MediaFile

For what it’s worth…

Commissioners from the top four U.S. sports leagues — National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League — had a few things to say about the state of the newspaper business during a panel discussion today.

The subject came up when Sam Walker, The Wall Street Journal’s sports editor, asked the commissioners about the troubles faced by the Boston Globe, which covers one of the most sports-crazed cities you can name.

“I think our industries have been good for one another. We’ve helped the paper business, but clearly the paper business has helped us,” offered the NFL’s Roger Goodell.

The other three commissioners had similarly pleasant things to say about the business — not to mention of few bits of advice for their publishing friends.

“The important thing for newspapers going forward is they have to have content — columnists, stories, features — that you can’t get anywhere else,” said hockey’s Gary Bettman. “If they are just going to do wire stories of the games, there isn’t going to be a future because we can all do that as well and faster than they can.”

Boston Celtics backup guard Eddie House and his 7-year-old son, Jaelen, will be cast in a new show in an effort by the National Basketball Association and Cartoon Network to broaden their brands.

The Cartoon Network and the NBA said House and his son will be the first father-son duo to appear this fall in a short-form, live-action series, "My Dad's a Pro." The series will debut in conjunction with the NBA's 2009-2010 season.

The NBA and Cartoon Network recently announced a new partnership to develop basketball-themed content for a variety of platforms, including the Internet, mobile phones, on-air TV and video on demand. They didn't disclose terms of the deal.

It was a case of baseketball at the Sports Lawyers Association annual conference in San Francisco this week when the Chicago Cubs came up in conversation.

The Cubs, as most Media File readers know, is the pro baseball team being sold by Tribune Co as it looks for a way to dig away at its mountain of debt after it was taken private by Chicago real estate mogul and noted raconteur Sam Zell (careful with that link. It’s NSFW). One potential bidder is Dallas Mavericks owner and blogger Mark Cuban, who got quite a plug during the conference.

Thomas Ostertag, senior vice president and general counsel for Major League Baseball, was giving a state-of-the-sport speech to an audience of several hundred sports industry officials and attorneys. Here’s what he said about the Cubs: