We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Tackling Sports Streaming: The Hidden Cost of Watching Sports

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Watching your favorite team used to be simple. Turn on the television, find the channel, and watch the game. Today, following one team can mean navigating multiple streaming platforms, subscriptions, blackout restrictions, premium tiers, and constantly changing media-rights deals. In this episode of We Fixed It, Renee Washington joins the conversation to unpack the rapidly changing business of sports media and what it means for the people who actually watch the games. Renee brings experience from across sports broadcasting, including work with ESPN, FIFA, NBC Sports and other major sports platforms, along with her background as a former professional soccer player and three-time All-American. The conversation explores why sports leagues are increasingly prioritizing global audiences, how enormous media-rights deals are reshaping distribution, why local broadcasters and communities still matter, and why athletes themselves are becoming increasingly powerful brands. For decades, sports broadcasting was built around a relatively simple relationship between fans, teams and television. That relationship has changed dramatically. Today, leagues are negotiating enormous media-rights agreements with traditional networks and streaming platforms. A single sport can appear across multiple services, forcing fans to figure out where individual games are being broadcast. Renee Washington explains that the driving force behind much of this change is money. Sports media rights represent enormous revenue opportunities, while streaming platforms see live sports as a way to attract audiences, collect viewing data, build habits and introduce viewers to their broader entertainment ecosystems. But the financial opportunity comes with a cost: complexity. Fans can find themselves juggling multiple subscriptions simply to follow one team. Local broadcasts have also become less prominent in some markets, while national and global programming has become increasingly important. What You Will Learn • Why watching sports has become increasingly complicated • How the battle for sports media rights is reshaping broadcasting • Why streaming platforms are aggressively pursuing live sports • How multiple subscriptions affect the fan experience • Why sports leagues are increasingly focused on global audiences • What local broadcasters bring to a team's relationship with its community • Why some sports broadcasts are produced away from the actual venue • How athlete-driven fandom is changing traditional team loyalty • Why players can now build audiences that transcend teams and countries • How soccer's global model has influenced American sports • Why the NFL's predictable broadcast structure works differently from other sports • Why baseball, basketball and other leagues face different streaming challenges • How exclusive media-rights agreements affect where fans can watch games • Why streaming platforms care about more than the game itself • How sports broadcasts can become gateways into movies, shows and other programming • Why audience data has become such an important part of sports media • Whether a single team-based login could simplify sports streaming • Why leagues and networks may resist simplifying access • How sports could preserve local communities while expanding globally • Why more in-person experiences could become important in the future Connect With Renee Washington Website: www.reneepwashington.com Renee Washington can also be found across social platforms under Renee Washington, with her X account using @ReneePwash Connect With the Show Subscribe for more deep dives where we fix big business problems with fresh perspectives. Website: www.wefixeditpod.com Follow us on: Instagram: @wefixeditpod LinkedIn: @wefixeditpod YouTube: @wefixeditpod Disclaimer If you liked this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends! Keep listening to find out how we fix companies and put them back better than we found them. A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We’re here to ask the kinds of questions everyone’s thinking, have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you’re welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners.

Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found them. Hey, sports fans, how many streaming apps do you subscribe to these days to keep up with the games you care about? Two, four, a whole spreadsheet's worth. Things used to be simpler. I wanted to watch your team, you turned on the TV. Now there's more to it. You have to know which apps broadcasting, which game, which subscription covers, which network,

and whether you specifically can see it based on where you live. Leagues are chasing bigger rights deals and bigger audiences, and somehow the fan experience got really complicated. Today, we're digging into just that, the business of sports streaming, pricing, access, and how it's impacting the people actually just trying to watch the game. Is this the way things are now? Can we create a better model?

That's what we're here to fix. And we're adding to our own team today, joining us is Renee Washington. She's worked across ESPN, CBS Sports, MSG networks, and Philly sports covering things like the NFL, NBA, WNBA, and college sports. She's also a former LaSalle Soccer All-American and Hall of Famer, and these days she's involved with the Brooklyn FC women's soccer team as a content and broadcast lead. Renee, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit more about your story. Well, thank you, Aaron, and you guys for having me. It's such a pleasure joining you, and I'm thrilled we can make this happen.

And I think it's very timely as we're getting into the transition in the fall sports to have this conversation. So I've been working at the intersection of sports, business, technology in so many different capacities, whether it's, as you mentioned, through the wonderful introduction, working as a sports reporter and anchor, a host with various networks. I just came out of working with the World Cup with FIFA I was working with for the World's Cup. And then also have been actively involved with everything from the Winter Olympics with NBC Sports to college sports coverage to professional sports coverage. whether it's soccer, baseball, basketball, you name it, I've covered it. I've been there. And then also have my own company, Renee Washington, media, and consulting where we actually

give a lot of insight information around the marketing, the branch strategy, the behind the scenes of how businesses are growing to reach their audiences. And that's one of the core pieces we talk about. So a lot of alignment and a lot that I've seen even since my own journey back as a three-time All-American professional soccer player to now of the evolution of sports and access. So thrilled to be here. It's a real to dive into some of these topics with you guys. Thanks for day. Thanks for being here. And I feel a lot better about our chances of fixing this now that you're here. Melissa, you're up to bat. How did watching my favorite team turn into the crowded

landscape that it is today? And what does it mean for us fans? Well, Renee, you teamed us up greatly. Are you ready for some football? This is my favorite time of year, kind of an ironic slogan, because we are ready, we just can't find the game. Remember when watching your team just meant turning on the TV? Yeah, those days are gone. Because apparently we have to follow one team means juggling four, five, six different services, one for Thursday night, one for Wednesday night, one for Sunday ticket, one for Monday night, one for your local team, local broadcast.

And my favorite and my must have for NFL football is NFL Red Zone. So it's not getting cheaper either. It's to keep up. ESPN just this week raising prices again. Unlimited is going from $2,99 to $3199 a month, right as football season kicks off. Of course it is. And baseball is not any different either. Major League baseball spread its national gains across seven different platforms for 2026 through 2028.

NBC, Peacock, Netflix, ESPN, Fox, TBS, and Apple TV. plus. Seven, if you can tell me off the top of your head where to find tonight's game for your team, I want to hang out with you. You've got it covered. And then there's the cautionary tale. So Diamond Sports. These guys ran 19 regional networks carried the rights to 42 pro teams across the MLB, the NBA, the NHL, and collapse under almost $9 billion in debt. That is horrible. But most of all, fans in those networks just lost their team overnight, not because they did anything wrong, but because the business behind the screen fell apart. And I don't even have to leave home to find one of these stories. Here in the Denver region, a contract blowup between Xfinity and Altitude Sports owned by the Kronky family, who also owned the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets, blacked us out from watching our own teams for six years.

