The Press Box - A Readout on ESPN’s Deals With the NFL and WWE. Plus: NBA Mouthpiece Summer and the New York Post Comes to L.A.

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel start the show with J-School, discussing the new threats to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the ongoing Texas redistricting fight (01:43). Next, they dive into some headlines, starting with the deals made by ESPN this week. First, they go through all the details from the ESPN-NFL deal, including what properties ESPN acquired from the NFL, and they debate whether Donald Trump will try to interfere (13:40). After, they break down the WWE’s deal with ESPN, who acquired the rights to air all of WWE’s live premium events starting in 2026 (30:30). They then move on to how Shams Charania has affected the NBA media since Woj retired and LeBron James's dwindling power in the news cycle (35:27). Lastly, Bryan and Joel discuss the New York Post’s announcement that a sister publication will be coming out west (45:28). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonProducer: Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the 21st century was getting underway, Hollywood released a series of films that were daring, entertaining, and absolutely unmissable. Films like, 25th Hour, Bring It On, Zodiac, and No Country for Old Men. They arrived during the George W. Bush era, a chaotic time in America. Think 9-11, Katrina, the mortgage crisis. After the Bush years, the country would never be the same, and neither would Hollywood. I'm Brian Raftery, and in my new limited series, Mission Accomplished, we're going to dive into some of the biggest movies of the bush years. And look at what they said about the state of the nation. We'll go behind the scenes with filmmakers and experts and relive some of your favorite movies from the early 2000s.

From Donnie Darko to Michael Clayton, from Anchorman to Iron Man. So slip on your sketchers, dig out your old Nokia, and join me from Mission Accomplished, starting August 12 on the Big Picture Feet. Oh, media consumers, welcome to press box Thursday. You've got Brian Curtis, you've got Joel Anderson, and producer Jesse Lopez, who's filling in for nephew Kyle. Coming up, it's a slow week in August, so nothing much happened. Wait, what? The NFL and the ESPN got married. ESPN then took a second spouse with the WWE, its NBA mouthpiece summer, and the New York Post is coming to L.A.?

We'll discuss all these items. But first, I present to you a feature that didn't have to flee from Texas because Texas fled from it. Here's Joel with J-School. Thank you, thank you, Brian. I'm going to Texas next week, actually. Some people will be able to quorum with me. It'll just be my parents mostly and friends. But yeah, I'll be returning to Houston next week.

I want a full report. I'll let you know. I don't know if we're going to have time to do anything. For people that are very close to listeners to this pod, they can hear my kids probably in the background. And that is, we are very concerned about how that's going to go in front of the old timers down there. You know, I always say that my kids are the freest Andersons that have ever lived.

But, well, first things, first, did you know that today was B-dub's birthday, Brian? It's B. Dub's birthday? It is B. Dub's birthday. So shout out to him today, man. Happy birthday, Brian. Yeah, happy birthday. I didn't get to see him at SummerSlam,

but he was somewhere up in the press box watching over the whole spectacle. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's back in the press box. How does that sound? Well, first, Brian, I just had to say, I was so moved by your tribute to your uncle, right? And, you know, thank you for sharing that with us.

It made me think about my own uncles. And I didn't quite have, a cool uncle like you did, but obviously you helped to help us to understand how important he was to you and the role he played in your life. And I learned a lot about you through that thing, man. So thank you for being willing to share that with him seriously. Well, thank you for saying that. And I also want to thank our listeners could have gotten so many sweet emails over the last couple of days and continue to get him. And people who are reaching out and talking about loss in their own lives. And I appreciate every single one of those. And I'm writing back to everybody.

So thank you because you made me feel like part of a family here at the podcast. Thanks, man. Right. And, yeah, I mean, look, maybe we should have like an uncles and aunts week here. I was actually trying to figure out with the best piece of writing about an uncle or an aunt was. And I really couldn't come up with it yet. If anybody has anything like that, I'd be interested in reading it. But does anything come to mind for you?

I'm trying to think. Uncles. Was that Franz Lidd's story about, was that his, uncle who thought he was the heavyweight champion of the world. It became a movie called Unstrung Heroes with Andy McDowell in it. Is that about uncles? That could be. You know what? Not come to think of it. That might be right. I guess we could look that up on Wikipedia. Also, I remember that Ralph Wiley's first memoir, Serenity, some of it was based about an uncle, I believe, who was a boxer. And that got an uncle who taught him boxing. So that could be some of it,

I guess. But if I would be willing to and would love to see other people's recommendations on something like that. Anyway, thanks for sharing that, Brian. Also, because I didn't get a chance to talk to you about this last week, a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned going outside of your Connecticut summer home, seen bears. The question I had for you, because I don't know the layout there and how things go, what gives you the confidence to keep going outside? Let me tell you. It's an adventure every single time because I left some of it in my car last night, and it's pitch black, as you can imagine. Yeah. And all I have is my iPhone light, and I'm walking out there, and I'm taking like one step at a time.

It looks like I'm rehearsing for the horror movie. I'm like, is the bear on the other side of my car, and I just can't see it right now. I just does not sound very relaxing to be actually. I've just got to be honest. I have not seen him since I talked about it. Okay. All right. I saw a porcupine the other day.

That was kind of cool. Man, you saw a porcupine in the wild? Yeah. First time. That is so cool, man. I've got to list animals like that, like a beaver. Like, I've just never seen a beaver in the wild. So, yeah, anyway, well, that's really cool.

