The Bill Simmons Podcast - Inside the Evolution of ESPN With Jim Miller and Bryan Curtis (Ep. 237)

Episode Date: July 12, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons sits down with editor-at-large Bryan Curtis and New York Times best-selling author Jim Miller to discuss the shake-ups at ESPN (02:30), whether there is a business problem or a content problem (05:30), how the network has approached digital content (14:00), the deals with the NBA, MLB, and the NFL (25:30), the acquisition of Adrian Wojnarowski (40:30), 30 for 30 (54:30), and the demise of Grantland (66:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah, we have to replace all of her blood. It looks like we need the paddles to come out and revive Mallory. They taped 60 episodes in like two months. It's finally done. We're posting the last five later this week. People love this pod, too. Subscribe to it now. You can catch up right before the Game of Thrones. Calms back Sunday night.

And after it's done, you can go on Twitter, go on at ringer and watch our Talk the Thrones postgame show. One of my biggest flaws in the cultural gap. I've never seen an episode. Really? My dad, thanks to this Binge Bone podcast, watched 60 episodes in two weeks. Now, he's retired, and he watched it on his iPad. But he did 60 episodes in two weeks, and he was just sucked in.

So when you get sucked in, you'll binge them. Anyway, Talk the Thrones, Twitter, Sunday night. Coming up, James Andrew Miller, Brian Curtis. We're going to talk media, media esp and a whole bunch of stuff but first pearl jam All right. The three man. Oh my gosh. I'm honored.

The ringers editor at large, Brian Curtis, Jim Miller, author of the CA book, bestseller ESPN book, bestseller SNL oral history with Tom Shields, bestseller. I don't know what you're up to now.

Well, you're working on a podcast for down the road that you announced. Right. Origins. Is that what it's called? Origins. Yeah. We're going to look at beginnings of things in movies, television, sports, music, relationships. We want to talk ESPN.

Lots of stuff has been going on in 2017 i've read some of the stuff i've heard some of the stuff i made the mistake i went i did uh the vox conference and got asked an espn question and in three minutes uh opened the pandora's box for about 40 different conversations i should just shut my mouth what's the over under age for you when you think you'll be not asked the ESPN question? Is there one? I think it's my whole life. Yeah. Right. I think so. Until the bitter end, I think I'll be like 68. ESPN will not even exist anymore. It'll be some sort of a video on demand channel. I think it's not a stain, it's a tattoo. Yeah, it's a tattoo. Hey man, I worked there for 14 and a half years, you know? Yeah. But anyway, we, there's so much going on.

I haven't been totally happy with the, with the analysis of it. So I thought we could do that now. Okay. So first of all, they cleaned house. Skipper finally has an inner circle, John Skipper, who took over basically in 2012. Now he has a new inner circle in place. Connor Schell, who I created 30 for 30 with, he's in charge of content. Burke Magnus is in charge of scheduling. And then Justin Connelly is in charge of the business side. And that's it. That's the new inner circle. Why did it take five years for this to happen? I think in part because when Skipper took the job, I really believe he thought that he could continue to do his old job as well, which was the head of content. First of all, it's what he loves.

Yeah. Second of all, it's what he's best at. And third of all, I don't think he wanted to the head of content. First of all, it's what he loves. Yeah. It's second of all, it's what he's best at. And third of all, I don't think he wanted to let go of it. And so that combination I think was really powerful. You know, he tells this story about how before he became president of ESPN, he used to go to Disney and he'd always forget his ID and they'd be looking and they have to call. There's this, he was head of content, but they didn't, you know, there's this guy, John Skipper at the gate, you know, there's this guy, John Skipper at the gate, you know, whatever.

And the day that the first time he went to Disney after becoming president, he pulled up to the booth and they go, oh, good morning, Mr. Skipper, and opened it right away. Yeah. Like there's a big difference between being president of ESPN and everything else. And I think that, I don't, Skipper's not naive, but I don't think he appreciated it. So I think that one of the things that happened, particularly during the first two years, was you were looking at an ESPN organizationally where you thought, oh yeah, Bodenheimer's still president. Like if I told you how the place was operating and the direct reports and the fact that everybody stayed,

basically, you think that Bodenheimer was still running it. Some guys come in, you know, everybody stayed basically like you think that, you know, Bodenheimer was still running. Some guys come in, become president and they they just they know what they want to do. They clean house, they change everything. He didn't do that. What was your take from afar, Brian? I agree with what Jim said, but also it's like, how do we think of this as how much of ESPN right now is a business problem and how much is a content problem? And what you know, how do those two things, you know, I'd be interested in getting Jim's take on that. If you had to pick right now, give percentages, what do you think those two are for those two things? I think it's probably more of a business problem because the industry is changing so fast.

The technology is a wild card, and distribution is just a minefield for them. So I think that it's one of the reasons why people have asked me, God forbid Skipper got hit by a bus tomorrow, which of those three takes over. And I think Justin has the inside laying because of so many of the challenges. The future is in his pile. But that's not to say the content isn't important, but I definitely think the business side of the equation is keeping them up at night.

So I was the closest to Skipper probably 2009 through 2013. And when he got that job, which was the tail end of 2011, but he really didn't get it till the summer of 2012. And Bodenheimer was staying on on he was like a liaison chairman yeah they kind of they created a new title for george well no steve had kind of done that when george became president steve warrenstein but then he left and it was just kind of vacant yeah and then so they put him in and it and skipper was you know it's this is going to be great it's good for everybody it seemed weird weird that he wasn't going to replace himself.

And as it was happening, I was watching it going, so you're going to do George's job, which George's job is basically you fly everywhere. You're on an airplane all the time. You're going to Burbank for a meeting every week. You're just immersed in the business side. But then also try to do the content job. And the thing with Skipper, and I'll defend him to the death on this, he's great on content. He had great taste. I would say he's had the best taste of anybody who ran ESPN.

And a lot of the stuff that he did, especially from, I don't know, 08 to 2012, was just lights out, really smart, really forward thinking. Now all of a sudden he's doing this other job. It's a little like in the NBA when people are coaching and they're the GM at the same time. And you just can't, like Doc Rivers, you just can't do both jobs. So we all thought, well, he's going to, he'll figure out who his number two is. It'll happen. And then six months passed and nine months passed and 12 months passed. And it became clear it was bullpen by committee.

And I think that was his biggest mistake. I think he thought these direct reports that he had, which was like John Wildhack, Norby, John Kozner, all these people could just kind of collectively do his old job. And it's wrong. You need somebody who has the taste, who has, who's the tastemaker and the content maker, basically. And that's when the wheels came off. I think there's another component, which is worth mentioning, which is, you know, ESPN Bristol is like a biosphere sometime. Yeah. And so after becoming president, Skipper also had the possibility, God forbid, of looking outside that current ESPN ecosystem. And there's a lot of really talented content people out there that, you know, you may want to say, I think I got to shake the culture up. And I think that, you know, we have to at least have a voice in here that's different than what we've all

been saying to each other around. But he has been for 30 plus years for, to that point, totally resistant to go outside. That's the whole, that's, but that was the only time they went and got Joan Lynch, Connor, Jamie Horowitz, Kevin Wilds. Like I met Wilds might already been there, but that was the only time I remember new blood. Who are these people? Where did they come from? We could have been sitting around here thinking,

boy, it was amazing when Skipper became president. He really brought other voices into the room. He got this one from here and this one from here. It was just a whole different kind of mix. But he certainly didn't do that at all. In fact, he resisted it. So there's two theories for this, Brian, Jim and I have too much inside information. I'm interested to see what you think. Theory one is Skipper genuinely thought if he had the bullpen by committee and he, and he could do

both jobs and he could kind of float in and out that it would basically be as good as it was. Theory two is the survivor TV show type of mentality of if I anoint my number two, that becomes my successor. And if for whatever reason things don't go well, then it becomes that guy or's, or that girl who's looming behind me. And he never, there was never that person. So he, he basically made it impossible for him not to be the lead guy because there was no successor in place. What do you believe? I think that's, I like the second theory just from afar. I think that's sort of fascinating. It also though, can't you do that and say, let's see, let's give people time and see who comes out, who comes out of the crowd.

Right. You would, you would think that, but I mean, we knew who all the people were. None of them, all of them were kind of promoted either as high as they should have been, or maybe even one spot too high. So there was no, there was no next, you wouldn't have bet on any of them but didn't it was like oh so this guy presided over a movie that won an oscar there's something an unprecedented espn history and something was unthinkable a couple of years ago right espn would take home an academy award so oh that that guy looks good that guy that guy gets that gets the big prize right that took five years to get certain logic in that certain logic in that. Yeah. But I mean, in 2017. At the end of it, anyway.

