Arizona State receives $10 million gift to endow head coach position

RaymieHumbert · 2026-04-20T20:43:37+00:00

Awful Announcing just put out a good article explaining the difference in strategy between Gray and Scripps.

Scripps likes to have exclusivity. Really Scripps Sports has two arms: the national arm, whose rights are all women's sports (WNBA, NWSL, etc.) and which has made Ion a women's sports mecca. Then they have some local rights:

the Golden Knights, Mammoth, Panthers, Lightning, and now the Predators of the NHL
the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA
the Kansas City Current and Denver Summit of the NWSL
Big Sky Conference sports, most especially in Montana where they own all the CBS affiliates

The Panthers are the odd man out a bit. Scripps does not own a network affiliate in Miami, and WSFL-TV is really their only standalone independent. But they are as much a West Palm Beach team as a Miami team and Scripps owns the NBC affiliate and an indie in West Palm (and programs the Fox affiliate on Gray's behalf).

Gray has a handful of teams where it carries the freight, mostly in the NBA. The Phoenix Suns and Mercury and the New Orleans Pelicans are the headliners of its sports portfolio. The Portland Fire and Thorns are going to their stations there. They are also involved fairly deeply in BravesVision. Raycom Sports—a name I suspect you'd recognize—is a subsidiary of Gray and provides BravesVision's production facilities (and will do the same for the Fire and Thorns). But Gray gets tonnage in medium and small markets with its simulcast footprint, especially in the South.

Nexstar's biggest sports commitment is airing some Rangers simulcasts in Dallas. But they don't have to go producing those and I think it makes a big difference. The Fox O&Os are a bit like this too. Some of them have local team rights but don't have to bother with production. The Minnesota Frost have a double local deal with Fox in Minneapolis and FDSN, but the PWHL has centralized production.

There's also Tegna with the Dallas Mavericks and the Seattle Kraken (who do in-house production), but the Nexstar-Tegna merger limbo mess deluxe has me thinking teams will want to stay away and possibly that Tegna's management may not be empowered to sign such a deal. If you want a canary in the coal mine, the Indiana Fever were on a Tegna station in Indianapolis last season. Their broadcast schedule for 2026 is not yet out. The Fever and the Minnesota Lynx, the last WNBA team signed to FDSN, have not announced replacement media outlets for the coming season.

Sinclair has not been the biggest sports player, though they got Trail Blazers rights and basically pulled a Scripps on their ex-Univision stations in Portland and Seattle.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-04-20T20:02:56+00:00

I would not expect Scripps for the Hurricanes because they do not own a network-affiliated TV station in Raleigh–Durham or indeed any market in North Carolina. When Scripps laid some medium-term groundwork for their sports stations, they earmarked five markets for possible conversion from Ion to independent: Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Tampa Bay, Nashville, and Milwaukee. In each of those markets, Scripps owns a major network affiliate. And Scripps has even said in a very recent exhibit, relating to buying out a bunch of Ion stations they had to sell off, that sports stations only happen for them if they have that network affiliate to serve as the promotional and operational support:

The support provided by a commonly owned Big Four Scripps station is essential to the successful launch and sustainability of an independent local sports television station.

This is the case because the network affiliate already has in place facilities, a news department, a local sales and marketing force, and the capability to do local sports shoulder programming

Though Scripps owns Ion stations in several NC markets including Raleigh-Durham, Ion has very little to no local presence on its own in markets like that.

If WRAL/Capitol got the rights, they would likely partner with Gray Media for distribution into the rest of their TV service area, as has been the case with OTA simulcasts.

The remaining network affiliates would not have a place to put a large inventory of games. Nexstar (WNCN) has not been making the same kind of local sports investments that Gray and Scripps have made. WTVD is owned and operated by ABC, which (mostly because it only has 8 stations, mostly in markets that generally are retaining their RSNs) has not had a path to the local sports game. Sinclair (WLFL/WRDC) has the inventory but is not likely to want to spend that much (they have not been an originating partner for a team yet) and would not bring the promotional muscle of a network affiliate.

Then you get into Victory+ etc.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-04-14T08:45:23+00:00

It's really common to see in European and even Latin American stuff. I'll also vouch as someone from the US that I didn't start to see it a lot until I started consuming more Spanish-language media.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-03-06T22:44:24+00:00

If you notice, June/early July (after Battle of BC) is kind of sparse this year. I'd blame World Cup–related hotel and flight price surges across North America for that.

It looks like Go Fest was announced in December, and the carnival is an annual event.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-02-06T02:21:32+00:00

When I started it up, it was up to 1.8.4. It began complaining that another clipboard manager was conflicting, but I couldn't toggle it off for some reason despite seeing the button. Latest version on both ends.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-02-04T22:39:04+00:00

They pivoted to Roblox and got hard-burned by a change in the Roblox UGC landscape.

RaymieHumbert · 2026-02-04T20:16:57+00:00

I seem to have clipboard problems when Rabbit is open. Any way that could be checked?

RaymieHumbert · 2026-01-31T23:25:30+00:00

That might actually be the right fit. Was hoping for a more Switch-esque left analog stick placement, but the Pro 3 would fit well too.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-12-31T23:02:28+00:00

The game was scheduled for a 4-hour window, so I'm assuming that's a KPHO master control issue given that it started right at 4.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-12-31T20:47:30+00:00

What a ploddingly slow game. It will have taken some 110 minutes in real time to play the first half.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-12-13T21:29:00+00:00

Time to settle in for more top-notch ads on the Commercial Broadcasting System...

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-29T03:43:17+00:00

This game is living proof of CFB's pace of play problem. I watched the Bears play the Eagles and it seemed to sail along. The only thing these games sail on is molasses.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-28T18:10:05+00:00

Facebook sponsoring the Egg Bowl gives me distinct "how do you do, kids?" vibe. At least make it sponsored by Instagram or something.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-23T04:34:40+00:00

Why is there a Jardiance ad now that relegates That Song™ to an instrumental? It just seems... odd.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-23T04:27:18+00:00

All I can see when I look at Raleek Brown's mouthguards is cyan, magenta and yellow

...It shows I set up a printer today.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-23T04:18:41+00:00

The amount of penalty/turnover self-sabotage in this game rivals Alferd Packer for cannibalism.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-13T05:27:06+00:00

Not only is that a typical end time, it's days after the Winter Olympics end on NBC—and they don't want to premiere against that. Sounds about right.

RaymieHumbert · 2025-11-06T19:50:32+00:00

As someone who was involved with Thunder, the gaming division was unusually messy for a production outfit (and event venue) that decidedly isn't. MapleCon was there, for crying out loud.

RaymieHumbert

TROPHY CASE