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Ethan Sherwood Strauss: Something Is Corrupted in ESPN’s NBA Coverage

. It’s corrupted what ESPN is trying to do in terms of entertaining people because they can’t tell stories as well because there is always this neurotic paranoid fear that it will piss off an agent.

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Ethan Sherwood Strauss covered the NBA for ESPN and for The Athletic over the course of his career. Now, he is writing about topics that interest him the most on his substack, House of Strauss.

Strauss was a guest on the most recent episode of South Beach Sessionshosted by Dan Le Batard. He said the reason why he decided to leave The Athletic in August 2021 was because he wanted to write about what interested him and that he thought his sportswriting was getting worse instead of better:

“There’s a not so flattering aspect to it which is I thought I was getting worse at sportswriting. I think a lot of people went through this over the pandemic period where they didn’t feel themselves caring so much about their job as they did in the past. For me at The Athletic, I was covering the Warriors. The Warriors are exceptionally well-covered by The Athletic. It’s not just me over there…I felt like I could keep pace if I was tremendously motivated like we just kicked off the 2018 playoffs together.”

“I felt myself kind of getting worse and I thought that eventually the fans, the readers, they feel it, they know it. They know that you are fraudulent at some level. I had a couple of years left on my contract but was I really going to command some sort of salary after that if I didn’t have a following, if my work wasn’t good anymore? It was inspired by fear and I wanted it to be inspired by a different, better fear. A fear of failure.”

That fear made Strauss excited to start up the substack because he felt he needed to take that risk to see if other people were interested in what he was writing about:

“It excited me to start the substack and just know I can fail. To know that maybe I am going to try to talk about the stuff that interests me and it won’t work and it will be humiliating. It won’t just be an ego failure, but it will be a financial failure on top of that. That’s scary as hell. I sometimes think you need something like that in your life in order to force you to be better and to force you to grow. I wanted that sense of risk.”

One of the topics the two of them got into was ESPN’s coverage of the NBA and Adrian Wojnarowski in particular. Not only does Strauss think Woj is not very good on TV, he thinks that the coverage is being corrupted based on what is going on behind-the-scenes:

“He [Woj]  has built this empire on the basis of being first and having the news first. He’s in many ways a savvy businessman. He has tried to set it up where it’s almost mechanized where they are coming to him and he’s sending a social media resume around to different sources, to agents, to GM’s.”

“It corrupts the coverage because if the main focus is breaking a news story on Twitter and being first, that will detract from other focuses such as telling the most interesting story, revealing something that might not be flattering to a team or a player, but is of interest to the fans. It’s corrupted what ESPN is trying to do in terms of entertaining people because they can’t tell stories as well because there is always this neurotic paranoid fear that it will piss off an agent. I think people have this sense that something’s not on the up-and-up when they watch ESPN’s NBA coverage. Those stories have done well.” 

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Final ‘Good Morning Football’ Episode from New York Studio Airs Before Hiatus, Move to LA

After today, ‘Good Morning Football’ will take a brief hiatus, then move to LA. But outside of host Jamie Erdahl, who else will join the show on the West Coast?

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Today marks the last Good Morning Football episode to air from its New York studios on NFL Network. After today, the show will take a brief hiatus, then move across the country to Los Angeles. But which of the shows beloved cast members will move along with it?

We already know host Jamie Erdahl will be there once she gives birth to her child. The newest GMFB show member gave an emotional send-off to the show’s New York studios before announcing she was headed for maternity leave and would see everyone in LA.

Host Kyle Brandt delivered this message late last night, saying that viewers should tune in to he and his colleagues and that “he has a lot to say.”

Earlier this week, however, host Peter Schrager delivered his own goodbye message — one that may sound like a man who’s not ready to move his family across the country at a moment’s notice:

However, no hosts outside of Erdahl have given confirmation that they’re either staying or going.

The NFL’s move to take the show from New York to Los Angeles has been widely criticized by fans and media members alike. Bill Simmons wondered if the move wouldn’t spell just the end of GMFB but the NFL Network as a whole. It has some wondering if this is the end of football’s best show.

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ESPN Coverage of Men’s NIT Tournament Quarterfinals Up 33% vs. 2023

Viewership of the Men’s NIT Quarterfinals on ESPN were up 33 percent compared to last year and featured two games that averaged over one million viewers.

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Even the NIT is riding the recent hot streak of live sports viewership numbers. According to data provided by ESPN, the 2024 NIT Quarterfinals are up 33 percent compared to last year’s tournament. Perhaps more surprisingly, two NIT quarterfinal games topped one million viewers.

The network’s Georgia/Ohio State matchup averaged 1.03 million viewers, while the Cincinnati/Indiana State contest averaged 1.02 million viewers. These two games were the most-watched NIT games since 2017 — including title games. Both Georgia and Ohio State have rabid fanbases, while many thought Indiana State was unjustly left out of the March Madness tournament, which could be a reason why viewers tuned in.

Much of the focus this season has been on the women’s game, thanks to Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks, led by Dawn Staley. ESPN just had its most-watched women’s college basketball season since 2008-09 because of the increased interest in the women’s game. The men’s game, however, hasn’t been heralded as much this season for whatever reason, mostly because numbers seem to be holding steady compared to previous years. However, if the NIT is posting viewership wins, that should bode well for the NCAA Tournament’s incoming viewership totals.

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Report: NFL to Put Christmas Day Doubleheader Up For Bids

Bidding is expected to start at $50 million among the current NFL media partners but some think the games could sell for $75 million to $100 million apiece.

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The NFL will reportedly put its Christmas Day games up for auction, allowing its current media partners to bid for the games. Now, it’s up to CBS, FOX, ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video to pay up for rights to one of these two marquee games.

According to Front Office Sports Michael McCarthy, preference will be given to linear networks, so Prime Video and Peacock may sit this one out. Bidding is expected to start at $50 million but McCarthy and his sources expect that number to rise. John Kosner, the former ESPN executive, thinks the new Christmas Day games could sell for $75 million to $100 million apiece.

The NFL announced a Wednesday Christmas Day doubleheader during its annual league meetings. The league originally said it wouldn’t force games on Christmas Day if the holiday fell on an odd day of the week, though as the NFL continues to put games on days outside of Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays, and sometimes Saturdays, we’re running out of days that don’t feature NFL football.

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