The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Dodgers/Cubs Tokyo Opener, Caitlin Clark’s Massive Impact, College Football Playoff Changes

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Colin nerds out with Mike Mulvihill, the President of Insight and Analytics at Fox Sports! They start with Fox broadcasting the MLB Tokyo series between the Dodgers and Cubs and the business of baseball broadcasting rights and creating big “events” out of regular season games (3:00), and discuss whether the MLB becoming a league of “have and have nots” has actually been good for the sport overall (6:45).  They talk about the importance for networks to own the broadcasting rights to the biggest events in sports like the Super Bowl and World Series and the importance of creating lifelong memories during one of their broadcasts (12:30). They discuss the future of cable television in the era of streaming , how networks are trying to adapt, and whether cable will become unviable as a business (15:30). They also look at the state of the streaming business where multiple companies are losing money and whether some streamers could consolidate or shutter (25:30 and the future of sports broadcasting on streaming platforms (31:45).  They dive into college football and the Big Ten and which brands are the most impactful outside of Michigan and Ohio State, why Nebraska could be a sleeping giant if the program rebounds and why the Big Ten has been able to garner the most media revenue of any conference (33:30). They discuss whether the WNBA is a viable television product on its own, or if the addition of Caitlin Clark’s superstardom is the only factor propping it up and why the lack of globalization has women’s basketball on a growth trajectory (40:45).  Colin argues the TV networks create a far better television product for NFL broadcasts compared to the streaming platforms and whether streamers would be best served in partnering with the networks to produce the broadcasts for streaming. They also discuss why it’s so important for games to remain on broadcast TV and the importance of the NFL to the TV networks (52:30).   (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates!  #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Winning on Clay is an art.

The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. She can win. She's an outsider to win the French name.

And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any service. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcasts on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, once a year, because I don't like to pester people I work with, I bring on one of my favorite people, Michael Mulvahill. So you know you're insightful when you're the president of Insight and Analytics at Fox Sports. Who doesn't want to be insightful?

So Michael knows I'm a bit of a junkie for this stuff, and he's always been really open, and he just knows I could sit and talk about this all day. So it's very won't get tremendous feedback, Michael. And I want to start with something that's kind of fascinating to me, and I don't know the answer on 90% of these questions. So we have added at Fox the Cubs Dodgers opening series in Tokyo, obviously driven by two things, Shohei Otani and the remarkable success of those brands. Those are big baseball brands. Throw the Yankees in. They're probably the three biggest brands. But it's interesting.

When I see that, I wonder how Fox management thinks. Does Fox look at it and say, listen, we're not going to make money on this. I mean, to do a remote, it's expensive to go to Tokyo's a whole different ballgame. But it kicks off our baseball season, which we had such a, just a remarkable National League playoffs in the World Series. I mean, it just, baseball, probably the best baseball ratings in a decade in terms of outside of the Cubs season, overall performance. So is this something that a company looks at and says, hey, listen, great momentum, let's keep it going, biggest brands, we're going to lose some money on this. It's just good for the business. Or can you go and do a series and it can be viable? And I'm just, this is, again, so wonky and

it's probably private information. But give me the most honest. answer you can. Okay, that's a good place to start. First of all, thanks for having me. I always enjoy these conversations I love coming on the pod. It can be a little wonky, but we're going to try to make it as interesting as we can for a general listenerhip. Look, this is our 30th season with Major League Baseball, and I think that they are a cornerstone of the Fox Sports brand. They're a cornerstone of the Fox Network, and we value that relationship tremendously. And we value that relationship tremendously. And we want to look for ways

to be creative partners, be innovative partners, and over a 162 game regular season, you know, I think that means looking for novel, exciting, different locations to have a game. And over the last couple of seasons,

that has meant Field of Dreams. It's meant Rick Woodfield in Birmingham, Alabama, a great tribute. You did the Negro leagues last year. This year it's going to mean Bristol Motor Speedway. We'll do a baseball game within the interior of a NASCAR racetrack. It has meant London. And now this year for us it's going to mean Tokyo.

And we can make a dollar on those two games. I think it's a great way to start the season. It's a great way to bring some excitement and novelty to what is a very long regular season. I think not just we at Fox, but everybody in the commissioner's office is, looking for ways all the time to develop tent poles and develop sort of interesting events for the regular season. Yeah. This is a great way to start it.

And we want to send that message that it's an important season for us. It's a milestone season. This is an incredibly important partner. We value the relationship enormously. And we want to start the season in kind of a fun, exciting novel way. And particularly acknowledge the intense popularity of the game in Japan. Like, clearly we're sending the right team there, and I think it's going to be a great way to start out the season. Yeah, you know, it's, and I've said this.

I've always been seen sort of as a football guy. If you ask, you know, the average person, what's calling like? He'd be college football NFL. That doesn't mean I don't like the World Cup. I go to UFC fights. I'm an NBA fan. I grew up with it. Love, you know, I like March Madness.

I think sometimes outside of the NFL, sports is cyclical. Boxing used to be bigger. UFC squashed it. Horse racing was bigger. They had controversies. NBA was bigger. Now it's more international, not really a face of the league. Baseball, and when the kind of regional networks were sold at Fox, they're not, they don't have the same gravitas.

They don't have the same economic pull. And what it's created through no fault of anybody is the haves and the have-nots. There's a bigger gap there. Well, that's not necessarily bad for a television network. network because the best teams are Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, the two New York teams. The Cubs made a huge pickup with Kyle Tucker. So it's interesting. I don't know the health of the sport.

You and I, that's not our concern. But there is a moment now where does it not feel like baseball through Otani driving up the I-5? Soto actually leaving the Yankees going to the Mets, which makes them a very very important. villain to half of New York, does it not feel like baseball is probably the healthiest it's been from a television product since the Cubs year? Look, I think the structure of Major League Baseball is fascinating because there is a gap between the haves and the have-nots and that always has been. You know, I think you could go back through 50, 60, 70 years of baseball history, and it's

always been that the New York teams are the highest revenue teams that used to be based on gate revenue. Then it became based on regional sports network revenue. But it's always been true that in baseball, brands make stars, right? And you could sort of contrast that to the NBA, where I would say in the NBA, stars make brands. Like a player like Steph Curry can go to the Warriors and take a franchise that was always sort of an afterthought in that lead and turn them into the most valuable franchise in that league. That's LeBron going to Cleveland. It's currently going to the Warriors. That's a pretty well-established dynamic in basketball, whereas in baseball, it's really hard to become a national star unless you're playing for one of the big brands,

right? I mean, that's true. Going back to Roberto Clemente and Luke. Mike, I see. I said for years, if Derek Jeter was the Kansas City Royal, he would have been a hell of a player, but most of his dramatic moments were in October. And frankly, against the Red Sox or in October. And I think this is a great point. There is a distinction between the NBA and baseball, and it's brand first. And that's Arod and Otani seem like complete outliers to me. Big enough. Now, O'Tonni is a bigger star with the Dodgers, but he was still full. Babe Ruth-esque fascinating. But you consider that stuff, right?

As Fox, you consider how the player makes the brand when you schedule games based on player movement. We absolutely do. And I think the dynamic that's been set up in baseball is that there's certainly there's a correlation between payroll and regular season wins. And so when you have this divide between the haves and the have-nots, it favors the big brands. the big brands are more capable of developing superstars and national household names. And we're probably headed to another season where the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Phillies, the Braves, the Mets are going to be 90-plus win teams and they're all going to get into the postseason. And so in the regular season, you have that advantage that where the benefit accrues to the bigger markets and the bigger payroll teams.

And yet the postseason acts as a little bit of a leveler and an equalizer. where baseball has created this format in which, yes, those big payroll, big market teams get in, but they also get in alongside Arizona, alongside Cleveland. A team can get into the tournament and get hot and get to the World Series. So you've got a little bit of an imbalance in the regular season that we do try to take advantage of, but then that equalizes a little bit in the postseason, and you can end up with the World Series that is Dodgers Yankees, or you can end up with the World Series that we had two years ago,

which was Diamondbacks Rangers. When the World Series is Diamondbacks Rangers, that's obviously not optimal for our ratings in the short term, but I think it creates a perception of competitive balance and a belief across all the fan bases that they do have a chance to get a tournament and maybe get to the World Series, even if their payroll is $100 million less than a Dodger payroll

or a Yankee payroll. And I think that's a quality that's unique to baseball. I think one of the things, and not like I'm giving away any secret sauce, but I watch our management team. And I've said before, the place I used to work was a massive hotel chain. Fox is smaller, although certainly not a boutique chain. We have, it's easier for me to communicate with management at Fox simply because you're right upstairs. I don't feel like we're swimming in a sea of games. I think we're very intentional with our league contracts.

And I'll give you an example. I think, and this is, again, this is not a revelation, that we're becoming more of an event society. Due to the social platforms, we're a distracted society. It's more frenetic, TikTok. It's harder to get people's attention. But I look at Fox and we have the World Cup, an event, NFL, college football event, indie racing, an event. This is really smart to me. This is really smart

programming. I think Death Valley is Monday through Friday league programming, hockey, NBA, to some degree baseball as well, that it's very difficult to grab the attention in non-event times. We are becoming, we're, yeah, Olympics still rates, World Cup clearly. Dana White, Saturday night fight card still rate. That it looks like it has been very intentional by Fox that you've been about, you've been ahead of this, that you are thinking about how the culturally we've become more an event society. Now, is this coincidence or is this stuff you and Shanks and all the bigwigs talk about?

It's not coincidence and we're certainly not the only ones that are doing it. I mean, I agree. I think the sports business is becoming more reliant and more driven by, the tent pole events. I think that your brand tends to be defined by your very best, right? There are 8,760 hours in a year. We have to think about how to fill 8,760 hours of cable programming. We have to think about how to fill several hundred hours of broadcast programming. But we're not really defined by the 8,000 hours. We're defined by the Super Bowl. And we're defined by Freddie Freeman hitting a grand slam in game one of the world period.

and the World Cup final, the moments that are really resonant and memorable. And that's what we're selling to our advertisers. That's also what we're selling to our audience, that we are a place that you can come and share an experience with somebody that's important to you. We talk a lot about the social connectivity of sports and how that sort of underlies our entire business. but we want to be a place where you can come and share an experience and maybe have a memory with somebody that matters to you that you have for the rest of your life. And to have that, you really do have to be focused on the big events, the Super Bowls, the World Series, the things that might create a lifetime memory. And now that for us, that also means the Indy 500. You know, we want to continue to look at ways to develop events that could potentially create a once-in-a-lifetime memory for somebody.

Yeah, well, I mean, Fox has always had, I mean, FS1 was the speed channel, if I recall. I mean, FS1, Fox has always had auto racing as part of their brand from a long time ago. So it was a natural fit. You know, obviously, I joke with my wife all the time. I'm in radio and cable TV. Your husband's careers are going the wrong way, honey. We may want to move into a fixer-upper in a smaller neighborhood. But there are ways to stem losses and relationships.

We have a streaming venture coming up, relationships with YouTube. Fox News is obviously a juggernaut in an industry that is regressing. But the New York Times still makes money in newspapers and Delta and Southwest Airlines. In that, in the aviation field, which has been under great financial duress, times in my life, they're still industry leaders. You can make money in industries that shrink. How do we view cable now? I mean, I've said this to you. I'm 60, Michael. I can't give cable up because I like college football, and I'm not giving it up. And by the way, I also like news and politics. So I'm not giving it up. I mean, it's like, I like streaming, but if I want to watch

You know, political stuff, live CNBC, Fox Business Channel. That's, as I get older, I kind of watch news, sports, and politics more. How do you view cable? How viable is it? Is it a five-year runway, eight, ten, or three? Well, that last part of the question is really interesting, right? Because I think you and I, unfortunately, are both getting to the age where, you know, we can think in terms of the rest of our careers,

and that might only be a 10, 15-year horizon, right? So when I think in terms of the number of years that I expect to continue to be doing this, I think Cable is going to continue to be certainly viable, very profitable. It's funny, we have a lot of conversations in this business about Cable as a declining part of the business. sometimes it's put in even more negative terms than declining.

And yet when companies like ours come out with their quarterly earnings, you often find that it's still the cable networks that are driving a huge percentage of the earnings, right? Like WBD, Warner Brothers Discovery, they just had their most recent earnings call. And on that call, it was all the traditional linear cable networks that are driving billions and billions of dollars in earnings for a company that is still, you know, very significantly in debt and trying to climb out of that debt. And their cable earnings are a powerful engine to try to get them out of that situation. So the earnings on the cable side are still extremely significant. It may not be a growing part of the business, but it's still a very profitable part of the business.

I do think there's been in the sports world a little bit of a movement toward taking some of the best events from cable and putting them back on broadcast where you potentially have more reach. And I think there's something special about being on broadcast. But, you know, the idea that cable is going to disappear, you know, cease to exist, stop being profitable. I think that's a long way away. You know, you still have tens of millions of people who are comfortable with the cable bundle. Maybe there's some inertia in play there. They like the ease of use. They like knowing where to find everything. They like knowing that your show, if they're a direct TV subscriber, is on Channel 219, and they know where they can find Monday Night Football. They know where they can find the NBA playoffs.

There's a simplicity to it that is really compelling. And I think particularly for older consumers that grew up with cable, they're not moving away from it anytime soon. I think we're a long way from the end of the bundle. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season? You are all the new ways to get in on the action at Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner. of the NBA. Slams, dishing the ball, cleaning the glass, get behind your favorite players.

Prop bets you can make on Draft Kings. It's fun. The home of NBA player props. If you're ready to place your first bet, make it really simple. Pick how many points your favorite player is going to score. Go to Draft King Sportsbook. They have an app.

Download it, make your pick. If you're a first timer, here's something special. New Draft King's customers, all you have to do is bet $5. You get $150 and bonus bets instantly. So take it to the rack with Draft King's sports book. Every point counts.

Download their app. It takes 90 seconds. Use the code column. C-O-L-I-N. To get 150 bones and bonus bets, betting just five. Only on draft kings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler. In New York, call 8778-8-Hop-N-Y or text Hope and Y 467-369. 469. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-88-8-9-77-7-7. Or visit ccpG. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino-W and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. New customers only.

Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.com slash audio. Hey, it's us to Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, new news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But, but. This one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, hey Jonas. and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between, songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs. And on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jenchian win. I mean, she went down in three to Rabakina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay.

Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged.

It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I Heart Radio.

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You see this. I remember having a conversation years ago with a friend of mine who's in the financial planning industry, wealth management in New York. And we were talking about the private jet industry. And there was, I had to take a private jet somewhere. And I said, you know, how safe are these? And he said, well, just sign up for the Warren Buffett company. That one will be viable. He said at some point, you know, there'll be about three of those companies, maybe two, like everything else. You know, you know how the world works, right? People gobble up smaller companies. And I look at streaming. Everybody has Netflix, first in, better rates, better production,

cash heavy, asset heavy, they're fine. I look at Disney. It still feels a little wobbly, where they're now turning a profit, but they lose 700,000 subs on their plus. So, I mean, it's still not quite there. Amazon's fine. They have a reservoir. Amazon has a reservoir of money.

It's the retail giant globally, right? Or at least domestically. But I wonder when you look at streamers. There was this thought five years ago. Streaming wins. Everything else loses. And I look at it today and I see a lot of red and I see a lot of people watching television. There was a sense five years ago.

Streamers were taking over the world. At some point, you have to make a profit. Do you still feel like the dread of we're all under this streaming dark cloud and it's about ready to strike us down? Not at all. And I think, if anything, what the last five years have established is that, that Fox and our management team, people at higher levels, they may have done probably the best job of any legacy media company of navigating the challenges of the transition to streaming and the increased adoption of streaming. I think the two companies that, you know, obviously

I have a biased opinion, but the two companies that have done the best job of navigating the last five to seven years are Netflix. And I think us, you know, I think we've been able to navigate that as well as anyone because we didn't overinvest in what I would call an independent streaming platform. We remained committed to the cable bundle. We're still committed to the cable bundle. And I think being patient and not getting into that streaming arms race has served us really well. Streaming means a couple different things, right? And we sometimes talk about. about it as if it's a monolith, as if it's all one thing. Streaming means independent streamers like Netflix, Apple, Amazon, behemoth tech companies

that have trillion-dollar market capitalizations. And that's one version of streaming. Another version is the streaming arm of traditional media companies like Peacock, like Paramount, like Max, which used to be called HBO Max. And then the third type of streaming is, streaming that sort of replicates your cable bundle like Hulu Live and YouTube TV and a place where you can go to get a package of networks but rather than it being delivered via a cable in the back of your TV set it comes through your in-home Wi-Fi.

So I think when we talk about streaming, you know, we have to be careful to define like what kind of streaming are we talking about. We are getting ready to go into the direct-to-consumer business. Our chairman, Lockland Murdoch, has been very open about saying we intend to have a direct-to-consumer offering ready by this coming football season. It changes the way that we think about certain aspects of how we program. We now have to think in terms of having 12-month-a-year strength so that we can keep a subscriber dialed into us all year. But I think we're really

comfortable with the way we've managed this evolution. And I don't think that we're in a situation where streaming is necessarily going to take over everything. I mean, I think there will be a continued incremental migration of some properties or fractions of properties moving to exclusive streaming. But I think we're also seeing a lot of success in properties staying on broadcast. And that's the NFL. We talked about the World Series radio. being at a seven-year high, we have done this deal with IndyCar, where we're now going to put every IndyCar race on broadcast and try to take advantage of the power of the broadcast platform. And I think what we're finding is that there is a path to coexistence, right, that we want to

have strong, viable broadcast television. I think there are very compelling reasons why that's important, not just for sports, but it's just important for communities to have strong broadcast TV. I don't think the cable bundle is going away anytime soon. And I think there's still room for streaming to continue to grow its audience and to add more exclusive sports rights. But I think it's a little simplistic. And I think there have been some lazy takes out there suggesting that everything is going to go to streaming. Not everything is going to go to streaming. And when it goes to streaming, you know, as I say, that means different things.

That can mean that you are going to a huge tech company. company or you're going to streaming, but you're still within the Fox family or the NBCU family, the Paramount family, or it just means that 15, 20 percent of your audience is watching via a bundle of networks that's delivered via the internet rather than delivered via cable. But I never bought into that more apocalyptic idea that the entire business is going to streaming and we're all doomed. There's a migration there and there will be a new equilibrium. and I think we're getting close to it already.

