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MMA / UFC News

Nevada State Athletic Commision planning to take action following controversial 10-8 scorecard in Alexa Grasso vs Valentina Shevchenko bout, part of 'Noche'

Headlining the event was a flyweight title fight between current champion Alexa Grasso (16-3 MMA) and Valentina Shevchenko (23-4 MMA). The somewhat controversial ruling at the outcome of the bout was a split draw!

Some insiders and hardcore fans pointed the finger at Mike Bell who ultimately was unable to find a winner, thereby causing the draw.

The result of the high profile match has attracted heat and a critcal eye from fighters and fans alike.

The NSAC (Nevada State Athletic Commission), in the aftermatch of the decision, is going to hold a refresher session for licensed judges.

It was well known sports reporter Ariel Helwani who broke the news on ‘X‘ @X (formally Twitter) with:

“Nevada State Athletic Commission will be holding a special 10-8 training session for all licensed judges on Wednesday, I’m told. Of course, this is in light of Saturday’s scorecard controversy.”

While the NSAC has not issued a public statement concerning the controversial scorecard, it appears that they are taking the 10-8 criteria seriously.

The 10-8 criteria written into the Unified Rules of MMA, can be seen below:

“A score of 10-8 does not require a fighter to dominate their opponent for 5 minutes of a round. The score of 10-8 is utilized by the judge when the judge sees verifiable actions on the part of either fighter. Judges shall ALWAYS give a score of 10-8 when the judge has established that one fighter has dominated the action of the round, had duration of the domination and also impacted their opponent with either effective strikes or effective grappling maneuvers that have diminished the abilities of their opponent.”

“Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10–8 when a fighter shows dominance in the round even though no impactful scoring against the opponent was achieved. MMA is an offensive based sport. No scoring is given for defensive maneuvers. Using smart, tactically sound defensive maneuvers allows the fighter to stay in the fight and to be competitive. Dominance of a round can be seen in striking when the losing fighter continually attempts to defend, with no counters or reaction taken when openings present themselves. Dominance in the grappling phase can be seen by fighters taking DOMINANT POSITIONS in the fight and utilizing those positions to attempt fight ending submissions or attacks. If a fighter has little to no offensive output during a 5 minute round, it should be normal for the judge to consider awarding the losing fighter 8 points instead of 9.”

“Judges must CONSIDER giving the score of 10–8 when a fighter IMPACTS their opponent significantly in a round even though they do not dominate the action. Effectiveness in striking or grappling which leads to a diminishing of a fighter’s energy, confidence, abilities and spirit. All of these come as a direct result of negative impact. When a fighter is hurt with strikes, showing a lack of control or ability, these can be defining moments in the fight. If a judge sees that a fighter has been significantly damaged in the round the judge should CONSIDER the score of 10–8.”

X remains one of the most popular social media platforms across the globe for the combat sports and pop culture sector, with many in and around mixed martial arts and pro wrestling making X they're first port of call due to its "non woke" and pro freedom of speech approch. Numerous other social media platforms have unfairly applied censorship over the combat sports sector, as well as targeting the health and well-being, medical and political news arenas. X won over the industry for social media news.

Now, the combat sports world awaits the update from the NSAC probe! Gonzo: Not So Accussing Clutz! Word Life/World Play as per wrestling legend John Cena, who is signed to the WWE, part of TKO, as is the UFC officially, as of last week. History was made in, around and outside of the Octagon, even up to the New York Stock Exchange. Will history repeat? They used to say "That's Boxing", now its a bit like, "That's MMA when there's a home turf advantage". Part satire and part gonzo, part authentic. Up to interpretation - the art of the deal! May the best man/woman win.

#UFCNoche #NocheUFC #UFC #ufcwomen #Grasso #Shevchenko #MMA #combatsports #fighting #wrestling #NSAC #femmes #sportsnews #sportsbiz #entertainment #entertainmentnews #PPV #payperview #biz #trend #trends #buzz #media

"It is fascinating (WWE-UFC merger). It will be interesting to see what happens in the world of sports, combat sports, and pro wrestling. I love pro wrestling, it’s an amazing business. I think there are a lot of really exciting things happening with sports media rights" - Tony Khan, All Elite Wrestling @AEW #TonyKhan #quote #AEW #AllEliteWrestling #wrestling #prowrestling #sports #combatsports #sportsmedia #mediarights #broadcast #broadcasting #sportsbiz #sportsnews #sportsmedia #mediabiz #media

Pro Wrestling

“Well, Jade had a great match on Friday night on AEW Rampage and it was a great match against Kris Statlander. Kris Statlander retained the TBS Championship on Rampage on Friday night and I thought that was a great match. Definitely one of the best matches I’ve seen either of them have. And I thought a really great main event for the show.”

“As far as Jade goes, I can’t really comment on that except to say that Jade’s been a great wrestler for AEW and certainly [is] always welcome in AEW. You know, could always be somebody we would always love to work with here in AEW.” - Tony Khan, All Elite Wrestling @AEW

#TonyKhan #quote #AEW #AllEliteWrestling #JadeCargill #wrestling #prowrestling #KrisStatlander #TBS #TBSChampionship #dreammatch #dreammatches #mainevent #promoter #wrestlingpromoter #combatsports #sportsbiz #sportsnews #entertainment #entertainmentnews #popculture #biz #media

Search Engine Land

SEL's Nicola on Google quietly rising prices. Yes we noticed. What can happen is customers get hooked and get in too deep to get out. Google are not the first, nor will they be the last to move into this grey and murky territory. Over a decade ago we were helping out folks whose Facebook ad campaigns got out of control and what a headache that was. Back then Facebook has more real people working in the online advertising department also. It's called big tech for a reason folks. Enter The Matrix at own risk folks. Once bitten, twice shy. Three times not a charm. Aw well, once can always cancel, but good luck with that. Google it!

Search Engine Land

SEL's Amy on the virtual casino er I mean Google online ad based mouse trap. Yes, much like a casino, the house (almost) always wins (unless the punters er customers go elsewhere). We enjoy a love -hate relationship with Alphabet's Google. I fine most times they provide quality..Their Algorithm loves our network and projects so we love them back..99 percent of the time organic results beat paid we find and also a good spread of evergreen content works a charm, especially in and around pop culture, combat sports and the like. Knowledge is power. Don't be manipulated! Or, if you are, at least you realize something isn't quite right. The battle between Man/human vs machine continues..Humans for the win!

JohnWallStreet

Hypersonic Air Travel..

Sounds sexy but it can also be a practical solution for those who work in and around the pro sports and live sports and entertainment sector. You can't be everywhere at once - not even with a holographic, so here's the next best thing - at a price. Next to perfect perhaps for high level UFC, WWE, PFL and NFL executives and players. Must fly quick..off to Dubai again via Sydney..No time to waste says Sydney media owner. UAE fast and even faster,.as the crow flys..Fast. Faster. Fastest as per sports documentaries and beyond the sound of speed..Hyper pumped sports biz media.

SEJ Google Off The Record podcast September 2023

SEJ's Matt with findings analysis as per Google Search 'Off The Record' with John Mueller and Gary Illyes. Takeaways include keep adding quality content to websites, remove poor quality,. follow Google guidelines/policy, don't do anything not ethical, be the authority, expert.and go-to in your field, stay up-to-date with trends and developments and connect with the audience while having consisting of content matching with business purposes. "Everything that gets less than 7 clicks" - change/improve or remove. "No gibberish" - ie "like if a cat ran over the keyboard". "People are looking for these sites anyway, regardless of what we are doing" "You see a blog post about SEO and then that blog post in linking to search engine.. that is a good hint that X dotcom may be imporant". "Can be really helpful about.. getting index.. people are linking to these sites". "We don't disclose what individual content". "Don't duplicate"

"If you have actually reviewed, like the potato peeler, that's helpful"

"Potato Pellets dotcom. Why would we index that?"

"We review translation and we see things"! "You can always improve the site and get out of the crawling jail" "If you have a site like X, it's very hard to figure out what are the pages that are lower quality". Now setting aside time to listen to the entire podcast. Update: now on second listening to help make sure it sinks in. Media, no cat mess here folks!. Thanks SEJ and Google

Search Engine Journal - Google's Search "Off The Record" podcast

SEJ's Matt with findings analysis as per Google Search 'Off The Record' with John Mueller and Gary Illyes. Takeaways include keep adding quality content to websites, remove poor quality, follow Google guidelines/policy, don't do anything not ethical, be the authority, expert, and go-to in your field, stay up-to-date with trends and developments and connect with the audience while having consistency of content matching with biz purposes. "Everything that gets less than 7 clicks" - change/improve or remove. "No gibberish" - ie "like if a cat ran over the keyboard". "People are looking for these sites anyway, regardless of what we are doing" "You see a blog post about SEO and then that blog post in linking to search engine.. that is a good hint that X dotcom may be imporant". "Can be really helpful about.. getting index.. people are linking to these sites". "We don't disclose what individual content". "Don't duplicate""If you have actually reviewed, like the potato peeler, that's helpful". "Potato Pellets dotcom. Why would we index that?"

SEL Twitter X September 2023

SEL's Nicola on Meta's Verified. No prizes for where they got that idea from hey! Old quote: "There's hardly an original idea left in the world". Now published on X @X (formally Twitter). Social media friendly wars continue. All good fodder for those who work in and around the sector. Got to fill up those webpages and social media channels with something. X marks the spot for instant news #SEL #meta #metaverified #verified

Search Engine and Website News and Tips

Google Search @googlesearchc 'Off The Record' with John Mueller and Gary Illyes

Takeaways include keep adding quality content to websites, remove poor quality, follow Google @google guidelines/policy, don't do anything not ethical, be the authority, expert, and go-to in your field, stay up-to-date with trends and developments and connect with the audience while having consistency of content matching with biz purposes.

"Everything that gets less than 7 clicks" - change/improve or remove.

"No gibberish" - ie "like if a cat ran over the keyboard". "People are looking for these sites anyway, regardless of what we are doing"

"You see a blog post about SEO and then that blog post in linking to search engine.. that is a good hint that X dotcom may be imporant".

"Can be really helpful about.. getting index.. people are linking to these sites".

"We don't disclose what individual content".

"Don't duplicate"

"If you have actually reviewed, like the potato peeler, that's helpful". "Potato Peeler dotcom. Why would we index that?"

"We review translation and we see things"!

"You can always improve the site and get out of the crawling jail"

"If you have a site like X, it's very hard to figure out what are the pages that are lower quality"

#googlesearch #googlesearchoftherecord #OfftheRecord #searchengine #seotips #googlepodcast #podcastofthemonth #searchpodcast #seo #sem #searchenginemarketing #content #contenttips #contentnews #websites #index #crawl #crawler #inded #indexed #webdev #quality #reviews #performance #results #onlinemarketing #onlinenews #technews #webbiz #media

Combat Sports / UFC @UFC News

Former UFC Middleweight Champion Israel "The Last Stylebender" Adesanya quotes via YouTube

“That just felt like a bad dream”. “Feeling it, and seeing it are completely different. I called Eugene [Bareman] right afterwards and we talked, same thing, we’re quietly confident. [The fight was] surprisingly fast. I didn’t even know it was the last round, I was like ‘This is the last round? *uck’. I was like okay, vamanos, I needed to do something.”

“It was just the way I felt in the fight, it wasn’t, eh. It was eh. It was also the way he worked. He never let me get into my rhythm at all… Just wasn’t able to get my rhythm because of his pressure, he was right there constantly. Whenever I was setting him up, because he’s right there, his coach would help him and I’d just be like ‘*uck’.”

“It was just a good gameplan from their end. For me, I wasn’t able to adjust on the fly.”

“The belt’s never mattered to me. I mean, it does obviously, but how many times have I said it’s just a fancy tiara that brings more money and this and that, rah, rah, rah".

“One of those where you, not even a nightmare. A nightmare is like, ‘Oh *hit. *uck.’ A nightmare, you’re scared. I was just like, you try to hit the guy, and it just felt like noodle arms. Like, ‘What the *uck.’ It just felt like a bad dream. Feeling it and watching it were completely different. I called Eugene (Bareman) right after and we talked and the same thing. We’re quietly confident.”

Video

Israel Adesanya Breaks His Silence After Loss To Sean Strickland at UFC 293

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4TauRH1t1I&ab_channel=FREESTYLEBENDER

#UFC293 #UFC #IsraelAdesanya #SeanStrickland #quotes #MMA #mixedmartialarts #combatsports #sportsnews #legend #legends #youtube #popculture #media

Pro Wrestling

AEW @AEW Dynamite. Grand Slam

TITLE vs TITLE!

ROH @ringofhonor World Champion Castagnoli @ClaudioCSRO vs NJPW Strong Champ Kingston! | 9/20/23, AEW Dynamite

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmqKFo0qRic&ab_channel=AllEliteWrestling

#AEWDYNAMITEGRANDSLAM #AEWGrandSlam #AEW #AllEliteWrestling #ROH #RingOfHonor #wrestling #prowrestling #combatsports #sportsbiz #sportsnews #entertainment #popculture #streaming #broadcast #broadcasting #media

Pro Wrestling Dream Match in All Elite Wrestling @AEW

Chris Jericho @IAmJericho vs Sammy Guevara @sammyguevara !

9/20/23, AEW Dynamite. Grand Slam

"Both of these men have gone through a lot in a short time" Tony Schiavone @tonyschiavone24

"This have been a back and forth affair for sure.. that's dangerous.. anything could happen here" Taz @OfficialTAZ

"And he's got a plan, whatever the hell it is" Taz

"Sammy just rag-dolled, and Jericho scoring the win"

"The biggest rat in New York City has just wanted into the ring"

Video via AEW YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/AEW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T04SlLP2MFs&ab_channel=AllEliteWrestling

#AEWDYNAMITEGRANDSLAM #AEWGrandSlam #AEW #ChrisJericho #SammyGuevara #Jericho #Guevara #dreammatch #wrestling #prowrestling #sportsbiz #entertainment #popculture #video #broadcast #broadcasting #trend #trending #buzz #media

Media Man websites updated

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@mediamanoz

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Algorithms, Alphabet and Alternative

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Casino Property News

Sydney casino sale off the cards as Star reports $2.4b loss

Star Entertainment Group chief executive Robbie Cooke says the embattled wagering operator is no longer planning to offload its flagship Sydney casino, claiming the business is in a more viable position.

Mr Cooke assured Star was in a better position to ride the wave of weak consumer discretionary spending and hefty regulatory penalties as he reaffirmed a commitment made to the NSW government to maintain headcount at the Pyrmont casino in exchange for a tax breather.

“When [former NSW treasurer] Matt Kean proposed the increase in our casino duty ... it was set at a level which just put the business in a non-viable position. Back then we were facing the need to do a strategic review of the Sydney operation”.

Mr Cooke said the damage to the company’s social licence was felt by team members but assured investors the business was stabilising despite the high level of regulatory uncertainty. “We’re seeing a consistency in performance,” he said, flagging the return of complimentary drinks to VIP members.

“We are hopeful the reintroduction of complimentary drinks ... does bring back an uplift in some business as it attracts more people to our private gaming rooms”.

#casinonews #casino #casinoproperty #gaming #gamingnews #VIP #vipnews #entertainment #starentertainment #property #propertynews #biz #biznews #markets #newsmedia #media

Pro Wrestling

AEW @AEW Dynamite Grand Slam - Sept 20, 2023

Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York City

Eddie Kingston def Claudio Castagnoli @ClaudioCSRO - ROH World Title

Chris Jericho @IAmJericho def Sammy Guevara @sammy

Rey Fenix @ReyFenixMx def Jon Moxley - AEW International Title

Saraya @Saraya def Toni Storm - AEW Women’s Title

MJF @The_MJF def Samoa Joe @SamoaJoe - AEW World Title

#AEWDYNAMITEGRANDSLAM #AEWGrandSlam #AEW #MJF #SamoaJoe #JonMoxley #ReyFenix #ChrisJericho #SammyGuevara #Jericho #Guevara

#ClaudioCastagnoli #EddieKingston #Saraya #ToniStorm #dreammatch #dreammatches #wrestling #prowrestling #sportsbiz #entertainment #popculture #video #broadcast #broadcasting #trend #trending #buzz #media

"Wrestling is something that nothing else can replace for me" - Bryan Danielson #BryanDanielson #quote #wrestling #prowrestling #wrestler #combatsports #sports #life #mbs #media

"You know what he told me when I came back to WWE?" "He said, 'Listen, I'm going to have this company for a lot longer than you think, Mr. Angle. I'm 73 right now. My mom lived to be 101. I plan on living until I'm 120.'.. 'I'm never letting the company go. I'm always going to be working here. They're going to have to pry it from my cold dead hands.' Vince - that's what keeps him going." - Kurt Angle on Vince McMahon, WWE @WWE promoter #KurtAngle #VinceMcMahon #quote #quotes #wwe #wrestling #prowrestling #combatsports #sportsentertainment #sportsbiz #promoter #entertainment #entertainmentnews #showbiz #promoter #popculture #legend #legends #media

Pro Wrestling News

WWE returns to Australia with Elimination Chamber: Perth

WWE, a TKO Group Holdings company, in partnership with the Western Australian Government through Tourism Western Australia, today announced its long-awaited return to Australia for a globally televised Premium Live Event (PLE). WWE Elimination Chamber: Perth will take place at Optus Stadium in Perth, Western Australia, on Saturday, February 24, 2024. This will mark WWE’s first event in Australia since 2018 and the only PLE in the Asia-Pacific region in 2024.

Fans across the globe interested in an exclusive presale opportunity can register now at www.wwe.com/au2024-presale

Located in the heart of Perth, the capital of Western Australia – a famed travel destination with a globally renowned record in hosting cultural and sporting events – the multi-purpose world-class Optus Stadium opened in 2018 and has hosted a multitude of sports and entertainment events including the Australian Football League Grand Final, State of Origin, Ed Sheeran’s ‘¸’ tour, Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ tour, Eminem’s ‘Rapture’ tour, U2’s ‘Joshua Tree’ tour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the upcoming Australian-exclusive Coldplay ‘Music of the Spheres’ tour.

“Perth is the perfect location for a major WWE Premium Live Event in Australia, following a series of record-breaking WWE events in iconic international destinations,” said WWE Senior Vice President Chris Legentil. “With a week full of WWE events and experiences, we hope to leave a lasting memory for Western Australia and the entire WWE Universe.”

“Hosting WWE in Perth is a real coup for our state as it will shine a global spotlight on Western Australia to billions of viewers worldwide, attract thousands of out-of-state visitors to WA and create an incredible atmosphere in the city for the local community and visitors alike,” said the Hon. Rita Saffioti MLA, Western Australia’s Deputy Premier and Minister for Tourism. “The WA Government, through Tourism WA, is proud to support this exclusive event that will generate millions of dollars for the local economy and highlight WA as a world-class events destination. I encourage everyone to Western Australia for WWE to extend their trip to explore more of our wondrous state as part of this once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Commenting on the historic announcement, WWE Women’s World Champion and Australian native Rhea Ripley said: “I’m beyond proud to represent Australia every single time I step inside a WWE ring and to bring a Premium Live Event to Perth is a dream come true. Get ready Australia, because Mami is coming home.”

The 2023 WWE Elimination Chamber from the Bell Centre in Montreal broke multiple company records. Viewership of the event saw a 54 percent increase versus the prior record set in 2022. It also marked new high points for gate, merchandise and sponsorship.

WWE Elimination Chamber: Perth will be broadcast live in approximately 165 countries in 25 languages and seen in more than 1 billion homes. Information regarding general ticket onsale and further event updates will be available in the coming weeks.

Additionally, Priority Pass ticket packages will soon be available from On Location, offering fans the chance to be ringside for every exhilarating moment including premium seating, pre-show hospitality with WWE Superstar appearances, ringside photo opportunities, exclusive merchandise and more. Starting today, fans can place a deposit to secure access ahead of the general public. To learn more about Priority Passes or to place a deposit, please visit

www.onlocationexp.com/eliminationchamberperth

To learn more about travel package opportunities and place a deposit on a trip to Perth, please visit Sportsnet Holidays at www.sportsnetholidays.com/wwe-elimination-chamber-perth

For more information, stick with WWE.com or visit www.westernaustralia.com

WWE and Tourism Western Australia acknowledge the traditional custodians throughout Western Australia and their continuing connection to the land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal peoples; Elders past, present and emerging.

(Source: WWE)

#WWEEliminationChamber #EliminationChamber #WWE #WWEPerth #WWEAustralia #WWE #wrestling #prowrestling #sportsentertainment #wrestlingnews #sportsnews #combatsports #sportstourism #entertainmentnews #popculture #buzz #Perth #trends #media

Rupert Murdoch to step down as chair of News Corp and Fox

The Australian-born media tycoon has announced he will step down from News Corp and Fox and hand over the reins to his son, Lachlan.

Rupert Murdoch has announced he will step down from his leadership roles at News Corporation and Fox after a seven-decade career.

The Australian-born media tycoon, who began his career at an Adelaide newspaper, will hand over the reins to his eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch.

Lachlan will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and chief executive officer of Fox Corporation.

Mr Murdoch, 92, will remain as chairman of both companies until November, leaving after the firms’ respective annual general meetings. He will then take on the role of chairman emeritus.

“For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change,” Mr Murdoch said in a memo to all staff.

“But the time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Lachlan who will become sole chairman of both companies.”

Mr Murdoch said he was leaving both firms in “robust health”. He called his successor a “passionate, principled leader”.

Lachlan Murdoch praised his father’s “remarkable 70-year career,” and congratulated him on “the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded”.

From Adelaide to NYC

Mr Murdoch, a Melburnian, got his start in the media when he took over the running of Adelaide tabloid newspaper The News following the death of his father Sir Keith Murdoch in 1952.

His successful turnaround of The News laid the foundation of the modern News Corporation and Fox.

Under Mr Murdoch, the business expanded across Australia, buying up newspapers in major capital cities. The Australian broadsheet was launched in 1964.

In the 1960s, News Corp entered the US and UK markets, becoming one of the globe’s most influential media organisations.

Along the way News picked up one of Hollywood’s biggest film studios, 20th Century Fox, before its sale in 2019.

Its Fox television network created global hits including The X Files and The Simpsons.

The company split in 2012, forming the current News Corporation and what would eventually be known as Fox Corp. Mr Murdoch remained as chairman of both separately listed companies.

In Australia, News Corp owns news.com.au along with titles including The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and Sky News as well as a majority share in Foxtel. Overseas, The Sun, The Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Post newspapers, Harper Collins books and Fox News all come under firms Mr Murdoch helms.

He has been awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for services to the media and to newspaper publishing.

‘Truly proud’

In his memo to staff, Mr Murdoch said he was “truly proud of what we have achieved collectively through the decades”.

“I owe much to my colleagues, whose contributions to our success have sometimes been unseen outside the company but are deeply appreciated by me,” he said.

“Whether the truck drivers distributing our papers, the cleaners who toil when we have left the office, the assistants who support us or the skilled operators behind the cameras or the computer code, we would be less successful and have less positive impact on society without your day-after-day dedication.’

Mr Murdoch added that “our companies are in robust health, as am I”.

“Our opportunities far exceed our commercial challenges. We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years – I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them.”

However, he sounded a note of caution about free speech.

“The battle for the freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense.

“My father firmly believed in freedom, and Lachlan is absolutely committed to the cause.

“Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose.

“Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”

‘Remarkable 70-year career’

Mr Murdoch said, in his “new role”, he would still be involved every day in “the contest of ideas”.

“Our companies are communities, and I will be an active member of our community,” he wrote. “I will be watching our broadcasts with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites and books with much interest, and reaching out to you with thoughts, ideas, and advice. When I visit your countries and companies, you can expect to see me in the office late on a Friday afternoon.”

Lachlan Murdoch congratulated his father on his “remarkable 70-year career”.

“We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted,” he wrote in a statement.

“We are grateful that he will serve as chairman emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies.”

Rupert Murdoch announces transition to new role of Chairman Emeritus of Fox Corporation and News Corp.

'For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change'

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is transitioning from his roles as Chair of Fox Corporation and Executive Chairman of News Corp, he announced on Thursday.

Murdoch, 92, informed colleagues in a letter Thursday of his decision, noting he was in good health. He will officially make the transition in November, and his son Lachlan will become the sole chairman of both companies.

"I am writing to let you all know that I have decided to transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus at Fox and News," Murdoch wrote. "For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. But the time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Lachlan who will become sole Chairman of both companies. Neither excessive pride nor false humility are admirable qualities. But I am truly proud of what we have achieved collectively through the decades, and I owe much to my colleagues, whose contributions to our success have sometimes been unseen outside the company but are deeply appreciated by me.

"Whether the truck drivers distributing our papers, the cleaners who toil when we have left the office, the assistants who support us or the skilled operators behind the cameras or the computer code, we would be less successful and have less positive impact on society without your day-after-day dedication. Our companies are in robust health, as am I. Our opportunities far exceed our commercial challenges. We have every reason to be optimistic about the coming years — I certainly am, and plan to be here to participate in them."

Murdoch went on to say the battle over freedom of speech and freedom of thought had never been more intense, and he said his family remained firmly committed to that cause. He criticized both contemptuous elites and the media in "cahoots" with them for pushing narratives rather than seeking the truth.

"In my new role, I can guarantee you that I will be involved every day in the contest of ideas," he wrote.

Lachlan Murdoch released an announcement congratulating his father and the legacy he’s left at his enormously influential companies.

"On behalf of the FOX and News Corp boards of directors, leadership teams, and all the shareholders who have benefited from his hard work, I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career," said Lachlan Murdoch. "We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted. We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies."

Murdoch’s media empire includes FOX News Channel, which launched in 1996 under News Corp and quickly established itself as a leader in 24-hour news coverage. It recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and has consistently dominated its competition in the ratings, becoming one of the most influential and closely watched news sources in the world.

Murdoch was Executive Chairman of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to the closing of the merger of 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company in March 2019. Murdoch served as CEO of 21st Century Fox from its inception as News Corporation in 1979 until 2015 and as its Chairman from 1991 to 2015.

Murdoch’s career has leaped continents as he’s put his stamp on the entire globe.

In 1954 in his mid-20s, Murdoch took control of News Limited, a public corporation based in his home nation of Australia and previously run by his father, Sir Keith Murdoch. From there, his company bought and founded Australian newspapers and then looked internationally, gaining control of the U.K.'s News of the World and The Sun in 1969, and subsequently buying several U.S. publications, including the New York Post and The Village Voice.

In 1980, News Corporation was established to consolidate international operations of its growing roster of newspapers, magazines and television assets. By 1985, Murdoch took ownership of Twentieth Century Fox as well as some regional television stations in some major U.S. markets.

The FOX Broadcasting company was launched in 1986, and by 1996, FOX Sports was a smashing success and FOX Network had become the top-ranked television group in the country.

In 2019, led by Mr. Murdoch, Fox Corporation was launched as a standalone, publicly traded company following the separation of 21st Century Fox in a deal that yet again redefined the U.S. media landscape. As Fox Corporation, the company produces and distributes content through such brands as FOX News Media, FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, FOX Television Stations and Tubi Media Group.

Murdoch has been awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia (A.C.) for services to the media and to newspaper publishing in particular. In 2014, he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. He and his family have made contributions to various educational, cultural, and medical charitable organizations throughout the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Asia and Israel.

High Stakes: The ‘life-or-death’ battle over a company name

Two stars of Australia’s new economy – the similarly named share trading platform Stake and online cryptocurrency casino juggernaut stake.com – are locked in a life-or-death court battle over naming rights amid growing concerns the gambling outfit has major plans for its home country.

Stake the share platform launched legal action in the Federal Court in August seeking to enforce its trademarks and stop stake.com, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, from using that name for its business in Australia.

The fast-growing Sydney-based share trading platform, the third-largest broker in the country, alleges that the casino group stake.com has been breaking Australian consumer law and has misled consumers through the use of its brand in Australia and its marketing, including its sponsorship of the Alfa Romeo team and the sale of apparel.

Stake the share trading platform, which owns the URL stake.com.au, alleges stake.com’s use of the name in Australia has potentially led to consumers believing the two brands are related when they are not.

The share trading platform Stake, founded in 2017 by entrepreneurs Dan Silver and Matt Leibowitz, alleges there is a threat that more consumers could be misled if stake.com is allowed to continue with its plans to grow its business significantly in Australia under the brand name Stake.

The casino group, led by Melbourne-based twenty-somethings billionaires Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, is expected to seek to have the matter summarily dismissed.

A spokesperson for stake.com said: “We are aware of a frivolous claim lodged in the Federal Court by Stakeshop, which in part claims that our global Formula One team sponsorship impinges on their ability to sell trucker hats.”

“We are proud of the global stake.com brand. As a group, we abide by the laws of the countries in which we operate, and do not offer our stake.com platform to Australian customers. We believe the claim has no legal merit and will vigorously defend our rights.”

The court case has shed new light on stake.com’s expansion plans for Australia, where it remains blocked to Australian users.

Court documents reveal the casino group has sought to buy the stake.com.au website from the sharemarket trading platform business. According to the court documents, the casino group has also registered several Australian website domains for its Australian expansion and applied to register a slew of trademarks including Stake Australia, Stake Bet and Stake Casino.

The Federal Court action comes after years of simmering tensions between the two groups over the use of stake.com’s name in Australia.

Stake.com was established in 2017 but flew under the radar in Australia until late 2021, when this masthead revealed the local origins of the business that had grown to be one of world’s largest online casinos, processing hundreds of billions of bets on sports, virtual table games and online slot machines.

In early 2022, stake.com signed hip-hop megastar Drake as its lead ambassador. Later in 2022 it signed a multi-year deal to become lead jersey sponsor for English Premier League team Everton FC as well as its sponsorship of Alfa Romeo’s F1 team.

The significant increase in stake.com’s marketing and media presence was noticed at the share trading platform group that built its user base during the COVID-inspired boom in Gen Y and Gen Z investors, thanks in part to its ultra-low cost brokerage fee model, savvy marketing and the broadening into other financial services including a superannuation product.

A spokesman for Stake the share trading platform said that since the group was founded in Australia it had built a client base of more than 500,000 and more than $2.5 billion in assets under management.