Well, anyway, let me get to the serious thing here. So I would like people to follow me back almost 20 years ago to the stay in Atlanta at the National Association of Black Journalist Conference. there, there was a panel in the bowels of the Hyatt Regency downtown, and it featured luminaries like the Reverend Jesse Jackson, now late comedian Dick Gregory, formerly Democratic and then Republican Congressman Arthur Davis from Alabama. You remember that guy? Sure. And the president of the Service Employees International Union, a guy named Andy Stern at the time. And to the best of my recollection, because I was there, I used to go to NABJ fairly

regularly, especially when you're trying to, you know, the job fair was a big deal, man. You know, you're trying to drum up some interest in getting in front of many people as as possible. But I, this was one of the few panels I made my way to, because, you know, Jesse Jackson was sort of a celebrity to me. I remember I had remembered him running for president more than anything else as a kid. So at any rate, to the best of my recollection, that room was small, but full, maybe even crowded. And the topic was the 2007 expirate. of key parts of the Voting Rights Act. And Jesse Jackson could not hide his anger at the panel being moved to that part of the hotel.

He said something like, to put this discussion in the corner of a basement is threatening to our survival. And I had helped recall the details of this story by rereading a few news accounts, most notably one from Eric Deggans, who was then at the Tampa Bay Times. But Jesse Jackson was pressed because he was truly worried about this upcoming vote for the congressional reauthorization of key parts of the voting rights act. And he was in town that week as part of a larger campaign called the Keep the Vote Alive Rally. And the good Reverend Jackson was using rhetoric that some people at the time considered unnecessarily alarmist and incendiary. And I remember being like, what's the big deal here? He told the room, it's been difficult to get the word out about the voting rights story because I've had to go through a whole range of culturally insensitive

people who have never had to fight for the right to vote. We were denied the right to vote for 346 years, and a group of enlightened black journalists have just marginalized this discussion. He was very mad. And I was just like, really? So at the time, the hotel and the NABJ both denied that they moved the panel for any other reason

other than shuffling a panels. Like, that's just kind of how shit happens at conventions, right? But it's also true that the Voting Rights Act didn't seem like a pressing concern at the time. Like, I mean, we were at war with Iraq. Bush had just gotten reelected. We hadn't even gotten to Hurricane Katrina, which would hit New Orleans later that month. And I have to admit, like many other people, I took the Voting Rights Act for granted. It had been the law for 40 years at that point. My whole life, it had been signed in the law in 1965 by LBJ, another great Texan. And I'd never known a world where my right to vote or my ability to be represented in America's halls of political power were an open question. I didn't see what we had to be worried about at the time. And I was even talking about last week's, I was talking about this last week's just, but Monty Jones, we were like, we're every, just Jackson tripping, man. This is a settled issue. And a year later, it seemed even

crazier because the Senate voted 98 to 0, 90 up to zero to extend to act for another 25 years. But even though the vote was unanimous, it still came with some reservations from Republicans in the House who had claimed the law unfairly singled out southern states for special federal oversight. And at the time, they kind of claimed, hey, man, we way beyond that Jim Crow shit, man. Like, what are you tripping for? We don't need that sort of oversight anymore. But at that panel, Jackson and the other panelists had warned against that kind of political subterfuge.

They knew better, and they had pointed to the 2000 presidential election as evidence that all of the votes were not secure. And Dick Gregory, I remember him saying this, and I apologize. It's not, well, whatever, you all can live, your grownups. I'm coming to the march because white folks didn't lie to us. They said we could all vote. They didn't say that they would count them, though. we're coming back this time to get them all counted.

So anyway, I was reminded of all this earlier this week as I kept tabs on the unfolding political drama and our home state of Texas, Brian. It's still going on now, right? Like, I'm sure things are changed, and even as we talk, we're in this moment. But for those who haven't been following this story, and if you're not, why not? It's not just a Texas story. It's a national story. 50 Texas House Democrats have fled the state to prevent the quorum

necessary for a special legislative session meant to redraw the state's congressional district maps. Governor Greg Abbott is doing this at the behest of President Trump to come up with maps that most likely would flip five Democratic seats during the 26 midterms. Those seats obviously go a long way in ensuring that Republicans maintain control of Congress and Senate and Trump can do more of his agenda, yada, yada, yada. The most generous term I can use for this effort is that it's unusual because redistricting usually happens at the end of a decade rather than midway through it. It can be done, but it usually never is. Anyway, earlier today, this is Thursday, as I'm saying this, came news that the FBI had granted

Texas Senator John Cornyn's request to assist Texas law enforcement in tracking down those Democrats. Some of them are in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois. They're not really supposed to be doing that, but what are laws now, right? what is law enforcement now? What is law enforcement now? What does it mean? Who are they most beholden to, right?

All of this is moving into the territory that we call unprecedented. And Abbott has claimed that the Dems aren't back by Friday. He will attempt to remove them from their seats. Once again, don't know if that's legal, but we don't even know if it matters. All of this is happening against the backdrop of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the voting rights act this week. And it just seems so appropriate that we're still fighting over. who can vote and who we can vote for, 20 years after Jesse Jackson pulled us aside in Atlanta and warned us about that very day. And our listeners might be reminded that in 2013, the Supreme

Court gutted much of the enforcement power of the Voting Rights Act. And just last week, the court ordered a briefing on a case out of Louisiana that will consider whether it's constitutional to intentionally draw majority black districts. Right. A lot of people say, says that this is just another gambit to further weaken the Voting Rights Act. So U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, she's out of Houston, H-Town. She said this a couple weeks ago. She said, the short-term game is getting five seats to retain the gavel of the house. That's the power grab. The long-term game is to repeal the Voting Rights Act. And I'm just thinking about this, Brian. Now I'm a middle-aged man. You know, I've seen a lot more of the world. A lot of things

have happened. And I kind of want to apologize to Jesse Jackson, man. I think Jesse Jackson knew a lot more about us in this country than I could have imagined at the time as a young journalist who thought he was being sort of a hysterical old man. And as my brothers and sisters at NABJ get in Cleveland for its annual convention this week, I wish I could be there. But again, if you heard my kids yelling in the background, you know why I can't get there. I just hope it's something that we're all reminded of as we're facing down these new threats to the ability to everybody in this country to vote, man. So we can say that the panel should not have been in the basement. Probably not should have been in in the basement. There were a lot of big panels,

you know what I'm saying? But yeah, probably maybe the largest ballroom would have been appropriate. It would have, I think they could have found the room or the time for it, I think. I think absolutely. So can I hit you with some media headlines? Let's do it. We got a couple of huge stories out of ESPN. Okay. Like I said, never mind that it's August. We got news here. And the first one is that ESPN has completed its deal to acquire. the NFL network. Wow. I can't, I mean, you know, I mean, I guess I don't have to click to that other channel now.

Well, stay tuned for that. Do you want me to go through the various parts of this deal? Would that be helpful to kind of unpack everything that is part of this somewhat complicated negotiation? I was hoping you would do that because I'm very confused. And as a consumer, news consumer, I'm kind of like, what app do I need to buy? Like, what, you know? Yeah, so please, yes, can you help to edify me on this?

And I'm sure a lot of other people as well. All right. So anybody who has been keeping one eye on this and maybe even two eyes on this, here is what I understand after talking to people. The very important thing to know, first up, about the ESPN NFL deal, is that none of this stuff is going to take effect this NFL season. Oh, okay. I'm thinking I'm getting red zone on my app like this coming week or something.

So take a breath there. Okay. everything would go into effect for the 2026 season, and that's if ESPN, the NFL, and Disney, clear various regulatory hurdles with the Trump administration. Oh, man. Insert do me music. Oh, here we go again. Okay.

You saw Tim Cook in the Oval Office yesterday. What kind of bribe? What kind of gift can we come up to give to Trump? Gold, that might do it. Yeah, he likes gold. Yeah. Oh, my God. I was also thinking about this, and I know this will appeal to you.

Imagine you're an employee at ESPN right now. Oh, man. What an amazing time to tweet something about Donald Trump. Boy, I can imagine the side conversations, because they're not putting that in an email. Oh, hell no. But I've had a conversation like that there. I can only imagine the ones that are happening today. Oh, there's so many conversations.

Just like, look. You're going to do anything. Make it not over the next six months. Or just kind of disguise it in a sports story. Right, right, right. We just don't ask, like, don't put his name in anything on social media unless it's related to a specific news story. Like the, you know, like the house settlement or something like that, right?

There you go. You can, you can launder it like that. So we've been talking a lot about how ESPN's direct-to-consumer app is going to go live in a couple of weeks. Well, here's how that app would be. be affected by this deal, which as we know, not only allows ESPN to acquire the NFL network, but gives the NFL a 10% equity stake in ESPN. Very important here. So here we go. Number one, Joel, ESPN gets all of the NFL network. And by all of, I mean, it gets the NFL network in

its linear form. That's watching television form and in its digital form. So regulatory hurdles aside in 2026, you will likely be able to access the NFL network from ESPN's app. Okay, so there will still be a channel with the NFL network, but it'll just be owned by ESPN and it'll have ESPN content and so on and so forth, right? Absolutely. And the channel part is still important because ESPN, to make the money work, needs to squeeze money out of the cable button. Right. They need to get their money from YouTube TV. and they have a better case to get money from them if they can put a lot together, right? So you're going to have to pay us for ESPN and you're going to have to pay us for the SEC network

and you're going to have to pay us for the NFL network, which, by the way, includes NFL games, right? So you want to make sure your subscribers have this or they're going to be pissed. They can't watch games. Man, is this kind of curious? So for some reason, I thought there would be fewer channels as a result of this. But, but, okay. Let's try. Okay.

Stay tuned because I got more for you. Okay. So ESPN got all the NFL network. Okay. A plank number two here is that ESPN got Red Zone, but only the linear Red Zone. Oh. Only the channel the Red Zone. Oh, dude.

Are you telling me that so if I get the app, I can't watch Red Zone on it? Not through the ESPN app you can. Oh, man. Yeah. So again, ESPN, when they go to these cable companies, Red Zones, one of the things they're going to be able to offer. But they don't have the digital rights to Redson. Oh, man. And if there's any part of this deal that you look at and say,

hey, what happened here? Why did ESPN lose this part of the deal? It's that. Because, as you know, those are very valuable rights. And the likely answer is the NFL just wasn't giving them up because of that. The NFL sells those rights themselves through this thing that I believe is called NFL plus premium, which sounds like parody. But the NFL is going to continue to sell those rights.

to you themselves. Oh, man. So, okay, so let's just, so again, I'm going to have to watch Red Zone on TV unless I have the NFL plus premium app to get Red Zone to watch Red Zone if I have to be out with my kids or something, right? And let's be honest, you and I are probably watching Red Zone on TV.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that is the longest short of it. That's true, yeah. What ESPN did get was the Red Zone trademark. Okay. So in 2026, once we get past the Trump administration, ESPN could conceivably create NBA Red Zone. Okay. They could create SEC Red Zone. Ooh.

They could create awesome college football Saturday Red Zone. I like that. Okay. And those could be toys that you could play with on the ESPN app. All right. I dig that. Now, yeah, so, like, yeah, I could be watching, you know, Mississippi State versus Texas A&M. And they're like, all right, you know, we're in the fourth quarter, two minutes to go.

And Illinois is driven inside the 20 against Iowa, scores seven to six, something like that. Absolutely. And I'm not a big red zone NFL consumer. I do like to sit down and watch a game in its entirety rather than, yeah. I'm, you know, I'll go there once in a while, but I'm really a games person, mostly because I'm watching a lot of cowboys. Yeah, yeah. But I got to say, college football, where I'm also a gamesperson, it would be handy because right now my method is to look at my phone as like, oh, Nicole Arbach or Stuart Mandel tweeted that I should watch this game. Okay, here we go. Bring out the remote. Let's go. Yeah, right. Right. If you would just take me there. You're like, turn to the ACC network back right now. What are they on to CW? Yeah, turn to the CW right now.

Now, to create those extra red zones, ESPN, of course, would have to go back to those partners. You can't just do that. You have to go down. him silver and say, hey, can we do this? How much would this cost, etc? But that's out there on the tip. ESPN also got the NFL's fantasy business. That seems like a big deal. It's a person that's not a fantasy person, but yeah. Same here, but that's one of those quietly big things. ESPN fantasy and NFL fantasy are now one thing. ESPN also gets a licensing deal with the NFL network. So this had to be explained to me that just because you buy NFL network doesn't mean you, get all the shows and everything on ES on NFL network.

Oh. Right? Because essentially, if you can think about it like this, the NFL is selling the rights to those shows or the licensing fees to those shows to itself. Okay. Right.

The NFL doesn't give things for free, right? Everything must be licensed. Everything must be paid for. Everything is all a cart here. If the NFL network is a building, right? And on each floor is like, Good Morning Football, America's game. So basically,

the ESPN has bought the NFL network building, and now they've got to fill up, they've got to find tenants. Right. Exactly. And they've got to go, yes, or they've got to go buy every piece of furniture on every floor. It's a tag sale.

Okay. All right. And if you think of this ESPN app that's going to come out in a few weeks, wouldn't it be great to have every episode of stuff like a football life? Oh, yeah. Which is the most evergreen documentary series of evergreen documentary series. And you can just see it, coach by coach, player by player. I'd like to push this right now.

Because as you and I've talked about, Joel, we're moving away from this idea of ESPN as a linear TV channel where something happens from 4 to 430. Right. And we're thinking about it more like Netflix. We're thinking about more like an app where here's some stuff you can watch. Yeah. ESPN's always going to have more games.

So it'll be a little bit different. Something will start at 4 o'clock. Something will start at noon on a Saturday. But they want to create that app-like digital experience as well. So that's a big part of this whole thing. And again, when you come to questions like, hey, why was around the horn canceled? Well, what plays better on an app?

A television show that airs from 4 to 430 and is instantly outdated or a million of football documentaries that are cheap to produce and that you can watch whenever you want to. Oh, man, absolutely. I mean, I'm a big, I'm sure you're like this. Sometimes if you're, I mean, I don't have time like that anymore,

but let me look at that 30 for 30s that I missed a couple years ago. Like, I'm a big, person like so yeah i mean the that that's right up my alley right there getting that a football life i've missed so many of those i didn't even see the houston orlers one so yeah i'm i'm into that that's something i'll never seek out but if it is there if it's a touch of a button away i will watch that and i will watch absolutely the whole thing mm-hmm we talked about ESPN potentially getting more NFL games out of this deal that has happened so ESPN had 25 NFL games each season that is Monday night football

as we know it and love it Weeks 1 through 17 a bunch of those clunky double headers on Monday night where they somehow had like two bad games on the same night and you couldn't decide which one you wanted to watch less

Cleveland versus Jets for everything. Let's go. After this deal, ESPN is going to go from 25 NFL games to 28 NFL games. And again,

similar to those football life type shows, just because the NFL network had games doesn't mean ESPN inheritance. them when they bought the building. They had to go buy them. So they bought three more games. The remaining four games are going to be auctioned off by the league, surely for a

bazillion dollars. But one of the side effects of this is that ESPN is probably going to get rid of all those unwieldy Monday night double-hitters that nobody really liked, right? Because now you've got a place to park games, right? You got the NFL network. You got international windows. You've got Saturday windows in December. So all those games will be clean, free and clear.

They don't have to compete against them. themselves anymore basically. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. I mean, like you say, I've always been like,

who in the hell has the time to watch both of these games? I mean, how does that even happen? But anyway. Then, Joel, there is a separate deal. Okay. Just to confuse you a tad further.

Oh, man. ESPN also renewed its rights to keep covering the NFL draft. That's unsurprising. ESPN's been covering the draft forever. For sure. But they also got the rights to show NFL clips on the ESPN app. the new app. Remember, this is kind of one of those hidden fees among many hidden fees.

If you want to show highlights of the NFL on your programming, which is obviously crucial to ESPN for SportsCenter and NFL Live and everything else, you have to pay separately for that. ESPN wanted to be able to do that on the app, especially because the app isn't just going to be sports center. It's going to be sports center for Brian Curtis. Right. Right.

What was Tyler Booker's block like in week one? the Eagles, right? Like, you want to be able to show me that kind of stuff. Okay. So ESPN made that deal as well. So wait, let me just, as a guy that is like a NFL combine junkie, will I have to go to NFL Network to watch these drills and combine events? Or like, what am I going to, you know, how would that happen? So I don't believe that's exactly been spelled out yet, but yes, I believe the combine will be shown on NFL Network, which is now owned by ESPN. After ESPN renewed, again, a la carte, renewed the rights to show the combine and the second broadcast of the NFL draft on NFL network. Okay.

The most confusing sentence that's ever been uttered on this podcast. It might be. But yes. I thought this is supposed to be easier. Yes. Okay. All right. So that's the basics of the NFL deal.

Wow. How can any, I just, I mean, if you are a busy consumer and you're just like, man, I just want to. give $30 to somebody and see all the games and see all that stuff. It just doesn't, it seems like this is sort of confusing because they're not really streamlining anything. The only thing that is going to get streamlined, it seems like, are jobs, right? Jobs are probably going to get streamlined. There's never been no media merger that I know of that has resulted in more jobs.

Yeah. You have redundancies, right? You have people that are doing the same thing that were doing the same thing for two different channels. Right. Now there's one owner, and they're going to. to be doing the same things. Now, a lot of that stuff, especially with talent and probably behind the scenes too, is probably for down the road just because this isn't starting again pending Trump

until 2026. So, you know, we had like Scott Hansen come out and like, hey, I'm still hosting the red zone. I haven't been replaced by big perk as of yet. But I would say that any talent decisions or any of those kind of decisions, they'll happen. Let's not, what's not sugarcoated. But that's probably more down the line. Okay. Man, well, I mean, this is, it's just weird because, like, all this is all this energy around it. Yeah, because I'm thinking, okay,

like I got to start getting my cable set up or whatever, my app set up in time for the season, and it kind of feels like there's this big buildup. But, yeah, but again, I wonder, so, like, I know you've been doing some reporting on this. What are the odds that Trump is a real complication here? I mean, do we understand those odds about anything in American life right now? That's a very fair point.

Did we think Trump was going to get Pete Rose unbanned from baseball? That is a very good. Well, if ESPN, if you have a DEI program, I guess you've got to get rid of it now. But we've seen business leaders, you know, giving tribute, tribute in the old-fashioned sense of tribute to Donald Trump. Yeah. To make sure the deals have it. We saw what CBS and Paramount just did. So, you know, look, if Donald Trump can get in the way, if there's something, if there's a reason for him to get in the way,

But he sure. Absolutely he could. Oh, bad. And I saw Clay Travis trying to like, you know, just stir the cauldron and just be like, remember all that stuff, Jamel Hill said once upon a time? He was like, you know, all these liberal people at ESPN. I'm like, do you pay attention to Jimmy Petaro's ESPN? I mean, buddy.

Yeah, but I mean, you are way behind, son. You know, like, what are you concerned about anymore? You know, Jamel's not there anymore, right? Dan Levitard's not there anymore, right? Like, I mean, they cut, I mean, round the horn. If you had any beef foot around the hoard in that way, like, it's gone. Like, it's just outside the lines. It's not going to be there.

So, yeah, I don't, he's fighting a ghost. To answer your question about, like, wait a second, I thought I was going to have to be interacting with an ESPN app here in a few weeks. I think the answer to this is most people aren't. Okay. ESPN would love you to buy their services through the app because you're paying them directly and because they get to know more about you. Just like Netflix knows what kind of movies Joel likes,

ESPN wants to know what kind of sports Joel likes. They want to know what your favorite teams are, right? They want to be able to serve you things, sell you things, encourage you to bet on things. All that could be happening through an app in a way it can't happen through a cable channel. But ESPN also knows that most people like you and me are sports fans. We're not ESPN fans necessarily.

We are sports fans full stops. So we're going to need YouTube TV because we want to watch all the college football games. There may even be a game on CBS one Saturday we want to watch. I can't guarantee anything, but maybe there'll be one. Well, like I said, I got to get the CW app. I do have an ESPN app here, and I'm trying to figure out. I was like, what are you going to be able to do for me, guys? Is that going to be enough?

Am I going to have to give more money? So check back in two weeks. All right. So you also ask, hey, what do I? I need the ESPN have for? What is what is the thing that will make me do this? Well, if you were a wrestling fan, then the second deal ESPN made this week, the second mega deal was that ESPN bought the rights to show you what we used to call the WWE's pay-per-view events. Oh, shit. Were you aware that we now call these PLEs or premium live events? So I was going to ask you, because I saw that in our notes. that we used before the thing. And I was like, I guess I'm supposed to know what a PLE is, but I was hoping that you would inform me or say it.

So thank you. There are 10 PLEs a year. Two of those, WrestleMania and SummerSlam, which I just went to are two night PLEs, you know, the Saturday and Sunday. So they don't count as one. They're each an individual event now.

Yeah, so 10 events and 12 total nights. Okay. Now, for 12 total nights or 10 events, ESPN pay $325 million. Wow. A year. $325 million a year is part of this deal. Damn.

Again, that's going to start in 2026. That's a huge outlay of money. And especially because the old deal the WWE made with Peacock was $180 million or thereabouts for the premium live events, the entire WWE library, which is every episode of Raw, every Hulk Hogan match, everything you could ever watch.

Oh, wow. And then plus their developmental circuit, which has its own PLUs involved in. Wait, I can watch like Hogan versus King Kong Bundy? You can watch everything right now in Peacock. Oh. I did not know that.

I have Peacock. I had no. Man, that's probably why it's going to ESPN now, I'm guessing. Well, but here's the thing. They just sold the premium live events.

The library is still for sale. Oh. If you thought Roger Goodell was an all-a-card salesman. Let me introduce you to Nick Kahn, who's running the WWE. He is making deals right now, right? Raw's over on Netflix. Premium live events over an ESPN.

Hey, still got the library to sell. Still got the developmental league, which is a thing for wrestling fans to sell. So once again, all that's going to be for sales. So just think about this deal. All of that was $180 million for Peacock. Just the 10 events, just 10 events,

again, they're their biggest events, but the just 10 events, $325 million. I mean, evidently, these things just pulling a shitload of money, right? It's got to be like I assume that the numbers are there for this, but that is, yeah, that is shocking. I would not have guessed. If you had said 10 events, 10 WWE events for $325 million. And you don't even, I'm not even getting a chance to look up old, you know, Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant matches. Man, that's, that's quite a bit, man.

We're in a whole new world, though. It is a whole new world. And if you ask like, why, why would ESPN be interested in that? Well, first of all, there's the stickiness problem. If we're thinking of ESPN as an app, not a channel anymore, but more of an app, what do apps have to do? They have to give you programming 12 months a year or you cancel the app. Right.

