The Press Box - World Cup Takes and Trump’s UFC Birthday Party. Plus, Peter Kafka on Fox and Roku.

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and David share some thoughts from the first few days of the World Cup. Then they dive into UFC Freedom 250 at the White House and discuss the event and Trump's attraction to UFC (15:30). Then they give a few notes from the NBA Finals (35:05). Finally, Bryan is joined by Peter Kafka, chief correspondent for Business Insider, to talk about Fox's $22 billion purchase of Roku (55:37). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David ShoemakerGuest: Peter KafkaProducers: Isaiah Blakely and Jason Arreola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's begin with a little honesty check. Oh. How much World Cup action have you watched? Not a lot. I figured out the USA romp, I think, was going on in real time and caught some of that. Everything else has been incidental, you know. I went out to, I went to have pizza with my seven-year-old over the weekend and deliberately did it at a place where there'd be World Cup games on. but that's about as close as I got to watching anything.

It's kind of like the NCAA tournament, isn't it? It's a sport you can walk into. Yeah, yeah. Without having a lot of foreknowledge. Mm-hmm. Without being an Adam Friedland-level soccer fan. I mean, like, Cape Verde tying Spain yesterday, which is a fabulous sports story.

I did not know that game was going on until after it happened. I'm still at the... Match, I should say. Yeah. Listen to us talking soccer. No, no. No, no. It will not be talking.

We'll not be using the right terminology. I'm still at the... Explain to me how M.A.R. stands from Morocco point of, like, level of world soccer viewership. So, um... Anyway, yeah. No, but it's been, it's been a... I'm glad that it's going on.

I understand why people are excited about it, and we'll get very excited about it in due time. But not being in New York City. It's just a huge. huge difference, you know? It's like, I'm thinking of a lot of really bad analogies, but the greatest joy of New York is that you didn't really have to plan for it. You just woke up one day and every different corner of every block was brought to life by some contingent of regional fans, right? Like every bar you walked into had a vested interest and, you know, had like a flag outside and a hundred people from that country inside.

And it's just like New York at its best. I mean, listen, I wasn't there for the giant NBA final celebration. I presumably won't be there for the parade. But I'd even put it up against whatever's going on in New York right now. It's a city that has a bar for every college football fan base and for every national team in the world. up. Yeah. I mean, a lot of them are obvious, too. It's right, you go to the, it's not even a bar. You go to, like, the French restaurant. It's become a bar for the, for the purpose of viewing France football games or whatever. But, yeah, it's, there's more than one. It's just, it's just an incredible, incredible experience. Friday night, I was by the channel for USA versus Paraguay. Yeah. On Fox. A couple notes for you. First, what a week to watch. celebrities watching sporting events.

Oh, God. We did the Knicks, we did UFC, and we did USA Paraguay. Mm-hmm. Some of the many celebrities that were in attendance, Katie Perry and Justin Trudeau, despite the fact that Canada was playing elsewhere. Tom Cruise and the Beckham's. Yep. Mike Myers.

Puka Nakua. Bill Gates. Apparently FIFA had not read Emily Glades. There was a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal. There was a great moment where... Do you think the FIFA people call Bill Gates? Listen, there's been some PR issue when he's just like, you're going to tell me about you're going to be the ones to talk to me, FIFA?

Right. Who is more canceled? You were there. Yeah, Bill Gates or FIFA. It's a good question. It's a great moment where John Strong, the Fox Play-by-Play Announcer, said that he had seen a George Lucas look-alike on the Jumbotron. And then he came back from one of those hydration breaks and said, actually, that was George Lucas? The funny thing is that, like, George Lucas is, like, not the first or even, like, in the top 10 of references I would make if I just saw a chubby white bearded, white-haired bearded guy.

You know? Maybe. Maybe if I was with you, I'd be like, yeah, look, it's George Lucas. I was a joke. But, like, I said, I got to go to, like, Kenny Loggins first. And, I mean, there's just so many. It would seem weird to see George Lucas. but he's been in the news.

I mean, Kenny Rogers. Sorry, not Kenny. Did Kenny Loggins have a white beard now? I don't even know. Yeah. Kenny Rogers is no longer with us, by the way. Yeah. Well. All right.

All right, Pete Kenny. George Lucas would be a weird thing, weird person to see in the stands of the sporting event, but his museum's about to open here and he's kind of been out there. Is he on a tour? He's been doing some stuff. I love when people go on tours for things that don't need publicity. I mean, I know we're in the era now where everything needs publicity, but it's like your museum is opening. Like, what are the stakes here?

If we don't get 10,000 people in there in the first week, this thing's going under. Well, he's used to blockbusters. Opening weekend gross is very important to George Lucas. It's true. There are also some political figures at the match on Friday. The Fox camera found three men sitting together in a box. I want you to listen to announcer John Strong here and notice whose identity he wasn't quite sure. president of FIFA Johnny and Fatima.

It's the president of Paraguay on the left of the shot. It looked like the Secretary of State on the right of the shot. Among the dignitaries here this evening in Los Angeles. So he was able to positively identify the president of Paraguay. But he was not totally sure that was Marco Rubio. Was he turned at a strange angle? Maybe he just wasn't prepped for it. Maybe Rubio walked in right as he started talking and his little index card didn't have

Rubio's name on it yet. What a win for internationalism. It's like I can pick out the president of Paraguay. I'm not sure who Marco Rubio is. And we all know the president. And of course, that would be my bit. If I was doing play by play for a World Cup game, I would just, whoever the celebrities we looked at, I would react to them in like reverse

ranking of how famous they were. You know? It's just like, and the world stands still for the, you know, 15th Duke of Luxembourg or like, whatever, you know. The 11-year-old boy prints. Yes, okay, we're good. And there is also David Beckham. Yeah, David Beckham's there.

And I'm like, is that a former player? Does anybody want to fill me in? Looks like a hudlum. Remember the whole national conversation about how much the network should show Taylor Swift during an NFL game? Oh, yeah. My God, we've had like 15 other versions of that conversation.

Fox. It's been crazy. Sometimes involving Taylor Swift, yeah. And it just feels like with this, you can feel so much anxiety flowing through Fox. People care about the World Cup, right? Yeah.

You want to watch soccer in the United States, right? Well, here's some celebrities just in case. It's the Olympics in the World Cup. I mean, these like, you know, non-annual, like, super, you just, like, super significant world events. You just don't know what it's going to mean for your audience at the time.

And I guarantee you have placed a very specific dollar figure bet on how much it's going to be worth your audience. Right? I mean, like, all of these, all these companies are paying more than they, you know, what was the, who was it? Oh, was it Skipper that said none of these companies are making any money off the NFL packages recently. There's a way to do the math. Obviously, that's true. And like all of the, you know, Fox is definitely mortgaged to the Hilt with the World Cup, you know. And if it just, I think you have to be nervous. It's still in the, we're still in the, we're still in the puppy dolly guy's phase of America's Love Affair with Soccer, you know, like that could disappear in a. second. You just don't know what you just don't know. And yeah, yeah. But I think it's going to work out for him. So I think it's a good bed. There was a bit of a controversy about hydration breaks. So a soccer match for people like Brian and David has two halves. But during the World Cup, once a half, about 22-ish, 22-ish minutes into the half, there is now a mandatory hydration break for the players, even when the players are playing inside.

And essentially what people have said is, oh, this has turned soccer into American football because now it has quarters. And we know what happens when you stop play. That means you can squeeze in a commercial. Yeah. Now Fox has gone to full screen, full on commercials. In one case, they got back from commercial 10 seconds after play had resumed, which made everybody mad. Telemundo has decided to just put a logo in the corner of the screen. during that hydration break.

So we're showing you... The hydration break. We're showing you the hydration break. See, that makes more sense to me. That's what I never get about these events. It's just like there's exactly as many commercial slots as we offer. They're worth what we're asking. You know, just like, yes, you could have a giant commercial

or you could pay us the same amount to put your logo in the corner of the screen. You know, it's like, that's what we're asking for. Was an NFL fan, I am just... I do not process commercials. I mean, there are so many, and they are just such a natural part of the game. It's only when you take us away at a real key moment and we miss a review. Yeah, an ill-timed one. An ill-timed one.

I'm just like, I understand it. But I do think that there's a tangible distinction between the way that you watch the two sports. I mean, I would argue that I agree there's an extent to which you just don't know. I mean, largely we don't notice commercials at all anymore in sports. but with professional football, I mean, the NFL football in particular, I think it's gotten to a maximum payload where like, I find it hard to pay attention to the game because my brain is so attuned and not pay attention to the commercials.

You know, it's just like, it's almost like you flipped a channel and forgot. You know, I'll start reading the newspaper and the next thing I know I've missed like three drives because it's just like it's all just static after a certain point. But you're right, it shouldn't bother us too much. I do think, though, that there's a very different way, like I was going to say, the way that you watch the two things, and part of soccer is just the immersion, right? Part of an end. I can imagine, it didn't bother me, but I can imagine, I mean, I totally buy that it bothers people,

and that it's a legitimate gripe. But I don't know if that's really Americanizing it so much as just, you know, making space for the billions of dollars to be made. Just. On Friday, the dueling national anthems were really fun. Paraguay's national anthem is called Paraguayos Repubblica or Mwerte. Very fun song. I thought there was a moment where the team could have been like the old WWF tag team, the Bolsheviks.

They request that you please rise for the singing of the Paraguayan National Anthem. Our anthem was sung by a country music act called Dan and Shea, which I was not familiar with. Very familiar with the name. I'm sure I'm familiar with some songs. Dude, that was the lustiest singing of the national anthem I have ever seen. I go to a cowboy game once a year. The anthem down there in Texas

is very much enjoyed, very much respected, but it is not participated in anywhere near the level it was participated in in Los Angeles for USA versus Paraguay. The match began, and Paraguay got an own goal at the 656 mark. Here's John Strong. calling that.

That sounded fine, but for as long as I have known what the World Cup is, I have been listening to the Spanish language calls of one Andres Contor. Mm-hmm. Here is Contor's call of Gio Raina's goal, late in that match. Sounds so good. Contor is 63 years old now. It was so long. It would not fit the definition of fair use to play the whole thing.

that's what I'm saying. He's warbling a little bit more now, maybe than he did. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he started off kind of weak and had to reset, but it's just amazing, amazing work. Americans 1-4-1. Next U.S. game is Friday in Seattle versus Australia, if you happen to be at the mall that day, David, or eating lunch with your son someplace convenient. Do you think you could just, like, change your national anthem, like, as a bit?

Like, do you just, like, just change it to something that they're going to be? it would be funny to play on the world soccer stage or something like that. Something that makes fun of the sport or you're like, you know, couldn't like 1935 America have passed a bill that's like our new national anthem is fuck Hitler. And then we're just going to go play that at the Olympics over and over again. So you're joking, but when I worked at Slate after 9-11, there was a slate piece about should we change the national anthem? because it was being played so many times in those days and that was like one of the great slate pitches of all time. Yeah.

To something, to the, to America the Beautiful, was that the pitch? Well, they were all kinds. I think Lee Greenwood might have been in the discussion. There were all kinds of ideas. It would be great if we had instead of an anthem, if we had like a, what's the word for it? Not a jingle, but like the NBC three tones.

What is that? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. If, like, the entirety of the American National Anthem was just, like, shaving a haircut, two bits or whatever, you know? Would Dan and Shay be brought out to do that? Dan and Shay, I apologize to Dan and Shay. They were judges on the voice for at least one season now that I've seen their picture. But, yeah, Dan and Shay could do it.

Wouldn't that be great if our national anthem was just, like, short and sweet, no high notes. Everybody can do it. Everybody participates, and then we get a big cheer afterwards and play ball. Let's go. All right, coming up on the press box without hydration breaks, we check in on J.D. Vance's book tour, and we have more from a huge sports weekend. The UFC was on the White House lawn.

What ESPN's Mike Breen captured about those magical Knicks' fourth quarter comebacks, plus Peter Kofka joins me to talk about Fox Roku and Rupert Murdoch's NFL Gambit. All that much more on the press box, a part of the ringer, podcast network. Hello Media Consumers. It's Brian Curtis. It's David Shoemaker. It's producer Isaiah Blakely with you on a Tuesday. David, on Sunday, Donald Trump had a UFC-themed birthday party on the south lawn of the White House. A place where...

The country had a birthday party, Brian. Come on. The country had a birthday party. It was a place where idiocracy and autocracy, touch gloves, and came out fighting. It's officially called UFC's Freedom 250. Yeah. You and I love to make... fun of journalists who write the think piece how pro wrestling explains

American politics. Is it time for a new go-to think piece how the UFC explains American politics? Well, I've actually talked about this a little bit on my wrestling podcast today. I think that it does a good job of explaining the state of the right.

And I say this, I should up front, stipulate as a massive UFC fan. Obviously, lifelong pro wrestling fan. Um, how to put this. I mean this in the kindest way possible. I say as, as an MMA fan.

When you talk about like the big, like the, the prototypical fan, the sort of stereotypical fan, the audience as a whole, my experience is that UFC is pro wrestling for people who aren't smart enough to get pro wrestling. like it's the un and I'm talking about fandom here I've had lots of great I mean I've been friends with a bunch of fighters and by the way all those fighters two of one will tell you I'm I started training for UFC because of Hulk Hogan or because of whatever wrestlers in their life but then they reach a point in their careers where they have to say no it's not there's nothing like wrestling this is the real thing it's just like it's it's all fixed in its own way but anyway yeah I think you know you people used to always draw the parallel between

Trump and WWE, and there's a lot of reasons why. But at the time when they were connected, at the time when Trump was hosting WrestleMania at Caesar's Palace, even at the time he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, we were all working under the assumption that Trump was in on the joke. Right? Now that he's no longer in on the joke, UFC is the sport for him. That's what I mean by not being smart enough to get out. I mean, you're literally not smart.

I mean, you've become the sort of person who says, you know, stuff's fake, don't you? To like a crowd of people who clearly know wrestling is fixed. You know, it's... So what you're saying essentially, and this is part of those think pieces about Trump and professional wrestling, it's like, hey, yes, let me tell you this concept called K-fabe. Yeah. You're saying like, with UFC, Trump can just drop the K-fabe part. Yes.

It's just like, I am actually the God emperor of this country and the God emperor of this sports sitting. Well, certainly he doesn't have to embarrass himself like he didn't, you know. Some might argue that he did in WWE, you know, just sort of. of hamming it up. But yeah. Yeah, I do think that. I mean, and listen, first of all, I don't know, there's, no one should be having like a,

a problem with the UFC fight or the Nitro Circus on the White House grounds from some sort of respectability level. I mean, come on. I mean, this is, again, forgive me, because I said this on the other show, but like, nitro circus, like, whatever, nitro circus or, or, you know, Bigfoot and Gravedigger driving over cars at your local arena or the Harlem fucking Globetrotters coming to town like we're like

nobody is it nobody thinks this is a serious endeavor everybody everybody in the deepest red state of the smallest town understands that Nicosirc is buffoonery right it's just like a silly thing to watch at the fair right it's not like no one's like replacing the opera

this is not taking over the Kennedy Center or I'm sorry the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Senator for whatever. I believe those letters came down recently, but... It'll always be that to me. I love the double the.

I love that even when they stuck the letters on there, they didn't have the balls to actually put it on there. You know? It was like it was like taped on, etched or spray painted or whatever. Like those old... Like in the olden days where you had your name painted on the glass of your office door, and then whenever you got hot fire,

or whatever you left the place, the janer would come and chip the paper. paint off the door. Like that's, I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway, but yeah, listen, it was dumb. It should have been, listen, wrestling is the most American product created by, in this country. And, you know, that's the more natural fit. It would have been hilarious if there had been, just to have a wrestling match, just people, because how great would it have been? Just really invite, have wrestling at the fucking correspondence dinner and watch how quickly all everybody there gets into it.

You know, just have like, that might be better than a lot of the programming at the correspondent's dinner. Yeah, do you remember when WWE had Trump versus Rosie O'Donnell? It was neither Trump nor Rosie O'Donnell's like impersonators that were not wrestlers? I had actually forgotten that. Thank you for. Very bizarre. Anyway, but yeah, it was, but it was just inane.

I mean, I don't know how much money we spent on that. And I mean, it certainly was not the greatest card anyone I'd ever seen. But I'm in general a proponent of like pop-up sporting events. and I thought that it was like a cool vibe to the whole thing. I was thinking about Trump's attraction to UFC. Back in the 80s, he was very good friends with promoters like Vince McMahon and Don King. Yeah. Who built these empires based largely on bluster and showmanship.

In the... And defiance of the established caste structure, at least in their eyes, they were always kind of budding up against the establishment. In the 2020s, Dana Wendtenths, Dana Wendtouching. White is that person. Sure. And people might forget that Dana White spoke at the 2016 Republican convention. Yeah.

The same convention that was a stayaway for every quote unquote respectable Republican. Remember it was Dana White and like 18 members of Trump's immediate family and that was the, that was the whole thing. It was Dana White, a guy from Duck Dynasty and Fran Tarkenden. That's what we got. And Ted Cruz not endorsing Trump from the stage. But Dana White was there. Yeah. Also, if you're Trump...

Well, shows how far Dana White has come, right? I mean, in just terms of legitimacy... Well, I mean, nobody in 2016 said, what is Dana White doing? There are all the respectable speakers have bailed out. You know, nobody was surprised to see him. And then this year, he could be a keynote speaker, basically, and, like, it just seems totally normal. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

I mean, Trump has vacuumed all those people into a different tier than they were before. Yeah. I think the existence of TKO, people having a general idea of how rich Dana White is is probably helpful too, you know? If you're Trump and you're looking to preside over a violent spectacle on the White House lawn, UFC is your go-to? Oh, as opposed to boxing? As opposed to boxing or even wrestling.

I mean, I'll go one further. I think if you're Trump, yes. I'll go one further. Remember that great Atlantic story about Nikolai Chichescu and the bear hunts he used to go on? Yes. Where he'd be in the blind and he would open for it. and everyone around him would open fire and the bear would die. Like that, there's a little bit of that in this, right?

I want to be at the place where the blood is being shed. I think that there is a case for America 250, that probably the better thing to do would be to have like a boxing match and like a very field of dreamsy baseball match and boxing match. Make it like old-timey America, you know, like the America that we remember. A horse race? Yeah, yeah, some, you know, whatever. Basically turn it into a rindexamination.

fair on the White House lawn instead of whatever they did. I'm down for that. But yeah, I think UFC is the way to go in terms of like current stuff. It would have to be a real one and a million boxing situation for that to be, for that to, to, to hold to hold that at the White House. And boxing the industry, the sport in general is done an amazing job of obscuring what, you know, a dream match would actually be in just about every weight class because it's so like spread out. But yeah, I think UFC is the appropriate way to go right now. I mean, it's just the whole thing ended up being very, you know, like FU from MAGA, which is how most of these things end up going.

And UFC is happy to play that role, you know, like Joe Rogan, think what you will about the guy, you know, probably would have advised that no one said Michelle Obama is a man before the show started. But when he was said next to him while he's holding a microphone, he giggled. you know, it's just sort of, that's just sort of where it is. All right, let's, you got us to the bigoted junk. That's from fighter Josh Hokit. Here we go after Hokit was victorious in his UFC match.

Hey, shout at the Trump for having the balls to put some shit like this on. And if I'm going to say anything, there's only one person more incredible than the incredible Hulk. And that's my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now listen. Alex Perez. I want a shamma on your mama. And lastly, Michelle Obama is a man.

Am I right, America? Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Hulkin. I played the extended clip there because people might have only heard the last part of that particular promo. Mm-hmm. That was truly all over the place. Yeah.

Including a shout-out to the man upstairs. and great profiles and courage there too. Yeah. That was just an incredibly bizarre, incredibly bizarre moment. An awful moment, let's say it. I mean, that's awful. And by the way, what a gift from Paramount to not take pictures of anybody in the crowd at that moment

when he made that joke? Oh, man, you would have captured some laughs from some very important people if the camera had been panning around. That's true. It's definitely true. I mean, just, yeah. I mean, I get the instinct, I don't agree with it, but I get the instinct from, you know, the Trump White House in every single instance just to sort of, you know, when confronted,

flip the bird, you know, it's just like that we don't have to answer for anything and so we just say up yours. And just the existence of this sort of, I mean, just cussing in a, I don't want, I'm not some sort of just like, you know, I'm not old fashioned or anything, but just having people either just like dropping the F-bomb on the White House lawn. It just seems like, shouldn't, didn't we have some conversation about what to say on microphone before this started? You would draw a line that the motocross and everything is okay on the White House line, but the F-bomb is where we draw the line.

Absolutely. That's old-fashioned respect. Dude, if you were at the county fair, if you were at the Fort Worth Fair. Livestock Show and Rodeo. Oh, yeah, that's it. The livestock show and rodeo. And the dude who was operating, you went and put your kid on the, on the Ferris wheel, or the tilt a whirl

The tilto whirl And there is some like creepy dude there It was just like This fucking machine hasn't worked for shit for a decade or whatever You just be like Should this guy be employed by the county fair? Like this is bizarre When I was thinking about Trump and UFC

Part of Trump's affection for that outfit Has to be that it allows Trump to do Trumpy things Yeah To sit by the cage To do that long and unbelievable walk-in he did with Dana White, which started in the Oval Office. Yeah. And by the way, when I put together this podcast every week, I'm always worried that I'm making a mistake, that I'm saying the wrong thing.

And when I saw him leave that door, I thought, oh, is that actually the Oval Office they're walking out of? It was, in fact, the Oval Office, yeah. And you know how I knew that is because Donald Trump has helpfully put up a sign on the wall, on the exterior wall that says, the Oval Office. I'm pretty sure it was not there before Donald Trump became president. But they're walking in. And my first thought is this is the Trumpiest thing ever. This is such a funny cinematic, like, people are walking backstage, which is another great cliche, just like people sitting down in a chair to start an interview and a documentary. It's like people walking backstage before a combat sport.

I was also struck by the fact that Donald Trump may be the last American man who actually wears dress shoes with a suit. Dana White sitting there in his sneakers. other aesthetics of the night by the way they let all of the all of the fighters came through the white house as well it seemed they were on like various different hallways or something they were all coming out but they all made the big entrance listen I'm not going to get high and mighty or get on my high horse about that

but I just thought it was totally unnecessary like well it was also very long it just took them a long time to get to the octagon there was a lot okay okay if listen I understand the idea it was it would be cool if they walked through the White House on the way out, but I was much more interested in the practical stuff. Like, were they just dressing in the next room of the White House?

Like, did everybody get? Like, was somebody, like, crammed into the situation room to get dressed for the show? They did have lockers in there, and I saw in one of the embedded documentaries. Some other aesthetics of the night, there was the Stair Down at the Lincoln Memorial. Close captioning sponsored by Trump

Coins. Oh, my God. The number of ads that part of this thing was pretty funny. Trying to inject pro-American fervor into every fight. Early on, Steve Garcia from the great city of Albuquerque was fighting Diego Lopez from Brazil. And Daniel Kormier said the United States has never been the favorite. It applies to the Iran War, exactly, but okay. That's correct.

Yeah, this would have been a perfect spot through the USA versus the world. the only problem is USA would get its ass kicked. We get its ass in. That's exactly what happened in that fight. Celebrities, we had country music superstar Zach Brown. See if the way Brown and his band were announced doesn't make you have a mini-stroke. Here to honor America by singing the national anthem.

Please welcome three-time Grammy award-winning artist, Zach Brown Band. Three-time Grammy-Award-winning artist, Zach Brown band. Yeah. So can they take that the that they left on the side of the Kennedy Center and put it in front of Zach Brown Band? Because that really threw me off.

This happened sometimes. I wonder if it is probably just like an SEO issue now, right? It's just like the the only confuses people. We don't know how to serve. We don't know where you are in like the, in alphabetical order. And our Zach Brown band is the Zach Brown band. Are they an artist singular? That whole thing was just a real, a real mess.

person, yeah, that's weird. That's like so many iterations from what you would expect them to say. Zach Brown, Ben, good look on them in being like the most famous, uncontroversial country artist in the world. Until now. Oh, I'm just saying. He was answered for it. He said he was asked why he didn't cancel like all those other musical acts that are part of the celebration,

part of, you know, America 250. And he said, I'm doing it for the troops. It was a great generic answer. of the Zach Brown ethos. You're just, you're there for the troops, buddy. Shane Gillis was also there. He was doorstepped afterwards and said he did not like those comments about

Michelle Obama. Thank you, Shane. J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Mike Johnson, ESPN's Jay Williams. Later went on TV and said this was a better event than the NBA finals. I mean... That sound you heard was Jimmy Pottaro and Burke Magnus's head hitting the desk.

Sporting event that's on a competitive streaming service was better than the NBA finals. Come on. Listen, it's a one-time event. What are you going to tell your kids about your grandkids on your deathbed or whatever? We're going to talk about the Knicks winning the title, David. Come on. Okay, but let's say they hadn't won. Let's say this is just a boring second.

OKC victory. Also, the Pope's brother was in attendance. Has the Pope's brother get an official title of any sort? I don't think so. By the way, I was really, you know, all of those New York Knicks fans went to the finals, went to game, you know, obviously went to OKC, and if you're a super fan, you got the cash,

more power to you. Like, that's awesome. But also Prince Harry, or the artist formerly known as Prince Harry, was sitting next to Adam Silver. Was it in the last game, or am I getting my games? I'm pretty sure it was game five, yeah.

Yeah, because it was, It was in San Antonio. And I remember, but, and I, all I could think was, it's a good look for him to be sitting next to Adam Silver, but like, why San Antonio? Except maybe he got a, maybe he's like, I'm flying in. Can I go see the Knicks to New York? And they were like, I have a better deal for you. We're kind of booked up in New York.

But what if we give you next to Adam Silver in San Antonio? You're coming in for the game anyway. Yeah. Bad news. Tracy Morgan has your tickets in New York. But in San Antonio. we can make some space. Yeah.

The celebrities in San Antonio were so strange. We had that awesome do the right thing reunion. Mm-hmm. With Spike Lee, John Tuturo, and John Carlo Esposito. Yeah. I kind of just cringe at any celebrity New York Knicks fan, but I will allow a do-the-right-thing reunion. Absolutely.

And then somehow in the picture was Cam Scataboo. Yeah. Like, what the hell? It's, well, it's body-to-body down there. So every picture, celebrity, so every picture of any celebrity, awkwardly has a potentially more famous person trying to ignore

that a picture is being taken right next to them. You know, it's just fantastic stuff. Has Cam Scadaboo seen do the right thing? Has he seen a Spike Lee picture? I think yes. Maybe not do the right thing,

but definitely he saw he got game or something. Okay. It's a really good question, though. If he's on the press box, we'll ask him. How much of the, just the, like,

What percentage of the net profits of do the right thing do you think have just gone to Nick's tickets? Oh, my God. I can't remember. I think it was ESPN that said, like, Spike Lee's been along for the whole ride. And it had, like, young filmmaker Spike Lee in the stands and then Spike Lee of 2026. And I'm like, Spike Lee went to the finals when he was a kid. Yeah. Spike Lee's been along for the, that's not the right picture.

Like, he's not a celebrity fan. He's just a fan fan who's been going his whole life. Speaking of the Knicks series, Mike Breen did something particularly well during the finals. He narrated those magical, improbable Knicks comebacks, but he also captured the feel of those comebacks.

See, play-by-play announcers do two things. They use words to tell us what happened, and they use their tone of voice to tell us how it's. felt. It's a power that can be abused. If you sound like Kevin Harlan on the ceiling of the arena in the first quarter at all times,

people won't trust you as the game goes along. Absolutely true. I don't know if I said it last week or if I'm just saying somebody else, but I had flipped channels and flipped back to the game during their huge comeback in game four and then wanted to rewind to where the comeback it started. And you really are just using the announcer's voice. I know, like the score is there, but it's obscured by the playbar that I'm trying, that I keep having to jump around. So I can't immediately see the score of the game. But I, you can tell by by a great announcer's voice. Exactly. You're like, that sounds like nine points

judging from where they've been. 100%, right? Because they're at a seven out of 10. Maybe maybe by that point. If it's down to single digits, they're like at 8.2. Yeah. But they're not at 10 yet. Totally true.

That's the gift. I always think of Al Michaels calling that Malcolm Butler interception in the Super Bowl. Yeah. And the incredulousness in his voice that told you exactly

how to feel about that play. And Breen wasn't doing it with a particular play. He was doing it pretty much for the entire fourth quarter of every game in the series. It was crazy.

still, I mean, if you didn't do it right in game four and he did, you maybe would learn your lesson then, but to leave yourself room to go too, right? You keep inching up the volume, but you have to know that there's a 50-50 chance you're leaving 10 in reserve, right? Because if the NICs don't succeed, you never get there. You never get there. Right. So you have to, you have to pause at 9.8 on that scale. Yeah. Leave yourself that room. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is marathon emotional guidance we're talking about.

Yeah. Over the course of hours and hours and hours of calling a game. Mm-hmm. I pulled some audio for you. This is from Game 4. The Knicks trailed by 20 points in the fourth quarter. Yeah. With just under seven minutes left,

they had gotten the lead down to 11 after an OG and an OB-3. Yeah. So figure out where you are on the emotional one to 10. scale there. There's a steel, and then Carl Anthony Towns got a big bucket at the other end. Listen to the tone of Mike Breen's voice. Pushing up, Harper, almost. Oh, he does throw it away.

Almost out a back court violation. And an OBB. Town's fake strives on Wemby, goes inside, stops, flips it up. Shot is good. It's single digits, 9788. And again, that's a forgotten little snatch of dialogue. That will not be on Mike Breen's sports Emmy reel, but you hear that. Yeah.

The feeling in the voice. Yeah. The incredulity starting to creep in. Yep. You know, after the big Game 4 comeback, Breen quoted Jack Buck's call of Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series. It's one of my favorite calls of all time. Strike me down. It's better than Vince Scully's call of the same play was on NBC.

Here's Jack Buck. Two pitch coming here from Eckersley. Gibson swings and a fly ball to Deep Wright Field. This is going to be a home run. Unbelievable. A home run for Gibson. And the Dodgers have won the game. Five to four.

I don't believe what I just saw. Breen quoted Jack Buck. Mm-hmm. But he really didn't have to. Yeah. Because he made us feel that disbelief. Yep. a great post-game interview after game five

Lisa Sultors is with Jalen Brunson and you know David I love to be the turd in the punch bowl when it comes to the post-game interview but this is one of those cases Lisa Salter said... The Punch Bowl news is your website I'm the Jake Sherman of post-game interviews Lisa Salter said you're a champion

what is this moment feeling like to you and it's one of those instances where honestly, that's a fine question. The questions really don't matter because it's such a cool moment. The Knicks are winning a title for the first time in 53 years. Jalen Brunson's played absolutely out of his mind.

Yep. He's in tears. His answer was not memorable, but it didn't really matter because all we needed to do was see his face. See him react, yeah. And have an announcer who was smart enough to keep asking questions,

but not overdo it. Mm-hmm. Just elicit what she could. You know, and there was a moment she asked Brunson about his dad, Rick, what it meant to win a title with him on the bench. And he couldn't answer. And she said something like, you know, you can see it in your face. And he just said, you can see it.

And it was just, that was fantastic. It was. I will say, though, it does expose a fatal flaw in the Curtis technique. Uh-oh. The Curtis maneuver. The Curtis maneuver. Which is also the Salters maneuver. The Salters maneuver.

Which is to just ask them to explain the big moment. What was, you know, what happened, right? What was that like? Once the finals is over, we're done with the Curtis maneuver. No, I know. But in every game moving forward now, if someone just said, tell me, tell me what happened in that last, you know, down the stretch, giving them all the air that they want. if a player were not interested in talking,

they could just shake their head and say, there's no words and stare up at the sky. Even if it's like a game three win over like a crappy team, if you give them enough space, if you give them enough freedom, they can just deflect. Yeah, and players love to no answer questions. So I think that's,

that moment with Salters and Brunson really reminded me of, um, World Series 2014, Madison Bumgarner for the Giants. Remember that old country boy from North Carolina, Madison Bumgartner? He goes out and gets the save in Game 7. He just dominated the World Series.

And Fox's Kenny Rosenthal went out there. And I remember right, people were chanting his name and it was just magical. Mm-hmm. And all you just had to do is sit there with the microphone. Yeah. And that's great. Last note on the finals,

Tim Legler. Mm-hmm. Tim Legler's good. Tim Legler knows a lot about basketball. Mm-hmm. But if I may, if I may resume being turred in the punchbowl, Brian. Oh. I am diagnosing a case, perhaps a mild case, of Stan Van Gundy's disease.

Which is that Tim Legler loves basketball so much. He loves to teach basketball so much that sometimes he doesn't know when to stop teaching. Yeah. game five Brunson had a little floater with about 102 left that put the Knicks up too they would never trail after that

and the ball's going excuse me the ball's going back the other way Spurs have the ball on the pain on the other side again they're down two with less than a minute left and Legler is still talking about Stefan Castle's contained defense and how it led us down on that Brunson floor it's like my guy

one minute left in the finals Yeah. The story is Jalen Brunson is awesome. At the end, we do not need to do the summer basketball clinic right now. Yeah. We can teach defense later. And he'll get better at that, I think. He will.

But I did feel like there was a timing issue and not just the kind that I was talking about, you know, feeling where you are in the game that you brought up earlier. It did feel like there was weird, kind of an uncertainty to the way this whole thing was called and experienced by fans because the Knicks made the two. comeback. So it wasn't, there was never a point where you were secure in their win. So like I said, if the lead guy has to hold a little in reserve, the color guys have to act like nothing's happening until it's happening in a certain sense, right? Because you can't, you know, if the Knicks were the ones up by 20, then you could have started telling the story in the first half, right? But

the Knicks are launching the comeback. It's really like in the middle of things. The whole, your every call is just really spur of the moment. You're right. So it's, So it was a really incredible series to watch to experience just for that reason alone. And this just, you know, it's cool to see the next win. It's cool to see a team win that everybody can agree. It's a cool thing to see them win. I reluctantly agree with you. It is cool to see the Knicks win.

Last one, before we get to the overworked Twitter joke here. And this just started happening right before our pod started today. But J.D. Vance's book tour has begun. Oh, this is so sad. Go ahead. J.D. Vance has a new book out. It is called... Well, no, it's called Communion, Finding My Way Back to Faith.

And he began his book tour on The View. Hoof. Which is distinct from Katie Miller's podcast, in terms of its receptivity to J.D. Vance. I believe Isaiah has a clip here. the vice president of the United States visiting with the hosts of the view. You got the question. Yes, Mr. Vice President, in your new book, Communion, you write about your personal evolution with faith from evangelical to atheist to Catholic,

convert. And you also explain your evolution similarly on Trump, from calling him America's Hitler to America's best hope. Now, as someone who has admitted to chasing ambition, which you write about in the book, in the past, but now says your faith brought you back to your priorities, I have to kind of use your own words that sit with me from 2016. Sure. Fellow Christians, everyone is watching when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.

And I think about that all the time because as a fellow Christian, that is something that weighs on my heart as I watch this country and the leadership at the top, because it's also something I have to explain to my kids, which I know we also share this idea that our greatest privilege and responsibility are these young people we're raising. Of course. So help me find the words to explain my children what they're witnessing right now. Well, you know, first of all, it's been well covered that I was a critic of Donald Trump back in 2015 and 2016. Now, obviously, I'm sitting here as the vice president of the United States in the Trump administration.

Well, Joy, a little humility. A couple observations. First of all, does any kind question begin, Mr. Vice President? Not in this day and age. Excessively formal. Yeah. To start, that means you're always going to lower the boom. Also, that was an incredibly long question.

Such a whiner. I understand what she was doing there because what she was essentially asking is, like, you're saying that your Christian values got you to where you are now. Mm-hmm. But you denounced Donald Trump in 2016 in explicitly Christian terms.

Yeah. So how does A square with B, right? That's what she's asking. Somehow we got to, how do I explain this to my kids? Yeah. Just kind of a funny way to ask. J.D. Vance on a book tour,

how is that going to go? Poorly. I mean... Will he do other stuff like this? I guarantee... I should have done the... I should have done the Google search before we started recording this,

but I guarantee you you can find a clip of him going on the view in 2016. or whatever when Hillbilly Elegy came out and just them philating him. You know, like he was just the toast of the fucking town, which I think a lot of people rightly realized was just real ill-placed praise, even at the time. But it is worth noting that, like,

if he hadn't gone down the path that he's currently on, J.D. Vance's new book would be, like, a literary moment. You know, it's like the new Obama memoir. You know, I mean, it's like, these are your... You're your politicians that can write. But yeah, no, it doesn't really matter anymore. Now the book tour is going to be, this is going to be like the least political stop on the book tour.

And yeah. By the way, J.D. Vance having a big day, not just because the book tour launching, but because they're officially putting, because right-wingers who are scared to, who hate the Iranian peace deal and are scared to go after Trump, but I started officially calling it,

the Vance deal. Have you seen this? Yes. The Lindsey Graham, Vance is the architect of this deal tweet. Yeah, but tweets actually referring to this is the Vance plan and the Vance deal. Dangerous stuff for J.D. Vance. I mean, I think that gets... Well, he's been on his... Go ahead. Go ahead.

Well, I just was going to say, I think this gets the question of, like, him writing a book at all when he's vice president. This is very unusual. Yeah, totally weird. To be on a book tour while you're in office. But if you're him... you're going to run for president in 2028. That requires of most people that they write a book.

Josh Shapiro's written a book. Chris Murphy's written a book. Andy Bashir's got a book coming out this fall. So what you're doing is a normal presidential candidate thing, but then that puts you out in the world in an interesting way. It makes you defend things you normally wouldn't be defending on the view at this point in time. Your whole record, your conversion politically and otherwise.

So that is part of the tension here. What is the, I feel like this is a question you would point at me. What's the, why must you write a book? Ask this a little bit rhetorically. Certainly it would be inane to not take the check that is sitting there waiting for you to write a book right, you know, right as you're about to be a big national figure or continue to be one in a larger scale way. Is it just a, it's just, it's,

Is it just a 300-page press release? Is that the benefit to the candidate to have to sort of set the story straight on all of your backstory, all of your growing up and all that kind of stuff? And also steer the conversation about current stuff. You have a chapter about each major thing you would change if you were president. Well, that's going to be fodder for all of your interviews. Like, is that it just steering the conversations of a campaign? That's part of it.

And as someone who's been involved in booking some of the people who I'm going to run for president in 2028 on the press box, I think don't underestimate the idea that everybody's just scrambling for attention. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, these people are big to us because they're big names to us. But, you know, in the populace at large, like a lot of these people are relatively unknown. J.D. Vance is not one of those people, by the way. But if we take, like, you know, the 15 people that might run for the Democratic nomination. Well, dude, if Tim Walz was right, I mean, if Tim Walz, it was ran for the VP last time, and people would have forgotten who he is, except the crazy right wingers that still think he's, you know, letting the devil end of the country. But.

So the book is a way that you say, okay, you know, the publishers putting you out there, you're doing interviews, you're getting on local television. It probably helps to have a PR person dedicated to this for a while, too. Everybody in media knows how to get you on the, you know, how to book your appearance when you have a book tour coming, you know, coming on. Yeah, you get relationships with, with media people that you might. not otherwise. You know, you have relationships with reporters at the Times and Wall Street Journal and watching a post, but you're also getting out into, you know, local news,

podcasts that you might not otherwise be on. I think that's, I think it's, I think it's those two things at the same time, probably. But with, with Vance, what's funny about it's like, does J.D. Vance need this? Well, we can, we can have so much fun with Vance versus Rubio, but J.D. Vance is the overwhelming favorite

to be the Republican nominee in 2028, book or not. I saw some people talking about this, and I totally agree. I mean, I think in some, there's some, like, there's some probably esoteric way of looking at the odds where, like, you would take the field over, you know, any candidate, you know, and that would probably be the smart thing to do. But in terms of, like, specific candidates, like, you,

I mean, if it's a name-by-name thing and not a none of the above or whatever else, J.D. Vant should be, like, 95%, again, versus all the other name candidates. He's the one person I would not take. the field against. I would take the field against any Democrat pretty much, just because as you say, the odds but like J.D. Vance? Like, again, it would have to involve

a Donald Trump turning against him and saying, that's not off the board. Yeah, I think that that's worth the field. That's worth the bet. I mean, it could be Eric Trump could fucking run for president. You know, like, you don't know what's got. There's so many weird things that could happen. But yeah,

no, but, but I agree. He should be considered by far the favorite. on the Republican side. Does he need it? Well, I don't know, man. He's been running basically his own PR shop for the past month, it seems like. I'm sure much longer.

But like, separate from the book, how many stories have we gotten from like anonymous sources that have direct, like, transcripts of what he said in the meeting about Jeffrey Epstein? Like there's, no one is, no one is disguising themselves more poorly

in anonymous interviews right these days than J.D. Vance. It was just like, according to people who know JD Vance almost were a red tie this morning but decided on blue you know and it's like there's not not that many people who could tell you that tidbit

um by the way the Maggie Harriman John the Swan book is out on Tuesday yeah I believe there will be a lot of stories you're referring to yes um about Tuesday I can I wait to read that I wondered if we made that clear enough last time it's like the the Haberman Swan thing was a book and not just a New York

Times excerpt in article it was an excerpt of a book I think we did say that clearly, but I was worried about it after the fact. We did. And he was, he was, he was the one saying, we got to get out of the Epstein files. Yeah. He was also the one saying, don't go to war with Iran. Yes. In the two excerpts.

Yeah. I think he also said, um, uh, free candy in the cafeteria at lunch and recess all day every day. Two of the most important platform positions that he definitely said out loud. Coming up in 30 seconds. Fox just bought Roku for $22 billion. What exactly does that mean? But first, David, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time.

