The Vine this week on Prime Cuts, John Middelkoff on NFL free agency, Michael mulva Hill, who is fascinating for Fox Sports Analytics and insights. You'll want to listen on Caitlin Clark star power in my top takes of the week. All right, here we go, semi instant reaction. I had to speak to a USC grad class today, so I was really interesting kids and did that for an hour,
a little over an hour. So I came out of the class and I heard the news the Denver Broncos had released Russell Wilson, which saves them thirty seven million, but they still have about eighty five million in dead cap money, which is like double the most ever. And I think that was I believe that was Matt Ryan Falcons when they moved off him. So you're going to have to hit on some draft picks the only way
to ease the pain. And remember the NFL did come in, gave everybody a thirty million more dollars in cap space. That hell, and hitting on four draft picks that could players start. That helps. But for a year it's going to be pretty ugly. Let's first start about blame. Who to blame? Well, Sean Payton needs to win games, and Russell Wilson wants to find a landing spot. Those guys are not in the blame game. They're in the turn
of the page game, and I don't blame them. Their energy is going to be Russell Wilson wants to find a better team. I think Pittsburgh's perfect. You cannot be in a division with Joe Burrow twice a year, Kevin Stefanski and DeShawn Watson twice a year, and Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh twice a year with Kenny Pickett, can't go. Look at the Vegas odds Steelers near the bottom of the NFL. I think you roll the dice. You go with Russell Wilson. His maturity and devotion and commitment is
what the Steelers need. Offensively, it's they got some receivers who I really like, but they're a little young, a little immature. They're ready to go, and their offensive line is okay, not special, and Russell Wilson is still mobile enough to avoid some of that stuff. So I think it works. I think I think the culture and the person ellen Pittsburgh is good. They don't have a trigger guy. They don't have a quarterback. And in the AFC, you're not going anywhere unless you have a star, even if
it's a declining star. You got to have a star to win games. So I think Russell Wilson will do just fine. Denver's gonna probably go get out a JJ McCarthy or a bow Nicks. I will tell you Denver schedule. They get the NFC South, that's the good news. The bad news they also face the AFC North. So they are at road games next year for Denver beyond facing Harbaugh, Justin Herbert and the Chargers, beyond facing Mahomes and Andy Reid and the Chiefs. They go to Baltimore. Yeah, Raven's
pretty good. At home, they go to Joe Berwin, Cincinnati, two New Orleans and Derek Carr, to Tampa and Baker Mayfield two Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, and to Seattle. That ain't great for a rookie quarterback. Now the home schedule, they get Atlanta Carolina at home, but Pittsburgh Cleveland Colts at home. Now they have the schedule. They don't know when the dates are, but those are some tough road games.
Those are harsh environments. Going toe to toe with really good quarterbacks in many instances, Aaron Rodgers, Baker Mayfield, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson. There's some l's there, Mahomes once, Justin Herbert once with Harbaugh. You know, I just I think maybe I wasn't like this in my twenties. But as I've aged, pointing fingers doesn't solve anything. Listen, you want to point fingers, you could point to the Broncos GM George Payton. He
gave up two first two second round picks. I think he gave up three players and maybe a fifth round pick. He also hired Nat Hackett, and that was a complete disaster. Many believe he hired Nathaniel Hackett because he tried to get Aaron Rodgers and when he couldn't rustle in, Nat Hackett's off as just didn't work. So he has created eighty five million a dead cap. He gave up a lot of draft capital, he picked the wrong head coach, and Sean Payton's got to pick up the pieces from there.
But you know, I don't think George Peyton and I and I do respect the job he's done mostly, but you can only have so many big whiffs. And Hackett and Russell. That's a big whiff coach quarterback league whift on both so and I don't think Russell would have You know, people can get all over Sean Payton this thing. Sean and Russell were not going to work. But what coach would you really need to work? I mean, after Nat Hackett bombed, who wanted the job? Ask yourself you
would have a rookie coach? Would he have worked with Russell Wilson? I mean, the personnel is what it is based on what you were paying Russell Wilson and what you surrendered in the draft. There were some limitations here. So I think Sean Payton will figure it out. But I think if Russell Wilson went to the Steelers, he'll have a better year than JJ McCarthy or bow next with the Broncos. I don't think there's any question about that. So year two feels like, you know, Sean Payton just
getting out from under Russell Wilson the player. Now he has to spend another year getting out from under the dead cap hit in a division with Justin Herbert Harbaugh, Pat Mahomes, Andy Reid. That is a big, big hill climb. But I've never felt and I said this. I know Sean Peyton well enough, after twenty interviews with him and a dinner with him and spending time with him and talking to him, I just never felt he and Russ. That's why I thought it was strange when he took
the job. I just I didn't think it was a job. He wanted the charger's job initially, but I think the Denver owners have a lot of cash, came in, wrote a big check, and it's hard to look the other way. I get it, but this was never going to be easy. Sean is a very direct, very authentic, very opinionated person, and you know Russell is hopelessly optimistic, and he has a declining quarterback, and there are some psychological factors when a quarterback gets older. He wants his money, he wants
his protection. And I don't think Russell ever felt supported by Nat Hackett's incompetence or Sean Payton's brewed lawnesty. And so I didn't think it was a good fit. So let's move on and start over. I still think Russell Wilson has several good years in him. He's not a disaster, he's not washed. He just needs the right pieces and you know, I've been saying this for years. Pittsburgh's personnels. I mean, they have all the things you need. They
have weapons on the outside. Offensively, they have a run game, and they have speed on the perimeter. They have a pass rusher, they have playmakers on defense. They're not great at corner. Nobody outside of maybe the Jets and the Chiefs is great at corner. We have a corner shortage in the NFL, and elite corner shortage. So and once again, it's a great NFL draft for wide receivers. It's like the fourth straight draft, great wide receiver draft, not a
great corner draft. So that you just that problem will be exacerbated. You're just gonna have more great receivers and fewer great corners. But I tend to think we can sit and point fingers at this stuff. Denver's in the AFC. They gonna go find their next quarterback star. And history tells you if there's five quarterbacks taken in the first round, one's going to be a hit, two are gonna work kind of, one's gonna be a bust, and one or two won't be as they won't get a second contract.
And so you know, I'll say this, I think outside of Caleb Williams, the rest of these quarterbacks will be as good as the place they land. So I think if it's bo Nix or JJ McCarthy, I think both can succeed with Sean Payton both. I think JJ McCarthy's got a better arm than bow Knicks. I think bo Nix has far more college starts and is more accurate than JJ McCarthy. But it just depends on what you like. JJ's a little taller, I think, in my opinion, bon Nicks is. I feel like he's kind of elusive the
deep ball. I take JJ McCarthy accuracy, I take bo Nicks experience. I'd take Bo next. I think JJ McCarthy may have a higher ceiling. Bnick's a little lower ceiling, But it could be that bow Nex has a higher floor than JJ McCarthy. So I think both those guys that would be a perfect place to land. I don't think Michael Pennix, though I love the way he throws, I don't think Denver would take the risk on him being his injury history. They got to get this thing right,
and I just feel like bo Nix works for that offense. Accuracy, experience, kid that's been around. He carried Oregon at times, whereas JJ McCarthy felt sometimes not to be unfair, but like he was carried by Michigan's O line, run game coaching and dominating defense. So I think that's the direction they'll go. Jarrett Stidham can start for the time being. He's capable,
he's okay. That's obviously not the future. It does matter, though, that the rookie quarterback is going to come into a system where you know, they pay like twelve million bucks for Jarrett Stidham, so he's going to take some snaps. You know, Stidham got some snaps this year. He'll probably
start the season. I could see absolutely. You get a JJ McCarthy or a bow Nicks and you're like, listen, we're earmarking Thanksgiving, and you know, Stidham struggles with a tough schedule that includes trips to Baltimore and Cincinnati and Kansas City, and you know, I could see the jarretts that I'm struggling, and then Sean Payton saying, all right, it's week seven, Week six, let's go with a kid. I'm fine with that too. But in the end, it was a big swing by Denver was surprised how bad
the Russell, Wilson nat Hackett combination was. I just remember the first game that he played in Denver and they went to Seattle to face the Seahawks, and they couldn't figure out the clock with two minutes ago. It was like, oh, oh, we got a coordinator, not a great one, trying to be a head coach. This isn't gonna work. So and I think you've seen that in New York with Matt Hackett and Zach Wilson. So it happened. We can point fingers.