Because it's so easy. So if you say, hey, we can bring wrestling fans under this banner. And they're never going to want to get rid of us because wrestling is all year. Another kind of under, under sort of unknown, I would say unknown, but underappreciated fact is that wrestling's big season is January from the Royal Rumble to SummerSlam in August, which I just went to. What is that the season of? Not football season.

Oh, yeah, not football season. That's right. That's great. Smart timing on them. So that helps ESPN. And from WWE's point of view, look at this. In the con era, you've seen this. Those superstars, as they're called, are on ESPN programming all the time now.

they're appearing on get up they're you know Stephen A is talking about somebody on first take they've infiltrated themselves into the mainstream media well now just imagine what happens when ESPN actually has a bigger monetary reason to promote them

that to use a phrase I heard Triple H using Unreal the other day that is going to strap a rocket to its ass I mean that is just you're going to see those people all the time on ESPN now man so I mean does that mean then that they'll probably create like a wrestling, I mean, again, and I apologize for not knowing this, but we'll have to

create a wrestling specific show for ESPN then, right? Like, there's got to be like a panel type thing. Oh, so you're not talking about like the Stephanie McMahon Omaha thing. You're talking about like, we need a first take but for wrestling. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm in it. We need to find some wrestlers from the old days that are still with us who might be the, you know, cranky old guy on that panel. I was going to say, yeah, man, an old wrestler is 42 years old. You know? All right, topic number two for you, Joel.

It is NBA mouthpiece summer. Oof. On Monday, ESPN's Sharm Shurania had a very important update about the league. Janice, tell me what's the latest? Anything more there? As we sit here on August 4th, sources tell me there is nothing set in stone about whether Janice and Ducco wants to stay in Milwaukee, or whether he wants to leave elsewhere.

He's been evaluating his future this entire offseason. I reported way back in mid-May that he's open-minded about whether his best fit is in Milwaukee or is it a trade elsewhere. That process has been continuing. There's been some real conversations he's having with his inner circle from my understanding. So you reported back in May that there was no news. Right. And then you updated us in August to tell us that there is still no news. Yon is still thinking about it.

I'm missing something there? I mean, were we presumably supposed to have had an update since Dane went back to Portland or something? Is that maybe what it is? Yeah, I guess. I mean, that would make sense, but the way he put it,

Janus wants to see if he can win a championship with a Bucks, another championship, duh. Teams are waiting for him to decide that, also, duh, and that only Yonis can make this decision. Yeah, that doesn't, you know how she cleared out the floor for them. So like Shams could go one-on-one and drop that on us. I was kind of expecting a little bit more than that. But I mean, I guess, yeah, you know, that's kind of the only open question.

But if, Janice, if you want to know, this is just me putting my basketball hat on. No, you can't win a championship for the bucks right now. Of course not. Of course you can't. Do we need to think about this for months and months? Yeah, like, what are we doing here? I like that you used a basketball analogy for Shams because he has turned into the ultimate. ball stopper of sports media. Like, why would that take a minute and 45 seconds to say nothing?

I mean, I feel there's a whole this whole strange new respect for Woge since he left the beat because everybody's just like, wait, this is it. This is our new NBA insider. There's no competition, so we get a nothing update. I mean, man, cool. I mean, and also,

Woz was just such a great writer. I mean, I guess the thing, and you would probably know this better than anybody. I wonder if Shams' agent has it so that they get a certain amount of time on a specific show, right? It was like, hey, man, I get my two minutes, my four. I mean, that just seems like the kind of thing that if you had an agent at that level, that that's something that you would probably try to negotiate, maybe.

It may be, and I think they just want them honestly on the air like that, just like they want Adam Schefflerom because it gives you kind of just like a, you know this, like when you hear the arguments, sometimes your eyes just glaze over, but when there's somebody who potentially has news, you kind of pay a little more attention. Right. But maybe not if that's the update.

That's the news. Yeah, it seems like they should have run that through somebody before in the pre-production meeting. It's like, okay, well, maybe we can just hold off on that then. I also want to give you Shams on LeBron James. This is an article from June. James had just exercised his $52.6 million player option with the Lakers for next season.

Shams quotes, Rich Paul. Quote, LeBron wants to compete for a change. championship. He knows the Lakers are building for the future. He understands that, but he values a realistic chance of winning it all. We are very appreciative of the partnership that we've had for eight years with Jeannie Buss and Rob Polinka and consider the Lakers as a critical part of his career. Continuing, we understand the difficulty in winning now while preparing for the future. We do want to evaluate what's best for LeBron at this stage in his life and career. He wants to make

every season he has left count, and the Lakers understand that, are supportive and want what's best for him. long pause so lebron is also thinking about his future yeah man i mean i mean you know just you know i mean don't we all aren't we all thinking about our future we are i'm thinking about it too but you're just like wait a second that what i'm sorry what was the update there yeah i mean i guess like is that i guess if you thinking about the history of lebron um is that just sort of a way a passive aggressively put out there that his future with the Lakers is not assured. And that's just a lot of gobbled eagles

to be like, all right, well, I might be interested in going somebody else if somebody would like to pay for my expensive ass. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Also, I don't know if I've ever laid this on you before, but when writers have someone saying something in an article,

I really want that person to have said that. There's no way Rich Paul said those sentences. in that order. Right. Yeah, I just, you know, man. Because said to me means you got them on the phone or you got them in person and you had a chance to ask a follow-up question.

Shams is the writer, journalist guy, like, it's a little bit of a moving target, right? I mean, that's just not really his bag. So, I don't know. Does ESPN still have a lot of editors there over that kind of stuff? No, I'm not sure about that one.

Yeah. So are you interested in the fact that LeBron's power over the news cycle seems to be fading? Well, yeah. And I'm glad you brought this up because what's been like 15 years since the decision now, LeBron's been in the league for 22 years. A full generation has passed since he's entered the league. Like at a certain, I mean, so even if like you've been following him his whole career,

he's an old guy now, man. Right? Like, I mean, he is. He's a genuine old guy. And I mean, like, we've kind of gotten used to like the 40-year-old great, formerly great athlete. And LeBron is still a great athlete. Maybe it was an all-NBA guy this year. But it's just like, all right, like, cool.

Let us know when you make your mind up. But, I mean, how many times can we do this? You know, like every time we go through this, we're a little less interested. And also, we just went through a playoffs where LeBron had nothing to do with it, man. We went through a whole postseason where basically he wasn't involved. So, like, we all kind of know that, like, he can go wherever he wants, but, like, is it really going to impact who wins the championship? it doesn't quite seem like it, you know.

All right, so let's count off those reasons. He had no effect on the NBA title and probably won't, unless, you know, barring some miraculous trade this year. Right. As you say, we've been through this so many times. Yeah. LeBron was the guy who created the Wojbomb era. Yep.

If LeBron doesn't go from Cleveland to Miami to Cleveland to Los Angeles, this whole little sub-basement, if I may use basement one more time in this podcast, of sports media doesn't exist like it does today. These people are not as rich and powerful to people that put these little mini scoops out there.

He created this. Kauai, too, Kevin Durant. I mean, we can put a lot of superstars in there, but without them moving, this doesn't happen. Right. But there's a limit. And if we're like,

okay, you change teams dramatically so many times, there were so many little tweets, passive aggressive tweets, rich Paul statements that were studied like Kremlinologist studied something from the Soviet Union. And now we're just like, well, what is the okay?

He's thinking about it. Yeah. I mean, think about how low energy it was that Kevin Durant just went to the rockets. And it has made the rockets, I think, like the odds on favor, like second in odds in terms of winning the final. But like it was just kind of like, oh, cool, you know. And I think it seemed even impacting all the other stuff because like Aaron Rogers going to Pittsburgh. People were just kind of like, all right, good stuff. We'll see.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. Go on McAfee. Say something. Sure, why not? But we're not, it's not moving the news cycle like it did. No, it sure is.

It doesn't seem like it to me. And you're talking about LeBron. I mean, he's not even the Laker that everybody's worried about, whose moves everyone's studying. I mean, how much attention to that Rich Paul statement get versus the men's health cover that Luca Donchich was on? Right. That's a, you know, that's a really great point because, like, that was one of the things

where people were like, oh, it gave people a chance to be mad. Nico Harrison again, right? I was looking for an excuse to do. Yeah, right. People were looking for that. But also, yeah, it was just kind of like, oh, wow, like, we're just finally a development this offseason. But other than that, like, yeah, like, I know LeBron is, like, tried to work out at the Clippers facility and that got a little bit of buzz and stuff, but it's just kind of like, all right, like, your hold on our attention span, especially, I mean, you know,

news is kind of more serious than it was in years past, too. Like, this is a, I mean, just the action-packed news cycle every day once again in our life. So it's just kind of hard to get all worked up about what a 22-year veteran is going to do, right? There was a good Brian Winhorse Ramona Shelburne story on ESPN about how the Lakers have just moved Luca into the LeBron's center of the universe role and starts with this amazing sort of scene where they go to this restaurant, Luca and the Lakers Brain Trust, and then they walk out the front door. knowing that the paparazzi would be out there. So they're not just telling Shams where the power lies,

but they're telling TMZ where the power lies within the organization. I mean, things change, man. I mean, Luca to L.A., man, that is a great marriage of like, like if you, in terms of, you know, fan base and people who want to be excited about him and being out there, I mean, I feel bad for you, Mavs fans, sort of, you know, sort of. I mean, you know, he's stoning, of course. But in terms of, like, intrigue for the league to the extent that they can gen it up, like, that is a pretty good marriage.

Like, I don't know where else he could have gone. Maybe the Knicks. But, like, this is, I mean, if you're transitioning, that's what you want to happen. So, yeah, so LeBron's going to have to fall back a little bit. In terms of big things that move to L.A., where do you place the New York Post in relation to Luka? I mean, no, that doesn't quite rate, I don't think. It is a deal if you follow news like us, but that's not Luca. That's not Luca, but I mean, I'm curious to see somebody else give a swing at it in L.A.

Why not? This is an article from CNN's Liam Riley. The New York Post is heading west. The tabloids ownership announced that it will launch a sister publication, The California Post, which sounds like a, didn't that sound like a non-newspaper, nonprofit? That doesn't sound like a bloodthirsty tabloid. I mean, dude, yeah, that just sounds like something, you know, by the Emerson Collective or something. Starts in early 2026.

Riley continues based out of Los Angeles. The new tabloid will operate separately under the New York Post Media Group, a Murdoch-owned news group, news corps, excuse me, subsidiary that houses the New York Post, page six, and decider. So, obviously, they took a look at the L.A. journalism landscape. Right. they looked at the Los Angeles Times, and they laughed. And they're like, oh, you're trying to do a conservative paper. We'll show you how to do a conservative paper in Los Angeles. Everyone has dreams of capturing the elusive L.A. news consumer, right?

Like so much money and effort has been put into corraling them over the years. And I just, I mean, there's that now well-known data point that the New York Times has more subscribers in California than the L.A. Times. So okay. Like, I mean, I just, if you're a Californian, you can get the New York Post. I don't think, you know what I mean? Like, I just, okay, maybe they'll, you know, maybe there's a way to make fun of Karen Bass like they, you know, whatever. And they'll come up with some new conservative media ways to make fun of Karen Bass, but I just, I don't know, man. So that's the interesting part to me.

And there is going to be a print edition we should note here, too, of the California Post. But besides the fact that L.A., has the same pressure points as New York, immigration, the unhoused population, how many times are we seen the New York Post try to make news about those topics? I'm like, didn't the New York Post already win? Yeah. Isn't their style of journalism already the style of journalism, DeJure everywhere in the United States?

Kind of sort of, man. Yeah. Let me give you, can I give you some headlines real quick? Oh, please. Former Superman actor says he's joining ICE. Pamela Anderson is having a moment, and it's about time. 17 game-changing car products are editors never drive without, starting at $5. And finally, sharing my eczema journey changed my life.

Joel, these are not New York Post headlines. These are CNN.com headlines. Yeah, man. But you see how the spirit of tabloids, that mix of personal story, high and low, celebrity news. That's all news now. Oh, yeah. And I would even go back, I mean, I think the buzz feedification

of news helped with a lot of this too, right? Like, everybody had to get a little bit more agile and a little bit more flexible about what they considered news and what they might report on, right? Like, that helped in the last decade and the New York Post emerged as like one of the more agile outlets out there, right?

And so, yeah, I think that definitely helps. Again, I just, I think the issue with me, and you tell me if I'm wrong here, do people care about the news in California? Do Californians care about what's happening in their communities? It's a really great question. It's a really great because you got in L.A., you got a city of transplants. Many people are transplants. So you're already, you know, it's already hard to just kind of get around this idea of Los Angeles. I mean, it worked for a long time with the Los Angeles Times, but that was another era where the newspaper was everything in your life. Absolutely. And I remember from having, when I did slow burn six on the L.A. riots, one thing that I had not considered as like, so, okay, so you do have like, you know, the transplant folks and you've got, you know, natives or whatever. But a lot of people that come to New York, I mean, I'm sorry, to come to L.A., they don't speak English, right? So, like, if you're a Korean immigrant, like, you've got Korean news outlets. If you're a Latino, you've got Latino news outlets already that sort of serve your needs there. So, like, what market do they presume that they're going to be tapping into? I just, the conservative, the elusive conservative L.A. reader probably already does not care about, like, conservative news, or they're going to get, like, the real shit, like, from, you know.

The free press? Yeah, or like the L.A. Eagle net. dot net on, you know, Facebook or something like that, right? Like, they just, they don't need that. But I think it's interesting. but I just you know what do they know that everybody else does

that's what I guess I would want to know yeah and I also feel that you know like LA News has been unbundled mm-hmm LA Times has got some of it yeah probably the free press has got some of it for being honest

Matt Bellany's podcast has a chunk of it yeah the Hollywood reporter has a chunk of it like it's just kind of in all the ringer you know I mean a lot of it's just in all these different places

And it's all there, and with some very notable exceptions on that list, it's all very high quality. Right. But it's just not, there's not a New York Times style super bundle that you say, like, okay, here's where I get everything. Here's where I get Hollywood. Here's where I get politics, metro reporting. I could add in the Eater accounts of a couple of the L.A. Times as food critics, by the way, essential to me for figuring out how to live in Los Angeles. I mean, that's just a lot of this stuff, right? And it's there, but it's just not one thing.

And this is one of those classic newspaper stories. It was out there to buy or to develop yourself, then you let it escape. Right. And it was never coming back. Yeah. Are you going to put that genie back in the bottle and get everybody to go to one place again? I just get it's a very 2014 business model. Like, yeah, we'll start up something and we'll get that.

We'll get people to read the LA News all in one day. place. And it's just like, even the Hollywood of it all, I'm like, when has Hollywood been less influential or, um, you know, held less sway or leverage over the industry than before, right? Like it just, there's even a really great time to want to try to plant your flag there. Yeah. I do think like you could probably do a version of this. This probably wouldn't involve the print newspaper, but you could do a version of this where you're just like, here's the New York Post, which is kind of like the Daily Mail. Anybody can read it. And we're just going to then add like, you know, five California things a day.

Yeah. Okay. It's the California Post. We did it. Yeah. Didn't Politico try that too? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, again, I mean, good. I mean, you know. But again, there it's more like, okay, we're going to add a bureau chief or we're going to add a newsletter. Right. So if you're in California, you're interested in politics.

You're reading political prime, but then you want the California part of it too. Right. I just, look, man. I, it's interesting. because, like, I want journalism to succeed. I want there to be more jobs, even at places that I, like, personally, like, you know, I might have a quibble with their news mission or whatever the way they go about their stuff. But this just seems like an old, this seems like really sort of a stale attempt.

Also, I mean, again, the title, man, I mean, the California Post, I mean, they just, I mean, that is the Houston Texans of media name properties. It feels so Emerson collective. Why does every, like, worthy outlet have to have a really boring name? And in this case, why does a Murdoch outlet have to have a worthy name? Come on now. Boring name. Come on now.

I'm Joe Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. But it's a magic by Jesse Lopez. Thank you, Jesse. Monday, we're going to have a very special interview on this podcast. Joel, the kind of interview that's so special, I don't like to talk about it in advance. you're going to be out next Thursday in Houston, as you said. Shoemaker's going to fill in for you on a different day.

And when you return on August 21st, we're going to have a very special episode of this podcast. Oh, really? Okay. You know about this. Don't lay up. Okay, that's right. All right.

I was trying to build the intrigue. But okay. What are you going to surprise me with Brian? I know, right? I mean, I've had to prepare a little bit, so to speak. But yeah, you know, we're building the drama. Have a great. vacation, cannot wait to see you in a couple weeks.

Likewise, buddy.