Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson - What the NBA Can Learn from Formula 1, Why ESPN May Need to Pivot Too, The EPL Outlier and Apple's MLS Experiment

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Additional thoughts on what the NBA can (and can't) learn from Formula 1, areas for ESPN to improve in an era of abundance, the success of the English Premier League, and the calculus of Apple and MLS. Plus: Ben's fraught history with the letter A and Andrew's "production function."

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp and on the other line, Ben Thompson. Ben, how you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I have to take responsibility. I pulled the plug about halfway through our recording last Thursday. Not quite all there. I didn't feel like the tail ends of my COVID recovery.

But I am all good. I'm ready to go. So let's do it. Here we go. Great way to start the week. a little Sharp Tech. And Ben, I must say, you're looking great on camera. You look healthy.

There's color in your face and no fogginess in your brain anymore. So it should be fun. Well, we'll answer that second question about halfway through this podcast, but I feel like good right now. No promises. All right. Well, listeners can send questions or comments to email at sharptech. FM. But Ben, we are not starting with emails today because last week, after we had recorded,

Sharp Tech, you wrote an article called What the NBA Can Learn from Formula One. And I don't know if there has ever been a strategority article more explicitly directed at me and my interests. So number one, I want to talk about this article, but assuming you weren't actually writing a story explicitly for me, why do you think the NBA and F1 are important examples for the rest of the content business. Well, it's interesting because one of the, you know, I sometimes get questions, why haven't you written a book, right? And, you know, one thing is, it's just easier from, we're going to get, we actually

have a good question about production functions, uh, later on in the podcast, which is I, I think a Tyler Cowan term, which is basically how do you do what you do? And he asked me that question on a podcast, uh, you know, when I was on with on his podcast many years ago. And basically there is real value to the terror of daily deadlines where you sort of have to get something out. But the other thing that I've learned, there is a tradeoff there where sometimes I want to talk about broader topics, bigger things that are sort of happening. But it does seem to resonate more and have more traction if you can tie it to something that's sort of happening in the real world. And the tradeoff there is sometimes you look back. It's like,

well, okay, I think what I wrote this article is very important and timely. And there was actually a lot of comments about media companies, media generally, about streaming. All this was in this article, but it was framed as MBA and Formula One. The tradeoff there is on one hand, there's a hook for, you know, people like you. On the other hand, it's like, well, no, sometimes people miss there's actually more stuff going on here. But in this particular case, I just thought there was a really interesting way into this topic. because Driver 5 had just dropped, Formula 1 is coming along.

There are probably a lot of people in my audience who don't care about Formula 1, but they've heard about it. And that's actually kind of the interesting point, that they have heard about it, that there's something going on, and they are maybe intrigued or maybe are annoyed, but that there is a moment.

And I think the fact there is even a moment around something like Formula 1 that was completely non-existent on the American radar, you know, even five years ago, is interesting in its own right. And then you tie it to the general angst about the MBA and all the RSN stuff, which I wanted to write about. And so the, you know, it was a happy coincidence that appealed to you, but you as the stand-in for the normie, that actually is a validation of sort of the approach. So, sorry, that's a little meta about the article in general.

But it is something I do think about with these articles is sort of the trade-off between making it current, tying something that's going on versus trying to talk about broader things that are going on. Yeah, absolutely. And to frame it for the large portion of our audience that doesn't care about Formula One or the NBA, as a sports fan, I can tell you that F1, like at the highest levels, the reason this is interesting to me is because Formula One is actually a pretty terrible sport to watch live. And they've made it work because they've done so much work telling the story of the sport. in a creative, engaging way.

And you get to hear the team principles or basically like the coaches for Formula One miced up during the race. And it sort of gets you invested in the characters in a way that keeps you engaged despite the fact that like the first race of the season was over within four or five laps today. No, it was over within one lap.

Exactly. Verstap was up by over a second after a lap, which basically means it was done. Yeah, it's a really interesting point where this actually isn't a particularly great product most years. Obviously, a couple of years ago, that was an exception where you had this, you know, title chase going down to the last race. Yeah.

That was adjudicated very fairly in the end. And then, you know, but most years, like, you know, I was surfing a Reddit firm called Formula One Dank, which is a bunch of memes. Yeah. And there's one of the funnier ones was like, oh, thank God, you know, our oppression is over. And it was like Mercedes, like, weaving or whatever. and then Red Bulls there like, oh, actually it's just more under new management, right? Like, it's the sort of same same sort of dynamic.

But to your point, I was super interested in. Like, I'm super hyped that Alex Albon got 10th place, right? Like, that's pretty, that's pretty smart. And it taps into a broader point. Like, there's a existential problem facing sports in the very long run. Now, we've talked a lot about timing. It's hard to know when something will hit and when it will not hit, right? But the fact of the matter is when you and I were kids, we watch sports because there's

nothing else to do. Today, there's so much else to do. And so just in general, because there's so much stuff out there, you need to earn and acquire new customers. It's a customer acquisition problem. And all these legacy sports basically have their customer base for free. They never had to really try that hard to get it. They just could roll the ball out there and they're going to get folks like you and I growing

up. And that's not the case for anything new coming along. And the concern for these older sports is how do you actually adjust and shift and learn to earn customers? And you see this not just with sports, but with like streaming broadly, right? You used to just by being on cable, you would get, it used to be just by being on broadcast television, you would get huge audiences. Then even just being on cable, you could at least get people flipping through the channels. Now people have to proactively go and subscribe your streaming service. They have to proactively go and choose a show to watch. They have to proactively do all these sorts of things.

And there's this very real, the implication of the customer having more choice is that the customer, you as you have to convince that customer to choose you. You don't get stuff for free by default anymore. That's the big theme. And that theme is not just about video broadly. this is the internet in general, right? You go back to the newspaper example, which I sort of stuck that paragraph in as a callback to a lot of the early years in Chicherry

where I was making the point, like the newspapers got audiences for free just by virtue of existing, by having printing presses and delivery trucks. And on the internet, where anyone can set up a site with text on it, I am on Chattuckery competing with the New York Times. And I'm kicking the rear end of the Wisconsin State Journal,

you know, so a newspaper that I grew up with, right? because it's a completely different environment. And this is the internet is having this effect on industry after industry. And it's happening to video. It's happening to sports. Yes. And as far as sports and video are concerned, basketball is such a great foil to F1 because they're basically living the inverse of the story.

