The Sporting Class: Inside Google's $200 Million War on ESPN

As The Great Football Blackout of 2025 reaches the cliff's edge, John Skipper and David Samson take Pablo inside Disney's call before the earnings call: Does Silicon Valley have a higher tolerance for pain than Mickey Mouse? Does the Worldwide Leader have more power than Fox News? And will mollifying Donald Trump get you anywhere? Plus: MFN status, the "I Don't Wanna Get Screwed" clause, debating Romance languages... and John Mamdani. • Previously on PTFO: What You Can't Control, with David Samson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqu8S7ULjj8 • Subscribe to "Nothing Personal with David Samson" https://www.youtube.com/@npds Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  I would challenge you to find anybody who would suggest I was ever ogre-like in a discussion. I would challenge you to find anyone within my industry who doesn't view you that way.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  Right after this ad.

• 0:22Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:50Speaker 03

  With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess, once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place, instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses

• 2:00Speaker 00

  to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at apollo.io. That's apollo.io.

• 2:24Pablo Torre?

  David Samson looks better than he's ever looked, in my view.

• 2:28Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 2:29Speaker 06

  I feel worse than I've ever felt, in my view. But thank you. Not my target demographic, but I appreciate the compliment.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  It's not a bad look.

• 2:38Pablo Torre?

  Many people can't pull off a clean-shaven head and a full beard. David looks like he's in a new era of content creation as a result. And I want to thank you, David, for making time to be here. The story of why you shaved your hair is explained on your own show, Nothing Personal with David Samson. It is in tribute to your daughter, who we have talked about before on this show and elsewhere. I don't want to dwell on it beyond the fact that there is a convenient metaphor. Because we are here to talk about who gets to take a haircut in the world of-- look at, I'm so good at this, guys.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 3:13Pablo Torre?

  I'm so good at hosting this morning class.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  He is a-- that, he's a professional.

• 3:18Speaker 06

  Folks, this is not rehearsed.

• 3:20Speaker 05

  Does that mean he gets paid to do this?

• 3:22Speaker 06

  A lot.

• 3:22Pablo Torre?

  I get paid for a segue, actually.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 3:25Speaker 06

  For Twitter fight.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  I think that's worth a bonus.

• 3:29Speaker 06

  From a man who doesn't give the bonuses.

• 3:30Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say, that meant a lot.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  Now that I'm not in charge of giving bonuses, I think they should give you a bonus. Should be like, instead of that, what is it, the bucket of death, where you actually have to pay? We should have the bucket of bonus for a clever segue like that. Reach right in, get a $20 bill.

• 3:47Pablo Torre?

  I've worked for John at two separate companies, one of which is essential to the episode we're here to do today. And at no point has he said, "We should give you a bonus." But now, when he has zero influence over the bonuses, I get one, and I appreciate that, John.

• 4:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm gonna encourage you.

• 4:19Pablo Torre?

  Thursday is a day that used to mean a lot in the life of John Skipper, and still does as a focus of this episode, because it's Disney's Fourth Quarter Earnings Call Day. And we are hearing and analyzing the sounds coming from two different corners. On one side is Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC. The other side is-- What we call Alphabet, Google, which owns YouTube TV. And there is something that we got to explain for everybody who doesn't know the term that, of course, we're fluent in here on the sporting class. But the term is carriage dispute. John?

• 4:57Speaker 05

  No, I was trying to think of some funny joke about horses and carriages, but I couldn't.

• 5:01Pablo Torre?

  It does feel like-

• 5:01Speaker 06

  It's just money.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  There are potentially some horses asses involved here.

• 5:05Speaker 06

  Always, the people who run their companies. But the reason why you want to bring up carriage disputes is that you can't get something for nothing. And these companies have content. And content costs money to make, costs money to produce. And there are platforms that want that content. YouTube TV charges people to get channels. Disney's got channels. They have to negotiate a price. And the reason you get all these disputes is there is a huge schism that exists right now over what people think their content is worth and what the platforms think their content is worth. And then you get major fights, the likes of which we're seeing right now.

• 5:41Pablo Torre?

  Right, so if you're a YouTube TV subscriber, as I am, I don't get ESPN. ESPN's been blacked out, ABC, The Games likewise, blacked out. And a carriage dispute, despite the conjuring of, you know, top hats and petty coats and I think-

• 5:58Speaker 05

  Petty coats?

• 5:58Pablo Torre?

  Petty coats?

• 6:00Speaker 05

  Isn't that, weren't those undergarments that women wore, not coats? Not what the carriage drivers do?

• 6:08Pablo Torre?

  Well, my Google search does indicate that. I may be providing a level of visibility that is unwanted.

• 6:14Speaker 05

  Actually-

• 6:15Speaker 06

  But expected.

• 6:16Speaker 05

  It's drag.

• 6:18Pablo Torre?

  There it is.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  And in the, this world, that's not allowed, drag. So petty coats, so you've got carriage drivers wearing petty coats?

• 6:26Speaker 06

  Do you have people with you who still go over this show to see what's allowed in it? Or now that you're not in charge of bonuses, it's just balls to the wall?

• 6:35Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know about that.

• 6:36Speaker 06

  All right. We can keep it in then.

• 6:38Pablo Torre?

  There's, there's a manure reference that I've been holding on to that I'll now discard. A manure, carriage disputes, horse manure. And the question of when John Skipper was president of ESPN, how many carriage disputes did you have to navigate?