Well, I mean, listen, I'm in, I started in AM radio, then it became AM FM, and then it became like audio and streaming, and then it became podcasts. And my takeaway is, it's like saying newspapers are dying. No, the delivery system was outdated, but I still have the Wall Street Journal. I still have the New York Times. I've never read more in my life. So, I mean, and maybe I'm just, you know, and, and maybe I'm just, you know, an old guy, but I've never read more. I, you know, I'm always bouncing around adding subscriptions. I mean, you know, the old cliche content is king. It really is true. Like, if you have good content

and good games, I watch. I think it's interesting. You know my love for college football. And so, I like all the new moves. I like, I like NIL, though it's imperfect. I like transfer portal, though again, there needs to be, you know, there needs to be a fence around it a little bit. And I like the convergence of Texas, Oklahoma to the SEC and the PAC 12 schools, four of them going to the Big Ten. So last year is the first year. The ratings were a bit disappointing, although I do think the first round matchups were choppy. I tend to think we're a bit hyperbolic as media critics on things like things take time to work themselves out. I think it'll be better in the second year. when you schedule college football, and you do this every year, the Big Ten,

it feels obvious to me that Michigan and Ohio State are the number one and two brands. If I said, now you have Oregon and the marketing machine of Phil Knight, big market Washington, Penn State, USC, although it feels, again, like it's underachieving. If you take Michigan and Ohio State out, what brand moves the needle in the Big Ten that maybe I would be surprised. Is there a definitive third? I would guess Penn State. And is there a game or a team that would surprise me?

It's Penn State. And I don't think that would come as much of a surprise to. I think once you get past Michigan and Ohio State, the third most important brand to us is Penn State. I think Oregon obviously is an important brand. But as you know, the way the Big Ten deal is constructed, the conference has multiple partners. Each partner has a defined window. We do games at noon eastern.

CBS has the late afternoon window. NBC has the primetime window. Because we have that noon window, it's almost inevitable that Oregon is just not likely to be as impactful to us as schools that are in the eastern and central time zone. Again, I don't know that this falls. under the heading of surprising. But I think every year we look at Nebraska as a sleeping giant.

And we hope for Nebraska to get close to the kind of success that they had when you and I were kids. We had them on a Friday night last year. They got off to a pretty good start to their season. They hosted Illinois in a Friday night game. That game did over 4 million viewers.

That's terrific for a Friday night. That's great. This sort of hints at what Nebraska could be if they ever got close to the kind of success that they had years ago under Tom Osborne. So certainly Michigan and Ohio State at the top, Penn State next for us because we had that early window. Oregon and SC obviously also very important, but their home games are going to be in later windows. And Nebraska kind of lurking as the brand that you always hope might sort of reawaken and drive the kind of viewership that they once did. Now, Ohio State complained, and I understand it.

You know, listen, you're a Buckeye fan. You like those late games. You can get lubricated. You're going to the stadium at night. I mean, it's just more fun going to night games. There's no question. I've been to a few Husky games, USC games. There is a special vibe playing under the lights.

But Ohio State also in our window is the biggest draw. What was last year a difficult year? Some of it's just what the schedule makers give you. What do you say to the critics of Ohio State that say, hey, man, you're killing us? We need night games. You can't just keep going back and forth to us. What would you say to the critics? Well, the first thing I would say is I completely understand the complaint, right?

Ohio State finished their season last year with six consecutive noon kickoffs. And I think that's just a byproduct of the games being allocated via a draft, right? Like, we can only draft the best game that's available to us each time that our selection comes up. If you were creating a schedule just on a blank sheet of paper, you probably would not give the top team or a top team in your conference the same kickoff time on six consecutive weekends to finish the season. So that wasn't by design. It was sort of just a product of circumstance. And I do understand the frustration that some Buckeye fans may have felt at the end of last year. I want to back up a little and try to put into some context the way that we see the scheduling of the games and the deal that we have with the Big Ten, right?

What's the most significant thing that's happening in college sports right now? I mean, I think obviously the most significant development and the most positive development is that the athletes are moving closer and closer to being fairly compensated, right? The athletes are getting paid. And, you know, when I see a story that Carson Beck is in Miami and he's making over $4 million and he's driving a Lamborghini, like my knee-jerk reaction to that is that's awesome because we have decades of history in college sports where the athletes that drive all the value were not being compensated appropriately. And coaches were getting rich, media executives were getting rich. Everybody was making a lot of money except for the athletes that actually. drive the value. And so we're now finally in a position where the players, the young men and increasingly young women, who really drive the value of these properties are getting paid the way

that they should get paid. And whatever complexity comes with that that makes a coach's job harder or makes the environment maybe a little bit more challenging, all those challenges are secondary to the right of the athletes to maximize their earnings. I mean, I very, very strongly believe that. And so as in any labor market, right, top talent is going to follow top compensation. And as the athletes are getting paid more commensurate with their market value, there's more and more pressure on the conferences and more and more pressure on the schools to maximize revenue so that they can go out and get the best talent. That brings us to the media rights. The Big Ten is the best compensated conference in the

