Ep 1243 - What Happened to ESPN?

You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavier joining you. It is the 1st of July. Happy July everybody. You may be listening to this on the second. Maybe you're listening to this on the weekend. 4th is either happening or has happened. We've been trying to. Summer is a little slow when it comes to a podcast that primarily covers college sports. We've done a lot about college sports and NIL.

We did a nice pod with Taylor Lehman the other day about IU football recruiting updates and then IU recruited another player. Got one commit today, three story defensive lineman out of IMG Academy. We're doing some other things throughout the course of the summer to keep you, the listener of the Back Home network, entertained and we're happy to have back on the pod. It's been like 7 years I think. I was going to say it's, I remember doing it at like 2 apartments ago, I think.

Yeah, we're we're we're back. You were waiting for the right time. I was mid 2025. This was the right time. Definitely the right time, but Greg Gottfried joining us. Greg, for those who don't know who you are, tell the people. I don't know where to start. I went to IU so that's good. I graduated 2017 from the journalism school. I mean, do you need the whole background? I work for what? Do you like I? Work for Golf Digest right now.

I've been there since end of 2019, right before COVID, end of 2019. And I'm web producer. I produce our three podcasts, I write for the website, and then I also write about movies in my spare time. And I live in New York City, so I have no money whatsoever. So yeah. That's who I am. Living the dream. Honestly, yesterday I went, this is gonna, this is the most like humble braggy thing, but I pay a lot of money for Equinox to go to the gym there and it's over

$200. I don't whatever, who cares anymore. But my AC was at the gym was broken. So let me go to any other Equinox. So I went to one with a pool, took a pool class. It was me and 1252 year old women. And then I went to a movie and I picked up a rap in between and I walked back at like 9:30 at night. And it was, it was, it truly was the dream. I love it here. Things you could only do in New York City, right? No other place has gym, movies or pools. Nothing. No, Yeah.

No, it's. Really, it's the walk that matters more than anything. Else right through Central Park, Yeah, where they they find bodies every so often. It's perfect. They find bodies everywhere. It's not just Central Park. Yeah, but it's New York bodies, you know. So Greg and I have texted regularly for a long time. We, we, we keep each other humored, I guess, just with the random stuff that we'll see in

relation to sports and media. But we got to talking quite a bit the other day about a topic that I know is relevant and interesting to a lot of the folks that are in our listening audience, which is what the hell happened to ESPN? And, and this became, I think, exacerbated for a lot of people in Indiana over the course of the last couple of months because of the Pacers, somewhat improbable, but incredibly

exciting. We're on all the way to game seven of the NBA Finals. And so we got to going back and forth talking about a few things. And I think at one point I said we should do a podcast where you just ask me a bunch of questions because I, I, I think one of the things that's worth noting is that Greg, what, like what generation do you consider yourself a part of? Are you a millennial or are you Gen.

Z? Non millennial, I'm part of the generation of Grantland. I feel like the when I was in high school and that's when Grantland came out and page 2 was I feel like closing shop and I feel like that's where the that's where my generation is. I feel like with the ESPN thing. That's, that's fair. You know, so I, I am, I'm at the exact opposite end of the millennial spectrum to the point that I'm probably technically Gen. X, but I refuse to identify with Gen.

X for personal reasons. But it's interesting having conversations about ESPN because the perception of what ESPN should be and what it actually is in practice is, I think very distinctly different things in most cases. And I happen to be a professor of sports media in my day job. So I think about these things all the time. And so this is where the basis of this conversation on text started. And we were like, why don't we

do this as a podcast? Since as the listeners know or the viewers on YouTube, I everything in my life is essentially a podcast at this point. And so, you know, let's just live it and let's share in this with everybody. And Greg did a great job of coming up with a lot of questions that are probably on the minds of you folks out there. So we're going to get to those in just a second.

But first of all, quick reminder, we are here at Crimson Cast, part of the back Home Network, which is brought to you by Home Field Apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. Why are Why are you laughing right now? No, it's just you're doing it on air. I mean, I guess that's what you have to do with the YouTube thing, but sorry, you finish up and then we. Don't do live. We don't do like prerecorded

drops. We we drop everything in. I think those are soulless and like, it's like they're like zombie ads at that. Point they are, but when you're trying to wrangle a bunch of different hosts together, it's like, just do it on your own. This is why, This is why I produce all of my own stuff. It just makes it much easier. But anyway, Home field also produces all of their own stuff,

you know, T-shirts, hoodies. They've got this whole ball cap series that's coming out, which is is really an impressive thing. If you are a fan of any of the teams that they've released, which I don't happen to be, but you might be, you might want a Penn State hat or a Michigan hat or a Purdue hat. I can't imagine why, but you can go to Home Field apparel and use the code Home 23. Get 15% off your first order. They will have a ton of things

coming out in the fall. College football is their jam. They've got some exciting new things that they're planning on doing both with their merch and with some other items. So head on over, follow them on socials, get subscribed to their newsletter or their text updates. You'll get the things that you're interested in sent right to you. Again, that's home field apparel.com. And just a quick reminder, we are on Sub Stack. Subscribe to the Sub Stack.

You get the podcast delivered right to your inbox, and that includes our YouTube, which you can separately subscribe to, and we would recommend that you do so get alerts about when we're doing live shows and when new things drop on YouTube. We'd love to have you as part of that community. All right, Greg, I'm going to do something I don't normally do. I'm going to move you to the left. That's. Like that's my good side.

So that works perfectly. Those of you who are on YouTube or Spotify, Greg has now moved to the left side so I am more in the if this was $25,000 pyramid I would be receiving as opposed to giving which which in 25,000. You're you're dating yourself. That's what I was about to say you. You weren't ever watched an episode of that? I think when I was like sick home from school, but it was never like like, 'cause that was like an 8:00 PM show right at

one point. I mean, I really only ever actually, it's funny you say that. I, I would come home from school and it would be on like CBS at like 4:00 in the afternoon when I was a kid. But I mostly knew it from the Game Show Network. That's what I was going to. That's where I know it from. I don't know when it ran on the Game Show Network. It's it's in, it's in a weird spot historically in game shows

cause like what? Like I think uniformly we would say in some order, the best game show, the most recognized game show is either Price is Right or Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, right? Is there anybody else that's even close to those 3? No, it's jeopardy. Jeopardy is the show, and maybe it's less. I don't know, man, when I think game show, I think price is right like I I don't know that anything like has quite the combo of of like flash and consistency as price is right

has. It's funny you say game show and my first thought was Jeopardy and my second thought was Guts and like the other Nickelodeon game shows growing up like. Like Double Dare. Double dare. There was like the temple, like the hidden legends of the hidden temple. Legends of the hidden temple, Yeah, Which was? I I wanted to be on that show so badly. This is very much the difference between growing up in the like, early 2000s, mid 2000s. Like yeah, early, early, mid 2000s.

And growing up in the 80s and early 90s, when for me it was like, you know, Price is Right, Card sharks, that was a big one. Classic Concentration, which was a bizarre show hosted by Alex Trebek. There were a few others in the mix like that that I would, I would place above those the other ones that you mentioned, even the Nickelodeon ones.

But I I mean, I was always an old head even as a kid though, so. That's not shocking considering the record collection I've seen you have and other things like that. Yeah, correct. Anyway, we're, we've gotten off topic already. I we should talk about Stump the Schwab I guess, as maybe a transition point for game shows. Which I watched I I did watch that one. What was what? Where would you rank that on the the list of game shows for

conceptually and executionally? I feel like I got into it a little late, but I got obsessed with it. I feel like when I really got into sports, like middle school, early high school, it was always on like ESPN 2 or ESPN news or like all these random back channels. And I thought it I thought it was cool knowing who this guy was that no one else in my class knew. So that's my Schwab background. But I mean, he was, he was the

he was, he was great. I know he has some weird takes outside of I think there there was a whole back story to there's a. Whole cancel the Schwab period of things, which kind of fits into the story that we're about to yeah here. You're so good at this. You're you're keep getting it right back. I keep trying to get you off and then you're like. And by the way, let's segue right back into the perfect I mean. You got to find these. Angles, man, you know. You podcast for 20 years about

everything. You'll eventually hit these things too, but it's not because like there was a whole cadre of quirky, offbeat types of shows that ESPN launched in like the 90s and 2000s, which I think for most people that corresponds with the what they would consider the golden era of ESPN. So it wasn't just like stump the Schwab, which was a a weird show, but it was a show that was like it had a purpose to it.

Dream Job was another one that had a great first season, a hideous second season which you could actually make an argument maps the entire history of ESP, NS, bad decision making. But even things like cheap seats where they literally just stuck the Sklar brothers in like a closet and had them watch old films and make fun of people like Mystery Science Theater 3000. They were just trying things. Yeah, I feel like that was the that's, that's what we're

talking about. I mean, that's basically the background to this whole thing is they're not trying things anymore or the things that they're trying just aren't interesting to me. And it seems like you for the

most part. Right and well, and and this is where I as we paint the picture of ESPNA lot of people complained bitterly and like across the spectrum of of American sports consumership, at least what we see on social media, which I think in this case actually might be pretty representative of how people feel in general.

That ESP NS coverage of the NBA, particularly the NBA playoffs in the NBA Finals, ESP NS coverage of baseball, ESP NS coverage of of hockey, like everything just feels incredibly lacking and almost insulting to some degree if you happen to be a fan of sports beyond the very, very base casual. Oh, I, I recognize that those people are in uniform kind of level. And it, it does kind of feel like the things that they are trying are not really on the

networks anymore. There's some interesting stuff on ESPN Plus, like I do like some of the things they've done with Omaha Productions, but they've they've kind of settled into this weird pattern where they've started things and then they've killed them and then they started new things and they've killed them again. But it all those are all kind of the satellites in orbit around the the star. And the star is the real issue. And that is what's on their

linear programming. And their linear programming has descended into a kind of a hellscape from a sports perspective that I don't think anybody anticipated. But that kind of maps what happened in political television with CNN, with CNBC or MSNBC, with Fox, where it's just a bunch of people yelling at each other to no great purpose.

And it almost feels like it's actively attacking the people who are trying to tune in for the actual news and commentary and information that they want to get. So that's the backdrop of what we're talking about here. Well, there was there was a 30 Rock episode I remember where Tracy Jordan was on. Was it called sports yelling or whatever? And at the time it was making

fun of around the horn. But I feel like if you watched it now, it'd almost be like relaxing compared to a lot of the ESPN programming, which to be honest, I mean, I know you invited me on this ESPN breakdown pod. I can't watch anymore. Like I just there's no reason to. I don't find it entertaining, especially once you get rid of Zach Lowe. Like I don't care about your NBA, right? Any of your programming just surrounding it?

I, I can't do this Stephen A Smith thing, which is every single thing on ESPNI can't do the Kendrick Perkins thing. I don't think anyone can do the Kendrick Perkins thing. And like the only person left really is Scott Van Pelt. I feel like that's the only guy that I really find myself gravitating to, at least on the TV side. I mean, I know there's Mina Kimes and a few others here and there, but I just, I, I just don't find it entertaining.