• 6:54Speaker 05

  Um, we never had a carriage dispute. If dispute as defined as not reaching an agreement, it goes public and you come off the air. Uh, Disney had such a formidable lineup buttressed overwhelmingly by ESPN's sports portfolio that made it pretty unthinkable for anybody to take ESPN off. I believe it still is debil- it, it still is destructive to any distributor who tries to take ESPN off, as I believe this is. I spent the last Thursday and Friday at the University of Iowa. Uh, was at the journalism school, creative writing school,

• 7:38Speaker 05

  and asked and was shocked when I asked for a show of hands on who has YouTube TV. So one thing I discovered was its subscribers are overwhelmingly young. And by the way, it was the carrier, it was the carrier of choice for the students. They all said they liked YouTube TV better. They, that was their carrier. I asked them who they blamed. They said about 65, 35, we blame ESPN. By the way, it didn't say the Walt Disney Company. They said, we blame ESPN. And I said, what are you doing about this? And they said, we're switching carriers. So while they blame ESPN.

• 8:15Speaker 06

  We, we can stop there for one second because that's the whole game here. Because we need to go a step further. Does Disney have any sort of platform? Yes, they have Hulu Live. They have an ESPN app. So this is not like a work stoppage that happens in sports where there are no games being played. ESPN is still out there. You can get it. You're a YouTube TV. Platform holder, you can still get ESPN. You just have to get it a different way. It's not like when baseball goes on strike and there's no games being played. It doesn't matter where you are or through what lens you're looking. There's no games. In this case, you can clearly still get ESPN and people are gonna vote.

• 8:58Speaker 06

  And the way they're voting is, hey, I can get rid of YouTube TV and I can get Hulu Live. Guess what? Hulu Live is the Disney company. So why would it not be a strategy for the Disney company to strangle YouTube TV? Who's trying to overtake all of them, including Charter? And NBC and Peacock are involved here because you've got Dish and Comcast. Why wouldn't this be a strategy for Hulu to try to get in the conversation and overtake all of those platforms?

• 9:28Speaker 05

  At least in the survey, which is not scientific, nor did I really calc- uh, add up the votes. They did not talk about switching to Hulu. They talked about switching to Comcast and DirecTV. Right? I mean, that's the more logical for them place is just to go back and get another.

• 9:47Speaker 06

  The non-Disney options.

• 9:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. And by the way, YouTube TV, it's, everybody talks about like it's different than Comcast. It's the same thing. It's just delivered digitally rather than through coaxial cable or a telephone line. It's just a delivery of a multi-channel subscription. And these students want to get ESPN. Nobody said a thing about missing Freeform or any other channel, including ABC. They were concerned about missing ESPN. And they said that while they believed that ESPN was somewhat responsible, they were going to end up punishing the distributor, whether they thought ESPN was responsible or not, because they want their games.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  And that's always been the power that ESPN brings to this. It is about the only channel. Fox News probably is the other one. That people will change their. Supplier if they can't get ESPN. If they can't get Fox News, they probably would as well. I don't think there's another channel. Am I missing somebody? There's the, there's the.

• 10:56Pablo Torre?

  I think that's right. I think that's generally correct. But I want to actually emphasize what is different about Google. Because the thing that happened in 2023, which we covered, by the way, with Charter, right? There was a carriage dispute, lasted 11 days. Now, that one did not touch Monday Night Football, right? And Monday Night Football, John, you've described it on this show previously as like the ultimate bulwark.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 11:20Pablo Torre?

  Against canceling or against someone winning the arm wrestling contest with Disney over like what you get to charge for these games. And then 2024, September, a year ago, DirecTV, this is a 14 day carriage dispute in which they missed the season opener. They missed the NFL kickoff, September 9th, and it did cost them one Monday Night Football game. And that is unprecedented and also a symptom of something that seems to be changing at ESPN in terms of the landscape and the leverage it has. Because now we're standing on the precipice of a second Monday Night Football game being cost, according to this Google carriage dispute.

• 12:02Speaker 06

  But you started and we talked, are they losing? Reports are $5 million a day. And you started the show by talking about the earnings call that's coming. And if you're a Wall Street analyst and you are looking at a daily problem of $5 million a day, the impact it may have on this quarter's earnings, it may be there, a quarter of a penny, a half a penny. But what you're being told by the Disney people, by the C-suite people, by Iger is, listen, problem now, maybe, but long term, if we don't hold our ground here, if we do not explain to YouTube TV the way we are going to operate, and then he's still going to go into his other assets like Hulu. So you're telling your analysts on the call,

• 12:44Speaker 06

  yes, we are guiding you toward this $5 million per day problem, but we are also showing our shareholders the benefit of this strategy and what it will do to our share price. So they know what they're doing, clearly.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  I certainly believe that they will hold because what does YouTube TV have, about 10 million subscribers?

• 13:05Speaker 06

  So that I don't know that they give a number, but I've I've read that somewhere.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  I've read that, I don't know the source.

• 13:11Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, as of November, currently over 10 million ish, that's the estimate.

• 13:15Speaker 05

  I would be shocked that after two weeks, if they haven't lost a six-figure number of subscribers. And that was.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  Like to 9,900,000?

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Well, somewhere between 100,000 to 999,999. Uh, and I would guess it's somewhere in the middle of that, but I would guess they've lost a quarter million subscribers, probably.

• 13:36Pablo Torre?

