THE LATEST ARTICLES
NEWSLETTERS
Jimmy Pitaro
John Ourand August 4, 2025
Disney’s much-anticipated earnings call this Wednesday may finally reveal Burbank’s plans for the future of ESPN—Flagship, the NFL deal, and the balance between managing cord-cutting and building the next frontier.
Mikel Arriola
John Ourand July 31, 2025
Relative affordability—$250 million, anyone?—and some timely rule changes have opened up the market for Mexican soccer clubs to U.S. investors.
Jeff Shell
John Ourand July 28, 2025
The questions and enigmas following Skydance’s finally approved acquisition of Paramount Global don’t seem to extend to CBS Sports, a no-drama zone amid a network in existential crisis. That’s largely because of David Berson’s even-keeled leadership, and Jeff Shell and David Ellison believe they can build around his CBS Sports
nfl washington commanders
John Ourand July 24, 2025
The NFL is finally close to a deal with ESPN that would give the league an equity stake in the network, and offer ESPN total control over NFL Network and NFL RedZone. I know regular readers of The Varsity have been reading that sentence for the past 18 months now. But, really, the two sides are closer than ever.


Patrick Mahomes NFL
John Ourand July 21, 2025
A candid conversation with Michael Nathanson, the exalted media analyst and MoffettNathanson namesake, who offers some scintillating hypotheses and observations about the NFL’s next auction winners, ESPN’s economics, and Apple’s sports media portfolio.
Dave Portnoy Barstool
John Ourand July 17, 2025
Talks between Barstool Sports’s Dave Portnoy and Fox Sports kicked off with horse racing, but soon moved to something more ambitious: a deal that would give Portnoy and his buds a new platform, bequeath the Big Ten a true-blue booster of their own, and offer Fox the kind of trouble that they could use right now.
Steve Phelps
John Ourand July 14, 2025
While Formula 1 seems to be grabbing all the headlines these days—from the wildly successful Hollywood movie to a rich new potential rights deal with Apple—NASCAR has quietly reinforced its position as the dominant domestic motorsport. Not gonna lie, as the kids say, it’s not even close.
f1 brad pitt
John Ourand July 10, 2025
Cupertino has its highest-grossing theatrical release ever in Brad Pitt’s ‘F1,’ and F1 execs think it’s time for ESPN to double the racing series’ rights deal. But Bristol doesn’t seem inclined to merge into the fast lane.


NFL
John Ourand July 7, 2025
Everyone in the sports-media industrial complex has been trying to game out the NFL’s strategy for exercising its change-of-control option in its CBS/Paramount deal. But the current idea gaining traction will throw everyone for a loop—especially the NHL and MLB.
mlb new york yankees aaaron judge
John Ourand June 30, 2025
Sports may be the last remaining jewel of live TV, but the era of the 10-figure rights deals is a thing of the past for everyone besides the NFL and NBA. The current marketplace tells the story.
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