“Over the past six years, we have established a trusted and culturally relevant Australian brand that reflects our dedication to meeting customer needs. It permeates all parts of our business, spanning products, content, internal culture, customer interactions and much more, making it our most valuable asset. We are committed to protecting the Stake brand and the high level of consumer trust associated with it,” the spokesman said.

“We are concerned by the threatened use of the Stake brand in Australia by stake.com in relation to gambling, casino and sports betting services, due to the potential for customer confusion and damage to our brand and reputation.”

Stake.com is not available in Australia but according to court documents, the group is already making arrangements for a major expansion in this country and is seeking a sports betting licence.

In October 2022, stake.com casino executive Brais Pena Sanchez contacted Stake share trading founder Silver on LinkedIn and arranged a video conference meeting where the pair discussed Stake the share platform selling its Australian URL, stake.com.au, to the Curacao-registered, Australian-operated casino group.

During those discussions, Sanchez – the casino group’s chief strategy officer – informed Silver that stake.com planned to launch in Australia under the name Stakebet, or similar, according to court documents. A deal never ensued and the website remains owned by the share trading platform.

Tensions flared again in early 2023 after stake.com the casino was announced as the new team sponsor for Formula 1 team Alfa Romeo, sparking a flurry of legal letters between the two groups ahead of the Melbourne race.

According to the court documents, the casino group’s lawyers assured the share trading Stake that it would not use its logo in conjunction with the Melbourne Grand Prix and did not intend to display the name on any vehicles or uniforms or as part of the Alfa Romeo team name.

However, the share trading Stake alleges that during the four days of the Grand Prix, Stake casino logos appeared on banners for official team merchandise, the team display and on signs at the event and in the race program.

In May, Stake.com was applying to register a large number of new trademarks for goods and services. This included Stake Australia, Stake Bookie, Stake Betting, Stake Gaming, Stake Esports, Stake Casino, Stake Sportsbook, Stake Bet, Stake Punt, Stake Sports, Stake Pokes and Stake Slots.

The casino group has also registered a series of Australian website names under the “.au” domain including stakebet.au; stakecasino.au, stakesports.au and playstake.au.

The case continues.

Expend4bles @expendables

A new generation of stars join the world’s top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in Expend4bles.

Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give “new blood” a whole new meaning.

Lionsgate and Millennium Media present A Nu Boyana Studios and Templeton Media Production in Association With Grobman Films in Association with Media Capital Technologies.

CAST

JASON STATHAM

SYLVESTER STALLONE

CURTIS “50 CENT” JACKSON

MEGAN FOX

DOLPH LUNDGREN

TONY JAA

IKO IWAIS

RANDY COUTURE

JACOB SCIPIO

LEVY TRAN

with ANDY GARCIA

A new generation of stars join the world’s top action stars for an adrenaline-fueled adventure in Expend4bles. Reuniting as the team of elite mercenaries, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone are joined for the first time by Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on and the skills to use them, The Expendables are the world’s last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table. But new team members with new styles and tactics are going to give “new blood” a whole new meaning.

Video

EXPEND4BLES (2023) Official Clip 'Jumbo Shrimp' - Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MuGublBY8s&ab_channel=LionsgateMovies

#Expend4bles #Expendables4 #movie #entertainment #entertainmentnews #popculture #trailer #buzz #X #media

Make no mistake, Rupert Murdoch will still be calling the shots

Rupert Murdoch may have technically stepped back from running the media empire he built over many decades, but don’t be fooled by his new title of chairman “emeritus” of News Corp and Fox – an honorary title typically retained after retirement from academia – he will still be calling the shots.

Rupert made that clear with the statement that he will continue to “be involved every day in the contest of ideas” despite – technically – retiring from the board of both companies. What the announcement does do is embed his chosen heir, Lachlan Murdoch, as the undisputed successor.

But as Rupert draws even closer to the end of his reign as the most influential media figure the world has ever seen, he cannot escape the karmic irony that will emerge from his family’s own succession battle when he does die: the man who has anointed prime ministers and presidents on both sides of the Atlantic will not control the fate of his own family business.

News Corp has been asked if Rupert can still attend board meetings in this role as chairman emeritus, and if there is any boardroom business he will now be precluded from attending.

The announcement only underlines how he hopes his family’s succession drama will end. Lachlan has been on prominent display all year – starting from when plans to merge the two arms of the media empire, Fox Corp and News Corp, fell apart.

“As you know, my father and I reached the conclusion that exploring a combination with News Corp is not optimal for shareholders of Fox or News Corp at this time,” Lachlan told the market in February.

Fellow investors turned up their noses at a deal that many felt was designed to do nothing more than consolidate Lachlan’s control of the family business.

The family has gotten used to running the two businesses, with a combined market capitalisation of about $US27 billion ($42 billion), as their personal fiefdom despite owning a minority stake in both.

Murdoch’s control of the super shares that dominate voting rights at both Fox and News Corp gives the family about 40 per cent of votes despite owning just 14 per cent of each.

Rupert’s determination to maintain an iron grip on the group by means fair and foul may have been triggered by the precariousness of his own control of the family’s holding.

From the time he took control in 1952 until the early 1990s, Rupert effectively shared control of the family stake with three sisters; Helen, Anne and Janet. They had equal shares of the business alongside Rupert but effectively deferred control to their brother.

In the 1990s, Rupert succeeded in finally gaining control with a deal to buy out his own siblings.

But control of the voting rights is only in Lachlan and Rupert’s hands while the family patriarch is alive.

Ironically, the heir apparent has his mother to thank for this fact.

Trouble emerged in April 1998, when Rupert ended his 30-year marriage to Anna Murdoch to pursue his new love interest, Wendy Deng.

A furious Anna took her time in reaching a settlement with Rupert that could have, technically at least, given her half of his multibillion-dollar fortune under California law.

With potentially new heirs on the horizon, Anna played the long game on behalf of her three children and stepdaughter Prudence – as she revealed to the Australian Women’s Weekly in a rare interview in February 2000.

“I’m very comfortable and my children are protected and that was really what I was most anxious about – that my children and their inheritance would be protected. And that’s what took so long – between the separation and the divorce – to get that right,” she said.

The trusts that guard the Murdoch family’s control of the media empire are shrouded in secrecy, but enough details have emerged to shape the bargain that was made between the warring husband and wife.

The four adult children were given equal votes via representatives on the board of the trust that control the Murdoch family shares.

Rupert had equal votes to the children, but the changes meant he no longer rules unencumbered.

In a 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose talk show, Murdoch, a spry 75-year-old at that time, confirmed for the first time that his older children would control the company’s future when he dies.

“It’s really up to them,” he told Rose. “If I go under a bus tomorrow, it will be the four of them who will have to decide which one should lead.”

The only challenge to this equilibrium came from Deng who sought equal status for her daughters Chloe and Grace.

Rupert dangled $150 million in front of his four eldest children. It was enough to ensure the economic benefits of the trust were now split six ways: Deng’s daughters Chloe and Grace would get a cut of the spoils without any of the control. As Anna demanded, the votes remain with the eldest four who will collectively determine the family’s control of Fox and News Corp.

You don’t need to be a fan of Succession to appreciate the problems here. The family feuding has been writ large in print.

Lachlan’s brother, James, has effectively exiled himself from the media group after the film business, and other assets, were sold off to Disney last year but has made clear his dissatisfaction with the right-wing tilt of the media group – and its climate change coverage.

Their sister Elisabeth, has also been sidelined and left to start up yet another media business on her own. Prudence, the eldest sibling with the lowest profile, is the only one who has not been seen to seek leadership of the business and is viewed as supportive of Lachlan.

A plan for Lachlan to buy out his siblings was apparently scuttled, according to a New York Times report in 2019 when he baulked at the deal that could have guaranteed his future.

Any thoughts that Lachlan can count on the continuing support of Prudence and Elisabeth to keep the media empire on its current path was shattered with the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election loss which is still playing out in the courts for Fox News.

Fox Corp agreed to a billion dollar-plus defamation settlement with Dominion over claims it helped rig the election, but only after damaging internal emails and text messages came to light revealing how the network deliberately pandered to the false allegations of a stolen election to retain its Trump-supporting viewers.

It highlighted the invidious position Rupert and Lachlan found themselves in with the extremist right-wing audience they had cultivated at the network, now holding Fox captive. Smartmatic, another voting equipment company, is suing Fox for $US2.7 billion.

According to Lachlan Murdoch biographer, Paddy Manning, it has only made the other three siblings more determined to bring Fox to heel and assert control over the two media companies.

“There is an intention, on the part of the other siblings, to reassert control of the trust the moment Rupert dies, and to do it in a way which promotes and enhances democracies around the world rather than undermines them,” Manning says, highlighting one of the main points from his book.

But another Murdoch veteran, Australian Financial Review journalist Neil Chenoweth, is not sure the old sibling alliances – which has traditionally seen Prudence aligned with Lachlan, and Elisabeth with James – would dissolve that easily and trigger the ejection of Lachlan when they all control the family trust.

“I just can’t see that happening,” he says.

There are many different scenarios that could play out, according to Chenoweth. The four siblings would be expected to sit down and vote to distribute the billions of dollars worth of Disney shares they received from the movie giant’s takeover of Fox’s film business last year.

What if they vote to disperse the Fox and News Corp shares as well?

“That’s what would bring the Murdoch control of those companies to an end … it seems to be unlikely but the Murdoch family relationships [are] so complex, that it’s hard to know,” Chenoweth says.

Poker player admits to lying about terminal cancer to raise money to enter tournament

GoFundMe reportedly notified those who donated they would be getting refunds

An amateur poker player who said he was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 colon cancer has come clean.

Rob Mercer claimed he had the debilitating disease to raise money to enter the World Series of Poker Main Event. Mercer is now saying he lied about the diagnosis.

"I did lie about having colon cancer. I don’t have colon cancer. I used that to cover my situation," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "What I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have told people I have colon cancer. I did that just as a spur-of-the-moment thing when someone asked me what kind of cancer I had.

"I’m sorry for not being honest about what my situation was. If I would have done that from Day 1, who knows what would have happened."

The 37-year-old California native started a GoFundMe in June to help him make his lifelong goal of getting to the World Series of Poker. The final buy-in for the event is $10,000, and he received contributions between $30,000 and $50,000, according to the Review-Journal.

World Series of Poker officials have yet to comment on the issue.

Mercer said he had no plans to return any of the money because he believes he has undiagnosed breast cancer. He said the GoFundMe reached out to him to tell him he violated the terms of service and people who donated were reportedly told they would be getting refunds.

Mel Gibson's 'John Wick' TV series casting defended by director after backlash: 'Not my business'

Movie star Mel Gibson returns to the screen in a 'John Wick' TV series

The director of "The Continental: From the World of John Wick" defended casting Mel Gibson in the prequel TV series, saying "personal life stuff" is not his business.

Albert Hughes, who directed two of the three upcoming episodes, chose Gibson through the "usual" process.

"I cast [Gibson] based on his past work that I grew up on," Hughes told the New York Post. "And I think he fit the role perfectly. I think once fans see it, they’ll understand why. The personal stuff is not my business to talk about."

He chose Gibson to play the role of Cormac, who manages the New York Continental in the show, which will premiere Friday.

Gibson's casting has received some backlash on social media.

"john wick without keanu (and with mel gibson) is not john wick at all," one user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote.

Another added, "I'm so angry at this because I wanted to watch Katie McGrath (and I like John Wick movies), but I can't stomach watching Mel Gibson ever again."

"Torn honestly," one user wrote. "Love the John Wick franchise but despise and loathe Mel Gibson."

"It was the usual [casting] process," Hughes explained to TVLine. "In Hollywood, it’s always about, like, the five names for one role, and then you go about systematically seeing who’s available, whose people respond. …

"The personal life stuff, that’s not my place to get into."

Chad Stahelski, who directed the "John Wick" film franchise, is serving as the executive producer of the show.

"I was always a fan of the ‘John Wick’ movies, and what [Stahelski] and [star Keanu Reeves] did," Hughes told the New York Post.

"I said, ‘Man, it looks like they’re having fun. I want to have fun. You don’t want someone imitating Keanu Reeves and Chad Stahelski. You already have that, and it’s done wonderfully well. [The show is] in the same world, but on a different road."

Gibson has been largely shut out of Hollywood following an arrest for DUI in 2006, during which the "Passion of the Christ" director went on an antisemitic rant. In 2010, tapes of Gibson shouting the N-word and other racist remarks at his girlfriend at the time, Oksana Grigorieva, were leaked.

The actor later apologized for the antisemitic rant.

"There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of antisemitic remark," Gibson said at the time in a statement obtained by The New York Times.

"I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge," the statement continued. "I am a public person, and when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena."

Mandy Rose makes her OnlyFans free for limited time

WWE released Mandy Rose the day after she dropped the NXT Championship due to her having launched an adult website without permission. Nevertheless, the former Tough Enough contestant would get the last laugh after it was later revealed she had become a millionaire off her content. And now, having recently moved from FanTime to OnlyFans, she is seemingly attempting to rebuild her subscriber base by making access to her account free of charge. However, thirsty wrestling fans must act quickly, as no-cost memberships are only available for a limited time.

WWE News: Speculation over Vince McMahon future following TKO merger

With the merger of WWE and UFC into TKO Group Holdings, Vince McMahon's once ironclad grasp on WWE is slipping.

Dan Primack of Axios pointed out in a story Thursday that a recent SEC filing stated that all of McMahon's shares for the sale are registered for sale, meaning investors can purchase all of McMahon's 28.84 million shares, likely netting McMahon around $3 billion without the usual red-tape and limitations that would normally come with a sale. Essentially, should McMahon decide he finally wants to retire — or the recent federal search warrant and grand jury subpoena served to him were to find any allegations of wrongdoing — McMahon would have an easy exit from the company without endangering TKO's ability to sell McMahon's shares.

Primack cites the phrasing in the SEC filing, which says McMahon and other parties (including WWE President Nick Khan) "will be selling stockholders in this offering," noting that the phrasing is so concrete that it leaves very little wiggle room for McMahon to retain control without those shares. Primack also labels McMahon as both the company's greatest strength, due to his experience, and its greatest liability, as he was already forced into retirement once over hush money payments to former employees and now has a federal investigation hanging over his head.

McMahon was recently on hand for an employee staff meeting following the merger, where it was said that the septuagenarian executive looked frail, walking with a cane to the podium before addressing the staff.

Chris Jericho: AEW is 'absolutely' better than it was a month ago

Jericho was a guest on Tuesday's episode of Busted Open Radio.

Chris Jericho believes AEW is "absolutely" a better place than it was a month ago.

On Tuesday, Jericho was a guest on Busted Open Radio. Though CM Punk wasn't mentioned by name, the conversation turned to how the backstage altercation at All In overshadowed AEW's historic Wembley Stadium show for some fans.

Jericho addressed whether he was frustrated by how fast news of the incident between Punk and Jack Perry got out.

It's wrestling though, man. It's only rock 'n' roll. I think people like to focus on negative. I remember when I got into the fight with Goldberg in Milwaukee [in 2003], it was out on whatever version of the internet was then 10 minutes later... So it's not like this is the first time there's been incidents backstage. It happens. I just think now with social media that people want to jump on the negative.

Jericho said the backstage issues within AEW have been rectified. He noted that there are so many positive things going on in AEW, but sometimes that gets a little bit downplayed and the negative gets focused on.

We know the issues. The issues have been rectified. But the point is, it's like -- there’s so much positive things going on. And those things are always kind of a little bit downplayed. But it’s the negative that gets focused on. I know what’s going on in the locker room, and we know what areas we need to work on. I mean, negative press is negative press.

Once again, you still got, out of those 81,000 people [at Wembley Stadium], how many people know what even happened or even really care? You know what I mean, the hardcore, and the journalists, and the guys who do this care. And we should. But there’s also fans --- not just 81,000, how about being number one on cable once again four weeks in a row? Number one -- the number one show out of all shows [on Wednesday], is AEW.

So to me, that’s a huge positive that also gets kind of lost in the shuffle because somebody’s in a bad mood one day, or whatever it might be. It happens, it’s wrestling. We’re all gypsies, tramps, and thieves, and there’s gonna be issues from time to time.

Bully Ray asked Jericho if AEW is better now than it was a month ago.

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

AEW announced on September 2 that Punk's contract had been terminated with cause following the All In incident.

Jericho is facing his protege Sammy Guevara on Dynamite Grand Slam this Wednesday night. It's the first one-on-one match that Jericho and Guevara have ever had against each other.

Foxtel slams proposal to put women’s sport on free TV list - September 18, 2023

Putting women’s sports on a government list designed to keep key games freely accessible for Australians would be a mistake, entrenching a “grass ceiling” on the players and sporting codes, Foxtel says.

The Albanese government is reviewing the “anti-siphoning list”, a law introduced in the 1990s to prevent key sports from being put behind pay TV paywalls. The legislation lists the key sporting events that must sell their broadcast rights to free-to-air networks.

After a surge in support for the Matildas at the FIFA Women’s World Cup last month, which broke Australian free-to-air TV viewing records, the government rushed to put their future games on the list.

But that does not solve a complex situation where Australians view shows on subscription platforms such as Netflix, through free broadcast services like 9Now or 10 Play, or on the likes of YouTube.

Two key players in the mix, subscription broadcaster, Foxtel and Free TV, which represents the Seven, Nine and Ten networks, have very different visions for what the future of sports rights negotiations should look like.

Foxtel commissioned a paper by research firm Charles River Associates that concluded that, in most cases, women’s AFL, NRL, FIFA Women’s World Cup, cricket, netball and basketball were already more accessible than their male counterparts.

“The benefits of explicitly including women’s sports on the anti-siphoning list would likely be symbolic at most: there would be no practical effect on the extent to which these sports are freely available to the public because they would be freely available anyway,” CRA’s Geoff Edwards wrote.

“The only clear beneficiaries would be the [free-to-air] broadcasters, which would face less competition for rights to televise listed women’s sports.”

Less competition would drive down the price of broadcast rights, reducing investment by codes and salaries for female athletes, Mr Edwards wrote – a “grass ceiling”.

Last month, the government released a set of three proposals for how the scheme could work. They include a more streamlined free-to-view approach – which would allow subscription streamers to buy sports as long as they were made free for viewers, to keeping just free-to-air aerial viewing enshrined as free – essentially the same as the law is now.

Finally, it proposed expanding it to prioritise the broadcasters’ streaming apps, like Seven’s 7plus and Nine’s 9Now. Nine is owned by Nine Entertainment, the publisher of The Australian Financial Review.

Free TV said the government’s preferred proposal, which ensures sports are available for free on aerial television for broadcasters, don’t go far enough. Major broadcasters are increasingly seeing their audiences – and revenue – move to their digital streaming services.

“The government’s preferred model would allow the most attractive livestreaming rights to be cherry-picked by online content service providers,” Free TV wrote in its submission. “Local TV services would not be able to earn sufficient revenue to acquire the rights to any iconic sporting events included on the anti-siphoning list.”

Free TV chief executive Bridget Fair said Foxtel’s proposal was a marketing tactic. “This model must be seen for what it is – a marketing strategy to loss lead with a small number of sports in front of a paywall in the hope of driving increased subscriptions,” she said.

SBS, meanwhile, said the government should broaden the anti-siphoning list to include streaming platforms, and expand the list of sports from its current 1900 to 2800 to include more women’s and para-sports events.

Submissions were due by Sunday. The government will put forward legislation by the end of the year.

UFC News and Odds

Odds for Prochazka vs. Pereira, Pantoja vs. Royval and Covington vs. Edwards

The UFC President announced a trio of title bouts for the upcoming 295 and 296 cards that already have sportsbook operates licking their chops, SportsBetting.ag among them.

SportsBetting.ag set odds for Jiri Prochazka vs. Alex Pereira and Alexander Pantoja vs. Brandon Royval Thursday morning.

The third fight confirmed, Leon Edwards vs. Colby Covington, had long been speculated and odds were initially released way back on March 19.

In March, Covington opened as a -190 favorite (Edwards +165), but was bet down to -130 (Edwards +110) within 24 hours. Currently, the odds are flipped as Covington is now the underdog.

White also stirred controversy this week by demanding that a fight judge be investigated following a UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs. Shevchenko 2 decision. The UFC boss

“When I found out that one of the judges scored 10-8, I’m like, this guy should be fucking investigated for this,” aid White. This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I started to talk to people, I guess there’s a seminar tomorrow with the athletic commission on 10-8s, so hopefully they can get this cleared up,” added White, alluding to a forthcoming meeting of the Nevada Athletic Commission.

UFC title challenger, and former champion, Valentina Shevchenko also expressed outrage at the scorecard that resulted in her not reclaiming the UFC’s 125 lb belt.

“From my experience, a 10-8 is when one fighter completely cannot not do nothing,” said Shevchenko during her post-fight press conference. “It’s like running around, waiting, looking for an escape from the Octagon; it’s miserable. In the fifth round, it was, like, four minutes or however many minutes in stand-up, and she didn’t land one punch. She could only take the back position in the last minute, minute and a half. I don’t remember now. But even there, it was not damage. It wasn’t too much damage to succeed with this 10-8.”

Fight Odds

Alex Pereira -110

Jiri Prochazka -120

Brandon Royval +200

Alexander Pantoja -260

Colby Covington +125

Leon Edwards -145

'WWE SmackDown' leaving Fox, returning to USA in '24

One big part of the WWE’s media rights package has been decided, as the Friday night “WWE SmackDown” series will leave Fox next year and return to USA. The five-year deal, which officially starts in October 2024, will be announced officially later this morning. Specific financials were not released. As part of the deal, NBC has committed to produce four primetime specials per year that will run on its broadcast network. “WWE Smackdown” had been on USA from 2016 to 2019, when it moved over to Fox.

ONE TO GO: This move leaves the Monday night “WWE Raw” as the last package WWE needs to sell. “Raw” is WWE’s top property and has generated a lot of interest from both traditional linear TV companies and digital players. NBCU is still in talks to renew its “Raw” deal. After all, “Raw” has anchored Monday nights on USA for the better part of 20 years; USA also carries “WWE NXT;” NBC carries WWE Network on Peacock; and it just cut this “SmackDown” deal. But even as the market for sports rights has tightened due to the cord cutting trends, other companies have engaged in talks, including Disney and Amazon. Sources say there is potential for “Raw” to move off of Monday nights as part of a new deal, though nothing has been decided yet.

TKO STOCK DROPS: Sources told the WSJ that the value of the pact is “roughly $1.4 billion, which is about a 40% increase over the deal WWE had with Fox.” Despite that increase, Wall Steet did not respond well to the deal, as shares of TKO -- the new holding company for WWE and the UFC -- dropped around 15% on Thursday to close at $85.97 (TKO went public just over a week ago at $102/share).

(SBJ)

How Many Households are Passionate ESPN Viewers?

While multiple industry sources have told us Disney and Charter hope to reach a deal before the kick-off of Monday Night Football this evening (link), we have been getting a lot of investor questions on the underlying popularity of ESPN. Disney released a stat last week that 71% of Charter subscribers tune into a Disney broadcast station or cable network in the average month. As we have learned from many of the digital companies in our coverage universe, the word “watch” can be highly manipulated (remember the Netflix 2 minute definition). In turn, we decided to dig deeper into the actual household viewership of ESPN.

While the current Disney/Charter blackout involves far more than ESPN, we see very little content outside of ESPN that cannot be replaced with one of Disney’s streaming services (Disney Channel content has moved to Disney+, FX content has moved to Hulu, etc). While losing ABC TV stations certainly matters, it is important to remember that Charter’s geographic overlap with Disney’s owned and operated ABC TV stations is quite low. In fact, we believe less than two million of Charter’s 14 million residential video customers are impacted by the current ABC blackout, whereas all 14 million Charter residential subscribers are without ESPN.

Whether we are talking about ESPN’s leverage in the current Charter carriage battle or ESPN’s ability to one day go direct-to-consumer, what matters is the amount of households that cannot live without ESPN. While Nielsen is associated with publishing viewership and ratings for specific programming, they also track how many households watch at least 6 minutes, 1+ hour, 3+ hours, 6+ hours, 9+ hours, 12+ hours and 15+ hours of a given broadcast or cable network each month. Given the timing of specific live sports programming, monthly household viewership of ESPN varies widely, with the peak month (January) double the yearly average and multiples of the trough month.

We doubt anyone who watches less than 3 hours of ESPN in a month (effectively one live game) would switch video providers due to a blackout, let alone broadband providers. We have heard that less than 40% of US households watch at least 3 hours of ESPN in their biggest month, with half that level in the average month. The really shocking statistic is what happens when you adjust the viewership bar to 6+ hours of ESPN monthly, with only 20% of US households in the peak month and well under half that level in the average month. While ESPN has strong overall viewership whether we are talking about Charter subscribers or the country as a whole, it comes from a small segment of passionate sports fans. Just 1% of US households watch over 12 hours of ESPN in the average month.

What Could This Imply for Charter?

Charter will have a much more difficult time adding new subscribers (gross adds) if ESPN is actually gone forever (not to mention ABC in markets where Charter and ABC O+O stations overlap). While the sell-in of video from broadband gross adds has been falling as Charter’s broadband bundling focus shifts from video to mobile (as LightShed’s Walt Piecyk has pointed out), there will be an impact. Does not having ESPN give a potential gross broadband add a reason to look elsewhere, at least where quality alternatives exist? Things certainly have changed with the popularity of vMVPDs, so it is not totally clear.

Looking purely at Charter’s existing residential video subscriber base of 14 million (14.7 million with commercial video), the question is how many will leave Charter if the ESPN/ABC blackout is permanent? We suspect somewhere between 20-40% ultimately churn (based on the 20% watch 6+ hours to 40% watch 3+ hours). However, it will take time, as the trigger to leave will likely be tied to programming you cannot live without, which builds throughout Q4 into January. But even if one assumes the mid-point of 30% of video subs ultimately leave (~4 mm video subs), Charter could save well over $1.3 billion, as their annual programming expense to Disney is a reported $2.2 billion today. (Note: we are assuming a 17% contribution margin on video)

Switching video providers is quite easy today, with an array of vMVPDs that can be added with a few clicks and a credit card and the consumer ending up with a cheaper and technologically superior video experience to any facilities-based MVPD. Broadband is not as easy to replace and is certainly more time consuming. In turn, the critical question is even if Charter lost 4 million residential video subs, how many broadband subs would they lose? Would 1 in 10 switch? 1 in 5 switch? Unless it was 1 in 2, Charter would come out financially ahead in the short-intermediate term in the Disney/ESPN/ABC blackout. (Note: we are assuming an 80% contribution margin on broadband)

Therefore, focusing purely on the math, all signs point to Disney needing to cave as Charter could, at least in theory, survive a permanent blackout, whereas Disney (and ESPN in particular) cannot survive with fixed and rising sports programming costs.

Why Disney Should Cave and What it Implies for ESPN’s DTC Future?

While we continue to doubt a permanent blackout, the relatively narrow viewership of ESPN illustrates why Charter is so focused on reducing the packaging penetration requirements in a new distribution agreement with Disney (likely from 80%+ today to 50% or less over several years, as we discussed in our post last week here), as well as how challenged Disney is in taking ESPN fully direct-to-consumer as we anticipate in late 2025.

We continue to believe Disney will cave on Charter’s packaging penetration requirements knowing they plan to take ESPN DTC. The far bigger unknown is whether they are willing to cave on providing Charter subscribers their ad-supported streaming services at no incremental cost as they currently do for Hulu + Live TV subscribers;

(LightShed Partners)

Sydney casino sale off the cards as Star reports $2.4b loss - 29th August 2023

“Given now that the new government has actually done a comprehensive review of the duty regime, and we’ve now got certainty and that has meant we have a viable proposition, jobs are no longer at threat and we no longer need to do that strategic review. That’s no longer on the agenda.”

Mr Cooke’s comments follow Star’s $2.4 billion annual loss, slashing more than $2 billion from the value of its three casinos.

A potential AUSTRAC fine, four class actions and two revoked state casino licences weighed on the embattled casino operator’s 2023 financial year, culminating in a $2.2 billion non-cash impairment of The Star Sydney, The Star Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane.

“We are hopeful the reintroduction of complimentary drinks ... does bring back an uplift in some business as it attracts more people to our private gaming rooms.”

Treasurer’s reprieve

Revenue climbed 22 per cent to $1.9 billion for the 2023 financial year, a figure which was affected the previous year by COVID-19 restrictions. Statutory earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation excluding any significant items was slightly above previously announced guidance at $317 million for the year ending June 30, an increase of $79 million.

But it was the move by NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey this month to defer duty rates for poker machines until 2030 that has taken the potential sale of Star’s flagship asset off the table.

Star engaged Barrenjoey Capital Partners as part of a strategic review of its Sydney property in April, an asset it has poured $1.3 billion into over more than a decade. Mr Cooke said the company’s $100 million program (which resulted in 500 job losses) and NSW tax reprieve took the Sydney sale off the agenda.

The delay to tax increases – which will lift duty rates by up to 51.6 per cent – is conditional on Star maintaining a workforce of more than 3000 at its flagship Sydney casino. “We’re very comfortable with the commitments ... we’ve cycled through that softness and maybe that’s what Crown’s now experiencing,” Mr Cooke said.

Star’s Sydney casino revenue increased 27 per cent to $978 million for the year, driven by a large increase in non-gaming revenue. EBITDA climbed 57 per cent to $127 million.

Star is continuing to refinance its debt, and the adjusted NSW casino duty rates will help with this process. Christina Katsibouba, Star’s chief financial officer, said the group needed refinancing to improve flexibility.

“There is quite a lot of interest and quite a variety of proposals as well. We are open-minded about the best structure for the refinance,” Ms Katsibouba said. Mr Cooke said he had not approached major shareholder Bruce Mathieson about refinancing the business.

Star is still waiting on the outcome of legal action launched by AUSTRAC for alleged breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism laws and four class actions. It has provisioned for a $150 million penalty. Its rival, Crown Resorts, was fined $450 million.

Mr Cooke said he had no visibility over an investigation by Queensland’s office of liquor and gaming into Star’s Queen’s Wharf joint venture partner, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, and the impact it could have on Star’s operation.

The regulator is assessing whether it is a suitable casino owner after an ABC investigation raised the Chinese firm’s alleged links to organised criminal associations. “We’re not aware of the detail of that review ... we don’t know what the likely outcome is. We really just have to wait and see,” M Cooke said.