And I know some of it is me being biased or picky or whatever you want to say it, but a lot of my friends feel the same way and a lot of people I know. I don't know if it's biased or picky. I mean, it'd be one thing if it were just old people complaining because that's, as we know, that's what old people do is they complain. You're not old. Congratulations. I mean, you're not. And yeah, I mean, here's the thing.

I think what important to keep in mind, like when ESPN was at its zenith from a cultural cool perspective, you're talking about that period really between 1994 and 2008, let's say about a 15 year period of time. And the audience was not young people. I mean, there were young people that loved it, but their core audience was people who were kind of in between where you are. I mean, what are you 29 right now?

And and my age, I'm 45. So like that, that kind of window there between your late 20s and your mid 40s where you're still tuned in to the zeitgeist, you're still tuned in to what's going on. You're a fan of sports, you're buying tickets, you're going to games when you can, you're watching games regularly. Like that was ESPN score audience and it's weird that so many people in that particular audience very much share the opinion that you have where they

don't watch anymore. It's like it's not for me. And I agree. It's like, you know, the the Scott Van Pelt Sports Center and what he does with hosting various things just sticks out in such a fascinating way because it is so clearly of another era than what ESPN is doing right now with all of their shows. And, you know, so you, you look through the, you know, conceptually what we're talking about in terms of, say, the Zach Lowe thing. So let's start there.

So ESPN, you know, they went out and they bought a bunch of talent from various places. You know, they bring Zach Lowe in and they make him kind of the centerpiece of their intellectual coverage of basketball. And they've got other people. And I I will say it's not just Scott Van Pelt that sticks out as kind of not belonging within the mix. I think Brian Windhorst has developed into that kind of a guy. I think Tim Legler has, you know, been pretty good in that

spectrum. They've got some other anchors that I like. Like I will always if I've got ESPN on and Sports Center comes on and Nicole Briscoe is hosting, I will watch Nicole Briscoe hosting Sports Center. I just think she's, she might be one of my top five favorite broadcasters across the board right now in sports media. But so much of their sports specific coverage has become about debate and it has become about opinions that don't really have nuance, aren't grounded in anything.

They're grounded it, well, they're not really, like I said, they're not grounded in anything, but they're focused so much on a very surface level perception of what a casual sports fan or someone who doesn't really love sports but loves the idea of a city or the idea of fandom might be interested in talking about. And the weird thing is like it's across all of their sports, but it it hits the hardest with the

with their NBA coverage. And when I think about Zach Lowe, like Zach Lowe represents to some degree exactly the wrong kind of content for ESPN in that there's there's nuance involved. If you listen to his podcast, which I do pretty regularly now like, and, and this has been the case even when he had a podcast at ESPN. He's not making a lot of crazy proclamations. He's a good interviewer. He has a lot of interesting thoughts, but they're always

grounded in his reporting. And that's not what you're getting out of Stephen A Smith. It's not what you're getting certainly out of Kendrick Perkins. It's not what you're getting out of a lot of these guys who are, you know, on on their coverage and even even the people that they have where you do feel like they might be able to contribute in some positive way. The formatting with which they do these shows doesn't showcase the good things that those

people have to say. And this is something we've heard Bill Simmons complain about. It's something we, you know, we feel complain about it. It's like it's not just like a white male perspective. It's like everything is so overproduced and so short and so segmented that it ends up that nuance and depth are the first things to go with most of the things that are on their linear programming. And that's unfortunate. You almost can't blame Stephen A or I mean, you, you can and we

will. But you can't get mad at them when they have 30 seconds to do a halftime show. And it's like we come back, we see two, you know, quick highlights of usually the Lakers. And then Stephen A will say something inane and something random about how this player isn't playing. I mean, Simmons does the whole step up thing, which at this point feels like he's just wants to say players should step up.

But Stephen A will say this player needs to step up, Whatever. And then Perkins will say, I don't know. They yell at each other for 45 seconds and then they send it to a break again. You know, Malika Andrews will send it to a break. They'll do that one more time. And then the game starts again. And at this point, just show that, show more ads, you know, like you don't even have to have a like, I don't think anyone's satisfied. Like I can't imagine ESP NS

themselves are satisfied. I can't imagine the NBA satisfied. Like I don't get the point of any of that. This is where I'm not totally

sure. I mean, I if, if it was that, if it was something that the NBA hated, we know that they would do something about it. I mean, famously the first year that ESPN got the NBA contract in whatever was 2002, they had Brad Nessler as their lead play by play guy and David Stern like went nuts behind the scenes, like screamed at every executive at at ESPN and and I think they would hired Marv Albert to come in and do play by play that next year.

I know David Stern had his critics and they he he deserved them, you know, rest in rest in peace or whatever, but at least he, it felt like he cared about the game more than Adam Silver does. And you can't tell me that the NBA product looks better now. I mean, it does TV wise in terms of like graphics and cameras and all that, but in terms of it mattering, you watch like a 2013 or a 2008 highlight clip and it

just looks better. I mean, maybe I'm being insane, but I don't it just, it looks like a better product. It there's more gravitas to the whole thing. It just, it feels like there's energy that there just isn't. Anymore you know, it's weird because I used to feel that way and then I you know my team made it to the finals this and I didn't feel that way anymore and I will say the in person experience was pretty incredible you. You felt that at the game, not? And that's what I mean, it's

like it's there. It's not being captured particularly well. Like, I went to multiple Pacers games. I went to a Finals, you know, to, to two of the Finals games. I went to Game 3 and I went to Game 6 and, and the energy was off the charts. The one I didn't go to was game four. And it was shocking how muted the broadcast was in relation to

everything else. And so, you know, when I, when I think about it, I'm just kind of like there's something off in terms of the way that the presentation is happening. And, you know, I think TNT was not having similar problems with their game broadcast. So I thought that the coverage of Pacers, Knicks was really good. And it wasn't just obviously the, the, the game broadcast itself. It was also the, you know, the inside the NBA and, and their overall coverage surrounding the

games. And it's an interesting contrast because that contrast isn't going to exist anymore because there is no more TNTNBA coverage. There's no more inside the NBA. And the NBA felt perfectly happy with jumping into bed with ESPN for most of it. And then NBC, who notoriously does a bad job, in my opinion, of making their coverage not look fake. If you look at Sunday Night Football.

It's just not to say it's being so inorganic next to what CBS and Fox do with their coverage, in my opinion, but that and that may be kind of the heart of some of the issue with like the Stephen A shtick. It feels forced to a ridiculous extreme. You know, like, you know, there's always been this struggle.

And I know that you had a question about this later, but like the the whole concept of ESPN taking over inside the NBA and why they haven't been able to duplicate that despite throwing the kitchen sink at NBA coverage in particular. They've tried so many different people and so many different formats. And they've had they had, you know, they had Magic Johnson and Bill Simmons and Sage Steele and a bunch of people that I've lost track of over the course of time

and it never works. And, you know, and it's interesting because Simmons always blames the producers. And I think that there's something to be said for that because I don't know that the ESPN producers and whether they're doing this on their own accord or whether they're doing this because of orders that are coming down from up high, just

don't know what they're doing. But the, the, the concern I guess I have with the whole process is that there is a there's a lack of organic conversation. There's a lack of, of flow even in the game broadcast.

And and this is where it's like, I didn't think Reggie Miller was a good commentator and I don't really like listening to Stan Van Gundy talk, but even that kind of awkward pairing with Brian Anderson was miles better than what we got out of any of the games with Breen, Doris Burke and Richard Jefferson. And I don't even know if we can blame them because again, it's like, if your studio shows feel stilted and in and inorganic and like forced, then your game broadcast also feel that way.

It's probably not the broadcaster's fault. It's probably the production orders that they're running with, and this is something that feels like it extends to a bunch of different areas of the ESPN, you know, family of content. I have like 1000 points slash questions off of that. This this could be the first 12 hour podcast. Let's start with the broadcast itself. Yeah. Was am I losing my mind or was Doris Burke better? Like she used to be good, right? Like, I don't want to attack her.

I mean, Richard Jefferson also is annoying, but like Doris Burke, I feel like five years ago I was in the bag for her. I was obsessed with. I was like, this person knows what she's talking about. She is funny, she's interesting. And maybe it's just the combination of people they had, but it just didn't work at all. Where it felt like they were attacking each other to get points across.

It felt like they didn't really care about the games in a way that they were like just trying to push it to the end in some ways. I don't. It just there were so many times, I mean, we talked about, I think this may have been the impetus for this whole thing was Rick Carlisle yelling at the refs and them saying, oh, he's upset, but then never saying what he was upset about, why he

was upset, why he was annoyed. And then they just let it go and you're like, this is the most important thing that's happened in the last 20 minutes and we're going to get no information on this. So it goes back to something you asked earlier, which was does that, you know, does Adam Silver care about the game the same way that David Stern does?

And I think he does, but I don't think he understands the presentation of the game NBA wise and what it means to be partnered with ESPN as as your primary partner as opposed to basically having them share the stage with Turner. Because what Turner always did really well was they presented the game respectfully, but they also presented the game in a style that was honest. And I feel like the problem with a lot of ESP NS coverage is it's not, it doesn't feel honest.

It doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of, of joy or, or interest. And this is actually, I think where, oh, I know a lot of Pacers fans got really frustrated with the way ESPN covered the games in the Finals because all ESPN seemed to want to talk about was either Shay Gildrus, Alexander or how nobody was watching the finals in one way or another because they were small market teams like they were they were pining for something that wasn't there.

There was no effort to build up the Pacers or the Thunder. I mean, you know, Scott Van Pelt goes on his podcast and actually like issues of mea culpa. And it was like we didn't see this team coming. We didn't build them up effectively. We didn't do our jobs essentially. At least he said he didn't do his. And it kind of it, it hits to a

larger point in general. The Doris Burke thing is interesting because I do feel like her commentary has gotten less effective and and and less good because the NBA seems to think, well we can't have people questioning the referees, which I agree with. Although I'll note if you watch an NFL broadcast, people question the calls of the referees all the time and it doesn't. It's gotten much better. I feel like he used to be much more safe and he'll, he'll attack someone now.

I mean, I know we were talking about NBC, but I, I think he's good. I mean, maybe it's just that everyone else has gotten a little worse just in general, but I think he knows what he's doing and he I respect when he when he makes a point, he really digs into it and no one's doing that on ESPI. Feel like I was listening to Zach Lowe before too, and he was kind of not trashing, but like

really annoyed. It seemed like with LeBron and with Lebron's whole shtick in LA and trying to go somewhere else and it felt genuine because he's not constantly attacking LeBron. You know, at a certain point Skip Bayless says LA bum and you're like, well, this is just he needs to put out a tweet today. You know, he needs to do

something. And Stephen A's like that too, where he's like attacking Tyrese or he's attacking Giannis or he's and it's just like, we know you're doing this for clicks when Zach Lowe's doing it, it just feels like an organic thing that he's talking about, that he just is annoyed by this whole rigmarole of this whole thing, you know? Yeah, no, I think it's a good point. And it does feel like so much of what happens with ESP NS content

is very calculated. And I think that, I mean, there's always a certain degree of calculus in any sports broadcast, any broadcasting in general. I mean, I look, I I work in this industry part time. That's what, that's what it's going to. Be but it, but it's forcing it every day for the sake of having content to put out is frankly, people see through that very quickly. And I think that that's what's happened with a lot of ESP NS coverage now.

You know, it's, it's also interesting because I think the NBA in general historically suffers from a lot of astroturfing of, of fan bases. Like, there's a lot of I've always been fascinated by the fact that the NBA has the youngest, average aged fan of any of the four major sports and has for like 40 years. At some point.

You would think their audience would age, but it feels like their audience kind of disappears between ages 35 and 45 because people get tired of how infantile a lot of the storylines tend to be. And I feel like ESPN to some degree does the NBA disservice because they feed into that because a lot of what does get talked about is either incredibly surface level stuff or it's only focused on a very small number of stars or a very small number of teams.

It doesn't take into account the breadth of the league and the way that the league has a ton of interesting players, has a ton of interesting teams, has a bunch of you know, there's there's a bunch of different methodologies by which teams go about things and you hear about it feels like none of that on ESP NS primary programming. And when I think about the way that they are like, you know, that they tried to cover other

sports. Their NFL coverage has gradually grown into that as well, where the ton of Cowboys, the ton of giants, you know, they'll be occasional players that'll pop up and then there'll be certain teams that they have to talk about, but they clearly don't want to like they, you know, there's a there's just a real resistance to covering the whole

sport. And I, and I do think that part of this issue is that if you think about the history of ESPN when they came of age in that period, we're mentioning eighties, 90s, early 2000s, they could be the national network for everybody. And you know, they're going to cover the games, they're going to cover the events, things like that. You know, I can't ever remember sitting around during the 2000 Finals and saying, God, their

coverage of the Pacers sucks. Like it never even would have occurred to me to think that way. But part of that time period was there was vibrant local media, multiple outlets in local in the local media that would cover these teams effectively. Now, I think New York still has that. I think LA has that to to a similar degree. Chicago has it. Most of the other cities in in these leagues don't have that. I mean, the Indy Star is behind a paywall.

Local television is generally doing very base level stories. There's not really a local place to go for coverage of your team. So people look to ESPN and instead they find ESPN is, you know, basically doing the LeBron fandom thing. Like, you know, they're covering the the Lakers, Cowboys, Yankees and maybe one or two other teams sprinkled in.

And I think people get resentful of that because it's like, how can you call yourself the worldwide Leader if you're only covering a small part of the of the league? And they do they're, they don't seem at all interested in disabusing people of that notion. They are instead just like, yeah, that's what we do.

We're unapologetic about it. And we're going to do it over and over and over again because we know that it's going to get whatever click numbers we need or whatever ad numbers we need to keep the network going. And there's another kind of more nefarious aspect to all of this that we'll talk about later. But that seems to be the crux of a lot of the production decisions that get made with these shows and even with the broadcast that they do for the games.

It reminds me of the whole pivot to video thing, which keeps which happens what, every three years. Everyone decides video is like the new thing instead of writing and then it disappears and then Facebook fakes the numbers and that was like a whole what was that like 5-6 years ago at this point? That was that was like a solid decade ago, I hate to tell you that. Was it a decade? I think. It was like 2014. Fifteen. Somewhere in that range. The pivot to video part, yes.

Well, no, yeah. And then there was like the whole backlash and then this. It just keeps happening. And ESPN is doing this. It's it's a real chicken or the egg situation. I'm just like rambling at this point for this podcast. There's a podcaster for and where it's like, if we give you more interesting information, eventually you'll know these teams more and you'll be more invested when the Pacers are in the finals, when the Thunder are

in the finals. And if we don't show you any of their games during the regular season, why would you care about these teams? And you just, I just get so mad thinking about how how much nothing there is on these, yeah, on these channels. Part of it is also, and I think this kind of goes back to we have to go to ESP NS NFL coverage and look at what happened there where ESPN tried to essentially have it both ways.

They wanted to have a robust investigative journalism center that would do hard hitting stories so that they could feel good about themselves in The Newsroom. But then they also wanted to have a strong commercial relationship with the NFL. And the NFL was like, you can't do both of these things. You you can't go report on Ray Rice and then expect to get our best games on Monday Night Football. Like it's not going to work that way. And you know, John Skipper was

like, what? We're going to stick to our principles. And ESPN kept getting worse and worse and in terms worse and worse games. Then Jimmy Pitaro gets hired and you go back and read the Brian Curtis articles from The Ringer about this. You know, the, the fixing of the, the mending of the fences and the manning of defenses was essentially ESPN agreeing to not say nasty things about the NFL. And we'll then you'll, we'll play ball with you. Well, that arrangement clearly

happens with the NBA as well. Like there's very few actual deep critical things or investigative things that are occurring with the NBA that ESPN is originating. And when they do them, it's always couched in very specific terminologies. It it all feels very sanitized because these are corporate partners that they can't afford to give up. I mean, the, oh, sorry, but the, the Malik Beasley thing, I mean, that's the whole that's we've talked about ESPN bet plenty of times.

And is that the more nefarious thing you were hitting towards? OK, see what I mean? I'm I'm following along. The ESPN bet thing I think is fascinating because what you have to keep in mind is ESPN got rich, really rich for years, decades, because they had, unlike most of their partners in or most of the other places in media, they had two completely separate revenue streams. They had an advertising revenue

stream, which is very lucrative. And then they had the subscriber revenue stream because all of the people that had basic cable were paying essentially, you know, by the late aughts, early 20 tens, everybody was paying 7 to $9 per month to ESPN, even if you didn't watch it at all, because it was bundled with basic cable. And if they it had to be there like no one was gonna So many people would have left if ESPN

wasn't part of the deal. And that worked until people started cutting the cord about 2014. Well, we're eleven years into that and I think we've lost like 40 or 50,000 cable subscribers and that revenue's just not

there at the same level anymore. And, and it's going to continue to go down South. ESPN, you know, they because they have to keep going out and buying live, live game rights and, and they have to keep bidding on things, had to make a decision about how they were going to generate that extra revenue to try to make up the revenue that they were no longer

making. Because keep in mind, they were like a profit Center for Disney who has had its own issues from a budgetary perspective, as I think those of you who follow their stock prices are aware of. And what ends up happening is they create, they buy back a, a sports book that was in partnership with Barstool, which I think is hilarious. And they rebranded the ESPN BET and they built so much of their future earnings potential around ESPN BET.

But what that requires is being on really friendly terms with as many sports leagues as possible because you have to have access to the data, you have to have access to, you know, doing all of these, these special related items. You have to be able to build content out. You got people making and I mean, ESP NS not alone in this.

And I want to, I want to make that clear that, you know, they're, they're not the only ones who have their talent like giving like their best wagers for the night. But the difference is they're the rights holders and they are supposed to be the worldwide leader in sports.

And what they've done is essentially backed themselves into a financial corner where that's that's got to work because they don't really have a Plan B, which means they can't really be that critical of the sports that they cover. They can't risk doing a lot of in depth analysis because they really need to be driving people to the ESPN bet platform to make their wagers and continue to bring in that percentage of money that they're getting off of those. That's that's the game right now.

It's a very, it's a very different type of game than ESP NS ever had to be involved in before. And I don't think they figured out really how to do it effectively. Do you use ESPN Bet? No. Do you? You'll gamble here and there, right? Yeah, I, I. Actually, bet. I've, I, I've used several of the platforms. I I I'm not interested in ESPN bet because I don't gamble that much first of. All I'm the same way where I I

have a DraftKings app. I'll bet I'll put $5 every so often when my friends Ben or Jake tell me to. Or Taylor. But. I've gotten to the point where I'll, I'll use the Caesar's app because I get points towards like rooms in Vegas at this point, you know? Is is it working like it? I this is like a broad question and for ESPN, you know, higher ups, not really you, but is the ESPN, do people use ESPN BET like is it worth the investment that they've made in and I mean

there. There was a piece in front office Sports back in February and I haven't done a, a, a huge amount of in depth research, but you know, Pen Entertainment, which owns the book itself and a fourth quarter loss of $109 million, which, which some of you may have seen, they missed analyst forecasts. And they, I think what I saw was like in New York, Illinois and New Jersey, which are the top three states for, for sports wagering.

ESPN bet has 1 to 2% of the market in terms of revenue, which is the, the, the target was 20% of the market by 2027. They had a long way to go. And I, I be, I got to be honest, I don't, I don't ask my friends what they're wagering on, but I don't hear a lot of people saying you need to get on ESPN that because that's, it's kind of like the, it's like when we, when we got legalized in certain places, people would go drive to the dispensary, they would buy things.

I don't, I don't know a ton of people who are like, Hey, you got to try this type of gummy out or it's a personal thing. And, and I think for for a lot of people, gambling apps. Well, I've told people like, you know, the Caesar's app is actually really good. You should try that. I like it better than, you know, like the Bet MGM app or the OR the DraftKings app. But you don't care like I don't.

Care, I'm in and I'm not you know, I see the ads, I've got Aaron Dolan, you know, giving giving pics on on my screen. It's not making me download the ESPN bet app. So if the gambit here is we're going to take over 1/5 of the marketplace in a four year span of time, I don't know what the hell they thought they were going to do with that. But I, I don't see it. I don't see it resonating at this point. Yeah, I mean, I run a gambling

podcast. I'm not, I'm not hosting, but I'm on it. They've never once we don't have any deals with FanDuel or DraftKings or Caesars or any of these other sports books. They've never once mentioned ESPN Bet. I bet you look at every transcript of the 1000 or so episodes we've had and not once has ESPN Bet been mentioned. And I know that's a very specific example, but it's every podcast I listen to. I mean, obviously they have deals with FanDuel, DraftKings,

whatever. And ESPN obviously will promote ESPN BET because they have to at this point. But any other podcast outside of ESPN is not referencing ESPN BET, at least that I've heard of. And at that point, you're so ingrained in what you have and ESPN, like I'm sure each of these gambling sites have different like, perks and different reasons to get on. But at a certain point, you have enough apps.

I mean, we've talked about apps in general, and that was like a whole Bill Simmons Grantland thing. But there's a finite amount of space where you can be betting. And it doesn't really make sense that someone would go over to a different one, especially when they're so locked in on one. Right. Well, it's like if you've already deposited money in one or two, yeah, why get another

one? Like there's no compelling reason to. And, and, and so I think it's, again, it's one of those things where, you know, Disney hemmed and hawed over what they were doing. And I part of the problem it's, and it's ironic because like if you go back to the history of Deadspin, like Nick Denton wanted them to start like a, a sports GAMBLING SITE. This is what, 2005 or whatever it was, which no one was talking about sports gambling that wasn't in jail at that point.

