Time to do a quick notebook for you on this early Saturday morning. They’ll be bullet form.
- Fox has increased its stake in the YES Network. In late 2012, it purchased a 49% share in the regional sports network. On Friday through a press release from parent company 21st Century Fox, YES will become a consolidated entity under the Fox Sports umbrella.Fox will own 80% of YES with the New York Yankees owning the other 20%. While it would be expected that Fox Sports Net programming would move over to YES, don’t expect a rebranding of the channel to “Fox Sports New York.”In addition, Fox can tap YES games for Fox Sports 1’s MLB inventory under the new national TV contract that takes effect this season.
- While one regional sports network is making news, another is making it for all the wrong reasons. NESN has to make a couple of decisions for its Red Sox telecasts and with Spring Training coming in a few weeks, it had better start the processes ASAP.
Last season, NESN decided to remove analyst Jerry Remy from Red Sox games in the wake of his son, Jared’s legal troubles. Last August, Jared was arrested for allegedly murdering his girlfriend at her home.At first, Remy was given time off, but as the season wore on, NESN announced that he would spend the rest of the time with his family.
Dennis Eckersley took his place and NESN said it would make a decision on whether Remy could return for 2014. Well, February will soon be here and NESN will begin to air Red Sox Spring Training either with or without Remy in the booth.
An e-mail sent to a NESN spokesman last week asking whether Remy would return has gone unanswered to date.
And the other decision for NESN is regarding field reporter Jenny Dell. It was revealed that she is dating Red Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks. A picture of them together during the holidays was posted from Middlebrooks’ Twitter account.
Their dating has led to a call for NESN to let Dell go.
There are two thoughts here. The obvious one is that the relationship is a conflict of interest and Jenny should be reassigned within NESN. The other is that Dell is not breaking stories, just doing various features on the team and she could continue without compromising her reports.
No matter where you stand, NESN still has to decide whether she should continue covering the team or take her off the broadcasts. Even if the Red Sox did not own NESN, of which it has a majority share, the team has to know that this is not standard operating procedure.
The clock is ticking and NESN has to make a decision on Remy and Dell very soon.
- Finally, it appears that the NFL may make an announcement of the new Thursday Night Football partner as early as Super Bowl Week. John Ourand at Sports Business Daily reported that the league wants to act quickly so that it can formulate the 2014 regular season with all the TV partners on board and that process usually begins right after the Super Bowl.ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and Turner Sports have all submitted bids. The pricetag is expected to be in the neighborhood of $400 million for a one year contract. Games are expected to be simulcast on NFL Network so it’s expected the new partner will air the games on broadcast TV which leaves Turner as a long shot.We’ll see if the new partner decides to take a smaller portion of the package or divide it in half with NFL Network or to take the entire enchilada.
We’ll know soon enough.
That will do it for now. Time to close the notebook. Until next time.
