The Sporting Class: The Truth Behind the NBA Ratings Decline

Sure, fewer people are watching basketball games these days. But the NBA has 76 billion reasons why that doesn't matter. John Skipper, David Samson and Pablo do the math on Adam Silver's real State of the Union — and why a rival, LIV-style league would never succeed. Plus: the goosing of Super Bowl numbers, the ballad of Monty the Giant Schnauzer... and the untold origin story of a certain award-winning sports business podcast. 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.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef, cooked right when you order it, with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory, two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles, side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill. My move?

• 0:42Pablo Torre?

  QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 1:09Speaker 01

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• 1:54Pablo Torre?

  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 to larger

• 2:39Pablo Torre?

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

• 3:03Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna eat at Little Caesar's because I love Eugene Levy's eyebrows.

• 3:06Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

• 3:26Pablo Torre?

  Different vibes I'm getting from you guys right now. John has been singing. David is frantically trying to disentangle himself from a coil of wires.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Well, no, I have a system before I start recording something and I was unable to do it because I got distracted prior to recording, so I'm not on my spot. My chair isn't the right level.

• 3:47Pablo Torre?

  Well, it's a new chair.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  My IFB is in the wrong side of my jacket, and there's no table for my water, so I'm not, I'm not feeling great at the moment, but I'm gonna.

• 3:57Pablo Torre?

  And someone forced you?

• 3:58Speaker 04

  You're gonna soldier through because that's the kind of guy you are.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Well, when you're award-winning, you gotta soldier through.

• 4:04Pablo Torre?

  Are we celebrating ourselves here?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  I think it's worth mentioning.

• 4:07Pablo Torre?

  We are the.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  I don't even know if John knows because I, we sent him a text and he didn't even respond.

• 4:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 4:11Pablo Torre?

  This is how this sausage is made. We win awards for the sausage and John doesn't even respond to the text in which we say, guess what our sausage just won? The best sports business sausage award.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  What was, what was the runner-up?

• 4:26Speaker 02

  It's a great question. Some, there were a bunch of good shows, actually.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Don't be deprecating.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Who, um, uh, did you just suggest that not defecate on the show?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  No, deprecates.

• 4:39Speaker 04

  Thank you. You want to get that, that clear?

• 4:41Pablo Torre?

  That does bring us, though, to the, uh, origin of the name of our show. Which is, I, I, I, I am always, uh, a little startled to remember that we are named after the dog show, which also just happened.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Well, it's a, it's a play on words in that we are here conducting a discussion about the business of sports, which you could argue probably happens in sports management classes around the country. And you might call that the sporting class. And it happens that it coincides with a classification of dogs that are by far the most wonderful dogs. The sporting class, the beagle, the hound, the blue tick hound. That, that's the cuddliest group. It's the best group. And, uh, so we're, and sporting class is the best in class. So has all those associations. By the way, I, I do believe I came up with the name.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  So I get to say how, what it, what it, what it represents with the cooperation and collaboration of my two friends.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  There was no cooperation or collaboration.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  There was not. I just said, this is the name.

• 5:50Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I just showed up here and I was like, I guess this is what it's called.

• 5:54Speaker 04

  But I told you, but I told you, and, and everybody.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  Here's what we'll do, David.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  And we had a great picture of, uh, me and you with.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Two dogs.

• 6:02Speaker 04

  With two dogs. And I had a beagle and I forget what dog, what dog you had.

• 6:06Pablo Torre?

  Wait, you guys did a photo shoot?

• 6:08Speaker 02

  No, it was a.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  A drawing.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  A drawing that never found the light of day because your representative wanted you to be in it. And there was no room.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  Which is a good idea.

• 6:19Pablo Torre?

  Um, I want to find out what that picture looks like. We'll put that on the YouTube channel.

• 6:24Speaker 02

  It's pretty good.

• 6:25Pablo Torre?

  Um, I'm jealous that I didn't get illustrated with, uh, Monty the Giant Schnauzer, or whatever the [bleep] is.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  I yet to pick a sporting dog, right? We're the sporting class.

• 6:34Pablo Torre?

  So, so you said a-

• 6:35Speaker 04

  Beagle's taken.

• 6:36Pablo Torre?

  Blue tick, okay, you're the beagle.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  Beagle, you had a collie, poor, poor collie.

• 6:40Pablo Torre?

  So what's on the table for me?

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Australian sheep.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Everything out the field.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  Hound. Basset hound.

• 6:45Pablo Torre?

  Ooh.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  You don't know what that looks like, do you?

• 6:47Pablo Torre?

  Of course. Those eyes? I don't know.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Those ears.

• 6:51Pablo Torre?

  Those ears.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  I don't like dog shows, don't like dogs, and I abs- did not want to be the double entendre of the dog situation, and John was resolute. It, it's out of all the decisions he makes during the course of his career, it's as though he latched onto this like a dog to a bone.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  No, no, it's, well, like a dog to a bone. Wow.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Thank you, John.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Nicely done. Nicely done. Um, well, you know, there are, it's not the first thing. Uh, anybody who works for me would tell you that I frequently suggest that there is one answer to a question, and that's the one we're gonna coalesce around.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  And so the issue was that we're a with.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:26Pablo Torre?

  We're a with?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  We're a with. We work with him.

• 7:29Pablo Torre?

  Ah.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  The thought was, when this was happening, it was for him, and I tried to explain the dynamic was that we were becoming a with, and John was not yet prepared for the with.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Well, just not on the naming.

• 7:40Pablo Torre?

  Like, we're the Pips.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Well, no, no, just on the naming of it, you were the Pips, yes. Gladys Knight is Gladys Knight and the Pips. I did not make this. It's a sporting class. We're all sporty, right? And collie's an excellent choice.

• 7:55Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I, I-

• 7:55Speaker 04

  Lassie, excellent.

• 7:57Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Thank you, John.

• 7:58Pablo Torre?

