Will The Sports Rights Bidding Wars Go Up or Down?

Whether or not the even bigger media giants are willing to engage in bidding wars over sports telecast rights will have a huge impact on pro sports over the next few years. As Disney continues to be in the running to take over the Fox Sports regional networks, we also had the approved merger of AT&T taking over Time Warner.

Since AT&T will now own Turner Sports, it adds MLB and NBA regular season and post-season games to the fold, along with the NCAA Tournament. With this deal also including DIrecTV, AT&T also takes over the Sunday Ticket package adding the NFL to the mix.

AT&T already owns three of the regional sports networks (Houston, Pittsburgh, and Seattle regions). Impressive as that is, it is fewer regional sports networks than now rivals NBC Sports and Fox Sports own and operate, as well as not as many of the biggest markets.

Their regional network in Houston has been a struggle to build, although the success of the Astros has helped to draw a much bigger audience than was the case earlier on. Prior to AT&T taking it over, the previous version of the network suffered from cable and satellite providers refusing to pay the high prices to carry it.

Even without all of the major carriers, the Astros Monday game against Toronto, for example, wound up with the biggest audience for the night on Houston TV.

Speculation on what AT&T will do in the near future is varied. Some think they will invest heavily in sports rights in order to make it difficult for Fox, ESPN (if separate in the future), and NBC Sports. Others think they are only worried about maintaining the Sunday Ticket package because of the difference it makes for the DirecTV service. They may not wish to spend as much for TBS and TNT because they have other strong programming.

In addition, they may not want to find themselves in a messy negotiation, such as they came out of in Houston and still exists five seasons later with the Dodgers telecasts still not available to the majority of local TV households.


Just as former players are always a part of NFL telecasts, we can say the same for retired referrees. NBC has added the recently retired Terry McAulay to its Sunday Night Football broadcast team. McAulay is also expected to be a part of the network's telecasts of Notre Dame home games. CBS has added another former NFL referee, Gene Stearatore to its NFL coverage starting with the coming season. In addition, Steratore will also help with their college hoops coverage, having also served as a Big Ten official.


ESPN has renewed Dan LeBatard and Jon Weiner (Stugotz) for another four years. In addition to their midday show on ESPN Radio and ESPNews, Stugotz will continue with appearances on SportsCenter, while both will continue their local show in Miami on WAXY 790.


The Radio Hall of Fame announcements this week included a couple of sports shows being honored for induction. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic being honored for the now defunct "Mike & Mike Show". In addition, Mike Francesa was also named, with this announcement coming weeks after his return to WFAN New York's afternoon show.


ST. LOUIS: No more "Sports Krap". Ownership cut the KRAP changed 1350 away from sports to simulcast it with KSLQ-FM 104.5 and its music format.


EVERETT WA: Rumors of a format change were rampant as of press time for KRKO 1090. Earlier this week, host Jeff Aaron announced on Facebook that he was doing his final sports show for the station, but does not appear (as of press time) to be leaving the station. Aaron has been with KRKO since 2002.