The $4.5 billion Aussie football deal

The negotiation betweek the AFL and broadcasters vying for broadcast rights faced a mountain of expense this time around. It seems like anytime over the past 20 years when major sports rights are available, there is always the whispered threat of an international tech giant like Google or Amazon swooping in to out-bid broadcasters. That has always seemed more like a negotiation tactic to drive up prices.

But this time the threat was real, thanks to the Paramount Global ownership of local network Ten. In an effort to juice subscriber numbers for the Paramount+ streaming service, Paramount was part of the bidding for the AFL rights, which cover 2024-2031. If successful, the main games of the week would be available on Ten, with Paramount+ streaming all the others.

Ultimately, Paramount never walked away with the rights. Sports media in recent months reported that Paramount weren't prepared to spend as much. But looking at the money spent on the rights, it is clear that the serious involvement of Paramount in the bidding has helped drive up the value of the deal considerably.

Current rights holders Seven and Foxtel will retain the broadcast rights, jointly paying $4.5 billion. While the price has been upped, a significant win for Seven is that it will also be able to stream matches via its 7Plus platform.

YouTube delivers viewers at scale

I think it is easy for people to overlook just how many people are watching on YouTube. Want a reminder of what a YouTube audience can actually look like?

Popular YouTube star MrBeast recently opened a burger store in a New Jersey shopping centre. He announced that he'll be in the store on the opening day and a crowd turned out to catch a glimpse of him IRL.

MrBeast has over 100 million subscribers to his channel. Below are 10,000 or so of them who turned up. I doubt most of them bought a burger that day.

Reading the tweets

Elon Musk doesn't come to me for advice on how to fail to buy Twitter, and I don't go to him for film, TV or literature criticism. https://t.co/WpyXhQlqIh
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) September 6, 2022

Creator of Sandman (and producer of the new Sandman show on Netflix) Neil Gaiman weighed in to discuss some comments Elon Musk made about the new Lord of The Rings show. Gaiman's Twitter feed was then overrun by Musk fanboys telling Gaiman he has done a poor job on the LoTR show.

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Netflix and Georgian chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili have settled for $5 million. Read: Primetimer
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A Street Hawk remembreance. Read: Den of Geek
Dan Lin is out of contention for the big DC Films/TV role at Warner Bros Discovery. I remain available for the gig. Read: Indiewire
The Chris Wallace CNN/HBO Max show will debut Sept 23, exciting millions of Chris Wallace fans. There's no word on whether it'll be available on CNN International. Read: THR
The new Meta high end VR headset will be released Oct 11. Read: The Verge
The Great British Baking Show returns Sept 16 to Netflix.