Seeking to position its technology as a digital hub for all things team sports, ESPN is making its streaming app and its website a platform to help regional sports network subscribers to watch their teams. 

Starting this week, as the Boston Red Sox begin their 2024, season, the ESPN app and ESPN.com will provide users with links, in areas such as live score tickers, directly to the team's exclusive RSN home, New England Sports Network.

Links to SportsNet Pittsburgh, home to the MLB's Pittsburgh Pirates and NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins, will be added to ESPN at a later date. And Monumental Sports Network -- RSN home to the NHL's Washington Capitals, NBA's Washington Wizards, and WNBA's Washington Mystics -- will be linked by ESPN starting in May, timed to the start of the WNBA season.

An ESPN rep told Next TV that the linkage is part of a strategy to ebb user frustration over sports programming fragmentation. (Deadline first reported this story.)

With ESPN still charging users close to $10 a month to access its walled garden, integrating ESPN adds value. For the RSNs, meanwhile, ESPN delivers reach. ESPN Digital said it set a record last year by drawing 111.4 million average monthly unique visitors.

“We pledged to make our games more easily accessible for fans, and this partnership is a big step in that direction,” Zach Leonsis, president of media and new enterprises for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, told Deadline.  

Boston-area regional sports network NESN announced that it will televise four Savannahs baseball games, starting August 14.

The Bananas play a unique brand of baseball designed primarily to be entertaining, which special rules, music, dancing and fan participation.

The games are part of the Bananas “World Tour” and coverage is presented by Dunkin.

The Bananas will be playing their arch rivals the Party Animals in an arrangement similar to the one the Harlem Globetrotters have with the Washington Generals, except the Party Animals have a better record. 

Both teams feature professional players trying to win, but their games have unique features.

Special Bananas baseball rules stipulate that games can’t last more than 2 hours and that no inning will start after the game has lasted one hour and 50 minutes. Teams get a point for winning an inning until the last inning, which all runs count toward the final score.

Fan are part of the game. If one catches a foul ball by either team on the fly, the batter is out. There are no walks, bunts and players can steal first base.

The games feature music, dancing, players in kilts and the Bananas’ home field is ad-free with the concession stands offering unlimited hot dogs, burgers, soda and popcorn, plus the team’s own Savannah Banana Beer, Banana Split Cream Soda and Slippery Banana adult cocktails.

In addition to televising the Bananas games, NESN will feature the team on NESN Clubhouse, an episode of Like a Pro with Jared Carrabis and the TC & Co. Podcast.

Fans can stream the Savannah Bananas games live on the NESN 360 app via authentication with their TV provider or by purchasing a subscription directly. 

Newspaper The Boston Globe launches a daily newscast this spring. The half-hour show, called Boston Globe Today, will air Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. on New England Sports Network (NESN), and will stream on the NESN 360 app, the Globe app and on Globe.com. 

Boston Globe Today will provide “an in-depth perspective on stories from the Globe’s newsroom, offering a deeper dive of major news, politics, business and entertainment stories and how they impact New Englanders,” said Boston Globe Media, which did not reveal the start date beyond this spring. 

Monday through Thursday, the show will focus on news, and Friday is about sports. Segun Oduolowu hosts Monday through Thursday, and Christopher Gasper of the Boston Globe hosts Fridays. 

“We are continuously improving the ways that we deliver vital news and information to our community and are excited to build a television show that will bring the Globe’s award-winning journalism to a broader audience,” inda Henry, Boston Globe Media CEO, said. “Boston Globe Today reflects our commitment to serve our community, invest in local journalism, and for Boston Globe Media to be an innovative news leader.” 

The newscast will air from a studio in the Boston Globe newsroom. Oduolowu’s credits include People (The TV Show!) and Scripps program The List. Gasper is a columnist at the paper and a radio host as well. 

“I'm thrilled to join the Boston Globe Today team, working on this exciting collaboration between the Globe and NESN,” said Oduolowu. “I look forward to diving into the stories affecting this historic city and New England at large, drawing on the considerable talents of the Globe newsroom.”

John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, bought the Globe in 2013. The parent company of the Red Sox, Fenway Sports Group, is part owner of NEWS. 

“NESN is excited to partner with The Boston Globe to deliver compelling news coverage to our viewers across our television and digital properties.” NESN president and CEO Sean McGrail said. ■

 NESN said it hired Matthew Volk as chief operating officer.

Volk, who had been senior VP of the sports division at Audacy, will report to NESN CEO Sean McGrail and oversee NESN’s programming, production, operations, creative services and public relations departments.