But in 2012. Another theory of Skipper that's interesting to me is great peacetime general. ESPN making money hand over fist. Right? 30 for 30.

Grantland. You know, we're making money. Grantland was making money hand over fist. No, no, no. Sorry. The big company.

When we have money to spend, we can do this. We can do this. We can invest quality content. Right. Not silly stuff, but 30 for 30 grand. Things people remember. Wartime general, John Skipper. When money gets tighter, when you have to lay people off.

Is he that guy? What do you think about that, Jim? Well, first of all, he is that guy because we've got 400 people less than him. Is he good at he that guy? What do you think about that, Jim? Well, first of all, he is that guy because we've got 400 people less than Robin. Is he good at being that guy? I think he's better than some people would have predicted because he is a Hale fellow well met. I mean, he's not a suit. He's not a pencil pushing numbers guy. He is a very collegial guy. And I do believe that it took a lot out of him, the 300 and the 100. He doesn't like that. There are executives who live for that kind of stuff. So I think he was equal to the challenge of that. But that's not to say that

the other scenario doesn't exist. Look, for the last five years of Skipper's reign, I think it's the first time since 1983 where ESPN didn't have a successor inside. And you kind of knew it. Or even an abundance of them, several of them to choose from. But he really, really secured himself that top perch in a way that I don't think anybody had before. I think part of what makes ESPN's story so fascinating in this decade is it follows a lot of the same beats when you look in the past. Companies that, when things turned for them, they just had no idea it was going to turn because things have been going well for so long. The business model and everything. And it just been it's been lights out perfect.

And I think when you have that for a while, your mentality becomes, how do we keep this? How do we keep this formula instead of thinking this formula is going to change? We need to, you know, let's look at the chessboard. We need to be seven moves ahead. They were never seven moves ahead. They were always behind. And the biggest things I noticed, 2011, 2012, 2013, you know, technology was, I thought, the biggest thing they should have invested in. And, you know, their mentality was, we have to protect SportsCenter.

How do we fix SportsCenter? Well, let's build the giant set. Let's build this state-of-the-art $150 million set. Let's double down on how it looks. And they weren't thinking about things like, what if everything is digital in 10 years? Our website in 2013, 14, first of all, it would take us like a year to redesign everything because they were outsourcing so much of it. But even when we had like 30 for 30 shorts, things like that, when we would run them on ESPN.com, the videos would freeze.

And we would have all these internal discussions about these videos are freezing. Like the audience hates this. They can, we just put these on YouTube and we would have our shorts, our ground things, any of the stuff we were doing. And they didn't want to put them on YouTube because it was harder to sell the ads. Like, no, no, we got to keep them on, on ESPN.com. And it's like, yeah, but when they're on ESPN.com, they, they freeze and people don't watch them. And it was just, to me, the technology was the big miss because ESPN.com, they freeze and people don't watch them. And it was just, to me, the technology was the big miss because ESPN.com should have become SportsCenter and should have become the fuel of all the stuff they innovated with. And now they're belatedly doing it because they bought into BAM.

They get it now. I feel like they should have gotten it in 2012. I mean, look, I can convict or acquit on the digital center. I do think that the digital center, you know, because sports center was such a big part of it and the big stage and everything else, it soaked up a lot of oxygen. It does deliver for them a lot of solutions for digital operations, hence its name that, you know, has made life a lot easier for them and things a lot more efficient. Having said that, look, they went through the 3D experiment, which was quite deleterious to the bottom line. That was a rare loss for Bodenheimer, who I think is a brilliant guy

and did unbelievable stuff for them. It was a rare loss for Chuck Pagano, their CTO, who was magnificent, had one of the great CTO careers ever. But I do think that they saw digital in certain ways and then they started to move. There were many times that they were in front, but there were many times that they were behind. And I think that one of the things that happened in 2015, 2016 is they were so glad to have escaped

the Washington lobbyist thing on a la carte that they didn't realize about the cord cutting, particularly with the young generation and even the notion of like skinnier bundles. That I think 13 million households over over that period over the past several years losing those. That was tough. And I don't think they had anything like that in mind it amazes me as we as they pivot to use a terrible word we keep hearing lately to the future yeah how much like when you watch if you watch espn all day which nobody really does but if you did it's just the same show how much twitter programs every show like a funny like here's here's clay thompson dancing yeah and that's on the. And that's on The Jump. And that's on The Six. And that's on Sports Nation. And that's on this. And it's like they're doing on television what we're all doing at our desks here at The Ringer,

which is here's something funny on Twitter. Should we write about it? Should we react to it? Should we post it? We're in our Slack talking about it. Should we make jokes about it? Yeah. Should we Slack about it?

Actually, Bristol's doing the Bristol car wash. Yeah. Right. Right. With a piece of, not with Dak Prescott, though they do that too, but with the Bristol carwash. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. With a piece of not with Dak Prescott, though they do that too, but with a piece of weird internet content and it just filters through because it's like, we know people aren't watching television. We know younger people aren't watching television like they used to. So how can we weirdly react

to Twitter? I think that's fascinating to me. People don't believe me on this, but in 2013, they had no idea that cord cutting was coming. Like literally none. There was no hint of it. Their whole attitude in 2013 was, that was the year they did Olbermann, right? Or was that 2014? 14, I believe. I'm trying to remember now.

I'm going to say it was later than 13. It was 14. 13, it was like flexing your muscles. We're just raking it. I think 13 was the biggest revenue year they had and the biggest profit they made, all that stuff. Then when Fox came, 14 it was. Then it became, oh, how dare Fox challenges us.

You know, that was a weird moment, though. I think, look, the moat was pretty big. Skipper had gone out and spent a ton of money, you know, close to $27 billion over college football, engineered longer deals than anybody had ever done in the business. I mean, you can't have a bigger moat at that point. So, I mean, I think it's easy to say this in a Monday morning quarterbacking way, but I said at the time, I think that they overreacted to Fox One. There are several ESPN talent now who are enjoying gargantuan salaries compared to what they used to make. Because there was like even like a sniff like, oh, Fox might want them as all of a sudden it's like double their salary, triple their salary. I think it was 13.

I think 13 was when. You you know what you may be right because that was when they like sage was threatening to go to fox and they they did that contract but they had whitlock they were trying to get at that point i think i mean oberman was actually not an not an expensive deal given keith's history and given what they pay other people i know but i know for a fact they were like, oh, really? Fox is going to challenge us? Watch this. I mean, it was like somebody trying to challenge the Yankees in 2002. It was like, oh, we'll just go get Kevin Brown. And then a year later was when the cord cutting stuff started

because that summer the ratings started to go down and they were just completely flummoxed by it. Why is this happening? Because it was the year they had the World Cup. And I remember there was this email that the person who does the analytics for all that stuff sent this long email trying to figure out what the causes were. And one of the reasons that they theorized was World Cup fatigue. That after the World Cup, ESPN viewers were fatigued with ESPN.

You're too tired to push the button on your remote. In this email, they also was like, another possibility is that younger viewers are going right to streaming services like Roku. They listed all these things. It was like, yeah, that was the reason reason actually, because your younger viewers are now just. And their phones. Cutting and that's it and going to phones. And I just don't think they saw any of it coming. I never heard the word subs until 2014 used in a way like we're losing subs. And that was the game changer. They thought that when he did the NBA deal, they thought the subs were going to be a

fixed thing. I've talked about this on the podcast deal, they thought the subs were going to be a fixed thing. I've talked about this on the podcast before. When they started going down, I was like, wait, what? I thought it was going to stay here. And, you know, they just didn't see it. Now the question is, should they have seen it? Should they have anticipated that? It's a really hard thing to anticipate.

You need somebody that is just dialed in to where shit's going. Well, who was, though? I mean, like in Burbank, there's a strategic group there. There's an abundance of people looking at the industry outside of ESPN. When you look back, I don't think a lot of people were talking about it. I'm sure there was somebody or something. But the truth is that I don't think anybody at Disney or ESPN was really thinking about it. I mean, you got to include Disney in that.

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Get in, get out, get eating at jerseymikes.com slash BS. When I went yesterday, somebody was playing Office Hero and it was kind of annoying because they had like six giants that they were making. They just hopped on the line. It was like a 10 minute wait. Yeah, you're just waiting it out. But funny about doing a read for a podcast, because I think one of the problems that ESPN fell into, not a huge problem. They're going to make, ESPN's fine. They're always going to make money.