I think it was inevitable. I don't think the personalities clash. You don't have to be best friends with your quarterback. Belichick and Brady reportedly didn't have a dinner in twenty years. You don't have to be best friends. But I think Russell maybe the most optimistic player in the league, and I think Sean Payton on the other end, is the most authentic and raw and outspoken in the league. So
I mean you have a chasm there of personalities. Whereas Belichick and Brady are both intensely driven, workaholics everything else, they were kind of on the same plane and in the same direction for years. I think Tom's a little more joyful and easier to be around. Builds a little more old school, but a.
Lot of things.
Brady and Belichick were very similar on their ascension, their drive, their work ethic, and their commitment to the sport. Sean and Russell. You couldn't pick a more optimistic quarterback, maybe Kirk Cousins, and a more raw coach than Sean Payton. It's oil and water. It never worked. That's okay, don't need to blame anybody.
It's okay.
Shawn's won a Super Bowl.
So is Russ.
They've both won Super Bowls. They're more than capable. George Peyton, on the other hand, I would be surprised if he has a lot of tarmac left. You Whiffin a coach, You Whiffin a quarterback eighty five mil dead cap. That's going to leave a mark that lingers. And remember this division now, Nega, Andy Reid and Jim Harbaugh. Pretty good coaches, Pretty good coaches, all right. Welcome in. It's our usual
Sunday hour. John Middlecoff, former NFL scout who just got back from the combine like Thursday night after spending four or five days there for the volume. We certainly appreciated that I should mention right off the top. Chris Mortenson passed away today. He'd been battling cancer for some time.
He was seventy two years old. Mort was one of the more respected you know, he was as kind as he was wise, one of those kind of guys that I think transcended eras Paul Zimmerman Sports illustrates the first like NFL guy. I remember, like what you would call like your beat columnist, Peter King, Chris Mortenson. He came from the Atlanta Journal Constitution where he was breaking stories down there. Just a really nice guy. How was he viewed in the league? John, I mean, these guys now
it's basically about breaking story. Chef took kind of Mortenson's roll and it's like minute to minute breaking stories. Chris grew up in a generation well without the iPhone. It was more about contextualizing stories and breaking stories. How was he viewed her on the league?
Yeah? I think people loved him. I mean I saw Peyton Manning, who obviously was very close with him in the Manning family in general. You know, when I think about football, like like you said, I mean growing up in the nineties, Chris Mortenson, Peter King. I mean those guys, really, you know, from outside of people broadcasting games like a John Madden, played an integral, integral role in all of
us that loved football. I mean the access that they had, it's so I mean you can find out everything now on social media and all these articles or all these blogs. They had something that not many people had, and that was information. So I think he was a trailblazer that way for sure. And just an awful day obviously had
been sick for a while, sucks. I mean, he's I think he's one of the key figures in terms of like NFL reporting, NFL just stories and someone that you had to go to for information before inform when information was really really hard to get and it was much more difficult to communicate.
Yeah, and uh, you know, he was one of the first guys that was a beacon right at a major network. I mean, remember sports departments at the network level were just ABC, NBC, CBS. You didn't get daily stuff. They were basically on for the weekends. And then guys like mort who were on this this this initially tiny cable outfit that could give you hour by hour day by day reporting. It made kind of rock stars out of all of them. And mort always Hellett and check in
terms of gratitude, very very gracious. You know, rest in peace to Chris Mortenson, one of the old time greats. Everybody likes Kirk Cousins, everybody. And somebody the other day said this, They said, you know, everybody talks about Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and Baker may Field. And this person said, you know, he's got like a career ninety nine passer rating and completed sixty nine percent of his throws last year. And I mean, is a proven high accuracy,
high values win, a bunch of game quarterback. When you were at the combine, a lot of stuff. Guy like me in the opinion space, we don't talk about Kirk Cousins because he doesn't make news. You know, he's just very quiet. But when you're at the combine, how is that Atlanta opening viewed? For instance?
