Is Pat McAfee the face of ESPN, the World Baseball Classic blows up and other media topics

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Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast.

I'm your host Richard Dyck.

My producer is Patrick Antonetti.

This is now a tradition.

Can a tradition be something that's been going on for just three weeks?

Help.

One.

This is a Saturday round table podcast.

We have one regular, but two new voices.

And I'm very excited about this.

John Lewis, of course, someone you know,

founder and editor of Sports Media Watch.

I am joined by two of his colleagues.

Armand Brody is the co-host of the Sports Media Watch Podcast.

He's also a contributor at that site,

writes the on-the-air column.

If you listen to Sports Media Watch Podcast,

you're familiar with Armand's voice.

They are joined by Derek Futterman, who is a writer and multimedia producer.

For Sports Media Watch, Derek has done a lot of work in the space,

written for a number of publications.

And the thing I always admire about Derek is,

you really cannot fake having a passion for Sports Media.

And in every piece that I saw Derek write,

including some of the long-form pieces that he did,

you could tell that he was really, really into this.

And that's something, like the cohort of us

who have been writing this for a while, you can always tell.

And so it's great to actually have him on this podcast for the first time.

Same with Armand.

Welcome, John.

Welcome, Armand.

Welcome, Derek.

Hey, thanks for having us.

Thanks, Richard.

All right, thanks for having me.

You got it.

I've had more elegant intros.

I'm not going to lie to you guys, but it'll do.

All right, let's start here.

John, you know, not a difference to you as the boss.

I'll start with you on this.

The World Baseball Classic Viewership Numbers,

we have through, essentially like sort of like,

first round plus at this point.

So we're taping this on Friday.

People will listen to this on Saturday.

So we're not really going to know yet,

obviously, the big viewership numbers,

which are going to come in,

especially if like the United States

have eventually placed a pan or something like that

or Dominican Republic's in a big,

you know, in a big game.

But, John, I have to be honest.

Like, these numbers have been excellent.

Like, if you're Fox, you got to be thrilled.

If you're MLB, you got to be thrilled.

This event, I feel like, has taken like a significant step

in terms of like, viewership interest.

So from your analysis, what are you saying?

No question.

I think one of the odd things about the WBC is that,

if you go back and look through history,

it's always done way better than you would think,

given the complete lack of attention to it.

So if you look at the top 10 largest audiences

in the history of the WBC,

you'll see there's some games from 2006 and 2009 on there

that were getting well over 2 million viewers on cable.

And that was a pretty good number in 2006 and in 2009.

It was a group stage game 20 years ago

that had 2.5 million viewers in ESPN.

So why was this so undervalued

that it ended up for a few years

there on MLB network?

And you know, the amazing thing is,

even in the years where it was on MLB network,

they still got 3.1 million for the final in 2017

when it was just on MLB network

with English language coverage on ESPN 2.

And excuse me, with Spanish language coverage

on ESPN 2 and ESPN deported.

So there's always been an audience for this.

It's growing now, no doubt.

But it's pretty weird that it's taken this long

for it to get the kind of broadcast TV windows

that it's been getting this year.

All right, I'm gonna go to you, Armando and Derek.

I want you to weigh in.

I think just Armando's a,

as someone who's watching it just as a viewer,

like it's very exciting.

Like it's like the,

and maybe some of it is because Italy

has sort of played out of its mind

and you might not have expected them

to be the United States.

But I watched that stuff.

I don't want to overstate it like it feels like the Olympics,

but it certainly felt like when I watched four nations,

like that hockey tournament,

like it felt like the same kind of like this thing matters.

So if you're out of Manfred,

like that's a big W, like you've created this tournament

that sportsman thinks, think matters.

I mean, it's like this to me.

When you put something on broadcast television,

you're automatically, I think, telling me it matters.

And I mean, there's just a difference

between seeing something on FS1 or on 2B,

my goodness, or on FS2,

versus putting it on big Fox.

And it's right there for that four to five million people

to see.

You're telling me that it,

you're telling me it matters.

You're telling me it counts.

I'm still thinking about 2023.

You get a tiny and trout to end the WBC.

I mean, that's great momentum.

You get that great call from Joe Davis.

You get this classic iconic moment

that everybody will frame forever who was there.

That kind of momentum, man.

I think it does follow into this.

And I think that helps sort of create this idea

of what WBC is.

And I think people have held on to that.

And the entry coupled with the presence on broadcast

makes it that much more of a big event.

Yeah, Armand mentioned FS2.

I'm going to let my neighbors in

so we can double the viewership of FS2

for whatever is on in the next hour.

Derek, let me go to you just in terms of your perspective

on this.

I don't know if you've been watching the games,

but obviously you're working for John Sight.

So you see the numbers.

I don't know who I was talking to about this.

I don't know if it's Jimmy Trainor or somebody else,

but we were trying to figure out

what the viewership of a final might be.

And whatever I thought it might have been

before the tournament, I was way off.

It's going to be a lot higher.

I don't have the tournament in front of me.

If I think Japan and the US can play,

do you guys know this happened?

John, do you know that off the top of your head?

I think that's correct, right?

They're on this side of the bright.

So if they play in the final,

I don't know, could we look at it?

Seven eight million is something insane like that, Derek.

I mean, the only downside is we're not going to have

Otoni versus Trout because Trout's not playing

and Otoni's not pitching.

But those teams meeting up for a rematch,

I mean, they just, they almost had five million

the last time and the game was on FS1.

It wasn't even on broadcast television.

Plus Nielsen wasn't even measuring ratings.