Because basketball, in theory, is about as thrilling as any sport in the world. But as you documented in that article, they've been bleeding viewers. for like five years straight now, and it's not clear how they're going to be able to turn it around. And so I want to read two passages that prompted some additional thoughts for me because I care a lot about basketball and no Formula One fairly well. So first, it would behoove the league and its partners, though, particularly ESPN, to study companies in sports that don't have as much differentiation

or as many structural advantages. what would it mean to make the NBA far more fan-friendly? How much return might come from storytelling and myth-making instead of simply playing to Twitter? So, number one, I'm glad you highlighted ESPN there because I think one of the NBA's greatest weaknesses is that they've entrusted the marketing of their game to ESPN, and ESPN just isn't very good at telling the story of the sport.

like ESPN spent a ton of money on Adrian Wolterowski, and they're focused on transactions and Twitter rumors and responding to like Twitter storylines and stuff. And it's like the entire network forgot how to use its imagination covering basketball. And you talked about it a little bit with John Kozner last week in the Stratory interview, the differences between David Stern and Adam Silver as commissioner. This is one big difference. Like from what I've heard, Stern was pretty hands-on. in the way he would deal with broadcast partners

and ensure that there was quality control across like the distribution networks. And Adam Silver, I don't know whether he's not making those calls, but it certainly seems that he's not been nearly as effective at maintaining quality control from like a distribution standpoint and a broadcast standpoint. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, well, there's just this broader challenge with ESPN where ESPN gained so much power, not just from having sports, but all the stuff around it, right? Like they had Sports Center, right? And they had all these talk shows that people would, that's where people would see games that they couldn't watch live. And it wasn't in the reason or wasn't televised or whatever it might be.

And there's been a real shift in the market where you can basically see any game that you want to. And so Sports Center is not really that important anymore. And this was, I think, a very, you know, this is a big deal back when, back last summer, when the Big Ten signed a media deal that did not include ESPN, that was unthinkable a decade ago because you would know as a college conference, your recruiting would be hurt

because if you couldn't promise your recruits that they'd be on ESPN, that they'd be on Sports Center. And now it doesn't matter because the actual media that matters for highlights and all that sort of stuff is social media. And that is network agnostic.

And so all ESPN has is live sports. And that's a very dangerous place to be because then the leagues know that. We are all that you have. And so they can extract that much more value from you because you're not bringing anything extra to the table other than just being a channel. Right. And so that's number one. That's a big problem.

The number two, ESPN's response has been the laziest response possible, which is basically, let's take Twitter and put it on TV. And like, that's like their segments is what's the controversy on Twitter today? And I think a better approach would be to myth make. Like, what's something that ESPN can do that Twitter can't? Like, you go back to like the 30 for 30 series, something that John Kosher brought up telling stories, like making something that is interesting, that can fill time and that makes people invested, right? It is such a miss for ESPN that drive to survive in that whole ilk are on Netflix and not on ESPN, right? Or is not part of their product because that pays off in multiple ways. Number one, it's great filler content, right?

And number two, it makes the games more compelling, even when they're boring games, a la F1. Number three, it just, it shows, it demonstrates your value to the entities you're negotiating with. So you have a stronger negotiating position. And they're just not in that place at all. And I actually think the other analogy is not David Stern. It's the NFL, where I think one of the most underappreciated aspects of the NFL is NFL films. NFL films is pure adulterated propaganda.

Let's be clear. And it's awesome, right? It's fantastic. They do it so well. And F1 does that also. Like the only stories you see about Formula One teams and drivers either make them look really cool or funny and relatable. And other than that, they're pretty buttoned up about who these guys actually are.

Right. They leave it to Twitter. They leave it to Twitter to make fun of Ferrari, right? Right. Right. Like, because Twitter is very good. at making fun of folks. Like Twitter is very good at tearing stuff down.

And it's bizarre that making fun of and tearing stuff down is basically the modus operanda of the league's media partners, right? Mm-hmm. Again, there has to be a fundamental shift of we don't get audiences by default anymore. It's not just sort of the default choice. I do think a bit about the NBA being down the last five years is important. Everyone wants to find their pet explanations for why the NBA is struggling. And the reality is the NBA's like hardcore fans, they have cable.

It's the events that draw in casual fans that are really suffering. And I think it's very hard to divorce that from the complete collapse of the cable bundle amongst casual sports fans. You know, the whole concept of bundling is compelling not because it's a good deal for the super fans, right? If the NBA wanted to extract the maximum amount of super fans, like you could charge you and I as much as they want. to, we're going to pay it. The issue is how can you pull up casual fans, people that would not pay for it but if it's there, they'll watch,

right, if it's the All-Star game. And right now, the All-Star game and the finals, to a lesser extent, it is on broadcast TV but you do need an antenna and you need some level of investment sort of in the product to even care. Like, they're not getting that casual fans. And again, this is a business

issue because the more you're into super fan territory, the more it becomes very clear in the value chain, who's generating value and who's not. And that will follow through in your negotiations. And I, like, this is all actually, ESPN's in bigger trouble in many respects than even the NBA. Because despite all this, despite all our criticism of the NBA, you know, well, I guess this leads to your second observation.

So I will not steal it. I'll let you go ahead first. Okay. So I'll read the second passage here. The NBA benefits from its calendar. It's the best inventory available for pay TV from April to June in particular, and ESPN and TNT need content. At some point, though, if the audience becomes too small, the numbers could stop making sense. This is where I come back to Formula One.

What impresses me most about the sport from a business perspective is how hard it works to get new fans. It sows the seeds it later reaps. This is the only way to survive in a media environment where you can't simply, reap the benefits of having lots of inventory for a bundle looking for content. Formula One has to earn its audience, particularly in the U.S., and it is diligent about doing so. So I have a follow-up thought to that, but I'm now very curious why ESPN is in even bigger trouble than the NBA. Well, because the NBA is still going to get a great TV rights deal going forward for this

exact reason. ESPN and TNT, TNT in particular, they have this huge debt load. They still make a lot of money, a lot of cash flow from the kids. cable bundle and the anchor of that cable bundle is the NBA on TNT. They're going to pay up, right? And you still have this collection of folks that are invested in live content. And so there is sufficient competition that, again, you need to actually put stuff on TV, right? You can't just only have a cable channel for football season and then shut it down.

And so the NBA, by virtue of the calendar, by virtue of still having stars are popular. And again, let's be clear, the NBA's audience is still much larger than Formula One. Like, just to put this all in context, the two graphs I put in the chart, the Formula One was measured in hundreds of thousands. The NBA one was measured in millions. So just to be clear about what we're at. That is a really good qualifier to all this. But the growth story in the United States, yeah, they're diverging lines on a graph. Right.

That's right. And so ESPN's problem and TNT's problem is what is the number one entity that understands that point? It's the NBA. right? And so you're going to have this negotiation where the NBA is going to extract every last dollar that they can from ESPN and TNT. And what is ESPN and TNT sort of argument? Oh, if you don't, if you don't give us the NBA, we're going to not put you on Sports Center. Well, who cares, right? If you don't give us the content, you know, we're not going to put you on TNT to be cross promoted with with what? And do you think that actually doesn't matter to the NBA? Because I wonder whether the NBA becomes less culturally resident without ESPN incentivized to push the NBA like 11 months a year. I don't think ESPN has a cultural residence anymore. It's all social media, right? That's, that's their issue.

That's why they need to invest in the creation of cultural residents, right? Look at the Formula One as an example. The actual entity creating cultural residents for Formula One in the U.S. is Netflix. And ESPN was benefiting because they were getting huge. audiences for a rights package they didn't pay very much for, but then formula comes back and renegotiates the rights package and suddenly ESPN's paying a whole lot more money. Yeah. Right?

And so the, I think they need to view their mission and their role as we need to replace this sports center component of cultural creation that adds, because, you know, sports isn't just about the hardcore fans going to watch every game. It's like, you need FOMO. You want people to feel like they're missing. out on something that important that's going on. You need to make people care. And, you know, that's a task and a role that the weeks do need to work on. They need to be better on. But if ESPN wants to maintain negotiating leverage, they have to get better at it too.

And when you look at ESPN and talk about myth making, I think there are two challenges facing ESPN and the NBA. Number one, unlike Formula One drivers, all these NBA superstars are already in the United States and are already making $500 million. Yeah, Formula One had nothing to lose, right? There was a huge upside to opening up to wedding drivers to vibe make you look silly, to manufacture fights, you know, and yet 401 drivers would get annoyed about it. But at the end of the day, you know, the evidence was in their pocketbooks. And the F1 leadership can go to the drivers and the team principles and say, look, I mean,

the economic potential here is sky high. I understand this is a little bit inconvenient. but the drivers and the teams, they all get it. Whereas if you go to NBA superstars and say, I understand you're a little bit inconvenienced by having to do X, Y, or Z. Now I use X, Y, Z on this podcast. But they'll say, look, I'm already making $300 million from Nike and $200 million from my team.

I feel like we're doing fine. I'm not going to strain myself, put myself out there, potentially look bad. Like, it's all part of it. But that's also why this is an interesting. broader lesson, right? Yes, that's an example of why incumbents, of why the dominant entities fail over time, because they end up having too much to lose. It goes back to sort of our Google discussion before, where you become incapacitated

and unable to make decisions because the downside risk is so much higher, whereas there's very little that seems to move the needle on the top end. And it's the exact same thing here, right? Like, you just articulated why large successful entities don't adjust, why they sort of can't Can't change. Downstream of our Google conversation a week ago, this is also, if we're talking myth-making, it's a discrete point. The Formula One drivers are less active on social media, and they do far less media than

their American athlete counterparts. They're more honest when they do sit down with the reporter, so some of it's compelling. But as far as myth-making is concerned, it actually helps to have stars who aren't tweeting every single thought. Quality over quantity. Exactly. And maintaining a little bit of mystery allows fans and customers to project their own values onto you. And so that's just a kind of a weird dynamic where social media creates room for like over exposure and makes it harder to build up stars in the way, you know, Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant were built up 20 or 30 years ago. Yeah, I would go back to sort of my articulation.

of why I like Max for Stop and, you know, very early on in our podcast thing, I completely projected my own story onto him, right? Right? And the reality is every time we get more and more max exposure that I feel more and more ashamed of that sort of analogy. So yes, please cut it out. I want to keep my mystery. Okay.

And then the other aspect that I wanted to ask you about that I have always found fascinating, F1 in 2018, after Liberty Media bought them, they gave away the rights to ESPN for free initially. And then it was very cheap after that. I think it was like $5 million per year. And then this last deal, they were offered $75 million a year from ESPN, but $100 million a year from Amazon Prime. And interestingly enough, they insisted on going with ESPN,

and part of their deal with ESPN guarantees them a fixed number of races that are broadcast on ABC, not ESPN. And I just find it interesting that they are using new media to engage fans and create new fans. But at the end of the day, as far as the actual races are concerned, traditional media and network channels are like far better in their mind than going to a streaming service and sort of gating it off that way. It's an excellent point. Like you still like this gets back to the broader point about when when everyone had cable, that was really the glory years because you got the big question. is if you put a gate in front of something, you're going to get fewer the casual fans.

But if everyone has cable, it's not a gate. You're getting paid by the casual fans. It was such a brilliant model. And this number one, it speaks to the luxury of being the challenger. Because at the end of the age, $75 million is a whole lot more than $5 million. And it's easier to forego that $25 million in the interest of growing the sport in the long run. Say, like, more people have access will be on broadcast TV. Number two, one of the most brilliant things the NFL did is they always.

kept their games on broadcast TV. And they've been super disciplined about that. And, you know, they have some exceptions with like, like, ESPN, but even when the, the ESPN games came along, which was made ESPN as a network, but it's like 1987, they in that deal said, okay, it's on ESPN, but the game has to be broadcast over the air and the markets of the teams that are in the game. Because we will always make sure that your team is available. And, like, that's that, I'm sure that costs them some money. But the long-term return in building, like, lifelong fanships is more than worth it. And I think one of the big problems the NBA did was basically become a cable-only league. And that was super, super profitable when everyone had cable, but they're really starting to pay the price now.

And yeah, there's some games on ABC, but like you're, you get to the final. Sure, that's on, that's on broadcast TV. But if you haven't been watching anything all year, why do you care? Why do you have any interest? And why aren't there games? on ABC all year long. It's like they're scared of their own shadow until football season ends,

but why isn't there a Wednesday night basketball that starts in October when the season actually begins? And granted, all of it would be more compelling if they condense the schedule at some point. But that's where you're losing out on an opportunity to sort of create new fans. And as you said, that is going to be the challenge

for everybody going forward, because everyone is consuming content and different places. And so people are going to, people, businesses and leagues are going to have to seek out where like the most common gathering areas are. And I think network channels are still available to almost everybody. Yeah, this is an interesting point. It's still better to be on ESPN to be on a streaming service, right?

