Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out The State of the (NFL) Union, with Mike Florio About this episode Maximum scandal, maximum secrecy. Now that the NFLPA's game of thrones has sent football back to the future, and new executive director J. C. Tretter back to office, Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio says Roger Goodell and the bean-counters at the league office are ready to pounce on an 18-game regular season — and football every night of the week.
• Subscribe to PFT Live with Mike Florio https://pod.link/426497635
Previously on PTFO:
• Part I: The NFL's Secret Collusion Case, Revealed https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMzJiMTItODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtN2I3OGMwY2IwMGRl
• Part II: We Sparked an NFL Union Crisis. Here's the Sequel. https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMjFjNjgtODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtODcwNGEwMDY3MDgw
• Part III: We Followed the Money in the NFL Union Scandal. So Did the FBI. https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUzMzUyNzItODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtY2IzYmEzNzJkZjkw
• Part IV: We Investigated the Hollywood Cover-Up the NFLPA Ignored https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/OTUyOTYzNjYtODRkZC0xMWYwLWFjNDUtYmY2MjE1Y2U4MDUw
• Part V: The Silenced Top Cop and the Cabal of "Strip-Club Dreams" https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/NjliODRhZjY0MjY2YzliMWM3ODc1NTM2
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Pablo Torre? Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out, presented by eBay Live. I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're going to find out what this sound is.
0:08 Speaker 01 The same old [BLEEP]. Like what lands into a car that has skidded into a manure truck.
0:16 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
0:20 Speaker 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 5-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.
0:48 Speaker 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.
1:14 Pablo 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.
1:56 Pablo Torre? It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to large 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.
2:22 Speaker 01 Five minutes became 10, sorry, Monday morning.
2:25 Pablo Torre? How many hundreds of blog posts did you just publish in the time it took for you to delay?
2:30 Speaker 01 No, just, just one. I had to eat breakfast. I had to have a cup of coffee. I had to pop a Zin. And then I realized I had to pee. So I would have been here sooner, but for the fact that I needed to empty the bladder after two hours of the show this morning, and I forgot that I had to go.
2:47 Pablo Torre? Mike Florio, it's time to empty our bladder. That is what we're also doing here on this show. Thanks for doing this. It's been too long since... The audience has been demanding. They've been wondering. They've been saying, how is it that, that you're back in the rabbit hole and Florio, the person who drew you into the rabbit hole of the NFLPA, has not yet been dragged back down into it? But it's not just emptying the bladder that I want to do with you, in fact, here today, Mike. I also need to unpack some of the [BLEEP] storm that's been happening with the NFLPA. And we'll get to how the NFL, how the league itself feels, about all of the things we've been reporting, all of the scandal that continues to emerge from the players' union.
3:28 Pablo Torre? But in terms of who's running the union now, as of last week's election for executive director, the number one job, the counterpoint to Roger Goodell, who did they finally elect?
3:39 Speaker 01 You know, it's amazing, Pablo. It's not quite the same as read my lips, no new taxes, but it's close. Read my lips. No new taxes. July 2025, I have no interest in being executive director. I'm still waiting patiently for an explanation as to how we go from, I have no interest, I'm done. I can give the organization nothing more than I have. I don't want to be the executive director. I don't. Don't ask me. I won't do it. Now, J.C. Treter is the executive director of the NFL Players Association.
4:24 Pablo Torre? I feel like there's so much lore here that you were first... I mean, before anybody else, you were first on on top of the whole story. And then you brought me into it. But it was in June of 2023 when you first wrote the headline on Pro Football Talk, the foremost clearinghouse of NFL news and information that you have operated for decades now.
4:43 Speaker 01 Thank you.
4:44 Pablo Torre? The headline was-
4:45 Speaker 01 I'm not that old. Just two decades, two and a half decades.
4:47 Pablo Torre? Just, just-
4:48 Speaker 01 I ain't that old yet.
4:49 Pablo Torre? God, you could have fooled me, Mike, the distinguished, the distinguished gray. This is what you wrote. NFLPA amended constitution in 2022 to keep executive director candidates secret. First establishing that there was a constitutional amendment that had been very quietly passed at the behest of J.C. Tretter to make it so that, in fact, the Board of Player Reps, the voting body of NFL players who decide on who the executive director is, they would not know the names, the identities of the very finalists they would vote on until they showed up to vote on them. And so that was like the first time it stuck out. Something, something smells here to you, right? Was that when you first sort of detected that there was something maybe amiss?
