Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out The Sporting Class: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Bracket About this episode John Skipper, who is not on this season of The White Lotus, goes behind the scenes of his failed bid for "the evil empire" to steal the rights to March Madness. David Samson, who is trying very hard not to sneeze, takes on the haters of the MLB's money-printing series in Japan. And, yes: Pablo is more valuable than a test pattern.
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1:47 Pablo 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.
2:28 Pablo Torre? My move: 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. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours. And today, we're gonna find out what this sound is.
3:07 Speaker 02 Oh, I want those Cinderella candy. It's so great when Saint Francis gets in.
3:13 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
3:15 Speaker 03 You're listening to DraftKings Network.
3:32 Pablo Torre? Are you done shoving food into your mouth? Are you good?
3:35 Speaker 04 Yes.
3:37 Speaker 02 Somehow, it is just, it's not the word I would use for Mr. Samson's eating style. Shoving food in his mouth.
3:46 Pablo Torre? He repacked his candy into a popcorn bag.
3:49 Speaker 04 Well, I don't like sticking my fingers in the candy bag and then in my mouth and then back in my own candy bag. So I take out of, with clean hands, candy, put it in a separate container. There were no paper cups here. All that was available was a paper popcorn bag.
4:04 Speaker 02 Wait, so, wait, what are you concerned about with your own fingers going back into a bag?
4:11 Speaker 04 Are we really? Okay. My fingers are just as dirty as your fingers.
4:15 Speaker 02 Well, I certainly do not transfer. It never would occur to me I have a problem.
4:20 Speaker 04 That's the difference between you and I. It just occurs to me.
4:24 Pablo Torre? One of the differences. Just one of them.
4:29 Speaker 02 It's one, and the differences make for an excellent relationship.
4:33 Speaker 04 Excellent.
4:34 Pablo Torre? Not to point, not to point this dirty finger at one of us in the room today.
4:39 Speaker 02 Just don't touch me with it.
4:40 Pablo Torre? Well, John, it's going your direction, because we've been getting some viewer mail. And people have noticed that your voice...
4:50 Pablo Torre? Is all over one of the great television shows that's on right now. Are you watching The White Lotus?
4:56 Speaker 02 Uh, I have been pressed into watching The White Lotus. We wa- watched it this weekend.
5:02 Pablo Torre? Are you aware?
5:03 Speaker 02 Are you a body double by chance? Well, are you suggesting that I look like that guy Timothy Ratcliffe? Or, or Ratliff, I think they're using in the... Suggest? Or, or that, um, I sound like him, or he sounds like me. I love- By the way, I suspect I'm older, so... You are older. So that mofo would sound like me, not vice versa.
5:25 Pablo Torre? Well, just for the record here, Timothy Ratliff is in fact the character's name. Jason Isaac's... Jason Isaac?
5:33 Speaker 02 Zz.
5:34 Pablo Torre? Zz? Is the actor, and that mofo in any event, sounds like this.
5:39 Speaker 02 My grandfather was the governor of North Carolina. My father was a, um, a very, very, very successful businessman. Thank God he's dead. Oh, both my parents, thank God, they are dead. You?
6:10 Speaker 02 Well, since I don't hear myself speak, which is true. I know it's hard to believe, but I don't actually understand how I sound. So, it's hard for me to understand if that guy sounds like me. Well, you have a draw. Oh, no, no, I, I- If you know that. I have a draw.
6:29 Pablo Torre? But that's a, specifically, a North Carolina. I mean, that's, that's what he's going for, is the point.
6:34 Speaker 02 Oh, it's very specific to, very close to where I grew up. I mean, they are from Durham, North Carolina, about 70 miles north.
6:46 Speaker 02 East of where I grew up. And of course, I find the most interesting thing about the show is of course, who's the greatest douchebag in the show? The Duke guy.
6:59 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:00 Speaker 02 In fact, the two, in fact, the father is a Duke guy. And the, and Arnold's son. Older son is a Duke guy. The mother is a Carolina graduate. And by the way, I would judge her accent, Parker Posey's accent is spectacular. And it really does sound exactly like somebody I know. So every time I hear her speak, she's got it. She's also got that mouth curled downward. She's got that thing about, well, they're not decent. They're not decent. So they do a pretty good job with it. And they got the, I don't quite understand why they expect the rest of the world to care about the rivalry between North Carolina and Duke.
7:44 Speaker 02 But it's a, it's like a little Easter egg for me.
7:47 Speaker 04 And they had a big problem this week. Jason had Spoiler alert. No, it's, it's in the news. He got into some trouble. The actor who plays A real life story. Real life story where he almost got canceled when he was talking about the size of his penis and he didn't want to answer any questions about it. And whether it was real or not, that's why I asked whether you were a body double, but you didn't get the joke.
8:07 Speaker 02 Oh, you're right.
8:08 Speaker 04 He didn't respond. Whatever. Thanks for keeping the show going. Well, just to, to talk about how the sausage gets made, I guess. It was a fake penis. They're all, they're all that. And so that was the conversation that was had, which was, is that, you know, Margaret Qualley, when she does prosthetics for Substance, does that get criticized more when Mikey Madison does not? Does that get criticized less? Are they forced to do it? He was defending his right to a prosthetic penis. He was, he was trying not to talk about it. And he quit, he made a quip where he mentioned the names of the actresses, Margaret Qualley and Mikey Madison. He got in trouble and then had to release a statement while Mike White was quivering with fear of this could impact his, his baby. So there was an immediate statement, a completely crafted statement by
8:53 Speaker 04 You love a statement. I love a statement. And he backtracked it. And then he threw one out there for all the women out there saying, you have it way harder than I do. Except
9:04 Speaker 02 Well, that, you're not trying to make a pun there, are you?
9:07 Speaker 04 No. Trying to make a point.
9:09 Speaker 02 I would hope. That for his sake, if he was embarrassed potentially by the suggestion that his-
9:15 Speaker 04 He wanted his acting to talk, not the size of his prosthetic.
9:19 Pablo Torre? Right. Margaret, by the way, you make her French.
9:21 Speaker 04 Did I say Maggie?
9:22 Pablo Torre? You said Marg-
9:23 Speaker 04 Marguerite?
9:24 Pablo Torre? You said like Margot or something?
9:26 Speaker 04 I may have said Margot.
9:27 Pablo Torre? Your accent is also confusing to me.
9:30 Speaker 04 It's sort of a Wisconsin accent with a hint of New York.
9:35 Speaker 02 With notes of vanilla and oak and gravel.
9:40 Speaker 04 Cat piss.
9:59 Pablo Torre? So, we bring ourselves here today, very conveniently, on the subject of March Madness. And in fact, North Carolina, and in fact, Duke, and in fact, the guy sitting next to us, who may or may not sound like the guy with the prosthetic penis. Because, John, when you watch the tournament, and the tournament is by acclamation, I believe, the greatest postseason product in televised sports. You can debate that. David is wondering if you should debate that.
10:28 Speaker 04 If you're talking in total numbers, there's just way more games than the NFL playoffs, but I would assume NFL playoffs would be the greatest. I would assume the World Cup is even greater than that. The soccer World Cup, I would put number one.
10:40 Speaker 02 By a factor of two and a half.
10:42 Speaker 04 Okay, so now we're playing for second. But, continue, please.
10:46 Speaker 02 Or third.
10:47 Pablo Torre? The prospect, though, of single-elimination cultural rivalries executed by teenagers, being their own special TV product, John, that has been in the hands of CBS, and also at the earlier rounds, right? Turner as well. How jealous did that make you as a president of ESPN?
11:10 Speaker 02 Um, it did make me jealous. We wanted it.
11:15 Speaker 02 It also made me angry at the time, because we, at one point, made a very strong push to buy the tournament.
11:30 Speaker 02 Literally cannot remember, if I do remember, I don't mind mentioning the name because it was a reasonable guy, but there was somebody who was in charge of selling the tournament at the time. We had met with the folks at the NCAA, Greg something, and I had a meeting in the park during the final four in Indianapolis. It's right outside the hotel everybody stays in and made an offer to buy the tournament. We proposed immediately taking the tournament to 96 teams. We also proposed televising every game. And before we made that offer,
12:11 Speaker 02 remember in the days before that, they actually regionalized the early round games because CBS could not show but one game. So we thought we had an extraordinarily compelling proposition. We will expand the tournament. We will pay you more money. We will put every game on. Did you offer ABC? I do not remember that, David. It's a good question and it would have come up at that time. They would have asked probably, the answer is probably yes, we probably agreed we'd put the semis and finals on, but I don't know that. And we were laser focused on, we
12:53 Speaker 02 had to drive value to ESPN. But we not only made that offer, I stood in the park in Indianapolis and said, and by the way, if anybody else offers more, come back and see me. Because we were prepared to do, as we've discussed before- One dollar more. Which is, we'll pay the most money, we'll show more games. I've always believed there was, as there always is in college athletics, a committee that was going to make this decision. I know because I talked to some of the committee members, that one of the, that they were quite loyal to CBS and CBS had done a great job, got no problem with that. I usually found
13:33 Speaker 02 that money trumped loyalty. And by the way, doing a better tournament, more teams, more exposure. And that is the time that-
13:43 Speaker 02 TNT saved CBS because they went and said, why don't we do it together? We can put all the games on. They did not offer more money.
13:52 Pablo Torre? So ESPN, your offer was the precipitating event that led to them having to figure out, okay, how do we compete with a network that has all of these other networks also?
14:01 Speaker 04 Well, what they realized is they could get more money by showing more games. And they had no way to do it, which is CBS. So they had to go with the cable partner, which is why there's games on truTV. And the question is, for John, is ESPN, you would have gone Deuce and then three and then four? So what WBD did is they had different channels that they stood up by putting games on that actually helps them get more fees from distributors because truTV, you gotta have it. Every March at least, you're gonna see games. And ESPN didn't have that issue because you would just have it all on ESPN networks.
14:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, we may even have had ESPN3 at that point, which allowed us to put, you know, multiple games on. So we could have done, I believe, a better tournament. We also owned the regular season. We had 1,500 regular season games. We made the assertion that, look, it's where people go to watch college basketball. You got College Game Day. We should have it over here. At the, where they had the discussion of where they should go. They were loyal to the CBS. And they're also, and I do know this, that part of the conversation was ESPN's got too much. And we don't want ESPN to have everything.
15:19 Speaker 02 We insisted on going to 96. And they did the great thing that the NCAA always does, which is they do something dumb, which is, let's go to 68. It's like, why would that be the response to, let's go from 64 to 96, right? And 32 teams will get a buy, a first round buy. It'd be great. There'll be more games. And they decided to go, so I'm the beneficiary at Carolina. You can have that segue.
15:43 Pablo Torre? That's right.
15:44 Speaker 02 Uh, why did they decide to go to 68? It's a ridiculous number. You would never go to...
15:49 Pablo Torre? What if we went to a 16th measure? Yeah, just like a fractional increase. By the way, David, are you amused that John's philosophy in every instance, when it comes to college sports and his reign atop all of it, is, can we get more teams into these playoffs?
16:05 Speaker 04 Well, that's clearly, that's what they're trying to do. What amused me about what his last monologue was that his view of the reason, the only reason he was turned down, it's like being the best looking guy in your class and the best looking girl turns you down, you're like, oh, obviously she's interested in tall or short or fat or skinny. It can't be me, it's not me, it's you. So John's position was very simple, hey, I was so good at my job and so big this network that they didn't want to give me more.
16:34 Speaker 02 Well.
16:35 Speaker 04 He said it.
16:36 Speaker 02 By the way, if you, if you took a couple of Venusians and said, here's proposition A, here's proposition B, gee, you're gonna get more teams in, you're gonna get it on home college basketball, you're gonna get more money, and this other one, but these guys have been great, they're nice guys, the, there's no doubt, it was no doubt it was a better offer.
17:04 Pablo Torre? That's right. Option B knows what Greg's last name is.
17:08 Speaker 02 No, no, and by the way, Greg, Greg, Greg Shaheen was in charge of it, and, but he was not the guy in the, um.
17:17 Speaker 04 In the park?
17:18 Speaker 02 No, he was not the guy.
17:19 Speaker 04 Was he the guy in the park in a trench coat?
17:20 Speaker 02 No.
17:21 Speaker 04 Because it sounds nefarious to me.
17:22 Speaker 02 No, no, he was a committee member and he was sent to sort of get our last, last and best.
17:28 Speaker 04 Which you said to him, by the way, what a great negotiator you are, you said to him, this isn't my last or best, my last or best, please come to me, come to me with some made up offer from someone else and I'll beat that too.
17:39 Speaker 02 Well, no, that wouldn't have happened.
17:41 Speaker 04 You just said, come to me with whatever offer.
17:43 Speaker 02 I did, I said, come by.
17:44 Speaker 04 Did you ask for it in writing?
17:45 Speaker 02 Uh, I actually knew the people involved and I do not believe they would have lied to me. If they would have, perhaps they would have taken advantage of me, but I would have had the tournament, and as with all of these things, it would have been very profitable and very good for our business, and we wanted it.
18:04 Speaker 04 Was ESPN ever asked to join CBS? So my first thought is, if you can't beat them, join them. So CBS was clearly looking for a partner that had the ability to distribute. It would have made sense to me, though in the world of playing nice in the sandbox, ESPN would never do that, but having ESPN partner with CBS, why would that be out of the question?
18:23 Speaker 02 It would not have been out of the question. At the time CBS was looking to. Cut expenses. I believe it was run at that point by Les Moonves. Uh, Les Moonves was quite skeptical that they should enter into a new, very expensive deal. And I must give Sean McManus and David Levy credit. They banded together to keep the evil empire from taking the tournament by and and TNT, um, took the lion's share of the money too. And did not and got a final, I think like in year four or something. So CBS didn't want to give up the semis and the finals, but they ended up doing it. So.
19:07 Speaker 04 They're now doing it going forward almost every other year.
19:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:10 Speaker 04 TBS is gonna have eight final fours, I think, and finals in the next, whatever, twenty eight, twenty years, ten years.
19:16 Pablo Torre? The agreement runs through 2032 and yes, CBS and TBS will continue to alternate coverage of the final four every year. But look, this is just the tonnage on this, obviously, we're talking about, uh, I mean, it was originally in 2010, a 14 year, 10.8 billion dollar deal. Uh, and the eight additional years of the contract worth 8.8 billion, nearly matching the value of the original, uh, for 14. So the point being, um, is David going to survive? Yes, he is. He's very good.
19:47 Speaker 04 I was gonna sneeze and I made the sneeze a cough thinking that's better for a, for a show. And I don't know which is better, actually. No one ever taught me that in.
19:55 Pablo Torre? If you're not watching on YouTube, David was what looked like to me doing a dab.
20:00 Speaker 04 Have you ever tried to move a sneeze to a cough? I don't want to get you off course, but I, I made a decision and I didn't know what to do. So you caught me mid and of course you brought it on to the show.
20:11 Speaker 02 If you're gonna sneeze, I'd appreciate if you go into the other.
20:13 Speaker 04 Oh, I'm an elbow sneezer. And don't worry about me.
20:15 Pablo Torre? You get a popcorn bag and sneeze into that, please.
20:17 Speaker 04 I do that with anxiety.
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23:59 Pablo Torre? The women's tournament, John.
24:01 Speaker 06 Mm-hmm.
24:01 Pablo Torre? The women's tournament, when you were considering all of this, just to give perspective here, that was not the business that it is becoming, obviously. The business now, by the way, is, is regular season ratings up 3% from last year on ESPN, 41% from two seasons ago. So how, this, again, you are somebody who is also now involved in the business of women's basketball, which we'll also get to. But the women's tournament looks to you like what as it concerns the college game?
24:31 Speaker 02 The women's tournament is spectacular. In fact, we've had, I think ESPN still has the women's tournament, and that is sold through the NCAA in a big package of other tournaments. The men's tournament was taken out separately. So we've always had that. It was always good business. It was always fun. It's become better because the level of competition is so much better. The big problem of the women's tournament 15 years ago, and I use that as a rough measure, was that you knew that Tennessee and Connecticut and a few other teams were going to dominate.
25:09 Speaker 04 Yes.
25:09 Speaker 02 They would frequently win their first round games 86 to 38. And there just wasn't a lot of competition. And there weren't a lot of big stars. There were a few stars. But the league now has competition. There are actually upsets. There are, there are lots of good players. And you have transcendent players that people want to see. The men's tournament, everybody wants to see Cooper Flag. In the women's tournament, you've actually got Paige Becker's and
25:35 Speaker 04 Juju Watkins.
25:36 Speaker 02 Juju Watkins. So you've got real star power. The fact that it went up 3%. The 41% of course is a Caitlin Clark effect. What you have, and I think we had a discussion here about this. I remember what my point of view was, which was, this was not, this Caitlin Clark phenomenon was going to be built upon and was not a one-year phenomenon.
25:57 Speaker 04 That's, that's the news here.
25:58 Speaker 02 That's what has happened.
25:59 Speaker 04 Yes. We don't know. That, that's what people are looking for right now. In the postseason. The regular season so far, though, built on that increase. So he blew by something that I just wanted to stop on and examine, where the women's tournament, as part of a package, that's a really critical point. So when you're meeting someone in the park in a trench coat, and the assets you're discussing are the men's tournament, you're talking only about the men's tournament. And there are multiple bidders, billion-dollar bids. When you're talking about the women's tournament, the people in the trench coat need to give you a little more. They need to open the kimono. So what ESPN did, because they're looking for program in order to justify distributor fees, they need stuff. So what they do is, in addition to getting the women's tournament,
26:42 Speaker 04 they throw in a bunch of stuff that the NCAA on its own would value at zero. I mean, I'm being cruel, but it's very little. And ESPN is willing to do it because they want the women's tournament because they don't get the men's. In return, the NCAA gets to go to its members and say, hey, I got water polo, a TV deal. Or fencing, or soccer, or whatever such sport gets lopped in there.
27:05 Speaker 02 Well, there was some value, the women's softball, the College World Series for the men's baseball. Both very valuable and those deals with the NCAA were great deals. I forget, we paid.
27:22 Pablo Torre? Well, I'll give you some numbers now. So this is the first year, actually, under the eight-year, $920 million contract extension between ESPN and NCAA. The women's tournament specifically valued at 65 million per year through 2032. The men's tournament, by comparison, 1.1 billion per year.
27:40 Speaker 04 Does that, I mean, I think that we should just understand that we can talk about equality and there's a whole big thing about equality of pay as it relates to WNBA and NBA, or WNBA and unrivaled, or college programs on the women's side and the men's side. The market spoke and it's just not close.
27:58 Pablo Torre? So to keep David's math in order, right? So 65 a year, million, nearly twice as much as a $34 million average payout in the previous deal. And yet still, compared to the 1.1 billion, not, not, not close.
28:15 Speaker 04 And so when you're out there getting a package, yes, the College World Series in your mind is valuable because you get the programming of it, you get the sort of the feel-good in Omaha. I understand that, it's amazing. But obviously, the NCAA, when they're evaluating it, they put it in the pot and you overpay for the pot because you've got all of the abilities to distribute and the need to distribute it all. That's how a deal gets made. It's a perfect partnership, ESPN for all of that pot and NCAA.
28:43 Speaker 02 Well, the pot, the overall pot was of great value, right? Because a lot of programming and for college sports, of course.
28:52 Speaker 02 No matter what you're showing, the uniforms or what people tune in to see, other than where there are big stars like in the women's tournament or in the men's tournament, but there really aren't even any big stars in the College World Series. I mean, you're a baseball guy. There's a few each year. Every now and then. You had, what was it, was it Cat Phillips who played women's softball? She was a big enough star. I have that wrong.
29:19 Pablo Torre? The pitcher, the underhand pitcher, Cat, gosh.
29:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't think Phillips is right, but Cat is right.
29:24 Pablo Torre? Yeah, Cat Osterman.
29:26 Speaker 02 Osterman. You did have stars emerge, but if the, for instance, if you did do the women's volleyball, which was quite popular, the men's lacrosse, quite popular, field hockey, all those did pretty well on television. What are the numbers for field hockey? I have no idea. Come on, what do you value field hockey at? We were at a moment in time where if you put on a test pattern, ESPN did about 250,000 viewers. So if you're gonna do-
29:54 Pablo Torre? Which is why the people in the parking lot decided not to go into business with you.
29:58 Speaker 02 Think about what he just said. He would just as soon put up, pay for zero, put up these squiggly lines.
30:05 Pablo Torre? As someone who once hosted a test pattern on ESPN, not feeling great.