Six years. That was long enough for the aves to win the Stanley Cup and the Nuggets to win an NBA title. And we couldn't watch it here in Denver. So Xfinity customers couldn't watch either one of them. So that was a total nightmare. Now, I get the logic. There's a legitimate business case for all of this fragmentation. Leagues, reach younger audiences, sell direct to fans, one more first party data, offer more flexible viewing options. That's fair enough. It's a business. But if you're a business. But if you're a Here's the thing from the fan side. More choice doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like work. It's four to six subscriptions. It's blackout. You didn't see coming in an app that crashes right as the game starts. We've talked about that when something happens with live streaming.

So that's what I want to dig into today. Is streaming actually giving us more access to sports or just more places where access can quietly break? Renee, you sit on both sides of that screen. inside the broadcast booth and inside a newer league, trying to build its audience from scratch. So when you hear all of this, does it match what you're actually seeing? Or is it the industry missing something that fans and the executives both are getting wrong? There's a couple underlying issues.

I think, for one, it comes down to money is most important. And I think it's an on's race for every network to try to be involved. You look at Netflix, who's actually got the game tonight for the Thursday night game for the NFL in Australia. and that 49ers Rams game is one that typically would be on prime on a Thursday night, but because Netflix has their marque day, they have the holidays of Thanksgiving, I believe they have Christmas tonight. We also saw Netflix takeover for MLB for All-Star, the All-Star activities, which was amazing to see it in person, but crazy to watch on TV too.

It's an arms race. Every network is trying to figure out a way to get involved with the media rights. And media rights are big, big money. You look at the NBA deal with NBC sports coming into this NBA season. I'm sorry, last NBA season, the WMBAs been expanding with their media rights. A lot of revenue is generated through the media rights. And so we've moved beyond traditional cable that now people want to be able to have access. The same way we have access to have Zoom conversations and jump on shows and have conversations like this on our phone on our computer, people lent that same access for watching games.

There used to be a time in my parents always talk about. about it and that might you know the my older relatives in that sense of the time when you would just gather on your TV to watch one NBA game per week you might see a team you might see Michael Jordan the Bulls one time you know you don't see them every day we have access to not only every game I know on my um you know from how I watch I have opportunities to watch different versions I can watch let's say it's the 49ers broadcast versus the Rams broadcast versus the alt-ball like there's so many broadtie even beyond access to every game.

There's access to so many different types of broadcast, which is why ESPN and different networks have also launched, like the demanding cast. Like, it's just insane. So beyond even the actual media rights, there's the actual, when you watch a game, where do you watch? People are always trying to figure out YouTube TV and where do I get access on which app?

What streaming app do I need today? So it's a lot, but it always boils down to money, in my opinion, of every network wanting to get their hand involved. sports are massive. They're generating billions and billions of dollars. They always have it's even bigger now. There's global expansion. There's the rise of international superstars.

There's the rise in expansion of teams. There's the ride like the, we see the valuation. We just saw the Cowboys leading the world in valuation for how much they're worth. So that is why everyone's trying to get their hand in the pot. And I think the hard part is how do you balance that without it being overwhelming, without it being something that we're running into an issue now? with people don't know where to watch gates. I think it's really interesting to you because I think the problem, you know,

there's three, four actually major things. So choice overload, right? There is, unless you just had seven different opportunities to watch like different games and at different times. And that decision fatigue, like we're, you know, the networks are now putting it onto the fans essentially to find out and figure out what app, you know, where is it local? is this, you know, is this, you know, do we need to get the premium tier of this app? Did I renew my

prescription? There's just a lot on the cognitive load for the fans. And what I wonder, too, and we talk about, you know, kind of Diamond Sports, you know, as a cautionary tale and how much they lost. Because as you said, Renee, this is money. The rights are the money. And they had the rights for a long term time. But my worry is with, you know, all of this. decision fatigue and fans essentially not knowing and putting it completely on them to figure out when things are happening, when blackout dates are there, what streaming service has the rights for what. You know, it gets into kind of a term called loss aversion, right? Where people, it's essentially FOMO, right? You, as you mentioned, Melissa, like, your team just won twice.

And you couldn't watch any of it for six years. And I wonder what the downside of that is from like the fan experience. That's money right there that people aren't watching. And so you lose kind of that belonging to your team. You're not involved in the day. You're not buying the merch because you just don't have access to watching what you're wanting. So I wonder where kind of the networks think about, you know, if there's eight, seven, you know, how many people are kind of running the rights of everything?

do they consider, you know, if there's so many blackouts and there's so many rules and regulations, how many people they're losing? Because, you know, I don't think everyone can get seven or eight apps at all time, right? Not everybody can do that. So, you know, what happens to the people, like, you know, if you have to only pick one, are these larger networks not worried about kind of this fomo and this loss of fans because of all of this decision? fatigue. And is there a workaround around that? I think Renee brought it up the point. It's a business decision. It's about the money. And so you bring up a really great perspective. And that's my perspective too. Gino is a fan experience and what does that mean? But I don't think that plays

into it as much as how much money are they going to be making. Because regardless of the fact that I couldn't watch, you know, in my home because I have Xfinity. I couldn't watch the Nug. I had to go someplace. So I'm going to go to a bar. I'm going to call around and find the bar. And they post it, like what bars actually have the other network so that they can actually show the games, right?

So there is money involved and people still follow their teams, right? And now, like, I hate to say this, but like, you can pirate a lot of this stuff. Right? So people, you know, like I'll see my son pirating, like watching it on his phone, you know, like, or I'm like, how are you watching that? He's like, don't ask mom. And so I do think it is a business decision. It's not really trying to screw the fans so much because I think that they always know that the fan base is really important. But if you think about all the ways teams and the networks are making money through. sponsorships and ticket sales and merch and food. I mean, gosh, it's $18 for a beer, you know, at the game. It's amazing what an industry this is. And, you know, there's actually one league. And Renee, this probably hits close to home a little bit, even though it's the, it's major league soccer. It's the, it's the MLS that actually has a contract with Apple Plus. So, So all their games are on there.