5:34 Speaker 01 Well, yes, because I have, over the years, covered via PFT, multiple union elections. It started really with the 2009 effort that resulted in the hiring of Demaurice Smith at a time when Gene Upshaw had died after a sudden bout with pancreatic cancer. He had been involved as the executive director for decades. And I remember in the early years of PFT marveling at the ability of Gene Upshaw to never really face a competitor for that spot. But once Upshaw passed, I remember elections after that.
6:19 Speaker 01 There was one in particular, maybe 2015, where it was like one of the bachelor shows. There were so many candidates. And they kept popping out of the woodwork and any member of the Board of Player Reps could nominate another candidate. And hey, the more the merrier. And it really was, to use a technical term, a shit show that year. And I think that they overcorrected to this top secret-
6:51 Speaker 01 We're not telling anyone who the candidates are. We're not telling anyone who the finalists are. It was months after Lloyd Howell got the job in 2023, until we even knew that David White was the first runner up, the only runner up. And what's the best way to control a process like that? You change the rules.
7:14 Pablo Torre? Well, it's worth pointing out that, yes, this is a job that includes the oversight of over $1 billion per the last federal filing, the Form 990 that the NFLPA filed with the federal government. $1.3 billion and change is what the ED, the executive director, is overseeing. It's a seven-figure job annually.
7:32 Speaker 01 21 gigawatts. That's a lot of money. I'm sorry, I just had to throw in, even though it wasn't, you didn't say 1.21. I always, big numbers like that, I always think of Professor Brown. 1.21 gigawatts.
7:43 Pablo Torre? 1.21 gigawatts. And all of this is a bit of going back to the future. It is. We're in this little... Look, and here's, and here's, here's the statement, right? So Jalen Reeves-Mabon, to your, to your point, he tells us in a statement, "This is one of the most rigorous searches in the union's history." Right? And they go on to say later, "More than 300 candidates were considered." And yes, this is something that required confidentiality in order to get the best and the brightest, because these people have jobs. And I was thinking back to like, where have I heard this before? Because I got a long blocked text statement from the PA that was attributed to Jalen Reeves-Mabon. And then I remember there was another quote that I had heard, and I'll quote it here.
8:28 Pablo Torre? "We wanted a search process that would be welcoming for A-plus talent like Lloyd to enter. Individuals who are high-profile or currently employed needed to be able to enter our process knowing they would be kept out of the public spotlight and would not be at risk of their current employer knowing they're potentially leaving." End quote. And Mike, you will be shocked to discover that that quote comes from an article on the NFLPA website. This is a couple of weeks after that headline. That you posted on PFT and the writer of the story is J.C. Treter. And the headline is "Trust the Process: How We Elected Lloyd Howell as Our New NFLPA Executive Director." Which is all to say that this is exactly the same rhetoric that had been established by
9:12 Pablo Torre? J.C. Treter is being repeated by his ally, I can only call him a political ally, the man that we previously reported on this show, J.C. Treter had installed campaigning for him, Jalen Reeves-Nabbin, the president, the player president of the NFLPA, the head of the executive committee.
9:29 Speaker 01 And that really is the thing that amazes me, that I got no sense that any of the things that were uncovered last year by you and I locking arms, and you did a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to finding [BLEEP] out. I lit the fuse and you just kind of ran with the bomb. And once it blew, a normal organization would want to distance itself from anything that led to this horrible, embarrassing outcome that turned the union on its head. And all due respect to J.C. Treter, and he may end up being a fine executive director,
10:13 Speaker 01 but just that basic question of why were the members of the executive committee not troubled by this? Why were the Board of Player Representatives not troubled by this? Where is the person who would stand up and say, "We can't, you know, lather, rinse, repeat. We've lathered and rinsed and our hair has fallen out, let's repeat." That part of it to me is antithetical to the good governance. They trot out platitudes, good governance, best practices. If we're going to put any stock whatsoever in how a business should be properly run,
10:55 Speaker 01 rule number one is if you've already created a system that has led to a humiliating public debacle.