30:09 Speaker 02 That, that is demonstrably wrong, actually. I, I insisted that we program 24/7/365. While many people on cable television were still putting on vacuum cleaner commercials at night, in my tenure of getting content, we made a decision that we were going to have real sports on 24/7, almost no repeats. We took off all the hunting and fishing that used to appear on Saturday morning. And you'll remember the days when women dancing on the beach in aerobics classes used to be on Saturday morning ESPN. And we took all that off because we could afford to.
30:54 Speaker 02 And it did matter over time. And you didn't get to the 250,000, they never really had a test pattern. You didn't get to that until people knew when you cut the channel on, you're gonna get sports. You're not gonna get a vacuum cleaner commercial. Sometimes you'll even get Pablo. By the way, I think it is.
31:12 Pablo Torre? One of those sucks less than the other.
31:14 Speaker 04 Not by much.
31:15 Pablo Torre? But, you know.
31:16 Speaker 02 I think it is still the case you can get paid sponsored programming on some of the cable sports networks to this day.
31:23 Pablo Torre? That is a formative part of my childhood, by the way, just like infomercials, the QVC products that I was suddenly very familiar with. But I do want to get to the joining of these two products, actually, from the NCAA's perspective, because part of this deal, the extension, the timing of it that was interesting, was that they run through 2032. So this is lining up the men's and women's, which would allow ostensibly the NCAA to negotiate simultaneously, and what does that unlock?
31:52 Speaker 04 Does that sound familiar to you? Does it sound like the NBA and WNBA by any chance?
31:58 Pablo Torre? I was gonna.
31:58 Speaker 04 Where you lock them up, you get them at the same time, and then you go to ESPN, or Turner, or CBS, and all of a sudden it's one buyer?
32:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:08 Speaker 04 Just throwing it out there, you can then assign any value you want to the women's tournament, just.
32:13 Speaker 02 But the women's tournament will be more viable as it goes up. The more essential foundational question is, will the NCAA be selling it in the next round? And why would they be? Have they demonstrated any significant ability, other than the men's basketball tournament, to extract real value?
32:33 Speaker 04 Who would be able to extract value out of field hockey?
32:36 Pablo Torre? But this is, I want to actually make this point even more clearly, though, because John is saying something that is, I think, not obvious to most sports fans. The NCAA does not run the college football playoff. The NCAA, when it talks about all the things that it's engaging in litigation over with former athletes, it's really revenues from March Madness. Like, because of the pie of television products, it's mostly March Madness.
32:59 Speaker 02 So, I don't know the exact numbers, but you said it's an average of 1.1, but they're deep into the deal, so they're paying north of 1.1 billion. They distribute, it's findable, but I think they distributed 300, somewhere between 250 and 350 million dollars last year to the schools. Now, do the math on that. Let's assume it's 350 to give them the benefit. That means that there is 750 million dollars that's not being distributed.
33:35 Speaker 02 Why? Because they're paying for a big administrative body in Indianapolis.
33:41 Speaker 04 They're not paying $750 million for admin fees.
33:45 Speaker 02 No, no, I didn't say it was admin fees.
33:47 Speaker 04 I was about to want to have this great discussion with you because what you're saying is what will replace the NCAA? You need a governing body. Unless the SEC says, hey, we got 14 in, we're going to try to go to the network, we'll do our own postseason tournament. The conference tournament on steroids will combine with a few other conferences, make a super conference, not go to 98 teams, will go down to 32 teams, and we'll just make it the best of the best.
34:13 Speaker 02 Well, I think you're headed in the right direction, but it's not quite right. Look, colleges, athletic departments, college presidents have demonstrated that to get more money, they will do pretty much anything. I don't know why. There's already discussions with SEC and Big Ten sort of bullying into, we're going to get more guaranteed slots in the college football playoff. So they've got the mindset already that we're going to keep other people out. Why wouldn't you create four super conferences, 64 teams, and that's your governing body? Your governing body is we run ourselves like most leagues
34:57 Speaker 02 do. Who else has FIFA? And you see how great that works. Who else has a governing body, which is an independent third party? The NFL does their own thing, NBA does their own thing, Major League Baseball does their own thing. Why don't four college conferences go, we're going to do our own basketball tournament, 64 teams, and we will, we will now, we'll sell that for a billion and a half dollars, and we'll divide that among our schools, and we will further separate the haves from the have-nots.
35:30 Speaker 04 I hate that. Literary reference alert, Animal Farm.
35:34 Speaker 02 And why do you hate that?
35:37 Pablo Torre? Because.
35:37 Speaker 02 Cause you want a Cinderella to get in. St. Francis is in. The lowest rated.
35:43 Speaker 04 What's so great about John is he.
35:44 Pablo Torre? That is literally what I.
35:45 Speaker 04 He asks you a question, but then he answers it for you.
35:48 Pablo Torre? And also, if you're not watching on YouTube, fluttered his hands around.
35:52 Speaker 02 Oh, I want those Cinderella to get in. It's so great when St. Francis gets in. It's great on the St. Francis campus. I can guarantee, I guarantee you all the broadcasters are going, oh my God. Can't you just put, by the way, they'll get us to the controversy out of North Carolina. The broadcasters are going.
36:10 Pablo Torre? This is a force that goes back to North Carolina.
36:12 Speaker 02 Everybody's gonna bring Bubba, but the people to blame are. If you, if you are the broadcaster, you want the best teams in. I would go to a 64-team tournament. You're gonna try to say, I influenced it. I didn't because we couldn't.
