You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Galen Clavier joining you. It is the 1st of July.
Happy July everybody. You may be listening to this on
the second. Maybe you're listening to this
on the weekend. 4th is either happening or has happened.
We've been trying to. Summer is a little slow when it
comes to a podcast that primarily covers college sports.
We've done a lot about college sports and NIL.
We did a nice pod with Taylor Lehman the other day about IU
football recruiting updates and then IU recruited another
player. Got one commit today, three
story defensive lineman out of IMG Academy.
We're doing some other things throughout the course of the
summer to keep you, the listener of the Back Home network,
entertained and we're happy to have back on the pod.
It's been like 7 years I think. I was going to say it's, I
remember doing it at like 2 apartments ago, I think.
Yeah, we're we're we're back. You were waiting for the right
time. I was mid 2025.
This was the right time. Definitely the right time, but
Greg Gottfried joining us. Greg, for those who don't know
who you are, tell the people. I don't know where to start.
I went to IU so that's good. I graduated 2017 from the
journalism school. I mean, do you need the whole
background? I work for what?
Do you like I? Work for Golf Digest right now.
I've been there since end of 2019, right before COVID, end of
2019. And I'm web producer.
I produce our three podcasts, I write for the website, and then
I also write about movies in my spare time.
And I live in New York City, so I have no money whatsoever.
So yeah. That's who I am.
Living the dream. Honestly, yesterday I went, this
is gonna, this is the most like humble braggy thing, but I pay a
lot of money for Equinox to go to the gym there and it's over
$200. I don't whatever, who cares
anymore. But my AC was at the gym was
broken. So let me go to any other
Equinox. So I went to one with a pool,
took a pool class. It was me and 1252 year old
women. And then I went to a movie and I
picked up a rap in between and I walked back at like 9:30 at
night. And it was, it was, it truly was
the dream. I love it here.
Things you could only do in New York City, right?
No other place has gym, movies or pools.
Nothing. No, Yeah.
No, it's. Really, it's the walk that
matters more than anything. Else right through Central Park,
Yeah, where they they find bodies every so often.
It's perfect. They find bodies everywhere.
It's not just Central Park. Yeah, but it's New York bodies,
you know. So Greg and I have texted
regularly for a long time. We, we, we keep each other
humored, I guess, just with the random stuff that we'll see in
relation to sports and media. But we got to talking quite a
bit the other day about a topic that I know is relevant and
interesting to a lot of the folks that are in our listening
audience, which is what the hell happened to ESPN?
And, and this became, I think, exacerbated for a lot of people
in Indiana over the course of the last couple of months
because of the Pacers, somewhat improbable, but incredibly
exciting. We're on all the way to game
seven of the NBA Finals. And so we got to going back and
forth talking about a few things.
And I think at one point I said we should do a podcast where you
just ask me a bunch of questions because I, I, I think one of the
things that's worth noting is that Greg, what, like what
generation do you consider yourself a part of?
Are you a millennial or are you Gen.
Z? Non millennial, I'm part of the
generation of Grantland. I feel like the when I was in
high school and that's when Grantland came out and page 2
was I feel like closing shop and I feel like that's where the
that's where my generation is. I feel like with the ESPN thing.
That's, that's fair. You know, so I, I am, I'm at the
exact opposite end of the millennial spectrum to the point
that I'm probably technically Gen.
X, but I refuse to identify with Gen.
X for personal reasons. But it's interesting having
conversations about ESPN because the perception of what ESPN
should be and what it actually is in practice is, I think very
distinctly different things in most cases.
And I happen to be a professor of sports media in my day job.
So I think about these things all the time.
And so this is where the basis of this conversation on text
started. And we were like, why don't we
do this as a podcast? Since as the listeners know or
the viewers on YouTube, I everything in my life is
essentially a podcast at this point.
And so, you know, let's just live it and let's share in this
with everybody. And Greg did a great job of
coming up with a lot of questions that are probably on
the minds of you folks out there.
So we're going to get to those in just a second.
But first of all, quick reminder, we are here at Crimson
Cast, part of the back Home Network, which is brought to you
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Why are Why are you laughing right now?
No, it's just you're doing it on air.
I mean, I guess that's what you have to do with the YouTube
thing, but sorry, you finish up and then we.
Don't do live. We don't do like prerecorded
drops. We we drop everything in.
I think those are soulless and like, it's like they're like
zombie ads at that. Point they are, but when you're
trying to wrangle a bunch of different hosts together, it's
like, just do it on your own. This is why, This is why I
produce all of my own stuff. It just makes it much easier.
But anyway, Home field also produces all of their own stuff,
you know, T-shirts, hoodies. They've got this whole ball cap
series that's coming out, which is is really an impressive
thing. If you are a fan of any of the
teams that they've released, which I don't happen to be, but
you might be, you might want a Penn State hat or a Michigan hat
or a Purdue hat. I can't imagine why, but you can
go to Home Field apparel and use the code Home 23.
Get 15% off your first order. They will have a ton of things
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They've got some exciting new things that they're planning on
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All right, Greg, I'm going to do something I don't normally do.
I'm going to move you to the left.
That's. Like that's my good side.
So that works perfectly. Those of you who are on YouTube
or Spotify, Greg has now moved to the left side so I am more in
the if this was $25,000 pyramid I would be receiving as opposed
to giving which which in 25,000. You're you're dating yourself.
That's what I was about to say you.
You weren't ever watched an episode of that?
I think when I was like sick home from school, but it was
never like like, 'cause that was like an 8:00 PM show right at
one point. I mean, I really only ever
actually, it's funny you say that.
I, I would come home from school and it would be on like CBS at
like 4:00 in the afternoon when I was a kid.
But I mostly knew it from the Game Show Network.
That's what I was going to. That's where I know it from.
I don't know when it ran on the Game Show Network.
It's it's in, it's in a weird spot historically in game shows
cause like what? Like I think uniformly we would
say in some order, the best game show, the most recognized game
show is either Price is Right or Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune,
right? Is there anybody else that's
even close to those 3? No, it's jeopardy.
Jeopardy is the show, and maybe it's less.
I don't know, man, when I think game show, I think price is
right like I I don't know that anything like has quite the
combo of of like flash and consistency as price is right
has. It's funny you say game show and
my first thought was Jeopardy and my second thought was Guts
and like the other Nickelodeon game shows growing up like.
Like Double Dare. Double dare.
There was like the temple, like the hidden legends of the hidden
temple. Legends of the hidden temple,
Yeah, Which was? I I wanted to be on that show so
badly. This is very much the difference
between growing up in the like, early 2000s, mid 2000s.
Like yeah, early, early, mid 2000s.
And growing up in the 80s and early 90s, when for me it was
like, you know, Price is Right, Card sharks, that was a big one.
Classic Concentration, which was a bizarre show hosted by Alex
Trebek. There were a few others in the
mix like that that I would, I would place above those the
other ones that you mentioned, even the Nickelodeon ones.
But I I mean, I was always an old head even as a kid though,
so. That's not shocking considering
the record collection I've seen you have and other things like
that. Yeah, correct.
Anyway, we're, we've gotten off topic already.
I we should talk about Stump the Schwab I guess, as maybe a
transition point for game shows. Which I watched I I did watch
that one. What was what?
Where would you rank that on the the list of game shows for
conceptually and executionally? I feel like I got into it a
little late, but I got obsessed with it.
I feel like when I really got into sports, like middle school,
early high school, it was always on like ESPN 2 or ESPN news or
like all these random back channels.
And I thought it I thought it was cool knowing who this guy
was that no one else in my class knew.
So that's my Schwab background. But I mean, he was, he was the
he was, he was great. I know he has some weird takes
outside of I think there there was a whole back story to
there's a. Whole cancel the Schwab period
of things, which kind of fits into the story that we're about
to yeah here. You're so good at this.
You're you're keep getting it right back.
I keep trying to get you off and then you're like.
And by the way, let's segue right back into the perfect I
mean. You got to find these.
Angles, man, you know. You podcast for 20 years about
everything. You'll eventually hit these
things too, but it's not because like there was a whole cadre of
quirky, offbeat types of shows that ESPN launched in like the
90s and 2000s, which I think for most people that corresponds
with the what they would consider the golden era of ESPN.
So it wasn't just like stump the Schwab, which was a a weird
show, but it was a show that was like it had a purpose to it.
Dream Job was another one that had a great first season, a
hideous second season which you could actually make an argument
maps the entire history of ESP, NS, bad decision making.
But even things like cheap seats where they literally just stuck
the Sklar brothers in like a closet and had them watch old
films and make fun of people like Mystery Science Theater
3000. They were just trying things.
Yeah, I feel like that was the that's, that's what we're
talking about. I mean, that's basically the
background to this whole thing is they're not trying things
anymore or the things that they're trying just aren't
interesting to me. And it seems like you for the
most part. Right and well, and and this is
where I as we paint the picture of ESPNA lot of people
complained bitterly and like across the spectrum of of
American sports consumership, at least what we see on social
media, which I think in this case actually might be pretty
representative of how people feel in general.
That ESP NS coverage of the NBA, particularly the NBA playoffs in
the NBA Finals, ESP NS coverage of baseball, ESP NS coverage of
of hockey, like everything just feels incredibly lacking and
almost insulting to some degree if you happen to be a fan of
sports beyond the very, very base casual.
Oh, I, I recognize that those people are in uniform kind of
level. And it, it does kind of feel
like the things that they are trying are not really on the
networks anymore. There's some interesting stuff
on ESPN Plus, like I do like some of the things they've done
with Omaha Productions, but they've they've kind of settled
into this weird pattern where they've started things and then
they've killed them and then they started new things and
they've killed them again. But it all those are all kind of
the satellites in orbit around the the star.
And the star is the real issue. And that is what's on their
linear programming. And their linear programming has
descended into a kind of a hellscape from a sports
perspective that I don't think anybody anticipated.
But that kind of maps what happened in political television
with CNN, with CNBC or MSNBC, with Fox, where it's just a
bunch of people yelling at each other to no great purpose.
And it almost feels like it's actively attacking the people
who are trying to tune in for the actual news and commentary
and information that they want to get.
So that's the backdrop of what we're talking about here.
Well, there was there was a 30 Rock episode I remember where
Tracy Jordan was on. Was it called sports yelling or
whatever? And at the time it was making
fun of around the horn. But I feel like if you watched
it now, it'd almost be like relaxing compared to a lot of
the ESPN programming, which to be honest, I mean, I know you
invited me on this ESPN breakdown pod.
I can't watch anymore. Like I just there's no reason
to. I don't find it entertaining,
especially once you get rid of Zach Lowe.
Like I don't care about your NBA, right?
Any of your programming just surrounding it?
I, I can't do this Stephen A Smith thing, which is every
single thing on ESPNI can't do the Kendrick Perkins thing.
I don't think anyone can do the Kendrick Perkins thing.
And like the only person left really is Scott Van Pelt.
I feel like that's the only guy that I really find myself
gravitating to, at least on the TV side.
I mean, I know there's Mina Kimes and a few others here and
there, but I just, I, I just don't find it entertaining.
And I know some of it is me being biased or picky or
whatever you want to say it, but a lot of my friends feel the
same way and a lot of people I know.
I don't know if it's biased or picky.
I mean, it'd be one thing if it were just old people complaining
because that's, as we know, that's what old people do is
they complain. You're not old.
Congratulations. I mean, you're not.
And yeah, I mean, here's the thing.