country in terms of media rights, the reason they're the best compensated conference in the country is because they have multiple partners, because they have a deal with us and with CBS and with NBC. I think that's what enables the Big Ten to realize more media revenue than the SEC, which is obviously the other power conference in college football, and they've gone exclusively with Disney. So by having multiple media partners, it sort of creates a requirement for us to have a designated window, for CBS to have a designated window, for NCC to have a designated window, for us to apportion those games out via a draft, we don't have the freedom that Disney has to just put the best games wherever they want to on the SEC side. And when you have multiple partners and the games are being scheduled via a draft, you're going to get to. to some inefficiencies like Ohio State playing a bunch of games in a row at the same time or a frustration that Penn State fans had when they had a home game last year that a lot of

their fans wanted to be in primetime as the whiteout. It was a big noon game instead. Their fans were extremely vocal. I heard a lot about it, right? But those are all things that are connected to maximizing revenue for the conference, therefore maximizing revenue for the schools, therefore maximizing revenue for the players. And that's the most important thing, making sure that the kids are compensated in the right way and that the schools can go out and get the talent that they need to compete for a national championship,

which is why I think we now have a situation where at the very, very highest level, that handful of schools that are going to compete for a national championship in football every year, the big tent is just as good as the SEC and may even be pulling ahead a little bit and it's because of that revenue generation that's largely tied to the media rights. I want to talk WNBA.

I'm kind of fascinated by it because I believe for its entire existence, the NBA has subsidized the WNBA. And you may argue the moral, and there's a certain humanity to supporting women's sports. I completely understand that. And then Caitlin Clark arrived. And the team flies private, and the ratings are insane. Now, the league was growing, and I think the quality over the last 10 years has improved dramatically. But Caitlin Clark is, as I've said, Taylor Swift and tennis shoes.

It is just a once-in-a-generation. It's Tiger Woods the Gulf. It's Shohei Otani. It's like, uh-oh, it's an event. Every game's an event. Is the WNBA a viable TV product, or is it we have a once-in-a-a-generation? talent. Obviously, the WNBA would not allow you to just buy a Caitlin Clark package. But is she powerful enough? Because she could have a 12 to 15 year run here, Michael. Is she powerful enough?

A singular star with a little bit of a magic Larry Bird quality because of Angel Reese. That absolutely helps. There's a story we could follow us Americans. We love our stories. We love the journey. Angel Reese is part of this. Is that over the next 15 years going to be a viable TV product, or do we just have a megastar and that's all it is? So it's both those things. And I know it's always sort of a cop-out answer when you give somebody an either-or-or choice and they say it's both.

But I do think in the WNDA, it's both something that was growing and viable and becoming more viable by the year. And then you inject it into that a once-in-a-lifetime talent in Caitlin Clark, who I think is very obviously the overwhelming number one factor in the growth of WNBA viewership last year. I think when we looked at Indiana Fever Games versus all other WNBA games last year, the Caitlin Clark games were doing triple the viewership of the rest of the league. And that is a Tiger Woods level of impact. I don't know that there's ever been anybody in team sports, even Michael

Jordan where you would look at their gains and see them doing triple the average of the rest of the league. So I do think a big part of it is that once in a lifetime phenomenon of Caitlin Clark, and we should just acknowledge the obvious and make it clear that she is plainly the driving force behind the growth of the league. But at the same time, if God forbid Caitlin Clark had a career ending injury, she were out of the league. If Caitlin Clark just were taken out of the equation, I still think the WNBA would be on a growth trajectory. And it wouldn't be the kind of exponential growth that we saw last year. But this is a product that was moving forward pretty steadily prior to Caitlin. And even now, if you look at the collegiate level, yes, being growth, ESPN seeing

some growth. You've still got this next generation of superstars that's Juju Watkins here in it's Paige Becker's in Connecticut, right? Like we're still seeing progress post-Caithelan. And it makes me think that like, obviously she's the catalyst. She's what drives the explosion of interest. I think sometimes we overstate the idea that it's more than Caitlin. But there was a growth curve there before. Yes.

And I think it would continue even if we were somehow in a post-Kaitland. You know what? And let me throw this at you, Michael. And push back, please. But women's basketball is a little like men's basketball 30 years ago. It's not as international. And the players are staying in college for three and four years. So I watched the WNBA draft this year.

I knew the top eight players. I didn't know any of the NBA's players. So as leagues get more global, it's not always great for all things domestic. is that when I watch these women's basketball players, they don't go to the pros early. They play four years. Caitlin Clark was a three years. I heard about her when she was a sophomore.