At Audacy, Volk oversaw the launch of 2400 Sports and the BetQL networks. Before Audacy, Volk was with NBC Sports Washington and ESPN.

He started his career as an intern, then employee for the New England Patriots. ■

Dennis Eckersley announced he will depart the Boston Red Sox broadcast team at the end of the season. In the baseball Hall of Fame, Eckersley, who is 67, joined NESN in 2003 as a studio analyst and moved to the broadcast booth in 2009. 

He was both a starting pitcher and a reliever in an MLB career that lasted 24 seasons. He played for the Indians, Cubs, A’s, Cardinals and Red Sox before retiring in 1998. 

Eckersley is an outspoken analyst. NESN noted his “effortless banter and smart analysis.”

“We are fortunate that Dennis has been a part of our Red Sox coverage on NESN for 20 years. His unbridled passion, nuanced insights and Eck humor will be dearly missed and we are thankful for his many contributions to NESN,” Sean McGrail, NESN president and CEO, said. “We wish him the best as he embarks on this next chapter of his life as a grandfather, father, husband and member of Red Sox Nation.”

Eckersley went 197-171 with a 3.50 ERA, and saved 390 games. He won an MVP and a Cy Young Award. 

"After 50 years in Major League Baseball, I am excited about this next chapter of my life," Eckersley said. "I will continue to be an ambassador for the club and a proud member of Red Sox Nation, while transitioning to life after baseball alongside my wife Jennifer, my children and my grandchildren."

Eckersley continued, “I’m forever grateful to NESN, the Red Sox, my family and the fans for supporting me throughout my career and through this decision and I look forward to remaining engaged with the team in a variety of capacities for years to come.” ■

Has another revolution arrived in Boston? Local-area sports fans aren’t so sure. 

Two weeks ago, New England Sports Network (NESN), the exclusive regional sports network home of baseball’s Boston Red Sox and hockey’s Boston Bruins, launched a new $30-a-month direct-to-consumer streaming service, NESN 360, that requires no pay TV subscription. 

Other owners of regional sports networks (RSNs) are in the process of doing the same thing, notably Sinclair Broadcast Group and its 19 Bally Sports-branded RSNs. But NESN was first out of the gate with NESN 360. 

So two weeks in, are we witnessing the collapse of the final piece of utility for the pay TV bundle, which is access to live sports? Based on the many recent Reddit responses from New England-area sports fans we perused, that's not the feeling we get at all. 

Scanning hundreds of Reddit comments, we found that many Red Sox and Bruins fans are skeptical about the service following their experience with the NESN authenticated TV Everywhere streaming app. 

There’s frustration with its support limits — in terms of connected TV access, the NESN app is limited to Roku and Apple TV. You can also watch it on iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as Mac computers, but you're not able to view it on Amazon Fire TV and Android TV/Google TV, proprietary smart TV platforms from Samsung, LG and Vizio, or video game consoles like Xbox and PlayStation. 

Meanwhile, many Red Sox and Bruins fans — particularly those who reside out-of-market — are frustrated that the service isn't available outside the region. This is a function of league contracts — Major League Baseball controls national broadcast and streaming rights and will only let the Red Sox carve out local deals with entities like RSNs, for example. 

But the majority of comments centered around the basic economics of the service -- as in, is it a good deal to pay $30 a month for NESN 360 (or $27.50 if you pay the $330 annual rate) and ditch linear pay TV?

"I understand that streaming services for sports can be expensive, but $30 a month is a bit much just for NESN," wrote one Reddit commenter. 

"JFC! $30/mo??!! Do they think they are worth more than a Netflix subscription??!!," added another.

"Hah! They finally got something right and offered a direct to consumer service, but f***ed it all up by charging way too much. I'll keep sailing, thanks!," added yet another potty-mouthed Boston-area Reddit poster.

The linear NESN is available across New England except for Fairfield County, Connecticut through pay TV providers including Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Verizon Communications and fuboTV. The addition of the RSN adds about $5 a month to a pay TV package.

For fans of the Red Sox and Bruins, ditching those providers means losing access to games covered under national TV rights. Both Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have national TV deals with Disney's ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery's Turner Networks. 

Fox and Turner’s TBS have MLB playoff games, which require either a pay TV service or over-the-air antenna to see.

“NESN 360 ($30) + Sling Orange ($35 for ESPN and TNT) + ESPN plus ($7) = $72,” wrote one Reddit poster, working out some back-of-the-napkin math for a package that would provide comprehensive access to the local teams.

“Fubo TV is $79, and does not carry TNT,” noted another poster. 