36:26 Speaker 04 Why would I try to say that? Now you're answering questions and you're actually saying affirmative statements. Frankly, Pablo, I think you and I can have the rest of the day off. I think we just give John the show. Let him ask the questions, answer the questions, and then say exactly what we're gonna think. Because if you were doing that, I would say what I was gonna say to you is that you deny all the time that you had nothing to do. Hey, the Marlins, they're in, that's great, no problem, we love them, we're so happy to have them. It's horse hockey. You would prefer to have just North Carolina. You'd prefer to have North Carolina and Duke do everything.
36:59 Speaker 02 Well, I would actually prefer to just be able to declare that North Carolina has won every year. That would make me the happiest.
37:05 Pablo Torre? I now realize that, that David and I are doing the thing where he sees the Marlins and I see Davidson. I see Steph Curry. David sees the Marlins, I see George Mason. You know, like the idea of the under, I mean, as much as there is a poetic, you know, vastly non-the-lens montage thing we can flutter our arms about. The whole magic of why I said by popular acclamation, this is a special thing is because, in fact, it is the underdog capacity.
37:36 Speaker 04 You know how much money there is in the two words upset alert? Upset alert is a foundational concept of the March Madness tournament.
37:44 Speaker 02 You still have an upset alert. You put 64 teams in. They are the 64 teams that make up Conference A, B, C, and D. And then when the 15 seed upsets from the SEC, upsets the number three seed from the Big Ten, that's an upset alert and it's two teams that more people care about. And forget for a minute whether it's a better aesthetic event. What do you think any of the college commissioners and presidents care? They want more money. Haven't we talked on this show over and over? The fans are never considered. They're not doing Cinderella for you, Pablo. I know.
38:29 Speaker 02 They, when they can, if they could look at, instead of splitting up, the individual conferences end up getting 35 million, 40, 50, 60 million. If you could look at splitting up a billion and a half, that's $375 million distributed to 16 schools. So I'm not suggesting I think it's more poetic or more interesting or you can't, you have these beautiful stories. I'm just suggesting the economic value of that. 375, I can't quite do the math with 16, but it's 20, it's close to 25 million dollars a school. So you think if somebody could get those guys in a room and go, "Why don't you do this?"
39:12 Speaker 04 Well, it's the same reason why the Yankees and Red Sox don't split off and form their own league. Because they've threatened that before and the reason they never do it is they recognize that actually no one wants to see a season or a world or a league where it's just the elite teams from two or three cities.
39:28 Speaker 02 Well, that's called the World Cup. That's called the playoffs. The NFL playoffs.
39:34 Speaker 04 But you need a league. You need a league.
39:36 Speaker 02 Well, you have a league. You have 64 teams. And by the way, there's another beautiful thing, which is they can't play, out there it's playing football, and they can only play each other. So now every week you're getting 32 games that are good games. What are the games? By the way, you love those underdogs. So you must love when Alabama beats Troy State 56 to 3. And when, right?
40:02 Speaker 04 This is his programmer talk. So he's talking about he wants those playoff type games with those same. It's why you see Red Sox Yankees Sunday Night Baseball every Sunday. That is what the dream is of someone in his position. But that is the dream of someone who doesn't have ownership of a league or of a team, because it doesn't actually increase the value of your program. If you're shrinking down all of the possible opponents and putting yourself in an ivory tower like that, it's why they've never done it.
40:28 Speaker 02 So if you knew that every time Alabama played, they were going to play a Division One team from a major conference, would that make you happy or sad that you're going to miss Alabama beating up on some, some poor school for a million dollars?
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44:14 Pablo Torre? I think that when it comes to the regular season, actually, I'm OK with John's plan to bolster the strength of schedule. Totally cool with that. The whole point of college basketball, though, I think, is to reinforce the first word in the name. And maybe, John, your position is merely that we are so past that at this point that it's naive to argue for a replication of what college is, meaning that Auburn is actually in the same world as Alabama State. But that, to me, is entirely the appeal of March Madness and the tournament.
44:52 Speaker 02 It may be, but we've already decided it's a professional sport. They get paid.
45:00 Speaker 04 They do, but the current offer, you're saying a billion dollars is where they are in their current TV deal for the 68-member tournament?
45:09 Speaker 02 Yep.
45:10 Speaker 04 In a deal that you have acknowledged that you would take over today if given the opportunity and still running the ESPN. Today, you would want to do the tournament exactly as is. As much as you complain about it, you would take the 68 teams right now.
45:22 Speaker 02 I think I'd take 65, 67, 66, 67, even if I knew that North—
45:27 Speaker 04 You would take it as is and you know it.
45:28 Speaker 02 Even if I knew North Carolina was 60— No, no, I'm not telling you my preference. No, the 68's ridiculous. But no, I'd want 96.
45:37 Speaker 04 It's never even been a consideration to expand the tournament to that number.
45:41 Speaker 02 Oh, no, it has been.
45:42 Speaker 04 Because—
45:43 Speaker 02 It has been.
45:44 Speaker 04 So—
45:45 Pablo Torre? Wait, wait, wait.
45:46 Speaker 04 I want to hear about this, though, because why would they—
45:48 Pablo Torre? So, beyond John in his Watergate parking lot with the trench coat, has there been momentum to 96 teams outside of you?