Well, ESPN hated sports Gantt. They weren't allowed to mention it. Like none of the broadcasters, Simmons had a hole back and forth with them in Page 2. But like the the guy who ranespn.com left ESPN to go form a site that covered gambling in like what, 2017? That was, you know, that that was you know, that was a big move. But that like the ship had sailed by that point. They took so long to get to the point where they like, hey, we got to make this our central

thing that it it was too late. I think now maybe they'll make big strides here, Who knows? I'm just not seeing it happen. But I I think as a factor of the coverage, it hurts.

I don't know if it hurts necessarily in terms of the NBA coverage, what what they're talking about, because it's not necessarily directly affecting the hot take ishness of what's happening on the shows, nor is it necessarily affecting the content of the broadcast per SE. But it it I do think it ties back to this idea that they're kind of caught between a bunch of different worlds, but they can't afford to piss the NBA off. They can't afford to piss the

NFL off. So it ends up turning the volume down on what might be insightful things and it ends up causing them to bring people in whose primary stock and trade is just spouting off things that can go on the Internet later, even if they're not particularly interesting. And I guess that's the thing. It's like the utility of Stephen A Smith yelling into a camera feels like it has a shelf life.

And it did, In fact, as people have often forgotten, like, ESPN fired Stephen A Smith once before, and he spent, like, three years in the wilderness, and then they brought him back. Do you remember this? No, I don't remember this. Yeah. No. Back in. He was like, you know, he was big in in two, like, like O4 to O9 or O5 to O9. He had this meteoric rise. And then there was a contract dispute in 2009. So did they technically tell they fire him? I guess not.

They Yeah. They just didn't renew it. We was off the air for two years and then they brought him back in 2011. I've blocked this all out of my memory. That was probably the best two years of my life. I don't remember any of. I don't remember any of it. I Yeah, I mean, but it's not, I don't think it's just social media that's exhausted of it. It's, I mean, I'm just from personal experience.

It's my dad, it's my mom. Like it's people just next to the TV who just hear him Skip Bayless, whoever the guy is, they're just, they just start yelling and there's certain points like, I don't need to watch this anymore. I mean, it's the same thing with Fox News, the same thing with CNNI mean, it's they're all the same at this point, but. Well, here's the here's the issue.

Clearly people do watch at least in some numbers, because they that wouldn't be a method that gets used across all the television. But I do think that we've gotten to a point these things are generational to some degree. And I do think we've gotten to a point where the number of people who are willing to watch that consistently and have that be the primary thing that they're looking at gets less and less.

Now, obviously a lot of it these days is going to be geared towards the social media audience, but the problem with the social media audience is that it's not a good sports audience from a fandom perspective. And, and, and what I mean by that is what works on Tiktok or what works on Instagram Reels is not really synonymous with what works in terms of building fandom. And I think for the NBA in particular, fandom of the NBA is largely centered around players, but it also can be centered

around teams. And I think a lot of times the team aspect has been left behind, you know, perhaps through the detriment of the league. And that is hard to capture if you're focusing mostly on people saying outrageous things to try to get attention. And so you're dealing with a lot of shallow fan observation, not a lot of depth being built, not a lot of interest in the league

outside of spectacular moments. And while the league definitely has spectacular moments, it's also got strategy and really interesting things that happened throughout NF LS the same way, you know, but ESP NS always been drawn to the highlight. And I think that DNA is hard to shake.

So whether it's a highlight of somebody yelling or a highlight of a dunk, that is it's eye candy, but it doesn't really translate into the kind of in depth coverage that everybody salivates over when it comes to say inside the NBA. Those are two very different things. And I don't know that ESP NS ever done the in depth thing. Well, at least in the last 20 years. And I don't know where they get back to that.

But I do think that even Gen. Z is going to be looking for something more meaningful in terms of their fandom. And, you know, right now, I don't know that they're getting that with a lot of these sports if they're going to ESPN for the basis of it, because so much of what the coverage ends up focusing on is not that. I mean, and the exceptions stick

out. We mentioned Scott Van Pelt, you know, college game day for the most part, does a good job of feeling like they care about college football. They'll talk about it in depth. They'll go, they'll, they'll

showcase things visually. And it's weird to like contrast that with their college basketball coverage, which is the exact opposite, where it's like the wrong people on air talking about the wrong things and doing so in a way that just feels very surface level to anybody who actually follows the sport closely. And it's, it's just like that.

There is, there are certain things that ESPN does do well, but even those things you worry they're going to ruin because of what else they've ruined across the network. Yeah, I mean, like, I want to get back to Gen. Z for a second there, but ESPN was the dream when I was growing up. Like the place I wanted to work was ESPN the Magazine, which feels like a lifetime ago at this point. I wanted to work at Grantland.

I want to work for Page 2. Like that type of ESPN off kilter, but still sports obsessed people. I guess that's how I would describe it. And now, like, I don't do people want to work for ESPNI mean, this is part of the Gen. Z thing. I'm sure they do because it's a big name and because it's one of the few places left at a certain point. Well, yeah, but and they're laying off. Like, is that something that they're striving for?

Like when you when you work, when you work with your students, who are all Gen. Z at this point, unless there's one guy just still hanging around, you know, I was going to name names, but. Never Kuwait, Greg. Man, it feels, it feels so I remember the like, I remember we did the interview like the end of what was it the end of senior year interview where you asked like, what are your favorite restaurants? What'd you learn in college? And that feels like 5 days ago. Yeah.

And it's like, that was nine years, 9-8 years ago at. This eight years ago? Yeah, time flies. It really does. But like what? What is Gen. Z that what what are your students thinking? Do they watch these things? Do they care about these things? It's.

Weird, because I mean, one of the things I'll talk about a lot with our our faculty members that teach in sports media is they don't watch a ton of it or they don't pay close enough attention to it to really like this is this is not a criticism of Gen. Z. It's more it's, it's not a criticism of anything. It's just the evolving nature of media. I feel like millennials right up to the end of the millennial generation, there were so few venues to get highlights, news,

information. Everybody devoured all the content. You you watched all the broadcasts, you know, you watched SportsCenter. You, you read a. Full hour of SportsCenter and then I would be like, oh, I haven't seen these highlights in an hour, I'll watch the other 20 minutes or whatever, you know, and you end up watching the same stuff. And that's just not how people consume media in that generation now. And and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just different.

And so it's it's what people consume tend to be, you know, there are there are some shows that they'll consume, but it's and it's not like people would be like, no, I wouldn't work at ESPN, but I don't think it's the end all be all. And I'd work at ESPN, you know, like just putting it out there if anyone's listening. No, it's clearly if they've listened this far. Yeah, it may not. It may not work. You're at the. Top of their list of people they work.

Fox Sports 1 is gonna hire me or something, you know? But I, I think that it's, it's no longer the, the primary place that people want to work to. It's not like I, I, I mean, I guess like the New York Times is still like this for people that want to work in news. I don't know. That yes, I mean that's another podcast too, but no, I'm I've applied for jobs in the past New York Times. I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening there, but they do good work. And the same can be said about

ESPN. Like I know I've been trashing them and you've been critical, very smartly critical cuz you know you have a future. But the New York Times and ESPN, like there's a reason they're institutions, like they matter. They're big and people read them and watch them and listen to them for all sorts of things. I mean, the Daily's still good, right? The New York Times art critics are still good. You know, there's specific things and ESP NS the same way we're, we're naming people and

they matter. So I, I can see like people or students looking and being like, I want to be this person or I want to be, you know, someone on one of these shows.

I want to work on college game day as opposed to I want to work at ESPN, which has more of a negative connotation than it used to, at least, Yeah. I I look, I I think ultimately it really is almost dependent, But part of the problem is, frankly, for most young aspiring sports broadcasters, they look at ESPNI don't think they can see themselves there because

who's on the air? You know, it's, it's mostly ex athletes or it's Stephen A Smith, You know, I mean, and this is a criticism I have of a lot of sports media, which at some point along the way, TV network executives got obsessed with the idea of we have to have a former player here. We have to have another former player here. And it doesn't work in a lot of ways. And there are there are certain former players that are really good on air. You mentioned Chris Collinsworth

is really good on air. I think Troy Aikman is really good on air. I mean Charles Barkley inside the NBAI mean. There are people that are ex athletes that are really good on air. But that's the exception more than the rule. There and and the and. The problem is it's a revolving door of people who are on air. I mentioned at their, you know, early on in the podcast, like, you know, the dream job unintentionally charting the terrible decision making of

ESPN. The first year of dream job was charming bunch of kids coming out of college, couple of older people who really wanted to work in sports. And you had this whole judging thing and, and you know, Mike Hall ends up winning it at the end. And he's had a long career. Like he works for Big 10 Network, He worked for ESPN for a while. Year 2, they decided to do a whole show around picking the next NBA analyst who was a former player and no one cared.

And it was a terrible, like a terrible sequence. But that's, you know, no one gets invested in these people 'cause they're all kind of cookie cutter. Or if they have personalities, they're generally personalities that don't resonate on air. And this is the Kendrick Perkins problem. Like, it's the Tom, it's the Tom Brady problem, you know, it's all. And I'm already dreading the Draymond Green problem, which we

know is coming. But at least I will say at least I'll I'll give Draymond credit for this. At least Draymond says things and has opinions that are like predicated in the game that matter from a strategic perspective. I don't always agree with what he says, but his podcast is interesting and when he was on Inside the NBA this year, I was actually legitimately impressed with the way he broke down as opposed to Kendrick Perkins, who says like the most basic things over and over again and.

Not even entertainingly, like that's the that's the other thing. Like, that's what drives me insane is like, it's one thing with Stephen A going on these long tirades and rants, and there's a part of me like the caveman part that's like, that's fun, That's cool. You can see why he's worth the money. I mean, no one's worth the money he is. But why he would be paid money to talk about sports.

Kendrick Perkins, he's mumbling. I mean that 2008 Celtics run, no one's ever like closed it off anything more. It's like when Trent Dilfer was one of their primary, you know, commentators or Sean Salisbury, you know, back like people get on the air and and this the way this happens, you get ATV exec who decides they're going to champion a particular athlete and then they'll champion them, champion them until the point where they're they've they've outlived their usefulness and

then they're just gone. Like when was the last time you saw is Trent Dilfer still doing media? He he pops up on a like a Rosillo podcast or something every so often, which is, which is, I mean, I love Rosillo, but that's not where you want to be if you're. Trying to make it that's doing a favor to somebody. Yeah, yeah. That's him promoting it, yeah.

But my point being like, we're picking on Kendrick Perkins right now, and rightfully so. But like you, you, there's this revolving door on ESPN, and Fox is not, not, not not innocent of this either. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, after a while the the utility of having a former player disappears when they're not really offering anything worthwhile and the audience notices that.

And the audience like the the idea that we can throw anybody out there in front of the audience and they'll listen to them talk about sports. I always have this complaint with with with analysts on game broadcasts. Like, it's like we have to have a former player to give insight into the game. No one can name the former player that's doing the game. Like did anybody know that Solomon Wilcox played in the NFL? That's just been like, oh, he went to Northwestern.

