It’s never a good look when organizations remove access for media outlets in the wake of a critical piece, and that’s what appears to be going on with the Ottawa Senators. As Postmedia’s Michael Traikos writes, the team is the only NHL team that currently allows media members on its chartered flights, but they removed that access for Ottawa Citizen/Ottawa Sun (both part of the Postmedia chain) reporter Ken Warren at the last moment Friday. And they did so after those papers republished the YouTube video an Uber driver in Phoenix recorded of some players criticizing the team’s coaching staff (screencap seen above), making this certainly seem like a retaliatory move. And as Traikos notes, it’s not the first time the team’s kicked a reporter off their plane:

Days after the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun published a leaked video that showed a vanload of Ottawa players talking crap about an assistant coach during an Uber ride in Arizona, the Senators informed veteran hockey reporter Ken Warren that the Sun and Citizen would no longer be allowed to travel with the team.

Warren was literally standing at the airport gate when he was kicked off the flight on Friday, and though he got on a later commercial flight, he ended up missing that day’s practice in Tampa Bay.

…Also on the Senators’ growing no-fly list is TSN reporter Brent Wallace who, prior to the team’s Parliament Hill game last December, had the audacity to ask owner Eugene Melnyk about a report that suggested he had been withholding bonus money from his employees.

Melnyk denied the allegation.

Once the cameras were turned off, bystanders saw him turn to Wallace and say, “I’m going to bury you.”

Yes, teams are absolutely under no obligation to let reporters on their flights, and as Traikos notes, the rest of the NHL teams don’t follow this practice any more. But the timing of the Senators moving away from this for these particular reporters under these particular circumstances is absurdly petty, and the lack of notice makes it worse. This is yet another bad move from Ottawa, which recently traded Erik Karlsson for peanuts, saw GM Pierre Dorion struggle for anything to be optimistic about, and saw Melnyk appear in a bizarre video on the team website. They’re not winning anyone over with this kind of behavior, and booting a reporter off the team flight (and apparently not for anything he wrote or anything his paper originally published, but rather their reposting of an existing video) isn’t going to help their cause.

[The Ottawa Citizen]

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Many non-soccer fans in the United States have never heard of the Superclasico between Boca Juniors and River Plate. It is a rivalry started in 1913 between the two Buenos Aires based teams and it is a rivalry that makes any college football rivalry look like a pick up game during elementary school recess.

For instance, this past week, someone burned down his friend’s house because the two supported opposing teams and got in an argument about which was better. Throughout their history, these two rivals have never faced off in the Copa Libertadores final, the premier tournament featuring the best soccer teams in South America. Boca Juniors has six titles, while River Plate have three but neither went against each other for the title until now.

Saturday afternoon [EDIT: Rescheduled to Sunday due to heavy rain] is the first leg of the final. The two Argentinian teams will play in Boca Juniors’ home stadium and then head to River Plate’s home in two weeks. To avoid in-stadium fighting, both teams agreed to ban visiting fans from each venue, keeping up with an agreement that had been in place since 2014. According to the group Salvemos al Futbol, 305 fans have been killed due to fan violence in the past 50 years, which is a big reason for the ban.

One more thing that will take place, because this rivalry can get very stressful and now it’s for even higher stakes than usual, a Uruguayan radio station is going to have a radio feed to help fans with heart conditions listen and hopefully not die of a heart attack because of the final.

According to Clarin and JOE, Radio Colonia will have a calm and soothing radio feed of the Superclasico/Copa Libertadores final to help people with bad hearts. Along with a play-by-play person and an analyst, the two commentators will be joined by a cardiologist throughout the game who will be giving recommendations to listeners so they can lower their heart rate.

In addition, commentators will speak in a calm voice and not scream GOL!!! if someone scores or raise their voice when someone is on attack. Fan chants and stadium atmosphere will be muted and instead calm music will played in the background. Think of it as if NPR sent a crew to broadcast the Super Bowl.

This isn’t a bad idea to have for other sporting events. It seems like every so often, after every high profile sporting event, some diehard fan has to go to the hospital after suffering a heart attack in the final seconds. An alternate feed that allows people to calm down might save lives.

[Clarin/JOE/Photo: Getty Images]

The post Uruguayan radio station to have “calm” Copa Libertadores final radio feed for people with heart conditions appeared first on Awful Announcing.

The first half of Saturday’s LSU Tigers-Arkansas Razorbacks game didn’t have a lot of great offensive football, but it did have one rather unusual moment. Late in the second quarter, the Arkansas band formed up on the sideline to prepare for their halftime show. Then, a play saw LSU running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire pushed out of bounds by two Razorbacks’ players…right into the band’s percussion section. Here’s video:

“Right into the marimbas! Somebody save the marimbas!” Yes, as noted by broadcasters Tom Hart and Jordan Rodgers , the instruments in question actually appear to be marimbas (which have a xylophone-like set of bars struck to produce different tones, but also have pipes under the bars to produce deeper tones) And this led to much more marimba discussion than you usually hear on a college football broadcast, which continued on the replay:

“The girl got sandwiched in there! Playing the marimba’s a full-contact sport over there!” “Attack of the marimbas!” “You’ve got to keep your head on a swivel.” They then returned to the play, but Hart had some further comments on the band a minute later when setting up their halftime performance:

“Speaking of the band, if they can get everybody back and healthy again, we’ll show you the Razorback marching band and their live performance at the half, hope everyone is okay, over on SEC Network+. …I didn’t think we were going to get a marimba mention in the game.”

I didn’t think so either, but here we are.

[Clippit]

The post A LSU RB was pushed into the Arkansas band, leading to Tom Hart and Jordan Rodgers discussing marimbas appeared first on Awful Announcing.

The NFL has been much more lenient with celebration penalties the past few years, but the league still frowns upon props. That’s really a shame, because things like the Michael Thomas cell phone callback are, well, fun.

Today, Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill cooked up quite the celebration of his own at Arrowhead. Hill scored on this Patrick Mahomes pass and immediately climbed into the crowd, but not to celebrate with fans:

Hill’s ability to even sort of properly aim that lens is impressive given his helmet; I wear glasses and I can barely look through the viewfinder on a regular camera. The best part may have been Hill recording his own penalty being given:

Those fifteen yards are worth it. Just let players use props. The worst thing that can happen is bad comedy.

The post Tyreek Hill commandeers CBS camera, films his own penalty flag for doing so appeared first on Awful Announcing.

All Times Eastern

Baseball
Japan All-Star Series, Hiroshima Municipal Stadium, Hiroshima, Japan
Samurai Japan vs. MLB All-Stars — MLB Network, 4:30 a.m. (Tuesday)

College Basketball
Men’s
Mount St. Vincent at New Hampshire — ESPN+, 1 p.m.
Detroit Mercy at Butler — FS1, 6:30 p.m.
Troy at Pittsburgh — ACC Network Plus, 7 p.m.
Jacksonville State at Penn State — Big Ten Network, 7 p.m.
Bridgewater at James Madison — CAA.TV, 7 p.m.
Stanford at North Carolina — ESPN2, 7 p.m.
North Carolina A&T at Maryland — ESPNU, 7 p.m.
Campbell at Ohio — ESPN3, 7 p.m.
Midway at Miami (OH) — ESPN3, 7 p.m.
Misercordia at Binghamton — ESPN3, 7 p.m.
Heidelberg at Youngstown State — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Manhattan at Maryland-Baltimore County — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Mid-Atlantic Christian at The Citadel — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Monmouth at St. Joseph’s — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Kennesaw State at Samford — ESPN+, 7:30 p.m.
Quincy at Southeast Missouri — ESPN+, 7:30 p.m.
American at Northwestern — BTN Plus, 8 p.m.
Oklahoma at Texas-San Antonio — CBS Sports Network, 8 p.m.
Middle Tennessee at Belmont — ESPN3, 8 p.m.
Buffalo at Southern Illinois — ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Illinois-Chicago at Duquense — ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Northern Arizona at South Dakota — ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Prairie View A&M at Baylor — Fox Sports Net, 8 p.m.
Louisiana-Monroe at Texas — Longhorn Network, 8 p.m.
Cal-Davis at Arkansas — SEC Network Plus, 8 p.m.
Morgan State at DePaul — FS1, 8:30 p.m.
Utah at Minnesota — Big Ten Network, 9 p.m.
Vermont at Kansas — ESPN2, 9 p.m.
Denver at Kansas State — ESPN3, 9 p.m.
Jacksonville at Grand Canyon — ESPN3, 9 p.m.
Long Beach State at Arizona State — Pac-12 Network/Pac-12 Arizona, 9 p.m.
Montana Tech at Montana — Pluto TV, 9 p.m.
San Diego at Washington — Pac-12 Network/Pac-12 Washington, 11 p.m.

The B1G Show — Big Ten Network, 11 p.m.

College Football
B1G Football Coaches Press Conference — Big Ten Network, 11 a.m.
Coordinators’ Corner — BYUtv 1 p,m.
College Football Live — ESPN2, 4 p.m.
B1G Football & Beyond — Big Ten Network, 5 p.m.
Thanking Out Loud — SEC Network, 7 p.m.

College Volleyball
Women’s
Baylor at Texas Tech — Fox College Sports Central/Fox Sports Southwest Plus

Golf
Best Lessons Ever: Driver — Golf Channel, 7 p.m.
The Skill Code: Greenside Vitals — Golf Channel, 7:30 p.m.

