons-Bucs.
Analysis: Vikings-Bears would be a very strong choice if it’s unprotected (a big if), but it’s become pretty lopsided at this point; the best it could do would probably be 6-4 v. 7-2, which might get flexed in against a weaker tentative, but as is wouldn’t be enough to overcome the tentative game bias against Packers-Giants at 6-3 v. 6-4. I’d still expect it to get the late afternoon feature spot. The other games all involve 4-4 teams, which isn’t remotely good enough against this competition.
Final prediction: Green Bay Packers @ New York Giants (no change).

Week 13 (December 2):

Tentative game: Philadelphia @ Dallas
Prospects: Very iffy at 3-5 v. 3-5 (and the Giants starting to pull away with the division); would even the NFC East factor overcome such mediocre teams?
Likely protections: 49ers-Rams or Vikings-Packers (FOX) and Steelers-Ravens (CBS).
Other possible games: Vikings-Packers would be the strongest alternative if it’s unprotected (another big if), as Seahawks-Bears might be a little too lopsided. Pats-Dolphins, Colts-Lions, and Bucs-Broncos are dark horses.

Week 14 (December 9):

Tentative game: Detroit @ Green Bay
Prospects: 4-4 v. 6-3. The Lions have largely escaped their mediocre start, though if it weren’t for the Packers’ own mediocre start this would probably look lopsided anyway.
Likely protections: Bears-Vikings or Cardinals-Seahawks if anything (FOX) and Chargers-Steelers (CBS).
Other possible games: With the Cardinals following their 4-0 start with a 5-game losing streak, Bears-Vikings and Dolphins-49ers are the only two options, and the former is dependent on being unprotected. At this point Bears-Vikings is probably too lopsided to overcome the tentative game bias anyway, and Dolphins-49ers is about the same as the tentative, which won’t overcome the tentative game bias either.

Week 15 (December 16):

Tentative game: San Francisco @ New England
Prospects: 6-2 v. 5-3, pretty much in the same shape as Packers-Giants, replacing the Packers with the Patriots and noting that the Niners aren’t quite all the way back to being that much of a name team.
Likely protections: Broncos-Ravens (probably not), Colts-Texans, Steelers-Cowboys, or nothing (CBS) and Giants-Falcons (FOX).
Other possible games: Packers-Bears (or if it’s protected, Giants-Falcons) is in the best shape, though Broncos-Ravens and Colts-Texans are also competitive. I doubt any of them can beat this tentative, though.

Week 16 (December 23):

Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
Prospects: 4-4 v. 3-5; no longer the worst of the tentative games, but maybe the most vulnerable. This game’s best chance to keep its spot may rest with the Jets getting on the Tebow bandwagon.
Likely protections: Giants-Ravens (FOX) and Bengals-Steelers if anything (CBS).
Other possible games: If Vikings-Packers is protected Week 13, this is probably the likeliest flex with Vikings-Texans giving NBC a shot to show the Vikings anyway, assuming it doesn’t become too lopsided, and 49ers-Seahawks a potential option if it does.

Week 17 (December 30):

Playoff positioning watch begins next week because I’m not setting up that on top of everything else in my life.

FF50 Challenge Power Rankings – Week 8

November 1, 2012 by Morgan Wick

Despite losing MJD, the Shark team finally picked up a second win this week… and naturally is still in the basement. But hey, at least that means the remaining one-win teams can finally be abandoned, especially since I managed to get all the lineups right except where Thursday Night was concerned, right? What’s that? Of the other three one-win teams, the only one that lost had Doug Martin on the bench (not that I would have necessarily started him anyway, or that it would have made a difference in the outcome)? Aargh.

