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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏈 Breer in the rearview. Prime Video has moved on from NFL reporter Albert Breer and introduced NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport onto its Thursday Night Football broadcast, Amazon confirmed to Awful Announcing. No reasoning was given for the decision. Rapoport began his duties for the streamer last night.

⬇️ Speaking out. Two individuals lost their jobs yesterday for comments they made regarding the assassination of conservative political influencer Charlie Kirk earlier this week. The Carolina Panthers fired a communications staffer, while ALLCITY Network let go of a Phoenix Suns beat writer.

🎙️ Randomly Generated Podcast. In one of the more unlikely collaborations ever seen in the world of podcasting, former SportsCenter host Kenny Mayne, the least-famous member of the Manning family, Cooper, and Brian Baumgartner a.k.a. Kevin from The Office are teaming up for a show about … golf? If you told me ChatGPT came up with this one, I’d be inclined to believe you.

️‍🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

Let the media mergers begin!

A new media merger has entered the fray.

Yesterday, Jessica Toonkel of The Wall Street Journal reported that Paramount, under its new ownership of David Ellison and Skydance, is preparing a bid for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including the assets the company planned to split off come next April. The news marks a huge development in the world of mass media and could have implications far beyond sports.

The deal would reportedly include everything currently under the Warner Bros. Discovery umbrella. That means the movie studio, HBO Max, and the cable assets which include TNT Sports.

If such a deal were to go through, which at this point is a big if, it would make Paramount a formidable foil to the other major players in sports media. Let’s take a quick run through of what Paramount currently has in terms of live sports rights, and what it would receive should the company acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

What Paramount has:

• NFL (Sunday afternoons, postseason, Super Bowl rotation)

• NCAA Tournament (Approx. 30% of inventory, Final Four/Championship every other year)

• College Football (Saturday afternoon Big Ten, plus some smaller conferences)

• UFC (all events starting next year)

• Golf (PGA Tour events, The Masters, PGA Championship)

• Soccer (UEFA Champions League, various other competitions)

• WNBA (regular season)

• NWSL (regular season, postseason)

What they would get from TNT Sports:

• NCAA Tournament (the 70% currently owned by TNT)

• College Football Playoff (via ESPN, two First Round games and two quarterfinals, one semifinal game starting in 2026)

• MLB (regular season, postseason through LCS)

• NHL (regular season, postseason, Stanley Cup Final every other year)

• NASCAR (five Cup Series races)

• French Open

Now let’s imagine both of those lists put together. We’re talking a full NFL package. College Football Playoff inventory that would arguably make CBS the second most-important broadcast partner in the sport (or at least on-par with Fox). Instead of sharing the NCAA Tournament, they’d have all of it, every year. They’d add NHL inventory in a time of year where they’re quite light on the live sports front. The same can be said about the summer NASCAR races and French Open. Not to mention, vital playoff baseball inventory.

Altogether, we’re talking about taking a portfolio in CBS Sports that, while currently solid, doesn’t have the tonnage or the breadth its competitors have, and turning it into a must-have destination for live sports year-round.

From a business perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. Beyond putting together a quality suite of live sports properties, Paramount has the secret sauce that can take Warner Bros. Discovery’s current inventory and maximize their value. That secret sauce, of course, is CBS.

Warner Bros. Discovery simply does not have the same reach with its cable networks that Paramount has with CBS. Think about it. Instead of the Stanley Cup Finals being tucked away on TNT, it could be exposed to a much wider audience on broadcast. The same could be said for the ALCS, or the College Football Playoff, or any other live sport that Paramount wanted to throw on CBS. In today’s media landscape, those events are worth more on a broadcast network than they are on cable.

And from a consumer perspective, this should be exciting. This type of consolidation is necessary A) for these legacy media businesses to have the scale to compete with the tech giants like Amazon, Apple, or Google and B) so consumers don’t have to deal with the fragmentation that has plagued their sports-watching experience for years.

Of course, such a high-profile transaction is bound to fall under some level of regulatory scrutiny. We’ve already seen at least one lawmaker speak out about a potential deal, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took to social media yesterday to oppose the transaction on antitrust grounds.

However, the reality is, if these smaller legacy media companies aren’t allowed to consolidate, they have no chance at competing with the tech giants. And Warren’s pleas will likely fall on deaf ears regardless given the current administration’s cozy relationship with the Ellison family, so there likely won’t be any appetite to block a Paramount transaction in the first place, at least in the executive branch.

The question now is whether or not Paramount actually has the capital to pull off such a deal. Warner Bros. Discovery had about double the market capitalization of Paramount as of Thursday morning, before the WSJ report went live. Per the report, the company is preparing a “majority cash bid … backed by the Ellison family.” Well, you might’ve seen some headlines earlier this week suggesting that Larry Ellison just surpassed Elon Musk as the world’s richest man. So, I’m sure he could come up with the funds necessary if he wants to.

There’s also the element of time. Warner Bros. Discovery is still going ahead with plans to split its company in two next April. Obviously, if Ellison wants to purchase the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, the company would have to accept a bid sometime before then.

And finally, there’s the possibility of competitors getting in on the bidding. Yesterday, analysts at Wells Fargo characterized Warner Bros. Discovery as “an attractive M&A candidate” and suggested that Netflix “is the most compelling buyer,” at least for the movie studio and streaming service.

A lot still needs to be sorted out before any of this comes to fruition. But yesterday may have unofficially marked the beginning of Media Consolidation Season, which many observers would argue is probably long overdue.

💬 AROUND AA 💬

Katie Nolan talks new gig

Awful Announcing’s Michael Grant caught up with Katie Nolan to discuss her new SiriusXM show, Fan Service with Katie Nolan, which airs weekdays from 12-1 p.m. ET on Mad Dog Sports Radio. She has the enviable position of leading into Stephen A. Smith’s new show on the same station.

Nolan discusses her work, sports topics, the Phillies Karen, her fiancé, comedian Dan Soder, and more. Check out the interview here!

📱 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Sports personalities are still having fun mocking the Ryan Clark-Peter Schrager kerfuffle from last week.

President Donald Trump is continuing his tour of professional sporting events, stopping by last night’s Yankees game on the anniversary of 9/11. Look out for him next week at Bethpage Black during the Ryder Cup.

The Green Bay Packers and NFL held a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk prior to Thursday Night Football. No word yet from the league on whether this will happen across all of Sunday’s games.

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

Adam Silver says the quiet part out loud

You’d think on the precipice of beginning an 11-year, $76 billion set of media rights deals, NBA commissioner Adam Silver would be breathing easy. He’s already accomplished the hard part, providing financial security to the league for the next decade-plus. He even met his lofty goal of tripling the media revenue the NBA earned under its previous set of deals.

Well, if Silver enjoyed a nice little victory lap last season knowing his league’s financial future was in the bag, the last week has brought him straight back down to earth.

The commish spent some time this week fielding questions from reporters, and they had plenty of touchy subjects to ask about. Chief among those were allegations that the Los Angeles Clippers circumvented the salary cap to retain Kawhi Leonard, which was the impetus for the press conference. But, as us pesky journalists like to do, there were some other topics Silver was asked about, and the one that caught my eye centered around the rising cost of watching NBA games under the league’s new broadcast arrangements.

Starting next month, both Peacock and Prime Video will have major national packages of NBA games. Those two services will combine for just under $30 per month. Then, of course, fans will still need access to ABC/ESPN, which runs another $30 per month if bought direct-to-consumer. Not to mention, if you’d like to follow your local team, you’ll likely need either a cable subscription or yet another streaming subscription for your regional sports network that will tack on another $20-30 per month.

It’s not going to be cheap to be an NBA fan for the next decade. (Although, it wasn’t necessarily cheap to be an NBA fan under the old deals either. More on that in a minute.)

When Silver was confronted with this premise, that it is getting more expensive for fans to follow the league, he didn’t exactly deny it. In fact, part of his answer was actually pretty shocking.

“There’s a huge amount of our content that people can essentially consume for free. And this is very much a highlights-based sport. So, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, you name it, any service … there’s an enormous amount of content out there, YouTube is another example that is advertising-based that consumers can consume,” Silver told reporters.

Rather than addressing the issue head-on, Silver suggested fans should just go watch highlights on their phones. In doing so, Silver is saying the quiet part out loud. Our full-game product isn’t worth watching.

Need I mention again that the league just secured $76 billion by selling its full-game product?

Now, another part of Silver’s answer has gotten pretty lost in the media coverage of all of this. He mentioned that the league was going from having 15 games on free, over-the-air broadcast networks to having 75 such games. That’s a five-fold increase. Anyone with an antenna can watch five times more games this season than they could last season, no subscriptions required.

So the suggestion that the NBA is getting more expensive to watch is actually a pretty murky one. In prior seasons, fans almost certainly had to have a pay TV subscription if they wanted to keep up with the league. Now, there will often be two or three games on free-to-air broadcast networks each week.

In reality, the price you pay for the NBA will depend on how much you value the product. If a couple games each week is sufficient, you won’t need to pay much at all. If you need your local team, plus you want the games on Peacock and Prime Video, well, you’ll have to pay.

But no matter the particulars about how affordable the NBA will or will not be under the new deals, Silver’s rhetoric should be alarming. If the NBA is gearing up to be a “highlights-based league,” who is going to come by and pay another $76 billion 11 years from now when the league needs to strike new media deals? Will fans have already been trained by that point to simply consume highlights without watching full games?

There needs to be a serious rethink in the league office if they think that’s a sustainable attitude going forward. A league can’t stay financially viable off of highlights alone. There needs to be interest in the games. The wins and losses. Not just dunks and half-court heaves.

Surely Adam Silver can’t be so shortsighted. His full answer would indicate he is not. But if I were him, I’d stay away from the talking points about highlights and focus on what really matters for your core fans and your business: the games.