The same way we're doing it now.

Big data is part of the picture out of home

in the 100% of the 48 states.

It's in the picture as well.

So this, I think as Alba guaranteed,

if you see that match up to be a record breaker,

but I'd be curious to see,

you know, the US Mexico just set this record

just to shade over five million in viewers,

these quarter-final, semi-final games,

I think we could easily see a whole new top five

by the time this is all done.

And just how high it'll go with broadcast television

in place, anyone's best guess.

I think you're right, and maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe this thing hits over 10 million.

Like maybe this thing is like a significant college football game,

especially if, you know, Fox, especially if like,

sort of word of mouth hits on social media

and it starts really, really getting talked about.

All right, Jack, I'm gonna stick with you

to our next topic.

I don't think it's an overstatement anymore

to say the Pac-Mac of the US become the face of ESPN.

Now there's sort of like what the face of ESPN even means

is probably, you could probably do our own podcast.

Like does it even mean anything?

Like to call someone the face of ESPN in 2026.

But I think like all three of you would agree

at a certain point if I had said that phrase three years ago,

two years ago, you would have said it's Stephen A Smith.

I think that's probably just the person most identified

with ESPN, good, bad, or indifferent.

But I think it's now McAfee.

And I think that free agency show

also sort of tells you something about how ESPN thought of him.

I happen to, you know, in preparing for the show,

I popped on to X, as painful as that was, John,

just to go back into that world for a couple of minutes.

And I saw Burke Magnus, the number two,

at ESPN essentially, tweet out incredible results here,

thanks to Pat McAfee and the boys

for absolutely crushing free agency frenzy,

what a fun day for all certified ball lovers.

So there's the number two guy at ESPN,

top management as it gets, basically calling out Pat McAfee

for this free agency show.

Now, Mert Magnus has always been a big supporter of McAfee.

So the support's not surprising.

But what I'm trying to get at, Derek, is that you're seeing

even the sort of the subtext of ESPN management,

sort of letting the public know this is the guy.

If we're talking about is there one face sort of above

everyone else at our place?

You agree?

Yeah, and look at what he does in college football season.

I mean, the retirement of Lee Corso, you know,

of Pat McAfee who started a kicking contest,

and he has his own money on the line every week,

giving students a chance to, you know,

when if they can feel goal,

but I think what McAfee and his cast just did in Indianapolis,

they also had Dan Erlovsky, Peter Schreger, Adam Schefter,

on site.

I think it's just evidence of the power that he has,

and they crushed it in viewership,

they got over 630,000 when you combine linear

and YouTube viewership, which was a big gain year over year.

I mean, first time McAfee's been allowed to handle

free agency frenzy on the main network.

I think there's anything, you know,

you can't say it's anything but a rousing success.

You are a month to me, like, you know, again,

like having covered this a long time,

I just sort of think what's just fascinating to me

is had you told me when I started covering the stuff

in like, you know, late 2000s, like that,

someone with McAfee's personality

would sort of be the guy they'd roll all this around.

I would have been like, you're crazy.

They're too conservative of an organization.

They wouldn't take the risk.

Now I argue, and I think John and I have talked about this,

I argue Pat McAfee's more important ESPN

than ESPN's about McAfee.

Your thoughts, Hermann?

Yeah, McAfee's pretty important.

I think on a larger scale, to a larger degree,

the face of ESPN is star power in general.

And I think McAfee is a product of that.

That's why Joe Buck makes sense.

That's why Troy Ackman makes sense.

That's why Eli Manic makes sense.

That's why Peyton Manic makes sense.

ESPN has under Jimmy Potaro,

they've been going after the big bold face names.

And I think McAfee is the perfect sort of embodiment

of a larger vision of ESPN to go after stars

so that they can keep constant content

and get a faithful following for certain people.

I think you can't get any more of a faithful following

for anyone than McAfee's crew.

It is almost borderline cult following,

but he has a loyal, a faithful, true, blue following

and ESPN has been able to capitalize on that

to a significant degree.

Yeah, to follow up on Hermann John,

I mean, in some ways they, I know what Hermann saying

is like their ESPN looking for stars.

Pat McAfee created his own star.

Like ESPN bought the star is how I would say that

as opposed to develop the star.

But again, I think what this,

at least what I see this as is that they're comfortable

with, I'm not saying this pejoratively,

I'm just being honest,

they're comfortable with like a bro show

as like their sort of, you know,

again, like as their centerpiece here,

where at a different time,

and John, you and I have covered this for a long,

a long time, both of us, they would not,

they would let you know they would not have been comfortable

with McAfee in like that kind of center position

because I think they would have worried about

the third rail of politics or just the third rail

of saying something that could have embarrassed them.

And that's just interesting to me.

I think that says more than anything else.

That were in 2026 and what this fragmented kind of media

system is more than anything else.

But I'm rambling and I'll turn it to you.

Well, I would say, you know, I wouldn't take too seriously.

Executives, you know, they put their finger to the wind

and make a decision as to where they think the wind is going.

And so if they're, you know,

if they want a bro show, it's because they're trying

to pander shamelessly to the bros.

It's not any major decision, you know,

this is our new stance.

They have no stance.

As soon as the cultural wind swing the other way,

they'll move with them and it'll be like 2020 again.

So I wouldn't take it seriously at all.

I would say as far as McAfee being the face of ESPN,

I actually kind of disagree.

You know, when you go to ESPN.com and click any story,

it's not Pat McAfee's face, they shove into your,

into your mental space.

It's Stephen A Smith's, right?

Literally any story, I'm sure all the WMDA fans

out there appreciate when they go to read

for updates about the CBA negotiations.

There's a video with Stephen A Smith

who follows a zero women's basketball

and has zero insight about it.

Giving his advice to the player

is just what they should do.

Well, Marley, John, I'm just going to interrupt you and say,

one of the greatest bullshit lines of all time

was when Stephen A Smith said,

who talks more women's sports than us on first take.

Yeah, I know, because the fact of the matter is

McAfee's not at that level.

I put it this way.

You can consume a ton of ESPN content

and never see Pat McAfee one time.

I don't think you can consume a ton of ESPN content

and not see Stephen A Smith one day.

What do you guys think of that?

You know what?

I mean, John, maybe you're right.

I mean, I can't really counter that argument

because when I'm looking for NBA content on ESPN,

I don't see McAfee.

When I'm looking for World Cup content,

I don't necessarily see Stephen A,

but I know what you're saying.

I'm not being the apparatus or the algorithm

is sending me to McAfee per se.

What do you think, Armand?

That's kind of interesting.

I actually think I agree with John.

Stephen A, even though he doesn't speak with great depth

on the topics of on first take,

at least he's asked to speak about them to some degree.

I think with McAfee, you're there for the vibes.

You're there for the experience.

Or you're just for the NFL, right?

Or a football.

It's very football or anything.

But anything else, you're not really there.

If something, if news breaks about baseball,

first take, we'll talk about it.

It won't go well, but they'll talk about it.

There won't be much depth unless they bring in Jessica

Mendoza or Doug Glanville or Tim Kirkkin or something like that.

But they will at least touch on the topic.

I don't think the expectation for McAfee is the same.

I think McAfee there is just really super heavy

into the football content because he played the sport.

Derek, do you have any thoughts?

I mean, I'm always waiting for Stephen A Smith to weigh in

on the impact of tariffs on the UK and the European Union.

But since I can't get that right now, I'll go to you, Derek.

In McAfee's show, could exist on NFL network

and be just fine in my opinion.

It is very football oriented.

I don't think they would do that.

But yes, very football oriented show.

And I think John's point about Stephen A Smith

is absolutely fair.

I mean, he is pretty ubiquitous around the network.

He just did Monday night countdown,

several episodes of Monday night countdown

for the first time this past season.

So yeah, he's pretty ubiquitous across the network.

And Stephen A definitely still has a presence,

but I do think that Pat McAfee is tailored

for that digital audience because remember,

his show remains available on YouTube.

It's not exclusive to ESPN platforms in that way.

You know, John, like I think you make a better point

than I did just to be candid.

How about this?

How about this?

This doesn't mean anything.

But do you think the ESPN audience has,

not that this should matter, warmer feelings

about McAfee and McAfee's content than Stephen A?

Because Stephen A is always sort of set up.

By the way, I'm not saying Stephen A is not popular.

He is absolutely popular.

But Stephen A's sort of set up is to fire pump,

sort of fire bomb counter punch,

where McAfee, I don't know what would,

I think it might have been Armander Derrick has said it.

Like there is kind of like a cult,

like tendency for his audience.

You know what I mean?

They want to hang out.

How do I say this?

Let's put it this way.

Is Stephen, are you watching first take

because you want to hang out with Stephen A Smith

or do you want to hear Stephen A Smith go off?

Where I think if you're listening to,

if you're following McAfee or listening to the McAfee show,

I think it's clear you want to hang out with that group.

You buy that chunk.

Oh, I buy it completely.

You know, McAfee is his own worst enemy

because the only time he deviates

from that kind of hang out vibe

is when he's going crazy about someone criticizing him.

The fact of the matter is if he cut that out,

he would just have a good time show.

It would just be good times, good laughs, whatever.

Which I think a lot of people want.

You know, the Stephen A stuff first take

is just profoundly negative on all issues.

I know you have mad dog, but even mad dog's stick

is ultimately coming from a negative place.

It's heightened, but it's coming from a negative place.

Generally, the only people who I find generally speaking

for not a negative on that show are the women on that show.

Yeah, who might, who may offer stuff

about celebrating something in sports?

Yeah, I mean, I just think, you know,

if you take out the time to McAfee

is becoming like second term Nixon about his critics, right?

And just going completely wild.

If you take those times out,

it's a good time show.

It's a good time, five.

And that I think does give him a bit of an advantage.

You'll just even it.

Yeah, it might be finally looking at second term Nixon

at this point, but I digress.

That's Celsius.com.

All right, Tony Dungee is out.

I'm going to go to you, Armand.

Like, I'm not going to be crying over this

because I have found that the NBC,

I mean, the NBC people are not going to like me for this.

I find that pregame show to be sort of,

it's not that it's unwatchable, it's just not memorable.

Like, and I think like they really need a change up in talent.

And I think Tony Dungee leaving is like part of that

change up in talent.

I think there should be other moves quite frankly,

if you're really looking to sort of redo the show.

But that's still a great run.

Armand, he's been there for a long, long time.

There's a lot of good about Tony Dungee

in terms of his thoughtfulness and stuff.

But I have to be honest with you,

I can't tell you anything Tony Dungee said

in the last five years that I remember.

And I think that as a viewer does,

that says something to me, how do you see it?

Well, I mean, the handwriting was on the wall

when they moved him in Rodney Harrison

out of the studio for some years back.

And then they put him with Jack Collinsworth

and during the Super Bowl, they ran on Alcatraz,

while Maria and Devon McCordy and Chris Sims,

they got the nicer, more relaxed vibe.