Hockey
2018 Hockey Hall of Fame Inductee Ceremony — TSN2/NHL Network, 8 p.m.

MLB
Hot Stove — MLB Network, 9 a.m.
MLB Now — MLB Network, 2 p.m.
Baseball Writers’ Association of America Awards: Rookie of the Year — MLB Network, 6 p.m.
MLB Tonight — MLB Network, 7 p.m.

NASCAR
NASCAR 120: Phoenix — NBCSN, 2:30 p.m.
NASCAR America — NBCSN, 5 p.m.
NASCAR Race Hub — FS1, 6 p.m.

NBA
New Orleans at Toronto — NBA TV, 7:30 p.m.
Golden State at Los Angeles Clippers — NBA TV, 10:30 p.m.

The Jump — ESPN2, 3 p.m.
The Starters — NBA TV, 6 p.m.
10 Before Tip — NBA TV 6:30 p.m.
NBA TV Pregame — NBA TV, 7 p.m.
NBA TV GameTime — NBA TV, 10 p.m.
NBA TV Postgame — NBA TV, 1 a.m. (Tuesday)
NBA TV GameTime — NBA TV, 1:30 a.m. (Tuesday)

NFL
Monday Night Football, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, CA
New York Football Giants at San Francisco 49ers — ESPN/ESPN Deportes, 8:15 p.m.

Good Morning Football — NFL Network, 7 a.m.
NFL PrimeTime — ESPN, 1:30 p.m.
NFL Live — ESPN, 2:30 p.m.
The Aftermath — NFL Network, 3 p.m.
NFL Fantasy Live — NFL Network, 5 p.m.
NFL Monday QB — CBS Sports Network, 6 p.m.
Monday Night Countdown — ESPN, 6 p.m.
NFL Total Access: Monday Night Football Pregame — NFL Network, 6 p.m.
Monday Night Kickoff — ESPN, 8 p.m.
NFL Esta Noche — ESPN Deportes, 8 p.m.
NFL Total Access: Endgame — NFL Network, 11:15 p.m.

NHL
Hockey Central @ noon — NHL Network, noon
NHL Now — NHL Network, 4 p.m.
NHL Tonight: Pre-Game Skate — NHL Network, 6 p.m.
NHL Tonight — NHL Network, 7 p.m.
NHL Tonight — NHL Network, 10 p.m.
On the Fly — NHL Network, 11 p.m.
On the Fly: Nashville at Anaheim Bonus Coverage — NHL Network, midnight
On the Fly — NHL Network, 1 a.m. (Tuesday)

Soccer
La Liga Highlight Zone — beIN Sports, 6 p.m.
The Xtra — beIN Sports, 7 p.m.
The Locker Room — beIN Sports, 7:30 p.m.
Monday Night Soccer — beIN Sports, 8 p.m.

Sports Talk
SportsCenter:AM — ESPN, 7 a.m.
Morning Drive — Golf Channel, 7 a.m.
Get Up — ESPN, 8 a.m.
The Dan Patrick Show — Audience (AT&T U-Verse/DirecTV)/NBCSN, 9 a.m.
The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz — ESPNews, 10 a.m.
The Rich Eisen Show — Audience (AT&T U-Verse/DirecTV)/AT&T SportsNet (Pittsburgh/Rocky Mountain)/Root Sports, noon
BYU Sports Nation — BYUtv, noon
The Jim Rome Show — CBS Sports Network, noon
SportsCenter — ESPN, noon
Jalen & Jacoby — ESPN2, 2 p.m.
Tiki & Tierney — CBS Sports Network, 3 p.m.
The Will Cain Show — ESPNews, 3 p.m.
The Paul Finebaum Show — SEC Network, 3 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 3:30 p.m.
High Noon — ESPN, 4 p.m.
Highly Questionable — ESPN, 4:30 p.m.
Around the Horn — ESPN, 5 p.m.
Pardon the Interruption — ESPN, 5:30 p.m.
SportsCenter — ESPN2, 6 p.m.
SEC Featured — SEC Network, 8 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 8:45 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 9:45 p.m.
They Fight — FS1, 10:30 p.m.
SportsCenter at Night With Scott Van Pelt — ESPN, 11:15 p.m.
Titulares y Más — Telemundo, 11:35 p.m.
TMZ Sports — FS1, midnight
Contacto Deportivo — Univision/Univision Deportes, midnight
Boomer & Gio — CBS Sports Network, 6 a.m. (Tuesday)
Golic & Wingo — ESPNews/ESPN2, 6 a.m. (Tuesday)
Sport Today — BBC World News, 6:45 a.m. (Tuesday)

Tennis
ATP Tour
ATP Finals, O2 Arena, London, England, United Kingdom
Doubles Round Robin
Group Knowles/Nestor: Oliver Marach/Mate Pavic vs. Pierre-Hugues Herbert/Nicolas Mahut — Tennis Channel, 7 a.m.

Group Llodra/Santoro: Lukasz Kubot/Marcelo Melo vs. Mike Bryan/Jack Sock — Tennis Channel, 1 p.m.

Singles Round Robin: Group Guga Kuerten
Alexander Zverev vs. Marin Cilic — Tennis Channel, 9 a.m.
Novak Djokovic vs. John Isner — Tennis Channel, 3 p.m.

Tennis Channel Live at the ATP Finals — Tennis Channel, 5 p.m.

The post Viewing Picks for November 12, 2018 appeared first on Awful Announcing.

NESN analyst Jerry Remy has been battling lung cancer off-and-on since 2008. He’s had to miss games in ‘08, again in 2013 when his cancer returned, in 2017 (twice) and it recurred this season. But it appears that Remy has beaten the disease.

Over the weekend, Remy tweeted that he’s cancer free and he hopes it’s for good:

Friday was a very good day for me. Had my first scan since going through treatments. Highly successful. Cancer free for now and hopefully forever. So pleased !!!!

— Jerry Remy (RemDawg) (@Jerry_Remy) November 10, 2018

Remy had to leave NESN back in August to undergo treatment. He made sporadic appearances afterwards and was last seen in public during the Red Sox World Series victory parade in Boston on Halloween.

The former Red Sox and Angels second baseman has been a fixture in the NESN booth dating back to 1988 having called over 3,900 games. He’s become a popular personality throughout the New England region. His partners have included Sean McDonough, Don Orsillo and now Dave O’Brien.

In September, Remy said he would not retire from NESN, but acknowledged that he would have to cut back on his schedule due to his cancer. In 2017, Remy signed a multi-year contract that called for him to work 115 games per season. It’s not clear if he would try to work close to that amount in 2019 or work fewer games.

But that is something Remy and NESN will work out before Spring Training in February of 2019. In the meantime, the man known as “Rem Dawg” has reason to celebrate going into the holiday season knowing that he’s officially free from cancer.

[Associated Press]

The post Red Sox analyst Jerry Remy declares he’s “cancer free … hopefully forever” appeared first on Awful Announcing.

NFL ratings have increased nearly across the board over the 2018 season, and NBC’s Sunday Night Football package is no exception to the rule. Prior to Week 10, ratings have been up seven times over the past eight weeks. This week made it eight in nine, as the Veterans Day game between the Cowboys and Eagles saw double digit gains over 2017.

NBC Sports announced that the game drew a 13.3 overnight rating, up 16 percent over last year’s Week 10 game (Patriots-Broncos, which drew an 11.5). Considering the matchup, this shouldn’t be a surprise. The Cowboys are ratings gold, no matter how what their record may be. Combine their involvement with a matchup against the Eagles, a divisional rival and the reigning Super Bowl champions, and another strong overnight seemed to be in the cards.

The top 10 highest rated markets consisted of various Texas cities (and Albuquerque), Philadelphia, New Orleans, Washington DC, and a pair of Virginia markets in Richmond and Norfolk.

Top local markets for @dallascowboys vs. @Eagles on NBC Sunday Night Football… pic.twitter.com/ZHn8lCK2p7

— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) November 12, 2018

Next week, NBC has another rivalry game, featuring the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears in an NFC North clash. Originally, NBC was to broadcast Steelers-Jaguars, but the AFC playoff rematch got flexed out because of Jacksonville’s struggles this season. While the Vikings-Bears matchup will pit the top two teams in the NFC North against one another in a rivalry game, a ratings increase from Week 11 of 2017 could be difficult to imagine. Last year, NBC showed Eagles-Cowboys, and while that ended in a blowout win for the Eagles, it’s still the Cowboys and Eagles, and Sunday showed that matchup is a formidable foe to complete against.

[NBC Sports]

The post Cowboys-Eagles brings big overnight ratings for NBC’s Sunday Night Football appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Welcome to Should I Listen To This? We deep-dive into a podcast to find out what it’s about, what works, what doesn’t, and whether or not you need to make the all-important decision to hit subscribe and add it to your rotation.

Know a podcast you’d like us to consider? Send an e-mail and we’ll add it to the pile.

Podcast: Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan

Network: SI: True Crime and Cadence 13

What’s It About?: In 2009, former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was found dead in his Nashville condo. He’d been shot four times. Twice in the chest and twice in the head. On the floor in front of him was the body of his mistress Jenni Kazemi, with a gunshot to her head and a gun on the floor. Four days later the Nashville police announced that Jenni had killed Steve and then herself in a murder-suicide.

