CrossFit deactivates their Facebook and Instagram accounts over privacy concerns
CrossFit was in many ways built on social media and online communities, but the company accounts are gone now.
Tech News
Jimmy Pitaro says ESPN will continue VR/AR/isocam experiments, especially online: “We do not believe that AR or VR is a fad.”
"We’ve been leaders in the virtual reality and augmented reality space for a long time now. We’ve already developed content for the Oculus [VR headset] and are willing to make our content available in those spaces."
Disney agrees to take operational control of Hulu in deal with Comcast
Hulu is going to become a Disney operation.
Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley wants to offer “pitch-by-pitch” prop bet abilities on their new RSNs
"If you're interested in gaming, we're going to add on extra stats, the ability to do prop bets in the game, pitch by pitch, play by play. You can play along and wager while you watch."
Luminary’s bid to become ‘the Netflix of podcasts’ is off to a rough start as content providers like ESPN & Barstool opt out
Luminary's subscription fee plans, anti-advertising tweet, and (since-changed) podcast distribution practices have all drawn blowback.
FanDuel will stream tennis, Bundesliga in their betting app; could this start a U.S. trend?
FanDuel has become the first U.S. gambling provider to gain rights to stream games in its app, something common in Europe. Those rights are currently focused on tennis and German soccer, but bigger leagues could follow once some current exclusive TV deals expire.
Facebook, MLB cutting back their streaming deal for 2019 from 25 games to 6, removing exclusivity
MLB's deal with Facebook is coming back this season, but will be significantly different.
DirecTV is now selling a streaming version of its satellite service
DirecTV wants customers to start buying its services online rather than buying the satellite dishes
After promises to “disrupt the way that advertising works” and avoid repeated car ads, DAZN Italy is…showing repeated car ads
DAZN's testing out different advertising approaches in different countries. In Italy, that's been repeated Volkswagen ads.
FC Cincinnati announces their own FloSports deal a day after DC United’s FloSports debut was plagued with issues
FloSports has a deal with a second MLS club, but this weekend, they experienced plenty of streaming issues with DC United.
Olympic broadcasters are really pushing 8K TV for 2020 in Tokyo
Broadcasters hope to bring 8K into the forefront, even though 4K hasn't even been widely adopted.
The Associated Press is adding more automation, will use AI for college basketball previews
The machines are taking over.
Bob Iger touts 2 million paid ESPN+ subscribers, hints at a bundle deal for ESPN+ and Disney+
As per Iger, ESPN+'s subscriber numbers so far are strong, and consumers may eventually be able to combine ESPN+ with Disney+ and Hulu at a discount.
SI/PCMag survey has 15 percent of respondents planning to watch the Super Bowl watching via streaming
Large numbers of younger respondents to this survey plan to stream the Super Bowl.
D.C. United shucking traditional local TV deal, will instead stream games through FloSports
D.C. United joins two other MLS teams in streaming its games exclusively online.