  David has rescued various people from the bottom of wells. Metaphorical.

• 8:03Speaker 04

  Metaphorically.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Very metaphorical.

• 8:04Pablo Torre?

  Um, I went to the Javits Center, by the way, not for the proper dog show, but for a meet the breeds event. I had a sundae, and I had Violet, who is almost five, and I took her to go see and meet the breeds with a friend and his kid. Um, my favorite part, as you go down this giant cavernous convention hall, is they have all the posters, John, and they say, here's the blue tick hound, or whatever. Here's the, whatever, the Lhasa Apso. And each of them, they have a format, each of them has three adjectives. It's like friendly, dedicated, uh-

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Smelly.

• 8:38Pablo Torre?

  But they're all positive adjectives, and so you have to read into which ones mean this dog is a dick.

• 8:46Pablo Torre?

  And so it's like insistent.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yappy.

• 8:51Pablo Torre?

  Yappy.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Is that positive?

• 8:52Speaker 04

  I doubt yappy is one of the four edges.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  Is that a, is that a pejorative?

• 8:56Speaker 04

  I think yappy is a little pejorative.

• 8:59Pablo Torre?

  Has a system for an IFB.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  The yappy, I think, has the connotation of a little annoying. Right? You wouldn't say that dog is yappy.

• 9:10Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  My cousin is yappy. It's not a positive thing.

• 9:14Pablo Torre?

  Detail oriented.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  I've been called yappy. I was in grade school, middle school, high school.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  It does, it does not completely, it does not completely strain credibility that in your life at some point, somebody might have suggested you are yappy.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  I think it's a size issue though, John.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, among the other connotations of yappy is it's like a little dog.

• 9:38Pablo Torre?

  Yep. Like couldn't hop on a curb, kind of a thing.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  I mean, it's like a chihuahua. A chihuahua is yappy.

• 9:47Pablo Torre?

  A teacup, what's it? A teacup something? A teacup, uh, that's a breed, right? Teacup, uh...

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Where do the dogs defecate at the Javits Center?

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Just to bring this back to...

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Is there? Cause I took the bar at the Javits Center. It's a very...

• 9:59Pablo Torre?

  You took the bar exam?

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's at the Javits Center, not with dogs around. And I'm picturing sort of there's bathrooms and I recall that cause you had to have a proctor go with you where you had to do that back in those days.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  A proctor, a proctorologist.

• 10:13Pablo Torre?

  You're saying, you're saying...

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Thinking that we'd cheat like on what the rule against perpetuities is.

• 10:17Pablo Torre?

  You're saying a handler had to walk you to the bathroom?

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Well, I, it's not a good way to put it, Pablo. I don't think you want a handler to watch you, walk you to the bathroom.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Coke's had enough.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Who is a proctorologist.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Coke doesn't like penis jokes.

• 10:30Pablo Torre?

  Coke has jumped in.

• 10:32Speaker 04

  No, no, I wasn't...

• 10:33Pablo Torre?

  Threatened that we're not gonna win a second consecutive best sports business award podcast.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Where else are you gonna get, get this kind of breakdown of the English language on a sporting show?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I'm ready to start. You're ready to yap.

• 11:05Pablo Torre?

  I think we should do one of my favorite exercises with you guys, which is a bit of press release postmortem. The Super Bowl has been declared the most-watched Super Bowl, and therefore the most-watched anything in, I guess, American history, human history.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Single event.

• 11:21Pablo Torre?

  Single event. The numbers, despite the blowout, just to give you guys the scene here. Fox set a Super Bowl viewership record, according to various releases, of 126 million viewers for the Eagles-Chiefs matchup, passing the record of 123.7 million set last year for Chiefs-49ers. And there are some bits of fine print underneath how we got to this number, but is that number correct? Is that a fair announcement?

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Boy, I hope, John, you follow my lead here and agree with me. There's no way to prove one way or the other that that is the correct number. I'll start with that macro statement, and let's see if we're still together.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  It is accurate that that is not an exact measurement. They're not looking at literal signals. There are in some cases, but some of this remains a sampling technique which estimates the number of people who watch. Is who I think is directionally correct? I do. Do I think it's possible it was the most-watched in the United States Super Bowl ever? I assume wouldn't surprise me if that's right. And when somebody says it's the most-watched single event ever, it's the most-watched domestic event ever, right?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  Yes, US single event.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  The US Super Bowl is a fraction of the worldwide audience for the World Cup final, which is billion something.

• 12:47Pablo Torre?

  It reminds me of that famous New Yorker illustration of the view from... Eighth Avenue?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Steinberg. It's just called View of New York.

• 12:56Pablo Torre?

  John, you may not be surprised to learn that I walked into David's house. And are you okay with me saying this?

• 13:03Speaker 02

  It seems late now, doesn't it?

• 13:05Pablo Torre?

  I walked in and-

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm actually gonna ask, I'm actually gonna instruct you as an employee that you must now disclose-

• 13:12Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  The rest of this anecdote.

• 13:14Pablo Torre?

  I've sniffed it out like a bloodhound. And this illustration-

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Good choice, by the way. Bloodhound would be a good choice.

• 13:19Pablo Torre?

  But you're familiar with this illustration. It's basically, it shows the world beyond Manhattan, basically.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  View of the world.

• 13:25Pablo Torre?

  And it's basically-

• 13:26Speaker 02

  From New York. You've seen the image.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Yes, it's great.

• 13:28Pablo Torre?

  It's basically, whatever is over there, the world's over here. And I walked into David's abode and I saw that and I was like, oh, you have a print of this. And he said-

• 13:37Speaker 04

  It's a great picture. Uh huh. You said?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  That yes, that is from the cover of the New York, New Yorker magazine. It's, Stahl Steinberg is the artist. And it's a beautiful thing to look at.

• 13:51Pablo Torre?

  But you have the one. Are you not, okay, now, are you worried about being robbed now for this thing?