While most people accepted the news based on the information provided, not everyone was convinced. McNair seemed to have been shot with precision, which seemed strange considering Kazemi was not trained with a gun. A gruesome rumor about what happened to McNair’s body seemed to take the crime scene to another disturbing level. And the speed at which the police declared the case closed was puzzling given some potential suspects and their motives.

Fall of a Titan tries to unravel all of the rumors, all of the suspects, and all of the possibilities that there’s more to the story than what we’ve been told.

Who’s The Host?: Tim Rohan, a writer for Sports Illustrated. He previously worked for the NY Times before coming over to SI in 2016.

Hey you, the first three episodes of FALL OF A TITAN are out now. If you like what you're hearing, don't be shy. Subscribe, leave a comment, tell a friend. It's all right here: https://t.co/OwT6cLHOh5

— Tim Rohan (@TimRohan) November 1, 2018

What’s It Like?: We live in the golden age of podcasts about former NFL players who either committed terrible crimes or had terrible crimes committed upon them. I listened to Fall of a Titan on the heels of binging Carruth, about the former Carolina Panthers wideout who ordered the execution of his pregnant girlfriend, and listening to multiple episodes of Gladiator, about former New England tight end Aaron Hernandez, who committed suicide in prison after being convicted of killing someone. I’ll fully admit that by the time I got to FoaT I was little burned out on the genre.

Then, the podcast begins with an episode (“The Private Eye”) that introduced Vincent Hill, a former cop who is convinced there’s more to the story than we’ve been told, but who also appears to have somewhat an iffy past of his own and questionable motivations for his insistence about the case. I came away from the first episode concerned this was going to go down the road that many true crime podcasts go, mining conspiracy theories and dubious suspects in order to pad the mystery. My concerns weren’t quelled after the second episode (“The Quarterback and The Professor”), which spent a lot of time with an amenable professor and McNair family friend who also has his own concerns and biases.

That said, I felt like the third episode (“The Waitress”) calmed my concerns a great deal by putting the focus back on the events of July 4, 2009. Not only that but it also really introduces us to Kazemi, a 19-year-old Dave & Busters waitress who gets involved with an NFL superstar. It helps paint a picture of who she was, what might have transpired between her and McNair, and why the police seemed to feel like this was an open and shut case. And things get kicked up a notch in episode four (“The Ex-Con and The Ex-Boyfriend) when we start to get a reasonable sense of why there might be some truth to those conspiracy theories.

One thing that’s really interesting about FoaT so far is that while Steve McNair is the reason anyone is interested in this particular case and his face is plastered all over the artwork, McNair himself is not really a central figure in this investigation into his own death. That is, while he is obviously central to the story, the podcast removes the focus from him and his NFL career (at least four episodes in) and instead put the focus on other people central to the story of what happened that fateful night. The podcast also paints a full picture of Kazemi, whose life has been boiled down to “crazy girlfriend who killed Steve McNair and then herself,” but who obviously was much more than that (and perhaps not a murderer at all).

Who Is It For?: The podcast is geared to fit nicely into the queue of any true crime aficionado. Don’t let the sports-centric source scare you off, this show sits squarely in the same space as podcasts such as Dirty John or A Killing on the Cape. Also, given how the story of what happened to McNair faded into the background compared to other NFL-related murder stories, it’s a good opportunity to get acquainted with the story and find out about the details that most didn’t know at the time.

Who Is It Not For?: If you’re an NFL fan interested in a discussion about the career of Steve McNair, you won’t find it here. While he is the person at the center of the story, this isn’t the story of him. Also, given the content, it’s not a podcast for the squeamish as there are descriptions of a murder scene and body mutilation.

Where Should I Start: You pretty much have to start at the beginning on a podcast like this. Perhaps you’ll bring the baggage I did into the show, perhaps you won’t, but I’d advise you to give it a couple episodes at least before making a final decision.

So, Should I Listen To This?: Fall of a Titan is a worthy addition to the burgeoning “podcasts about former NFL players who either committed terrible crimes or had terrible crimes committed upon them” genre. Depending on your familiarity with the true crime drama, the immediate route into conspiracy theories might strike a familiar chord but there’s some good investigative work ahead to back that up.

The post Should I Listen To This? – Steve McNair: Fall of a Titan appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Remember those dark days when you couldn’t stream your local MLB team through Fox Sports Go or the NBC Sports app? A deal with Fox didn’t get done until after the 2015 season (starting in 2016), and NBC’s RSNs fell in line for 2017. Eventually, local streaming deals were lined up for all but three of the league’s teams (Dodgers, Nationals, Orioles), and everything was great.

Well, until now.

The in-market streaming deals with Fox, Comcast/NBC, NESN, and Root Sports all expired after the 2018 season. And heading into 2019, MLB is butting heads with all of the RSNs (even though the Fox RSNs still don’t have a new owner) about the in-market streaming deals.

To the shock of everyone, according to the Sports Business Journal, MLB wants more money from the RSNs for the streaming rights, and they want the in-market streaming deals to run as long as the linear TV deals that each RSN has with its MLB teams. Understandably, the RSNs aren’t taking this lying down, claiming that the in-market streaming rights are built in to every other package of media rights they purchase and shouldn’t need to bought separately, and that the length of these contracts shouldn’t be as long as the linear TV deals because of how much the media landscape changes (and, of course, because it’s tough to make money off of the streaming deals).

There are plenty of balls in the air here that will also effect negotiations. The pending sale of the Fox RSNs is obviously one, but the launch of NBC’s new MyTeams app, which was essentially created as an easier way to follow teams that NBC owns the rights for, is another. Not having streaming rights for the handful of MLB teams that air on NBC Sports RSNs would be disastrous for the future of the app, even if the Cubs are still threatening to leave NBC Sports Chicago for their own RSN. Fox’s negotiations to extend their linear TV deal for the World Series and other marquee MLB events will also likely play a role in what happens with the in-market streaming rights.

I think my biggest takeaway from the SBJ piece was this – apparently, both sides see the value in these rights. This could lead to a pure over the top option that does not require an authenticated login, which would seemingly alleviate the concerns for the RSNs about not being able to make money, and for the league about not being able to receive proper value.

As the pay-TV industry continues to lose subscribers and media companies launch over-the-top services, streaming rights become more valuable. The original MLB in-market streaming deals were solely on an authenticated basis and required a traditional cable or satellite subscription for access. A key question going forward is whether a standalone offering might ultimately emerge.

It would be a short-sighted bit of absolute madness for MLB and the RSNs to not get a deal done. Imagine being a fan and having a reliable streaming option for your team over the past couple of seasons…and then going into 2019 without any option at all. It would be infuriating, and would do far more damage to MLB and its RSNs than they might realize. But then again, this is Major League Baseball we’re talking about – taking one step forward and two steps back is a tradition steeped in the history of the game. Giving fans a taste of in-market streaming and then taking it away (while the NHL and NBA do no such thing) would be patently absurd, and yet, we’re still talking about it.

All in all, I still think a deal gets done before the season starts. After all, it’s the best thing for everyone involved. But the sale of the Fox RSNs can throw a massive wrench into things – if the sale drags on close to the start of the MLB season, or if a buyer with zero experience in the sports world (venture capital firms…hello), I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a new agreement wasn’t in place by the start of the season. That would suck, and would be completely ridiculous, but would be par for the course, given who we’re talking about here.

[Sports Business Journal]

The post MLB’s in-market streaming deals have expired, and the league is once again clashing with RSNs about new deals appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Aw hell, we’re doing this.

In the past, we’ve had our readers rate local MLB announcers (several times), MLB Postseason announcers, March Madness announcers, local NBA announcers, and local NHL announcers. However, we’ve never had our readers rate the national NFL announcers.

Until now.

Over the next three or so days, we’re asking you rate all of the NFL’s regular broadcast teams. As usual, a grade of A is the best, a grade of F is the worst, and the other three grades fall in between. This isn’t rocket science. Once all the votes have been cast, we’ll tally up the final ratings for each crew (with a score of 4 being assigned to an A, 3 to a B, and so on, down to a 0 for F) and assign a final grade.

And now, the caveats
-One-off pairings will not be included, and only the “regular” teams that have worked at least games this season will be included (in other words, you’re not going to be asked to rate, for example, the four-person NFL Network team from a couple weeks ago or any of the Fox #7 teams that seemed to rotate on a weekly basis earlier in the season).
-Each broadcaster will only be included once (unlike the MLB Postseason) to help avoid a glut of extra teams to grade.
-Remember, you’re voting on the crew as a whole. If you like the play by play broadcaster but hate the analyst (or vice versa), grade accordingly.
-Please do not be shitty in the comments or on social media.

Polls will run through 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific on Thursday, November 15th. The final rankings will be released sometime during the week of November 19th, probably Monday or Tuesday, so you can get in some pre-Thanksgiving reading.

Happy voting!

CBS

Jim Nantz and Tony Romo

Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts

Greg Gumbel, Trent Green, and Bruce Arians

Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon

Andrew Catalon and James Lofton

Spero Dedes and Adam Archuleta

Tom McCarthy and Steve Beuerlein

ESPN

Joe Tessitore, Jason Witten, and Booger McFarland

Fox

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman

Kevin Burkhardt and Charles Davis

Kenny Albert and Ronde Barber

Thom Brennaman and Chris Spielman

Chris Myers and Daryl Johnston

Dick Stockton and Mark Schlereth

NBC

Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth

The post Rate the 2018 NFL announcers appeared first on Awful Announcing.

