LIV Golf could reportedly lose funding from Saudi Arabia PIF; a U.S. senator introduces new legislation regarding sports broadcasts; and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will not shutter as previously announced.. Plus news on the NBA on Prime, MLB on Peacock, CBS Sports and Kyle Draper.
LIV Golf could reportedly lose funding from Saudi Arabia PIF
The Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund is said to be “on the verge of cutting its support for LIV Golf,” according to a report by Samuel Agini, Sujeet Indap and Arash Massoudi of The Financial Times published Wednesday. The country’s Public Investment Fund has reportedly invested about $5 billion into the property to this point, and it announced a new investment plan Wednesday that focuses on domestic spending. This development comes approximately two months after LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil told The Financial Times that the property was five to 10 years away from reaching profitability.
Gabby Herzig, Brendan Quinn, Brody Miller and Adam Crafton of The Athletic reported that high-level executives at LIV Golf “are in meetings about the league’s next steps while also beginning their own job searches.” Leaders at the golf tour were reportedly informed Sunday after the Masters Tournament that they would soon be losing their jobs. These executives are said to be looking for a “life raft” out of their current roles, but the league is determining how it would be able to continue operations.
LIV Golf signed a multiyear media rights deal with Fox Sports that began this February. John Ourand of Puck reported last December that the company was expected to pay a “modest” rights fee and air more than half of the schedule on Fox or FS1. LIV Golf had previously aired on Nexstar-owned CW starting in the 2023 season, the first time the tour had inked a broadcast television deal in the United States. Several other golf properties have signed and/or extended media rights deals in the last calendar year, including the USGA, PGA of America and DP World Tour.
Earlier in the year, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp announced a returning member program that allowed golfers to return to the entity — with several stipulations — through Monday, Feb. 2. LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka made the decision to come back to the PGA Tour in January. Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Cameron Smith were all eligible to return under the program but chose to stay with LIV Golf. In an interview Wednesday on the “Straight Facts Homie” podcast hosted by Trey Wingo, Rolapp declined to speculate on the LIV Golf reports.
U.S. Senator introduces new sports broadcasting legislation
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin introduced a bill Wednesday with the stated intention of reducing the cost and improving the accessibility of live sports programming. The legislation, which is being referred to as the “For the Fans Act,” would require professional sports leagues, including the NFL, to make nationally televised games available for free in the states of the competing teams.
Under the bill, the FCC would be given oversight to define each team’s territory. While the NFL requires that all games on cable or streaming be broadcast on local affiliates in the home markets, Baldwin said that the Packers-Bears playoff game on Prime Video in January was only available on broadcast in two of Wisconsin’s media markets. In an interview with Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, Baldwin said that “families were forced to pay Jeff Bezos just to watch the game.”
In addition, the bill would prohibit blackouts on league-owned streaming platforms, granting access for consumers to watch national games featuring local teams regardless of the platform. If this legislation were to pass, for example, MLB.TV would need to carry “Friday Night Baseball” games, currently exclusive to Apple TV subscribers, for no additional fee. It should be noted that the legislation definition of “league streamers” encompasses several qualifying criteria, including services that have “an agreement with the league to receive a portion of proceeds from streaming the majority of the games of the league.”
There have been calls to review the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, specifically the antitrust exemption authorizing professional sports leagues to pool and collectively sell team broadcast rights. The statute applies to “sponsored telecasting of the games,” something Sinclair recently pointed out in a comment to the FCC “meant free, over-the-air broadcast television” at that time. The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly opened an investigation into the NFL about whether its deals with streaming services are indicative of anticompetitive practices and harm consumers.
Venetoulis Institute to purchase Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette no longer plans to shut down next month thanks to an impending sale to the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism — publisher of The Baltimore Banner — the newspaper announced Tuesday. The sale officially takes effect on Monday, May 4 and maintains the 240-year-old publication’s “newsroom and local business leadership.” The newspaper intends to continue publishing Thursday and Sunday print editions.
The Venetoulis Institute, a nonprofit organization funded by Choice Hotels International chairman and philanthropist Stewart W. Bainum Jr., launched the “Banner” in 2022 with a contribution of $50 million for five years of funding. Bainum is putting up an additional $30 million to fund the Post-Gazette given “over the next five years or until the organization breaks even,” per a report by Liz Bowie of The Baltimore Banner. There will be some consolidation of technology and business operations for both publications as well.
Block Communications has been the owner of the Post-Gazette since 1927, but it had announced plans to shutter the newspaper earlier this year. Company CEO Allan Block told The Baltimore Banner that there were “about 10 potential buyers” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and that several of them emerged as “serious candidates.”
“Venetoulis was not the highest bidder, by a significant percentage, but the Block family felt that money wasn’t the only criteria,” Block said. “There’s no doubt Mr. Bainum is a very high-quality, high-caliber individual of integrity, and I could see his deep belief in the importance of preserving honest local journalism in the public interest.”
Plus: NBA on Prime, MLB on Peacock, CBS Sports, Kyle Draper
- Amazon Prime Video said Tuesday that a nearly two-minute outage during the final seconds of Tuesday’s Heat-Hornets NBA Play-in Tournament game was the result of “a hardware failure” in the production truck. In a statement provided to Sports Media Watch, a Prime Video Sports spokesperson said that its “teams restored the feed as quickly as possible to ensure fans could watch the conclusion of the game” and that the company is reviewing the matter internally to find out the cause.
- NBC Sports Philadelphia analyst John Kruk and BravesVision analyst C.J. Nitkowski will be in the “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast booth alongside play-by-play voice Jason Benetti as the Philadelphia Phillies host the Atlanta Braves on Peacock. Both analysts have national broadcasting experience having worked on games for ESPN and Fox Sports, respectively, and are collaborating on this call of a National League East showdown. Nitkowski is the second former Braves player to be featured on a “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast after Andruw Jones was behind the microphone this past weekend. Former MLB 1B Anthony Rizzo will work with Ahmed Fareed on the pregame show and on “Inside the Pitch” analysis during the game.
- CBS Sports is introducing a live post-round show for select PGA Tour signature events, the third and final rounds of the FedEx Playoffs and all rounds within the PGA Championship titled “Scorecard.” The program debuts around the RBC Heritage this Saturday and Sunday at 6 PM ET on CBS Sports HQ, Paramount+ and the “Golf on CBS” YouTube channel. The show will feature highlights, discussion and analysis with Joe Musso, Shane Bacon and Johnson Wagner, along with a regular interview with CBS Sports golf analyst Trevor Immelman.
- Kyle Draper, who has worked as a play-by-play announcer/host for Sacramento Kings television broadcasts on NBC Sports California since 2020, announced that he will not be returning next season. Draper said that his contract was not renewed, and he thanked the Kings fans for their support over the years. Kings primary play-by-play voice Mark Jones recently departed ESPN after more than three decades, but he told Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee that he plans to remain the Kings announcer for “a long, long time.”