• 13:58Speaker 02

  No, no, but that, it's, so there's not, there are a few different sizes of the original, but I do have one that I'm very proud to have acquired, back when my remuneration more reflected my skill level. And it is a piece of art that has stood the test of time, mostly because I love to live with it, but also because it is an iconic symbol. It's hard to find.

• 14:26Pablo Torre?

  The point being that when it comes to ratings and America versus the world, everything else is over there. We here are measuring our own-

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Well, that's always how it is.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't think, I just was clarifying that it is, remains an overwhelmingly domestic event.

• 14:46Pablo Torre?

  I want to get to why this number has some holes we can poke at here, right? Because before, remind us, guys, before Nielsen, I believe, before, well, I guess from 2017 to 2020, Nielsen was measuring out of home viewing separately, right? And then there was a change, John. This was, we've talked about this before, but just to remind people what happened, what did happen?

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Well, a slightly, and we've talked about this before. This is consistent with what I've said before, which is remember the companies doing the ratings are in business with the companies televising the event. They both have interest in the numbers going up and being as big as they can. And it's been harder and harder to measure because people no longer just tune into one of the broadcast networks and watch. They're in bars, they're in airports, they're in restaurants, they're viewing parties, they're watching on Tubi, they're watching on Fox broadcast, they're watching on their computer. So it's harder to measure, but it also gives you more places to go in and make an estimate

• 15:54Speaker 04

  to add up to a bigger aggregate number. Now, again, do I think that's specious? No, it's just not exact. And anybody who thinks that, anybody knows that it was 137.7 million people watching between 8:00 and 8:15, it's a directional number.

• 16:13Pablo Torre?

  But it happened, David. The numbers started being counted out of home viewing. Nielsen didn't track it, didn't include it in its estimates until mid-2020. Not coincidentally, by the way, when viewership in the industry they were measuring plummeted because of the pandemic. It felt like a stimulus package at the time, for those who were closely watching. But underneath this umbrella of Fox set this record, it's not, of course, as John was alluding to, simply Fox. It's all these properties, including fast channels, which seems to be another development in what we're counting here.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  So remember, Fox was the one company that chose not to go streaming. They didn't invest a dollar the way many of the other big cable companies and broadcasting giants had invested. And so Fox has now announced, and you saw in the earnings call, John, that Murdoch said, listen, we're now leaning into streaming. Now we see a path to profitability, so we're gonna do it. And the Super Bowl was on Tubi this year, and in that 126, 27 million is around 13.5 million people who purportedly were watching it just on Tubi. Every year when a record's set, A, it impacts the advertising. Rate and this year was a record sold out and it was eight million per thirty. I think it's

• 17:26Pablo Torre?

  Eight million and change, yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  It's around that for a thirty second ad. And so as the numbers go up, you get to charge more. There's a waiting list, the companies, when State Farm backed out of its Super Bowl ad because of what was going on in California. Fox resold it in less than a second. It's like having a waiting list for season ticket holders. So everyone's incentivized, which is why these press releases don't mean much to me.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, and by the way. The rate, the ad rates are going to go up whether the ratings go up or not. With a rating going up helps it go down easily.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  You can hide.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  They just, the demand is such that if they say next year it's eight point two five. And if the rating had gone down three percent, trust me, as an advertiser, if you went in and said, oh, well, I'd like to pay ninety seven percent next year. What I paid this year, the answer would be no, you're going to pay next year eight and a quarter and the year after that's gonna be eight and a half. And in, in the decade, it's gonna be ten million dollars for a thirty second spot. Whatever happens with the ratings.

• 18:28Pablo Torre?

  One of my favorite through lines in this show is that we always are reminded how there is actually something of a disconnect between. Viewership, between the ratings and what the prices you can charge for stuff can be. So John, I just want to clarify this, right? So the way it works is if you have the rights to the Super Bowl, and I presume, were you in those meetings, John? When it came to like, what are we gonna charge for an ad slot here? Did you have the Super Bowl in your?

• 18:54Speaker 04

  We had the Super Bowl one time in my tenure.

• 18:56Pablo Torre?

  How did that go?

• 18:59Speaker 04

  And it was the Super Bowl that was played in San Diego between the. Um, it was a Super Bowl that the offensive lineman crossed over into Mexico.

• 19:11Pablo Torre?

  Oh, the Raiders.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  The party. So the Raiders Buccaneers, Raiders Buccaneers, because that was John Gruden.

• 19:17Pablo Torre?

  Fair Robins, yep.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  With Buccaneers after he had left the Raiders, correct? And the Buccaneers spanked them, right? I don't recall.

• 19:25Pablo Torre?

  Buccaneers won 48 to 21.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Oh, are we close to this year's score?

• 19:28Pablo Torre?

  This was 2003, but Gruden was the coach. Gruden beat the Raiders, correct?

• 19:32Speaker 04

  And yeah, we had the Super Bowl. I cannot remember what it cost at that point.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  For an ad, but probably less than half of what it costs now. And you don't really, it's an arbitrage, but you don't ever really have any trouble selling the Super Bowl out.

• 19:48Pablo Torre?

  2.1 million.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  2.2.

• 19:50Pablo Torre?

  Was the cost of 30 seconds.

• 19:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  But also the rights paid to the NFL for that game was a lot less than what Fox paid for this one.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  But it would still prove my point. The cost of an ad has gone up four times in, what year was that? That was 2000?

• 20:10Pablo Torre?

  That was 03, January.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  So in 21 years, the audience has not quadrupled. The cost of those ads has quadrupled.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  But the use of the ads has also changed. One of the big differences between now and 20, 25 years ago, these ads now have lives outside of the Super Bowl. It used to be they debuted during the Super Bowl and then they'd be shown a couple other times within other shows on different channels. Now, the release of the ads actually happens. There's YouTube videos, the companies are using it in their social media.

• 20:39Pablo Torre?