45:57 Speaker 02 I know that the NCAA has discussed it several times, and it will happen at some point because they'll want to get more money.
46:07 Speaker 02 And then we'll argue about.
46:08 Speaker 04 But you were offering it 10 years ago.
46:10 Speaker 02 I know.
46:11 Speaker 04 So what do you mean it'll happen one day?
46:13 Speaker 02 It will happen.
46:13 Speaker 04 You were already in the market offering more money for 96 and it was turned down. And we're here all these years later, two extensions later, and it's never been put to 96.
46:22 Speaker 02 It's because of the beauty of a committee. And the committee decides that the right number to go from four, and this is now I'm back to the football, is four to 12. The right number to go to is eight or 16.
46:38 Pablo Torre? So you're saying that's a vestige of the politics that now will be irrelevant because the haves and have nots are already very evidently one or the other.
46:45 Speaker 04 He's saying something even more. I'm going to speak for him. He's actually saying that his view is that in 2032, it's not going to be the NCAA who's going to be negotiating a new deal on behalf of men's college basketball. It's going to be an entity controlled by what he hopes is going to be four power conferences.
47:01 Speaker 02 I didn't, by the way, I'm not hoping for it. I'm expressing my opinion that with this amount of money at stake, the haves are going to decide, we want to keep more of that money. And we're going to keep more of that money by restricting who gets into the tournament. And, and by the way, and 96 is too many teams in a way, right? It's too many, you've already got.
47:29 Speaker 04 So you're backing off the 96?
47:31 Speaker 02 No, no. You're confusing my personal what I want from what I think will happen because of the influence of money in the game.
47:41 Pablo Torre? So we're distinguishing between John Skipper, man who was trying to maximize the financial incentives of everybody as the president of a media empire, and now John as normal North Carolinian.
47:54 Speaker 04 Family, head of a family.
47:56 Pablo Torre? That's right.
47:57 Speaker 04 With a large hand.
47:59 Pablo Torre? With a large tournament field.
48:00 Speaker 02 My grandfather was a governor of North Carolina. And my father was a very successful businessman.
48:08 Speaker 04 And they're both dead.
48:10 Speaker 02 And thank God, the Lord took them.
48:13 Speaker 04 How much money is going to the players in your scenario?
48:17 Speaker 02 Well, there you go. You could solve some of the NIL problem by taking half of that money. And I'm just making this up, so I might be thinking something stupid. You take half that money and you just say, every team gets this amount of money. And you stop the craziness of having these events where a thousand players go into a portal and go to the highest bidder, which means that's a worse habit.
48:46 Speaker 04 I love that. That's pure free agency.
48:49 Speaker 02 Well, I'm not necessarily for pure. I wasn't really for NIL, but they've decided they're going to pay the players. They've ended up with a system which is ridiculous. It means that, you know, your local car dealer can go buy you a quarterback and you're better. Wouldn't it be better if you took that money from the NCAA basketball tournament? And actually set a wage scale and said, here's what players are going to get paid? Paid so that you don't have this ridiculous, you know, nine players out of a 12-person squad go into the portal and you're a fan? And you now no longer even know who your team is?
49:27 Speaker 04 He confuses me. I assume that if I had to know John Skipper, that he would be a huge fan of the portal, of a person's inalienable right to maximize their profit-making ability as a worker in the fields with their backs burning in the sunlight.
49:43 Pablo Torre? As always, David.
49:44 Speaker 02 They usually play inside.
49:47 Pablo Torre? You underestimate sports as preeminent socialist capitalist.
49:52 Speaker 02 Exactly. I'm a socialist capitalist.
49:55 Speaker 04 He tries to tell me that and I don't know what he means. I don't, I don't understand. It just makes him feel better, I guess?
50:04 Pablo Torre? I would like to ask you both, what is burning inside of your brains beyond capitalism, socialism and all of that? Because David.
50:15 Pablo Torre? You've had a big week on Nothing Personal, talking about the business of now international baseball. Is that where you want to go?
50:22 Speaker 04 I would like to talk about international baseball because there is money to be made, and baseball was cashing checks this week, and there was a lot of domestic criticism, and it's so misguided by people in the media, or just haters, who don't understand how you could play baseball at 6 a.m. New York time, each morning, Tuesday and Wednesday. But the fact is, these games were not for the U.S., as shocking as that sounds. These games were for Japan, and for the Japanese people, and they were 7:10 p.m. games in Japan, and MLB printed money. The Dodgers won two games against the Cubs. Is that what you were about to ask? No, I was gonna say, why is anybody upset about that? What's the problem? Oh, people have gone crazy over, now you've watered down opening day by starting the season 10 days early.
51:05 Pablo Torre? These are real games. These count in the standings.
51:07 Speaker 04 Regular season games, where MLB made as much money in these two regular season games as any other regular season games you can make. So of course, they're gonna go to Japan, because Japan keeps pain. I don't understand the objection. People, I have no objection. People object to 6 a.m. start times, 3 a.m. in L.A., if you're gonna watch the game.
51:27 Pablo Torre? They can't watch it in America conveniently.
51:30 Speaker 04 Aren't there 162 games? Are there people who are... Opening day's a holiday, though. Opening day, you don't go to school, you watch games all day, there's afternoon games.
51:39 Pablo Torre? Well, now there are multiple opening days as well.
