With 2024 drawing to a close, Sports Media Watch examines five of the biggest stories that will drive coverage of sports media in the coming year.
The impending launch of ESPN’s “Flagship”
ESPN has been straightforward about its intent to launch a full direct-to-consumer product ahead of the fall 2025 football season, although many questions remain. One major question to be addressed is its pricing, an area about which ESPN has declined to offer details. One way to estimate the product’s price is to look at Disney’s existing DTC offerings. The company currently offers the Disney Bundle Trio, which includes ad-tier subscriptions to Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ at $17/month. That same bundle is available with the Hulu+Live TV Trio bundle for $83/month, suggesting the value of the cable networks (includes the ESPN networks as well as third-party networks like TNT, Fox News, Discovery Channel, etc.) is $66/month. Depending on how you value the third-party networks, this results in an estimated Flagship price of $30-$50/month (including $11/month for ESPN+). The variance in this figure represents the critical question: how much ESPN wants to disrupt the cable bundle.
ESPN gets roughly $10/month in carriage fees from cable distributors for every subscriber who receives the ESPN suite of networks. Every customer who cancels their cable subscription and subscribes to Flagship pays $40/month to ESPN directly is a net increase of $30/month. But if it’s priced too low, it could end up hurting ESPN in the long run. If enough Flagship subscribers cancel their cable bundle, those distributors will have to raise their prices to remain profitable. The price hikes could cause further cancellations, including people who don’t subscribe to Flagship. If it’s priced too high, ESPN could struggle to attract customers outside the cable bundle.
The debut of new NBA partners
In just under 43 weeks, the defending NBA champions will open their season on NBC, tipping off a season full of new looks for NBA television coverage. Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle will be the lead play-by-play voices for the network, with analysts to include Jamal Crawford, and potentially Reggie Miller. NBC will televise doubleheaders on Tuesday nights, solo games on Sundays in the spring, and Monday games on Peacock.
Amazon is a tried-and-true sports platform now, having completed its most-watched season out of its three years of NFL telecasts. Amazon is reportedly producing its own NBA coverage originating from new studios in Los Angeles, rather than partnering with NBC for its TNF coverage. Ian Eagle will be the streamer’s lead play-by-play voice, but the rest of the game talent is still up in the air. Taylor Rooks will lead studio coverage, with the potential additions of Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, and/or Stan Van Gundy.
And for ESPN, which will continue to air the NBA Finals on ABC, the new attraction is its studio coverage. ESPN announced an arrangement to begin licensing the iconic Inside the NBA studio show from TNT Sports, which will conclude its nearly 40-year run with the NBA with the Eastern Conference Finals this May. But questions exist about the future of the show’s cast, including Charles Barkley, who continues to publicly tout his free agency despite signing a contract extension with TNT this year. With no disrespect intended to TNT’s other talent, Inside the NBA without EJ, Kenny, Shaq, and the Chuckster would be a significant downgrade.
On another note, Inside is primarily positioned as postgame show for TNT, although the team provides pregame and halftime coverage as well. With ABC’s aversion to sports running past 6 PM on Sundays, will the games be moved earlier to allow time for Inside after the game? Or will postgame coverage be relegated to ESPN+ or some other platform.
How far will the NFL go in its 2025 schedule?
The NFL is expected to return to Netflix on Christmas Day again in 2025, with the exact number of games to be determined. Amazon would seem to be in line for a primetime game as Christmas falls on a Thursday, meaning a tripleheader is possible.
A key question remains around the Week 16 schedule. This year, the league scheduled two games on Saturday to provide the teams playing on Christmas Day their required three full rest days before playing again on Wednesday. With Christmas on a Thursday, the participating teams could easily play on the Sunday prior. If the league schedules marquee Saturday games on broadcast TV again opposite the College Football Playoff, it will be purely as a money grab and to flex its dominance over the CFP.
The international slate is expected to expand from 5 to 8 games, with outlets to be determined. European games will likely remain in Sunday morning windows, but games in Brazil and Mexico City can be played in primetime. NFL Network is required to carry 7 exclusive games to maintain its carriage contracts (including the traditional Week 17 tripleheader), but the rest of the games appear to be up for grabs. The Week 1 Friday, which last year featured the Brazil game on Peacock, will likely return as it is again the first Friday of September, meaning it is not protected from the NFL by the SBA.
How does women’s basketball fare after Clark craze?
It’s reasonable to suggest no athlete generated as much media coverage in 2024 as Caitlin Clark, whose run to her second-straight NCAA championship appearance, debut WNBA season, and brief playoff appearance generated record ratings across the board.
Is the Clark craze a one-and-done, or is the marketing machine that produced Clark’s stardom capable of repeat success? USC star JuJu Watkins appears to be the next best thing (with appearances in State Farm commercials recalling Clark’s similar appearances), with UConn’s Paige Bueckers a close second. Last year’s USC-UConn Elite Eight game drew 6.72 million viewers on ESPN in a post-Clark window. Fox and ABC continue to provide increased coverage of NCAA women’s hoops in featured windows, but the real test will come in the NCAA tournament. A decline from last years’ record-setting 18.7 million viewers is virtually guaranteed, but can new stars keep the game elevated above the 3-5 million range the game settled into before Clark’s arrival?
Additionally, can Clark and the Fever maintain the heights of last year in her sophomore WNBA season? The league appears to be leaning into her (somewhat manufactured) rivalry with Chicago’s Angel Reese, placing Sky-Fever on the opening Sunday of the season on ABC. The greatest benefit to the league would be the Fever advancing further into the playoffs, which are expanding next season.
What’s next for Netflix?
After a rocky start with a boxing spectacle in November, Netflix successfully delivered 2 NFL games and a Super Bowl-quality halftime show to 24 million viewers on Christmas. Now, the world’s biggest streamer can look to its next sports rights acquisition. Netflix has already locked up US rights to the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, but now does it look for a larger piece of NFL coverage? On the horizon are rights deals for UFC, Formula One, as well as larger events like the 2030 FIFA Men’s World Cup and the Olympics beginning with the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. New deals are also looming for the NHL and MLB, but so far the streamer has focused on quality over quantity, selecting a handful of marquee one-off events, rather than day-to-day league coverage. Regardless, Netflix has demonstrated it is here to stay in the live sports ecosystem.
