David Berson is reportedly seen as \u201codds-on favorite\u201d to run combined CBS\/TNT Sports division; ESPN is reportedly expected to change its secondary NFL booth; and The \u201cFab Five\u201d will be part of an alternate broadcast as Michigan faces Arizona. Plus news on March Madness, The Washington Post, NBC Sports and Bell Media.<\/p>\n
Berson reportedly seen as \u201codds-on favorite to run\u201d combined CBS\/TNT Sports division<\/p>\n
CBS Sports president\/CEO David Berson is seen \u201cas the odds-on favorite to run\u201d a combined CBS\/TNT Sports division if Paramount\u2019s acquisition<\/a> of Warner Bros. Discovery closes, according to John Ourand of Puck<\/a>. Berson, who joined CBS Sports in 2011 after a previous stint with ESPN, succeeded Sean McManus as the leader of CBS Sports in 2024.<\/p>\n TNT Sports chairman\/CEO Luis Silberwasser, who told Ourand that he and Berson \u201chave a really good professional and personal relationship,\u201d remains for the time being in charge of an independent entity that is pursuing extensions with the NHL and MLB and striking new deals like a recent agreement with FIBA. It is unclear what Silberwasser\u2019s status would be in a combined entity.<\/p>\n Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced that its shareholders would be voting on the Paramount deal at a special meeting on Friday, April 23. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2026, which is pending that shareholder vote and necessary regulatory approvals. If the merger does not close by the end of September, Paramount has pledged to pay WBD shareholders a $0.25\/share quarterly \u201cticking fee\u201d until the deal closes.<\/p>\n In the event that the merger transaction does not receive regulatory approval, Paramount would owe Warner Bros. Discovery a $7 billion termination fee. WBD may also be unable to pivot back to its original plan of separating its streaming\/studio assets and linear cable networks into two, publicly traded companies \u2014 Warner Bros. and Discovery Global, respectively \u2014 an outcome that the company described as \u201ca lost strategic opportunity for WBD stockholders\u201d in a recent proxy filing<\/a>.<\/p>\n ESPN reportedly expected to change secondary NFL booth<\/p>\n ESPN is expected to change its secondary NFL broadcast booth of play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler and analysts Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick Jr., according to a report<\/a> by Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. The trio has been working together for the last three seasons, primarily calling one half of \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d doubleheaders. Those will be discontinued this season as the league reportedly shops the four games it retained as part of its series of deals<\/a> with ESPN.<\/p>\n Even without the Monday night doubleheaders, ESPN will still have additional game inventory to cover. ESPN licensed three additional NFL games and moved four of its matchups to NFL Network, continuing to present seven games on the channel it now owns. Marchand reported there being \u201ca high likelihood\u201d that these will all be international games<\/a>, which would impact all three of Fowler, Orlovsky and Riddick, each of whom also have roles on ESPN college football coverage.<\/p>\n Marchand reported play-by-play voices Dave Pasch and Mike Monaco as\u00a0 \u201ccontenders,\u201d with Bob Wischusen mentioned among \u201cother candidates.\u201d Longtime NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner, who has called many of the international games (including last year\u2019s NBC-produced opener on YouTube), is reportedly \u201cin the mix\u201d as well. Warner has called \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d with Kevin Harlan on Westwood One for the last eight seasons.<\/p>\n In addition, former Eagles C Jason Kelce \u201chas emerged as a dark horse candidate on the analyst side,\u201d per Marchand. Kelce has been appearing on \u201cMonday Night Countdown\u201d for the last two seasons with Scott Van Pelt, Marcus Spears and Ryan Clark. Over the last few months, he has been on other ESPN broadcasts, including the NHL Stadium Series and the final three matches of the TGL regular season. Kelce will be at Augusta National reporting during coverage of the Masters Par 3 Contest next Wednesday as well.<\/p>\n TNT Sports to present \u201cFab Five\u201d alt-cast during Michigan-Arizona game<\/p>\n The Michigan \u201cFab Five\u201d of Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson, Jimmy King, Jalen Rose and Chris Webber will reunite for a special on-site alternate presentation of Saturday\u2019s Michigan-Arizona NCAA men\u2019s basketball national semifinal on truTV, it was announced this week. The group will be joined by TNT Sports host Adam Lefkoe.<\/p>\n The special telecast marks the first time since 2018 that the Men\u2019s Final Four will feature an alternate presentation. In years when the Turner networks carried the Final Four and National Championship Game, TBS would air the main feed. TNT and truTV would carry<\/a> \u201cTeamCast\u201d\/\u201dTeamStream\u201d coverage, which featured announcers with ties to the participating teams. Michigan made the Final Four in the final year of the \u201cTeamCast,\u201d and that presentation featured play-by-play voice Matt Park, analyst Jay Feely and reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Villanova ended up defeating Michigan to win the national championship.<\/p>\n The \u201cFab Five\u201d competed for the national title in their freshman and sophomore seasons (1992 and 1993), and, despite failing to win a title, remains one of the best-known teams in college basketball history. Michigan removed its Final Four banners and relinquished victories after an investigation discovered that Webber and three subsequent Michigan players had received payments from a former booster, and Webber and Rose had a prolonged falling out that has only recently been patched.<\/p>\n The \u201cFab Five\u201d presentation will begin following the earlier Men\u2019s Final Four game between Illinois and UConn. Projected tipoff time for the Michigan-Arizona game is at 8:49 PM ET from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. TBS will carry the traditional broadcast of both games featuring play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle, analysts Grant Hill and Bill Raftery and reporter Tracy Wolfson.<\/p>\n Plus: March Madness, The Washington Post, NBC Sports, Bell Media<\/p>\n Expansion of the NCAA men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball tournaments to 76 teams is expected to be finalized following the ongoing competition, according to a report<\/a> by Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. Dellenger explained that eight games would be added to the \u201cFirst Four\u201d in what would be an \u201copening round\u201d featuring 12 games with 24 teams. Yet he did acknowledge that \u201cplenty of this could change through the course of continuing talks with TV partners Warner Bros. Discovery and CBS.\u201d
\nThe Washington Post has brought back several staff members who were part of its layoffs in early February, per Natalie Korach of Status<\/a>, including Washington Capitals reporter Bailey Johnson \u2014 who said in a social media post<\/a> that she is back \u201cto cover the final stretch of the Caps\u2019 season.\u201d The outlet also brought on Danielle Allentuck, formerly of The Baltimore Banner, to cover the Washington Nationals this season.
\nDexter Fowler will make his return to NBC Sports this weekend as a pregame analyst ahead of the \u201cSunday Night Baseball\u201d matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers on Peacock\/NBCSN. Fowler, a former MLB OF, will be on the network\u2019s MLB coverage this season as a pregame and game analyst. He previously served as a game analyst for \u201cMLB Sunday Leadoff\u201d in 2023 and has also appeared on Marquee Sports Network in a studio role.
\nThe Ottawa Senators and Bell Media have agreed to an extension of their broadcast rights deal, it was announced by team owner Michael Andlauer during the intermission of Thursday night\u2019s game. Bell Media has had the English- and French-language television rights for the team since the 2014-15 season, and games have been telecast on TSN 1200 since the 1997-98 campaign. \u201cThe expectation is that TSN and RDS will broadcast 52 games next season,\u201d according to a report<\/a> by Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Berson is reportedly seen as \u201codds-on favorite\u201d to run combined CBS\/TNT Sports division; ESPN is reportedly expected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[249448,88,191662,249449,249450,249451,30572,92,191666],"class_list":{"0":"post-563534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-college-basketball-on-tnt-sports","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-espn-broadcasters","11":"tag-march-madness-broadcasters","12":"tag-mens-ncaa-tournament","13":"tag-ncaa-tournament-broadcasters","14":"tag-nfl-on-espn","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-warner-bros-discovery-sale"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}