I think what important to keep in mind, like when ESPN was at
its zenith from a cultural cool perspective, you're talking
about that period really between 1994 and 2008, let's say about a
15 year period of time. And the audience was not young
people. I mean, there were young people
that loved it, but their core audience was people who were
kind of in between where you are.
I mean, what are you 29 right now?
And and my age, I'm 45. So like that, that kind of
window there between your late 20s and your mid 40s where
you're still tuned in to the zeitgeist, you're still tuned in
to what's going on. You're a fan of sports, you're
buying tickets, you're going to games when you can, you're
watching games regularly. Like that was ESPN score
audience and it's weird that so many people in that particular
audience very much share the opinion that you have where they
don't watch anymore. It's like it's not for me.
And I agree. It's like, you know, the the
Scott Van Pelt Sports Center and what he does with hosting
various things just sticks out in such a fascinating way
because it is so clearly of another era than what ESPN is
doing right now with all of their shows.
And, you know, so you, you look through the, you know,
conceptually what we're talking about in terms of, say, the Zach
Lowe thing. So let's start there.
So ESPN, you know, they went out and they bought a bunch of
talent from various places. You know, they bring Zach Lowe
in and they make him kind of the centerpiece of their
intellectual coverage of basketball.
And they've got other people. And I I will say it's not just
Scott Van Pelt that sticks out as kind of not belonging within
the mix. I think Brian Windhorst has
developed into that kind of a guy.
I think Tim Legler has, you know, been pretty good in that
spectrum. They've got some other anchors
that I like. Like I will always if I've got
ESPN on and Sports Center comes on and Nicole Briscoe is
hosting, I will watch Nicole Briscoe hosting Sports Center.
I just think she's, she might be one of my top five favorite
broadcasters across the board right now in sports media.
But so much of their sports specific coverage has become
about debate and it has become about opinions that don't really
have nuance, aren't grounded in anything.
They're grounded it, well, they're not really, like I said,
they're not grounded in anything, but they're focused so
much on a very surface level perception of what a casual
sports fan or someone who doesn't really love sports but
loves the idea of a city or the idea of fandom might be
interested in talking about. And the weird thing is like it's
across all of their sports, but it it hits the hardest with the
with their NBA coverage. And when I think about Zach
Lowe, like Zach Lowe represents to some degree exactly the wrong
kind of content for ESPN in that there's there's nuance involved.
If you listen to his podcast, which I do pretty regularly now
like, and, and this has been the case even when he had a podcast
at ESPN. He's not making a lot of crazy
proclamations. He's a good interviewer.
He has a lot of interesting thoughts, but they're always
grounded in his reporting. And that's not what you're
getting out of Stephen A Smith. It's not what you're getting
certainly out of Kendrick Perkins.
It's not what you're getting out of a lot of these guys who are,
you know, on on their coverage and even even the people that
they have where you do feel like they might be able to contribute
in some positive way. The formatting with which they
do these shows doesn't showcase the good things that those
people have to say. And this is something we've
heard Bill Simmons complain about.
It's something we, you know, we feel complain about it.
It's like it's not just like a white male perspective.
It's like everything is so overproduced and so short and so
segmented that it ends up that nuance and depth are the first
things to go with most of the things that are on their linear
programming. And that's unfortunate.
You almost can't blame Stephen A or I mean, you, you can and we
will. But you can't get mad at them
when they have 30 seconds to do a halftime show.
And it's like we come back, we see two, you know, quick
highlights of usually the Lakers.
And then Stephen A will say something inane and something
random about how this player isn't playing.
I mean, Simmons does the whole step up thing, which at this
point feels like he's just wants to say players should step up.
But Stephen A will say this player needs to step up,
Whatever. And then Perkins will say, I
don't know. They yell at each other for 45
seconds and then they send it to a break again.
You know, Malika Andrews will send it to a break.
They'll do that one more time. And then the game starts again.
And at this point, just show that, show more ads, you know,
like you don't even have to have a like, I don't think anyone's
satisfied. Like I can't imagine ESP NS
themselves are satisfied. I can't imagine the NBA
satisfied. Like I don't get the point of
any of that. This is where I'm not totally
sure. I mean, I if, if it was that, if
it was something that the NBA hated, we know that they would
do something about it. I mean, famously the first year
that ESPN got the NBA contract in whatever was 2002, they had
Brad Nessler as their lead play by play guy and David Stern like
went nuts behind the scenes, like screamed at every executive
at at ESPN and and I think they would hired Marv Albert to come
in and do play by play that next year.
I know David Stern had his critics and they he he deserved
them, you know, rest in rest in peace or whatever, but at least
he, it felt like he cared about the game more than Adam Silver
does. And you can't tell me that the
NBA product looks better now. I mean, it does TV wise in terms
of like graphics and cameras and all that, but in terms of it
mattering, you watch like a 2013 or a 2008 highlight clip and it
just looks better. I mean, maybe I'm being insane,
but I don't it just, it looks like a better product.
It there's more gravitas to the whole thing.
It just, it feels like there's energy that there just isn't.
Anymore you know, it's weird because I used to feel that way
and then I you know my team made it to the finals this and I
didn't feel that way anymore and I will say the in person
experience was pretty incredible you.
You felt that at the game, not? And that's what I mean, it's
like it's there. It's not being captured
particularly well. Like, I went to multiple Pacers
games. I went to a Finals, you know,
to, to two of the Finals games. I went to Game 3 and I went to
Game 6 and, and the energy was off the charts.
The one I didn't go to was game four.
And it was shocking how muted the broadcast was in relation to
everything else. And so, you know, when I, when I
think about it, I'm just kind of like there's something off in
terms of the way that the presentation is happening.
And, you know, I think TNT was not having similar problems with
their game broadcast. So I thought that the coverage
of Pacers, Knicks was really good.
And it wasn't just obviously the, the, the game broadcast
itself. It was also the, you know, the
inside the NBA and, and their overall coverage surrounding the
games. And it's an interesting contrast
because that contrast isn't going to exist anymore because
there is no more TNTNBA coverage.
There's no more inside the NBA. And the NBA felt perfectly happy
with jumping into bed with ESPN for most of it.
And then NBC, who notoriously does a bad job, in my opinion,
of making their coverage not look fake.
If you look at Sunday Night Football.
It's just not to say it's being so inorganic next to what CBS
and Fox do with their coverage, in my opinion, but that and that
may be kind of the heart of some of the issue with like the
Stephen A shtick. It feels forced to a ridiculous
extreme. You know, like, you know,
there's always been this struggle.
And I know that you had a question about this later, but
like the the whole concept of ESPN taking over inside the NBA
and why they haven't been able to duplicate that despite
throwing the kitchen sink at NBA coverage in particular.
They've tried so many different people and so many different
formats. And they've had they had, you
know, they had Magic Johnson and Bill Simmons and Sage Steele and
a bunch of people that I've lost track of over the course of time
and it never works. And, you know, and it's
interesting because Simmons always blames the producers.
And I think that there's something to be said for that
because I don't know that the ESPN producers and whether
they're doing this on their own accord or whether they're doing
this because of orders that are coming down from up high, just
don't know what they're doing. But the, the, the concern I
guess I have with the whole process is that there is a
there's a lack of organic conversation.
There's a lack of, of flow even in the game broadcast.
And and this is where it's like, I didn't think Reggie Miller was
a good commentator and I don't really like listening to Stan
Van Gundy talk, but even that kind of awkward pairing with
Brian Anderson was miles better than what we got out of any of
the games with Breen, Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson.
And I don't even know if we can blame them because again, it's
like, if your studio shows feel stilted and in and inorganic and
like forced, then your game broadcast also feel that way.
It's probably not the broadcaster's fault.
It's probably the production orders that they're running
with, and this is something that feels like it extends to a bunch
of different areas of the ESPN, you know, family of content.
I have like 1000 points slash questions off of that.
This this could be the first 12 hour podcast.
Let's start with the broadcast itself.
Yeah. Was am I losing my mind or was
Doris Burke better? Like she used to be good, right?
Like, I don't want to attack her.
I mean, Richard Jefferson also is annoying, but like Doris
Burke, I feel like five years ago I was in the bag for her.
I was obsessed with. I was like, this person knows
what she's talking about. She is funny, she's interesting.
And maybe it's just the combination of people they had,
but it just didn't work at all. Where it felt like they were
attacking each other to get points across.
It felt like they didn't really care about the games in a way
that they were like just trying to push it to the end in some
ways. I don't.
It just there were so many times, I mean, we talked about,
I think this may have been the impetus for this whole thing was
Rick Carlisle yelling at the refs and them saying, oh, he's
upset, but then never saying what he was upset about, why he
was upset, why he was annoyed. And then they just let it go and
you're like, this is the most important thing that's happened
in the last 20 minutes and we're going to get no information on
this. So it goes back to something you
asked earlier, which was does that, you know, does Adam Silver
care about the game the same way that David Stern does?
And I think he does, but I don't think he understands the
presentation of the game NBA wise and what it means to be
partnered with ESPN as as your primary partner as opposed to
basically having them share the stage with Turner.
Because what Turner always did really well was they presented
the game respectfully, but they also presented the game in a
style that was honest. And I feel like the problem with
a lot of ESP NS coverage is it's not, it doesn't feel honest.
It doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of, of joy or, or
interest. And this is actually, I think
where, oh, I know a lot of Pacers fans got really
frustrated with the way ESPN covered the games in the Finals
because all ESPN seemed to want to talk about was either Shay
Gildrus, Alexander or how nobody was watching the finals in one
way or another because they were small market teams like they
were they were pining for something that wasn't there.
There was no effort to build up the Pacers or the Thunder.
I mean, you know, Scott Van Pelt goes on his podcast and actually
like issues of mea culpa. And it was like we didn't see
this team coming. We didn't build them up
effectively. We didn't do our jobs
essentially. At least he said he didn't do
his. And it kind of it, it hits to a
larger point in general. The Doris Burke thing is
interesting because I do feel like her commentary has gotten
less effective and and and less good because the NBA seems to
think, well we can't have people questioning the referees, which
I agree with. Although I'll note if you watch
an NFL broadcast, people question the calls of the
referees all the time and it doesn't.
It's gotten much better. I feel like he used to be much
more safe and he'll, he'll attack someone now.
I mean, I know we were talking about NBC, but I, I think he's
good. I mean, maybe it's just that
everyone else has gotten a little worse just in general,
but I think he knows what he's doing and he I respect when he
when he makes a point, he really digs into it and no one's doing
that on ESPI. Feel like I was listening to
Zach Lowe before too, and he was kind of not trashing, but like
really annoyed. It seemed like with LeBron and
with Lebron's whole shtick in LA and trying to go somewhere else
and it felt genuine because he's not constantly attacking LeBron.
You know, at a certain point Skip Bayless says LA bum and
you're like, well, this is just he needs to put out a tweet
today. You know, he needs to do
something. And Stephen A's like that too,
where he's like attacking Tyrese or he's attacking Giannis or
he's and it's just like, we know you're doing this for clicks
when Zach Lowe's doing it, it just feels like an organic thing
that he's talking about, that he just is annoyed by this whole
rigmarole of this whole thing, you know?
Yeah, no, I think it's a good point.
And it does feel like so much of what happens with ESP NS content
is very calculated. And I think that, I mean,
there's always a certain degree of calculus in any sports
broadcast, any broadcasting in general.
I mean, I look, I I work in this industry part time.
That's what, that's what it's going to.
Be but it, but it's forcing it every day for the sake of having
content to put out is frankly, people see through that very
quickly. And I think that that's what's
happened with a lot of ESP NS coverage now.