And it's even better to be on a broadcast channel than to be on ESPN. And that is an interesting point in something that ESPN can leverage. And there's this really interesting report from CNBC, about what Disney might try to do with ESPN, which is basically make the ESPN app like the place to go for sports. And what that means is not by acquiring every sports rights, but the ESPN app would link out to the T&T app

to watch a game that's there or link out to another channel to watch the game that's there. And this idea is, okay, let's accept the reality that these rights are going to be spread around. The rights being spread around is problematic. because customers don't know where to find stuff, right? You just go to the channel guide and you can find the game. Now you have to download the app.

You have to find the app. And there's like a collection of websites that are like help you find the right place. It's a disaster. It's a real struggle. Okay, we have a mutual friend who is talking up how great the Fox Big Ten deal is. And it is great when the Big Ten games are actually on Fox. But when they're not on Fox, the broadcast channel, it's really hard for me to remember. like where Fox Sports is and go find the games just because it's it's muscle memory with ESPN and it's not with any of these other you know a la carte options throughout the rest of sports media right and one of the things like on dithering my co-ocean gruber is talking about his dad didn't watch a single Thursday night game last year because he just couldn't be bothered to think like Amazon Prime app like what's an app right the struggle is real right and so this idea which I love this idea

I think actually I love it so much. I'm actively annoyed that I did not think about it and propose it before this story came out. The idea where you're there want to work with leagues and other channels to basically say, hey, let's build a hub. Everyone knows ESPN. We can all acknowledge that. We will help direct customers to your app because they will know this is where you go for sports. And those rights don't necessarily need to be owned by ESPN. Now, of course, they want to sell subscriptions and be like a marketplace for.

like if you don't have a subscription to XYZ, there's your XYZ, you'll buy it from us and I'm sure they want to take a skim of it, just like the app store. But again, that's a tradeoff that entities will make because customer acquisition is the challenge. That is what is hard. And this sort of, you know,

I think this is a really interesting and compelling place to go where ESPN needs to invest in is just the brand equity of ESPN. And part of that is not crapping over the brand equity by just playing to Twitter, which I think has been a real problem, particularly with NBA coverage over the last five years. But also it's how can we actually leverage this in the new world? If the challenge of the new world is customer acquisition and discovery, right? That's the whole, that's the internet. It's all about discovery. It's not about distribution.

Distribution is free. That's why the world's different. If a world of discovery, how can we solve that problem in a way that it's a way that it's, is beneficial to everyone in the ecosystem. I think that's a very compelling place for ESPN to go. Okay. Well, we're going to link that article in the show notes. And I want to hit a couple quick questions before we move on and close the book on our

sports business mini series here. Yeah. And I just want to emphasize. I know there's some people like, I'm not an American or I don't care about sports. But this stuff is 100% applicable to basically all of media. And it's downstream of how the internet funding. fundamentally changes businesses, changes things. And you go to like SaaS, right?

Software as a service, super compelling. You can run, you can, you know, set up a service. You don't have to distribute software. It's like, in theory, it's like, oh, just build a SaaS company and people will come. People don't come. The challenge now is actually acquiring customers. It's how do you actually people up? Why does Microsoft have an advantage?

Because they're already sort of a default choice and they can work backwards into it. It's the exact same dynamics that we're seeing. being here. Well, and to that end, our third team member, Duman, was texting me about this, and he asked me to read this on the show. In reading Ben's note about the NBA, I'm reminded of everything Ben has written about Intel over the years. Ben was writing for years about how Intel should be making dramatic changes to their business model long before there are any alarm bells showing up in financial reports, given how long-term media rights deals are and how relatively long CBA agreements are between owners and players, are we looking at an Intel moment

for the NBA? And then I have a related question. Was there anything Intel leadership could have done that would have staved off what's happened over the last few years and could have done without alienating like shareholders in the short term? Well, that's basically the issue. I mean, what Intel should, I mean, well, number one, they should have, you know, had a commitment to efficiency and not just peer performance ages ago. But that was core to Intel, right? And they should have, you know, gotten in on the iPhone, but that's downstream of having commitment to efficiency and not just performance, right?

There's all these sorts of issues. I think the one I'm going to choose just because Stratectary was around, I could write about it. It was like, I think my second or third ever article is like Intel needs to get into the foundry business because in the long run, they're not going to have sufficient volume to make these massive investments, these new things. And that is highly different. going forward. No one else is going to build a foundry other than TSM, you know, TSM and

Samsung. It's a consolidating industry, whereas, you know, your Intel's distinction used to be their integration of design and manufacturing. That's going away. And so basically, Pat Galsinger's strategy is exactly what I wrote they should do, but he did it a decade later. It's so much more difficult when you're already in the hole. But to your point, that decade was one of massive stock return of massive sort of appreciation of the stock, huge returns, tons of profits. And it's just sort of like this is a general theme of how hard it is when you're on top to make fundamental changes. It absolutely applies to the NBA, but the NBA's Intel moment was in 2015. That was when the NBA signed a new media deal that dramatically increased, like

tripled their value of their national TV contracts. And what they should have done at that point is reduce the schedule. Realize we're facing massive competition. It used to be we had a big benefit from tons of games because we get more fans and we could fill out our RSNs. In the long run, we have so much competition. We have to make our games more valuable. We have to make sure our players are going to play in every game.

We need to make sure we can have sort of highlight games. And yes, that's going to cause short-term pain by losing gate revenue. And our RSN partners are going to be mad. But our RSN partners are screwed in the long run. And we can do this by, we could still have an overall increase by just using this extra money to smooth out, if I can use the term, the loss and gate revenue and all those sorts of things. That was the moment to do it. And they didn't. They just took the money.

And this is the mistake that established entities make again and again is that when push comes to shove, well, things are good. When they have the capacity to make changes, they never do. they just take the money. And the NBA took the money. And now when the problems are clear and they're having declining viewership and it's obvious they have this huge load management problem. And there's no real reason to watch a regular season NBA game if you're a casual fan. They're stuck, right? Yeah.

Now their next deal is probably going to be up and they should use that opportunity to make these changes. But it's up in the context of their RSNs having a big problem and going bankrupt. So it's getting more watch. Probably. It's not going to be as up as it could be. Now the surplus has to cover those losses, right? Exactly. Exactly.