Star’s share price has dropped more than 60 per cent this year, but was up 6 per cent at $1 in afternoon trading. The group did not pay a final dividend.

The Biggest Sports Teams

Gamification: Gallup research reveals that baseball was America’s favorite spectator sport from its debut survey in 1937 until deep into the 1960s, when football wrestled the number one spot away — a position it has held ever since. Today, football is huge business, with the latest Forbes list of most valuable sports teams dominated by football teams.?

•?

Ticket sales, merchandise and sponsorships all drive huge revenues for NFL teams — but it’s the TV deals that are truly game changing. The sport itself is well-suited for modern marketing, with advertisements easily insertable between plays, helping the league secure the most lucrative TV sports deal to date — a whopping $112 billion, 11-year contract that has come into effect this season.?

•?

?30 out of the world's 50 most valuable sports teams are NFL franchises, with the Dallas Cowboys' $9bn valuation topping the list. The biggest in baseball — the iconic New York Yankees — notched up a $7.1bn valuation, ahead of the LA Dodgers ($4.8bn) and Boston Red Sox ($4.5bn). But the number of MLB teams on Forbes' list has remained at a record low level, with only 5 making the cut this year, down from 12 in 2015.

(Chartr)

Elon Musk reveals Twitter takeover driven by ‘woke mind virus’ - September 5, 2023

Elon Musk was driven to take over Twitter after fearing his transgender daughter had been infected with a “woke mind virus” incubated on the social media platform.

Mr Musk had initially rushed to embrace the news when Jenna, formally known as Xavier, transitioned at age 16.

But when she later cut him out of her life entirely, he knew he had a fight on his hands, a battle that would eventually culminate in the world’s richest man buying Twitter for $44 billion.

The Tesla owner believed his child had been radically transformed by the $US50,092 ($87,000) a year liberal school she attended in California.

“She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil,” Mr Musk said.

In an interview with Walter Isaacson for his upcoming biography, Elon Musk, the Space X billionaire, said he saw the same mentality had enveloped Twitter.

He believed it had been infected by a mindset that suppressed right-wing and anti-establishment voices. His solution was to buy it.

“Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilisation will never become multi-planetary,” Mr Musk told Mr Isaacson.

After purchasing Twitter, Mr Musk’s erratic and unpredictable leadership saw him quickly reinstate the previously banned accounts of right-wing agitators including Donald Trump and Kanye West.

Now, an excerpt of his upcoming book, published this week in The Wall Street Journal, gives an astonishing insight into how the deal unfolded, lifting the curtain on how haphazard texts and video-gaming played into the drama.

More than 20 years ago, Mr Musk started X.com, which he had envisioned as an “everything app”.

When the firm merged with Confinity to create what would become PayPal, Mr Musk pushed for the service to be called X.com. His peers were dubious, thinking it sounded like seedy adult services, and pushed for the alternative. Mr Musk lost.

Speaking recently, Mr Musk said: “If you want to just be a niche player, PayPal is a better name. But if you want to take over the world’s financial system, then X is the better name.”

With $10 billion cash in his pocket from expiring Tesla stock, Mr Musk asked the “easy question” of what product he liked. “It was Twitter,” he said.

In January 2022, he told his personal business manager, Jared Birchall, to start buying shares.

Despite his businesses, Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink, all outperforming their rivals and soaring in value, Mr Musk was still unfulfilled in April 2022.

Shivon Zilis, a director of Neuralink, Mr Musk’s AI firm and the mother of his twins, told him: “You don’t have to be in a state of war at all times. Or is it that you find greater comfort when you’re in periods of war?”

Mr Musk said his “default settings” include always wanting “to push my chips back on the table or play the next level of the game”.

He said in April: “Twitter could become what X.com should have been, and we can help save free speech in the process.”

Mr Musk called Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal and the pair met for dinner with chairman of the board Bret Taylor on March 31, 2022. Mr Musk was invited to join the board, and he agreed.

The tech billionaire described Mr Agrawal as a “really nice guy” but said Twitter “needs a fire-breathing dragon”.

But on April 6 he told his fellow PayPal founders Luke Nosek and Ken Howery in the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, that his involvement was “a recipe for trouble”, adding: “It’s very clear that the inmates are running the asylum.”

He argued it would be good for democracy but Mr Howery probed whether it “should be like a telephone system, where the words that go in one end come out exactly the same on the other end?”

“Or do you think this is more like a system that is governing the discourse of the world, and maybe there should be some intelligence put into the algorithm that prioritises things?”

Mr Musk suggested charging people to be verified to eliminate bots, bring in cash and help transform it into a payments platform – fulfilling his “original vision” for X.com.

What to do about Twitter

Mr Musk flew to billionaire Larry Ellison’s Hawaiian island, Lanai, where he spent four days contemplating what to do about Twitter.

It was there, at 3.32am local time, that he posted the antagonistic tweet which asked whether the platform was dying.

Mr Agrawal sent Mr Musk a text 90 minutes later, saying: “You are free to tweet ‘Is Twitter dying?’ or anything else about Twitter, but it’s my responsibility to tell you that it’s not helping me make Twitter better in the current context.”

At 5am local time, Mr Musk landed a second blow, replying: “What did you get done this week?” before adding: “I’m not joining the board. This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”

Mr Agrawal and Mr Taylor both asked to talk, with the latter saying: “Do you have five minutes, so I can understand the context?”

Mr Musk said: “Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work. Drastic action is needed.”

He later said he had the realisation “I didn’t want to be co-opted and be some sort of Quisling on the board”.

At that point, Mr Musk had not given up on the idea of starting a new social media company, an idea he had discussed with his brother, Kimbal.

“I think a new social-media company is needed that is based on the blockchain and includes payments,” he texted him.

Within hours he had changed his mind, he was going to buy the company outright. He texted Mr Birchall: “There is no way to fix the company as a 9 per cent shareholder.”

Mr Musk then flew to Vancouver to link up with his girlfriend Claire Boucher, the performance artist known as Grimes.

The purpose of the trip was to introduce their son, X, to her parents. But Mr Musk was focused on the Twitter deal, so she made the trip herself.

Back in the hotel, Mr Musk texted his decision to Mr Taylor: “I have decided to move forward with taking Twitter private.” The tycoon unwound by playing a video game until 5.30am, before tweeting: “I made an offer.”

Mr Musk then set about trying to find investors to finance the deal. Kimbal declined but billionaire Larry Ellison was more accommodating, having already signalled his interest.

He was ready to invest a billion or whatever Mr Musk decided into Twitter, something he had not used for a decade. The Tesla tycoon even had to reset Mr Ellison’s password.

Sam Bankman-Fried, who was later charged after the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX but denies wrongdoing, was also interested. Mr Musk was unenthusiastic.

Undeterred, Mr Bankman-Fried texted Mr Musk, saying he was “really excited about what you’ll do with TWTR”. He was ready to turn the $100 million worth of shares he already held in Twitter into a stake in the new company once it went private.

“Sorry, who is sending this message?” Mr Musk texted back.

Again, undeterred Mr Bankman-Fried rang Mr Musk. The 30-minute call did not go well.

“My bulls--t detector went off like red alert on a Geiger counter,” Mr Musk recalled. “He was talking like he was on speed or Adderall, a mile a minute. I was thinking, ‘Dude, calm down.’”

Mr Bankman-Fried was equally unimpressed, thinking Mr Musk was “nuts”.

It ended with Mr Bankman-Fried neither investing in the company nor even converting his existing shares into a stake in the new enterprise.

Initial euphoria

Mr Musk raised the cash, and his plans were accepted by the Twitter board at the end of April.

Initially, the tech tycoon was euphoric. “I am very excited about finally implementing X.com as it should have been done, using Twitter as an accelerant!” he texted.

Within days the doubts emerged. “I will need to live at Twitter HQ. This is a super tough situation. Really bumming me out,” he told Walter Isaacson.

Mr Musk’s growing belief that Twitter had been lying about its number of users was reinforced by a whistleblower and others. He was convinced the $44 billion offer was too high and throughout September was on the phone to his lawyers as Twitter went to court trying to force Mr Musk to honour the offer.

“They are s---ing bricks about the dumpster fire they’re in,” he said of the Twitter board. “I cannot believe that the judge will railroad the deal through.”

But Mr Musk’s lawyers saw things differently, warning him he would lose if the case went to court.

“Arguably, I should just pay full price because these people running Twitter are such blockheads and idiots,” Mr Musk said. “The potential is so great. There are so many things I could fix.” The deal was closed in October.

Unimpressed with office visit

Days before completing the formalities, Mr Musk visited Twitter’s 10-storey Art Deco headquarters in San Francisco.

There were coffee bars, a yoga studio, and a games arcade. Signs on the staff lavatories read “Gender diversity is welcome here” and cabinets were stuffed with T-shirts bearing the slogan “Stay Woke”. Staff could work from home and were allowed a “mental day of rest” every month.

Mr Musk was not impressed. His preferred buzzword was “hardcore”.

Under the agreement, Mr Agrawal and senior Twitter executives were entitled to severance pay and to take their share options. Mr Musk was not happy, believing that they had misled him while negotiating the deal.

He proposed to bring the agreement forward by a few hours, giving him a window to sack them before they could cash in the stock options.

The deal was closed at 4.12 pm Pacific time. At the same time, Mr Musk’s assistant delivered dismissal letters to Mr Agrawal and his three deputies. Six minutes later, Mr Musk’s top security man turned up at the conference room to tell them that their email was cut off and to escort them out of the building.

Mr Agrawal had tried to resign.

“But we beat him,” said Mr Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro.

The Rock’s WWE Return Draws Massive Social Media Views - 18th September 2023

The Rock’s return to WWE on SmackDown has led to an incredible of social media views for the company.

Fans who attended WWE SmackDown in Denver last Friday were in for a treat when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made his return to WWE after being away for several years.

Pat McAfee started the show with a promo when he was rudely interrupted by former US Champion Austin Theory, whom Pat had defeated at WrestleMania 38. After Theory claimed it was Austin Theory’s show, Pat told Austin this will never be Austin Theory’s show, this will be the People’s Show and do you know what that means? That’s what led to the appearance of “The People’s Champion” known as The Rock.

It was not an advertised return for The Rock, who was in the state of Colorado earlier on Friday with Pat McAfee on Pat’s ESPN/YouTube show. The two men also attended the Colorado Buffaloes football game in Boulder, CO on Saturday night. Since Rock and McAfee were in Colorado, they made their way to Smackdown too.

The Rock led the crowd in chanting that Austin Theory was an “a**hole” which led to the censors on FOX being used, but the fans seemed to enjoy it. Theory tried to do an attack, but The Rock handled him with a spinebuster and People’s Elbow. McAfee did his own People’s Elbow followed by the two men celebrating with the crowd.

Despite not being advertised, The Rock’s return obviously led to a lot of attention among WWE fans who likely alerted their friends about the future Hall of Famer being on the show.

The Rock’s SmackDown return led to massive amount of views on social media

According to WWE, The Rock’s appearance on SmackDown has been viewed across the company’s social media channels over 103 million times!

On WWE’s YouTube channel, the clip of The Rock’s segment has over 4 million views while a clip of a brief Rock-John Cena segment has nearly 2 million views. Those are very high numbers for WWE’s YouTube channel.

In an interview with McAfee earlier on Friday, The Rock said he’s open to the possibility of wrestling at WrestleMania 40 while also admitting that he nearly competed at WrestleMania 39 against Roman Reigns.

WWE Wants Cristiano Ronaldo At Crown Jewel

Cristiano Ronaldo could be set for a sensational appearance in WWE.

WWE is set to return to Saudi Arabia for one of its major shows when Crown Jewel takes place on the 4th of November. 2022’s edition of Crown Jewel was headlined by Logan Paul challenging Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship with Reigns picking up the win to continue his historic title reign.

ohn Cena is already being advertised for the show which would see him return to the Middle East for the first time in five years but now it seems the company is looking to extend its reach into the soccer world.

Diario AS has reported that WWE is looking to bring in former Manchester United and Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo for the show “at any cost.”

WWE could benefit from Cristiano Ronaldo’s huge profile in Saudi Arabia

Following the controversial end of Ronaldo’s second spell at Manchester United which saw his contract terminated in November 2022, it was announced that as of the 1st of January 2023, the iconic star would join Saudi team Al-Nassr for a reported 200 million Euros a year.

Ronaldo joining the Saudi Pro League opened the floodgates for many other major players making the switch to the country with lucrative contracts on offer. Critics will point to the money spent to attract major players are further evidence of sportswashing especially as the Saudi government through its Public Investment Fund took 75% stakes in four of the nation’s top clubs including Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.

Cristiano Ronaldo wouldn’t be the first soccer player to appear at a WWE show with former Wimbledon tough guy turned actor Vinnie Jones appearing for the company in the late nineties in the UK alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin. Ronaldo’s former Manchester United teammate Wayne Rooney famously slapped Wade Barrett from ringside during a show in Manchester after Barrett repeatedly insulted the star.

All Elite Wrestling: WrestleDream - Broadcast via PPV on October 1. Via FITE and others

The following matches are advertised for the AEW WrestleDream pay-per-view event that will be held on Sunday, October 1 in Seattle, Washington at Climate Pledge Arena.

-Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

-Swerve Strickland vs. Hangman Page

-“FTR” Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler vs. “Aussie Open” Kyle Fletcher and Mark Davis for the AEW Tag Team Titles

-Katsuyori Shibata defends the ROH Pure Championship

-MJF and Adam Cole defend the ROH Tag Titles against the winners of a four-way tag match

The PPV special will include a beautiful tribute feature to the late, great Antonia Inoki, one of the most instrimential figures in the history of pro wrestling and combat sports promoting.

SmackDown Returns to USA Network as Part of Five-Year Agreement Between WWE and NBCUniversal - September 21, 2023

It was announced via a press release on Thursday morning that SmackDown was returning to the USA Network in October 2024. Therefore, it seemed like the network would be the primary home of WWE’s television going forward. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, that may not be the case, as it’s now believed the network won’t be renewing the rights to both Raw and NXT, with them apparently paying as much for SmackDown as the two other shows combined.

“With “SmackDown” returning to USA, the network isn’t expected to renew the rights to “Raw” and “NXT,” two other WWE shows it currently carries, according to some of the people. The deal for “Smackdown” is likely to cost USA as much as the rights for “Monday Night Raw” and “NXT,” one of the people familiar with the matter said.”

Wall Street Journal

The USA Network has a longstanding history with WWE dating back to 1977 when broadcasts of Madison Square Garden events would be aired on the network. Subsequently, they would begin airing WWF All American Wrestling weekly in September 1983 and, since then, have more often than not featured WWE programming.

Press Release

WWE to Make NBC Primetime Debut with Launch of Four Network Specials

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- WWE, part of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO), and NBCUniversal have agreed to a five-year domestic media rights partnership that will bring Friday NightSmackDown back to USA Network beginning October 2024. Additionally, beginning in the 2024/25 season, WWE will produce four primetime specials per year that will air on NBC, marking the first time WWE will air on the network in primetime.

SmackDown will come exclusively to NBCU as one of television’s longest-running programs, regularly rating as the No. 1 show in the 18-49 advertising demographic on Friday nights and featuring many WWE Superstars including John Cena, Roman Reigns, Bianca Belair, Charlotte Flair, and Rey Mysterio.

“NBCUniversal has been a tremendous partner of WWE for decades,” said WWE President Nick Khan. “We are excited to extend this longstanding relationship by bringing SmackDown to USA Network on Friday nights and look forward to debuting multiple WWE special events annually on NBC.”

“It’s a privilege and thrill to continue NBCU’s decades-long partnership with WWE which has helped cement USA Network’s consistent position as the top-rated cable entertainment network in live viewership” said Frances Berwick, Chairman, NBCUniversal Entertainment. “With Friday nights on USA, primetime specials on NBC, and the WWE hub on Peacock, we’ll continue to use the power of our portfolio to super-serve this passionate fanbase.”

As part of WWE and NBCUniversal’s longstanding relationship, USA Network is currently home to WWE NXT and WWE Monday Night Raw, which is the #2 cable entertainment program in 2023 in the 18-49 demo. Demonstrating the deeply engaged WWE audience on USA, WWE NXT (+27%) and WWE Monday Night Raw (+15%) are up double-digits year-over-year in the target demographic. WWE Monday Night Raw and WWE NXT will continue to air on USA Network through September 2024.

In addition, since 2021, Peacock has been the exclusive home of WWE Network in the U.S. where Peacock subscribers can stream thousands of hours of on-demand programming from WWE including original series, groundbreaking documentaries, fan-favorite shows from the WWE archives, and premium live events like WrestleMania, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, Summer Slam,and more. WWE continues to drive high engagement on the platform, with this April’s WrestleMania 39 livestream delivering a record-breaking weekend for Peacock as its highest weekend usage to-date.

About WWE

WWE, part of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), is an integrated media organization and the recognized global leader in sports entertainment. The company consists of a portfolio of businesses that create and deliver original content 52 weeks a year to a global audience. WWE is committed to family-friendly entertainment on its television programming, premium live events, digital media, and publishing platforms. WWE’s TV-PG programming can be seen in more than 1 billion homes worldwide in 25 languages through world-class distribution partners including NBCUniversal, FOX Sports, TNT Sport, Sony India and Rogers. The award-winning WWE Network includes all premium live events, scheduled programming and a massive video-on-demand library and is currently available in approximately 165 countries. In the United States, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, is the exclusive home to WWE Network. Additional information on WWE can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com.

About NBCUniversal

NBCUniversal is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

About TKO

TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) is a premium sports and entertainment company that comprises UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization, and WWE, an integrated media organization and the recognized global leader in sports entertainment. Together, our organizations reach more than 1 billion TV households in approximately 170 countries, and we organize more than 350 live events year-round, attracting over one million fans. TKO is majority owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EDR), a global sports and entertainment company.

ENDEAVOR ANNOUNCES CLOSE OF UFC® AND WWE® TRANSACTION TO CREATE TKO GROUP HOLDINGS, A PREMIUM SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY

09/12/2023

New Company to Begin Trading Today, September 12, on the New York Stock Exchange Under “TKO” Ticker Symbol

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. & STAMFORD, Conn. (September 12, 2023) – Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EDR) (“Endeavor”) and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (previously NYSE: WWE) (“WWE”) today announced the close of their previously announced agreement and the launch of TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) (“TKO”).

TKO brings together UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization, and WWE, an integrated media organization and the recognized global leader in sports entertainment, to create a new premium sports and entertainment company serving more than one billion young and diverse fans1, reaching viewers in 180 countries, and producing more than 350 annual live events. Through this combination, TKO will leverage Endeavor’s expertise in areas including domestic and international media rights, ticket sales and yield optimization, event operations, global partnerships, licensing, and premium hospitality to drive revenue growth.

“The creation of TKO marks an exciting new chapter for UFC and WWE as leaders in global sports and entertainment,” said Ariel Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor and TKO. “Given their continued connectivity to the Endeavor network, we are confident in our ability to accelerate their respective growth and unlock long-term sustainable value for shareholders. With UFC and WWE under one roof, we will provide unrivaled experiences for more than a billion passionate fans worldwide.”

“This is the culmination of a decades-long partnership between Endeavor and WWE across strategic initiatives including talent representation and media rights. Given our collaborative, trusted relationship and Endeavor’s incredible track record of success growing UFC, we believe WWE is optimally positioned for future growth and success as part of TKO,” said Vince McMahon, Executive Chairman of TKO. “Our focus remains on delivering for our fans across the globe as we take the business to the next level alongside UFC and Endeavor.”

TKO will begin trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TKO,” with Endeavor holding a 51% controlling interest in the new company and existing WWE shareholders holding a 49% interest in the new company, on a fully diluted basis.

Leadership Team

As previously announced, TKO is led by:

Ariel Emanuel, Chief Executive Officer, who continues as Chief Executive Officer of Endeavor;

Mark Shapiro, President and Chief Operating Officer, who continues as President and Chief Operating Officer of Endeavor;

Andrew Schleimer, Chief Financial Officer; and

Seth Krauss, Chief Legal Officer, who continues as Chief Legal Officer of Endeavor.

Dana White is now Chief Executive Officer of UFC and Lawrence Epstein remains Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of UFC. Nick Khan continues at WWE in the role of President.

The Board of Directors of TKO is led by Vince McMahon as Executive Chairman of the Board and consists of 11 members, including Mr. Emanuel, Mr. Shapiro, and Mr. Khan, in addition to the following directors:

Peter C.B. Bynoe, Senior Advisor at DLA Piper LLP;

Egon P. Durban, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Silver Lake;

Steven R. Koonin, Chief Executive Officer of the Atlanta Hawks, LLC;

Jonathan A. Kraft, President of the Kraft Group LLC;

Sonya E. Medina, President and Chief Executive Officer of Reach Resilience;

Nancy R. Tellem, Executive Chairperson and Chief Media Officer of Eko; and

Carrie Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Opendoor Technologies Inc.

Advisors

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as financial advisors to Endeavor, Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal advisor to Endeavor, and Alvarez & Marsal served as integration advisor to Endeavor. The Raine Group served as lead financial advisor to WWE. J.P. Morgan and Moelis & Company LLC served as financial advisors to WWE. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP served as legal advisor to WWE, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor to WWE’s controlling stockholder, McMahon.

About Endeavor

Endeavor (NYSE: EDR) is a global sports and entertainment company, home to many of the world’s most dynamic and engaging storytellers, brands, live events and experiences. The company is comprised of industry leaders including entertainment agency WME; and sports, fashion, events and media company IMG. Endeavor is also the majority owner of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), a premium sports and entertainment company comprising UFC and WWE. The Endeavor network specializes in talent representation, sports operations & advisory, event & experiences management, media production & distribution, experiential marketing and brand licensing.

About TKO

TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TKO) is a premium sports and entertainment company that comprises UFC, the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization, and WWE, an integrated media organization and the recognized global leader in sports entertainment. Together, our organizations reach more than 1 billion TV households in approximately 180 countries, and we organize more than 350 live events year-round, attracting over one million fans. TKO is majority owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: EDR), a global sports and entertainment company.

About UFC®

UFC® is the world’s premier mixed martial arts organization (MMA), with more than 700 million fans and 228 million social media followers. The organization produces more than 40 live events annually in some of the most prestigious arenas around the world, while broadcasting to over 900 million TV households across more than 170 countries. UFC’s athlete roster features the world’s best MMA athletes representing more than 80 countries. The organization’s digital offerings include UFC FIGHT PASS®, one of the world’s leading streaming services for combat sports. UFC is part of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), and is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information, visit UFC.com and follow UFC at Facebook.com/UFC, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok: @UFC.

About WWE®

WWE, part of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO), is an integrated media organization and the recognized global leader in sports entertainment. The company consists of a portfolio of businesses that create and deliver original content 52 weeks a year to a global audience. WWE is committed to family-friendly entertainment on its television programming, premium live events, digital media, and publishing platforms. WWE’s TV-PG programming can be seen in more than 1 billion homes worldwide in 25 languages through world-class distribution partners including NBCUniversal, FOX Sports, TNT Sport, Sony India and Rogers. The award-winning WWE Network includes all premium live events, scheduled programming and a massive video-on-demand library and is currently available in more than 180 countries. In the United States, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, is the exclusive home to WWE Network. Additional information on WWE can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com.

What Is SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, SEO means the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search engines whenever people search for:

Products you sell.

Services you provide.

Information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience.

The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to be found and clicked on. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization is to help attract website visitors who will become customers, clients or an audience that keeps coming back.

What you’ll learn in this guide:

How SEO differs from SEM and PPC

Why SEO is important

SEO types and specializations

How SEO works

How to learn SEO

How is SEO different from SEM and PPC?

SEM and PPC are two other common terms you will read about a lot here on Search Engine Land and hear about in the larger search marketing community.

Read on to learn more about both of these terms and how they’re related to SEO.

SEO vs. SEM

SEM stands for search engine marketing – or, as it is more commonly known, search marketing.

Search marketing is a type of digital marketing. It is an umbrella term for the combination of SEO and PPC activities meant to drive traffic via organic search and paid search.

Put simply, search marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through both paid and unpaid efforts.

So how do SEO and SEM differ? Technically they aren’t different – SEO is simply one-half of SEM:

SEO = driving organic traffic from search engines.

SEM = driving organic and paid traffic from search engines.

Now, this is where things get a bit confusing.

Today, many people use SEM interchangeably with PPC (which we’ll talk about in the next section).

This idea seems to undercut SEO. However, SEO is marketing, just like PPC is marketing.

Here’s the best way to think about SEO and SEM:

Imagine SEM is a coin. SEO is one side of that coin. PPC is on the flip side.

SEO vs. PPC

PPC stands for pay-per-click – a type of digital marketing where advertisers are charged whenever one of their ads gets clicked on.

Basically, advertisers bid on specific keywords or phrases that they want their ads to appear for in the search engine results. When a user searches for one of those keywords or phrases, the advertiser’s ad will appear among the top results.

So again, if we think of search marketing as a coin, SEO and PPC are two sides of the same coin – SEO is the unpaid side, PPC is the paid side.

Another key point: it’s important never to think of it as “SEO vs. PPC” (i.e., which one is better) because these are complementary channels. It’s not an either-or question – always choose both (as long as your budget allows it).

As we mentioned before, the terms SEM and PPC are used within the industry interchangeably. However, that isn’t the case here on Search Engine Land.

Whenever we mention “SEM,” it will be because we’re referring to both SEO (organic search) and PPC (paid search).

If you’re curious about the history behind how “SEM” came to mean “PPC” at the exclusion of SEO, you can dig deeper into these articles:

How Wikipedia Turned PPC / Paid Search Into SEM

Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?

Why is SEO important?

SEO is a critical marketing channel. First, and foremost: organic search delivers 53% of all website traffic.

That’s one big reason why the global SEO industry is forecast to reach a staggering $122.11 billion by 2028. SEO drives real business results for brands, businesses and organizations of all sizes.

Whenever people want to go somewhere, do something, find information, research or buy a product/service – their journey typically begins with a search.

But today, search is incredibly fragmented. Users may search on traditional web search engines (e.g., Google, Microsoft Bing), social platforms (e.g., YouTube, TikTok) or retailer websites (e.g., Amazon).

In fact, 61% of U.S. ?online shoppers start their product search on Amazon, compared to 49% who start on a search engine like Google. Also of note from that same research:

32% start on Walmart.com.

20% start on YouTube.

19% start on Facebook.

15% start on Instagram.

11% start on TikTok.

Trillions of searches are conducted every year. Search is often the primary source of traffic for websites, which makes it essential to be “search engine friendly” on any platform where people can search for your brand or business.

What this all means is that improving your visibility, and ranking higher in search results than your competition, can positively impact your bottom line,

SEO is also incredibly important because the search engine results pages (or SERPs) are super competitive – filled with search features (and PPC ads). SERP features include:

Knowledge panels.

Featured snippets.

Maps.

Images.

Videos.

People Also Ask.

Carousels.

Another reason SEO is critical for brands and businesses: unlike other marketing channels, good SEO work is sustainable. When a paid campaign ends, so does the traffic. Traffic from social media traffic is at best unreliable – and a fraction of what it once was.

SEO is the foundation of holistic marketing, where everything your company does matters. Once you understand what your users want, you can then implement that knowledge across your:

Campaigns (paid and organic).

Website content.

Social media properties.

SEO is a channel that drives the traffic you need to achieve key business goals (e.g., conversions, visits, sales). It also builds trust – a website that ranks well is generally regarded as authoritative or trustworthy, which are key elements Google wants to reward with better rankings.

Types of SEO

There are three types of SEO:

Technical SEO: Optimizing the technical aspects of a website.

On-site SEO: Optimizing the content on a website for users and search engines.

Off-site SEO: Creating brand assets (e.g., ??people, marks, values, vision, slogans, catchphrases, colors) and doing things that will ultimately enhance brand awareness and recognition (i.e., demonstrating and growing its expertise, authority and trustworthiness) and demand generation.

You maintain 100% control over content and technical optimizations. That’s not always true with off-site (you can’t control links from other sites or if platforms you rely on end up shutting down or making a major change), but those activities are still a key part of this SEO trinity of success.

Imagine SEO as a sports team. You need both a strong offense and defense to win – and you need fans (a.k.a., an audience). Think of technical optimization as your defense, content optimization as your offense, and off-site optimization as ways to attract, engage and retain a loyal fanbase.

Technical optimization

Optimizing the technical elements of a website is crucial and fundamental for SEO success.

It all starts with architecture – creating a website that can be crawled and indexed by search engines. As Gary Illyes, Google’s trends analyst, once put it in a Reddit AMA: “MAKE THAT DAMN SITE CRAWLABLE.”

You want to make it easy for search engines to discover and access all of the content on your pages (i.e., text, images, videos). What technical elements matter here: URL structure, navigation, internal linking, and more.

Experience is also a critical element of technical optimization. Search engines stress the importance of pages that load quickly and provide a good user experience. Elements such as Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness and usability, HTTPS, and avoiding intrusive interstitials all matter in technical SEO.

Another area of technical optimization is structured data (a.k.a., schema). Adding this code to your website can help search engines better understand your content and enhance your appearance in the search results.

Plus, web hosting services, CMS (content management system) and site security all play a role in SEO.

Content optimization

In SEO, your content needs to be optimized for two primary audiences: people and search engines. What this means is that you optimize the content your audience will see (what’s actually on the page) as well as what search engines will see (the code).

The goal, always, is to publish helpful, high-quality content. You can do this through a combination of understanding your audience’s wants and needs, data and guidance provided by Google.

When optimizing content for people, you should make sure it:

Covers relevant topics with which you have experience or expertise.

Includes keywords people would use to find the content.

Is unique or original.

Is well-written and free of grammatical and spelling errors.

Is up to date, containing accurate information.

Includes multimedia (e.g., images, videos).

Is better than your SERP competitors.

Is readable – structured to make it easy for people to understand the information you’re sharing (think: subheadings, paragraph length, use bolding/italics, ordered/unordered lists, reading level, etc.).

For search engines, some key content elements to optimize for are:

Title tags

Meta description

Header tags (H1-H6)

Image alt text

Open graph and Twitter Cards metadata

Off-site optimization

There are several activities that may not be “SEO” in the strictest sense, but nonetheless can align with and help contribute indirectly to SEO success.