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people think that Cousins is the biggest domino to fall in terms of he's the number one target for the teams that are aggressively going to try to get a quarterback here in two weeks or whenever. The official date is the thirteenth, because Justin Fields is not viewed very highly. He's viewed highly on Twitter, not by NFL gms and coaches, right, not people that are trying to win nine ten games
last year. And Russell's a little more fascinating because he's a very interesting guy because his money's going to be low. But you always talk about this when you're really famous coming into a place. He's a little more complicated, right with Russell, even though actually number wise he wasn't terrible. He resurrected his career based on two years ago. He was terrible. Cousins before he tore that Achilles remember that money,
and I came against the forty nine ers. He looked at Peyton Manning he had really kind.
Of oh and the year before he had a game at Buffalo against Josh Allen and outdueled him. He has He's got a list of six or seven games against Mahomes, Josh Allen, the Niners where he has been the best player on the field.
I think he mastered his talent, right. He knows exactly what he is and his mind. You know a lot of quarterbacks talk about this, right that they get as they get older, they realize the game becomes easier than the problem is their physical skills diminish. Right. Tom's like, I've never been smarter a football. Just don't want to get hit anymore. Or Peyton Manning's arm was shot, Drew Brees's arm was shot. Cousins did get injured, though, and
a pretty major injury. I was with his agent one night, who I've known for a long time, obviously loves him. I mean they've made a lot of money together. He got a special contraption that like a lot of I'm sure facilities have and like hospitals have when it comes to rehabbing the Achilles. Because that's so much money, he just bought it for his house. You know, this is the guy that takes this stuff very very seriously, and I guess it's gone really well. He's like we've put
out videos of him moving around. They're not bound in their chest like Aaron Rodgers, Like this is going to be a three month but they think, all things considered with the injury. Here's the other thing, Colin. His game isn't predicated on running around, right, like when a corner or a wide receiver tears an achilles, you go even Rogers, like a big part of Rodgers' game is the movement. Cousins is Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Philip River. He has a move so when you look at it, you go, well,
if he's healthy, it's not like you have to worry. Well, he's not as fast we never ran to begin with, So you're getting the guy, I think Atlanta. I mean a lot of signs are pointing to that. Now he's not cheap, right, and he's proven like that. From a business standpoint, they have been very like they don't take discounts. So you're not getting the guy for two years sixty million dollars would you be willing to give him, you know, seventy eighty ninety million dollars guaranteed for sure. You know
it's a three four year contract. But if he's healthy, I mean, Atlanta could all of a sudden be an intriguing, you know, playoff level contender. I mean, hell, they were kind of right there this year for a long periods during the season. But their quarterback play.
Like me or you, yeah, I mean it's interesting. In this league there's there's sort of three levels of successful quarterbacks. The stars you know, and we all know who those are, mahomes Lamar Josh.
It's a small handful, two.
Yeah, very small, six seven. And then the rising young stars people are excited about, you know c. J. Stroud, you know, Trevor Lawrence, Jalen Hurts, whoever. And then there's the guys that you know there'll be no chaos, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins. I think Goff's the most talented of those, but they don't get the fan base necessarily excited. But the minute they land, you start winning double digit games. I mean, say what you want about Dak, he may
have a lower ceiling. Dak gets you into the playoffs. Dak wins games three years in a row. So I find like Kirk Cousins, he's almost you juxtapose him with Justin Fields. He's the opposite. There's no flash, no excitement, there's no topics. But I just get sixty nine percent completion percentage and not a lot of doesn't miss a lot of games, doesn't turn it over a lot moves the chains. If he doesn't score, he puts your defense
in pretty good field position. So I think within the league there's a great appreciation for guys like Goff and guys like Kirk Cousins. I just don't think in the media there is kind of wrapping up combine. I want to talk about this. You know, when when when I was younger, you know, some women you date and some you look at and think, you know, this could be long term. You could marry, and that's okay. Women look at men just the same way. Some you date, some
you marry. And I've thought about this for a long time as I watched the combine and listened to all the quarterback talk. If you told me Michael Pennix give me four years, I would draft him if I was a team that was just sort of stuck. If I was Sean Payton and somebody said, you know, he's available, it's funny. Whereas everybody else is viewed as a long term solution this league. Now by Thanksgiving of year two,
people in the building are making decisions on quarterbacks. I mean, I think the Giants coaches that they're not Daniel Jones fans mara is. There's some sort of weird connectivity to Eli Manning and Daniel Jones, Southern kids, tall, dark hair, whatever. But I sort of look at Michael Pennix and I'm like, not every quarterback you draft has to be Brady. If you're in Washington's in chaos.