They're just not going to make as much money as they did four years ago. But they were operating like this giant Starbucks conglomerate. And part of the issues they had was like with smaller stuff. How do you sell smaller stuff. How do you sell smaller things? How do you sell something like Gretlin? How do you create a podcast network? How do you deal with all these different advertisers and sponsors when you're going to like Chevrolet and Subway and they're just cutting you $50 million checks or $200 million checks or whatever. And as part of that deal, it's like, we are your

fast food person. You can't go anywhere else. Can I go back to your previous sentence though? Because ESPN is going to be fine. That's true. Except I believe that the name of the game right now, forget about content, forget about quality, forget about which thing it's all about wall street. And it's all about Disney and wall street. Okay. And and wall street is home of what have you done for me lately? Right. And so the reason why I think this is such a critical time for ESPN is what is the narrative that Disney gets to say to wall street about growth? I, I, it's not going to be at the rate it used to be. I mean, for what, seven years,

they're getting 20% compounded increases on their sub fees. Yeah. Which is unrealistic. That's enough to make you a Bolshevik. And you can never replace that. You'll never replace that. So it's like, so where's it going to come from? Because this is like, you know, in some ways,

you got a loan from like the mafia and there's like, you know, in some ways you got it, you got a loan from, from like the mafia and there's like, we don't care. Pay up, pay up, pay up, pay up. So it's, you can't go, Bob Iger can't go on an investor call and say, listen, ESPN is going to be fine. We're, we're fine. It's always going to make money. That's not enough. It's like, how are you going to solve this problem of p of dwindling subscribers and still spending a ton of money i mean i was shocked by the big 10 deal everybody i mean this was after cord cutting this is after we knew about cord cutting and they still spent a fortune but that's that's a fox thing too right because fox was in for for at least half and then you thought

are we gonna get bought out of the big Ten, right? But the NBA deals too. I mean, these are expensive deals. They're still spending the money. So I mean, that's the moment in time we're at right now, which is how do you create a growth story from a mature company that literally has its best profit days possibly behind it? So can we all agree that you do the NBA deal every time?

Do any percent of you think they actually shouldn't have done that, that was a mistake? No. Well, first of all, you have to because you have 8,760 hours to play around with. And it just can't all be Stephen Smith. Right. I mean, so you've got to, the original strategy- I think it might someday be Stephen Smith. Right. I mean, so you gotta, the original strategy. I think it might someday be Stephen Smith. That's it.

That might be the only person on ESPN. Yes, the S in ESPN will be for Stephen Smith. But the one thing that Skipper did that was great right from the beginning was he just decided, because Shapiro, God love him, he wanted to develop shows and he was trying this show and this show. And Skipper was like, okay, it's all about live. You know, we'll get to those things all. But he just went out on the biggest Steinbrenner-esque buying spree of all time and bought up everything he could.

So I agree with you. I actually agreed with it at the time. I thought it made sense. I still think, by the way, what do you think the hemorrhaging would be if they didn't have the NBA? I mean, or the NFL. The existential question would be dialed up. What is this network for, right? If they don't have all these games, you know, that question would be louder and louder.

Right. Why am I subscribing? Yeah, you're doing the cheerleading championships on a Friday night. Right. I mean, you have to have the NFL because that helps your surcharges. There's no question. You can't get seven bucks a household. Nobody's getting out of business with the NFL. That's it. You can't do that. And, but you got to go for the NBA. Now that doesn't mean though, look, we're in a quiet law. So baseball's coming up. Everything's coming up. Does Disney say to them though, you know what? You're not going to have that money

to buy baseball this time i see i don't think they should have bought baseball last time i thought when people talk about how they paid this like first of all as we discussed on the pod brian nfl nba you're not just getting the games you're getting all the highlights you're getting unlimited access to all the content which fuels every single show you have and they have all these talking head shows where if they didn't run the highlights and I was in this situation with my HBO show and you're, we just weren't allowed to use football highlights. We're talking football. You know what helps when,

when two people are just talking is running highlights of what they're talking about. Still photos weren't working. No still photos and like anime. It just doesn't work. That's why that 1.9 billion they spent. That's the long form deal. Yeah. Cause people are like, they didn't get a playoff game. It's like, they don't care. They wanted the highlights. That's, that's the long form deal. Yeah. Because they didn't get a playoff game. It's like they don't care. They wanted the highlights. That's that's what mattered to them. And keeping the the Monday Night Football franchise. But same thing with NBA. NBA is a

little more diplomatic about being able to use their footage. But at the same time, it's like they're all in. They're on the court. They're they're in every step of the way. They're like the NBA is the off season is just as exciting it's a 10 month sport you got all these trades and people are following you you got experts, you got Vertical coming back to ESPN because they believe in that so much that's a whole other story

but the baseball when it happened I actually remember talking to Skipper about it and I was like I don't get this one. Like, people don't... You could feel this decade was when people just watched their own baseball team.

Five and a half billion dollars, the baseball deal was. It was like, you just watch your own baseball team. Your baseball team is Texas? Right, the Rangers. Are you home on a Tuesday night watching Kansas City versus... No, not at all. Anaheim? Not even close.

Nobody is. So it was like... And as it. Nobody is. So it was like, as it was explained to me, it was like, it chews up innings. The baseball analogy is it literally chews up innings. It fuels baseball tonight. Now, as we found out... Which they've cut back on. Yeah, well, what happened was the RSNs

killed baseball tonight. Ravitch, I thought, was really interesting talking about it in Sports Illustrated this week, where he's basically like, every time a game ends, people watch their own teams. The Red Sox game ends. Everyone's on Nesson watching the Nesson postgame show. They don't go to ESPN for baseball night. They don't care. They would rather hear Dennis Eckersley talk about whether Dustin Pejoria should have bunted in the seventh inning. They don't care about this big giant macro conversation about the league. And I think that's where I don't, so it was five and a half billion they

paid for how long? Eight years. See, I don't think they would ever do that again. I think that's where they would, I think they would double down on football and basketball in college. And I think they would get rid of baseball. Well, but here's, here's the interesting question now about this next round that's coming up. You don't even know who you're competing against. So maybe Fox isn't going to have the money. But what if Jeff Bezos all of a sudden decides to do something? Or Mark Zuckerberg? Or Facebook?

Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg wants to all of a sudden go deep in baseball. I mean, you have Twitter exploring things. So it may not be the same kind of competitive landscape before. So you have the rights deals there? Yeah. Or do you have when baseball ends? Yeah, 2021. I just don't think they'll have baseball going forward.

I don't think it does enough for them. And I think it'll be more valuable to somebody else. Maybe they'll be able to work out a deal. You could argue it's more valuable to MLB Network. Maybe MLB Network just keeps it. Or maybe they'll be able to work out a deal with like a Facebook of the world or whatever. My only point is, at what point does does Disney say you can't have everything?

Yeah, I think we're here. I mean, we're at the point. They've said that with employees, right? And they said that with employees. And I think I personally thought it was going to happen before the big 10, because you could start to see the writing and I was shocked. So I think we're going to see a situation where they have to plan for football, NFL first, and that's going to be huge. And they have to engineer the Monday night football rights coming up at the same time as the others, because. What year is that?

That otherwise, I mean, NFL, it's 2021 for Monday Night Football, but it always starts beforehand. It starts quite a bit in advance. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, look, they already, they're struggling right now. This year, they got a bit of a better schedule. But remember, when they got Monday Night Football, they didn't realize that they were going to come up with more years than not the fourth worst schedule. The league all of a sudden started Thursday night football. And it's like, so now our Monday night football that we grew up on is like way at the bottom of the pile.

And it's like, it's punitive on the NFL's part. Like we're going to punish ESPN year after year after year by giving the absolute dreariest games on Monday night. I mean, that's what it feels like when you look at that schedule. This year was a little better. A little better. But it was like, you know, going back to that original Sunday night deal, one of the worst the Sunday night, Monday night switch, one of the worst

moments, one of the worst deal making episodes in ESPN history. Oh, yeah. It's like the NFL was so mad and realized they were so desperate. They were like, we're just going to give you the worst schedule over and over. No, the NFL wasn't mad. NFL was delighted. Well, delighted because they got them, but they were the last ones

onto the boat, right? They were the last ones to get, you know, we get everybody else about it. I mean, of course they were happy because they sold it to ESPN. No, I get you what you mean. Dick Ebersole, I mean. That schedule was just horrendously bad. Why was Dick Ebersole able to butter up the NFL better than Iger and Bodenheimer? Well, first of all, at that time, you have to remember something. Iger didn't have the job. So it was was the worst no but eisner had already announced he was leaving right so it was the worst time in at all for disney because i remember there was a day when all of a sudden somebody on the board leaked that meg whitman was being interviewed for the job and so it's like eisner is going to go and remember they they were losing 700 million, I think, on, no, 125 million, I think, on Sunday night.