And it's only going to get more and more difficult over time. And the unfortunate reality is, as a fan of the NBA, you have lots of structural issues. One big issue is the players, you have to collectively bargain this. The players get 50% of the revenue. And the players, they only play a few years, right? And so they have no incentive to invest in the long-term health of the sport. That's not a criticism at all. It's 100% rational.

right? You should be doing what's optimal for your career. Absolutely. And basically, they are analogous to the Intel shareholders that, you know, Adam Silver has to answer to. And so are the owners. And any commissioner, I don't think Silver is the right commissioner for this moment because. Right. This gets to the question like wartime CEOs versus peacetime CEOs. Exactly. Right. Like his whole modus operanda is to make everybody happy. Right. Like that's sort of the default. And at the end of the day, like there needs to be some serious sacrifice. for the long-term good of the sport.

And I have zero faith that that's going to happen. Yeah. I don't think he's the right person to meet the moment and get everybody in line on both sides of the player owner dispute. Which, again, goes back to like the Google question, right? I mean, I think Sunropichai, a very nice guy seems to get everyone going along. Is he the right person for this moment in time and intel when you might need to knock some heads together?

One of the sort of canonical books in Silicon Valley is Andy Grove's sort of autobiography, only the paranoid survive. And he was, you know, it's funny. Like he'd probably be the sort of CEO who is glorified in Silicon Valley lore and would probably be canceled today because he was a total asshole. Right? And like, but the problem, Intel's core problem is they stopped being paranoid. Like that's like they literally forgot his maxim.

And the NBA was not sufficiently paranoid. And yeah, sure, everyone's waking up after an all-star game in 2023. three, but if you're waking up because of the impact of stuff that happened a long time ago. Well, and from what I understand, David Stern was always paranoid and would wake up and, like, call NBC and scream at them if they made a mistake broadcasting a game. And so I think that's going to be necessary going forward. Another note we got from James, I would be interested in your thoughts on the English Premier League, which has continued to increase in popularity, despite sharing a few characters.

characteristics of the NBA and Major League Baseball. Each team plays at least 38 games a season, and players do get rested on occasion as well. So I read this only to note that in the context of sports business and media rights and all these different contracts, football in America and soccer in Europe are in a completely different category because of the cultural addiction to those two sports. And so it's almost like comparing like a dog and a lion. Like there's just two different things entirely. The story of EPL is interesting. There's a book called the club. That's good. The EPL one is very interesting. There is an aspect of path dependence to all this. It's like how did you end up where you are? Like for example, the EPL has real stakes because

there's not just the four or five teams that could be for the title, but there's relegation on the bottom end, right? And why is their relegation? Well, because soccer came up. There was a bunch of clubs that started out and they sort of over time form these different divisions. And the Premier League, you know, was formed, what, 25 years ago or whatever it might be. And that's how you end up there. You are never in a million years getting relegation in the NBA because owners are buying, it started as a collective and the owners are buying into their teams with the

assumption that they get their share of all the TV money. even if they have a terrible team, they're going to make a lot of money, right? No one is going to, because, and if you want changes, the owners have to vote for it. No one is going to vote for taking on the risk that my team, it's the same as the player issue, right? It's not in their self-interest at all. And so that's a fundamental sort of obstacle to change. So that's number one. Number two, the, you didn't have the, the, you have a very different television situation in the UK in general.

Obviously, you have the BBC, which is, you know, you funded via, via tax. But you had a much earlier shift to basically, you know, Sky Sports was, you know, in some respect, you know, this whole satellite thing, we have direct to you, whatever, no, but that was sort of the dominant way to deliver. And they built their business by getting EPL rights, right? And they, and so you have this situation in the UK where you basically have a sports bundle already, is what is do you subscribe to Star or do you not? And if you do, you get all of it. And so you already have this big segregation of you're either a sports subscriber or you're not a sports subscriber. That's where I think the U.S. is going, right, where the cable bundle is basically the sports bundle. But it's sort of like the inverse where the, you know, the, the EPL came up from this broad democratization of club sports that formed into a league.

In the U.S., you had this broad democratization of content that was in the cable bundle. And it's sort of filtering into this thing that it might end up looking like the U.K. But the U.K. was already at this sports only thing. The other difference is the international market for soccer is fundamentally different. than the international market for basketball because of size. The U.S. will always be the largest market for basketball because it's the largest country. All the growth that the EPL gets from international audiences is meaningfully accrued to the bottom line in a way that it's just not for U.S. sports. And so that is a very, very different dynamic as well.

You can build these super teams that are attractive to fans all over the world. You get this revenue stream from other markets that is a meaningful contributor to the bottom line. And so there's just, it is interesting, though. The cultural aspects are really important. I mean, football, why is football exempt from all this? It's a big event, right? You have this sort of thing that's once a week, which is downstream from football being physically terrible for your body, right?

Like that's almost like their lucky break relative to baseball, the NBA. It's like 162 games. Why not? It's not like it's hard, right? where you can't play. It's a huge controversy to add one game to the NFL season. But that turns out in the modern era where you have so much competition, having events, special things are super valuable.

You did have the very smart move by the NFL of being on broadcast TV. The other thing is the NFL got an antitrust exemption where all media rights are centralized. A big problem with baseball and basketball is the national TV rights are central. but all the local rights are owned by the teams. And so one of the big issues for the NBA fixing their RSN problem is you could see in the future, okay, we're going to have two levels. We're going to have level one is broadcast TV and cable. And we're going to try to make it broadly available.

We're going to get more broadcasts, get casual fans, have the biggest games, et cetera. Number two, we're going to have like league pass is going to take over for the RSNs and you just subscribe you at all the games, including your local team. And we're going to get the super fans. people that don't watch every game and sort of bounce around and that sort of thing. The problem is that there's still some markets where the RSNs are very profitable. This is why we have big market for small market teams in the NBA is because the Lakers or the NICs, their rights are sold for way more money than the Bucks rights.

So they have more money as a team. And so you have a division between owners of like how we should distribute these rights, should we collectivize them, et cetera. And so all those, you know, whereas again, the EPL, you're in a small country. it's all sort of, it's all been collectively, like the rights in general. That's why you can have things like midseason tournaments because you've had the FA Cup for forever. That creates the thing, right?

Whereas the NBA is like, oh, let's do a midseason tournament. It's like, who cares? Why? Yeah, as an American, why are we doing a midseason tournament? I'll recommend a book called The Club and I'll put a link to it in the show notes. It tells the story of the EPL's inception, which was far more recent than I realized. It was an early 90s thing. And the business story behind the EPL is really, really interesting and sort of dramatic at points.

And I will add, that was another thing that came up when I was reading your F1 NBA piece. F1 just has a much more favorable relationship with teams and drivers. They have a lot more leverage to make them fall in line and do what's best for the sport. And ESPN, I mean, the NBA, there's just a bunch of different stakeholders. and it's hard to get everyone on the same page. Yep. And the other thing, you know, F1, it sort of has the NFL benefit, which is you can't run a race every day.

Like the cars are going to break down, right? And so they've hugely expanded what, 23, 24 races this year. It's still only 24 events, you know? And this is another big shift in the internet is the shift, who mentioned before, quantity versus quality, having high quality, fewer events that you can base your schedule around. And it's a relatively small commitment. it, right? It's 90 minutes on a weekend. And then you can be a part of it and you can go to Formula

Dank or whatever this Reddit is and you can laugh at the memes and you know what's going on. And then you can move on with your life. You can do something else. It's not like, oh, there's four bucks games this week. Which days are they? X, Y Z. Which which should I watch? Oh, Yannis is sitting this one or X, whatever it might be. It's just, it's much better suited to the modern media environment. Like, this is like the chatecherea model, right? Like, one of the first real bloggers to do subscriptions. It was actually not me. It was Andrew Sullivan.

But one of the problems he had was he came up in the advertising era where you had to keep people coming back and his site would have like 15, 20, 25, 30 posts a day. It was insane. And it was unsustainable. Whereas I came in like, I started when it was free only two posts a week because when I have a subscription product, I wanted people getting more. But even when people get more, it's only a couple more posts a week. And actually, I think fairly so, a lot of people look at me as insanely high output.

Like I'm actually overwhelming them with content, which I think, and that is a reason why people churn is like, I have all these unread emails. I can't keep up. Right. Like, and people are willing to pay for, look, I have plenty of stuff to read. I don't need more stuff to read. But if it's worth it, you know, then I will pay for it. And that's just a fundamentally different approach to content and media. that applies again, this is why it's interesting to talk about because it's not just a sports thing.

It applies all over the place. Yeah. Well, I will say I am going to be laughing for the rest of the week about when I signed on to the video call to record this podcast, Ben asked me, hey, have you checked out Formula Dank on Reddit? No, I hadn't. I was not aware that Formula Dank was a lively subreddit full of memes, but I look forward to checking it out. I just found about it like 10 minutes for the call. So this is a real-time podcasting. Honestly, another tech angle to Formula One.

We talk a lot about algorithms. I love the algorithms that know me and know that I want Formula One content because I don't know who to follow or where to find this stuff. But like Instagram serves me all sorts of stuff that I absolutely love. And it really is like the best thing on social media. All these random little funny Formula One. one clips. So I personally complain about the algorithms a lot. I just wanted to say, shout out to the algorithms across the world here for, you know, helping me in my F1 fandom.

No, this is the real. Everyone complains about the algorithms and the revealed preference again and again and again on service after service after service is that people actually love it. Yeah. Well, sometimes. Twitter's algorithm serves me stuff that I actively hate. Twitter is in many, many things, the exception that proves the rule. There you go. All right. So another question for you, Mike B, how seriously will other sports leagues be observing the Apple MLS partnership that begins this year? Seems like the first substantial package of games for a streamer to solely distribute and bear the burden of producing.

Are the other commissioners going to be paying attention? Or is this arrangement not going to be representative of how streamers and tech companies increase their presence in sports. What do you think? I think actually MLS is doing the production. Like this is sort of a part of the sweet gig for Apple. They don't have to really do anything. But I think this is also sort of a path dependence thing where MLS,

nobody watches their games. Nobody watched their games on ESPN. They would have some local fan bases on like the RSNs that would maybe watch, but by and large, nobody watch the games. Like we're talking like 100 some thousand, right? Like four for a match. And so because of that, They don't really have any negotiating leverage or anywhere to go.

And what they've done, I think, very smartly is they're leaning into the superfan angle. And MLS actually gets great attendance. Their average attendance is like, I want to say the high 30,000s, which is the games are fun. I enjoy going to DC United Games. Right. And so I think the way they're framing this, I think one of the most interesting bits about this MLS arrangement is that MLS season ticket holders get access to this for free. And just sort of like, this is an add-on. when you're coming to the games and your team's at a way game,

this is a way to make sure you can watch it. We don't have to muck around with all this RSN stuff and ask you to subscribe to cable. You know, I think, so I think it makes a lot of sense for the MLS, but the MLS has the MLS, MLS, whatever, during my articles. MLS has a lot more freedom to maneuver because they have literally nothing to lose. Yeah, nothing to lose.

It's sort of the F1 in 2018 situation where it's like, yeah, we'll try this. Exactly, exactly, which I think it is a fair point to bring up when you're critiquing, say, the MBA or ESPN, where they have everything to lose. And that makes it that much harder for them to sort of respond for all the reasons we just articulated. Now, for sure, folks are going to be watching this, watching this deal and to see how it develops over time. The real challenge is, you know, I think the way customer acquisition works in MLS is you go to a game and you have a lot of fun, your friend drags you there, and then maybe you start watching it. and this fits with that. Hey, five bucks a month, once I get invested, I can watch it. Whereas the reality of other sports is the vast majority of people consuming it is on TV and then maybe they go to games.

Like the funnel sort of runs in a different direction. So I don't think there's, there are lessons to be learned and the quality of the broadcast, which by all counts sounds like it's quite good. People have been sort of raving about it all weekend. That will be interesting. But it's for the exact reasons that you're starting from a different place, it's not totally applicable. Yeah, well, and it's funny because every time there's a rights package that hits the open market, you hear people invoke Apple and Amazon and Netflix, although Netflix has been pretty explicit about not being interested in any of this, but you hear Apple and Amazon thrown around as

potential bidders. And I just wonder if you're talking about like NBA rights or NFL rights or situations where you'd be putting up real money. Like, is there really that? much to gain if you're Apple and Apple TV itself is sort of like a vanity project. Right. You're in a situation where we just talked about before where the leagues because they do still command real audiences, they have real negotiating leverage. Right. Unless did not have negotiating leverage. So this is a, you know, it makes sense in that respect.

Apple in particular is notorious for never actually getting across the finish line with anyone who has negotiating power, right? You go back Apple's greatest deals with the music labels for. iTunes back in the day. That was because piracy gave them negotiating leverage. They've never really succeeded otherwise in that. You saw it like they were supposed to get Sunday tickets and ended up going to YouTube. Why?

Because Apple's like, we want to have like worldwide rights. We want to have all this sort of stuff. And the NFL gives them the middle fingers. Like we don't need you. Like we actually want to have control over our rights and spread them around. And we will go. So the NFL wanted Apple to make that deal. Because Apple is a prestige brand.

Like everyone wants to be associated with Apple. But at the end of the day, The NFL more than the other week is very disciplined about keeping control. And any entity that has the capability and ability to keep control is not going to do well in negotiations with Apple because no company demands control more than Apple. So MLS is a great fit for Apple. I think it's a nice fit for the brand in general. Like soccer, nice, wholesome family sport, you know. So it makes a lot of sense.

But unless the, I think there's going to be a challenge when it comes to the more preeminent sports. the entire, that's why ESPNTZ probably renew the deals, right? They're all sort of in this muck together. That means that they both have much more motivation to work together, not because of affinity, but because their economic interests are still aligned because of the last 40 years. Right. And YouTube TV is actually an interesting distinction to draw between Apple and Amazon, because YouTube is trying to launch like a legit cable competitor.

So overpaying for the NFL rights in that scenario does make sense because there's a lot of upside at the other end of the rainbow. One of the thing that's really interesting. I wonder if the NFL insisted on this is the NFL Sunday ticket, which is where you can watch games outside of your market. Number one, it's worth a lot less than it used to be because there's so many national games now, right? Even if you don't have it, you can still, if you're living in Los Angeles, you don't watch the Packers, you're still going to see six or seven Packer games a year, even if you don't have Sunday ticket. Yeah. Number two, it's you can get it as an add-on to YouTube. TV or you can subscribe to it directly like in regular YouTube.

That's interesting because I think YouTube wants to get into selling channels game. Like this is where Amazon Prime Video I think makes a lot of their money is they sell subscriptions to other streaming services. And so you go into the Amazon app to watch your Peacock subscription or whatever it might be. And then they keep like 50% of that revenue over time. It's a great business. You know, Apple is in the same position as far as the app store on TVOS. And I think, you know, YouTube wants in on that game.

It would have been interesting, though, had YouTube said, no, we're not putting it on YouTube. We're not building our channel service. We're actually, you have to get YouTube TV. That would have been really bad for the cable subscribers because that's another reason to sort of switch away. If you're a football only fan, you have no RSN concerns. Sure. It's all on the regular channels, but they didn't. And I would imagine the NFL was a part of that calculus, which is like the NFL is much better, in part because they're coming from a position.

of strength at balancing, making sure that fans still have access, they don't want anyone entity becoming too powerful, they sprinkle it around to everyone, and, you know, and they're, you know, it's good to be the king. Yeah, and I'm curious to see how much the numbers grow on Sunday ticket with YouTube and YouTube TV because it's so much easier than having to get a direct TV satellite dish. Like, people see to be under ratings like, oh, there's only two million subscribers. Well, who wants to get a freaking ticket? Exactly. Yeah, it's 2023. I mean, nobody's signing up for direct TV unless they're like at gunpoint.

Craig says over the past couple weeks, Ben and Andrew have gotten me extremely fascinated in the world of sports business. I'm very much a fair weather and casual sports fan, mostly just watch the Packers, but the business is fascinating. I know you dive into these topics sparingly given the audience, but if you ever thought about expanding your ecosystem even more, there could be a place for sharp sports and diving into sports business clearly Andrew isn't busy enough as is so why not give him more work to do? We got another question about my workload but we'll take it under advisement. I would love to do something that covers sports business more regularly. My promise to sharp tech listeners is that this is not a sports business podcast.

I think we're going to have like a three month more tarium at a minimum. Exactly. It was just one of those things where all this stuff sort of happened at the same time. RSNs, you have this sort of Formula One angle. You had the NBA sort of collapsing. And it's an interesting time to sort of check in and see where things are going. But yes, I always feel

the ticking time, Bob. It's like, okay, time to move on, time to talk about something else. Yes. Well, on that note, let's move to the end and we can get to the question about my workload. We saved. There were other tech questions on here, but we went too long because we're

obviously way too enthusiastic about all of the intersections at play. Zero sports talk on Thursday. That's going to be the rule. That's the sharp tech promise. But for now, Josh says, chaps still love the show.

And I particularly appreciate Ben still inserts pronunciation faux pas. So we the audience can pay for your human flaws. And then Josh inserts a link for the correct pronunciation of, I don't know, do you want to try with this word? This word is apparently a word that I've been mispronouncing my entire life. It's deluge, right? Deleuge, okay.

Deleuge? I think we might have both said deluge and personally. And let's be clear, you're not paying for the flaws. You're paying for the charm. Okay. There you go. That's fine. And I'm going to continue saying deluge.

Deluge. Deluge. Deluge is just kind of obnoxious, even if it's objectively correct. Frank says, I've really enjoyed. all the NBA talk across the strategy bundle lately. But the thing that surprised me most is that you, Ben Thompson, convinced

both Andrew Sharp and John Gruber that it's pronounced Bali sports when it definitely is not. So Ben... You've got the LOL at the end of the email here. It sounds like more of a dickish comment if you

omit the LOL. I don't recall you using Bali on the podcast. I've called it Bally my entire life, but I hope that I wasn't pulled into the Bolly vortex as you were dropping that, peppering it across our episodes here. So this is an interesting one because there is a notorious issue with people from Wisconsin and the A sound. So I was actually back in the day when I was an English teacher, you know, I started out at, you know, the school or no one really cared. The foreigners were mostly there for decoration so the parents could feel good about

sending themselves to an English school where the Chinese teachers actually did all the work. Great. But later on, I actually worked for a, you know, in this market, a sort of high-end sort of school where all the English teachers had to speak Chinese. That's where my, you know, I mostly learned a lot of Chinese. The parents are actually for the first few levels were forced to attend class. Like there was benches around the outside. It was super strict.

Like if kids didn't pronounce words correctly, they had to like go home and like record. Did you feel extra pressure with the parents sitting there? No, you kind of got used to It's actually kind of nice Because you had zero like discipline issues Or anything on those lines Okay But but one of the issues was

There was like a pronunciation There was something or other I think it was around T-A-N-K B-A-N-K Or so like that I'm like It should be a long

It's tank It's bang It's like no It's it's A long day Yeah And or bang Or sang or there's a whole host of them

Like aunt or Don, right, D-A-W-N. D-A-W-N and D-O-N are pronounced the exact same, right? And so this is actually, it was, I had no idea. I'm just like this, you know, coming there, like, your pronunciation guide is wrong. And like, no, your pronunciation is wrong.

And it turns out this is actually, you see some of those, you know, one of the things I'm very proud of being from, from Wisconsin. I like people, you know, Wisconsin, as I say it is like the Texas of the North. Like, I think it actually has a super distinct culture. And you see all these various maps, usually of drinking, but among other things, where

it's like there's no state lines, but you can always tell where Wisconsin is. This also applies to this particular pronunciation issue, where people in Wisconsin just pronounce their A's differently, basically than everybody else. And so, number one, I had no idea it was Bali and not Bali. Number two, I think it's because I consume Bali sports via Bali Sports Wisconsin, where everyone on there is pronouncing it the wrong way as well. So I actually think I didn't have a chance. Wow.

We got to the bottom of it, a twist at the end. It's the network's fault, not Ben's fault. No, it's probably my fault. I'm sure if I listen closely, they would be saying it correctly. But no, without question, the words that I most consistently pronounce incorrectly, not because I just don't know how to pronounce it. That's some words, right? Anything involving an A that is vague, vague, vague is.

is very difficult for you. Vague is fascinating. Like, bag just sounds, it, it not just sounds wrong. It, like, feels physically uncomfortable for me to say. Bad, bag. I know. I promise, I'm not going to make you read the word vague ever again on the podcast, but the accent never ceases to amaze.

So I, I'm glad you've still got some Wisconsin in you as you travel the globe, you know? Well, I actually felt bad after I was teaching this, because I did change my pronunciation so I could teach it correctly. And then I felt a little bad at losing my accent. This was kind of a bummer. Yeah, good. Well, keep your Wisconsin street cred, man. All right.

So I'll let you read the last question. You always love to read the questions that are about me. I do. I do. Yeah, well, I mentioned this sort of Tyler Cowan production function question, which is basically what this is. Greg says Andrew seems to be something of a unicorn takesman

as he switches between tech, the NBA, and China throughout every week. Andrew, how do you make it all work on a week-week basis? Give us the inside scoop on the sharp production function. I do have thoughts and insights on this question, but I will let you go first. Oh, wow. Can't wait to hear your thoughts. I should also note any listeners who want to check out the NBA podcast or China podcast. There are links in your show notes, have to do that as a salesman.

This was an interesting question, though, because the first thought that came to mind is that nothing related to the podcast I'm recording now is harder than it was to record an NBA podcast for two years while I was learning how to be a lawyer every day. And when there were no games because of COVID. That's true. For a year, there was no games. And it required completely different skill sets.

And there were several points where I started to imagine what it would look like if I took a step back for the podcast, like how I would announce it, how I would feel about it. And compared to all of that, all of this is a lot of work, but it's also at least coherent in using the same parts of my brain. So my workflow is just so much easier than it was about a year and a half ago. Now, as for that workflow, I try to read an article about tech and an article about China,

like longer articles every night before I go to bed during the week, just to sort of like keep my brain engaged in those. subjects. And I try to build outlines a couple days in advance and piece together, emails that come through. So I'm not doing it all at once, like an hour before the show and can kind of think of a coherent shape for each of the episodes we do. And then I try to write out like one take per show, not necessarily because I want to like read it verbatim on air, but because the act of writing forces me to clarify my thinking. And podcasting without writing is so much harder. And so because I used to obviously write several times per week at Sports Illustrated. And so it was just easy to like fire off takes

because I had already formulated arguments in my writing. And so doing that just off the top of my head is pretty difficult. So I do try to like write stuff down. And then the other one, this is this is just straight up embarrassing. But somewhere back at the fall, I had to start writing down my introduction lines to each show. So I literally write down like on the outline, welcome back to Sharp Tech. I'm Andrew Sharp and on the other line, Ben Thompson. Because in the fall, I was also recording a few test episodes like beta episodes.

And I was forgetting hosts names as I was. So it's happened a couple times with Ben Gulliver where I'd be like, uh, Ben and like forget. that is Gulliver, not Thompson. And so I just decided to keep it simple, try not to offend everybody. I'm going to write down my intros, and that's made it much easier in the new year here. Oh, that's good stuff. The writing thing is very real.

Like the number one reason why people are like, well, you're just going to be a podcaster now. It's like, I worry I would be a bad podcaster if I was not writing. Yeah. Because like the reason why you can go off extemporaneously and, you know, one of the great things about working with you is you, you're doing a lot of the work outside the show and getting the show outlined in place and figure out where we're going to go. And I can just sort of sit down and podcast

because number one, you've done the work. But number two, I already have the takes because I wrote it down at some point. I have 10 years of takes sort of started up, right? That I can drop on sort of any sort of thing. So I can relate to that on both counts and compliment you and the work you do in doing it. I think the other bit that is, you know,

that is an important part of your production function is whether some days you want to admit it, some days you don't, you are just instinctually contrarian. You just sort of, you want to, if something is accepted conventional wisdom, you want to oppose to it.

You want to be devil's advocates. Like, you know, people talk about the little devil on their shoulders. You literally have little horns coming out of your head. And so that works. That works, that's good. That's number one.

Number two is you don't take it too seriously. Like me and I think Ben Golver, particular. Maybe Bill's a little more relaxed. No, Bill takes it pretty seriously, too. We're super locked in. And you, you're not. And so, number one, you will raise objections, but you won't

sort of end up in like occasionally a basketball you will. I'm not religious about it. Where it crosses the line from, wow, what a debate, to, I'm starting to feel physically uncomfortable to speak to this conversation, which is a very important line to be aware

of. Yeah, I can't wait to get there one day on Sharp Tech. I'm sure it'll be an argument about Amazon or something, but I will say, why do you hate the American consumer? Exactly. We'll dig deep on that one. In any event, I do not like talking about myself and my production function. So I hope everyone enjoyed this five or six minutes here. And Ben, unless you have any other final thoughts, I think we should come back later in the week. Come back later this week, not talk about sports. But, uh, I can't say it will be gone forever. We'll bring it back in one form or another in like three or four months,

maybe right around a buck's finals run. It's like COVID. It's going to come back whether you want or not. Hopefully you're not spacing out during a podcast. But I think we did better today than Thursday. That's right. That's right. You're healthy.

You're looking great. It's going to be a great week. And we will come back Thursday. Ben, I will talk to you soon. Talk to you later.