The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Sporting Class: Taylor Swift, Deion Sanders, and Mr. Beast Walk Into a Sports Bar

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Meadowlark Media CEO John Skipper and Nothing Personal's David Samson are back with another episode with Pablo Torre Finds Out host... Pablo Torre to host! Welcome to the Swiftie Universe. It was Coach Prime. Now it’s Taylor Swift. What is the business of Taylor Swift and the NFL? Is it worth it? Is it too much? Then, what is the NBA doing to get into the influencer game? Charlotte has signed a deal with Mr. Beast! Where does it end? Plus, what is happening with RSNs? Do you like drama? Do you like sports? Do you like broadcast rights talk? Do you like sports drama about broadcast rights talk? This is a story for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. This is the Dunlabel Tarshou with the StugatSpotCas. All right, we are doing this for the first time. The three of us here together in a room doing this boarding class in person. Thank you, Metal Arc. We did it, John. Thank you, Pablo. We did it.

Functioning studio. Wow. But we're not live. Thank you. Well, we are live. I can look at sea live. I can see. You can see that you wouldn't know right now.

We're live. We may not broadcast the results live, but we are live right now. Keep telling yourself that. Always close to... You said we're just in a matrix, so... I think that we should be able to do this live. Okay. I think we're always close to getting in trouble

as if we were live. So that sense of danger permeates the studio where I do public Torah, finds out hello, I am public Torah. David Samson, John Skipper. We're here. And we are gazing at the Colossus, a stride art country. And it used to be Deon Sanders.

That was last week, two weeks ago. That was the answer to who is number one in the cultural power poll. And now here comes a topic in Taylor Swift that I think both of you are on some level already exasperated by if you're like me. I'm over it. I'm so over it the manufacturer relationship between Kelsey and Swift.

Watching the commercials play, finding out that it's like a press release when she's going to be at a game as though that's a big deal and chest bumping with his mom and then it's too much, but the business, that's where I deal and chess pumping with his mom and and then it's too much but the business that's where I get brought back in it's really good business. Well it's the same as the Deontes Enders matter right which we talked about before. The big deal is because it's good for the broadcasters it's good for the teams this is good for the NFL this is good for Travis Kelsey primarily it's seen no doubt. Tracting more and more followers and I'm assuming it's good for Travis Kelsey primarily. It seems good for attracting more and more followers. And I'm assuming it's good for her to promote her new movie.

I mean, the incentives are clear for everybody it seems. Travis Kelsey has a podcast. Travis Kelsey has a jersey. Taylor Swift has all of these businesses, movies, albums, all of that, 100 million Spotify monthly subscribers already. What's interesting to me though, John, is that the NFL, I would have imagined once upon a time, was maybe above Gen U fleeting because they are the monoculture. Well, you can make the argument there least in need of this boost. So classic, as is classic always, the people who need who need help the least get the most

It's a minute three minutes for John's political views to come out for old socialist John's skip Amazing with having said that does exasperate me at all it seems the natural of order things Perhaps they're actually romantically entangled and that's a lovely thing. I could use that as the thing I love at the end of today's broadcast. Socialist and aerovantics. By the way, aren't those the same thing? That's what DOS Coppitalic is about. How culpable is the NFL in attempting or all of us? This is what I was thinking about. We're all trying to be viral. We're all trying to have a shooting star.

Deon Sanders was a shooting star. Took advantage of it, lost a game. And now I haven't read one thing about Deon Sanders recently. So now it's Taylor Swift. I think she has more stain power. And so will this relationship of convenience have to last? Does it last through the season?

Do they do it only to week eight to the by week? Because at what point does NFL get every dime out of this that they possibly can? Because you can't keep at this frenetic pace during the course of a full season. Well, I'm not sure. I suspect that every game she attends, they will have the Taylor Swift Cam

and we'll get to see her about every other minute and what she's doing. And if that's entertainment, I think it really speaks to the fact that these games are more and more entertainment, right? I mean, if you go to an NBA game now, it is music and dancing and contest and shooting t-shirts into the crowd.

So there's the feeling that you always need to entertain people. And one week you can entertain them is Taylor Swift showed up. And you can't afford to go to a concert, but you watch your own television. But that's different things. The in-game entertainment is for the people who buy tickets. Everyone who goes to the Chiefs Jets game, how many people had access to scene Taylor Swift. And so I viewed this as a TV play more than an in-state play. No question. Though I'm sure they showed her on the big board, and I'm sure that made people feel they were

at a special place. It's good for everybody. It doesn't bother me. I don't think it takes away from watching a football game. By the way, you got plenty of time. They're playing every five, they're playing every five seconds, every four to seconds. You have 35 seconds.

You can show the huddle. You can show the third or fourth replay, or you can show Twiter Swift. Show Twiter Swift is great. Right, there is that Wall Street Journal article that summarized the total amount of actual action in an NFL game. Now one could reasonably wonder,

are we seeing more Taylor Swift than actual action on a field? But beyond the crackling energy of, oh my God, this VIP is here tonight. I wanna watch this slash B there to take advantage of my ability to, I don't know, post an Instagram story myself about this.