You know, yeah. So that's the, the, this infects a lot of what ESPN does as well in that I guess within the thought process is, Oh, well, their expertise carries the day. And then it doesn't actually carry the day because there's not a lot being contributed. There's not a lot unique. And then that person's gone and they bring another person in after a couple of years and then they don't contribute either. And it's just this revolving door and it makes it hard to

take anything seriously. And they're, it doesn't seem like they're trying to build anyone like it doesn't seem like. Well, well, no, it's more, it's less that they, they've, they've poured a ton. They pour a ton. Build non athletes like they're not investing this money or this time into people that well, we need to figure it out on air and cuz they just don't have as many

spots open too. I mean they're giving all this money, TSP and bet to the to to the different teams to the and the different leagues and there's just less opportunity and less people available. Yeah. So you know, you go through from a from a content perspective, you had a question about like around the horn getting getting cancelled. I I realized I haven't asked you a single question I have on this list.

What happens? When you podcast with me it ends up being 2 hours and 9 questions don't get asked. But I have. Yeah, but should we get into around the horn for a second? Yeah, let's talk. I mean, you know the. PTI and the whole like what's what's happening? Well, keep in mind both of those shows were 20 plus years old and that's a long time in television. It's AI mean MASH only lasted what like 12 years in television?

I mean, I think the longest running show in television history was was it Gunsmoke or Bonanza since he's still. Going at this point. That's fair. The the the the longest non animated show I. I know what you're saying. Yeah, but but it's a long time and we tend to forget that a a television show on ESPN is still

a television show, you know. But I do think that the concern there was less about talent cultivation and more about the the idea that this it was hard to clip for social and it probably wasn't resonating very much with that same Gen. Z audience that you and I talked about a few minutes ago, who's not really conditioned to sit there and and listen to a rotating cast of writers or or, you know, non national broadcasters talk through things.

Now that's no, I mean, one of you know, one of them, Courtney Cronin, who's one of our alums and and you know, one of my really good friends had a great time on that show, did a wonderful job. It's it's not a criticism of the individual people. I think it's a criticism of the thought process of, well, how does this fit into what we're trying to do as a network? And if you look, and again, this goes back to the ESPN bet thing, it goes back to playing nice

with networks. You know, the the the more the more rough edges in what's being offered out there, the more likely it is that someone's going to say something's going to upset somebody somewhere. Why take the risk, especially if the ratings aren't that aren't that overwhelming.

And then, you know, it was hard enough, like it was interesting when ESPN and whatever it was O3 when they added around the horn or maybe it was O2. You know, they blocked out that whole 5:00 hour around the horn at 5, PTI at 5:30, Sports Center at six leading into whatever the game of the evening was, college basketball or baseball or whatever. People don't watch TV like that anymore. They're not they're not going to sit down. The first of all, they're going to sit down and watch

television. But if they did, they're not probably going to sit down and just throw ESPN on and say I'm going to have this on until 10 or 11. People watching around the horn, I'm sure a good amount we're just listening to the podcast the next day or that night or just watching a clip. I mean the what you're saying, I mean my other question is, is PTI even still on in two or three years? Probably not. I mean. Those guys like their sons.

I mean, those guys are, they've been around for a while. You guys are old. I mean, I don't, you know, that's The thing is, is when you you think about Tony Korn, how old is Tony Kornheiser? Thank you. Yes. Mid 70s. 76, yes. I mean, I was, we've talked about this. That's the first podcast I got into was the Gorneiser Show. I used to listen to the radio show like, you know, Andy Polen, I think was his like his his his engineer or something, or his

producer. But no, like Wilbon's 10 years younger, but he's still 66 and there's nothing. I mean, both of those shows, if they were going to continue would have been better as podcasts or as streaming shows rather than necessarily being on linear in as much as I'm not sure how important linear is in the big scheme of things. Now, I am surprised that they didn't just say, hey, we're going to move around the horn off the air, but we're going to move it on to purely direct to consumer.

They haven't done that. And so it does make me question like, was there a content reason why they decided that they weren't going to go that direction? I don't know. That's, that's, that's a really fascinating point. But I do think like as the, the idea that that would cultivate people that could be on air for them. I don't think that that's

important to them. Going back to what you said, because, you know, I remember talking with somebody about 10 years ago and they were like, they either want writers and people with that background who are reporters who have sources, or they want former players and, and entertainment, entertainment types of people. And they don't really need the riders now. Like that's not really what the

game is at this point. So what's the purpose in giving Harry Lyles or whoever a venue or Israel Gutierrez if we don't really want them on air 'cause we're not using them on SportsCenter or anything else and we're not really emphasizing our riding product in the 1st place? It it just kind of all use, it loses its utility at that point. Yeah. I mean, we can talk about direct to consumer. I mean that's a big thing obviously as well. But should we talk about the website for a second? We.

Can, yeah. I mean, I maybe there's not much to talk about. I mean, there's not much happening on there at this point. I mean that was. I mean again. So critical for so long. The one of the, you know, for the, for the, for those of us who follow certain sports where we want to get info and, and look, ESPN still employs a lot

of good writers. But so, like, one of my favorites is Bill Connolly, who, you know, covers college football, does S&P Plus, you know, they make a big deal about bringing him over from SB Nation. And it's it's very, very hard to find Bill Connolly's stuff on ESPN. It's hard to find anything on ESPN like it's. You can find the scores, you can find a bunch of video clips of Stephen A and whoever else

yelling. But if you want to find an article from anyone, especially if you want to find an old article, I mean, you're better off Googling or using the Wayback Machine or whatever else, or just hoping that one of them tweets it out. Yeah. I mean, it's which I'm, I mean, that's part part of The thing is that I find stories a lot of Times Now through Twitter, through I was going to say Facebook, but I don't use

Facebook anymore. Through Reddit, through Instagram, like you, no one, no one's going to a website and just scrolling through anymore the way that they were 1015 years ago. But I you just think that there's like a certain level of like care where it's like the website. I mean, it's, it's everything where it's just not usable at a lot of a lot of. Times well, but I think you hit the nail on the head. If people aren't using it that much, then what's the point?

What's the point? And and this is again, I think where we're all trying to keep up at various age levels with how digital media is transitioning. And look, what are we, what have we done for the last hour and 5 minutes? Are people still watching? Maybe you know, Ben Wittenstein, shout out if you're still watching. I guarantee he's not, he won't notice this at all. No way, no way, no way. He's he's turned us off. I'm guessing the 26th minute maybe. And that might just going to be

passed out. That's the. I mean, it's like 730 in Chicago right now, I guess. This isn't live. We're not. Who cares? No, that's my point is that we're doing this on YouTube. I'm going to also upload it to Spotify. Sure. This is the venue through which a lot of not this show in particular, although it should be this, this show, this show, but this is. This and Joe Rogan these are the. Top games? God. OK, I'll take that. That's fine. This is the show.

No, this is the venue through which people are gaining a lot of their information on sports. And I, I just look at it like this, I, I complain about ESPN because I care about it as an institution, I guess the same way that, you know, print obsessive people felt or feel perhaps about the New York Times, Washington Post, maybe there's others that fall into

that category. But realistically speaking, if people aren't going to ESPN as the place of record for coverage of sports, we probably should stop expecting them to act that way because they're not going to. And instead they're going to media that is essentially a level down in terms of national spread because they want to focus on niche things that are interesting to that. Sometimes that's your team. You know, I mean, you can complain all about the Pacers not having coverage on ESPN, and

I think that that's legitimate. When you're trying to do a national television broadcast, that's the one thing where it crosses over. Or you can the Thunder have similar complaints. There was not a lot of coverage of the Thunder despite being the best team in the in the NBA. And they have a better case honestly to be upset than the Pacers, where I mean the Pacers were good all season but the Thunder were like. Yeah, they're the same, same in the league. They were a historically.

Eight wins and they're still the Lakers and, you know, the Celtics and where else. So that's the case for there needs to be better coverage on the website, on the broadcast properties is that if you are the primary partner of the league, because where else is the league media coming from? Well, but that's where it becomes regional or local and that's where I've kind of made peace with the idea that I'll, I'll turn on ESPN when they have the games, but they don't even

have all the games anymore. They in in most of these sports. Well, no one has the games any you know. Everybody's got the games, you. Know yeah, everyone, no one has the games. Everyone has the games. But I, I don't get, I don't get sore about ESPN not talking, talking about my team unless it's directly affecting my

team's ability to do something. So like the way Indiana got covered, Indiana football got covered by ESPN during the old College Football Playoff thing really pissed me off and pissed a lot of IU fans off. But that's because the the selection, the the, the committee stuff was almost ESPN. They almost. Screwed them over?

Yeah, They almost, yeah. And, and, and, and you're just kind of like, why is this the discourse and why are you letting your partnership with the SEC again, going back to the corporate partnership thing? Why are you letting that affect the way that you're covering things? And I think that ultimately, for a lot of fans across the country, the idea that ESPN represents all of them as gone.

And ESPN does nothing to combat that because what they seem to be most interested in is can we get enough people watching this to justify charging advertisers and can we drive people to ESPN? Bet those seem to be the primary considerations. And people get mad about that to a degree. They should get mad about political coverage for the exact same reason. And they don't get nearly as mad about that. That's really what should they

should be more mad about. Instead, we proxy it with ESPN because again, ESPN once came from a place that felt like legitimate fandom and legitimate joy and like the whole like, this is Sports Center commercial, you know, campaign that ran 20 years and was incredible and the way that they would cover different things. It just it felt like these folks are on our side. And then progressively, they felt less and less like they're on our side.

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was truly AI was looking through old photos recently because my parents were moving and there was a picture of me in 2006, 2007 in front of the Hollywood sign and I'm wearing an ESPN shirt and it says on air talent. And it's I was like 11-12 years old. And it's like I was obsessed with like I wanted ESPN shirts. We went to ESPN Zone, we went to the.

I remember the ESPN phone and thinking that was cool, even though it was like the least cool thing that's ever existed. I subscribe to ESPN The Magazine. I'm guessing you're saying next? Oh, I, I mean, I was obsessed with ESPN The, I mean, that's that, that was where I wanted to work. That was, that was it. But I mean, to defend ESPN, which, you know, after an hour and 15 minutes, it's time to start defending them.

They did try like they tried. I mean, there was the Bomani Jones Pablo Torre show that lasted a few months. There was the Jemele Hill Sports Center. Like I, I feel like there was an attempt to make things. They had the Katie Nolan streaming show but. But I feel like the four personalities you just highlighted all have one common problem, which is, well, actually it's 2 problems. I would say 1. That's a case of ESPN severely overestimating mass market

appeal of all of those people. Again, the the, the, the, the, the bigger issue. And it's no issue with those individuals. It's more a case study in not grasping what your audience is looking for. People didn't want to center around personalities. They wanted to center around the sport writ large. They wanted the moments around the sport. They wanted the stories of the coaches and the athletes.

They wanted to hear people who were having legitimate, interesting conversations about the sport because that was their source of information about the sport. And it gave them the opinions that they should think of. But it wasn't forced on them. You know, I mean, it's like if you go back and watch baseball tonight, you know, that was a it was a sober discussion based show with some highlights and

some cool things. You had a really like level headed host in Karl Ravitch and you can kind of go down the list of the different shows that they would have and most of them fit that paradigm. And but you know, the centering around that, that group of four, like Bomani Jones, who I think is incredibly intelligent, really fascinating individual in media, but that is like one of the most niche people. Well, that's what I'm saying, Yeah.

They, I feel like they tried to put the podcast on TV and that's not where the audience is. And maybe maybe you're right, maybe I've just been upset and it's just not like it's not. We're not putting that genie back in the bottle. You know, it's like, and I just and look, I, I just, I don't know what is television at this point. I mean, look at what, look at what Warner Brothers and Turner just did. Like they're. My boss, yeah. Right.

Well, they just, you know, they just took the non television parts, put it in a different company and said we think that's the winner. Like, that was essentially the thought process. And you read everything now about all these zombie cable channels that are just running reruns of Law and Order SVU or, you know, Naked and Afraid or

whatever they're running. And they're doing better than the new shows, you know, like people would rather watch old MASH at this point, or old, you know, Frasier than anything else that's new. Right, but that what that means is ultimately if ESPN for all the other products that they have had and, and and have currently at the core, they are a television or a cable station that focuses on sports.

Now in 2025, in an era where cable channels aren't that important, you don't need them to watch things and you're now you've got 2-3 generations. It's never been about the the method of transmission as much as like the idea that, oh, these people are just going to be on newspaper and and only read

newspapers. Mark Cuban said this in like 2006 or something like that when he was justifying not credentialing blogs to come cover the team, but even older audiences, you know, and as as the boomers continue to age and as Gen. X starts to age into that, they move with the technology. They just, they take a while to follow along behind it. And the problem is ESPN hasn't and and this is where ESPN is still because of who they are trying to run a cable channel in an era where you can't really

run a cable channel. And I would present for evidence. Look what's happening to CNN right now. You know, CNN up still like right now, unless unless he got fired recently, there's still how much are they paying Anderson Cooper I. Mean yeah, who's watching the show? Why are you paying Anderson Cooper that amount? There's no reason. There's no justification for it other than that's what we did 10 years ago. It's the legacy media. I mean, it's the Conde Nast, the

whole thing, yeah. Now, where I think you could make an argument is if, if we're if we're going to, we spent a bunch of time complaining about the linear network. So if we're going to be realistic about where ESPN goes from here, you almost have to tell them stop focusing on the linear network, which is easier said than done because it's the easy layup in terms of ad revenue. That's where they get a lot of their money.

You can't just say we're not going to have this, but it also can't be the centerpiece of what you're doing from a content perspective. I guess my concern with ESPN sometimes is that when I look at the shows that they've decided to air, I look at a lot of the Meadowlark stuff that they were picking up. You know, I look at the lot of the Omaha production stuff and I like, I like it in pieces, but there's very little there where I watch it.

And I'm like, I got to watch that every day even like I know the Pablo Torre thing. They they keep trying to elbow their way into the conversation nationally, but it again, it feels forced in a lot of ways, in a way that it shouldn't if it was. I mean, if you compare that to actually like big successful podcasts, and I would throw Pat McAfee into this mix. And I know you wanted to talk

about him a little bit. They feel that like it feels like ESP NS trying to astroturf their way into something that other people are doing naturally, because they're still handcuffed to all these corporate procedures that they've done for years that are still focused on what they're doing on linear and linear just doesn't work anymore. And that's, that's the, it's like until they can break free of those shackles, I don't know that they're able to actually

move in to be truly competitive. Like I actually would say at this point, I think Fox is better positioned than ESPN to do this because Fox was never so entirely married to like a singular entity as a national sports channel. So there's a lot there. What's your, what's your ideal like? What do you want from ESPN? Like I know we've talked about them focusing on more different things in terms of like the bigger broadcast, the national

broadcast. But like, if you could pick something that you think would actually work, what would you? What would you ask for? Or what would you try to? Produce well I this is where I I think if ESP NS going to be successful like this is where they I, I don't know that they can do everything that they've tried to do like they can't.

I think their biggest mistake right now is trying to make back the money that they've lost through cable subscriptions falling by jumping into the wagering market because they're not going to be able to compete at a high enough level to generate the revenue to to make up for it. So they got to figure out other things.

And I think that they are in a similar boat now with Fox and with NBC and I guess CBS, like that's really your BIG4 in terms of of the the players in this, since Turner's taking themselves out of the equation to some degree. You know the, the, the weird thing about all of this is the sports that all these areas are covering are entirely reliant on the Rev, the money that they're making off of the television contracts. So that's where the salaries are

coming from. That's where everything's coming from, yeah. So, you know, it's, it's funny with this NBA thing with all these owners selling teams lately and everybody's like, oh, it's something on the horizon. And I think it's easy to say one of the leagues just in great shape and they could go international and they could. But the flip side is, well, maybe there is something wrong.

And I could see like a Mark Cuban or a bus family saying to themselves, well, this might be as good as it ever gets in terms of money, because medium money is entirely dependent on centralized audience. And that's where all of this money from ESPN came from. It's where the Fox money came from. It's where CBS has all this money. And there's only so many sports that you can spread that around on.

And at some point, unless you have another way of bringing that money in, you're going to run into some brick walls. And I, and I will say that I think we're at a point now with say the NBA where or I think actually Major League Baseball may be the one that is the, the big, the big next one to fall because of, you know, they were the ones that really hit hardest by Diamond Sports Group and, and all of these regionals essentially not having a workable business model.

So do they start going direct to consumer? If Major League Baseball can go direct to consumer and say, hey, you know what? We know that you hate our streaming stuff and we know you hate not being able to watch your teams. What about everybody pays $150.00 a year and you get all of the games? Yeah, I mean, you're gonna make more direct money and then you can sell ads. And you can league pass for

everything you're. Saying league pass for everything and then you can still have Apple or whoever doing specialty games because people have that subscription as well and they'll pay for that, you know, so I do wonder with ESPN, they just pointed up a huge amount of money for the NBA. They've they spent a decent amount of money on the NHL. They've got a couple of other

things. They've let some things go, but what I would like to see them do is decide like, are we a live sports carrier that covers sports? Are we an opinion machine that's trying to generate like ad revenue and, and audience that way? Like what are what are we doing? And what I really want them to do more than anything else is pick a lane and figure out what that lane looks like. Instead of trying to straddle

everything all at once. And I, and I think that their problem is ultimately they are an item on the Ledger sheet free for Disney in a way that Fox Sports is not, for News Corp in a way that NBC is not for Comcast or whatever, in a way that CBS is not. I mean, well, that's, that's a separate story. I guess at this point they might

end up being that. But but, you know, ESPN has some very specific problems in that I think people don't realize how critical the revenue from ESPN was to Disney specifically given how low margin the theme park business is and how Disney's other big revenue generator was what Greg? Disney's the movies, the movie. Oh, the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which last? One was not. In great shape, you know I. Mean, I mean, yeah, I mean there's a that's, yeah, there's

a lot there. And as evidenced by how Elio did, Pixar is really scraping the barrel like they all are. I mean every. They've made the same movie for 20 years. Yeah, at a certain point, toys can talk, you know, is not going to bring more people into like, you know. I've seen that animation 8000 times. Yeah, no, I like. It's it's all about Bluey now, apparently. That's what I've heard. I mean, I'm not, I don't have any kids, so I'm not really. Sure, I love Bluey Bluey's.

Amazing. Yeah. I mean, how, how old are your kids now? They're in college. I mean, what, where they at? They're like 37. I've been almost 10 year old and a 7 year old. What are they? Are they? Do they care about Disney stuff? You know what my kids do? They they stream Netflix and they play video games. Actually, they're Co opting on Stardew valley right now and they're so it's amazing and it's it's it's informative because they're both Gen. alpha

obviously. And they will they have iPads. I know people say you're a horrible parent. You let your kids have screens. My response is but they're they they they watch like like tween shows OK in a in a in a in a screen, like a picture in picture while playing games on It's the weirdest. Thing no, I have, I have, I have friends that do that. Now millennials are doing that, I mean. So it's but you know, but they're they're not really watching cartoons anymore like

they did for a long time. We watched Bluey. We would watch what the other ones. Bubble Guppies was a big one in the household. I. Haven't watched that one. The a lot of Muppet Babies like the new version of Muppet Babies who has a really annoying new character compared to the old one. I mean, there's a reason I mean, this why Disney is doing these live action things, because they're appealing to the millennial, the people that watch these things in theaters or cared about them.

I. Mean is Disney still around without Star Wars at this point? Marvel, I guess. Maybe I right. Yeah, it's all. It's all the big. It's the big blockbuster. And it's all, and it's all these already prepackaged things. And this is, I think, the problem to some degree. It actually kind of explains NBA coverage on ESPN. New plot lines. When we can run the same sequel 9 times, Lebron's gonna. Retire at some point like I, I. Maybe he won't, you know, Maybe he won't.

It's a generational thing because 25 years ago we were dealing with this with Jordan, right And there and there was like that five year walk in the wilderness where it's like who's going to take the because like it wasn't it was Kobe until the Colorado thing and and. Then it was kind of Kobe again. Right, right. You know, somehow that all got forgotten. It just powered through.

But there's, but you, you know, to go back to your question about what do I want from ESPNI, just, I don't see at some point, I think the sports partners are like, what is exactly that we're getting from ESPN? Like what are, what are we, what, what's the purpose of this partnership? Cause like historically, sports media has been a symbiotic relationship where sports needed media to promote the games, promote the players, promote the coaches. Media needed sports to bring in audience.

Everybody was happy. But that was in an era when sports teams couldn't make their own media, and now they can, oftentimes at higher quality than what media itself is creating on behalf of sports. I mean, there's more jobs hiring. Like there's more, you know the NBA is hiring more people than you know when you asked. Me earlier what do what do my students want to do? Like a lot of the people who 10 years ago would have been said, I want to be a Sports Center anchor.

They're now like, I want to work for a team. I want to be AI, want to be a reporter for a team, and I get that because that seems to be where the stability is at this point for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. I mean, every media conglomeration is going to let you off at some point. You know, like I've made it six years and I'm everyone. I mean, I mean, honestly, I'm applauding myself every day. I don't know how I'm doing it.

I mean, everyone else has gone to law school where, you know, they just, they're just, you know, finding jobs here and there and they're making it work like it's. Your, your, your generation has been really interesting to watch. And you know, it's like, I mean, my generation kind of went through this too, 'cause like I was right at the end of the, the, the pre digital era and most of the people that I went to school with are no longer in

it and haven't been for a while. A few hung on and, and had really successful careers, but a bunch of people didn't. And I think your generation kind of is in a different transition point. And you know, it's just, it's tough because it's there is money, but all the money is hoarded at the very top. And increasingly independent media, which ESPN is certainly just doesn't have the the bandwidth to do the things they need to do. They don't have the money to throw around and they're not

going to take risks. And unfortunately being risk averse in media when the teams themselves can be more like risk, risk fillic or whatever the you know that they can be more adept at handling risk and dealing with. It puts the the big media companies in a very difficult position and it puts the people working in the industries in even worse positions because you end up doing the same things over and over again, which gets very soul draining.