You know, it's, it's also interesting because I think the
NBA in general historically suffers from a lot of
astroturfing of, of fan bases. Like, there's a lot of I've
always been fascinated by the fact that the NBA has the
youngest, average aged fan of any of the four major sports and
has for like 40 years. At some point.
You would think their audience would age, but it feels like
their audience kind of disappears between ages 35 and
45 because people get tired of how infantile a lot of the
storylines tend to be. And I feel like ESPN to some
degree does the NBA disservice because they feed into that
because a lot of what does get talked about is either
incredibly surface level stuff or it's only focused on a very
small number of stars or a very small number of teams.
It doesn't take into account the breadth of the league and the
way that the league has a ton of interesting players, has a ton
of interesting teams, has a bunch of you know, there's
there's a bunch of different methodologies by which teams go
about things and you hear about it feels like none of that on
ESP NS primary programming. And when I think about the way
that they are like, you know, that they tried to cover other
sports. Their NFL coverage has gradually
grown into that as well, where the ton of Cowboys, the ton of
giants, you know, they'll be occasional players that'll pop
up and then there'll be certain teams that they have to talk
about, but they clearly don't want to like they, you know,
there's a there's just a real resistance to covering the whole
sport. And I, and I do think that part
of this issue is that if you think about the history of ESPN
when they came of age in that period, we're mentioning
eighties, 90s, early 2000s, they could be the national network
for everybody. And you know, they're going to
cover the games, they're going to cover the events, things like
that. You know, I can't ever remember
sitting around during the 2000 Finals and saying, God, their
coverage of the Pacers sucks. Like it never even would have
occurred to me to think that way.
But part of that time period was there was vibrant local media,
multiple outlets in local in the local media that would cover
these teams effectively. Now, I think New York still has
that. I think LA has that to to a
similar degree. Chicago has it.
Most of the other cities in in these leagues don't have that.
I mean, the Indy Star is behind a paywall.
Local television is generally doing very base level stories.
There's not really a local place to go for coverage of your team.
So people look to ESPN and instead they find ESPN is, you
know, basically doing the LeBron fandom thing.
Like, you know, they're covering the the Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees
and maybe one or two other teams sprinkled in.
And I think people get resentful of that because it's like, how
can you call yourself the worldwide Leader if you're only
covering a small part of the of the league?
And they do they're, they don't seem at all interested in
disabusing people of that notion.
They are instead just like, yeah, that's what we do.
We're unapologetic about it. And we're going to do it over
and over and over again because we know that it's going to get
whatever click numbers we need or whatever ad numbers we need
to keep the network going. And there's another kind of more
nefarious aspect to all of this that we'll talk about later.
But that seems to be the crux of a lot of the production
decisions that get made with these shows and even with the
broadcast that they do for the games.
It reminds me of the whole pivot to video thing, which keeps
which happens what, every three years.
Everyone decides video is like the new thing instead of writing
and then it disappears and then Facebook fakes the numbers and
that was like a whole what was that like 5-6 years ago at this
point? That was that was like a solid
decade ago, I hate to tell you that.
Was it a decade? I think.
It was like 2014. Fifteen.
Somewhere in that range. The pivot to video part, yes.
Well, no, yeah. And then there was like the
whole backlash and then this. It just keeps happening.
And ESPN is doing this. It's it's a real chicken or the
egg situation. I'm just like rambling at this
point for this podcast. There's a podcaster for and
where it's like, if we give you more interesting information,
eventually you'll know these teams more and you'll be more
invested when the Pacers are in the finals, when the Thunder are
in the finals. And if we don't show you any of
their games during the regular season, why would you care about
these teams? And you just, I just get so mad
thinking about how how much nothing there is on these, yeah,
on these channels. Part of it is also, and I think
this kind of goes back to we have to go to ESP NS NFL
coverage and look at what happened there where ESPN tried
to essentially have it both ways.
They wanted to have a robust investigative journalism center
that would do hard hitting stories so that they could feel
good about themselves in The Newsroom.
But then they also wanted to have a strong commercial
relationship with the NFL. And the NFL was like, you can't
do both of these things. You you can't go report on Ray
Rice and then expect to get our best games on Monday Night
Football. Like it's not going to work that
way. And you know, John Skipper was
like, what? We're going to stick to our
principles. And ESPN kept getting worse and
worse and in terms worse and worse games.
Then Jimmy Pitaro gets hired and you go back and read the Brian
Curtis articles from The Ringer about this.
You know, the, the fixing of the, the mending of the fences
and the manning of defenses was essentially ESPN agreeing to not
say nasty things about the NFL. And we'll then you'll, we'll
play ball with you. Well, that arrangement clearly
happens with the NBA as well. Like there's very few actual
deep critical things or investigative things that are
occurring with the NBA that ESPN is originating.
And when they do them, it's always couched in very specific
terminologies. It it all feels very sanitized
because these are corporate partners that they can't afford
to give up. I mean, the, oh, sorry, but the,
the Malik Beasley thing, I mean, that's the whole that's we've
talked about ESPN bet plenty of times.
And is that the more nefarious thing you were hitting towards?
OK, see what I mean? I'm I'm following along.
The ESPN bet thing I think is fascinating because what you
have to keep in mind is ESPN got rich, really rich for years,
decades, because they had, unlike most of their partners in
or most of the other places in media, they had two completely
separate revenue streams. They had an advertising revenue
stream, which is very lucrative. And then they had the subscriber
revenue stream because all of the people that had basic cable
were paying essentially, you know, by the late aughts, early
20 tens, everybody was paying 7 to $9 per month to ESPN, even if
you didn't watch it at all, because it was bundled with
basic cable. And if they it had to be there
like no one was gonna So many people would have left if ESPN
wasn't part of the deal. And that worked until people
started cutting the cord about 2014.
Well, we're eleven years into that and I think we've lost like
40 or 50,000 cable subscribers and that revenue's just not
there at the same level anymore. And, and it's going to continue
to go down South. ESPN, you know, they because
they have to keep going out and buying live, live game rights
and, and they have to keep bidding on things, had to make a
decision about how they were going to generate that extra
revenue to try to make up the revenue that they were no longer
making. Because keep in mind, they were
like a profit Center for Disney who has had its own issues from
a budgetary perspective, as I think those of you who follow
their stock prices are aware of. And what ends up happening is
they create, they buy back a, a sports book that was in
partnership with Barstool, which I think is hilarious.
And they rebranded the ESPN BET and they built so much of their
future earnings potential around ESPN BET.
But what that requires is being on really friendly terms with as
many sports leagues as possible because you have to have access
to the data, you have to have access to, you know, doing all
of these, these special related items.
You have to be able to build content out.
You got people making and I mean, ESP NS not alone in this.
And I want to, I want to make that clear that, you know,
they're, they're not the only ones who have their talent like
giving like their best wagers for the night.
But the difference is they're the rights holders and they are
supposed to be the worldwide leader in sports.
And what they've done is essentially backed themselves
into a financial corner where that's that's got to work
because they don't really have a Plan B, which means they can't
really be that critical of the sports that they cover.
They can't risk doing a lot of in depth analysis because they
really need to be driving people to the ESPN bet platform to make
their wagers and continue to bring in that percentage of
money that they're getting off of those.
That's that's the game right now.
It's a very, it's a very different type of game than ESP
NS ever had to be involved in before.
And I don't think they figured out really how to do it
effectively. Do you use ESPN Bet?
No. Do you?
You'll gamble here and there, right?
Yeah, I, I. Actually, bet.
I've, I, I've used several of the platforms.
I I I'm not interested in ESPN bet because I don't gamble that
much first of. All I'm the same way where I I
have a DraftKings app. I'll bet I'll put $5 every so
often when my friends Ben or Jake tell me to.
Or Taylor. But.
I've gotten to the point where I'll, I'll use the Caesar's app
because I get points towards like rooms in Vegas at this
point, you know? Is is it working like it?
I this is like a broad question and for ESPN, you know, higher
ups, not really you, but is the ESPN, do people use ESPN BET
like is it worth the investment that they've made in and I mean
there. There was a piece in front
office Sports back in February and I haven't done a, a, a huge
amount of in depth research, but you know, Pen Entertainment,
which owns the book itself and a fourth quarter loss of $109
million, which, which some of you may have seen, they missed
analyst forecasts. And they, I think what I saw was
like in New York, Illinois and New Jersey, which are the top
three states for, for sports wagering.
ESPN bet has 1 to 2% of the market in terms of revenue,
which is the, the, the target was 20% of the market by 2027.
They had a long way to go. And I, I be, I got to be honest,
I don't, I don't ask my friends what they're wagering on, but I
don't hear a lot of people saying you need to get on ESPN
that because that's, it's kind of like the, it's like when we,
when we got legalized in certain places, people would go drive to
the dispensary, they would buy things.
I don't, I don't know a ton of people who are like, Hey, you
got to try this type of gummy out or it's a personal thing.
And, and I think for for a lot of people, gambling apps.
Well, I've told people like, you know, the Caesar's app is
actually really good. You should try that.
I like it better than, you know, like the Bet MGM app or the OR
the DraftKings app. But you don't care like I don't.
Care, I'm in and I'm not you know, I see the ads, I've got
Aaron Dolan, you know, giving giving pics on on my screen.
It's not making me download the ESPN bet app.
So if the gambit here is we're going to take over 1/5 of the
marketplace in a four year span of time, I don't know what the
hell they thought they were going to do with that.
But I, I don't see it. I don't see it resonating at
this point. Yeah, I mean, I run a gambling
podcast. I'm not, I'm not hosting, but
I'm on it. They've never once we don't have
any deals with FanDuel or DraftKings or Caesars or any of
these other sports books. They've never once mentioned
ESPN Bet. I bet you look at every
transcript of the 1000 or so episodes we've had and not once
has ESPN Bet been mentioned. And I know that's a very
specific example, but it's every podcast I listen to.
I mean, obviously they have deals with FanDuel, DraftKings,
whatever. And ESPN obviously will promote
ESPN BET because they have to at this point.
But any other podcast outside of ESPN is not referencing ESPN
BET, at least that I've heard of.
And at that point, you're so ingrained in what you have and
ESPN, like I'm sure each of these gambling sites have
different like, perks and different reasons to get on.
But at a certain point, you have enough apps.
I mean, we've talked about apps in general, and that was like a
whole Bill Simmons Grantland thing.
But there's a finite amount of space where you can be betting.
And it doesn't really make sense that someone would go over to a
different one, especially when they're so locked in on one.
Right. Well, it's like if you've
already deposited money in one or two, yeah, why get another
one? Like there's no compelling
reason to. And, and, and so I think it's,
again, it's one of those things where, you know, Disney hemmed
and hawed over what they were doing.
And I part of the problem it's, and it's ironic because like if
you go back to the history of Deadspin, like Nick Denton
wanted them to start like a, a sports GAMBLING SITE.
This is what, 2005 or whatever it was, which no one was talking
about sports gambling that wasn't in jail at that point.
Well, ESPN hated sports Gantt. They weren't allowed to mention
it. Like none of the broadcasters,
Simmons had a hole back and forth with them in Page 2.
But like the the guy who ranespn.com left ESPN to go form
a site that covered gambling in like what, 2017?
That was, you know, that that was you know, that was a big
move. But that like the ship had
sailed by that point. They took so long to get to the
point where they like, hey, we got to make this our central
thing that it it was too late. I think now maybe they'll make
big strides here, Who knows? I'm just not seeing it happen.
