Connect with us
Jim Cutler Demos

Sports TV News

Sean McDonough Expects To Return As ESPN’s Lead NHL Play-by-Play Voice

“I assume I’ll be doing it again — no one has said otherwise. All the feedback that I’ve gotten from my bosses has been extremely positive, so I don’t have any reason to believe that I won’t.”

Jordan Bondurant

Published

on

The Colorado Avalanche have only just begun to celebrate their Stanley Cup championship, but before you know it the NHL will be dropping the puck on another season.

The 2022-23 regular season begins with games in the Czech Republic on October 7-8 before kicking off in earnest on October 11.

ESPN broadcaster Sean McDonough, who called games throughout this past season and including the Stanley Cup Final, said to The Athletic he anticipates be back behind the microphone next season.

“I assume I’ll be doing it again — no one has said otherwise,” McDonough told Richard Deitsch. “All the feedback that I’ve gotten from my bosses has been extremely positive, so I don’t have any reason to believe that I won’t, and I haven’t heard any speculation that other members of the crew won’t be back too.”

McDonough was not completely new to calling hockey at the start of last season, but he hadn’t exactly had a chance to get reps recently. He said he had to take time to make adjustments to his calls and got more comfortable as things unfolded.

“I thought I got better as the season went along,” he said. “I felt good about it. The game has changed a lot. As much as I followed as a fan in the interim, it’s different between following the sport as a fan and following it as somebody doing a regular national broadcast. So, a lot of it was getting up to speed, familiarizing myself with the players, the coaches, just learning your way around.”

McDonough added it was important to be able to roll with the punches especially working alongside new people including analyst Ray Ferraro and reporter Emily Kaplan.

“So you’re trying to adjust to the speed of the sport, having not done it in a long time, to re-familiarizing yourself with the league to working with people you have not worked with before to doing a game every three weeks or so,” he said. “I thought we all got better as a group as the season went along and by the time the playoffs rolled around, I was really comfortable.”

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Sports TV News

Rece Davis: Nick Saban ‘Wants to be Great’ at Being an Analyst

“He was prepared and ready for the moment.”

Published

on

Photo of ESPN analyst Nick Saban
Credit: Athlon Sports

The NFL Draft has come and gone, and people are still talking about a couple of the top performers – on the broadcasts. Nick Saban and Bill Belichick both took part in the draft, albeit from much different sides than usual. Belichick had been on the team side, making picks, while Saban was usually waiting to see just how many of his Alabama players would be taken. This year, Saban was with his new team from College GameDay on ABC while Belichick hung out with his buddies from The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN+.

OutKick’s Glenn Guilbeau caught up with Davis this week and got more insight on Saban’s debut as a fulltime member of the show.

“He was sensational,” Davis told OutKick. “I know that’s easy to say, but he’s a gifted communicator in just about any setting in which he’s at. And it’s going to get just better and better and better because he doesn’t mail anything in. He’s not wired that way. He wants to be great at this. He told me that.”

Many of the comments about Saban’s performance have talked about how prepared he seemed to be and how well he knew players that he couldn’t have possibly been focused on while coaching Alabama.

“He was thoroughly prepared, as you might imagine,” Davis said. “He was very curious and wanted to know goals and how we were approaching things…He had done all the reading. He had everything prepared and organized. He did all of that. He was prepared and ready for the moment.”

Most of the time the public had seen Saban previously, he didn’t come off as someone who had a great personality and many wondered if that would hold him, and Belichick, back from being great on television. Davis said that was not the case at all, and several people commented on social media how relaxed Saban looked.

“As important as preparation is, I thought the most important thing he did over those two days was he became more and more comfortable and was willing to let people see more and more of his personality,” Davis said. “He would crack jokes. Little things, one-liners. He really just fit in with us very well.”

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

Sports TV News

Diamond Sports Group, Comcast Unable to Reach New Carriage Agreement

The development occurs after Diamond Sports Group had reached a multi-year carriage renewal with DirecTV earlier in the week.

Published

on

Bally Sports Logo
(Illustration) Courtesy: Diamond Sports Group

Diamond Sports Group, the owner of 18 regional sports networks that is currently working to find a path out of Ch. 11 bankruptcy, was unable to reach a new carriage agreement ahead of the Tuesday deadline. As a result, customers subscribing to the service are now unable to watch local teams play on their respective regional sports network(s). In fact, subscribers who try to view the channel on their services now see a message explaining what is taking place. Both companies issued statements explaining the manner that officially materialized upon the expiration of the existing deal.

“It’s disappointing that Comcast rejected a proposed extension that would have kept our channels on the air and that Comcast indicated that it intends to pull the signals, preventing fans from watching their favorite local teams,” Diamond Sports Group said in a statement. “Comcast has refused to engage in substantive discussions despite Diamond offering terms similar to those reached with much larger distributors of ours.

“We are a fans-first company and will continue to seek an agreement with Comcast to restore broadcasts, and at this critical juncture for Diamond, we hope that Comcast will recognize the important and mutually beneficial role Diamond and RSNs play in the media ecosystem. In the meantime, fans in Comcast regions can access our networks through subscriptions to Fubo, DirecTV or DirecTV STREAM or through our direct-to-consumer offering, Bally Sports+ for the teams for which Diamond retains DTC rights.”

“We have been very flexible with Diamond Sports Group for months as they work through their bankruptcy proceedings, providing them with an extension on the Bally Sports Regional Networks last fall and a unilateral right to extend the term for another year, which they opted to not exercise,” Comcast said in a statement. “We’d like to continue carrying their networks, but they have declined multiple offers and now we no longer have the rights to this programming. We will proactively credit our customers for the costs associated with them — most will automatically receive $8 to 10 per month in credits.”

The outcome comes two weeks after a bankruptcy judge had approved a disclosure statement with $450 million of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing, $350 million of which is allocated to pay its first-lien debt holders. As part of the restructuring, Amazon is prepared to invest $100 million into Diamond Sports Group while becoming the primary streaming partner for the company. Moreover, the company was approved to hold a creditor vote on reorganization that the bankruptcy court will take into its decision-making process in a decision regarding restructuring. 

Diamond stated in previous court proceedings that 81% of its affiliate revenue comes from distribution agreements with Charter Communications, DirecTV and Comcast. Earlier this month, the company was able to reach a multi-year renewal of its distribution agreement with Charter. This enabled the provider to continue carrying its networks through the Spectrum TV Select Plus package and allows subscribers to stream the network on the Bally Sports app. Additionally, Diamond came to terms on a multi-year carriage renewal with DirecTV as first reported by John Ourand of Puck News on Monday afternoon.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading

Sports TV News

Josina Anderson Parting Ways with CBS

“I’m amicably moving on to future ventures. I wish all of the talented insiders, anchors, reporters, producers, executives and support staff the best.”

Published

on

Josina Anderson
Courtesy: Miikka Skaffari, Getty Images

CBS Senior NFL insider Josina Anderson announced via her X account she has decided to move on from CBS.

“I want to thank the CBS Sports team for my experience and time there,” she wrote. “I’m amicably moving on to future ventures. I wish all of the talented insiders, anchors, reporters, producers, executives and support staff the best.”

Anderson, 45, started at CBS Sports HQ in September 2021. She had parted ways with ESPN in June 2020 after nine years with the network. At ESPN, she was part of the National ESPN Insider team which at the time consisted of Adam Schefter, Chris Mortensen, John Clayton, Ed Werder, Adam Caplan and Field Yates.

No word yet on what Anderson has planned for the future. BSM will keep you posed as soon as more information becomes available.

Sign up for the BSM 8@8

The Top 8 Sports Media Stories of the Day, sent directly to your inbox, every morning at 8am ET.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Continue Reading
Advertisement

Advertisement

Upcoming Events

Barrett Media Writers

Copyright © 2024 Barrett Media.