ESPN: Last News

Jon Burlingame editor Nearly half of all the music played on American broadcast and cable TV is production music, according to a new study by music data company BMAT. The survey, commissioned by the Production Music Association, looked at 47 high-rated channels including broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the CW; and cable channels including A&E, CNN, Discovery, Disney, ESPN, Food Network, Fox News, HGTV, Lifetime, MTV, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, TBS, Telemundo, Univision and USA. Non-advertiser-supported pay cable and streaming services were not included. The survey, done in February and March of this year, indicated that music was used in 39% of the total airtime, and that 46% of that music originated in production music companies or music libraries.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek is opening up about ESPN as activist investor Daniel Loeb had been pressuring the company to spin off the sports network.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Activist investor Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point has backed off his proposal from last month for Disney to divest itself of ESPN in order to devote even more resources to content creation for streaming platforms. Loeb sent two Twitter messages early Sunday morning that amounted to an olive branch to Disney and its CEO Bob Chapek. Loeb said he had gained a “better understanding” of Disney’s plans to more deeply integrate ESPN into its direct-to-consumer operations and the emerging Disney bundle of channels. The social media missive signals that Loeb will not step up his public pressure on Disney and seek to field an alternative slate of directors at the company’s annual meeting next spring.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor “You should see the backstage,” actor Diego Luna told the D23 Expo crowd Saturday morning as he talked up his new “Star Wars”-branded Disney+ series “Andor” to the 5,000 faithful fans who packed the Anaheim Convention Center. The assembly of boldface names that were brought out at the three-day Disney fan event for a wave and brief chat about upcoming projects was a visual representation of the breadth of content produced by the studio these days. The list of boldface names included Harrison Ford, Angela Bassett, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, Don Cheadle, Owen Wilson, Zoe Saldana, Giancarlo Esposito, Christian Slater, Pedro Pascal, Gael Garcia Bernal, Anthony Ramos and more.The star power on display was impressive and so was the brand power that Disney flexed during D23 Expo by releasing dozens of trailers, teasers and first looks at content bound for Disney+ and theaters in the coming year. The rapid-fire delivery of “Coming Soon” messages was music to the ears of Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who has been telling investors and others that Disney+’s has yet to fully hit its stride in content delivery because of pandemic disruptions.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The Buffalo Bills came out strong during the first game of the NFL season on Thursday night, beating out the defending champion Los Angeles Rams with a 21-point lead. After going into halftime tied at 10, the Bills made a major comeback with three touchdowns on three straight possessions (while also intercepting quarterback Matthew Stafford twice).While the season has already started off with excitement, the bulk of the games will take place this Sunday. Thankfully, even without cable, you don’t have to miss any of the action. The NFL games will be available to stream online on a variety of platforms such as ESPN Plus, Disney Plus, Sling TV, Fubo TV, DirecTV Stream and Hulu Plus Live TV. 

Disney’s chief financial officer Christine McCarthy said today, “We like the hand we have with ESPN,” calling the sports network and streamer an important piece of the broader portfolio.

Serena Williams’ final U.S. Open match Friday was a grand slam for ESPN.

Brian Brobbey has revealed that he wants to play for Manchester United in the future, despite turning down the chance to move to Old Trafford this past summer.

David Simonsen is joining Amazon and taking over the new position of Director Prime Video, Southeast Asia. He will be based in Singapore and is starting on Monday, September 5.

Fred says Manchester United “really needed” a player like Casemiro this season.

College football’s championship series is expanding from six to 12 teams, embracing the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. “Rick and Morty” returns to Adult Swim this week, and a lot has changed in the multiverse since the Season 5’s cliffhanger ending. Evil Morty has escaped the Finite Curve before its ultimate destruction, meaning Rick is no longer the smartest being in the universe.

Dionne Warwick had the perfect response after being mistaken for Gladys Knight on television at the U.S. Open on Wednesday night. ESPN commentators Mary Carillo and Chanda Rubin mistook the legendary musician for Knight, 78, when the camera panned to Warwick as Serena Williams took on Anett Kontaveit on the tennis court.

EXCLUSIVE: Tennis great Michael Chang, who became the youngest winner of a major tournament singles championship when he beat Ivan Lendl in the 1989 French Open at age 17, will be the subject of a ’30 for 30′ documentary by ESPN Films.

The Cleveland Cavaliers and restricted free-agent guard Collin Sexton still have not come to an agreement on a new contract for the young player as we get closer and closer to the start of the NBA’s preseason. Sexton is a Rich Pual partner and it is not unusual for Paul and Kulch Sports to take these negotiations close to training camp or even into training camp as the Cavaliers saw with Triston Thompson back in 2015 before he got his new deal. Sexton has not had much of a market in his first free agency experience and he was very unhappy with the Cavaliers’ first offer to him. Every day that goes by that Sexton is still not with the Cavaliers is another day that it becomes more seemingly obvious that he will end up on a one-year qualifying offer with the Cavaliers.

The U.S. Open’s opening night is usually a relatively sleepy affair, but this year it featured a packed centre court match that could have been the last in the legendary career of Serena Williams.

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The 2022 U.S. Open officially kicks off Monday Aug.

Exactly one year ago today, the Bishop Sycamore high school football team took the field in a nationally televised game on ESPN, and proceeded to suffer a horrible 58-0 pounding by elite IMG Academy. That was just the beginning of the program’s problems. Investigations and dismissals followed, amid allegations Bishop Sycamore wasn’t even a legitimate high school and, indeed, operated more like a scam.

tried to brand the Davenport, Iowa, Little League team as a bunch of racists, during what should have been one of the happiest times of their lives, I was reminded of something my late father used to say about youth sports, “It’s the adults who ruin it all.”My dad pretty much had a Ph.D. on the subject, coaching basketball at our Catholic grammar school, and officiating football from the Pop Warner level to Division II college.

“racist” Little League World Series scandal that explains the full context of the short clip — and it’s as innocent as 12-year-olds playing baseball. During the Sunday broadcast of the MLB Little League Classic between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox, the ESPN cameras showed white Little Leaguers from Davenport, Iowa, putting stuffing from a plush animal in their black teammate’s hair. People on Twitter cried foul, saying it was a blatantly racist act.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorPeyton Manning wants to go to the mat in his ongoing bid to create a sports-content empire.The football legend, who gained notice last year when he and his brother Eli launched an accompanying “ManningCast” for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” is backing a similar concept for ESPN’s UFC pay-per-view streams. Fans who opt to watch Saturday night’s welterweight bout between Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards via ESPN+ will also have access to a second stream featuring Rob Gronkowski and his brothers Chris, Dan, Glenn and Gordie Jr. along with father Gordon, who will host what is being called “ UFC 278 with The Gronks.