  But the pain tolerance, right? So Google and Disney are both enormous, enormous companies. Google, uh, particularly formidable, though, when it comes to who gets to win a war of attrition in terms of that tolerance.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  Well, they certainly, it's not, it's barely material to the alphabet company, uh, that they will lose 200. I'm making it up. I do not have a source. I made 250,000 subscribers, headed to 500,000 subscribers. That, uh, that matters to them because their goal is to become the largest distributor. Uh, and this is going to hinder that. And they're going to discover the power of ESPN to make people change their, their, uh, subscription. Uh, these people are our, our kids and they want to see the Iowa game next week and they play away from home. Like, and, uh, they're going to be unhappy when they can't watch that game and they might switch their carrier.

• 14:30Speaker 06

  I couldn't possibly disagree with you more because if you're a Google and you're YouTube TV, you want to make Disney a ziss and you're just, you're happy to pop it. You're happy for it to get big and red and you just, you, you will do anything to crush them. And if it requires this sort of standing where you are dark, you're losing 250, 500,000. The whole argument they're having is what happens when YouTube takes over the world? The whole argument they're having is YouTube wanting more money when they become the player in this space.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Well, I don't. I would, I would put it slightly different, which is Disney has the pain tolerance to put up with this for a while. And the pain that will be inflicted upon them if they pierce the MFNs, we'll talk about what that is.

• 15:21Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  Is greater, a lot more than $5 million.

• 15:24Pablo Torre?

  That's, that's sort of like the, the stakes here a bit because one note is that YouTube, by the way, of course, famously, they purchased the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. And so even though they might not be able to watch the games, it's hard to imagine that those subscribers necessarily would leave with that degree of immediacy because they're also already subscribing and paying a lot of money, hundreds of dollars annually to get Sunday Ticket. But you mentioned MFNs and I want to get to the whole, like, what is actually being argued over here?

• 15:56Speaker 05

  I just would make the point for do that. College football may be just as important as the NFL. For ESPN, we've had these contract disputes for DirecTV and other places with CBS. Their most valuable asset is Monday Night Football. I suspect more people cancel. These Iowa kids were not complaining about missing Monday Night Football because you can go to a bar, you can go to a friend's house and watch it somewhere. But if you want to watch the college football game that's only on ESPN, that is more, I think, more acute than an NFL game.

• 16:33Speaker 06

  I love what your research tells you, but you were in Iowa, and I love Iowa. I love the people in Iowa, but I don't believe that Bob Iger is sitting there calculating what's going on in Iowa as, as dictating his strategy. I don't think you can extrapolate what you heard in Iowa.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  What I heard not, what I heard in Iowa is that ESPN's not the party that's going to get most hurt by this. Now, Alphabet has a higher pain tolerance than Disney. They're a bigger company, this is less material to them, so they can hold their breath and, and, and for a long time. But I don't know. Disney, the burden for Disney is to figure out something they can give them, which is not the price on either ESPN or ABC. And I think their recent news reports that the dispute may be more about ABC than ESPN. Though that could also be PR spin.

• 17:28Speaker 06

  That's.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  From Alphabet suggesting that we're mad, I know you're mad about ESPN, but it's not even ESPN, it's ABC. And Bowie, nobody is saying, I'm going to change my subscription because I can't get ABC.

• 17:42Pablo Torre?

  I want to actually use, I like how A, we're sounding like we're doing exit polls for the Iowa caucuses right now.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  No, no, it's just a point of data.

• 17:52Pablo Torre?

  No, but.

• 17:52Speaker 05

  And I do believe it to be accurate. I believe that unlike previous disputes, when we actually did them, we always discovered it was the distributor they blamed. So we didn't get any emails, we didn't get any complaints. That's clearly changed a little bit. But I don't know that it means that the outcome here will change a little bit.

• 18:11Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I think anecdotally, the Google YouTube TV product is just a good product. And I think people are inconvenienced and what they blame as a result of that inconvenience, I think mileage varies. But I actually want to just call upon your expertise and experience inside of these Disney earnings calls. Like what's it, what, what hap, for those who have no idea what the [bleep] that is. Like, when you say, you know, potentially, according to Morgan Stanley, right? Their analyst, Ben Swinburne, is calculating that Disney is losing 30 million a week, right? And we're about to enter fully week two. What's it like on a call like that, John? Like, what's, what's actually happening at an earnings call?

• 18:49Speaker 05

  Well, they've released what the results in the last quarter were. And they are asking the CEO, because Bob takes the calls usually with the CFO. And sometimes he brings in a segment leader if there's something to talk about. I doubt they will here. So Bob will do it and he'll get questions about it. I don't think Wall Street is going to get that excited about $5 million a day.

• 19:13Pablo Torre?

  So let's explain what an earnings call is, though.

• 19:15Speaker 05

  That's not a lot of money for a big company like the Walt Disney Company.

• 19:19Speaker 06

  Can I take one minute just to set the table of what it's like? It's picture a Zoom and on there are a bunch of kids. And their job is to say buy, sell, hold.

• 19:32Speaker 06

  And those are the kids who then get information within a Wall Street bank, who say buy, sell, hold, and I'm not impugning them and what they do because it's very hard to be an analyst on Wall Street. The people on the investment side, the wealth management side, who are calling their customers and saying, "Hey, buy Disney shares." They are basing it on what their firm and other firms are saying. Should you be buying Disney, selling Disney, or holding Disney?

• 19:58Pablo Torre?

  So they're listening and making decisions based on what they hear?

• 20:00Speaker 06

  So that is what is supposed to be happening, but it's not. It is very rare, it's like the Supreme Court or anybody changing what their vote's going to be based on oral argument. It very rarely changes the opinion of a justice, although it feels good to the lawyer to have an oral argument. It's the same thing with these earnings calls. These analysts have a very good idea because they pressure test these companies. That's all they do all day long. They don't wait for four times a year to learn, "Oh, what's going on at Disney? Bob, please tell me." They know when Disney takes a dump. They know when Bob Iger is skiing. They know everything that's going on, what the calls do.