“If you want absolutely no other live or local channels, maybe. Otherwise, Fubo or DirecTV is still a much better deal,” added yet another poster.

Meanwhile, others lament that YouTube TV no longer carries NESN — the $65-a-month Google-owned virtual MVPD used to bundle the RSN along with ESPN, TNT/TBS and Fox, along with a cloud DVR — a tech feature NESN 360 lacks. 

We looked long and hard for a comment lauding NESN’s DTC decision. There weren't many!

“What a bunch of morons at NESN,” opined one Reddit denizen, summing up the sentiment succinctly. ■

New England Sports Network, the RSN home to the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins, will become the first regional sports network in America to offer its service outside the pay TV bundle as a direct-to-consumer streaming service. 

Starting Wednesday, NESN 360 will be available in the home market for $29.99 a month, with the first month promotionally priced at $1. An annual subscription is priced at $329.99 and includes eight tickets to see the Red Sox, currently a middling fourth place in the American League East and watching the Yankees run away with the division. 

Subscribers can stream NESN’s live feeds and VOD library directly to their computer, iOS and Android mobile devices, and Apple TV or Roku connected TV gadgets and enabled smart TVs. A page outlining the service can be found here. 

Those who already subscribe to NESN through a linear pay TV operator will be able to authenticate and view NESN 360 the ol’ TV Everywhere way. (The service appears based on the legacy NESN app and NESN TV platform, which has long provided pay TV subscribers TVE streaming rights to the channel.)

NESN is only available in the New England region, with Major League Baseball and its MLB TV product controlling national OTT rights. 

“We believe the direct subscription option will build on NESN’s reach in the region,” said Sean McGrail, NESN’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement.

NESN is majority-owned by Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Red Sox. Its linear channel is currently available across New England, save for Fairfield County, Connecticut, via pay TV bundlers including Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, DirecTV, Verizon Communications and fuboTV. 

NESN 360 beat Sinclair Broadcast Group to market, with the station owner planning to launch its own DTC service later this summer for its Bally Sports Group RSNs. 

Sinclair has tied up local OTT rights for teams NBA and NHL teams covered by its 19 Bally Sports channels. Sinclair also has DTC rights to Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. ■

NESN showed of the new studio at Fenway Park that will make its debut Friday when the Red Sox hold their home opener.

The studio is 20 feet by 24 feet and will be the home for NESN’s pre-game and post-game shows for Red Sox home games. It replaces NESN’s studio on Jersey Street.

The new studio has a large window that looks out at the field. On the opposite wall is a blueprint of Fenway Park produced by NESN’s creative services department.

Another striking feature is a wall on which a five-foot-high NESN logo is backed by a mural wall made up of 1,968 baseballs and 60 wooden bats.

The fourth wall of the studio is made of clear plexiglass, providing fans with a sneak peek into the on-air action. 

“We are so proud to debut our brand-new NESN studio in conjunction with the 2022 Red Sox home opener,” NESN president and CEO Sean McGrail sad. “It is our top priority to bring unparalleled access and connection to our fanbase, and this new space in the center field concourse of historic Fenway Park will bring our fans closer to the game than ever.” 

The fabrication of the anchor desk and the baseball bat and ball mural were produced by Mystic Scenic Studios, based in Norwood, Massachusetts. ■

NESN, the regional sports network of the Boston Bruins and Red Sox, put out warnings to fans that the Sony PlayStation Vue virtual MVPD has indicated it will drop the network at 5 p.m. ET today (April 19), ahead of the fifth game of the NHL Bruins' playoff series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Here's one warning on NESN's Twitter feed:

[embed]https://twitter.com/RealJackEdwards/status/1119217463340802048[/embed]

PS Vue also carries NESN's national feed but is mostly of concern to subscribers in the six New England states minus Fairfield County, Conn., which shows Bruins and MLB Red Sox games (schedule). A NESN-sponsored tweet said the network offered a 30-day extension but PS Vue declined. (Update: the tweet was by Jack Edwards, the Bruins play-by-play announcer, and he and NESN said later the offer was for 21 days.) NESN is owned by Fenway Sports Group (Red Sox) and Delaware North (Bruins).

NESN has apologized for remarks made by network baseball analyst Jerry Remy surrounding New York Yankees’ starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka during NESN’s Yankees-Boston Red Sox telecast last night.

NESN in a statement said: “Relative to last night's NESN telecast from New York, NESN does not agree with any such views expressed by Jerry Remy and we know from talking to Jerry that he regrets making them. The network sincerely apologizes to anyone who was offended by Jerry’s comments,”

During the fourth inning of last night’s Yankees-Red Sox game, Remy commented that Tanaka, who speaks Japanese, shouldn’t be allowed to have a translator present when the team’s coaches visit the mound. Tanaka’s translator Shingo Horie joined Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild on the mound to speak to Tanaka.

