Sports

How Phoenix Fans Watch Their Teams May Change How You Watch Yours
Sports

How Phoenix Fans Watch Their Teams May Change How You Watch Yours

Associated media - Related media The Phoenix-area franchises are part of a growing wave of teams doing the same. The San Diego Padres, like the Diamondbacks, ended their agreement with Diamond Sports, the largest regional sports network provider. Major League Baseball used its broadcasting and streaming capabilities to keep the teams on the air and guaranteed they would get 80 percent of the revenue they received in their Diamond Sports deals. Diamond Sports, which must make at least $400 million in annual debt payments, is in talks with its creditors, some of whom want to reshape the company’s business while others want to be bought out. Diamond Sports is also in talks with the N.B.A. and other leagues about reducing their rights fees. A company spokesperson declined to comment on t...
Anthony Kim expected to play LIV Golf event after 12 years away from the game
Sports

Anthony Kim expected to play LIV Golf event after 12 years away from the game

Associated media - Linked media Golf’s great prodigy turned mysterious recluse is returning to the sport. Anthony Kim is expected to make his return to professional golf for the first time in 12 years and play LIV Golf’s event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, this week as a wild card. LIV commissioner Greg Norman teased Kim’s return in a video on social media Monday, and Kim’s presence on the driving range did not go unnoticed Tuesday. Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter snapped a photo of a placard featuring Kim’s name, and then YouTube golfer Andy Carter posted a video of Kim’s range session on Instagram. Kim, now 38, was once one of golf’s biggest rising stars who won two PGA Tour events and made a Ryder Cup team by 23 behind exciting talent and a big personality that reached section...
Max Verstappen’s father: Red Bull could be ‘torn apart’ if Horner stays amid controversy
Sports

Max Verstappen’s father: Red Bull could be ‘torn apart’ if Horner stays amid controversy

Stay informed on all the biggest stories in Formula One. Sign up here to receive the Prime Tire newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.Fractures within Red Bull Racing appear to have grown after Max Verstappen’s father, Jos, warned the team was “in danger of being torn apart” if Christian Horner remained in charge amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the team principal.Horner remains in the spotlight after a turbulent few days in Bahrain to start the new Formula One season. Although Verstappen scored his eighth consecutive grand prix victory with a dominant display, beating teammate Sergio Pérez by over 20 seconds, his father spoke publicly about divisions within the team as the situation remains the biggest story in the sport.The situation became public in early February wh...
How should broadcasts handle court-storming? On the line between documenting and glamorizing
Sports

How should broadcasts handle court-storming? On the line between documenting and glamorizing

Throughout a three-decade career as a prominent ESPN play-by-play broadcaster, Dave Pasch says he has been on the mic for two college basketball games that ended in a court-storming. One occurred earlier this month as unranked LSU upset Kentucky as time expired at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La. Pasch recalled this week a conversation he and analyst Jay Williams had with an LSU athletics department staffer prior to the game.“We asked, if they beat Kentucky, will they storm the court?” Pasch said. “He was like, ‘Nope, we don’t storm the court here. We’ve beaten Kentucky before.’ Well, they won on this crazy, last-second shot and, of course, they stormed the floor.”In the game’s final sequence, you can clearly hear Williams say, “Didn’t we talk today about if LSU has th...
Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources
Sports

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources

The biggest name in NASCAR is on the move.Dale Earnhardt Jr. is leaving NBC and heading to racing newcomers Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, sources briefed on his decision told The Athletic.Earnhardt is expected to take this season off and then resume his broadcasting career in 2025 when WBD Sports and Amazon begin their coverage.The move figures to give WBD Sports and Amazon instant credibility when they start their series. Each will have five races a season. WBD Sports’ races will be broadcast on TNT, streamed on Max and have a Bleacher Report component. NASCAR complements WBD Sports’ robust NBA, NCAA Tournament, MLB and NHL programming schedule.GO DEEPERNASCAR's new media deal, explained: Why Amazon, who gets what races and moreAmazon Prime Video’s subscription ser...
The business of Sarah Nurse: She’s one of the faces of hockey, but her sights are set on more
Sports

The business of Sarah Nurse: She’s one of the faces of hockey, but her sights are set on more

TORONTO — Sarah Nurse was driving home from a recent PWHL Toronto practice when she got a bit of sage advice.It wasn’t from a podcast or a friend on the phone. The advice came courtesy of a billboard on the side of the road in Canada’s most populous city, featuring her own face with the Adidas slogan “You got this.”“I was like, yeah, I do,” Nurse said with a laugh.The billboard she drove past is one of many across the country, including a massive advertisement at Yonge-Dundas Square — Toronto’s closest approximation to Times Square in New York City — that pairs Nurse with Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and World Cup champion Lionel Messi.Nurse, 29, has had major partnerships in the past. In 2020, Tim Hortons and Mattel collaborated to make a Barbie doll in her likeness. In 2022, she was fe...
NFL Scouting Combine: What we’re following for all 32 teams in Indianapolis
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NFL Scouting Combine: What we’re following for all 32 teams in Indianapolis

Draft season kicks into high gear this week at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis as teams will put prospects under a microscope during private interviews, news conferences and workouts at Lucas Oil Stadium.Quarterbacks always dominate conversations at the combine, and this year will be no different with USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye and LSU’s Jayden Daniels expected to be among the first handful of picks come April. But a stellar wide receiver group, headlined by Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr., LSU’s Malik Nabers and Washington’s Rome Odunze, will also draw plenty of interest this week.Beyond the draft prospects, new head coaches, led by the Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh, and GMs, including the Commanders’ Adam Peters, will be in the spotlight. And the futures of quar...
Eli Manning’s popular ‘Chad Powers’ skit to be made into Hulu comedy series starring Glen Powell
Sports

Eli Manning’s popular ‘Chad Powers’ skit to be made into Hulu comedy series starring Glen Powell

The name’s Powers. Chad Powers. And he’s coming (back) to a screen near you.Hulu ordered Eli Manning’s character “Chad Powers” to be made into its own comedy series, according to a company press release. Manning created and transformed into Powers for an episode of his docuseries “Eli’s Places” after Manning’s curiosity about the college football walk-on process led him to try out at Penn State under the pseudonym and disguise. With help from a special effects artist and Matthew McConaughey-like persona, Manning successfully tried out to be a Nittany Lion. He almost made it too, as Penn State assistants took a natural liking to the two-time Super Bowl champion before head coach James Franklin, the only person seemingly in the know about Manning’s true identity, outed Powers at the end of t...
Dani Alves – from 43 trophies to four years in prison
Sports

Dani Alves – from 43 trophies to four years in prison

Dani Alves, who was this morning sentenced to four and a half years in prison in Spain after being found guilty of sexual assault, was, until very recently, one of global football’s golden boys.An exuberant, technical right-back, he was a major part of the Barcelona team that set new standards in the European game between 2008 and 2016. He played 126 times for Brazil and won 43 titles across his 22-year playing career — an astonishing number that makes him the second-most decorated footballer in history. Only Lionel Messi, his former team-mate at the Camp Nou, has more trophies to his name.That success, coupled with a relentlessly upbeat public persona, made Alves a hugely — almost universally — popular figure. It goes some way to explaining why his hearing, which took place over three day...
The fearless mindset of the Warriors’ Brandin Podziemski: ‘He’s got a delusion to him’
Sports

The fearless mindset of the Warriors’ Brandin Podziemski: ‘He’s got a delusion to him’

SAN FRANCISCO — Nearly a year ago on the dot, Mike Dunleavy, the Golden State Warriors’ future general manager, and Kent Lacob, an ascending front office personnel voice, hopped in a car and made the quick 50 mile trip south to Santa Clara’s campus.They were primarily there to see Maxwell Lewis, the possible lottery pick out of Pepperdine. Lewis played fine. He’d eventually get selected 40th in the 2023 NBA Draft. But he wasn’t the best player on the floor. Brandin Podziemski, a 6-foot-4 guard who was only beginning to creep onto the draft radar, made every significant play to lead Santa Clara to victory. His 23 points mattered. But it was the 18 rebounds that had Dunleavy’s and Lacob’s antennas up.“Mike and I walked out of the game like, ‘Um, that guy might be a first-round pick,'” Lacob ...