But it was a money situation. So they proved that one app, one price, no blackouts, every match. But to be honest, the MLS did it because they were in a weaker position, negotiating position. And ESPN and Fox were really lukewarm on, you know, whether they should show these regional soccer games and da-da-da-da. And so Apple came in and said, we'll give you two and a half billion. billion dollars over 10 years and we have exclusive rights, right? And it's great for the fans, but, you know, it again, it's a money thing. It wasn't because they were like, oh, we can do this and have all of our games on Apple TV Plus. That's not what they were thinking. They were thinking

we get two and a half billion dollars and we can infuse that into our teams and grow the brand. And soccer with FIFA here this year, I mean, heck, it's such a big thing. And Renee, You can also talk about the women's league and then also in women's sports. That's all up oncoming. So there's all of these avenues for these streamer streaming companies. And they're not just streaming company sports, right? Netflix, Prime Video, like, they're all getting in, they're all getting their hands into this. And it's not just ESPN and Fox Sports, right?

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Square's offering our listeners up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash we fixed it. Again, S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash go-slash we fixed it. and set up your business the way it works for you. Yeah, I think there's a few things. And it's a great point that you bring up to you know at the beginning of this because I think the sad reality is all of these media deal, it's not really for the local markets.

I think it's for the global markets. And that's the shift that sports have taken. So I know when I used to work in, when Major League Soccer with the Philadelphia Union, we had our local union anchor, anchored show that I was a part of. That was pre-game half-time post-game shows. It was on psych. It was, you know, streamed on the local 680C and the local Philly stations, and they moved that.

You know, with the emergence of, especially Apple TV, actually got a lot of hate. People cannot stand it, which is ironic because it's one platform, but everything's behind a paywall. Everything is hard to access. And so we've seen all of these different leagues trying to figure out what media rights make most sense, how they can best reach their audiences, but they've gotten rid of the local stations. You look at NBC Sports was in every single market, and now we only really have NBC Sports, Philly, Chicago, and I think L.A. are like the only ones or the Bay Area

are like the only ones that still exist. You know, local coverage of you have your, I think about it in Philly with our NBC, we have our former fixtures player, Phillies player, Flyers, pilots on for their respective teams. They're local, they connect with the community. People love the voice of the local broadcasters. And now we get a lot more of the national broadcasts.

where you are getting, you know, Mike Tariko for football or whoever it may be. And I think there's value with those, but I think that what we used to have was a blend, where you can truly choose, I want to hear the national broadcast or the local broadcast. And I think because they see so much money, it's not about the Denver market, for example. They now recognize, okay, we can actually get Nicola Yolkich and the Nugget streams in Serbia and everywhere in Europe and everyone in all over the world that people can watch. So I think that really is the push that we're moving away from caring about the local fans. And I've seen this even on the ticket side.

I know working with FIFA, there was a lot of discussion around how much people were priced out. The World Cup matches weren't really for the local fans. The way that soccer is around the world where Premier League, Champions League, the ticket prices are affordable for local fans. The World Cup was thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to get in the building for a lot of games. That was for hospitality. quality speeds. And listen, I got involved at it too with working with FIFA. I was at some of the

I was out of the game myself, but it wasn't really marketed for local fans. And I think that's the tough pill to swallow. They want local fans, like you said, Melissa, go to the sports bar, go tailgate, be on site, buy the tickets, buy the expensive drinks and food and just to pay for like a hot dog

cost to like 20 bucks. It feels like. But the actual watching and streaming, like we're getting record-setting numbers. Every league continues to set historic numbers of streaming of every game for this platform is always the highest. This is the highest. Well, why is that?

Because they're spinning globally. So I think they're recognizing the money is not just in the local backyards. It's how do you get these massive sponsorships, revenue deals, and then the expansion that you're having people all over the world that are now able to access. So yes, accessibility has grown, but it's also made a massive, massive challenge where it's more accessible, but it's also not accessible for everyone. It's a shift.

And I think that's the hard part. I honestly will say I've been involved with a number since I do a ton of broadcast with Peacock and NBC Sports and the other shit that people don't realize is a lot of the broadcasters, like many times I'm broadcasting games and I'm miles away from the game. When you watch a football game, you watch wrestling, you watch soccer, MLS, like the broadcasters aren't even on site. So you want to talk about not caring about the local community. I have no idea what's actually the vibe on site. I'm watching on TV like everyone else talking about the game on night. TV. So even the shit from a broadcast perspective has happened where they're no longer putting us, we used to fly, and it still happens, of course. You'll still see NBA and NFL, you know,

for NBC's game yesterday. They were on site. Maria Taylor was hosting. They're doing the pregame the half time. They're there. But a lot of times, you're not always even getting the broadcasters in person. They are somewhere else with a nice beautiful green screen behind or the screen behind where you don't know where they are, but they're not really on site. So a lot of shit. to maybe optimize and maximize, cutting down on some costs, then some local community focus, but more global-focused initiatives. Well, good, good for these teams. You know, that's responsible business.

If you've got a brand or a company and you, you know, going back to the pre-televised days, it was a local team, you know, and then there was television and then all of a sudden you got to know other teams from other cities. And now there's this global initiative and growth, I get, you know, Good for them. Good for the money people. That's responsible business. When I was in Dublin recently, the NBA had just been there. And there was NBA fever in Ireland. You know, great. But, you know, it shouldn't come at the expense of the local fans, you know,

that then you're trading one audience for another. You see companies do that too. They stray from the core and they find a new audience. And they're the hot thing for a minute. But the true believers go away. They don't have much longer. It's not a good model for a company. I do think it's a business strategy, as Renee had mentioned, of moving it to a global place. And I think that Aaron, in your space in branding and marketing, that's the new thing, is that I feel like Renee, right now we have celebrities in sports, right? And so because it is a business, like this offseason for the NBA, for example, like people just move teams, you know, you know, Jalen Brown just left the Celtics and, you know, what happened there, you know? And I know that

his city block had a going away party for him and all this kind of stuff. But like there are Jalen Brown fans, right? Like there are fans of LeBron James, you know, like there are those fans. And so like, I think that in a way, this new strategy of going global is also really helping to promote like your team, you can share for your team wherever you are or you can share for your favorite player, whether it be Caitlin Clark, whoever it might be. And you have that opportunity, you know, Lano Messi. You know, you can, you can cheer for whoever you want and you have access to that. So I can kind of see how from a business perspective, it's a growth mechanism. But I think that like, you know, Aaron, like when you think about like what we,

used to know as, you know, your local team, that's who you would cheer for and you would watch religiously on Sunday afternoon, your NFL team. Now it's like, wow, like, when you go into a sporting goods store, do you just see the local team's gear or do you see a LeBron James, you know, jersey, right? You know, you're starting to see that it's really more also about the athlete as a celebrity versus just the localized team. So, like, how do you market that? I mean, really, are you going to start focusing more specifically on the player, do you think? It's tougher because if you don't have accessibility, local market accessibility to your team in area,

you're going to start looking elsewhere and building preference for something else. You know, you might start watching European soccer and that becomes your thing and go all. And, yeah, how do you market to that consumer that all of a sudden switch behaviors after a lifetime of loyalty? And it's interesting. So I'm Canadian, Renee. So it's, you know, we've always only had one or two. And like, it's great that we have more selection, but we only have a few teams, right, in Canada, right?

So specifically when we look at the NBA, again, when the Toronto Raptors won 2019, huge year for us, and we talk about the local. I remember literally the whole city shut down for coming. People came from, you know, two hours away by a train to do that. And I think, you know, that's important. And I love, again, with this globalization of fans, it's great, but the people at the, you know, on the ground are people that are here.

And I think, you know, if you were to see, you know, the stadiums empty, for example, it's, you know, and that's what happened also with the World Cup, right? It was tricky. It kind of like, you know, put some fans off because it's like, you know, I know that it, the market for those tickets, you know, it was $1,000 to walk in the door. It's not necessarily for the everyday person, but to see empty spots for like a team that you're vying for. I think there's a way that we can kind of bridge the gap because, again, it does help because I feel like,

specifically with the Js who are doing okay, fingers crossed, it's put us on a, you know, on a larger map, right? We won the World Series back in 92, 93, and, you know, we're so close last year, we have a running chance at it again. And as a Canadian, or this is like our one team, it's huge. And so to see people in Japan rooting for the Jays, I love that. I love that there's that accessibility, but I wonder if there's a way we can fix kind of bridging the gap between, you know, keeping up with this global money driver

that is not going anywhere from a streaming platform. Like, it's very clear, Renee, with what you shared. Like, that's where the money is. That's where it's going. But how do we not lose kind of those local fans at the same time because of all of the options? Like, could there be one spot? Could we, you know, get a, you know,

hey, it's, you know, a really big game. You can get like a two-day pass for, you know, this subscription service so you can watch, you know, this specific game so that it becomes a little bit more accessible because I think adding tiers isn't a problem too. Like, that's more money again to maybe someone might be interested. I don't really know the J's. The only team in Canada. Hey, let me try it out.

Let me watch this game, you know, for two days. And, you know, maybe I'll add on. Like, is there an opportunity to kind of do both? I think that sports I've moved away from community-focused audiences, fan bases, and more team-focused. So I know we talked about, like, someone like LeBron James, for example, and I've been a huge LeBron James fan all day back when he was in high school. And so whatever team LeBron's been on, that's been my team. But I'm also a Sixers fan, so, of course, now it works perfectly. But I think that a lot of times people are truly fans of players.

Messy, Joey Otani, look at the Dodgers, boo. of Yoshinova Yamamoto, Roki Sistaki, Shoy Otani of now the amount of viewers and fans and people flying in to see Dodgers games. So I think there's been a bigger push to make players a household name versus just the teams. Whereas it used to be, you know, I'm also an Eagles fan,

for example. So I'm a generational Eagles fan. My parents were Eagles fans. I grew up watching Philadelphia Eagles games. You know, I was kind of born into it. And I think we're shifting away from that where it's like families and community-based and more focused on players. And I think a big inspiration behind that

had been soccer, to be honest. Like you look at the global game outside of America in terms of the Christiana Rinaldo's and Messi, of course, when I was an MLS, but before, Kelly and Mbapé, and then you can go all the way back to Ronaldino and Ronaldo and Pelle and all these great players that over the years have had a massive,

massive following globally. Terry on Reh. I mean, soccer players have been kings. Soccer is the sport across the world. And so to see how much people follow their players, that whatever Premier League team they're on, whatever national team they're playing with, they are supporting, they are following.

I think that is actually where, to be honest, American sports are trying to keep up with that European soccer money because the amount of revenue, sale, ticket sales, Jersey sales, oh my goodness, people are rocking Premier League and Champions League and European League soccer jerseys all over. The kids are iconic.

And I think that's what, again, money talks. I think that's what's been the inspiration for a lot of American leads that now they're having, you know, you look at the NFL the largest international slate of games. MLB continues expanding. NBA is getting bigger and bigger.

You know, we're seeing more of a push to have games in other countries, but then to your point with Toronto to have teams in other countries. The WMBA having a team in Toronto is massive for the league. They've done tremendous with their numbers and the fandom. And all, it's amazing to watch.

So I think there is a shift away from like, no longer do you feel like you just have to appeal to Philly fans for Philly, L.A. fans for L.A., Dallas fans for whoever, you are truly trying to build fandom based on your players. And that's why we have things like the messy cam, Apple TV rolled out. Or they've been doing, you know, a lot of players getting mics up and a lot of the features and storytelling around the actual games. Right. Is what draws people in. We saw it yesterday with the Patriots Seahawks game. They have a sit down with Drake May and AJ Brown before the game with Maria Taylor.

We're getting insight into who they are. They're connecting the dots. And I do like this piece of more storytelling around the players, their journeys, their experiences, and understanding, wait a minute. If someone is a fan of Joey Otani, now regardless what team he's on, we've got fans. Regardless if this team is winning or losing, we've got fans. We've got people that will travel all over the world to see their favorite player just because, they want to be in the same building. So that shit, I think, is a good thing because it is expanding the reach for players.

It's giving them more endorsements and sneaker deals. I mean, on the women's side, especially, that's been a big boom. That is why we had this 11-year media deal for the WMBA and MWSL and women's soccer now have players making over a million dollars. It is the player recognition. People know Trinney Rodman. They know Asia Wilson. They know, you know, all the different players by name, more than,

even what their teams are doing. Caitlin Clark, I've been a heart, especially she's been a big boom for this. So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think that you have to balance it. You can't just completely throw away the local community's local connection because that does matter. But I do think it's good that players have the ability to impact and reach such a bigger audience that you now have people that are like, I like the WMBA, not because this team,

I have a favorite player. I'm a big fan of paid beckers or I'm a big fan of Angel Reese. so whoever it may be. So again, it's all about balancing me. I don't think there should be a full swing one way or the other. But I do think we're moving to a point that even international, like a lot of the soccer leagues have been having conversations about expanding to do international games in the United States.

So it's swinging back the other way too that they're like, wait a minute. You know, NFL, NBA, they're on to something. Now the Premier League and La Liga and La Bundesliga and all these different soccer leagues are trying to have these marquee, you know, exhibition games in the United States. So it's not just here. Across the world, everyone's starting to spin on the media deals, the access, the globalization of sports because money, fandom, and they recognize the opportunities that are there.

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I knew my experience would be a great one, and it was. it was good coffee too. And Square now offers three plans so you can pick the tools you need. So what are you doing about your business? Well, let's help you out. Square's offering our listeners up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com slash go slash we fixed it. Again, SQUA-R-E dot com slash go slash we fixed it and set up your business the way it works for you. I love to see. And I'm right now on NFL dot com is if I have a team that I want to follow, for example, Denver Broncos, or Philadelphia Eagles,

whoever it might be, make it easy for me to know what station or what streaming service is that game on. Like, it just tells me the schedule and says kickoff is at 515 mountain time. I'm like, yeah, but like, where am I going to watch that? So I do think there's ways that the, you know, like you know you were talking about you know like maybe like even like even like one login right like if you if it's a specific league for example if it's MLS if it's if it's you know WNBA if it's NBA if it's NBA if it's NFL like if you can log in and set up your account and say these are my favorites and that's your login and then you could see how you were going to how to view it you would be like okay I'm blacked out of that one I got to go find a bar a sports bar

or oh, I don't, you know, I have Prime, but I don't have Netflix, right? Like, at least you would know. And like, to your point, you know, do they have day passes where you could just watch the game, right? Like some of them do that. But it would be really a lot easier for us to be able to follow a team. But I do agree with you, Renee. I think that the celebrity of athletes is really important. And I think the other thing is it actually matches the business.

sports today, right? Because you don't have players usually that stay with a team their entire career, right? Like all these football players moving around, all these NBA player, everybody's moving, you know, and you're like, oh, I just got the jersey for her and it's, you know, she was here in Indiana. Oh, now she's in Las Vegas. Okay. Right. You know, and but it's really because, hey, I want to follow this person, right? And so I do, I do think it's an important thing to note that that is, I feel like, kind of a shift from a generation ago where it was really about your, as Aaron was saying, your local community, your local team, like you would go, you know, you could drive down to training camp and see them and get autographs. And again, also what you said

about like local broadcasters, you know, Altitude just did that here. in Denver. They let go some of the local guys and brought in a NBA broadcaster. He's an ex-player, but not with the Nuggets, like what we had, you know, so it was kind of sad. We were like, oh, bummer, you know, but at the same time, understood, you know, it's not that he's, I'm going to give him best chance. He's not going to be bad, but he took the place of somebody who used to be a Nuggets player. It's interesting, too. I love, again, you know, I think of like Erling Holland, And, you know, on the Marina Marbury on the Toronto Tempo, you know, talking about following players because they move. You know, these players move.

I wonder. And I love this idea, Melissa, of, you know, some schedule, right? Like, I know even for the J's, like, we get a thing of, okay, when's a home game? When's this? If we had everything like, okay, you can watch this on ESPN. Actually, today's the Apple Day. I wonder if it gets to a point too where, hey, and I know Apple TV did this in Prime a little bit for specific, like, you know, for messy, you know, if we get so granular where it's like, okay, you know what? If you love Erling Holland, like, here's, you know, all of his games.

And I wonder if there can be like a subscription where, and Renee, you know, you've worked at multiple different, you know, sports entertainment places. So you would know better than I, how open they are to kind of having that communication. But, you know, whether it's a team or a player, if I say, hey, take my money, I'm happy to give you like $400 the start of the year to say, I want to follow this person. I don't want any blackouts. Maybe there's a blackout. Maybe one or two. Fine. But if you can just give it to me on whatever platforms or whether that means, like you get that day pass for this one game, but it's kind of like a one-stop shop.

you know, thing. And, you know, every, every broadcaster, every, every network, you know, gets their tail in. Do you think that's even feasible? Like, would they all talk to each other to say, okay, you can take a piece of this pie? Or will it always, from your experience, be, you know, this network is fighting for kind of the lion's share of the rights? When you look at the NFL, they've gotten that right. That's been something that's been a strong asset for the league that you know you're going to get Thursday night on Prime. You're going to get Sunday that's regular Fox. You're going to get your Sunday night that's NBC. You know, Mondays can be ESPN. And then they now, the difference of them is they're adding Wednesday games and Friday games and Saturday games and Netflix has been in the

mix for some of those like marquee one-off events. So I think for NFL, like typically people know where to watch an NFL game. And that's because they're consistent. That's because you know you've got the time slots. It's, you know, 1 o'clock, 444. five, eight o'clock. You've got your days. You know exactly one and where to watch. And I think the hard part is sports like baseball, well, baseball is pretty locked in too, actually, to be honest. The NBA, the WMBA, especially since the WMBA's like Ion, ESPN, there's, and then NWS all the same way. It's hard because they play so much more. So you don't always have, you know, in the course of a seven-day week, it's not always the same

days of the week, the same time, the same places. So it's hard to structure it, whereas football, every team's playing once a week, you can easily structure who plays in which windows. And I think that's what makes football. It's like the supply and demand. You've got prime time games. You know you've got to watch for that prime time game. If you miss it, you miss it. And so I think that it's not as feasible for the other leagues just because it's just so widespread.

But I think that is where we are shifting for WMBA, NBA, NBA leagues like that where they have maybe the main spot. So NBC, for example, with their 11-year deal for the NBA, you're catching the bulk of the games on NBC. Then there's the occasional, again, one-offs that might be ESPN has a game, things like that. So I think that's kind of the direction it's moving of. You have the main media rights holder and then you have the others that get marquee games. They have to fight for playoff games, maybe, things like that. So honestly, I don't think that it would get to a point where they are going to actively say like, hey fans, here's where you can watch. Here's the list. Here's anything like that because that actually takes away from their advertising. You look at

what NBC's been doing around the Wednesday night opener, what Netflix has been doing around. I mean, I remember their promotional advertisements leading up to MLB All-Star and they've been doing it again for Australia for the NFL game. That's advertising. That's part of the package. That's part of sponsorships. That now

you have big name player on this commercial reminding people to go watch here. So can they simplify it? They should. I know they do have it built into the app where you can go in and see this game's upcoming up tonight at what time and who's playing,

but they don't have one database of like, here's where every game is. To your point, Melissa, if you go on any of the league's websites that just says to kick off time, where it's at, who's playing. You don't typically get where you can watch and which apps you can watch where. Yeah. But I think that's part of the package,

to be honest. They don't want to, I'm not saying they want to make it difficult for people, but it gives them another layer of advertising and revenue to be able to now put together commercials and promotional material that they build with their celebrities and their, you know, fans that they're going to connect with to share one to watch, where to watch. And if you missed a commercial, you miss it.

But yeah, I don't know. It's tricky. It's a really tricky balance. I think that I remember with baseball with YouTube TV, people were like, I don't even know how to use YouTube TV. That's the other piece. Like, not everybody even has access and knows how to log in and where to go to on your phone. I mean, it's not even just physically where to watch. It's physically how do I actually click this button instead of me having a remote that I clicked the remote and turn on the TV, how do I actually go through and find it on my phone or my computer or connect the app to your TV? So now we have smart TVs. I mean, this is a whole can of worm that we could seriously go down because I say, if only there was one space, one place

that you can turn on your TV and everything would live. Oh yeah, there was cable. So I do think that we're essentially moving back to cable in a sense that people are trying to bundle packages and apps and make it easier that you can get everything in one spot. That's what's going to have to change. And on the subscription, so talking specific on the subscriptions, I think another opportunity for revenue, right? It's like, okay, so, you know, NBC holds the rights for, you know, whatever game or kind of league.

But, you know, if it's the one-off that goes to Netflix, can they say, okay, we have the full rights, but, you know, I'm going to take a cut of that so that, you know, people have this. Because right now it's you have, as a fan, you have to get all of these many subscriptions and pay, you know, X amount of time where it's like if I can say, hey, I really want to watch, you know, the Toronto tempo the entire season. I don't want any blackwomen. I'm happy to pay for this where you can say, you know, NBC take all of my money, but take a cut from Netflix, right? So it's like this may be charging an upcharge. Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? They'll never do that. Okay. That's what I was done. They wouldn't really do that because, and there's a few reasons. Yeah. So for one, every network has their own set of staff. So whoever's doing the NBC, I mean, you guys recognize this, whoever's done the NBC broadcast,

it's a whole different crew than the ESPN broadcast, which is a whole different crew than, you know, a Netflix and so on and so forth. So Elle Duncan worked with Netflix, she's not working with the ESPN broadcast. So if you're watching the Toronto tempo on NBC Sports one day and it's on Ion the next day, it's a whole different broadcast crew for Ion, they're not going to cross over because, because that actually directly impacts their pocket. That's a competitor. They can't stream like that.

You're not going to, they're not going to stream an NBC game that you have access to on like Netflix, for example, because it's a whole different staff. It's a whole different company. It's a whole different. Honestly, everything is different about the format, the way they shoot it, the people that are shooting it.

And then so the networks are not going to, it takes away from the media rights and the value of media rights if you're sharing. Not so much sharing that like, it's not NBC is, you know, putting eye out like the other network. It's more, you know, you're paying for, you're paying for both, essentially, right? Because right now we have to buy every single one. But I wonder if it's like, okay, if, you know, ESPN did like a two-day pass that you

would have to buy and purchase, you know, on top of your NBC would, you know, is there a hypothetical world where we say, okay, if you want to watch this one team, you know, you're going to have to pay for all of these services, but we can bundle the deal so that whoever owns like the main rights, yes, you'll be able, like, you'll still have to download it. You're still paying these people, but we're going to charge you a margin so that it comes for us. Like, that's kind of like the tradeoffs. It's another revenue for them. You know what I mean? From a subscription kind of fee perspective. See, that's where I think that like the team should do that, right? So like if I want to watch the, you know, the Denver Nuggets and it's not all going to be on altitude, some of it's

going to be on NBA sports. It's going to be on ESPN, whatever it might be. I like what you're, where you're going where I just have to log in to the Denver Nuggets page. And I say, I'm going to, I want to pay for the season, 2026, 2027 season. And I'll pay for the full season. And that's, I'm making this up. $300. And it's going to include all the games, no blackouts. I just come here and you have a link to YouTube TV or wherever I need to go.

And it'll, it'll have the game on. that would be ideal because I think, you know, and then that's where you're saying, like, then you give YouTube TV theirs, you give Netflix theirs, you give ESPN theirs. And you're still paying for all of them, but it's just like it's not as confusing. I do think that would be great for the fans. But I, again, like, I don't know that like, to Renee's point, like, there's so much going on behind the scenes that I don't know if they could actually do that. I also think that like, you know, the sports leagues could learn from the streaming services too, right?

Like they've been, you know, like Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, they've been doing this for a while, Paramount Plus, whoever. And I feel like they could also share how they're, you know, how they're looking at revenue, how they're looking at subscriptions. How do they keep people coming back? Like, you know, when you go to Netflix, it's like, can you want to continue here? Do you want to, like, you just watched quarterbacks. Do you want to watch this show now, right? You know, starting five. Like, that's what they say to me, right?

You know, and I'm like, well, I don't know. Okay. There's something there. It's to, you know, to your point when you're saying, do you want, you picked your, you favored a player. So do you want every, all the teams he's played, right? Or she's played. I think that's an interesting concept, too, is like,

learning on the other side from the streaming services because I think that there's something there that they could share too. But again, the fan experience is just really difficult and it is about the many. And so we just have to be realistic that there's, you know, it's not going back to you turn it on your local channel, NBC channel and you get to watch your team every weekend. So that's not going to happen. Yeah, I think the exclusivity clauses of the media deals is why we wouldn't get to that point. Ideally, I would love that too, Cheyno, I think it's a great idea that you like have access to your team, your player, you see everything. But the whole change behind the, and the whole fine print within all of these 11-year deals, seven-year deals for this

league, you know, whatever it may be, league to league is the exclusivity, is the fact that you have to physically log into Netflix. And when you log in a Netflix, you're not just going there to see the game. You're now getting the advertising. You're getting the other, the other stuff then they're like, oh, wait a minute, now maybe, hopefully they can keep people in Netflix. We can keep people with NBC. NBC sports has all their NBC sports commercials that they're filtering through. Even things like Roku and all these other components that like do show the games, but it's layered in the actual media rights holders commercials and packages and pieces.

So like NBC Sports on Roku has MDC sports commercials. You're not even getting anything Roku related. So the exclusivity is not just about are you, watching the game in this moment. I think the exclusivity is a huge part of that is driving traffic to your channels. And now when you're there, you're also, you see the crossover like Disney does so much with ESPN with ABC,

where we get the crossover of like ABC News is promoting ESPN, which is promoting and doing stuff with events at Disney. Same thing with Netflix. When you have the Bridgeton commercials and they're like talking about NFL stuff, like they've been crossing over with even like their movies and shows. helping to promote the games, then vice versa. So I think that is why the exclusivity of like these leagues, oh, YouTube did it. They were, it was annoying with it because they did more streamers.

But YouTube did it as well. They had all these commercials and ads and it was like streamers that were talking about the games and they even had them involved in the games as broadcasters. Like every network is learning because they are paying attention to the numbers. They are getting a lot of, to all of our points of what we're talking about with the exclusivity and the access. the main reason why they do want you to go into their app is because they do want to get a sense of habits of their audience,

demographics, times they're tuning in, how long they're tuning in for, which is why we're getting a change. And you see the evolution of Amazon Prime, for example, of where Prime started years ago with their Thursday Night Games to now it's a whole different production. So they've been paying attention through the data, the analytics, the feedback of the demographics and the audience

to figure out how do we best piece together all of our various programming. You go on Amazon.com at the top is usually an Amazon Prime advertisement of a banner promoting the game with a countdown to the game. So now I'm shopping on Amazon, but also getting at the top, very subliminally, you don't even notice it

a lot of times, a countdown of the games coming up in X amount of hours. So the exclusivity with their traffic is it's bigger than sports, it's entertainment, it's news, it's movies, it's TV, it's how do you drive traffic back to your channels, which is why they don't really care about the ease of actually.

it's for them all business, all marketing, all chances to promote the great things like Netflix, for example, promoting all things Netflix. Like, why do we see L. Duncan's doing, she's involved with some shows that are not even sports shows. Why? It's the crossover. So that is that intersection of sports, culture, business, entertainment, and that is why media rights have drastically changed.

They're recognizing it's bigger than just you're watching a game. They recognize the whole ecosystem that they're building. building to keep people coming back. Today's episode is brought to you by What Not. Guess where I've been spending a lot of time lately? On What Not. If you know it, you know. If not, it's a live shopping app where you can find everything from electronics to fashion

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slash go slash we fixed it. Again, S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash go slash we fixed it and set up your business the way it works for you. We're going to fix it. The good thing about our show is we don't have to spend the billions it would take to execute. We can make the recommendation and then the powers that be can do what they will. But, okay, here's what we're, here's what I'm hearing.

sports is such a communal thing and they've driven people away from the community side of things. Now, I love you can go to a sports bar and go shoulder to shoulder with the local fans and if you happen to find out where the game's playing, great.

But that's, you know, that's a lot of work to expect for a fan to do in every single game depending on what sport and how long the seasons are and that type of thing. But, you know, they've driven it from a communal experience,

especially if you have to go chasing games. Now, I understand why they're doing it, there's the data side of things. So if you turn it from a game that I'm sharing in my living room with my neighbors to a personal one-on-one ad-driven experience where you know my data, you know my watchability, you know my repeat rates, you know, personally down to me, then you can serve me up specific advertising. You can cross-recommend other programming. You can upsell all those things. So I understand the data capture side of things. That's a very powerful part of the equation. We're going to incentivize that. We're not going to throw that out.

But I'm going to go with the put some portal like we all complain about cable. Why are we, why are we footing the bill for channels we don't watch and and trim the fat and all that stuff? And then it got very, very decentralized. We're going to put it back to the teams. Every team is going to have a subscription pass. They're going to pre-negotiate the rates with all these different streamers and carriers. That's their problem to figure out. And they're going to make it good for their fans.

So even a little bit better than go. after seven different services on their own or however many there are, give us a rate that we can handle as a fan of that, at least my team. And you, as a team, you have some accountability to do good for your fans, especially your local fans and your international growing fan base. So one pass, one login, what there's going to be, there's going to be a player in the middle of that page,

brought to you by whoever that's, you know, you're going to have to log in to all these services. we can't get around that. But when I'm on a Netflix-driven game, I'm going to get Netflix advertising and programming all over that. I'm going to not. There's no way I'm not going to know that's a Netflix game. I'm going to get enticements to come back to other Netflix shows and things like that.

So it's a hybrid. It's going to be, you know, in my game portal, I can, of course, go straight to Netflix and watch it. If it's a ESPN game, same deal. They get the lion's share of the visibility on that that plan. that experience. But I know I could, at least I could always go to my team of choice and go look at the portal player in the middle of their screen, and that's where my game's going to be.

Base level, then they can offer me, what else are you interested in? I'm also interested in European soccer. Great. Here's some upsales. You want to watch this game. You know, I'm in. I like the experience. So we're going to, but we're going to.

using our team as the home base. Pick a team, pick your favorite, and build out from there. And get rid of the excess complexity. Yes, there's a lot of untangling. Are they going to talk to each other? I don't know. But if they do, everyone wins somehow.

And you're still getting, oh, the individual data capture. So even if you're watching games communally, I know they do this, but give everyone who's in that room a reason to log in also to volunteer that they're watching the game to get served up personal ads, you know, points programs or whatever it takes. I know they have things like that, but make sure that, you know, it's not just the person who's hosting the event. It's every person there is logging in for a specific reason. I like it. Chino, what do you think? Do we fix it? I think, you know, they're doing a really good job. They know what they're doing where they're making

billions. And I don't think that's never going anywhere every day. You made that very clear. I like this idea. And I think, you know what, to make it a little less accessible, even though that's not what we're trying to do. And yes, we usually care about the fan experience. Why not have like a super fan day where you give out like, you know, a thousand passes. What kind of drives people to this? You know, again, those super fans,

not bots. You got to figure that out. Kind of like a ticket master. You know, you're waiting for your Coachella tickets. Do one for this like, you know, you only give out a thousand of these passes that you can do everything else. And you know, you have to maybe pay to even get into the preline. Just again, to

pull up the numbers there, kind of like that. but I don't think we're ever getting away from multiple streaming services. It's a money-driving business, as Renee said. I think driving people and maybe even that intersectional cross-collaboration between some, if you already have the rights for one team, maybe that's an option. Renee will know better than all of us. So I think it was not necessarily a problem for them to fix, but for the fans, we did our best.

And so I think we got a pseudo fix. This is a pseudo. All right. I'll take a pseudo. Melissa, did we fix it? Yeah, because I do feel like, to our points, this is not a business strategy that we're going to change. The globalization of sports is really important to all of the teams and all of the leagues. So I'm 100% for that.

I think what we're trying to do is improve the fan experience. And I think that what we've shared with the one account that already knows you get to sign up for your preferences and it makes it easy. And it's not saying I don't want to pay. It's saying that I want to make it easier. That's what most customer experience is about. Making it easy, making it personalized, making it responsive. I do think that's a win. I also think Renee brought something up.

We want to make sure that we're tracking the data and the metrics that actually predicts churn and things like that so that we can know like how does this ease in fan experience help the streamers, right? Like so at the end of the season, do you have a special, you know, subscription rate? Hey, do you want to watch Bridgeton? Netflix. We're going to give you the football fan, you know, coupon code. And so instead of being $29.99 a month, it's going to only be $20 a month or whatever it might be, right? So you can see kind of how is this developing into, you know, longevity and growth and strategy for the streaming side of it and using that data. And like I said, using what those streaming services have already done a really good job of. Like Renee, you mentioned

prime video, like making sure that they were like, oh, we sucked. Like I remember the first game. We were like, what's going on? I think it's like, is this even really the game? Like, Are we losing power here? It's like bad Wi-Fi. Like, what's going on? And so I think that they've made updated changes. And so, again, looking at the data and really kind of crafting that experience for the fan in great ways. And I think one of the things, Aaron, that you mentioned that, you know, you were kind of like,

I'm kind of bummed about like the fan experience and the community. Like, really sitting there and thinking, okay, how do the teams like revisit how they're actively involved in the community and how can they use some of the money from these streaming services to make a fan experience. So it would be cool, right, to have, you know, a crossover if you want to say, you know, between a prime video show and, you know, or a Paramount Plus show, you could have a Taylor Sheridan show, Lioness, and you could have your team, right, your soccer team or whatever it might be and it might be a fan experience in the city or in the region that would write you know, kind of help to bring people together. And maybe it would be even more, you know, more purposeful. It could be

something very intentional and say, hey, you know, Netflix and the Denver Broncos are hosting a day at Children's Hospital or whatever it might be. So I do think that there are ways to, you know, encourage community, encourage fan experience and not go away from the globalization of sports. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's all about the local fan base. You just have to, that's the core. They're always, you know, good, good or good, good weather, bad weather. You want them there because you can be a big, you can have a giant hit in another country. And if your local team, if your local market doesn't know who you are, that's a problem. Renee, this is our version of fantasy sports. We're going to go, we're going back to the cable model. We're consolidating everything. My team has my back. And my team is going to be the center spokes. the hub for everything that I care about. And I'm going to pay my team under, you know, it looks and feels like my team.

And from that point, from there, I can see every subscription I want. I get offers for new things. But it's all associated with my team of choice. If we could pull that off, did we fix it? No, I think that actually raises different problems. So I don't, I think it's a loaded question because who says things need to be fixed? in that sense. Like, I think if we as fans look at it, we feel like it's not an ideal situation. But I know I'm freshly with the fact that I have to go on Disney Plus versus HBO Max versus

stars. It's not even just games. Streaming is where we're at. Between social media and streaming, that is where we are at in the same age. I think for sports, they're recognizing if I can get, they're not targeting even our respective demographics. They're trying to go younger. They're trying to go, you know, those college age, young adults that are constantly on. on social media, talking about it, sharing it. You know, I know people that do not watch games, but simply are sharing YouTube clips from games and articles and clips from first take or whatever show.

So I think if we were to focus it and have it be hyper-focused where you only have access to your team and your favorite players, that takes away from what they're hoping to build through the primetime model. That used to be a case where you only really turned on your TV to watch your team because you only had access to them once a week or whatever it may have been. whereas now you have access to stumble onto, you know,

oh, what's SGA and the Thunder all about? Or who is Drake May and the Patriots? What's the storyline there? So I think, to be honest, they want to expand. They don't want you. You might have a favorite player, a favorite team, but they don't want you to exclusively be watching them. They don't want you to have access to learn about Erling Holland

and Killian Mbapay and whoever else, Moseala. So I do feel like if I could think of what could change, I actually like the fact that's trying to bring in. I look at the last year for NBA and NFL, specifically NBC. It's Tracy McGrady, Michael Jordan, Mike Tomlin made his debut. Like they're bringing in former coaches, former players, because those names, they don't just hit one community. They reach the whole world.

You know, you see Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady cousins that we saw playing in the NBA, and whether you were a Toronto Raptist fan or a Landl Maddox fan or somewhere in between, you were excited to see them now talking with Carmel Anthony and Maria Taylor. Like, that's the growth of beyond just one community reaching so many different people, but I would love to see more in person. I think that we are growing to a model in general in like period where everything is virtual. Everything is creating these streaming apps and social media spaces of easily being at the share stuff and talk virtually.

But can we have a Netflix day where it's, you know, let's say it was the I'm the All-Star. I would have loved to see more that, and I saw them on site because I was at the game Philly, but can you now do something where we have a big Netflix pop up? And it's like you're interacting with people, like creating more of that community experience, I think is what's missing. Because I think from the global virtual standpoint, we all were looking forward to seeing what Michael Jordan and Mike Tariko's conversation was going to be like last year. And it was, it was disappointing. Can we get more of that? So I do think that's the direction that we're going to see things start to go where I would like to see things go that I would fix more in person,

and more community-based in the sense of how do we connect on-site that you get that ESPN-Calis game day vibe for more things. I like that a lot. Yeah. And I'm not saying restrict access to my team. I'm just saying use that as the jumping off point. Guarantee me access to my team. And then you have me.

What else do you want me to watch? I'll watch it. But I will always vote for community-driven, you know, experiences, getting people together, bringing sports into, you know, making sure that sports remain a communal experience because that's that's what they are. That's what they should be. All right. Well, that's going to do it for this action-packed episode.

And we fix it. You're welcome. We don't want to go into overtime. But before we go, I'd like to thank Melissa, Chino, and especially Renee, Washington, for lending her expertise. Renee, this would not have been the same without you. Before we go, please let everyone know how to keep up with what you're doing. And please tell me it's not that complicated.

Yes. Thank you so much for having me. This has been so much fun. Just have a chance of deep dive and talk through. some different ideas and it's been so great speaking with all three of you, Aaron, Melissa, and she know, I've appreciated it. If anybody wants to continue following me, I'm very simple to find. I'm on social media at Renee P. Washington, so Instagram, TikTok, or X, wherever, and then my ex is actually when AP Wash, but everything else is Renee P. Washington or my website,

renapy Washington.com. And I'm thrilled that I get a chance to be involved in so many different sports, whether it's curling or basketball or soccer, whatever may be. So thrilled that I had a chance to take some time to chat with you guys as well. Thanks, Renee. And we're going to watch for you, too. Thanks to you, to our listeners, our fixaholics. I hope you liked our fixes today. But if you want to armchair quarterback at yourself and you think you have a better one,

we want to hear from you. Send us an email, my fix at we fixeditpod.com. That's my fix at we fixed it pod.com. Whatever team you're rooting for, we hope they win. And we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold.

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