Senior nominees at the Press Box Pod where they are always, always gratefully received. Last week, David, you might have seen that South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace flopped in her bid to win the GOP primary in that states, governor's race. It was an overwork Twitter joke

to post a picture of Mace next to a picture of Riley Gaines with the line, conservative women who placed fifth. Thanks to Adam Waltonbaugh and Zach Brooks for that. If you don't need your producers to tell you what your talking points are,

congrats, you made the overword Twitter joke of the week. Bad week for Riley Gaines, yeah. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer.

Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. All right, let us bring in Peter Kofka. He is the chief correspondent at Business Insider. His podcast is called channels.

You should subscribe to that right now. He can be seen having brunch at some of the very best restaurants all over Brooklyn. Peter, welcome back to the press box. Brian, I'm delighted to have another Rukala meeting with you at some point in the near future. Thanks for having me. Don't mention it. It'll be mobbed next time we're there. We're here because Fox bought Roku, the streaming company, for $22 billion.

You wrote in your business insider column that Fox's interest in this kind of kind of business goes back to Rupert Murdoch? How so? Rupert Murdoch spent a good chunk of the 90s and the early 2000s and spent billions of dollars chasing after the idea of owning the next generation TV guide. This was at the beginning of the internet era, but we're really thinking about it being the 500 channels era. How does anyone get to navigate that? And his idea was if you could own the real estate that helped you figure out what to watch on TV, that'd be a very valuable thing to own.

This is an analog version where we would just see, here's what's on TBS, here's what's on Fox News, et cetera. Yes, because you weren't considering streaming things back then. And skip ahead, 26 years or so, and his son, Lachlan has now done it for $22 billion. He's bought basically a version of that. Owning Roku gives Fox the power to do what? They reach 100 million households.

You can determine what that means a number of people. So it's very valuable real estate. You can show them ads. You can show them ads for your own product, whether that's Fox News or Fox One or Tooby or anything else. You can make money by selling subscriptions to other people's businesses. If they sell a subscription to AMC Plus or HBO Max, I'm guessing. They get a bounty for that.

They can also sell ads in front of those other. streamers products, they can just sell their own ads. So there's a lot of different ways to make money for Fox. And it fundamentally, I think, changes the scope of their business of what their business was up until this week. They've been in the business of showing Fox News, showing NFL games. It's kind of it. And, you know, playing around on the edges, they've gotten into podcasting a little bit. But that's the core of their business was showing essentially one TV network and one TV product. and now they've got a whole whole new suite of things they can sell. And they're a distributor, not a content company.

You're referring to that Sean Hannity podcast. It looks like a cool sports bar where guys hang out. If you say so, I have not watched the Sean Hannity podcast. Who are Roku's competitors? Everyone. Apple. I mean, anyone that sits between you and the shows you want to watch. So that can be your old style cable guys who still have a TV guide.

It could be Apple, which is. There's Apple TV, which allows you to watch a bunch of other stuff from other people. YouTube is in that business. Amazon is in that business. Samsung is in that business. I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but there's at least a half dozen real competitors for that space. They don't own it. They don't own the TV guy.

Roku as an interface you wrote has leverage over some of these streamers, but the leverage also goes both ways. How so? So most of the streamers that appear on your in Roku City, if you're a Roku user, on your Roku screen, are paying Roku some sort of bounty to be there, some sort of fee, whether it's a sale for whether they're paying them when they sell a subscription or selling ad space, whatever it is. That is not the case for YouTube and Netflix. Those are the big giants in streaming. And when Roku went public in 2017, you could see in their financially, they said, we make zero months. from YouTube and Netflix, and that is as clear an indicator as you could ever get about who has the power in that relationship.

YouTube and Netflix have to be on Roku, but Roku has to have YouTube and Netflix, and it seems like sort of the arrangement they've made is, okay, you get to be here for free, more or less, and just stay on here. And that works for all parties involved. Fox famously set out some of the early stages of the streaming wars, instead of trying to put their own streamer to go up against Disney Plus, et cetera, they just sold the studio to Disney. How does this decision square with that one? This is them saying, yeah, yeah, you guys all killed yourself to lose money selling streaming subscriptions. If you remember the early days of the streaming wars, Disney, all these other guys,

spent gazillions of dollars selling stuff. Remember when Disney Plus launched, I think the $6 a month? Saying we're going to sell this stuff at a loss and eventually scale, right? And then Wall Street turned around after a few years. Actually, that's a bad idea. You have to make a profit. So these guys have all spent a ton of money, and they spend a ton of time now trying to make their streaming business profitable.

Fox never had to worry about that. And it's been kind of interesting because it was sort of like, well, what will they do? Are they really just going to be in the NFL and Fox News business? And that is where they've been for the last few years. And they said, actually, we're going to sort of change, like I said at the beginning, we're going to have a different kind of business. You guys can still kill each other for content, spending billions of dollars on content. you're just going to come through us to show that content to other people.

So we're not going to create a Disney Plus, but we'd like to sell you a subscription to Disney Plus and take a little bit of that profit and put it in our own pocket. Exactly. That's so fascinating. You and I have both interviewed ESPN, Jimmy Pettero, ESPN chairman, I should say, Jimmy Petaro over the years. And he said that he wouldn't mind if his ESPN app turned into an interface

that allowed you to buy and access yours on other networks. Is that a similar? business to this one? Everyone wants to be in that business. Even Facebook tried to be in this business for like a minute and then bailed out. But anyone who has people coming to you to watch television in some way,

why not try to sell other people's subscriptions as well if you can pull it off? It's interesting that ESPN has not pulled that off yet. I don't know whether they feel they can't or that's just going to come down the pike. But yeah, if you've got a screen and people are watching it, why not try to sell more stuff? Is the logic behind all of this?

while we're talking about Murdoch, I wanted to bring up this big Wall Street journal story from a while back that reported that Rupert Murdoch went to the White House in February and told Donald Trump, hey, the NFL's trying to renegotiate our TV deals. That puts us versus these big, bad streamers that are richer than us,

and then Trump opened up a Department of Justice investigation. Well, no, no, no. The Department of Justice happened to open that up. Donald Trump didn't order the Department of Justice to do it. That's not how things work in 2026, Brian. You'll notice, Peter, I just said then. I didn't, there was no causation implied at all. Now, the NFL is so important to Fox's bottom line. Before this Roku deal, you could argue it was the most important thing,

maybe other than Fox News to Fox's bottom line. How do you read Rupert Murdoch's Gambit? It's pretty interesting because after that story came out, it was a pretty extraordinary story. It was also extraordinary that it ran in Rupert Murdox Wall Street Journal, which generally, I think, operates without Rupert Murdoch's involvement, but he still pays attention. After that story ran, I called around and expected to hear some kind of messaging from Fox

and from the NFL saying this is all overblown. They are unhappy with each other. And my sense, after a day after this Roku deal is announced, they are still unhappy with each other. And the NFL feels like this is a move that could give Murdoch even more leverage over their product, which is pretty interesting. There's an analyst note out yesterday that says more or less the same thing from a guy named Rich Greenfield.