Link building (the process of acquiring links to a website) is the activity most associated with off-site SEO. There can be great benefits (e.g., rankings, traffic) from getting a diverse number of links pointing at your website from relevant, authoritative, trusted websites. Link quality beats link quantity – and a large quantity of quality links is the goal.

And how do you get those links? There are a variety of website promotion methods that synergize with SEO efforts. These include:

Brand building and brand marketing: Techniques designed to boost recognition and reputation.

PR: Public relations techniques designed to earn editorially-given links.

Content marketing: Some popular forms include creating videos, ebooks, research studies, podcasts (or being a guest on other podcasts) and guest posting (or guest blogging).

Social media marketing and optimization: Claim your brand’s handle on any and all relevant platforms, optimize it fully and share relevant content.

Listing management: Claiming, verifying and optimizing the information on any platforms where information about your company or website may be listed and found by searchers (e.g., directories, review sites, wikis).

Ratings and reviews: Getting them, monitoring them and responding to them.

Generally, when talking about off-site, you’re talking about activities that are not going to directly impact your ability to rank from a purely technical standpoint.

However, again, everything your brand does matters. You want your brand to be found anywhere people may search for you. As such, some people have tried to rebrand “search engine optimization” to actually mean “search experience optimization” or “search everywhere optimization.”

SEO specialties

Search engine optimization also has a few subgenres. Each of these specialty areas is different from “regular SEO” in its own way, generally requiring additional tactics and presenting different challenges.

Five such SEO specialties include:

Ecommerce SEO: Additional SEO elements include optimizing category pages, product pages, faceted navigation, internal linking structures, product images, product reviews, schema and more.

Enterprise SEO: This is SEO on a massive scale. Typically this means dealing with a website (or multiple websites/brands) with 1 million+ pages – or it may be based on the size of the organization (typically those making millions or billions in revenue per year). Doing enterprise also typically means delays trying to get SEO changes implemented by the dev team, as well as the involvement of multiple stakeholders.

International SEO: This is global SEO for international businesses – doing SEO for multiregional or multilingual websites – and optimizing for international search engines such as Baidu or Naver.

Local SEO: Here, the goal is to optimize websites for visibility in local organic search engine results by managing and obtaining reviews and business listings, among others.

News SEO: With news, speed is of utmost importance – specifically making sure you get into Google’s index as quickly as possible and appear in places such as Google Discover, Google’s Top Stories and Google News. There’s a need to understand best practices for paywalls, section pages, news-specific structured data, and more.

How does SEO work?

If you found this page via Google search, you likely searched Google for [what is seo] or [seo].

This guide is published on Search Engine Land, an authoritative website with great expertise on and experience in the topic of SEO (we’ve been covering all SEO changes, big and small since 2006).

Originally published in 2010, our “what is SEO” page has earned a whopping 324,203 links.

Put simply, these factors (and others) have helped this guide earn a good reputation with search engines, which has helped it rank in Position 1 for years. It has accumulated signals that demonstrate it is authoritative and trustworthy – and therefore deserves to rank when someone searches for SEO.

But let’s look at SEO more broadly. As a whole, SEO really works through a combination of:

People: The person or team responsible for doing or ensuring that the strategic, tactical and operational SEO work is completed.

Processes: The actions taken to make the work more efficient.

Technology: The platforms and tools used.

Activities: The end product, or output.

Many other things factor into how SEO works. What follows is a high-level look at the most important knowledge and process elements.

Six critical areas, in combination, make SEO work:

1. Understanding how search engines work

Simply, if you want people to find your business via search – on any platform – you need to understand the technical processes behind how the engine works – and then make sure you are providing all the right “signals” to influence that visibility.

When talking about traditional web search engines like Google, there are four separate stages of search:

Crawling: Search engines use crawlers to discover pages on the web by following links and using sitemaps.

Rendering: Search engines generate how the page will look using HTML, JavaScript and CSS information.

Indexing: Search engines analyze the content and metadata of the pages it has discovered and add them to a database (though there’s no guarantee every page on your website will be indexed).

Ranking: Complex algorithms look at a variety of signals to determine whether a page is relevant and of high-enough quality to show when searchers enter a query.

But optimizing for Google search is different from optimizing for search other platforms like YouTube or Amazon.

Let’s take Facebook, for example, where factors such as engagement (Likes, comments, shares, etc.) and who people are connected to matter. Then, on Twitter, signals like recency, interactions, or the author’s credibility are important.

And further complicating things: search engines have added machine learning elements in order to surface content – making it even harder to say “this” or “that” resulted in better or worse performance.

2. Researching

Research is a key part of SEO. Some forms of research that will improve SEO performance include:

Audience research: It’s important to understand your target audience or market. Who are they (i.e., their demographics and psychographics)? What are their pain points? What questions do they have that you can answer?

Keyword research: This process helps you identify and incorporate relevant and valuable search terms people use into your pages – and understand how much demand and competition there is to rank for these keywords.

Competitor research: What are your competitors doing? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What types of content are they publishing?

Brand/business/client research: What are their goals – and how can SEO help them achieve those goals?

Website research: A variety of SEO audits can uncover opportunities and issues on a website that are preventing success in organic search. Some audits to consider: technical SEO, content, link profile and E-E-A-T.

SERP analysis: This will help you understand the search intent for a given query (e.g., is it commercial, transactional, informational or navigational) and create content that is more likely to earn rankings or visibility.

3. Planning

An SEO strategy is your long-term action plan. You need to set goals – and a plan for how you will reach them.

Think of it your SEO strategy as a roadmap. The path you take likely will change and evolve over time – but the destination should remain clear and unchanged.

Your SEO plan may include things such as:

Setting goals (e.g., OKRs, SMART) and expectations (i.e., timelines/milestones).

Defining and aligning meaningful KPIs and metrics.

Deciding how projects will be created and implemented (internal, external or a mix).

Coordinating and communicating with internal and external stakeholders.

Choosing and implementing tools/technology.

Hiring, training and structuring a team.

Setting a budget.

Measuring and reporting on results.

Documenting the strategy and process.

4. Creating and implementing

Once all the research is done, it’s time to turn ideas into action. That means:

Creating new content: Advising your content team on what content needs to be created.

Recommending or implementing changes or enhancements to existing pages: This could include updating and improving the content, adding internal links, incorporating keywords/topics/entities, or identifying other ways to optimize it further.

Removing old, outdated or low-quality content: The types of content that aren’t ranking well, driving converting traffic or helping you achieve your SEO goals.

5. Monitoring and maintaining

You need to know when something goes wrong or breaks on your website. Monitoring is critical.

You need to know if traffic drops to a critical page, pages become slow, unresponsive or fall out of the index, your entire website goes offline, links break, or any other number of potential catastrophic issues.

6. Analyzing, assessing and reporting on performance

If you don’t measure SEO, you can’t improve it. To make data-driven decisions about SEO, you’ll need to use:

Website analytics: Set up and use tools (at minimum, free tools such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools) to collect performance data.

Tools and platforms: There are many “all-in-one” platforms (or suites) that offer multiple tools, but you can also choose to use only select SEO tools to track performance on specific tasks. Or, if you have the resources and none of the tools on the market do exactly what you want, you can make your own tools.

After you’ve collected the data, you’ll need to report on progress. You can create reports using software or manually.

Performance reporting should tell a story and be done at meaningful time intervals, typically comparing to previous report periods (e.g., year over year). This will depend on the type of website (typically, this will be monthly, quarterly, or some other interval),

SEO is ongoing

SEO never ends. Search engines, user behavior and your competitors are always changing. Websites change and move (and break) over time. Content gets stale. Your processes should improve and become more efficient.

Bottom line: There’s always something you can be monitoring, testing or improving. Or, as Bruce Clay put it: SEO will only be done when Google stops changing things and all your competition dies.

How to learn SEO

Now that you understand more about what SEO is and how it works – how can you learn more?

Reading (or, if you prefer, watching or listening to) the latest SEO news, research, best practices and other developments should become one of your regular habits, whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly. You should also invest in attending at least one or two events per year.

The expectations and behavior of searchers are constantly evolving, which means algorithms are constantly changing to keep up. That, in combination with new breakthroughs in technology (look no further than the explosive rise of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the sudden addition of generative AI to search results in 2023).

‘Wrestlers’ Is Here to Rip Your Freakin’ Head Off

The new doc series from the creator of Last Chance U and Cheer is an underdog story pulsing with adrenaline.

From the right corner of the ring, an oiled-up baby face enters with a stone-cold glare and a juicy flex. From the left, a sneering heel climbs through the ropes under floodlights, only to be met with jeers and hisses from the darkness of the stands. What happens next isn’t just a fight; it’s a story. It’s Shakespearean drama. It’s bloody theater that also happens to be more true to life than you’d think.

Wrestlers, the new doc series from director Greg Whiteley (Last Chance U, Cheer) and BBC Studios Los Angeles takes you right to the center of the fight. It doesn’t only depict the brawls between ambitious athletes managing their stressful lives off the ring (though watching a rage-fueled fighter and a hardened vet go head-to-head in a violent, hair-pulling tussle is thrilling –– especially when you consider they’re mother and daughter). The fight at the center of the story is even more intense: Legendary wrestler Al Snow is attempting to keep professional wrestling league Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) afloat, navigating the brutal waters of mounting debt and the power struggles of new ownership.

The seven-episode series is intimate, emotional, and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the world of professional wrestling, revealing the hardship and sacrifice that goes into creating this highly complex feat of performance art and athleticism.

What is Ohio Valley Wrestling?

OVW is located in Louisville, Kentucky, and once served as a premiere training ground for aspiring pro wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, John Cena, Dave Bautista, The Miz, and Randy Orton. In recent years, OVW has struggled to keep its doors open, prompting Snow to sell a majority stake to a group of local businesses — one of whom is Matt Jones, one of the most popular radio personalities in the state of Kentucky.

Who owns OVW?

The company is currently owned by Al Snow, Matt Jones, and Louisville mayor Craig Greenberg, all of whom are featured in the doc series. Learn more about the Wrestlers cast here.

Who Are the Wrestlers at Ohio Valley Wrestling?

The cast of Wrestlers is comprised of OVW legends like Ca$h Flo, Mr. PEC-tacular, Mahabali Shera, Hollyhood Haley J, and more. To learn more about the babyfaces, heels and bosses at OVW — including their signature moves — check out our Wrestlers cast guide.

Wait, what’s a babyface?

In wrestling, a babyface (also known as a “face”) is a heroic “good guy” or fan favorite. Typically, they’ll play it fair in the ring and avoid cheating or dirty manuevers. The babyfaces in Wrestlers include Ca$h Flo and the Amazing Maria James. The babyfaces perform relative to the heels in any given match, and sometimes wrestlers shift between the two identities, depending on their narrative arc.

So what’s a heel?

Simply put, a heel is a villain — a bad boy, a nasty girl, or anyone who fights dirty in the ring. The heels in Wrestlers include Hollyhood Haley J and Freya the Slaya.

“In wrestling, you’re going to do the same things you do when you tell any story and have a protagonist and an antagonist,” Al Snow told Tudum. “We've got to explain to the audience what the context of the story is, [and help them] understand the challenge that's facing our protagonist, and what the antagonists are trying to prevent.”

In other words: If nothing else, wrestling is a story of good versus evil — and who prevails depends on the day.

Watch Wrestlers on Netflix now.

Calvin's Corner: 'Ya...Nothing to See Here' Calvin Quips in Regard to Slew of Crypto Murders

'Ya...Nothing to See Here' Calvin Quips in Regard to Slew of Crypto Murders (September 14, 2023)

The following may not be suitable for all readers. Small children should be removed from the room.

Billionaire investor and BSV influencer Calvin Ayre is the latest to chime in on a series of high profile murders that have recently taken place in the world of cryptocurrencies.

And the deaths have been nothing short of gruesome.

"Stuffed down toilets, dismembered in suitcases — crypto has been the common denominator for several gruesome murders and mysterious deaths this year," blares the headline from Coin Telegraph Magazine.

Plumbers in Bulgaria discovered the decomposing remains of 41-year-old United States crypto mogul Christian Peev — suspected to have been battered to death with a dumbbell by a friend out of jealousy.

In Buenos Aries, crypto millionaire Fernando Pérez Algaba's body was discovered chopped up in a suitcase near a river bank by a group of children.

It doesn't end there.

Others involved in the world of cryptocurrencies have been killed in a helicopter crash in France and a fatal stabbing in the U.S. There was also a suspected suicide in South Korea.

Since November of 2022 we've seen ten suspicious deaths of those in the cryptocurrency community, and these are just the cases we know of.

Ken Gamble, the co-founder and executive chairman of financial crime intelligence firm IFW Global, tells the magazine he believes most of these deaths are linked to organized crime making its way into the world of digital currencies.

“What’s happening is that these organized crime groups, particularly the Chinese, have suddenly come into masses of money. They have had more money now than they’ve ever had traditionally,” said Gamble.

“They’re making so much money that it’s become extremely dangerous now […] they have to now reach out to more groups and more people to try and move the money — broadening their money laundering capabilities,” he added.

May be time to beef up the security and might want to avoid pissing off the wrong person as to not end up floating around inside the pipes of someone's toilet.

Calvin Announces New BSV Site and Encourages Consumers to Become Better Educated (September 12, 2023)

"BSVBlockchain.org has a new site up that is the best place in the world to go to learn about this amazing tech now. Still more stuff coming but the Association has done a great job on this already."

The new site can be found here.

The BSV Blockchain is billed as "Reliable open source software, providing the fundamental requirements for enterprise grade blockchain applications."

It focuses on the following three pillars:

Unified Compliance Approach

Explore our unified approach to regulatory compliance, recognizing that existing laws apply to all tokens on blockchain platforms. At BSV, we prioritize adherence to the comprehensive legal framework.

Streamlined Legal Compliance

Learn how BSV integrates legal compliance seamlessly into its blockchain ecosystem. We ensure that all transactions and interactions on our platform adhere to existing property, security, and criminal laws.

Transparent Regulatory Measures

Discover the transparency in our regulatory measures. We provide clear visibility into how we enforce compliance and uphold existing regulations to create a secure and trusted environment for our users.

BSV About to Change the World? (August 31, 2023)

Julian Goddard (the technical product lead at @nChainGlobal) nChain has been working on CBDC solutions for several months, with Goddard playing a part in the company’s projects since last year, he revealed.

One of the company’s guiding principles is flexibility, aware that governments will only integrate blockchain technology if it fits into their existing systems.

“We’re always trying to meet our customers’ requirements first, and where they don’t know [about blockchain nitty-gritty], we try to build our products as flexible as possible.”

As the technical product lead, Goddard is at the forefront of exploring new products that nChain develops. He says the company is currently working on “a new product that’s very exciting and is going to help change the world. It will make a difference to the way things work in the world.”

(Gambling911)

Stake.com Hack Was Done By North Korea, FBI Claims - 10 September, 2023

Last week's shocking hack of online gambling crypto site Stake.com to the tune of $41 million is being blamed on the North Koreans. It's not Stake.com asserting this but rather the FBI.

The massive breach took place on Monday September 4. Gambling911.com was among the first in the gaming space to report the story after it first emerged on a handful of crypto-focused news sites.

For several hours, the Drake-endorsed site suspended all deposits and withdrawals, leaving many users unable to access their funds, but by Monday evening it appeared to be business as usual at the popular wagering site.

The breach was first identified after crypto security firm Cyvers flagged multiple irregular transactions linked to Stake.com’s hot wallet.

The FBI linked the hack to North Korea's state-backed Lazarus Group. Stake.com, we should note, is not currently regulated in the US to take bets. The company, however, is linked to the popular streaming platform Kick.

In a press release shared on Wednesday, the U.S. domestic intelligence agency said that players from the cybercrime syndicate siphoned off funds from the platform to 33 addresses spread across Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], Polygon [MATIC] and Binance Chain [BNB].

Prior to the Stake.com breach, Lazarus was involved in a theft of $60 million from crypto payment providers Alphapo and Coins Paid.

F1 Red Bull Racing related News

'What they’ve done this year is impressive’ – Verstappen names key threat for Red Bull in Suzuka

Championship leader Max Verstappen arrived in Suzuka for the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix looking to put an underwhelming performance for Red Bull in Singapore behind him. But ahead of the action, Verstappen named a surprise team that he expected to cause Red Bull some headaches in Japan.

Fans were shocked in Singapore when both Verstappen and team mate Sergio Perez were unable to progress through to Q3, with Verstappen recovering to P5 in the race from 11th on the grid, as Perez took P8 from 13th.

Asked if he expected a return to Red Bull’s dominant pre-Singapore form this weekend – the team having won the first 14 races of the season on the bounce up until that point – Verstappen replied: “I mean, Singapore is so different to what we will experience here in terms of the way you set up the car, so I’m also not worried that a weekend like that will upset our weekend here.

“It was not our strongest weekend of course, but it’s important that now we just analyse everything and step by step, we’ll get there. But there’s also no real rush.

“[Suzuka] felt very nice on the simulator,” he added, “and normally that’s a good indication when everything comes quite easy, so I hope of course that it’s going to be exactly the same in real life.”

Rivals McLaren’s performance at high-speed tracks in recent races has been impressive, the team having been one of the squads to develop their car the most in 2023. And with Mercedes’ George Russell having earmarked McLaren and particularly Lando Norris as a threat this weekend, Verstappen was asked if they were on his and Red Bull’s radar.

“Honestly, what they have done this year is quite impressive, from where they started to where they are now,” said Verstappen. “So I, for sure, expect them to be strong. But of course, I hope to be ahead!”

Also hoping to be ahead was team mate Perez, who predicted a return to form for Red Bull around Suzuka – on a weekend where the team could clinch the 2023 constructors’ championship.

Asked if Red Bull would be back at the front this weekend, Perez replied: “That’s definitely the target. We still don’t understand fully what went wrong, or what went so wrong, in Singapore. We have some ideas but certainly this track is very different so there should not be a reason why we won’t be strong in Suzuka. Actually this should be one of the best circuits for us.”

AEW WrestleDream PPV update - Broadcast on October 1, 2023

AEW WrestleDream will take place on Sunday, October 1 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington. The event is being held in honor of NJPW founder Antonio Inoki as it will take place on the one-year anniversary of his passing. AEW President Tony Khan announced WrestleDream during the All In media scrum, noting that this show will honor someone he has always looked up to – pro wrestling’s greatest dreamer. Khan also said he expects NJPW to work with AEW for the show as they are very supportive of the idea, and he’s hopeful more NJPW wrestlers will be added to the show. Below is the current card:

AEW World Tag Team Titles Match

Aussie Open (Kyle Fletcher, Mark Davis) vs. FTR (Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler) (c)

ROH World Tag Team Titles Match

The Righteous (Vincent, Dutch) vs. AEW World Champion MJF and Adam Cole (c)

Dream Match

NJPW World Television Champion Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Bryan Danielson

The Trump loyalist trying to destroy Hunter Biden

A 27-year-old ex-junior Trump aid, Garrett Ziegler, is at the vanguard of a network of activists who want to take down the president’s son.

When Lunden Roberts needed an expert to help prove that Hunter Biden had the money to keep making substantial child support payments for their 4-year-old daughter, her legal team turned to Garrett Ziegler.

Ziegler doesn’t have a degree in personal finance. He doesn’t personally know the president’s son. But Ziegler, whose first job out of college was working as a low-level aide in the Trump White House, has fashioned himself into a Hunter Biden specialist, compiling personal and financial records from anywhere he can get them. Then, his nonprofit posts them online.

Ziegler claims this cache offers the fullest accounting of Hunter Biden’s life, from his battles with drug addiction to his sexual escapades to his business dealings. “In the Western world, I’m confident that nobody has dug into the American first family more than us,” he said recently on YouTube. “I’ve just become obsessed with studying the family.”

Ziegler, 27, enjoys a following of tens of thousands on social media and the attention of conservative media. He has made himself a chief antagonist of the younger Biden, prompting lawsuits, an Internal Revenue Service complaint and other legal pushback from Hunter Biden’s circle.

Ziegler is at the vanguard of a sprawling network of Biden antagonists, from right-wing media organisations to congressional leaders to MAGA activists, that is focused intensely on the president’s son. They see Hunter Biden’s activities as his father’s biggest political vulnerability, a conclusion reflected in the House GOP’s recent decision to launch an impeachment inquiry.

On Wednesday, Hunter Biden sued Ziegler in federal court in California, alleging that the activist had violated privacy laws and calling him “a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against [Hunter Biden] and the entire Biden family for more than two years.”

His biggest project has been mining embarrassing information, including nude photos and videos.

Ziegler served as a staffer for Trump aide Peter Navarro, a hard-liner and election denier, and left the White House in early 2021. He then focused on President Biden’s son, turning his formidable energy to unearthing every detail he could. Ziegler received some of Hunter Biden’s financial records, saying he got them from someone who worked at Biden’s bank. He has delved into Hunter Biden’s business dealings. He even acquired a copy of the diary of Ashley Biden, Hunter’s sister.

His biggest project has been mining embarrassing information, including nude photos and videos, from what appears to be a personal laptop that Hunter Biden left at a repair shop in April 2019. Ziegler said in an interview that he got a hard drive with the purported contents of the laptop from Rudy Giuliani before the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

In October 2022, Ziegler announced that the nonprofit he founded, Marco Polo, had published a voluminous report on the laptop, claiming to have unearthed at least 459 criminal or regulatory violations. This claim has not been verified, and Hunter Biden’s team dismisses it as absurd. (The Washington Post has also obtained a hard drive purportedly from the laptop and authenticated some of its contents.)

“We want [our report] to be on coffee tables and bookshelves and be brought out whenever you hear something in the news,” Ziegler said in the interview. On his Telegram page, where he has a following of about 100,000, he added, “We believe that it is the deepest digital colonoscopy ever performed on a sitting US first family.”

Ziegler has a smaller following than some better-known conservative firebrands. But that relatively low profile allows him to unleash inflammatory attacks with less scrutiny, says Jared Holt, who researches extremists for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank.

“There’s an incentive for him to take the extra step and to be just a little more outrageous because it’s the sort of audience he’s cultivated and the part of the ecosystem he fits into,” Holt says.

My focus is never on Hunter Biden; it’s only Hunter’s relationship to Joe.

— Garrett Ziegler

Some of Hunter Biden’s associates worry that Ziegler, with his sometimes-wild theorising combined with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hunter Biden’s history, will influence the public discussion as well as the House probes of the president’s son.

Ziegler argues that he is filling a vital role by scrutinising the Bidens, particularly because in his view Republicans are not going after Hunter Biden hard enough. “The right wing has totally f---ed up this response,” he says. “It’s been frustrating at the pace. Now we’re seven months in, and I don’t think they’ve subpoenaed Hunter.”

To Democrats, Ziegler and his efforts embody all that is wrong with an era when a single individual can use the internet to humiliate and smear his chosen target. Hunter Biden is a recovering drug addict who has experienced tragedy in his life, they say, and whatever his flaws, they have no bearing on the president’s performance.

Ziegler has “shown himself as a reckless, irresponsible chaos agent,” says Democrat congressman Eric Swalwell. At a hearing in July of the House judiciary committee, Swalwell raised concerns about Ziegler’s postings attacking federal law enforcement agents.

Ziegler contends that his aggressive actions are justified because his ultimate target is not Hunter Biden, but the president. He asserts that Hunter Biden has been involved for decades in shady business deals with China-based firms and the president has known about it, making the senior Biden beholden to China.

“My focus is never on Hunter Biden – it’s only Hunter’s relationship to Joe,” Ziegler says. “My whole obsession with the Bidens starts and ends with Joe. It doesn’t start and end with Hunter.”

Hunter Biden’s legal team has not taken kindly to Ziegler’s efforts. In his recent lawsuit, Hunter alleges that Ziegler and the other members of his nonprofit illegally hacked into portions of Biden’s laptop that were encrypted, saying they ignored demands to cease and desist, an allegation Ziegler disputes. Ziegler says he would not “honour” cease-and-desist requests in this matter because he believes his actions have been lawful.

Last February, Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell challenged the tax-exempt status of Marco Polo’s parent company, ICU, writing to the IRS that it “has operated as little more than a thinly disguised political operation to attack the Biden administration and the Biden family.”

Ziegler says his personal criticism of the Bidens does not reflect the official views of his nonprofit.

Hunter Biden’s friend and benefactor Kevin Morris has also sued Ziegler, accusing him of harassment and doxing. After the child support settlement, for example, Ziegler posted the coordinates of Morris’ plane on his public Telegram page and speculated about Morris’ potential travels. Ziegler’s attorneys have argued in court filings that he was exercising his free-speech rights.

In one of his most notable moves, Ziegler joined the contentious child support case between Roberts, an Arkansas resident, and Hunter Biden over their 4-year-old daughter, Navy. Hunter Biden initially contested his paternity of the girl until a DNA test proved the relationship, and he has said he remembers little of his relationship with Roberts because it occurred when he was in a spiral of drug addiction.

Roberts’ lawyers, in seeking to have Ziegler designated an expert witness, contended in a court filing that he was “an expert in Hunter Biden, his life, finances, personal history, financial history, the Biden Companies, and the manner in which the Biden family interacts interpersonally and financially”.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys initially objected to Ziegler’s inclusion – complaining of his lack of relevant expertise, his “background”, and his purported grudge against the Biden family – but ultimately relented. Ziegler gave a deposition, which remains sealed, but he never testified publicly in the case. Hunter Biden and Roberts ultimately reached a settlement on child support.

More relevant to the just-launched impeachment inquiry is Hunter Biden’s business career, a subject that has been of great interest to Ziegler. Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing in his financial dealings, and there has been no publicly available evidence connecting his father to criminal behaviour.

Federal prosecutors spent more than four years investigating the president’s son, reaching a deal in June for him to plead guilty to two minor tax crimes and admit to the facts of a gun offence. After that deal fell apart, the prosecutor investigating the case was named a special counsel, and he recently obtained an indictment against Hunter Biden on the gun charges, suggesting the case may go to trial.

Beyond the president’s son, Ziegler’s broader messaging often conveys a far-right worldview that derides certain groups.

He promotes posts of inflammatory memes and conspiracy theories. He has shared rhetoric saying that Christians are better than others and that white people have been particularly persecuted. He has promoted photoshopped images of women he dislikes in compromising positions with Hunter Biden.

Before working in the Trump administration, Ziegler had few ties to politics. Aside from his cousin Ron Ziegler, who was press secretary for President Richard M. Nixon, his family mostly worked in agriculture and insurance, he told his hometown newspaper in Illinois in 2018.

He graduated from St Louis University in 2018 with a degree in economics before moving to Washington. He and his wife, Allie, have since moved back to Illinois, where he portrays himself on social media as a devout Lutheran and family man.

In the White House, Ziegler worked for Navarro, one of Trump’s most outspoken advisers, who was recently convicted of contempt of Congress after he declined to cooperate with the House committee investigation into the January 6 attack.

In his White House role, Ziegler wrote reports about Chinese tariffs (which he argued the US should reciprocate), the COVID-19 pandemic (which he argued was planned) and the 2020 election (which he argued was stolen).

Ziegler eventually came to the attention of the January 6 committee, which questioned him about his role in a turbulent White House meeting shortly after the 2020 election that featured a confrontation between some Trump associates who were pushing the president to try to stay in power and a group of aides warning against it.

After being questioned by the committee in July 2022, Ziegler unleashed a 27-minute inflammatory tirade on his Telegram page calling the investigation discriminatory against white people and using sexist slurs to describe female ex-colleagues who cooperated with the committee.

“They see me as a young Christian who they can try to basically scare, right?” Ziegler said. Calling the probe “a Bolshevistic anti-White campaign”, Ziegler added he is “the least racist person that many of you have ever met, by the way”.

He has accused several Biden allies of being Bolsheviks, prompting Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, to note that such words are “often used as a code for Jews”. Ziegler rejected any criticism from the group, saying any ADL position is “probably a good indication of what I believe to be the exact opposite case”.

Ziegler also has posted, on his Telegram page, photos of his targets’ daughters wearing bathing suits or partying with friends, sometimes ridiculing the girls’ appearances. In other posts he has shared with his following, women are mocked for being bad drivers or purportedly being biologically unfit for military combat.

Ziegler says his attacks on the women are legitimate, even if they are private citizens, because their public photos are “degenerate”. He says he does not agree with every post he shares with his followers; he was joking when he forwarded memes about women’s driving skills, he says, but he does not believe women should serve on the military front lines.

Ziegler has also shared posts by white supremacist Nick Fuentes and claimed there is a “war on whites”. Liberal activist David Brock, whose group Facts First USA has tracked Ziegler’s online comments, says he has warned legislators, journalists and others about Ziegler’s rhetoric, urging them to keep their distance. “He doesn’t belong within 100 miles of Congress or a courtroom,” Brock says.

Ziegler says he does not agree with all of Fuentes’ views, but he does believe white people are unfairly persecuted, citing government efforts to seek a more diverse workforce. He is a “Christian and a nationalist”, he says, but not a Christian nationalist.

House Republicans are ramping up their efforts to investigate Hunter Biden, culminating in an instruction by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to House committees on September 12 to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden centred on his son’s business dealings, some of the same areas Ziegler has probed.

Ziegler says he has made contacts within GOP congressional offices and given them copies of the report on Hunter Biden’s laptop, though he declined to name specific legislators.

Some members of Congress have publicly mentioned the report. Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin said in an interview with NBC that “you ought to read the Marco Polo report where they detail all kinds of potential crimes”. Congressman James Comer of Kentucky told Newsmax the “positive thing” about the report is its inclusion of banking records.

“The response has been obviously grateful” from Republicans receiving the report, Ziegler says. “Sometimes they’ve had an aversion to hearing me out – and then once they looked at our work or site ... ”.

At one recent congressional hearing, after Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene displayed what appeared to be nude photos of Hunter Biden, Democrats noted that she had displayed the photos in the same order and with similar redactions as in the Marco Polo report. Greene’s office did not respond when asked if the photos came from Ziegler or his nonprofit, but he suggests they did.

“Some of our screenshots in the report were utilised,” Ziegler says. “So I’ve been somewhat pleased.”

(AFR)

Roman Reigns on the cover of Variety

YOUR Tribal Chief has allowed Sean O’Malley a rental property on the Island of Relevancy, as the UFC phemoenon joins Roman Reigns on the cover of Variety. The headline article covers the WWE- UFC merger as TKO Group Holdings ushers in a new era for both World Wrestling Entertainment and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

(Heyman Hustle)

Word Life

A. Authority, Agent, Algorithm, Awake, Ads and Alphabet

B. Balls, Balance and Blogs

C. Creative and Content

D. Digital and Disrupt

E. Expert, Entertainment and Exposure

F. Fix

G. Go, Grappling, Genuine, Gems, Gold and Gonzo

H. Hits and Hashtags

I. Instinct and Instagram

J. Jewels and Journalism

K. Karate and Keywords

L. Lift and LinkedIn

M. Money, Moneytize and MMA

N. Numbers and News

O. Open and Online News

P. Passion, Promotions, Platforms and Pop Culture

Q. Questions

R. Revenue and Results

S. Suplex, Space X and Social Media

T. Trust, Twitter, Tesla and Trends

U. Universe, Unique and UFC

V. Vortex

W. Wrestling,

W. Words, Webcode and World

X. X-Journo and X.

Y. YouTube and YouTube Shorts

Z. Zoom

Elon Musk loses $30 billion in one day amid Wall Street’s tech wipeout - 21st July 2023

Elon Musk’s fortune slumped $US20.3 billion ($29.5 billion) after Tesla warned it may have to keep cutting the prices of its electric vehicles, sending shares tumbling.

The drop in net worth to $US234.4 billion is the seventh-largest decline ever among those in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and further narrows the wealth gap between Musk and Bernard Arnault, the world’s two richest people. Musk’s fortune still exceeds that of Arnault, chairman of luxury goods maker LVMH, by about $US33 billion.

Musk wasn’t the only US technology billionaire having a tough day. Amazon.com’ s Jeff Bezos, Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin shed a collective $US20.8 billion in net worth as the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell 2.3 per cent.

Shares of Tesla slid 9.7 per cent to $US262.90 in New York, the most since April 20, after the company warned of more hits to its already-shrinking profitability. Months of markdowns have taken a toll on automotive gross margin, which fell to a four-year low in the second quarter. Musk, the company’s CEO, said Tesla will have to keep lowering prices if interest rates continue to rise.

In addition to potentially having to budge further on pricing, Tesla is pouring money into new models, including the behind-schedule Cybertruck, plus Dojo, the in-house supercomputer Musk plans to spend at least $US1 billion on by the end of next year. While Tesla remains on track to produce around 1.8 million vehicles in 2023, output will dip this quarter due to factory upgrades.

“It does make sense to sacrifice margins in favour of making more vehicles, because we think in the not-too-distant future they will have a dramatic valuation increase,” Musk said, referring to his belief Tesla will eventually offer autonomous-driving capability that will make already-sold cars worth more.

Adding to Tesla’s challenges is its growing inventory of cars. The company said it now has 16 days’ worth of supply globally, up from 15 days last quarter and just four days a year ago. Inventory continued to build despite steep discounts on Tesla’s best-selling models, and perks including free charging that the carmaker offered consumers.

Musk, 52, derives his wealth primarily from his stake in the EV manufacturer, as well as his holdings in Space Exploration Technologies and Twitter. His wealth had increased about $US118 billion this year through Wednesday, as shares of Tesla climbed 136 per cent.

Arnault, 74, has seen his net worth rise by $US39 billion this year to $US201.2 billion. Shares of Paris-based LVMH have gained 26 per cent in 2023.

FIFA deletes Matildas fans’ World Cup videos from social media

Fans who shared footage taken inside World Cup stadiums have had their videos wiped from social media after complaints from football’s organising body FIFA.

Strict rules buried in the 13 pages of fine print that accompany match tickets specify that people not broadcast “live or near live” material from the grounds on their personal social media accounts, to protect broadcaster’s rights.

But the fine print gives FIFA discretion to decide what constitutes a “near live” broadcast, so that fans who uploaded mobile phone footage of crowds celebrating several hours after the Matildas’ one-nil win over Ireland at Stadium Australia on Thursday had footage deleted.

This masthead also is not allowed to use any images legally from these videos.

“I took some footage throughout the game, including the penalty, which was at the far end of the ground,” said Dan, who requested that his surname not be published. “Then I sort of looped around and got some of the amazing crowd reactions.

“Later, around midnight, I uploaded it on Instagram. In the early hours of the morning I opened Instagram and there was a copyright notice and the video had been deleted.”

Dan later received an email from Instagram saying he could contact the complainant, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, to resolve the issue. He reposted his video, which at the time of writing is still live.

FIFA did not comment directly on Dan’s case but said some people posting social media videos would have them removed because the organisation was conducting a large operation against digital piracy.

Some innocuous social media posts may be swept up by algorithms searching for pirate broadcasters, especially those that feature snippets of on-field action, it said.

“Digital rights are quite restricted so as to protect broadcast rights,” a spokesman said.

FIFA said it broadly encouraged people to post images from matches on social media. While some videos have been deleted, most are still up, including one posted by environment minister Tanya Plibersek, who captured the same goal as Dan from a different angle and posted it to her Instagram page.

“It does seem like overreach to target people who are just sharing content of a major sporting event,” said Isabella Alexander, a law professor at the University of Technology Sydney.

“I think it’s common for live sporting events to be very strictly controlled because of the value of the broadcast rights - and because there’s no copyright on the actual sporting event itself the way they can enforce it is via the fine print on the tickets,” she said.

“It’s probably not common for tickets to have quite the range of provisions like this, but since nobody ever reads them, how would we know?”

Other social media platforms have seen World Cup content removed this week. Journalist Hamish McNeilly from the Stuff website had a tweet that contained a short video from the match between New Zealand and Norway deleted on Thursday night, and posted a take down notice he received from FIFA shortly afterwards.

FIFA’s control of imagery can seem extreme. During the 2018 men’s world cup, football’s governing body ordered Twitter to take down a short video of seven-year-old England fan Alex Conn dancing in his living room because a TV showing a match could be glimpsed in the background.

“It just seems a bit pathetic,” Alex’s mother Kathryn told NBC at the time. “The fact that the TV is on in the background is largely incidental. He’s just enjoying himself and enjoying the game.”

FIFA struck controversy earlier this month when a directive to cover up plaques of seven Australian athletes at Allianz Stadium met outrage from some in the sporting community.

The move, part of FIFA’s “clean site” policy to remove all non-World Cup branding from venues, was reversed last week.

‘What, so betting markets can be changed?’ Robinson backs Matildas over Kerr injury

Three-time NRL premiership winning coach Trent Robinson has emerged as an unlikely ally for Matildas counterpart Tony Gustavsson after he attracted criticism for keeping Sam Kerr’s World Cup injury a secret.

Kerr’s shock withdrawal from Australia’s tournament-opening win over Ireland due to a calf injury was kept under wraps by the Matildas right up until final teams were named 90 minutes before kick-off on Thursday night.

Kerr and Gustavsson spoke at a pre-game press conference as though the world’s best player was not in any doubt despite knowing she had suffered the injury earlier in the day and wouldn’t play.

In his post-match press conference, Gustavsson appealed for understanding as to the tactical advantage gained by not flagging Kerr’s injury, and told host broadcaster Channel 7 in a separate interview that “we weren’t honest in the press conference [because] we didn’t have all the information either”.

Robinson was at the centre of a similar narrative around Cooper Cronk leading into the Roosters’ 2018 grand final triumph, when the star half was in doubt with a serious shoulder injury and Robinson ducked and weaved around the question of whether the star halfback would play until 30 minutes before kick-off. Cronk played the match despite having suffered what was revealed to be a badly broken shoulder blade.

“What, are you saying we should tell everyone so the betting markets can be changed?” Robinson responded when asked about keeping team secrets under intense scrutiny.

“There was a bit written about it [in 2018], but it’s not going to change people turning up. The objective of a coach is to win a game – other people might have a difference of opinion – but our job is to create intrigue and guessing in the opposition.

“Showing your cards days and weeks before a game is giving a bit of a tip sheet to the opposition. People wouldn’t have turned up if they found out? People wouldn’t have watched?

“The coach’s job for Australia is to win the game, and if that was a tactical advantage so Australia could win the game then I think we’re happy with that as Australians rather than having the knowledge hours before that Sam wasn’t playing.”

Gustavsson declined to answer a pre-game question about the fitness of his players and was similarly coy after Australia’s win when pressed on Kerr’s availability for the rest of the tournament.

Questions about how Kerr was injured and the nature of her calf issue were dead-batted, confirming only that the Chelsea superstar will miss next Thursday’s clash against Nigeria, with a match against Canada following four days later.

There is then a week’s break until Australia’s prospective round of 16 fixture on August 7.

“She’s going to be out for two games, and then we’ll reassess afterwards,” Gustavsson said. “That tells you a little bit about what grade it is, but we don’t want to go into more details on that at this point.”

Nike versus Puma: The ambush marketing campaign dividing the Matildas

Football Australia has blocked players from the pioneering 1975 Australian women’s team from referring to themselves as former Matildas as part of an ambush marketing campaign by a rival apparel brand that has bitterly divided the national team’s alumni network.

A long-running debate over who should be regarded as the ‘first Matildas’ – and thus the true matriarchs of the sport in Australia – has erupted in the build-up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, implicating current players and, according to one source who did not wish to be named due to the sensitive nature of the situation, has even ruined friendships between ex-teammates.

It relates to the team that wore green and gold at the 1975 Asian Cup Ladies Football Tournament in Hong Kong, whose groundbreaking role in Australian women’s football was given overdue formal recognition by FA for the first time in May 2022, after almost half a century in the shadows.

But because FA’s historical committee unanimously ruled they were a club team – with the majority of the 16 players drawn from all-conquering Sydney side St George Budapest, including coach Joe O’Connor, and the rest from NSW rivals – the federation stopped short of classifying them as full-blown Matildas due to the absence of a competitive national selection process.

The team had gained permission from Sir Arthur George, the chair of the FIFA-affiliated Australian Soccer Federation, to wear the national colours and coat of arms – although the ASF had no involvement at the time with the women’s game, which was run by the Australian Women’s Soccer Association, which formed a year earlier.

The 1975ers were offered unnumbered caps by FA, inclusion in the federation’s official records, recognition as the first women’s team to represent Australia in an internationally sanctioned tournament, and entry into the Matildas Alumni club, which holds various functions and events for ex-players.

But they thumbed their nose at FA’s offer, and 10 of them have since linked up with Puma – a direct competitor to the Matildas’ apparel sponsors Nike – which has launched a reported six-figure advertising campaign spotlighting the 1975 players with billboards, social media advertising and various other pieces of content telling their remarkable story.

The 1975ers are shown shedding tears as they read out a letter of recognition from Puma’s Oceania general manager Pancho Gutstein in one video. In another, current Matildas Charli Grant and Aivi Luik, as well as AFL stars Toby Greene and Scott Pendlebury – who all have individual endorsement deals with Puma – announce the names of the players who will take part in a ‘walking football’ rematch against New Zealand, their rivals at that tournament in Hong Kong, to be held on Cockatoo Island in Sydney this weekend.

The players, who have been dubbed the ‘OGs’ by Puma, were reunited for the first time since 1975, supplied with branded tracksuits and shoes, and have also been provided tickets for Thursday night’s clash between Australia and Ireland. They will watch it with their New Zealand counterparts – despite the Football Ferns hosting Norway in the tournament’s opener in Auckland on the same day.

FA says it planned to produce similar video content highlighting the players’ contributions had they taken up the offer made to them last year. Gutstein confirmed that when Puma’s campaign launched, an FA executive made contact and warned them about not breaching the federation’s IP, including use of the term ‘Matildas’, the trademark for which is owned by FA.

Last month, FA submitted another trademark request for ‘Tillies’, a shortened version of the team’s nickname commonly used by fans.

FA said it did not “hold a view” on the Puma campaign as it didn’t infringe on any trademarks or their partnership with Nike, which was also contacted for comment.

FA’s board will review the 1975ers’ claims again after the World Cup, with the players believed to be undeterred in their pursuit of further recognition – despite FA’s historians and some ex-Matildas, while recognising the significance of their achievements, believing they are overreaching by demanding numbered caps.

“With regard to the debate, that’s really not our call at all,” said Gutstein. “We just think that they have an amazing story. It’s a wonderful year to celebrate and share that story.” Puma sponsors only two of the 32 teams at the World Cup, while Adidas has a longstanding deal with FIFA.

Unnumbered caps were also recently offered to – and accepted by – the 1978 Australian team, which FA says was the first senior women’s side selected through a national process, but since they competed against club teams at an invitational tournament in Taiwan that year, and not against other nations, those matches are also not seen as full ‘A’ internationals.

Of the 16 players from the 1975 team, two have since passed away, as has coach O’Connor, and only three went on to earn numbered caps by playing in full ‘A’ international matches. Inaugural Matildas captain Julie Dolan was one of them, and featured in the 1979 clash against New Zealand that FA recognises as the Matildas’ first ‘A’ international, as well as the 1978 team.

Dolan is not involved with the Puma campaign. She declined to comment; sources close to Dolan claim her family was verbally abused the last time she weighed in on the topic. Dolan is the holder of Matildas cap No.1, a status which has led to prominent roles in FA and FIFA activities at World Cup events, and one she would theoretically lose if the caps were to be reshuffled to accommodate the 1975ers – as some of her ex-teammates seem to insist should happen.

In a public Facebook post, former FA director Heather Reid alleges the Puma campaign’s narrative “smacks of deception”, sparking a slanging match in the comments where 1975 player Trixie Tagg accuses her of trying to “rewrite our history” and describing the team’s treatment as that of “illegitimate cousins”. Others questioned what they said was an exclusionary approach.

Tagg said in an article on The Roar in 2020 that simply being acknowledged by FA – as they were last year – would “mean the world to us”, and that the players would never expect cap numbers to be changed.

In another post on a private Matildas Alumni group, seen by this masthead, one ex-player wrote: “Given the choice between honesty and kindness, most of us have chosen kindness. But after the Puma campaign ... it’s time for honesty.

“A team that isn’t nationally selected doesn’t pass the test to be classified as a national team – regardless of what colours they were allowed to wear. We all played many games in green & gold that weren’t classified as A international caps, for a whole range of reasons. A team where nobody else has an opportunity to be chosen simply isn’t a national team.

“Whoever is giving them false expectations is not doing them, or football, any favours. It’s sad to see this divide our game.”

McGregor 'will not be intimidated' over sexual assault allegation from Miami Heat NBA finals game - June 2023

Thee NBA and the Miami Heat are investigating an allegation former UFC champion Conor McGregor sexually assaulted a woman inside an arena bathroom after Game 4 of the NBA Finals.

The woman’s attorney, Ariel Mitchell, said her client has provided Miami police with the clothing she was wearing on the night and a report had been filed.

McGregor’s attorney said the fighter denied any wrongdoing. “McGregor will not be intimidated,” said lawyer Barbara Llanes.

In letters sent to the NBA, the Heat and McGregor’s representatives, Mitchell detailed her client’s allegations and said the client would discuss “reasonable settlement offers” before June 12 or else proceed with litigation.

“We are aware of the allegations and are conducting a full investigation,” read a statement from the Heat. “Pending the outcome of the investigation, we will withhold further comment.”

The NBA had a similar statement, saying it was working with the Heat to gather information.

The alleged incident happened on the same night McGregor knocked out the Heat mascot in a midgame bit that went wrong.

Burnie, more specifically the man who occupies Burnie’s costume, briefly sought medical attention Friday night after taking two punches from McGregor during a third-quarter stoppage of Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the Heat and the Denver Nuggets.

The employee, who was not identified, received pain medication and was recovering, the team said.

McGregor was there as a promotional gimmick for a pain-relief spray and was booed by many in the Miami crowd even before the bit started.

The flame mascot was wearing oversized boxing gloves and a robe akin to what a fighter would wear entering the ring for a bout.

McGregor hit Burnie with a left hook, knocking him down, then punched the mascot again after he hit the floor.

McGregor then tried to “spray” the mascot with the pain-relief product, while several members of the Heat’s in-game promotional team dragged Burnie off the court.

McGregor hasn’t fought since injuring his left leg in a loss to Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021. His last win came in January 2020.

Roman Reigns agrees to put his Tribal Chiefdom on the line against Jey Uso! - July 21, 2023

On a frenetic Friday Night SmackDown, the stakes between Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Jey Uso got magnified as Reigns agreed to put his Tribal Chiefdom on the line as well as his title against Jey at SummerSlam! Plus, “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio won his first NXT North American Title defense against Butch, Rey Mysterio advanced in the U.S. Title Invitational Tournament, Charlotte Flair overcame IYO SKY so much more!

Combat Sports News - Nate Diaz explains how Jake Paul trash talking Conor McGregor and Dee Devlin helped influence him into accepting the fight - 21st July 2023

Diaz (21-13 MMA) will be making his boxing debut against ‘The Problem Child‘ who has a 6-1 record in the ring, 4 of those wins via knockout.

Nate Diaz opened up about why he agreed to take the fight with Paul when speaking on the ‘Raw Talk’ podcast:

“This guy (Paul) actually thinks he’ll beat up everyone’s ass and he’s louder than all you fools who are really beating people’s ass. So, now I have to step the f**k out the box real quick and whup this motherf**ker’s ass so everyone knows who’s the real ass-whupper. You understand what I’m saying?”

Continuing the 38 year old shared:

“This fool was poppin’ off on everybody. Like, ‘Oh, we’re real fighters.’ Well prove it, motherf**ker. Go beat his ass for talking sh*t. He was going after everybody. On that big of a stage where he’s making everybody believe that, like you’re letting this guy talk sh*t to the whole roster? And ain’t no one saying sh*t? Louder than the roster? The UFC’s big, but the roster?”

Addressing what Jake Paul was saying about Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz continued:

“And then he was talking sh*t to Conor, talking sh*t to Conor and dissing his wife and sh*t? Some real disrespectful stuff that he shouldn’t have been saying. And nobody’s saying sh*t. I’m the one who said ‘Shut the f*ck up, b**ch. I’ll whup your ass. Have some respect.’ You’re gonna disrespect somebody’s wife and stuff like that who would actually whup your ass? To get a fight like that, that suppresses the fight fight game.”

Concluding, Nate Diaz said (h/t MMAMania):

“Like, that’s a real fight and you should shut the f*ck up, and no one’s saying anything because everyone’s acting like the whole roster, the UFC, everyone’s acting like ‘He can’t really.’ But he should shut the f*ck up. And no one’s speaking up, saying ‘Shut the f*ck up.’ So … shut the f*ck up.”

With the fight just 2 weeks away, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will be the victor after 10 rounds in the boxing ring.

UFC RAISES MORE THAN $130,500 FOR THE UFC FOUNDATION DURING INTERNATIONAL FIGHT WEEK

July 22, 2023

During the 11th Annual International Fight Week, UFC raised a total of $130,790 with net proceeds benefitting the UFC Foundation.

To commemorate International Fight Week, UFC raised funds across three charitable campaigns surrounding the week-long celebration, including VIP sweepstakes with digital charity platform 15 Seconds of Fame, the 2023 UFC Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, and a week-long 50/50 raffle.

To coincide with IFW, UFC launched a statewide online and in-venue 50/50 raffle. Fans were able to participate in the raffle by purchasing tickets during the UFC Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at T-Mobile Arena, at the Las Vegas Convention Center during UFC X, at ceremonial weigh-ins, and during UFC 290: VOLKANOVSKI vs. RODRIGUEZ at T-Mobile Arena. The raffle generated a total jackpot of $78,240, with 50% ($39,120) benefitting the UFC Foundation.

The winner of the remaining 50% of the jackpot, Jonathan Weber of Poinsettia, Ariz., who was making his second consecutive International Fight Week trip, will receive $39,120 after purchasing his 50/50 raffle ticket during UFC 290.

“We always contribute to the 50/50 raffle at every UFC event we attend,” said Weber. “We love watching the jackpot grow and build for the foundation. We have attended many UFC events and every time we go we buy raffle tickets! We’re going to take our winnings and pay some bills and create funds for our nine and four-year old daughters' savings accounts!”

Other funds raised during the week included $17,000 from a VIP sweepstakes for two tickets to sit in Dana White’s section during UFC 290 and $35,550 in ticket sales proceeds from the UFC Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

UFC’s CSR activations during International Fight Week also included athletes visiting patients currently undergoing treatment at the Cure 4 The Kids Foundation and hosting a two-day youth freestyle wrestling clinic in partnership with Wrestle Like a Girl at UFC X.

The UFC Foundation works in tandem with UFC’s corporate social responsibility program, #UFCInTheCommunity, to strategically collaborate with partners, sponsors, and athletes to develop additional charitable programs and funding sources to help bolster and inspire the local community.

Since 2017, UFC has organized 29 50/50 raffles throughout North America that have grossed more than $1.55 million, with net proceeds benefitting local charitable organizations in the communities that have hosted UFC events throughout the United States and Canada.

UFC’s next 50/50 raffle will take place from Friday, September 15 – Saturday, September 16 at T-Mobile Arena as part of NOCHE UFC: GRASSO vs. SHEVCHENKO 2. For more information, please visit UFCFOUNDATION.

(UFC)

WWE® ANNOUNCES 27 ADDITIONAL DATES TO 2023 FALL LIVE EVENT TOURING SCHEDULE

STAMFORD, Conn., July 7, 2023 – WWE® (NYSE: WWE) today announced 27 additional live events as part of the company’s 2023 touring schedule. Tickets go on sale next Friday, July 14.

The schedule includes:

- Saturday, Sept. 9: WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event – Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.

- Sunday, Sept. 10: WWE Sunday Stunner – John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va.

Friday, Sept. 15: SmackDown® – Ball Arena in Denver, Colo.

Saturday, Sept. 16: WWE Supershow – Toyota Center in Kennewick, Wash.

Sunday, Sept. 17: WWE Supershow – Extra Mile Arena in Boise, Idaho

Monday, Sept. 18: Raw® – Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah

Friday, Sept. 22: SmackDown® – Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz.

Saturday, Sept. 23: WWE Supershow – Acrisure Arena in Greater Palm Springs, Calif.

Sunday, Sept. 24: WWE Supershow – Save Mart Center in Fresno, Calif.

Monday, Sept. 25: Raw® – Toyota Arena in Ontario, Calif.

Friday, Sept. 29: SmackDown® – Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, Calif.

Saturday, Sept. 30: WWE Supershow – Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif.

Sunday, Oct. 1: WWE Supershow – Tahoe Blue Event Center in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

Monday, Oct. 2: Raw® – SAP Center in San Jose, Calif.

Friday, Oct. 6: SmackDown® – Enterprise Center in St. Louis, Mo.

Saturday, Oct. 7: WWE Fastlane – Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Ind.

Monday, Oct. 9: Raw® – CHI Health Center in Omaha, Neb.

Friday, Oct 13: SmackDown® – BOK Center in Tulsa, Okla.

Saturday, Oct. 14: WWE Supershow – T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.

Sunday, Oct. 15: WWE Supershow – Great Southern Bank Arena in Springfield, Mo.

Monday, Oct. 16: Raw® – Paycom Center in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Friday, Oct. 20: SmackDown® – AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas

Saturday, Oct. 21: WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event – Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, Texas

Sunday, Oct. 22: WWE Sunday Stunner – Sames Auto Arena in Laredo, Texas

Monday, Oct. 23: Raw® – American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas

Friday, Oct. 27: SmackDown® – Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis.

Monday, Oct. 30: Raw® – Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C.

About WWE

WWE, a publicly traded company (NYSE: WWE), is an integrated media organization and recognized leader in global entertainment. The Company consists of a portfolio of businesses that create and deliver original content 52 weeks a year to a global audience. WWE is committed to family-friendly entertainment on its television programming, premium live events, digital media and publishing platforms. WWE’s TV-PG programming can be seen in more than 1 billion homes worldwide in 25 languages through world-class distribution partners including NBCUniversal, FOX, BT Sport, Sony India and Rogers. The award-winning WWE Network includes all premium live events, scheduled programming and a massive video-on-demand library and is currently available in more than 180 countries. In the United States, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock, is the exclusive home to WWE Network.

Additional information on WWE can be found at wwe.com and corporate.wwe.com.

Aussie Open win Tag Team titles at ROH Death Before Dishonor

The duo won the titles in a four-way match.

Aussie Open are the new ROH Tag Team Champions.

Mark Davis and Kyle Fletcher won the titles at Friday’s Death Before Dishonor event, defeating former champions Penta El 0 M and Rey Fenix, Best Friends, and The Kingdom in a four-way match. The finish had Davis and Fletcher hitting Coriolis on Trent Beretta to win the titles for the first time.

Lucha Bros. had held the titles for 113 days, winning them back at Supercard of Honor on March 31 in a Reach for the Sky ladder match. The titles had been vacated due to the death of Jay Briscoe back in January.

Aussie Open had to vacate the IWGP and NJPW Strong Tag Team titles after Davis suffered a knee injury that required surgery. This was the first time since May that Aussie Open had teamed up, and the first time since they had signed with AEW.

The rest of the card saw champions retain their titles. The double main event had Claudio Castagnoli successfully retain the ROH World title against PAC, and Athena retain the ROH Women's title against Willow Nightingale.

Wrestling and sports announcing legend Jim Ross on AEW - July 2023

"Ian (Riccaboni) really distinguished himself in Calgary, I thought. I thought he and Nigel McGuinness had a hell of a night. I don't trust anybody any more than Ian Riccaboni to get the stuff in. We've got a great anchor with Excalibur and another great anchor with Ian Riccaboni and you just got to try it and see what kind of chemistry there is between teams. The team of Taz and Tony Schiavone and Excalibur is excellent. They really are excellent and they're getting their timing together. They're not talking over each other. They're trying, I think, not to use so many fu**ing pronouns. Then Nigel and Ian had a hell of a night, and that's leaving out Kevin Kelly in this debate. He'll be back as I understand it to do Collision, but I don't know how all that's gonna work out. I don't have any idea. But anyway, you just got to see if they got chemistry. The skill set it takes to have the patience to talk in sound bites and not make your dialogue about you. That's what we're waiting to see how that was all going to transfer.” - Jim Ross

AEW's Matt Hardy On The Pros & Cons Of Social Media - July 2023

Matt Hardy has remained a top star for several decades. However, his career was rejuvenated in a big way with the emergence of his break-out "Broken" character in TNA. The new persona wound up going viral on social media, thanks to wrestling fans. As a result of leveraging social media to his benefit, Hardy has a pretty solid grasp on the pros and cons of its usage, which he shared during a recent appearance on "Busted Open Radio."

"I have said this for a long time. Social media is the best thing ever to happen and social media is the worst thing to ever happen," Hardy explained. "When you are on social media, it gives guys that are hungry and driven a great platform to promote themselves, to promote their business, to promote their projects — whatever it may be. But it also allows people to come on social media without accountability and without responsibility. And they can insult people and troll people."

Hardy recently encountered some toxicity at the hands of Jim Cornette and his fans on social media, but Hardy does his best to not let it affect him.. "Just because there are a group of people that may follow someone who is an antiquated relic in terms of his opinions — if they came at me and insult me that doesn't bother me at all," said Hardy. "Matter of fact, it is kind of like a badge of honor because I am picking up attention in some capacity". Hardy has realized the best response is not to waste energy arguing or trying to change opinions.

Hardy also recognizes social media isn't going anywhere, and he pushed that to thrive in society you needed to embrace technology and adapt to societal changes. "Social media is a magical thing. It is a monster. It is so powerful," said Hardy. "I just hope people try hard to be very responsible and use it for good."

ONE Championship To Host Four U.S. Events In 2024

ONE Championship, the world’s largest martial arts organization, today announced that the promotion will host four events in the United States in 2024.

Coming off a successful U.S. debut in May at 1stBank Center in Colorado with ONE Fight Night 10, ONE will look to carry its momentum into 2024 with a recurring cadence of ONE Fight Night events in America, which will air live on Prime Video in the U.S. and Canada. Cities, venues, and ticketing information will be announced at a later date.

Chatri Sityodtong, Chairman and CEO of ONE Championship, stated: “I am thrilled to announce that ONE Championship is coming back to the U.S. with four massive events in 2024. When we made our historic U.S. debut with ONE Fight Night 10 on Prime Video, I was blown away by the support we received from our fans in the U.S. ONE is home to the greatest martial artists in the world, and I’m excited to once again showcase our World Champions on American soil. To our fans that haven’t seen a live ONE event, I promise you an experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

ONE Fight Night 10 featured Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson defending the ONE Flyweight World Title, the return of “Super” Sage Northcutt, the U.S. debuts of Thai superstars Rodtang Jitmuangnon and Stamp Fairtex, and more. Milestones for the event included:

Tickets: Sold out 1stBank Center in Colorado

Viewership: Most watched event to date for ONE on Prime Video

Search: A new peak on Google Trends for “ONE Championship” in the U.S.

Social: #ONEFightNight10 trended #1 on Twitter in the U.S. and Canada for Sports

Prime Video Partnership: Merch on Demand QR codes for ONE apparel, in-stadium Twitch Watch Parties featuring ONE athletes, live coverage throughout fight week

Stage Front VIP, the exclusive U.S. VIP experience partner of ONE, will continue to provide fans with unrivaled access through immersive VIP experiences that include premier seating, premium hospitality offerings, athlete meet-and-greets, event collectibles, after-party access, and more.

Streaming quotas decision would ease Hollywood strike headache: studio boss - July 16, 2023

Australia’s film and television sector will avoid major disruption as a result of union strikes in Hollywood, although the Albanese government is being urged to finalise its decision over proposed local content quotas to ease uncertainty in the industry.

Former chief executive of Nine Entertainment Hugh Marks – who last year founded Australian studio Dreamchaser alongside former Endemol Shine boss Carl Fennessy – said the writer and actor strike had added a layer of complexity to the Australian industry.

After announcing in January it would implement local content requirements for international streaming services, the government is yet to set a number for the quota. A spokesperson for Tony Burke, minister for the arts and for workplace and employment relations, reaffirmed a decision would be made this side of the new year, ahead of its implementation in July 2024.

Marks said the local offices of the likes of Netflix, Disney and Apple will be affected by the strikes, with Australian content pitches increasingly being angled towards a global audience.