11:06 Speaker 01 Maybe you change the system before you fire it up again. To me, the most stunning thing, and we texted about this as it was happening last week. When they hired Lloyd Howell in 2023, one of the first things they did in the hours after he was announced, Howell and Tretter did a Zoom press conference. And they got some tough questions.
11:28 Pablo Torre? Yes.
11:28 Speaker 01 But they did it. This time, this time?
11:33 Speaker 01 No press conference.
11:35 Pablo Torre? The mere fact that they're avoiding questions in public, though, to me, says so much. It says so much because everything we've been saying for almost a year now, these are questions that should be asked of the NFLPA's executive structure with Sunlight as the other attendee of the meeting, right? We want Sunlight as the disinfectant because you and I unfortunately have a weird kink. We think the NFLPA is important. We're the idiots. You post hundreds of times a week easily. And you're still stuck on this because you see the importance of the power dynamic that shapes the actual sport, that shapes the money, that shapes how many games there are in a season,
12:19 Pablo Torre? which we should talk about in a little bit here. But it does have this sense, you know, our colleague, PFT commenter, was asking me after JC got elected, he's like, can you give me a 10-word summary of what the NFLPA is doing? Because he certainly was baffled as well. And to your point earlier about, like, is there a plausible explanation somewhere? Sure, perhaps, I guess. I don't believe there is at this point in my reporting, frankly. But I think the summary that comes closest to it is, "Union wants to give suicide bomb another try."
12:56 Pablo Torre? Oh, God.
12:58 Pablo Torre? What we get is a new post on the NFLPA's website. This one headlined, President's Corner: A New Day. The author, Jalen Reeves-Mabon, J.C.'s friend, the president of the union. And Jalen Reeves-Mabon goes on to clarify that J.C. Tredor didn't do anything wrong. And in fact, J.C. did not have any knowledge of the collusion arbitration ruling, or the strategy around hiding it, and did not withhold any information at all from the players. So that is apparently the official union position. And Mike, I just want to connect the dots here, right? David White, the former head of SAG-AFTRA, who was in part four of this series, as a key figure in a scandal involving a documentary
13:42 Pablo Torre? about a pedophilia scandal in Hollywood, which SAG-AFTRA, which he was running at the time, attempted to cover up. That was the other guy, actual union leader, in fairness to him, who was the finalist. And the third guy is one of my favorite characters in this whole story now, because there was a third finalist, the only outsider, Mike. A guy by the name of Tim Pernetti, who is the commissioner of the American Athletic, well, now it's called the American Conference, formerly known as the American Athletic Conference. And I was looking to get a quote from him. Because I'm like, reading these tweets Ross Dellinger at Yahoo had posted, that he was no longer pursuing the ED job of the NFLPA. This was the day of the elections that Ross posted this.
14:26 Pablo Torre? And so I was calling around, trying to get to him. And according to a source close to him, Tim Pernetti signed a confidentiality agreement. He signed an NDA, and so respectfully declines comment about the process. And so, only more questions about what the hell happened on Election Day for this union.
14:49 Speaker 01 And let me say this, I don't know Tim Pernetti at all. If I had heard of him, I had forgotten. Maybe I had heard of him when he got pushed out at Rutgers as the athletic director, because he didn't react the way he should have once a video came to light of the former Rutgers men's basketball coach engaging in abusive behaviors with the players. Because that's what got him ultimately out. And that's one of his limited apples-to-apples.
15:18 Speaker 01 Sports experiences that would make him potentially arguably maybe qualify for the job. When his name first surfaced, I started doing basic homework on Pernetti. No labor experience in his life. He was a TV guy who jumped over to the sports side and has been in the management capacity for years. And you mentioned earlier that there were 300 candidates.
15:46 Pablo Torre? Allegedly.
15:47 Speaker 01 I say this with all due modesty. If there's 300 people in the world who could be the executive director of the NFLPA and I'm not one of the 300, I'd love to know who the 300 are. Not that I wanted that job because I don't, and I don't mean it in the J.C. Treader way that I'm going to have it eight months from now. I really don't want it. And I'm far more useful to the union as somebody who's an outside agitator of everyone, of the league and the union, because overall, the league does more things that justify my scrutiny than the union does. But the union has stepped in its own share of piles of [BLEEP] over the past three years
16:32 Speaker 01 to get them under my microscope as well. And I just, look, the reality is, the average sports fan doesn't care. And the average member of the NFL Players Association, the rank and file, they don't care. It used to just be that the league weaponized that apathy against the players. Now, it feels like, and please prove us wrong if you will, it feels like union management is weaponizing that apathy against the players and basically doing whatever they want because no one's going to say, "Stop. You can't do it."