So you're going to go in front of the board and say, I think we need to do Sunday and Monday. It's a tough thing to do. It was a pretty cheap price though, right? They could have had it for like a billion point something combined. Very cheap. But you know what? I will defend Iger to the death on this one because I think a billion points, something combined. Very cheap. But you know what? I will defend Iger to the death on this one because I think it was very, very hard. And you love Desperate Housewives.

And they got the rest of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back. It was huge. You got Oswald. But they thought they were getting Monday night schedule. Yeah. I mean, so that's another big thing, but you have to also credit Eversol because one of the hardest things to do is after not being in the NFL game and not having the rights to get back in it, that was well played. That was well played. He got back in it and he got the best schedule.

So we think going forward, 2020s, ESPN has NBA. I think they doubled down on NFL. College football. For sure. College hoops. And then a bunch of fringe stuff. But you think just Monday night on NFL? Do they go for, I mean, can they outbid Les Moonves on Sunday afternoon?

Which is still Sunday. Those two Sunday afternoon games are the best. I mean, you know, Sunday night, Sunday afternoon are clearly top dollar. So you're talking 2021, so really it starts 2020? 2019, yeah. Man, I think some of these big-ass streaming places will be ready by then. You're already seeing it. Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

I mean, all of them want live stuff. So consider 60 Minutes without NFL lead-in. Consider Fox without that Sunday afternoon game. No way, Fox. I mean, no way. I don't think Moonves ever loses football. He's got too many cronies. CBS knows what that's like.

They know they made the worst mistake in the world by giving up the NFC package, and they've still never gotten it back, you know? They're not going to give up the AFC. No way. No, but the other point is, is the bidding going to get so high that it makes it prohibitive for even ESPN to go after it? So do you feel like UFC is going to be the first little test case for this? Because one of the biggest reasons WME bought UFC was they felt like they were going to create this bidding war with all these suitors. I don't think ESPN is going to bid for UFC.

I don't think so either. I don't think ESPN's going to bid for UFC. I don't think so either. I don't think Fox is going to go gigantic all in. Fox just let the Champions League go. Obviously, they're cutting back a little bit too. Turner just spent on Champions League. UFC doesn't feel like a Turner type of thing anyway. NBC Sports isn't going to spend on it. So you start looking at it and you go, oh, who's left for this big,

giant rights thing that they thought they were going to have I don't think HBO's in there I don't think Showtime's in there so is it like USA my dark horse pick would be USA but if their rights stuff doesn't go like the way people

thought I think that's a bad sign for the other stuff on the other hand Champions League just went for way more than i ever thought that turner thing i was stunned by that oh look i think you know mark shapiro is still very bullish on ufc and uh i think well he has to be so their whole company has sunk into it right but i think he said in i read in darren revel's piece yesterday i think that they're ahead of the numbers that they thought they would be. I don't know if I believe that.

At this point. I'm not sure, but I know that. Their pay-per-views are like 150,000 a pop and they've actually been doing more of them. But I think the big issue for them is it's so hard for them to keep stars. You've Colin McGregor and then either he gets beat or he stops fighting or he tries to redo his deal. Or you have Ronda Rousey, and all of a sudden she just gets knocked out. She's gone. Whereas the NBA, they know they have LeBron and KD. They know they have all these people for 15 years.

It's also a weird thing to buy into because you're not getting the best stuff. The best stuff is going to be pay-per-view. Right. So you're saying, I'm going to essentially take in college football terms your third-tier rights or maybe your second-tier rights. But I'm never really going to taste the good stuff. I'm going to essentially take in college football terms your third tier rights or maybe your second tier rights. But I'm never really going to taste the good stuff. I want to promote you all year. I'm going to do shows about you. And I'm going to get these kind of little middle of the, you know, like marking time kind of events.

But I'm never going to get the big events. That's weird. I want to talk about ESPN's digital strategy. But first, Game of Thrones is Sunday night, HBO, July 16th. Right afterwards, our experts will be on our Twitter feed. At Ringer. You can go there. I think Twitter's going to pin it at the top of the actual Twitter page, too.

Our live recap show right afterwards. Jason Concepcion, Andy Greenwald, Mallory Rubin, Chris Ryan. Maybe some celebrity guests. Ooh. Talk the Thrones starting Sunday night. Watch the episode and then just go right there and they'll tell you what the hell happened. ESPN's digital strategy. They're not replacing Kozner. I'm not surprised. We should talk about that. So Kozner was somebody that was my boss for a while. And I had a good relationship

with for a while until after I got suspended. And obviously things changed with me and a lot of people there, but he was out of anyone they had was the only person who at least could have a conversation about where things were going. I remember we went to Silicon Valley like three straight years and saw Apple and Facebook and all these things. And he felt like stuff was happening there. And every time we went, I would always be like, why doesn't ESPN have an office here?

Why wouldn't you open up this state-of-the-art, instead of opening another building in Bristol, why wouldn't you have an office here? Because our engineering, all the stuff that we're doing with our web, I'm saying this, you know, at the time, like our website, like we have to outsource stuff. The technology is not good.

Like we're just not good at stuff. And all of these engineers are in Silicon Valley and they just, they come out and they just go there because they know if they work at Apple, they can hop to Facebook. They can hop at some startup, they get a piece. And that's where all the action is. And ESPN was sitting it out. Did you ever say that to Kozner? Yeah, we talked about it. And he's like, ah, you know, Bristol, we have so much invested in the campus, all this stuff. I always thought it

was crazy. They didn't have just a building with a hundred people in, I don't know, Cupertino or something. And they could have just grabbed people. I really feel like it's a, it's a technology problem is one of the things that is a real issue for ESPN now. And you look at what Bleacher Report, this is what I wish I had said at the Vox conference tonight. We just ran out of time. Bleacher Report has taken ESPN's corner digitally in a lot of ways. Like they are just way better at social. They're way better at driving traffic. Their TeamStream app is better than anything ESPN has. And they've really not only taken their corner,

but they're like three, four years ahead of where ESPN is just with the way they're thinking. And ESPN is like belatedly trying to catch up. What's an example of that? The fact that they have a whole bunch of people in a room every night watching sports and whatever happens, they're just cutting this digital video that just goes out, you know, like some, some movie clip of, you know, that's tied into some Clay Thompson, three point explosion. All of a sudden they had that clip out and it's shared,

you know, a million times in 24 hours. They bought that house, a highlight site, which is one of the best highlights. It's like they're doing the game of zones thing. They're moving more toward that social side, which is also something Barstool is doing too, where they're just the engagement and the eyeballs and they're able to bring all this stuff for other things. And ESPN, now you go to their website, it's really hard to find stuff you know and i think that was one of the reasons they cut back on they got rid of so many writers because they were probably like we have to move towards social and mimic the bleacher report thing we'll just have our signature dudes we'll have like zach low and ramona and winhorst

and barnwell and a couple big ass a couple of big-ass magazine people. We used the magazine people on the thing, on the website. But for the most part, you go to that website now, and it's like videos and tweets. And vertical. And vertical, but vertical. Brian and I have talked about this. I feel like you're buying Loja's Twitter feed.

Yeah. I don't know if you're buying actual stories. I mean, maybe they'll repurpose them. Well, you're losing Mark Stein. You lost Chad Ford. You lost Henry. You lost a couple of true who people. That's the fascinating part about Woj is it's, he is a Twitter asset. He does a lot of things. He's not, when he did his special pirate radio draft show, the final one on ESP, on Yahoo, it was a four and a half hour show. And the plan was for him to be on three times in the flesh in four and a half hours. Yeah.

And the rest of the time they would just show his Twitter feed along the side and react to what the news he was breaking on Twitter, which is just a really postmodern thing. We got this guy, he's not in the flesh on our show, but his Twitter feed, which the whole world can find on its own, is the content driver of the show. But if I'm a Disney shareholder, I say, oh, wow, look, it's gotten, you know, 10,000 retweets or whatever. How does that, how is that monetized? It's not. That's what I mean.

It's a mistake. That's what I mean. And it doesn't, it's not saying anything about him as a reporter. It's just saying like, it's a weird thing to bring into your orbit because it's not the same as some of these other things we're talking about. Bill Barnwell, everything, you know, he's tweeting a lot, but everything he's doing is writing daily for the website, right? That's just coming to you.

I'm going to read Bill's column. The thing that they care about is the ticker. They care about the scrolling thing in the bottom of the screen and who gets attributed to what that seems like an old media thing to care about i know but i think that's i think that was the biggest thing i think last summer from what i heard um when woes really had like just an unbelievable summer he was like he was scooping them on every draft pick before the draft then free agency came he was nailing a lot of the free agency stuff and And I think Skipper was like, what the hell?

Like, the NBA is our sport. This guy's killing us. Clearly bothered them. And they have to run on the ticker. They're running SportsCenter. They're running PTR, all that. And it says, Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski reports. And it's just over and over again.

I think they were like, screw this. We want that to be ESPN. OK, so what's the financial advantage of that? There's not. It's an ego thing. I don't know how you monetize it because like July 1st they had him on TV a bunch. That's not how I would

use him. I mean, Adam Schefter is on television. All the time. Adam Schefter is on television all the time. He's on Sunday mornings. Well, he's a lot more polished than Woj is right now. I mean, Woj needs reps, but I didn't think that was a great use of woj because woj isn't on his phone and they you had sham shirania his old protege is breaking scoops because woj is on tv for 10 solid minutes he can't look at his phone and then things are flying out and i don't know i don't i don't

i didn't really get it but i get it from the standpoint that they're probably thinking, let's streamline our website. We have Zach, we have Windhorse, we have Ramona, Haverstraw, a couple of the True Hoop guys, and then information. And that's it. We don't care about anything else. I think it goes back to the investment in the NBA we're talking about. How can we sink that much money in the NBA and not have the alpha insider of the NBA? I would argue if you're spending $12 billion on the NBA, there should be room then for Mark Stein. Well, that is. And Chad and whatever.

But that's a different argument. I like the internal. I don't mind that you have two competing forces inside. If the world of the NBA is so big, then as long as these guys are good at what they do, and they are, why do you have to choose? And why do you have to lose it? It's inexplicable. Especially because they just gave Stein this huge contract last October. And they're going to pay him for two or three years not to work. And they gave Jaws a giant contract. They're paying him off.

How about people who moved to Bristol because they were told to make the commitment and then they get laid off uh you know first year i think it's i think it's genuinely bizarre and the way it's been explained to me is if they do it now they can write off all these all these contracts that they're paying off a sunk cost for one year and then it comes off their budget going forward i still don't understand how it doesn't you're spending all this money anyway why don't you have mark steiner paying him? He breaks, he broke a ton of stories last month. I look at like Edward started this podcast that he does now all the time. And with all these huge guests from the Cowboys and all this stuff. And I'm like, why isn't that on ESPN.com? Why wasn't that on ESPN.com before? Right. Or do, or do like, that seems like a great use of his time. Or do what

they did with Hannah Storm, where you, you you you know you you kind of renegotiate the deal and you're not making um as much as you used to but you're still part of it and do you believe that conspiracy theories about woj told them to get rid of people because i personally don't i have something to add to that okay so in the in the white heat of it in the moment the day of the first day of the playoffs, I think it was our second day. It was that rolling three days of horror that we all experienced on Twitter. I heard from inside ESPN, this is a Woj thing. It's absolutely a Woj thing.

Got to be a Woj thing. Just absolute belief. I heard 24 hours ago, hold back on that a little bit. Maybe it's more complicated than that. Maybe there are not everything is, you know, certainly like you talk about Stein, right? They wanted this NBA insider and not this NBA insider. That's clearly a decision. But I heard I've heard pullback on that.

I don't think that Woods would say, OK, if I come, you got to clear the deck. I think, though, that ESPN might say to itself, if we're going to spend this money on him, we just can't afford and we don't have the bandwidth to even manage and to pay for these others. I think it became a binary proposition, which it didn't have to be. I think it's a lot more complicated. I think it's a lot more complicated than the straight story. I believe that too or they made the deal with them and then realized that the budget was just out of control and that they couldn't figure it out and maybe if i'm woj though i mean he has every right to say look if i'm going to come over i don't want to be

competing against somebody a colleague like that uh i mean but you know it's different remember schaefter mort you know that was that was a very in a very, in a way, it's a similar situation, right? But they took them out back and now they're singing Kumbaya. I mean, they figured it out. But they figured it out amongst each other. And I think Mort was like, let's make this work together. We'll sit on the set together. We're going to make it work.

And it did not work in this case. It did not, there was not that Kumbaya moment. I don't even know if there was an attempt though. There wasn't an attempt. That's the thing. I don't believe it was an attempt. It was weird at the finals it was some of the weirdest energy i've ever felt in my life you had stein there

and woesh you'd henry abbott there for one of the games you had sage steel and beetle like 10 feet apart from each other you'd be there cats and dogs were living together it was fucking crazy but uh i from a digital standpoint i don't know what the hell Acepin's doing. I just think it's a pretty big statement not to replace Kozner's job. That in itself, he had a big job. He had a huge job. And it's not like digital is disappearing. No.

So I think that when I saw the reorg, I think that was the thing that really took me aback. It's a big decision. I think they've really missed the boat on stuff that I was complaining about when I was there. Like East Pink could have just owned podcasts. They were there first. They were in the space. They had mine. You know, we at Grantland, we had a lot of success with our pods early but they were insisting on

putting them on pod center instead of just floating them out all over the place um but it just it just should have been a growth industry that really could have replaced espn radio something i don't think they ever really understood how to sell it they just they didn't know what to do with it and didn't and it was a grain of sand on a beach. And so it wasn't a priority either. I told you this. They used to throw my podcast into their giant subway deal. I was like the free set of tires you got if you invested $50 million. I won't ask for actual numbers, but percentage-wise, right now, your podcast versus at ESPN.

Well, let's do all of Grantland. I would say we make 10 times as much money on podcasts as Grantland did. Think about that. And this is just very basic, like, don't throw all of our podcasts in your Subway deal. Let us do mid-rolls. All things that other people were doing that were like, why can't we do this? But the thing is, they never cared about the small potato stuff because they're always so focused on the big potato stuff, which was the big conundrum with Grantland. It was like this little boutique part of ESPN.

And Skipper's just saying, I want you guys to be Rolling Stone for this generation. Don't care about whatever. But then when things start to flip, they're like, wow, why aren't you guys making more money? It's like, well, we're not making more money because of this, this, and this. So what do you think their attitude about Undfeated is now well that i that's a great question undefeated and 538 there's no way those sites make money for them so i think you have them because you invested in them and in the undefeated's case there's you know there's there's real reasons why you would have a site like that.

I just don't know how they profit from it because especially now, like you think like audio and video are the two ways to really kind of generate new income for a site and undefeated. Like, I don't think they're in podcasts at all in a substantial way. And I don't really have seen, haven't really seen the videos from them either. Yeah. Five 30. It's an old school pods to my, to my reading anyway but but not in like a giant way but both of them are really text heavy sites and that's but they're also 538 cost center man yeah that's

a big more headcount than grayland did so like that's weird to me too like you can't afford mark stein but you can keep doing five 30 and then defeated. Like I just don't know what the game plan is. It goes back to peacetime wartime to me. Five 38 feels like a peacetime acquisition, right? Growing. We can get in on analytics.

We can get a little bit of that election thing, get Nate, you know, doing all these things. But in wartime, it's just a funnier when you're cutting all these people from the company, core people from the company. It's more of an interesting fit.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be there. I'm just saying it feels different. Well, it's a leadership thing, too, because I always thought 538 was going to be baseball and politics. Those are two things they were great at. Well, it's Nate's pedigree. Yeah. And maybe you could branch out to all sports and politics. But then when they launched it, it was all these different things like food.

And now it's kind of settled into what it should have been from the start. Undefeated, I still, my thing is, can you explain the site in a sentence? I don't totally understand. Like, what is the ultimate mission of that site? Is it news? Is it analysis? Is it news? Is it analysis? Is it entertainment? It seems like it hasn't really figured out exactly what it is yet. And I hope it does, because I like some of the writers they have. But what's the mission? What do you think the mission is? I think that, well, aside from

the obvious and the diversity part of it, that's important to Skipper. I also feel like he believes there's a quality, there's a pedigree to that operation from top down that he wants to be associated with. It's ironic given what happened to Grantland. That's the only thing. You try and find consistencies or rationales or whatever, and all of a sudden this one's sui generis. I mean, that's part of the harder task when you're looking at ESPN as a whole beach.

You know, we can always talk about the individual grains of sand. But look, every day for the last five years, Skipper has been making decisions. Yeah. He and his team have been making decisions. Sometimes you understand them. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes there are things going on that we know that they can't even talk about that they do. Sometimes it's because a particular executive has decided to go deep for that site and you want to support that executive, even though it may not be the right financial decision. The question is how much of that stuff can continue given the diminishing pile and the pressure on the bottom line?

My guess with undefeated is it'll eventually, it'll end up being more player heavy, almost like a better version of the players tribune with like a lot more stuff where you're a lot you're you're um forming alliance with different players and doing projects with them because that's it's like when jordan wanted to talk about police shootings right yeah that's where he went right you know something like that or like lebron's interrupt uninterrupted these little players tribune there's these little satellite industry now of players who are just bypassing the media completely and getting their message out. I think that would be where the undefeated, that would be their big growth spot is how do we align with players and do different projects with them?

But the question is that, you know, it's going to be expensive. All of these players always have an angle. They have some, they want to cut up stuff. All of these players always have an angle. They have some, they want to cut off stuff. They think stuff is worth more than it is. And the question is, are we six months away from a massive meeting at ESPN where they have to figure out that they can only be in business on profitable enterprises and perhaps even significantly profitable enterprises? Right. Versus like 30 for 30, I don't think it's Greenland now. Right. No. In 2008, when we were pitching that. Or maybe on a very limited basis, just as a celebration almost. And then.

But that was a, that was a $15 million project that really was going to cost 20. Not to mention all the marketing and all the other stuff. And they just had to write the check for it. There's no way they would do that now. No way. No. I think I could see them doing big-ass, one-off documentary projects that they could figure out how to sell and market,

like the Michael Jordan documentary that's been pitched around for two years. But now, I mean, Conor's not going to oversee the demise of 30 for 30. But 30 for 30 was never supposed to have a third series. Well, I mean, I know we're going to talk about that on your podcast, but we had 30 for 30 ended.

The people that were running EOE at the time didn't want it to come back because it wasn't their idea and shifted to this ESPN Films Presents was going to be the new brand. Everyone was calling them 30 for 30, so it was like, what the hell are we doing? Let's just do 30 for 30 again. We sent them a big pitch, Connor and I, end of 2011. Here's what series two would look like. That got greenlit. That was supposed to be the last one.

And then we wanted to do one multi-part series that was initially going to be Tyson and became OJ. But I, now I feel like it's just going to 35. Oh, there has been 35 idea. Oh yeah. We talked about that. Yeah. That wasn't from our, our center of the thing, but that's a good example of what, one of the things that I think happened because Skipper didn't have his right-hand guy or his right-hand lady. You had all these different little satellites underneath him, all fighting for territory and doubling down on the territory they already had and trying to grab other people's territory. Like in 2012, Connor and I really wanted to do 30 for 30 shorts. And we just felt like streaming had gotten to the point where we could do shorts. We had all these ideas that weren't good enough for a 30 for 30 that could be like five minutes, ten minutes.

We felt like we could be a big part of Grantland and we wanted to premiere them on Grantland. And the company was aligned behind it. And it was like, all right, we're going to do shorts in this spot. And we would always talk. We had done a couple of shorts for Grantland, too. And Connor and I would have these philosophical discussions on, should that just be shorts? Should we just 30-for-30 shorts on Zed Space?

Within two years, E60 had shorts. Sports Center featured. 538. ESPNW. We couldn't stop it we couldn't we couldn't keep that corner

because all these other people were like well we want that territory and maybe that's the way it should have gone but it was just really hard to for the whole company

to align behind anything well you just touched on something though that I think is a real fascinating aspect of ESPN which is there's a a really powerful duality to the ESPN

culture because when it's somebody attacking Bristol, it can be a pretty unified place. Yeah. I mean, aside from like a couple- I found that out the hard way. Right. But aside from a couple of disgruntled people, which you're always going to find, like by

and large, it can be pretty, pretty unified. But if somebody is not attacking it within, it's incredibly not only competitive, but sometimes to, I mean, there's such a sense of ownership and such competitiveness within ESPN itself that nine times out of 10 because it's more about one individual part of that culture or that operation wanting to own it and not having, you know, somebody else do it. And I mean, so for the listeners, that's part of the legacy of you with NBA countdown. Well, for the listeners that don't know, spring of 2014, we caught wind, Connor and I caught wind of this ESPN 35 idea that basically ripped off our 30 for 30 memo and everything. Just by changing a number. They changed the number, but it was like 35 documentaries about 35 years at ESPN. And we're like, what the fuck is this? But also you guys were never in contact.

You weren't part of it. We found out from sales because sales was trying to sell it. And we had a friend at sales who emailed Connor and was like, do you guys know about this? Meanwhile, the memo had in the pitch multiple topics that we were already developing for 30 for 30. So we were like, what the hell? And we had to spend all this political capital trying to squash it.

And that was, Connor and I would do this good guy, bad cop thing, which is one of the reasons he's kept ascending. I was always the bad guy. I would be the one of the reasons he's kept ascending i was always the bad guy i would be the one that sent the angry email and connor would be kind of the smoother over after um but we we squashed that but it was like can you imagine if they had launched espan 35 as we're doing 30 for 30 well i can imagine that but not confusing with that a bit not having you guys part of it. Not having us in. The knowledge base. We were the best at it. But that's a good example.

And I really think when I look at what's happening to ESPN now, I can see all the seeds of it just all hell breaking loose. Wait, we have one more thing to talk about. By the way, that's one of Connor's, I think, most important challenges. He's going to have to pick sides now. He was always able to straddle all the fences. Let's talk about propercloth.com. Every guy knows it's hard to find a dress shirt that fits.

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I want to talk about two people that got bounced last month that both were my bosses. And I was shocked. Marie Donahue and John Kozner. Kozner, you have been pretty clear, did not want to report to Conor. And you think that's why he's left. Are you 100% sure that's the reason? Well, no, I haven't sat down with John and had him look me in the face and say that. I mean, I've heard that from several people and I think it I think it makes sense, both for Skipper creating that architecture and for Kozner to say, I don't want to do it. You know, I understand both perspectives. So Marie was a business strategy and eventually got more and more control over stuff

and eventually became the boss of East Bend Films, so Connor, Grantland, 538, and eventually The Undefeated, and was in charge of content. Well, there was something else, too, though. She was arguably John Skipper's— The conciliary. Yes. John Walsh was his conciliary forever. John Walsh started fading out around 2012, 2013.

By the spring of 2015, he was retired. But he was really, had faded away a little bit. But Marie had become a much bigger blip on the radar. Oh, yeah. Dating back to, you know, 12 even and 13. And he kept on giving her a lot of responsibility. And also when people would try to go to him as the court of last appeals, I think it's pretty safe to say that, you know, he supported her, um, myriad ways. And, uh, it was, it was very, very, uh, I, I think, you know, probably her biggest fan at

the company. That's a big deal. Is it fair to say that she knew where all the bodies were buried um including all the grailing bodies just i mean she was i think it's conciliary i think i think skipper was probably more transparent with marie yeah than maybe anybody else this was a shocker this this this was a shocker and i that, I think this is the one that hurt Skipper the most for a variety of reasons. I think he. Number one, that she wasn't a white male, which is basically everybody around him now, except for Rob King. Right. I do think he really believed in her. I think he really enjoyed her. I think there was a true friendship. And I think that that was the hardest part about this, this new organization, I think was, was letting true friendship. And I think that that was the hardest part about this new organization, I think, was letting her go.

What do you think the reasons were? Well, you know, let's start with this. I think that if you, somebody, you know, I wrote a piece for The Loud Reporter about it, and somebody said, well, I thought you were being a little sexist on it, or that Skipper was being sexist about it. I don't think that was the case at all. I think that she certainly had a portfolio and a position that it's a meritocracy, and you talk about that. I mean, Marie had, I think she had hits and misses. And I think that the hits, I think, unfortunately for her, didn't garner a lot of, enough of attention from the people within ESPN. And I think that the hits, I think, unfortunately for her, didn't garner a lot of enough of attention from the people within ESPN.

And I think the misses garnered a lot. And I also feel and I know this because there were people who said this, that they did not want to report to her anymore and had a hard time working with her. Now, I'm sure she's got just like she did with Grantland, I'm sure she's got a compelling point of view herself. And I know that she really, she worked her butt off and she cared a lot. But I think that that was probably one of the legacies, you know, about behind this decision. I was going to say, and the misses were very public misses, you know, where somebody, somebody like that who would not be a well-known executive to the outside world in the wake of the Grantland thing. And of course we're in the tank on this, but

she then becomes this figure to people on Twitter, to people looking to be angry about that in a way that an ESPN executive normally wouldn't. I will say this though, in our defense, look, I mean, we all know the Grantland story. This was the deep end of the pool, though. I mean, for someone who had been in the business world, even though she had the job and it was her responsibility, when all of a sudden you're gone and you walk into that Grandland office, I mean, there are very few people who would know how to play it right, right from the beginning. Now, there were certain mistakes that she made. And I know that you know them.

And I know you think she made certain things worse. Granted, but I'm just saying, let's just say that some of the things that she got caught up in were really, they were tough. They weren't hanging curves over the plate. They were like a Rivera splitter. I mean, they were tough. They weren't hanging curfews over the plate. They were like a Rivera splitter. I mean, this was tough. We got along for a long time. I think it's really hard to be a leader and be in charge. There's a leadership component to being a boss.

And you look at what happened with Grantland, especially all of a sudden I'm gone. Nobody knows what happened, what the future of the site is, all that stuff. And the way it was handled just wasn't good. It's a site that, I mean, the ringer shouldn't even exist. If they had handled Grantland correctly, Grantland would still be there. And it would have grown and it had all the people in place.

We created something that had kind of surpassed me being there. All the pieces were there. And I'm not saying that's the number one. Do you think the staff felt that though? In honesty? No, I think the staff was upset with how it was handled. I think that, that caused so much damage, but I mean, there was a way, I feel like there was a way to save that. Then you needed to, no offense, then you needed to say that to the staff, because you were so inextricably linked with Grandland. And there were a lot of people that they were young.

They did not see a way out without you being there. Well, Curtis knows. I was emailing saying, hey, man, I emailed everybody. We created this site. It's your job to protect it and keep it and keep it great. I wanted it to still be great. Then all the stuff they did over the summer, it was like, wow. And, and the morale was so low.

So would you, you're like, if I posit that they replaced instead of going with Chris, they went with Sean and Sean took over right after you left. Is it still around? Yes. Don't look at me. I think it is. No, that's, that's a pretty powerful argument.

I mean, that's a position. Well, that's interesting. But I just want, I mean, you know, look where ESPN is now after the cuts, you know, I mean, it's hard to imagine the Grim Reaper not coming and looking at something. Weren't we just talking about Undefeated and FiveThirtyEight? Yeah. Well, yeah, but. But what?

But without Bill. I mean, I think it's like, you know, the post Bill Graham, like, oh, well, we created this with Bill and then it goes on and oh, we need to cut somewhere. Right. You know? And I think that's how a lot of people felt. The other thing is they had every department has headcounts and they needed the headcounts for undefeated. One skipper really fully committed to it. I think that was really, and they weren't honest about that.

I wanted to do a headcount column though, about Grantland and 538, because I thought that was fascinating when there were a couple of times when you, I know you guys were asking for more and it was a no. And then all of a sudden, but 538 was getting it, which, and that's why before you left, that was a, that's a pretty big decision right there in and of itself. I had a, I had a decision to make. I was at South by Southwest was talking to Peter Kafka at Recode and he was doing a thing about how our on the road podcast and how our podcast was doing. I felt like, I felt like the staff that we had with the content we were putting up, I could see people

starting to burn out and I didn't think it was sustainable. Like if we weren't going to grow and add people and I just was really starting to get worried about, um, kind of the mental health of the staff. And so I said, and I think like, we got to keep growing. I, there were things I didn't know though, at the time I didn't know about, I didn't know that about the cord cutting thing. I didn't know it was as bad as they were starting to realize like spring of 2015, that the cord cutting thing was a real thing that they were going to have to have legitimate budget things. We had always been told from day one we wanted to be rolling stone for the internet we want you to do great stuff like even 2014 we had almost hired lee jenkins you know nate initially was supposed to be on grantland we we were still moving and trying to make things we did a big deal with matt taibbi to write stories for us like that that fall but you were aware of

the fact that 538 was getting resources that you couldn't get i was but i at the same time i really liked nate i wanted his site to succeed what what didn't make sense to me was when we had this headcount thing in like march and and we needed we needed a social person like social was a big thing for us we needed to really boost up our social and get our stuff out and they just just, they didn't give us any head count. And I knew what was going on with the other ones. But I think that most of that was about me, right? They felt like I was leaving. I think they felt like I was going to leave at the end of my contract.

We're not helping Grantland anymore. I think the final year that you were at ESPN was a very, very difficult year. I don't blame them for playing it that way. If they felt like I was going to leave, why are they going to keep sinking resources into Greenland? Well, I just think that that was the time, though, for them at least to come up with, or for you guys together, to come up with a bold new financial arrangement

whereby you could have stayed. I think it was just too simplistic to say, oh, you know what, he's already making this much money They thought I was leaving to start a company with Connor. Well, there were reasons that they thought that. I know. Where'd they get that idea? You know, let's just, let's be honest about that. This is getting deep.

This is like beyond inside baseball. But anyway, with the Marie thing, I don't think that helped, but I just, I don't think she left. I don't think she should have been in charging content. I think she was a brilliant business person. I think, I think she got miscast and, um, and I think she got miscast partly because he had done a poor job of building his inner circle around him. And there were people he could have promoted that he didn't.

I think he could have leaned on connor a lot sooner than he did i remember connor almost left in 2012 or 13 i can't remember and 13 and 14 and 15 no but 13 he was almost out the door and you know i was like why am i the only one fighting for connor and sending long emails about why they have to keep him? It was like he was one of the only young executives they had who actually had a sense of content. And I don't know. It's just everybody's boxing everybody out. And it's just. I think in fairness also to Marie, when you get parachuted into the content world, there are things about it that are just so unique.

And I mean, that's why I like Olivia Geist, growing up in there and you see her career, the way it's flourishing and you see how amazing she's becoming. I'm not saying she's a better executive. I'm just saying though that you spending that time in the trenches and then moving up forward and moving up forward it's not only that your colleagues understand that you've paid your dues but you've actually seen what some of these jobs require so when you're talking about it from a management point of view you have a of a keener sense of it um i think it was very

difficult um you know i would still say it had to have gotten, I've been there for two years. It had to have gotten really bad that Marie like had to go. I was surprised by that. You're talking like inner circle for a skipper in 2012. Walsh, Marie, Kozner. Those were his, those were his three. They're all gone now. One other thing he never did that George always had was that chief of staff.

He always had somebody, George, the best one was Laura Gentile, who ended up going to run an ESPNW, but George would have a chief of staff. So he'd have these meetings and he'd be like, all right, you're meeting with baseball at 10 o'clock. Then you're meeting with ESPN Deportes at 12. He'd have the chief of staff of them. And before the meeting, it'd be like, all right, you're meeting with Bill Simmons about Grantland. Here are the four bullet points, blah, blah, blah. He's going to want to talk about this, this, this, and this. Skipper would just go.

He didn't have anybody. Well, but also it was how they arranged the organization, right? Because it's just like President of the United States. You have a very vertical one, like Eisenhower used to sit atop just like he was like commander in chief. And so everything kind of filtered up. Nixon was like that.

And then you have somebody like Bill Clinton, who basically you create an X and he wants his desk right in the middle. Right. And he wants to be able to do it. He wants transparency.

And that's what Skipper was. And by the way, Skipper prided himself on anybody could get to him. Right. But his job was too big though. The job was too big. So you look at the NBA, right? You go to any NBA finals game. skipper prided himself on anybody could get to him right and and he was having a conversation the job was too big so you look at the nba right you go to any nba finals game you'll see adam anywhere with adam silver all-star weekend whatever there's a guy right next to him

wearing a suit who's carrying a big thing his name is jared i've known him forever he's adam's chief of staff right every place adam goes jared goes right it's like he's prepping him getting him ready say the nuclear codes yeah yeah he's just dude this we got to go here you're the he's prepping him i i remember sending an email to skipper once being like that should be connor connor should just go wherever you go and prep you and be your chief of staff but he just didn't want it well he can't you know look skipper is what 62 61 want it. Well, he can't, you know, look, Skipper is what, 62, 61, whatever. You don't, you can't change just because the job changes. You can do certain things, but Skipper, his whole life has been very, he, by the way, he's a lot quicker decision maker than George was. He likes to be more face to face. He's, he's going, you know, a million miles a minute and he

feels comfortable with that. And so that's his model. I mean, I totally understand that. It's just that I think that, you know, the legacy is that he really, he didn't understand how big it was. I still think he's a brilliant content guy. I wish the things he did were, you know, the fact that he greenlit 30 for 30, I think is still incredible. I just don't think anyone else would have greenlit that. It made no sense. He's got a contract coming up. Do you think he stays? Well, now, definitely.

That was part of the genius of what he did, right? I think so. Do you think, as an innocent bystander, these next two, three years, determine on whether the Skipper thing was a success or not? Or do you feel like the declining subs and all that stuff, it's like already not a success? Oh, no. He's got time.

He's got time to change the narrative, as it were. What do you think are the two things ESPN needs to do next two years? What would be your two priorities if you were Skipper's new chief of staff? Figure out, well, I don't know if timing in two years is going to be rights deals, but figure out the way forward on that. What you're going to pick, what Jim was talking about earlier, where are you going to double down? Where are you going to just abandon and say, we can't do it? We've got to get out of these businesses. And then, yeah, figuring out the, I mean, it's the big question.

It's like, what's the existential question of ESPN? How are we going to pay for this? What are we going to do? How are we going to make money? How are we going to satisfy the howling masses on Wall Street? You know, how are we going to continue to monetize the company? Do you buy this whole, this new ESPN streaming channel they're going to open that has all content that's not on ESPN? It's like cricket and all this different stuff.

I don't see how that works. Maybe not, but I think they're at a period right now where they're willing and always feel that they need to throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And, you know, and by the way, even if it's not a gigantic home run, they're all, they should be in the singles and doubles business. That speaks to your point about podcasts years ago, because they weren't, they were just thinking about home runs. And so now if you get in early on something and it's, you know, even if it's a smaller piece of the pie, if it's profitable and it has a growth strategy behind it, great, let's do that. Let's do that. Let's do that. So I think that in, in that regard, they're probably being smart, which is they're not trying to just look for

one thing that's going to all of a sudden turn it around. Which, by the way, makes the message that they have to give Disney, to give Wall Street, all the harder. Well, yeah, I also think a big challenge for them going forward and a challenge for the last couple of years has been finding new talent. And you look at like all the talent that they either found or developed from define talent now because the notion of talent is changing i'm saying people that either draw eyeballs to a computer screen or draw ears to a radio or a podcast or um you know can be somebody on air and i just think i i think from a finding talent standpoint they have been really lacking the last couple years so dare we say katie nolan i mean i mean sure that's is that finding talent

though i'm saying developing talent finding somebody who has potential and developing them into an asset you know it's's like Katie's a known commodity. Well, she hasn't been on the air since the Clinton, you know, I mean, it's been, it's been a long time. But she's figuring out what to do with her. I think it's a question, right? What does she want to do and what, what would she be best doing over there? But she's known. I'd say the talent they've developed lately is like Pablo Torre, you know,

magazine to around the horn guest to has his own show coming up in the new regime. Right. Mina Kimes is on that same kind of path. Right. Yeah. Magazine. Great writer. Around the horn guest.

You know, who knows next? But, you know, it's on ESPN radio. But with Katie, I mean, you know, Katie and a lot of people on Twitter know Katie. But I think Katie's got another level jump in her that that's possible. If somebody can figure out what she should be doing. I totally agree. That was the first person to try to hire. They wouldn't trade.

Who wouldn't they trade for? Oh, that's right. That's right. Wouldn't trade that NASCAR guy for Marty Smith. Yep. Fox was like, we'll do it.

Let us have Ian dark for some soccer stuff and let us have Marty Smith. And we'll give you Katie. And wild hack said, no no and now he's the athletic director at syracuse needed oswald the rabbit in that deal could have pulled it off i should have i should have thrown a couple more things in there um i think that i think they need to continue to find talent, especially on the digital side, because, you know, um, talent's out there. Go find some, go find some people. Who's the next generation of ESPN? Well, they, I mean, look, they changed their approach with this.

You're developing a three hour show around Mike Greenberg. Three hours. I don't want to spend three hours with anyone. Three hours is like a ride from boston to new york and that is uh i think that's the that's the first plate on connor's table i think it's a big one if you're head of content and you have a guy you're paying over six and a half million dollars a year for and you're going to give him three hours every day that thing better work and that to me that shows all about sidekicks well i think who is the person who are the person and people sitting next to him but the thing is if you're gonna all right so i agree with you but

if you're gonna if you need to make that show work by having 10 other people on it that you have to give new contracts to then why did you choose the idea in the first place i'm just saying where we are now it's about casting the sidekicks correctly. Whether Katie has a big role in that, if not a regular role in that. Who is sitting next to him to me is a huge question. I don't think it's going to be Katie. She'll be on it, though, if she's on ESPN. They've got to put her on it.

I know. First Sage was going to be on it. Now Sage is not going to be on it. I think they're still figuring things out. By the way, it starts soon. You seem skeptical. You know what? I think it's a, you're climbing Everest on a cold day in your shorts.

I mean, only because it's three hours and it's an expensive show. It's not to say that I don't have faith in Connor or Bill or Greeny or whatever, but that's going to be a tough one. That's not an easy show to do. Just not. Have they just, what are they doing with ESPN radio? Radio all over the place.

Radio is just, I don't, it's almost like podcasts are going to... God, it had that great decade or two and ESPN brought it back to life. And Oberman launched it. And there were so many great... Sure. I mean, the heydays of...

It's so fascinating. The local markets, they're not even in the top 40, which shows in these major cities, because everyone just wants to hear their own... If you're in Dallas, you just want to hear about the Mavericks and the Cowboys and the... Just the Cowboys, actually. Yeah, there's the Cowboys and the little Mavericks.

A little bit of spin. One segment a week. Thanks again to Proper Cloth. Ordering a custom fit shirt has never been easier thanks to Proper Cloth. Create a custom shirt size in seconds. Answer 10 easy questions. Custom choose over 20 collar styles, 10 cuff styles, 300 different fabrics, classic to business.

Look your best. Go to propercloth.com slash BS. Enter gift code BS to save $20 on your first shirt. Thanks to Bowling Branch. Great sleep starts with the right sheets. Do you have the right sheets, Joe? I think so. I'm hoping.

Do you have the right sheets, Brian? Yeah, I'm in the ballpark. They're more affordable than you think with Bowling Branch. Go to bowlingbranch.com today to get their 100% organic cotton-crafted sheets, and you'll get $50 off your first set of sheets plus free shipping when you use the promo code BS. So you're writing another ESPN book, maybe? Maybe. There's a lot that happened since the last one.

I'm excited for the ESPN The Book movie. ESPN The Book The Movie? Is there a chance? I hope so. We've got to lead. Can Matthew Perry play me? How much time have you spent thinking about who will play you in this movie? Can the 25-year-old Matthew Perry play me?

What age am I in the ESPN? Oh, this is set in the 70s, though. I mean, 80s. early 80s, right? You're a child actor watching television. I'm a child actor. I'm being played by one of the guys on a Disney show. One of the kids. Actually, I went with your dad.

My dad should be in the ESPN. Better character, sorry. Yeah. He's still a signature podcast guest for me. Brian, thank you. Thank you. As always. Really good job, by the way. Brian wrote a great piece about how Trump is creating a whole new generation of media stars, which is true.

One of the reasons I love that piece is I had never thought about it until you laid it out. And I'm like, yeah, he's right. These are all people that just weren't that important 12 months ago he didn't know i just love the idea that was i mean i know we're in a time when good news travels slow but i i just think that uh this whole dynamic 10 o'clock at night to watch what's going on between the new york times and the washington post makes you feel like you know i mean that's must have been like what it was like in the 70s and yeah you know spielberg's doing this movie about mrs graham which is like perfect timing.

But it is unbelievable. If you watch, every single night, there's the journalism and the breaking news. It's pretty compelling. Yeah, it's the age of the heroic journalist, the heroic political journalist. And that's why Spielberg's doing this movie, because the way we think about the people covering Trump, he is evoking that by the people that cover Nixon by doing the movie. Absolutely. Thanks for doing this, guys.

Oh, thanks for having me. This is fun. I wonder when we'll reconvene the three men. What else needs to happen? This is the last big shakeup for a while, right? Conor's now the second skipper. Skipper always needed. Yep.

I guess. You don't think there's going to be another massive layoff thing coming to you i don't know i don't know i really don't know i mean i listen i'm not trying to scare anybody right i i have no i just have no idea i hope not i certainly hope not because they seem pretty adamant it was done that lord willing i mean i certainly don't don't want any more um you know it's it's weird because we see these headlines sometimes you know us steel or ford lays off 32 000 or whatever you know 300 people at espn two years ago it was just inconceivable it was inconceivable and people are still feeling it and then this hundred that just went bye-bye i remember when they liquidated the eoe

group which we were sharing an office with at grantland in 2011 that was like i think like 22 people and that felt like the biggest most important thing that happened 300 is insane i remember when ratings went down though and it was one of the reasons why bodenheimer gave shapiro you know programming and production and the ratings were really bad and they were starting to think about that back then

yeah and I mean you gotta credit Shapiro because I mean from a ratings point of view boy it really turned things around juiced it for

yeah two years thank you guys thank you thanks Bill Thank you. Thanks, Bill.