Rk	LW	Name	Identity	Rec	Str	Lg Rnk
1	1	The Blue Eyes	CBS 2	7-1	W 4	1^st of 12
2	2	Morgan’s Team	Fox 8	7-1	W 6	1^st of 10
3	3	Single Wing	Flea 1	7-1	W 6	2^nd of 12
4	4	Morgan’s Team	Fox 2	7-1	W 4	2^nd of 10
5	12	Morgan’s Team	Fox 5	6-2	W 2	2^nd of 10
6	10	Team Wick	ESPN 2	6-2	W 1	2^nd of 10
7	7	Terrible Trios	Yahoo 3	6-2	W 1	2^nd of 10
8	9	Morgan’s Team	Fox 1	6-2	W 3	2^nd of 10
9	11	Team Wick	ESPN 5	6-2	W 4	3^rd of 12
10	5	Team Wick	ESPN 9	6-2	W 2	3^rd of 12
11	6	Morgan’s Team	Fox 6	5-3	L 1	1^st of 10
12	14	Team Wick	ESPN 6	5-3	W 2	3^rd of 10
13	8	Morgan’s Team	Fox 4	5-3	L 1	3^rd of 10
14	17	morganwick	NFL 6	5-3	W 1	3^rd of 10
15	15	Team Wick	ESPN 10	5-3	W 3	4^th of 12
16	16	Team Wick	ESPN 8	5-3	W 4	4^th of 12
17	23	Morgan’s Team	Fox 3	5-3	W 2	4^th of 10
18	13	The Experiment	NFL 2	5-3	L 2	5^th of 10
19	21	Team Wick	ESPN 3	5-3	W 1	5^th of 10
20	24	morganwick	NFL 1	4-4	W 1	5^th of 10
21	18	Single Bound	Yahoo 1	4-4	L 1	5^th of 10
22	19	The Lucky Ones	Yahoo 7	4-4	L 1	5^th of 10
23	28	Team Wick	ESPN 7	4-4	W 2	7^th of 12
24	29	The Green Eyes	CBS 3	4-4	W 3	7^th of 12
25	20	Morgan’s Team	Fox 7	4-4	W 1	6^th of 10
26	26	morganwick	NFL 5	4-4	W 2	6^th of 10
27	22	Split Backs	Flea 2	4-4	L 3	4^th of 6
28	31	Team Wick	ESPN 1	3-4-1	W 1	7^th of 10
29	30	Team Wick	ESPN 4	3-4-1	W 1	8^th of 10
30	35	Quarters	Flea 4	3-5	W 1	6^th of 8
31	33	Nickel Package	Flea 5	3-5	W 1	9^th of 12
32	25	Evil Twins	Yahoo 2	3-5	L 2	8^th of 10
33	32	Fantastic Fifteen	Yahoo 4	3-5	W 1	8^th of 10
34	37	morganwick	NFL 4	3-5	W 1	8^th of 10
35	27	morganwick	NFL 3	3-5	L 1	8^th of 10
36	34	The Red Eye	CBS 1	3-5	W 2	10^th of 12
37	38	All-Star Squadron	Yahoo 5	2-6	W 1	9^th of 10
38	36	Headed for the End Zone	Flea 6	2-6	L 1	11^th of 12
39	40	The Infinite	Yahoo 8	2-6	W 1	10^th of 10
40	41	Green Lantern Corps	Shark	2-6	W 1	12^th of 12
41	42	Trips Wide	Flea 3	1-6	W 1	5^th of 5
42	39	Number of the Beast	Yahoo 6	1-7	L 6	10^th of 10

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 8

October 30, 2012 by Morgan Wick

NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

Begins Sunday of Week 11
In effect during Weeks 11-17
Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
NFL schedules all games.
Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 18):

Tentative game: Baltimore @ Pittsburgh
Prospects: 5-2 v. 4-3 and one of the hottest rivalries in the NFL. Despite the Steelers’ mediocre start, it’s hard to see this one losing its spot.
Likely protections: Cardinals-Falcons (FOX) and Chargers-Broncos (CBS).
Other possible games: Colts-Patriots and Packers-Lions are really the only half-good games.
Analysis: At 5-3 v. 4-3, Colts-Patriots is the best of the alternatives and it’s roughly equivalent to Ravens-Steelers. The best it can do is 5-3 v. 5-3 going up against 5-3 v. 4-4, and the best Packers-Lions can do is similarly one win better on one side, 6-3 v. 4-4. That’s not beating the tentative game bias when it’s a rivalry like this (and even if Cardinals-Falcons wasn’t protected for some reason, it’s too lopsided to matter now). Expect Colts-Pats to settle for the CBS feature game spot.
Final prediction: Baltimore Ravens @ Pittsburgh Steelers (no change).

Week 12 (November 25):

Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
Prospects: 5-3 v. 6-2; the Packers may have started out mediocre, but now this game might have the best chance to keep its spot.
Likely protections: Vikings-Bears or Rams-Cardinals if anything (FOX) and probably nothing (CBS) as Ravens-Chargers was their only real protection-worthy game and both teams have listed two protected games each, neither of which was this one.
Other possible games: Normally Thanksgiving Weekend means a paucity of good games, but Vikings-Bears would be a very strong choice if it’s unprotected (a big if), enough to potentially be flexed in against weaker competition; as is it’ll probably get the late-afternoon feature spot. There are other options as well, but Seahawks-Dolphins is the only one not involving a 3-4 team (and the Seahawks are 4-4) and Bills-Colts is the least lopsided of the ones that do (followed by Ravens-Chargers and Falcons-Bucs).

Week 13 (December 2):

Tentative game: Philadelphia @ Dallas
Prospects: Very iffy at 3-4 v. 3-4 (and the Giants starting to pull away with the division), but never count out an NFC East showdown.
Likely protections: 49ers-Rams or Vikings-Packers (FOX) and Steelers-Ravens (CBS).
Other possible games: Vikings-Packers would be the strongest alternative if it’s unprotected (another big if), as Seahawks-Bears might be a little too lopsided; Pats-Dolphins is also an option, while Colts-Lions and Bucs-Broncos are dark horses.

Week 14 (December 9):

Tentative game: Detroit @ Green Bay
Prospects: 3-4 v. 5-3. The Lions have improved to the point that if this game weren’t already a tentative I’d be listing it as a “dark horse”. But the Packers are looking like the team that spent most of last year unbeaten, which could end up making it lopsided anyway.
Likely protections: Bears-Vikings or Cardinals-Seahawks if anything (FOX) and Chargers-Steelers (CBS).
Other possible games: Bears-Vikings would be the favorite if it wasn’t protected; otherwise Dolphins-49ers, despite being a bit lopsided, has the edge over a battle of 4-4 teams in Cardinals-Seahawks, though neither game is likely to overcome the tentative game bias.

Week 15 (December 16):

Tentative game: San Francisco @ New England
Prospects: 6-2 v. 5-3, pretty much in the same shape as Packers-Giants, replacing the Packers with the Patriots and noting that the Niners aren’t quite all the way back to being that much of a name team.
Likely protections: Broncos-Ravens (probably not), Colts-Texans, Steelers-Cowboys, or nothing (CBS) and Giants-Falcons (FOX).
Other possible games: Packers-Bears (or if it’s protected, Giants-Falcons) is in the best shape, though Broncos-Ravens and Colts-Texans are also competitive. Steelers-Broncos, Seahawks-Bills, and Lions-Cardinals are dark horses.

Week 16 (December 23):

Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
Prospects: 3-4 v. 3-5; possibly the worst of the tentative games. Even if the Jets are driving the Tebow bandwagon, that could just make it lopsided, especially given the alternatives.
Likely protections: Giants-Ravens (FOX) and Bengals-Steelers if anything (CBS).
Other possible games: If the Vikings are protected in Weeks 13 and 14, this is probably the likeliest flex with Vikings-Texans giving NBC a shot to show the Vikings anyway. Bears-Cardinals and 49ers-Seahawks could become lopsided, while Bills-Dolphins is a dark horse.

Week 17 (December 30):

Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9.