Junior, it's a national story. She's a phenom as a senior. And so what's happening, this is the way people forget that Ewing and Tim Duncan and Chris Paul's, I mean, Michael Jordan didn't come out after his freshman year. People forget it was at Carolina and didn't win a title. And so women's basketball, is a lot like men's college basketball was in 1988,

is that the stars stayed, and I had a story, and there were rivalries, bird and magic, and then they went to the draft, and I had heard of them, and then I followed them in the NBA. And so I'm with you on this. Caitlin's part of it, but I think is NBA has gotten more international, the domestic component to women's basketball actually fortifies their growth.

Like sometimes it's a, It's a distracted society, Michael. I want to follow simple stories. And watching Iowa and Yukon and Baylor, it's real easy. I can follow. The journey's easy for me to follow. So maybe I'm wrong on that, but that's just how it works for me. No, and the word in everything that you just said that really resonates with me is simplicity, right?

Because we're always looking for ways to simplify being a sports fan. We want the games to be on networks where you're familiar with, the games. We want the brands to be familiar. When a player moves from the collegiate level to the professional level, whether that's basketball or football, it's incredibly helpful for the fan and the viewer to have two or three years of history of getting to know this player. So I agree. I mean, that's absolutely true of Caitlin Clark. But I was like you. You watch the WNBA draft. Yeah. You know, you do know Angel Reese. And you know, you know, Ken. Cameron Brink, and you've seen them play in the tournament. And to give some credit to a competitor,

you know, the job that ESPN has done in growing the women's collegiate tournament is extraordinary. You know, we like to think that we're just as powerful as they are in women's basketball during the regular season. But, you know, the growth that the women's tournament has enjoyed is incredible. And there's absolutely a direct connection between the success of that tournament and then the success that you saw last year in the WMBA ratings. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jen Chinchin win. I mean, she went down in three to Roebuckina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me.

And she likes Clay. Listen, Lernerabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now and I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is the, always been sort of the, I think Lachlan talked about this the other day, about continuing to nurture their relationship with the NFL. Obviously, if you don't have NFL football, you can argue about what your menu needs to look like as a sports network. We all have to have the NFL.

And I was thinking about this, and I'm just going to ramble here for a minute and a half. Amazon is a retail giant. I do not always love the quality of their programming, but they're getting better. Netflix is a content giant. So I tend to think they get content. They get documentaries.

They get films. They get specials. But that doesn't necessarily mean they get sports. And I have been disappointed with Netflix attempts at sports events. This is where I think networks are excellent. I think our production values at Fox are. second to none. I think NBC, CBS, these are Tiffany experiences. These are tremendous production experiences. I mean, the Super Bowl, I mean, Fox will go eight hours live or seven hours live,

but commercials to production, they make you cry, they make you laugh, the Jimmy Johnson AI piece, it's just spectacular. I would argue that if a Netflix came in and said, all right, we are buying a bigger NFL package, I would argue they would be better served to say, hey, Fox, can you produce it? You're really good at this production thing. I'm just telling you, as a consumer, all companies do things well. I don't think these streamers understand the value and how hard TV production is. So, I mean, that's just my take.

as a consumer. Tell me I'm wrong. Lay it out. Fire holes in this. But I still think network television has a role in sports, even with streamers.

Yeah, there's a lot to react to there. So why don't we start with what's the role that network television has to play even in a world where we're competing with tech companies that are capitalized, many multiple times greater than we are, right? I really value broadcasting. I'm sure you do as well.

Oh, absolutely. The first sort of job I ever had in my life was I worked at a radio station in Pittsburgh when I was 15 years old. And I've always thought that broadcasting occupies a really unique and special place in our culture, largely because you are transmitting over public airwaves, you therefore have a certain responsibility to the community that you serve. And I think broadcasters are a little bit more ingrained in their markets than a national cable network can be or than a worldwide tech platform can be. And I think one of the reasons that it's so important for major sports to remain on over-the-air broadcast television

is because of that role broadcasters play. You and I are both in Southern California, right? We just lived through the L.A. wildfires. On the night that the wildfires happened, if you look at TV ratings here in L.A., people who had power and were able to watch TV that night, they chose local news over national news by a margin of almost 10 to 1.

When something really serious, when there's a serious emergency that happens in a community, People go to their local broadcasters. That was true out here. That's true when a hurricane threatens the Gulf Coast. It's probably true in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, last night and today. People rely on local broadcast. And so if the viability of local broadcast television is dependent in part on those stations having marquee sports, sports that will keep people subscribed to a cable bundle or that will keep advertisers coming to that station,

And it's incredibly important that we keep as much high-profile sports as we can, or at least keep a significant percentage of high-profile sports on broadcast because broadcast and local journalism really matters a lot. And I think there's something very pro-consumer about making sure that big sports events stay on broadcast TV, not exclusively, but predominantly. And I think a lot of the power of sports that we have talked about from time to time is that it does bring communities together. It brings people together.

It matters to a city when the Philadelphia Eagles do a 60 rating for the Super Bowl or a 50 for the NFC championship game, meaning that literally 50% of the market is tuned in. That can only happen on broadcast TV. So I do think there are unique qualities to free over-the-air broadcast that as an industry, we need to acknowledge that there's real value there and that there's something special there that has to be protected, not just for the benefit of the leagues, but for the benefit of the communities that these broadcasters serve. So that's me on my soapbox about broadcasting. Hey, listen, I told my wife.

As far as like the quality production, just to get to the other part. I think Amazon's production of Thursday Night Football is awesome, right? I think it's gotten better. I think it was clunky early. It's gotten better. But a lot of the people who are behind that are people that used to work here, right? And they've moved up to Amazon and they've hired town. that worked at broadcast networks. And I think they do a really, really good job. And I would never criticize the way that somebody else produces the games. I will say that at a company like ours, sports is just so vital to our business.

You know, you look at the Fox Broadcast Network. Over 80% of our viewing this year will be viewing of sports. Over 50% of our viewing is going to be viewing of the NFL. If we don't do a great job on the NFL, if we don't do a great job, producing it. We don't do a great job selling it. We don't hire the right talent. We don't have a company. And I think that is very different from some of these other companies you're describing where I think Amazon does a great job with Thursday Night Football. The reality is that the revenue that they generate from Thursday Night Football represents a tiny, tiny fraction of 1% of the revenue that

Amazon will do this year. Same thing is true with Netflix. Apple has a more limited sports presence, but obviously the revenue that they generate from sports is just infinitesimal compared to their overall business. At a company like Fox, NBC, Disney, CBS, sports just means more. It means more to our bottom line. It means more to our very existence as a company. We have to be greater production

because if we fail at this, we fail as a company. If the big tech platforms fail at producing live sports, they don't fail as a company. It doesn't really matter that much to the future help of Amazon or of Apple. And again, I do think they produce the events really well, but you just can't deny that it's a bigger portion of our business. It's a higher priority for us company.

And it affects the people that work here. It affects our shareholders. It affects every part of what we do that we have to be excellent at game production. There's just more of a mandate and a necessity at a place like this. Yeah. I mean, I watch the Apple baseball stuff, Roku. It's not a shot at people.

It's just I think to be excellent at anything, you have to be somewhat obsessed. And money can't solve obsession, right? Like when you watch, I know how much football means to CBS and Fox. I can feel it, right? I know. And I also know what storytelling means to Netflix. You know, I can tell when I watched, I watched two documentaries this week on Netflix.

And God, they, you know, they're all over the globe doing this stuff. So, and like everybody else, I'm on Amazon at least twice a week ordering something. So I think companies let you know what matters by the quality of what they do well. And nobody does everything well. And regardless of money, nobody does everything well. Look, I think in the linear TV world, and this is a line that I've used a lot, CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN, the companies that have the NFL, if you have the NFL in the legacy media world, you're relevant. No matter what else you do, if you're a legacy media company and you have the NFL, you're relevant.

If you're a legacy media company and you don't have the NFL, you're competing to be the least irrelevant. Like, that's how stark that difference is. In the tech world, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, these companies are relevant. I mean, they're obviously incredibly relevant to the culture at large. They don't necessarily need that live. They want the live sports relationships. But Apple doesn't need live sports rights to demonstrate that they may. matter in this culture and in this country. Amazon doesn't either. Netflix at this point certainly

doesn't. We do. And I would say the other broadcast networks do too. We need the NFL to insulate us against being irrelevant. And the companies in the legacy world that are sort of on the outside looking in when it comes to the NFL, they would immediately gain relevance by having it. And by not having it, they have to look for other ways to demonstrate that they actually matter in the culture. So I think that's where the importance of marquee sports rights is a little bit different in our legacy broadcasting cable-driven world than it is in the world of tech giants that are worth a trillion dollars, whether they have live sports or not. The president of insight and analytics at Fox Sports, he tolerates me, Michael Mulvahill. I love all this stuff. And, you know, what can I say?

I ask questions. You provide insight, and you do this at least once a year. Let me look at this real quick. You do this at least once a year. And you know about twice a year, I walk up to Michael's office and he's eating a tuna sandwich. And I just sit down and start asking questions. So I figured I'd put it on the schedule to be less inconsiderate or more considerate this time. And Michael, you know, I just think highly of you. And I really do appreciate you taking the time. I love doing it. I love it when you wander into this office. I never know what question you're going to ask next. It keeps me on my toes and forces me to sort of think through our positions on various topics. And I really appreciate the invite to come on and do this with you in front of an audience rather than just one-on-one in this office. I'm happy to do it anytime. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just continue to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between

songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless.

And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments set to find Roland Garris. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay.

Listen, Lernerabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human. Thank you.