17:05 Pablo Torre? It's worth noting that I've heard now over and over again, in conversations I've had in reporting on the NFLPA and the NFL via first the collusion lawsuit, that when Lloyd Howell stepped down, the NFL...
17:19 Pablo Torre? wished he had it.
17:22 Speaker 01 They want, absolutely. We'd have a new CBA right now. They'd be playing 18 games this season, Pablo, if Lloyd Howell hadn't been forced out.
17:31 Pablo Torre? "Who doesn't want more football?" was literally the quote that Lloyd Howell gave to The Athletic in July 24. And I want to get to that, but I first, in fairness, should quote J.C. Tredder's statement, because again, he did not answer questions, did not take anything resembling a press conference seriously. He said this, quote, "There are times in your life when you know that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. That's where I am today. I'm grateful for the trust my fellow players have placed in me, and I'm going to reward that trust with my fullest commitment to these players and chart a new course for our union. My sole goal is to build up the strength of the NFLPA." And it goes on, but that's the gist of it. And you'll see in all of the rhetoric here around like,
18:12 Pablo Torre? how is this different? Who are the finalists? Who are the semifinalists? Who are the octafinalists, right? The quarterfinalists? It's worth noting that the only player made a finalist by this executive committee, which has now trumpeted the importance of players. The only finalist was, of course, J.C. Tredder. And former players who wanted the job, who did not even get as far in some cases as they did in 2023's process, they were actually preempted earlier, some of them. In this year's process include the former NFLPA president, Dominic Foxworth, Jeff Saturday himself, a former NFLPA member and representative, Matt Schaub, also deeply
18:56 Pablo Torre? involved in the union in his time, Darrel Rivas, who's actively wanted this job, has campaigned for it, commented on the Instagram account of Pablo Torre Finds Out, next to Craig Jones, the goat emoji after that episode came out, by the way, co-signing effectively the man that Chief Security Officer Craig Jones is, the guy who was one of the people to call out J.C. Tredder on the record.
19:19 Speaker 04 Tell J.C. Tredder to spend his 30 pieces of silver wisely.
19:25 Pablo Torre? None of these players became finalists. And so I just want to quote anonymously an NFLPA player rep, this is in The Athletic, Mike Jones was the writer on the story. And again, we turn to it because... Frankly, not a lot of other people are even willing to speak anonymously at this point, which is also disturbing to me. But this is the quote, "We have utterly failed the union and its members today by voting in J.C. Treter as executive director," said one play representative who wished to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter. "This felt like a backdoor deal from the beginning with some members of the executive committee. The NFLPA needs change in its leadership from top to bottom. We have not listened to our current and former members about concerns regarding J.C. We have decided to fall back on friendship deals." End quote.
20:09 Pablo Torre? And here's the other bit of intel that I have heard is that J.C. Treter was actually a late add to the process. Like, he didn't start from the very ground floor of this. The executive committee added him somewhere midway through, which is also a funny bit of chutes and ladders when it comes to how was all of this operated?
20:51 Pablo 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.
21:24 Speaker 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.
21:55 Pablo Torre? But the NFL's perspective, Mike, what's it like on Park Avenue in that fancy building as they're seeing everything? And now hearing the conversation we've had about what it's really like allegedly inside of the Union's building?
22:10 Speaker 01 You know, I hadn't thought of this until just now, and the comparison may be completely off the wall. There is a fine line between creativity and bat crazy. But it's almost like the NFLPA is being run like the Lord of the Flies. And a battleship is about to pull up to the island with the NFL shield flying from the mast. Because they're not ready for what's coming next. And I think from the league's perspective, number one, they have been sitting back and they have been waiting for the NFLPA to get their act together. And we mentioned Lloyd Howell earlier. I think if he had not resigned when he did,
22:55 Speaker 01 they would have mobilized by now. The NFL is clearly in deal making mode. They're talking to CBS about extending their broadcast deal. They're going to move, I believe, to Fox after that. And a lot of this is based on the reporting of people who cover that side of the business very intensely. And also other things that I've been hearing, they're going to move to Fox, they're going to move on to the other current package holders, streamers are going to get involved. They're trying to get deals done. And I think that now that J.C. Tretter is back as the executive director, the NFL is going to move quickly and discreetly and secretly to try to get something done.
