Amazon Prime Video continues to add to its NBA studio roster, this time picking up Zach Lowe for select appearances. Plus: NBCUniversal has gone dark on Fubo in the latest carriage dispute; ESPN will carry at least one Sunday night baseball game next season; and more.
Zach Lowe to join Amazon NBA studio in select weeks
Former ESPN NBA analyst Zach Lowe will make select appearances on the Amazon Prime Video NBA studio show starting next week, according to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. Lowe worked for ESPN From 2012 until he was laid off last year, first as a contributor to Bill Simmons’ Grantland and later as an analyst across ESPN platforms.
After being laid off from ESPN, Lowe joined The Ringer as a podcast host earlier this year, reuniting with Simmons.
Lowe joins an Amazon NBA studio show that has been generally well-received in its short time on the air, featuring a younger cast than the established NBA studio shows and a greater focus on basketball analysis.
He will be just the latest analyst to debut on the Prime studio show, after Candace Parker and Swin Cash did so this past Friday. The show primarily features host Taylor Rooks with analysts Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Udonis Haslem.
NBCU networks blacked out on Fubo in latest dispute
The NBCUniversal networks were pulled from the streaming MVPD Fubo on Friday after the sides failed to reach a new carriage deal, marking just the latest dispute to impact national sports programming. It is also the first such dispute to involve Fubo since the streamer merged its operations with Hulu + Live TV as part of an acquisition by Disney.
It was Disney that just came out of a carriage dispute with Google-owned YouTube TV that centered primarily on price, specifically YouTube TV’s desire for a lower rate in line with the top distributors. Now, the company is on the other side of table, with Fubo saying Friday that NBCU was offering rates “egregiously” higher than those offered to other distributors — and going as far as to call it “discrimination.”
More than any other streaming MVPD, Fubo has a history of willingness to go without major networks. It was the last streamer to begin carrying the ESPN networks, not doing so until 2020 — five years into its existence. It dropped the Warner Bros. Discovery channels that same year, which have yet to return.
The NBCU blackout is only impacting Fubo, not the Hulu + Live TV service that is now under Fubo management. NBCU and Hulu would have a separate carriage deal.
ESPN to carry at least one Sunday night baseball game next season
Despite giving up its “Sunday Night Baseball” package to NBCUniversal, ESPN will carry at least one Sunday night Major League Baseball game next season, with the MLB Little League Classic set to remain in its traditional Sunday primetime window. First pitch for the Brewers-Braves game from Williamsport, Pa., is scheduled for 7:10 PM ET on August 23.
Assuming NBCU does not carry a Sunday night game that week — a near lock, given “Sunday Night Baseball” is supposed to be a timeslot-exclusive window — it will likely be one of a handful of Sunday nights next year on which NBC does not carry live sports.
NBCU will likely still have an MLB game on that day, as the company acquired the “Sunday Leadoff” package of morning games as part of its rights deal. Those games will primarily air on Peacock, but NBC is set to simulcast at least one on July 5 of next year.
As for ESPN, the Little League Classic is part of a 30-game package of exclusive MLB windows that will primarily air on weeknights. The company will also continue broadcasting “Sunday Night Baseball” on the radio.
Plus: MLS, College Gameday, TNT studio, arena football
- The FOX broadcast network will carry a Nashville SC-Atlanta United Major League Soccer match in primetime on Friday, July 17, leading into the final weekend of the FIFA World Cup, it was announced this week. That will be one of the first MLS matches after the league returns from a near two-month break to accommodate the World Cup, a hiatus necessitated by the spring-to-fall calendar that MLS is abandoning after next season. Next season is also the last of Fox Sports’ deal to carry non-exclusive MLS matches, and with the league’s Apple TV deal now set to expire three years ahead of schedule, any renewal talks could carry added weight.
- ESPN is making its “College Gameday” pregame show available for free via the ESPN app and social media for the remainder of the regular season, the network announced Thursday. ESPN initially made “Gameday” available for free three weeks ago, when the Disney networks were first blacked out on YouTube TV, and continued to do even after the blackout ended last weekend.
- The new TNT Sports college basketball studio show will be on-site from Las Vegas for next week’s Players Era tournaments, with the team of Adam Lefkoe, Bruce Pearl, Jamal Mashburn and Jalen Rose joined for the first time this season by Chris Webber. TNT will also have a separate team working from its Atlanta studios with host Tim Doyle joined by Dennis Scott, Dalen Cuff and Seth Davis.
- The Indoor Football League, the oldest and currently only major arena football league in operation, has reached a rights deal with FanDuel Sports Network to carry a 60-game package of games next season. The FDSN RSNs will carry Sunday night games each week — presumably preempted in markets where local NBA, NHL or MLB teams are playing — plus a conference championship game and the IFL National Championship.