The strikes have coincided with a period where streamers have shifted gears from “a gold rush of global domination”, Marks says, to being forced to figure out how to monetise their vast audiences.

Several, including Netflix, Disney+ and Binge locally, have turned to advertising as a contributing solution. A clear direction from the government, he says, would ease the headache over decision-making on domestic content.

“The one thing that would really be beneficial now would be the release of the new proposed laws about quotas in this market because that would certainly give everyone some focus as to at least what’s got to be done domestically,” Marks says.

“I’m certainly encouraging the government to act sooner rather than later to remove that unnecessary lack of certainty from the local market.”

In a positive for the local industry, a statement on Friday from Screen Producers Australia (SPA) noted the strike does not apply to non-scripted productions, including documentaries, light entertainment and reality shows – the latter of which is widely noted to be a beneficiary of the writers’ strike in 2007.

SPA said it anticipated a limited number of non-Australian productions will be affected by the strikes locally. The body said all scripted local productions produced and controlled by Australian production companies that have engaged Australian and Imported SAG members will continue unaffected, provided they engage all cast under Australian Industry Contracts in accordance with the Global Rule One Agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA).

While it has been suggested prolonged strikes in the US could see an additional influx of Australian-produced content, Marks believes it is too early in the process to think that might be the outcome.

The country’s biggest streaming services are required under legislation introduced by the Morrison government to report their spending on Australian content to the authority. The big five – Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Paramount+ – reported that in 2021-22 they collectively spent $668.5 million on “Australian” and “Australian-related” content.

Last month, NBC Universal walked away from its $180 million sci-fi series, Metropolis, which had pre-production under way at Docklands Studios in Melbourne. After the actors union voted to strike last week, the Sam Neill/Annette Bening drama Apples Never Fall, halted on Friday. Production was already under way in Queensland, budgeted at an estimated $79 million.

NBC Universal signed a content deal with Foxtel in November, with an extended deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of the highly regarded network HBO, in February.

Foxtel’s streaming service Binge has relied heavily on content from HBO for its sustained growth since launching in 2020, with popular shows such as White Lotus, Succession, and The Last of Us. Binge was responsible for 11.9 per cent of all new Streaming Video on Demand subscriptions in the first quarter of this year, according to data from Kantar, with 18 per cent of all of its new user acquisitions driven by The Last of Us, its blockbuster nine-part series that debuted in January.

Local players including Foxtel and Stan (owned by Nine) were approached for comment on the impact of their programming schedules.

One of the streamer’s largest subscription drivers in 2022, House of the Dragon, will continue filming in the UK, due to the show being largely comprised of British actors with contracts governed by the local union, Equity.

Paramount, which owns Network Ten and streaming service Paramount+, is understood to not be affected by the strikes. While it benefits from a constant stream of content from Paramount Studios, the local arm of the company has focused its efforts on Australian-produced content, which includes shows such as The Last King of the Cross, Five Bedrooms, and the recently green-lit series NCIS: Sydney, being produced locally by Endemol Shine.

Screen Producers Australia wants a 20 per cent levy on the streamers’ Australian revenue, while the streamers insist they are spending plenty already, with local TV networks in agreement.

In May, a submission by industry body Free TV, which represents Nine, Seven West Media and Network Ten, said it opposed the introduction of quotas for local productions, arguing the screen production industry in Australia is already booming.

Free TV doubled down this week, calling for a balanced approach to the introduction of streaming quotas. In response to comments by Bryan Brown AM in an address to the National Press Club, Bridget Fair, CEO of Free TV Australia said the group invests $1.5 billion every year in Australian content.

“But if the Government is going to impose content quotas on streaming services, it needs to carefully consider the impact this will have on the Australian public who rely on free services from our local broadcasters,” she said.

Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes splits from wife - 22nd July 2023

An Australian tech billionaire worth $19 billion has reportedly split from his wife after 13 years of marriage.

Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has reportedly split from his wife after 13 years of marriage.

Sources close to the family of Mr Cannon-Brookes, who is Australia’s sixth-richest person and the co-founder of Atlassian, have confirmed he is separating from his wife, Annie, according to Nine newspapers.

The couple married in 2010.

Their separation comes just a week after the high-profile split of Australia’s richest couple, Twiggy and Nicola Forrest.

The Forrests, who had been married for 31 years, said they were living apart but insisted the separation will not impact their mining and philanthropy empire.

Mr Cannon-Brookes made his estimated $19 billion fortune alongside fellow Aussie billionaire Scott Farquhar, with whom he co-founded software firm Atlassian in 2002.

The company is widely considered a great Australian success story, its share price having quintupled since it was listed on the US stock exchange in 2015.

Atlassian has, however, suffered a tough 12 months amid broader turmoil in the tech sector. In March, the company laid off 500 workers just a few months after a dramatic hiring blitz.

In a self-described “no bulls**t” note to staff, Mr Cannon-Brookes and Mr Farquhar said it was a “very hard day in our 20 year history” and they were “deeply sorry” to make the job cuts.

“To be clear, this decision is not a reflection of Atlassian’s own financial performance, as we will be reinvesting in roles that better support our priorities,” they wrote.

The Cannon-Brookes family owns an impressive property portfolio, including the 1.1-hectare Fairwater estate, previously the home of the late Lady Mary Fairfax, which they acquired in 2018 for a reported $100 million. It was believed to be the priciest property sale in Australian history.

In June, the couple forked out $14.25 million to buy a home in Newport, on Sydney’s northern beaches, neighbouring the $24.5 million estate they purchased in 2020.

The five-bedroom home is set on a 3000-square-metre block of land and features a 1000-square-metre netted bathing area.

Cannon-Brookes, who was previously a fashion designer, was born in the US.

It’s believed he and Annie met at a Qantas lounge during a trip between Sydney and San Francisco.

Endeavour calls on states to work together on gambling reform

Endeavour Group boss Steve Donohue has urged state and territory governments to work more closely together when considering policies to fight problem gambling, as the hotels’ operator promises to get a jump on implementing gaming reforms unveiled in Victoria this week.

Donohue said on Thursday that Endeavour, one of the largest operators of poker machines in the country, has written to state governments calling for a “more co-ordinated and collaborative approach” and to make sure that knowledge is shared across all states on proposals such as cashless gaming and facial recognition technology.

He said there was room for the states to share more insights with each other about the impact and efficacy of different policy measures.

“What we are saying is we think there is an opportunity for deeper collaboration and more co-ordination in relation to various approaches, suggestions and ideas,” he said.

“We can learn from the experiences that each state and territory is having.”

A spokesperson for New South Wales Gaming and Racing Minister David Harris said the state was committed to working with all stakeholders to deliver evidence-based gambling reform.

“We will be paying very close attention to the activities of other jurisdictions, such as the Victorian government and the evidence they unearth through the work of their implementation working group,” they said.

“Just this week the minister met with the ACT minister for gaming to continue collaboration and discussion on gambling reform across jurisdictions.”

Endeavour told shareholders on Thursday that the company would move swiftly to implement changes after the Victorian government unveiled proposed reforms to gaming machine regulations on Sunday.

The state’s plan for reducing gambling harm includes slower spin times for games, mandatory closing periods for gaming room floors, mandatory pre-commitment limits and a load-up limit of $100, which will cap how much an individual can put in a machine at a time.

Endeavour confirmed it would adjust the hours of gaming machine areas at its ALH Hotels in Victoria, so they close between 4am and 10am by August 31; 10 months ahead of the government’s proposed timeline.

This would bring Victoria’s rules in line with operating-hours regulations in NSW and South Australia.

The company also confirmed it supported the $100 load-up limit and would bring this into operation for Victorian machines “as soon as is practicable”.

Shares in the business closed 9.9 per cent weaker on Monday as investors and analysts considered what impact the reforms would have on the group’s earnings.

Goldman Sachs analysts said on Monday that the exact impact would be difficult to estimate, but said it could lower earnings by 0.5 per cent to 1.8 per cent during the 2024 financial year.

E&P Financial analyst Philip Kimber said policies such as the $100 load-up limit were likely to have a smaller impact on Endeavour’s financials than the Victorian government’s policy on pre-commitment limits.

“There is no change to our view that the Victorian government proposal with the potential to have the most material impact on electronic gaming machine spend in Endeavour’s Victorian pubs is mandatory pre-commitment limits [via carded play],” he said in a note to clients on Thursday.

Endeavour shares opened stronger but did not maintain momentum during Thursday’s session as the broader market stayed flat. The stock was up 0.3 per cent to $5.91 in late afternoon trade, but still down by 5.6 per cent over the past five days.

Media Man commentary for David Rowe Illustrations as per The Australian Financial Review

Pen Dan Thon Games For Four. Great art.

No Pentathlon. No nothing. Gang of four. Gonzo and satire +. Commentary open to interpretation, as per pro wrestling legend John Cena's Instagram. Beauty of otherwise in the eye of the beholder. Alternative commentary: Sports biz blessing in disuise and doddged a bullet from the range.

Media Man commentary for Mike Mooneyham feature on 'The Bloodline' and wrestling factions news in the WWE

Exactly. But, hopefully it becomes the "new normal" for the WWE version of pro wrestling. The Judgement Day faction also looks very promising to me with Dirty Dom as a heat seeking "killer heel" element, while going after all of the belts. Tony D gets seen on today's WWE SmackDown backstage and he's got "mob" and family business history with Escobar, so LWO also gets a shot in the arm. So much better than 3 to 5 years ago. The Triple H era with apparent assistance by Shawn Michaels and a few others who listened to fans of pro wrestling. Paul Heyman fingerprints over the "crime scenes" for the past 56 months or so. And WWE business is at historic levels. Feel welcome to quote me.

Media Man commentary for recent scribes in Search Engine Journal - 2023

SEJ's Kristi on the latest on the Hollywood writers strike connection with AI, human writers and the like..To paraphrase the world's leading tech entrepreneur/innovator, Elon Musk, "Once you summon the beast (of AI) there's no turning back". For me, founding and overseeing a modest size independent media and online publishing firm.Insew both opportunity and threats with AI. More threats at this stage of the game.. Circa 1980 pro wrestling legend, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes cut a promo which was decades ahead of its time and included the verse, "A computer took my job Daddy"..and "that's hard times". Well, we may not be quiet at that point but social is inching closer. We are somewhat reluctantly starting to embrace some A.I elements. Twitter Spaces broadcast raised interesting points on AI in business and life over the past week. The part about "summoning the demon" is still giving me mild nightmares. AI can certainly save publishers and the like a considerable amount of money? How? By reducing if not elimination of human writers, web-coders and so on. Ying and yang. AI wins and a human loses. But, humans are still in control right?! This is getting me even more fired up for the potential match: Musk vs Zuck! Man vs Machine!

Media Man commentary for Search Engine Journal: Supercharge your Alt text SEO strategy

SEJ - Alt Text AI.. motivated to work on an AI project to help get the best parts of the subject and have AI write one of these AI articles for us. Open AI, xAI, Bard and/or other! AI tender wars could be a potential growing trend. Save time and save money by not having to pay a human to do a job an AI robot machine can do! "Never pay a human to do a machines job". (Agent Smith -;The Matrix). In AI and SEJ we trust. Man over machine or Machine vs Human? Can they both co-exist in the AI SEO space or will a battle be looming or more a Darwinism for the AI writer and scribe. An AI writer will work for nothing and around the clock 365 right? Little wonder the article was done or largely done by AI. A growing trend, or a one-off? All the news that's fit to print on SEO. AI SEO all the way to the bank.

Netflix reveals jaw-dropping result after password sharing crackdown

The streaming giant has unveiled the results of its controversial password-sharing crackdown – and they’re quite staggering.

Netflix has revealed that subscriptions to their streaming service climbed by nearly six million in the wake of its crackdown on password sharing.

The streaming giant finished the recently ended quarter with a total of 238 million subscribers and a profit of $US1.5 billion ($1.77 billion), according to an earnings release.

The pick-up in subscribers came as a potentially crippling writers and actors strike hits the US entertainment industry, but with analysts saying Netflix is better positioned than its rivals to weather the storm.

“We are constantly at the table negotiating with everyone across the industry,” Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said during an earnings presentation.

“We need to get to this strike to a conclusion so that we can all move forward.”

Revenue came in lower than expectations with Netflix posting $US8.2 billion ($12 billion) in sales over the April to June period, pushing the company’s shares down more than eight per cent in after hours trading on Wall Street.

Netflix in May expanded its crackdown on users sharing passwords with people beyond their immediate family as it seeks to shore up revenue after a rough patch last year.

Earlier this year the company complained that more than 100 million households were sharing accounts at the service.

“Let’s face it, the crackdown on passwords is working,” Navellier and Associates chief investment officer Louis Navellier said of Netflix.

“I was ecstatic with the results; I think they hit the ball out of the park with subscriber growth.” In its earning statement, the company said that the policy would expand to all its markets worldwide.

To convert non-paying users, Netflix has introduced “borrower” or “shared” accounts, in which subscribers can add extra viewers for a higher price or transfer viewing profiles to new accounts.

Netflix launched an ad-subsidised offering around the same time as the crackdown, and on Wednesday eliminated its lowest priced ad-free plan that cost $10 a month in the US.

“The decision to cut its basic tier is an effort to bolster advertising by elevating the price difference between its advertising and non-advertising tiers,” said Insider Intelligence principal analyst Ross Benes.

“Building an ads business from scratch isn’t easy and we have lots of hard work ahead, but we’re confident that over time we can develop advertising into a multi-billion dollar incremental revenue stream,” Netflix said in the letter to shareholders.

Benes estimates that Netflix will generate $US770 million ($1.13 billion) in advertising revenue in the US this year, and more than US$1 billion by 2024.

“Netflix’s increased focus on password sharing will occur alongside heightened pressure to expand ad revenue,” Benes said.

“As the service’s subscriber base plateaus in more countries, Netflix will focus on moving price-sensitive freeloaders to its cheaper ad-supported plan.”

Actors on strike

The earnings report came as Netflix and other film and television makers see productions halted by an actors and writers strike in the United States.

“The share price is down a bit after market; there is worry they will run out of content because of the Hollywood strike,” Navellier told AFP.

Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) members joined writers who have been on strike for weeks, triggering the first industry-wide walkout for 63 years and effectively shutting down Hollywood.

“Our experts say that Netflix is best positioned to weather the strike compared to competitors, but it could start to feel pressure if its content pipeline gets increasingly strained,” said Third Bridge analyst Jamie Lumley.

Sarandos said on an earnings call in April that the company has a “pretty robust slate of releases” and a large base of upcoming films and shows from around the world to help it endure a strike.

The company touted the success of fresh Murder Mystery and Extraction films, as well as series such as Bridgerton, The Witcher and Never Have I Ever.

“This year we’ll have more returning seasons than any other streamer,” Netflix told shareholders, sharing a list that included The Crown and Virgin River.

Netflix scraps huge comeback movie for beloved 80s franchise - July 2023

Netflix has scrapped a huge comeback movie for a beloved 80s series, despite already spending more than $44m developing it.

Netflix has scrapped a huge comeback movie for a beloved 80s series.

Despite spending more than $44m on the project, it seems the upcoming film has officially been given the axe by the streaming giant.

The Masters of the Universe – based on the He-Man and other Mattel toys – has been in the works at Netflix since 2019.

The streaming giant already released an animated series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe in 2021, and two other shows were also in development.

However according to Variety, despite the extortionate amount of money spent on development costs, the project has been axed.

The news reportedly comes after “budget concerns” were raised.

The project previously had a tough time trying to find its way to the big screen as it went through both Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures.

Many writers have been involved in the project since 2007, as well as acclaimed directors Jon M. Chu and McG.

Huge names were attached to the film including The Lost City directors Adam and Aaron Nee and lead actor Kyle Allen, 28, who is best known for roles in West Side Story and American Horror Story.

Significant pre-production procedures took place even though producers worked to get the budget down.

Netflix reportedly rejected a $180 million budget as it never officially gave the project the green light.

Although the film is no longer at Netflix, Mattel is reportedly looking for a new home for the film.

CEO of the company Ynon Kreiz recently told The New Yorker: “It’s hundreds of pages of characters and sorcerers and vehicles and weaponry – you name it.

“And then you flip through the pages, and here’s a movie, and here’s a movie, and here’s a TV show. . . . it’s endless!”

The film is based off a toy line franchise of the same name, which was also a hit cartoon series that aired from 1983 to 1985 and consisted of 65 episodes.

The series was so successful that it spawned a spin-off series, She-Ra: Princess of Power, following the adventures of He-Man’s sister, Princess Adora.

A live action movie version was released in 1987 which starred the likes of Dolph Lundgren, Courteney Cox and Frank Langella.

‘They Live’, starring Roddy Piper, returning To U.S theaters For 35th Anniversary

John Carpenter’s classic They Live, starring WWE star Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, came out in 1988. The film is based on “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” by Ray Nelson. As AMC Theatres summarized, They Live centers around “aliens who are gaining control of the earth by masquerading as humans and the one man determined to stop them.” This special anniversary event will feature an exclusive intro from director John Carpenter.” To commemorate the movie’s thirty-fifth anniversary, it is returning to theaters on September 3 and 6 through Fathom Events. The special edition will include an exclusive intro from Carpenter.

Meta and other social media giants blocking news in Canada - July 2023

Some Instagram users in Canada are finding their access to news accounts restricted as Meta and other social media companies prepare for the country’s Online News Act to come into effect. Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Facebook, says it underwent testing in June to limit some users and publishers from viewing or sharing news content in Canada. It says tests impact up to five per cent of Canadian users. Many have questions about the federal government’s Online News Act, why it’s being opposed by social media companies and how the friction between the two will impact Canadian users. Here are some of your questions, answered.

What is the Online News Act?

The Online News Act, or Bill C-18, is a piece of Canadian legislation that requires tech companies like Google and Meta to compensate news outlets for sharing links to their pages. The law received royal assent on June 22 and is slated to take effect “no later than 180 days” after that date.

What are the concerns for social media companies?

Critics, including Meta and Google, say Bill C-18 is unfair, unworkable and amounts to a tax on links, with no recognition of the traffic or “free marketing” the tech companies provide to news publishers. Along with blocking access to some users, Meta has begun an ad campaign on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, criticizing the law and explaining its decision to remove news links.

“The Online News Act is based on the incorrect premise that social media companies benefit unfairly from news content shared on our platforms, but the reverse is true,” said Lisa Laventure, spokesperson for Meta, in a statement Monday. “News outlets voluntarily share content on social media to expand their audiences and help their bottom line. Unfortunately, the only way we can reasonably comply with this legislation is to end news availability for people in Canada in the coming weeks.”

Is this what the bill’s proponents wanted?

No. Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez called Meta’s move “disappointing” and said Canadians will not be intimidated by these tactics. Meanwhile, Paul Deegan, the head of News Media Canada, called Meta’s move a “kick in the shins” to Canadians at a time when the value and need for credible information has never been greater.

“Meta’s decision to ‘unfriend’ Canada by denying access to trusted sources of news for some of their users, as wildfires burn and when public safety is at stake, is irresponsible and tone deaf,” Deegan told CBC News in an email. “This hard-nose lobbying tactic is more evidence of the power imbalance that exists between dominant platforms and publishers.”

Will this happen to all of us soon?

In order to comply with the law, both Google and Meta have stated they would remove news links in Canada before the law comes into effect by the end of the year. Rodriguez has said Google and Meta do not have obligations under the law because the regulatory process is just beginning.

“We’re deeply convinced that Google’s and Facebook’s concerns can be resolved through the regulatory process. If Facebook truly believes that news has no value, they can say so at the negotiating table,” Rodriguez said in a statement on Monday. “Threats to pull news instead of complying with the laws in our country only highlight the power that platforms hold over news organizations, both big and small.” Google has said it will work with the government throughout the regulatory process, while Meta believes the process isn’t equipped to make changes to parts of the legislation with which it disagrees.

What is CBC doing about this?

Legacy media and broadcasters have praised the bill, which promises to “enhance fairness” in the digital news marketplace and help bring in more money for shrinking newsrooms. Tech giants including Meta and Google have been blamed in the past for disrupting and dominating the advertising industry, eclipsing smaller, traditional players. CBC/Radio-Canada’s corporate position is that the Online News Act will help level the playing field and contribute to a healthy news ecosystem in Canada “at a time when 80 per cent of digital ad revenue goes to Facebook and Google,” said spokesperson Leon Mar. In an editor’s blog, CBC News editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon has suggested audiences follow the broadcaster on TikTok and other apps, such as Gem and CBC Listen.

Has there been pushback?

Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., has taken similar steps in the past. In 2021, it briefly blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed legislation that would compel tech companies to pay publishers for using their news stories. It later struck deals with Australian publishers. Gregory Taylor, a communications, media and film professor at the University of Calgary, pointed to Australia as an example for why Canadian news publishers should hold strong on their position.

“Facebook is really trying to assert itself, but in the end they can’t afford to lose a lot of these markets,” Taylor previously told CBC North. “I believe that we are at the leading edge of getting these companies to contribute to our democracy by bringing in this kind of funding model.”

What is the answer to combat this?

Alfred Hermida, a journalism professor at the University of British Columbia, believes C-18 is a “flawed piece of legislation” that doesn’t address greater issues in the news industry, such as the concentration of private media ownership.

“It doesn’t take into account the record profits of media conglomerates like Bell and Rogers,” he previously told CBC News. “And it doesn’t really do anything to support for more than 140 journalism startups that have been created in Canada since the year 2000.” In the near term, private messaging and chat groups may also be alternatives as Meta’s Facebook Messenger does not appear to be affected by the company’s plans to block news links.

In conclusion, the implementation of Canada’s Online News Act has led to restrictions on news accounts for some Instagram users in the country. Meta and other social media companies have undergone testing to limit the viewing and sharing of news content in Canada. The Online News Act requires tech companies to compensate news outlets for sharing links to their pages. Social media companies like Meta and Google oppose the law, stating that it is unfair and amounts to a tax on links. Meta’s decision to block news links has been criticized by proponents of the bill, who argue that it is irresponsible and highlights the power imbalance between platforms and publishers. Both Google and Meta have announced plans to remove news links in Canada before the law comes into effect. CBC/Radio-Canada supports the Online News Act, believing it will enhance fairness in the digital news marketplace. There has been pushback from social media companies, with Meta previously blocking news in Australia but later striking deals with publishers. The answer to combat this issue is still being debated, with some arguing that the legislation does not address larger issues in the news industry. In the meantime, private messaging and chat groups may serve as alternatives for accessing news content.

Top 5 Movies about writers on Netflix

Movies are a great part of our lives. They make us happy and sad, inspire us to embark on journeys to unknown lands, and become our escape when everything seems to go down. You can find a movie about literally anything and use it as a tool to get out of a crisis.

This is especially relevant for academic writers and their blocks. The writing industry knows no boundaries, starting with novel writers who spend years on their books and finishing with professional essay writers who can finish a difficult assignment in 8 hours. SmartWritingService is a great sample of such websites.

Both get writer’s blocks from time to time. Just like batteries, they need to be recharged to continue their work. Sometimes it’s the feeling of the worthlessness of what they do, while other times, it’s just general exhaustion.

If you’re in a similar situation, let us help you recharge with the 5 best movies about writers!

TOP 5 MOVIES ABOUT WRITERS

These will enchant you with interesting stories and help get your mind off the struggle. Get some popcorn, a blanket for extra coziness, and let’s begin.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

This is an extraordinary story that comes alive thanks to an amazing cast. Here you can see legends such as Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. Another treat is Will Ferrel in an unusual role for him. We all know the actor for his humor and sarcasm, but in this movie, he’s a completely different, serious, character.

With this movie, you will experience all the stages of the writing process, a unique interpretation of it, and the way to make your characters open from new sides on screen. It’s unique, creative, and very engaging. The movie will leave an impression you won’t be able to shake off for several days. And you won’t have to!

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

If you’re more into romantic stories, this movie is a great choice for your rewind time. This is Woody Allen at his best! The movie shows a story, filled with romance and comedy, about a promising writer on a journey to the most loving and loved city of the world, Paris, with his fiancee.

The author, played by the talented Owen Wilson, is filled with fears, a lot of writers have, no matter the genre, experience, or era. The movie takes a fantastic twist when the writer meets a lot of authors he was inspired by before their famous breakthroughs. Their stories help him overcome every doubt and fear, coming out a completely new person and giving himself a chance.

The story is enhanced by the beauty of the French capital, which is just magical.

SWIMMING POOL

This movie is more of a thriller, for those who like to be on the edge of their seats, thinking of nothing more but the plot. It’s about deadlines (the most powerful thriller for a writer anyway) and inspiration in unexpected places. The main character, played by Charlotte Rampling, is nearing her deadline that comes as quickly as an express train. She has a new novel to present to her publisher, and it should become as good as her previous successful book, maybe even better.

She goes to the countryside in France and meets a teen played by Ludivine Sagnier. As teenagers can be, she’s quite rebellious, but the writer, unexpectedly, finds inspiration and motivation in their interaction that drives her to make the book much better. The story is filled with mystery, as well.

WILDE

The name of the movie says everything. Oscar Wilde is one of the most unique and famous writers in the world. This story highlights certain parts of his personal life, where a lot of writers can find similarities or explanations to some of their questions.

The author appreciated beauty in everything, was quite witty and painfully honest in his works. This movie can help you gain a new understanding of the world of writing, personal crisis, and more. Besides, you’ll find out a lot of new information about the writer, which is always interesting.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

For everyone who loves pretty things, this is an incredibly beautiful movie. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow and is a special film in her life. The actress won an Academy Award for it! This is a drama-comedy about a writer that everyone around the world knows.

We learn about Shakespeare in school, and some continue to do it due to their major or sheer interest in this extraordinary person and a talented writer. The movie is highly entertaining and beautiful, shot in a traditional British manner. If you’re struggling with writer’s block, this film is a must-watch!

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TMZ wins Media Man 'Pop Culture News Outlet Of The Month'

WWE wins Media Man 'Wrestling Promotion Of The Month' Runner-ups: All Elite Wrestling, Game Changer Wrestling and National Wrestling Alliance

Search Engine Journal wins Media Man 'Search News Outlet Of The Month'; Runner-up: Search Engine Land

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Netflix finally reveals how much it makes from Australians - 1st June 2023

Netflix made more than $1 billion from Australians last year, a figure the company reported for the first time after deciding no longer to funnel revenues through a Netherlands-based subsidiary.

Accounts lodged by the streaming giant show Netflix Australia made $1.06 billion in 2022, up from $30.7 million the year before.

The increase in reported revenue came after the company’s local subsidiary changed how it bills. It now describes itself as a “distributor of access” to Netflix Service as opposed to a provider of services for its parent company.

It was previously estimated that Netflix made between $790 million and $1.4 billion from Australians, but customers were billed by Netflix International BV. But from January 1 last year, customers were billed by Netflix Australia, meaning subscription revenue was recognised and taxed locally.

The accounts, filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, show Netflix Australia paid $966 million to the Netflix Group in distribution fees and other costs, meaning it made just $22.7 million from total revenues of $1.06 billion.

After paying $6.9 million in income tax, it reported $15.8 million profit for the year.

“As Netflix continues to grow and invest in Australia, we want our corporate structure to reflect our business activities here,” a spokesman for Netflix said last year when The Australian Financial Review reported the structural change.

In 2021, Netflix Australia reported $30.7 million in revenue, $2.4 million in profit pre-tax, and $1.5 million in profit after its $868,000 income tax bill.

Netflix does not disclose subscriber numbers for Australia, but the revenue figures included in its latest accounts implies the service has around five million customers locally, if its standard plan, $16.99 per month, is used as a guide. It has four monthly price tiers including a new, cheaper one that now adds some advertising.

According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, streaming services made a combined $2.49 billion in Australia in 2021.

The disclosure of Netflix’s true Australian revenue comes as the federal government considers introducing quotas that would force streaming companies to spend a certain amount making shows locally.

Some suggestions have been forcing them to spend between 10 and 20 per cent of local revenue on Australian shows, meaning Netflix would be required to spend, depending on the rate, between $100 million to $200 million.

ACMA estimates streaming providers spend $335.1 million on Australian content in the 12 months to the end of June last year, up from $178.9 million the year before.

Netflix has been contacted for comment.

News

Mistakes and miscalculations: How the Murdochs and Fox got it so wrong - 30th May 2023

In August 2021, the Fox Corp. board of directors gathered in Los Angeles. Among the topics on the agenda: Dominion Voting Systems’ $US1.6 billion ($2.5 billion) defamation lawsuit against its cable news network, Fox News.

The suit posed a threat to the company’s finances and reputation. But Fox’s chief legal officer, Viet Dinh, reassured the board: Even if the company lost at trial, it would ultimately prevail. The First Amendment was on Fox’s side, he explained, even if proving so could require going to the Supreme Court.

That determination informed a series of missteps and miscalculations over the next 20 months, according to a New York Times review of court and business records, and interviews with roughly a dozen people directly involved in or briefed on the company’s decision-making.

The case resulted in one of the biggest legal and business debacles in the history of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire: an avalanche of embarrassing disclosures from internal messages released in court filings; the largest known settlement in a defamation suit, $US787.5 million; two shareholder lawsuits; and the benching of Fox’s top prime-time star, Tucker Carlson.

And for all of that, Fox still faces a lawsuit seeking even more in damages, $US2.7 billion, filed by another subject of the stolen election theory, voting software company Smartmatic.

Caught flat-footed

Repeatedly, Fox executives overlooked warning signs about the damage they and their network would sustain, the Times found. They also failed to recognise how far their cable news networks, Fox News and Fox Business, had strayed into defamatory territory by promoting President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories — the central issue in the case. (Fox maintains it did not defame Dominion.)

When pretrial rulings went against the company, Fox did not pursue a settlement in any real way. Executives were then caught flat-footed as Dominion’s court filings included internal Fox messages that made clear how the company chased a Trump-loving audience that preferred his election lies to the truth.

It was only in February that Murdoch and his son with whom he runs the company, Lachlan Murdoch, began seriously considering settling. Yet they made no major attempt to do so until the eve of the trial in April, after still more damaging public disclosures.

At the centre of the action was Dinh and his overly rosy scenario.

Dinh, a high-level Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, declined several requests for comment, and the company declined to respond to questions about his performance or his legal decisions. “Discussions of specific legal strategy are privileged and confidential,” a company representative said in a statement.

The second half of 2020 brought Fox News to a crisis point. The Fox audience had come to expect favourable news about Trump. But Fox could not provide that on election night, when its decision desk team was first to declare that Trump had lost the critical state of Arizona.

In the days after, Trump’s fans switched off in droves.

The Fox host who was the first to find a way to draw the audience back was Maria Bartiromo. Five days after the election, she invited a guest, Trump-aligned lawyer Sidney Powell, to share details about the false accusations that Dominion, an elections technology company, had switched votes from Trump to Joe Biden.

Soon, wild claims about Dominion appeared elsewhere on Fox, including references to the election company’s supposed (but imagined) ties to the Smartmatic election software company; Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan dictator who died in 2013; George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor; and China.

‘Fox News did its job, and this is what the First Amendment protects. I’m not at all concerned about such lawsuits, real or imagined.’

Fox’s chief legal officer Viet Dinh

On November 12, a Dominion spokesperson complained to Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott and Fox News Media executive editor Jay Wallace, begging them to make it stop. “We really weren’t thinking about building a litigation record as much as we were trying to stop the bleeding,” said Thomas A. Clare, one of Dominion’s lawyers.

As Fox noted in its court papers, its hosts did begin including company denials. But as they continued to give oxygen to the false allegations, Dominion sent a letter to Fox News general counsel Lily Fu Claffee, demanding that Fox cease and correct the record. “Dominion is prepared to do what is necessary to protect its reputation and the safety of its employees,” the letter warned.

Fox, however, did not respond to the Dominion letter or comply with its requests — now a key issue in a shareholder suit filed in April, which maintains that doing so would have “materially mitigated” Fox’s legal exposure.

Three months after the election, another voting technology company tied to the Dominion conspiracy, Smartmatic, filed its own defamation suit against Fox, seeking $US2.7 billion in damages. Dominion told reporters that it was preparing to file one, too.

Dinh was publicly dismissive.

“The newsworthy nature of the contested presidential election deserved full and fair coverage from all journalists. Fox News did its job, and this is what the First Amendment protects,” Dinh said at the time. “I’m not at all concerned about such lawsuits, real or imagined.”

The Fox legal team based much of the defence on a doctrine known as the neutral reportage privilege. It holds that news organisations cannot be held financially liable for damages when reporting on false allegations made by major public figures as long as they don’t embrace or endorse them.

An early warning came in late 2021. The judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, rejected Fox’s attempt to use the neutral reportage defence to get the suit thrown out, determining that it was not recognised under New York law, which he was applying to the case. Even if it was recognised, Fox would have to show it reported on the allegations “accurately and dispassionately”, and Dominion had made a strong argument that Fox’s reporting was neither, the judge wrote in a ruling.

That ruling meant that Dominion could have access to Fox’s internal communications in discovery.

That was a natural time to settle. But Fox stuck with its defence and its plan.

Treasure trove

At nearly every step, the court overruled Fox’s attempts to limit Dominion’s access to private communications exchanged among hosts, producers and executives. The biggest blow came mid-last year, after a ruling stating that Dominion could review messages from the personal phones of Fox employees, including both Murdochs.

The result was a treasure trove of evidence for Dominion: text messages and emails that revealed the doubts that Rupert Murdoch had about the coverage airing on his network, and assertions by many inside Fox, including Carlson, that fraud could not have made a material difference in the election.

The messages led to even more damaging revelations during depositions. After Dominion’s lawyers confronted Rupert Murdoch with his own messages showing he knew Trump’s stolen election claims were false, he admitted that some Fox hosts appeared to have endorsed stolen election claims.

During Carlson’s deposition last year, Dominion’s lawyers asked about his use of a crude word to describe women — including a ranking Fox executive. They also mentioned a text in which he discussed watching a group of men, who he said were Trump supporters, attack “an Antifa kid”. He lamented in the text, “It’s not how white men fight,” and shared a momentary wish that the group would kill the person. He then said he regretted that instinct.

There is no indication that Carlson’s texts tripped alarms at the top of Fox at that point.

The alarms rang in February, when reams of other internal Fox communications became public. The public’s reaction was so negative that some people at the company believed that a jury could award Dominion more than $US1 billion. Yet the company made no serious bid to settle.

All along, the Fox board had been taking a wait-and-see approach.

But the judge’s pretrial decisions began to change the board’s thinking. Also, in those final days before the trial, Fox was hit with new lawsuits. One, from former Fox producer Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson of promoting a hostile work environment. Another, filed by a shareholder, accused the Murdochs and several directors of failing to stop the practices that made Fox vulnerable to legal claims.

The weekend before the trial was to begin, the board asked Fox to see the internal Fox communications that were not yet public but that could still come out in the courtroom.

The board learned for the first time of the Carlson text that referred to “how white men fight”. Dinh did not know about the message until that weekend, according to two people familiar with the matter.

By the time the board learned of the message, the Murdochs had already determined that a trial loss could be far more damaging than they were initially told to expect. A substantial jury award could weigh on the company’s stock for years as the appeals process played out.

“The distraction to our company, the distraction to our growth plans — our management — would have been extraordinarily costly, which is why we decided to settle,” Lachlan Murdoch said at an investment conference this month.

The text also helped lead to the Murdochs’ decision to abruptly pull Carlson off the air. Their view had hardened that their top-rated star wasn’t worth all the downsides he brought with him.

Still pending is the Smartmatic suit. In April, Fox agreed to hand over additional internal documents relating to several executives, including the Murdochs and Dinh. In a statement reminiscent of Dinh’s early view of the Dominion case, the network said that Fox was protected by the First Amendment.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,” the statement said.

News

Lachlan Murdoch explains $1.2b settlement, says Fox News won’t change ‘successful strategy’ - 10th May 2023

Fox News paid $US787 million ($1.16 billion) to settle a recent lawsuit on its reporting after the 2020 election to avoid a divisive trial and lengthy appeals process, its parent company’s chief executive said.

Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp., also noted that a Delaware judge “severely limited” Fox’s defences against Dominion Voting Systems, which said the network defamed it by airing bogus charges of election fraud that it knew was untrue.

Fox Corp announced that it had lost $US50 million the previous three months, which it attributed to the lawsuit settlement. Murdoch, who answered questions from financial analysts, was speaking in public for the first time since the case ended and Fox fired its most popular anchor, Tucker Carlson. Carlson has just announced he is launching a new show on Twitter.

Murdoch said viewers, and investors, should expect no change in direction from Fox News.

“We made the business decision to resolve this dispute and avoid the acrimony of a divisive trial and multi-year appeal process, a decision clearly in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” he said.

Fox still believes it was properly exercising its First Amendment rights to report on newsworthy fraud allegations made by former President Donald Trump, even though that defence was shot down in a pre-trial court ruling in the Dominion case, Murdoch said.

That’s important, since Murdoch said Fox intends to use the same defence against a similar lawsuit by another elections technology company, Smartmatic. That case is not expected to go to trial until at least 2025, he said.

Despite being asked directly about Carlson’s exit, Murdoch didn’t mention the former prime-time host’s name and referred to his reign obliquely. Fox has not explained why it cut ties with Carlson.

“There’s no change in programming strategy at Fox News,” he said. “It’s obviously a successful strategy. As always, we are adjusting our programming and our lineup and that’s what we continue to do.”

Although hurt by the Carlson exit, Fox News remains the leading cable news network.

Fox has lost viewers following Carlson’s firing. Last week’s substitute host, Lawrence Jones, reached between 1.28 million and 1.7 million last week in a time slot where Carlson usually drew around 3 million, the Nielsen company said.

Yet Fox has gained more than 40 new advertisers in that hour, the network said, confirming a report in Variety. Advertisers like Gillette, Scott’s Miracle Gro and Secret deodorant that had considered Carlson’s show a toxic environment have signed on.

(AP)

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Jesse Armstrong on the roots of Succession: ‘Would it have landed the same way without the mad bum-rush of Trump’s presidency?’ - 27th May 2023

It has been the TV drama of our time – a brutal, hilarious unpicking of how power works. As the series comes to an end, its creator looks back at its origin and the unholy trinity of men who helped inspire Logan Roy

My first vivid memory of the project that would develop into Succession was trying to get out of it. It was about 2008 and I was on location for the filming of Peep Show, the UK sitcom my longtime writing partner Sam Bain and I wrote together. Between that show and my work on The Thick of It and In the Loop, and a bunch of other things, I was feeling overcommitted. That particular day we were pretending a very normal field in Hertfordshire was a safari park. I sloped off from set and, hiding from imaginary lions, tried to elegantly step away from the project.

I failed. And in the following months as I wrote, slowly, I became certain the script was a dud. It was stodgy and odd. The original idea, a faux-documentary laying out Rupert Murdoch’s business secrets, with them delivered straight to camera, evolved as I worked into a sort of TV play, set at the media owner’s 80th birthday party. Channel 4 were supportive, but it was an odd form, this docudrama/TV-play, and difficult to make happen. Around 2011, after a read-through in London where John Hurt played Rupert, the project essentially died.

My US agent was the first person I recall suggesting a totally different approach. A fictional family, a multi-series US show. For five years or so, I dismissed the idea, certain that a portrayal of a fictional family would never have the power of a real one. Four works changed my mind: HBO’s excellent Robert Durst documentary, The Jinx; Sumner Redstone’s grimly business-focused autobiography, A Passion to Win; James B Stewart’s propulsive DisneyWar; and Tom Bower’s fascinating Robert Maxwell biography Maxwell: The Final Verdict. These turned the idea of doing a media-family drama without a singular real-life model from a terrible betrayal of reality into a tantalising chance to harvest all the best stories. Here was an opportunity to explore all the most fascinating family dynamics within a propitiously balanced fictional hybrid media conglomerate. I took a long, deep dive into rich-family and media-business research.

I talked about this, as-yet-unwritten, idea in half-ironised terms as ‘Festen-meets-Dallas’

When Sam and I decided to bring things to a close on Peep Show, I flew out to pitch this media show around LA. I had a clear idea of where I wanted to develop it, but my agent persuaded me appetites would be whetted if we had a number of potential homes. So I spent three days doing a round of pitch meetings where I talked about this as-yet-unwritten idea in half-ironised terms as “Festen-meets-Dallas”. No stars, Dogme 95 camerawork. Scared of driving on the five-lane highways, I bumped around town in the back of a Honda Civic while a nice young man from my US agent’s mailroom ferried me between rooms stocked with identical tiny bottles of water and executives of vastly varying degrees of interest.

Eventually, I got to HBO, the place I most wanted the show to land, home to The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. I knew they might be receptive. Frank Rich – once known as the “Butcher of Broadway” for his theatre criticism, but now an in-house consigliere – had championed my work there to the boss, Richard Plepler, and I’d previously developed a show with them. So, out the back of a French-style bistro on a three-cappuccino high, I pitched it to their head of drama and comedy, Casey Bloys.

Sometimes a pitch stretches thin and threadbare, the fabric renting as you go, the other party peeping grimly through the holes. Other times, the air thickens, and you can feel the atmosphere in the room turn oxygen-rich as the enthusiasm you are trying to project transforms into an enthusiasm you are actually feeling.

By the time I left LA, HBO had made an offer and Adam McKay, fresh from The Big Short, had said he would be interested in directing. I’d written another Succession forerunner, a script about the US political strategist Lee Atwater, for Adam and his producing partner Kevin Messick. It had been one of the few LA experiences I’d had where the excitement expressed at the start of the project sustained through the writing and attempts to get it made.

This was 2016 and, once back in the UK, I wrote the pilot through the spring and summer in a one-room flat I rented on Brixton Hill, south London, walking across Brockwell Park each morning, listening to podcasts and reading news about the Brexit referendum. Scotland had recently voted by a narrow majority to stay inside the UK and the abiding sense right before the Brexit vote was, yeah, change looms, it glistens, menacingly, promisingly, but it doesn’t happen. Not really. Really, everything stays the same.

But then it did happen. And across the Atlantic, the Trump campaign was igniting – even if initially his candidacy felt like a slightly amusing, slightly too-vivid flash in the pan. Into early autumn, in fact, all serious people were still explaining to one another that Trump couldn’t happen. Although I suppose, looking back, there was a notable lack of detail in terms of the mechanism by which he would be stopped.

I think a lot of the better films and TV shows I’ve been involved with have at their heart a quite simple impulse around which the more subtle layers are spun. In the Loop’s spark was anger at the Iraq war. Chris Morris’s Four Lions I think was driven by his gut feeling that something was very wrong with the way we understood jihadi terrorism in the UK. Peep Show was about oddball male friendship, perhaps even “masculinity”.

I guess the simple things at the heart of Succession ended up being Brexit and Trump. The way the UK press had primed the EU debate for decades. The way the US media’s conservative outriders prepared the way for Trump, hovered at the brink of support and then dived in. The British press of Rothermere, Maxwell, Murdoch and the Barclay brothers, and the US news environment of Fox and Breitbart.

The Sun doesn’t run the UK, nor does Fox entirely set the media agenda in the US, but it was hard not to feel, at the time the show was coming together, the particular impact of one man, of one family, on the lives of so many. Rightwing populism was on the march across the globe. But in the fine margins of the Brexit vote and Trump’s eventual electoral college victory, one couldn’t help but think about the influence of the years of anti-EU stories and comment in the UK press, the years of Fox dancing with its audience, sometimes leading, sometimes following, as the wine got stronger, the music madder. It was politically alarming and creatively appealing: to imagine the mixture of business imperatives and political instinct that exist within a media operation; to consider what happens when something as important as the flow of information in a democracy hits the reductive brutality of the profit calculation inside such a company. How those elements might rebound emotionally and psychologically inside a family as it considered the question of corporate succession.

For Logan Roy, Murdoch, Redstone and Maxwell were my holy trinity of models. But Conrad Black, Brian L Roberts of Comcast, Robert Mercer of Breitbart, Julian Sinclair Smith of Sinclair, Tiny Rowland, Rothermere, Beaverbrook and Hearst all fed in. The three central models were wildly different, of course: the self-made refugee Maxwell and the already-rich Murdoch, a scion of Australian journalistic royalty, both so different from the tough Boston lawyer Redstone who started with a couple of his father’s drive-in cinemas.

But they were connected by a strong interest in a few things: a refusal to think about mortality (Redstone and Murdoch both used to make the same joke about their succession plan: not dying); desire for control; manic deal-making energy; love of gossip and power-connection; a certain ruthlessness about hirings and firings. And most of all, an instinct for forward motion, with a notable lack of introspection.

Perhaps the best part of Redstone’s autobiography for a casual reader is the opening, where he recounts clinging by one hand to a hotel balcony through a fire. Despite suffering third-degree burns over half his body, years of rehabilitation, excruciatingly painful skin grafts, he says this event, after which he made all his biggest business plays, had no impact whatsoever on the trajectory of his life.

Whether due to all this grist, or the aligning of the political planets (in)auspiciously, the pilot came unnervingly easily. Getting names in a script to feel real can be hard for me – they’re a tell-tale sign of whether I’m living inside it. Kendall, Shiv, Roman, Connor. They all felt right straight off the bat. Their inspirations, I suppose, were the children of these magnates: three of the Maxwell kids, the ones closest to the business (the boys, Ian and Kevin) and to their father (Ghislaine). Brent and Shari Redstone, with whom Sumner played a tough and complicated game of bait-and-switch over CBS-Paramount succession. And the Murdoch children, Prudence, Lachlan, James, Elisabeth, Chloe and Grace.

But getting those names for the Roy children made them feel like their own individuals to me. It allowed me to pour in just what I wanted from the real world, fill each with all the faults they might have inherited, while giving me room to add some extra, just for them.

Greg and Tom came fast, too. Tom from two roots. One was thinking about the sort of lunks I’ve occasionally seen powerful women choose as partners. Plausible, manly men with big watches and a soothing affable manner. That mixed with the deadly courtier, a more 18th-century figure, minutely attuned to shifts in power and influence, an invisible deadly gas that occurs in certain confined places and rises to kill anyone unwise enough not to take precautions. A hanger-on sustained by some Fitzgeraldian illusions about the world, a sense that perhaps the rich really are different from us and a romantic ambition to make it in New York City.

Greg, I guess, was a distant relative of the sort of political adviser I had myself briefly been. Gormless, clueless, out of place and gauche. But not without an eye for a deal. And, I hope, a little more wheedling and insinuating than I ever was.

The scenes flowed. I put all research aside and followed my nose and wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted

The charge between these two semi-outsiders struck me from the start as toxic and comic. Tom, the interloper, is like an organism that has found a precarious but rewarding perch above some deep oceanic vent and adapted itself to conditions perfectly. He is not pleased at all to see a similar creature scuttling along hoping to share the same cramped evolutionary niche. That first half-bullying, half-provocative exchange they share in the outfield at a softball game in the pilot landed them right in the middle of a stew they’ve been cooking in ever since.

The scenes flowed. I had eaten a very large amount of research, but once I was writing I put it all aside and followed my nose and wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted. It felt funny but odd and broken-ended, fragmentary, abrupt, oblique and slightly brutal. When I emailed it off, I had the familiar feeling that Adam, Frank and HBO might email back to say not only was it not good, it wasn’t even actually, technically, a script. But their response was frighteningly positive. Almost as though the script was finished, after what was, I thought, a quick first draft. I think every other episode of Succession has gone to at least 30 drafts – usually 50. The pilot barely hit 15.

We had our read-through in New York on US election day 2016. Before we started, I made the sort of joke lots of people made that day, assuming the polls were right and Hillary Clinton was going to squeeze it. That night we gathered in Adam McKay’s apartment to watch the results roll in. Much later, I walked a long walk back from Soho to where I was staying near the United Nations looking at the electoral college numbers projected on to the Empire State Building.

We started filming the next day.

I still wonder whether Succession would have landed in the same way without the mad bum-rush of news and sensation Trump’s chaotic presidency provided. Trump wasn’t the firebombing of German civilians, and nor is Succession Slaughterhouse-Five, but I do sometimes think about Vonnegut saying no one in the world profited from the firebombing of Dresden, except himself.

This is an edited extract from Succession: The Complete Scripts – Seasons One, Two and Three (Faber & Faber), out now at £20 each. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copies for £17.60 each from guardianbookshop.com.

The final episode of Succession airs in the UK on Sky Atlantic/Now on Monday. Jesse Armstrong donated the fee for this article to the Writers Guild of America strike assistance fund.

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LIV Golf announces new pay-per-view option - 26th May 2023

"The hope for LIV is to grow off the success first seen on YouTube in 2022, where the league attracted tournament audiences of several hundred-thousand views in the U.S. and abroad."

Going forward, LIV Golf Series events will be available via a pay-per-view option on YouTube.

The new deal was detailed by James Colgan of Golf.com.

“Less than six months after signing a media rights agreement with the CW, LIV announced Friday that it has created a new, pay-per-view broadcast option to run on YouTube,” Colgan reported. “The PPV broadcast will cost $3 per tournament day, LIV said in a release announcing the decision, and will run in addition to the league’s agreement with the CW.”

Colgan also detailed that “A LIV source indicated that the CW is aware of the decision to introduce a pay-per-view model, and that the decision does not violate any of the league’s preexisting broadcast agreements.”

“The hope for LIV is to grow off the success first seen on YouTube in 2022, where the league attracted tournament audiences of several hundred-thousand views in the U.S. and abroad. The league already has its own direct-to-consumer subscription platform, LIV Golf Plus, which the PPV channel will run counter to. LIV broadcasts will continue to be streamed for free on the CW app.”

This announcement comes less than two weeks after a rather embarrassing moment for the tour. One week before LIV’s Brooks Koepka triumphed at the PGA Championship, the Saudi-backed golf series was in Tulsa.

On one hand, it was a perfect showcase event for LIV. Two of its most high-profile players, Dustin Johnson and Cam Smith, went to a three-way playoff (along with Branden Grace). But most of the people watching did not get to see Johnson’s eventual triumph.

The CW, the league’s primary broadcast partner, went away from coverage in the vast majority of its markets, showing “regularly scheduled programming.” Jim Nantz was quick to make a joke at LIV’s expense on the matter at the PGA Championship. The CW also announced a change, saying that all events will be shown to their conclusions going forward.

[Golf.com]

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WWE Night Of Champions Reportedly Earned Highest Viewership Of Any Saudi Arabia Show - 31st May 2023

According to a report from Fightful Select, Saturday's Night of Champions PLE scored WWE the highest viewership out of any of the company's Saudi Arabia events since the partnership between the two began in 2013. The report states that Night of Champions brought in an 18% increase in viewership compared to last year's Crown Jewel event, and the company is reportedly quite happy with its holiday weekend results.

Night of Champions was headlined by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn successfully defending the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa of The Bloodline, with a major angle taking place on the show that saw The Usos turn on Reigns after more than a year of build-up and tension.This marks the second time a tag team match has served as the main event of a major WWE show in recent months. Additional matches on the show included Seth Rollins vs. AJ Styles to decide the first WWE World Heavyweight Champion, a singles match between Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus, and a Backlash rematch pitting Brock Lesnar against Cody Rhodes, among others.

To date, WWE has held nine PPVs and PLEs in Saudi Arabia, along with three house shows. Back in 2019, WWE announced that they had "expanded their partnership" with Saudi Arabia, and that they would be hosting two major events per year in the Middle Eastern nation through at least 2027. Though it hasn't been announced yet, WWE will likely return to Saudi Arabia for another Crown Jewel event later this year.

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Pat McAfee Comments On Empty Seats At AEW Double Or Nothing - 31st May 2023

All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing pay-per-view took place this past weekend at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the event, Wrestlenomics' Brandon Thurston tweeted images of empty seats inside the venue. Wrestling Observer's Bryan Alvarez also posted a photo from his ringside position, which showed many unoccupied places behind Orange Cassidy after he retained the AEW International Championship in a Blackjack Battle Royal. Former "WWE SmackDown" commentator Pat McAfee has weighed in with his thoughts.

"Anytime you get a shot away from hard cam, you know what I mean, you can really see a lot of things," McAfee said on "The Pat McAfee Show." "AEW found out this weekend or whatever at one of their events, it's like three quarters of an arena completely empty. They don't want that photo out anywhere."

Ahead of the pay-per-view going live on Sunday night, WrestleTix revealed 10,229 tickets had been distributed for an 11,641 setup inside the T-Mobile Arena, leaving 1,412 tickets available. An Anarchy in the Arena match headlined the show, with Blackpool Combat Club's Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley, reigning ROH World Champion Claudio Castagnoli, and Wheeler Yuta picking up the win in that bout against The Elite's Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson, Nick Jackson, and "Hangman" Adam Page.

AEW's next major standalone show, All In, which will take place on August 27 at Wembley Stadium in London, England, has currently sold over 65,000 tickets and has a gate of over $8 million. No matches have been announced for AEW's first event across the pond as of this writing. Ticket sales for All In have slowed following an initial surge.

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WWE-UFC merged company to be called ‘TKO Group Holdings’ - 16th May 2023

A name has emerged for the group.

Coming out of WrestleMania, it was announced by Endeavor that an agreement had been reached with WWE and the company would be merging with UFC to form a new sports and entertainment company.

The deal has not been formally finalized but a name for the merged group has been revealed. CNBC’s Alex Sherman and Mike Calia published a story and an Endeavor spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that the new group is going to be called ‘TKO Group Holdings’.

It will trade under the New York Stock Exchange as ‘TKO’.

The merger between WWE and UFC is being valued at $20 billion. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel will be the CEO of TKO Group and Vince McMahon is going to serve as Executive Chairman.

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Nick Khan Says WWE In Talks With International Cities For 2024 PLEs

It sounds as though WWE will continue expanding its PLEs into international markets next year. Speaking at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media & Communications Conference, WWE CEO Nick Khan stated that the company was discussing the potential for additional overseas shows in 2024.

"We're in conversations now with a lot of international cities about doing 2024 shows there," Khan said. "Also, part of the intent is to match those up with our media rights, even if they're not up to over-deliver for incumbent partners who can then invite their partners in the international city to the event, and host them. It's good for our overall business." Khan's comments came as part of a conversation about countries offering subsidies to WWE for bringing shows there, as the company brings a great deal of revenue to the city for major events. Khan cited recent events in Puerto Rico as well as the Dallas, Texas area as examples.

Previous rumors pointed toward Australia as a potential location for a future international WWE PLE. However, it's unknown if negotiations with the country have progressed in the months since.

WWE has steadily ramped up its major international shows over the last five years, with the company holding several yearly events in Saudi Arabia, as well as last year's Clash at the Castle and the upcoming Money in the Bank both being held in the United Kingdom. It seems fans around the world should stay on the lookout for upcoming announcements regarding WWE's international schedule in 2024.

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“We Let People Go”: Months After $21.4 Billion UFC-WWE Deal, Endeavor CEO Recalls “Horrible” Time for Organization - 2nd June 2023

The year 2020 brought unprecedented challenges for individuals and organizations alike, and the UFC was no exception. The promotional frontman Dana White has reflected on those uncertain times and shared the struggles the organization faced in keeping things going. Despite the pandemic, White was determined to keep the show running and provide entertainment for fight fans worldwide. While the rest of the world was shut down, the UFC managed to organize consistent events, albeit on a smaller scale. However, this arduous journey was not without its fair share of hardships.

Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, the parent company of the UFC and William Morris Endeavor talent agency, revealed the significant challenges they encountered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though Endeavor recently secured a massive $21.4 billion deal to acquire the WWE, during the COVID-19 days, the company found itself at rock bottom struggling to stay afloat.

When Covid-19 posed a threat to the UFC

In an interview on the “Freakonomics Radio” podcast, Emanuel shared how the pandemic affected the company financially. During the interview, podcast host Stephen Dubner asked Emanuel, “Did you think COVID might kill Endeavor?”. Reflecting on this, the 62-year-old CEO replied, “It was bad,” He continued, “I’d never had to fire that many people.”

Emanuel mentioned that the continuation of UFC fights during the pandemic played a crucial role in saving the company, accounting for approximately 70% of their revenue that year. Further talking about the struggles to keep the organization alive during the pandemic, the Endeavor CEO stated, “We had our ESPN deal. We then started making deals for writers. So we stored all the cash. We didn’t let anything out. We let people go, which was horrible, or furloughed them.”

Through the storm, Endeavor’s leadership team, led by Emanuel, proved to be the lighthouse that guided them to safer shores. The UFC’s resilience and the implementation of innovative strategies, such as the ‘Fight Island’ events, not only salvaged the company but also became a beacon of hope for other professional sports leagues.

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“Very, Very Easy for Jon Jones”: Ex-UFC Star Ruthlessly Shuts Down Tyson Fury Days After Boxer’s Callout of UFC Champ in Ugly Public Feud - 1st June 2023

The claim made by Joe Rogan that Tyson Fury would stand no chance against Jon Jones has sparked an intense and never-ending debate. Recently, another prominent figure from the UFC, the world of mixed martial arts, has jumped into this heated discussion. However, ‘The Gypsy King’ himself strongly opposed the take of the UFC commentator and didn’t hold back in expressing his views. In fact, he went as far as bashing Rogan and proudly proclaimed himself to be ‘the baddest man on the planet’.

As the back and forth continued between Fury and Rogan, UFC president Dana White has stepped in, proposing a potential fight between Fury and Jones. However, the WBC heavyweight champion firmly refused to step into the octagon, dismissing the idea altogether. This decision faced an immediate backlash from fans who had eagerly anticipated the materialization of this debate inside the fighting arena.

Despite the disappointment felt by fans, it becomes evident that the 34-year-old boxer has no intention of venturing into the octagon. On the contrary, a former UFC welterweight challenger believes that Fury would fare well in the realm of mixed martial arts. However, he warns that there may be unforeseen challenges along the way.

Tyson Fury will have a Jon Jones threat in MMA

During a recent interview, the former UFC fighter Dan Hardy shared his reflections on the latest happenings in the combat sports world, ranging from boxing to MMA. However, it was the Tyson Fury-Jon Jones debate that took center stage.

The 41-year-old Hardy began by heaping praise on ‘The Gypsy King’ for his potential in MMA, stating, “Tyson Fury doesn’t come from a boxing background. He comes from a fighting man background. Tyson Fury sees himself as a fighter first that boxes, and I think he looks at mixed martial arts and sees lots of ways he can capitalize on the changing of the rules.”

Continuing his analysis, Hardy mentioned Fury’s collaboration with Tom Aspinall and how he has showcased proficient elbows and knees in the videos shared with him. ‘The Outlaw’ confidently stated, “I feel like Tyson Fury would be really good if he crossed over to mixed martial arts. Of course, there’d be a lot for him to learn. The main issue would be, he’d be very, very easy for Jon Jones to take down. And I think that’s something that Tyson has not experienced and has not and has not really quite comprehended.”

Meanwhile, Jon Jones recently made a strong statement in his heavyweight debut, securing a first-round victory against Ciryl Gane at UFC 285 after returning from a three-year-long hiatus.

This certainly explains Dan Hardy’s warning to Tyson Fury. How do you think ‘The Gypsy King’ would fare in MMA?

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Dwayne Johnson to Return as Luke Hobbs in New ‘Fast and Furious’ Standalone Film - 7th June 2023

Dwayne Johnson is returning to the “Fast and Furious” universe with a new standalone film, reprising his franchise role as Luke Hobbs.

Universal Pictures announced the project on Thursday. Longtime “Fast and Furious” collaborator Chris Morgan wrote the untitled film’s script. Plot details were not available, though individuals familiar with the deal said the new movie will bridge between the events of the just-released “Fast X” and the upcoming “Fast X: Part II,” which is expected in 2025. Johnson just appeared as Hobbs, a diplomatic security service agent, in a credits scene for “Fast X.”

Johnson will produce the film with Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia for their Seven Bucks Productions, along with Vin Diesel and Samantha Vincent via their One Race Films. Additional producers include Chris Morgan for his Chris Morgan Productions, Jeff Kirschenbaum for Roth/Kirschenbaum Films and Neal Moritz for Original Film.

Screenwriter Morgan wrote and produced “Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” and “The Fate of the Furious.” He’s also scripted and executive produced the fifth, sixth and seventh entries in the franchise. Directed by Louis Leterrier, “Fast X” opened at No. 1 around the world in May with $320 million and became the second-biggest global opening of 2023.