23:35 Speaker 01 And this is where it becomes kind of speculation, but it's informed by 25 years of doing this, the pattern, the practices.
23:45 Speaker 01 I think that they're gonna go to J.C. Tretter, and they are going to lay out a new CBA that is premised upon, above all else, an 18-game regular season, 16 international games per year. Robert Kraft has already talked openly and nonchalantly about, "This is how it's going to be." Not, "This is what we want." "This is how it's going to be." And I think that's important, because that's the attitude that is going to be projected to J.C. Tretter. "Hey, J.C., this is how it's going to be. We can do it the easy way, we can do it the hard way. We're gonna make you an offer right now, that is gonna be better than any offer we're gonna make later. And if we have to lock you out, if you make us wait until after the 2030 season, and we lock you out for all of the offseason,
24:28 Speaker 01 and eventually the players cry uncle, because they will, because they won't want to miss a game check, they won't want to miss a game, we'll gladly sit out the whole season, take this now, you know how it's gonna go if you don't, let's just do this now." Then, boom. What's gonna happen after that? Well, is the union management that put J.C. in place, are they gonna repudiate his recommendation right out of the gates? Hell, no. Hell, no. They need to justify their own decisions, their own processes. So, once the league convinces J.C. Tretter that this is the way to go, and he takes it back for appropriate packaging and voting, he's gonna have the executive committee and the board of player representatives behind him,
25:12 Speaker 01 and then it's gonna come down to a vote of the rank and file, but I think that is gonna move quickly, and I think it's gonna move faster than anyone realizes, because, and this is the key, the Super Bowl to be played in Atlanta in February of 2028 does not have a date yet for the game, which, two years from the game is unheard of. You've gotta have the convention center locked down for the whole week. You're gonna have thousands of hotel rooms for the entire week into the Monday morning reserved. This is not something you just slap together. They're keeping the date open, and we reported this in the days after the Super Bowl.
25:54 Speaker 01 They're keeping the date open because they're holding out for the possibility that there will be an 18-game season by 2027. Next season, the season after the one that's coming will have 18 games if the NFL gets its way. So how do you get there? How do you get there? You gotta move. And now that J.C. Tredor's in place, that's why I think it's gonna move quickly.
26:16 Pablo Torre? It's remarkable to see the steamroller that the NFL has become globally, and then wonder who could plausibly be a stick in the bicycle wheels of Roger Goodell. And it's the union. Like, I'm watching what's happening right now. The state of the union is the state of the NFL in some sense, right? The state of the union, literally. This league, what do we learn in the collusion, partial victory ruling? 61 pages of PDF that we published. They are so strategic. They know every economic vulnerability. They know the ones that even seem like it's not even necessary.
27:01 Pablo Torre? It's superfluous. Why would you care about fully guaranteed contracts, right? Like, you really, that was worth all of this? That was worth you in the league office, Commissioner Roger Goodell, Jeff Pash, his former top legal advisor, who no longer has that position, but I'm told is still advising the league in key ways? That was the stuff you were putting down on paper, right? That's the degree to which they coordinate and care and operate themselves in secrecy. So the notion that the NFL might be monitoring the NFLPA? That's the number-one takeaway from the collusion stuff, is that they have been talking and communicating and planning backstage longer than anybody realizes.
27:45 Pablo Torre? And so the fact that this union could be, or would have been perhaps, the only check left, the only thing that could be a guardrail on what the NFL wants, is just so obvious to me now. And, and, look, it's all converging, right? Like, just give us, give us an update on, like, the business of the NFL when it comes to these live rights deals. You've covered this league for a very long time.