  Well, every actor you hire to be in it posts it to their channel, which is another different dynamic. Everybody's also an advertiser and a platform themselves.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  And so it's easier to amortize the expense over different silos that exist in these companies. It's an entire industry now, the Super Bowl advertising, which is why the prices will continue to go up as long as there is demand by companies and there is such demand, which I don't quite get. I don't remember.

• 21:05Pablo Torre?

  What do you mean you don't get?

• 21:05Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna eat at Little Caesar's because I love Eugene Levy's eyebrows.

• 21:17Pablo Torre?

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• 21:48Pablo Torre?

  I'm pretty sure this won't shock anyone out there, but buying a car is just a hard process. You have to figure out what you want from thousands of options, then you have to find somewhere that's offering a good deal, then you get hit with unexpected fees. But let's just break it down and think about how you describe your ideal car to a friend. You know, something like good gas mileage, four-wheel drive, reliable, under 30 grand. Luckily, CarGurus makes it that easy. Just describe it to CarGurus the same way. With Guru, you search in your own words and you get listings, real listings, that match. No endless filters, just the car that fits your life. CarGurus also helps you shop with more transparent pricing, allowing you to see when dealer fees are included

• 22:32Pablo Torre?

  so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than 4 million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one most visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus.com. Gifts mean more when they have the power to give more. They can inspire more discovery, give more confidence, and unwrap more of who you are.

• 23:16Pablo Torre?

  This Black Friday, give a gift that goes beyond the box: the Dell XPS 13 laptop. With a beautiful design and cutting-edge performance, it helps you unlock more possibilities. It's the thinnest, lightest XPS laptop yet, with touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, and long-lasting battery life to power you through your day. Built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds, and Intel Core processors, it's fast, reliable, and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities with XPS. While shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards, fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories.

• 24:01Pablo Torre?

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• 24:18Speaker 05

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• 24:49Pablo Torre?

  So can we talk about that, actually? The, and by the way, it's funny that there were two separate commercials involving like eyebrows and mustaches flying off.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  I conflated it during a Nothing Personal episode where I thought it was two sets of mustaches because his eyebrow looked so much like a mustache.

• 25:05Pablo Torre?

  Speaking to the group think, perhaps, of like what people are trying to do here and how it's disappointing to people who were raised on, I don't know, the Budweiser frogs or whatever. But John, the idea of advertising, which is again a through line in this topic, like what are you really getting for your money? The Super Bowl seems like, as we've said, seems like the last place for that challenge to really be, for that doubt to creep in, right? It's the biggest thing we got.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  It's the Academy Awards for designers is what the equivalent is for the ads during the Super Bowl for advertising companies and for the creatives who come up with ideas. And the budgets for these commercials are obviously way higher than for a standard 30 or 60 second, even in the second biggest show, the World Series or the NBA Finals or anything. And I just have always questioned quietly, but never to my sponsors. I've always questioned like, what are you getting exactly?

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Well, if you're trying to measure exactly what the return on your invested dollar is for these ads, it's not really how people think about it, right? The, I bought a Super Bowl ad one time. We've talked about this on the show, I think, for the ESPN phone. And that would have been somewhere around 2005. So we paid a couple of million bucks. We had forecast to, I think, sell about 250,000 phones. And we sold, I think, about 90,000. So as a return on investment, it did not work.

• 26:41Pablo Torre?

  It was, do you remember the tagline?

• 26:45Speaker 04

  I don't. I remember the commercial.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  It was, uh, I believe it was Sports Heaven was the premise of this.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  Sports Heaven.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  Heaven. You were, you were selling heaven. And you had, uh, this is funny. I didn't, I didn't remember. So this is oh six, it turns out. Um, and there are a bunch of baseball players in it. Uh, Jim Edwin, Jim Edmonds, excuse me, Tori Hunter, Juan Pierre, Hudson Street, David Wells, Baron Davis, Stephon Marbury, NBA players, obviously. Antonio Gates was there. Just a bunch of guys. Um, and, uh, what did you get for it in the end?

• 27:15Speaker 04

  I think we got about 90,000, uh, people who bought a phone and signed up for a phone program.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  And then what?

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Uh, well, the, uh, the effort to create Sports Heaven on a mobile device, um, lasted about a year, I think.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Before it became hell.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  But, well.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  A write-off is what I would describe it as.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  A hellacious financial matter, uh, but, uh, we pivoted pretty quickly, uh, and created a very significant mobile business around ESPN Digital. Uh, but we did not manage to, to crack into serious market share in the digital phone slash phone plan business.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  It's really an amazing thing that I think about, how to get into market share. And we're in a business with DraftKings, who's a sponsor, and they and FanDuel have a lion's share of the market share. And there's a ton of people trying to get it. It's the, the old days with, uh, the rental cars with Hertz and Avis and people trying to figure how to get into the top two, or Coke and Pepsi. How do you do it? What do you do? And brand awareness is one way you can budget to spend money, not to move phones or not to sell cases of, of your liquid, but to make people aware of it. And I've always questioned that expenditure because you want to let people know what you have, but you want to move phones. You heard what John said. They wanted to move 250,000 phones, but there are people within Disney who said, let's just get people to know what that means.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  Well, it was the introduction. And it is the best place in the country to introduce a new product.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. Steve Jobs did this famously.

• 28:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, with the Apple ad that was, uh.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Sledgehammer.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Leeny Rifen style, you know, uh, black and white.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Commercial.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  I didn't, it was widely viewed as a failure. Um.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Was it? This is 1984. It was viewed as a failure at the time?

• 29:07Speaker 04

  It was viewed as a sort of gigantic expense that kind of fell flat. Uh, because it was a little too intellectual, a little too highfalutin. And um, people didn't react particularly well to it. At least that's my recollection. I could be wrong.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Wall Street analysts are willing to have one quarter, one earnings period where you can dismiss that it was just brand awareness, these expenses. They didn't have to actually have any sort of ROI. But once you get into like quarter two or a year or two of your plan, you better show that you're moving phones or that you're doing something to actually bring in money or else you're gonna lose.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  Though interestingly enough, um, who I'm skeptical about many things. I'm not skeptical about the value of buying an ad in the Super Bowl. It clearly gets the country's attention for a short period of time. I read about the ads and a ranking of the ads. Four days before the Super Bowl, they now release the ads.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Well, that's the other thing I don't like that part.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  You get a lot of digital, you get a lot of views, they post a lot of stuff now. I think it, if you can afford it, it is a great way to announce a new product. A great way to remind people you're the leader, which is why people like Budweiser are there. Uh, it's not a great way to show and next week, return on investment in the grocery store or the.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  If I played a game with you right now, which I don't think we're equipped to play with our lean, mean staff. But if we showed a video of five ads and had five companies where we blacked out what the company was and you had to match five ads to the five companies. I do not believe you would go five for five. I don't believe I would go five for five. And I believe most people would not.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  No, no, I think you're right about that. It is always surprising to me. I just said that conceptually, I think it's a good thing to buy. You then are wasting your money when you make a commercial which is completely and utterly undecipherable, where you have no idea what they're advertising. I was on a long flight, uh, watched a couple of movies. Every time I watch a movie, you know, you get served four or five ads. I got served an ad called Will Be or Will Buy or something over and over and over every time.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Clearly it was effective.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  And I have no idea what they were advertising. It was an app, has something to do with transportation, I believe. But I have no idea.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Do you remember the movie you were watching?

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, I watched a bad, a pretty mediocre movie.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  And you don't, you don't know the title?

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do know the title, Daddy-O, starring Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  I liked it. They were in the cab the whole time.

• 31:42Speaker 04

  They were in the cab. It's alright.

• 31:45Speaker 02

  I was very entertained and I actually watched that on a plane also.

• 31:48Speaker 04

  Well, that's the only place you can. I think it's your, I don't think it was in the theaters. I have not seen it on the streaming service.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  It was.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Very inexpensive to make.

• 31:57Pablo Torre?

  I am shocked.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  Only two actors.

• 31:59Pablo Torre?

  Shocked to hear you guys have different views on the same thing.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  No, uh, by the way, what you should, what this does mean more than anything is we fly too much. Because I will kid you not, I look at all movies, I go from A to Z, and I've seen every one of them that I want to see. I then re-watched an hour of Moneyball again, just because it's

• 32:22Pablo Torre?

  It's a great film.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Ever entertaining and great.

• 32:25Pablo Torre?

  Did not think it would work when I first heard of them adapting Moneyball. I was like, how are you gonna do this? And they, they hit it out of the park, as it were.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  It's a, it's a perfect movie.

• 32:34Pablo Torre?

  Really great.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  The jealousy toward Billy Bean in owners meetings after the movie Moneyball was palpable.

• 32:40Pablo Torre?

  Oh, the movie, not the book?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Oh, no one cared about the book. And no one cared about the movie until

• 32:44Pablo Torre?

  They cared about Brad Pitt.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  That's it. It was insane. Uh, it was, and, and this was not sort of jocular.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  This was real.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Why were they mad?

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Because

• 32:54Speaker 04

  It's nothing but good. It's good for baseball.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  It was offensive to many in the room that Billy Bean would forever be associated with Brad Pitt.

• 33:02Pablo Torre?

  Was their, was their whole thing like Billy's not that hot?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yes. Oh, no, that was, that was 98% of it.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  With all due respect, with all due respect, how many people, I mean, Brad Pitt would get no roles if he couldn't be hotter than the people he's playing.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  No, but he often plays fictional characters.

• 33:21Pablo Torre?

  Also, grading on the curve of baseball general managers. He is Brad Pitt.

• 33:28Pablo Torre?

  No offense.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  He, but not really. So that's also way overblown. There was nothing in the movie about Miguel Tahada or Tim Hudson.

• 33:35Pablo Torre?

  Okay, we're not gonna relitigate.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  But I would like to say that what the owners were happy about in President's GMs was that Jonah Hill was Paul DePodesta. That made everyone very happy. God, are we terrible. It's like a middle school.

• 33:51Pablo Torre?

  It's, it's

• 33:52Speaker 02

  With a bunch of rich people who own teams who act like children.

• 34:04Pablo Torre?

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• 34:45Pablo Torre?

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• 35:30Pablo Torre?

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• 36:07Pablo Torre?

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• 36:51Pablo Torre?

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• 37:25Pablo Torre?

  So, speaking though of the measurement of ego and other people on the outside looking in jealous of the handsome and the beautiful and the prom kings, I want to talk about the state of the NBA right now, given that we led with the NFL, which is not in question. It's supremacy over everything. Again, the only TV show that all of us watch on a relative basis is the game we just discussed. The NBA is in a different place. The NBA has a different problem, John, when it comes to what people are consuming, how they are talking about it, where they are wildly popular, and where they are clearly anxious about where they are not. So how do you summarize, as Adam Silver gives his own State of the Union this week? It's All-Star Weekend this weekend. I'll be headed to San Francisco this week.

• 38:10Pablo Torre?

  What's your view of where they are?

• 38:12Speaker 04

  Well, my view is they are ascendant. And the deals they just did... Are much, much more important than whatever the regular season ratings are. We're back to people thinking the ratings are some dramatic indication of the health of the league. The, the ratings this year for the NBA are up and down. They're not, I think, overall, other than the Christmas games, they're down a little bit. But so what? I mean, Adam has to address it, but his league couldn't be more healthy. They just signed 70, what was it? 76 billion.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Triple their previous.