But I I think as a factor of the coverage, it hurts.
I don't know if it hurts necessarily in terms of the NBA
coverage, what what they're talking about, because it's not
necessarily directly affecting the hot take ishness of what's
happening on the shows, nor is it necessarily affecting the
content of the broadcast per SE. But it it I do think it ties
back to this idea that they're kind of caught between a bunch
of different worlds, but they can't afford to piss the NBA
off. They can't afford to piss the
NFL off. So it ends up turning the volume
down on what might be insightful things and it ends up causing
them to bring people in whose primary stock and trade is just
spouting off things that can go on the Internet later, even if
they're not particularly interesting.
And I guess that's the thing. It's like the utility of Stephen
A Smith yelling into a camera feels like it has a shelf life.
And it did, In fact, as people have often forgotten, like, ESPN
fired Stephen A Smith once before, and he spent, like,
three years in the wilderness, and then they brought him back.
Do you remember this? No, I don't remember this.
Yeah. No.
Back in. He was like, you know, he was
big in in two, like, like O4 to O9 or O5 to O9.
He had this meteoric rise. And then there was a contract
dispute in 2009. So did they technically tell
they fire him? I guess not.
They Yeah. They just didn't renew it.
We was off the air for two years and then they brought him back
in 2011. I've blocked this all out of my
memory. That was probably the best two
years of my life. I don't remember any of.
I don't remember any of it. I Yeah, I mean, but it's not, I
don't think it's just social media that's exhausted of it.
It's, I mean, I'm just from personal experience.
It's my dad, it's my mom. Like it's people just next to
the TV who just hear him Skip Bayless, whoever the guy is,
they're just, they just start yelling and there's certain
points like, I don't need to watch this anymore.
I mean, it's the same thing with Fox News, the same thing with
CNNI mean, it's they're all the same at this point, but.
Well, here's the here's the issue.
Clearly people do watch at least in some numbers, because they
that wouldn't be a method that gets used across all the
television. But I do think that we've gotten
to a point these things are generational to some degree.
And I do think we've gotten to a point where the number of people
who are willing to watch that consistently and have that be
the primary thing that they're looking at gets less and less.
Now, obviously a lot of it these days is going to be geared
towards the social media audience, but the problem with
the social media audience is that it's not a good sports
audience from a fandom perspective.
And, and, and what I mean by that is what works on Tiktok or
what works on Instagram Reels is not really synonymous with what
works in terms of building fandom.
And I think for the NBA in particular, fandom of the NBA is
largely centered around players, but it also can be centered
around teams. And I think a lot of times the
team aspect has been left behind, you know, perhaps
through the detriment of the league.
And that is hard to capture if you're focusing mostly on people
saying outrageous things to try to get attention.
And so you're dealing with a lot of shallow fan observation, not
a lot of depth being built, not a lot of interest in the league
outside of spectacular moments. And while the league definitely
has spectacular moments, it's also got strategy and really
interesting things that happened throughout NF LS the same way,
you know, but ESP NS always been drawn to the highlight.
And I think that DNA is hard to shake.
So whether it's a highlight of somebody yelling or a highlight
of a dunk, that is it's eye candy, but it doesn't really
translate into the kind of in depth coverage that everybody
salivates over when it comes to say inside the NBA.
Those are two very different things.
And I don't know that ESP NS ever done the in depth thing.
Well, at least in the last 20 years.
And I don't know where they get back to that.
But I do think that even Gen. Z is going to be looking for
something more meaningful in terms of their fandom.
And, you know, right now, I don't know that they're getting
that with a lot of these sports if they're going to ESPN for the
basis of it, because so much of what the coverage ends up
focusing on is not that. I mean, and the exceptions stick
out. We mentioned Scott Van Pelt, you
know, college game day for the most part, does a good job of
feeling like they care about college football.
They'll talk about it in depth. They'll go, they'll, they'll
showcase things visually. And it's weird to like contrast
that with their college basketball coverage, which is
the exact opposite, where it's like the wrong people on air
talking about the wrong things and doing so in a way that just
feels very surface level to anybody who actually follows the
sport closely. And it's, it's just like that.
There is, there are certain things that ESPN does do well,
but even those things you worry they're going to ruin because of
what else they've ruined across the network.
Yeah, I mean, like, I want to get back to Gen.
Z for a second there, but ESPN was the dream when I was growing
up. Like the place I wanted to work
was ESPN the Magazine, which feels like a lifetime ago at
this point. I wanted to work at Grantland.
I want to work for Page 2. Like that type of ESPN off
kilter, but still sports obsessed people.
I guess that's how I would describe it.
And now, like, I don't do people want to work for ESPNI mean,
this is part of the Gen. Z thing.
I'm sure they do because it's a big name and because it's one of
the few places left at a certain point.
Well, yeah, but and they're laying off.
Like, is that something that they're striving for?
Like when you when you work, when you work with your
students, who are all Gen. Z at this point, unless there's
one guy just still hanging around, you know, I was going to
name names, but. Never Kuwait, Greg.
Man, it feels, it feels so I remember the like, I remember we
did the interview like the end of what was it the end of senior
year interview where you asked like, what are your favorite
restaurants? What'd you learn in college?
And that feels like 5 days ago. Yeah.
And it's like, that was nine years, 9-8 years ago at.
This eight years ago? Yeah, time flies.
It really does. But like what?
What is Gen. Z that what what are your
students thinking? Do they watch these things?
Do they care about these things? It's.
Weird, because I mean, one of the things I'll talk about a lot
with our our faculty members that teach in sports media is
they don't watch a ton of it or they don't pay close enough
attention to it to really like this is this is not a criticism
of Gen. Z.
It's more it's, it's not a criticism of anything.
It's just the evolving nature of media.
I feel like millennials right up to the end of the millennial
generation, there were so few venues to get highlights, news,
information. Everybody devoured all the
content. You you watched all the
broadcasts, you know, you watched SportsCenter.
You, you read a. Full hour of SportsCenter and
then I would be like, oh, I haven't seen these highlights in
an hour, I'll watch the other 20 minutes or whatever, you know,
and you end up watching the same stuff.
And that's just not how people consume media in that generation
now. And and there's nothing wrong
with it. It's just different.
And so it's it's what people consume tend to be, you know,
there are there are some shows that they'll consume, but it's
and it's not like people would be like, no, I wouldn't work at
ESPN, but I don't think it's the end all be all.
And I'd work at ESPN, you know, like just putting it out there
if anyone's listening. No, it's clearly if they've
listened this far. Yeah, it may not.
It may not work. You're at the.
Top of their list of people they work.
Fox Sports 1 is gonna hire me or something, you know?
But I, I think that it's, it's no longer the, the primary place
that people want to work to. It's not like I, I, I mean, I
guess like the New York Times is still like this for people that
want to work in news. I don't know.
That yes, I mean that's another podcast too, but no, I'm I've
applied for jobs in the past New York Times.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening there, but they do
good work. And the same can be said about
ESPN. Like I know I've been trashing
them and you've been critical, very smartly critical cuz you
know you have a future. But the New York Times and ESPN,
like there's a reason they're institutions, like they matter.
They're big and people read them and watch them and listen to
them for all sorts of things. I mean, the Daily's still good,
right? The New York Times art critics
are still good. You know, there's specific
things and ESP NS the same way we're, we're naming people and
they matter. So I, I can see like people or
students looking and being like, I want to be this person or I
want to be, you know, someone on one of these shows.
I want to work on college game day as opposed to I want to work
at ESPN, which has more of a negative connotation than it
used to, at least, Yeah. I I look, I I think ultimately
it really is almost dependent, But part of the problem is,
frankly, for most young aspiring sports broadcasters, they look
at ESPNI don't think they can see themselves there because
who's on the air? You know, it's, it's mostly ex
athletes or it's Stephen A Smith, You know, I mean, and
this is a criticism I have of a lot of sports media, which at
some point along the way, TV network executives got obsessed
with the idea of we have to have a former player here.
We have to have another former player here.
And it doesn't work in a lot of ways.
And there are there are certain former players that are really
good on air. You mentioned Chris Collinsworth
is really good on air. I think Troy Aikman is really
good on air. I mean Charles Barkley inside
the NBAI mean. There are people that are ex
athletes that are really good on air.
But that's the exception more than the rule.
There and and the and. The problem is it's a revolving
door of people who are on air. I mentioned at their, you know,
early on in the podcast, like, you know, the dream job
unintentionally charting the terrible decision making of
ESPN. The first year of dream job was
charming bunch of kids coming out of college, couple of older
people who really wanted to work in sports.
And you had this whole judging thing and, and you know, Mike
Hall ends up winning it at the end.
And he's had a long career. Like he works for Big 10
Network, He worked for ESPN for a while.
Year 2, they decided to do a whole show around picking the
next NBA analyst who was a former player and no one cared.
And it was a terrible, like a terrible sequence.
But that's, you know, no one gets invested in these people
'cause they're all kind of cookie cutter.
Or if they have personalities, they're generally personalities
that don't resonate on air. And this is the Kendrick Perkins
problem. Like, it's the Tom, it's the Tom
Brady problem, you know, it's all.
And I'm already dreading the Draymond Green problem, which we
know is coming. But at least I will say at least
I'll I'll give Draymond credit for this.
At least Draymond says things and has opinions that are like
predicated in the game that matter from a strategic
perspective. I don't always agree with what
he says, but his podcast is interesting and when he was on
Inside the NBA this year, I was actually legitimately impressed
with the way he broke down as opposed to Kendrick Perkins, who
says like the most basic things over and over again and.
Not even entertainingly, like that's the that's the other
thing. Like, that's what drives me
insane is like, it's one thing with Stephen A going on these
long tirades and rants, and there's a part of me like the
caveman part that's like, that's fun, That's cool.
You can see why he's worth the money.
I mean, no one's worth the money he is.
But why he would be paid money to talk about sports.
Kendrick Perkins, he's mumbling. I mean that 2008 Celtics run, no
one's ever like closed it off anything more.
It's like when Trent Dilfer was one of their primary, you know,
commentators or Sean Salisbury, you know, back like people get
on the air and and this the way this happens, you get ATV exec
who decides they're going to champion a particular athlete
and then they'll champion them, champion them until the point
where they're they've they've outlived their usefulness and
then they're just gone. Like when was the last time you
saw is Trent Dilfer still doing media?
He he pops up on a like a Rosillo podcast or something
every so often, which is, which is, I mean, I love Rosillo, but
that's not where you want to be if you're.
Trying to make it that's doing a favor to somebody.
Yeah, yeah. That's him promoting it, yeah.
But my point being like, we're picking on Kendrick Perkins
right now, and rightfully so. But like you, you, there's this
revolving door on ESPN, and Fox is not, not, not not innocent of
this either. Yeah, yeah.
You know, like, after a while the the utility of having a
former player disappears when they're not really offering
anything worthwhile and the audience notices that.
And the audience like the the idea that we can throw anybody
out there in front of the audience and they'll listen to
them talk about sports. I always have this complaint
with with with analysts on game broadcasts.
Like, it's like we have to have a former player to give insight
into the game. No one can name the former
player that's doing the game. Like did anybody know that
Solomon Wilcox played in the NFL?
That's just been like, oh, he went to Northwestern.
You know, yeah. So that's the, the, this infects
a lot of what ESPN does as well in that I guess within the
thought process is, Oh, well, their expertise carries the day.
And then it doesn't actually carry the day because there's
not a lot being contributed. There's not a lot unique.