When the original Disney/Fox deal was announced, the inclusion of Fox’s regional sports network group was seen as one of the more valuable assets involved. However, anti-trust concerns forced Disney to put the RSNs up for sale as a condition of the final purchase, and now that sale process is moving to its next step, with bids due last week.

Normally that clears up the picture, as potential buyers are identified and/or eliminated. In this case, though, two of the companies most often linked to a sale have so far sat the process out. That’s according to this report from Sports Business Journal, which notes that Comcast and Fox have yet to show interest.

Via SBJ:

Speculation over the past several months was that NBC Sports would pick off the RSNs in markets where it is the dominant cable operator — places like Atlanta, Detroit and Miami — and Fox Sports would look to buy back the RSNs at a discount. But the lack of bids to Allen & Co., who is handling the sale along with JPMorgan Chase & Co., threw cold water on both of those scenarios.

Mark Lazarus, NBC Broadcasting and Sports chairman, went so far as to say that Comcast is not in line to buy any of the Fox RSNs. It was notable that Comcast did not even sign a non-disclosure agreement last month that would have given it access to the bid book for the RSNs.

Lazarus offered a pretty simple and very believable reason for Comcast sitting it out:

“The government’s not going to let us buy any more where we are heavy in cable — we’ve already been informed of that,” Lazarus said during a recent Fairfield County Sports Commission event in Stamford, Conn. “We can’t buy any of those assets that Disney is going to try to dispose of.”

Those antitrust concerns were what prevented Comcast from realistically competing with Disney in the original deal, although they certainly made an effort.

As for Fox, considering how profitable the RSNs had been and that they’ve continued to manage them throughout the sales process, it would make some sense on the surface to consider buying them back. But that would also presumably involve sending Disney a decent chunk of the sales price they just received. Obviously Disney didn’t know they’d have to sell the RSNs when they initially bid, but even so, if Fox preferred owning and operating the RSNs over cash, they probably wouldn’t have sold them in the first place.

As to who is actually bidding, that remains unclear. Sinclair has had reported interest, and there have been a few other interested parties as well, all the way down to LL Cool J and Ice Cube. But those bids might not include one of the most valuable networks in the portfolio: according to the SBJ report, the Yankees deal with YES Network included an option to take over the network if it was sold to Disney, Comcast, or James Dolan.

Sources said the team already has been in contact with companies interested in investing in the RSN. Sources with knowledge of those talks said all signs point to the Yankees actually taking back ownership of the RSN, which means that the country’s biggest RSN likely will not be part of the final Fox package being sold.

It’s comforting that no matter what happens elsewhere, the Yankees are still going to be okay. The nation can breathe again.

[SBJ]

The post Bids for the Fox Sports RSNs were due last week, but neither Fox nor Comcast seem interested (yet) appeared first on Awful Announcing.

ESPN analyst Ryan Clark played all or part of 13 seasons in the NFL with four teams, most famously a stretch with the Steelers that included a Super Bowl win. You can’t play in the NFL that long without getting hurt, and on top of the usual NFL incidents, Clark’s sickle cell trait resulted in a season ending splenic infarction at altitude in Denver. In short, Clark has dealt with plenty of injuries, and he probably assumed a career in broadcasting would be a lot less dangerous.

Unfortnately, Clark learned today that live television also requires you to keep your head on a swivel, as he apparently walked into a camera during NFL Live, resulting in a head injury that required stitches.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

So who said we aren’t tough on @espnnfl ? Hit the camera, may need some stitches!!

A post shared by Ryan Clark (@realrclark) on Nov 12, 2018 at 12:16pm PST

Clark started the broadcast but the show finished without him, and signed off by addressing what had happened:

Adam Schefter, meanwhile, was in his element:

Injury update: @Realrclark25 is now at a local CT hospital, receiving 2-3 stitches on his forehead, after accidentally walking into a camera during a commercial break of NFL Live, per sources. Clark is probable for NFL Live next week.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 12, 2018

Update Shefty….. Initial reports were wrong. 5 stitches were needed. Once we went into the injury tent, we realized in was a little more severe than the initial diagnosis

— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) November 12, 2018

And he even reported a post-suture image, if that’s something you’re interested in.

ESPN obtained a photo of what five stitches from walking into a camera during a commercial break of NFL Live looks like for @Realrclark25 pic.twitter.com/5pKbz0HNhn

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 12, 2018

Some of Clark’s current and former ESPN colleagues didn’t exactly let him off the hook, either:

This is top-level reporting. Will Ryan be seeking a second opinion from Dr. James Andrews?

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) November 12, 2018

Cmon bruh

— Damien Woody (@damienwoody) November 12, 2018

The dreaded JIB cam I’m sure!

— Bucci Mane (@Buccigross) November 12, 2018

pic.twitter.com/TmbISRAsQy

— Taylor Twellman (@TaylorTwellman) November 12, 2018

Can we get the footage?

— Tedy Bruschi (@TedyBruschi) November 12, 2018

Thankfully it sounds like the Twitter jokes might end up being worse than the injury itself.

The post Ryan Clark walks into NFL Live camera, leaves to get stitches, gets the full Adam Schefter injury treatment appeared first on Awful Announcing.

When Disney bought 21st Century Fox’s movie and television assets for $71.3 billion, it came with a caveat from the Department of Justice to divest the 22 regional sports networks (RSNs) that came as part of the deal. That lucrative collection of networks was expected to fetch upwards of $15 t0 $25 billion if all 22 were sold together. Suitors ran the gamut from Comcast to Sinclair to Amazon to Fox, who was apparently considering buying back the RSNs. Last week we even found out an investment group fronted by Ice Cube and LL Cool J was throwing their hat in the ring.

However, there was also the real possibility that the networks could be broken up and sold piecemeal. That was considered especially true when it came to the crown jewel of the deal: YES. Our own Andrew Bucholtz recently speculated as much, noting that the Yankees reportedly have a buyback option after selling it to Fox.

That is apparently going to happen, according to Bloomberg. They’re reporting that the Yankees have made their intentions clear to Disney and Fox that they plan to require the network that broadcasts most of their games.

The entity that previously owned YES, Yankee Global Enterprises, owned both the franchise and the network separately. While the Yankees themselves did not own the network, they received a rights fee for broadcasts. In 2012, NewsCorp bought 49 percent ownership in the network, making them the majority owner. As part of the arrangement, the Yankees agreed to keep their games on YES through 2041. NewsCorp’s interest in the network transferred to 21st Century Fox in 2013. In 2014, the company purchased an additional 31 percent share of YES, effectively making it the owner of the network until the recent Disney deal. YGS still has a 20 percent ownership stake in the network.

According to Bloomberg, the deal that the Yankees had with Fox in the event of a sale calls for the team to pay fair-market value to require the network. Considering that YES is expected to fetch at least $5 billion on its own, the franchise has lined up outside investors to help them out on the deal.

This likely helps explain why Comcast and Fox, the two biggest and most likely bidders for the RSNS, have yet to put up an offer as of it. Given how much value YES added to the bundle, it’s removal from the package has a huge impact on the overall worth. It’s possible we could see more networks get sold off piecemeal, or this specific deal could be the only one out of the bundle and the other 21 get packaged up.

As our own Jay Rigdon noted earlier, “it’s comforting that no matter what happens elsewhere, the Yankees are still going to be okay. The nation can breathe again.”

[Bloomberg]

The post The Yankees intend to buy YES Network back from Fox & Disney at ‘fair-market value’ appeared first on Awful Announcing.

All Times Eastern

Baseball
Japan All-Star Series, Nagoya Dome, Nagoya, Japan
MLB All-Stars vs. Samuarai Japan — MLB Network, 5 a.m. (Wednesday)

College Basketball
Men’s
Wisconsin at Xavier — FS1, 6:30 p.m.
North Carolina-Asheville at North Carolina — ACC Network, 7 p.m.
Southern at Louisville — ACC Network, 7 p.m.
North Carolina-Greensboro at North Carolina-Wilmington — CAA.TV, 7 p.m.
URI at College of Charleston — CAA.TV, 7 p.m.
Harvard at UMass — Eleven Sports/NESNplus/ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Stephen F. Austin at Miami (FL) — ESPNU, 7 p.m.
Georgia at Temple — ESPN3, 7 p.m.
North Carolina Central at Cincinnati — ESPN3, 7 p.m.
Cumberland at Tennessee-Chattanooga — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Elms at Dartmouth — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Gardner-Webb at Furman — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
George Mason at Georgia Southern — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Hardin-Simmons at Texas State — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Lafayette at Penn — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Mercer at Georgia State — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Midway at Eastern Kentucky — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Pfeiffer at Winthrop — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Shawnee State at Kent State — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Urbana at Cleveland State — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Western Michigan at Oakland — ESPN+, 7 p.m.
Holy Cross at Providence — FS2, 7 p.m.
Memphis at LSU — SEC Network, 7 p.m.
Norfolk State at South Carolina — SEC Network, Plus, 7 p.m.
Long Island University-Brooklyn at Fairfield — ESPN+, 7:30 p.m.
South Carolina State at Charleston Southern — ESPN+, 7:30 p.m.
Southeastern Louisiana at Texas Tech — Fox Sports Net, 7:30 p.m.
Chicago State at Illinois State — ESPN3, 8 p.m.
Arkansas-Little Rock at Tennessee State — ESPN+, 8 p.m.
North Alabama at Saint Louis — Fox College Sports Atlantic/ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Drake at Colorado — Pac-12 Network/Pac-12 Mountain, 8 p.m.
Trevecca Nazarene at Liberty — ESPN+, 8:30 p.m.
Georgetown at Illinois — FS1, 8:30 p.m.
Northwestern State at BYU — BYUtv, 9 p.m.
Georgia Tech at Tennessee — ESPN2, 9 p.m.
Iona at New Mexico — Mountain West Network, 9 p.m.
Mississippi Valley State at Utah State — Mountain West Network, 9 p.m.
Pepperdine at Northern Colorado — Pluto TV, 9 p.m.
Cal-Riverside at UNLV — Mountain West Network, 10 p.m.
Hampton at Cal — Pac-12 Network/Pac-12 Bay Area, 10 p.m.
Nicholls State at Idaho — Pluto TV, 10 p.m.