• 20:41Speaker 05

  I'm glad you separated those two.

• 20:42Speaker 06

  Those are two different things. I was trying to give you the full scale, that these analysts, their whole job is to know the companies they cover.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  Well, it not only is, but if you actually go in and are a little bit cynical, they all have models, and what they're mostly trying to do on their earnings call is test their models. So what they're going to do is ask questions to see if they need to lower the revenue assumptions they have in their model, how much that might be, and how that changes what their projections of next year's earnings, year after.

• 21:17Speaker 06

  Huge part of what the earnings call is. It's not just about what's happened, it's also part of forecast. This is what we got going. So when you're doing your models and you're making your buy, sell, hold decisions, by the way, you should see what we got going first quarter of '26. And so that's another part of what the earnings call is. And it's a big pain in the neck for public companies. You have to spend time prepping for them, and you're dealing with these people at the Wall Street firms on the Zoom. It's funny.

• 21:43Speaker 05

  But I do, I, what do you, I'd be interested to know what you think. I don't think this will be that big a deal at the earnings call. They want to know, so they're gonna ask, because they gotta figure out how they change their model. But it's just not that material, five million dollars a day.

• 21:58Speaker 06

  No, it's the PR part of it. So it's getting a lot of attention within our world of sports business. But for the people in Wall Street, when they're going through Disney, or they're going through Google, they are hardly spending time pressure testing, saying, all right, how long is this gonna go? What's this, what is the impact? Now, if it is true that YouTube is gonna lose 250,000 subs a week, and so we-

• 22:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I didn't say that.

• 22:22Speaker 06

  Which you didn't say, but that would be a material number. And so you're losing 10% in a month, and so you are under a year away from YouTube TV disappearing.

• 22:30Speaker 05

  Well, you wouldn't.

• 22:31Speaker 06

  If that were the case, then that would be a much more serious issue.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  Only because the people who are going to switch, switch pretty early, right? I mean, because they want to see a specific game next Saturday, and they're prepared to switch in time to see that game. The, the, it won't go at a steady rate every week.

• 22:49Speaker 06

  I agree.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  And I think I probably underestimated what they've lost so far, but it will start coming down pretty quickly. Um, and then, and it's Disney, what Disney's gotta do is go in and figure out something to give them. Remember, they settled the Charter Agreement by, I think, agreeing to let Charter sell or carry Disney Plus.

• 23:12Speaker 06

  There was a bundle, it was a bundle solution, which is fascinating, given the companies fighting, because they all have bundles that they're selling and trying to promote. So bundles have become part of the solution now.

• 23:23Pablo Torre?

  Right. Okay, so, so, one side note before we get to like, what is actually the nitty gritty of like, the negotiation here? Um, it is worth noting, as we're speculating, like, what is Google here potentially losing? They did offer this $20 credit to all 10 million of us-ish who subscribe to YouTube TV. And so, look, if all 10 million people claim via that link, $20, that's $200 million. Now, I think it's an opt-in process.

• 23:53Speaker 06

  I bet you a dollar that not all 10 million people take the 20 bucks.

• 23:56Pablo Torre?

  Which is why I presume they didn't automatically discount the 20 bucks from your bill. They made you click on the email that you might have filtered into your spam folder. But I thought that was indicative.

• 24:07Speaker 06

  Were you upset about that? Did you think they should have just given you a $20 credit, including to people who never use ESPN, who aren't part of YouTube TV because of ESPN at all? Why should they get $20 back?

• 24:18Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I feel like, I feel like Google could afford it, is my general perspective.

• 24:23Speaker 05

  I don't, I don't actually understand why they did it. I mean, I guess it's, they think they're gonna make people happy. They're not gonna change anybody's mind with $20. If you wanna switch, you're gonna switch. Uh, and so theoretically, they put, and at risk that they could pay up to 200 million. And by the way, they said a present. Are you gonna get another $20 next month? I, I'm, I don't know whether they're subtly trying to say, by the way, you're paying $20 for ESPN. They might be trying to do that, sort of. It, it has that feel that it might be what you might think you were paying for ESPN.

• 24:58Speaker 06

  That was my first thought, is I was surprised it wasn't 9.99. I was surprised that it wasn't a smaller number, because it would be easy for someone to then extrapolate that, oh, so this is the portion of YouTube TV that is ESPN and ABC.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  I suspect, by the way, it's pretty close to it.

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  All of it does feel, to the point of PR, though, like, you know, that's their version of putting Bob Iger in a Packers hoodie on the Manning Cast. Here is a nice human gesture for all of us to appreciate as we figure out, like, are we getting a good deal or not? And the deal on the table, right? So, speaking of the, the jousting and, and the dispute over, like, what is actually at the heart of this dispute? It's worth noting that, uh, at Puck, John Orand, he reported that YouTube TV is attempting to negotiate rates that are lower for Disney content than the largest three pay TV distributors in the country, aforementioned Comcast, Charter Direct TV. Disney has said, apparently, that, uh, no, we're not gonna give YouTube TV a lower rate,

• 26:00Pablo Torre?

  because that would trigger a most favored nation clause, which I am generally familiar with in the United Nations context, but less so in this.

• 26:11Speaker 06

  I don't know it at all in that context. I only know it in the business context.