The Premier League is headed to NBC

December 27, 2015October 29, 2012 by Morgan Wick

It’s official: we are in the middle of a massive paradigm shift in the world of sports, and especially in how soccer is consumed in this country. Don’t believe me? With one exception that I bet won’t stay an exception for long, the top European leagues are now aligned with a network that didn’t exist a few months ago and an entity that didn’t have any soccer presence outside the Olympics a year ago.

I was somewhat shocked to find NBC bidding so aggressively that the Premier League reportedly told the incumbents, Fox and ESPN, late last week not to even bother showing up with a bid. Without the World Cup, with MLS for only two more years, with Formula 1 recently added to its portfolio, and with its dreams of competing with ESPN looking to be on life support, I didn’t think NBC had much motivation to make an aggressive bid for the Premier League.

In the end, though, after reading the announcement, I have to figure the deciding factor was the same one I thought might land NBC the World Cup but didn’t: NBC’s Spanish language presence. I get the impression the Premier League was never going to split up the English and Spanish language rights the way FIFA was willing to, and as a result, I have to imagine a big chunk of NBC’s bid – triple what Fox and ESPN’s joint bid was – was more to land Premier League rights for Telemundo and mun2 than for NBC Sports Network. Compared to most soccer rights, the Premier League has a disproportionately English-language audience in the United States, but it is still one of the two best soccer leagues in the world with multiple major teams, which I have to imagine still makes it a huge draw for Spanish-language eyeballs as well.

It sounds like NBC could make a concerted effort to put games on as many platforms as possible on a regular basis, including substantially more live games on the broadcast network than Fox was willing to show (maybe even involving teams not named Manchester United!), as well as CNBC, MSNBC, and maybe even Bravo or on a pay-per-view package, which could help resolve any Formula 1 conflicts; I can’t help but wonder whether Universal Sports might end up being an option, and whether or not it is could hint at the long-term plans for that network. (I’m very surprised to see USA even be brought up after NBC semi-publicly dropped all non-dog show sports programming from that network. Whether or not Comcast SportsNet might pick up Premier League games would be a very interesting possibility, fraught with plenty of political implications.)

I think this sends a pointed message that NBC has every intent on taking over the unified MLS package when that comes up in another year, possibly in both English and Spanish as well – although the Premier League deal will only coincide with a unified MLS deal for another year. As for the other contenders, while ESPN made noise about its continued commitment to soccer after losing the World Cup, I don’t see them as very motivated at all to hang on to MLS and US National Team rights, certainly compared to NBC and Fox; certainly this, combined with the earlier loss of UK Premier League rights, must make it a lot harder for them to hold on to Ian Darke and other English soccer announcers after the 2014 World Cup.

Perhaps the biggest impact, though, might be to Fox. What little chance there might have been that Fox wasn’t going to launch an all-sports network is gone now, and in all likelihood it’s going to launch at least two. Fox Soccer has lost almost all the programming that was worth it maintaining a separate identity; while Fox still has the Champions League and World Cup, they don’t do nearly as much to support the network as the Premier League did, and could easily survive the transition to a system of all-sports networks, while whatever else is left of Fox’s soccer programming might be kindly described as scraps. There is no reason for Fox to maintain Fox Soccer as a shell of its former self, and I fully expect Fox to be running at least one all-sports network by August 2013.

Without knowing how much beIN Sport bid, I have no way of knowing how much of this is NBC overbidding or ESPN and Fox underbidding. If NBC overbid, I have to wonder what their priorities are, as well as their grasp of the big picture given the F1 problem; some of Mark Lazarus’ comments in the SI interview linked above suggest NBC has become resigned to its third-place status and wants to carve a niche for the NBC Sports Network in the international sports scene (which again makes me wonder what the role of Universal Sports might be long-term). But if ESPN and Fox underbid, that would tell me that Fox may have already set its sights on transitioning Fox Soccer away from its soccer identity and was more concerned about dumping sport-specific network rights F1-style than anything else, even if the Premier League would have been valuable enough programming to add considerably to the value of a general Fox Sports network. Fox may have driven the final nail in Fox Soccer’s coffin itself.

					Sport-Specific Networks
10.5	14.5	7	5.5	1	1.5

Why ESPN effectively created a Fox Sports network – and why NBC was never going to compete with either of them

December 27, 2015October 25, 2012 by Morgan Wick

Virtually from the moment the sports TV wars started, I have been wondering why ESPN seemed to have such a myopic fixation on NBC’s attempts to build the NBC Sports Network that it was willing to essentially give Fox rights left and right to potentially create a far more imposing competitor sooner than NBC might ever pose – especially when ESPN gave so many statements early on effectively dismissing NBC’s prospects of competing with them. Starting with the alliance for Pac-12 and Big 12 rights, continuing with Fox’s big wins of UFC and World Cup rights, up to the first rumors of the Fox Sports 1 plans, and right on through the bizarre saga of the baseball renegotiations, my bewilderment at ESPN’s game plan has grown and grown.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so confused. In fact, maybe everyone should have written off NBC’s prospects of competing with ESPN from the start. Comcast’s cable operator business, seemingly the ace in the hole for carriage of all its other networks, may well be the Achilles heel that forever cripples NBC’s efforts to get any sort of head start.

What clarified this for me was a post on the Frank the Tank’s Slant blog earlier in the week (specifically the third full paragraph). Essentially, it suggests that what ESPN fears is not so much NBC as a competitor for sports rights and eyeballs as Comcast as a business partner potentially holding its own ace in the hole. ESPN really doesn’t fear any entity eating into its dominance, but what it doesn’t want in a million years is Comcast owning a sports network that might remotely be construed as anywhere close to on par with ESPN. An even remotely strong NBC Sports Network could give Comcast leverage to lower the rights fees it pays ESPN for carriage, and that could eat substantially into ESPN’s bottom line when combined with the impact of the sports network itself. ESPN may not want any real competitors to its dominance, but it really doesn’t want NBC to be one of them. It’s perfectly happy to build up Fox as its “competitor” if it means avoiding the fate a competition with NBC would entail.

I suggested that for ESPN, the smart play in the Major League Baseball negotiations was to pit NBC and Fox against one another, and that its move to grab all three of its existing primetime packages was therefore a mistake because it all but eliminated NBC from the bidding. But ESPN had a reason for its myopic focus on NBC. If it wanted to pit Fox against anybody, its first choice would be to pit it against Turner, or even CBS, before NBC. That’s exactly what it did by grabbing all three primetime packages, forcing Fox and Turner/CBS to slug it out for what initially appeared to be a single remaining package. (That ESPN didn’t come back in to grab more of the postseason when it turned out to be two packages after all remains mystifying.)

Comcast (and Cablevision, and to some extent Time Warner Cable) can leverage its cable business to build its regional sports networks. Most areas have one or two dominant cable providers, so they are primarily using regional sports networks to pry customers away from satellite companies like DirecTV, knowing they have few other options. In most cases, when there is one regional sports network in an area it develops a complete monopoly over the area’s sports teams, with the exception of team-owned networks. To my knowledge, there are only three places in the entire country where a Fox Sports network competes with a network owned by a cable operator: Los Angeles, where Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket compete with Time Warner Cable SportsNet; the South, where Fox Sports South and SportSouth compete with CSS; and Florida, where Fox Sports Florida and SunSports compete with Bright House Sports Network. But while the jury’s still out on TWC SportsNet, CSS falls far, far short of Fox’s monopoly over the South’s professional teams, with even its SEC coverage stuck behind Fox in the pecking order, and Bright House is so far further behind than that it barely even qualifies. Neither of them can use their networks to hold Fox hostage.

But when Comcast runs a national sports network, it’s competing on a completely different playing field. Its status as a cable operator becomes far less important because it must operate primarily as a media company, negotiating with other cable providers. Its goal is different as well; where a regional sports network seeks to form a monopoly over a market, the sports TV wars have all along been all about the opposite: to compete with ESPN. But it still remains a cable operator and customer of all the other sports networks as well, and the two roles must necessarily intersect. Nowhere does Comcast have so complete a monopoly that it can force favorable terms for its own sports network on anyone, because it must necessarily compete nationally, a problem numerous league-owned networks (as well as beIN Sport) have run into in recent years. Carriage on satellite providers wasn’t enough to get NFL Network on cable companies without the added carrot of RedZone, nor is carriage on some cable providers enough to get the Pac-12 Network on DirecTV. But it can do just enough to put pressure in the other direction on behalf of its cable business – but only if NBC Sports Network is already big enough to do so, and ESPN wants to make sure it never is.

If TWC SportsNet really takes off, especially if it wins Dodgers rights, it’s entirely possible it could force Fox to leave the Los Angeles market completely. Certainly whenever Comcast has moved into a market, Fox has pulled up its tent poles and fled town. When Comcast signed up with the Astros and Rockets to form CSN Houston, Fox shut down FS Houston virtually the instant its last Astros game ended. Fox also knew FSN Chicago wasn’t long for this world when the area’s teams signed up with Comcast as well. As I suggested before, Fox realizes that as a pure media company without a cable operator business, it is at an inherent disadvantage in the regional sports network market, and I think that’s why it is thinking of changing its sports strategy away from its current mix of RSNs and sport-specific networks and towards the formation of at least one general national all-sports network – and why I think it’ll cannibalize FSN’s remaining national programming to do so.

I have to imagine the NHL has to regret shacking up with NBC now, staking the future growth of the sport to Comcast’s ability to grow the NBC Sports Network at a time when that ability looked a lot bigger than it actually was. Had the NHL’s contract come due even one year later, I have no doubt it would have come crawling to Fox to take it in; as it is, it’s now stuck with NBC for the rest of the decade, at which point (assuming the Internet hasn’t rendered TV rights meaningless by then) I fully expect it to beg and plead with another entity to take it in anyway, pending the outcome of NBA negotiations and the overall course of the sports TV wars. (Having another two years on its previous NBC and Versus deals also means any customers wouldn’t have to worry about the lockout the NHL is going through right now. Just reason #2246 why Gary Bettman is clearly a mole planted by David Stern to undermine the NHL.)

This also affects how I see future contracts going down. I now suspect Turner has the lead over Comcast for whatever Thursday Night games the NFL elects to sell (though I still doubt they sell any), because if Comcast starts looking like a legitimate threat Fox and especially ESPN will go all-out to keep them down. (Fox would be the no-brainer favorite if not for its existing NFC package; as it stands I still see ESPN in third place, not that far behind Comcast.) Anyone looking for the return of “Roundball Rock” can forget about it right now, because it’s far more likely you’ll see Fox make a serious run at NBA rights than NBC, especially with NBC’s existing NHL commitments. And it’s hard for me to see a future where NBC has much of a chance to win MLS rights long-term, especially with Fox looking to complement their World Cup rights; I don’t think it’s far-fetched for Fox to beat both incumbents and rejoin MLS two years after losing those rights to NBC, especially as Fox Sports 1 wasn’t being bandied about at the time. Unless Comcast wanted to separate all its non-RSN sports properties, including the entire NBC broadcast network and stations, from at least its cable business, the NHL might remain now and forever the only thing keeping NBC Sports Network from CBSSN’s level.

FF50 Challenge Power Rankings – Week 7

October 24, 2012 by Morgan Wick

Okay, so I ended up goofing things up enough this week that the one-win teams get a one-week reprieve; we’re down to three Yahoo teams in that category anyway and that’s it. Part of it was the chaos caused by the mega-bye, part of it was everything else I was dealing with last week. And naturally, the one one-win team that gets elevated priority in the pecking order, the Shark League team, was completely undermined by Maurice Jones-Drew’s injury. We also have a second ESPN team get a tie, and naturally, it was one where I wound up leaving Jimmy Graham in the starting lineup and Brandon Pettigrew on the bench.

I’m considering switching to sorting the rankings by an index number, determined by taking the winning percentage, adding the ratio of the rank from last place over the number of teams (so last place would be considered first), and subtracting the ratio of the overall rank over the number teams (so first place would be considered first).

Rk	LW	Name	Identity	Rec	Str	Lg Rnk
1	1	The Blue Eyes	CBS 2	6-1	W 3	1^st of 12
2	3	Morgan’s Team	Fox 8	6-1	W 5	1^st of 10
3	7	Single Wing	Flea 1	6-1	W 5	2^nd of 12
4	6	Morgan’s Team	Fox 2	6-1	W 3	2^nd of 10
5	10	Team Wick	ESPN 9	5-2	W 1	1^st of 12
6	8	Morgan’s Team	Fox 6	5-2	W 1	1^st of 10
7	2	Terrible Trios	Yahoo 3	5-2	L 1	1^st of 10
8	9	Morgan’s Team	Fox 4	5-2	W 3	2^nd of 10
9	11	Morgan’s Team	Fox 1	5-2	W 2	2^nd of 10
10	5	Team Wick	ESPN 2	5-2	L 1	2^nd of 10
11	16	Team Wick	ESPN 5	5-2	W 3	3^rd of 12
12	12	Morgan’s Team	Fox 5	5-2	W 1	3^rd of 10
13	4	The Experiment	NFL 2	5-2	L 1	3^rd of 10
14	17	Team Wick	ESPN 6	4-3	W 1	3^rd of 10
15	19	Team Wick	ESPN 10	4-3	W 2	4^th of 12
16	23	Team Wick	ESPN 8	4-3	W 3	4^th of 12
17	13	morganwick	NFL 6	4-3	L 2	4^th of 10
18	25	Single Bound	Yahoo 1	4-3	W 2	4^th of 10
19	24	The Lucky Ones	Yahoo 7	4-3	W 1	4^th of 10
20	21	Morgan’s Team	Fox 7	4-3	W 1	5^th of 10
21	14	Team Wick	ESPN 3	4-3	L 1	5^th of 10
22	15	Split Backs	Flea 2	4-3	L 2	4^th of 6
23	20	Morgan’s Team	Fox 3	3-4	L 2	6^th of 10
24	18	morganwick	NFL 1	3-4	L 1	7^th of 10
25	22	Evil Twins	Yahoo 2	3-4	L 1	7^th of 10
26	28	morganwick	NFL 5	3-4	W 1	7^th of 10
27	34	morganwick	NFL 3	3-4	W 2	7^th of 10
28	31	Team Wick	ESPN 7	3-4	W 1	9^th of 12
29	35	The Green Eyes	CBS 3	3-4	W 2	10^th of 12
30	27	Team Wick	ESPN 4	2-4-1	T 1	8^th of 10
31	29	Team Wick	ESPN 1	2-4-1	L 1	8^th of 10
32	33	Fantastic Fifteen	Yahoo 4	2-5	L 1	8^th of 10
33	30	Nickel Package	Flea 5	2-5	L 2	10^th of 12
34	41	The Red Eye	CBS 1	2-5	W 1	10^th of 12
35	32	Quarters	Flea 4	2-5	L 2	7^th of 8
36	38	Headed for the End Zone	Flea 6	2-5	W 2	11^th of 12
37	26	morganwick	NFL 4	2-5	L 2	10^th of 10
38	36	All-Star Squadron	Yahoo 5	1-6	L 2	10^th of 10
39	39	Number of the Beast	Yahoo 6	1-6	L 5	10^th of 10
40	37	The Infinite	Yahoo 8	1-6	L 1	10^th of 10
41	40	Green Lantern Corps	Shark	1-6	L 4	12^th of 12
42	42	Trips Wide	Flea 3	0-6	L 6	5^th of 5

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 7

October 23, 2012 by Morgan Wick

NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

Begins Sunday of Week 11
In effect during Weeks 11-17
Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
NFL schedules all games.
Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 18):

Tentative game: Baltimore @ Pittsburgh
Prospects: 5-2 v. 3-3; one of the hottest rivalries in the NFL, but the Steelers look like they might be decidedly mediocre. Still, that might be enough for the tentative game bias to sustain it, especially given the alternatives.
Likely protections: Cardinals-Falcons (FOX) and Chargers-Broncos (CBS).
Other possible games: Colts-Patriots and Eagles-Redskins are the main possibilities, but only Colts-Patriots is better than the tentative and then only marginally so. Jets-Rams is a dark horse.

Week 12 (November 25):

Tentative game: Green Bay @ NY Giants
Prospects: 4-3 v. 5-2; a pair of name teams and both over .500 to boot. Time will tell if the Packers have become suddenly mediocre, though.
Likely protections: Vikings-Bears or Rams-Cardinals if anything (FOX) and probably nothing (CBS) as Ravens-Chargers was their only real protection-worthy game and both teams have listed two protected games each, neither of which was this one.
Other possible games: Normally Thanksgiving Weekend means a paucity of good games, but here we have Seahawks-Dolphins, Ravens-Chargers, and the game Fox didn’t protect, plus Bills-Colts as a dark horse. Vikings-Bears is an especially strong game that, if it’s unprotected (a big if), just might steal the flex if the Packers continue to struggle.

Week 13 (December 2):

Tentative game: Philadelphia @ Dallas
Prospects: Very iffy at 3-3 v. 3-3, but never count out an NFC East showdown.
Likely protections: 49ers-Rams or Vikings-Packers (FOX) and Steelers-Ravens (CBS).
Other possible games: Seahawks-Bears and, if unprotected, Vikings-Packers are both waiting if Eagles-Cowboys stumbles too far. Pats-Dolphins is also strong, while Cardinals-Jets, Bengals-Chargers, and, if unprotected, 49ers-Rams are dark horses.

Week 14 (December 9):

Tentative game: Detroit @ Green Bay
Prospects: 2-4 v. 4-3. Hard to say how much of Detroit’s record has to do with their schedule, but right now this game isn’t looking good.
Likely protections: Bears-Vikings or Cardinals-Seahawks if anything (FOX) and Chargers-Steelers (CBS).
Other possible games: Fox’s unprotected game is the favorite; Dolphins-49ers is good but lopsided, while Ravens-Redskins and Cowboys-Bengals are dark horses.

Week 15 (December 16):

Tentative game: San Francisco @ New England
Prospects: 5-2 v. 4-3, pretty much in the same shape as Packers-Giants, replacing the Packers with the Patriots and noting that the Niners aren’t quite all the way back to being that much of a name team.
Likely protections: Broncos-Ravens (probably not), Colts-Texans, Steelers-Cowboys, or nothing (CBS) and Giants-Falcons (FOX).
Other possible games: Packers-Bears (or if it’s protected, Giants-Falcons) is in the best shape, while CBS’ potential protections are either lopsided or, in the case of Steelers-Cowboys, simply too far behind to matter, and Vikings-Rams is a dark horse.

Week 16 (December 23):

Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
Prospects: 3-3 v. 3-4; somewhat mediocre, but who knows if the Jets will be driving the Tebow bandwagon by this point.
Likely protections: Giants-Ravens (FOX) and Bengals-Steelers if anything (CBS).
Other possible games: One of the better slates of possibilities makes for possibly the likeliest flex, with only Week 14 challenging it: Vikings-Texans, Bears-Cardinals, and 49ers-Seahawks all pit two teams above .500, waiting to pounce if either the Chargers’ or Jets’ season collapses. Redskins-Eagles and Bills-Dolphins are dark horses.

Week 17 (December 30):

Playoff positioning watch begins Week 9.