And then that person's gone and they bring another person in
after a couple of years and then they don't contribute either.
And it's just this revolving door and it makes it hard to
take anything seriously. And they're, it doesn't seem
like they're trying to build anyone like it doesn't seem
like. Well, well, no, it's more, it's
less that they, they've, they've poured a ton.
They pour a ton. Build non athletes like they're
not investing this money or this time into people that well, we
need to figure it out on air and cuz they just don't have as many
spots open too. I mean they're giving all this
money, TSP and bet to the to to the different teams to the and
the different leagues and there's just less opportunity
and less people available. Yeah.
So you know, you go through from a from a content perspective,
you had a question about like around the horn getting getting
cancelled. I I realized I haven't asked you
a single question I have on this list.
What happens? When you podcast with me it ends
up being 2 hours and 9 questions don't get asked.
But I have. Yeah, but should we get into
around the horn for a second? Yeah, let's talk.
I mean, you know the. PTI and the whole like what's
what's happening? Well, keep in mind both of those
shows were 20 plus years old and that's a long time in
television. It's AI mean MASH only lasted
what like 12 years in television?
I mean, I think the longest running show in television
history was was it Gunsmoke or Bonanza since he's still.
Going at this point. That's fair.
The the the the longest non animated show I.
I know what you're saying. Yeah, but but it's a long time
and we tend to forget that a a television show on ESPN is still
a television show, you know. But I do think that the concern
there was less about talent cultivation and more about the
the idea that this it was hard to clip for social and it
probably wasn't resonating very much with that same Gen.
Z audience that you and I talked about a few minutes ago, who's
not really conditioned to sit there and and listen to a
rotating cast of writers or or, you know, non national
broadcasters talk through things.
Now that's no, I mean, one of you know, one of them, Courtney
Cronin, who's one of our alums and and you know, one of my
really good friends had a great time on that show, did a
wonderful job. It's it's not a criticism of the
individual people. I think it's a criticism of the
thought process of, well, how does this fit into what we're
trying to do as a network? And if you look, and again, this
goes back to the ESPN bet thing, it goes back to playing nice
with networks. You know, the the the more the
more rough edges in what's being offered out there, the more
likely it is that someone's going to say something's going
to upset somebody somewhere. Why take the risk, especially if
the ratings aren't that aren't that overwhelming.
And then, you know, it was hard enough, like it was interesting
when ESPN and whatever it was O3 when they added around the horn
or maybe it was O2. You know, they blocked out that
whole 5:00 hour around the horn at 5, PTI at 5:30, Sports Center
at six leading into whatever the game of the evening was, college
basketball or baseball or whatever.
People don't watch TV like that anymore.
They're not they're not going to sit down.
The first of all, they're going to sit down and watch
television. But if they did, they're not
probably going to sit down and just throw ESPN on and say I'm
going to have this on until 10 or 11.
People watching around the horn, I'm sure a good amount we're
just listening to the podcast the next day or that night or
just watching a clip. I mean the what you're saying, I
mean my other question is, is PTI even still on in two or
three years? Probably not.
I mean. Those guys like their sons.
I mean, those guys are, they've been around for a while.
You guys are old. I mean, I don't, you know,
that's The thing is, is when you you think about Tony Korn, how
old is Tony Kornheiser? Thank you.
Yes. Mid 70s. 76, yes.
I mean, I was, we've talked about this.
That's the first podcast I got into was the Gorneiser Show.
I used to listen to the radio show like, you know, Andy Polen,
I think was his like his his his engineer or something, or his
producer. But no, like Wilbon's 10 years
younger, but he's still 66 and there's nothing.
I mean, both of those shows, if they were going to continue
would have been better as podcasts or as streaming shows
rather than necessarily being on linear in as much as I'm not
sure how important linear is in the big scheme of things.
Now, I am surprised that they didn't just say, hey, we're
going to move around the horn off the air, but we're going to
move it on to purely direct to consumer.
They haven't done that. And so it does make me question
like, was there a content reason why they decided that they
weren't going to go that direction?
I don't know. That's, that's, that's a really
fascinating point. But I do think like as the, the
idea that that would cultivate people that could be on air for
them. I don't think that that's
important to them. Going back to what you said,
because, you know, I remember talking with somebody about 10
years ago and they were like, they either want writers and
people with that background who are reporters who have sources,
or they want former players and, and entertainment, entertainment
types of people. And they don't really need the
riders now. Like that's not really what the
game is at this point. So what's the purpose in giving
Harry Lyles or whoever a venue or Israel Gutierrez if we don't
really want them on air 'cause we're not using them on
SportsCenter or anything else and we're not really emphasizing
our riding product in the 1st place?
It it just kind of all use, it loses its utility at that point.
Yeah. I mean, we can talk about direct
to consumer. I mean that's a big thing
obviously as well. But should we talk about the
website for a second? We.
Can, yeah. I mean, I maybe there's not much
to talk about. I mean, there's not much
happening on there at this point.
I mean that was. I mean again.
So critical for so long. The one of the, you know, for
the, for the, for those of us who follow certain sports where
we want to get info and, and look, ESPN still employs a lot
of good writers. But so, like, one of my
favorites is Bill Connolly, who, you know, covers college
football, does S&P Plus, you know, they make a big deal about
bringing him over from SB Nation.
And it's it's very, very hard to find Bill Connolly's stuff on
ESPN. It's hard to find anything on
ESPN like it's. You can find the scores, you can
find a bunch of video clips of Stephen A and whoever else
yelling. But if you want to find an
article from anyone, especially if you want to find an old
article, I mean, you're better off Googling or using the
Wayback Machine or whatever else, or just hoping that one of
them tweets it out. Yeah.
I mean, it's which I'm, I mean, that's part part of The thing is
that I find stories a lot of Times Now through Twitter,
through I was going to say Facebook, but I don't use
Facebook anymore. Through Reddit, through
Instagram, like you, no one, no one's going to a website and
just scrolling through anymore the way that they were 1015
years ago. But I you just think that
there's like a certain level of like care where it's like the
website. I mean, it's, it's everything
where it's just not usable at a lot of a lot of.
Times well, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
If people aren't using it that much, then what's the point?
What's the point? And and this is again, I think
where we're all trying to keep up at various age levels with
how digital media is transitioning.
And look, what are we, what have we done for the last hour and 5
minutes? Are people still watching?
Maybe you know, Ben Wittenstein, shout out if you're still
watching. I guarantee he's not, he won't
notice this at all. No way, no way, no way.
He's he's turned us off. I'm guessing the 26th minute
maybe. And that might just going to be
passed out. That's the.
I mean, it's like 730 in Chicago right now, I guess.
This isn't live. We're not.
Who cares? No, that's my point is that
we're doing this on YouTube. I'm going to also upload it to
Spotify. Sure.
This is the venue through which a lot of not this show in
particular, although it should be this, this show, this show,
but this is. This and Joe Rogan these are
the. Top games?
God. OK, I'll take that.
That's fine. This is the show.
No, this is the venue through which people are gaining a lot
of their information on sports. And I, I just look at it like
this, I, I complain about ESPN because I care about it as an
institution, I guess the same way that, you know, print
obsessive people felt or feel perhaps about the New York
Times, Washington Post, maybe there's others that fall into
that category. But realistically speaking, if
people aren't going to ESPN as the place of record for coverage
of sports, we probably should stop expecting them to act that
way because they're not going to.
And instead they're going to media that is essentially a
level down in terms of national spread because they want to
focus on niche things that are interesting to that.
Sometimes that's your team. You know, I mean, you can
complain all about the Pacers not having coverage on ESPN, and
I think that that's legitimate. When you're trying to do a
national television broadcast, that's the one thing where it
crosses over. Or you can the Thunder have
similar complaints. There was not a lot of coverage
of the Thunder despite being the best team in the in the NBA.
And they have a better case honestly to be upset than the
Pacers, where I mean the Pacers were good all season but the
Thunder were like. Yeah, they're the same, same in
the league. They were a historically.
Eight wins and they're still the Lakers and, you know, the
Celtics and where else. So that's the case for there
needs to be better coverage on the website, on the broadcast
properties is that if you are the primary partner of the
league, because where else is the league media coming from?
Well, but that's where it becomes regional or local and
that's where I've kind of made peace with the idea that I'll,
I'll turn on ESPN when they have the games, but they don't even
have all the games anymore. They in in most of these sports.
Well, no one has the games any you know.
Everybody's got the games, you. Know yeah, everyone, no one has
the games. Everyone has the games.
But I, I don't get, I don't get sore about ESPN not talking,
talking about my team unless it's directly affecting my
team's ability to do something. So like the way Indiana got
covered, Indiana football got covered by ESPN during the old
College Football Playoff thing really pissed me off and pissed
a lot of IU fans off. But that's because the the
selection, the the, the committee stuff was almost ESPN.
They almost. Screwed them over?
Yeah, They almost, yeah. And, and, and, and you're just
kind of like, why is this the discourse and why are you
letting your partnership with the SEC again, going back to the
corporate partnership thing? Why are you letting that affect
the way that you're covering things?
And I think that ultimately, for a lot of fans across the
country, the idea that ESPN represents all of them as gone.
And ESPN does nothing to combat that because what they seem to
be most interested in is can we get enough people watching this
to justify charging advertisers and can we drive people to ESPN?
Bet those seem to be the primary considerations.
And people get mad about that to a degree.
They should get mad about political coverage for the exact
same reason. And they don't get nearly as mad
about that. That's really what should they
should be more mad about. Instead, we proxy it with ESPN
because again, ESPN once came from a place that felt like
legitimate fandom and legitimate joy and like the whole like,
this is Sports Center commercial, you know, campaign
that ran 20 years and was incredible and the way that they
would cover different things. It just it felt like these folks
are on our side. And then progressively, they
felt less and less like they're on our side.
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was truly AI was looking through old
photos recently because my parents were moving and there
was a picture of me in 2006, 2007 in front of the Hollywood
sign and I'm wearing an ESPN shirt and it says on air talent.
And it's I was like 11-12 years old.
And it's like I was obsessed with like I wanted ESPN shirts.
We went to ESPN Zone, we went to the.
I remember the ESPN phone and thinking that was cool, even
though it was like the least cool thing that's ever existed.
I subscribe to ESPN The Magazine.
I'm guessing you're saying next? Oh, I, I mean, I was obsessed
with ESPN The, I mean, that's that, that was where I wanted to
work. That was, that was it.
But I mean, to defend ESPN, which, you know, after an hour
and 15 minutes, it's time to start defending them.
They did try like they tried. I mean, there was the Bomani
Jones Pablo Torre show that lasted a few months.
There was the Jemele Hill Sports Center.
Like I, I feel like there was an attempt to make things.
They had the Katie Nolan streaming show but.
But I feel like the four personalities you just
highlighted all have one common problem, which is, well,
actually it's 2 problems. I would say 1.
That's a case of ESPN severely overestimating mass market
appeal of all of those people. Again, the the, the, the, the,
the bigger issue. And it's no issue with those
individuals. It's more a case study in not
grasping what your audience is looking for.
People didn't want to center around personalities.
They wanted to center around the sport writ large.
They wanted the moments around the sport.
They wanted the stories of the coaches and the athletes.
They wanted to hear people who were having legitimate,
interesting conversations about the sport because that was their
source of information about the sport.
And it gave them the opinions that they should think of.