There's the question of who they want posting those Instagram stories, right? This is not just a raw tonnage play. This is a demographic play, is it not? No one's talking about that. And it's something that I'm comfortable to answer, but it's an uncomfortable answer. Taylor Swift brings a demographic.

She is what I would call and not racially, but vanilla. There's no controversy around Taylor Swift. She doesn't have, it's not Kim Kardashian. There's no worry about relationships about arrests. You can literally take her home to mom. Which is exactly why Kelsey's mom's involved, Kelsey's involved. It is a perfect person for the NFL to go after the last frontier for them, which is increasing the demographic of women. And it's been proven to happen these last two times she's been to a game. More

women are watching, more women are engaging with football. And if I'm Roger Gidell, I am smiling because I want that demographic because it distracts from some of the negative stuff that goes on with the NFL, domestic violence, some of the CTE issues. Hey, we're Taylor Swift. We're about dancing and pop or whatever she is. There's almost nothing negative

at associating yourself right now with Taylor Swift. And that's what they're doing, smart. I don't think it bothers anybody. I think, in fact, most people probably think it's kind of amusing and fun. I'm sure there are a few comeudians who would not like to see Taylor Swift 30 times a game. We just heard from one, in fact.

But they're not... I'm not teasing it. So I'm all in. I'm a comeudian that I don't want to see or 30 times a game. But I love that the NFL is getting this demographic and then monetizing it because my view of women and as NFL fans, you need them because they're in charge of whether or not their kids play football as kids. They're in charge of whether they're a pain in they don't want their husbands to watch NFL games or engage or go to NFL games. watch NFL games or engage or go to NFL games, it was always my dream running a team to have women go to baseball games and watch baseball games because it's one fewer argument that

men have to not engage with my products. You also give you a number 273 million Instagram followers. So increasingly in sports, what we hear about is how many followers people have this is marketing She has 273 million people she she puts it on her Instagram all those people see she was an NFL game It's spectacular free marketing for the NFL. She done that. Do we know for sure? I don't follow her so I'm one of the few people in the world to do not has she been posting like her A lot of the way that the NFL has been where the NFL is changing its bio on social media to talk about how they to our swifties basically infuriating every sports fan that sees

if you're a jetfan for instance who sees these games not as I don't know the red carpet at the Emmys or the Academy Awards but an actual game that they care about but but I want to get to the cynicism behind the scenes of all of this, David, because the idea of Taylor Swift being Roger Gidell's mana from heaven, right? Even absent the whole idea of him atoning for like the Ray Rice scandal on some level, right? Tell me about what it's like when a player of yours starts dating a celebrity. Oh, we love that. We play that up. We actually, we'll find out when players are doing it because we get the past list.

So what players have to do to get tickets is they go to the traveling secretary. The traveling secretary has a block of tickets that used to be. I just think it stands. I'm sorry. He's the assistant to the traveling secretary. This is the actual traveling secretary as a block of tickets that used to be pretty good sense i'm sorry it's the assistant to the traveling secretary this is the actual traveling secretary this is the stands as a boss as boss and there are different sections in the ballpark there's a family section then there's a girlfriend section and so what these traveling secretary has to get from the player is where do you want this person because sometimes you don't want them in the family

section but then we get involved because we look at the list and say, ah, you're bringing a list of Milano. All right, we want her not in the family section or the girlfriend section. We're going to put her right within camera of the center field camera, or we're going to put her in the owner seats. Then if we find out that the player has moved on, we encourage other players to date the same person so there can be continuity of celebrity, which we accomplished. It's like matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match. We love it because we want to be able to keep the gig going.

Anything that's celebrity we wanna attach ourselves to because it makes us cool. And I feel that's what Roger Gidell is doing here. Yeah, the only thing I would say is I don't think this happened to some master plan in the NFL office. I assume that Travis Kelsey is actually going out with her. Oh, you're romantic. She's coming to you all year.

You're romantic. I don't think there's a contract somewhere between Travis and Taylor help me out here with my and and Roger can tell is there ever been a couple in your mind where there's been a contract where the result of that Couple is monetization and it's not love And in my personal life. Well, how about it? It's all about love? Okay. I hear you. Same for the record.

Every. Do you really need to do that? Okay, I'll say it. All of Tom Cruise's relationships, and don't stop smiling, but you understand why studios do that. Yes. Tom Cruise goes from relationship to relationship. No, I feel you completely know.

This is a real thing that happens. The idea that love can come in four quadrants is the most American ideal as well, right? Like, hey, it's not merely that we're selling the story. It's that we, as David has now celebrated repeatedly, we're now monetizing this for ourselves. Which, again, to the extent that this is real, it seems undeniable at least that

the incentives are real and algorithmic. Everything is algorithmic. Everything, if you don't sit near the world moving, I'm just assuming you're here today. I just assume that this is all happening in the matrix and for some reason, somebody has decided they should be together and some other universe. I love it you have that John, I really do because to me when you were running ESPN there's you're not you have to be thinking this way and now you get to Metalark and you're this oh I love everybody and I think they really do care about each other.

When I was at ESPN I was discouraging coupling just to feet, I was discouraging coupling. Just to be fair, I was discouraging coupling in the workplace environment. I do love David, though. David, what David is saying, though, which is so funny to me, and should have been a sign felt, like, arc is the idea of you guys encouraging, like, truly, like saying, hey, doesn't, doesn't she look nice so we would let the players know which celebrities were coming to which game and then the players would I don't say they would sign up because that sounds horrible but there were certain players who would want to meet certain celebrities who

were coming and we would foment that meeting because it would be in our best interest to have a love connection I don't't know. The word foe meant. I was gonna say, he's a foe mentor. He's a foe mentor. It's a classic foe mentor. He's like Moses Malone, foe foe and foe. He's foe-mitting, foe-mitting, and foe-mitting. I wear that, and I'm not ashamed of that.

And yeah, okay. Well, that provides us, the foe foe foe, provides us an easy segue back to the MBA where another related story is a foot. Because the Charlotte Harnets are partnering with another one of these, you know, truly influencers, let's just call them what they are. Influencers meeting people who can move markets,

influence markets, it seems. And that influencer in question is Mr. Beast. And I don't wanna do the thing where we all feel very old because already we're doing that. But all you gotta know, John, what? I used to think of a market influencer's carl icon. Right. Not, I feel not.

I'm not really in scrolling right now. Not Mr. Beast. He's, I think he's influencing social culture, right? And lending the influence he has somehow to marketing and monetization. You can make fun of the monetization part of it, but you're talking about a person who has 180 plus million subscribers

on his main YouTube channel. This is no joke. No, no, once again, it was my point. Before we, right now, I think followers is going to replace ratings as the currency for success in sports. By the way, what are they talking about with Messi? All you ever hear is how many followers the MLS now has. I've never quite understood there. There's not a direct relationship between the number of followers and how much money you make, but it's not there is actually because

there is if you're the if you're the you're the person if you're the foam inter yes and you can get paid to monetize that foam intonation that's Kardashian yeah I mean that's what they do they get paid for posting but this brings us to what the Charlotte Hornets are doing as not Mr. Beast not Jimmy Donaldson in North Carolina native, who has 300 million plus subscribers followers across all of his channels. The question is what the Hornets want out of this, and also what Mr. Beast is using the Hornets for, right? So the Jersey sponsorship, in which, again,

it's the patch on your jersey. It'll have a Mr. Beast. I think it's going feastables. One of his companies, which takes chocolate company. And we don't know what kind of chocolates, but let's assume, is it mushroom chocolates or edibles? Or is it just actual horses? It only feels that way.

I read about how many followers. I can't doubt that would be on the jersey. The rice is right, baby. So he's making commestibles. So, combustibles. So, combisibles. So, what happens is, the Charlotte Hornets go out and have a price. They have a rate card. And the NBA gave each team the right to sell their own Jersey spurs.

It's not national. It's not collective. Each team goes out to do it. Charlotte and the brilliant move said, we have a local person here who is huge. Let's see if he would ever want to consider this and they approach him and let's say they go to Pepsi and they have a deal where they can say to Pepsi, we can give you $5 million of worth by being our Jersey sponsor. You're going to move X cases of Pepsi and we'll give you Y commercials, we'll give you

seats for your clients, you'll get a suite, you got all these things. And you have to prove that it's works, that that deal works. For Mr. Beast, I think the conversation's totally different, which is Mr. Beast, you want access, you've got all the followers in the world, but no one knows. Now you can hang out, you can be in the room where it happens, you can be cool. And maybe it'll drive some business to festivals, maybe not. But you're better at driving people to your brand than we ever could be. And it's a marriage made in heaven. Mutually beneficial incentives.

It's brilliant. And it opens up a whole new revenue stream for other teams now to search out these type of influencers who are able to not get paid but to pay because most influencers get paid to influence. This influencer is so big that he's now paying. That's a totally different model. But for the hornets, it's simply a transaction. Now it may be a transaction with some additional advantages and perhaps he got or he agreed to promote it to his 300 million people in lieu of paying the most money, maybe not. If you're Charlotte and when you say there's a rate card, there's a rate

card but there's, it's not like only one person can buy this. So they'll sell it to whoever will pay them the most money or provide them the most value. So are you suggesting that maybe part of the value Mr. Beast is paying is he's got three or many followers and Charlotte can not only get the cash they can get some free market. If I'm Mr. Beast I'm not paying market for that Jersey sponsorship. So here's the context, right? So Mr. Beast is replacing the very sexy lending tree, the online loan marketplace, the Pat Sponsors in 2017, right? So the net of this is that, okay, again, access to the demo, right?

Like young people, that is Mr. Beast's whole bag, is young people follow him around like a messianic figure. And that's a big bag. But the question is, how many, what is the actual upside for, not just Mr. Beast, but any company when it comes to, oh, I'm now on the patch.

Like, what does that actually translate into in terms of real world returns? So what did I say as president of a team or what do I actually think? I would like to answer both ways. I would like the lie and then the truth. So the lie is that when you're associated with our brand as a Jersey sponsor or as an outfield wall sign or as the naming rights to our ballpark, here's what you get. You're on the news x times or on the spm x times. You have this number of impressions around the world. In each of the cities

where you do business, we can measure you do business in 10 cities where the marlins play and you are going to get exposure in those 10 cities. Then we're going to give you seats and we're going to give you on field first pitches, which are valued at $20,000 a pop. And we're going to give you give a ways where we give 18,000 ball of heads. Yada, yada, yada, horse crap, horse crap, horse crap, but that's how we sell. That's the lie. The truth, I wouldn't spend one penny of metallurcs money to have the naming rights of anything

because I have never been convinced by anybody that it actually drives one person. And the theory is the way the marketing people sell it, is they say, hey, more people are gonna drink Pepsi than Coke because we're associated with the Hornets. More people are going to... Brand aware of the lending tree when they need a loan because they're associated with the Hornets.

I have yet to meet a consumer who made a consumption decision based on a team sponsorship, but maybe I'm wrong. I've always felt there's a high correlation between the personal interests of the CEO, for the CMO and sponsorships, right? And David laid it out, it has a lot to do with, oh, I get to go the game. Now, you can, again, you can figure out a justify. I'm going to take my bottlers. I'm Pepsi, I'm going to take my bottlers again, that's good. And by the way, I don't think anybody makes these decisions just completely, flippantly, but if you want to do it, you can figure out

some reason to do it. I've always suggested that golf sponsorships were among the most lucrative and the easiest to sell because you probably have a higher proportion of CEOs and CMOs who play, then who play rugby. So the rugby sponsorships are harder, by the way, not to mention the audience is different. There is always some justification,

but I'm agreeing with David that overwhelmingly some element of sort of ego, I get to be at the stadium, I get to go. That's it. This is the through line so far, right? Is that it's cool to be at these games. As much as Taylor Swift is being used by the NFL, the idea that this is a place of great prestige and exclusivity, to me, the most exclusive, coolest seat in all of entertainment,

including theater and sports and everything else, is courtside an NBA game. There's nothing quite like it, and now Mr. Beast gets to be a de facto owner adjacent figure. Yeah. Do you remember, did you ever sit in the court side seats that we had at the heat? No. I got, can I off the subject give a two minute story about why it's cool to sit court side?

Please. So in the transaction. Yeah, it's okay. We'll just edit it out, but go. Yeah. No, no, go ahead. No, no, of course you can. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's okay. We'll just edit it out, but go now. Yeah. No, no, go ahead. No, no, of course you can. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no the court cited MBA, we batted a thousand bringing clients to those seats.

And it was a crucial part of the transaction. John Henry wanted to keep the court side seats, and we insisted they were not excluded assets in the asset purchase agreement to get the marlins. We insisted that the court side seats were included. The heat wanted them back because they could sell them for more, and John Henry had a contract at a certain price. We assumed that contract as part of the deal. And then we used it for sales,

and it paid for itself 20 times over, because when you bring someone five feet, two feet, nothing like Ron James, it's done. It's done. And so the access, critical. And I think you're gonna see Mr. Beast, and I couldn't pick him out of a lineup right now So I don't know what he looks like he'll be at horn he'll be courtside at the horn skaters

Okay, he does not look like Carl icon matter the record look. It's uh among the other things charlie hornets did they probably have a sticker on their Uniforms now that is cooler right? It's not a bad thing the NBA leans into it's already a good not a bad thing. The NBA leans into it. I need to add a lot of love to public good. A good, more good vendor. At public mobile, we do things differently. From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares?

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Different is calling. Pfff. Pfff. Don Lebertard. David Samson, weirdo. Pfff. Because he was not, he was not the fun substitute teacher who wheeled out a TV and play a VHS tape or Armageddon in science class he was the the weird one

who would eat an ex-salad sandwich while clipping his toenails into the trash can and running about Ronald Reagan. Stugats! The guy kept talking about how his ass was smooth smoother than a newborn's cheek. He wouldn't stop bragging about his bare buttics to me. This is the Don Lebertar Show with this two-gats. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Speaking of people in need of financial relief, we get to the question of what the f*** is happening in the regional sports broadcasting world. Because the latest, and this has been an ongoing saga, we've been chronicling here on the sporting class, but the latest is that Diamond Sports Group is in the middle of chapter 11 and they are bleeding out. And so too is the larger enterprise here, right?

And so the NBA deal, let's keep it in that league, the NBA deal, John, which you, again, you often are the architect of these deals that we talk about. For the ESPN side of things, and the MBA timing of all of these national deals up in two years, right? So there are two years left on that one. And so in the meantime, the local sports rights in these regional networks, there is something

of a crossroads of like what happens there with the national deal on the way out. And your sense of it is what? Look, I've always believed that the NBA is the other league with the NFL that has a chance to make all of their games national, right? And I think their ambition is to be a national sport. Baseball and hockey remain about 50% of the audience for hockey games and baseball games, tell them if you saw different numbers, are the local teams. It's not more. Football is the lowest,

right? They have a national audience. Everybody in the country will tune in to see Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. And some of that's true in all other sports, in the country will tune in to see Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. And some of that's true in all other sports, right? They had tune in to see Gretzky and the kings that tune in to see Judge and the Yankees. But for the most part, there are more local sports. And the question here is, the regional sports network business is going to decline dramatically if not die. It doesn't mean it's going to be the same for every league. And I believe for the NBA, they could be lining up that over time they are going to take

their regional games, put them in a package. Now my friend David explains to me what the biggest problem for that is and that is the big market teams would rather not do that. But you're clearly going to have a situation where the small, it's not small market teams, you actually should go the other way. There's a bay, maybe what a half a dozen teams, they're gonna wanna keep their local rights because they can make a lot more money. For the rest of them, they would make more money

by putting all of these in a pile, selling them nationally and splitting the money evenly. So the question is where that fight will go, was clearly Memphis and Oklahoma City, and even some big teams. I'm assuming Washington Astros in Major League Baseball would like to put all the games in a hat, sell all the Yankee games with the Astros games and they'll take out. They just bought their RSN, which was very interesting.

Well, you were to explain that because I wanted to go back. Yeah. I want to get to that, but I need to respond because I don't agree with one thing. The reason why we're talking about this today is there was news this week. The news is when you declare chapter 11 when you file chapter 11 you had that's really reorganization. You're going to a court and saying what we're doing now didn't work. We're gonna do it differently and we're not gonna be bankrupt anymore. There's a deadline you have to file a plan and not going to be bankrupt anymore. There's a deadline you have to file a plan and Diamond was not going to get it done by the deadline of September 30th.

Coincidentally, before the NBA and NHL contracts start to get paid, they went to the court and said, we need more time. We don't have a way to reorganize. Adam Silver came out against basically what you're proposing. He's willing to take a haircut in order to save the regional deals. I just think it's just practical. He is national deals are not up. So he can't package in regional games, the regional games end in different times. But I'm a process, John. MLB started the process. They took over the Padres and Diamondbacks, even though there's plenty of teams that have many years left on hot deals Why not if you're Adam do it yourself the way MLB did I am assuming that Adam is making the calculation that the haircut he takes

for giving Diamond a break is Less than the money the haircut he takes for the local teams trying to figure out how to monetize these or His ability to produce the games and monetize them. They probably made a different decision. No, currently, baseball agreed that the teams are making less revenue but they control it. So what Adam's doing, he has a chance to get control and he's not taking it, which means he must not want it.

Well, I don't think he's extending the deals. He is saying this year the deal, I don't need to take control because I'm not going to make more money than I will if Diamond pays me 65% or 40% and I don't know what you think. You and I have kind of agreed that if you could replicate on a local revenue, you would not do more than 25% to 25% give or take of the national, the revenue you were getting before for your RISM. That's what we agreed to. But I would also tell you that part of a reorg plan, they can't keep going to the court

and saying, okay, we're doing this one year at a time. When they reorganize, it has to be a solution for the creditors of diamond. Yeah, but it's only a solution for the term of a current contract. Right. And I don't think they're given an extension. By the way, I love that they can't figure out how to reorganize it.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. Because there is no solution. Well, that's what I was going to ask. So clearly, the outlook is bleak. That is not in question. Has to bleak. What is in question is what the NBA as of businesses, incentives are when it comes to do we need a distribution system in which regionally, locally, there is diversity in terms of their

profits so that the nicks can benefit more than the thunder. Or do they want the national deal in which everything is more socialist where everything is. I want to reach on the event. Yeah. Well, you're going to tell me that you want national for all of all games and just eliminate any sort of difference in local revenue. No, I was not doing it to eliminate any difference in local revenue. I was doing it to be a national game, right? Because I believe that the fact that fans all of the country can get all of the games is an advantage I think in this day and age to take a bunch of games and make them only available to the markets that they're playing in

Is an agrenistic but we're seeing now the teams are doing it the Utah Jazz It just did their streaming service and NHL Vegas Golden Knights. Well, it started their streaming service. To explain that, what that means is that now they too are functioning like influencers in which you sell an only fan subscription, a Patreon sub, in the same way that you can subscribe to the Utah Jazz and get their games direct, direct to consumer. Which is amazing because it's not just for people in Utah,

but it is people in Utah as well, but by being in charge of it. You can buy it anywhere. You can buy it anywhere. Yeah, but if you take a long view from the commissioner's office, it's a different view than the view in your suite in Salt Lake City, right?

If I was going to grow the Salt Lake City National Appeal, I don't think it's gonna happen by selling subscriptions one at a time to people who are already fans. The question is once you get somebody to come zone to your team, it all is in a national subscription, so the whole league benefits. The question is to your point of your right, can you convince and you can't convince the Yankees that they out to share all that revenue? They won't. They won't. Well, at some point, how many teams have to decide? 23 to seven.

You need eight to block. Everything in baseball is about getting eight to block. Okay. And right now, I'm sorry. I'm just laughing, talking like the idea of someone who knows how to fill a buster. He's like, yep, I was in that block. That's what you do. And that's what you try to avoid.

And you do this in your company when you're dealing with talent as well. You try to have people not knowing all the information because they can then form a block and they can impact your P&L. But now if you're back in baseball and you're the Marlins, you wanna share a little revenue or you will. Hell yeah. Okay, so that's one.

You have 22 more to go, right? I've done this. I can do the math better the other way. The Yankees don't wanna do it. The Dodgers? Yeah, let's do this, I wanna know. The Cubs. No, correct.

Braves. Keep going. You're missing the one at. North of here. Boston. Yep. We're ready at six. And you're not yet at the politics of it. You're at seven, but you're yet at the politics of it.

You're at seven, but you're not at the politics. I'm not sure Phil Delphi is who don't want. So the politics of the people, we're the owners of the teams, even if it's in their best interest, act in a certain way so as not to be to accommodating to smaller markets. So don't forget that, that it's not just the markets.

You have to look for personalities. By the way, does it have to be the case that you shared equally simply because the league sells it? Couldn't the league say, oh yes, we're going to take them all, we're going to sell them, but we're going to pay you proportional to how many of the subscriptions are purchased by your fans. That was my question of the world. Let me tell you how that worked.

So let's say it lead does a deal, a national deal with stubhub. Is the perfect example? because this is a true story stubhub did a deal to become the national Ticket reseller for majorly baseball and they paid baseball and amounted money that got split 30 ways What baseball neglected to tell us prior to voting is that part of that deal was a sponsorship component Where stubhub had to sponsor teams for X millions of dollars, but they got to choose. So we'd call up StubHub and say, hey, do you want to sponsor the Marlins?

And they said, great. How about 25 grand? The Yankees called StubHub and say, hey, do you want to sponsor us? And they say, great. Here's $10 million. That did not make people happy on the Marlin side and the Yankees, that's how they were able to put revenue into a national pot, but still have more money coming their way. That's clever. But theoretically, you could do this,

assuming you can get agreement, you could do it anyway. You could do it with, you're going to get a proportional, we could do it, a proportion of viewing. We're going to sell a national subscription, we're going to take do it with you're going to get a proportional. We do it proportion of viewing. We're going to sell a national subscription. We're going to take the money. We're going to split it up based on what it's just local revenue now. The Yankees have a bigger TV deal in the Marlins. So the Yankees got more money. I'm not sure what the difference is. What you're talking about is pure socialism, majorly soccer. That's where everyone where it's split. Well, I know everyone were split Think they think of themselves as socialist in major league soccer. They simply have a financial model the people the people

But a lot of people thought caught soccer was communist When we start when we started putting it on you're putting on that your score back that. I love soccer. Yeah, quite obviously. Well, it's all about the collective. That's right. That's right. It's the end of it. I made a bet on

saying. Talk about seeing you. There's sweet things they like. You know, in soccer, they refer to themselves not as teammates, but as comrades. I can't tell if that's a joke or not.

You know, can I? I don't want to respond. It's not. Last question on this. I just want to sort of put a button on it by asking about, okay, like Bally's South Florida, right? Inside of that, it's, it's the N.H.L. it's the NBA. I assume those leagues have different interests, right? But like do the Marlins want the heat to leave that arrangement,

for instance? Like, is there any pressure going in that direction when it comes to just keeping the, propping these things up like it's weekend at Bernays at this point? When we were negotiating a TV deal with Fox, we go to LA and they would say that every dollar we give the heat is a dollar we don't give to you. So if you want to get an extension done, you better get ahead of the heat and the raise because they own both. That's all part of Florida. And that was their way of trying to get leverage. So for them, it's a pot of money because it's based on subscribers. It's not based on ratings. It's not based on wins and losses. That's such a bunch of

poppy cock where you say, oh, the ratings are up 40% because your team played well. Can we get a raise in our rights fees? Have you ever given a raise because a team did better? I have not seen before. No, we never did. We also never had any league that was prepared to get less money if the ratings went down, right? That's just right. You just accept that you're paying a certain amount of money, you're valuing it, and no, it doesn't go up and down. You may start. Subscription revenue, for the most part. When I negotiated the TV deal, Fox would tell me, subscription revenue drives 80 to 90%

of our ability to pay. Radiance, whatever, advertising revenue, it's there, but don't make yourself crazy if you have a $20 million payroll or a $200 million payroll, it's not really going to help you get more money. Your DMA is your DMA. Yeah, of course. That's a major thing. Yeah, I used to find with Wright Towers that they all believe they could come in and say, our ratings are higher than this league, so we should get more money. And it's like, it's immaterial. We're not making our money. We're getting paid by the distributors. They don't pay us for ratings.

They pay us for the indispensability of our channel. And whether or not people will leave their service if they don't have the channel. That's what they pay for. I hope people are listening to that statement because all we talk about, and it's tweeted after every game, let's wait to see what the ratings were. Let's see how many people watch the World Series or this football game or the Grammys or the Tonys or what the Oscars, they're down, they've lost viewers. The people who actually pay don't actually care.

Well, that's what makes it the greatest business in the history of media, as you repeatedly say on this show. And I love that when you get the press release, baseball is an offender here. You never see numbers. You see percentage increases. So here I've got that the top five in RSN Grotes with the AL East Champion Orioles, up 65%.

Well, from what? So you know that if you're rating is a one and you get to a two which is still crap, you can say we're up a hundred percent. We used to do that with season tickets. When we had a low season ticket base, we got to announce at our spring training press conference every year. Season tickets are up 42 percent like we're so cool. In fact, we were so bad that now we're just really bad instead of terrible. That's when you play the percentage game versus the number game. When you've got a sell-out, you play the number game.

Yeah. The NFL usually announces numbers, not presenting to the English. It's 27 million people watching Sunday night football. Baseball is a percentage press release. So the people who put together the press releases are always told, oh so is the NBA. We are focusing on percentages because it all pales and compares. Do you know how upsetting it is when your championship round World Series or NBA championship rates less than a regular season football game? Do you have any idea how badly that feels? Probably less than a Colorado

organ game. And potentially less back and back than not now, but yes. So Dan, Dan show they have a piece of paper up now that says the number of days since we mentioned Deon Sanders and so far it's been at zero every day. With this show, we should have a piece of paper up regional sports networks. How this show, we should be able to piece the paper up, Regional Sports Networks. How many shows have we done without mentioning the Regional Sports Networks? And it's zero because this is a big story. It's a big deal.

It's a big deal. The story in Sports Business today, that's going on with TV and streaming. Particularly since this is a bit, people are wondering if this is a Canary in the Colman, right? Is this a- Well, that's it. Well, the reason why-

Why that expression? What does that mean? It it's a four bearer of things to come they used to put canaries in coal mines to find out if there was like toxic gas in there so the canary would die before people died yeah very nice yeah unless you're a good no but that's what they're wanting to know if the regional sports networks dying is a step on the way to decreasing sports rights is this is this is this is And it answers no. Okay, well that's, okay, wait, that's a firm no because that's a very quick firm no.

I'll tell you. I'm just foaming trouble. But truly the lens I hear all of these conversations through is through the one of like, so is this the apocalypse now? Is this when like at the market, the prices of salaries, of everything, team valuations, all of this rest atop this intricate, again,

choose your metaphor here, this intricate ball of stuff. And we're watching that ball hollow out week after week of this show. And what I love is the leagues that are tied, their salary caps are tied to industry revenue. And I'm waiting not for not for the value of your team, but for industry revenue, which I can argue, may be peaking, except it never does, because you can increase ticket prices, etc. But if it goes down, players are going to suffer. And it hasn't happened yet, because payrolls keep going up,

and the players are getting paid so much money. The MBAs, an example where they pay crappy players, $50 million a year now. By the way, this is why some players have not signed their extensions yet, right? They, because if the salary cap goes up, then they get to get a bigger percentage of this. Yes. Because it affects all of the maximums that you can get. So, you know, we on the quest, exactly, but it's clear. Yes. And so the question is, when does the arrow point the other way? And you're gonna say never, right? Well, it never means in the foreseeable future, right? I'm not, could he go down at some point, maybe, but is he gonna go down the next round of deals probably not?

So that means your canary is alive in your theory. At this point, the canary, to me, the canary, canary has come out flying sort of shakily. We're gonna wanna clip that video. Not feeling good, but it's a laugh. Okay. I hear you, my concern would be that it's got long-term damage.

But wait, just to be clear though, because John, you said something, I think, with the confidence that we would all get it, but the idea is the length of time you have left as this canary is the length of the next deal that is signed. Yes. And you always want to go long. I always wanted to go long. Now that may or may not be the right strategy anymore. That's quite interesting. Because in the last NFL deals, they decided to go very long. And they traditionally did not want to go long because they knew the more bites you got at an increase, we were going to be better off, right?

This is like compound interest. If the arrow is pointing up, you keep going. And we always thought because every commissioner, every AD looks at what's the average annual did it go up? And by the way, if you do a longer deal, goes up more, there are heroes. The notion goes up more if you go longer. That's what we wanted to get to.

We wanted to get to a billion, and right, get to a billion, you just have to go longer more years. And then you get to announce you got a billion. The first billion dollar deal that ESPN did was we went 10 years with the big 10, and 10 times 100 was a billion dollars. And still is. It mattered.

Right? It mattered to the coming shirt. The time it was Jim Delaney was the first, and by the way, those things. They got to announce that. Yeah, and by the way, and it is a big thing. I mean, right, if you're building your brand and you want to be in a position relative to your competitors and in college conferences, the other conferences are your competitors. You get to announce you have the largest deal.

I love how press releases mean everything and nothing. That's what I've learned today, incidentally. Listen to nothing personal, and that is we spent a lot of time talking about press releases. The amount of time that people who are good at media spend writing press releases, the way they do it, the way they do their statements, you're supposed to take care in your words, and if you have someone analyzing them, you can poke a hole in it, as we've talked about today.

But I need to think about what you said about these deals and NFL and leagues going long or short. If a league wants to go long, the broadcast networks should not want to go long. Because the league is acting in its best interest, not in yours. Yes. And the broadcast network's going long puts them at risk that in years, eight, nine, 10 suddenly, pay TV will have declined enough that they are losing revenue and the deals will

become less, less profitable. That's the bankruptcy. We're now back to the bankruptcy of regional sports networks. The deals went long, the billion dollar deals, and all of a sudden, the rules changed, and the regional sports networks are left holding the bag, and why we're seeing a reshuffling,

and you're saying the canary comes out fine. And I'm saying it based on the evidence. Well, if your whole business was regional sports networks, the canary's did. So it's not dead, yes. Isn't it just flailing the way you said? Because Adam Silver won't let it die. Well, actually, when I was flailing around, I was flailing around about sports rights. And sports rights aren't quite dead yet.

And dead aren't quite ready to start going down. The regional sports networks, I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that they don't work anymore. Right? Because as the distributors have to cut expenses and it's a declining universe, and when they still have to, as spectrum with the ispn end up paying the increases They've got to go to places where the the company does not have the leverage to get a new deal done the regional diamond has no leverage They thought they had leverage because of their sinclair's collection of television stations But they don't have enough leverage with the retransmission consent now I'm off into stuff that I Can I say that one of the issues with Diamond, however,

was their amount of actual leverage when they purchased the networks? I can't remember who they bought them from. They bought them from Fox. Remind me, where did Fox get them? I'm just trying to remember. I can't remember. Oh, I see. No, no, Fox.

Fox was the long time leader in Regions for the network. The Walt Disney Company bought some of the Fox assets. The Justice Department, I believe, rule that ESPN could not own the Regions for the network because they would have too much leverage. Oh, that's that pesky justice department. Where's the flailing canary now, Mr. Socialist? So what interests me here is that. I'm distracted by thinking of you flailing. I'm just trying to imagine, so there's one,

there's a regional canary, there's a national canary, and then there's, of course, Metal Arc, the healthiest bird of them all. Yes. And of course, it's Canary Islands. Well, you purposely chose the Metal Arc logo. I think you and Dan spend time coming up with that went I assume right the metal arc bird Yeah, metal arc lemon. Mm-hmm. Can we can we go back to regional sports networks and talk about the leverage that they had and why diamonds bankrupt?

Yes, you're saying the regional sports is dead the canaries dead. Did you say that before? the Stand alone tape. Did you say it or not? The regional sports network? The regional sports network? Yes. Do you not put any credence into the fact that Diamond had to go chapter 11

because they had to assume so much leverage. They borrowed so much money to buy all these networks that they could not pay the debt service. And a company that was less leveraged, maybe the canary is alive, or do you think leverage was not an issue? Well, I think we're talking about two different kinds of leverage.

You we are. Right, you were talking about financial negotiation versus debt. That, that, that, that leverage. I also met the leverage of walking in to see direct TV and saying, you have to pay me an increase because if you take my channels off the air, your business will suffer.

Because of the small audiences that these Reginald's Force networks get. Now, they're fine audiences as a standalone, right? And they always brag that in fact, the Reginald's Force networks are often audiences as a standalone, right? And they always brag that in fact the regional sport networks are often the highest rated show of the night in San Diego. Oh sure. And they are. But the problem is the regional sports network has a game on Thursday. So they have three hours of live content does pretty well. The other 21 hours does nothing. Somebody disagrees with John because what was also announced this week, the Astros, as

an example, they bought their network. They were on a network, and Warner Bros. discovery is a way to lower their leverage, their debt, and their merger. They are selling off all these networks, and they're getting teams to buy them. Now you can say what you want about owners, Jim Krain or any owners. When they're buying something, they see value. They see an opportunity. So I'm not willing to say that the canary is out of the coal mine dead because there's still acquisitions happening in the regional landscape. The Astros are the latest example.

I'm not actually familiar with what they're paying, but yes, clearly if they're paying. Even if it's zero, you know, like the way Portanoid did with Barstool and PanGaming, even if it's zero, you're assuming the current liabilities with the assumption that you'll get some sort of asset appreciation. Yes, and I don't, does anybody know what the Astros paid for the net reach on network? I don't. But they, now I would note that per our press release to ciphering logic, that would be a suspicious detail.

Because I'd like to see it. Maybe I could buy a regional sports network. Are you pulling out, are you going out tonight? I got three or four hundred bucks here. I think I could get a regional sports network. Hold on, let me combine. What do you have, Bob? Let's see if we can combine everything we have. I believe that, what is this worth?

No, yeah, I'm got, I've got. What do you have? I have a literal dollar. That's literally what you have. You don't really just have a dollar. I'm guessing you cannot get a regional sports network. That. You have to not have one dollar in your life.

It does, I could say. I believe that I've pulled some money. I have, you have to not have one dollar in your life. It does. I could see that. I believe that the amount of cash you hold is inversely correlated to your knowledge of who Mr. Beast is. It may well be. It is a kind of old school thing. Jesus.

Oh yeah, it's me and that. So if you wanted, if you wanted, we too.com. We'll, David not grow up in there. When you wanted to be on reach in your pocket and pull out a little wide. That's why I would work was to get cash. I just want everybody who's listening to this to know that you just watched two rich guys

literally fan money in front of my face. It was like 300 bucks, 300 bucks. I think we should stop recording now. Comrades, it has been a pleasure. I get security on the door. All right. Thank you, Pablo. Thank you guys.

Thank you, Dave.