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Hey there boys and girls, welcome to another edition of the Business of Sports of Andrew Brand.

I'm your host, one Andrew Brand.

We're produced by Jack Connell.

That music you hear is one of my son, Sam Brandt.

He's our musical producer.

He's in Korea right now doing some K-pop.

I hope you guys are doing well.

I was a guest slash interviewer last week on the front office 360 podcast.

By my former colleague in the NFC North who did the contracts and cap for the Bears Cliffs Stein.

Hope you enjoyed that.

I got into sort of negotiating strategies.

Some of my failings as a negotiator when I went sort of too hard early in my career at the Packers.

I thought that was a good thing to share with Cliff.

We'll get back to our usual standard podcast this week on the Business of Sports where I try to give you a unique inside perspective looking around the business of sports on a whip around for about a half hour.

So we'll get to that.

Just to note, if you're around Philly tomorrow, Philadelphia area, please come to Villanova law.

I host my annual symposium.

I do this every year on cutting edge topics and sports with the industry leaders speaking about it.

Tomorrow I'm hosting at Villanova law 9 a.m. to noon.

Please come if you can.

I'm going to have all the general councils speaking in the panel.

I'm going to do for some time every general council will be there for the Sixers, the Flyers, the Eagles, the Phillies, the Philadelphia Union, the New Jersey Devils guy will be there.

So we'll have all those people.

Then we'll talk a little bit of World Cup in terms of what it's like to attract World Cup games to facilities, both Philadelphia.

And of course New Jersey, New York, we're going to represent it as for both.

And then I'm going to have an interview with Grant House.

I've been talking a lot about House settlement and the crazy world crowd Wild West World of N.I.L.

Grant House is going to be here.

And so I'll be interviewing about he became the name plane at 40 thinks of the settlement.

How he endured death threats because of the settlement.

And what's going on with him at the present moment.

I have a full discussion of N.I.L.

Which I'll probably join the panel on with all my insights and experience over the past three years in N.I.L.

So it'll be a great event.

You can sign up at the Villanova law website or just show up. It's fine.

Villanova law tomorrow morning.

If you're around, Philly, please come.

We will have a recording at some point.

But if you're around, Philly, be great to come.

And if you're a lawyer, you get silly credits for the event.

Let's go through some things that have happened.

I haven't commented much.

I did a little bit last week, but also this week just to give you my itinerary.

I was in Green Bay.

It was a travel hell getting back.

I got.

Didn't make my connection out of Chicago.

Had to find a place to sleep for the night.

Anyway, Bob Harlan.

We buried Bob Harlan.

We had a remembrance.

We had a funeral on Monday.

The leader of the Packers for my entire time.

I was there.

The president of the Packers.

I talked about.

I was such a good leader in that he hired good people.

Let them do their jobs.

No interference.

Always had a feeling about a guy named Ron Wolf, who was working at the Raiders at the time.

And when he had the opportunity, brought him in.

Ron, of course, traded for Brett Farve and signed Reggie White and brought football at a high level back to Green Bay,

which was a place that was kind of a wasteland in the early 90s before Ron got there.

And talked about Bob and I going door to door and trying to get funding for the renovation of sales tax in Brown County, Wisconsin.

How hard that was, how we got doors slammed in our face.

And Bob just kept up his uniquely cheery and sanguine presence throughout.

So back from Green Bay.

But I want to talk about Green Bay.

I did run into Ed policy, the current president of the Packers.

And I noted his comments from a week ago or two weeks ago, basically saying,

were there worried?

Because a couple of things are going on around the league that still put the Packers at a disadvantage.

Now here's the thing.

The Packers are advantaged compared to any other league with the NFL.

Because the NFL, from a decision made with Pete Roselle's leadership,

has this communist capitalism or capital communism or whatever you want to call it,

where every franchise in terms of national revenues gets the exact same.

The exact same.

So it's L.A. New York Dallas Green Bay, right?

All in the same conversation.

L.A. New York Dallas Green Bay Buffalo, Kansas City.

And you bring in Chicago, they bring in Miami.

All the same.