51:40 Speaker 04 And so it waters it down. It used to be the first game of every year. Quick trivia, do you know where the first game was every single year in baseball? You should actually know this, Mr. Programmer, who loves baseball so much, and you would never show them on ESPN.
51:56 Pablo Torre? So it's now the Yankees or the Red Sox?
51:58 Speaker 04 And it created a whole big thing within the room, because the Cincinnati Reds started every season. And you, and Coco will check me, because as he does...
52:07 Pablo Torre? The Great American Ballpark.
52:08 Speaker 04 It was not the Great American Ballpark when this tradition started, but it is now.
52:12 Pablo Torre? Just an audacious name to name anything.
52:14 Speaker 04 And so it would be the first, no, that's named after a company. It's not, it's not named after like... Because it's the greatest American, hold on. I'm sorry. Wait a minute, am I wrong on that?
52:25 Pablo Torre? I believe that...
52:26 Speaker 04 Coco?
52:27 Pablo Torre? So, okay, hold on. In your defense, I'm being told that Great American Insurance Group, okay, still an audacious name to name your insurance group, but now I digress.
52:37 Speaker 04 Just to be right? Cincinnati, you would never put them on the air. And that was the first game that was supposed to be. That was a thing. But ESPN, back in your day, back in my day, had zero interest in having the Cincinnati Reds start off a baseball season. And so that's when we went to the defending champions the night before the start of opening day as a way to get a little extra money from you. And that's when we went to actually opening nights and opening days on the same day.
53:05 Speaker 02 Good idea.
53:09 Speaker 02 Good idea.
53:09 Speaker 04 You're such a hater.
53:11 Speaker 02 The, the, uh, no, no, on this, I, I am, uh, I think that baseball going abroad to play games solves several problems. They can go play somewhere where it's warm. The, my most miserable opening day experience was being at the Chicago Cubs opener and getting snowed upon. Uh, and that is a problem.
53:35 Speaker 04 You weren't in a suite at Wrigley?
53:37 Speaker 02 No, I was, uh...
53:38 Speaker 04 You were in the stands?
53:38 Pablo Torre? I have, I have John in the stands like he was at Trump's inauguration. In the back in a parka.
53:44 Speaker 02 No, no, I, I think it's quite good. And I'll also say something else positive about baseball here. Baseball is a sport with true international appeal. And I think they can build upon that. They're doing it smartly here, and they should do it. Um, I, and I'm, I'm perplexed because I think there's still 162 games. I know opening day is special. But if anybody who's a baseball fan ends up the end of the year and goes, "Oh, my gosh, I just wish we had 10 more games." I'd be shocked.
54:30 Pablo Torre? We have, uh, approximately, speaking of, of, uh, time and games allotted, we have only a couple of minutes, John, for you to say what is burning inside of your brain.
54:41 Speaker 02 Well, since we've pre-planned this, what's burning inside of my brain is
54:46 Pablo Torre? Come on, man.
54:47 Speaker 02 I was assigned-
54:48 Pablo Torre? We're just trying to replicate human relations.
54:53 Speaker 02 That burning inside my brain is unrivaled. I have to disclose that I have some level of investment in that league. Had a very successful final weekend and in fact had a very spectacularly successful opening season.
55:10 Pablo Torre? Yes, the Rose are the champions. This is Angel Reese's team without Angel Reese, but they are the newly crowned-
55:16 Speaker 04 Because she got hurt playing in an offseason, non WNBA sanctioned tournament.
55:22 Speaker 02 Well, it is offseason, but when you say non-sanctioned, I'm not sure what that means.
55:29 Speaker 04 Are they partners, Adam Silver your partner?
55:31 Speaker 02 The WNBA, neither the WNBA nor the NBA has any financial or perhaps any interest in the league.
55:40 Speaker 04 Maybe a negative interest, actually.
55:41 Speaker 02 But no, no, this is no different. We started a league.
55:45 Speaker 04 Successfully.
55:46 Speaker 02 And it started during the offseason. Nobody is prohibited from playing basketball in the offseason. It was one of the real concerns, so I don't want to be flippant about that, that people would get hurt. No one got seriously hurt, and I think Angel Reese was kept out for, in an abundance of caution. Yeah, but thank you, I was struggling with that.
56:14 Pablo Torre? But 364,000 people watched this team without Angel Reese win the title on TNT and True TV, which is, again, we'll talk more about this later, but that's just an impressive number for year one of a new thing, a three-on-three league.
56:29 Speaker 04 Most leagues don't even make it past a year. Some leagues don't get through a full year, and you've done that, and I can't wait for you to announce year two.
56:36 Speaker 02 Look up what the three-on-three old basketball player league, what ratings they did.
56:44 Pablo Torre? The big three?
56:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
56:46 Pablo Torre? Not quite the same.
56:47 Speaker 02 Not quite the same.
56:48 Pablo Torre? Not quite as great. But for us here at the Great American Sports Business Podcast, otherwise known as the Sporting Class, thank you both, we're out of time.
57:01 Speaker 04 Can't believe that, see you later.
57:03 Pablo Torre? Get your popcorn ready.
57:16 Pablo 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.
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Previous Share & Cinderella & Tell with Lucy Rohden and Rodger Sherman Next How John Green Turned Celebrity into Obsessive Optimism Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated