The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Herd-Saturday Special-Dana White & Michael Mulvihill-Explicit Language

Episode Date: August 15, 2020

Colin talks with UFC President Dana White about how he has handled running a sport during this pandemic. They also talk about the misconception that Dana has issues with Colin, how Dana got into this sport and the incredible fight card they have this weekend for UFC 252. Disclaimer: This interview contains excessive foul language.Then, Colin talks with Michael Mulvihill, Fox Sports Executive Vice President and Head of Strategy about sports having such ratings success during COVID, whether the NFL will move games to Saturdays if college football is canceled completely, and social justice not hurting ratings as much as people thought it would. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 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. 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. On the Look Back at it podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English.

Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it, with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. All right, our Saturday podcast, sometimes we get lucky, and we put all sorts of different people on our Saturday podcast. It's not quite like our show.

You can swear. We put on everybody from magicians to, we don't care if you're interesting, we put you on. But somebody I do bring on my show and have a lot of respect for, And we've had our battles, but I thought he did. I don't think any sport in America did a better job during the pandemic than UFC. I've said it multiple times on the show. Listen, you've got to bulldoze through some criticism.

You can't worry about being PC and making people on Twitter happy. We've got to manage it. It's a health crisis. And Dana White, UFC president, has done a great job. So I want to start before we talk about you have a great card this weekend, 252, great heavyweight fight. You also have potentially a kid. Some are saying is the next Connor McGregor, O'Malley. So I'll get to that in a second.

But let's start with this. So you go to Fight Island in Dubai. Take me, Dana, to the first minute, the first time you heard about it, thought about it, you heard about this Fight Island, and you're sitting there thinking, hell, this may work. No, let's start with this. I want to start with this. So you said this multiple times now that you and I had a beef. you and I never had a beef.

That's not true. When we sold the company, you came out and said that I made $400 million, and that was it. I'm going to be fucking checked out what's going to happen to the UFC. And, you know, there's no way that I made that much money that I'm going to be able to do, you know, all this shit. And then people asked me about that. And I said, he doesn't fucking know me like that. He's wrong. He's wrong.

If I wasn't going to give 100% of this thing, I would have left. I wouldn't have stayed. That was it. You know, I said that, and you thought we never had a beef. I was just responding to you saying that I was going to fucking check out because I made so much money. That's it. You've always been cool. You know, I said, on the air, I said Marvin Hagler, it's hard to work out at 6 in the morning in silk sheets.

And I said, God, he made three, 400 million bones. Is he want to deal with it? This is a hard sport to run. But you did. Yeah, but I'm not getting punched in the face every day. Big difference between getting punched in the fucking face and running a company. You know, it is interesting, Dana. I don't know if anybody's ever delved in this, and maybe you're a private guy, but you're a fighter,

and it's funny. There's a guy named Dave Portner. He's a barstool guy, and he's done well for himself, and he's kind of a fighter. And I know a lot of Boston guys who have done well, and they all have this kind of street toughness and this street savvy. When you were a kid, you're a thick, tough kid. right? But did you, where did this entrepreneurial spirit come from? Your parents? Did you have a job early? Like, you don't do this just out of osmosis and luck. Right. So what happened was, yeah, I had a job and I realized real young that I didn't like working for other people.

Yeah. I knew from an early age that I was going to work for myself. And, and I ended up doing it. You know, I had a good job. I worked at the Boston Harbor Hotel. I was a Belmont. I made good money. I was 19 years old. I had the 401k, the fucking ass insurance, all the shit that you're supposed to want in life. And I was standing in the lobby of that place going, what the fuck am I doing here? This isn't me. I can't do this. And I literally walked out the door and I knew that I wanted to be in the fight business. And there was this guy in town. His name was Peter Welch.

And he was a fighting legend in Boston, street fight and the sport of boxing. So I went to him. I sought him out, fucking hunted him down, found him one day. and said, listen, I know this sounds crazy, man, but I want to work for you. You don't have to pay me. I want you to teach me everything about the fight business. And I worked under this guy for years, and that was really how it started. Well, but you and I both have a background where we fell in love with boxing.

So you obviously segue or discover UFC. Take me to that. Well, I always love fighting, period. You know what happened to me last night? I fucking literally so busy. Got so much shit going on last night. I went into one of those street fight rabbit holes last night on fucking Instagram. And I literally watched street fights till 3.30 in the morning.

