Cost cutting in content creation creates new title: Preditor

For anyone who has plunked down $50 for a couple of beers, hot dogs and fries inside a major leag...  More »

For anyone who has plunked down $50 for a couple of beers, hot dogs and fries inside a major league sports stadium, it’s hard to believe team owners are not making a fortune. But player salaries and other expenses routinely exceed the take from ticket sales and concessions in many organizations. The exception appears to be with teams that own regional broadcasting and web distribution rights for their games. Washington Post sports writer Thomas Heath recently interviewed Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA Wizards and NHL Capitals, and revealed how the billion-dollar media-entertainment-sports enterprise planned to stem losses. One way was through creation of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which will assume broadcast rights once its current cable TV contracts are renegotiated. For now, Leonsis says, the new venture will concentrate on Web content “The long-range goal is to own our own means of distribution. The most successful sports teams right now are successful because they own their own regional sports networks,” Leonsis told Heath. To keep costs from ballooning, Monumental shunned staffing up in a traditional way, wrote Heath. The positions of producer and editor were combined – with the new role known as “preditor.”  « Less