This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Goooood morning, folks! Welcome back to The Morning Win. Thank you so much for rocking with us this morning. We appreciate you. Hope you’re having a great week.
I’m sure you’ve seen the news about the new upcoming partnership between ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. If you haven’t, the three companies are partnering together to launch a mega sports streaming app they’ll each own a third of.
The service is going to include the combined inventory of live sports they all have. Yes, that means every league and every sport you love will be on there. NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL. Whatever it is, it’s on this app.
We don’t know how much this will cost or what it’ll be. We just know it’ll be a monster of a sports streaming app. With all of these resources combined, it’s essentially a mini-version of cable.
Our Andrew Joesph summed it up pretty well here:
“So, basically viewers can pay for a subscription to this bundle and access the live sports that the companies are broadcasting. When streaming services started, it seemed inevitable that someone would eventually just make cable all over again and try to present it as something different. That’s what Disney, Fox and WBD appear to be doing here — but for sports only. On top of that, NBC Universal and CBS/Paramount were not included in this partnership of competing media giants.”
Andrew hits the nail on the head there. It’s always felt like, at some point, a cable-like package would come back around and reset things as everybody and their favorite cousin pulled out an individual streaming service. It’s unfeasible to think everyone would pay for each of them individually in perpetuity. We needed a reset. I think this is what that reset looks like.
But at the same time, I’m still concerned about the number of streamers people will be expected to pay for as the rights to live sports continue to get chopped up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Just think about it. Sure, you’ll get your Monday Night Football fix on ESPN via this megastreamer. Your local Fox and CBS games should pop up there, too, considering that those networks are partnered there.
But guess what? You’ll still have to pay for Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football if you want that. And if the NFL leans and makes Peacock a thing like it wants to? That’s an additional two streamers you may need to watch the biggest NFL games of the week.
The NBA is flirting with Amazon for its TV rights, too. Obviously, the league is working with Turner and ESPN now. The presence of this new streamer makes that unlikely to change considering that the powers that be will want to retain it to keep people on their app. But what if Amazon buys the rights to, say, the Play-In Tournament or even the In-Season Tournament? That’s totally in the realm of possibility.
I say all of that to say that while this cable-like subscription package could be good, it doesn’t completely end the streaming wars. All of our favorite things are still fragmented and, as consumers, we’re still being jerked around in the end. And, don’t forget, the only thing we know about this new partnership is that it exists. We don’t know the cost or what subscription levels we’ll need to watch what.
The streaming era is coming to a close. Whatever it’s morphing into next is on its way. All we can do is hope it’s more consumer-friendly than what we’ve got here now.
DraftKings Drama
On the other side of the corporate world of sports, there’s quite a bit of drama going on on the betting side.
DraftKings is accusing its now former (???) head of VIP Michael Hermalyn of stealing employees and trade secrets as part of a year-long plot to leave the company for Fanatics.
Prince Grimes has more details here and, as he says, it sounds like something straight out of a movie plot. The company found out what Hermalyn was doing because it tracked him using geolocation data. Yes, it’s that serious.
Here are some of the juiciest details:
“It sounds like the company tracked Hermalyn’s location using the same technology online sportsbooks use to verify bettors are in legal betting territories (or to make sure NFL players aren’t betting at team facilities). And they pinpointed him at Fanatics’ offices during times he said he’d be somewhere else.
No, seriously. DraftKings actually tracked Hermalyn’s whereabouts on Jan. 29 and 30 using geolocation and access account records, after he emailed employees that a friend died and he had to deal with that.
“DraftKings has since learned, through geolocation data and access account records, Hermalyn had in fact traveled to California and visited Fanatics offices in Los Angeles on January 29 and 30,” the lawsuit says.”
You cannot make this up. In fact, I would love to actually see a movie plot based on this.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Hermalyn was also accused of using shady means to try and invalidate his non-compete agreement after leaving for Fanatics and working up millions of dollars from DraftKings in retention payments for him and his subordinates. It’s insane.
Keep in mind that all of this is going down just before the Super Bowl. That’s obviously the biggest day in sports betting and here DraftKings is dealing with this.
Yikes, guys. I don’t really know what else to say.
READ MORE: Here’s a full breakdown on the situation from Prince
Changing names
Stadium rights mean absolutely nothing to FIFA if you’re not paying them. Some of the NFL’s teams are finding that out the hard way.
FIFA has changed the names of multiple stadiums around North America as we inch closer to the 2026 World Cup. It’s hilarious because the names are, well, remarkably bland.
“We’re still two years away from the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But we’re already seeing the results of a grueling bidding process that cities and NFL owners were willing to go through in order to host these World Cup matches.
That apparently included the temporary changing of stadium names.
While we already knew that NFL owners agreed to install natural grass playing surfaces in time for 2026, they will also adhere to a FIFA policy about stadium branding. Basically, FIFA won’t let non-FIFA sponsors have their branding displayed during matches. And in the case of the U.S. — where corporate naming rights are the norm for stadiums — the venues we know are going to be called something entirely different for the World Cup.
And let me tell ya: FIFA did not put much thought into these temporary names.”
Man. Come on, FIFA. I feel like if you’re giving somebody else’s property a new name, you could at least be a bit more creative with it.
Peep the full names from Andrew here.
Quick hits: An updated NBA All-Star roster … Guests for the Usher Bowl … and more
— Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky with the updated All-Star rosters now that Trae Young and Scottie Barnes are in.
— Meghan Hall has 7 guests that Usher might bring out for the Super Bowl Halftime show. I kind of hope he just does it solo, though.
— Speaking of the halftime show, here are the best memes ever from it, by Michelle Martinelli and Charles Curtis.
— This Nikola Jokic profile in the New Yorker was so cool. Here’s more from Robert Zeglinski.
— Patrick Mahomes had the highest praise for Caitlin Clark. That’s pretty cool. Here’s Robert again.
— Kahleah Copper is headed to Phoenix! Meghan Hall has trade grades for you here.
That’s all, folks! Happy Wednesday. We’re almost to the Super Bowl. Let’s get it.
-Sykes ✌️