28:14 Speaker 01 What is different about how they're operating now? Well, you get to a point, I think, for any business that becomes ridiculously successful at a time when the world is changing, and it's changing in a way that allows you to be even more successful, because consider where we are today. What is the one property that can draw millions of people together to tune into the same platform, whether it's a three-letter network, or, you know, a multi-syllabic streaming platform, whatever it is, the NFL is the only thing that can do it, and the value keeps going up and up. And it's gotten to the point where the NFL can basically say to the networks, hey, you
28:58 Speaker 01 got a pretty nice network there, it'd be a shame if something bad happened to it. Because you take away the NFL from CBS, from Fox, from ABC, from NBC, the whole thing may collapse. Yep. Back in the old days, when I was a kid, and there were three channels, one of the big reasons to be in business with the NFL was, you come back from break, and you got Pat Summerall with that awesome tobacco-enriched, mellifluous baritone, "Up next, murder," she wrote. Like, you know, you're promoting all of your stuff. And I work for NBC, so I probably should tread lightly, but let's be real, does anyone watch anything on network
29:40 Speaker 01 TV live anymore? When I was a kid, the world stopped turning at 8:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday nights for the Fonz, Richie, and Ralph Mouth, and Potsy, and the rest of the gang on Happy Days. Like, nobody watches live network TV anymore. It's all on-demand, after the fact. The only thing we tune in for is sports. And the only sport that is delivering the kind of numbers that the NFL delivers is professional football. NFL, not UFL, not any other FL, NFL. So, they're coming to these new deals with a convergence of, "The networks need us, the streamers want us." And it used to be, they would do this game of musical chairs, where there was always one network.
30:24 Speaker 01 Too many. And somebody got left out in the cold. It was CBS from 94 to 98. When Fox came in, it was NBC from 98 to 2006. When CBS swooped back in and took back the AFC, took the AFC package away on Sunday afternoons from NBC. Now they've found a way to get everyone a seat at the table as long as they're willing to pay the bill in advance. And they're going to find these little mini packages and it's going to be a game here or there for YouTube, big events for Netflix. They don't want full packages. We're just going to take games away from the stack in order to satisfy these other companies. And the numbers are going to keep going up and up and up. And the 18 games becomes relevant because we've gone from 256 to 272 by going from 16 to 17.
31:08 Speaker 01 We go from 272 to 288. If we go to 18, and then at some point, there's going to be talk of more teams. There's going to be talk of 19. I think eventually there's going to be 20 games and no preseason games. Maybe not in my lifetime, possibly in yours. But it's all about more because the more they have, the more they can carve up for the networks and the streamers. And the more events on prime time nights, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, every day of the week eventually. They'll eventually get the right to play on Friday and Saturday night, mark my words. And they'll have 20, 25, 30 million people watching every one of those games. That's the play here. But they know that they can grab maximum dollars from the networks and the streamers. And they're in the process of doing it. And they seem to be on the fast track to getting it done
31:52 Speaker 01 at some point, possibly before the start of the 26 season. And it won't just be extensions of the existing deals. The existing deals can be ended early by the NFL after the 29 season, and the NFL surely will do that. In the past, I think what's happened is when they extend the deals, the current terms stay frozen in place until the new year's arrive. No, no, no, no, no. This is going to be, for example, CBS, you're paying $2 billion? Okay, starting now, you're going to pay $3 billion. We're going to go back to the old deal and we're going to put our thumb on the scale and you're going to pay 50% more. Not in the future, now. And so they've got the power to do it because everyone in that world is relying upon having live NFL games and the NFL knows it.
32:35 Speaker 01 And that's the mindset that will be directed to the NFLPA.
32:38 Pablo Torre? Yes, and I look, I should disclose what is, I think, obvious, which is that I don't watch any sport more than I watch the NFL at this point in my life. It has been set up, Mike, with a certain manufactured scarcity. You own a day of the week and you can sort of pay attention if you commit yourself to that day like it's a religious tradition, right? What's happening, and this is where I want to bring in sort of the perspective of the fan, what's happening is something everybody in sports should consider. Are you better as a fan, as a customer of this game, of this sport, with that vision you just laid out, which I believe is quite plausible for the NFL to aspire to?
33:21 Pablo Torre? Or is this a function now of bean counters on Park Avenue saying, you know how we keep on growing? We cash in some of that scarcity that we had manufactured. We start to grow in ways that, as this is my personal perspective, not as a journalist, but as a fan, in ways that I never asked for. Is it better? Is any of this better? And then the question for the NFLPA becomes, if you're a union and your entire premises serve as the counterbalance to the most powerful cultural institution in America, and the
34:02 Pablo Torre? way that you've been conducting business has made it so that the league worries about no one when it comes to competitive balance, right? Let's just borrow the terms of sports, of the NFL itself. There is no parody in media anymore to your description. There is nothing that they have to worry about if the only thing that could be an obstacle in their way is so [bleep] up.