But it wasn't forced on them. You know, I mean, it's like if
you go back and watch baseball tonight, you know, that was a it
was a sober discussion based show with some highlights and
some cool things. You had a really like level
headed host in Karl Ravitch and you can kind of go down the list
of the different shows that they would have and most of them fit
that paradigm. And but you know, the centering
around that, that group of four, like Bomani Jones, who I think
is incredibly intelligent, really fascinating individual in
media, but that is like one of the most niche people.
Well, that's what I'm saying, Yeah.
They, I feel like they tried to put the podcast on TV and that's
not where the audience is. And maybe maybe you're right,
maybe I've just been upset and it's just not like it's not.
We're not putting that genie back in the bottle.
You know, it's like, and I just and look, I, I just, I don't
know what is television at this point.
I mean, look at what, look at what Warner Brothers and Turner
just did. Like they're.
My boss, yeah. Right.
Well, they just, you know, they just took the non television
parts, put it in a different company and said we think that's
the winner. Like, that was essentially the
thought process. And you read everything now
about all these zombie cable channels that are just running
reruns of Law and Order SVU or, you know, Naked and Afraid or
whatever they're running. And they're doing better than
the new shows, you know, like people would rather watch old
MASH at this point, or old, you know, Frasier than anything else
that's new. Right, but that what that means
is ultimately if ESPN for all the other products that they
have had and, and and have currently at the core, they are
a television or a cable station that focuses on sports.
Now in 2025, in an era where cable channels aren't that
important, you don't need them to watch things and you're now
you've got 2-3 generations. It's never been about the the
method of transmission as much as like the idea that, oh, these
people are just going to be on newspaper and and only read
newspapers. Mark Cuban said this in like
2006 or something like that when he was justifying not
credentialing blogs to come cover the team, but even older
audiences, you know, and as as the boomers continue to age and
as Gen. X starts to age into that, they
move with the technology. They just, they take a while to
follow along behind it. And the problem is ESPN hasn't
and and this is where ESPN is still because of who they are
trying to run a cable channel in an era where you can't really
run a cable channel. And I would present for
evidence. Look what's happening to CNN
right now. You know, CNN up still like
right now, unless unless he got fired recently, there's still
how much are they paying Anderson Cooper I.
Mean yeah, who's watching the show?
Why are you paying Anderson Cooper that amount?
There's no reason. There's no justification for it
other than that's what we did 10 years ago.
It's the legacy media. I mean, it's the Conde Nast, the
whole thing, yeah. Now, where I think you could
make an argument is if, if we're if we're going to, we spent a
bunch of time complaining about the linear network.
So if we're going to be realistic about where ESPN goes
from here, you almost have to tell them stop focusing on the
linear network, which is easier said than done because it's the
easy layup in terms of ad revenue.
That's where they get a lot of their money.
You can't just say we're not going to have this, but it also
can't be the centerpiece of what you're doing from a content
perspective. I guess my concern with ESPN
sometimes is that when I look at the shows that they've decided
to air, I look at a lot of the Meadowlark stuff that they were
picking up. You know, I look at the lot of
the Omaha production stuff and I like, I like it in pieces, but
there's very little there where I watch it.
And I'm like, I got to watch that every day even like I know
the Pablo Torre thing. They they keep trying to elbow
their way into the conversation nationally, but it again, it
feels forced in a lot of ways, in a way that it shouldn't if it
was. I mean, if you compare that to
actually like big successful podcasts, and I would throw Pat
McAfee into this mix. And I know you wanted to talk
about him a little bit. They feel that like it feels
like ESP NS trying to astroturf their way into something that
other people are doing naturally, because they're still
handcuffed to all these corporate procedures that
they've done for years that are still focused on what they're
doing on linear and linear just doesn't work anymore.
And that's, that's the, it's like until they can break free
of those shackles, I don't know that they're able to actually
move in to be truly competitive. Like I actually would say at
this point, I think Fox is better positioned than ESPN to
do this because Fox was never so entirely married to like a
singular entity as a national sports channel.
So there's a lot there. What's your, what's your ideal
like? What do you want from ESPN?
Like I know we've talked about them focusing on more different
things in terms of like the bigger broadcast, the national
broadcast. But like, if you could pick
something that you think would actually work, what would you?
What would you ask for? Or what would you try to?
Produce well I this is where I I think if ESP NS going to be
successful like this is where they I, I don't know that they
can do everything that they've tried to do like they can't.
I think their biggest mistake right now is trying to make back
the money that they've lost through cable subscriptions
falling by jumping into the wagering market because they're
not going to be able to compete at a high enough level to
generate the revenue to to make up for it.
So they got to figure out other things.
And I think that they are in a similar boat now with Fox and
with NBC and I guess CBS, like that's really your BIG4 in terms
of of the the players in this, since Turner's taking themselves
out of the equation to some degree.
You know the, the, the weird thing about all of this is the
sports that all these areas are covering are entirely reliant on
the Rev, the money that they're making off of the television
contracts. So that's where the salaries are
coming from. That's where everything's coming
from, yeah. So, you know, it's, it's funny
with this NBA thing with all these owners selling teams
lately and everybody's like, oh, it's something on the horizon.
And I think it's easy to say one of the leagues just in great
shape and they could go international and they could.
But the flip side is, well, maybe there is something wrong.
And I could see like a Mark Cuban or a bus family saying to
themselves, well, this might be as good as it ever gets in terms
of money, because medium money is entirely dependent on
centralized audience. And that's where all of this
money from ESPN came from. It's where the Fox money came
from. It's where CBS has all this
money. And there's only so many sports
that you can spread that around on.
And at some point, unless you have another way of bringing
that money in, you're going to run into some brick walls.
And I, and I will say that I think we're at a point now with
say the NBA where or I think actually Major League Baseball
may be the one that is the, the big, the big next one to fall
because of, you know, they were the ones that really hit hardest
by Diamond Sports Group and, and all of these regionals
essentially not having a workable business model.
So do they start going direct to consumer?
If Major League Baseball can go direct to consumer and say, hey,
you know what? We know that you hate our
streaming stuff and we know you hate not being able to watch
your teams. What about everybody pays
$150.00 a year and you get all of the games?
Yeah, I mean, you're gonna make more direct money and then you
can sell ads. And you can league pass for
everything you're. Saying league pass for
everything and then you can still have Apple or whoever
doing specialty games because people have that subscription as
well and they'll pay for that, you know, so I do wonder with
ESPN, they just pointed up a huge amount of money for the
NBA. They've they spent a decent
amount of money on the NHL. They've got a couple of other
things. They've let some things go, but
what I would like to see them do is decide like, are we a live
sports carrier that covers sports?
Are we an opinion machine that's trying to generate like ad
revenue and, and audience that way?
Like what are what are we doing? And what I really want them to
do more than anything else is pick a lane and figure out what
that lane looks like. Instead of trying to straddle
everything all at once. And I, and I think that their
problem is ultimately they are an item on the Ledger sheet free
for Disney in a way that Fox Sports is not, for News Corp in
a way that NBC is not for Comcast or whatever, in a way
that CBS is not. I mean, well, that's, that's a
separate story. I guess at this point they might
end up being that. But but, you know, ESPN has some
very specific problems in that I think people don't realize how
critical the revenue from ESPN was to Disney specifically given
how low margin the theme park business is and how Disney's
other big revenue generator was what Greg?
Disney's the movies, the movie. Oh, the movie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which last?
One was not. In great shape, you know I.
Mean, I mean, yeah, I mean there's a that's, yeah, there's
a lot there. And as evidenced by how Elio
did, Pixar is really scraping the barrel like they all are.
I mean every. They've made the same movie for
20 years. Yeah, at a certain point, toys
can talk, you know, is not going to bring more people into like,
you know. I've seen that animation 8000
times. Yeah, no, I like.
It's it's all about Bluey now, apparently.
That's what I've heard. I mean, I'm not, I don't have
any kids, so I'm not really. Sure, I love Bluey Bluey's.
Amazing. Yeah.
I mean, how, how old are your kids now?
They're in college. I mean, what, where they at?
They're like 37. I've been almost 10 year old and
a 7 year old. What are they?
Are they? Do they care about Disney stuff?
You know what my kids do? They they stream Netflix and
they play video games. Actually, they're Co opting on
Stardew valley right now and they're so it's amazing and it's
it's it's informative because they're both Gen. alpha
obviously. And they will they have iPads.
I know people say you're a horrible parent.
You let your kids have screens. My response is but they're they
they they watch like like tween shows OK in a in a in a in a
screen, like a picture in picture while playing games on
It's the weirdest. Thing no, I have, I have, I have
friends that do that. Now millennials are doing that,
I mean. So it's but you know, but
they're they're not really watching cartoons anymore like
they did for a long time. We watched Bluey.
We would watch what the other ones.
Bubble Guppies was a big one in the household.
I. Haven't watched that one.
The a lot of Muppet Babies like the new version of Muppet Babies
who has a really annoying new character compared to the old
one. I mean, there's a reason I mean,
this why Disney is doing these live action things, because
they're appealing to the millennial, the people that
watch these things in theaters or cared about them.
I. Mean is Disney still around
without Star Wars at this point? Marvel, I guess.
Maybe I right. Yeah, it's all.
It's all the big. It's the big blockbuster.
And it's all, and it's all these already prepackaged things.
And this is, I think, the problem to some degree.
It actually kind of explains NBA coverage on ESPN.
New plot lines. When we can run the same sequel
9 times, Lebron's gonna. Retire at some point like I, I.
Maybe he won't, you know, Maybe he won't.
It's a generational thing because 25 years ago we were
dealing with this with Jordan, right And there and there was
like that five year walk in the wilderness where it's like who's
going to take the because like it wasn't it was Kobe until the
Colorado thing and and. Then it was kind of Kobe again.
Right, right. You know, somehow that all got
forgotten. It just powered through.
But there's, but you, you know, to go back to your question
about what do I want from ESPNI, just, I don't see at some point,
I think the sports partners are like, what is exactly that we're
getting from ESPN? Like what are, what are we,
what, what's the purpose of this partnership?
Cause like historically, sports media has been a symbiotic
relationship where sports needed media to promote the games,
promote the players, promote the coaches.
Media needed sports to bring in audience.
Everybody was happy. But that was in an era when
sports teams couldn't make their own media, and now they can,
oftentimes at higher quality than what media itself is
creating on behalf of sports. I mean, there's more jobs
hiring. Like there's more, you know the
NBA is hiring more people than you know when you asked.
Me earlier what do what do my students want to do?
Like a lot of the people who 10 years ago would have been said,
I want to be a Sports Center anchor.
They're now like, I want to work for a team.
I want to be AI, want to be a reporter for a team, and I get
that because that seems to be where the stability is at this
point for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, every media conglomeration is going to let
you off at some point. You know, like I've made it six
years and I'm everyone. I mean, I mean, honestly, I'm
applauding myself every day. I don't know how I'm doing it.
I mean, everyone else has gone to law school where, you know,
they just, they're just, you know, finding jobs here and
there and they're making it work like it's.
Your, your, your generation has been really interesting to
watch. And you know, it's like, I mean,
my generation kind of went through this too, 'cause like I
was right at the end of the, the, the pre digital era and
most of the people that I went to school with are no longer in
it and haven't been for a while. A few hung on and, and had
really successful careers, but a bunch of people didn't.
And I think your generation kind of is in a different transition
point. And you know, it's just, it's
tough because it's there is money, but all the money is
hoarded at the very top. And increasingly independent
media, which ESPN is certainly just doesn't have the the
bandwidth to do the things they need to do.
They don't have the money to throw around and they're not
going to take risks. And unfortunately being risk
averse in media when the teams themselves can be more like
risk, risk fillic or whatever the you know that they can be
more adept at handling risk and dealing with.