And that check, which is primarily media revenue, but also sponsorships and licensing,

is over 400 million every year.

So the NFL distributes its national media to all the teams in the exact same check

of 400 plus million dollars.

That creates amazing continuity and stability for the league.

And the other thing that guarantees a financial playing field to some extent,

not to a full extent, is the salary cap, which is somewhat hard in the NFL,

but not really.

Because you have the magic of NFL pereration.

You give a guy $59.00 signing bonus over five years.

For cap purposes, it's counts $10.90 or not $50.00 in the first year.

And you spread out the hit.

You only take the hit.

But if and when you separate with the player before the end of the contract,

and you have these disastrous consequences for players like Russell Wilson,

with Denver and Tuber with Miami and now Calamari with Arizona.

But teams are able to do that.

They have cap carryover.

They can cover the costs of bad decisions better than they could in the past.

Because of more cap.

And as I mentioned, this cap carryover year to year, which we didn't have when I was managing a cap.

The issue with policy is this.

He's not obviously questioning the cap or the share of revenue.

But he is noting a couple of things.

One, local revenue, which is obviously not shared.

And the packers have tremendous local revenue from the pro shop.

But local revenue is going to continue to fall behind.

Because his peers, the packers peers around the NFL have better geographic locations

for more events beyond football.

You know, met life can host Taylor Swift for five nights, right?

Any stadium Dallas is going to get a hundred events more than Green Bay Wisconsin.

Yes, Green Bay is going to host Wisconsin Notre Dame football.

Great. Green Bay is going to host Luke Combs.

But those are pretty much one offs per year.

If that a big concert here or there one night,

a big football game or maybe a hockey game here or there out in the Lambo one day one night.

And that's kind of the end of those kind of revenues.

As for naming rights, well, once soldier field becomes something in Arlington Heights,

or even Indiana, then you're going to have like,

well, every team except the packers with a stadium naming rights deal,

which could be worth $10, $12, $15 million a year.

That's extraordinary revenue.

That won't happen in Green Bay because it would be sacrilege to rename Lambo field.

But at some point we'll probably be getting to the point of,

hey, it's the Pepsi Stadium at Lambo field, right?

It's the Google Plaza at Lambo field.

And already they have that with the gates being named for rise in the United Nation gate

and fleet farm entrance and all that.

But that's going to come too.

The real difference between the packers and other teams,

which is a cause for concern for the future to be financially competitive,

is the access to wealth.

We now have private equity allowances in the NFL.

Teams can access 10% of franchise value for private equity.

And we know all these teams, as I've talked about here before,

have access to that.

Whether it's the bills, the eagles, the raiders, the dolphins,

the giants who initially sold off 10% to the cook family

and now are transferring their state a maybe in light of Steve Tish's appearance

in the Epstein files.

But whatever reason to the children at valuations that exceed $10 billion.

And the eagles and bills exceeded $8 billion and the raiders exceeding $8 billion

extraordinary numbers.

Right?

So packers can't do that.

They have no access to private capital.

This is not happening with the packers.

So the easy access to hundreds of millions of dollars,

even billion dollars without giving up any controller or input on football operations

is something every team has but the packers.

So I understand the concern.

And listen, as knowing their huge reserve fund

and as someone who gave away money from the packers to players

and negotiate those contracts, there's not an issue anytime soon.

This is not a short term issue.

But what policy is raising and I'm here to comment on it is a long term issue.

Because as much as revenue sharing and cap equalize the level,

the financial playing field, the NFL, there are still differences.

And those differences will appear at some point.

Yes, the packers can do a stock sale, but that's what's that?

A couple hundred million dollars every 15 years.

They can't sell off 10% to private equity and access a billion dollars.

They just can't the way they're set up.

And everyone said, oh, it's a great story and it's the community and all that.

Lovely.

But eventually that's going to be an issue.

Just raising it.

Policy brought it up in his comments and I see the issue.

Because as much as you try to keep it level,

there are these new ways to wealth and access that the packers can't facilitate.

Okay, staying with the NFL.

The meetings are this weekend, starting this weekend through early next week.

Annual owners meetings.

I believe this year is out in Arizona at the built more.

I mean, the NFL does this every year.

They go to swanky places and sun soak locations like Florida,

like Arizona, and they have these meetings where everyone brings families.

And there's a couple days of kind of inside meetings, but it's really social.

Anyway, the competition committee is the big aspect of these meetings.

What are we putting on?

What's going to change?

There's a proposal about from Cleveland about allowing draft pick trades three years,

five years out instead of just two years out.

Maybe we'll see if that passes so you can see these true ham sandwich trays

you're trading for a seventh round pick, conditional pick in 2029 or whatever it may be.

There's going to be proposals about, I know, more with the kickoffs maybe.

Anyway, here's what's not on the agenda and this caught my eye, the tush push.

The tush push is not even on the agenda, right?

Are you kidding me?

Remember all the hand ringing, the angst, the worry, the insults to about the tush push.

It's not football. It's unsafe.

It's a huge player safety issue at this time last year.

The voting was like 16, 16, whether to ban or not pushed forward by Mark Murphy,

the Packers, who was an outgoing owner.

They're like, yeah, let's get him to push it.

And it's all against the Eagles.

And then Jeffrey Lawyer shows up, gives an impassioned speech and brings along

the Ober popular Jason Kelsey who says, hey, if we're doing push pushes,

I'd still be playing. That's not unsafe.

You go down, you don't hit his heart or whatever reason is.

And lo and behold, the tush push remained.

Then it went to the main meeting and somehow it remained, but we're going to revisit it.

Well, they're not revisiting it.

And to me, this is all about the Eagles, right?

The Eagles lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Niners.

So we're not so worried about it, right?

And yet a couple of situations where they took the ball away from Jason Hertz.

And maybe he didn't even make 80% of the time, like he's usually making it 90%.

Whatever the reason, no more concern about the tush push.

Like, come on.

Like, what are we doing here?

Oh, Josh Hound uses the tush push.

What about, we don't hear a word about that.

We don't hear a word about, hey, the bills are taking advantage of the,

no, there's nothing about the tush push now.

And what that tells me is that, come on.

This was never about player safety.

This was about the Eagles having a competitive advantage that the NFL wanted to snuff out

and didn't have the votes last year.

Now, this year, Eagles, they aren't winning the Super Bowl.

Like, yeah, we're cool.

Tush push away.

Like, come on.

Like, this is just so transparent that this tush push that was, oh, we're going to be back next year.

And I don't know if they'll be it.

If the Eagles won the Super Bowl again, we'd absolutely be talking about it.

If the Eagles got to the NFC championship, we'd absolutely be talking about it.

Eagles had it down year.

Go out first round of playoffs.

And we're not talking about it.

It's just like, and the bills.

Yeah, then Josh Allen is so great.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anyway, I don't get it.

I do get it.

Never about player safety, right?

Never about player safety.

Never.

About a bias against the Eagles that is no longer there because the Eagles lost in the first round.

Okay.

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Let's move to the NBA.

We've got expansion coming.

And this is something that was an open secret in the NBA for years now.

Las Vegas Seattle.

The NBA is going to sort of start working with ownership groups.

And basically, that's code for how high can we get the price?

Right?

The NBA, these are salad days for NBA owners.

And we'll talk about tanking in a minute.

But listen, this media deal is still rattling around the business of sports.

Through new deals with ESPN, with NBC, with Amazon.

No more TNT.

We have tripled the NBA media revenue.

That's just extraordinary.

They went from 25 bill to 75 bill.

75 billion dollars for the NBA media rights.

And that league does a fraction of the viewership of the NFL.

We'll talk about the NFL in a minute.

But they're not drawing a appreciable difference in fans.

Then they were when the media deals were 25 billion.

Why did this happen?

Well, obviously, live sports is the all-knowing be all in television.

You got to have it.

Media rights and NBA relates to young people.

But the NBA is not a great product right now.

Yes, you got the stars.

And the play also be fun.

But there are literally 10 teams trying to lose.

And now, Adam Silver is talking about,

we're going to fix this tanking thing full stop, was his quote, full stop.

But next year, right?

So next year, that gives impunity to these 10 teams this year

that are losing every night, not to mention even sports betting.

Like if you just bet the money line against any game played by the wizards,

the jazz, the Pacers, the Kings, right?

Just bet the money line and whatever it takes,

you're going to be rich.

Like, I just don't get me started on sports betting

and Kawashi and Polymerger what's going on now.

But listen, this is a fraud right now in the NBA.

Not for good teams playing each other, assuming they play the players,

but we've got 10 teams, one-third of the league.

Happy to lose.

And this is a league that tripled its media revenues

with a third of the league happy to lose right now.

And all the talk about tanking, the real comment on tanking is,

tank away, but we're going to get a hold of it next year.

But tank away right now.

So that was a free pass, right?

To the wizards, to the jazz, to the Pacers, to the Kings.

Now the bulls seems like the Bucks, maybe the Blazers.

Tank away.

And they are.

And they are.

Wow, they are.

Anyway, so good on the NBA.

Now back to the expansion, they're going to try to get as much as they can.

They kind of throw out a number between $7 to $10 billion for each franchise.

Well, we'll see.

We'll see.

Should they be expanding?

Obviously, with 10 teams tanking, they should not be.

But Adam Silver says we're going to fix it.

So if he fixes the tanking, and we've talked about penalties have to matter.

Yes, penalties that could matter taking their pick to the end of the lottery.

Right?

Instead of the third pick, you're not getting the 15th pick or whatever it is.

Or taking their pick to the end of the first round.

Instead of the third pick, you're getting the 33rd pick.

We'll see.

We will see.

Let's move to the NBA's Women's League, the WNBA.

We have a CBA baby.

We have had, I've always said this in 2026, there will be.

Now will be one instead of two.

Very contentious negotiations in labor, one between the WNBA and the WNBA players.

One between baseball and the baseball players, which is going to be later in the year.

As baseball starts today, March 26, at least where I am.

And Philly, I think it started last night.

WNBA did a good deal for both sides.

That's what we always thought with all the posturing and all the hand ring about whether they get a deal.

They got a deal through multiple deadlines.

And they'll start up right away, and they're going to have a draft in a couple of weeks.

And they're going to start playing in May.

So we're good with the NW NBA.

It's a massive increase.

But again, it's all relative to where they're coming from.

The key with any CBA is the revshare.

You know, in football basketball, and that baseball doesn't have a revshare because they don't have a cap.

But the cap revshare is usually 46, 7-ish to 50% for the players.

WNBA was never going to get near that, but they were stuck at about 9% prior to now.

In other words, 9% of WNBA revenues going to the players.

Now, again, their season was much shorter than the NBA.

And of course, they were never going to get close to what NBA players make on a percentage side.

The final deal is 20%.

So they go from 9% to 20%, and maybe their first offer, I think, was in the 35-something percent.

They settle for 20%.

So 20% of revenues is going to the players.

Now, what does that mean?

That means a cap for each team that was 1.5 million last year, roughly, is now starting at 7 million.

You have a $7 million cap in the WNBA.

Now, again, two sports that were used to talking about a drop in the bucket.

Not even in the ballpark of college football, probably in the ballpark of college basketball.

$7 million cap.

But the big teams in college basketball are spending almost twice that.

Anyway, $7 million, and then for minimum salaries, that went up from 67,000 minimum

to 10 times that almost.

600,000 is now minimum.

So there's a strong effort by the WNBA.

So again, three big parts to this new agreement, which is a seven-year deal with an opt-out after six.

For the WNBA, you go cap going from 1.5 to 7.

Minimums going from 67 to 600.

And then the revshare going from 9%-ish to 20%-ish.

So good on the WNBA.

And again, you always say this after these deals, which is a win-win.

Not with the WNBA, really wanted.

Not with the WPA, really wanted.

But they got a deal.

And we have a labor piece in the WNBA for the next seven years, six years maybe with an opt-out.

We'll see if we get that with Major League Baseball Labor.

Again, there's going to be contentious negotiations.

And we can just hold off on that for a while.

We're having a season.

Again, all the baseball hammering about whether we're having a season.

One thing on baseball to note is the media.

Major League Baseball is doing these media deals that are short with Netflix, with NBC, and with ESPN.

That was how, now they're back in on a short-term deal.

What Marabha Manford and Baseball is trying to do after these failed local deals.

You know, we've had a lot of failed local deals through the Fandall Network,

which was once ballies, which was diamond sports, main street sports, whatever it is.

It's trying to nationalize this, like the NFL,

because baseball has become a really regional local sport.

And I applaud, man, for it.

Now, I know everyone loves their baseball team, but it's got to be national.

That's where the revenues come in.

Really nationalize it more.

So fans can really sort of turn on a game between, I don't know, the Colorado Rockies

and the San Diego Padres, and have an interest.

Make it an event.

You know, make it more like the NFL.

Have something in mind where you're nationalizing.

That's the hope.

And so these are short-term deals now for the Major League Baseball with Netflix, with NBC, and with ESPN.

So we'll see.

They all end.

So 2028 is going to be the key marker for new national revenues.

From Major League Baseball, and then we'll see by then, if they have a salary cap,

it's a phased-in cap, whatever has come out of these negotiations to take place later in the year.

Again, speaking of negotiations and labor, we have to note this.

The NFL PA has chosen a new leader.

It is JC Treter.

Treter.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Treter was president, not executive director, but the president is a player position,

now occupied by the Jalen Reeves Maven.

For a few years, under the leadership of Demori Smith and led the search for the replacement for Smith,

who was Lloyd Owl, who was uncarrased, moniously dumped after strip club expenses.

And now Treter, who selected the previous executive director, is selected, the new executive director.

Treter is a former player, and Treter, you know, listen, I've been very critical to the NFL PA.

I just think they've given in on too much.

They've given away such easy gives as reduced practice time, reduced padded practices,

and exchange for economic concessions for the owners.

The owners don't care about practice time.

They give it away all the time.

And I know my criticism has been noted by the NFL PA I've had.

I've been told, even by many people that they watch what I tweet and what I say,

and they're sensitive about it, and JC Treter has been sensitive about it.

But hey, I try to be authentic.

And I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I am.

I'm going to watch.

And obviously the NFL become calling soon about the 18th game.

I saw that Treter said, hey, I'm not going to answer Roger Del right now.

We got a lot to put together.

We got a lot to put in place.

There's no rush on that.

Let him wait.

Good on Treter.

Good on Treter.

Let him wait.

He doesn't need to do anything with the NFL.

You got a labor agreement for several years.

They can wait.

And waiting only gives the union a little more leverage as they try to impose things like 18th game.

I don't know what happened with the 17th game in 2020 when any owners, you know, wanted it.

And the players said, no, it's a non-negotiable.

And then of course, it happened.

So I'm going to give Treter the benefit of the doubt.

We'll see how it goes.

We'll wait it out.

We'll see how they fight the 18th game.

And what concessions they demand, which the NFL won't like to put in an 18th game.

Or an international week in there.

The NFLPA has got to fight that.

And I'll see what Twitter.

Treter does.

We'll watch it and see.

All right, that'll do it.

If you're around Philly tomorrow, come to Villeneuve Law.

I'll be interviewing Grant House.

I'll be talking to general councils from all the teams.

I'll be on my own panel about NIL and collectives and all of those kind of things.

Sunday 7 newsletter, my Sunday 7.com Instagram Reels at Andrew Brent to Instagram at Twitter at Andrew Brent.

And please do share this with a friend.

Tell someone about it.

I hope it's a unique podcast among your podcast library.

I'm here every week, taking you around the business of sports in a weekly 30-minute whip around.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks to Jack Connell, thanks to Sam Brent, that music here under us.

Sam's over in Korea doing his K-pop thing for a while.

And then thanks to you for listening.

I'll be back next week with another edition of the Business of Sports with Andrew Brent.

And the Business of Sports with Andrew Brent.