The Top Ten Sports Media Stories of 2024

The first of two year-end posts

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It’s time to review the top stories in sports media for the year. This is the first time in a few years where I have my own platform to post this. I have done it for Awful Announcing, the old Fang’s Bites blog and on Twitter, but this is my first of what I hope is an annual tradition here on Substack. I hope you enjoy the posts and subscribe.

Once again, it’s been a very interesting year in sports media and for those of us who cover this beat, there is never a shortage of stories.

As we have gone from traditional media with linear vs. cable TV from the 1980’s through the 2010’s, we are now in the age of streaming. Traditional media is now vying against non-traditional media companies. How the traditional media companies pivot will be interesting.

Leagues want to go where the eyeballs are. Networks are looking for eyeballs. The eyeballs are now looking at phones, tablets, computers not just TV’s to consume media. How the networks adapt over the next few years will watched very closely.

Now let’s look back at 2024. Nest week, we’ll look forward to 2025 with a predictions column.

As Dak Prescott would say, “Yeah … Here we gooo!”

10. Paramount Global sold

The Paramount logo, but you knew that

It was a protracted sale, but it finally happened. In July, National Amusements sold Paramount Global to Skydance, a consortium led by David Ellison. Now what does mean for sports? It likely means that CBS Sports could have more of a role in programming the network and the parent company, Skydance which already has a relationship with the NFL with its various productions for NFL Media could buy a stake.