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Mendoza Echoes Spain’s Comments at the BSM Summit

Jason Barrett

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Last week, Jessica Mendoza began her third season as an analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball broadcast. While we’re beginning to see more women cover sports, it’s occurring at a slower rate than it should be.

Typically, sports are targeted towards men 25-54, but they might be ignoring a large percentage of the population that would be attracted to sports if provided more diverse coverage.

“Women that don’t watch sports, I think, would want to watch sports if they felt like they were being spoken to more,” Jessica Mendoza told The Washington Post.

Mendoza’s comments echoed what we heard from ESPN personality Sarah Spain at last week’s BSM Programming Summit in Chicago. As BSM President Jason Barrett noted during the summit, there are 425 Monday – Friday sports radio hosts in the country in the Top 20 markets, 87% of them are white males. Although many deserve to be in their positions and are doing an excellent job, it’s an eye-opening statistic that has remained stagnant for too long. That lack of diversity is not only seen in radio, but in sports media across all platforms.

Are men between the ages 25-54 the target because they’re the group that most likes sports? Or are consumers of sports coverage not more diverse because those presenting the coverage lack diversity?

“We prefer to still not to attract 50% of the population of women [and another more than 30% that are minorities] because we’re worried the white audience that we have might go away if we force them to listen to someone who is mildly different from them,” Sarah Spain told the group of sports radio programmers attending the BSM Summit.

People of all backgrounds like sports, creating diversity will attract a broader audience, not alienate its current target. “If you speak to us, if you give us someone that’s a little bit more relatable,” Mendoza told The Washington Post, “it allows us to feel connected to games.”

During the BSM summit, Spain spoke of creating avenues for more diversity within sports media. “Pipelines exist in every business for white males, but we need to create pipelines for everyone else,” said Spain.

Spain said she has no issue getting hired because she’s a woman. She understands the need to encourage others to seek opportunities within sports media.

“I will be that woman and I will kick ass and inspire other women to create that pipeline for others to get these kind of opportunities.”

Brandon Contes is a freelance writer for BSM. He can be found on Twitter @BrandonContes. To reach him by email click here.

Sports TV News

ESPN Sees Larger Than Average Audience For Big City Greens Classic

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ESPN aired Tuesday night’s New York Rangers and Washington Capitals game. DisneyXD and Disney Channel aired an alternate broadcast that included players being 3D animated to resemble the cast of Disney Channel’s popular cartoon Big City Greens. It turned into a ratings win for the networks.

The alternate broadcast featured players animated in real time to mimic what was happening on the Madison Square Garden ice. Players were equipped with special chips in the padding to aid the animation, and special pucks were used to ensure a smooth transition from video to computer-animated graphics.

An average of 589,000 viewers tuned into the game on ESPN. Meanwhile, nearly 175,000 watched the broadcast between Disney Channel and DisneyXD.

The figure for ESPN represents its largest NHL broadcast since a November 1st broadcast featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins.

The combined total for the broadcast — 765,000 — outdrew the World Baseball Classic broadcasts but did not top the NCAA Tournament’s First Four round that was broadcast on truTV.

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Sports TV News

Greg Gumbel: I’m Lucky That I’ve Never Been Fired

“I worked for some people who didn’t like me, I’ve worked for some people I didn’t like. It’s a strange business, there’s no doubt.”

Ricky Keeler

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Greg Gumbel

This week, it was announced that Greg Gumbel will no longer be a play-by-play announcer for the NFL on CBS after working on CBS’s NFL coverage every year since 1998. Gumbel has had an illustrious career and he takes pride in the fact that one thing has never happened to him.

Gumbel was a guest on the Tell Me A Story I Don’t Know podcast with George Ofman (Part 2 from an interview back in September) and he told Ofman that while he has never been fired before, but he doesn’t think broadcasters should be embarrassed when they get fired because of what the business is.

“It’s the nature of the business. I honestly think I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never been fired in a business that is known for firings. Being fired in this business is no shame, no embarrassment because it’s a subjective business. Because this guy at this network likes my work, it doesn’t mean that this guy at that network does. It’s extremely subjective and if you can buy that and understand it the way it is, then it shouldn’t bother you at all.

“It’s never happened to me. If it had, it would not have surprised me. I worked for some people who didn’t like me, I’ve worked for some people I didn’t like. It’s a strange business, there’s no doubt.”

Gumbel has been the host of CBS’s NCAA Tournament coverage for the last 25 years and he knows it’s a job that he is very grateful to have.

“I know there are people who would give their right arm to be sitting there next to Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis on Selection Sunday or sitting next to Kellogg, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley when the tournament begins to talk about what we’ve just seen or what we are going to see. I am never, ever going to take for granted the fact that I have been very fortunate to be able to do that.”

One thing Gumbel tries to avoid whenever he is on air is the mispronunciation of someone’s name because he knows how it feels to have his name distorted accidentally by some people.

“Pronunciations are important to me. There’s been a lifetime of people who may not completely mispronounce my name, but distorting it a little bit from time to time. I never want to do that to an athlete. If I ever mispronounce an athlete’s name, I hear it from his family, I hear it from the school or the team and I apologize for it as soon as I can. I don’t think that is something light or should be taken for granted.”

Toward the end of the interview, Gumbel was asked by Ofman when he will know it will be time to end his career.

“Other people have given it more thought than I have. I think when that time comes around, it will hit me over the head more than I will think about it. There are people who ask me why I still do what I do. The very bottom line is I love it, I enjoy it.”

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Sports TV News

Diamond Sports Group Misses Arizona Diamondbacks Rights Payment

It is believed that the missed rights payment by Bally Sports Arizona triggers a clause in the contract that reverts the television rights back to the Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball.

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Last week, Diamond Sports Group — operator of the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks — claimed it had paid every rights fee it was contractually obligated, except for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

At the time, the company said it had a grace period until it needed to make a payment. That payment was due by Thursday, March 16th at 11:59 PM. That time has come and gone, and the company failed to deliver its fee.

It is believed that the missed rights payment by Bally Sports Arizona triggers a clause in the contract that reverts the television rights back to the Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball.

The Diamondbacks are not the only team affected by the situation. Bally Sports — which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week — has also reportedly entered a grace period with the San Diego Padres. According to a report from Sports Business Journal, that grace period ends on March 30th, baseball’s Opening Day.

Previous reporting claims that contract is one the network hopes to get out from under. The company loses a reported $20 million per season on its television deal with the Padres. The Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Guardians are the other two baseball franchises the network holds the rights to that it hopes to terminate deals for.

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