• 26:17Speaker 06

  So John, I'm just, when we want that clause, it just means, what it means really, it's the "I don't want to get screwed" clause.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  It's a protection against somebody getting a better deal than you. And the MFN, traditionally, I don't know what's in these agreements now. The MFN traditionally has been about price. And it's not about a bunch of other things. It's not a general, "Everything in this contract, you get an MFN." It's "You get an MFN on price."

• 26:46Speaker 05

  Again, it gets back to Disney can't give in on that. First of all, I don't, at least at ESPN, there's no scale-based rate difference, right? Everybody pays the same thing. When I was there, ABC still was negotiating individually. They were behind because CBS was way ahead in terms of getting payments for the broadcast network. But they can't give the renegade company, which is threatening Comcast and DirecTV and Spectrum, "Oh, and we're now going to give the guys who are taking subscribers from you a price break when they get bigger." It's just, I don't see how they can deal with that.

• 27:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, so just to put it in numbers, if Disney is charging $5 per subscriber per month for ABC and ESPN, and that's the deal they have with Comcast, there's a deal with Charter, there's a deal with YouTube TV that says, "Okay, we will not have to pay more than that because if all of a sudden you do a deal with us where we pay $3, then all of a sudden the $5 deal goes down to $3." So it's price protection for Disney, and it's "I don't want to get screwed" for YouTube TV. So MFNs, they're called, most favored nations, just simply means that we're all going to be sort of peripetous. We're all going to be equal, and now you're going to have to gut it out to get more subscribers.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  Now, I don't know that you help yourself describing that by calling it "peripetous."

• 28:18Pablo Torre?

  Peripetous. Did you play second for the Twins in the 80s? Peripetous? Listen.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  Dominican shortstop.

• 28:26Pablo Torre?

  That's right. The thing that's different, though, right?

• 28:29Speaker 06

  I'm going to say French.

• 28:30Pablo Torre?

  The thing that's different about...

• 28:31Speaker 05

  I think it's Latin, isn't it?

• 28:34Pablo Torre?

  The thing that is difference, as we debate romance languages. The thing that's difference here... The difference that's worth reckoning with is that what YouTube TV's argument here, and they, by the way, have provided pushback to Awful Announcing to give you a sense of just like how in the trenches they are in the sports media dispute here. They're saying, hold on, there's a difference. YouTube TV is the only carrier on a growth trajectory. Everything else is shrinking. It has managed to climb because of course you know cord cutting and subscriber loss for those companies, the Comcast, the charters, DirecTVs. But YouTube TV is saying, all we want, according to their anonymous spokesperson who spoke to Awful Announcing, is that when YouTube TV becomes the biggest, and that is possible,

• 29:17Pablo Torre?

  the largest paid TV distributor in the country, next year, they want a rate that reflects a unique trajectory. And that is what Alphabet is saying, like, hold on, you're not totally giving us the best argument here.

• 29:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, so if I'm Disney, that is not a compelling argument, which is that, hey, we're going to be so good at what we do, we're getting so many more eyes on ESPN that we want a bigger rate today. The answer is we do a deal, given the information we have today, and if, that's why you do openers in deals, in collective bargaining deals, there are sometimes openers if the world changes within a year or two years of a five-year deal, or opt-out provisions in player contracts, if the market has changed. Very rare do you get a premium based on what you suspect is going to happen, even if the trajectory is such, there's no way they would get a premature premium from, I just wouldn't see that as possible.

• 30:14Speaker 05

  Well, and I agree with that, but I think it's even more existential that you, it's why Comcast has an MFN, is I don't want anybody having an advantage over me, and the people they would least like to have that advantage are the ascendant YouTube TV.

• 30:34Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Subscriber. So I don't see how they can agree to that. They'll have to, and by the way, I'm not sure that's what ultimately Alphabet expects. I think they're playing a little bit of PR there by moving the blame off of ESPN to ABC.

• 30:49Pablo Torre?

  They're also saying that, right? That they've agreed to the price for ESPN, the dispute now...

• 30:55Speaker 06

  At the table is the price of ABC. Dollars are fungible. It's such a silly statement to make when you're negotiating a multi-pronged deal. If you get a little discount here and a little premium there, you're still getting the number that you wanted.

• 31:08Speaker 05

  And that may be what they're doing, which is just negotiating. I never liked negotiating in the press, but that might be what they're doing is you're going to have to now it tells Disney because whatever they're asking for is what they want. All right. And it's just money. To your point, Disney has to figure out a way to go back and get them something that doesn't trip MFNs that is not essentially unfair. I would be looking for something that only YouTube TV can do to help the Disney company and giving them getting that back for something, some price.

• 31:42Speaker 06

  I've been thinking about the bundle solution. I've been thinking a lot about ESPN and Disney. They have so much money in their new app and ESPN app and what they're trying to do there that I keep wondering whether or not they're going to come up with something where YouTube TV has to have some sort of direct where you all the clients, all the patrons have the ability to get the app for a discount or.

• 32:03Speaker 05

  But that is the right solution, right? If you're at Disney, what you're trying to figure out is how can I actually help myself here on something that is a priority for me? And I would think ESPN, the new direct to consumer service would be at the top of my list. Can you help me with that somehow? And can I then reward you for that in a way which doesn't trigger the MFN and gets you the same amount of money?

• 32:28Speaker 06

  That's why I think that when the football games have been the pressure points in the past, and I appreciate Iowa saying they want the college football game, I actually think it's bigger than than. Oh, we got the low.

• 32:38Speaker 05

  But forget Iowa. I would suggest that throughout this country.

• 32:41Speaker 06

  Right.

• 32:42Speaker 05

  There is a large path through the southeast and the Midwest where they actually care more about college football than professional.

• 32:49Speaker 06

  I don't disagree. I just think that the negotiation that's happening right now between Google and Disney, I don't really believe it is solely sports based. I think as you would say, it's much more existential. There is a lot more business out there other than sports. And to wit, we saw Bob Iger go on the Manning Cast. And we in the sports media, and me as a former team guy, said, oh, Bob Iger's out there for PR. He's going to talk about this. He's got some talking points to get to the people who watch the Manning Cast. Turns out, the people who watch the Manning Cast could give a flying rat's ass about the carriage dispute. They wanted to talk about Bob Iger liking the Green Bay Packers, and they wanted to know whether Iger would go for it on fourth and six, while Peyton and Eli were telling their views. Bob Iger didn't mention a word about it. Not a word.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  I guess he assumed it wouldn't do any good, right? If he thought that it would be helpful, he would have done it.

• 33:40Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  Now, it is funny, because he's talking to the people who still have carriage. So, maybe it's not the best place to reach the people who don't have carriage.

• 33:48Speaker 06

  Preach it to the choir, we call that.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 33:58Pablo Torre?

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 34:31Speaker 07

  I got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone, and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade-in needed, and the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for Watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 35:33Pablo Torre?

  Look, one of the subplots, by the way, in terms of the dynamic between Disney and Alphabet particularly, is just a note here, right? And Justin Connolly, who used to be Disney's president of platform distribution, he left Disney, and there was a big controversy about that because he left to take the job of global head of media and sports at YouTube, the first such job. And he previously reported to Jamie Paturo, ESPN's chairman. He basically switched teams, according to the reporting, during negotiations. Lawsuits have ensued. Settlements finally were reached, and Justin Connolly had to recuse himself from these negotiations. So the team is handling it without him,

• 36:16Pablo Torre?

  which is to say, though, that this specific negotiation is clearly a very meaningful part of the Alphabet strategy for media and sports, as per the title mentioned.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. Though Justin's current job would not put him in the negotiation for this anyway.

• 36:35Speaker 06

  It's only his institutional knowledge, and he's still giving that to the people at the table.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  No, he's not.

• 36:41Speaker 06

  You think he actually recused himself and he's not saying a word? He sits in his office, doesn't take calls, no drinks. I'm sure that's exactly how it goes.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  I realize you and I will disagree about this. Justin is a person of integrity. Part of the settlement was clearly, "You will not reveal any confidential information about..." I actually believe that, I don't even know what to call them, Google, Alphabet, YouTube, they're going to abide by that because they don't need to get that information.

• 37:11Pablo Torre?

  Well, what would they want to know, actually? Because I don't even know what...

• 37:15Speaker 06

  Strategy.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, they'd want to ask...

• 37:16Speaker 06

  Breakpoints.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  You'd want to say, yeah, "Where is the point of pain? What can we do?" They're not going to get that from him, because why would you? It's, uh, he's just not going to do it. It's part of his settlement agreement for getting to go. He left, I assume, for opportunity, not for, to get involved in a dispute with his former employee, where he worked for a long time and was very good at what he did. The big miss is not that he's giving them information, it's that he is the most skilled negotiator, or the most experienced negotiator they may well have. Very smart people. I have no idea. But that, they'll miss that a little bit. Uh, but other than that, they're not gonna get anything. They don't need it for that, but it's not worth the risk.

• 37:59Pablo Torre?

  There are statements, of course, as David just looks askew at you.

• 38:04Speaker 05

  Well, I do.

• 38:04Pablo Torre?

  With love, I'm just laughing.

• 38:06Speaker 06

  I'm laughing at your concept.

• 38:08Speaker 05

  He just believes I'm naive.

• 38:09Speaker 06

  No, not naive. I think that you have a certain way that you like to project yourself as this amazingly honorable, morally centered, compiste executive who believes that everyone should have the same amount of money. But you will literally, literally, you will knock people down. You will crush their existence in order to get an extra penny. I've been crushed by you. I've watched you do it. And the way you come out, it just makes me laugh. Like, oh, that was a long time ago. I don't feel that way anymore. It's so silly. Sorry. Go ahead, Paolo.

• 38:44Pablo Torre?

  John, Mom, Donny aside, though. I do want to get to this question of, okay. Let's now put the camera on Charter Comcast Direct TV. What the hell do they want out of this? What are they rooting for? What is, what ability do they have beyond asserting their MFN status to materially be relevant in what is happening here?

• 39:06Speaker 06

  It's like stopping a train. It's stopping the sunrise. There's no, it's funny, if you're them, are you saying to yourself, hey, if we can have YouTube TV disappear, if they can lose all their subs, then maybe those guys will come back and our decline will actually turn into an incline? There's no possible way that they're saying that.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  I don't think they're thinking they have any place in this negotiation or there's anything that's going to help them. And the only thing they're doing is telling their this, the, this, the group at ESPN that does the negotiations. They're telling them, you better not give these guys any advantage over us. We've been doing business with you for a long time. Our business is already challenged. You can't make this any harder for us by giving them. And if you do, we're going to assert our MFN. I don't think they're doing anything else.

• 39:57Speaker 06

  Nor do I think they're the beneficiary, either of it lasting another month, another year, or it being settled today. I really don't think what they're trying to figure out is what their business model's going to look like because the rate of decline has increased so significantly that they've had to push up their R and D into figuring out what we're going to do next in order to be, maintain shareholder price and be a viable company.

• 40:20Speaker 05

  Is that, I actually don't know. Is it, is the diminution of the pay TV universe still declining?

• 40:27Speaker 06

  Well, their-

• 40:28Speaker 05

  I'm not sure it is.

• 40:29Speaker 06

  Their part is, I mean-

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Their part might be.

• 40:31Speaker 06

  That's what I'm, that's what I'm referring to, not the industry, obviously. Their part.

• 40:36Pablo Torre?

  So, the, the rate of decline has slowed, but is ongoing. I think that's the way-

• 40:42Speaker 05

  Well, does that rate of decline include the growth of YouTube TV? Cause it's funny that people don't think, they're in the same category. They've actually arrested the decline. They've simply moved people over to a new carrier. Um, and of course, what matters to them in this is their proposition to start with was we're going to be sports centric. That was their original proposition. And then their second proposition was, we're cheaper, right? They started at $39.95. Their now, their price now is $83. I think the other, I think probably the other distributors are probably a little north of there, but not much. And if they have to ra- raise their price, which they would, to cover this, and now

• 41:24Speaker 05

  they're $90, they're losing their, they're losing their financial advantage over the other distributors. So I guess that's the thing that the other distributors are hoping for.

• 41:34Speaker 06

  Well, you called it, you called everyone a cable company and you called the consumers the losers, which they are, and you called the fact that everyone who pretends that they've cut their cord in order to save money as not having done that. And the companies that are taking advantage of the people who cut the cord really look, smell and taste like a cable company, a traditional cable company.

• 41:52Speaker 05

  It is. Doesn't that, I mean, they just have a slightly skinnier bundle, which is why they can be- Somewhat cheaper. They do provide a good service, right? I don't know whether digital service actually is better now than the other distributions, the higher quality. I don't know whether it is or not.

• 42:08Pablo Torre?

  Looks fine to me.

• 42:09Speaker 05

  And by the way, I didn't call them losers. I said they might be the losers in this discussion.

• 42:15Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 42:16Speaker 05

  But far be it from me to want to suggest that they're losers.

• 42:19Pablo Torre?

  Yes. I mean, just come back from Iowa. Very sensitive.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  That's not how I want to project myself. As I go back tonight and count the pennies in my bottom drawer and think about how I could steal a few more.

• 42:33Speaker 05

  I'm actually Ebenezer Scrooge when I get home.

• 42:35Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 42:37Speaker 06

  Ebenezer.

• 42:39Speaker 05

  What did I say?

• 42:40Speaker 06

  It may be Ebenezer. I thought it was.

• 42:41Pablo Torre?

  It's Ebenezer.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  Ebenezer.

• 42:43Speaker 05

  No, no, it is Ebenezer. Did I say something different?

• 42:45Speaker 06

  You were just so excited that you started talking quickly.

• 42:48Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 42:48Speaker 06

  It's what you do now. You never used to do that when you were running ESPN.

• 42:51Speaker 05

  Talk quickly?

• 42:52Speaker 06

  No, you were much more slower and firm and you stood tall and ogre-like. You were much like Frankenstein's monster, actually.

• 43:01Speaker 05

  I would challenge you to find anybody who would suggest I was ever ogre-like in a discussion.

• 43:07Speaker 06

  I would challenge you to find anyone within my industry who doesn't view you that way.

• 43:14Speaker 06

  Not today. Today, they love you with all their heart.

• 43:17Speaker 05

  I'm the one who gave baseball a hundred percent increase in the last deal.

• 43:22Speaker 06

  Two dollars is a hundred percent over one dollar. Can't argue with that.

• 43:27Pablo Torre?

  I like.

• 43:28Speaker 05

  David's still smarting.

• 43:30Speaker 06

  It's a smart that doesn't go away. Much as I try, I can forgive, but I can't forget.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Philosophically, I just, if what you're saying is true, I simply followed your plan.

• 43:43Pablo Torre?

  David is the Bob Cratchit of this Christmas parable.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  It is.

• 43:48Speaker 06

  Who's feeding you that?

• 43:50Pablo Torre?

  I'm just making sure that people understand the lore of, you know, Ebenezer Scrooge, what? You don't think I know, you don't think I know those guys?

• 43:59Speaker 05

  It is true. We think we have to describe what an MFN is, but just about as much as the audience probably does not know who Ebenezer, who Bob Cratchit is.

• 44:08Pablo Torre?

  And that is a shame. And America is worse off for it.

• 44:12Speaker 06

  We are quite the show.

• 44:13Pablo Torre?

  By the way, speaking of America being worse off for it, in Wade's FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to say about this ongoing carriage dispute between Disney and YouTube TV, quote, "Google and Disney need to get a deal done and end this blackout. People should have the right to watch the programming they paid for, including football. Get it done!" exclamation point.

• 44:35Speaker 06

  Was it all caps?

• 44:36Speaker 05

  Did he suggest they could do it the hard way or the easy way?

• 44:41Speaker 06

  You should explain to people that's the government, that's the president talking.

• 44:44Pablo Torre?

  It's the federal government. That is Donald Trump effectively empowering Brendan Carr, the chairman, to, yeah, wade into this such a way.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, who's a knucklehead who suggested that we could get Jimmy Kimmel off the air? Or perhaps ABC will lose its broadcast license? That is an astonishing thing for someone in that position to say.

• 45:06Speaker 06

  But there are, it is true, but there are, there could be some pressure points. If there are some deals that Google is working on or Disney is working on that require approvals, you have to pay attention to what the chair is saying. You have to pay attention to what, it's like the president saying he wants to name Commander Stadium. That's obviously laugh out loud until you need the president to do something.

• 45:26Pablo Torre?

  Until he's doing a broadcast in the Fox booth.