It puts the the big media companies in a very difficult
position and it puts the people working in the industries in
even worse positions because you end up doing the same things
over and over again, which gets very soul draining.
And your job is constantly in jeopardy because all it takes is
one person saying, well, we don't need that person anymore.
And and then what do you do at that point?
You have to go to something else and you're probably never coming
back. And there's 100 people ready to
take your job too. Like you, you get.
People will pay, they will have to pay less, you know?
And that's what they're, I mean, that's what they're all doing is
why would we pay someone 150,000 when we can pay them 72,000 or
whatever and let them fend for themselves?
It's funny you had a question in the in the list like was Simmons
right about ESPN never backing podcasts?
And he's right. First of all like name a non
show based podcast that's must listen off of ESPN.
A non. I mean, I don't listen to any of
them. Yeah, but right, you know what I
mean. I I listened to the low post
when it was on that was about it.
You know, I would listen to the Simmons podcast and the
Grantland based podcast. Those were fun and those those
had like some some big good cultural elements to them in a
lot of cases. But the you know, like I try,
I'll try listening to like Windhorse podcast.
And as much as I I do enjoy Windhorse reporting that format,
it doesn't work. It's really like an in between
TV and podcast where it still feels like they're trying to hit
the segments right and not go on tangents right?
Where it's like when I'm listening to a podcast, I don't
care if it's two hours, if it's two guys that I like.
So it's usually guys just in general when it's a podcast.
I mean, as evidenced by what we're doing right now, but just
going on like. I, I earlier today recorded and
produced a 35 minute podcast that just had two women talking.
So I, you know what? I'm doing my part.
Greg, what are you doing? No, I've done.
I'll, I'll listen to it when it comes out.
You know, women, women could do anything now.
So. They could always do anything
but yeah, but the point, the point is my my feeling on that
comment from Simmons. He's right, but maybe not in the
way he intended podcasting was. That was the big leap for a lot
of sports media in terms of like podcasts done the way that
podcasts should be done, which, as you described, a free flowing
discussion based tangential in a lot of ways.
Those are the things that have demonstrated staying power.
And it's it's not just sports, you know, it's like, you know,
the you know, WTF or, or Rogan, any of these podcasts that have
called or daddy these huge podcasts across, you know, you
know, multiple demographics, multiple geographical areas.
They generally all have a quasi formatless approach that works
really well and is adaptable to the moment.
And I I would argue that what you end up with happening with
ESPN is that they are so in like handcuffed to format has to be
this has to be that they let some things shoot up, but then
they were always tied to the individual.
When the individual left, it was gone and they didn't want to
replicate that. They end up going in a different
direction. And you know, what always
bothered me is like, I hate overproduced podcasts.
Oh, you know, like exactly the same When they launched ESPN
Daily, I was like, oh, this would be interesting.
And I listened to like 2 episodes of it was like, no, not
interesting at all. Not, not a bit because of the
way it was produced. Yeah, it was, you know, and I
mean, it's obviously a take off of the Daily, another like
horrifically overproduced podcast.
I mean, we had our own problems. I mean, this is a specific
example with Golf Digest where we're, we started this local
knowledge podcast where we're supposed to be these like 30
minute stories, kind of like the daily, you know, every every
week, every two weeks. And at the beginning it was so
produced and at a certain point it was like it felt exhausting
to make it and to listen to it. And now it's more of just, I
mean, it's Shane Ryan, who, you know, just basically going.
My buddy Shane Ryan has been a really interesting evening with
him in Chapel Hill a decade ago so.
Who's the best? I mean he's great and he just
just starts talking for like 3540 minutes and we'll do like a
few small things here and there. We'll add some music, we'll add
some clips or whatever. But for the most part it's just
him doing Hardcore History or you know, one of those types of
podcasts. And it's so much better now
'cause it's less, it's just let like and also like no one
listens to a podcast 40 minutes straight.
I mean, I guess you know, I mean I do, but like not everyone.
And sometimes you listen for 10 minutes here, but you get lost
if you don't do that. Like I'm, I don't know why I'm
saying that. I've listened to podcasts for
like 3 hours straight. But sometimes you, and if you're
trying to get back into like this pre produced packaged
podcast, it's, it's, it's almost impossible.
It's like trying to get back into ATV show 2 weeks later and
you're like, I don't know what. I don't remember what happened
there 15 minutes ago. So maybe in this elongated
format, you've actually drawn out what I really want out of
ESPN, which is take the suit off like get casual again, like get,
get, get casual with your formatting.
I mean, this is what I worry about with inside the NBA, You
know, and I think this was one of the questions you asked was
like, is ESPN going to ruin Inside the NBA?
And the answer is absolutely yes.
Because what has been the poison for ESP along the other things
that we've talked about? But what has been the poison for
ESPN has been trying to cram things into boxes that they
don't fit into. And if there's one thing from
inside the NBA that makes it a great show, it is that it is
essentially like, it's like the Tom Snyder version of a late
night talk show where it's just, we're going to sit here and talk
and it might not go anywhere or it might be the most hilarious
thing you've ever heard. It's the antithesis of like the
Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno approach. Well, did you watch This is
Randa? Did you watch John Mulaney's
talk show on Netflix? No, I haven't.
He did these live hour shows for like 12 weeks straight and it
was really just like, you could tell they were just winging it.
You could tell they were like he was talking to guests and as
he's asking them questions, he's figuring it out on the fly.
They're going random. Like that's the type of thing
that I enjoy more. I mean, obviously I'm a fan of
Mullaney, but even Seth Meyers, who I feel like he's like he,
he's literally taking the suit off.
Like he had a suit on, took it off.
Now he's just wearing like a, a regular jacket.
He'll talk to a guest like James Acaster for just 8 minutes about
whatever. Instead of these like pre
planned segments about like them playing like fake strip poker
or, you know, whatever Jimmy Fallon's doing nowadays.
I just, there's, I feel like there's a middle ground between
podcasts, which are, you know, two hours of nonsense in a good
way versus like the first take style rapid segments about
LeBron, about I just thought of Tim Tebow for some reason.
But that's what it that's what it was for so long.
They're just talking about Tebow for every 10 minutes.
And there's got to be some, some way to like, you know, bridge
the gap. There is, but I don't think that
these networks are willing to do it.
And it's it's ironic and I feel I don't feel bad for the NBA.
They took the money, but the fact that they've they they've
ditched Turner. I mean, Turner kind of ditched
them, but they've decided to take up with NBC, who might be
the only network worse than ESPN at trying to jam everything into
a box. Like when I think of shows that
have gone completely off the rails but are still being done
in like a worse and worse style every year, it is the Sunday
Night Football show, not the broadcast.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I think Tariko, I I'll never look at Tariko as a play
by play guy, but I think he's fine.
And I still think Collinsworth is really good as a color guy,
even if he's just got a shtick that will naturally just get old
over time. When you listen to anybody for
20 years, it'll get old. I don't blame him for that, but
their studio show might. I think it still holds the
record for most unnecessary regular people on a show, and
it's a great example of everything we just complained
about with ESPN. It's like no one asked for Chris
Sims be an expert. No, no one said.
I really wish I knew what Chris Sims was talking about with this
game. Like we don't need him and
Rodney Harrison and Tony Dungy and I've lost track.
There's like 9 other people. No, I mean those those shows
are. They're just unwatchable.
They're unwatchable. They're SNL sketches that just
don't end. I mean, I guess they're just SNL
sketches at this point, but they're, they're nothing.
And at a certain point you don't it's, I mean, it's like we're
saying with ESPN where it's like you get these 32nd segments and
you get each person talking because everyone has to talk the
same amount of time for, you know, 45 seconds.
Nothing happens. And then you go to commercial
and you're like, what, what did we do any of that for?
We could have just done 4 minutes of one guy giving a
take, giving one actual opinion. And I think that's, it's some of
the part of this is an executive issue.
And I think it's ESPN has the same problem that NBC does.
We paid a lot. Fox is not exempt from this.
We don't need 6 people on the deck.
We gave them the money. We.
We gave them. We spend a lot of money on
Gronk. We got to have Gronk on this
show with Michael Strahan and Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw
and whoever the other person is and Kurt manif.
It's like, no, like just put three people on the desk and
have them talk, or put two people on the desk and have
them. Throw Pat McAfee in there, you
know, let's put him on one of those shows.
Too, the McAfee thing is fascinating.
I didn't want to touch on that. Now that we're now we're hour 3
almost not really. We're we're we're 96 minutes
we're. Gonna cut this down into like 20
minutes right the. Whole thing I'm not this is.
No, this is it. I I'll listen to.
It people wanted summer content, they've gotten summer content,
OK. Listen to this at the pool.
We're gonna drop this that probably the day or two before
the 4th of July, you're gonna go walk the dog on the 4th of July.
You're gonna drive around with the family a little bit.
You're gonna listen to this. I'm so sorry to everyone out
there. Yeah, this is what better way to
celebrate our country's independence than nearly two
hours of this, anyway? It's better than whatever else.
America, what is your opinion of the McAfee thing?
Just in general with the ESPN aspects of the, I mean, the the
streaming show, look, whatever you think about the content, I
think you have to tip your hat to McAfee from a a like a, an
organizational perspective. The popularity that show is
garnered over the course of a relatively short period of time.
It actually it's kind of the other side of the podcast coin
that I was mentioning earlier, where it's like the fact that
that format works when everything about broadcast
television said that format shouldn't work is really
remarkable. But anyway, go ahead I.
Don't, it's, I'm speechless. I don't, I don't know, I don't
get it. I don't, I've, I can't say I've
watched a lot of it. I've tried it because it's on
and I like it'll be on at the gym or it'll be on like in the
office and I'll watch like 3 minutes of it and it just, it
doesn't make any sense. I like, I don't know if I'm
missing something. He's never really made sense to
me. Even when he was at Barstool.
What was that, 10, 12 years? I mean, he was there for like 30
days. I've.
Lost. Yeah, I've lost track of when he
was. Barstool Indianapolis when that
happened, but I just I truly don't get it at all.
Like it's a real like. And you're kind of the target
demographic for him, like I. I guess, but he's not not
barstool like. No, it's like it's, it's
essentially like it's, it's like a, it's like a white labeled
barstool. You know, I mean, I listened to
part of my take when it started. I thought it was very fun and at
a certain point I got it, you know, I was like at a certain
point I can hear what was there Hank or whatever, like them
making fun of him. I can send APFT do his like, you
know, weird. Like I I just like it feels so
long ago at this point and I just like couldn't do it at a
certain point. And this feels like the the like
high def version or the high res version of that where I mean
it's the same. Honestly it's the same thing
with Lebatard show where it's just, you know, one guy throwing
to like 8 different people, except this one has Aaron
Rodgers, you know, doing vaccine talk.
So that's. Well, it's funny.
Levatard is interesting because I I lived in Miami, I was AI was
a professor down there for a couple of years when he just had
a show on what was it sports, sports plus 790 or whatever.
It was the ticket down there and it was it was funny drivetime
talk radio, all of the the you know, Mike Ryan was there and
Stu Gotts was was the Co host and you know, they had Roy and
they had like, you know, these a lot of the the pieces that
became the what now we know is the Levitard show were there it
but it was segmented and and I almost feel like this is where
the segmenting can help occasionally with this type of
programming. I know I just complained about
segmenting, but it's not it it it works in certain ways.
The McAfee thing. I just.
It is weird to me because. Like do you think the McAfee
thing works? I mean it is.
I mean, I guess it is working. Do you watch it?
Do you ever enjoy it? I think I I think if no, I
don't. I don't.
I I watch it, I don't enjoy it. I don't watch that much because
I don't enjoy it. I don't but but I also
acknowledge it's not for me so I'm not like this sucks.
That's kind of how I feel where it's not for me, but then.
But then who's it for? I guess becomes the question
mark. And then the things that do pop
up when I do see it on social media or I see someone send, you
know, someone send a clip or whatever it is that that
frustrates me 'cause I'm like, this is going the wrong way in
terms of what I want from sports coverage.
Yeah. I mean, the, the, if you look at
the, the, the demographics of the show, it's, it's one of
those, I mean, it clearly has appeal in that.
You know, 82% of the viewership is males, 18 to 44.
And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's got female viewers.
It's not like it's exclusively male, but it's, it's one of
those situations where they're, they're clearly grasp, like
they've grasped something that others could not.
When they launched across ESPN in 2023, they had 242 million
views in the first month, which is an insane amount of views.
But I, I just think to some degree it's, it's a show that,
you know, they're able to garner audience because there's a
shtick and the shtick vibes with people in the same way that
Barstool does. By shtick do you just mean like
Mcafee's personnel? Like whatever he is.
Shtick. I don't mean shtick to be a bad
thing, but it's, and this is I, I think to some degree it's like
it works in a way that the segmented stuff on and the NBA
coverage for ESPN doesn't because it in that environment
feels more organic in nature. And it, it may not be your cup
of tea, but it definitely works within that the confines of of
what they're doing. So that's where again, I'm like,
I'm not the type of person to say this just sucks and I won't
watch it. I won't watch it, but I'm not
going to just say it sucks. It's just like, I know this
doesn't really hit me because I, again, I prefer a different type
of discussion. I prefer a different type of of
approach, but I don't think you can build a network around it.
And I guess that's where ESPN and and again, this kind of goes
back to the astroturfing thing I was talking about earlier.
They they bring this show on and, you know, they try to
change it to the point that McAfee goes nuclear on Norby
Williamson and gets him fired, which is like, whoa, like, but
but should they have done that? Because I mean, maybe they
should have, but the idea was we're going to change our
approach entirely, but only in this case.
And it's like, well, if you're going to do that, why not blow
the lid off of everything? Like, why not try a bunch of
different things? And that, I guess that's what
irritates me. They drop him in on college game
day and it kind of works, but it completely changes the tenor of
the show. And now they've, you know,
they've taken what was a good back and forth talk with some
mildly interesting people. But it's it's changed the tenor
of it so much that Kirk Herbstreit has like literally
turned himself into a national heel when it comes to college
football coverage. But game day is still getting
views like that's the thing, like it's.
Well, but my point is did they need to they don't think they
needed to drop McAfee into that environment to get views.
I think that college game, it's like college football exists
unto itself and ESPN has tried to stake that out as their own.
But I think it's a college football thing.
I don't think it's a McAfee thing.
Like the the the college football video game comes back
last year and becomes the top selling sports video game of all
time. This was a a property that
didn't exist for 11 years. And now college basketball is
coming back. I mean, it's obviously not the
same thing, but they're. It won't turn the same numbers,
but yes the it'll. Do fine, it'll do.
OK, yeah, but. It's like they didn't need to go
down that road, I don't think. And that's that is I really I
that's where, again, I don't know that ESPN, the fact they
hit on McAfee is a success. It's almost like there's a
limited amount of credit I'm willing to give you for that.
Do you think it was Mcafee's idea to go on game day or they
threw him on there? I think it, I don't know, I
would. I would guess it was probably a
mutual thing because like, who wouldn't want?
I'm just curious if it was a McAfee, like, hey, I'm coming
there, throw me on the show. I think I could do something
with it, which he can and, you know, has done depending on who
you are. Or is it ESPN being like, we're
giving this guy all this money? Like we're this guy, we want him
to be one of the faces of the network.
I, I have to, I mean, there was that whole thing, you know,
where McAfee had considered leaving ESPN and forming his own
version of game day. You know, that got a lot of play
in a bunch of different spots. But you know, he, you know, I, I
back in, back in 2024 when he first joined, you know, there I,
I, I, I have to go back and listen to the podcast.
We did a podcast, I think it was the The Kelsey Brothers podcast
and he was like really like excited about being a part of
college game day, you know, and being a part of that
institution, you know. So I'm assuming it was at the
very least a mutual thing, if not more ESP.
NS idea, but I'm not totally sure that.
Makes sense to me. Yeah.
So I don't know, I, I guess it all kind of comes back to a
central point and we should probably wrap up now, but well.
I so I I was going to say this is I feel like how we end it
through the book. I was thinking, I always think I
read that book multiple times growing up.
The ESPN yeah. Where where does this, what is
this chapter? I mean, what, what is the the
start of it? And like, where does it, I mean,
where does it end? I mean, if you knew that you'd
be a billion dollar man, but where is it going you?
Know, you know, it's interesting because the book, the way it
lays out ESPN like the the the 1st, it's funny how much of A
linear upward trajectory ESPN follows from 1979, through all
the early struggles, through getting the cable carriage stuff
through getting the NFL contract, through their building
their relationships with the different leagues.
They don't really hit a roadblock of significant
proportions until the Shapiro era starts.
Yeah, there's like personal roadblocks because this guy did
this and, you know, had a problem, but like.
But really network, yeah, you know, you get you get to that
point in the late 90s, they have this crisis of identity.
And it's funny 'cause we talked about some of the shows PTI came
out of this, around the Horn came out of this.
But they also did like ESPN original entertainment movies.
You know, they're, they're, they're doing.
They did the season on the brink, which was.
Like what was the TV show they did that the first that made the
NFL furious. They had the playmakers.
Playmakers. That was that.
Yeah, Yeah, that. That show's 22 years old.
Go back and watch that at some point, folks, that's, that's a
fascinating look at an era and you'll you'll watch it and
you're like, what's the big deal?
But it but that was that was the good stuff.
And we forget the amount of of not good stuff.
It's like tilt. I don't remember tilt or.
Just the name of it. There was there was, there was
another one that like they did a movie on Dale Earnhardt.
And then 30 for 30, you know, like they they're. 40 for 30 was
them coming out of that. Yeah, yeah, it's like on the
other side. Sports century was that era and
you know the they they were trying things, but they clearly
didn't know what they wanted to be and they started to
fundamentally change the format of SportsCenter and all that.
Now they survived that and I would you know would argue that
a second golden age there from like O3O4 through about 14.
I just think that when the money sources dried up, they gradually
ran out of the they they lost the confidence that they had to
be the tastemaker, and they started following trends that
they didn't really understand from a programming perspective.
That led them down a pathway to where they were still handcuffed
by the procedures that they had built up over time internally.
That said, you have to do it this way while trying things
that didn't work in those formats and then discarding them
quickly when they didn't work immediately because they needed
to have successes to make up for what at the time look like a
correctable lessening of audience.
And rapidly, I think they figured out, well, we actually
can't do anything about this. People aren't going to just stop
cutting cable because we have a new show or a new approach to
things. And so I think this chapter,
it's kind of like that crisis of conscience chapter from that
period. This particular chapter starts
with Jimmy Potaro though, and this idea that we are going to
subjugate our editorial approach to the leagues because our
partnerships with the leagues are the most important thing,
both because we need access, we need the NFL to give us
highlights and to be a partner. But now increasingly we need the
partnership from a wagering perspective.
And when you add in that they're trying to still do things in a
very linear format and that they don't really know how to promote
their non linear stuff particularly well.
I just think they're kind of they're trying to do too many
things in too many different venues.
They can't leave behind the past and they're largely being driven
by profit motive. And that's a terrible place to
be with with any media entity. I don't care if it's ESPN or
anybody else. As we've seen time and time
again, you don't get where you need to get to and you end up
treading water at best when you go that route.
I'd read that book. I'd read that next chapter.
I'll get right on that. Yeah, you and you with Jim
Miller, right? Yeah, Jimmy Miller and me.
Yeah, we're gonna we're what's working on that together.
Anything lately? I haven't.
I've lost track of him. He was on every podcast it felt
like for five years. He had his own podcast too for a
second. Yeah, he's, I mean, he, I know
him from, he used to pop up on Simmons podcast, just breakdown
SNL on ESPN and that was like the entire reason he showed up.
But another institution that nobody cares about at this
point. Yeah, it's, it's a bummer.
I mean, it's, it took two hours to say that, but I mean, it's
just, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not for me anymore.
I guess that's where it where it comes down to.
I think for the vast majority of people it it that really hits a
nail on head. It is just another place that
has sports on. And sometimes there's good stuff
and a lot of times there isn't. And that's just what it is, I
mean. But, but it really goes back to
me to like a, a, a thing we talked about, which you know, of
the 9000 things we've covered on this show, which is that so much
of the magic of ESPN was tied up in the magic of television and
television is not magical anymore.
Like, like, I mean, television is a it's a vessel for content
that lives somewhere else. What was the like more people
watch YouTube than anything else at this point.
Yeah, is I mean, I mean, Netflix is number 2.
I mean T VS just gonna keep dropping there's.
Except for live sports, there's no reason to have TV anymore.
Right. I mean, you need a television
because it has apps on it that you watch.
But you know, the YouTube TV app on my television is just one of
the apps on there. It's it's not the default is not
let's see what's on TV. Yeah, default is let's figure
out what to watch. And then you got to go through
nine different options to get there.
So anyway, well, fun times. Did we?
Did we did we fix it? Do we?
Do we fixed? It we fixed it I well though the
check is in the mail I think for the consultancy but no fun
conversation and enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
Yeah, I. Thanks for having me on I'm it's
it's been a a few hours, but I I definitely got something out of
this, I think. It felt cathartic from a sports
fandom perspective. You know, even more so than been
diagnosing ESP NS problems, I do think there's a lot of
frustration among sports fans 'cause like sports fandom had a
moment there for about 25 years where it felt like there was a
cool place to go. That was the place to go for
sports, and sports has never been bigger.
But the there's no, there's not really a central locus of sports
fandom anywhere. But I think you could say the
same thing about any aspect of culture or politics at this
point. There's not a central point to
go which really to some degree illustrates some larger societal
issues that we've got. And it was cool like that was I
I know, like we've talked around it, but it was, you know, you
wanted you wanted to have the shirt that said ESPN on it.
You wanted to do all these things you wanted to.
And now it would just be like, why do you have that?
Did did they give it to you? You know, like what what's the
point of this? There's there's so many or you'd
have a Pat McAfee shirt, which I'm probably not going to get
anytime soon. It's not, not not high.
Which is just a a black tank top I guess.
Yeah, they're right. Yeah.
I I, I mean, I'm assuming. I'm sorry, I'm actually shocked
He doesn't have like an Amazon storefront just to sell those.
I I never would have driven a tank top anyway, anyway.
All right. Yeah, Greg, thanks.
Thanks for having me on. Thank.
You thank you. I appreciate Greg God for
joining us here on Crimson Cast. Hopefully this was enjoyable.
If you needed a 2 hour podcast, this is the place to come.
Anyway, we'll be back with more on the Back Home network coming
up soon, including some special announcements which we're
looking forward to making. We'll catch you folks on the
flip side. Have a happy 4th of July if you
listened to this before then if not, have a happy 4th of July
next year for Greg. I'm Galen.
We'll catch you folks on the flip side.
So everybody.