And your job is constantly in jeopardy because all it takes is one person saying, well, we don't need that person anymore. And and then what do you do at that point? You have to go to something else and you're probably never coming back. And there's 100 people ready to take your job too. Like you, you get. People will pay, they will have to pay less, you know?

And that's what they're, I mean, that's what they're all doing is why would we pay someone 150,000 when we can pay them 72,000 or whatever and let them fend for themselves? It's funny you had a question in the in the list like was Simmons right about ESPN never backing podcasts? And he's right. First of all like name a non show based podcast that's must listen off of ESPN. A non. I mean, I don't listen to any of them. Yeah, but right, you know what I

mean. I I listened to the low post when it was on that was about it. You know, I would listen to the Simmons podcast and the Grantland based podcast. Those were fun and those those had like some some big good cultural elements to them in a lot of cases. But the you know, like I try, I'll try listening to like Windhorse podcast. And as much as I I do enjoy Windhorse reporting that format,

it doesn't work. It's really like an in between TV and podcast where it still feels like they're trying to hit the segments right and not go on tangents right? Where it's like when I'm listening to a podcast, I don't care if it's two hours, if it's two guys that I like. So it's usually guys just in general when it's a podcast. I mean, as evidenced by what we're doing right now, but just

going on like. I, I earlier today recorded and produced a 35 minute podcast that just had two women talking. So I, you know what? I'm doing my part. Greg, what are you doing? No, I've done. I'll, I'll listen to it when it comes out. You know, women, women could do anything now. So. They could always do anything but yeah, but the point, the point is my my feeling on that comment from Simmons. He's right, but maybe not in the

way he intended podcasting was. That was the big leap for a lot of sports media in terms of like podcasts done the way that podcasts should be done, which, as you described, a free flowing discussion based tangential in a lot of ways. Those are the things that have demonstrated staying power.

And it's it's not just sports, you know, it's like, you know, the you know, WTF or, or Rogan, any of these podcasts that have called or daddy these huge podcasts across, you know, you know, multiple demographics, multiple geographical areas. They generally all have a quasi formatless approach that works really well and is adaptable to the moment.

And I I would argue that what you end up with happening with ESPN is that they are so in like handcuffed to format has to be this has to be that they let some things shoot up, but then they were always tied to the individual. When the individual left, it was gone and they didn't want to replicate that. They end up going in a different direction. And you know, what always bothered me is like, I hate overproduced podcasts.

Oh, you know, like exactly the same When they launched ESPN Daily, I was like, oh, this would be interesting. And I listened to like 2 episodes of it was like, no, not interesting at all. Not, not a bit because of the way it was produced. Yeah, it was, you know, and I mean, it's obviously a take off of the Daily, another like horrifically overproduced podcast.

I mean, we had our own problems. I mean, this is a specific example with Golf Digest where we're, we started this local knowledge podcast where we're supposed to be these like 30 minute stories, kind of like the daily, you know, every every week, every two weeks. And at the beginning it was so produced and at a certain point it was like it felt exhausting to make it and to listen to it. And now it's more of just, I mean, it's Shane Ryan, who, you know, just basically going.

My buddy Shane Ryan has been a really interesting evening with him in Chapel Hill a decade ago so. Who's the best? I mean he's great and he just just starts talking for like 3540 minutes and we'll do like a few small things here and there. We'll add some music, we'll add some clips or whatever. But for the most part it's just him doing Hardcore History or you know, one of those types of

podcasts. And it's so much better now 'cause it's less, it's just let like and also like no one listens to a podcast 40 minutes straight. I mean, I guess you know, I mean I do, but like not everyone. And sometimes you listen for 10 minutes here, but you get lost if you don't do that. Like I'm, I don't know why I'm saying that. I've listened to podcasts for

like 3 hours straight. But sometimes you, and if you're trying to get back into like this pre produced packaged podcast, it's, it's, it's almost impossible. It's like trying to get back into ATV show 2 weeks later and you're like, I don't know what. I don't remember what happened there 15 minutes ago. So maybe in this elongated format, you've actually drawn out what I really want out of ESPN, which is take the suit off like get casual again, like get, get, get casual with your formatting.

I mean, this is what I worry about with inside the NBA, You know, and I think this was one of the questions you asked was like, is ESPN going to ruin Inside the NBA? And the answer is absolutely yes. Because what has been the poison for ESP along the other things that we've talked about? But what has been the poison for ESPN has been trying to cram things into boxes that they

don't fit into. And if there's one thing from inside the NBA that makes it a great show, it is that it is essentially like, it's like the Tom Snyder version of a late night talk show where it's just, we're going to sit here and talk and it might not go anywhere or it might be the most hilarious thing you've ever heard. It's the antithesis of like the Jimmy Fallon, Jay Leno approach. Well, did you watch This is Randa? Did you watch John Mulaney's talk show on Netflix? No, I haven't.

He did these live hour shows for like 12 weeks straight and it was really just like, you could tell they were just winging it. You could tell they were like he was talking to guests and as he's asking them questions, he's figuring it out on the fly. They're going random. Like that's the type of thing that I enjoy more. I mean, obviously I'm a fan of Mullaney, but even Seth Meyers, who I feel like he's like he, he's literally taking the suit off. Like he had a suit on, took it off.

Now he's just wearing like a, a regular jacket. He'll talk to a guest like James Acaster for just 8 minutes about whatever. Instead of these like pre planned segments about like them playing like fake strip poker or, you know, whatever Jimmy Fallon's doing nowadays.

I just, there's, I feel like there's a middle ground between podcasts, which are, you know, two hours of nonsense in a good way versus like the first take style rapid segments about LeBron, about I just thought of Tim Tebow for some reason. But that's what it that's what it was for so long. They're just talking about Tebow for every 10 minutes. And there's got to be some, some way to like, you know, bridge the gap. There is, but I don't think that these networks are willing to do it.

And it's it's ironic and I feel I don't feel bad for the NBA. They took the money, but the fact that they've they they've ditched Turner. I mean, Turner kind of ditched them, but they've decided to take up with NBC, who might be the only network worse than ESPN at trying to jam everything into

a box. Like when I think of shows that have gone completely off the rails but are still being done in like a worse and worse style every year, it is the Sunday Night Football show, not the broadcast. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think Tariko, I I'll never look at Tariko as a play by play guy, but I think he's fine. And I still think Collinsworth is really good as a color guy, even if he's just got a shtick that will naturally just get old over time. When you listen to anybody for

20 years, it'll get old. I don't blame him for that, but their studio show might. I think it still holds the record for most unnecessary regular people on a show, and it's a great example of everything we just complained about with ESPN. It's like no one asked for Chris Sims be an expert. No, no one said. I really wish I knew what Chris Sims was talking about with this game. Like we don't need him and Rodney Harrison and Tony Dungy and I've lost track.

There's like 9 other people. No, I mean those those shows are. They're just unwatchable. They're unwatchable. They're SNL sketches that just don't end. I mean, I guess they're just SNL sketches at this point, but they're, they're nothing. And at a certain point you don't it's, I mean, it's like we're saying with ESPN where it's like you get these 32nd segments and you get each person talking because everyone has to talk the same amount of time for, you know, 45 seconds.

Nothing happens. And then you go to commercial and you're like, what, what did we do any of that for? We could have just done 4 minutes of one guy giving a take, giving one actual opinion. And I think that's, it's some of the part of this is an executive issue. And I think it's ESPN has the same problem that NBC does. We paid a lot. Fox is not exempt from this. We don't need 6 people on the deck. We gave them the money. We.

We gave them. We spend a lot of money on Gronk. We got to have Gronk on this show with Michael Strahan and Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw and whoever the other person is and Kurt manif. It's like, no, like just put three people on the desk and have them talk, or put two people on the desk and have them. Throw Pat McAfee in there, you know, let's put him on one of those shows. Too, the McAfee thing is fascinating. I didn't want to touch on that. Now that we're now we're hour 3

almost not really. We're we're we're 96 minutes we're. Gonna cut this down into like 20 minutes right the. Whole thing I'm not this is. No, this is it. I I'll listen to. It people wanted summer content, they've gotten summer content, OK. Listen to this at the pool. We're gonna drop this that probably the day or two before the 4th of July, you're gonna go walk the dog on the 4th of July. You're gonna drive around with the family a little bit.

You're gonna listen to this. I'm so sorry to everyone out there. Yeah, this is what better way to celebrate our country's independence than nearly two hours of this, anyway? It's better than whatever else. America, what is your opinion of the McAfee thing? Just in general with the ESPN aspects of the, I mean, the the streaming show, look, whatever you think about the content, I think you have to tip your hat to McAfee from a a like a, an

organizational perspective. The popularity that show is garnered over the course of a relatively short period of time. It actually it's kind of the other side of the podcast coin that I was mentioning earlier, where it's like the fact that that format works when everything about broadcast television said that format shouldn't work is really remarkable. But anyway, go ahead I.

Don't, it's, I'm speechless. I don't, I don't know, I don't get it. I don't, I've, I can't say I've watched a lot of it. I've tried it because it's on and I like it'll be on at the gym or it'll be on like in the office and I'll watch like 3 minutes of it and it just, it doesn't make any sense. I like, I don't know if I'm missing something. He's never really made sense to me. Even when he was at Barstool. What was that, 10, 12 years? I mean, he was there for like 30

days. I've. Lost. Yeah, I've lost track of when he was. Barstool Indianapolis when that happened, but I just I truly don't get it at all. Like it's a real like. And you're kind of the target demographic for him, like I. I guess, but he's not not barstool like. No, it's like it's, it's essentially like it's, it's like a, it's like a white labeled barstool. You know, I mean, I listened to

part of my take when it started. I thought it was very fun and at a certain point I got it, you know, I was like at a certain point I can hear what was there Hank or whatever, like them making fun of him. I can send APFT do his like, you know, weird. Like I I just like it feels so long ago at this point and I just like couldn't do it at a certain point. And this feels like the the like high def version or the high res version of that where I mean

it's the same. Honestly it's the same thing with Lebatard show where it's just, you know, one guy throwing to like 8 different people, except this one has Aaron Rodgers, you know, doing vaccine talk. So that's. Well, it's funny. Levatard is interesting because I I lived in Miami, I was AI was a professor down there for a couple of years when he just had a show on what was it sports, sports plus 790 or whatever.

It was the ticket down there and it was it was funny drivetime talk radio, all of the the you know, Mike Ryan was there and Stu Gotts was was the Co host and you know, they had Roy and they had like, you know, these a lot of the the pieces that became the what now we know is the Levitard show were there it but it was segmented and and I almost feel like this is where the segmenting can help occasionally with this type of

programming. I know I just complained about segmenting, but it's not it it it works in certain ways. The McAfee thing. I just. It is weird to me because. Like do you think the McAfee thing works? I mean it is. I mean, I guess it is working. Do you watch it? Do you ever enjoy it? I think I I think if no, I don't. I don't. I I watch it, I don't enjoy it. I don't watch that much because I don't enjoy it. I don't but but I also acknowledge it's not for me so I'm not like this sucks.

That's kind of how I feel where it's not for me, but then. But then who's it for? I guess becomes the question mark. And then the things that do pop up when I do see it on social media or I see someone send, you know, someone send a clip or whatever it is that that frustrates me 'cause I'm like, this is going the wrong way in terms of what I want from sports coverage.

Yeah. I mean, the, the, if you look at the, the, the demographics of the show, it's, it's one of those, I mean, it clearly has appeal in that. You know, 82% of the viewership is males, 18 to 44. And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's got female viewers. It's not like it's exclusively male, but it's, it's one of those situations where they're, they're clearly grasp, like they've grasped something that others could not.

When they launched across ESPN in 2023, they had 242 million views in the first month, which is an insane amount of views. But I, I just think to some degree it's, it's a show that, you know, they're able to garner audience because there's a shtick and the shtick vibes with people in the same way that Barstool does. By shtick do you just mean like Mcafee's personnel? Like whatever he is.

Shtick. I don't mean shtick to be a bad thing, but it's, and this is I, I think to some degree it's like it works in a way that the segmented stuff on and the NBA coverage for ESPN doesn't because it in that environment feels more organic in nature. And it, it may not be your cup of tea, but it definitely works within that the confines of of

what they're doing. So that's where again, I'm like, I'm not the type of person to say this just sucks and I won't watch it. I won't watch it, but I'm not going to just say it sucks. It's just like, I know this doesn't really hit me because I, again, I prefer a different type of discussion. I prefer a different type of of approach, but I don't think you can build a network around it.

And I guess that's where ESPN and and again, this kind of goes back to the astroturfing thing I was talking about earlier. They they bring this show on and, you know, they try to change it to the point that McAfee goes nuclear on Norby Williamson and gets him fired, which is like, whoa, like, but but should they have done that? Because I mean, maybe they should have, but the idea was we're going to change our approach entirely, but only in this case.

And it's like, well, if you're going to do that, why not blow the lid off of everything? Like, why not try a bunch of different things? And that, I guess that's what irritates me. They drop him in on college game day and it kind of works, but it completely changes the tenor of the show. And now they've, you know, they've taken what was a good back and forth talk with some

mildly interesting people. But it's it's changed the tenor of it so much that Kirk Herbstreit has like literally turned himself into a national heel when it comes to college football coverage. But game day is still getting views like that's the thing, like it's. Well, but my point is did they need to they don't think they needed to drop McAfee into that environment to get views.

I think that college game, it's like college football exists unto itself and ESPN has tried to stake that out as their own. But I think it's a college football thing. I don't think it's a McAfee thing. Like the the the college football video game comes back last year and becomes the top selling sports video game of all time. This was a a property that didn't exist for 11 years. And now college basketball is coming back. I mean, it's obviously not the

same thing, but they're. It won't turn the same numbers, but yes the it'll. Do fine, it'll do. OK, yeah, but. It's like they didn't need to go down that road, I don't think. And that's that is I really I that's where, again, I don't know that ESPN, the fact they hit on McAfee is a success. It's almost like there's a limited amount of credit I'm willing to give you for that. Do you think it was Mcafee's idea to go on game day or they threw him on there? I think it, I don't know, I

would. I would guess it was probably a mutual thing because like, who wouldn't want? I'm just curious if it was a McAfee, like, hey, I'm coming there, throw me on the show. I think I could do something with it, which he can and, you know, has done depending on who you are. Or is it ESPN being like, we're giving this guy all this money? Like we're this guy, we want him to be one of the faces of the network.

I, I have to, I mean, there was that whole thing, you know, where McAfee had considered leaving ESPN and forming his own version of game day. You know, that got a lot of play in a bunch of different spots. But you know, he, you know, I, I back in, back in 2024 when he first joined, you know, there I, I, I, I have to go back and listen to the podcast.

We did a podcast, I think it was the The Kelsey Brothers podcast and he was like really like excited about being a part of college game day, you know, and being a part of that institution, you know. So I'm assuming it was at the very least a mutual thing, if not more ESP. NS idea, but I'm not totally sure that. Makes sense to me. Yeah. So I don't know, I, I guess it all kind of comes back to a central point and we should probably wrap up now, but well.

I so I I was going to say this is I feel like how we end it through the book. I was thinking, I always think I read that book multiple times growing up. The ESPN yeah. Where where does this, what is this chapter? I mean, what, what is the the start of it? And like, where does it, I mean, where does it end? I mean, if you knew that you'd be a billion dollar man, but where is it going you?

Know, you know, it's interesting because the book, the way it lays out ESPN like the the the 1st, it's funny how much of A linear upward trajectory ESPN follows from 1979, through all the early struggles, through getting the cable carriage stuff through getting the NFL contract, through their building their relationships with the different leagues. They don't really hit a roadblock of significant proportions until the Shapiro era starts.

Yeah, there's like personal roadblocks because this guy did this and, you know, had a problem, but like. But really network, yeah, you know, you get you get to that point in the late 90s, they have this crisis of identity. And it's funny 'cause we talked about some of the shows PTI came out of this, around the Horn came out of this. But they also did like ESPN original entertainment movies. You know, they're, they're, they're doing. They did the season on the brink, which was.

Like what was the TV show they did that the first that made the NFL furious. They had the playmakers. Playmakers. That was that. Yeah, Yeah, that. That show's 22 years old. Go back and watch that at some point, folks, that's, that's a fascinating look at an era and you'll you'll watch it and you're like, what's the big deal? But it but that was that was the good stuff. And we forget the amount of of not good stuff. It's like tilt. I don't remember tilt or.

Just the name of it. There was there was, there was another one that like they did a movie on Dale Earnhardt. And then 30 for 30, you know, like they they're. 40 for 30 was them coming out of that. Yeah, yeah, it's like on the other side. Sports century was that era and you know the they they were trying things, but they clearly didn't know what they wanted to be and they started to fundamentally change the format of SportsCenter and all that.

Now they survived that and I would you know would argue that a second golden age there from like O3O4 through about 14. I just think that when the money sources dried up, they gradually ran out of the they they lost the confidence that they had to be the tastemaker, and they started following trends that they didn't really understand from a programming perspective.

That led them down a pathway to where they were still handcuffed by the procedures that they had built up over time internally. That said, you have to do it this way while trying things that didn't work in those formats and then discarding them quickly when they didn't work immediately because they needed to have successes to make up for what at the time look like a correctable lessening of audience. And rapidly, I think they figured out, well, we actually

can't do anything about this. People aren't going to just stop cutting cable because we have a new show or a new approach to things. And so I think this chapter, it's kind of like that crisis of conscience chapter from that

period. This particular chapter starts with Jimmy Potaro though, and this idea that we are going to subjugate our editorial approach to the leagues because our partnerships with the leagues are the most important thing, both because we need access, we need the NFL to give us highlights and to be a partner. But now increasingly we need the partnership from a wagering perspective.

And when you add in that they're trying to still do things in a very linear format and that they don't really know how to promote their non linear stuff particularly well. I just think they're kind of they're trying to do too many things in too many different venues. They can't leave behind the past and they're largely being driven by profit motive. And that's a terrible place to be with with any media entity. I don't care if it's ESPN or

anybody else. As we've seen time and time again, you don't get where you need to get to and you end up treading water at best when you go that route. I'd read that book. I'd read that next chapter. I'll get right on that. Yeah, you and you with Jim Miller, right? Yeah, Jimmy Miller and me. Yeah, we're gonna we're what's working on that together. Anything lately? I haven't. I've lost track of him. He was on every podcast it felt like for five years. He had his own podcast too for a

second. Yeah, he's, I mean, he, I know him from, he used to pop up on Simmons podcast, just breakdown SNL on ESPN and that was like the entire reason he showed up. But another institution that nobody cares about at this point. Yeah, it's, it's a bummer. I mean, it's, it took two hours to say that, but I mean, it's just, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not for me anymore. I guess that's where it where it comes down to. I think for the vast majority of people it it that really hits a

nail on head. It is just another place that has sports on. And sometimes there's good stuff and a lot of times there isn't. And that's just what it is, I mean. But, but it really goes back to me to like a, a, a thing we talked about, which you know, of the 9000 things we've covered on this show, which is that so much of the magic of ESPN was tied up in the magic of television and television is not magical anymore. Like, like, I mean, television is a it's a vessel for content

that lives somewhere else. What was the like more people watch YouTube than anything else at this point. Yeah, is I mean, I mean, Netflix is number 2. I mean T VS just gonna keep dropping there's. Except for live sports, there's no reason to have TV anymore. Right. I mean, you need a television because it has apps on it that you watch. But you know, the YouTube TV app on my television is just one of

the apps on there. It's it's not the default is not let's see what's on TV. Yeah, default is let's figure out what to watch. And then you got to go through nine different options to get there. So anyway, well, fun times. Did we? Did we did we fix it? Do we? Do we fixed? It we fixed it I well though the check is in the mail I think for the consultancy but no fun conversation and enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I. Thanks for having me on I'm it's it's been a a few hours, but I I definitely got something out of this, I think. It felt cathartic from a sports fandom perspective. You know, even more so than been diagnosing ESP NS problems, I do think there's a lot of frustration among sports fans 'cause like sports fandom had a moment there for about 25 years where it felt like there was a cool place to go. That was the place to go for sports, and sports has never been bigger.

But the there's no, there's not really a central locus of sports fandom anywhere. But I think you could say the same thing about any aspect of culture or politics at this point. There's not a central point to go which really to some degree illustrates some larger societal issues that we've got. And it was cool like that was I I know, like we've talked around it, but it was, you know, you wanted you wanted to have the shirt that said ESPN on it.

You wanted to do all these things you wanted to. And now it would just be like, why do you have that? Did did they give it to you? You know, like what what's the point of this? There's there's so many or you'd have a Pat McAfee shirt, which I'm probably not going to get anytime soon. It's not, not not high. Which is just a a black tank top I guess. Yeah, they're right. Yeah.

I I, I mean, I'm assuming. I'm sorry, I'm actually shocked He doesn't have like an Amazon storefront just to sell those. I I never would have driven a tank top anyway, anyway. All right. Yeah, Greg, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Thank. You thank you. I appreciate Greg God for joining us here on Crimson Cast. Hopefully this was enjoyable. If you needed a 2 hour podcast, this is the place to come.

Anyway, we'll be back with more on the Back Home network coming up soon, including some special announcements which we're looking forward to making. We'll catch you folks on the flip side. Have a happy 4th of July if you listened to this before then if not, have a happy 4th of July next year for Greg. I'm Galen. We'll catch you folks on the flip side. So everybody.