• 45:29Speaker 06

  This is all I'm saying, that there is, there are pressure points. What we talked about in negotiation, that's the biggest part of it, is learning what are the points of pain? And...

• 45:38Speaker 05

  Well, and certainly, they will understand that in this administration, they have no right to believe that they will behave in an ordinary manner of governmental business. They're not.

• 45:51Speaker 06

  Which causes you to act accordingly.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 45:55Speaker 06

  Which makes the markets uneasy, which makes the earnings calls more interesting.

• 46:00Speaker 05

  Of course, anybody who believes that... You know what mollifying Donald Trump does for you?

• 46:06Speaker 06

  Gets you to the next subject.

• 46:08Speaker 05

  It gets you to mollify him again, as the Democrats have just learned. You'll give in on the ugly effing bill. You will get to give in on the continuing resolution.

• 46:23Speaker 06

  It is one of the reasons when you think about negotiating with a bully on how you do it. And that's one of the things we would talk about, not to make this about John, but when you're negotiating with ESPN as an industry, as a sports league, one of the things we'd talk about behind closed doors is, hey, we cannot indicate any willingness to budge on this for fear that he will mistake in this for the desire or the fact that we ever would budge on that. So these things, stop laughing. The fact that you would cause these conference calls and cause meetings galore with committees.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  You were having, you were having conference calls about how to deal with that ogre?

• 47:00Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 47:04Speaker 06

  You know that, like, it's just, the way he pretends with you, Pablo, just makes me laugh. Oh, it's the first I'm hearing that I was an important part of the negotiation.

• 47:23Speaker 07

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 47:53Speaker 08

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  With a Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.

• 48:58Pablo Torre?

  What do you think we're about to learn here? Like, let's, let's look ahead. Like, this will have taught the industry, both Silicon Valley as well as those that remain in traditional media and, and, you know, the traditional media companies. What will we all have learned from this?

• 49:15Speaker 06

  I'm, I'll start, and I will say that we will learn that Google doesn't lose. And if I had to pick, choose a winner between Google and Disney, I would choose Google. I think that they've got the capacity to handle these, this dispute for much longer, much deeper. And they have no concern on their share price. They have no concern on their earnings. And while for Disney, it is a blip, it is a more meaningful blip than it is for Google.

• 49:47Speaker 05

  I think that there will be a resolution to this in the not-too-distant future, because both parties actually want to come to some resolution. I don't think there's any reason that Google will want to embarrass Disney by, by saying, "We won, we won." They'll, they'll come out with a statement that says, "We both won. We figured out something to do. We're happy to get our game, our service back in front of fans," and they move on.

• 50:14Speaker 06

  I'll go on record. I'll say there will not be a resolution prior to the earnings call, because I don't believe that Disney in any way would want to indicate to Google that, "Wow, this is our pressure point, the earnings call." I don't view it.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  And I don't actually think it is. I think it, I don't think it'd be that big a deal. And by the way, they're busy preparing for the earnings call. And at some point, you would actually tell...

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Bob, you should concentrate on the earnings call. He's not, uh, my guess is that's the top priority for him is to get through this. And you'll see a resolution either before Monday, the next Monday night game. I don't know what the game is. Um, or you'll see it in front of, uh, the, right after the Monday night football game before the next weekend of college.

• 50:56Pablo Torre?

  It's a, it's a, it's a Cowboys game though, John. Cowboys Raiders on Monday night.

• 51:01Speaker 05

  Cowboys Raiders on Monday night. It's a good game. Uh, neither one of them are very good, I don't think.

• 51:05Speaker 06

  Remember the government shutdown had to be solved by Thanksgiving, by holiday travel. I don't find a moment, the next Monday night game is not Thanksgiving travel. The earnings call is not Thanksgiving travel. I don't think we have come to the edge of the cliff yet.

• 51:17Speaker 05

  Well, I think it's possible they'll get it done before the next Monday night game or before the weekend of the next. You don't want to go into the Thanksgiving Day weekend, which is awash with football, college and professional, without the service. Uh, I think they'll get it done before Thanksgiving weekend.

• 51:34Pablo Torre?

  I do think that, you know, to answer the question I posed before at the end here, like, uh, what do you think if you're not one of these two behemoths arguing over, you know, dollars per month? You're thinking to yourself, if you had been under the boot of Disney before, there's always a bigger ogre.

• 51:54Speaker 06

  Good job, Pablo.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Well, again, I'm not sure.

• 52:01Speaker 06

  That's how it's supposed to end.

• 52:02Speaker 05

  Oh, that's how it's supposed to end.

• 52:03Speaker 06

  I think that's it. I think that's what, I think you let him say that.

• 52:06Speaker 05

  All right, well, that is, we'll cut it off after that.

• 52:08Speaker 06

  This big moment. He tries an ogre, trying to have a through line through the whole show.

• 52:13Speaker 05

  Is that what time we're scheduled to call at the end? Is he that good?

• 52:17Pablo Torre?

  I, I love and hate both of you so much.

• 52:20Speaker 06

  Goodbye.

• 52:30Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time.

• 52:57Speaker 08

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work, around the work, and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's go.o.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 53:31Speaker 09

  Guessing is for game shows, not your business. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT, with AI grounded in your context to get work done and done right. It's a new workday.

• 53:46Speaker 03

  With the Discover Cash Back Card, it's payback time when you earn cash back on everyday purchases. Activate and earn 5% cash back at different categories each quarter on up to $1,500 in purchases. That's 5% cash back at different places each quarter, like grocery stores, on gas, and at restaurants. It pays to discover. Terms apply. See discover.com/five for details.