But not the non-prison.

I'm like, what do you think?

I mean, Tony Dungee is, he's not the sickness,

he's a symptom, I think.

And the show doesn't need to be freshened up.

I mean, there are too many people, first of all,

just too many voices, you got Maria,

you got Devon, you got Floreal, you got Sims,

and then you've got Collinsworth, you've got Dungee,

you got Harrison, there's too many voices.

And I think the show needs to decide what it wants to be.

Is it a highlight show?

Is it looking ahead?

Is it, let's promote the today show?

Like, I don't quite know what football night in America is.

And I really haven't known since Dan Patrick was the host.

I think there was just a different level of consistency

that the show had even back in those days,

but that's been close to a decade ago

since Patrick last hosted football night in America.

I think the entire show could use some freshening up

and some new blood for sure.

That's a really good take, Derek.

Like, I think Armand hit it.

Like, I don't know what the show is.

Like, I agree with that 100%.

They've got four years to figure it out

because no matter what happens in this round of media rights

and negotiations, NBC's keeping the Super Bowl

no matter what, that's been confirmed.

Eric Cordella.

So it's one of those things now where they have to agree

with Armand, establish a new identity

for the show CBS made changes.

After they had the Super Bowl in Las Vegas,

that's when Boomerah's size

and left the NFL today after that long run.

That's when Phil Sims left as well.

So I think now's the time.

There's no better time than now to do it.

And I think Tony Dungee's exit is the start

of what's going to be several changes

on football night in America.

It's so interesting, John.

We don't have to finish up on this.

But there's like, NBC does big very well.

Like, they're really, really good at making things in event

that show does not feel like an event.

And by the way, I like Maria Taylor and McCordy.

Like, I wouldn't chase that.

I think they're really good rock answers,

but it just doesn't, the show for whatever reason

doesn't feel big.

I wish I could explain the why.

Maybe you can, John, but like, it just doesn't, to me.

Well, I don't really think it's relevant right now.

And the big factor to me, it's not contemporary.

NBC's put together these very contemporary NBA

and Major League Baseball Studio roster is in the Baseball Studio.

They're going to have three players who played

the last three seasons, right?

Well, within the last three seasons,

the NBA crew, other than McGregor,

who hasn't played in over a decade,

you know, those guys have played within the last 10 years.

The NFL crew, only Devon McCordy has played since 2009.

Everybody else is just a long retired, you know,

very much kind of separated from the contemporary era.

So I think they need to get younger, obviously,

they need to get some fresh faces in there.

But it's also a very difficult show to make work

because you know, it's in that seven o'clock window,

you have the first half hour, I've joked before that,

you could go on that first half hour

and read your social security number on the air

because nobody's watching the end of that double header, right?

You're still averaging six and a half, seven million viewers,

though, which is crazy, you know?

But remember, NBC does not run national ads

in that first half hour.

Correct.

So that number is for after that first half hour is done.

Yes, you know, that's a window that ESPN

made work as NFL prime time and it was iconic.

But as a pregame show, I just don't know

that it works too well.

People are going to take them.

And I know it gets a big audience,

but it just feels like a little way station,

a little rest point between the big game

and the next big game rather than something

that you're seeking out.

Yeah, and the reality is I do think to be fair to NBC,

it's a very hard show to do because of the exact reason

it's like, if there's a great game and it's seven,

15 Eastern time, you're watching Fox or you're watching

CBS, you're just not watching something

like football's pregame and there's no solution to that.

So I agree with that.

All right, Armand, let me go to you.

We'll get into a little bit of this baseball studio stuff.

So Netflix, they have Matt Faskersian,

C.C. Sebastian, Hunter Pence, Lauren Shahati

as their game crew for their sort of limited run here.

L. Duncan, Albert Pooleholz, and Anthony Rizzo

in the studio.

John, am I missing anyone out of that grouping?

Do I have that?

Oh, he's, Derek would be a better one to ask off the topic.

Derek, does that sound right to you?

Yeah, okay.

All right, so Derek, I'll start with you

since you have rewarded me with the correct answer.

The only reason I'm interested in that,

like, you know, again, I don't think of Netflix

in the same way I think of Fox or NBC.

And it's very limited inventory, so to speak.

That said, I'm always interested in

when like a new national group in any major sport,

like his form to see if like maybe they have some,

what's the word, maybe they have some chemistry

and like we'll see these guys again.

So I'll be curious.

I think I'm more particularly curious to be honest with you

about C.C. Sebastian, Pooleholz, and Rizzo.

Those are the three guys I'll be paying attention.

Everybody else has sort of had broadcasting experience

before, but any sort of broad thoughts,

Derek on those choices.

Rizzo has done some limited studio work

as has Sebastian.

I don't recall seeing the two of them in a booth ever

doing a live game broadcast.

Not that Rizzo will be doing that at the Netflix broadcast.

Pooleholz has had experience with MLB network

on some of its studio programming.

So to see him in that setting will certainly be interesting.

I think he's a logical choice

if they haven't already locked him up

with the home run derby,

but someone you definitely would have on that competition.

And yeah, with the game crew, Matt Baskersion

has a lot of experience doing this.

He's a familiar voice.

He's called the games to the national level before.

He's going to then fly across the country

from the West Coast to city field

and the East Coast the next day for that opener.

So that'll be an interesting journey

to see how that all goes.

And Lauren Shahadi is colleague on MLB network joins him.

Yeah, so Matthew and Hunter Pence

will be an interesting duo on the booth.