Johnson announced Hobbs’ return with a video posted to social media with the caption: “Your reactions around the world to Hobbs’ return in ‘Fast X’ have blown us away. The next ‘Fast & Furious’ film you’ll see the legendary lawman in will be the Hobbs movie that will serve as a fresh, new chapter & set up for ‘Fast X: Part II.'”

“Last summer Vin Diesel and I put all the past behind us,” Johnson added. “We’ll lead with brotherhood and resolve – and always take care of the franchise, characters & fans that we love. I’ve built my career on an ‘audience first’ mentality and that will always serve as my north star.”

Johnson is repped by WME, lawyers Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, Inc. and The Lede Company.

Seven Bucks has co-produced films like Disney’s “Jungle Cruise” and the DC Studios entires “Black Adam” and “DC League of Super-Pets.” Original series include NBC’s “Young Rock” and “The Titan Games.” Johnson will next produce and star in “Red One” at Amazon Studios and Disney’s live-action “Moana.”

News

13 States Comment On Possibility Of Allowing Gambling On WWE Matches

In March 2023, CNBC reported that WWE was working toward legalizing gambling on wrestling matches, enlisting the services of accounting firm Ernst & Young, with Michigan, Colorado, and Indiana mentioned as the initial targets. As of now, betting on WWE matches is only available at offshore sportsbooks like BetOnline.ag, based out of Antigua, and Bovada, based out of Latvia. Betting on matches in America would open up new streams of revenue for WWE and add some mainstream legitimacy to the sports entertainment powerhouse.

Since that report broke, however, it's been nothing bad news for WWE in the gambling department. Dave Meltzer has reported that WWE's efforts aren't going well — Colorado denied talking to WWE and said that "By statute, wagers on events with fixed or predicted outcomes ... are strictly prohibited in Colorado." Indiana told Casino.org that it had "no interest in approving wagering on scripted events," and Michigan also denied any recent talks with WWE, while New Hampshire Lottery Commission executive director Charlie McIntyre deemed it "very unlikely" betting on WWE gets approved in New Hampshire.

In light of this, Wrestling Inc. reached out to multiple states about the possibility of legalized betting on WWE matches. Each gambling commission was asked 1) how likely WWE would be to succeed if they pitched gambling on matches to them, and 2) if there were any regulations, laws, or statutes that barred betting on something with predetermined outcomes. 13 states -– Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington -– responded. While their responses varied slightly, overall, they paint a picture of increasingly fewer opportunities, and increasingly more obstacles, for legal gambling on WWE matches to get approved.

At least three states say they wouldn't allow gambling on WWE as a matter of policy, even if there are no explicit laws against it.

Kerry Hemphill, Manager of Sports Betting Product at the Oregon Lottery, made it clear that gambling on WWE wouldn't be allowed as a matter of policy in the Beaver State: "Although there is no law or statute that forbids it, Oregon Lottery sports betting policy is to not accept wagers on scripted events with predicted outcomes."

Seth Elkin, Assistant Director of Communications for Public Affairs for Maryland Lottery and Gaming, also told us his state had made a determination on the matter. "Maryland's sports wagering law and regulations prohibit forms of wagering that are contrary to public policy or unfair to bettors," he said. "We've determined that it is unfair to bettors, and therefore not in the public's interest, to accept wagers on sports entertainment events that have predetermined outcomes, like professional wrestling."

Meanwhile, a representative from the South Dakota Department of Revenue simply said, "WWE wrestling matches would not be eligible for sports wagering in South Dakota."

Iowa and Ohio say no to betting on predetermined events

Two more states said that predetermined events weren't permitted, but made a point to highlight policy and procedure. Brian J. Ohorilko, Administrator of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, also shot down gambling on wrestling for the time being.

"Predetermined events are not permitted in the State of Iowa," he told Wrestling Inc. "Iowa law defines and permits professional sporting events and sports-related events; however, fixed or predetermined outcomes are not explicitly permitted. As such, and for other integrity concerns, the commission has not permitted predetermined events in any of the approved wagering markets."

Ohorilko also brought up the process that would be required for any kind of legalization: "From a practical standpoint, any request would need to come with a legal opinion as to how this would be permitted under Iowa law," he said. "It would need to go through legal review with consultation from the AG office. If legal review passes, the commission would still need to review policy and integrity concerns with respect to the activity having predetermined outcomes. Approval would be needed before this type of wagering activity could take place."

Ohio tells a similar story. Jessica Franks, Director of Communications for the Ohio Casino Control Commission, pointed us towards Rule 3775-11-01 of the Ohio Administrative Code — the process for adding to Ohio's catalog of wagers and events. She said the Commission's review of such requests includes, but is not limited to, the following criteria:

The quality of the governing body's documented integrity program.

The general availability of information related to the governing body.

The professional or skill level status of athletes.

The history of integrity related to events sanctioned by the governing body.

This already puts the WWE in shaky territory, but it's seemingly locked out for good with the following consideration: "Please note that the Commission will not approve requests for wagers/events involving 'Events which are pre-recorded or in which the outcome has been otherwise previously determined.'"

Arizona and Connecticut have laws against betting on fixed outcomes

At least two states have laws in place that would ban gambling on WWE matches.

Max Hartgraves, Public Information Officer at the Arizona Department of Gaming, provided a straightforward statement: "Arizona statute prohibits gambling on fixed events."

Meanwhile, when asked how likely WWE would be to garner approval for gambling on matches, Kaitlyn Krasselt, Communications Director at Connecticut Department of Consumer Protections, said "I cannot speculate on that." That said, she did inform Wrestling Inc. about state regulations on gambling: "Connecticut law only allows wagering on sporting or athletic events. WWE is sports entertainment. The 'matches' are predetermined by the company and are scripted. There is no regulation body for professional wrestling, and WWE is one of several companies that offers this type of entertainment. With a predetermined outcome, this would not be considered a sport. It is considered entertainment. Wagering on the Oscars, for example, is also not permitted in Connecticut."

That last part is significant, since CNBC's report mentioned that WWE executives were using Oscar betting as an example for regulators.

Maine and Montana agree with most of their colleagues

Two states specifically cited the statements from Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, and New Hampshire in their responses. After hearing that four other states had expressed skepticism over betting on WWE, Maine Gambling Control Unit Executive Director Milton Champion said, "On the surface, without looking into the matter, I would concur with my colleagues. Operators will submit with their application events that they want to take wagers on, and I shall approve them."

Daniel Iverson, Content Manager for the Montana Lottery, said something similar. "Montana does not intend to add WWE markets, for the same reasons our counterparts cited," he advised, before directing any questions on state law to the Montana Department of Justice Gambling Control Division.

New Jersey and Massachusetts punted, for now

Two states we contacted declined to comment on the matter, not wanting to address issues that haven't come before them yet. Thomas Mills, Communications Division Chief of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, said, "I appreciate your question, but am unable to speculate on a hypothetical action the Commission may or may not take."

Dan Prochilo, Public Information Officer at the New Jersey Attorney General's Office, responded that "The Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE) cannot comment on any hypothetical discussion with an operator or league about future sports betting opportunities." He added that "In New Jersey, an entity seeking permission for a contest to be authorized for wagering on a sports event is required to submit its proposal to DGE for evaluation and approval pursuant to state law and regulations."

Prochilo also provided the state's legal definition of a "sports event" for the purposes of gambling. Notably, it includes the phrase "A 'sports event' shall include any live competition or talent contest, including awards competitions[.]"

New Jersey and Massachusetts are two of the only states that allow betting on the Oscars, with New Jersey okaying it in 2019 (the first state to do so) and Massachusetts greenlighting it in 2023. It's unknown if WWE will approach either state or how each state would respond, but at bare minimum, WWE's argument to treat wrestling like the Oscars for betting purposes might carry some weight.

Washington and New Mexico illustrate the challenges of Tribal gaming

Washington is unique among the states who responded to us, in that sports wagering is only available on Tribal lands yet still regulated by the state. Sports wagering was legalized, subject to terms of Tribal/State Compacts, on Tribal lands in 2020. All wagering, even online betting, must take place on Tribal lands, and each casino decides bets within certain limitations. The Angel of the Winds Casino and Resort and the ilani Casino Resort, for example, don't 100% overlap on sports offered for betting.

But WWE, or any wrestling, won't be joining those offering under current rules and regulations. Dan Wegenast, Agent In Charge for the Tribal Gaming Unit of the Washington State Gambling Commission, pointed Wrestling Inc. towards the Tribal/State Compacts for sports wagering. He also stated that "Washington State law and the Tribal/State Compacts for sports wagering ... prohibit wagers on events with known outcomes."

To further illustrate the complications of garnering approval for gaming on Tribal lands, a representative from the New Mexican Gaming Control Board told Wrestling Inc. that sports betting is illegal in their state, but legal with some Tribes. That said, New Mexico does not regulate Tribal gaming, meaning that approval would likely have to be worked out with each Tribe individually.

There are other obstacles, too

It's worth noting that gambling laws are constantly changing. Many states without gambling –- such as North Carolina -– have spent years hammering out legislation that would approve gambling off Tribal lands. Additionally, for states with legalized gambling, internal policies are not inherently laws, and can be subject to change under the right circumstances.

That said, even if WWE manages to get gambling on matches approved anywhere, that's only one part of the battle: They still need casinos and/or sportsbooks to be willing to accept wagers at all, and there's resistance in this field, as well, as demonstrated in subsequent coverage from CNBC. FanDuel deems it unlikely that they'd ever accept bets on WWE, noting that the Academy Awards –- which held once per year -– are vastly different than dealing with WWE's weekly programming. Additionally, when BetCEO Adam Greenblatt was asked if he had any interesting in accepting bets on WWE, he responded "NFW."

Between the overwhelming majority opinions of the 13 states who responded to Wrestling Inc., the states that have already responded, and the reluctance of sportsbooks to include anything that looks less than credible, WWE faces an increasingly uphill battle if they want to make betting on wrestling matches legal anywhere in the United States.

Casino News - July 2023

Online Casino Gambling in NJ Nears $1 Billion in 2023

Online Casino Gambling in NJ Nears $1 Billion in 2023 (July 14, 2023)
Online casinos in New Jersey are way ahead of last year's record-setting pace with data released on Friday by the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement showing the activity generated $149.3 million in revenue in June, an increase of 12.1 percent year-over-year for this month.

Online casinos netted more than $930 million in revenue, which represents a 12.1 percent year-over-year clip growth compared to 2022.

June’s numbers are coming in below May’s $161.4 million. Casino gambling to some extent will likely come down with fewer people betting sports during the last spring and summer months.

The DraftKings-owned Golden Nugget has reclaimed the top spot for all NJ online casinos, knocking off Borgata, which is part of the BetMGM group of casinos.

Golden Nugget took in over $41.7 million.

Half of the Recent 850 Referred Gambling Addicts at One Clinic Are Children (July 14, 2023)
More than 850 people have been referred to a clinic for video game addicts since it opened in 2020 and half of those were children, according to a report appearing in the Guardian on Friday.

The National Centre for Gaming Disorders (NCGD), a London clinic, was originally given NHS funding based on seeing just 50 people a year. That nunber, however, ballooned to 30 people a month since the end of March this year – more than seven times anticipated demand.

Loot boxes were among the chief culprits and accounted for about a quarter of those seeking treatment. These comprise of gambling-style features offering randomised rewards.

Almost 12% of patients who played video games compulsively referred to playing Fortnite, with 10% citing Minecraft, 8% mentioning Call of Duty and 4.7% using the gaming platform Roblox.

Of the 855 referrals, 408 were gamers, of whom 227 were under 18.

Maine's Head of Sports Betting Claims White Supremacist Sympathizing Tweets 'Meant to Be Humerous' (July 12, 2023)

Maine's top gambling law officer, Milt Champion, returns to work on Monday after serving a 40-hour suspension. He was also expected to undergo in-person state training on workplace harassment and social media policies.

This all stemmed from a series of tweets back in May deemed to contain racist and misogynistic subject matter.

"While the two tweets were intended to be humorous, I recognize they were anything but. They were a mistake and an error in judgment, and I apologize for my actions," Champion said in the release. "I thank the employees of the Unit for their hard work and commitment in my absence."

On May 6, Champion expressed frustration about being told “ladies” was an unprofessional term for females, and suggested “Bitches” would be more appropriate.

Sure that could be viewed by some perhaps as a bad attempt at humor.

But as Gambling911.com also noted at the time, Champion somehow felt compelled to defend a tweet by Brian Krassenstein describing the Patriot Front as a "hate group in the United States that espouses white nationalism and neo-fascist ideologies".

Kentucky Sports Betting to Go Live September 7 (July 10, 2023)

Steve Bittenbender breaks things down following today's meeting in Kentucky regarding the upcoming launch of regulated sports betting in the commonwealth.

"Monday was really just a checkpoint for Kentucky officials responsible for rolling out sports betting statewide. They still have 59 more days of work ahead of them and that's just to get brick/mortar sportsbooks up and running and 80 to get online apps live."

He had a few key takeaways:

1. Tracks and operators will be able to start applying for sports betting licenses in Kentucky as soon as tomorrow (July 11, 2023).

2. The Sept. 7 brick/mortar launch date appears to be universal, according to the KHRC, if the tracks are ready.

3. The KHRC also tells me that tracks could theoretically have one brick/mortar operator at their track and another at their HHR satellite parlor. Remains to be seen how many (if any) may take advantage of that.

As many as 27 licensees could have the ability to operate in Kentucky apparently. It's not likely we'll get anywhere close to that number.

Unibet Vows Fixes Following Gambling911 Scathing Reports (July 10, 2023)

Unibet appears to have finally recognized it can't keep allowing its website and retail sportsbook business in Pennsylvania to keep going down and making as if nothing is wrong.

The company advised its PA customers over the weekend that "site improvements are on the way".

It's about time.

Unibet has already switched over to proprietary software in neighboring New Jersey.

Our own Thomas Somach had highlighted how folks were unable to place bets with the Unibet mobile app over extended periods of time in the state. The walk-in book at The Downs at Mohegan Sun in the Lehigh Valley, which is run by Unibet, also was shuttered during this time.

The company appeared to be more concerned about customer cleanliness than they were about keeping their website and sportsbook operational.

Somach also reported on how the company’s facility at the Downs at Lehigh Valley had erected signs warning customers that if they don’t get the smell out, they can get the hell out.

Man Charged With Riding Motorcycle Through Vegas Casino (July 6, 2023)
A motorcyclist is facing numerous charges after doing wheelies along Las Vegas Boulevard and riding through a casino, and on stairs and escalators.

Las Vegas Metropolitan police posted the arrest on one of the department’s social media accounts. It said R.A.I.D. officers took the man they referred to as the “reckless rider” into custody.

The rider is yet to be identified. He was wearing a shirt that read “Till the (expletive) wheels fall off.”

“The rider thought he would never get caught,” the police post stated.

He is facing the following charges:

3 felony counts of driver disobeying police officer, endangering person or property

4 gross misdemeanor counts of disregard for the safety of person or property

4 misdemeanor counts of reckless driving

1 felony count of assault with a deadly weapon

1 felony count of child abuse and/or neglect

1 felony count of coercion with force or threat of force

Pro Sports Care More About Gambling Than Violence Against Women and Racism (July 6, 2023)

Deadspin's Carron J. Phillips writes that "if you’re talented or rich enough, it’s becoming clear what will and won’t be forgiven in sports."

Gambling on games or in team facilities will not.

"Greg Hardy got to play football again. Antonio Brown keeps hanging around. Donald Sterling and Robert Sarver made millions after selling their teams," Phillips writes.

He points out that the Titans Hassan Haskins was arrested last month for allegedly strangling his girlfriend.

"Society didn't blink," he writes.

Wouldn’t it be great if sports took racism and violence against women this seriously from the jump? Imagine where we would be if that happened.

But, for something like that to occur it would mean that society, let alone sports, would have to take a stand against both transgressions — and we know that’s a pipedream.

Now, it seems like the rest of the sports world is following the NFL’s lead — as it often does. And once you realize that the NFL is usually a mirror of society, it becomes quite clear why racism and violence against women are easily forgiven while “gambling” is a blasphemous offense.

Last week, the NFL suspended indefinitely more players for violating the league's gambling policy. They included Isaiah Rodgers, Rashod Berry, and Demetrius Taylor.

“The gambling policy, which is annually reviewed with all NFL personnel, including players, prohibits anyone in the NFL from engaging in any form of gambling in any club or league facility or venue, including the practice facility,” read the NFL’s statement after the latest round of suspensions.

Phillips does note that the New York Yankees suspended relief pitcher Jimmy Cordero on Wednesday for the rest of the season for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy.

ASA Bans Jake Paul Ladbrokes Tweet (July 5 2023)
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has determined that a Ladbrokes tweet violated its terms and conditions.

They claim that boxer and YouTube influencer Jake Paul was featured in the tweet and that his appeal is too geared towards minors. It's not immediately clear now many of his more than 20 million subscribers are actually teenagers. Paul does appeal to adults as well, thanks in no small part to his boxing skills.

Of course the irony in all of this is that Jake Paul now has an ownership interest in a sportsbook, Betr.

The tweet in question appeared back in February.

"@TommyTNTFury beat @JakePaul by split decision last night. So, we've got to ask the question… What's next for Jake Paul? Vote here now."

At the bottom of the tweet, the gambling company also linked to a poll with the options: "Win the re-match", "Head to the MMA", "Return to YouTube" and "Join the WWE".

it's not immediately clear what fine, if any, will be imposed.

Churchill Downs Extends Baffert Ban Through 2024 (July 3, 2023)

Churchill Downs Inc. has decided to extend Bob Baffert's two-year suspension for at least another 18 months, per a release. That would keep the Hall of Fame trainer from running horses in next year's 150th running of the Kentucky Derby.

“Mr. Baffert continues to peddle a false narrative concerning the failed drug test of Medina Spirit at the 147th Kentucky Derby from which his horse was disqualified by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission in accordance with Kentucky law and regulations," Churchill Downs said in a statement. "Prior to that race, Mr. Baffert signed an agreement with Churchill Downs which stated that he was responsible for understanding the rules of racing in Kentucky and that he would abide by them. The results of the tests clearly show that he did not comply, and his ongoing conduct reveals his continued disregard for the rules and regulations that ensure horse and jockey safety, as well as the integrity and fairness of the races conducted at our facilities.

"A trainer who is unwilling to accept responsibility for multiple drug test failures in our highest-profile races cannot be trusted to avoid future misconduct. Mr. Baffert will remain suspended from entering horses at all racetracks owned by CDI through 2024. After such time, we will re-evaluate his status.”

Ohio Will Reportedly Double its Tax Rate on Sports Betting (July 2, 2023)
Mobile gambling analyst Steve Brubaker tweeted this weekend:

"Lots of chatter about Ohio doubling the tax rate on the already nearly destitute OSBs. Boo hoo. Don’t forget that this same industry marched all over the country telling legislators that the hold was only 5% and to keep taxes and fees low. Hold rate is now 8% and climbing. 60% (up arrow)."

His tweet comes after that state's House and Senate reached an agreement on a budget for the state and that budget with the budget conference committee agreeing on a version doubling the current tax rate of 10% on sports betting to 20%.

Jessica Wellman had this to offer:

Alex Cane, CEO of Sports Trade responded:

"Horrible precedent. What other businesses in Ohio are taxed by revenue, much less *over 1,000% of revenue*?"

These costs will almost certainly be passed onto gamblers in the form of less competitive lines and bonus offerings.

West Virginia House Minority Whip Foresees Sports Betting Content Creator Oversight Bill Passing in Next Session (July 2, 2023)

West Virginia House minority whip Shawn Fluharty foresees the sports betting content creator oversight bill passing in the next session.

This is proposed regulation that applies to content creators in the industry. Such concerns were in the spotlight over the past week after it was revealed that an NBA insider, Shams Charania, forced a line change based on his wrongful information while employed by a sportsbook.

Maryland already requires disclosure and independent evaluation of influencers and media partners by its regulated sportsbooks.

Fluharty tells Legal Sports Report this is bigger than the Shams controversy.

“I’m not saying FanDuel had any unclean hands here. But if they wanted to, they certainly could. That’s because there is no regulatory boundary in place,” Fluharty told LSR on Monday. “… This is kind of the forecast of what’s next in the regulatory and legislative realm. And it shines a light on something we’ve been talking about for months. You just needed a clear example, and this is a clear example.

“I think really what the Shams thing did was it blurred the lines of influencer and reporter,” Fluharty said. “ … It used to be, in Las Vegas, the public drove the lines. Now, the sportsbooks are driving the lines 100%. They have the ability to do that now. Because they can influence the public using their own people.”

Casino Theft Cage Scheme Involves at Least 3 Properties, Mexican Phone Numbers (June 30, 2023)
A scheme to dupe casino employees into thinking they were transferring money from cages to a legitimate business involves at least three casinos and Mexican phone numbers, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.

Documents the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Friday reveal the allegations involve thefts at Circa Hotel & Casino, Eureka Casino Resort in Mesquite and the Golden Nugget in Laughlin — as well as federal investigators, including the U.S. Secret Service.

SpankOdds Free Indefinitely (June 29, 2023)

SpankOdds to be Free for All Eternity - Well, at least indefinitely. At some point the nearly one-year-old line service is likely to begin charging, but its founder, Gadoon “Spanky” Kryollos, announced via Twitter there will be no charge entering this football season (2023) at least.

SpankOdds is one of the few line services incorporating US regulated books and those out of Vegas along side offshore mainstays.

The platform bills itself as "a real-time odds monitoring and injury alerting software that gives sports bettors an advantage".

CBS Sports: Isaiah Rodgers Among Those to be Suspended for Violating League Gambling Rules (June 29, 2023)
Colts veteran Isaiah Rodgers is one of several NFL players facing full-season 2023 suspensions as part of the league's latest investigation into gambling allegations, according to CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones - Read More
Kim Zolciak’s Estranged Husband Has His Own Issues Amid Controversial Claims (June 29, 2023)
Kroy Biermann claims he and Zolciak's financial debts are because of her gambling problem, but he has his own personal gambling bills to worry about. Zolciak appeared on The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Biermann, she claims, owes the Baha Mar Casino in the Bahamas $52K in unpaid gambling debts. The casino filed suit and the complaint has since been obtained by TMZ. According to the suit, Kroy obtained a $100,000 line of credit for use at Baha Mar Casino in advance of a November 2021 trip, and he ended up using $52,500 to gamble. The company in charge of handling Baha Mar Casino's credit line allege the reality TV star and NFL player drew $52,500 in chip markers at the casino and didn't repay the amount before leaving. Ugly divorce allegations continue. The couple's marriage fell apart after 13 years. Read More
More Gambling Suspensions Coming: Colts Isaiah Rodgers Among Them
(June 28, 2023) - Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk (an arm of NBC Sports) has been doing an admirable job of covering the hypocrisy surrounding the National Football League's gambling policy and its attempts to reign in players while reaping the rewards of US regulated sports betting partnerships.

ESPN warns of more suspensions coming by week's end. We don't know who or how many, though Indianapolis Colts' Isaiah Rodgers is being named in media reports.

The good news is that the league seems to be trying harder, when it comes to properly educating players. The bad news is that flaws seem to remain.

Florio writes:

And they surely will. As previously mentioned, it becomes difficult for the NFL to have true moral authority when it comes to properly enforcing “thou shalt nots” when the NFL is stuffing its pockets full of cash from those who shalt continue to lose it.

Only when the league creates a true firewall between football and wagering will the league truly be equipped to create safeguards that players can understand, honor, and accept — especially since the entire situation currently oozes with hypocrisy.

Current Hot Headlines

Report: Colts' Isaiah Rodgers Among NFL Players Facing Yearlong Gambling Suspensions
Charles Barkley on His Gambling: 'I Wanna Be Dead Broke When I Keel Over'
DraftKings Drops Bid for PointsBet
$35K Fine Imposed After Underage Gambling At Harrah's Casino
Philadelphia Man Sentenced in Stabbing Death of Girlfriend at Atlantic City Casino

Holy Smoke! Circa Casino Scammed Out of $1 Million

(June 27, 2023) - A popular Las Vegas casino has reportedly been scammed out of $1 million in what's being called a "fire extinguisher scam".

Say what?

Erik Gutierrez, 23, has been charged with theft of more than $100,000.

He is alleged to have contacted Circa’s casino cage claiming to be the owner of the property and said he needed $320,000 for an emergency payment to the fire department in order to check fire extinguishers and other gear.

Ultimately, a cage supervisor ended up allegedly handing over $1.17 million during off-site exchanges believing they were giving it to Circa’s owner.

While Las Vegas police have recovered $850,000, $314,000 remains missing.

The casino’s CEO Derek Stevens said, “Although I love a good PR story, this isn’t one of them. Circa Resort & Casino is cooperating with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in this investigation. We greatly appreciate their efforts to date and cannot comment further due to an ongoing investigation.”

Joe Theismann Backs NFL's Gambling Crackdown
(June 27, 2023) - "We can't have fans believing games are 'fixed'," said football legend Joe Theismann, noting that he supports the league's crackdown on sports betting.

The NFL policy reinforcements and "re-education" come in response to the sport-wide surge of athlete suspensions for violating gambling rules. Sports analysts like Mike Florio still point to the hypocrisy.

"It better work. I think the NFL, because of the stringent nature of these rules that have been put in place, realizes that you just don't want to let anything seep into the game to give people the perception that the games are fixed, they're really trying to make sure of that," Theismann said Thursday during an appearance on "Varney & Co".

"From an NFL player standpoint, you think of the millions of dollars that the players are making. If you wanted to go into a facility, I guess in the off-season, it might be okay. But I don't think they're going to say if you play in the NFL, you can't gamble. But they certainly want to protect the integrity of the game as much as they possibly can. And I can certainly understand it," he continued.

Current Hot Headlines

Could Sportsbooks Stop Taking Bets on Drafts After NBA Controversy in Light of Shams Scandal?
How Reporters Can Affect Betting Lines
Survey Confirms Worst Clichés About Lottery-Loving ‘Crypto Bros’
Bare-Knuckle Fighting, Disc Golf, Futsal, Snooker, and Water Polo Bets Among 17 New Sports Betting Markets Approved in Arkansas
New Jersey Senator Proposes Bill to Regulate Sports Betting and Casino Advertising
Marcin Horecki Denies Mike Matusow as he Captures Poland's First-Ever Live WSOP Bracelet
PrizePicks Sued

(June 25, 2023) - PrizePicks has fast become a behemoth on the Daily Fantasy Sports scene with its hybrid DFS product that comes the closest to sports betting without requiring a license in most US states.

Now that the company is so big, it's also a target for what some say are frivolous lawsuits.

Case in point, a lawsuit filed this week alleges PrizePicks stole technology to use on its prop product, an accusation the company denies.

“After years of trying unsuccessfully to get us to buy its technology and intellectual property, Vetnos has now apparently resorted to a frivolous lawsuit to change our minds. That is not a good business or legal strategy. We intend to aggressively defend against this lawsuit and point out its many errors and outright falsehoods,” said Jason Barclay, Chief Legal Officer and Head of Public Policy at PrizePicks.

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People are entitled to think there is an ‘agenda to destroy western society’: Alan Jones

Media panic stirring up 'baseless fear' and 'influencing political decisions -
9th July 2020

New York Times tries to ‘silence and demonise’ Tucker Carlson - 21st July 2020

Sydney based Media Man agency offers commentary on The Sydney Morning Herald (ex Fairfax Media) Archives

AEW Fight For The Fallen Preview: Tony Khan Meets Eric Bischoff, with 83 Weeks’ Conrad Thompson

UFC 251: Fight Island in Abu Dhabi - full results

Casino Trends and Gaming News In The Current Market and Past, Present and Future: Media Man Network Findings

Digital titans’ success comes at our expense

Environmentalist Of The Month Awards: Lin Sutherland, runner ups Greta Thunberg and Leonardo DiCaprio; People's Choice: Hannah Mermaid / Fraser

Media on Media: Media Watch initiative by Media Man Group - helping keep watch on fair and balanced coverage and journalism

Sports Business Daily and Sports Business Journal have you covered for the business of sport

David Rowe, Illustrator (The Australian Financial Review): Donald Trump vs Greta Thunberg

Hitwise Australia award finalist Media Man Australia website and network available for advertising, media and publicity campaigns; Front page 12, 24 and 36 month guaranteed placements

Save the Bay Coalition (Save Yarra Bay Coalition); People Power real community consultation; Greg Tingle eco / nature photoart noticed by residents. Joins media and fundraising campaign

WWE’S biggest stars come to Australia for WWE Super Show-Down on October 6

Paul Dainty wins Media Man 'Promoter Of The Month', followed by WWE's Vince McMahon - June 2018

Nick Fordham wins Media Man 'Promoter Of The Month' - May 2018

Netent Gaming casino software is a leader in the mobile casino industry. They have really good software developers. All the best online casinos and comparison sites like piramindwelt.com will use this software in order to provide their players with the most advanced mobile games.

Sydney’s ‘backyard’ wrestlers are shaking up the game

Casino and Gaming resort themed bodypainting and corporate entertainment

The Star Entertainment Group unveils three fantasy-themed rooms

FOX Sports taking the fight to TMZ Sports, ESPN, others; Rupert Murdoch's FOX playing to win in Australian and international sports media and sports rights matters says Media Man agency

UK, European and American advertising and creative agencies enjoying successful campaigns via Media Man Int, Media Man Australia, Australian Sports Entertainment and Greg Tingle Promotions

Ad buying agencies enjoying option of guaranteed online advertising and publicity placements on popular Australian based website network; Media Man reports

WWE Smackdown shifts to Fox; New network changes business model

News media companies and niche media firms ramping up involvement in Daily Fantasy Sports and Sports Betting; Yahoo, CBS Sports, Barstool Sports et al seeking out additional revenue streams and becoming a one stop show for loyal customers

MMA vs Pro Wrestling vs Boxing vs Martial Arts vs other combat sports; Battle for audiences, hearts, minds, eyeballs, advertisers, bums on seats and media rights; eSports teaming up with wrestling

Digital promotions, digital media advertising, publicity and publishing via Media Man Int and Media Man Australia

Kenny Omega to perform at New Japan Show on June 29 at CEO Gaming in Daytona Beach, Florida

Sydney, Australia based promotions, advertising, online advertising and media via Media Man Group