‘‘I don’t think that should be legal,’’ Remy said, according to the Boston Globe. ‘‘Learn baseball language. You know, learn, it’s pretty simple. You break it down pretty easy between pitching coach and pitcher after a long period of time.”

The comment drew criticism on social media. 

 Remy also issued an apology via twitter:  

I sincerely apologize to those who were offended by my comments during the telecast last night.

— Jerry Remy (RemDawg) (@Jerry_Remy) June 7, 2017

NESN, the regional sports network and TV home of the Boston Bruins and Boston Red  Sox, said it launched on PlayStation Vue to coincide with the start of the 2016/2017 NHL season.

NESN is now offered on "several” PlayStation Vue plans to fans in the network’s broadcast territory, which includes Massachusetts, Connecticut (except for Fairfield County), Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

Speaking at last week’s Next TV Summit in New York, Dwayne Benefield, VP and head of PS Vue, said the OTT-TV service is attracting millennials as well as families with children as it introduced a nationwide multichannel offering and as the service expands support to a broader range of streaming platforms and devices.

RELATED: PlayStation Vue Goes National With ‘Slim’ Packages

“The new platforms definitely helped,” Benefield said.  “Having [streaming] sticks from Amazon and Roku that are sub-$50 has helped with the ease of access to the service, PlayStation Vue is for the gamer household, including the children, wives and partners of the user.”

The New England Cable & Telecommunications Association convention in Newport, R.I., this week (July 13-15) “is looking great in its 45th year,” longtime NECTA CEO Paul Cianelli told The Wire.

“We’ve come a long way from, ‘One of the main questions is, can we support 12 channels of programming?’ to where we are today, focusing on innovation, integration, motivation, which is the theme of our show this year.”

He said the outlook was for 521 attendees: 362 registrants, 103 spouses and 56 children among them. Sixty-six companies are registered. “It’s important that this New England show has developed into a family show” since around the mid-1970s, Cianelli said. He’s in his 41st year with the association, which represents cable interests on policy matters in the six states.

Get complete coverage of the NECTA convention.

Various traditions will be observed: CNBC’s Ron Insana, as he has for about the past two decades, leads an opening panel session that includes regular attendee Comcast  senior executive vice president David Cohen, along with Atlantic Broadband CEO Richard Shea and Stanley M. Besen of Charles River Associates. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal is the convention’s biggest sponsor, another key to its longevity. Disney & ESPN Media Networks is No. 2 and MAV TV is No. 3, followed by some 20 other entities, mostly programmers.

The opening night party will be hosted by NESN as it has since 1989 and since 1990 at the same location, the Gas Lamp Grille (or whatever else it’s been called over the years). NESN is also bringing Red Sox announcers Dave O’Brien and Jerry Remy to the network’s booth on Thursday, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

At its peak, in the early 2000s, Cianelli has said previously, the NECTA show drew upward of 1,200 people. It was one of several strong regional cable conventions, which have dwindled with industry consolidation.

“We are the last of the Mohegans, so to speak, the last significant convention that’s not the national INTX show,” Cianelli said. “And I think that has to do with a number of things. One is the model that we use, the substance that’s there for all members. And New England being New England, which is a pretty tight, unique area, we’re able to bring in many of the legislators, policymakers to participate and to learn, and we in turn learn from them. Many of our significant panels are taped and then subsequently put on New England Cable News.

“Obviously, every year we take a hard look at [the show], but it’s been such a significant tool both for the operators and for the policymakers that I think we have a bright future.”

Boston is New England Sports Network’s hometown (it’s owned by the local Red Sox and Bruins), so when the cable-TV industry’s national convention comes around, as INTX did May 16-18, that means inviting some visitors to Fenway Park or to a hotel rooftop cocktail party and even hitting the show floor for a bit.

For 10 NESN staffers, the Thursday morning after the show was time to uproot some invasive plants along the Charles River, along with other volunteers helping out TheEsplanade Association. (UPDATE: See NESN staffers at work along the esplanade in this NESN promotional spot supporting the organization). 

Since 2008, NESN, under CEO Sean McGrail, has encouraged employees to volunteer with three fully paid days to get out of the office and do community work.

“It ’s a win-win al l around,” Gary Roy, NESN’s marketing and communications manager, told The Wire. “Helping great organizations and at the same time getting to enjoy some time outside the office with our co-workers.”