The B1G Show — Big Ten Network, 10:30 p.m.
FS1 College Hoops Extra — FS1, 10:30 p.m.

Women’s
Central Connecticut State at Rutgers — Big Ten Network, 7 p.m.
Wisconsin at Wisconsin-Milwaukee — Fox College Sports Pacific, 8 p.m.

College Football
MACtion
Western Michigan at Ball State — ESPN2, 6 p.m.

B1G Football Coaches Press Conference — Big Ten Network, 11:30 a.m.
B1G Football Coaches Press Conference — Big Ten Network, 2 p.m.
College Football Live — ESPN2, 5 p.m.
B1G Football & Beyond — Big Ten Network, 5 p.m.
College Football Playoff: Top 25 — ESPN, 7 p.m.
Inside College Football — CBS Sports Network, 9 p.m.
College Football: Inside Slant — FS1, 11 p.m.

Golf
European Tour
World Tour Championship, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Hero Challenge — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. (same day coverage)

Playing Lessons From the Pros: Wesley Bryan — Golf Channel, 6:30 p.m.
School of Golf: Chapter 30: Unique Swings — Golf Channel, 7 p.m.
Golf Advisor Round Trip: Myrtle Beach — Golf Channel, 7:30 p.m.
Driver vs. Driver: Winner Takes All (season finale) — Golf Channel, 9 p.m.

MLB
Hot Stove — MLB Network, 9 a.m.
MLB Now — MLB Network, 2 p.m.
Baseball Writers’ Association of America Awards: Manager of the Year — MLB Network, 6 p.m.
MLB Tonight: Manager of the Year — MLB Network, 7 p.m.

NASCAR
NASCAR America  — NBCSN, 5 p.m.
NASCAR Race Hub — FS1, 6 p.m.

NBA
Charlotte at Cleveland — NBA TV, 7 p.m.
Atlanta at Golden State — NBA TV, 10:30 p.m.

The Jump — ESPN, 3 p.m.
The Starters — NBA TV, 6 p.m.
NBA TV Pregame — NBA TV, 6:30 p.m.
NBA GameTime — NBA TV, 9:30 p.m.
NBA TV Postgame — NBA TV, 1 a.m. (Wednesday)
NBA GameTime — NBA TV, 2 a.m. (Wednesday)

NFL
Good Morning Football — NFL Network, 7 a.m.
NFL Up to the Minute — NFL Network, 1 p.m.
NFL Live — ESPN, 1:30 p.m.
NFL Fantasy Live — NFL Network, 5 p.m.
NFL Power Rankings — NFL Network, 6 p.m.
21st & Prime — NFL Network, 6:30 p.m.
Inside the NFL: 2018 Week 10 — Showtime, 9 p.m.
NFL Films Presents: In Their Blood — FS1, 11:30 p.m.

NHL
Tampa Bay at Buffalo — NBCSN, 7:30 p.m.

Hockey Central @ noon — NHL Network, noon
NHL Now — NHL Network, 4 p.m.
NHL Top 10: European Players — NBCSN, 6 p.m.
NHL Tonight: Pre-Game Skate — NHL Network, 6 p.m.
NHL Live — NBCSN, 6:30 p.m.
NHL Tonight — NHL Network, 7 p.m.
NHL Tonight: Bonus Coverage — NHL Network, 10 p.m.
NHL Overtime — NBCSN, 10:15 p.m.
NHL Tonight: Bonus Coverage — NHL Network, 11 p.m.
On the Fly — NHL Network, midnight
On the Fly: Nashville at San Jose/Toronto at Los Angeles Bonus Coverage — NHL Network, 12:30 a.m. (Wednesday)
On the Fly — NHL Network, 1:30 a.m. (Wednesday)

Soccer
Women’s
FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup
Group B, Estadio Domingo Burgueño Miguel, Maldonado, Uruguay
Brazil vs. Japan — FS2, 11:50 a.m.
Mexico vs. South Africa — FS2, 2:50 p.m./Universo, 2:55 p.m.

Group A, Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo, Uruguay
New Zealand vs. Finland — Fox Soccer Plus, 1:50 p.m.
Uruguay vs. Ghana — FS2, 5 p.m.

Women’s International Friendly, The Simple Digital Arena, Paisley, Scotland, United Kingdom
Scotland vs. United States — FS1, 2 p.m.

The Turkish SuperLig Hour — beIN Sports, 6 p.m.
The Xtra — beIN Sports, 7 p.m.

Sports Talk
SportsCenter:AM — ESPN, 7 a.m.
Morning Drive — Golf Channel, 7 a.m.
Get Up — ESPN, 8 a.m.
The Dan Patrick Show — Audience (AT&T U-Verse/DirecTV)/NBCSN, 9 a.m.
The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz — ESPNews, 10 a.m.
The Rich Eisen Show — Audience (AT&T U-Verse/DirecTV)/AT&T SportsNet (Pittsburgh/Rocky Mountain/Southwest)/Root Sports, noon
BYU Sports Nation — BYUtv, noon
The Jim Rome Show — CBS Sports Network, noon
SportsCenter — ESPN, noon
Outside the Lines — ESPN, 1 p.m.
Jalen & Jacoby — ESPN2, 2 p.m.
Tiki & Tierney — CBS Sports Network, 3 p.m.
The Will Cain Show — ESPNews, 3 p.m.
The Paul Finebaum Show — SEC Network, 3 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 3:30 p.m.
High Noon — ESPN, 4 p.m.
Highly Questionable — ESPN, 4:30 p.m.
Around the Horn — ESPN, 5 p.m.
Pardon the Interruption — ESPN, 5:30 p.m.
E:60: Pictures: Identity — ESPN2, 5:30 p.m.
Time to Schein — CBS Sports Network, 6 p.m.
SportsCenter — ESPN, 6 p.m.
We Need to Talk — CBS Sports Network, 8 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 8:45 p.m.
SEC Now — SEC Network, 9 p.m.
Sport Today — BBC World News, 9:45 p.m.
SportsCenter at Night — ESPN2, 11 p.m.
Titulares y Más — Telemundo, 11:35 p.m.
TMZ Sports — FS1, midnight
SportsCenter at Night — ESPN, midnight
Contacto Deportivo — Univision/Univision Deportes, midnight
Boomer & Gio — CBS Sports Network, 6 a.m. (Wednesday)
Golic & Wingo — ESPNews/ESPN2, 6 a.m. (Wednesday)
Sport Today — BBC World News, 6:45 a.m. (Wednesday)

Tennis
ATP Tour
ATP Finals, O2 Arena, London, England, United Kingdom
Doubles Round Robin: Group Knowles/Nestor
Raven Klaasen/Michael Venus vs. Nikola Mektic/Alexander Peya — Tennis Channel, 7 a.m.
Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah vs. Jamie Murray/Bruno Soares — Tennis Channel, 1 p.m.

Singles Round Robin: Group Lleyton Hewitt
Kevin Anderson vs. Kei Nishikori — Tennis Channel, 9 a.m.
Roger Federer vs. Dominic Thiem — Tennis Channel, 3 p.m.

Tennis Channel Live at the ATP Finals — Tennis Channel, 5 p.m.

The post Viewing Picks for November 13, 2018 appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Marv Albert has not been calling the NBA since the beginning of time, it only just seems that way. But as the 77-year old Albert is in the midst of a contract that will take him to the 2020-21 season, one wonders how long if he will continue calling games.

Since the 2002-03 season, Albert has been Turner Sports’ lead announcer on the NBA, but  the New York Post speculates that this may be his last season as the top banana on the package. Citing sources, the Post says Turner is looking to replace Albert with Brian Anderson, the regular play by play broadcaster Milwaukee Brewers on Fox Sports Wisconsin and Turner’s top MLB Postseason voice (and an NCAA Tournament staple in recent years).

“If Albert were no longer Turner’s No. 1 play-by-player, he still would be able to broadcast games in the final two years of his contract, which runs through the 2020-21 season, if he so chose. It is unclear if he would want a Vin Scully-like retirement tour. In fact, Albert has shown no indication that he wants to stop working.”