And finally I had to make myself shut my phone off and like fucking go to bed. I'm obsessed with fighting. I still am today. I love fighting. I literally watched probably fucking 200 street fights last night. And I'm just obsessed with it and always have been since. I was a kid. When did you first hear of UFC?

I can remember being, I was in a bar in San Francisco called the Condor with my wife at the time. And it was a late Saturday night, and we turned it on, and it was raw. This was like 25 years ago. It was like raw, and there was gouging. And I was like, there was something about it I was attracted to, but it felt a little, you know what I mean? It had to be cleaned up. That was my first introduction to it. When did you first spot it and know instantly I can work in this business?

Yeah, me and a bunch of fight guys in Boston, we had heard that this thing was going to happen, this fight with no rules, no time limits, you know, all that stuff. And we were like, there's no way. This is bullshit. There's no way this fight's going to happen. And we all went to this guy's house and watched it on pay-per-view. And it was crazy and whatever, but I wasn't really into it. I was a huge die-hard boxing guy. Yeah.

So I wasn't really into it. Then fast forward, 19, you know, that, that was 93 or whatever. Then fast forward to 98, me and Frank Fratita are out at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Vegas. And there's a guy named John Lewis who fought in the UFC and he was there. And he was the only jiu-jitsu school in Las Vegas at the time. and Frank said, I've always wanted to learn jiu-jitsu, and I said, yeah, me too. So we went and talked to them and we set up a lesson for Monday. So Frank Lorenzo and I started doing jiu-jitsu that following Monday in 1998, and then we became

addicted to it. We started training three, four days a week, and then we started to meet a lot of the fighters from the UFC, and we were blown away when we met these guys. They were smart, they had really cool stories, and most of them were college-educated. Yes. So we were really fascinated by who they were and how incredible this sport was. And then we started to say to ourselves, are we fucking nuts? Or would everybody – I mean, if this was exposed to everybody, we believed everybody would lowly.

Yeah, I remember when I was at – this was – so I was at ESPN for 11 years. I was probably there about four years. And this was like five, ten, like 12 years ago or something. I may have the timeline wrong. And I put George St. Pierre, he was this young kid. And I put him on. And people were like at ESPN, like, they thought it was too rough. And they're like, are you into this stuff?

And I'm like, listen, I'm from Vegas. My buddies in Vegas are into this. You guys are into baseball. And I was like, and I remember telling John Walsh, an executive, I'm like, you guys get a, you got to go buy this sport. Like all my buddies in L.A. in Vegas, they bailed on boxing. They are into this. I showed a picture of them.

I'm like, there were celebrities at it. And I'm like, there's Mickey Rourke and there's, you know, and I'm throwing some people. And now, of course, you have a relationship. But when you first got into it and you were selling it, did you get any pushback, Dana, on women fighting? This is too rough from a lot of the, you know, traditional media. Yeah, 100%. And one of the things that we had to do, first of all, think about when we got into this back

in 2001. There was no social media or any of that shit. You know, websites were really just getting going. There was no streaming online. There was none of that shit in 2001. So we started going out. I had to fly all over the country

and meet with these fucking 65, 70-year-old editors of the newspaper. Oh, God. You know what I mean? Those guys are never going to get it. But I kept hammering and hammering and I kept saying the longer we do this, the younger these guys are going to get. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Because we're going to walk into, you know, and now it's been like 20 years so that you've had a bunch of people that have grown up with the UFC on television. So it's really changed very, very quickly if you think about the timeline, only 20 years. Okay, so you go, let's shift now to Abu Dhabi. You go there. It's a huge hit. And now you come back to Vegas, but I've heard you're going to go back to Fight Island for about a five to six week run. Now, this time when you go back, is there anything you'll say, you know, we're going to do this different? What was the one takeaway going remotely to Fight Island?

Let me tell you what, and this isn't bullshit. I'm not bullshit in you. This is fucking true. Fight Island was executed so perfectly, so fucking perfectly from top to bottom. The only thing that I was unhappy with and the only thing that I'm trying to change right now was the lighting in the arena. I didn't like how the whole arena was lit up with lighting. I like just the octagon to be lit up. It's just some lighting shit was the only thing. That's how perfectly executed Fight Island was. It was really unbelievable.

Yeah. Are there advantages? I mean, obviously you want fans. Are there little advantages perhaps not having fans? Is it easier for you to operate around the ice? to God. You know, Joe Rogan and I are huge fight geeks, man, and every time we're getting ready for a fight, you know, a big fight that we're excited about, we'll get on the phone

a couple days or the day before and talk about it. Yesterday we're on the phone for an hour and 15, hour and a half. And we're talking about, and Rogan said it best yesterday. He's like, he's like, I'm so fucking lucky that I'm one of a handful of people that get to be in that arena tomorrow night and watch Depe Miochich and Daniel Cormier fight for a third time. So there's something very cool and unique about that. Plus, when these two start cracking them all, you know,

when they start throwing punches, it's going to sound insane. And JDS and Rosenstroyd, too, is going to be incredible. Yeah. But you know what it's like? You know, to be here tomorrow in this arena, it's like having fucking Prince come to your house and playing your fucking living room. Yeah, it is. You know what's interesting?

Golf and UFC. Now without the fans, I can hear everything. Golf, I can hear guys drop F bombs. I hear swearing. With UFC, I can, I mean, Dana, the crowds are so loud. I hear hand to face.

I hit those leg kicks. It's like, oh, good, hell. So true. So you in golf, I feel like I'm getting this kind of visceral connection. I did not get before. Now, it's interesting. So this is Daniel Cormay's last UFC fight.

And the criticisms of him have been, you know, he's not Connor McGregor in terms of style, stylistically. Everybody's got a different style on this. And Connor McGregor is one of those guys where it's almost perfect. He's got the look. He's got the bot. He's got the mouth. He's got the style. When I look back, if I said to you, Dana, pick a fighter so far here that I would be surprised that you were, you loved watching him.

fight. Now, you got this kid, Sean O'Malley. He's another great fighter on the card against Marlon Virit. Now, O'Malley, a lot of people think he has a chance to be McGregorish. He's won all of us he's got four or five fights, four fights. So, like,

give me, it was Connor the guy that you watched and thought, oh my God, this is a star. Did you see it instantly? Well, O'Malley's got four fights in the U.S.C., but he's on the feet. He's 12 and 0. He's 12 and 0. He definitely has that it factor and all the things.

Flashy. Yeah. And his first fight in the contender series, he did five and a half million viewers. So we moved instantly that we had somebody, you know, that people care about. And the more important thing is he can fight. He's a bad dude, you know.

He's got 14, I mean, he's 12 and 0, right? Eight wins by knockout, one submission. So he's finished nine of 12 opponents and he's never been, he's never been beat. So tomorrow night is a big night for him. This kid, Cheeto Vera, is very well-rounded. He's gritty. He's tough.

He's not afraid of Sean O'Malley. We did the stare-downs today. He was in O'Malley's face talking all kinds of shit to him, and it's going to be interesting. You know, the fighter that I'm fascinated with now, so again, this Saturday, UFC 252, this is airing Saturday morning. We're doing this Friday. Daniel Cormier's last fight, his third fight now. with Steppe Miosich and Daniel Cormier. By the way, Cormier won the first fight,

knockout, early knockout, and then lost the second. TKO. Stepe won the second. So this is the third, and this is Daniel's last fight. Also keep your eye on Sean O'Malley against Marlon Vera. The kid that's fascinating, that he stumbled a little early, and now he's become my favorite fighter,

is Justin Gachie, who is maybe, it's almost my boxing fandom here. his efficiency. Dude has a rock chin. Every punch he throws feels like it lands. I'm shocked. And it has bad intentions on it. Yes.

You know, it's fascinating because he's a guy, Dana. He didn't pop early. You know what I mean? It was like he had to kind of find himself. And the psychology with that is interesting. Some guys are just stars. Like Sean O'Malley is like, boom, star. 100%.

Justin's not. Like what was it? it with him? So what happened is, yeah, you're right. He did he, some guys just blow up, some guys take time. A guy like Gatesy, when, when he fights enough, you know, people start to become fans and people, you know, that's how that kid grows into a star. Same thing happened to Chuck Liddell.

Chuck Lidl wasn't a fucking superstar overnight. It was Anderson Silva. You know, they had to keep, you know, whipping people's asses and winning, and then they became popular. Same thing for Gagee. You don't watch a fight. and turn it off and say, I don't ever want to see that guy fight again. You're hooked the minute you see him fight.

And it took a little time, but now he's at the pinnacle, man. He's going to fight Habib. I want to ask you, Dana White is joining as UFC president. You have been somebody, you know, American viewers grew up with baseball and football and basketball. And you not only, they didn't grow up with UFC, you had to forge your way into their lives because we already had boxing. So you add like a natural competitor and when you started this business. So being a maverick, being forceful, not taking anybody's crap, and you have never lost that.

That is your fidelity. That's your truth. Has this, take me to the last six months, it's been obviously an asset. Is it ever, though, Dana, do you still feel like an underdog? Do you still have that street underdog feel? Because I see you now as established. But that doesn't mean when Dana White wakes up in the morning. You don't still feel like a 17-year-old kid at a hotel in Boston

that doesn't want to get the heck out of there. Oh, we're 100% of your underdog and have a huge chip on our shoulders. First of all, I have the baddest fucking production team in all of sports. Okay? You know how many Emmys I have? I have fucking two. You know how many Showtime has? Showtime sucks.

Their fucking production sucks. They're fucking chips. looks terrible. I shit you not. I just watched a fucking commercial this morning in the gym by showtime. They fucking copied me. They're literally using something I fucking post every week. These motherfuckers are winning Emmys. We should have, we should have 200 fucking Emmys right now. My team should. My PR staff should be winning awards. My fucking everybody, everybody that works for me should be winning these industry awards. We don't win shit because it's all political. And that shit goes to the NFL and Major League Baseball and fucking Showtime and HBO and all these other guys, you know.

So, yeah, we're still a huge underdog. We're still fighting our way to the top. And, you know, I said it years ago. We're going to be the biggest sport in the world. And by saying that, look, we're global now. We're massive globally. And we're still growing. My upside is 7 billion.

There's 7 billion people on Earth, right? And now, if you look at technology and the way that it's going with OTP and streaming and all this shit, I'm going to be able to put on a fight where I don't have to do 150 different television deals around the world. The entire world will be able to watch the fight at the same time on the same channel. And that's my ultimate goal. I love having you on. You're a busy guy. You didn't have to do this. But you've just been good to us.

Likewise, brother. I just love your product. I think you've done an amazing job. I've seen you fight through it. I just, I like your toughness, your street. You know, you had a funny line one time. I was talking to you on a show and you said, you were a tough guy and you said, you thought you could be a fighter.

And then you figured out you could not be a fighter. Did you have a bad fight? Yeah, no, it just, you know, yeah, you definitely, you have an experience where you realize, all right, I'm not this guy. Very few. I tell these guys this, I literally just had the fighter meeting about an hour ago. And I told them how unique they are and how different they are than the rest of the world because very few people can do what they do and especially at the level that they do it.

And yeah, and hopefully, you know, I was lucky enough that I was smart enough to realize that I wasn't fucking good enough. Yeah. I'm not good enough. Yeah, UFC president, this Saturday, that's today, you're listening. This is a real card. So first of all, you're going to get Daniel Cormier's last fight. It is the third fight. They split the first two, Stipe A Meosich, and what many people believe is the rising star.

Sean O'Malley, Marlon Vera. People are saying he's won. He's 4-0 in the UFC fights, 12-and-0 overall. Absolute pleasure. I'll be buying it. I'll be watching it, Dana, and keep kicking butt. Thank you, buddy. I really appreciate it, man.

Have a great weekend. Hey, Fox Sports Radio. is having a basketball bracket challenge. Listeners now have the chance to compete against me, Gottlieb. Broussard and Parker, R.J. Bell, Clay Travis. Participate.

Visit foxportsradio.com. Brackets have to be submitted prior to tip off on the first playoff game on Monday by 1 p.m. Eastern time. It's the basketball bracket challenge. I will dominate. and pick some upsets. Don't be a weenie. I might take all the favorites.

Sweeps. I want conviction. I want an upset. I am picking the Blazers over the Lakers. 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-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way,

this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger.

So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim?

Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack.

I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah.

For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we

get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross,

because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing,

growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way, and listen now. He's a good follow on Twitter, no nonsense. Mulvahill 79. Michael Mulvahill, who I try to bring on two or three times a year minimum, Fox Sports Executive Vice President, and the head of strategy.

Let's start with this. So most of us believed that the ratings would go up. There was a scarcity. There's COVID. We're dying for sports. Let's start with baseball. I saw something the other day you tweeted. Now, baseball is a sport that you need patience.

And it can be slower at times, less juice or action. Yet, I'm seeing massive ratings increases. among young men for baseball. And I wanted to ask you, and I mean like up 400% for A's games, Dodgers got good ratings last year. They're up 357%. Why young men rating increases for baseball that are so profound? First of all, thanks for having me back on the pod.

It's great to talk to you and great to finally have some live sports to react to and discuss. Yeah, we've seen really extraordinary. viewership increases on the local level for baseball so far this year. And really, for as long as you and I have been old enough to follow the game at all since we were kids, one of the knocks against Major League Baseball has been that it's too old and that it struggles to attract a younger audience. Well, something really significant has changed this year, which is that the Nielsen ratings that we all rely on now for the first time are capturing viewing that happens outside the home. Oh, so that counts for baseball too. It does. And so it's doing a much better job of capturing that younger audience that

might be consuming baseball at a restaurant, in their workplace, and somebody else's home or in a hundred other locations. Fascinating. This is fandom that was always there, but we're only now capable of measuring it. And as you say, we're seeing some really extraordinary increases, you know, among those men 18 to 34, up by over 300 percent in Oakland, in Los Angeles, in Tampa. I mean, Those are cities where the local teams are playing winning baseball, but winning baseball isn't going to account for a 300-something percent increase among the younger viewers who tend to be the most elusive and the hardest to reach via TV. So it's a really great story for baseball in the early part of the season and really runs counter to what the perception of the game has been for a long time. So to describe this to our audience, I think it's called OHS. Is that what it's called? Out of home, OOH.

OH. OH. So that means, folks, for years and years, everybody could. we all watch games at bars and restaurants, that was never counted for ratings, and this is the first year it is. So let me segue to this. Does that mean we're looking at record ratings for the NFL this year, in your opinion? So that out-of-home viewing will be part of the NFL viewership statistics this year, and that also will be the first time that it's been part of our NFL marketplace. I think looking ahead to our expectations for the football season, you know, what we've seen so far is that when major sports have come back, their first event back has done extraordinarily well. You know, when NASCAR came back, our first NASCAR race did over 6 million viewers.

It was the most watched race other than the Daytona 500 in three years. When Major League Baseball came back, their first game was on ESPN. It was the most watched regular season baseball game on any network in almost a decade. So we're finding that comeback events are doing extraordinarily well. And then pretty shortly thereafter, viewers are, level is returned to something close to normal. I think that's what we're going to see for the NFL as well. I think that Thursday night opener on NBC, and I think our game that Sunday, which we'll have the double header and the featured game will be Tampa at New Orleans, Tom Brady's first game in a

new uniform, matchup of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, Saints maybe one of the favorites, if not the favorite, to represent the NFC and the Super Bowl. I think we're going to see the biggest week one numbers that we've seen in quite a few years. And then subsequent to that, you know, I think we'll see a little bit of a return to normal. I guess the factors that could contribute to better than typical ratings for the NFL this year are, one, that out-of-home measurement that we just talked about. That'll be a factor throughout the entire season. And two, I think in big portions of the country, you're going to see some of the time and attention that is usually directed to college football, redirected to the NFL.

You know, if you are a sports fan in Madison, Wisconsin, and you divide your attention in the fall among the badgers and the Packers and maybe the Brewers, if they're making a playoff run, now you're going to refocus all of your attention on the Packers and maybe the Brewers and the Bucks if they make a deep playoff run. So I think there are, you know, significant portions of the country where some of that Saturday football interest is going to be re-expressed on Sunday, and it'll drive NFL statistics up, and it's really going to benefit the Sunday NFL partners.

Michael Mulvahill, Vice President, Executive, Vice President, Fox Sports, Head of Strategy. Here's what's interesting. Last week's 20 most watched shows. This is fascinating. 17 were nightly network newscasts. Now, that's a business that has been swooning for years. Why the intensity and the focus of American viewers back on the nightly news, which I don't watch a lot of nightly news. I really don't. I watch cable, politics, sports, you know, history channel, that kind of stuff. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think the nightly traditional network newscasts have really had a moment during the coronavirus and during the pandemic. I mean, we're looking at over 20 million people a night watching evening newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC combined.

So you're talking about, you know, something equivalent to a big NFL audience watching a very traditional 30-minute newscast every night. I think it's really fascinating. And I think one of the reasons that they are having such a moment is because the new cycle is so overwhelming. And it has been now for five months. And there's so much new information every day, both about the pandemic and about the politics around the pandemic and now increasingly about the presidential campaign. And I think it's almost too much to digest on the 24-hour networks. It's really helpful to have that easily digestible 30-minute summary of all the day's news. And, you know, we look at not just sports ratings, but we look at news viewership every day and every week.

And, yes, the cable news networks have been up dramatically throughout the pandemic. But every week, when we look at those top 20 shows of the week, it'll be 15, 17, 18 of the top 20 will be the very traditional nightly news shows that have been around for 50 years. Yeah, simplifying, adding clarity to complex issues we're dealing with now. By the way, horse – you love horse racing. I do. You have a weakness for it. Yeah, on Fox, it's up 300%. Explain the horse racing market to me.

So what's happened in horse racing is that when virtually the entire sports world was forced to shut down, horse racing never stopped operating. They were able to continue. Their athletes are able to maintain a social distance from each other. The horses still have to be cared for, whether there's a pandemic going on or anything else. So there still had to be a human presence on the racetracks every week, and it enabled them to keep their racing operations going. So when everything else came to a stop, horse racing kept going, and it allowed us, and NBC was in a similar situation,

to move horse racing content from lesser distributed networks to greater distributed networks. Traditionally, most of what we do in horse racing is on FS2. Other sports shut down. All that FS2 programming moves. to FS1, FS1 is in tens of millions more homes. We've gone from having literally one hour of horse racing on FS1 last year to 150 hours this year. The viewership on a per hour basis really doesn't change, but you're moving so much content

to the more broadly distributed platform that it really drives an increase in total viewing. It drives an increase in betting. And all the statistics around horse racing are really good this year. The viewership is way up on our air. The betting handle is up across the country. And it really demonstrates that the network that you're on matters a lot. You know, when you are elevated from FS2 to FS1, that matters. When a game's elevated from FS1 to the Fox broadcast network, it makes a big difference.

So it's just a demonstration that platforms really do matter a lot. So two things are happening in America this year. the explosion of sports gambling. It is a race now. Everybody's all in, not just the Supreme Court, the networks are all in, and also the OOH viewing, which will count this year for the first time. That, to me, guarantees big ratings going forward for television events. I saw the Gulf PGA championship this weekend. I watched it for three hours. Numbers were huge. There are these there are people in America. I'm not here to mock them or suggest they're wrong, but there's a lot of boycotters. I'm on a boycott NASCAR because you got rid of the Confederate flag. I'm going to boycott the NBA because there's kneeling.

And I would suggest that this was a bad year to boycott sports because between the increase in gambling, the stigma's gone. Everybody's all in including networks, more people gambling, especially now with COVID. You're at home. So you got COVID, which means the numbers go up. You got gambling, which means the numbers go up. And you've got O.O.H. viewing now, bar viewing counts, which means the numbers go up. So if you can boycott all you want, you've got three forces simultaneously working to increase the ratings. So I saw a tweet you had last week that said baseball, NBA hockey, total viewing of nationally televised sports up 42%. Are all of them crushing?

Are any of those leagues slightly disappointing? I wouldn't call any of them disappointing. I think what we're seeing is that the landscape is now so crowded that aggregate sports viewing is way up. There was a weekend recently where it was up by more than 40%. We obviously have a lot more weekday live sports than we would typically have in August. We've had weekdays where total viewing of sports has been up by 100 or 150%. And that's not a Fox statistic. That's across every nationally rated network.

among the sports individually, you know, I think the one of the three that you just mentioned that really stands out to me is the NHL. And that's obviously not a national partner of ours, so I'm not making a case for, you know, a Fox property. But I think if you look at it objectively, their restart, to me, seems close to perfect. And I freely admit to not being a big hockey guy. I don't know a lot about the sport, so I'm viewing it from something of a distance. but I think their breakthrough in terms of a programming strategy was to have two bubbles and to be able to then stagger their games and play throughout the day, starting with an early first game on weekdays.

And they've essentially created a March madness of hockey every day for this entire month. I know I personally have watched more hockey in the last couple weeks, and I probably watched in the last five years. I think it's really showing up in the numbers, you know, in the first week after they came back, total viewing of NBC Sports Network was up by 45%. So that's a really significant percentage. They had that five overtime game earlier this week, Columbus and Tampa Bay. That game averaged 700,000 viewers.

It peaked at 1.8 million viewers. I don't think that game would have rated any better if it had been played in front of a packed arena in Tampa. I think it did just as well by being in the bubble environment in Canada. So their programming strategy has been great. The ratings have been really positive. And I guess most important of all, you know, they just announced recently that they conducted over 7,000 COVID test last week and they didn't have a single positive. So it's hard to find anything wrong with the way that they've come back. 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-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators,

and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to? do a little kill. Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jett. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but yeah, yeah, literally. But just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS. on the table right now.

Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking.

Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses.

Steve Burns, Dustin Ross. Because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the hard way and listen now. Here's a question that I have a friend of mine asked me, and I didn't have a confirmed answer. will the NFL move games to Saturday without college football potentially? You know, my expectation is that it would take a complete postponement of the college schedule for that to happen. It's certainly something that we've given a lot of thought to. And if all five power conferences were to shift their seasons to the spring, we would really look seriously at it.

And I think engage in immediate conversations with the league. But as things stand right now where only two leagues have postponed and three are indicating that at least at this hour they intend to go forward, I think it would be really difficult to see any real reshaping of the NFL schedule as long as there's a significant college presence on Saturdays. All right, politics. Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris, his running mate. So my initial takeaway was good energy, telegenic, feisty. I do worry that Biden doesn't have a ton of energy. I mean, we've got two candidates over 75 running. I don't think that's ideal. But she was a candidate, I said early, and I even said this on my show, there's a certain energy about her, whether I agree with all of her politics or not. I thought it was a smart choice. As somebody who dabbles in this, we talk about this from time to time. What did you make of Kamala Harris being Biden's pick? You know, it's interesting. I mean, a lot is being made of it as a historic pick, and for obvious reasons it is, but I actually thought it was the safest and most conventional selection that he could have made, and that also means it's a very strong selection. So I think that in the end, this election, and again, like I'm just a sports TV guy. I try to take an interest in politics, but I'm certainly not an expert, but I think all the signs are that this ultimately is going to be a referendum on. the incumbent president, right? I think the selection of Kamala Harris was a great one. I think she's more than prepared for the job. I'm excited personally as a lifelong Democrat to support the ticket. But in the end, you know, people are going to cast a vote for or against the sitting

president. And I think that's what it's been about, you know, not just recently, but even prior to the pandemic, all signs we're pointing to that being the driving dynamic and the general election. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I had Jim Miller on a podcast recently, and we talked about this. I stay on the interstate of sports. I take brief exits if there's a Drew Breeze political situation. But I get back on the freeway pretty quickly because I think that's why people consume me is for sports opinions, not necessarily political opinions. It'll be really interesting in November because I think the TV ratings for political networks will go through the roof. You know, it's interesting. All leagues ask something of us. So baseball asks us to be patient.

There's no clock. The games can take a while. UFC asks of us as consumers. There's a regulated level of violence. You'll have to tolerate some if you like it. The NBA, since LeBron became the driving force of the league, is asking us occasionally to understand that LeBron and some of his friends have strong opinions on social issues and from time to time I'll wear a t-shirt or take a knee. I've opted into all three. I can take a great baseball game if it's a little slow. I can take

UFC, although sometimes it's pretty rough. And I can I can handle, you know, three minutes of a jersey, you know, there's a name on the back or somebody taking a knee. But it is interesting because I do think the NBA is willing to put itself out there on social causes. And it's interesting how stuff lands. Like it lands to me a social justice and a call for police reform. It doesn't land like that, Michael, for everybody. You know, I mean, for some people, you kneel during the anthem and they're offended. And I'm not here to mock or disparage them. But it is interesting. The NBA is willing to go there. Do you think long-term, there'll be punitive repercussions, ratings will suffer once the pandemic is over, and that that's a gamble you maybe shouldn't take as a league?

Well, I think when we get into topics like this, I really try to discipline myself to leave my personal feelings out of it and really just engage with the facts as they're reported through TV ratings or any other metrics that are available to us. And I think what we've seen so far is that none of the sports that have engaged on broader social topics have suffered any negative repercussions at all. I just don't see that in the ratings one bit. And to whatever extent, there's a vocal minority on social media saying that they're going to boycott this sport or that sport, I just don't see it manifesting in the ratings in any significant way. You brought up the NBA.

I think that the opinion of NFL fans around kneeling for the National Anthem or any other kind of peaceful protest has evolved a lot in the last four years. I don't think we're going to see the kind of maelstrom around protest in 2020 that we saw in 2016. And I think the sport that has probably had. to demonstrate the most nerve and the most courage in engaging on these topics was NASCAR. You know, I thought NASCAR made a very nervy decision in choosing to ban Confederate flag imagery from their racetracks. That obviously attracted enormous attention. I do think it

took some courage for them to take that step. There was probably more risk involved for them than there is in other sports leagues deciding to engage on issues of social justice. And I don't think they've been punished at all. I mean, the ratings for the races that we had on our air prior to that change in policy were up, I believe, 8% over the comparable races a year ago. So I think not only were they not punished, I think most of their fans responded really positively. And I thought that this was, you know, we've been in business with NASCAR for a long time.

I thought this was their most significant and most important. important season since our very first NASCAR season in 2001. And by demonstrating a willingness to engage on these really important issues, I think that NASCAR regained their place in the cultural conversation and they reasserted a relevance that, you know, if we're being candid, I think they've struggled at times in recent years to have that relevance. They really got it back in a big way this year. and they did it by engaging on those topics.

I think they deserve a lot of credit. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Goulet, John Goulay and my staff, for all of his foibles, loves NASCAR, knows NASCAR, bets NASCAR. How's that? And I told him, the sport felt younger this year. NASCAR felt like current and younger. And my knock on, it's always been a little too old school. But I thought they did a great job.

It felt there was a real energy. they had a couple of great finishes. I'm going to tell you the digital stuff, you know, the stuff they're doing in the NBA where they have the fans, and they had like Lil Wayne and Chris Bosch and a goat and all these fans. You know, you and I have discussed this. There's an old saying, the NBA thinks of it first, football gets it right, and baseball makes the most money on it.

I think the digital stuff with the NBA in the theaters in which they're playing, I think it's really good. I like the sound pumped in. I like it, the cardboard cutouts. I like all of it. Have you guys gotten any pushback? No, not really. I mean, I think that in terms of innovation and ingenuity and experimentation, this is the environment of the greatest ingenuity in our business either ever or at least since the infancy of television when people were coming up with creative ways just to get the events on the air.

I think there's been a lot of innovation and creativity that's visible to the viewer at home. The virtual fans are a great example. The use of drone cameras in our NASCAR coverage has been a good example. But I think the greater innovation is actually not visible to the home audience. And that's just the logistical challenge of getting these events on the air at all. And I'll give you a great example. It's going to come up tonight. We're taping this conversation on Thursday.

and tonight we have a game at Wrigley Field. It's Brewer's Cubs at Wrigley. Now, when we do that game, and it's going to be on the broadcast network to the entire country, Joe Buck will be calling that game from St. Louis. John Smoltz is going to be in Atlanta. Our producer and director will be in Los Angeles, and obviously the game is going to be played at Wrigley Field. I mean, those are the kinds of circumstances that have just never come up.

They almost harken back to, you know, 80 years ago when Ronald Reagan was doing baseball recreations on the radio in Iowa and the game was taking place in another city. That's how far back you have to go to think about sports production where the talent was not actually at the site. And in this case, the talent is dispersed across multiple time zones. So, you know, that's the kind of thing that the viewer at home doesn't necessarily appreciate. But the real achievement of this year for our company and every company that covers live sports is just getting the games on the air at all. You know, if I didn't have to work in the same space as Goulet, what a life that would be.

I'm sorry, he's producing my show today. Dare to dream. Yeah, his name is Michael Mulvahill. He's just all sorts of information. Fox Sports Executive Vice President, head of strategy. That is a heady title, by the way. You just walk around thinking of strategy all day, don't you? That's all you do all day.

I just live inside my head. That's what my family tells me. Michael, it's a pleasure. Let's have lunch soon, and thank you, my friend. It's always great talking to you. I can't wait until they let me come back into the office and hope to see you in person soon. All right.

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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English.

Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the... 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it.

Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.