*posts up for dan lebatard radio show*

Robert California

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More on Adnan




According to the tweet, he leaked info about Baseball tonight to Awful Announcing a few hours before this story went up:

Contrary to popular conjecture, Baseball Tonight will not be coming back as a daily program

Contrary to popular conjecture, Baseball Tonight will not be coming back as a daily program
A return of Baseball Tonight isn't happening in 2019.
Baseball-Tonight-832x447.png

ESPNMLBBy Ben Koo on 01/28/2019
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ESPN was gearing up to bring back daily baseball studio programming. Fast forward to today, and Awful Announcing has learned that ESPN has turned away from this possibility and is no longer considering such a move as the 2019 season draws closer. The iconic show will still air as it did in 2018 as a Sunday night countdown leading up to Sunday Night Baseball.

ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro, a known baseball fan, had internally conveyed an interest in bringing back the popular show beyond Sunday nights, in addition to hunting more Postseason rights for ESPN down the road. While the latter is still possible, ESPN has decided to walk away from the potential daily relaunch of baseball studio programming because of two developments:

1. MLB has opted to let ESPN slide on a contractual obligation to have a certain amount of studio shows during each season. MLB gave ground here in part due to some horse trading with ESPN, who agreed to allow Sunday Night Baseball to start an hour earlierand have a consistent start time of 7 PM ET. While ratings experts internally at ESPN believe this may actually lead to a decline in viewership, the extra hour adds a bit of relief to the already rigorous MLB travel schedule that often has teams flying cross country after the late night game window.

2. Despite the enthusiasm of Pitaro and others in increased MLB coverage, ultimately the ratings projections for baseball-specific programming on ESPN instead of SportsCenter only reaffirmed the original decision that Baseball Tonight or other baseball-specific programming no longer made sense for the network as a daily program. SportsCenter draws more viewers than Baseball Tonight, and siphoning off viewers to change over to ESPN2 after a game wasn’t deemed as a practical option, given that the network would be producing two shows and mostly splitting the same audience.


ESPN began slimming down their MLB studio ambitions in the spring of 2017 on the heels of a large round of layoffs at the company. The network plugged that programming hole by partnering with MLB Network to syndicate Intentional Talk. That partnership lapsed after this season, and with their contractual obligation to MLB, ESPN seemed poised for a MLB studio programming comeback.

That optimism (which ESPN never commented on and proved to just be conjecture) proved to be premature and now ESPN is closing in on a 2019 season without any original daily MLB programming and without the MLB Network partnership. While this is certainly not a particularly positive development for baseball fans, I think that’s just where we are in terms of national interest in baseball. There’s just more national interest in the other major sports (especially the NFL, NBA, and college football,) despite the fact local fandom for baseball continues to thrive. Maybe the sport isn’t actually losing national interest, but in terms of airtime on national TV and radio programming, it’s hard to argue MLB’s piece of the sports media pie has not been getting smaller over the last decade or two.

For example, compare the media frenzy related to Anthony Davis’ trade request and the national fervor and interest that has generated compared to the measured amount of buzz surrounding MLB’s two biggest free agents (Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, two bona fide superstars) still looking for their next home roughly two weeks before the start of Spring Training. At the end of the day, you can understand why ESPN is shying away from airing MLB-specific studio programming when you know they’d much prefer to have Woj on set in Bristol going through the latest NBA mini drama. It just seems that there is a new reality that fewer MLB stories break out as being major national stories opposed to the NFL, college football, and the NBA.

Ultimately, that trend is playing the biggest role as to why the worldwide leader can’t commit to bringing back what was once a quite revered and well-received staple for them and for baseball fans alike.
 

Nero Christ

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That's what Adnan got fired for leaking (Baseball Tonight is not returning to a daily format)? Man, I'd be pissed.

Dan & them are always joking about not saying breaking news before they're told too so I'm not surprised by this firing if it is the case

as for baseball, if it ain't the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs, is they're even a point in showing it as a national game
 

Ron_Mexico

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They got adnan:francis: assume his pod his own property not a espn one?

Any of you listen to the lebatard and friends pods? Listened to stupodity wasn’t too bad but seem kinda forced.
 
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They got adnan:francis: assume his pod his own property not a espn one?

Any of you listen to the lebatard and friends pods? Listened to stupodity wasn’t too bad but seem kinda forced.
Stupodity was a perfect example of why Stu needs dan (Dan needs Stu too). It was just wake and take plus an awful Adam gase interview.
 

aceboon

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If that's what Adnan got fired for he's a dummy, what does he even gain from running straight to reporters to tell what was discussed during a conference call
 

Slim

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Idk man. Maybe just me, but I felt very uncomfortable listening to the joy Mike had talking about 21 Savage yesterday.

I mean, I know it set Twitter/IG on fire with 1,000 memes but hearing them (Mike especially) discuss it like that....:leostare:
 

CrimsonTider

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Idk man. Maybe just me, but I felt very uncomfortable listening to the joy Mike had talking about 21 Savage yesterday.

I mean, I know it set Twitter/IG on fire with 1,000 memes but hearing them (Mike especially) discuss it like that....:leostare:
They were uninformed as well. Just went off the memes

Show sucks but Weekend observations are GOAT
 

NSSVO

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Idk man. Maybe just me, but I felt very uncomfortable listening to the joy Mike had talking about 21 Savage yesterday.

I mean, I know it set Twitter/IG on fire with 1,000 memes but hearing them (Mike especially) discuss it like that....:leostare:

Mike Ruiz turns into Mike Ryan an awful lot. With the protest shyt, I noticed how he says shyt with a condescending tone. Not a fan, and it sucks because he was overall enjoyable.
 
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