Albert was originally the Voice of the New York Knicks, then was the lead announcer on the NBA on NBC (except from 1998-2000), where he rode the wave on the NBA’s surge of popularity thanks to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

After NBC lost the rights to the NBA, Albert joined TNT for the 2002-03 season. Since joining Turner, Albert has called the NBA All-Star Game while also being one of the lead announcers for the NBA Playoffs, usually ending his season by calling one of the Conference Finals.

During this decade, Albert added the NFL on CBS and the NCAA Tournament to his schedule, but he eventually cut back to focus solely on the NBA. And while he has reduced the amount of games he’s called, Albert was quick to point out to the Post that he has no intention of slowing down:

“My contract is for another three years,” Albert texted The Post. “I feel great. The people at Turner are terrific to work with. I love doing the NBA and will continue to do so. I do appreciate your reaching out.”

For its part, Turner Sports tells the Post that “no decisions have been made at this time.” So if it were up to Albert, he would be calling games well into his 80s before calling it quits.

[New York Post]

The post Marv Albert looks ahead amid speculation on his future at TNT appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Several wildfires have swept through northern and southern California this week, with the Camp Fire in Butte County (north of Sacramento) in particular causing 42 confirmed deaths so far (the highest toll for a fire in in state history) and hundreds still missing.

Amidst that background, San Francisco-based Bay Area CBS affiliate KPIX decided to make a highly questionable sports analogy Monday when describing how the fire swept through the town of Paradise (which is almost completely destroyed), saying even Jamaican champion sprinter Usain Bolt wouldn’t have been able to outrun it in both a tweet and a story.

Update: They’ve since deleted both. You can see a screenshot of the tweet at the top of this page. Beyond using “incarcerating” (imprisoning) instead of ‘incinerating” (destroying by burning), bringing up Bolt here feels ill-advised. And it’s not just the tweet, it’s the story; that’s since deleted too, but you can see it quoted below, followed by a screenshot of the first part.

Here’s how that piece (headlined “Camp Fire Overwhelmed Paradise Victims In A Matter Of Minutes“) starts:

PARADISE (CBS SF) — Even legendary Olympic sprint champ Usain Bolt could not have out run the wall of flames as the Camp Fire swept through Paradise, incarcerating everything in its path.

Bolt, who is considered the greatest sprinter of all time, owns the world 100 meters record at 9.58 seconds. The Camp Fire ripped through Paradise covering 80 football fields a minute.

At that speed, seconds — not minutes — made the difference between survival and death.

And Paradise was not populated with Olympic caliber athletes. It was a community of 27,000 that was a favorite location for retirees — and about a quarter of the population was over 65.

As of Monday night, 42 victims have been recovered from the rubble of Paradise, Concow and Magalia. Of those, 35 were found in Paradise with dozens still missing.

The victims have been discovered in cars, inside the remains of houses and outside where they tried to outrun the flames.

Look, the base point (“This fire moved faster than any human can run”) isn’t invalid, but this is a remarkably poor way to make that point (not to mention using “out run” instead of “outrun,” or “Olympic caliber” instead of “Olympic-caliber”). If this was a question of “Only an elite sprinter could have outrun this fire,” then maybe it would have made some sense to reference Bolt’s records, but they note that the fire was so much faster than any human could possibly run.

Well, actually they don’t, because they don’t convert the units. But an American football field is 109.1 meters long, so 80 of those a minute is 8,728 meters a minute,  or 145.5 meters a second. So the fire would cover 100 meters in 0.69 seconds, which is more than an order of magnitude better than any human can do. So there’s no particular need to go into Bolt’s records here or even bring him into it; they could just give the fire’s speed and say “That’s much faster than any human can run.”

Overall,this feels like a pretty insensitive way to handle this story. Talking about the fire’s speed could maybe be okay (it feels a little graphic, especially with how they did it, but it is perhaps valuable to illustrate that this wasn’t about people not being fast enough to outrun this fire), if done in a thoughtful way, but this wasn’t that. Instead, KPIX managed to annoy a lot of people. But hey, this tweet and story were still up for several hours before they eventually deleted them, so that wasn’t exactly Bolt-like speed in backing off.

[KPIX TV on Twitter]

The post San Francisco CBS affiliate KPIX runs, then deletes, “Even Usain Bolt couldn’t outrun the Paradise fire” tweet and story (updated) appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Elephant in the room disclosure:  I went to Ohio State and have recently moved back to Columbus. That said, I’ve been pretty consistently critical on social media, as well as on this site, about Urban Meyer and Ohio State’s handling of the Zach Smith situation. Additionally, I’ve also been pretty complimentary about McMurphy and his work, both here on the site and on social media.

Brett McMurphy published another doozie of a story this morning on Stadium, his new home in sports media after a year plus of self publishing on Facebook while allowing his ESPN contract to wind down after being laid off last spring.

The article is titled “The Search for the Truth About Trevon Grimes’ Transfer From Ohio State to Florida,” and early into the article, it looked like it could be a possible kill shot of Urban Meyer’s tenure at Ohio State. And honestly, at this point, a lot of Buckeye fans would be fine with it. However, that kill shot never comes, and while the article doesn’t draw too many conclusions and frames it as an investigation that never quite found a consensus, it’s ultimately extremely flawed and, in all honesty, just wouldn’t have been published at other media outlets.

A quick summary of the article would be that McMurphy spent months looking into an allegation that disgraced former wide receivers coach Zach Smith had a confrontation with former Buckeye wide receiver TreVon Grimes and used a racial slur over the course of that confrontation. Grimes soon left Ohio State and would later officially transfer to Florida, his home state, under a hardship waiver. The article insinuates that Grimes was pressured by Meyer and other players to not publicly speak about the incident. Additionally, there is some uncertainty about his mother’s cancer diagnosis, which is what triggered the hardship waiver.

Essentially, there are two things that are being presented in this story that initiated Grimes’ transfer from Ohio State.

1. A racial slur was said at an Ohio State practice by a former coach.
2. A silencing effort and coverup took place to ensure Grimes could leave Ohio State immediately and would not have to sit out a year as a regular transfer.

Regarding the racial slur, Grimes, nor anyone at actually at practice this day, came forward and says this indeed took place. Not even anonymously. The only primary source here is Grimes’ dad, as well as a family friend that Grimes allegedly shared details of the incident with. The pair also cites another player who verified the story, but would not participate in the story. Additionally, it mentions some unnamed Florida players who reported to McMurphy that Grimes had spoken about the incident to them, but again, they were not present when the incident took place.

As for players who did witness the incident in question, many took to Twitter to deny hearing any slur. It should be noted these players have remained largely silent in defending Smith as the other McMurphy reports have come out in recent weeks and months.

I witness the whole altercation and this didn’t happen.. You think a group of African American young men will sit there and let something like this happen? Say what you want but this isn’t true at all. https://t.co/FrteEDIa9H

— Johnnie L. Dixon III (@YoungKing_JD5) November 13, 2018

There’s no way that anyone would believe this. NO WAY. This lie is just out of hand. I was present during the entire altercation and what’s said in this article NEVER HAPPENED. I can guarantee it. Crazy how social media gives people platforms just to spread nonsense. https://t.co/FRBLucb9WY

— Parris Campbell (@PCampbell21) November 13, 2018

Wow… so you really think a room filled with Black athletes would still be apart of this University if any racial slurs were used to degrade another Black man!! Every one of us Wide Outs we’re right there and saw the whole thing. @Brett_McMurphy you continue to lie everyday! https://t.co/kOFwssniAX

— Austin Mack (@Austin_Mack10) November 13, 2018

We all know why Trevon left OSU.. or that’s what he made it seem like, in all honesty OSU was prolly just to tough for the kid. But you saying he was called a n*** but a former OSU coach is a disgrace. You not about to bring down my University that I’m proud to be apart of. #LIES

— Austin Mack (@Austin_Mack10) November 13, 2018

Trevon Grimes was my best friend back then… and is still my best friend to this day. This report about “racially-charged practice altercation” is 100% false. Not a single player or staff member would have allowed this to happen. https://t.co/6wLZN8ASWX

— TATE MARTELL (@TheTateMartell) November 13, 2018

Putting aside the firm denials by these players, you would think McMurphy’s initial source would be an individual with significant credibility to anchor the allegations made in the story. That’s far from what we have here, though. The quote given by Grimes’ mother, after a considerable amount of nudging, says the following:

“If my ex-husband is the person spreading these rumors, everyone should know that neither I nor TreVon have any contact with him whatsoever. He knows nothing about my health and nothing about TreVon’s transfer to UF. He is an abuser and the worst kind of role model, and he is no longer in TreVon’s life.”

McMurphy does present his source’s checkered pasts, but I, and many others, am left wondering if an entire story can be based on an individual with a troubled past, as outlined below.

“As referenced in Leah’s statement, LeBron, 46, admits he has experienced his share of legal issues.

Between 2011 and 2015, LeBron was the defendant in two domestic violence cases with two different women: his step-sister and Leah Grimes, according to the Broward County Court of Clerks. Each case was dismissed and he was not convicted or found liable.

In 1999, LeBron was arrested in Broward County for battery on a community college security officer and theft of less than $300. He also was charged for theft between $100 and $300, according to the Broward County Court of Clerks.

In 1994, when he was 22, he was arrested for possession and selling cocaine, according to court records in Marion County, Indiana. He also pled guilty to cocaine possession in 2004 in Marion Superior Court in Indiana.

“It’s true I sold drugs when I was younger and it landed me a trip to prison,” LeBron said. “But I am a truthful and stand-up guy. They can never say I’m a liar.”

The best part of the new McMurphy story is when, more than 50 paragraphs in, he slides in this little nugget which completely blows up his own primary source. pic.twitter.com/KjgBtmlO0G

— Tom Orr (@TomOrr4) November 13, 2018

McMurphy does defend his reporting by noting that while Grimes mother says that TreVon’s father, LeBron, has not been involved in TreVon’s life, there were two brief phone calls between the two, and LeBron can prove he flew to Indianapolis shortly before Grimes leaving Ohio State (he reportedly drove with a family friend to Columbus to counsel Grimes.)

In all efforts to take down Urban Meyer, McMurphy lets the world know of all of this families issues and accuses the mom of faking cancer. https://t.co/NbHHNGhq8w

— Will Tyrrell (@wltyrrell2) November 13, 2018

The second component of this story is even more troubling, as McMurphy presents the possibility that Leah’s cancer was either exaggerated or manufactured to allow TreVon to transfer without any media scrutiny being drawn to his clash with Smith, also allowing TreVon to play this season instead of sitting out a season. Below is how McMurphy presents it.

“The NCAA’s three-page Case Summary indicated “the SA’s (student-athlete’s) mother was diagnosed with stage IV epithelial ovarian cancer (and his) mother underwent surgery to remove the cancer. In early September 2017, (his) mother’s doctors discovered that the surgery was not successful in removing the cancer.”

According to the American Cancer Society, “stage IV epithelial ovarian cancer has spread to distant sites, like the liver, the lungs, or bones. These cancers are very hard to cure with current treatments, but they can still be treated. The goals of treatment are to help patients feel better and live longer.

“Stage IV can be treated with surgery to remove the tumor and debulk the cancer, followed by chemo (and possibly the targeted drug bevacizumab) for up to about a year. Another option is to treat with chemo first. More often, three cycles of chemo are given before surgery, with at least three more after surgery.”

Lynda Roman, director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Southern California, said, “The cure rate would be very, very low, less than five percent.”

Lee P. Shulman, chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology-Clinical Genetics and a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University, said the outlook for an individual in this condition would be poor.

“The prognosis for Stage IV ovarian cancer – whether or whether not any surgery was successful – is dismal,” Shulman said. “There would be a five percent chance they would still be alive five years later. These patients tend not to do well.”

McMurphy is, at the very least, raising an eyebrow here, with no insight whatsoever that it’s quite an outlier that Leah is not dead. She’s either miraculously beaten cancer, or something amazingly sinister is going on here, which would require major ethical or procedural breaches by the Grimes family, Ohio State, the NCAA, the University of Florida, and potentially involved medical parties and insurers. I mean, is this really a branch you want to stand on without any firm evidence here?

Imagine being a “hero for women” then writing a story claiming a kid’s mom lied about having cancer because you want to get a football coach fired.

— Jeremy Birmingham (@Birm) November 13, 2018

There is some additional smoke here, considering that Meyer, Smith, and a contingent of players traveled to Florida to meet with Grimes and dissuade from him transferring. Perhaps, that’s where this potential conspiracy to get Grimes away from Ohio State under the cover of a cancer diagnosis took root. There are certainly many more plausible explanations, but if you’re going to go out on this branch, I guess you kind of have to throw that in there as well.

After more what you could call either dogged reporting or badgering, this statement was provided to McMurphy.

“I understand there is great interest in college football and the personalities involved. But that does not give anyone the right to invade the privacy and personal health information of mothers whose sons happen to play college football. The NCAA cleared TreVon for eligibility based on their rules after I provided the required documentation about my illness. My oncologist has attested to it. For anyone to accuse me of making up an illness for any reason is vile and hurtful. Coach Urban Meyer has been a good friend to both me and TreVon during this entire process, and to accuse him of misconduct in this case is unfair as well. He tried to help any way he could, including referring me to doctors at Ohio State he thought could help.”

To be fair, everything in McMurphy’s story is possible. There really isn’t anything you could write about Zach Smith these days that would come off as unrealistic, given what we now know and how he acts on Twitter. And I guess it’s possible there was a far reaching plot to fake a cancer diagnosis so TreVon’s playing career could continue in the smoothest way possible.

But ultimately, this is a story that is shoddily duct taped together by one person with a very checkered background, whose known contact with his son is 15 minutes of calls and a possible night out at a B-Dubs. Given the gravity of both allegations, it’s not nearly enough to publish, and that’s a takeaway that is coming from all corners of the internet and not just the Ohio State eco-chamber.

I’m not surprised that Brett McMurphy has no journalistic integrity, but I am a little surprised that @WatchStadium allows him not to.

— Elika Sadeghi (@steakNstiffarms) November 13, 2018

Given Stadium is almost purely a video company with no written content and no masthead on their site in terms of editorial oversight, I took it upon myself to see if I could learn more about the editorial process that went on behind the scenes. I received the following comment from Stadium:

“Stadium has an editorial team that we utilize on all of our written content, in addition to consulting with legal counsel.” – Adam Anshell, Managing Director, Operations.

A similar inquiry to McMurphy yielded a bit of a testy exchange before the following was volunteered:

“Yes, we had multiple editors work with me on my report. Joe Sullivan, who was with the Boston Globe for 24 years, the past 14 as sports editor, was the lead editor on the story.”

I'm not sure if I could name an editor in the country that would run that McMurphy story.

— Spencer Holbrook (@SpencerHolbrook) November 13, 2018

I reached out to a handful of feature writers and editors about the story, and got a few responses with their thoughts. The few responses I got were resounding “no” votes, with one ESPN journalist (who did not want to be identified) chiming in with this:

“We would not publish this. I’m surprised Stadium did, but they are a startup and can play by different rules. Brett has made a name for himself covering Meyer and Smith and I guess you kind of just look the other way here because he invested a lot of time into this story and there are some interesting nuggets in here. But given what is alleged and the lack of anything concrete, it’s not something we could run with. They tried to downplay it and frame in a more responsible way, but that doesn’t really make it any better journalistically. I’d imagine we won’t be spending much time on this on TV or dot com because it’s just not a sound article.”

"If Urban Meyer was no longer the coach at Ohio State, I wouldn't have reported this," – Brett McMurphy.

McMurphy also said he has no personal vendetta against Urban Meyer.

Do with this what you will.

— James Grega Jr. (@JGrega11) November 13, 2018

Any Ohio State scandal, or possible scandal, is a major story. McMurphy has hovered over the program since this summer, but returns on his reporting here have continued to have shrinking returns while facing increased criticism on his reporting. Today’s article certainly did little to reverse that trend, and now that he’s no longer publishing these stories on his personal Facebook page, criticism of McMurphy has now been extended to Stadium as a whole and how they could publish such a half baked piece touching on serious allegations with minimal amount of corroboration.

Any attention and any spike of views is good for any media upstart, but you have to wonder if today’s article did more harm than good given how this article has been received and how adamantly it’s being refuted. Perhaps McMurphy will gain vindication down the road on this story, but until then, this is a story that seems to have waded into murky waters usually reserved for fringe blogs and message boards.

The post Brett McMurphy’s latest Ohio State story reveals a very low journalistic integrity bar at Stadium appeared first on Awful Announcing.

It’s a challenging period for online publishers thanks to low advertising rates, and that’s leading to some moves towards emphasizing subscriber-only content and packaging those subscriptions differently. A subscriber model is working very well for The Athletic, which just brought in another $40 million, and newspapers have tried a few different approaches to boost that model as well, from digital-only subscriptions at many papers to sports-only subscriptions (currently offered at The Miami Herald and The Kansas City Star, contemplated at The Washington Post and elsewhere).

And now, it seems like Yahoo’s getting into that game, at least with its Yahoo Finance coverage but possibly with sports or tech down the road. Here’s more from Sara Fischer at Axios:

Yahoo Finance, the decades-old money brand now owned by Verizon, is launching a subscription service that aims to compete with Bloomberg for the cash and attention of retail investors, sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Yahoo Finance Premium will act as a testing ground for Verizon Media Group (formerly called Oath) to launch more subscription services amongst its other brands (like TechCrunch and Yahoo Sports), as the advertising outlook continues to look bleak for traditional media companies.

…Verizon Media Group/Oath houses many smaller brands that have niche audiences, like TechCrunch, Engadget and Yahoo Sports. TechCrunch currently leverages its deep relationship with tech wonks to monetize big conferences. Yahoo Sports does the same thing with fantasy sports.

While it’s debatable if Yahoo Sports is a “smaller” brand or has a “niche” audience (the percentage of the North American world interested in sports is a pretty big niche, and Yahoo Sports and TechCrunch are both more well-known to many than Yahoo Finance), it’s certainly interesting to hear this discussion. It’s especially notable considering that it’s a change from Yahoo’s past strategies.

The company has long been focused on advertising-supported content in sports (but also overall), making money from the audience for their stories (especially those that get the traffic firehose of being featured on the Yahoo.com homepage, or the similar homepage in other countries) and from the use of their apps (for scores, news, and especially fantasy), with the key goal of maximizing reach to get the largest possible audience for those stories and apps. So a shift towards premium content with subscriber fees would be a big change.

As Mark Burns notes, though, this shift to subscriptions is something many outlets are currently trying:

In past 24 hrs, it's been reported/announced that:

– Yahoo Finance is launching a sub. service in 2019, per @sarafischer
– @qz launched membership program
– Fortune will explore premium mod in 2019
– NY Media is installing paywall (NYMag, Vulture, others)#PivotToSubscription

— Mark J. Burns (@markjburns88) November 13, 2018

There are some moves Yahoo has already made that might help if they do make a shift in sports. As Yahoo Sports GM Geoff Reiss told AA back in September, they’ve made a big push into regular video shows, from daily morning recap show The Rush to Mostly Football with Martellus Bennett to The Spin (focused on spotlighting Yahoo’s journalists). At the moment, those shows have significant reach thanks to Yahoo’s audience and thanks to how they’re featured in the app (and that app’s gaining even more prominence due to Yahoo’s streaming of NFL games without authentication requirements), and offering those on an ad-supported basis to a large group of users seems to work for now.

But if Yahoo Sports does shift towards subscription content, some of that video content might be something that winds up there. That’s an approach Sports Illustrated is trying with SI TV. (It’s notable that Yahoo Finance has also been doing regular video shows and hosting premium conferences, both areas that could be further featured with this move.) And while that NFL streaming is currently free, most other ways to watch the NFL involve payment in one way or another; it’s certainly possible that the NFL content moves to a premium sports option if Yahoo launches one. A premium sports option might also increase the case for Yahoo to buy other sports streaming rights and put them there.

It’s also possible that this shift is only seen at Yahoo Finance, though. Business news is generally seen as one of the easier areas to charge a subscription fee, often with a harder (no free articles a month, or only a few) paywall than general news. Several reasons contribute to that; one is that business news isn’t read as much by a wide audience as general news (so it’s harder to make it work on an ad-supported basis), while another is that there are less outlets covering business news in-depth (so you’re less likely to find a particular story elsewhere for free), and a third is that it’s often businesses instead of individuals paying for subscriptions (and that they’re often willing to pay if there’s actionable information they can get from the news).

Outlets like Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal have done very well with a subscriber model focused on business news, and even wider publications like Canada’s The Globe And Mail have often segmented their business/stocks coverage (Report on Business and Globe Investor, in that particular case) and applied a harder paywall to it. And on the sports side, business-focused publications like Sports Business Journal have found success with a subscriber model. It’s notable that Yahoo Finance sometimes delves into those waters, too, and that senior writer Daniel Roberts in particular has broken some big sports media stories (such as the Chat Sports/The Cauldron/SI drama back in 2017). So there could be some stuff of interest to sports fans in this subscription service, even if all of Yahoo Sports doesn’t wind up there. (And the Yahoo Finance Premium name seems to indicate that this may see some particular content paywalled but some still offered for free; something like that could happen with a sports move, too, allowing them to still target high audiences with free content and get subscriber fees for particularly-notable content.)

In any case, it’s certainly interesting to see Yahoo Finance launching a subscription service. And it sounds like there may be more moves on that front ahead for that company, as Verizon Media Group CEO K. Guru Gowrappan told Fischer “The launch of Yahoo Finance Premium is one example of the membership opportunities ahead for us as we focus on creating services that provide value to our consumers and advertisers, including subscription, transactions and commerce that are uniquely authentic to each brand.” We’ll see how this launch goes, and if sports indeed proves to be one of those “membership opportunities” they explore down the road.

[Axios]

The post Yahoo Finance is launching a premium subscription service, which could be a “testing ground” for a sports equivalent appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Next week’s hotly-anticipated Monday Night Football matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Rams (both 9-1) will be coming to viewers live from the L.A. Coliseum, instead of the initially-planned venue of the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. There had been speculation about a potential move during the last week, especially after a Shakira concert Wednesday created plenty of burns to a field already damaged by heavy soccer use, and the decision to move the game to Los Angeles was officially made Tuesday. Here’s more from NFL.com:

“The decision is based on the determination — in consultation with the NFLPA and following a meeting and field inspection this afternoon by NFL and club field experts as well as local and independent outside experts — that the playing field at Estadio Azteca does not meet NFL standards for playability and consistency and will not meet those standards by next Monday,” the league wrote in a statement.

…”We have worked extensively with our partners at Estadio Azteca for months in preparation for this game,” NFL Executive Vice President of International Mark Waller said in a statement. “Until very recently, we had no major concerns. But, the combination of a difficult rainy season and a heavy multi-event calendar of events at the stadium, have resulted in significant damage to the field that presents unnecessary risks to player safety and makes it unsuitable to host an NFL game. As a result, we have determined that moving the game is the right decision, and one that we needed to announce now in order to allow our teams and fans to make alternate arrangements.”

Here are some photos from the Mexican daily Record sports newspaper on what the field looked like last week:

¿Cómo lo ven?

Así luce la cancha del Estadio Azteca después de albergar otro concierto

Y mañana tendremos el Cruz Azul vs Lobos BUAP

| @Migue_luk pic.twitter.com/hMszGIhUHL

— DIARIO RÉCORD (@record_mexico) November 9, 2018

This is going to create a whole lot of problems for a whole lot of people. First, there’s the potential competitive impact from turning what was theoretically a neutral-site game (in high altitude at that) with high stakes into a Rams’ home game. Beyond that, yes, it sounds like there will be some reimbursement for U.S.-based fans who had planned to attend the game in Mexico, but it seems unlikely that’s going to cover travel and accommodation costs as well, and it may not be easy to cancel or change those arrangements in less than a week. (To say nothing of any time off already booked.) ESPN will be changing some travel arrangements around as well; it doesn’t sound like they were planning to bring Sunday NFL Countdown to Mexico the way they did two years ago ahead of a Monday Night Football game, but there were still plenty of ESPN people associated with MNF who will now be heading to Los Angeles instead of Mexico City. Oh, and despite now playing at home, the Rams are still practicing on the road:

The Rams, who arrived in Colorado Springs on Monday to practice this week and acclimate themselves to Mexico City’s high altitude, plan to stay in Colorado this week and go through their planned practice routine, per NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano.

For those who still want to go to the game, it sounds like that’s going to be easiest for Rams’ fans who already have season tickets (season ticket holders can buy their current seats online and add up to four additional seats in a presale Wednesday). The team will release general tickets later on Wednesday, and they’ll also be giving thousands of tickets to first responders who have been battling the California wildfires, which is a nice touch.

All in all, it makes sense to relocate this game. League officials, coaches, players and the players’ association have all expressed concerns about the field, and it doesn’t seem possible to fix it in a week. But this relocation is a big deal, and it is going to make things tough for a lot of people. And it’s amazing that a concert that could do this much damage to a field was approved just weeks ahead of a NFL game.

But hey, turnabout is perhaps fair play, as NFL games have previously torn up the surface at London’s Wembley Stadium ahead of Premier League games, including one this year. So they’ve gone from hurting soccer teams’ fields to having their planned field hurt by soccer and Shakira. How unfortunate.

The post Chiefs-Rams Monday Night Football game relocated from Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca to the L.A. Coliseum over field damage appeared first on Awful Announcing.

On December 8, UFC 231 will take place in Toronto, Canada. The company has come a long way from UFC 1 in 1993, but there were plenty of times between now and then that could have spelled doom for Dana White’s mixed-martial-arts promotion.

One of the key moments for the combat company came between November 2000 and March 2001, when they held UFC 28, UFC 30, and UFC 31 at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. At the time, UFC wasn’t welcome in many states or venues, but this felt a coming out party of sorts for the brand and for the company. Pretty soon they were hosting events in Las Vegas and major arenas around the nation.

So it’s a bit understandable why UFC President Dana White has a soft spot in his heart for the current President of the United States, Donald Trump. White, who has stumped for Trump (including < ahref="https://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/07/dana-white-rnc">at the 2016 Republican National Convention) and been a vocal supporter, is now getting ready to release a documentary about the relationship between Trump and the UFC.

White has previously mentioned that UFC was working on a “badass” documentary about Trump and that “badass” film will be the very wordy “Combatant In Chief: The Story of Donald Trump’s History in Combat Sports.”

The doc is actually one of 25 the UFC has in store for their 25th anniversary this year, much like ESPN’s initial 30 for 30 run during the company’s 30th anniversary.

“It’s the 25th anniversary of the UFC and we’re doing 25 documentaries with 25 badass directors for the 25th anniversary and one of them is the story of how President Trump let us come to the Taj (Mahal) for the first fight and he and I went to the residence after that, and he and I both shot for the documentary,” White told UFC Unfiltered in August.

Here’s the documentary description from the YouTube page:

When Donald Trump opened his Atlantic City casino to the struggling UFC, it was the start of an unlikely friendship between the current POTUS and UFC president Dana White.

UFC 25 Years in Short is a 25-part documentary series celebrating the UFC silver anniversary. This compilation of short films presents 25 captivating UFC stories, one for each year of existence, and every piece stands alone as an independent feature. Viewed as a whole, these films form a larger, mosaic narrative of the UFC’s amazing evolution, fascinating characters and lasting influence.

While it’s just a trailer and doesn’t seem to give too much insight into the details, it does appear that the film will be something of a hagiography about not only Trump but also White.

All of the documentaries that are part of the series will be available exclusively on UFC Fight Pass.

[UFC]

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