• 38:54Speaker 04

  Dollars worth of deals, triple what they got before. If you could ask any owner, tell me if you disagree with this, David, any owner, the commissioner, anybody associated with the NBA, would you rather have the ratings go up 20% or the media rights go up 300%? They would say, I'll take the 300% increase in media rights. And I think the league was worth it. I think the league is fine. Adam has to answer those questions, but the league is fine. People are watching the games. People care. We're in New York City, of course. The Knicks are good, which the city is alive when the Knicks are good. And you go to the Garden right now, it's electric.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  So I think the league is in excellent shape. They had to deal with this. I don't think the fact that the ratings are down 3% for one Sunday or up 2% for one Sunday is particularly relevant.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  I don't think the ratings are what is concerned the most when he puts his head on the pillow. I would imagine the state of the game. If you ask Commissioner Rob Manfred, that's what he thinks about the most is what is the game? That what is the product that we are giving our consumers to consume? And our clients, which are broadcasters and which are sponsors? And the NBA to me has a game quality problem. And it also is trying to figure out who's next after LeBron and the whole LeBron going to Luka on the Lakers as sort of a, a small sample of what the NBA may look like going forward. Is Luka the person they want? Is it an international player? Is it Wemby? How are they gonna navigate a world without LeBron the way they did without Jordan? It's interesting.

• 40:34Pablo Torre?

  But the Luca thing was, I think, instructive in terms of how the NBA has some clear strengths and also some relative weaknesses, right? So, Super Bowl week happens, Luca, that whole thing takes headlines, right? Everybody is talking about this. The oxygen got stolen from the NFL in the run-up to the biggest game in America. And yet, I think this is emblematic of a concern. You have lots of people talking about the drama in the NBA, the characters, the play, the theater, meaning play, the theater, not necessarily the play itself, but the theatrics around all of it. But it hasn't been reflected, that level of cultural currency, John, when it comes to actually watching the product.

• 41:19Pablo Torre?

  As David said, the actual games. And that's an internet, social media thing, buzz thing versus product thing.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Well, the product for the NFL is dramatically easier to consume, right? Lots and lots less games than the NBA. The NBA has an advantage in that more people know their players. They have an opinion about more players. Their players are more visible. They're playing in short pants and shirts with no sleeves on them. So, as opposed to helmets and pads and you can't really see who they are other than the number and the name for most of the action. But I think the NBA's playing to their strengths, which is player-driven, and the NFL's playing to its strengths, which it's the greatest game on television.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  It just is. And, by the way, the scarcity makes a huge difference. Before this was scheming with Matt Koka, as I often do. If I ask you how many...

• 42:25Speaker 04

  Games are in the NBA playoffs versus how many games are in the NFL playoffs? What would be your guess?

• 42:31Pablo Torre?

  Oh, mathematically, like a total number.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  No, just quantity.

• 42:34Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  That's the, well, the NFL has six on wild card weekend, then it goes down to four is 10. And then that's the divisional round, plus two is 12, plus Super Bowl one. So I'm going to say 13 playoff games in the NFL.

• 42:47Speaker 04

  13.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  And the NBA, the NBA has, there's no.

• 42:51Speaker 04

  Well, you're going to count.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Well, what?

• 42:53Speaker 04

  I was just looking for instinctual reaction.

• 42:56Pablo Torre?

  But the NBA is, is, is.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  But go ahead and count, but, but.

• 42:59Speaker 02

  Are you the jelly bean jar guy that you can look at the jar and estimate?

• 43:02Speaker 04

  No, no, I asked Matt Koka, he, and he told me. So the NBA, the NBA is 88 and the NFL is 13.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  What's that assuming, seven game series?

• 43:11Speaker 04

  That, that is sort of an average. Uh, the least game, that's sort of an average. I think we just counted one last year, 88. It could probably be 80 to 95, right? They played all the games.

• 43:24Pablo Torre?

  But a dramatic difference.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can't watch all those games. If you're on, if you're watching just your own team, uh, you can win a Super Bowl with your team playing three times. To know, you're the least number of games you could play to win an NBA championship. And this would be if you Moses Malone'd it.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 43:42Speaker 04

  Foe, foe and foe, uh, and foe, because you need four now. It's 16 games. You have to win 16 games. You might have to play another 12. So you could end up playing 28 games, which is more games than any NFL team plays in an entire season.

• 44:00Pablo Torre?

  But John, you were the person at ESPN who was famous for paying, for increasing the value of this specific package.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 44:10Pablo Torre?

  And, and did you, did you?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  And wanting more rounds and wanting the first round to go from two or three to three or five, then to four is seven.

• 44:16Speaker 04

  Well, the same thing is all true of the NFL. It just has less of everything. But yeah, we would want as many rounds in the playoffs, right? Nobody watched 100, uh, no game in the regular season had 127 million people watch it, right? So the games are more and more valuable as you advance to a championship. It probably is more acute with the NBA, meaning that the playoff games drive a larger percentage of the value than the NFL postseason would.

• 44:49Pablo Torre?

  That feels right.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  And so, yeah, we wanted to press and and the league has responded. They understand. And what Adam did, of course, with the in-season tournament is he needs to figure out, and Christmas Day, and he's experimenting this year with the All-Star format, he needs to figure out ways to make more of the huge quantity of games they play stand out in some way. So you have to watch that game as opposed to, I can look at the Knicks' schedule now, and there's there's 20 games in the next X number of weeks. I don't know, four, four and a half. And I can look at it and find five or six games I'd want to watch, but nobody,

• 45:31Speaker 04

  almost nobody, there are a few people, watches every game their NBA team plays. Lots of people watch every game their NFL team plays, don't they?

• 45:41Speaker 02

  I think we buried the lead because Adam Silver, when he was giving his State of the Union, one of the most important economic things that he brought up was the possibility of going to 10-minute quarters. His desire to make the games two hours for broadcast, two hours for fans, two hours for players, it would help with every part of making it better for the union in terms of if they could get their same salary to play eight fewer minutes. It would have issues with the record books, et cetera. But his claim is that the broadcasters were very interested in the two-hour window, the way they are for soccer, and that the two and a half to 2:40 that is an NBA game now, it felt like he got pushed back during negotiations, and I was surprised by that.

• 46:24Pablo Torre?

  Wait, wait. He got pushed back as in they wanted to keep the status quo?

• 46:27Speaker 02

  No, meaning that he, like in baseball, when the games went too long, the broadcasters were saying, listen, it's screwing up our windows. We can't have four-hour games. And NBA games at two hours and 40 minutes, let's say, average, he was basically saying that the broadcasters had given him an indication that a two-hour window would be favorable and better for them. And I didn't necessarily understand that.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Well, it's a problem. It's not a big problem for ESPN. It's a bigger problem for NBC because right there trying to get their local news in and broadcast networks still care about the block of time.

• 47:06Pablo Torre?

  The predictability of that block.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  It's so different now. It used to be that shows were 52 minutes and that they started at 8 and ended at 9 on your NBC channel. But now, when you go to episode lengths, we're used to a 42 minute or a 48 minute or an hour three. We don't really think about it much.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  I certainly don't. Again, if you wanted to decrease, I personally would not change the quarters. I would change the amount of timeouts and I would change what happens at the end of the game. They gotta figure out a way. It's worse in college basketball. You gotta figure out a way that the last minute and 12 seconds doesn't take 16 minutes to play.

• 47:44Pablo Torre?

  It's the number one. Every non-diehard hardcore NBA fan I know, the reason they don't want to watch basketball with me is because the end of the game is boring.

• 47:53Speaker 04

  It's so long and they take so many timeouts and there's so many reviews. Somehow they gotta figure out that the last, it's another great thing that's great about soccer. There's no way to make the game much longer. You gotta actually play. To me, I would say you only get, I'm making it up. You only get one timeout you can keep to the last two minutes. That's it. You don't get to keep four timeouts so you can score, call a timeout. I'd like to know.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  It's about advancing the ball. So the NBA, the reason why you keep timeouts to the end of the game.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  No, no, it's part of it.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Is getting it to half court. So if you change the rule that after a basket, that all of a sudden you can take the ball out at half court instead of at the end, that would be a rule of change.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  We'll just change the rule that says you don't get to take it out at half court if you call a timeout. You can do it either way.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  You can change it that way too, which would be a big disadvantage.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  What is the logical reason that I get to trade a timeout for half a court?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  The reason is that you have a higher percentage chance.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  I know, I understand, but what is the logic? What is the logic of saying, oh, well, if you call a timeout, you advance the ball to half court? Why don't you just say you still have to advance it from the other side?

• 49:00Speaker 02

  Well, the theory was when there's a stoppage in the game, I get what you're saying. But it's fascinating that Adam Silver's thinking this way.

• 49:06Pablo Torre?

  I would love to hear you guys, Statler and Waldorf timeouts for many, many more hours. I do want to get back to what Adam Silver was saying, though, because he sort of diagnosed a particular issue here, speaking to how young people, John, online are still very into the NBA. They are following, they are debating, they are consuming in these bite-sized portions. But Adam Silver said the decline in the young 18 to 34 demographic is because they're not watching traditional cable. They're streaming stuff. They're doing all of that. And that, this feels like an economy of how to monetize stuff question at this point.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  It sounds to me like the preparation to work with your research companies to make sure you're measuring all the other stuff because they're not watching the stuff through the measuring companies. It's not unlike what we were talking about before.

• 49:51Pablo Torre?

  With the press release.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  He is going to work with the companies, they're going to measure more out of home, they're going to measure more digital stuff, they're going to figure out a way to measure the total engagement numbers with the NBA. They're going to be higher, and problem solved. His problem there is only PR. It's not business. It's only PR.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  I had an amazing epiphany the other day, and it was a bad one, that my demographic, my age now, there's not one league, there's not one company, there's not one anybody that is gearing anything toward me.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  Well, there's a reason for that.

• 50:27Speaker 02

  But why?

• 50:28Speaker 04

  Because.

• 50:29Speaker 02

  Like, I'm not dying anytime soon.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  And I am, from a measurement standpoint...

• 50:34Pablo Torre?

  Let's put out that press release. David Samson, quote, "I'm not dying anytime soon."

• 50:38Speaker 04

  You sound now like Les Moonves, who used to complain, gee, we have such wealth among the people who are 68 years old, who are watching our mediocre shows. I don't understand why people don't value them. I won't ask you the civic brand. How long have you been using the current deodorant you use?

• 50:58Speaker 02

  So.

• 50:58Pablo Torre?

  Oh, this is a whole.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  This is a whole different thing, so I don't want to answer that. But I totally understand what you're saying.

• 51:04Pablo Torre?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  The first one I used was men in because my dad used men in and said to me that if you don't use men in, that you will always smell.

• 51:12Pablo Torre?

  This is a real.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  And I don't know that he was paid, a paid person for it. I don't think he was. And it was a very big moment when I chose to stop using men in, which may not exist anymore.

• 51:21Speaker 04

  No, no, it exists.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  Does it still exist?

• 51:23Speaker 04

  That's what I use.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  No way.

• 51:25Pablo Torre?

  This is making so much more sense now.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  Because.

• 51:29Pablo Torre?

  This show makes so much more sense now.

• 51:31Speaker 04

  As you get, you've made, you've made, you've made all your ad choices already, David. What, what's the last time?

• 51:38Speaker 02

  But I'm talking about rule changes. I'm talking about advertisements. I'm talking about the whole package. No one cares about me anymore.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  You were asking why no one is targeting you or me.

• 51:46Speaker 02

  I want to be targeted. I'm willing to change. I mean, not really, but maybe.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  Exactly. No, no, you, I'm more willing to change than you, David. The chance is that you decided a long time ago, what kind of ties you buy? What kind of car you buy? What kind of toothpaste you use? And you use the same one every time and you have for the last 20 years. Is that not mostly directionally correct?