Hunter Pence has some experience on Apple TV

plus he did the first year of Friday night baseball

as an analyst.

So I'd be curious to see how this goes.

And if Netflix repeats this setup

for the field of dreams game later in the summer.

Armand, just in general,

like what is your expectation with Netflix

and do you think viewers like it's not necessarily

something we associate with baseball?

Do you think that matters at all?

Well, I think it helps them to have a voice like Vaskersion

sort of leading the way.

Matt Vaskersion is pretty popular.

I mean, he's can be polarizing,

but he's very popular for his, you know, Santa Maria call.

So I think that helps them just have some sort of ease

there in the booth and somebody who can bring

a lot of energy and a lot of life.

I'm curious though, where are the new baseball voices?

There is a dearth of really strong baseball voices

and what you're seeing is essentially

the same handful of voices working across different networks.

And I think, I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing

but I am wondering where are,

where's the new crop of analysts

and play by play commentators?

Because Vaskersion having sort of the Netflix gig

and then flying over to do the Pittsburgh meds game,

the following night is just interesting to me

because it says to me at least that either

we just really love Matt Vaskersion

or they're just on enough really quality play

by play announcers to go around.

That's, I'll go to you, John, this is a string point

because I know we have talked in this podcast

about Jason Benetti before and then the NBC's decision

to have rotating analysts as opposed to one analyst

who's always working with Benetti.

But I do think to Armon's point,

like there's a group of guys who are thought of

as like these national voices.

Like Benetti, Joe Davis, Matt Vaskersion,

Boogshambi, there's others,

Dantshulman, I'm obviously missing some,

but I know what Armon is saying,

it's like it feels like there's this group of like eight

and the gigs go to that group of eight.

Now, maybe they go to that group of eight

because like if you're an executive,

you know, it's a proven commodity

and you don't want to necessarily be the person

to bring in somebody new into,

you know, sort of take a role of the dice on that

because the play by play position is important.

But I don't know, I would hope that there'll be more new,

more and different play by play voices

in the future for that sport.

I don't know, it's what your sort of broad thoughts, John,

on like all the Netflix hires and stuff like that.

Well, I mean, I think there are a ton of young

promising voices out there.

Armon wrote a piece on the air on SNW,

kind of chronicling some of those young voices.

People like Kevin Brown, who I know,

I think I hear Martian did report it

and VC was interested in.

What did you do?

Great work for the Orals, yeah.

Yeah, one of the shocking things to me,

you know, Matt Vaskersion, I would have,

I would have thought he was about maybe 14 or 15 years younger

than he actually is, he's 58,

which is a bit surprising to me.

He did the XFL, you know,

it's been around for a long time.

I remember that XFL stuff,

but I mean, like to me,

he's certainly very well established, right?

And to me, I think there's enough young voices in baseball

where you kind of want to get that next generation

into that group of eight.

You got to get that next generation into that group of eight.

Now, obviously you have Joe Davis,

38 years old voice in the World Series,

you have Benetti, you have Adam and me,

but like you got to get some more

of those young voices in there.

I think about, you know,

some of these regional sports network voices,

I think might have been a good option

for NBC's Sunday lead off,

because that's kind of a low tier window anyway.

I mean, that's another thing.

Vaskersion is so established.

Sunday lead off is kind of a fledgling announcer gig.

You know, I'm a little bit surprised

they went with him for that.

I might have gone with, you know,

really any of those younger guys.

And to me, let me see if I can remember

the Mariners guy in particular.

I mean, I'm trying to,

the guy in Golemith.

Sims?

No, no.

Yeah, Aaron Golemith.

Thank you.

You know, people like Aaron Golemith

with the Mariners, you know,

some of these younger guys who maybe could use that

as a springboard.

There would be some of them I'm sure work in some places,

because ESPN's going to have double headers some nights.

So they're going to have to have multiple crews.

But I'm surprised NBC went in the direction that they did.

One thing on the Netflix thing, John,

just real quick to get your take on this,

that El Duncan job is really good.

Like just to be like a host of every single major thing

that Netflix is going to do, you know,

she did that, I forgot what it was called,

you know, the guy who climbed that tower and Taipei, right?

She's hosting Netflix's opening day.

I assume she'll be the host of the field of dreams game.

That's like, you know, whatever else they have,

the football.

So that's a good gig.

Like to me, like, you know, like to land that gig,

which is far less dates than ESPN,

and probably either similar or more money,

that's a nice coup.

And who knows what Netflix will be, you know,

three, four, five years from now?

Well, you know, they won't be going to Warner Brothers,

but that's about it, right?

I mean, look, the fact is that Netflix,

the sky is the limit.

And unfortunately, the sky is the limit

is off in the distance, true,

because for now they really don't have a ton.

So El Duncan, I think what you do with that.

Women's World Cup, they have, right?

Yeah, but that's next year.

So this year, for example,

she's going to be doing most of her on-year stuff,

I think, on-verson.

On USA, USA.

Boxing, keep in mind that all the boxing stuff, too, right,

for her.

True.

I mean, those boxing events, you know,

they still carry a big mass appeal,

but, you know, I think it's going to be basically kind of

a year off for her almost.

I mean, there's just not enough there

for Netflix in this first year.

You get into next year, you get the Women's World Cup.

They just don't have enough regular programming,

a regular cadence of events.

I know Derek had noted this on the site.

That Netflix, one of their executives

is interested in having one big event a month.

Yeah, that would be a good thing to, you know,

if you're El Duncan to have at least one thing a month.

