Fox Sports may not fill the vacancy left by Darrell Waltrip; ESPN has added another year onto Dick Vitale‘s contract; Carrie Underwood‘s Sunday Night Football theme song is the subject of a lawsuit; the NFL is weighing whether to opt out of its Sunday Ticket deal.
Report: Fox may not replace Waltrip on NASCAR
Fox Sports has no plans to fill the vacancy left by retiring NASCAR analyst Darrell Waltrip, Sports Business Daily reported Wednesday, meaning the network would go with a two-man booth of Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon next season. Waltrip, who joined Fox Sports in 2000, is retiring from broadcasting after this Sunday’s race from Sonoma. He spent his entire career with Fox and, in turn, has been part of NASCAR on FOX in every year of its existence. [Sports Business Daily 6.19]
Vitale information for your everyday life
ESPN has tacked an additional year onto the contract of college basketball analyst Dick Vitale, who will now remain with the network through the 2021-22 season. ESPN has added an extra year onto Vitale’s contract in five consecutive years. His deal, signed in 2014, was originally set to expire two years ago. [ESPN PR 6.19]
Underwood SNF theme subject of lawsuit
A quartet of songwriters has filed suit against NBC, the NFL, and the entertainer Carrie Underwood alleging that Underwood’s Sunday Night Football anthem “Game On” plagiarized from a song of the same title that they created in 2016. According to the plaintiffs, their version of “Game On” was prominent enough to have been used on a CBS Inside College Basketball broadcast in March 2017. [Deadline 6.19]
NFL weighing whether to opt out of Sunday Ticket deal
The NFL is weighing whether to opt out of its exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket contract with DirecTV, with the decision coming down to whether it can maintain its current $1.5 billion rights fee in a new deal, according to Sports Business Journal. Currently, neither incumbent DirecTV nor its potential competitors — among them Amazon, DAZN, and ESPN+ — have expressed interest in paying $1.5 billion for exclusive rights. DirecTV would not have a choice if the NFL elects to let the contract run through its 2022 expiration.
According to the report, the league is trying to determine whether a combination of DirecTV and competing streaming services could generate as much as under the current exclusive deal. [Sports Business Journal 6.17]
