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Rich Shertenlieb: Big City Greens Game Is One Thing NHL Did Right in Broadcasting

“It was absolutely fascinating.”

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Rich Shertenlieb was away from home on Tuesday night and wanted to watch some hockey. Between NHL broadcasting options and hotels not having traditional cable packages, he was forced to log into NESN 360 to watch the Bruins play.

Unfortunately, the app was not cooperating. If Rich was going to watch hockey, it wasn’t going to be the Bruins. That is when he stumbled on to the most unique presentation of NHL hockey ever.

“In conjunction with the Disney Channel, the NHL did something crazy,” he explained on Wednesday’s edition of Toucher & Rich. “And they’re a league that does everything to ruin the viewership of the product by streaming games in different places. For example, the Connor McDavid versus the Bruins game was hidden from the world on ESPN+, and that was a marquee showcase. They did one thing right.”

Disney XD used its popular cartoon series Big City Greens as the theme of the presentation.

“They had that game being played on Disney except everyone of the players was a cartoon character from that deal,” Shertenlieb explained to the 98.5 The Sports Hub audience. “On top of that, Kevin Weekes, and I forget who the other broadcaster was, like real NHL broadcasters, were these giant cartoon people and it was fascinating. It was absolutely fascinating.”

Computers used tracking information from the puck and from devices embedded in players’ jerseys to animate the action nearly in real-time. Everything on the screen looked like characters and environments from the cartoon series. There was only a 20 second delay between the live game and the broadcast.

“I have never wanted edibles more in my life,” Shertenlieb said, joking that he wondered how the animators would have handled a truly gruesome injury on the ice.

Toucher and Rich have had both the NHL and NESN in their crosshairs recently. It isn’t a surprise that Shertenleib’s frustration with the $30 per month app or the NHL’s inability to make content easy to find led to the discovery of the Big City Greens game on Disney XD. Rich Shertenlieb was glad it worked out like it did.

“It was exactly what the doctor ordered”.

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Dan Bernstein: Media Reaction to MLB Winter Meetings Outrageous

“It doesn’t make any sense to me.“

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Dan Bernstein
Courtesy: Robert Feder

The MLB Winter Meetings have come and gone, without the sport’s biggest fish — Shohei Ohtani — being caught by any one team. Several MLB writers shared their displeasure with the lack of movement by players at the meetings, which dumbfounded 670 The Score host Dan Bernstein.

During Bernstein & Holmes Thursday, Dan Bernstein shared his sentiment that the expectations from MLB national media members bordered on ridiculous.

”So many people had a problem with (the Winter Meetings). ‘Do something! Entertain us! Do something!’ and this whole group of seemingly unionized national reporters are echoing this ‘How dare that not do something!’ (sentiment),” Bernstein said. “Other sports have a salary cap. That’s the difference. And if you’re advocating for MLB to have a salary cap, you’re doing Rob Manfred’s work for him, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

After co-host Laurence Holmes mentioned that a player making a decision on their future home required due diligence and time, Dan Bernstein continued by claiming that the idea that Ohtani needed to pick a destination during the Winter Meetings to appease the national media showed a lack of empathy from reporters.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me. How dare Shohei Ohtani be careful and deliberate and exercise power when he’s the most powerful person in baseball right now,” said Bernstein. “He’s deciding his professional future. How dare he! What does he owe you?”

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Boomer Esiason: Joe Benigno Was Just Doing His Job

“Good for Joe B. for letting everyone know who he is. That was his job. And I guess still is his job to some point.”

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Boomer & Gio
Courtesy: Audacy

Former WFAN host Joe Benigno continues to make headlines after he revealed sensitive text messages he had with New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh. Despite the controversy, Boomer Esiason believes Benigno was simply doing what was necessary.

After Boomer & Gio played a clip of Saleh saying he “still likes Joe B.”, Esiason argued that Benigno was doing his job by revealing that Saleh “didn’t like” Jets quarterback Zach Wilson.

When fill-in update anchor Chris Lo Presti pointed out that Saleh wouldn’t call Benigno by name — referring to him as “Joe B.” — Esiason said “That’s cause everyone knows who he is”.

“Good for Joe B. for letting everyone know who he is,” Esiason said. “That was his job. And I guess still is his job to some point. But man, I would think that Rob Saleh was pretty floored by all of that, I’d imagine.”

Co-host Gregg Giannotti agreed, questioning if Jets owner Woody Johnson spoke to Saleh about ceasing texting with the former WFAN host.

After originally revealing the text messages, Benigno has shared he wishes he hadn’t mentioned the comments made by Saleh in private. He later clarified that he took the coach’s statements out of context and misinterpreted them.

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Anthony Lima: People Will Watch NFL Games No Matter Who the Quarterbacks Are

“The ratings show that people are going to watch no matter who the quarterbacks are; no matter how bad the teams are.”

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Anthony Lima
Courtesy: X

As the NFL begins week 14 with a Thursday Night Football matchup that pits a pair of backup quarterbacks against one another, 92.3 The Fan morning hosts Ken Carman and Anthony Lima agree it doesn’t matter who’s under center, fans will still be tuning in.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are slated to face the New England Patriots as Mitch Trubisky and Baily Zappe will start at quarterback for each team. During The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima Thursday, the hosts agreed they’ll still watch the broadcast.

“Do you think fans are bored by the league with this or are they more interested?,” Carman asked, referencing the Steelers-Patriots matchup.

“Well the ratings don’t show that,” Lima said. “The ratings show that people are going to watch no matter who the quarterbacks are; no matter how bad the teams are.”

Indeed for its Week 13 Thursday night game, Amazon Prime Video recorded an all-time high average of 15.26 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. The matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys marked the 11th consecutive week of year-over-year, double-digit viewership growth for the property, and helped engender a 29% increase from last year’s 11-week average viewership.

Carman offered an analogy pertaining to wrestling, conveying how many people are interested in the sport when they are younger. He enjoyed the sport in his youth but it then began to phase out until he went to middle school and became interested again. These phases, however, do not seem to apply when it comes to the game of football.

“We line up for years,” Carman said of football. “There’s people who haven’t missed Monday Night Football no matter what incarnation [it is] for 30+ years. Is it an enjoyable thing to sell all the quarterbacks down?”

Lima is cognizant of what has happened at the quarterback position this year and feels that it makes him want to watch a game less, affirming that the starters on Thursday night will need to earn his attention.

“I think I’ll give it a quarter,” Lima said. “I might even be a little late… [but] I’ll put it on and see where the game’s at.”

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