34:30 Pablo Torre? That they instill no fear in the office that decides exactly what this sport should be because we want more money.
34:40 Speaker 01 And it's all about more. And I was reminded as you were saying what you just said of your good friend Mark Cuban's comment from 2014.
34:47 Pablo Torre? Yes.
34:48 Speaker 01 Babies get fat, hogs get slaughtered. He made that prediction about the NFL. At the time, the NFL was turning Thursday night into an every week of the season event. They started dabbling with Thursdays back half of the season, 2006. They started with the limited Thursday night package. They grew it into a whole season. That's when Cuban said what he said in 2014. And now, and Pablo, you know, it used to be Sunday then in, hey, 1970, Browns Jets, first game ever for Monday Night Football. We found this new thing. Then comes Thursday, then comes the night before Thanksgiving, then becomes Christmas,
35:30 Speaker 01 whenever Christmas happens to land, even though they said we'll never play on Christmas when it's Tuesday or Wednesday. Somebody ran the numbers and they said, that we're playing on Christmas, whatever day of the week it is. That's what this is. So it's going to be in this never ending quest to find new ways to cram cheese into the pizza. They're eventually going to be on one of the networks or streamers every night of the week. Friday and Saturday still problematic from the second weekend in September till the second weekend in December. Beyond that, they can do Tuesday, they can do Wednesday. I'm surprised they haven't invaded Tuesday and Wednesday yet because they showed during the pandemic, they can pull off Tuesday and Wednesday.
36:11 Speaker 01 But this whole night before Thanksgiving thing that was strategically leaked to the four letter network that the NFL now owns 10% of a couple of weeks ago, that wasn't an accident. They're going to do that. And they're going to get to the point where, again, it's the one thing that everyone will tune in for in these massive numbers. And right, did, did fans ask for it? No. But you know what? If it's on, you know what I'm going to watch? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night.
36:42 Speaker 01 I ain't watching anything on network TV because I can watch that tomorrow. There's only one thing that's going to compel me to tune in and it's live sports. And there's one sport that's going to make me even more compelled to tune in and it's an NFL game. That's where it's heading and that's why they want to have the inventory and this is why 18 is important. They need more inventory so they can put compelling games into those windows that stand alone on the various nights of the week. That's the whole play right now that the NFL is trying to engineer.
37:22 Pablo Torre? All right, I got a quick stat for you. Most employers are sorting through something like 250 resumes for a single job opening, which is a lot of scrolling, a lot of guesswork, and also a lot of time. Well, if you are hiring, here's some good news. You can now review all of these resumes and applications faster thanks to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested qualified candidates first and today you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/ptfo. And here's why that matters. ZipRecruiter's matching technology is already great at finding qualified candidates fast, but now the people who are actually excited about your role rise right to the top. So you're not just sorting through resumes, you're seeing the strongest, most engaged
38:06 Pablo Torre? applicants first. And it gets better. Candidates can even tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. So you're getting more than just bullet points, you're getting personality, motivation, and a clear picture of who might be the right fit. So cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/ptfo. That's ziprecruiter.com/ptfo. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter, post jobs for free at ziprecruiter.com/ptfo.
38:49 Pablo Torre? And there are two ways of seeing, hearing, everything that we've been outlining here, right? One is the way that we have, I think, discussed it. I like that one personally. The other way, of course, is the thesis of the Lloyd Howell regime. And his number two, which was, "We should be a pro-business union." There is so much money sloshing around. All we gotta do is open our mouth under the faucet, and whatever comes dripping out, that'll be more than it used to be. Jean Upshaw would be so proud of the money that we are all making, year after year after year, more than the year before, because of the business of football.
39:30 Pablo Torre? And what is lost, of course, is the basic premise of a union that does not fight, a union that does not plausibly wield the power of confrontation, a union that plausibly might get what has been described to us as the Holy Grail, and agree via a secret confidentiality agreement to never discuss it until this Doc Brown and Marty McFly ripoff that does podcasts, that is you and me, until these idiots reveal it, do nothing, do nothing about it. And so, again, we're living in a bit of a time warp still.