• 52:09Speaker 02

  It is directionally correct. Toothpaste was a bad example because sometimes you have to change.

• 52:14Pablo Torre?

  Directionally correct in the same way that John was like, I think sports are going to be big on phones.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Directionally, it was right. But no, it is that you've made your choice. And why did, I don't know why we're going to use deodorants, but we will. Why did Old Spice have the huge campaign? And the nutty campaign that probably you and I went, that's stupid. They had it to try to convince young guys to use Old Spice instead of Axe.

• 52:40Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 52:40Speaker 04

  And Axe, did you ever use Axe?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  Never.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  No, exactly. And that's why.

• 52:45Pablo Torre?

  This is an Axe-free podcast.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  That's why they're not targeting you. Cause you're not going to switch. They gotta, they gotta get the young, they gotta eat the young folks, David. We've already made our choice.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  I don't know where we are with time, but I have one more Adam Silver issue that he's got to deal with.

• 53:13Pablo Torre?

  It's an existential question, where are we with time?

• 53:15Speaker 02

  He's heading into the All-Star Weekend, and I think you may be going to that or you may not be.

• 53:20Pablo Torre?

  Yes, I may already be there.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  You may already be there, which is even cooler. And the All-Star Game is something that he's trying to figure out. They're doing a new change this year, and I can't wait for us to review it on a future show. There's four teams now, and there's going to be some sort of tournament style. Plus, there's a slam dunk contest with four guys that no one can name, including the two-time reigning champion. And Adam Silver, like the other commissioners, they sit around, and I was thinking of this when Rob Manfred was in the box at the Super Bowl, next to McCartney or five away. They're trying to figure out any way to add any sort of valuable inventory. So John is saying more playoff games, but that doesn't always work, so the NFL says, how about more international games? And they go package that, which is why they've done more.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  Different slots, they do the 9:30 a.m. The NFL, the NBA goes to Paris, and they happen to bring their top French star. It was announced this week that MLB is going to open in Tokyo with the Dodgers, and guess who's starting for the Dodgers? Yamamoto and Sasaki. And so what all the leagues are doing is trying to find a different audience. They're trying to get money in order to access that audience and then take money from that audience, and eventually you run out, but not yet. And so Adam Silver, as he thinks about the state of his game, my view that chucking threes is ugly, it really is last on his list. And the ratings being down, it's second to last on his list. He's trying to find different revenue streams, which is what all the commissioners are doing.

• 54:49Pablo Torre?

  He's trying to find some non-David Samsons to consume his products.

• 54:53Speaker 04

  Well, he has, I mean, look, they've clearly signaled that they're interested potentially in starting a league in Europe.

• 55:01Pablo Torre?

  So we should talk about that idea, which smells of... Bit to me, incidentally, right? This is Maverick Carter, right?

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is not the end.

• 55:08Speaker 04

  It's a couple of different things. Maverick Carter is talking, I don't, is Maverick Carter, I think was working with the Saudis to figure out.

• 55:19Pablo Torre?

  Yes, to raise five billion dollars to create a, a competitive, uh, non-NBA global basketball league.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  Yes, it was.

• 55:28Pablo Torre?

  A live golf of basketball.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  I guess. It's not really the same as live. I think the idea was to create some teams that would travel and play, and play each other in exhibition games.

• 55:38Pablo Torre?

  Yes, six men, six women.

• 55:40Speaker 04

  I'm very skeptical of the idea overall. I am much less skeptical of the idea of the NBA launching a league in Europe. I do believe there's a difference between what the NFL is doing with their overseas international games, what the NBA is doing. The NBA actually is planning to go to Europe. And when they go to Europe, it will be NBA Europe. And Europe will care because Europe cares about basketball. Uh, there is no shot. The NFL already tried to start a league in Europe. Uh, and I think they got a little traction, not much. I think they get a lot of traction for the traveling, and I don't mean this in any pejorative sense, for the traveling circus. They're gonna take that down to Australia next year.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  It'll be a smash. Are they gonna launch an Australian league? I don't think so.

• 56:28Speaker 02

  Ireland?

• 56:29Speaker 04

  Uh, they're going to Ireland. They'll do great, but it is not in advance of a new NFL Europe league. They might think about a team, but NBA can go to Europe and have a real league. It puts basketball on the way to being the world's second big global sport. Um, I heard some people next to me in the lounge waiting area asking what was the largest sport in the world? And what was second? Their answer was cricket. It's not my answer because it's kind of a cheap thing.

• 57:01Pablo Torre?

  Right, India.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  Where they play in India, there's a lot of people in India. But it's not the world's second sport. They play it in about a dozen countries in a serious way. But basketball will be played at some not distant point in 60, 70 countries in a various serious way.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  You say it's not live and I say what makes live live is when they got some of the top players to go play at live.

• 57:23Speaker 04

  You're not gonna get players that not.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Maverick Carter. So we say that. The money in the NBA is so good. I would just say that if there were a middling NBA player to even an all-star level player and you offered $100 million per year to play in this Maverick Carter league, then that player would go.

• 57:40Speaker 04

  They'll get one and nobody.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Which is all live did.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  But, well, but live got some number of the top 25 players, not marginal player. I do not believe, you might get one, I do not believe any of the top 50 NBA players will be attracted to the idea of going to play in a travel circuit against other marginal players.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Ronaldo went to Saudi Arabia, didn't he?

• 58:06Speaker 04

  And didn't make any difference.

• 58:08Pablo Torre?

  On that note, um, there's some pun here about dogs and tricks and sports washing.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Um, you can add it later.

• 58:17Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, we'll figure that out. Um, David and John, thank you for, uh, being the best in class.

• 58:25Speaker 02

  Good out.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  It's a good out.

• 58:39Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Rachel Miller Howard, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Our sound design by NGW Post. Our theme song, as always, is by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.

• 59:19Speaker 05

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