I like that.

Who said that, Derek?

Was it Gabe Spitzer or somebody else?

I've got to, I have to look in the numbers.

A few weeks ago, one of the conferences.

Yeah, that's interesting, though.

I kind of like that.

I have a prediction, you know, most of my predictions,

generally, you know, about 50-50.

I think they're going to get,

or at least bit heavy for the Men's World Cup,

the next round of it.

That makes so much sense to me.

They already have the Women's World Cup.

Like, World Cup makes sense for like,

an event kind of place like Netflix.

You don't have to do soccer year round.

You just sort of own it.

My only question on that would be, I know,

FIFA's, you know, the FIFA's essentially,

maybe the worst sports organization,

the history of a humankind.

I mean, IOC's up there, too.

But so my only question would be,

would FIFA just solely go for the money,

or would there be somebody in FIFA

who's like, we gotta have this on

over the air television in the United States?

Or if your Netflix must you try to get all global rights,

but that'd be cost too much money.

To get World Cup global rights,

just giving the popularity of soccer globally.

But anyway, that's my,

that's my pie in the sky kind of thing.

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All right, a couple more here that I wanted to get to with you guys.

The PWHL makes its US national television debut later this month

on Ion, John Lewis.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Like it's, I live in Toronto, I think is the three of you now.

PWHL's pretty big here.

It has like five different national carriers

between sports and the TSN, et cetera.

Like you, if I turn my cable system on,

like I can get the PWHL.

I don't need to go to YouTube or anything like that.

So I thought that was pretty cool move by that league

and shows me that they're growing.

What'd you think, John?

Well, I mean, they've been around for about a couple of years.

This is what year three maybe?

I think, yeah, I think maybe you're two,

but let's double it.

Keep talking and I'll check that.

It might be your two, as you said, August 2023 found it.

There you go.

Okay, so it's still all season January 2024.

So we're in year three.

To me, I don't really think there's any excuse

for all these events being on YouTube.

I mean, there's just so many places,

even a fast channel, you know, my, you know,

to me, this is coming at a good time because it's overview.

You gotta get, there's so many different platforms

looking for programming, desperate for programming.

I'm kind of amazed that it took this long

for them to get on any actual television.

I mean, look, okay, it's hockey, right?

A men's hockey, the NHL kind of struggles to get attention

and we know how it is for women's sports.

But there's just so many platforms.

And of course, scripts being very invested

in women's sports versus looking for women's sports.

I mean, there's a victory plus even.

Just there's so many platforms for them to be put

in their events out on YouTube.

Like, you know, it's a regular season game

or preseason game in D2 is just a little bit.

I don't want to give them too much credit

for coming to the table this late.

All right, John's taking this big, big shot there.

I thought, you know, no celebration for John on that one.

All right, Armand, let me go to you on the PGA.

I don't know how much you guys,

I mean, you write about it on the site.

Golf is not my thing, you know,

I'm pretty much like the majors and not much else.

But the PGA, Brian Rolop announcing that

they want to double their number of signature events.

They want to expand fields to 120 players.

They want to be in big markets.

This is all like to me for like media consumption,

you know, especially television.

Those are all things that would make,

which would be much more attractive to media partners.

It should, I guess, in theory, like increase your audience

in some ways, Armand.

But did you have any broad thoughts on that

when the news popped this week?

Yeah, all I could think about was how Brian's trying

to bring the gridiron to the green.

Correct.

I asked, I asked, hey.

I asked, I asked the,

get the patent attorney on that.

I love that.

I asked a friend of mine who's a bigger golf fan

than I am about it.

And he had to mix feelings because I think the philosophy

of longstanding golf fans, how they think,

how they function, how they operate.

It's different.

And I think from comments that I've seen from other people,

there's a different ownership that the players take.

There's a different ownership and the mentality

that the fans have about all of this.

And so I guess I'm wondering, and well, time will have to tell,

but I'm wondering what will be the fan's response to this

because it certainly does sound like Relapis sort of trying

to in a felify PGA to a certain degree.

And I wonder what the pushback, the potential pushback

could be from the players, first of all,

and then the fans secondarily.

Derek, let me go to you on a different day.

We'll just go sort of round table at this point.

You have any sort of initial thoughts on the interest

this year in the men's and women's college basketball

tournaments.

And the reason I ask you this is we just saw releases

from Fox and ESPN.

Now, some of this is obviously big data

plus panel out of home viewing stuff like that.

But college basketball had a really good year

in terms of interest.

That would bode well for both of the tournaments.

That said, once again, because this is,

at least in the world of men's college basketball,

I still think the general public doesn't necessarily know

more than a handful of the best players in the sport.

But then maybe I'm countering my own argument.

March madness is his own individual thing.

People like to gamble, there's brackets.

Maybe it doesn't even matter if there's not stars there.

But I know you saw the data and I wonder if you extrapolate

that the data is going to mean momentum for the tournaments.

I would anticipate such.

I mean, that's the way measurement is going these days.

It continues to have pull on social media

and it really draws interest across all networks.

The only thing I believe the March madness final

will be on TBS this year.

So that's going to be non-broadcast component

for March madness, which I don't think is going to last

that much longer, especially if the deal

between Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery

closes, I would have to imagine March madness

once a broadcast presence every year for the final.

So that would be on the men's side.

And then the women's tournament, yes, continues to grow.

But Caitlin Clark was really the star a few years ago

and women's college basketball will see

if it continues to have the same star appeal.

But I just think the Nielsen changes alone

for both the men's and women's brackets on the tournament

are going to mean continue to momentum

until we see a few years of this

and we have a standardized system

that stays the same without consistent changes

every single year.

And we'll see where we move from there.

Yeah, we're not going to get to Caitlin Clark final game,

but the women's basketball has a lot going forward,

including an undefeated Yukon team,

which I think people are just always fast

and I'm like, can a team finish a year undefeated?

There's stars in that league

that I think people know AZFUD, Sarah Strong,

I obviously named two Yukon players,

but even like the Madison Bookers of the World,

I think that that tournament to me really should,

as long as one of the big seats doesn't crash out early

and I cannot see that happening,

I think that does well.

John, let me go to you on this.

We do have some changes in terms of the on-air talent

on the men's side, right?

So Nate Burleson with a very, very prominent role,

Ernie Johnson will be pulled back a little bit

in terms of how much Ernie Johnson's doing.

I think I'm right, is this Bruce Burles first year

on all that or second?

Okay, that's kind of a controversial figure there.

And obviously then the usual like,

the guys who are part of the inside crew,

who there's always a segment of college basketballs

like don't ruin my sport

because you guys don't cover it all year,

et cetera, et cetera.

Anyway, it's interesting

because the on-air talent is different

and I think that's gonna be interesting

for fans to watch this year.

What I'm curious about is if everything is approved

on the Paramount WBD arrangement,

what will it look like next year?

Because it's gonna be Barry Weiss

doing the college basketball tournament alongside,

I don't know, Stephen, go ahead, John, sorry.

No, I mean, because my thought is,

the Turner Sports Component, the Turner Contribution,

all pretty much came from their NBA coverage, right?

Yep.

Very few, they have managed to keep the continuity going

by, stand-band gun, he doesn't work for TNT

at any capacity, but he's still doing the tournament.

Candice Parker is part of their college basketball

at TNT now, but more prominent on Prime NBA.

They've managed to keep a lot of those NBA folks,

even though they don't have the NBA.

But realistically, if you go back to 2010,

CBS had a deep enough bench then,

and probably still is a deep enough bench now,

that they could just go with CBS only talent

for the tournament without a lot of difficulty.

So it's interesting.

And so I wonder if the result of the combination,

if it does go through, and it almost certainly will,

I mean, I can't imagine it wouldn't,

but if it does go through, I wonder if the result will be

that it looks a lot like it used to

before TNT sports came in.

Yeah.

I was on TNT's podcast earlier this week,

and he was asking, how do you think Nate Brelson's gonna do?

Do you think he'd be able to morph into basketball?

And by the way, that's a professional broadcaster.

Like Nate Brelson's not gonna have any trouble

like hosting the March Madness tournament.

If you can host CBS mornings, you can do March Madness stuff.

Like I, and in some ways, I would say that being the host

makes you immune to the criticism,

because people aren't expecting you as the host necessarily

to be like an analyst is, to know every single thing

about every single team.

So I think, to me, like Nate would be the least person

like I'd worried about in terms of that group.

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I wanna fit, this has been excellent guys.

I wanna finish up with this.

I'll start with you, Derek, then you are mine,

then you, John.

And this is a serious topic.

This crosses over into this.

We're not far away from the World Cup.

And there's gonna be, no one should sort of make a gas

in terms of what the state of the planet will be

then, whether they're still conflict going on

in Iran and Middle Eastern not.

But what is clear is that, Derek,

this will be an absolute topic in terms of,

at a base minimum, the country of Iran,

whether they are playing or not,

like that will be sort of, I think, a significant issue.

And then, of course, there's gonna be an issue

in terms of safety of the World Cup.

There's gonna be an issue in terms of the geopolitics.

If history repeats itself,

Fox Sports isn't gonna touch any of this.

They're only going to stick to the soccer,

which I would find a little bit absurd,

but that has been their framework,

generally speaking, when it comes to this.

What is your expectation, Derek,

as someone who's watched a lot of television

and a lot of coverage, in terms of what we will get

as American consumers outside of just the game action

at the World Cup, as we are now under 100 days?

A lot of it, to me, remains to be seen,

because we have to see how this conflict evolves

or if it settles by then.

It's certainly a very serious situation

and there's been conflicting reports

about Iran's participation in the World Cup,

but the fact that it's in North America

and there is conflict stemming between

these two sides of the globe right now.

I think it remains to be seen,

and I'm certainly very interested to,

see how Fox decides to handle this.

What about you, Armand?

Any initial thoughts, and Derek is correct.

And literally, by the time people listen to this tomorrow,

Saturday, there could be news events,

so Derek is correct on that.

Well, I think President Trump even said this week

that the Iran national team should not participate

in the World Cup.

My hope is that whatever happens,

and if this is still going on,

that Fox treats us like adults.

I agree.

And just tell us the truth.

It gives us facts.

I think, I know that sometimes we want to use sports

as an escape from the perils of the world,

but sometimes when it's writing your face,

you can't ignore it.

And it's one of the things that I miss

personally about how Bob Costas used to host the Olympics.

He never shied away from these type of topics.

And so if this is still continuing in,

whatever effects will happen as a result

of the conflict that is taking place right now,

the hope is that there's some journalistic integrity involved

and that you're just telling people the truth.

It's a great point, Paramand.

John, I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

I have zero faith that Fox will do that quite frankly.

A Fox sports, I should say.

Now, they would argue to me and have argued in the past

that a lot of talks with David Neal about this

who ran their World Cup for a long time

and I have a lot of respect for him.

They made a claim that we don't,

this is not an Arlene and we're not going to touch this.

Someone like me would be like,

well, you can't separate the politics and the sports

when they intersect.

The audience deserves that intersection if it's there.

Those are two sort of philosophical differences,

but I'm with Armand.

I think like you owe it to your viewers

to be honest about what is going on,

even if you are the sports department

and even if you have news side people

who are part of your coverage.

And again, to then get back to Derek's point,

it is absolutely correct.

We are still a long way away from the first game

of that tournament and we don't know what's going to happen.

Well, you know, does Fox have the personnel to do that?

Yeah, that's a question, right?

You know, ABC sports, they had Jim McKay

in those most serious times in the Olympics

and of course all of their tremendous,

you know, ABC news reporters as well.

And as Armand said, NBC, you know, they had Bob Cossus,

you know, Bob can do news, right?

I don't know that, you know,

I'm not trying to cast his versions on,

you know, Rob Stone or anything,

but I don't know if Fox has the personnel

to kind of handle the serious topics

that, you know, in a way that would be going beyond

the surface level.

And if it's going to be surface level, you know,

it's basically, yeah, exactly.

So to me, you know, look, maybe, maybe the, man,

I'm, you know, how bad I am with names.

The guy from ESPN with the sad stories all the time

who works with Fox now,

and he couldn't have put him on the phone.

I'm an Aldi.

Yeah, thank you.

You know, someone like Tom Rinaldi

maybe might have the, the ability to,

did I ever back a low who can do this?

But she's not, I mean, Rob Stone ultimately is there,

is there number one anchor until we see otherwise

at the World Cup.

But yeah, Rinaldi, I mean, I think to think like,

no doubt, Rinaldi's done very, very good work,

but you know, the Rinaldi story could be like the,

somebody on one of the teams, right,

whose family suffered this tragedy,

and now they're playing and trying to overcome this stuff.

I do wonder if they would like a sign Rinaldi

to tell the story of why the Iranian soccer team

is not there if they're there,

or would Rinaldi go outside the stadium in LA

if there's protesters.

Again, I have no faith that Fox will do, Fox Sports will do

this. I want to be specific about this.

Fox Sports will do this.

And I also concede, I'm trying to be honest,

that there would be a lot of people who would argue that,

hey, we don't want this.

We just want to watch the World Cup.

We don't want this stuff.

If we want this stuff, we'll watch Fox News or CNN.

I stand with our mind on this.

I just think you owe it to your viewers

when the intersection happens in front of you.

No one's expecting Fox Sports.

No one's expecting, you know, Rob Stone

or Colin Coward to like discuss war efforts in Iran every day.

But I do think when they intersect on one of your properties,

at least to me, I think John, I think you owe it to your viewers.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair,

but at the same time, if you don't have the personnel for it,

I just don't think it's necessarily something

that will serve viewers to go into it.

I mean, again, we're not talking about ABC in 1972

or NBC with the Olympics all these years.

You know, and look, I would say all you got to do

is go back four years to the death of Grant Wall

and how did Fox handle that very next day.

You know, it was not in a great amount of debt.

Remember, there was a lot of speculation

that proved to be inaccurate, but there was a lot of concern

that that was something nefarious.

And hey, I mean, because that didn't turn out to be correct,

Fox was probably right,

and not even coming anywhere close to acknowledging it.

But, you know, they, if you remember the way that they handle that,

it was not, it was obviously emotional,

but it was not something where they went into a great level of debt.

And that would be what I would expect

for literally any story that crosses the line

beyond the field of play at that World Cup.

Yeah, Grant was a friend, a long time colleague of mine,

and I miss him all the time.

And to speak to something John said,

September 5th, the Film Chronicles,

the Music Masker, and how ABC sports handle that.

If you've never seen that, I highly recommend that.

It's a really fantastic film.

And it's really, it's like a journalism film,

as opposed to anything else.

And it like really gives you a sense of how these guys

were Jeff Mason and Rune Arla,

you're just figuring this all out on the fly

because nothing like this had ever happened

in terms of live television.

So I highly recommend that.

All right, John Lewis, founder and editor of Sports Media Watch,

Armand Brody, he's John's co-host

on the Sports Media Watch podcast, obviously,

does other writing and producing as well.

And Derek Futterman, a multimedia player for that site,

you can check out all of his work.

Follow all these guys on their socials,

three of the more thoughtful guys in the business,

and they will definitely be back.

John Armand and Derek, I can't thank you enough for this.

And thanks for joining me to the sports media podcast.

Hey, what's up, Lager?

Thanks, Richard.

Yep, no problem.

All right, back in the studio, my thanks,

Armand.

John and Derek, that was excellent.

I'll definitely have those guys back on again.

I expected those guys to be good

because they know they're shit and they indeed were.

Head to the archives, hopefully there is some stuff

you like earlier this week.

Elsa Garrison was on this podcast.

She is the photographer who took that famous photo

Jack Hughes after the US one gold hockey gold and Milan.

And we discussed how that story, how that story,

how that photo came to be.

Prior to her Kenzie Lilland, who, oh, say, Lallond, sorry,

who is a TSN Euro reporter in Montreal,

but called the Women's Hockey Tournament for CBC.

And then a fantastic job and called that great women's

hockey gold medal final that the US had won.

So check that one out as well.

Reviews are always great.

We appreciate that very much.

Want to thank Patrick Ansonetti for all his hard work.

Thanks to everybody on the CFS support.

Thank you for listening.

We will see you soon on the Sports Media Podcast.

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