Back after a week's hiatus, the Sports Media Backhaul tackles the "opening day" of free agency, focusing primarily on yesterday's signing announcements, their implications for the league in terms of competitive balance, and why smart teams are winning the league right now. We also talk about the Kevin Durant piece in The Undefeated, what KD's move to the Nets means for him, and why it may be the work of a really talented person who doesn't know what they want in life.

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We're back with another Backhaul, talking sports media issues. Greg Gottfried joins once again as we tackle the NBA Draft and the content/hype lead-in to the draft, whether this is actually a boring draft, and how the information flow gets handled. We then turn our attention to the drama emanating from NBA Countdown, including the potential end of Michelle Beadle's run at ESPN and the question of how the show competes with TNT. We finish off with a listener question about FOX's Women's World Cup coverage, and discuss what we've seen during and after the games so far.

The Sports Media Backhaul is available on iTunes and Spotify! Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review. For questions and comments, send them in to @doctorgc on Twitter.

We talk about sports journalism, open records requests, and the public appetite for college basketball scandal stories with Andy Wittry, sports reporter for Stadium. Lots of interesting stuff in this one about the process of acquiring open records, how they fit into sports journalism, how surprising it is (or isn't) that Will Wade and Sean Miller are still employed, and what that may mean for NCAA enforcement and college basketball as a whole.

ESPN's Courtney Cronin hops on the Backhaul as our special Friday guest, as we talk about the aftermath of the NBA Finals and the media coverage of both the Golden State Warriors and the end of their dynasty. We then shift our attention to the NFL and its continued popularity in TV ratings and among fans, and why its success continues to outstrip the NBA and any other American sports league.

On this edition of the Backhaul, we tackle the mini-controversy that erupted among sports media Twitter circles after the US Women's National Team's 13-0 thrashing of Thailand in the group stage, why the celebrations weren't a big deal --- and what would have happened if it had been the men's team doing the celebrating.

Lots and lots of NBA-related sports media content came out of Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and Greg Gottfried is here to help me break it all down. We talk about the messaging around Kevin Durant's injury and why it was problematic, the post-game blame game reaction to the injury, the weird attempts by some to shield Raptors fans, and the New York Daily News doing what they've always done, yet getting blowback this time for some reason.

On an all-questions session of the Sports Media Backhaul, I tackle an IU football question, chat a bit more about the idea of YouTube-as-social-network, and then answer a question about who's got the most versatility in sports media today. Happy Weekend, everyone.

Professional Sports Media Connoisseur Greg Gottfried joins the podcast for a spirited discussion about Ryen Russillo's podcast renaissance and the effect he's had on the Bill Simmons Podcast. We then talk at length about YouTube and whether or not it's a social network, and come to neither a useful nor logical conclusion. We then finish up by talking about social media dogpiles in sports, with the bad behavior of Mark Stevens giving us today's example.

On this edition of the Backhaul, I talk about the Big Ten Conference's hire of Kevin Warren as its new commissioner, and what it means for the conference's vision of the future. Many people thought the conference would go with a seasoned media business veteran, but instead they went with a seasoned professional sports business veteran. Is there a clue in that?

Welcome to the Sports Media Backhaul! This podcast focuses on sports, media, technology, audiences, and the interesting ideas that exist in that space.

Our first episode focuses on this article from Variety about ESPN's attempt to bring a younger audience into contact with the NBA Finals: https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/espn-nba-finals-stream-young-men-katie-nolan-1203230784/?ICID=ref_fark

I watched it and tried to figure out what worked and didn't work about the stream. This led into some discussion on the way networks perceive eSports, as well as a rumination on why ESPN (and FOX) struggle to find a good partner for Katie Nolan

Send comments and questions in to @DoctorGC on Twitter. Thanks for listening.