Fang's Bites Big Dozen Sports Media Stories of 2009

As we bring 2009 to a close and get ready to begin a new year, let us review some of the biggest sports media stories of the year. If you're a regular visitor to Fang's Bites, you'll know covering the sports media has become a full-time job for me. Just when you think stories will take a weekend or day off, something major breaks and we certainly did not have a shortage of sports media stories this year.

Let's go in reverse order. Because there were so many stories, I just can't end at ten. I have twelve top stories and a few honorable mentions. Here they are:

12. ESPN picks up English Premier League TV Rights in the UK.

Earlier this year, ESPN attempted to bid on the rights for the world's most popular professional soccer organization, the English Premier League. After a heavy competition for the rights starting in the 2010-11 season, Sky Broadcasting owned by Rupert Murdoch won the first round of bidding, retaining all four of its original TV packages. Then in a second round of bidding, Sky won a fifth package, Setanta Sports took the sixth effectively shutting out ESPN.

But four months later in a sudden turn of events, Setanta Sports went bankrupt and the EPL terminated its rights agreement with the pay service for the 2009-10 season. ESPN took over Setanta's packages not only for the current season, but for its games for the new contract. ESPN then set up a new channel in the UK which not only offered EPL games, but other soccer programming.

This move also allowed ESPN2 to air English Premier League games stateside beginning in August.

With the English Premier League in the fold plus rights for the World Cup in South Africa, ESPN is establishing itself as a TV power in soccer, something that wasn't foreseeable five years ago.

11. Major shift in sports coverage from newspapers and TV.

With declining revenues, a bad ad market and increasing costs, newspapers saw circulation dwindle causing some to fold. In February, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver ceased publication after 150 years of operation. A month later, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ended its newspaper operations after 146 years, however, its website is still up depending on bloggers and the Associated Press for coverage. In April, the New York Times threatened to shut the Boston Globe down over increased costs and operating losses. But after six months of negotiations with its unions, the Times decided to keep the Globe and the paper survived, but by a thread. The Minneapolis Star Tribune declared bankruptcy in an attempt to stave off a shut down.

While some newspapers fell by the wayside, those that remained shifted focus on sports coverage. The Baltimore Sun fired 61 staffers including sports writers and editors (Friend of Fang's Bites Ray Frager was among them). The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced that they would share sports coverage of the Metroplex's sports teams. Fewer newspapers sent reporters to staff the Super Bowl, the World Series and other major events to cut costs.

Some teams to ensure coverage hired newspaper writers including the Los Angeles Kings taking in Rich Hammond from the Los Angeles Daily News.

In addition, some newspapers decided to build a pay wall for their websites. This included Newsday which went to a pay subscription model leaving those who were used to getting their news for free in the dark. And Fang's Bites lost one of biggest resources in Neil Best who wrote a goodbye to those readers who would not pay for the website.

TV was not immune from the cuts either. Len Berman left WNBC after the station cut his time and was looking to reduce costs.

As the internet, blogs and social media take an increasing role in sports coverage, how newspapers and TV respond in the upcoming years will be closely watched.

10. Comcast and NFL Network Reach A Long-Term Agreement

After contentious and drawn out negotiations, the NFL and Comcast finally reached a long-term carriage agreement. As talks were reaching a May 1 deadline to keep the NFL Network on Comcast at least on a sports tier, the two sides agreed to keep discussions alive in hopes of reaching a deal.

Things finally broke mid-May when the NFL and Comcast ended their stalemate and agreed to place NFL Network on digital basic. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts appeared together to speak glowingly about the other. While NFL Network has Comcast in the fold, it still has yet to reach an agreement with Time Warner Cable and Mediacom.

9. Comcast expands local website and regional sports network commitments in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, Bay Area

This year, Comcast heavily invested capital to upgrade local programming at several of its regional sports networks including Boston and San Francisco. In addition, websites were developed to accompany Comcast SportsNet regionals in New England, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and the California Bay Area. Writers from local newspapers were hired to buffer or develop staffs. In New England, well-known local writers such as Sean McAdam, Tom E. Curran and Joe Haggerty joined the staff to compliment the RSN's expansion its local programming lineup. If Comcast's purchase of NBC is approved, expect these local SportsNets to be heavily used on Versus and even NBC Sports programming. While the Fox Sports Net channels have cut back on local sports shows, Comcast has been expanding and making a commitment. We'll see which company survives at the end.

8. ESPN debuts local websites in Chicago, Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles challenging well-established newspapers.

It started in April with Chicago, then spread to Boston in September, Dallas later that month, and finally, late in the year, Los Angeles. And we expect New York to launch sometime in the spring of 2010 with more sites to follow. It means that ESPN is expanding its tentacles and by combining the websites to already well-established radio affiliates in each market, it means that the network can use the synergy of the radio stations, writers and reporters and the websites to further strengthen its reporting for the national SportsCenter. In each city, ESPN has raided local newspapers to bolster the websites and with no end in sight, the network can continue to launch local sites until it totally blankets the country.

7. Peter Gammons leaves ESPN after 20 years to join MLB Network and NESN.

This news broke at the Baseball Winter Meetings earlier this month and sent shockwaves throughout MLB and ESPN. Peter helped to establish ESPN as a baseball power when the network was in its infancy. Gammons remained as ESPN grew in stature in the sport and continued to provide scoops during his tenure. But Gammons also grew restless and he felt it was time to leave. So he joined the MLB Network giving the year old network a heavy hitters lineup in reporters. And Peter also went to NESN giving him the opportunity to remain closer to his native Massachusetts. One of the first newspaper reporters to go on TV, Gammons now gets to talk baseball full-time on MLB Network.

6. The rise of Twitter and social media in sports.

We're still learning about this Twitter thing and there's no doubt that social networking is here to stay in sports. While some athletes are finding that what they say on Twitter is going to be reported, many are using it as a way to reach their fans to do an end run around reporters. In addition, the behemoth that is ESPN decided during the summer to issue a sweeping policy about Tweeting and another on social networking. While the new policy was the talk of the media and the blogosphere at first, it was much ado about nothing as ESPN staff continue to tweet away. All except for Captain Blowhard who was suspended from Twitter after making derogatory comments about a Boston radio station.

Athletes like Shaquille O'Neal, Lance Armstrong, Floyd Mayweather, Chad Ochocinco and Serena Williams have all built large followings. Coaches such as Stanford's Jim Harbaugh and Kentucky's John Calipari use Twitter to get their messages out as well. We've also found that Twitter can break news, but also can be used to spread false rumors as in the case of Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chris Henry when someone with a fake account said he had died. Eventually, Henry did pass away, but not as it was reported on Twitter.

5. TV ratings up for sports across the board.

2009 was a very good year for sports on TV. It began with the NHL Winter Classic on New Year's Day, a highly rated BCS Championship Game, the most watched Super Bowl ever, the NCAA Final Four, to the Stanley Cup Finals, a successful NBA Finals, to an epic Wimbledon Men's Final, the PGA Championship, leading to the MLB Postseason and increased World Series ratings, college football did great as well, and ending with the NFL. Sports viewership is up across the board. Whether it was the recession, the weather, or other factors, sports held impressive viewership numbers in 2009. The high rights fees that have been paid by the networks certainly paid their weight in gold this year. With three huge events in 2010, the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, it will be quite interesting to see if the ratings continue to climb or if the viewership will level off.

4. John Madden Retires From Broadcasting

Back in April, it was announced that John Madden would retire from broadcasting after 30 years in the booth. He started with CBS and ended with NBC after working for Fox and ABC's Monday Night Football in between. One of the most popular broadcasters and the man who lent his name to one of the most popular video games, Madden also became a commercial pitchman who commanded a large fee. While the Maddencruiser isn't parking at football stadiums anymore, there's no doubt that his impact on the NFL is large. And Cris Collinsworth took Madden's place by Al Michael's side.

3. MLB Network debuts

On New Year's Day, MLB Network launched in an estimated 53 million homes, the biggest launch of a new channel on cable. While the launch did not necessarily go smoothly on various cable systems, MLB Network made big hires, big splashes, and big strides in its inaugural year of operation. While it was the last league-owned network of the big four sports to launch, MLB Network hit the ground running and made a big impact early giving ESPN a run for baseball coverage. It all led to MLB Network making quite the impression when the 2009 baseball season was said and done. And their year ended with another big hire. One can say that MLB Network is the standard for the league-owned networks and that's a big accomplishment after one year.

2. Comcast buys NBC.

This story will continue into 2010 as the Feds will go over this purchase with a fine-tooth comb. Word leaked out in the fall that Comcast was in serious talks to buy a majority stake in NBC Universal. It led to speculation of what kind of sports power a combined Comcast/NBC entity could become. Considering the company would be the largest entertainment company in the world, some observers hoped that a stronger NBC Sports/Versus combo would eventually challenge ESPN. When the purchase became final earlier this month, it was the just the beginning for Comcast. Federal regulators said the review of the purchase will take time so we may not see a new owner for NBC until late next year.

1. Scandals

2009 was a big year for scandal in the sports media. There were so many scandals that I've decided to lump them all into one big story. There was the horrific Erin Andrews story that surfaced back in July and continued through to the end of the year. Thankfully, the stalker who followed Erin across the country was arrested, pleaded guilty and faces a maximum of five years in jail. While Erin went the Oprah route to talk about the incident, there's one good thing that will come out of this and that is that Erin will now speak out about hotel safety. Hopefully, the hotel chains will listen. And Erin herself says it's taken until now for her to get back to normal.

But Erin's ordeal seemed small potatoes compared to the strange and wacky Steve Phillips story. The ESPN MLB analyst who seemed to be on a fast track to becoming a number one analyst for the network got fired after the details of an affair he had with an ESPN production assistant surfaced.

The Steve Phillips affair led Deadspin to go all-scorched earth on ESPN and expose other affairs in Bristol. What's interesting is that the stories led ESPN to fire two executives who had been in an affair for two years.

In addition, former ESPN NFL analyst Sean Salisbury is suing Deadspin over what he contends is a "smear campaign" by the website.

But the scandals to end all scandals this year broke the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday. That was the Tiger Woods story which started as a car accident and eventually exploded to Affairs of the Week as liaison after liaison was exposed. Tiger released a statement on his website, but it only seemed to inflame the story and Tiger had to release another statement, but by that time, the damage was done. The media, both gossip and mainstream, was all over the story and the more Tiger tried to hide, the more women seemed to come out of the woodwork saying they had affairs with the golfer. In the meantime, Tiger lost a couple of sponsors and his whole reputation has taken a huge hit. Where this will all lead, who knows? We do know that the organization which was in the forefront reporting the Woods story, TMZ is launching a sports version of its gossip site. Look out.

So sports media scandals top our list of sports media stories in 2009.

Honorable mentions:
Beloved Philadelphia Phillies and NFL Films voice Harry Kalas passes away.
Skip Caray "FISTED" from TBS MLB Postseason Coverage.
DC TV Sports anchor George Michael Dies at the age of 70.

There are your Top Twelve Sports Media Stories of the Year. Let's see what 2010 brings. Happy New Year, everyone.