A lot of people pay attention to. So I think Fox sees this. Sorry, I think the NFL sees this as sort of an aggressive move that gives, potentially gives Fox and Murdoch even more leverage over their content. Flip side of that is Fox has to have the NFL. They're not going to not have the NFL. So in the end, you know, are we, it's not going to leave, it's not going to leave Fox. or Fox would not want the NFL to leave.

So what does that leverage really get them? Does it get them better placement, better games? They pay slightly less for the rights to show NFL games. I'm not sure. But I believe that both Murdoch and the NFL thinks this is a chit in Murdoch's favor in those negotiations. And Fox would gain leverage because they are selling you a subscription to something to a streamer that would be showing NFL games. They would become the gateway to NFL programming in a way.

They're a gateway to all programs. And again, I can't imagine Fox saying, we're going to persuade people to not watch NFL games on Fox, but maybe they are less excited to show ads for Paramount promoting an AFC game or whatever it is. They've got a lot of different levers on that home screen that they can move. Again, it seems kind of crazy to imagine them using it to sort of hurt the NFL in some way, since, again, they are in the NFL business. But that's theoretically possible. It also seems crazy to go to the White House and talk to the president again in those kind of terms about your most important programming. By the way, the president is suing Rupert Murdoch personally in addition to his properties for $10 billion for an Epstein letter story they ran last fall, which got kicked out of court, but Trump has refiled. So that lawsuit has not gone away, which I still don't fully understand how things work in 2026.

So that lawsuit is Kabuki because on the one hand you're telling I want $10 billion from Rupert Murdoch and in their hand come to the White House and pitch me? Yeah. You're saying on a lot of levels, this isn't personal. It's actually just part of a larger negotiation. Yeah. And also kind of personal. And kind of personal.

And we'll shake hands at the end of this and figure out how we can work together, maybe. That Donald Trump is very transactional. Rupert Murdoch. And again, any mogul is transactional. Rupert Murdoch is incredible. incredibly transactional. After Fox bought Roku is the NFL entitled to say, hey, so you guys were interested in streaming after all, huh?

Yes. And also, maybe we start those rights negotiations that we've been debating when we're going to kick those off. And by the way, if we open the negotiations early, we're essentially saying we'd like you to pay us more sooner. Maybe we reopen those more quickly. Maybe that's the NFL's response. You've written about this, and I've talked about this.

but the whole argument about how much of the NFL should be on broadcast television versus how much should be on streaming. It's fascinating. I feel like I have a neurological event every time I read one of these stories because it's very hard for people to agree on the terms of the debate here. You'll see people right. It costs $1,000 for me to watch my favorite NFL team play. To which my question is always, do you live in the same city where your NFL team plays?

Because it should cost $0 if you do, in fact. Yeah, and it doesn't cost $1,000. Yes, if you bought every possible streaming service that has an NFL game, could you rack a huge bill up? Sure. It's also a historical. This is the old man of me. I'm like, in the old days, you didn't get to watch every NFL game.

You got to watch three, four, including Monday Night Football in a week. So there is more product, distributed to more places. And yeah, it is a big deal that you now have to subscribe to Peacock to watch an AFC playoff game. That is a new thing. thing, right? In the old days, if you had an antenna and then eventually a cable subscription, that's all you needed. Now you need more services to watch more stuff. That part is true. But even there, you have to factor in that you can cancel Peacock 24 hours after the game is over. And imagine trying to cancel cable in 1996. That was hard and that took a lot of work. And now we

can push a button and say, okay, I paid my 15 bucks or whatever it was for the month. And I'm free and clear. And that's very much a real thing. Churn is the thing that kills all these streamers. That's why when they do sell like a Chiefs game, you know, you got a, you got to pay to Peacock for this, they're going to frequently try to get you to get a three-month subscription or a 12-month subscription because they know that a lot of those people are going to churn at. Goes back to this idea, how much of the NFL should we be able to watch for free? That's the key question here. Is it Thursday night football and Monday night football and Sunday night football and my local team? Is it something

less than that? Is it more than that? Like, that's what it all comes down to at the end of the day. And you can play with how much this cost to the consumer and how much is this and there. But really what we're debating is how much football should be able to watch for free every week. Yeah. Yeah. And also, how much football can you watch? Well, like I know quite a lot. I mean, I think the average American is literally watching like 40 hours a week of television. It's a full-time job. But it's kind of hard to imagine these people are actually watching all, besides Bill Simmons are watching all of the games.

Well, you don't work at the ringer. There's certain requirements. We have to punch that card every week here. Lastly, before you go, Peter, I've gotten this note from a few readers. Between all the reporting about David Ellison and Lachlan Murdoch, can we finally retire the word sion from media reporting? We don't like the word or we don't like, or we want to replace with NEPO baby? overused. I don't know. I mean, I think it's the definition of used, right? This is,

this is what these people are. They didn't build either of these businesses themselves. So that's why we're using it to just communicate to the reader, to wink at the reader every time, even in august places like The New York Times that, hey, these guys didn't make all their money themselves. They inherited their money. My version of that, where I plant my flag is whenever possible, especially with the Ellison stuff, I write Larry and David Ellison. Larry and David Ellison. Larry and David Ellison's Paramount. They did paperwork when they were buying Paramount, and they made it very clear that actually Larry Ellison is the owner of Paramount.

And then when people saw the paperwork was like an FCC filing, they had to go readjust it. He doesn't control it, though. But it's Larry Ellison's money that has purchased Paramount and about to be Warner Brothers Discovery. Same thing with Fox. That's what you're, that's your way of saying, hey, dad is in on this deal.

Yeah, my dad bought me a Toyota Tersell after I graduated from college. So it's kind of same. I had it to sell too. All right, Peter Kafka, Business Insider, the channels podcast. We're overdue for brunch. Thanks once again. See soon. See soon.

See you soon. All right. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last week's headline about catchers in baseball, taking foul balls in the groin was ball strike system. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener P. Marty. It's from the California Post.

Gotta say as a Californian, I haven't heard a lot about the California Post since it's much balihooed in journalism founding. This story, though, was a good one for that paper, David. The endless days-long vote count out here in California as the state counted all those mail-in ballots.

I want you to think of slowness and brokenness as you ponder, what was the California Post's Strainpunned headline Slowness and Bro- I mean, this is, I'm not saying that incredulously. Slowness and brokenness. Maybe more brokenness.

Broken down. What's happening? What's happening here? What is the occasion? It's taking forever. The election? It's an election. Oh, election dysfunction or something like that.

Oh, you're so close. Electile dysfunction? Thank you very much, sir. Electile dysfunction is the answer there. He's David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Productions Magic by Isaiah Blakely. You need to follow us, if you will.

On Instagram at PressBox Ringer. We've got a lot of great stuff up there, including my pictures and review of the latest best-used bookstore in the world. Find us on email, Pressbox Ringer at gmail.com. Thursday show included an interview with veteran political reporter Dave Weigel. Check that out. If you were so inclined, Dave's always got great info.

David, I will see you next Tuesday with more lukewarm takes about the media. When did our generation become veterans? That's scary. Well, see you, huh? We're old now, man. See you later, Brian. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.

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