Now.
They're not gonna get him with that pick, obviously, but if you start looking where.
Pennicks can is it two of the best example with Miami, he's not great, but he's just he just stabilized the franchise.
Like I see.
Penix in terms of throwing the football. You know, big strong kid, he's not gonna run. He's clearly a pocket guy. What are you hearing about him? Because you know he came out, his hand size, his wingspan. I watched him live. He throws up the sideline like a twelve year pro. Like he is really aside. You know a lot of these quarterbacks like bow next, I like, doesn't throw a good deep ball. Pennis with a great deep ball. He's not gonna move it all. What are you hearing?
You know? I think Daniel Jeremiah said yesterday when he was throwing, he throws the most beautiful ball by far of the quarterbacks that were throwing. I mean half of them didn't throw. I had friends, I remember watching him a lot. I remember the game. You went to and watching that game, thing like this is a top ten pick and start texting around. A lot of people had him in the second and third rounds. Now, when you're a scout, you're closer to it, right, you have all
the in depth medical information. He had basically not completed four straight years, and a couple of those were shoulders, So if you've been scouting for ten fifteen years, that terrifies you. And then in the game against Oregon, In both games against Oregon and definitely the game against Michigan, which are his best competition and NFL level players everywhere on the other side of the ball, he had to
be picked up and kind of carried. So physically he's not His arms are really long and his hands are huge, but he's not a very I don't want to call him slender. To me, Jaden's more slender, but Jaden's much Jaden's an elite athlete, so he can get away. Mike Penix is not a lot like Tua. Their pocket quarterbacks. They're not mobile guys. They can move a little bit,
but you're not running them at all. So I think the the size and he did not play well in that Michigan game and that's an NFL team, and he had an NFL team in terms of his wide receivers. So I think you can find people like myself. Again, I'm just a couch scout now that went like, I'm with you. I've seen enough shitty quarterbacks in the NFL. If you're Sean Payton just a couple of years, figure it out. Can this guy have you competing for the playoffs? And I have a lot of people the guy I
wouldn't touch him in the first round. So he is easily one of the more most polarizing guys because ultimately Jayden McDaniel or Jade Daniels and Drake May they're going two and three in some order. Even Caleb he's not polarizing at all. He's going number one. Bo Nicks polarizing a little bit, but he's still gonna go pretty high. Yeah, I think. And JJ McCarthy, a guy someone people having a lot of discussions on, is gonna get drafted high.
I bet you go in some draft rooms and they'll have this guy in the third round and other draft rooms that have them, you know, competing to be a top twenty pick. I like it because accuracy always matters. Deep ball in this NFL matters. If this was nineteen ninety two and we had to play the Cowboys, the forty nine Ers and the Packers and Reggie White was tackling, I'm like, this guy's gonna get broken in half. The
quarterback doesn't get touched that much. I've seen Brock Ferdy's not that big, doesn't really get touched a lot of small quarterbacks. Right. It's just even some of Kyler Murray didn't get injured in terms of tearing his acl tackled. He tore it running. And Michael Penis is not a runner. So the offensive line is gonna matter like it will with any young quarterback. But I like Michael Pennix. But I don't think a lot of NFL teams. I think a lot of NFL teams lean second day draft pick.
Yeah, Andy Reid goes to the combine. McVeigh shanahan not interested. What is that?
I think, Andy Reid. One defense I've heard of the shanahans and the mcveigh's and McCarthy is this event's become commercialized, right. They like prodding around their coaches and almost profiting off them, and it pisses off that crew of guys, which I push back and say, the reason you guys make twelve fifteen million dollars is the commercialization of the NFL, like, welcome to the deal, guys.
Yeah.
They also would say, well, I still zoom into all the interviews at night, so when we interview ten guys at night, I'm sitting right there on the computer, and any human being would say it is not the same that being there. Andy Reid told me none of this matters, right, the workouts, the medical I have nothing to do with
as the head coach, out of my hands. The only thing that I come here for is when that guy walks into the room, Trent McDuffie, and for the first time I meet him and get to talk to him and just get a feel for be in the league long enough, just like all those guys, I get to introduce myself and talk to him and see how he
interacts with my coaches. We tape tape that too. But the react you've interviewed people, what's your reaction interviewing someone for your show when they're on zoom or when you're sitting next to him in person, when you're interviewing someone for the volume in person at you know, meeting him for lunch then a telephone call. It's dramatically different. And these are million dollar investments. So I don't agree with them not coming. Can I understand some of the stuff.
You're not obligated to talk to the media. You don't have to go to that little thing that Andy goes to. Belichick never did, never went. He still showed up for all the other stuff, the football stuff, which is very important. One thing with the forty nine ers, like they've hit on a lot of picks in the third, fourth, and fifth round. They've missed on a lot of high picks. So you know, if Andy Reid's going to be there, if Belichick went for forty years, Pete Carroll never missed it,
there's definitely some value there. And I'm not these guys aren't lazy individuals, but I do think they're they're wrong, And I mean, who am I to tell them? But I just that there's a value there. Clearly the best coach in the league. If you said, hey, there's a podcasting convention, Coward's going, Rogan's going, and Big Cat's going, Should I go? Probably right, It's like, what are we doing? You know I would get if Kylea just won the Super Bowl and he was off with his family, like
you lost. This draft's kind of big McVeigh. You've been They got knocked out in the first round, right, but they just can't stay I saw a less sneed somewhere. He didn't even go like it's not pinching pennies. His league's making so much money. I can't get behind the interview meeting these guys because it is important. And then you talked a lot of it. Then what happens middle of the season. This guy can't learn, This guy can't
figure it out. It's not this guy. Well, you at the opportunity to meet the guy, right, you could have controlled some more of it. So coaches are always quick to complain when they don't want to do some of this, and in fairness like this is not the combines, more about the scouting staff. But ultimately, once the guy's drafted, the coaches around and I'm a lot more than GM and the.
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Will I always try to stay away from too many conversations with the suits on the fifth floor. You just get in trouble when you're on the air and you get in the company of powerful men. And Michael Mulverhill, the President of Insights and Analytics at Fox across the board, is one of those powerful guys. But he's so disarming first of all, and second of all, he's got I mean, it's a perfect title, Insights and Analytics. There's so many things.
I don't really talk a ton about my industry. If I do, Michael's the guy at Fox that I talk to. So there's a kind of a myriad of topics here. Let's start with something we've never seen before. Caitlin Clark. Now, years ago, when Tiger Woods came into golf, there was this sense that, oh, golf ratings are going to explode. And my takeaway was, no, when Tiger leaves. I mean, three million people take up golf a year and three
million people quit. It's hard, but there are these Caitlyn Clark, Michael Jordan, figures in our life that are just unique and spectacular. Women's ratings have been growing. Do you see Caitlin Clark as the creator of a new reality or to some degree she's just a spectacular unicorn with her style, tenacity and excellence for multiple years.
That's a great place to start. And first of all, thanks for having me. I really enjoy doing this with you from time to time. I also try to avoid having conversations with powerful people up here on the fifth Blok.
And I have that in common.
Look, certainly, this is a unique moment in the evolution of interest in women's sports. I don't think we've ever seen such a groundswell in interest across certainly basketball, collegiate volleyball,
international soccer. I think what we're seeing is the payoff of literally over fifty years of title nind and the way that that's changed the way that girls have access to sports, and the way that both men and women think about women's athletics, and it's brought us to this moment where college basketball ratings on the women's side are up sixty percent across all networks, and Caitlin Clark's game on Sunday against Ohio State did almost three and a
half million viewers, and I think your question is the right one. You know, what does this mean going forward? And is Caitlin at Unicorn? And I don't think she is. I think that what she is is she's at the forefront of an evolution in the skill level that we see in women's basketball and the players that are coming up behind her, whether that's Pagebeckers who's coming back for another year at Connecticut or Juju Watkins who has several years to go at Southern cal and obviously they'll be
part of the Big Ten next year. I think she's just on the leading edge of a new generation of players that are elevating the game. I think Tiger Woods is an interesting precedent as well. I think you could even go back as far as the nineteen eighties NBA where Magic and then Jordan entered the league and they were at a skill level that we hadn't seen before, but they just represented an evolution of the game that
then continued even after they had moved on. So I think once Caitlin moves on to the WNBA, I'm not sure that we'll see viewership at the collegiate level. That's exactly what we're seeing this year, but I don't think it's a reset back to where we were five years ago either. I think a permanent step forward has happened, and we're still going to see some pretty strong interest in the future.
Obviously, the Dallas Cowboys when they're viable, rate very well with the NFL, and there are markets right now that are underachieving Chicago, New York. You just wish the teams were better. I've always argued it's hard to understand how big the influence of the forty nine ers is unless you live out west. If the Niners are playing in your stadium, they've got forty percent of the seats. Other than maybe Denver, they're the Yankees of the West coast
that they literally fill your stadium. So I've always thought the Niners were undervalued as an NFL market. San Francisco's obviously a big city, and I do wonder about Pittsburgh that was so dominant for years, but it's a small city relative to other big markets. So if I said to you six best, if Fox could pick and now these days you guys share AFC NFC, if I said to you, all things considered, market brand quarterback, can you unveil like the top six or seven picks in this league.
Yeah, that's an interesting way of framing it, right, because there's a very clear top two, and then there's a gap, and it's sort of an open question as to what team might step up and become the third most powerful brand because for years, at least on the NFC side, it was Dallas and Green Bay. Well, on the side it's still Dallas. It's probably always going to be Dallas. It could be Green Bay again, but I think right now there's a little bit of a blank space that
some team could step into and become that third marquee brand. Certainly, it's been Dallas for a long time now. Kansas City's right alongside them. I think when we talk about our schedule and when we talked to the league about what we would like to have for next season, Dallas and Kansas City very clearly have separated themselves from the rest of the league. And then there are a number of teams that have the potential to become that third marquee team.
Philadelphia definitely is one. Philadelphia was a holding penalty away from sending the Super Bowl to overtime two seasons ago. They obviously struggled second half of this season, but that's a big brand. They've got exciting star players. The market of Philadelphia, it's you know, not only is it one of the biggest cities in the country, but it rates extremely well. Philadelphia contributes more viewers to our national viewership
than any other city. So if Philly can bounce back from that tough second half that they had last year, they're definitely eligible to become that third big brand. I think you're right about San Francisco. San Francisco's another team was very close to winning a championship. Deep and talented on both sides of the ball, fun to watch. They play that kind of positionless offense that I think is very watchable and just fun. So San Francisco is another one.
Still a lot of built in following for the Packers. They looked a lot better in December than they did in September, which is what they to be, so they have the potential to step up. I think Buffalo is
a giant. I think what's interesting with Buffalo is that not only is it the quality of the team and the quality of Josh Allen, but there's just a culture around that team and the idea of the Bills Mafia and Buffalo being a super passionate football city that has been at the doorstep of a championship a couple times and just never quite got there. They've got a little bit of that Chicago of the NFL feeling, right where if they the big game, that becomes an enormous national story.
And you could probably put Detroit in that category.
Two.
I was thinking of my yeah, they travel well. The Lions travel like crazy this year.
Yeah, well, I think Detroit And look, I grew up in Pittsburgh, right, so I'm very familiar with that team and that city. Detroit and Pittsburgh are sort of in similar circumstances where they're both industrial Midwestern cities where economic realities forced a lot of people to move away, Right. So You've got a lot of former Pittsburgh's and a lot of former Michiganers around the country, And so when the Steelers go on the road, there's always a lot
of Steeler fans there because people have relocated. A lot of people from Detroit a relocated I think those teams from the industrial Midwest, we think of them as traveling well because a lot of people used to live there and now they've gone to the sun Belt and they go to the road games.
You know, TV rights as a whole. I can remember reading articles, sports illustrated cover articles. You know, when's it going to end? You can't pay this much for TV rights. Well, now you've got Amazon Apple on the doorstep of you know, either buying networks or buying right So the numbers, you know, you need content obviously, the cliche content's king. It just is fill the bandwidth. That's what they do. You know, it's interesting, I work in cable. Explain this to me.
So Cable obviously has been eroding for several years, for about a decade. Talked about for about six seven years, but you know, about ten years ago people started. People within the industry didn't talk about it publicly. They tried to keep it secret, but it started happening. But yet the ability by Fox to team with YouTube create streaming
eventually here is stemming some of the losses. My show, for instance, it's we were up twenty five or something percent this year and cable is eroding, and I've I'm gonna throw something at you. It's theoretical and Michael just literally take a pinatit to it if it's crazy.
But I have made this argument.
That if TikTok, because of government regulations, was regulated to a level that only two things could be on it, culinary stuff and pet stuff, and it lost seventy percent of its audience, But culinary and pet videos were all that was allowed or all that flourished, that it would be an incredibly dynamic platform for those two right industries. Well, television now cable TV is sports and politics, Linear TV sports and politics. So people say cable's dying, and I'm like, no,
yes it is, but it's overwhelming. We don't share it with anybody. We share it with Trump and Biden for five Otherwise, television's now dominated by the industry I grew up in. So is that as the platform may be dissolving or shrinking or dressing, it's now wholly owned by two factors, of which it should be noted, Fox, between politics and sports, is well suited to flourish. So when you look at the cable erosion, they've been talking about
newspaper erosion forever. New York Times is more powerful than ever, in my opinion, they bought the Athletic which for four or five hundred million dollars I don't know how to position it or if you can talk about it too much? But what do you make of the cable erosion? But some of those losses appear to be being are stemmed by sports gambling, the increased dominance of sports by YouTube and relationships. Talk me through how you view that.
Yeah, that's an incredibly rich topic, right, and that is what everybody in our business spends a lot of our time thinking about. Is how is that? How is that cable business changing? What does it mean to our revenue streams?
What's going to mean to sports rights going forward? I think if you want to understand our business, a good place to start is to simply understand that for the entire time that you and I have been doing what we do, sports content has in some way been subsidized by non sports fan.
Who paid for cable TV.
And so for the last forty years, while media has changed incalculably, what we've always seen in sports is a rising number of PATV subscribers, more people paying for content, and so the pool of money that's available to us in sports has just grown and grown and grown. Nobody our age or younger, has ever really known what it
means to be in a contracting sports economy. Well, now, because of that what you're describing where people are getting out of the cable bundle, entertainment viewers are figuring out that they can get the content they want from streaming platforms, and so fewer and fewer non sports fans are paying
for sports content. That era of subsidization is either coming to an end or it's already over, and that pool that we have to pay for sports rights is going to contract, and it forces all of us to be a little bit more disciplined in our deal making and
in the way that we consider rights opportunities. But what's also interesting there is that as that number of people that are subscribing to cable TV shrinks and it goes from nearly one hundred million to now closer to seventy million, you know, I believe that most of the people that are getting out of the sports, that are getting out of the PayTV bundle, they're not really big sports fans. They're people who are subscribing to cable for entertainment content.
Now they're getting their entertainment content from Netflix and from Prime Video, Disney Plus. And what that means is that your number of cable subscribers is going down. The revenue associate with those subscribers is going down. And yet because those people that are leaving the bundle aren't sports fans, the people that are left behind are spending more of their time on sports and on twenty four hour news.
And so here we are for this year to date, FS one viewership is up seven percent, right, may not sound like a lot, but when you're in an environment of declining subscribers, to have any growth is pretty noteworthy. Your show is growing, Nick Wright's show is growing. We see shows on ESPN that are still growing. If you talk about live events, NFL college football, we talked about women's basketball earlier. NASCAR has been up the last couple weeks.
There's a lot out there that's growing. And so sort of the paradox of it is that the viewership for sports in many many cases is going up, and yet because that subscriber base is eroding, the revenue associated with sports TV is going down. And so there's a little
bit of a decoupling between popularity and revenue generation. And I think it's very confusing to people because you're constantly reading about record ratings for the Super Bowl, record ratings for college football, and yet we and companies like ours don't necessarily have the same The revenue streams that we draw on to make these deals aren't as powerful as they were even just a couple of years ago.
So that's a transformational change. It's I think it's.
A major adjustment for people who do what I do and who have only ever known and expanding sports economy, And it's going to affect all of us, right It affects what's available to spend on rights, it affects what's available to spend on talent, It affects people like me right like, we all are going to have to sort of redemonstrate and re establish our value because we can't just rely on the rising tide of growing cable revenue.
So that's kind of a long explanation, but that's probably as best as I can put in the volume.
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