Sports Media

[zambonir]

Ben is much better at talk radio/punditry than he is color commentary/analysis. And it's not an unfair thing to say, especially to Bichette. (I'd say the Mets themselves can still trash-talk us if they want, between '24 and our record in Queens lately. The latter even more galling consider they stunk last year.)

[andyb]

Eagles getting some 30 for 30 love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1SAoyNFDT8

[zambonir]

PHLY stopped its newsletters, and laid off Rich Hoffman. He's considering continuing to do it on his own.

Rich Hofmann's (Potential) Next Thing

[andyb]

Looks like MLB will have close to half the teams on MLB.TV this year. St. Louis joins and 5 more have been reported to join (13 teams total). 3 more teams have yet to decide.

St. Louis Cardinals leave FanDuel SN for MLB’s broadcast group, others to follow

[zambonir]

No more Washington Post sports section, and they don't have an Athletic.

Washington Post Kills Sports Section Amid Mass Layoffs - Washingtonian

I haven't subscribed for quite a while (and even then was mostly for arts), I know Boswell retired a while back and Sally Jenkins had already left.

[Philsmania]

No more Washington Post sports section, and they don't have an Athletic.

Washington Post Kills Sports Section Amid Mass Layoffs - Washingtonian

I haven't subscribed for quite a while (and even then was mostly for arts), I know Boswell retired a while back and Sally Jenkins had already left.

Bezos really trashed that paper and is now running it into the ground.. Go woke, go broke? Quite the opposite there.

[julio]

They built the modern Washington Post around subscriber revenues. No podcasts, no side ventures. Then they took editorial hard to the right, and their subscribers (including yours truly) cancelled. Their revenues cratered.

It's probably not fixable now. Even if they sacked the right-wing editorial staff, and tried to be at least neutral - and resumed doing serious investigative journalism, focused on the most corrupt administration in American history - they'd probably collapse before they could persuade their subscriber base to come back. Trust, once so cavalierly squandered, does not return easily.

[andyb]

I have been holding out on my grandfathered $4//month rate but this is probably the last straw for me. The opinion sections are a libertarian joke these days but I still got value from the news side which was reduced but still important. Now without sports and metro it really has less value for somebody that lives here.

This has been so misguided. They fired all their liberal op-ed writers and that has just deserted their readership that was admittedly left of center. The way to build a more balanced readership was to do better news, not 1-sided opinion which was just going to annoy the bulk of their past readership. Now they take away the local coverage and lose people like me.

I am hoping the Athletic beefs up their DC coverage which is not down to 1.5 beat writers (the basketball guy does Orlando too) and David Aldridge. No hockey or baseball at the moment. They actually have an opportunity here to get more DC readers.

[zambonir]

I bet the Athletic will do that.

It's rarely good when the owner actually tells the paper what to print, even though that's how all newspaper empires were originally built. But from a business perspective it's pretty baffling that Bezos though he needed to slide somewhere between the NY Post and WSJ. No one wanted that, locally or nationally.

[andyb]

The Post laid off their Amazon beat reporter among others.....

[julio]

Bezos thought he needed to kiss up to Trump.

Bezos did need to kiss up to Trump, if he wanted (wants) to save Blue Origin's nascent satellite constellation (that will compete with Starlink). Blue Origin has been under a deadline to get approximately 1,000 satellites in orbit - a deadline it cannot meet - or lose its authorization to build out its constellation. Bezos needs an extension, and the only way to get anything from the Trump administration is to pay bribes. Thus, destroy the Post; fund the Melania movie; whatever else.

See this article on Wikipedia

In January 2026, Amazon filed a request with the FCC to extend the deadline to launch half of their Gen1 constellation by July 2026. It disclosed 10 additional Falcon 9 and 12 additional New Glenn launch contracts

[Philsmania]

This has been so misguided. They fired all their liberal op-ed writers and that has just deserted their readership that was admittedly left of center. The way to build a more balanced readership was to do better news, not 1-sided opinion which was just going to annoy the bulk of their past readership. Now they take away the local coverage and lose people like me.

A chunk of this thread may now belong in the politics thread but "go woke, go broke" can be the opposite if you have a left-trending customer base. Starbucks had a left trending customer base but then a few months after a couple black professional guys got kicked out of a Philadelphia Starbucks, they instituted national policies essentially affirming that decision while engaging in aggressive union-busting activities. They just had to close whole bunch of locations. Conservative coffee drinkers didn't move in to replace them. Target was the Wal-Mart for Blue America. They trumpeted how they ended all of their DEI initiatives. Conservative shoppers didn't flock there. They're hurting now. Now, you got The Washington Post turned into a libertarian page. Their left of center subscribers left. Conservative readers haven't flocked to subscribe.

[julio]

I’m tempted to suggest that “conservative readers” is an oxymoron! Not entirely fair…but “MAGA readers” may well be.

[andyb]

They are not quite live yet but YTTV is unveiling their theme packages. Looks like sports will cost $65 or $72 with news.

Flex your options: YouTube TV plans launch this week

YouTube TV launching lower-cost sports-only package of channels

As I suspected this will save me a bit of money as I really only watch news and sports. ESPN Unlimited access still delayed till Fall unfortunately.

[zambonir]

I find that to be a bafflingly small difference. The extra $18 still seems worth it to me (but also insane to imagine anyone playing $54.99 for the non-sports package). I'd probably pay $10 just for FX (not all of their stuff is on Hulu indefinitely, nor is it available the first night it airs live) and Comedy and Nick at Nite.

Taking way too long for the ESPN Unlimited integration. I guess I don't really need it (or + for that matter) until football season.

I guess I'd save like $10-20 if I switched to Hulu (since ESPN/Hulu/Disney included) but they don't have PBS. We do have an antenna

[phillychuck]

PBS has app access.

[zambonir]

It's just more convenient to have it all in one place. I do think YT is a better product than Hulu too (greatly so, with multiview). If I wasn't paying for anything, different story.

[andyb]

The DVR on YTTV is just better than the competition once you get used to how it organizes things. And having a separate solution for over the air (which I know is free) is just harder to do.

I still think it is likely even the live streamers like YTTV will collapse at some point. But then we'll probably have consolidation in the streaming services where you can get a bundle of multiple services in one. This will save me a small amount of money to drop to the sports and news package and then I'll save $10 more once ESPN Unlimited is included. I am actually surprised that YTTV did not do an overall price increase when they introduced the lower cost packages. Guessing their margin on the packages is greater so in effect it is a small profit increase for them.

[zambonir]

I forget YT doesn't have MLB Network, because I only ever watched that when I lived out-of-market and Phillies were on (and even then I still had MLB.TV). I have found myself wanting NHL Network a few times but Hulu doesn't have that either.

Because of that, however, I learned that Sling sells subscriptions in small increments (1, 3 or 7 days, 1 month, 3 month discounted) which I feel like is information more people could use.

[andyb]

MLB.TV does include MLB network so I'll get that with my T-Mobile out of town package even if it is all on the MLB app.

There was a story out that people would need ESPN Unlimited to get MLB.TV and I don't think that is true for 2026 but perhaps will be for 2027 when they might phase out the MLB.TV app.