Last year, Roy said, a shade under 90% of NESN’s 185 employees volunteered at NESN Connects events and about half went to multiple events. This year, the hope is nearly 100% will participate as the channel works to try to schedule events that can accommodate everyone’s crazy work times.

The commitment adds up to nearly 1,000 hours of community service per year to more than a dozen non-profits.

Other recent NESN Connects events included the Watertown Police Stay Strong 5K Race on Sunday, April 17: “The events following the Boston Marathon bombing hit close to home for NESN, as our studios are located in Watertown,” Roy pointed out.

And at the Walker School “Lives in Bloom Gala” on Saturday, May 7, NESN employees helped set up and staff the annual fundraiser serving a local agency that helps children and families facing complex emotional, behavioral and learning challenges.

Roy also confirmed that NESN will once again be in Newport, R.I., this July hosting the opening-night party at the New England Cable & Telecommunications Association convention.

Seeing Red (Tape) Over Title II

The Federal Communications Commission got special recognition in a Heritage Foundation report, “Red Tape Rising,” which was released last week.

It was not the kind of shout-out the FCC was looking for.

Along with “unnavigable water rules” and “the FDA food police,” the conservative group cited among the “rampant rulemaking” going on the FCC’s “Neutralizing the Internet” regulations, better known as the Open Internet order or Title II reclassification decision or, if you ask many ISPs, the !@#$%^& proposal, as an economic downer.

Heritage did not put a regulatory cost on the rules, but in citing the 229 major regulations under the Obama administration, at an estimated cost of $108 billion, only 10 government regulatory eff orts got their own bold subhead, and the FCC’s action was one.

Heritage said that, thanks to the Open Internet order, “not only will investment and growth in the Internet be chilled, but innovation itself will be hindered.”

The report also made some recommendations, including making independent agencies like the FCC and Federal Trade Commission subject to review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which reviews executive branch regulations — the Environmental Protection Agency, for example — but not independent agencies. “These agencies should be fully subject to the same regulatory review requirements as executive branch agencies.”

— John Eggerton

C-SPAN’s Senate Spinoff Deliberates on a Milestone

On June 2, C-SPAN2 will celebrate its 30th birthday.

It was on that date back in 1986 that the channel was launched to carry coverage from the Senate chamber, adding the “two punch” to C-SPAN’s coverage of the House that launched on March 19, 1979.

So, courtesy of the proud papa, or mothership (that would be C-SPAN), here are some C-SPAN2 anniversary numbers. C-SPAN, BTW, is brought to you as a public service by your local cable company.

Hours of Senate debate televised: 33,120

Years from first proposal to broadcast from Senate to C-SPAN2 launch: 64

Number of senators around for the launch who are still senators: 5

Number of women senators in 1986: 2

Number of women senators today: 20

At multichannel.com/May30, The Wire will link to highlights from the past 30 years of senate coverage. And those nostalgic for the debate over President George H.W. Bush’s veto of the 1992 Cable Act (it was overridden), or masochistic cable operators who want to hear someone other than current Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler beat them up over being monopolists, can click through to that debate as well.

— John Eggerton

Officials at YES Network said the channel widened its lead as the most-watched regional sports network in primetime and total-day during the third quarter.

The RSN, the cable home to the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, averaged 73,000 households in the New York DMA during the third quarter, according to Nielsen data, a 26% jump from the 58,000 in the second quarter of 2014.  

As such, YES expanded its primetime delivery edge by 33% over the second-ranked RSN, FS Detroit, in the third quarter, versus a 23% advantage over NESN in the second quarter.

That primetime performance also gave YES an 87% lead over the 39,000 average for the next most-watched New York-based RSN, SNY, in the quarter. YES’s 73,000 average household mark nipped the combined 72,000 for SNY’s and MSG in the period.

Relative to total day, YES averaged 28,000 households in the New York market, up 17% from its second-quarter average of 24,000 in the second quarter. Those tallies pushed YES ahead of FS Detroit by 47% in the most recently completed quarter, up from 41% in the second quarter, when NESN placed second with this measure.

In New York, YES’ total-day delivery outpaced SNY and MSG’s 25,000 combined average through the third quarter.

YES’s prime product, New York Yankees game telecasts, averaged 223,000 households in the New York DMA during the 2014 season -- the last campaign for future Hall of Famer, Derek Jeter (pictured) --  a 15% year-over-year increase from the 194,000 for Bronx Bombers’ games in the 2013 campaign.

On the demo watch, 2014 Yankees’ telecasts registered a 28% advance among men 25 to 54; 20% against guys 18+ and adults 25 to 54; and 18% versus persons 2+ and those 18 and older.