40:12 Speaker 01 Here's the key, though, Pablo. And this is where the whole thing, potentially, doesn't fall apart, but it short-circuits. The NFLPA can justify being compliant and avoiding confrontation, based on the fact that, hey, man, we get half of everything that comes through the cash register. So, the rising tide is lifting our boat higher than it's ever gone before. We're gonna keep getting half. Go ahead, go ahead. Squeeze NBC, squeeze CBS, squeeze Amazon, squeeze YouTube, squeeze Netflix, cuz we get half of everything that comes out of that sponge.
40:57 Speaker 01 I think that's gonna change. And there was a moment last year, the commissioner's available after every quarterly meeting, does a press conference.
41:11 Speaker 01 And he was being asked about whatever they were asking about. There's always, you know, six, seven, eight questions that need to be asked to the commissioner based upon whatever the news of the day is. He pivoted gratuitously into explaining, "We spent a lot of time talking about the current salary cap. We spent a lot of time talking about whether that is working for us. Expenses are going up, yada, yada, yada. I think they're going to make a run at replacing 50/50 with, here's what we're going to pay you per year. Here's how much is going to be available for the salary cap each year. This year it's going to be 301. Next year it's going to be 305. The year after it's
41:54 Speaker 01 going to be 310." Because the cap, the cap's gone up from 182 million per team to 301 million per team in five years. This is where the current, "Hey, man, this is great. Let's just, let's just lock arms with the NFL and they're going to carry us." No, they're going to throw you under the bus at some point because they're going to realize, "We're paying these guys too much. We don't have to pay them as much as we're paying them and they'll still be happy." And I think that's part of the play that's coming. Now, I don't know whether that's real or whether this will be the manufactured trade-off for agreeing to 18 games. Because the, the common thought is, "Well, hey, oh, the NFLPA is in a great spot. Think of all the things they can get to agree to 18 games." Well, no. You know
42:37 Speaker 01 what they're going to get? They're going to get to keep what they have. That's your leverage. "We're going to fight, and we're going to fight, and we're going to fight, and we're going to let you continue to have 50 cents on the dollar if you let us keep making more and more money." In any business, it's one thing to agree to 50/50 when the money's here. When it's here and it keeps going up, man, that 50% is a [bleep] load of dollars. And I think they're starting to realize that. So that factors into all this too. Whether it's part of a leverage play or whether they're serious about it, I think the NFL's revenues have gotten to the point where they saying, "We really don't need to give the players half of everything we're making."
43:17 Pablo Torre? Right. They move away from percentages and more towards the raw total accumulation of dollars, which can be spun in a nice headline on someone's website as a win. But I suppose it's a, it's an appropriate place to end it for now, Mike, until I drag you back on here because the notion that you're getting more and different and better, but really you're winding up with the same [bleep]. That's kind of, uh, that's kind of what happened with this election.
43:42 Speaker 01 Is that good or bad?
43:44 Pablo Torre? I-
43:44 Speaker 01 Does that apply to us? Does that apply to the union? Does it apply to both?
43:47 Pablo Torre? As always, we will let-
43:49 Speaker 01 More indifferent and better, but the same old [BLEEP].
43:52 Pablo Torre? We will let-
43:52 Speaker 01 That would be a good T-shirt.
43:53 Pablo Torre? We'll let the people decide, Mike. Like, true champions of democracy. Not outside voices, but the voters themselves shall decide whether they want us to keep talking about this.
44:03 Speaker 01 The same old [BLEEP]. Like what lands into a car that has skidded into a manure truck.
44:14 Pablo Torre? Some people see a crashed bunch of feces, others see, hey, that's the raw materials to power the American economy.
44:23 Pablo Torre? Mike Florio, until next time, thank you for, uh, for doing a bit of time travel with us.
44:29 Speaker 01 My pleasure. My pleasure, as always.
44:40 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.
44:46 Pablo Torre? And I'll talk to you next time.
45:07 Speaker 05 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.
45:40 Speaker 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.
Previous "Who Is Going to Pull a Pablo Torre on Pablo Torre?" Next "That's Just Corruption": Sen. Chris Murphy on the Prediction Market Crackdown and Profiteering in Youth Sports Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated