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Business Wars

ESPN vs Fox Sports | The Wide World of Sports Broadcasting | 6

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.613.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Heavyweight champions ESPN and FS1 are competing for cable, as legacy networks hop off the bench and onto the field. On-air talent remain caught in the middle. Throw in a global pandemic and an increasingly digital-first media landscape, and you’re in for one heck-of-game.


For our very own post-season analysis, we’re talking to Richard Deitsch, a sports writer at The Athletic and host of the Sports Media Podcast. He’s guiding us through the wide world of sports broadcasting both on screen and behind the scenes, plus what the future has in store.


Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sports-media-with-richard-deitsch/id1366264191

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Business Wars Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

0:06.0

Hi, I'm David Brown and this is Business Wars.

0:37.0

You know, if there's one thing we can all agree on, is that Americans love sports, pandemic aside, of course, wherever you go in this diverse land of ours, there's a good chance you'll find a group of fans sitting in a bar spilling beer and passionately yelling at the TV.

0:52.0

Overall, the excitement, cheers, and cheers, you might be paying little mind to who's actually broadcasting that game and what it took for it to make it to the screen in the first place.

1:03.0

Well, once upon a time, the broadcast TV Trinity of ABC, CBS, and NBC were the only game in town when it came to sports. But when ESPN entered the scene in 1979, the status quo was about to experience some monumental shift.

1:21.0

Later, the introduction of Fox Sports in the early 90s would usher in an era of cable sports competition that would come to redefine game day as we know it.

1:32.0

But along the way, these networks underwent acquisitions, mergers, programming reboots, and many more ups and downs.

1:39.0

Today, the ESPN and Fox Sports rivalry is still alive and well, as the sports broadcast giants figure how to keep up with an age of streaming, heightened political consciousness, and online competitors.

1:54.0

Here to help us dive into this wide world of sports broadcasting, Richard Dij, he is a sports writer at the athletic, and host of the sports media podcast covering, you guessed it, the sports media landscape, both on screen and behind the scenes.

2:07.0

We'll be talking about where these network rivalry stand today and what's in store for the future of sports media. That's all coming up next.

2:19.0

Let's say you love sports, but are also, you know, a busy person. You want to know the latest sports news, but don't want to sit through a two hour podcast.

2:28.0

All right, if we're talking about you right now, then check out the new podcast from Wondering, listen to the lead starting five on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcast.

2:45.0

Richard Dij, welcome to business wars. Great to be here.

2:48.0

You know, for a while there, ESPN had the game to themselves, not counting, of course, the old timers CBS NBC and ABC Fox enters the scene.

2:58.0

And I'm curious about, you know, the rivalry itself. Do you think that was good for, well, I want to say sports media, but I also want to sort of say sports overall.

3:11.0

I mean, was that a net positive, do you think for those who love to follow sports?

3:15.0

It certainly was a positive for the leagues because whenever you can create a market between either two bidders or multiple bidders, what happens? Well, inevitably the big goes up and leagues get paid. So Fox, any

3:30.0

ESPN have obviously been great business for the leagues that they are media rights partners with has it been good for on air talent. It's been exceptional for our on air talent again, the same exact premise lies here. If you have, if you have multiple entities who are doing the same thing and need

3:49.0

people to present news, present highlights, call games. Well, again, that's going to create great business for the on air talent, as well as obviously the multitude of agencies that represent the on air talent. So Fox and ESPN being competitors has been very, very good for the people who work in the business.

4:06.0

Where I would say it's, it's neutral or perhaps negative is for consumers. Someone ultimately has to foot the bill when it comes to the billions of dollars for the NFL or the billions of dollars for college sports and those those costs are ultimately passed on to the consumer.

4:28.0

And that's one of the reasons why, you know, ESPN for, I mean, man, for certainly as long as I've covered it, but, but even I imagine heading before that has always been the highest costing cable channel for subscribers and many times, you know, three, four, five times more costly than its next closest cable competitor.

4:53.0

It's one of the reasons that obviously F S one wanted to get into the game. That is a billion dollar business.

...

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